Summary:The Spiders meet up to discuss the Nightfall and meet yet another Spider - the Sable Spider. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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Miles Morales dropped Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Nathaniel Hawthorne grows ears and can now hear.
Peter looked around. The high-rise was still under construction, which meant the platform for the highest floor was 15 floors up. There was even a table the construction workers left for them to borrow.
He brings up the Spider-Comm system, and begins sending messages to Silk, Spider-Woman, and Spider-Girl (Red).
"Nightfall planning meeting. All hands. GPS location attached. Look for the Spidey-Symbol."
He sent the message, then looks up to the two girders above him. Thirty seconds later, he shines the spotlight on the large, intricate web spanning the two girders. "This oughtta do it."
Fortunately, Spider-Girl had already been out on patrol when the ping came in, and it's a matter of a few minutes for her to make her way there. Her final swing launches her into the air, whereupon she thwips a webline onto one of the unfloored skeletal structures higher up, and slowly descends upside down to behind Spider-Man. "Boo."
The hell is that?
Miles Morales, the Stupendous Sable Spider, is crouched on the roof of his apartment building, clad in his black and red outfit, replete with hoodie and bright red spraypaint-style spider symbol on his chest. The appearance of an illuminated web in the city means one of two things, he's pretty sure: either other Spider-types are gathering, or it's a trap.
If other Spider-types are gathering, he should probably go meet them. After all, he modeled himself on their shenanigans.
If it's a trap, he should still investigate. But carefully. Because really, careful is important in general.
He picks up his dinner — half a turkey sub he cadged from his roommates 'GANKE'S FOOD!' drawer — and tucks it into the pocket at the front of his hoodie before launching himself off the roof, leaping toward the building in question. He's not sure if swinging on a thread is more or less obtrusive than leaping from building to building across the city, but the inability of people to look up is always in their favor either way.
Silk wasn't too far away when the message came through. She still wasn't used to someone talking in her ear every so often. "On my way," she promises over the line, and then begins to websling the ten or so blocks away she was - it goes fast when you can both websling, and you're really, really fast. The weblines sling smoothly and expertly out of her fingertips until she lands, neatly on top of the building where the Spider-Signal is being shown on, and in her brand new costume crafted by Blackbird of black material, the white chest and red-webbing with the central lightning bolt and red viel/kercheif covering her lower facial features the young heroine neatly lands onto the roof of the building.
Her exposed brown eyes regard Spider-Man with welcome familiarity, but it's Spider Woman that gets the bulk of her curiousity. "Hi," she offers, her voice warm and a touch uncertain - but not in a suspicious way. More, nervous? "I'm Silk. It's good to finally meet you." A pause, "I mean, you -are- the other Spider-Girl, right? The - Red one? Or am I making a huge mistake?"
Gwen had a rough day. Too say the least. But the worst part is, her suit isn't clean yet, and her spare got shredded days ago. So when she swings in and lands smack in the middle of the table in a FANTASTIC superhero pose, she is…smoke-stained, soot-smudged, and smells like a burning building. It's fine. It's probably fine. As long as her bravado can carry her through. "Forty-foot spider. Ingeniously inconspicuous. Well done, there! Oh God, there are so many of you…"
Spider-Man jumps when Spider-Girl shows up. Sheesh, not even a flicker of the Spider-Sense. "Hello to you, too, sneaky-spider."
He looks back as…wow. That's a good costume. And he had to chuck the fourteen Mummy jokes hhe had saved up.
When Spider-Woman shows up, Spider-Man smiles. It can be seen even through the mask, it's that wide. The smudged suit is cause for wonder, but it does not stop Spider-Man from greeting Spider-Woman. "Hey, Spider-Woman. Thanks for coming out." A brief pause. "Good to see you in the swing of 'slinging again. Get the new webshooters?"
"Yep. I'm Spidergirl. Good to meetcha." Still upside down, the arachnid in question offers Silk a handshake. "Nice costume. Mine's still just spandex, besides a bit of tweaking Spider-Man did to the mask lenses." Right about then is when Gwen arrives, and Spider-Girl finally drops loose from her webline onto the floor. "Ouch. Rough day, huh? Can I offer you an emergency snack? I think I've got granola bars in my backpack somewhere… Oh, and you can call me Spider-Girl."
