15575/The Darkness in Harlem

The Darkness in Harlem
Date of Scene:	08 August 2023
Location:	Somewhere in Harlem
Synopsis:	While out on patrol in Harlem, Silk follows her heightened Silk-Sense sense to a sudden outburst of gunfire, an explosion, and Jackie Estacado being blown out of a building. Unfortunately, she gets more than she bargained for, when she tries to arrest him.
Cast of Characters:	Cindy Moon, Jackie Estacado

---

Cindy Moon has posed:
Epic introduction music begins to play, along with a montage of a young Korean-American girl on a field trip to Oscorp. The boy beside her gets bitten by a spider and shakes it off. It lands on Cindy's foot, bites her, too, and then scurries off to die...

"Alright people, let's start at the beginning. My name is Cindy Moon, and for the last five years, I've been the one and only... Silk."

The montage shifts, showing that same girl covered in a pure white, skin-tight suit that appears to be made of... webbing? Instead of the traditional Spider-Man style mask, her mask only covers the lower half of her face, though. She *thwips* between buildings, looking like some kind of sexualized mummy.

"I was bitten by the same radioactive spider that chomped on my classmate, Peter Parker, but you might know him as the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, and I got powers, too! Just not the /same/ powers..."

Smash-cut to a training montage with Ezekiel Sims.

"It took me a while to get used to them all. Like my Silk-Sense? It's off the /charts/. One time, I showed up to 'rescue' a girl that had just gotten dumped in public by her boyfriend. Total egg on my face. Bright side of things, I guess I seemed to cheer her up a little..."

There's another cut to Cindy and Peter together, some pretty epic explanation points over their head when they're looking at each other in a position that's /far/ too close for 'just friends.' Then it switches to Peter bailing and Cindy looking... embarrassed.

"...even though my own relationship skills aren't really, um... existent."

Then there's a clip of Cindy in professional attire, pushing a cart down the hallway.

"I dropped out of high school while I was training, but I still got a job as an intern at the Daily Planet. So, I've mostly stuck around Metropolis until something unexpected happened..."

The Triskelion. Cindy standing in front of a uniformed SHIELD agent, taking some kind of oath. And then, flash to the present. Cindy, in her new costume (black arms and legs, a white, webbed chest, and a red buff covering the lower half of her face), swinging through Harlem.

"I'm trying to find my place. But now? I don't really know what to expect... so I just keep doing the only thing I really know how to do, and that's follow my Silk-Sense. And right now? It's leading me here... I wonder why..."

*THWIP*

Jackie Estacado has posed:
'Why' she asks? At the end of the day that may be hard to figure out very clearly in its entirety - several things happen rather suddenly as the night time relative 'peace' of Harlem is shattered by the sudden sounds of a _lot_ of gunfire. A lot of very heavy caliber gunfire for those that know the sounds, firing far too quickly to be vaguely legal semi automatic weapons. Bullets come zipping out of a window, and the walls around it, of the tenth floor of the building just ahead of Silk on her path through the city. Glass shatters and starts to fall towards the street.. and then there's a sudden bright flash.

BOOOOOOM

That wasn't gunfire.

That was most certainly an explosive.

And _That_ is most certainly a _man_ having been apparently blown out the side of the building where that gunfire was coming from, though his form is oddly extra 'dark', the shadows of the night seeming to cling to him with a bit more tenancy than seems just 'right'.

A voice is heard, then, as the figure falls towards the street below, accompanied by more than a few good sized chunks of brick and cinderblock from the wall he came through.

"Well _that_ was clearly a #@&*@#*!!# trap."

There are people below, all of them looking up now, watching the unscheduled fireworks from ten stories below, and likely given their flash blindedness and how dark it is - entirely unaware of the extra debris falling towards the street with the dark figure that seems oddly unconcerned with his impending date with the street below.

Cindy Moon has posed:
You know what, Silk-Sense? Sometimes, you go off at the /weirdest/ times, but when you're right, you're right...

*Chnk-Chnk-Chnk-Chnk-Chnk-Chnk-Chnk-Chnk-Chnk*

Spiders were always fast, but with the benefit of Cindy's amplified senses, sometimes it literally looked like something out of the Matrix. Like, the camera literally had to film her in slow motion for the audience to fully appreciate the way her aerial dance carried her in a forward, twisting spin through a hail of high-caliber bullets. It's elegant in its simplicity, the way she weaves between them and almost seemed to watch them on her way past.

