Summary:Spider Woman arrives in time to stop a gang war from getting too out of hand. But one member seems a bit more ready to take her on than the rest. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
Related LogsTheme SongNone |
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"Boss Fonti warned you dirtbags! Either form up or get lost! So what's it gonna be!?"
It's always lovely when negotiations break down between criminal groups. It means communications from then on are going to be much more direct and primal. Judging by the looks of things, words are about to be replaced with pipes and bullets. In an industrial courtyard close to the docks, though not quite on them, two groups are forming up. One near the gates, about a dozen toughs trying to disguise their rough exteriors in classy suits, branish handguns and a pair of heavier looking submachine guns. The other, just shy of a dozen, are roughnecks and thuggish brutes, some carrying handguns, others carrying pipes and what appear to be parts from car engines, clearly ready to remodel the faces of the opposition. From the demands being thrown, it sounds like this up-and-coming group of thugs were offered to work for a local mob boss… and politely declined.
Doing his best to fit the stereotype, a block-headed man in dark hair and branishing a flashy looking pistol, seemed to be squaring off with the the apparent leader of the thugs. Whatever he looked like was hidden by the balaclava he wore, though interestingly, he carried no weapons himself. Not even an improvised pipe or club. He simply shrugged off the threat and shook his head. "Look, Casey, we're not interested in joining your club. If you'd like to do some business, we're all in. Aces. Peachy keen. But we're not joining Fonti. This is more… part-time work, catch me?"
Casey just chuckled and shook his head in response. "See, Boss Fonti doesn't like when folks turn him down. And he doesn't do partnerships. You working in this area, you work for Boss Fonti. Clearly, you need a lesson taught." Casey, evidently done talking, raising his pistol and pulled the trigger, firing at the masked man and hitting him square in the head, immediately stumbling back. "Any further quest-?" Casey stopped mid-quip as the masked young man regained his footing, head leaning back before straightening up again, the bullet lodged in the mask, but not his skull. Plucking the offending object from his mask, the young man flicked it aside before cracking his knuckles. "Yes, ah, what was that lesson again?"
Being finished with exams is a wonderful thing; especially when it means you can get to super-heroing earlier in the day! Or, if there's no badguys who need to get beaten up then at least it means you can go swinging across town, which is precisely what Gwen is doing right now. Dressed in her Spider-Woman outfit with a backpack slung over both shoulders, she's enjoying a rather pleasant evening. Well, right up to the moment where a gunshot atracts her attention.
"Thought you'd never ask," she declares, pulling the earbuds out of her ears and stuffing them into her backpack, all mid-swing. She fires a webline to change course, and allows herself to plummet more than usual to pick up some speed. As fortune would have it she was relatively close to begin with — the docks are always worth patrolling, afterall — and one final swing with a bit of an acrobatic summersault at the end lands her on top of a building, overseeing the courtyard. "Alright, what have we here," seh muses to herself, as she walks across the roof and stands where she can see, hands planted on hips. To all outward appearances, by the time she's arrived, it just looks like someone fired a shot into the air; I mean… nobody's hurt, right? There's no body laying on the ground with a hole somewhere inconvenient and a shocked 'why me?' expression permanently plastered to their face.
Gwen watches for a moment longer, before she shrugs, and walks up to the edge of the building. "Hey! Guys!" she calls down, holding up one hand as if it were a megaphone. "Just… This isn't a firing range, right? Someone could seriously get hurt! Why don't you all just order some pizzas and talk it through? … Or Chinese take-out? …Anybody like Sushi? I know a great sushi place nearby, anyone want the number? 'Cause seriously, you all keep firing shots and I'm gonna have to come down there, and then it's gonna get unfortunate, alright?"
Welp, if Spider-Girl was looking to get their attention, she got it alright. Every eye in the courtyard turned and looked up at Gwen as she shouted out her instructions. And a second later, they responded with the predictable reply. "It's one of the Spider freaks! Get 'er!" Followed by a truly unnecessaru about of gunfire headed her way, before the thugs that had guns began to fire at the suits, causing them to return fire. It's now a chaotic free for all, with some of the criminals shooting at Gwen, some at each other as they take cover, some bold folks trying to get into melee range with their clubs, and some just darting to hide.