The youth in black winds up on the level below the other spider-types, leaps to the ceiling, and crawls around until he can peer over the edge of the floor at the lot of them. Spider-Man he recognizes. He's seen pictures of Spider-Woman. Silk's in a different costume, so even if he's seen her before, he doesn't recognize her, and he's never seen Spider-Girl at all. This one anyway.
And so, since he recognizes half of the gathered people as good guys, he figures he should at least ask.
"Yo, Spiders! You all good guys? Or are you gettin' ready to rumble? 'Cause if it's the latter I'm gonna be tippin' the odds in favor of Spider-Man and Spider-Woman! Fair warning!" He flips himself up and over onto the floor they're all standing on, head swiveling from one Spider-type to the next.
In the back of his head he hears 'When you're a Jet you're a Jet all the way…' Dammit, mom, why'd you have to make him watch West Side Story a hundred times?
Silk's eyes look to Gwen as she lands and makes an impressive entrance. The Spiders are generally pretty good at that, in their own unique ways. She lifts a hand, the tips of her fingers exposed through the gloves. "I'm Silk. Kinda new to all this. Hi," she tells Spider-Woman. "I'm guessing you are Spider-Woman? Been wanting to meet you for awhil—-"
She's cut off as Miles announces himself, whirling around, and ready to strike. Then, she just tips her head to one side, "Why would we fight? We're friends. At least — I think we're friends?" She can only speak for herself and Peter. She had only fought once with Spider-Girl (Red) and hadn't met Spider-Woman until now.
SpiderGwen's voice gains a hollow and resonant, somber tone as she replies simply, "I got them. Thank you." She slips down off the table and glances to Spider-Girl with a shrug. "Nah not hungry, but thanks. Pleased to meet you." Then, back to Spidey, she adds, "I have my old ones back, too."
Then there's a new Spider. Totally new. And Gwen nearly stumbles backwards. "Aaand another…"
Okay. There's a new guy. And he's a spider, too, because not many other ways to get up here otherwise.
Spidey holds up his hands and says, "Hang on, spider-muchacho, we're all friends here. Nobody's fighting anyone tonight…" Well, not tonight, anyway, but that's beside the point.
"Well, you know who WE are, but you have the jump on us, because I haven't met you. I don't know if the others have, but I hope we're cool. What do you want us to call you?…and no jokes unless it's one I haven't heard."
Spider-Girl herself jumps around, wrists coming up before she realizes it's another spider. "…Pretty sure we're friends… Even if I have no clue who you are. I'm here because Spidey-Prime over there called a meeting." She nods towards Spider-Man. "I'm Spider-Girl. …Well, I'm technically the second one who's showed up here, due to stuff too complicated to explain right now, but I've been at this a bit loger than the other one has, so we're kind of doing a timeshare thing, with Red and Black as our short names if we're both somewhere. Since… different costumes. …That was still way too long wasn't it." She sighs, slumping slightly.
"I recognize them," the new kid says, indicating Gwen and Peter with one hand. "Never met 'em, but I recognize them. I've never seen you two before." Indicating Cindy and May. "If you're all friends, that's good. I'm, uh…" He hesitates a moment before announcing it. "The Sable Spider. Saw the shiny web and all that and thought, you know, it's either a Spider-person convention or a trap. And either way I should check it out."
Silk shifts her eyes to each speaker in turn, then tells the Sable Spider, "That's probably because I've barely been doing this a month. Also a long story. I'm Silk. Hi." She sounds like she's smiling, and her brown eyes are full of warmth.
SpiderGwen tilts her head to Silk. "It's good to finally meet you too, Silk." Then she turns to the new guy as he and Spidey make introductions. "You know, I'm beginning to think a few workable security measures in the spider labs would have been in order, somewhere along the way. Doesn't anybody take any pride in their work anymore?"
Spider-Man sighed. "Without giving anything away about anyone, a case COULD be made." He looked to Silk, then back to Sable. "Well, you seem like you're on the up-and-up, so I'll tell you why I called everyone here. There is a group called the Nightfall. Think a cult of magical assassins. They summon creatures and weapons using tattoos on their bodies. They have been kidnapping children in New York. There have been a couple of stories in the Bugle about this."
He pauses. "Raise your hand after the infodump to let me know if you have questions. Anyway…well, we found out that this cult worships a wannabe god calling himself Plotka. He promises them whatever they want in return for obedience to him. Now, we have a way of hitting them hard the next time they venture out to steal kids. I called everyone here to make sure we are all on the same page."
