4263/Timing is Everything

Timing is Everything
Date of Scene:	01 December 2020
Location:	Karloff's Antique Emporium, Jersey City, New Jersey
Synopsis:	Miss Marvel and Spider-Man ruin the Clock King's timetable.
Cast of Characters:	Temple Fugate, Peter Parker, Kamala Khan

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Temple Fugate has posed:
Karloff's Antique Emporium was one of Jersey City's more well-known buildings. For over 50 years, this two-story store sold antiquities to the residents of the city, and was ran by the Karloff Family since it's grand opening. The store had recently acquired a set of antique clocks from a old German village in the Black Forest region of Germany. These clocks were handcrafted, intricately made, and were apparently worth a fortune, at least according to the Karloff Family. They were currently on display in the second floor of the store, behind bullet-proof glass, which most customers thought was excessive. They thought no thief in their right mind would be interested in stealing old wooden cuckoo clocks, how wrong they would turn out to be.

The sun was setting in Jersey City was Andrew Karloff and his adult son Adam were dusting off their products, a common ritual they did before closing. Suddenly, the bell above the door rang announcing a new customer. However, when the two men looked up, they found that their was no one there. As the two men walked towards the front of the store to investigate, they noticed a brown bag left behind on the front counter. As the two men walked towards the bag, a loud ringing suddenly split the silence and it seemed to be coming from the bag. Suddenly, a green fog poured out of the bag and towards the two men, knocking them out the second the ringing stopped. The front door then suddenly flew open, revealing a group of bizarrely dressed men.

6 of them were clad in matching black sweaters decorated with the image of a clock's face, black slacks and shoes, and a flat black cap. These were the Second Hands, Clock King's henchmen, no doubt on a fiendish mission for their boss. Behind them was a more sanely dressed man ressed in a brown tuxedo jacket, a white dress shirt with black tie, brown formal pants, brown shoes, and a brown bowler hat. He was wearing a pair of glasses whose frames resembled that of a clock face. His face with neutral and calculating as he observed the room around him. Suddenly, he pulled out a pocket watch from his jacket pocket and looked at it intently. He then placed it back in his suit pocket and said to the gathered Second Hands as reached into the brown bag and dumped out an alarm clock,

"Second Hands. It appears that our little alarm clock gizmo did it's job. Now with the Karloff's out of the way, getting those Black Forest clocks will be easy. We have exactly 20 minutes and 5 seconds to intercept the time pieces and bring them back to the getaway van before the owner's wife arrives to pick up her husband and son. Now, let's move gentlemen! We have a schedule to keep!"

The men then made their way up the stairs towards the second floor, leaving the Karloff's lying there.

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man doesn't usually travel to Jersey City. Not as many tall buildings, nothing like Manhattan.
But Aunt May's friend from Jersey promised to have her son fix the water heater if Aunt May would bake two of her apple pies.
Well, the pies were delivered, and Frannie was on the phone to her son as Peter left. He was driving back when his app sent up an alert. He didn't have anything wired in Jersey City, but the security company who can CCTV for their clients had sent a silent alert.

Peter sighed and pulled over, memorizing the address as he got into uniform. "Guess I'm using Google Maps this time."

Kamala Khan has posed:
Ms Marvel.

Named after one of her idols, Captain Marvel.

Less well known by a large margin.

Kamala Khan.

As irony would have it, Kamala is on her way home from an after school project with a group of friends, and to the point of irony, is late.. At least, she's late by the number of messages on her phone from her father:
~ Where are you, you said you would be home by 7.
~ It is now seven ten and you are not returning my calls! Where are you!
~ If you are not home immediately, you are grounded until after the new year!

Kamala was moving as fast as she can.

In a red t-shirt with a prominent BOLT ala Captain Marvel, she has on a pair of capri pants, sneakers, and a jacket suitable for the weather. Swinging through the city herself, her arms stretch out across great distance, grab a ledge, and pull her in the desired direction.

"I swear, I'm coming, Abu! I am in so much trouble!"

She does not have gadgets.

She just knows when weirdness is afoot when weirdness... is... uh.. like... afoot?

Seeing black clad classical burgler dressed individuals going into an antique shop as she swings by high above the shop? "... I am definitely going to be in trouble..."