The masked young man, the de facto leader of the thugs it seemed, simply stared at Spider-Girl a bit longer than he probably should have, before giving a finger gun gesture. His attention immediately turned to one of his comrades, a younger looking Hispanic man who had clearly taken a bullet in the chaos. Rather than bother with the toughs, he immediately began making his way quickly to his fallen comrade. But in the chaos, Casey got a good look at his rival leader and fired a shot. It landed, but was about as effective at the first attempt. The young man simply shot him a callous look from behind his mask. "If the first bullet didn't work, what makes you think another will, jackass!?"
Gwen does what one usually does when suddenly face with an onslaught of gunfire; she dives for cover. Her danger-sense gave her plenty of warning, and lets be real, it's not like she wasn't expecting this result. She crouches down, letting bullets whizz overhead and ping off the edge of the buiding in front of her. Is the cover good enough here? Well, danger-sense isn't screaming about bad things quite so loudly, so it oughta do.
"Everyone always gotta choose the hard way," the Spider-Woman sighs, and shakes her head. "Though," she muses to nobody in particular, "This does present a bit of a problem, how do I get down there finding out what swiss cheese feels like?" Shuffling backwards, she stands up and has a look around on the roof.
Ahh yes. Air conditioner.
In a blatant display of destruction of public property, Gwen grips the side of the several hundred pound industrial air conditioner — aww shucks, it was probably broken anyway, look how rusty it is, and besides it has a bullet hole now — and hoists it up over her head. "INCOMING!!" she screams at the top of her lungs, and hurls the unit over hte edge; promptly, she runs after it, leaping and executing a graceful dive after it, and basically uses it as cover on the way down.
…And then uses it as cover on the ground, after it lands with a thunderous crash, seeing as how it's big, made of metal, and generally bigger than she is, and also made of metal. "Alright, I came down here!" she declares quite cheerfully, before leaning around the corner to fire a webline at one of the bad guys' submachine guns. "I'll take that please! Mandatory firearm confiscation is now in effect!"
"Incoming! Jeebus—!" Ford let out, grabbing his compatriot in his arms and doing his best to shield him from the onslaught of gunfire and, now, AC units. Thankfully, the mess and now disarming of crooks has most of the heavier fire turned towards Spider Woman. The suits still continue to shoot, but with the landing, their confusion and shock makes their aim terrible. Ford, for his part, moves to two other criminals on his side and hoists his downed ally into one of their arms. "Get him inside, stop the blooding, and get everyone out of here. Looks like this site is blown down now… I'll try and deal with the Spider."
Not that Ford wasn't entirely looking forward to that.
Arming himself with the muffler his comrade was using, Ford grabbed a wrench on the ground before heading back to deal with the suits and the Spider. The other thugs on his side, although still trading fire with the suits, seemed to be getting the message and were starting to fall back inside. The suits, however, were not so keen on relinquishing ground. They still continued to fire at Spider Woman, though they were moving to use their black cars as cover. However, Gwen's spider sense was probably telling her to turn her attention behind her… because a heavy looking muffler was now flying through the air in her direction.
After tossing the submachine gun she'd yoinked back to the suits — after bending the barrel so it would point comically at whoever held the weapon — Gwen continues to use her AC unit as cover while the suits retreat. She ignores the tough guys for the moment; they're busy taking their wounded afterall, no need to get in the way of that, so for a moment she's almost on their side.
Almost.
Gwen is just in the middle of using a well-placed webline to yank one of the suits' black cars towards her (and flip it on its roof in the process) when, abruptly, her danger-sense yells MUFFLER in the middle of ber brain, and so naturally she ducks. Her gaze snaps around to the big man in the balaclava, and she perks an eyebrow upwards under her mask. "Wise guy, eh?"
