1944/Over Her Head

Over Her Head
Date of Scene:	02 June 2020
Location:	Back Alley, Manhattan
Synopsis:	Gwen finds herself over her head, and gets help from the most unexpected of heroes.
Cast of Characters:	Gwen Stacy, J'onn J'onzz

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Gwen Stacy has posed:
It's a beautiful night in the city, and Ghost Spider has been hopping from rooftop to rooftop, watching the streets below. For the most part, they've been quiet. But she knows that, at any given moment, that could change. She is suited up, and crouched on the edge of the rooftop, and she yawns with an idle shiver.

J'onn J'onzz has posed:
The night is, indeed, calm and peaceful, and the streets in the neighbourhood are pretty much empty, except for a black van travelling, at moderate speed, on a sideroad.
Into the driving cabin, three people are sitting, the two that are not driving alternating between yawning and glancing at the street illuminated by the front lights of the vehicle.
"are we there yet?" "it's round the corner, we're almost there..." "you said it twenty minutes ago" "because you never stop complaining!"
And then the night silence is interrupted by two loud gunshots, the popping of tires, the sound of metal slamming against the side of a building. Screams, and broken glass.
Almost below ghost Spider, the vehicle is almost on its side, surrounded by men wearing sky masks, dressed all in tactical black gear, and wielding automatic weapons, all pointed at the back doors of the van.

Gwen Stacy has posed:
Gwen rises, about to move to a different rooftop, when she spies the van. She is still determined to move on. Nothing looks suspicious here. But there's something in her spider sense that is nagging at her. Something feels...wrong. She pivots again, and she fires off a web, plunging into a swing to follow that van.

J'onn J'onzz has posed:
One of the men in sky mask approaches the back doors of the van, holding a pistol in his right hand whilst the left moves to open the doors. Except there's no need for that, cause they open on their own, and the man is welcomed by the barrel of a rifle, and then thrown back by three bullets in his chest. From the van, a group of four men emerge, all wielding rifles, using the doors of the van itself which must be bulletproof as cover, and so it is that Gwen is welcomed by a full exchange of bullets between men in sky masks, who're obviously trying to get to the van, and men wearing simple clothes yet armed with rifles, who're holding them at bay with precise shots. Which is a bit of a stall situation, though.

Gwen Stacy has posed:
Ghost Spider silently comes to rest on the side of a building, high above the van. She is frozen there. Everyone involved is heavily armed, and the situation is already tense. Swinging in now would only put her into danger on both sides of the skirmish. She takes a deep breath and looks around the area, trying to find a place, or a plan of action, that might be to her advantage. There has to be a way. There's ALWAYS a way. If only she can just find it.

J'onn J'onzz has posed:
The group of attackers is formed of seven men, placed around the van behind various covers. Two are using a car as cover, one is behind a low wall, one behind a trashcan and two are just using the corner of the nearby building. Meanwile the four in the van are alternating, while two shoot from behind the van doors, the other two reload, then they switch places. And that means the attackers are keeping the men pinned in the van, and the men in the van are keeping the attackers pinned. Technically the attackers, who're spread in a semicircle of sort, could be circled, but that'd put the brave person trying that in danger of being hit by a stray bullet. Alternatively, the environment offers various anchoring points, both stable, and mobile.

Gwen Stacy has posed:
Ghost Spider surveys the scene, and she decides on how to take out the attackers. One bite at a time, just like eating an elephant. Right? She can't even remember where she heard that phrase, but it seems relevant now, anyway.

Ghost Spider leaps high over the attackers to land on a wall on the other side, and she shoots a Web down at the guy behind the low wall in order to steal him from his spot. The moment the web makes contact, she jerks him straight up into the air to Web him up and toss him up onto the roof.

J'onn J'onzz has posed:
The guy is easily webbed, and pulled upwards on the roof... Though, now, out of the six men still shooting on the van, two turn their sight, and their weapons, towards Gwen! Who has, coming her way, a serie of bullets which are making up in number what they may lack in precision. On the bright side, those weapons will need to be reloaded at some point. Though, the girl still risks being pinned herself.

Gwen Stacy has posed:
Gwen tries for another of the attackers, but the gunfire is a little too heavy for her to move from the rooftop. She throws out a couple of webs toward the guy behind the trash can, but she can't find a break yet, to make her move. As she tries again, a bullet grazes her arm, and she ducks down quickly, flat on the roof. She clearly should have called for backup.

J'onn J'onzz has posed:
Bullets, are not an infinite resource, it seems. As stated by the loud click coming from one of the attackers rifles, followed by the "out of ammo!" shout. In the van, though, they seem to be having the same problem since of the four men, only three are shooting, and with just a single bullet everytime they see a vulnerable target instead of the full barrage they started with. While on one side it could provide a source of hope, on the other side it's still dangerous, since now at least two men are keeping Gwen's rooftop aimed in their rifle sights, which means, getting out of there may be complicated, to say the least.

Gwen Stacy has posed:
Gwen is torn between getting to safety, and getting to the bottom of this battle. As the guns trained on her rooftop continue to keep her down, she tries to peer down over the edge between shots. "DUDES!" she shouts. "I don't even know what the situation is here!!" Then she ducks down and hides from more incoming bullets as she tries to formulate a plan.

