15974/9:01 Eastbound Run

9:01 Eastbound Run
Date of Scene:	28 September 2023
Location:	Financial District
Synopsis:	A night-mare and Rider escape into New York, where the excitement comes to a swift if safe end.
Cast of Characters:	Miguel O'Hara, Phoebe Beacon, Caleb Dykstra, Illyana Rasputina

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Miguel O'Hara has posed:
Holy SHOCK, it's weird to be legal!

Miguel finds himself glancing at the cards (well, images of the cards) every time he lands on a roof, or a wall, or a flagpole. Photo ID...debit card...subway pass...
Well, he might never ride the subway again, but it's still cool to have!
For weeks, he'd been walking around (when he wasn't webslinging) worried that he might be picked up as an illegal immigrant. He had gone through most of the cassh (being "undocumented" was VERY expensive and the choices were limited). Now...he could rent an APARTMENT...

These seem like tiny dreams, but for Cyber-Spider/Miguel O'Hara, they were as big as Nueva...sorry, NEW York.
"Keep an eye on the surroundings, big guy."
"Sorry, Lyla..."
Cyber-Spider nodded. "Right, Lyla." He looked down again, listening to his Spider-Sense...

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    This wasn't part of her usual beat. In fact, most of New York has been weird for her last couple times she's been out this way, but Phoebe -- tonight in her Balm guise - was perching in shadows, watching the crowds as they milled by this late at night. She was quietly taking in the nightlife, the very different vibe from Gotham City, and the gray-clad heroine perches at the side of a building, turning nd watching as Cyber-Spider swings onto the block.

    She gives a slight smile, blue optics watching before she hops to her feet to stretch her arms up to the sky.

    "Quiet night." she states to no one in particular, which is an excellent spell for trouble to show up.

Caleb Dykstra has posed:
Heroes are up there, while the common folk are down on the ground. Caleb is walking along the street, accompanied by his kid sister and his father. They seem happy as they talk, laughing and smiling - more than usual, that is -, which is something quite unusual, given the family's history.

"You know, Caleb, I remember when you were born, seeing you wrapped up in a blanket... your mother was smiling more than the Cheshire Cat."

"Aw, come on dad...", he chuckles.

Sheila walks a few steps away, in fact skipping happily and then turning towards the two men talking, listening. "Hey, you get to be twenty today! You need to listen to this mushy talk!"

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Nueva York, New York, Novjorko, Novum Eboracum.

The name may change but the spirit beneath remains the same. Hectic energy fed through underground railroad tracks and steam tunnels feeds up into the cloud-scraping towers, burning bright into a drizzly evening. Neon signs proclaiming major companies buzz dully to attract attention, adding to the incandescent blaze leaking out from the bank and stock exchange windows. Suits not dedicated to the Asian desk congregate in their sky-high drinking dens or the overpriced penthouses peering down on lesser souls.

Common serfs discharged out of a station bumble up into the thinly populated sidewalks. Black umbrellas popping open offer anonymity, making everyone equal. Pedestrians scatter at a brisk pace or a trudge along, breaking the calm of reflective puddles. Another blonde pedestrian runs through them, heavy boots sending up a splash.

Doormen, deliveryfolk, and janitors move like ghosts a few yards behind their glass prison. Spider senses likely prickle. The woman dropping off a parcel at the front desk in that financial tower lags a second. The man buffing the floor on the mezzanine stalls as he turns the machine.

Then the sedan comes flying out from an alley adjacent to the financial tower. Steel glides over the battered concrete. Wheels spin, useless, gripping nothing but exhaust belched from the sewers. The car keeps rolling and its path barrels right for all those humans. The hood crunches like snapping bone when it first hits the road and keeps going.

Miguel O'Hara has posed:
"Miguel! That car-"
"I know, Lyla, I know!" Cyber-Spider is already jumping into action, firing a webline as his planned path shifts to an intercept course for the car. Big machine, but he isn't in a position to web the wheels or stuff the exhaust with the heavy-duty webbing...

...but he is not wasting any time GETTING into position as the rain comes down, drenching the suit but not the man under it.

Time to WORK...

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Time to Work! The break was broken as her domino alerted her to the car careening out of the alleyway.