"Yeah, I'm pretty new in town. Weird alternate universe stuff… Pretty sure the accident at ESU was in the newspaper." Spider-Girl leans back against a girder as Spidey starts talking. "Oh yeah, and I'll give you guys the lowdown about Symbiotes. I'll try to catch the other Spider-Girl up later."
"So, everybody got bit?" Sable Spider asks at Spider-Woman's question. "I was an intern there. I never reported it, 'cause I didn't want to get in trouble, you know?" He glances around at the others. It occurs to him that if he HAD reported it, when a black Spider-person showed up it'd be pretty obvious who it was. Those scientists, despite having real fail for security protocols, are okay at putting two-and-two together.
"You had a different costume before, didn't you?" he continues a moment later, directed at Silk. "I heard of you, too — just didn't recognize you. This one's better!"
He's silent while Spider-Man gives his information. He'd followed the information in the Bugle about the kidnapped kids, did some investigating of his own, but he's not exactly a detective — he can put two and two together, but sometimes he comes up with six.
Silk laughs, just a little. "Uh. Yeah. Well. My costume was made out of my own webbing. I didn't exactly have supplies on hand to make something different, or the skills to be honest. A friend made this for me. I like it a lot, too. Thanks." She actually looks a bit pleased that she's known, even though she hasn't done too much.
"I was bitten too," she offers, since everyone else is trading stories. "A while ago." She doesn't give specifics, just now. "I'm just getting out too," she confides to Miles.
"We've fought the Nightfall though a few times. They've also hired outside help, it seems. Rhino and Vulture at the very least. I'm guessing probably more? But we don't know for sure. I think that does tell us they're getting a bit desparate though. We're starting to hurt them."
"…Yeah, I got bitten. Really hurt." Spider-Girl is /extremely/ glad that her mask covers her face and eyes. "I only really showed up just in time for the fight with Rhino and Vulture. We managed to get Rhino in custody, but Vulture got away. Spidey's working on some more heat resistant webs, I think?"
"I saved one of the kids with Spidey before. Made sure he got to safety, away from these goons. But one seems to be a drop in the bucket these days," Gwen replies. Her voice seems a little bitter in response to the current situation. "I'll do whatever I can to help out…"
Spider-Man nods, reaching into his backpack for some small plastic boxes, each with a taped name. SPIDER-GIRL. SPIDER-WOMAN. and simply, ME. He hands a box to Mayday and then to Gwen. "Spider-Girl, you'll find three cartridges with a flame symbol on the cartridge. Fire-retardant webfluid. Gives off a sudden burst of carbon dioxide on impact, and takes longer to burn through. Spider-Woman, your rig is different, so your cartridges have a liquid additive that makes the webs fire-resistant without risking gumming up the works. You should also have three cartridges." He looks to Cindy. "I have an auto-injector, but it won't work without knowing where your web reserves are in your body. If you can find that out, then you can adjust the injector needle. If you have a way to do that, I can give you the injector now. It's a soap substitute that will make the webs harder to burn. But not having spinnerets like you do, it's untested."
"Thanks. This should definitely be able to gum up his engines." SPider-Girl grins to herself, taking off her backpack and doing a bit of cartridge swapping. Two of the special cartridges go into the ready slots on her webshooters, replacing two ones of standard webfluid. Those go back into the box, which is stuffed in her backpack. "But yeah. Aim for Vulture's air intakes if you can."
"Man, sometimes I'm glad I don't have webs," Sable Spider mumbles to himself, glancing from Peter to Cindy. Needing to inject oneself to produce flame-retardant webs? Sounds kind of agonizing. He's not afraid of needles. He wouldn't have gotten so far if he were. But nonetheless, he'll avoid putting weird chemicals into himself as much as possible.
Spider-Man's and Spider-Girl (Black)'s technological wonders had certainly left Silk with a positive impression of just how genius each of them were in their own respective backgrounds. But — "Wait." Cindy's eyes widen, uncertainly. "You want me to just inject myself with something that's going to completely rewrite my webs? What if it messes up my other webs?"
Building robots and comms is one thing. Genetics? Injecting herself? Yeah, she's a bit hesitant there. Can you blame her?
Gwen takes the cartridges out and examines them for a moment, before giving a nod. "Sounds legit. " She tries not to think about the needles, even though she winces inside her mask. She does a bit of cartridge-swapping at her wrists, then looks back up at the others.
