Momentum (Open)

Participants: Anya Corazon /Open
Open/Closed: Open
Location(s): New York City
Time of Day: Mid-afternoon
Weather: Bright and breezy
Summary: Anya Corazon has returned to some low-key heroics following the madness of the Spider-geddon! It's not always as easy as she remembers it... Feel free to throw anyone - hero, villain or civilian - on in!

The black sedan careened around the corner sharply, brakes screeching as they fought against the ridiculous speed the vehicle was travelling at. Were it not for the electrostatic force that allowed her to cling to near-enough any surface seamlessly, Anya Corazon was sure she'd have been catapulted from her ride, and ended up little more than a black and white spider-pancake against the wall of one of New York City's many skyscrapers. Luckily for her, she barely moved at all, swaying a little as she bit down hard on her lower lip. Then the car righted itself, and sped on; with Spider-Girl still atop it.

The chase had been a short lived one. She'd caught it a few blocks back, having heard the roar of engines and the wail of sirens on her way to class (which she was now beyond hopelessly late for...again.) She'd speed-changed – something she was getting very good at – and had been swinging through the streets in no time. One she'd got a spider-eye view of the roads below, the cause of the noise had become clear. Then, as Spider-Heroes were want to do, she dropped on to the police-pursued vehicle and held on for dear life.

Her next task, following catching the culprit-vehicle, was to try and get it to come to a halt, without damaging public property (unlikely) or squishy civilians (the real priority.) Unfortunately, bringing said car to a halt was much harder when it moved so quickly and erratically, and the driver took corners like he was Jason Statham in 'Transporter.'
“They never make it easy and just pull over,” she muttered to herself, hauling herself forward toward the windscreen and bonnet – forced to release a hand to shoot a ball of organic webbing from her wrist's spinneret at some old, doddering civilian who'd decided to try and cross the road the criminals were haring down. Said webbing caught the grandma mid-chest, knocking her back and onto her heiny, and seconds later the car sped by – passing through the thankfully empty space she'd have been stood in were it not for Anya's interference.

The woman may have have been covered in sticky goop and she'd likely develop a killer butt-bruise, but at least she was alive. “Old Woman 1 – Impending Doom 0...though I bet when this gets reported I'm the menace for webbing the elderly.”She was certain papers wouldn't go into detail about the split second save she'd had to make, nor that Spider-Girl couldn't have saved the granny in any other way; detaching from the car, shooting a web-line and swinging to grab her from harms way taking a risky extra few seconds the lady might not have had. “The Bugle allllways forgets to mention the distinct lack of alternatives.”

Not that it was uniquely her that got bad press; pretty much every masked hero in New York did; especially if they wore spider outfits.

With the civilian saved, Anya refocused on stopping the getaway vehicle; and continued her short journey to the car's front end. Once there, she leaned over to one side, dangling her face in front of the driver's side window, offering a tinkly wave. When the criminal caught sight of her – his eyes went wide with shock. Spider-Girl then motioned for him to wind his window down, swirling an extended finger repeatedly in a circle. Instead, he raised a pistol, pointed it in her general direction and shot.

Her enhanced danger sense and reflexes meant the slug the weapon spat toward her came nowhere close to hitting her, Anya dodging nimbly to one side, avoiding both bullet and shattered glass. Then, in seconds, she was back at the then-open portal.
“You know, that was a slight over-reaction. I just wanted to talk...
Another few gunshots, and another few dodges.
“F@*# off, hero!”
Anya blinked and winced, before firing web at the man's mouth, and then his gun, making sure both were unusable.
“Woah...potty mouth. You really shouldn't talk to girls like that.”
A muffled response was all she got. Thank you, webbing.
“Okay, so I'm Spider-Girl. Now introductions are out the way...I'm going to have to ask you to apply some brake. You know, slow the car down, bring it to a stop – preferably even pull over so you don't interfere with the natural flow of traffic.”
The criminal glared at her.
“Well, guy? Think you can do that?”

