8253/Scrappy Dojo Discourse

Scrappy Dojo Discourse
Date of Scene:	15 October 2021
Location:	King's Landing Scrap Yard
Synopsis:	Ghost Spider damages Demona's van. Demona can't get qi in a clean scrap yard. Spider-Man gets her somewhere safe.
Cast of Characters:	Susan Sullivan, Gwen Stacy, Peter Parker

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Susan Sullivan has posed:
    There's a new fixture in the scrapyard. The solar cells atop the van make it pretty evident it's unusual, and the condition of it makes it clear it's not just scrap. There's also a figure clothed in black on a bright pink Little Mermaid blanket sitting in a lotus position outide said van. With the hood up, not much is clear about the meditating person.
    Demona, sitting on that blanket, takes deep breaths. Being invisible to the naked eye, the flow of qi is indistinguishable. While Peter had promised her her van would be safe there, she didn't know exactly how he'd 'make sure nothing happened to it'. Still, she trusted him enough to be at ease in the moment, taking some time to center herself.

Gwen Stacy has posed:
It has been a while since Gwen has been around. Her fault really, and even if she *does* have quite a few good excuses with her father having been shot and she having been investigating the shootout there's always that lingering feeling of not wanting to be close to him. Call it being guilty about having killed Peter in the 'place' she comes from. Yet today she decides to visit. Not calling ahead, of course. Nothing like crashing his place by surprise..

Gwen didn't find him home. Aunt May having said something about him being out with friends. Which is pretty much lingo for being out here training. Or at least she thought so. A brow arches as she swings in from above, clad in her Ghost Spider outfit, black and white with the pink rims around the mask of her eyes, a twirl and she landing atop a large pile of scrap, silent. Watching. A new van?

Another swing and she lands atop the van, head popping into sight. "Alright, Little Mermaid." she calls, "I hope you have a permit to being around here." she teases. She is most likely expecting it to be some familiar face. Like Andi. Or Jessica Drew.

Susan Sullivan has posed:
    The solar panels are not super-strong versions one might find on hero equipment. They are off-the-shelf things that crunch a little under Gwen's landing. Demona jumps up and spins around, floating off the ground as she completely ignores the teasing pseudo-threat! "My solar panels!" she says, almost ignoring the words directed at her. She gathers her hands at her hips and makes a sweeping, upward gesture, the landed spidery woman being lifted off the panels. It feels less like being lifted and more like gravity just turns off for both Gwen and what she's carrying. Demona sweeps one hand in front of herself to one side, Gwen 'falling' sideways for a moment, though slowly. It's taking a lot of Demona's concentration and effort to do this, but when she's done, gravity slowly turns back on, Gwen lowering toward the ground as Demona floats over the van, inspecting the damage.
    "Oh no!" she says, running her fingers over broken glass, 'spider web' cracks ironically spreading out from where the Ghost Spider's feet had been. "No, no, no!" Demona's voice continues as though the van had been completely totaled.

Gwen Stacy has posed:
Oops. Gwen didn't seem to be expecting for these panels to be so ..., frail. She's too spoiled with what they got at GIRL's! So when they start to form cracks she is just about to nimbly spin down to the ground when she feels herself getting weightless. Well, that's a new feeling. "Hey, don't you go Carrie on me!" she retorts. Which she hopes this TK person has seen the movie. Every TK should!

As she is being lowered to the ground she shoots a web off to turn herself upright and find balance but then lifts her hands apologetically. "Ooops, sorry about that, wasn't expecting them to be so frail." tone soft before she points out, "Shouldn't take me long to repair it though. I think Spidey keeps some tools around here..." her eyes narrow under the mask.

"Now just need to figure out *where* he dropped them. Knowing him it could be anywhere.. I am Ghost Spider anyway. And I don't seem to know you. Cool powers though."

Susan Sullivan has posed:
    Demona loses most of Gwen's words as she panics over the solar panel crisis. "Demona," she finally says. She floats over to land next to Ghost Spider and rubs her cheeks, though she has no tears to wipe away. "I'm sorry for lifting you without permission. I...the van is kind of my whole life." She looks up at the van's roof from the ground. "I burned through all my savings to buy her and convert her to solar-powered electric." She looks back at the spider-person. "You really think you can fix cracked glass and broken diodes?" she asks, curious and hopeful, but not sounding particularly optimistic.