J'onn J'onzz has posed:
The answer comes in the form of a brief pause, followed by a burst of fire aimed at her. That, at least, gives the men in the van the possibility to score a hit, and indeed, one of the two men firing towards Gwen falls down screaming with blood on his shoulder. And that's when the men in the van decide to risk it all, and step outside, firing left and right at their aggressors.
Only to be all riddled with bullets, so, not such a smart choice. The guys in the sky masks, seem to have gained their victory. But now, they're all focused on Gwen, and that means that she traded two rifles firing at her, for five.

Gwen Stacy has posed:
Pain or not, it is time to make a move. Gen looks around her, but at this point there is no help, and no time to call for it. She leaps to her feet and performs a series of acrobatic feats, flipping and spinning and somersaulting through the air to get farther away and under the cover of the edge of the roof. "Anyone in the vicinity," Ghost Spider calls out on the police channel of her comm, "there are five armed men, and a few down already. One cape on the scene, but I'm overwhelmed and outnumbered. Staying in the vicinity to assist if needed." She gives the address and moves back to wait and watch.

J'onn J'onzz has posed:
J'onn J'onzz is listening to the police channels, and happens to be relatively close. And even if he knows humans can probably handle the situation just fine, there's not really anything stopping him from helping, right? So he shifts into the large, green form of the martian manhunter and speeds towards the scene.
Meanwile, the men are still firing towards Gwen, even if her acrobatic maneuvering makes it difficult to actually pin her down. But fortunately things are about to change, and quickly. Infact, all five weapons stop firing, all at once, and all five weapons fall to the floor with a metallic clatter as the men wielding them are projected backwards by an invisible force. All of them, hit by a low intensity mental assault, fall to the ground, unconscious, and J'onn becomes visible, just close to the Van that he straightens effortlessly with his right large green hand.

Gwen Stacy has posed:
"Holy what the..." Gwen is floored by what just happened. She creeps farther along the roof until she can peer over at the massive green man below.

"Dude...did you just...I mean...did you totally neutralize that situation in like 6 seconds?!"

J'onn J'onzz has posed:
"technically, it was sixteen seconds and half, from your call..." J'onn replies, and the police sirens start to make themselves heard, while J'onn floats upwards to join Gwen on the roof. "are you injured?" ie asks, looking at her with his alien eyes.

Gwen Stacy has posed:
Ghost Spider blinks behind those wide lenses, and looks down at her shoulder. "Just a graze. It'll heal fast..." She had all but forgotten it.

"How did you DO that?" She seems unfazed by the large green man's appearance, but blown away by his abilities. "I need to learn THAT trick."

J'onn J'onzz has posed:
"overloading their brains" J'onn replies, imagining that was what she was referring about. Inspite of what she says, he still looks at the graze that she mentioned, nodding when realizing it isn't at least, a life threatening wound. "police will be here shortly, and this is your case, miss... Though, judging by what was in the mind of the men that were trying to fill you with lead, this has been basically a very very bad and low attempt at industrial espionage... A pharmaceutical company trying to secretly move the recipe for something from point a to point b on a nameless van, information being leached out somehow, and those men being sent to retrieve the recipe which, now..." he glances down at the van "which now is in a suitcase inside the van, protected by the last survivor of the quartet that was in there. Which is armed with a gun, out of bullets. That man is scared to death but, legally, in the right." he explains

Gwen Stacy has posed:
"That information is something the police need, isn't it? I don't have any way to prove it. But you do, right? Do the police know you can do this?" Ghost Spider is peering down at the van, shifting her weight on her feet nervously. "Poor guy..."

J'onn J'onzz has posed:
J'onn J'onzz nods slowly "I am not unknown to the police..." or to the rest of the world, the martian manhunter is not exactly an unknown! True, in southern europe he's probably what superman is for the US, but still! "I have communicated the relevant info to the police officer who is coming here" task achieved by telepathy, apparently. "though, I am afraid I will have to leave soon. Is there anything else I can do for you before leaving.. Ghost spider?"

Gwen Stacy has posed:
Ghost Spider turns to study Martian Manhunter for a long moment, and she shakes her head slowly. "I mean...Thank you, for helping me. Thank you for..." She gestures toward the men below. "Where are you going to now?" As if it's any of her business. "I want to...uhm...." She wants to know more about the hulking figure and the mind within him. But she can't seem to put that into words.

J'onn J'onzz has posed:
The expression appearing on J'onn's face, may be the attempt of a smile on a face who is not made to smile. Though his voice, when he replies, is kind as well as gentle is the hand that he places lightly on Ghost Spider's right shoulder "you are welcome" he starts, answering then to her question "I am going to greece, where there is some matters I must attend to..." and the benefits of reading minds, or in this case surface thoughts, is that words are not always needed! That is, then, why he adds "but we will have surely occasions to meet again and talk more, if you so desire. A future appointment, that hopefully won't happen on a rooftop whilst police is coming to clear the resoults of a firefight."
With the same gentleness which contrasts so much with the large imposing figure of the alien, he removes his hand from the woman's shoulder, and floats upwards towards the sky, slowly but steadily gaining altitude until he's just a dot, and then invisible, moment in which he just accelerates, aiming to the preannounced destination. There's a martian artifact hidden under an ancient temple, to be found before the archeologists!

Gwen Stacy has posed:
Gwen is left watching the Martian go. She shakes her head as he disappears from sight, and she looks back at the lights of the police vehicles arriving. "Time to go!" she murmurs to herself, and with that she takes to the weblines that will carry her home.