Spidey holds up his hands. "I'm not telling you to do it, Silk. Just saying it was something I had thought of, but left it up to you. You don't have to if you don't want to."
He pauses, then looks at Miles. "Really? Jeez, if you ever want to try it out, let me know. I was thinking about making a new version of my web-shooters, but these are still good ones." He raises one wrist for Miles to see it.
As he holds up his hand, he says, "I also hear Taskmaster is also working for them. He's bad news. He supposedly can learn new fighting skills and styles just by WATCHING them…"
"Hey, they're pretty useful in a fight too." Spider-Girl finger-guns at Sable, before looking back at Pete agian. "Oh… I heard about him. Bad Juju. …Might as well get this over with while wer'e discussing potential enemies. The big guy who helped take down Rhino is named Venom. It's an alien symbiote that gives its user powers a lot like Spider-Man… Although I'm not exactly sure who it's bonded to at this point. Things are kind of different than here back home. Kinda unstable and crazy, though. Weak to fire, and sonic attacks. In case it decides to try to eat one of /our/ brains or something."
Miles shrugs. "Dude, I was bitten by a jumping spider." As an intern, he was privy to such information. "I can jump three hundred feet at a shot. Plus, jumping spiders have mad dance skills. I get around fine — and punching bad guys in the face is very cathartic after exams." Behind his mask he grins. "The web-shooters are cool, for sure. But I'm my own kinda spider, you know?" Admittedly, given his color scheme he might be mistaken for Black Widow in the wrong light, but that's neither here nor there.
"Taskmaster. Crap." Who hasn't heard of Taskmaster? He's like Deathstroke — somebody people know to be afraid of.
Except maybe Daredevil. That guy's too crazy to be afraid. From what Sable hears.
Silk looks torn. "You worked hard on it." She frowns inside her mask, "But, I'm just not sure how it'd work. You know?" She certainly doesn't want to upset one of the only friends she has in this world. She walks over to Spider-Man, "I'll - think about it. But, I don't want to run the risk of ruining the insulated or air-cushioned webbing I can already make. Or even my base. I'm not sure how that all works, but I just think of which one I want, and 'twhip', there it is." Not to mention she'd never thought of trying to mess with her organic webs.
As the conversation turns to Taskmaster, "Well, then we just need to make sure we're either doing something he can't replicate, by moving faster than he does, or blinding him so he can't see what we're doing." Probably easier said than done, but it's a good strategy to aim for, or so she thinks.
SpiderGwen breathes a laugh behind her mask. "The tougher they are, the bigger the chinks in their armor. I'm not scared of him or anyone else at this point." It isn't until after she gives voice to the words that she realizes it's true. What's left to be afraid of, anymore?
Spidey nods to Silk. "It was an idea. The principles are sound, but like I said, untested. Don't sweat it. If we had more time to test…but we don't. So, we do the best we can."
Spidey nods to Miles. "I have ideas, sometimes they don't work out. Just…something to think about. Being able to trap or immobilze someone without laying a finger on him can be something worth having."
He looks to the others. "It might also be an idea to mix up whatever fighting styles you do use. Do something unexpected, even impulsive. Something to keep in mind." He puts another plastic box on the table. "I put together a knockout drug and combined it with dimethyl sulfoxide. It'll kock a person out IMMEDIATELY. I made a wrist-mounted gun, but it is a single-shot model. I have three of them." He opens the box and takes out a tiny 10mm paintball load. "They fire these. Best to hit bare skin. And it should keep them from going for the poison-tooth thing they've been doing to keep from talling tales. I'm tired of these people dying in front of me…"
"When it comes to Taskmaster… I've got a few tricks up my sleeve. My powers are a little more versatile than the basic spider set, I think. Like… check this out." Spider-Girl gestures downwards, before… pushing out her 'stickiness' into the floor. "He'll have a hard time fighting if he can't get off the ground, especially if we knock him over. And if you fight purely on Spider-Sense, where even you don't know what you're going to do next… Well, good chance working on that. …Do you think you could make darts that would fit into my Stinger launcher too for the knockout stuff?"
Silk nods to Peter. "I've also still got the paint grenade you gave me. Should be an effective combo. That, I will take if you want me to," she offers, but comments, "Though the only things I've had any practice aiming are my webs."
She blinks a few times as May demonstrates her sticky-floor technique, "Weird. But effective. My Silk-sense is very reliable, and gives me a pretty good advantage." Of course, the same could be said for most here.