And then he slammed on the brakes – catching Anya completely off guard. “Oh no,” was all she managed, before being rocketed her from her position atop the hood, her body unable to match the car's complete change of momentum. Hurled forward, she bounced across concrete, narrowly avoided being hit by an exterminator's truck at a crossing (the irony), before she finally came to a crashing stop, her incredibly strong body denting the side of a metal skip.
“Ouch.”

Kei walked the streets alone. No parents, no Elsa, no monsters. Alone.

It felt so foreign to him at this point in his life, but it would be one of the biggest lies he ever told if he said he didn't enjoy every minute of it. Everyone liked to treat Kei like a kid just because he was an eleven year old, but he had already saved the world twice! How many kids could say that? The Young Avengers briefly popped into his mind, but they didn't count - they were teenagers. The point was, people in Kei's life liked to act like he couldn't do anything by himself, like he was a little baby who needed constant guardianship. So, at his nearest convenience (ie while his parents were away) Kei had teleported his monsters off world, after getting them to drop him in New York, and he was now enjoying just being himself.

Being alone Kei didn't have to worry about living up to any ideas of what anyone had Kid Kaiju should be. He didn't have to be a responsible superhero who could control destructive monsters, he could just be the 11 year old kid walking down 75th with his headphones on enjoying a sloppily dressed hotdog he had bought from a street vendor. How cool! There was never anything like that in Atlanta, and for sure nothing like it on Mu. Kei hated to be treated like acid by the adults around him but he enjoyed just being a kid.

A smile was on the boy's face as he bounced his way down the bustling New York street, the music in his headphones blasting heavily with bass in his ears as the boy fought the urge to sing along to anime opening currently playing. Kei was too busy scarfing down the food he held with two hands to mouth any words. Chili, ketchup, mustard, and relish oozed off of his dog and adorned the New York sidewalk as he went about his aimless walk. Being a tourist in the area, Kei knew not where anything was and he didn't seek any particular destination, all he wanted was to experience the big city without having to worry about stuff like alien invaders and collateral damage.

Kei crossed into a wide crosswalk, jumping rhythmically around the people crossing the street hurriedly. He almost felt like he was having too fun. But why shouldn't he? He was too young to have so many responsibilities and it was just nice to not have to worry about the superhero stuff.

Kei then heard the squeal of car tires crying out over the sounds of the music in his ears that was meant to drown out everything in his surroundings. Kei jumped at the sound and winced at the sight of a person bouncing across unforgiving concrete. The boy's eyes trailed from the person who came to a brutal stop and jumped over to the vehicle that was quickly placed in drive and turned to speed away, the tires once again screeching in protest.

The sudden jolt to Kei born out of his spark of fear from being caught off by the car's initial tire screech triggered something in Kei and in an instant a giant insectoid was in the middle of a busy NY street, great wings buzzing noisily.

"TREMBLE, PUNY MORTALS...BEFORE THE MIGHT OF SCRAGG THE VALIANT PROTECTOR OF PEDESTRIANS!"

Anya Corazon

Anya groaned as she slid down the side of the skip she’d hit, sprawling out on the pavement below. For a long moment, she lay still against the asphalt, wincing beneath her mask. Gingerly, a gloved hand prodded at her hip and lower back, and though she gritted her teeth and sucked air between them, her initial prognosis suggested nothing was broken. She did, however, predict she’d end up sporting a killer bruise, and that it would hurt to sit, laugh or breathe for a good few days.

With a surprising burst of athleticism for someone who had just been in what amounted to a car-crash, Spider-Girl sprang to her feet in a nimble kick up, rolled her shoulders and started back toward the still-stationary vehicle that had so unceremoniously catapulted her across two lanes of oncoming traffic. Her brow was furrowed, her lips pursed, and if they started driving again, she wouldn’t be asking them to stop quite so nicely.

Before she could reach the car, however, a tingle ran down the length of her spine, and she felt a familiar, imaginary weight pressing down upon her shoulders, signalling danger was coming from above – her spider-sense warning of incoming threat. Hurling herself backward into a neat handspring, she tumbled away from the giant insect that descended from above, landing in a crouch, eyes wide.
“Dios mio…” she breathed, just under her breath.

