14624/THE LADDER: Oily Smoke and Wings

THE LADDER: Oily Smoke and Wings
Date of Scene:	08 April 2023
Location:	Financial District
Synopsis:	Terror on Wall Street! A gas bomb and a shrieking madman from the skies!
Cast of Characters:	Norman Osborn, Cindy Moon, Rhona Lauren, Kaine Parker, Tabitha Smith, Darcy Lewis

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Norman Osborn has posed:
As the sun creeps up over the horizon, casting long shadows on the bustling streets of New York City, an unsettling energy seems to linger in the air. Wall Street awakens, the heart of the financial district pulsing with activity as taxis and black town cars weave through the busy streets. Their horns blare, their tires screeching ever so slightly as they narrowly avoid collisions.

Pedestrians clutch their briefcases and coffee cups, sensing an inexplicable tension in the air. It's a feeling that something is amiss, a malevolent force that's about to make itself known. Their eyes dart to the sky, searching for an unseen threat, but all they see are the towering skyscrapers blocking the view.

Tourists stroll among the throngs of working professionals, snapping pictures of the New York Stock Exchange and the famous Charging Bull statue. Their attention, however, is briefly drawn away by a flash of green in their peripheral vision. A flicker, a glint - was it just their imagination, or was it something more sinister?

" ... ha ha ha ... "

Down in the street, a pudgy and balding man holds his phone against his ear with one narrow shoulder as he rushes out the glass doors of the Aurora Capital building. A briefcase in one hand, and what appears to be a folder clutched under the other. His features are pink with exertion and sweat despite the chill and he speaks in a frantic tone.

"I've got it, I've got it. Just ... just calm down, okay?"

Do you feel it? That sense of forboding? That sense of ... danger?

Cindy Moon has posed:
Silk is kneeling down in the Financial District. High above the city streets, she lurks in a low crouch against the window seal of one of the top most glass walls of the Bank of America. The Bandana that covers her identity while out vigilant-tating is pulled down around her neck, black hair dangling about her face as she fiddles with her cellphone held in both hands.

For the most part, it's been a pretty quiet day! Which are rare. Oh, there's been crimes and Cindy has involved herself in them, but the vast majority have been pretty straight forward affairs.

So why is it she has a forboding sense of dread?

It is said that her Silk Senses are pretty impressive. She shares the same as other spiders, of course, the ones that alert her to potential dangers and allow her to respond... but her Silk Sense has further, farther, reach.

Furrowing her brow, she glances up to peer around herself... Something's wrong.. She just can't quite put her finger on what yet.

Rhona Lauren has posed:
Rhona, a 17 year old from England, is here as a student at Xavier's School. But she's HERE as a tourist. Yep. She's been in New York for almost a year now, but she's never made it down this far south in the city. She decided to take a couple friends from the school and head down here for some sight seeing this weekend. Dressed in a black shirt with a picture of Pennywise on her chest, a black leather choker, a pair of red sunglasses, blue jeans and black heeled boots, the teen is strolling along the side street with her phone in one hand, and a snocone cup in another. She's taking video, pictures, and just generally being a touristy type of girl today. Beside her, the other two teen girls with her are chatting away, one of them doing an online live stream broadcast....

Rhona has a small backpack over one shoulder, and she adjusts it as her crimson-shaded eyes look around the street, something drawing her attention while her friends just gabber-madly in to the phone with the stream going.

Kaine Parker has posed:
The early morning sun bathed Kaine's suit in a warm, golden glow, accentuating the intricate web-like patterns that adorned it. The cityscape stretched out before him, the scene infused with the colors of a fresh dawn. Yet, despite the serenity of the morning, Kaine felt a gnawing unease in the pit of his stomach. His spider-sense, an uncanny ability that warned him of impending danger, was flickering with a sense of foreboding.

With keen eyes shielded behind the angular lenses of his mask, Kaine observed the crowd of pedestrians below. Their movements were a carefully orchestrated dance of routine and urgency, the rhythm of the city playing out before him. He searched for any hint of abnormality, a clue that might explain the nagging tension that stirred within him.

He knew from experience that his spider-sense sometimes betrayed him or keyed in on his cellular degeneration as a primary threat. However, thanks to efforts by Gwen Stacy, he was feeling more on the mend today. This had to be something else.

Tabitha Smith has posed:
The Financial district isn't too far from good shopping. And sometimes even Tabitha needs and has money to splurge on something that's not cheap. The real pain is parking, even on her rather nice Yamaaha sport bike. Pink panelling neon yellow rims that almost look green without enough light.

The woman dressed in dark, ripped at the knees, bluejeans, and a black and white racing jacket. The sort that has padding in case of accidental crashes. Not that Tabitha has crashed the bike yet. It's her baby, and she calls is 'Sybi.' sunglasses on her nose look around from under her helmet while she slowly trundles around looking for somewhere top park. Impatience versus not wanting to have her bike towed clashing hard in her mind/

Darcy Lewis has posed:
Darcy is not a fancy rich person. However, the New York City and Southern District Federal courts are only a few blocks away, a location well-known to anyone who's every watched Law & Order. And being a government agent lady...