"Hey guys! I don't know if you know this, but your building's sprung a--"

She's barely clear, shooting another line with a *thwip* to swing herself lower when...

*BOOM*

Swinging right underneath the explosion, Cindy spins and turns to watch the flying debris, including one very odd man who might have been unconscious in his apathy if it weren't for the fact that he definitely wasn't. Not something you see every day, but also, she didn't need Silk-Sense (or even Spider-Sense) to know something was up with /that/.

The people, though. Why did they always just stand there like cattle, waiting for their demise? Maybe it was just because she could perceive so much, but COME ON PEOPLE.

"MOVE!" Probably, no one could hear her between the distance and the ringing in their ears from the explosion.

Ugh.

Luckily, explosions generally went up or at least out before the the stuff went straight down, so, she had a couple of seconds. Her specialty was /big/ webs, so that's her go-to move in this situation. Both of her arms stretch out, fingers spread wide, and webs go /everywhere/, splitting and forking along their lengths as they go to create a wide network of springy, durable fibers.

She lands on the sidewalk among the gathered SHEEPLE (COWPLE?), touching down gracefully, webs still streaming from her fingertips to thicken and reinforce the webbing above them and where the biggest chucks of debris (including Jackie) were going to land.

Yes, even Jackie gets a soft (albeit slightly sticky) place to land. Even if he didn't need it.

Jackie Estacado has posed:
Twisting like a cat, or is it maybe a bat in midair - he really shouldn't have the leverage to move the way he does, Jackie - aka The Darkness - spins around and upward so that his hands, which are suddenly both holding a pair of dark black pistols, are pointing right back up to the hole in the wall he so recently erupted from.

The sounds of suppressed gunshots from .45 caliber pistols go off in several distinct and discrete bursts: TAP-TAP-TAP, TAP-TAP-TAP, TAP-TAP-TAP. Three triple tap shots and three _more_ bodies, along with their clearly illegally modified automatic shotguns fall out of the opening on the tenth floor wall.

They don't scream. They fall very much like ragdolls.

He starts to turn again, as if finally realizing that the ground's going to be there any moment now, in preparation for .. Well, who knows - because what he _wasn't_ prepared for is all the webbing to end up below him.

Now that he's closer and Silk might have more time to concentrate on him, or perhaps it's that it's not _quite_ so dark around him, Jackie's wearing what appears to be a dark abyssal black plate armor with a dirty/darkened gold in a wire like ribbed wrapping connecting the plates. The armor seems to somehow mobile, shifting a bit as he moves, as if it were not at all as solid as it looks.. which explains how the mask that covers the lower half of his face that appears to be a single plate of metal moves when he speaks with an easy fluidity.

"What the @#$&@#1258 is this?!" He shouts, having fallen back first into the webbing and bounced up in an awkward sort of spin due to the equally awkward landing.

Bits of the building rain down around him, one good sized piece 'thunking' off his shoulder and knocking him backward once again - whatever his plan had been for landing it wasn't landing as 'quickly' as he has on this flexible bouncy spider-#$(*&@-web of doom.

Cindy Moon has posed:
The weird thing about consequences when you're a superhero is that you can't choose /not/ to save the bad guy. One, sometimes you don't know who the bad guy is (let's face it, to some people, Silk is a bad guy). Two, being a bad guy is hugely subjective and heroes aren't supposed to be judge and jury. Three...

As Silk stands there, webbing up the street above the sidewalk to try to keep the people underneath safe (and also give Jackie a soft spot to land), she watches the newly deceased bodies fall out of the newly opened hole in the side of the building.

Maybe they were the bad guys.

Maybe the guy that she just saved with the creepy shadows, weird armor, and penchant for killing people in mid-air while flying to his (presumed) doom was actually like... in the middle of saving an orphanage. In the middle of known gang territory. In Harlem.

There's screaming all around her. Car alarms are going off. There's the distant sound of horns and sirens. The bigger chunks hit the webbing and mostly stick, the texture of the webs keeping them from being simply spring-boarded somewhere else more dangerous. Silk dashes forward, grabbing a woman standing under a spot her web wasn't covering at the last second and yanking her out of the way...