The Spider-Woman yanks the black car the rest of the way over to her, then picks it up like a heavy cardboard box and throws it back to the suits. "I think that's yours!!" she shouts while it's en route, promptly landing on top of their other car. "You can't just leave broken cars lieing around! That's litering!!"
With that, she turns to face the man in the balaclava again, and abandons her cover to walk a few steps, and then break into a run towards him. She leaps forwards as she gets close, lands in a crouch, and jumps upwards, delivering an uppercut that would leave any ordinary man to wake up sometime next week with rattled teeth and a serious migraine.
"You know, I thought superheroes were supposed to be the good guys. I guess we'll just add 'vandalism' to the list of things folks with superpowers get to do, right alongside breaking and entering…" Oh, indeed, Ford was still a bit sore about what he'd seen with Beast and Isis. But, to his credit, at least he was holding the heroes to higher standards. After all, he was the bad guy. Ford kind of expected his muffler wasn't going to do too much. He'd heard about the Spiders and their prophetic senses for danger. At least now, he could confirm it and how it works… and with any luck, he could manipulate that to his advantage.
The less dressed thugs had all, but run inside, and with two of the cars belonging to the suits now totalled, the others, clearly not favoring their chances, were turning to the remaining two and running. That left the masked Ford to deal with the Spider. As she barrels for him, ready to pounce, Ford recoils back and takes the blow like a champ… for the most part. At least he was still conscious. Rubbing his jaw, Ford worked out the apparent kink he'd be dealt by her blow, before balling up his fists. "You know, if I wasn't on the clock, I'd say let's make up over a nice dinner. But I'm guessing that opportunity is kinda out the window at this point, eh?" Not expecting a positive reply, Ford opted to test Gwen's spider sense a bit further, turning invisible and moving quickly and quietly towards her flanks. Once in reach, he aimed to grab her arm and hurl her into a nearby crate.
Gwen takes a step back when Ford fails to be rendered unconscious by the blow she deals to his chin. One of the eyes on her suit widens as she perks an eyebrow, and hunhs softly. "Do you come around here often?" she inquires, speaking at the same time as he's making a vague suggestion about dinner. "It's just, y'know, usually that works."
And then, the guy is invisible. "I'm pretty sure that's cheating," Gwen points out, as she takes another step back, dropping into a defensive crouch with her hands up in front of her. "I mean, yes I broke that AC unit, but seriously it had it coming. Look how rusty it is, clearly hasn't been gett-HU-WAAAIAAIAH!!" The Spider-Woman ticks her head to the side where Ford is sneaking up on her, just in time to be grabbed by and thrown. She crashes into the crate, splintering the side she hits and bouncing off it onto the ground. Was her danger-sense screaming something about invisible guy? Sure, but was it telling her which way he was coming from? Well yes, but it's really hard to not use your eyes and stuff.
Gwen shakes her head and stands up, dusting off her shoulder and tilting her head to one side until the vertebrae pop. "Alright, neat trick," she comments. "And yes, dinner is off the table." Reaching behind her she grabs hold of the crate, siezing it with sticky fingertips, and pulls, hurling it overhead and sending it flying in front of her. After that she follows it — no invisible man that way if she didn't hear a loud 'ow' afterall — and then jumps up on top of it. And then basically just stands there, adopting that defensive crouch once more.
Ford took note of the moderate success. His invisibility could at least slightly counter the Spider-sense… kinda. If he moved fast enough. And could surprise one of them. Much like she was surprising him, flinging that crate right back his way. He lifted a foot to stop it, but immediately leapt back when Gwen moved forward, claiming the crate as her personal high ground. Looks like it was over. He couldn't possibly contend with someone who had the high ground.
…not completely, but he still needed to buy some time. So, he marched around the crate a bit, studying the Spider Woman. Perhaps not as properly as he should, given the fight to keep his eyes up on the mask and not below the belt. "I was coming here often. Sadly, I think this place is off the table now. Gotta find work elsewhere. I suppose this would look decent on my resume, though. 'Can contend with Spider People, if need be.'" Ford opted to go quiet and move around a bit more to throw Gwen off a bit, before hopping up on another box nearby and huffing. "I'm full of tricks. Give it time, you might see more." He twiddled his thumbs a bit. "So does this make us nemises now? I'm kinda new to the whole 'supervillain' thing, and you're a lovely heroine, but I hate rushing into relationships."