Temple Fugate has posed:
Clock King and his second hands continued their trek up the stairs, unaware of the attention they have brought upon themselves. As they made it to the second floor, Clock King suddenly put his hand out, stopping his men. He grinned as he suddenly said,

Five seconds till 7:15"

Suddenly, all the clocks on the second floor and on the first floor started to chime all at once. The Second Hands put their hands to their ears to drown out all the buzzes, chimes, and cuckoos. Clock King however, seemed to be enjoying theses noises, and closed his eyes, stretched out his arms, and hummed as a smile formed on his face. Suddenly, as soon as the chiming began, it ended, and Fugate's face shifted back to it's normal calculating, neutral look as he gestured for his men to follow. Soon, they came upon the display case containing The Black Forest clocks. Temple grinned as he lifted up his sleeve, revealing seven wrist watches covereing his arm. He pointed one at the display case and squeezed gently. Suddenly, a infired laser popped out of the watch and cut a clean hole into the glass. Two of the second hands made their way towards the display, with Fugate saying as they did,

"Be very careful. Some of those clocks are over a 100 years old."

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man swings in low. He sorta has to, considering how used he is to higher vantage points.

At about 7:15:58 PM, Spider-Man enters through the front doors and hears the movement above him. "Facial recognition, on," He whispers, then spots a guy in black with a clock t-shirt denoting the time as 10:22. He is about to say something when the webbing covers his mouth (not his nose, of course) and then he is cocooned and bundled up. One second later, he is tossed through the open door to land heavily on the pavement outside.

My,how time flies...

Kamala Khan has posed:
7:16!

Kamala groans at her phone, but slips it into her back pocket all the same. Ignoring another of her fathers texts, digging herself an even deeper hole from which to climb once she actually gets home. From her backpack, where she's kneeling on the roof of a nearby building, she pulls a bandana with two eyeholes and ties it around her face to partially cover her identity.

It's no mask, but it'll have to do in a pinch.

"Alright Kamala... It's just some weirdos in black burgler clothes, how hard can it be?" Not that she needs much psyching up to go do something she knows she shouldn't be doing. Would Carol stop and consider the odds?

Technically she probably would, but who has the time for that?!

With one final jump, she leaps out towards the antique shop and, rather than trying to swing, grows her legs down to the street level and shrinks back down onto them in a low crouch beneath one of the windows to try and peer inside.

"Oh man! Spider-Man is here?!" Kamala leaps through the open door, stepping over the goon whose just been thrown out. Both fists come up ready to throw them hands... which are three times the size of normal hands!

"Holy CRAP is this Clock King?! THESE ARE THE SECOND HAND!!" She would sound excited if... okay she still sounds excited. "I can't believe I'm about to fight the Second Hand.. Can I take a selfie after?"

Temple Fugate has posed:
10:22 only managed to let out a surprised gasp before being webbed and tossed out the front door, hard. He lands on the ground with a big thud, and then catches a glance on Kamala. As he starts raving on about how she is about to fight the Second Hands, 10:22 starts to struggle against the webbing, letting out muffled swears as he did.

Unfortunately, Kamala's raving was heard by Clock King and the remaining 5 Second Hands. Clock King turns to two of them, whose sweaters denoted the time as 3:15 and 6:05, and says to them with a viscous snarl,"

"We have guests! Take care of them now! We can't afford to have our schedule broken!"

3:15 and 6:05 nodded and immediately rushed down the stairs, pulling pistol's out of their waistebands. Upon laying eyes on the two heroes, 3:15 and 6:05 started to open fire at the two.

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man looks to the new person, and blinked.
Great. Where did the girl with the cartoon hands come from??

The Spider-Sense whacked him upside the head and pointed at the two time guys. In a figurative sense, but they have guns.
"GET DOWN!" He called to the young woman, then jumped forward as bullets whizzed past him. He rolled, came up, and fired webbing at the two men, binding them to the stairs and gumming up the guns.

"Well, don't you hate it when the alarms stop and time seems to stand still?" Spidey hopped over the two of them and headed up the stairs.

Kamala Khan has posed:
GET DOWN?!

Well... Okay.

Kamala does sort of get down, but not in the manner that Spidey meant. She moves her hips side to side in an elastic manner that dodges her out of the way of in coming gunfire, but is careful to position herself so that the bullets find something other than the open doorway when they miss her. Wouldn't want some grandma walking her dog to get shot right?

Right.

"Oh man, you really do have the quips..."