...of one of the falling bodies. Which lands on the sidewalk with a sickening sound.

It's raining men. How delightful.

The scene is chaos, the street filling with the finer cloud of dust as it begins to settle, and Silk stretches her hand out, *thwipping* a web out so she can swing up ON TOP of the makeshift net that had caught Jackie, walking across it easily, even though he might have a more difficult time with his footing.

"It's me saving your life, you ungrateful jerk! What's your deal, tall, dark, and murderous? Are you one of the good guys or one of the bad guys? Because at this point, I'm tempted just to web you up here and leave you for the police..."

Yeah. She had no idea who he was. At all.

Jackie Estacado has posed:
There's a moment that gold eyes glance at Silk with an unreadable, almost alien, and certainly quite dangerous air about the man with the long dark hair and .. wait..wasn't that a 'half-mask' before? Weren't his eyes uncovered? What color.. well, the rest of his face up to his eyebrows is covered now in that same dark plate, with gold lenses that match the dark gold cabling of his armor covering his eyes.

"Saving? Me? " He asks as he eventually rolls up onto his feet and stands on the web - lifting a foot experimentally to see what the traction's like, and then glancing back up at the opening some eight plus stories up. "You're just getting in the way, girl. Be right back." Jackie says, before he uses the web like a giant damned trampoline, even if it isn't that 'bouncy' and gets ten feet or so into the air before he begins to 'run'/'bound' up a set of .. steps? that seem to form out of solidified darkness itself, making leaps of more than a story at a time on his way back up towards the opening he got blown out of without so much as a backward glance.

Of course it's about then that one _really_ big dude steps up to the opening and lifts a rocket launcher to his shoulder.

A rocket launcher.

A freakin' rocket launcher.

Jackie looks up, sees it, and just stops - standing on one of those ledges about fifteen feet away and 'down' from where the heavily tattooed man in gangster 'colors' aims the weapon at him.

"Umm.. you know..." Jackie starts to say as several things happen next:

The rocket flares as the RPG is fired at Jackie.

A small horde of small.. shadows appear out of the darkness around the 'dude' with the rocket launcher and pull him, kicking and screaming, into the darkness.

Jackie glances behind, and below him, as if looking for just the right way to escape the oncoming munition.

Cindy Moon has posed:
"Yes, you. You don't see anybody else falling out of buildings around here, do you?" Cindy pauses, holding up a finger to silence him. "Any people that you didn't already /shoot/."

Speaking of dude....

"I'm getting in the way of wha-- DUDE!" Silk's hands come up at her sides, palms up, red and black fingers curled and spread in utter dismay. "I'm /arresting/ you... you can't just bounce! What's wrong with you?!"

*THWIP*

He may have had invisible stairs, but Silk was /fast/ on a web line. She wasn't aiming for him, though. She was aiming to get ahead of him....

...at least until she saw the big guy with the freaking ROCKET LAUNCHER.

"Are you /serious/ right now?!"

Fortunately, Silk /had/ gotten ahead of Jackie. Also fortunately, she wasn't stupid enough to let the rocket actually hit her and hope for the best. Remember that whole bullet-time thing she does?

The rocket is only a few yards from its launcher, flames burning brightly, when she stretches her fingers out and snags the head of it in a web. Even as she does, she watches in slow-motion as the man that fired it gets pulled back into the darkness by... shadows.

"What the Eff?"

No time.

With a rocket attached to her web line, Silk yanks and spins in the air, swinging it around her and changing its course to straight UP into the air.

Talk about fireworks. If those sirens weren't on their way before, they sure are, now.

Silk's falling backwards, watching her handiwork and raising a hand to shield her eyes when the bombs go bursting in air in true patriotic fashion. The shockwave of it catches her by surprise, and instead of the casual fall she was expecting, she's suddenly propelled downwards, directly towards Jackie.

Jackie Estacado has posed:
"Boss! Boss! Floor's clear, that was the last of'm!."

"Can we go finish bingin' Melrose Place on Netflix?"

"What's for dinner? I'm _starved_...buuurrrrrp."

Voices can be heard in the darkness that's the cave like hole in the side fo the building, tiny voices, there's shadows moving around up there..