    Breathing out, Balm decends, leaping off the building and swan-diving towards the pavement, turning over as pink-gold wings made of glass errupt from her back, slowing her descent as she spots the blue and red of a Spider heading for the front of the car -- she goes for the back.

    she lands in the wake of the vehicle, and brings her hands up, eyes narrowed as she prepares her shield, the lazily spinnign eight-pointed octogram surrounded by heiroglyphs lighting up the manhattan street to stop a reversal from the Spider.

Caleb Dykstra has posed:
"Yeah, I guess I do - this one time, at least..."

Caleb's ears perk up as he starts to hear a car speeding, getting very close to the station where people move to and from - the same subway station they would soon go inside.

"No way..." He looks at his dad, "You hear what I'm hearing...?"

And instinctively, he goes for Sheila, to pull her away from the increasing commotion...

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Screams and thin frightened cries grow louder as time accelerates back to the norm. A businessman standing there with his mouth hanging open is a liability for the blonde and she hauls him by the arm roughly to the side. Not out of the goodness of her heart, mind. Illyana merely needs to get past, baring her teeth to suppress the Russian curse.

First kisses staved in the vehicle's hood. A second kiss punches in the door. Metallic scrapes create a loud, high pitched squall as if the situation were not chaotic enough.

The black sedan isn't slowing down when it tumbles across the street. Paint smeared along the much repaired pavement leaves an ugly streaked arrow Balm and Cyber-Spider can spot, aimed for the subway entrance. Interposing anything means moving fast. Some people still climbing the stairs turn tail and run back down fast as they can.

Flimsy bollards used to designate a loading zone get punched aside like plastic pins before a vibranium bowling ball. Hitting a stationary object will produce a lot of force. Even reinforced physiques won't like that weirdly tempered steel or the hidden weight in the trunk. One that happens to be beating something rhythmically against the locked cover, if anyone can hear it. Or being thrown bodily against it. Is there a difference yet?

Miguel O'Hara has posed:
Cyber-Spider crafts a plan. It's not a great plan, but a not-great plan is better than a great plan fifty CASUALTIES later.

The first three weblines impact the car at bumper, side-panel, and rear-left wheel-well. These are attached to two weblines now attached to a stone monolith across the street, and attached with all the adhesive he can manage.

In three seconds, he'll find out how close to great this plan got.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    There is a lot of weight and gusto to that vehicle -- and, Phoebe can sense, a LOT of Bad Energy. HEr head tilts. She feels the buzzing of more magical signatures in the area, and then she attempts to synch to Cyber-Spider's communications array -- hey, not their first rodeo together, but still a very small amount of rodeos!

    <<Cyber-Spider, good to see you again, see if you can hold onto that car!>>

    She breathes out. It's not often that she's contending with cursed cars and hellish steel frames, but this is also not her first rodeo with that either. Unfortunately it doesn't seem like the casualty from this round is going to be pink hair.

    "Sentio in ferro maledictionem saeculorum - vim eius removere et captivitatis vehiculum purga!" she calls out, releasing a burst of brilliant, warm white light as she concentrates, trying to hit the car itself with a very plain and obvious burst of The Light.

Caleb Dykstra has posed:
"LOOK OUT!", Caleb shouts as he pulls both sister and dad away from the path of the car. The shout is meant not just for them, but the people in their path.

He too devises a plan - albeit not a very legal one: if he could pull out something from under his coat - a knife, a gun -, he could perhaps blow a tire or two, slowing the car down or halt it altogether.

Pushing and keeping his family behind him, he pulls out a gun (a habit from his days back in Gotham) and aims for the tires...

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Spider-silk, synthetic or real, anchors to the car's shiny black finish and starts countering the forward momentum. The web lines twist and tangle up as the vehicle rolls and bucks. Smoke and foul dust spill into the street in a nasty miasma that lightly obscures vision beyond thirty feet or so, though the stench resembles week old gym socks roasted on a fire with turned emu eggs and rotting leather. At least one fleeing bystander halts to empty the contents of their stomach onto the pavement and their own shoes.