Gwen Stacy has posed:
"I am really sorry.." Ghost Spider now says somewhat more seriously when she notes the other woman's distress about it. For some reason it doesn't really seem like a big deal for Gwen. "And ..., lets just say I am kind of good where it comes to electronics. And we are in the perfect place for it!" she opening her arms to gesture to their surroundings, "A scrapyard. Full of prime material to be used for it. Glass is just glass, any will do. The rest is a touch more complicated. But we can scavenge the place for them, don't worry." she says in an optimistic manner. Even offering a thumbs-up!

"I am guessing you know Spidey, right?" She then finally asks.

Susan Sullivan has posed:
    "Spider-Man, you mean?" Demona says. "Yeah, I know him. I mean...I DO know him," she asys, a little more intently. She looks around. "I've never fabricated a solar panel before," she says, her mind returning to the job at hand. "This is why I need an arc reactor for the van," she says. She floats up and starts moving around, looking for bits. "You don't smell quite as spidery as he does. Maybe you brush your teeth more?"

Gwen Stacy has posed:
"Yup, Spidey." Gwen repeats with a nod of her head, "Calling him Spiderman is just too long a name really." says Gwen, who used to be called Spiderwoman. But noone needs to know that! She pauses briefly, head canting to the side, "Don't smell like him? Well, good! I will let you know I haven't been thrown into a trash bin in ...., maybe a week?" look, it's hard being a friendly neighborhood spidery hero with all the powered people around trying to commit crimes.

"But .., hol' up. Going from solar panels to an arc reactor? What's the story here?" a beat, "We are talking about Stark tech." she follows along to help in the search, digging here and there. Attention perks up and she goes to a piece of hardware that catches her attention. "Come to mama, silicon cells..." clearly she has found something that will help. She then calls out, "Look for glass panels if you can."

In the meantime she sends a quiet message through the Spider-comm in her mask. A text. "There's a Demona in your scrapyard. Someone I should be aware of?"

Peter Parker has posed:
A blip just appears on Ghost Spider's augmented-reality HUD - namely, a red/blue blip about 570 yards away. It seems to bob up and down as the numbers count down.

<Oh! Yes, I do know her. I gave her permission to park her van at the gym. I should be there shortly.> A pause, then: <Glad to see you in the neighborhood.>

Susan Sullivan has posed:
    Demona huffs out a breath through her nose as she turns in the air to face Gwen. "It's just wishful thinking on my part," she says. "I have no chance of getting my hands on that kind of tech, and even if I did, I can think of dozens of better uses than powering one van, even if it does double as a one-room apartment."

Gwen Stacy has posed:
"Why the choice for solar panels?" Gwen then asks, lifting a piece of junk to fetch the piece she was looking for, "We can fashion the cells from this. How's that search for the glass going?" then looking up at Demona, "And yea, I was just taken aback by your wanting to go from solar panels to that kind of advanced tech. There's a lot that can be done without going to -those-." she starts walking back to where the van is.

"Seems we have an incoming Spidey on the way." She announces to Demona. "Remember to tell him what you told me, that I brush my teeth more often." She teases.

Susan Sullivan has posed:
    "I didn't say that," Demona says. "I said you don't smell as spidery. It's your qi. I'm not smelling your breath. I'm smelling your life force. You're spidery, but not AS spidery." She then gestures around. "Also: There's tons of glass, but it's largely automotive glass and curved."

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man arrives about 20 seconds later. He lands on the roof of the office building, looking around before dropping to the hard-packed ground. He smiles as he sees both of them.
"Hey, Demona...hey, Ghost. It used to be a lot messier when I first started." Spidey waves.

Gwen Stacy has posed:
"What do you mean not as spidery? And Qi?" Gwen's head cants to the side, regarding Demona for a time before hopping closer to the van and climbing the side, nearing the cracked panel and placing the cells she found there.