Gwen remains up on her crate, keeping her hands ready. Well, also feet ready; afterall, kicking people tends to be effective as well. But, Ford doesn't seem to be in any rush to join her on the high ground. Someone must've seen that one Star Wars movie; or, maybe, he's just one of the smart ones, who doesn't attack a Spider by going straight for their chosen territory.
"I'm not really looking for a relationship," Gwen answers. She lifts one hand and fires a webline at the spot where she thinks she heard Ford; she misses, and just gets an engine block instead. She yanks it over, and starts spinning it around and around, like it were a yo-yo she'd decided to abuse. The crate groans as it shifts a bit under her feet, but she herself doesn't seem to have any problem staying still and centered. "But, hey, I'm always happy to help with a resume, getting people employed and off the streets is a worthwhile goal. Just, y'know, the whole career criminal thing is a bit of an issue, yeah?"
Gwen stops twirling the engine block and lets the line out again, swinging it in a wide sweep around the crate. Well, territory claimed, it would seem. "Smart move, not rushing in. Your invisibility gives you the most advantage when you've got a lot of space to work with. Try that trick in a corridor and I guarantee it won't work." She shrugs her shoulders lightly. "Points to you on that one, I suppose. So what's next?"
"You're missing out. I'm a great conversationalist. Part-time philosophizer. Handy with a spatula AND a wrench. The criminal thing is only temporary, honest." Ford quipped back. "If I'm trapped in a corridor, I have already made a number of very grave and poor choices. Believe me, this is not how I like to spend my time with folks. I'm much more charming when I'm not on the clock. Sorry you get the nasty version of me today." Ford hopped off his crate and started to circle around Gwen again. "You certainly do like to toss things around. May I offer some advice? Please don't. I lost my last legitimate job because a mutant wannabe hero chucked a car through the shop front. Owner couldn't afford to keep open, so I lost out. Same with the AC unit. Honestly, that sets a really poor example for everyone, and puts folks in danger. Criminal or not."
As Gwen continued to keep the area around her clear of invisible Fords, Ford himself was playing it smart and watching quietly. Keeping his distance. He wasn't going to rush in and try and challenge her. Not in his current state, anyways. And frankly, he was worried about what would happen if he actually let loose on her right now. She was too entertaining to let go. "Now? I suppose I ought to skeedaddle. It's clear you know how to keep me at bay, and I'm not about to put my strength up against yours. Given your previous display, I think I'm a touch outmatched in that department. Agility too. You've got me matched in ranged tricks as well. And I see no reason to go all out against you over a dinky warehouse and some chop shop change."
At that, Ford goes silent… though he hasn't left yet. He waits to see if Gwen clears out before making any move to leave himself.
Gwen continues to swing the engine block, but Ford's words clearly hit a bit of a nerve. "Hey, I—" she starts, clearly ready to defend herself; but then her cheeks go bright red under the mask, and she lets go of her webline. The engine block goes flying into something with a loud crash, and the Spider puts her hands on her hips.
"You know, you're right. I didn't grab the AC unit until it was already shot full of holes, mind you, but you're right, and I can't believe I'm taking advice from a criminal on how to be a hero, but here we are." She shrugs her shoulders lightly. "In my defense, I'm kinda new to this."
The Spider-Woman stands still for a moment longer, glancing about and listening to see if she can hear footsteps approaching. She can't, as it turns out.
But, she can hear sirens. "Look," she sighs, "I'd love to keep going, but it sounds like you've had it for tonight, and honestly cops don't always like us Spiders, so I'm going to head off too, now that the gunfire has stopped. You take care of yourself, Mr. Spooky, I'll see you again. Or… something."
A webline carries Gwen up to the rooftop she started from; best not to tempt fate (or invisible men) afterall, and then she's off, making haste away from the scene.