Ms Marvel is moving, leaping over things with entirely too flexable manuevers, the last of which is a massively oversized foot swung out of a side jump across the counter leading to the stairwell and the two Clock-shirt guys.

She follows it with a twisting slap of a hand about the size of a plasma television.

"I wanna try!"

She understands how quipping works right?

"Clocks are stupid."

Maybe not.

Temple Fugate has posed:
Clock King grips his nose in annoyance as the gunfire suddenly dies down. Great, whoever was causing this trouble was now coming up the stairs. Suddenly, he nods at his remaining men, who drop what they are doing and pull out their pistols, forming a defensive barrier around Temple. Once Spider-Man makes it up the final step, he will immediately be greeted with gunfire, and a flurry of bullets wizzing towards him. During this chaos, Fugate looks up at Spider-Man and says,

"Ahh, Spider-Man. I figured it was only a matter of time before I encountered you. I am The Clock King, and time is my specialty."

Spider-Man's facial recognition would immediately ping Temple's face on the criminal database. This guy had quite a history, and was a recent Stryker's Island escapee as well.

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man leaps up, then jinks to the right to dodge the gunfire, spraying quick webs to clot around two guns and the hands holding them. He lands behind an old grandfather clock, using it for temporary cover.

"Clock King...wow. And here I thought Paste-Pot Pete had the lamest name. I'll have to apologize to him for that. So lemme guess, you're here for the Black Forest clocks, eh?" He chuckled. "Googled it while I was webbing up your guards."

Keep his focus on him, keep him from thinking about the stranger with the big X-Box Classic Controller hands.

"Seeing as there's only one guy left with a gun, I'll come and shake your Hand. And then I'm going to clean your clock, King."

Kamala Khan has posed:
Kamala is right behind Spidey, but she lets the more seasoned hero take the lead on account of he's a whole lot faster than her. The way he moves, it's clear she's pretty impressed... maybe even awe-struck. Fighting Clock King and the Second Hand with SPIDER-MAN?!

This is definitely going on facespace.

When she pops up the last set of stairs, Spidey has already webbed two goons and is delivering his quip about shaking hands!

That's the signal, she decides.

Her right hand is thrown forward, arm stretching, palm growing exponentially to that of a Voltwagon Bug to hit the last of the remaining goons clear in his WHOLE BODY.. like the whole thing. She just high fives the crap out of him, right past Clock King.

Swatting a fly or something.

"It's butt kick thirty!" Hecka yeah boi.

Crouched and ready, "Hey guys, I'm Ms Marvel."

Temple Fugate has posed:
As the rest of the Second Hands are incapacitated, Clock King's face has remained completely unimpressed, as if he weren't worried about the upcoming pummeling he was about to receive. What they didn't know was that Clock King had been watching their movements, their fighting style, and most importantly, their attacks. He knew how long it would take them to attack, and was now able to dodge them. Suddenly, he pulls out two pocket watches from his suit pocket and begins to twirl them around. He then peers at both heroes and says,

"Rather impressive heroes. But, I am afraid I don't have time for another jail term."

Suddenly, he hurls the pocket watches at both heroes, knowing that the watches carried an explosive surprise when they hit the ground.

Peter Parker has posed:
YIKES, those things are red-hot!

Well, not literally, but each one of them has the same threat level as a grinning Green Goblin, so he's not taking chances.
He fires two thin weblines, snagging each of the watches. He swings them around, then alley-oops them away from him and towards the workspace...and hopefully from anything tooo valuable. As they go sailing away, Spider-Man faces off against the Clock King. He winces as the watches hit the wall and go off. "Time bombs? Shoulda guessed."

Kamala Khan has posed:
Kamala, by comparison to almost every hero imaginable, is distinct in that she doesn't really have a very prolific, or even marginal, fighting style. Truth be told, she just does stuff and uses her powers to make it work. It makes her slightly unpredictable, but not impossibly so.

She aint afraid of no thrown pocket watch, but she also doesn't realize they're time bombs until... well... Spidey says so. Which almost makes her dark colored cheeks more dark with embarrassment. "Time bombs.. yeah, that.. yeah.." She knew that, absolutely.

She moves quickly(ish), but it's taking her dangerously close to the workshop! Then the bombs go off...

kirkle bloo

Stumbling to the side where she much catch herself against one of the Black Forest cuckoo clocks! It almost falls over even! Except she prevents it doing so by wrapping both huge hands around it and balancing it on the razors edge!