Sirens get closer, coming down the street from both directions along with the sounds of at least one helicopter in the distance.

"Dammit. Wasn't gonna have time to arm by the time it got here... and you had to send it up where it'd time out and blow up up _there_ like a god's blast it firework from hell." Jackie says, having not been even budged by the blast, his armor's feet having grown .. clamps? around the solidified darkness he's standing on.

The clamps let go and he 'allows' Silk to just crash into him, ok he turns to catch her, arms opening wide and black tentacles seem to flow out of the darkness around him.. them .. as he allows her momentum to start them on a trajectory towards the alley between the buildings, shrouding them in darkness that becomes total - leaving them to vanish into the dark from the perspective of any onlookers.

For Silks part, she's 'caged' in a darkness so complete she can't see _anything_ , no hint of light in any direction, no shadow - nothing at all as they 'fall'.

Her hands are gathered up behind her back, feet straightened out and manacled together by yet more ... of whatever's got her wrists...

*THUMP*

She's pinned hard and roughly against a brick wall, she can feel that with her hands, her fingers anyway and against her back. The darkness abates a bit, they're on the fifth or sixth story of a building in an alley, where she's been pinned against the wall by dark metal ... tenatacles.. cables...cable-tentacles? Jackie's standing right in front of her, too close, inches away, his hand on her chest just below her throat - pressing hard enough to make breathing difficult, but not impossible.

He looks at her for a long long moment and then... A small hand??!? reaches out from out of sight behind her left ear and tugs her mask down.

"No. You didn't save me, not either time. Thanks, though, for makin' sure no one on the ground got hurt. "

Cindy Moon has posed:
Silk's falling. Blinking. Trying to clear her head from the percussion of the blast. And then... oof.

She tucks just a little before the impact, reflexively guarding her vital organs. It makes her easier to catch. She half-expected to bounce off of him, but when he catches her instead, she looks up at him.

...And then blackness. Nothing. She couldn't see his face, her fingers, or even her nose. But there's still that sensation. Falling. Had she blacked out? Was she unconscious? Was she fainting? Whatever it was, it was vaguely terrifying.

"HEY!"

She suddenly thrashes, and it's with inhuman strength. The girl, whoever she was, could lift a car (albeit, maybe, a small car). But even still, she couldn't get away.

OOF. Again.

Not expecting the impact, Her head lulls back against the brick wall and she winces, blinking hard against the impact.

"What the hell, man?! What did I do to you?!"

The darkness withdraws some, and for a moment, Silk is breathing hard, her dark eyes sharp and livid as they sweep around herself, searching for what all was going on.. for a weak point. Her shoulders thrash, but that hand crushes against her chest, making her wheeze.

"Doc...Ock...wants his...costume...back..."

Because /that's/ what she does with the breath she can draw. Well, if there was any qustion about whether or not she was a Spider...

Her eyes widen when the small hand reaches around her neck from... WHERE THE HELL WAS IT COMING FROM?!.. and she tries to get away from it, but thankfully it only goes for her mask. Which was bad enough. She looks absolutely appalled by having her whole face exposed to him.

So, what does a Spider do when she's caught and faced with certain death at the hands of an absolutely terrifying foe?

"What's .... what's wrong... with you? Is this.. your first.. day?... You can't..." She closes her eyes for a moment, focusing on breathing, fighting the feeling of being light-headed so she can power through this completely irreverent diatribe before she dies. "...unmask.. your nemesis.. on the first... fight." She coughs, then. "That's like..." Yeah, there's more. "...a third.. or fourth... fight.. thing." Breathing. Breathing. "You're... going.. to lose.. readers."

Aaaaaand, now she's done.

There's the sound of a *THWIP* from behind her, where her wrists are bound (because the tips of her fingers are where the webs come out of), and then she /yanks/.

...And goes nowhere.

Though, thanks to the sudden way she yanked herself against his hand, she now coughed a couple more times.

"I was... just... doing my... job. Best... two out of three?"

She tries to manage a small smile, but there's a certain... acceptance in her eyes. She didn't fear death. Or him. Some /things/ were creepy as hell, but she knew what she was... who she was. And she sure as hell wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of begging, if that's what he wanted.