"Hello Spidey. We were just getting to meet one another, and also fixing one of the solar panels that I busted. So, with this being your scrapyard ..., can you tell us about a good glass panel that you may have around?" she asks Spiderman, hooded mask turning his way.

Susan Sullivan has posed:
    "Spider-Man!" Demona says, mentally hyphenating the name as she barks it. The van's shocks bend ever so slightly as Gwen climbs the side. This stuff is not even military-grade. It's just a van. Offroad-conversion, electric-conversion, solar-addition, but just a van. "We were also talking about qi," Demona says. "Spider-man has taken a bit more voluntary of a lift. He wanted to experience the weightlessness." She points accusingly at Gwen. "Ghost Spider landed on my solar panels!" she reiterates.

Peter Parker has posed:
Spidey smiles sympathetically. "I'm sure any damage was purely accidental. Ghost is a class act. As for glass, I know there was a lot of broken glass, but I was able to save some unbroken tempered glass from a few of the vehicles here."

Spidey walks around to the back of the office building, opening a gate to reveal ten unbroken windshields of various shapes, all marked TEMPERED with a wax crayon. "If you can use any of these, you're welcome to them."

Gwen Stacy has posed:
A brow quirks at the bend on the shocks. "I dunno. Seems like I am breaking the van the more closer I get. Maybe you should be the one repairing it." she tells Spiderman with a chuckle. Though the news that there are panels. "You are our savior, Spidey." she nimbly climbs back down from the van, using all that suppleness and actual spidery abilities to make sure nothing falls off, a hop over and she joins Spiderman near the panels.

"Think we can ..., let me see.." She squats down, starting to go through them. "It needs to be a certain shape..."

"So, did you enjoy being weightless?" She asks Spiderman with a grin.

Susan Sullivan has posed:
    "Yeah, see, they're all curved," Demona says, floating toward the windshields. Her feet touch the ground and she starts taking slow, deep breaths. "I really need a moment," she says, lowering herself to her knees in the middle of everything. She breathed in very slowly and deliberately, then out. "Ghost Spider interrupted...meditation," she continues, leaning forward to place her hands on the ground before her.
    Demona takes another deep, desperate breath in and blows out over a couple seconds. "Need to find center." Another slow, deliberate breath in and out. "I'm sorry," she tries, her voice strained. "I can't," she continues, gripping fistfuls of gravel from the ground, her head lowering. She sucks in another deep breath. "Spider-Man," she pleads at the ground. "Gas mask. The van." She gasps in another deep breath. "Please," she forces herself to say.

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man blinks and nods. He hustles over to the van, opening it to rummage through the internal compartment. After a moment, he finds it, then turns to toss it to Demona. "Here you go."

He does look a little concerned for Demona. "Anything we can do?"

Gwen Stacy has posed:
"This one. Seems like it was from a side window of a truck. Looks good enough and large for--" Gwen stops at Demona going to her knees, a glance to Spiderman, then back to Demona. She approaches the latter, resting one hand on her shoulder. "What's going on? Are you okay?"

A pause when a few moments later Spidey returns with the mask. She takes a step back and watches before questioning Spiderman. "By your reaction it doesn't seem like this was the first time it happened?"

Susan Sullivan has posed:
    Demona does not catch the mask, but neither does it fall to the ground. It nearly hits her, but slows to a stop, bouncing off her back as if in microgravity on the space station. She reaches out and takes it with her hand, calmly doing the straps up with both hands, no longer breathing, desperately or otherwise. Once it's upon her, the speaker embedded in her mask amplifies her voice as she says, "Take me somewhere that lives."

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man nods. "Yeah, it's sort of a thing." He walks over to the gate, pulling it open and stepping out onto the sidewalk beyond. "She needs this energy, but getting somewhere with people around, she can draw residual energy by a kind of osmosis. We go down this sidewalk, we'll come out close to Coney Island." He indicates with one arm. "Want to hoof it?"

Gwen Stacy has posed:
Again that brow arches under the mask but Gwen simply nods as Spiderman explains what's going on. "Osmosis? Mmmm..." a pause, "That sounds like vampirism almost." she points out, looking at the masked Demona.