Temple Fugate has posed:
The Time Bombs end up hitting the wall near a group of Ming Vases, with a loud boom and the sounds of breaking glass, thousands of dollars worth of glass went down the drain. Clock King, does not look phased by this, but suddenly gasps when Kam nearly drops the Black Forest Clocks. He suddenly pulls out a rapier and yells out,

"Be careful with that timepiece you fool!"

He then turns to Spider-Man and, with a surprise amount of speed charges towards him and begins to do very fast, well-coordinate sword thrusts in his direction.

Peter Parker has posed:
There are many many reasons villains hate Spider-Man.
There's his quippery, which can be very annoying. There's his penchant for showing up unexpected. His dogged relentlessness.

And one other thing, which he was doing right now.
Fugate's thrusts are as precise and definitive as any Swiss timepiece. However, everywhere the blade was...Spider-Man WASN'T. Each flurry was dodged, every thrust side-stepped, every slash avoided.

"C'MON, King. Stop TRYING to hit me and HIT me!"

Kamala Khan has posed:
"SORRY!" Kamala shouts genuinely as she balances the Black Forest clock, keeping it from smashing against the ground where it would probably break because it's older than two pieces of dirt arguing about mud.

"Wait a minute, why am I apologizing to you?! This isn't even yours..." When it's set back right, she moves to join the combat!

But never makes it because she nearly trips over a goons hand reaching up to grab her ankle. He doesn't actually get hold to her, because she's pretty slippery, but he does throw her off her center and sends her tumbling backwards into the Clock! It doesn't /smash/ but they can knock about $300 off the market value of the antique having to restore the wood finish from her cellphone scraping the glass!

It's almost like she's /trying/ to piss Clock King off.

"I hit the clock again..." Because she tells him about it.

Temple Fugate has posed:
Clock King was steadily growing more and more frustrated as Spider-Man doged his evey move. The lad's timing was as perfect as his, and it normally would of impressed Fugate, if Spider-Man weren't currently mocking him over it. Then, came Kamala's boast about hitting the clock again. Fugate, with an uncharacteristic snarl of anger, quickly turns around, his sleeve rolled up, revealing his wrist watches. He then presses down on one several times, firing a series of razor sharp blades shaped like clock hands towards her. He then turns to Spider-Man just as quickly and pulls out another Pocket Watch and tosses it on the ground, releasing a thick plume of smoke. Fugate will then try to attack Spider-Man in the smoke.

Peter Parker has posed:
Okay. It's only smoke. It's not poisonous.

But this is where the Clock King messes up.
The sword lunges forward, and then he feels the wisp of current as Spidey moves past him...and then the hand closing on the unadorned wrist, a hand with a grip of solid steel.

If he had run, the smoke would have hidden him. Spider-Man might have blundered through, but it would have cost valuable time.

But when the King ATTACKED, Spidey's early-warning system told him EXACTLY where his opponent was.
Then Fugate's vision is filled with the masked visage of Spider-Man.

"TIME'S UP."

And then the other fist came across Fugate's face like a freight train, hitting with the force of a prizefighter going for the KO.

Kamala Khan has posed:
The clock hand tipped this time, so Kamala was ready for the razor blades... at least she was ready for an attack. How could she know James Bond had his handy Q watch? "What the heck even is going on... how do you keep up with your own gimmick? Do you ever slip up and start talking about... like.. the alphabet or somethin-"

HOLY BANANAS!

Her body wiggle wobbles out of the way of the razors, but she was standing right in front of the clock!

Two of them bury right in the wood finish, another hits the wall, and one runs along side her flank... It doesn't cut deep, but it's left a little slash in her shirt.

"Okay man, it wasn't my fault this time!" GRIMACING at the blades stuck in the expensive antique.

The plan was always to distract Temple though.

Temple Fugate has posed:
Clock King gapes in surprise when Spider-Man not only dodges his move, but grabs on to his wrist. Then, the fist comes soaring towards him. Normally, Fugate would be able to dodge the blow, but as established before, Spider-Man is quite quick. Fugate cries out in pain as the fist impacts his face and he suddenly crumples on the ground, nose bleeding and seemingly unconscious.

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man checks the man's pulse. Slow, but steady. Good enough.