Illyana is not one of them. She hisses through her clenched teeth, rocking to a halt. "A complication. You have pushed far enough." For all the world, she's speaking to the whey-faced businessman or a bollard crashing down, knocked aside before it can hit her in the head. The bollard, not the man.

A body materializes out of the trunk -- well, an equin-ish hindend, but who is taking photos? They'll have nightmares for day seeing that unwelcome sight. They sail in Caleb's family's general direction. But with none of the elegance of the car. Road rash and shouting may be involved.

Webbing holds fast and pulls the vehicle screeching backwards. Rubber tires cushion another roll and its roof hits the ground again, adding another significant dent. The frame shakes, twisting and elongated doors and quarter-panels merging into a ferocious limb being shaken madly. Headlights glare in a horrible skull-like grill, steel protrusions curled like horns. And ribs. And elbow spikes, because a bestial car-demon needs elbow spikes. Fender-reinforced digits pulverize cracked concrete, gouging deep furrows. <<You promised me a joyride!>> it shrieks in whatever the listener's native language is. <<Liar! Poxed fool!>>

Miguel O'Hara has posed:
YES!
For a moment, all he can see is the stopped vehicle, seeming to writhe. The trunk...ah, shock, that's an image he's not going to get out of his head the next time he visits the Little Hero's Room...

...and then the vehicle becomes some kind of monster. The hate child of CHRISTINE and MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE.

Well, he has no weapons. He's not armed with anything that can hurt that thing.
But there is one thing he CAN do.

The car-demon's grinding voice is suddenly halted as it gets a mouthful of the strongest webbing Miguel can muster - the 24-hour stuff. And a for tensile strength, he might as well be filling the demon's mouth with high-tenstion carbon steel cables.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "... oh hey that--" Balm begins, and then she's cut off by vomit to the side of her. The smell is only describable in languages more gutteral and brutal than English. She feels her own stomach heave, and then she breathes out, her eyes watering even behind the lenses as she brings her left hand up.

    A good thirty mile per hour wind rips through the area, ruffling cloth, stealing unbrelllas and driving the rain, her hood rustling around her -- and also HOPEFULLY dispensing of that miasma as she tries to clear the air.

    "WHO promised you a joyride?" she asks, glancing over to the blonde Magik and then back to the demon.

Caleb Dykstra has posed:
Okay, for Caleb's mind this is... Absolutely out there! A car has turned into a demon, basically a la Transformers style!

"Okay, seriously... What the hell?", he says.

"W-What is that...?", Sheila asks.

"Don't get any closer", the older Dykstra says. "That thing is wild!"

And naturally, Caleb was not about to get any closer. But, he's curious as to what that thing is, so he's not inclined to leave just yet...

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
The demonic beast no longer voices its complaint to the wider city, but instead makes a muffled squealing grind suspiciously like seized pistons and burning tires. Its free legs dig into the ground and it rips whatever webbing it can from the ground in an effort to get away from Miguel's happy creations. Long digits haul up a chunk of New York's finest 70s pavement and huck the boulder at the body that evacuated its trunk not so long ago. Throwing into the stiff wind generated from somewhere probably would have been better considered without the tacky goo hardening around its bio-metal and organic body. Sharp plates might eventually cut through spider-work.

Another grumble issues out from its throat. Revving, if you will.

The 'body' slumps on the ground after coming to a stop. Then they drunkenly lift their head to show a swollen face, bruised black eyes blinking at the Dykstras. "He--." A wheezy noise settles on a word. "Heeeelp." Working their thick tongue into a normal word takes another try. Then, for good measure, they add, "Wasn't me."

Illyana shifts from the curb, wisely keeping her fists at her sides. Now her hair is a messy wash of blonde locks that swiftly fall back into place. "I wonder. Someone set a night-mare free. Not easy to bring them here."

Miguel O'Hara has posed:
The boulder gets close to the guy.
But then again, close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades and dragonfire.
Two weblines shoot out to tag the boulder, then it is yanked hard by Cyber-Spider. It does not spring back like a tetherball, but stops in its flight path and thuds solidly on the ground ten feet short of its intended target.

Cy-Spy lets go and turns to the demon Murder-cury and glares at it.