Leaving one of said courthouses through the back, Darcy traverses one of the police-blockaded sidestreets, pausing to say hello to one of the officers on guard at the vehicle gates. She has plans to swing through Chinatown and hit up Wah Fung. It's the worst kept secret among all the local court and office workers (and increasingly, annoying social media influencers). And for good reason. Roast pork, cheap duck...

It's not to be.

Passing the policebox, she hears the dispatch on his radio. Her own phone pings a moment later as SHIELD inevitably picks up on it and relays it with basic bulletin info. This kind of thing isn't really her job, it should be clear. But... well, she's a 'nearby agent,' now isn't she? Standing at the corner, Darcy looks north - toward the promised land of MSG-soaked delicacies - and then south, toward Wall Street and the alert. She sighs, and checks the holster inside her pantsuit jacket. Yep. She didn't leave it home. Ooookay.

She starts jogging, and reaches up to tap her well-concealed earpiece, while reviewing intel on her phone. "Agent Lewis, responding."

Norman Osborn has posed:
" ... whassat?! ... "

A rasping voice full with an unsettling, malicious sort of glee can be heard. As though spoken from around a corner, the source shrinking away into the unknown before it can be seen. Before it can be known. Straining to see, straining to hear, it speaks again - this time from the other side. A snide, infuritating giggle.

" ... hoo hoo hoo hoooo ... "

Down there in the street, parked in a no-parking tow-away zone just outside the Aurora Capital Building, is what looks like a delivery van for the Empire Sweets Bakery - the Manhattan skyline printed on the side. A particularly astute eye might see something spilling from beneath it. Tendrils of a pale smoke or gas that cling to the pavement before rising up, disappearing into the air.

" ... gonna gitcha ... "

There's something else now. More than a voice; a presence. Something lurking just at the edge of sight before ducking behind a car, disappearing into an open door, or just stepping into a shadow cast by the sun.

And then, dropped at Silk's side, is a warning. The place it comes from is infuriatingly absent from the Spider-Sense, but the object itself is not. A leering jack-o-lantern the size of a baseball, the eyes and mouth aglow with sinister green. A beep, a beep that swiftly turns into a trill, heralding a nasty surprise to follow.

Then, rushing through the air on the Devil's wings, is a monstrous figure clas all in green and purple. Perched atop his bat-like glider, the Green Goblin cackles as he hurtles through the air high above the street. A trail of oily black smoke behind him.

"AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Cindy Moon has posed:
Silk's Silk Senses are not Spider Senses. They're a completely different thing and, because of that, extremely fickle.. Her Spider Senses are just like Peter's, like Kaine's, like Gwen's and Miles', and just as easily fooled by someone who is familiar with the family of spider borne heroes.

While the other? It just does whatever it wants for dramatic effect.

Like not work when it could have saved her life.

The Jack-o-lantern lands on the ledge beside her. The anticipatory warning signs only alerting in her brain when it bounces across the stone ledge a few feet from her with a constant, omenious ticking. "Oh Shi-!" She leaps out off the ledge because that's all she can do in the miliseconds between warning and sudden, bright, building rocking explosion.

Her arms flail, her legs kick, and webbing shoots from her fingertips towards a building to catch her descent, stopping that uncontrolled fall with a swing that gets her out of the direct blast range, but not clear of the concussive wave that follows.

She's knocked off the line and tumbles end over end. When she hits the fire escape, it's across her chest, arms thrown over the railing to grab hold, only for several large chunks of brick to rain down from above. Some hit that fire-escape and knock the bolts loose and Cindy falls, banging off a sign. She grabs it and swings out, bends her body in a backflip as another huge chunk falls past her, and webs it with both hands. Suddenly stuck to the side of the wall, she pulls with all her effort and keeps the huge slab from falling directly down onto an early morning sidewalk! Precariously close to squishing some pedestrians too interested in taking video than getting to safety. "Run dammit!" She says, sans mask, it's still around her neck. "Hurry, this is heavy!" Stupid Americans.

Rhona Lauren has posed:
Rhona isn't exactly close to Darcy, but she's close enough to hear the words 'Agent Lewis' spoken. It draws her eyes over to the woman in the fine pants suit. She eyes her for a second, but the sound of cackling, and a distant strange hissing sound... well, that's not normal, is it?

Rhona lowers her phone down in front of her stomach, her sno-cone cup clutched in her other hand still.

"Hey, guys?" She says to her friends who've walked about ten feet further down the sidewalk from her. "Guys?" Rhona says again. "What's that?" She motions toward the Goblin flyer.

And then an explosion rocks the city street just across the way from where she stands. She recoils, of course, with the blast wave rolling over her moments later. Screams cry out in all directions, and people start to flee, including the two girls she'd come with from Xavier's School. "Get back to my car!" Rhona shouts to them as she starts to side step, dropping her sno-cone cup and raising her phone to grab a quick shot of the Goblin... kids these days just can't stop themselves from phone before reason!