He looks over to where the girl calling herself "Miss Marvel" was last, hoping she was okay. "You okay over there?"

Kamala Khan has posed:
"I'm good!" Both hands in the air, bouncing away from the clock, overly excited.

"I guess we know whether Spidey would hit a guy with glasses, eh?" Kamala jokes from in front of the clock... she then clears her throat and straightens her shirt, "Sorry. Is he okay? You didn't, like, break his whole neck did you?" Peering at Clock King, kneeling down with her arms braced on her knees.

"So how does this work, do we call the cops, do we wait for the cops, do we exchange insurence information?" Hands up, big eyes, "Because I don't wanna be here when the guy who owns the clock sees the damage done to it... which is totally not my fault, for the record."

Temple Fugate has posed:
Clock King's unconscious form was still prone when Kamala peered down at him. Suddenly, a honking noise filled the air, and it appeared to be coming from outside the shop. If you were to peer out a window you would see a white van parked outside the shop, with another Second Hand waiting, and not noticing the webbed-up man right at the front door. As this is happening, one of the Second Hands who had his hands webbed up suddenly charges at Kamala, trying to bash her over the head with his webbed-up hands.

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man looks around, then fires a shot of webbing around Fugate's feet. He had to check. He thought the cops have been called. He has Spider-Comm, but it's wired for NYC, not New Jersey. He set up a standalone call to 911, then looked as one of the Hands was making a play for Miss Marvel.

After what she had already accomplished, he was kinda curious to see how she would handle him.

"Hello, 911? Yes, I'd like to report a break-in. Do you use Code 6-0-6 like the NYPD does for superhumans on scene?"

Kamala Khan has posed:
Kamala isn't started when the second hand comes charging at her!

"oh no!"

Clearly someone has never tried to run with their hands tied... it is not as easy as it seems like it would be. See the natural body mechanic is to sway the hands as you walk to create a center of gravity. We've been doing it intrensically since we were toddlers. That's why it's so off putting when someone walks with their arms stationary at their sides.

Don't believe me?

Go try it.

Suffice that it doesn't make for a very intimidating run nor a very effective bludgeoning weapon even if he had connected.

Ms Marvel jerks her head to the side on a ropey long, flexable neck, and loops one of her feet around his ankle like a lasso. Curling and twisting and moving out of the way until all that remains in his path is her foot.

Tripping him right into one of the Black Forest Clocks.

"OH maaaaaan..."

Temple Fugate has posed:
The Second Hand lets out a startled scream and goes flying right into the antique clocks, breaking most of them with a very loud bang. The noise seemed to have revived Fugate, as a groan suddenly emitted from his prone body. Fugate tries to move, but finds, much to his anger, that his feet have been webbed up. He then tilts his head towards the now destroyed antique clocks, and lets out a scream of unbridled horror and rage. He begins to struggle against the webbing and shouts out at both of the Heroes,

"You'll pay for this! You hear me! You'll pay for this! No one makes a fool out of the Clock King and gets away with it!"

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man walks over to Fugate. "Buddy, you should be HAPPY. Where you are going..."

He smiles warmly under the mask. "...you'll have ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD."

He walks over to Ms. Marvel, gazing on the damaged clock, and winces slightly. "Yeah, moving forward, you might want to be a little more mindful of the property damage. But Sotheby's has insured the Black Forest Clocks, so the owner of this place won't take it in the shorts."

Kamala Khan has posed:
With her head hanging and arms, literally, dangling down to the floor.

"I knooooow..." Kamala murmurs, but her mood suddenly changes from embarrassment to startled, reaching for her phone in her back pocket. "OH MY GOSH! My da-.. Uh.. I'm really late.. I know that sounds super lame after just messing up a bunch of antique clocks and the cops are on the way, but..."

Big grin, big apologetic eyes, hands big as saucers in the air to placate the savage Spidey, "If I don't get back to my super secret lair, I'm going to be grounded until I'm 40."

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man nods. "And I need to get back to New York." He smiles to Miss Marvel, then hands her a card. "Call me when you're in New York."

Temple Fugate has posed:
Clock King's angry face suddenly turns into a wicked smile when he hears Spider-Man bring up time. He's right, Fugate will soon have plenty of time once in custody, time to escape. These Jersey City cops had no idea what they were about to bring into their station. Fugate begins to laugh, a dark and sinister laugh as the police sirens fill the air.