She gets ready to follow the others.

Susan Sullivan has posed:
    Demona does not stand, but she rises from the ground and straightens out. She holds out her hands to the sides, palms facing forward. Her voice is dry. "I can't see," she informs the two spiders, simply. She does not move. She simply floats there, unmoving. She is no longer attempting to breathe, but she has not yet lost her 'self'. She's simply sitting on low reserves. Emotional stress always kicks qi usage into high gear, even among the living, and the scrap yard did not seem like it was an abundant location, despite being in the city.

Peter Parker has posed:
Spidey takes a deep breath, then takes one hand. "Ghost, help me guide her. We're going to walk, and I'll bring you close to people without direct contact. We'll go as quick as we can."

He looks to Gwen. "I don't want to risk carrying her. Might get too close for her to restrain herself. I know a good place."

Susan Sullivan has posed:
    Demona grasps Peter's hand. "I've fought this fight," she assures him. "Get me someplace that lives." Her eyes grow milkier and milkier, her body becoming dry as she burns through what's left in her reserves. "Please hurry. If I am in this state by Sunrise, I will not survive."

Peter Parker has posed:
Spidey hustles her. Not running, but not dawdling.

Barely 150 feet, and they come out on a street that overlooks Brighton Beach. Below, barely 20 feet below, is the boardwalk, complete with signs on the best way to get to Coney Island.

Susan Sullivan has posed:
    It's an odd sight, to be sure. Spider-Man dragging along a floating woman in a skull-shaped gas mask like a parade balloon. "I'm isolated in this state," she says as he pulls her. "Tell me when we are somewhere safe and alive."

Peter Parker has posed:
Spidey hops into the top of the arcade room, the beep and whistle and clink and ding of everything from pachinko to pinball. "Okay...there's people five feet below us. Is this good enough?"

Susan Sullivan has posed:
    Demona doesn't respond right away. "We've stopped," she says. "I'm sorry, Spider-Man, I can't hear." She pulls her mask from her face. "Forgive me," she says. She opens her mouth and takes in a breath that is wholly unnatural. This isn't her usual osmosis feeding. The people around her, Spider-Man included, feel the slight tug on their breath, though not the breath being pulled from their lungs. The sound Demona makes is somewhere between a horror movie monster scream and a vacuum cleaner. She floats up higher and higher, drinking in the breath of the world around her. She plumps up like a flattened sponge introduced to water.
    As she lands next to Spider-Man, she looks at him, her eyes having regained the life, for lack of a better term, that had been there before. Her feet touch down next to him, and weight comes back to her clothing. "Thank you," she says. "You've done a good job cleaning that dojo up, but nothing lives there, now. Not even bacteria, fungi, or rats. There's nothing there. I can visit, but I shouldn't stay."

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man nods. "Yeah, I guess. That's part of its charm, though. Almost no foot traffic. Lots of privacy. But...I guess that wouldn't work out very well for you, unless you made regular trips out here."

Susan Sullivan has posed:
    "Even the street outside of it is life," she says. She watches people fleeing from the arcade beneath her from the spectacle, though others have their phones out taking pictures. She puts her hood up and turns to face away from the crowd. "You did good, bringing me here," she says. She takes in a breath through her nose, taking in smells of food vendors, people, the sea, and every breath around them. She looks around and says, "I thought I could find the small trickle that must be there, but it was hard. When Ghost Spider landed on my van, I...it takes more to deal with emotional situations like that. I...Spider-Man, I don't think I can afford to fix that." She takes a few slow, deep breaths. They seem to be helping a lot more in this qi-flooded location. She is very calm when she says, "I can still plug in to charge. I won't be broke forever." She smiles. "It's fine."

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man sighs. "I can try to see what I can find. If you'd like, I can show you the best sites for tech dumpster-diving. I just wish I could do more for you..."

Susan Sullivan has posed:
    "You do a lot," Demona says, smiling at him. "More than you think you do." She takes a few more deep breaths and says, "Alright, Hobbes, ol' buddy." She gestures. "Let's go exploring!"