Kaine Parker has posed:
If Kaine could only link the identity of the Green Goblin to a certain corporation, he might have a greater stake in the emerging situation. Presently, the only stake is an irritation with the obnoxious laughter rising above the ambient noise of the city street.

The abrupt explosion is significantly more noticeable. His gaze snaps toward the large slab about to crush the overly curious pedestrians. He sees the unfamiliar figure of Silk doing her best to prevent the inevitable demise of those below.

Without giving it much thought, he finds himself swinging down on a web-line. Pedestrians offered impolite and abrupt shoves in the interest of saving their lives.

With a leap to the side and a thwip of web line to pull himself to higher altitude, he calls out, "Clear!" to Silk.

Tabitha Smith has posed:
There's a truck in front of her as Tabby still can't park. And the truck clearly stole her idea but it was a bad one. So that weird smoke probably shoulders. "Up in smoke. That's where all my money goes!" she sings to herself.

It's not easy to see the grin under the helmet but a truck and it's smokey mess is probably doing what it was designed to do. It's just a plain motorcycle helmet and not a gasmask after all.

The sound of the explosion nearby gets her looking around pretty wildly. "I didn't do that!" she yells and starts swivelling her head to see it.

Oh Hey there's kids from the school including Rhona. <<Uhh, you wanna wind those windows up and keep the aircon going.>> she beams at the three mutants telepathically. Tabby already wheeling her bike off the road and onto nearby footpathing and away from where there's risk of the bike being exploded. The helmet even locked daway in that little case on the back end of the motorcycle.

Still maybe too close to the truck. It might be an accident but the blonde does head towards the drivers side to knock on the door and windshield. "Hey, anyone in there need help?" she says and wobbles a bit. "Like, woooooo. Baked goods inside!" she says with a slurr in her speech.

Darcy Lewis has posed:
Jog jog jog. Jogjogjog.

OK. So it's not a 'couple' blocks. It's more like... seven or eight. Which of course would be nothing for the resplendant fitness specimens who occupy the ranks of SHIELD's field agents, toned, chiseled gods and goddesses that they are.

Darcy, by comparison, works in the lab, and does her field training as part of mandatory yearly re-certification.

So she is quite out of breath by the time she makes it, leaning over to catch her breath, hand pressing her side where she feels a bit of a stitch. "What's our *pant* *pant* local intel on *pant*-" She still has her phone out, flicking through data sources as diverse as various building cameras, news helicopters, police bands, and so on. But, well, this is sudden, everything is still chaos, and no one knows shit.

Darcy hears the explosions before anything, registers the glider above, still a distance down the artificial canyon of the skyscraper lined street. "What the *pant* what the f-" The phone is slipped away, and she pulls her service weapon. "Ah, huhh, right, safety-"

Still panting, but trying to steady herself, she gets the weapon up and fires off a couple ICER rounds in the direction of the... well, who the hell knows, but 'guy flying through the sky laughing on a bat-thing who IS NOT batman' registers as 'badguy' to her.

She's a passable shot, if not a marksman. At least at the range, when she's not at risk of coughing up a lung. And speaking of heavy breathing...

She arrives late and from the outside of the 'engagement area' so maybe it takes a little for it to seep over to her. But soon enough, she's basically huffing the stuff. Her vision gets hazy. The guy up on the glider has feathers. And one of the other women running through the street? "Ah, Brood!"

So she shoots at Tabitha!

Norman Osborn has posed:
" ... Christ!"

The pudgy man with his briefcase and folder cowers, throwing himself behind a parked car as he rolls almost comically to the ground. He's still clasping his phone, briefcase now clutched between his knees.

"There's ... some guy flying around! Do you think those aliens are invading again? God, I need to move to Chicago - UHH!"

The man suddenly finds himself scooped up, soaring skyward in the clutches of the Green Goblin! His feet kick ineffectually beneath him, the Goblin holding him in one arm as though he weighed nothing as he flies low over the heads of those in the street. Another pumpkin bomb is thrown without care from the satchel he wears, falling to the street and promising another dangerous explosion!

"AHAHAHA - come on, Bobby!" the Goblin cries, voice shrill and deranged before he begins to sing in a half-spoken sort of way, "Leeeee-ET'S go flyyyyy a kite ... "

The pudgy man - Bobby, presumably - is tossed in the air and left to tumble with a hideous, terrified scream through the air before the Goblin swoops down low to catch him. Meanwhile, down below, another explosion rocks the street. Panicked pedestrians run this way and that.

The bakery van? Well, there doesn't appear to be anyone inside. But a glance through the glass will show the rear interior filled with what look to be forty gallon drums, an electronic timer, and a whole maze of tubing. The gas that fills the air is of the Goblin's own concoction and sets to fill the space around those who breathe it with imagined threats to go right along with the real ones.

The pedestrians beneath the plummeting masonry are quick to move out of the way. Some are tourists who want to stop and gawk, but most are New York natives who know to get out of the way of falling debris when the brightly-colored crazies do their business.