Never had she seen an insect so big. Not even the giant spiders of the Spider-Verse, nor the mutated half-arachnids from Spider Island, quite matched up to the monstrosity that had landed in New York’s streets. Almost humane of body, but scaled, with long, bladed forearms akin to a mantis, two searching antenna and wildly beating wings, it wasn’t a species she recognised. Not that she was a biologist or anything, but she was fairly certain it hadn’t originated from Earth.

“Giant insect…” she began, though her voice was quiet, drowned out by the shrieks and screams of civilians lost in the monster’s shadow. “Giant insect!” she said a little louder, darting into action, signalling for those nearest to her to start fleeing the scene. “Go, go, go, go! Giant insect!” In that moment, with the huge man-beetle thing hovering above her, she’d forgotten all about the men in the stolen car, and was considering instead how much webbing it would take to net herself such a huge bug.

Kei Kawade

People in costumes getting flung from speeding vehicles was apparently a frequent enough occurrence that the people on the street were not immediately taken aback by the crashing hero in the same way that Kei was. Civilians looked mildly panicked but as the threat seemed to no be a masked villain or invading alien army, they were soon to readjust and turn themselves back to their own business. Kei thought it weird but he wasn't able to react in much of a meaningful way by the time Scragg was on the scene.

The giant bug was crouched in the middle of the street, his thin wings stretched backward and beating against the calm air. People gawked. If they lacked something to react to before, they certainly weren't lacking now. Scragg looked more like a strange alien lifeforms than the giant bug Kei typically described him as. While his head was vaguely mantis-esque with eye shape and mandibles to suit, the rest of him was quite humanoid (minus the wings). A creature of such foreign design, thus, adequately instilled a degree of fear in most people.

“Go, go, go, go! Giant insect!”

Everything seemed to be happening around Kei so fast, he could barely get a grasp of the situation and discern what was going on or who was yelling about the giant bug. A panic swiftly ensued, not that the bystanders needed the shouts to spur them to fleeing but the panicked yelling definitely didn't help the situation. People were tripping over themselves and running in all directions.

"Hey-wait! Stop!" Kei tried to placate them but it was no use, he was basically trampled as people rushed to get away from his monster.

"KEI KAW-ERR KID KAIJU!" Scragg shouted as his barbed feet lifted from the ground. With a great speed Scragg flew over the herd of riled pedestrians, causing further pandemonium as he went over screaming people's heads. With long, thin arms Scragg plucked Kei out of the sea that was rushing civilians who had lost their minds, his three-fingered hands digging under Kei's arms to lift him. Kei searched about frantically from the cradle of his monster's arms, looking and searching for a way to get these people to calm down. As he looked for a resolution to the block-wide freak out he caught sight of the car that had kicked off this chain of events.

"Scragg, follow that car!" Kei had lost track of the other hero in the wild fray of people rushing to get off the streets, but in that moment he had become preoccupied with something else anyway. It wasn't often Kei got to do the hero stuff, he was often kept to the sidelines for various reasons and it all really got to be frustrating over time. But now? Now there was a chance where he could be of help, and not just to the regular people of New York, but to another costumed hero who was having a rough time with whoever was behind the wheel. Kei didn't know who they were or what crimes had been committed but he knew they weren't a literal monster, which was all he ever dealt with like he had been typecast as the monster-kid (though his codename is literally Kid Kaiju), so this would be a welcomed shakeup. It was pretty exciting!

"YESSSS! THE MIGHTY SCRAGG WILL CONQUER THE AUTOMOBILE, AND IT SHALL RUE THE DAY IT THREATENED PEDESTRIANS UNDER SCRAGG'S PROTECTION."

Scragg's large wing's flapped harder, careening his and Kei's bodies around a corner to be carried down the block after the speeding vehicle, leaving screams of the public behind and finally out of earshot.

Anya Corazon