Then, she glances to SpiderGwen, looking at her curiously at that statement. "There's only one person I'm afraid of, but, we think he's dead. I'm not new to fighting. Just new to this - hero stuff. And figuring out, well, how to be a hero. Or, when to act. It's hard." Especially when you have a reputation to uphold on Spider-Man and Spider-Woman's behalfs.
" Everyone has his or her own reputation to live up to. Sometimes it's all we have. You do what you do because it feels right in your gut. Don't let anyone else, myself included, influence that. Because sometimes, if you second-guess yourself? You're wrong. And if you're wrong it can cost dearly. You go on your own instincts, and you'll be fine." Gwen hasn't moved. In fact there is little to no indication that she is even speaking. She is simply standing, now, leaning against a metal beam, with arms crossed.
A thwipping sound is heard on the air, and moments later, Spider-Girl (Black) is swinging onto the platform. "Jesus," she breathes. "Sorry I'm late, there was this-" Her half-masked face turns toward the unfamiliar spider-person and she stops for a moment. "What the hell?"
Spidey looks to their faces. "Okay. First. Spider-Girl, give me five darts for that stinger rig, and I'll dose them up for you. But I warn you, this stuff works fast. You accidently prick yourself, you'll be out before you ven know you had an accident. And send us any video or other info on this 'Venom' guy."
He looks to Silk, then the others. "I'll send out a signal if I get called in on this. Sable, we have a communication network. If you want in on it, I'll put together a rig for you, too. It's fairly seamless. I did the hardware, the other Spider-Girl…" He points to Anya. "…tightened up and improved the code. Be grateful to her. Now…any last observations or questions before we break for the night?"
"Spider-Girl, Sable SPider. Sable Spider, the other Spider-Girl." Spider Girl (Red) waves to her counterpart with a grin. "Don't worry, I can catch you up on what you missed and give you the low-down on Symbiotes. We could get Shwarma if you want. My treat." Turning to Spidey, she unclips part of her right webshooter, ejecting five metal flechettes and handing them over. "Ordinarily, I don't like to use these things. Kinda brutal. But child kidnappers… I might make an exception.
"Yo," Sable Spider says, waving at the newcomer. "Sable Spider. I just saw the web and figured I should check it out." A shrug, halfway apologetic. And his estimation of Spider-Man has gone up. The guy is clearly brilliant — Miles assumes a chemist/geneticist of Richardsian proportions — AND he's got no fewer than four female Spider-types… reporting to him is the wrong word, certainly but he can't think of the right one at the moment.
"Uh, yeah," he says, startled suddenly. "You guys don't have a way to contact me. Um." A moment of rummaging. He has pockets in his uniform for a reason. There. A card is produced. Black with a red spider on one side. A phone number hand written on the other. "Do me a favor and don't, like, backtrace that number? Thanks.
Pause
"Oh! And I've got these, uh… I shock people. And I can turn invisible. Mostly." He turns invisible. See? Or not.
"No questions. I'll await your missive." And SpiderGwen does a backward dive off the platform. Somewhere below is the sound of a web thwipping out. And then silence, swallowed by the sounds of the city.
For a few moments, Anya continues to just stare at Miles. "Mother nature really got horny and decided to bust out a bunch of hatchlings." She turns to Spider-Man and claps him on the shoulder. "At least the testosterone is balanced out now." Behind the mask, she's grinning at the other girls.
"SHIELD's got a bunch of Arana clones, they're done and ready," she reports to the others, then looks to Peter. "They'll take up to six loads of that stuff you made. Just gonna have to run everyone through voice recognition calibration, but we're all really good at talking, so, yeah."
A thumbs up is given to Mayday, before she cocks her head toward Miles. "That makes two of us who are original." Her lips curl and a tongue is clicked Cindy's way indicatively.
"So, yeah. Sorry I missed it, but, we had to finish the test runs on all those drones." Her shoulders shrug in a 'what can ya do' manner.
Last pose from me to close out.
Silk watches SpiderGwen go, thoughts turning in her head, then she looks back to the others. "We'll get these guys," she promises Spider-Man. "I've got your back. And you know I can fight. We're going to kick their asses." She nods her head to the others, adding, "Good to meet you, Sable."
Then, Silk follows the others, jumping off, casting a webline from her fingertips to zip off into the night. Criminals, beware!