Cindy Moon has posed:
Silk leans backwards at an odd angle against the wall and clenches every muscle in her arms to keep the massive stone from crashing down atop fleeing pedestrians and those Kaine is shoving out of the way. When she gets the all clear, she nods and lets the stone crash to the ground. "Thanks." She doesn't know this spider... There's no time for introductions however. She's hanging there sans a mask, just a casual Korean girl wearing her black/white costume with red fingers and mask. "Nice to meet you."

As she leaps out just as Goblin is flying over head.

Webbing shoots from her finger tips and swings her around after the blasting Villain carrying his pudgy captive. She's only a few feet behind him when Bobby is dropped and almost fires a line to yank him back into her arms, but Goblin is quick.

So instead she continues swinging after them.

Right up against a wall further down the street. She lands and runs with her ankles bent so her fingers trace the glass. Waiting. Keep struggling fatty. That's it.

Again Bobby drops down out of Norma's arms, rolling over himself as he descends towards the street. While Silk leaps off the wall like a bullet, connects with him just beneath his shoulders against his waist, and yanks him out of the path of the Goblin curling around to grab him, "This is the worst game of hot potato... Hold on, we're getting out of here." She hits the wall across the street, rebounds in the direction they were going, and fires another series of lancing weblines to have them swinging!

Will Bobby stop struggling?

Will Silk escape with Goblin's hostage?

Stay tuned readers!

Rhona Lauren has posed:
Rhona slips her phone in to her back pocket as that Agent Lady runs past her. Why does she look Familiar? She'd seen her at an anime convention! That's why!

But then Tabitha is in her head again. That alone, isn't too shocking if you know Tabitha, but it is a bit odd for being this far from the School. "Tabitha?" Rhona calls out, looking around... The other two girls just run, keep on running, they run so far away... toward the car that they'd come in which is parked at the far end of the street.

"Do what?" Rhona asks... just as another bomb goes off!

This time, Rhona's hands come up and two bright-pink energy discs appear in her hands, and grow outward to doubling the size of Captain America's shield each. She holds them straight out to block herself from the concussive blast fromthe bomb that goes off in the street! The wave of kinetic energy rolling across her this time doesn't effect her as it breaks against her shields ability to protect her!

But, that might make her a target now... what with two large circular discs glowing brightly in front of the girl.

Kaine Parker has posed:
Kaine all but grunts a reply to the "Nice to meet you" and then, without hesitation, he launches in response to the last tossed pumpkin bomb, firing a web-line to the side of a nearby building and using it to propel himself towards the endangered New Yorkers. As he swung through the air, his Spider-Sense guided him with pinpoint accuracy, helping him avoid the fiery debris raining down from the explosion.

A few pedestrians are webbed and snatched to prevent their evisceration from shrapnel and debris.

Seeing the mutant Rhona's ability, he decides that maybe she could play 'Catch the Pumpkin' to save the bystanders, and thus gritting his teeth behind his mask, Kaine launched himself back into the air, his eyes fixed on the Goblin. He started to give chase, gaze focused and ready for another bomb which he hoped to intercept this time.

This provides him with the perfect view of Silk's attempts to save Pudgy. In support, he tugs his line and launches himself high into the air. At his zenith, he flips and then begins to rain down web balls at the Green Goblin. Suppressive fire!

Tabitha Smith has posed:
That's a bomb? Drums, leaky tubes and timers and electronics. And while Tabitha is an admitted pot smoker for medicinal purposes, do you want someone that can destroy buildings exploding because of a nightmare? No, weed mellows her out.

This stuff is clearly meant to hit weirdly. And she's already breathing a lot of it. If it's meant to make her imagine percieved threats, it's probably also goping to amp up the perception of one that is absolutely a real threat.

"Bomb in the truck! BOMB! Get clear!" she yells out and maybe also lets a wide telepathic hint to get a lot of space to everyone around. she might have also forgotten to make sure they stay calm.

That's a bomb, and it's getting her on a bad high and well. She can't tell what else the stuff mnight do. But she knows what she can do.

BOOM!

No she didn't destroy the van. she just popped the door lock with a little one so she can get into the damn thing. <<Like umm, you see those bats or whatever dropping their guano?>> There's the weird hallucinations about pumpkin bombs and stuff. <<You might wanna like.. Oh you're doing that. never mind! You girls in the car, like really stay in there, run the aircon at max.>> she instructs.

Not every kid in the school should have to step up and hero like Tabitha and Rhona "Crap Jean is fuck me up when I bring kids home stoned and like in danger." It doesn't get more scary threatening than having a boss that well. Phoenix Force and all that.

In the van, she starts looking and perusing the gas bomb. Looking for a ways to maybe disarm it so HAZMAT can get rid of this stuff.

She's an ex-thief, she knows her way around a circuit board.

There are better people for the job. But right now Tabby is as close as it gets to a bomb squad expert. Literally.

Having weirdly cute and curvy things shooting at you is not helping her calm either. "KNOCK THAT SHIT OFF! I'm Working on saving your moster butt!" she yells and floats a flashbang bomb out at Darcy in retaliation.

Darcy Lewis has posed:
Things are going poorly for Darcy!