"Whatever you're chippin', no one wants any."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Balm tilts her head a moment before she looks to Illyana, and then back to the creature as she manifests her staff. Her dark eyes narrow, the lenses showing as thinner blue streaks on her domino to share her wonderment at their predicament.

    "First time I've seen one merged with a car." she states to Illya, and she gives her staff a turn. "You doing to try and send it to your place ooooor should I start carving a banishing circle into the pavement? Last nightmare I faced required a 'think happy thoughts' approach and a holy fist to the forelock and mouth."

Caleb Dykstra has posed:
"Is it over?", Caleb asks, approaching. "What's this about a nightmare, now?"

Sheila doesn't approach, much as she might want to - the father of the Dykstra trio is making sure of that.

And Caleb realizes... "The metro station... It's right below us!" In his mind, it's almost like he can see a strike coming; either that, or a lot of panicking people are gonna start pouring out the exit.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Pedestrians have largely glued themselves to the far sides of the street to avoid being flattened by a car. Now the car is turned into an actual webbed monster, most take the smart route and flee. New Yorkers are like Gothamites; they get out of the way fast. Caleb is right that another train might be along in ten minutes to disgorge more passengers unaware of the demon upstairs.

The night-mare in its vehicular host glares balefully through overbright eyes at Cyber-Spider. He even gets the high-beam treatment before it stamps the ground for good measure. Tossing its head does not relieve the spiderwebs in its mouth and it proves far too intelligent to try and rip them out. Balm's purging spell or perhaps the presence of one Hell-Lord nearby halts it from attempting anything more overtly stupid. Suppressed displays of displeasure turn into a loud revving squeal again; clearly someone isn't about being banished.

"Be quiet. Whatever deal you were promised is over. Your Rider, though..." Illyana trails off, gesturing for Balm to continue. She may be looking around but the blonde isn't paying attention to the cleaners or distant moan of sirens. The precinct isn't too far away.

Meanwhile the battered person riding in the trunk gets their legs under them without much help. And they don't hesitate, they stagger into an ungainly run off into the night.

Say a corgi got on two legs, and took lessons from a seagull on how to sprint. It's about the same effect. A speedy galumph into the darkness if they have any say!

Miguel O'Hara has posed:
Miguel looks to the car-demon, hoping HIS warranty expires soon. Then he looks to the person who is limp-running away, and frowns.
"...Oh NO. You DON'T."
He starts after the person who hardcoded his night. He wanted INFORMATION.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Caleb, why are you *always* at the scene of trouble?" Balm asks incredulously as Caleb makes his approach, breathing out as she looks to Illyana and gives a small nod.

    If there's one thing she's gotten really good at on her own supernatural capers in Gotham, it's a good ol' fashioned circle.

    Also the Spirit of Gotham had a very strange sense of humor.

    Balm spreads her hands out, circles appearing on the back of her gloves as she focuses on the poor nightmare that's been caught up in someone's very poor excuse for a joyride.

    She breathes out, and the rose-gold cords of her magic encircle her and the beast as she steps forward, the eight-pointed star and heiroglyphics appearing on the street below them as she winds and wends her way around the beastie.

    "It's time to go home." she warns, though her voice was gentle and warm and echoing -- before the circle flashes brilliantly as she dismisses the poor night-mare, drawing it down and into the circle like a Ghostbusters trap.

Caleb Dykstra has posed:
Now that the dust is settling some, and Balm adresses him, Caleb simply shrugs. "I dunno. It's like me and mine are laser-sighted for trouble." He looks at his family, and back to Balm, he shrugs. "Even in my birthday, I can't seem to catch a break."

He takes a deep breath, "Is that a mutant power, to have trouble always finding me, no matter how much I try to stay away from it?" He points out, "A while back, when we were passing through Mutant Town, me and Sheila were accused of being mutants because we were avoiding a crowd of pro-cure protesters, and all we wanted was to stay away from trouble."

He clears his throat, "But anyways. Now that the rest of the night's got trampled and stampeded by an octane-powered iron horse, I'll take my leave before the illegal racings start." He starts to move away, spinning back on his feet just to drop that pun, "It's just too much horse power for one night."

That might be one for the pun jar...