It's not just that there's hallucinatory gaas that she's huffing like a teenager trying to get high off (insert decade appropriate chemical), it's that the very idea of a gas attack plays into very REAL fears related to her current caseload. So, yeah, she thinks this is Brood gas. Which is actually a real thing, just uh, not in this context. With her imagination freed to run its absolute wildest, she sees people transforming up and down both sides of the street, their faces contorting into bug-eyed, fang-jawed monstrosities.

Against all these threats, Darcy continues to fire somewhat wildly. She may not hit Tabitha, and stumbles back after the bright light goes off, losing her target in the chaos. But there's other targets aplenty! And random New Yorkers re-imagined as bug creatures are easier to hit by comparison as they run screaming. Gotta zig zag, folks! She shoots a couple (be thankful for those standard issue SHIELD non-lethals), and then touches her ear.

"This is Agent Lewis *pant* it's happened, the worse has happened *pant* Brood bioweapon deployed in lower Manhattan *pant* dozens may be infected *pant* myself as well... this may be my final message! Tell my houseplants I said goodbye!"

She'll be happy to realize later that she's pushing the wrong ear to talk.

The only upside is that the Green Goblin is part of the fantasy too. If they're the Brood, then the villain flying overhead? Well, he (she?) is the Shi'ar mastermind: Norma Neremani, the Deathgoblin! Or maybe the Hob-bird?

(It all makes sense if you read her case files, trust me.)

"Die you feathered freak!" PEW PEW PEW. Still a bad shot.

Norman Osborn has posed:
"Well, well, well! I don't know which spider-punk you're supposed to be. But this tango is for two "

The Goblin leaps from his glider in one deft motion, still cackling as he topples through the empty air towards Silk. When he swings his gloved fist at her, it's with all the force of a speeding Mack truck. Something about this Goblin character is just wrong. He's far stronger than he ought to be.

In the same movement, he scoops Bobby up once more. This time, he clings to him by the back of his shirt. The glider dips low, diving through the air and arriving under the Goblin just in time for him to land on it. As he is once more borne through the air, there is a spark and plume of smoke from his gloves as Bobby begins to convulse violently as though being electrocuted. The Goblin holds him up for Cindy to see!

"What a shocking development! AHAHAHAHAHA!"

It's then that the web balls strike him, prompting an irritated grunt - 'gah!' - from him as he turns away to avoid them. In the process, Bobby slips from his grasp and begins to tumble towards the asphalt far below. The Goblin tears the webbing from the green scales of his costume, eyes widening with psychopathic glee at Kaine as he reaches into his satchel to throw another pumpkin bomb like a fastball right at Rhona and her shields!

The bullets from Darcy's gun come soaring his way, though he turns atop the Glider well enough that the few that are on point strike the metallic underside of the machine with an audible 'ting!'

Cindy Moon has posed:
Silk twists at just the right moment. Moving her head just out of the path of that swinging fist, when Goblin dives down at her to retrieve his captive. They're in mid-air flight, falling towards the street when she releases her webline. So her ability to hold fast to Bobby is a little tenative, which gives Norman just the necessary momentum to yank the pudgy man out of her arms as the Cindy spider falls.

Her arms extend straight back and at angles, firing to webs that swing her, but in a very low and shallow arc. Which she releases immediately in a forward roll-over flip and fires two more lines up and far wider to build up speed! Kaine is peppering the Goblin with web-balls and it loosens his grip on Bobby's convulsing body.

With Silk swinging in beneath the glider, "AYOOP!" Except she doesn't catch him. She swings through, grabs the back of his belt, and hurls him in Kaine's direction. If it's going to be hot-potato, it might as well be between three people right?

Which leaves her free to pull herself straight up towards the underside of Norman's glider, feet extended like a Cindy sized missile!

Rhona Lauren has posed:
With her shields held up, Rhona was looking for a way to help others... but the scene was so fluid, so chaotic it didn't easily come to her how to help. Then she sees Tabitha responding to that Agent Lady who seems to either be in on the attack, or bat-shit crazy. The teen turns her shields toward Darcy and starts to march toward her...

Until she catches another pass by the flying Goblin fellow. He tosses one of his bombs right at her, and the teenager is left gawking for a split second before she plants a shield in front of herself, rebounding the pumpkin in to the ground before she slams her second shield down on top of it! She lays down on the bomb covering shield, a look of desperation and fear strewn across her face.

"Get back! Get back! Get ba--!" The girl shouts before the bomb goes off beneath her disc energy, likely to spread out in a fan across the pavement, but her shield protects her... the force of the energy she has created from her fingertips seems to be greater than that of the bombs themselves... lucky for her!

Kaine Parker has posed:
Thwip. Thwip. Thwip. Kaine lays on the web-powered suppressive fire. When Bobby begins to fall, the spider doesn't even seem to notice. Corporate fat cats weren't his idea of innocent bystanders.

However, when that psychopathic gaze settles upon Kaine, Goblin unintentionally summons guilt within the clone. Guilt over some of his own 'over the top' violent acts. He hopes that the mutant can withstand the force of the pumpkin bomb, because he reaches out an arm and catches Bobby after Silk's toss.

He free falls with the human-hot-potato using gravity to gain some momentum and then tosses a web-line out to a nearby traffic light. As his trajectory changes from vertical to horizontal, he's given a glimpse of Rhona's fate as he sails by. He sighs in relief. Right choice this time.

Tabitha Smith has posed:
The flashbang bomb is pretty much all light and hoise unless it hits someone. Then the force is like having someone smack you on both ears ar the same time. Not fun.

Not that Tabby was doing anything like aiming at Darcy. Someone else probably got hit instead and is having a bad time.

Did someone... Darcy yell Brood. "BROOD? FUCK!" she yells too.  Great now she really has to scramble and get this thing disarmed. she at least finds a circuit board and wiring and stuff. A multitool from her jacket pockets. They're pouches. She's mastered hiding pouches in skin tight clothes. The jacket lining feels like cheeting.

"Oh god how long I got??" she saw the T-rex, she blew it up. Not a fun way to go. <Girls. If I screw this up and turn bug. Tell the others I'm noping out of my body into the astral plane! Imma haunt all you! But like really get some distance cause like massive boom will follow.>> she warns while she very worriedly works on disamrament while she still has hands and not icky nasty tentacles things.

Darcy Lewis has posed:
The fact that she's hitting anything at all encourages Darcy to keep firing on the glider, at least until she's posed with another threat in the form of the mighty Rhona!

"Ah! Don't come any closer!" The aggressive shield march causes the SHIELD agent (wordplay!) to shift focus in a bit of a panic toward this new threat, twirling and resuming fire, pew-pewing into the glowing energy fields for all she's worth. Being honest, this is probably the best case scenario, as it means they're expended quite uselessly rather than arbitrarily into fleeing crowds of panick-stricken New Yorkers. "Weapon ineffective! My god! They've equipped the Brood with Shi'ar holo-armor!"

Even better, she has to stop and reload, since it's just a little handgun, limited magazine. They don't let you bring the giant hoking death rays into the courthouse. Plus they're unflattering to a jacket's silhouette.

As she scrambles and fumbles with her clip, she scans the nearby area, and fixes again on Tabitha, who's working with the bomb. But this time, she doesn't see her as a bug! Maybe it was the flashbang. Maybe the fact that she's joining in the Brood delusion puts them on the same team? Who knows.

"We can't let it go off! Let me help!" Which, for the first time, might actually yield, uh, helpful help. Because as bad of a field agent she is? Well, in her line of work, 'Rocket Scientist' is quaint and old-timey.

"Quick, if you de-polarize that end..."

Norman Osborn has posed:
The timer inside the truck seems to be growing more urgent. The gas spills out into the street. Even as Rhona shields those still in the area from the explosions and Darcy takes pot-shots at the Goblin, chaos seems to rain. Two investment bankers are in a vicious fist fight on the street, hurling fists and kicks and even biting at one another. A taxi driver stands on top of his cab, a long piece of extension cord in hand that he whirls about his head and occasionally swings at what seems to be nothing.

Bobby, 'safe' in Kaine's arms, squirms and begins to strike at the burly spider-hero with ineffectual fists. Whatever he's seeing, it's terrifying and his eyes are wide. His hair is frazzled and he smells distinctly of burnt flesh. Presumably from the electrocution at the hands of the Goblin.

"Lemme go! Lemme go! Ahh! AHHHHHHH!"

The pudgy man is screaming, trying his best to wriggle out of Kaine's grasp. High above, the battle rages on!

"Sneaky little pest!"

When the Goblin speaks, it is in a sing-song tone. As though everything happenign were some perverse delight. A performance playing out just for him! As Silk rockets herself at the underside of his glider, it turns suddenly like a threatened cobra. The razor-sharp edges sing through the air at her, though he's had to still himself for the moment to do it.

Down at the van, Darcy and Tabby will find that the explosive device is well-crafted but nothing beyond the ken of the human mind - even a human mind that is currently seeing bug people and bird men everywhere. They can disarm it, definitely. All they need is time. Time that Rhona is buying with her shields, and the Spider-folk are buying with their very flesh and blood!

Cindy Moon has posed:
While Bobby might not be safe, the only danger he's in currently is his own doing! Silk has sent the pudgy banker to Kaine, how moves him out of Goblin's way, but it leaves her singularly to deal with the sing-song villain! Tugged upwards with a mighty pull, she kicks straight through... nothing.

The glider turns at the last possible second, positioning blades rather than thruster. They spin in on her and open up the front of her second skin style costume... they open up her abdomen too. It's a deep cut, as deep a cut as she can ever actually remember getting... it slices through skin and muscle and makes it increasingly difficult to move her hips as she swirls around in mid-air.

Almost impossible.

Her fist hurls around with surprising, violent, intent and hits the Goblin across the shoulder with the full force of a Spider who has had quite enough of his shit... Far Harder than Peter Parker has ever hit someone he didn't know, for a fact, could take the full force of all thier spider powers.

And then she's falling... clutching at her abdomen with an arm holding in... well she hopes that's not her guts. She's kind of scared to look... Her shoulder hits a sign and she bounces off ackwardly backwards. Then she hits a flagpool and flips forward... and finally she smashes into a car parked on the sidewalk shoulder first.. where she curls up with both her arms clutching her abdomen, blood gushing out between her fingers.

"No... no no no..." Not like this.

Rhona Lauren has posed:
Rhona is laying on that large circular energy disc when the pumpkin bomb goes off. It blasts outward in all directions, except upward. It may not be perfect that way, but it's better than nothing, right? Maybe?

Being that the teenager has control over her shields enough to lock them in place in mid-air, she's not sent flying off of the explosion either, but just takes the blast from behind the disc's protective field!

When the bomb is gone, the shield-disc drops to the ground and the girl with it. She thuds, and her eyes open.

"What in the fuck is going on?" The Briton askns, casting her eyes around the chaos on the side street.

She spies Darcy and Tabitha, and rises up to her feet, the disc on the ground fades away, while the one emiting from her left hand fingertips continues to hum loudly like a lightsaber. She walks toward them, appearing beside them. "What is this?" She asks them both, garnering enough quick information to see it's a rigged vehicle.

"God, this country is absolutely mad." The young woman says before she summons another disc, and starts 'planting them' in the air, marching around the vehicle like it's a game of duck duck goose with planted glowing discs to help shield the world should the damn van go up in flames!

Kaine Parker has posed:
Bobby is playing games with the wrong spider. Kaine's good-will only goes so far. Easily stronger the the pudgy man, his flailing does make the acrobatics of web-slinging just a touch more difficult.

It's moment later that Kaine simply tosses Bobby back through the open glass doors of the Aurora Capital building, but given the snarl that follows, one might think Kaine didn't care if they had been opened or closed.

Bobby goes skiddy across the polished floor with a 'squuuueaaaak', and man sometimes mistaken as the Scarlet Spider turns and web slings himself back into the sky.

Give the choice between assisting Silk or assisting the tripping populace, the decision is quickly made for him as he sees the other spider fall.

A websling later, he lands beside the parked car. He stares at Silk for a moment and then begins webbing up her torso with his, fortunately, sterile organic webbing.

"Is there a doctor I can take you to?" He asks, assuming a normal hospital isn't going to do. Once he feels confident he has helped her stop the bleeding, he turns his gaze skyward wary of a Goblin attack. He wrenches the car door off the crushed automobile to act as an improvised shield.

Tabitha Smith has posed:
It's proobably not good for Tabitha that there's a chance that she might look mid brood infection to Darcy. Tabitha got stuck on that train of thought. She keeps looking at herself for scales and possibly a tail.

Depolarize that end? It's just a multi tool in Tabitha's hand. But itb is conductive metal.

The cute curvy monster girl that shot at her gets a look and a bit of a startle. Look she is cute. Tabby don't judge on species. She's a mutant, and has dated demon chicks before.

"Okay, but if I turn bug first, you like shoot me as me. I will blow this whole thing up myself if it keeps like brood extinct-ish!" she says and takes a big deep worried breath, closing her eyes behind her glasses and pokes where Darcy pointed out, then uses her own energy to run an electrical charge and just mino boom the circuit board and fry it out, eventually disarming and powering it down. The drums are still leaking and the women are huffing the gass still. But as any noises the devices make wind down, there's no major risk of spreading the gas. Only Tabby brood to worry about.

And exploding bat poop outside.

There is a jump up as Tayy throws arms high and she cheers loud. "Woo! We got it girl, YEAH!" she shouts.

This is probably a bad idea while tripping balls. The blonde turning to kick open the back of the van and get some air with a hip rolling priouette cause victory dance! "Rhona, yeah! Like no more bug gunk. Hank can un bug us! How the girls in the car! We're gonna need like a people driving us home. We are tooooo stoned now!" she ponders and looks around in case of more danger which totally is a thing. Like spiders and goblins having their usual beefs.

Darcy Lewis has posed:
Even high as a kite, Darcy is smart! The zapping works. She thumbs up! "The world is saved!" A bit dramatic, maybe.

Still, it seems that Darcy is swept up in the moment of Tabitha's celebration. "Yes, we've done it, and now we can rest safely, knowing we've done everything we could." She's smiling. But there's a sadness in her eyes, that shifts subtly, toward doubt, and then finally, to a kind of grim determination. While she's talking, she's been reloading the gun. "But you have to know... there's no cure."

And like that, with grim, brutal efficiency, she raises the gun toward the back of (celebtrating!) Tabitha's head, and pulls the trigger.

"I... damnit Jane! You dragged me into all of this stuff and now, well! Now look at me! Look what I've done. And, and- I'm next. It's all your fault!" Poor Foster, catching strays! Darcy sniffs, then, and shakes her head. "Well, I guess, you've been dead a couple times, so, I don't know. Maybe it's only fair. We all get our turn... And who knows. Think I'll get to be a valkyrie? Probably not, I guess. Maybe you'll come and get me."

Aw.

With that, somewhat grimly, Darcy raises the weapon her own head, closes her eyes.

Of course, there's no meeting Jane in Valhalla. Though when she comes to, SHIELD is going to have a lot of questions about why she decided to ICER herself and a random X-Man.

Norman Osborn has posed:
As the heroic trio tend to the truck, it is only a matter of time before they deactivate the detonator. That same deactivation causes the gas to cease its spread, and its clear that while the Goblin's toxins are potent they do not last long after exposure. It doesn't take long for the world to return to 'real', the Brood become frightened civilians, the Deathgoblin Overlord of the Shi'ar becomes a partly-broken man in a weird goblin suit.

"AHHHHHH-HAHAHAHAAAAAA! *kaff* *kaff* ..."

As Silk strikes him, the Goblin tumbles from his glider once again. His arm hangs in a bizarre way that suggests not all tendons and muscle are connected as they should be. But still he laughs, plummeting through the air. He hits the top of a car with a loud thud that caves in the roof before he rolls to the side and lands in the asphalt.

"*kaff* ... you thinkyou're *kaff* the one who defeats me? Nobody defeats me! Not striplings such as you!"

Back on his feet again, the Goblin looks around with a vicious and predatory glare. He reaches into his satchel once more, producing a pair of pumpkin bombs which he holds in one hand. One is already hissing as it releases an acrid black smoke, the kind that numbs the spider-sense and obscures the vision. He steps backwards into it, his luminous yellow eyes the last thing of him that's visible.

Then ... *tink* *tink* *tink* ... the last pumpkin bomb. It rolls across the asphalt, rolling to a stop next to the car Kaine and Cindy are perched on. A parting gift from their new, green friend!

Cindy Moon has posed:
Cindy's maks is still hanging around her neck, face sweating, hair sticking to the sides of her cheeks... both arms clutching at her abdomen. She peers at the wound and is grateful that her intestines aren't spilling out, at least... but there's still a pretty wicked wound in her abdomen. Then Kaine is there. The unknown spider... she peers at him and moves her arms so he can apply bandaging webs. It at least stops the bleeding...

Like all of the spiders, she heals quickly. Which isn't to say she's already on the mend because that's not the case.. It just means she's moving.. If slowly.. when Goblin hurls a bomb down at them. She rolls off the other side of the caved in roof and drops down painfully onto the sidewalk, curling up to protect her head and face from the incoming explosion that will, hopefully, be absorded by the vehicle she'd just been atop of.

Rhona Lauren has posed:
Rhona was shielded by her lovely little discs from the gas enough for it not to take hold of her mind, as she made her way around the vehicle. Planting a good ten discs in the air around the van before she ends up back around.

"Okay, I think that should---"

The two women are out on the pavement now, a weird star trek gun laying beside them.

"Oh come on." The girl says, her hands going to her hips before finally her eyes raise up to the Goblin trying to flee.

Gun snatched. The teen spins around, raises it up and fires it at him to try and hit him before he can make his dramatic exit from the scene where he caused all this chaos!

Where did she get all this confidence from all of the sudden?

She's had THREE self defense classes from Wolverine under her belt, that's where! THREE!

Kaine Parker has posed:
Per the usual for anyone of the spider-gang, his spider sense announces the arrival of the pumpkin bomb. His little bit of prep works in his favor. Tossing the wrenched car door onto the sphere of doom, he unleashes all the webbing his can muster to reinforce the metal and cocoon the demolition device.

He then rolls over the car to Silk's side and braces against the wreck.

There's a loud THUMP as the bomb explodes. The cocoon of webbing balloons outward but fortunately the majority of the explosive force is directed down into the street. What radiates outwards rocks the car braced by Kaine.

In the end, he's not much worse for wear except for a few cuts and slashes from glass debris.

Assuming the first responders aren't far behind, he draws an arm around the other spider and web slings both of them onto a nearby roof.

"New York for you. Not short on spiders, or lunatics. If you are like me, I think you'll be okay in a few days." He comments to Silk while looking over the edge of the building for pursuing Goblins. "Nice hit by the way."

Tabitha Smith has posed:
So things seem to be calming down and most of the gas was inhaled by the women in the van. Tabitha knows there's ways to unbrood someone if it's too late. Maybe there's still time.

Of course then as Tabby is being like responsible adult and making sure Rhona and her friends from school are safe and having to call home there's a zapping gun shot sound.

It's very hard to sneak up on a telepath. But Tabitha is tripping balls, hearing a lot of random psychic noise that she's struggling to filter out as it is. Some things get missed. Like the possibility that Darcy isn't looking at the backside of what is actually an over curved and somehow underfed looking blonde woman in biker jacket and skin tight jeans, but possibly a brood monster skeezoid in the tatters of such clothing. Their hallucinating Darcy could see, all kinds of stuff.

The icer shot hits the back of her head and Tabby is mid word when she gets hit. "Hank should be like able t...." that's when she falls from the back of the van, face, or well chest first onto the asphalt of the side of the road where the van was parked.

It was totally clearly a mercy kill.

The hangover is going to suck when she wakes up.