2013.07.06 - The Show Must Go On

The show must go on.

At least, that was the decision from the producers of the Lady Spice commercial; fortunately for the pocketbooks of the backers, a decent amount of footage had been taken of Missy Cramer before she was kidnapped. With some emergency re-writing, this means that shooting some new footage using Rita Wayword in her role as Missy's body and stunt double will allow them to wrap up and edit the commercial in time. As far as the clients are concerned, that's the most important thing.

Michael Jon Carter is on set, once again in that same spot in Times Square for continuity purposes. For the new scenes he will actually be allowed to wear a shirt, due to their action-oriented nature. Because of this, and for the sake of keeping his skin intact, he has most of his supersuit on beneath his clothing, adjusted to keep it out of view when he is on camera. He does look pensive, however; while it's nice that he'll finally earn a paycheck from this, his inability to find any clue as to where Missy was taken to is weighing on his mind.

Rita Wayword is uncomfortable. Her outfit doesn't quite fit right -- she was never supposed to be wearing this particular outfit of Missy's, and they haven't tailored it properly. More than simple sartorial concerns, she can't help but wonder why it was the six-armed demon woman who took Missy through a gleaming portal seemed to know her. Knew her as though they were old friends, though Rita was quite sure she would remember if she'd seen the creature before. "Can we take that one again?" she asks the director, frowning. Reaching up, she adjusts her blonde wig.

Xavin might not have a home or a steady income, but she does have a smart phone; once the post-kidnapping commotion died down a bit, she was perfectly willing to give it out if it meant a chance at getting Missy back to Earth and/or punching Spiral for being a coward.

With the shoot rolling on without its starlet, Xavin agreed to hang around the set just in case the six-armed psychopath makes a return appearance; not long after arriving, she determined that the craft services table would provide her with the best vantage in case of trouble, and she's been parked there in uniform ever since, nibbling on (and occasionally pocketing) free food while watching for signs of Spiral. Like wormholes in the sides of buildings, say.

Getting an autograph from Ms. Wayword was proving to be fun. Getting SHIELD assistance was proving to be a tad difficult, particularly since Doug was no longer an agent of SHIELD. But he could, at the least, hang out close enough that he could request it if it were necessary, what with SHIELD determining that once might have been coincidence, a second time would be a pattern. Doug had read that Spiral, though, and felt that she wasn't lying about wanting Rita for something. What, he didn't know.

But here he was, nominally hanging out, having begged a special pass to keep an eye on her.

"Of course, Rita," says the director, a middle aged woman with her dark hair pulled back into a practical ponytail. She turns to harangue some lackeys into getting the scene reset, while the cameraman gets the camera back to its starting position. Another assistant updates the information on the clapboard.

Michael is getting a once-over by one of the makeup personnel, even though she is standing on a little stepstool to reach his face and hair properly; wardrobe has been on edge and unhappy about the extra wear and tear going on, and does not want the actors sitting and rumpling things further. They're being very difficult.

Rolling his eyes a little without otherwise moving, Michael remarks to Rita, "At least things are going more smoothly this time. Even if some of the production staff is cranky."

"It's bad press," Rita says, shaking her head. "Nobody wants to be the crew that let some freak kidnap their star. Plus she was wearing a couple thousand dollars worth of stuff." The last point might seem immaterial under typical circumstances, but Hollywood types are... a certain way. "That thing... have you managed to find her at all? Or even a trace of her? I wish there was some way I could help."

Xavin - who just slipped in invisibly rather than worry about things like 'disguises' or 'talking to someone in charge' - looks up from stuffing her face with cheese danish long enough to glimpse, then study Doug and his pass; when she finally tilts her chin back down, a very convincing duplicate of the thing appears on a lanyard around her neck.

"Thank you," she then calls to the omnilinguist through a fresh mouthful of pastry.

With the premises seemingly clear, Doug approaches Rita and Michael, tilting his head and nodding towards them. "Things are clear for the moment. If you're ready to start filming, we'll go." There was a quick surreptitious check of Cerebros... although it would detect mutants, Doug had experimented a bit with it to see if it would notice anything not mutant or human. He wasn't sure how well it was working... for some reason, something seemed off about it. Probably a bug in the program somewhere...

Psh, he might have to junk this program, it was off, for sure.

"None at all. Whatever... she, that person, used, it didn't put off any emissions that I could detect. So, probably magical." Michael's speech is a little stilted because he has a make-up lady preening him. Once she finishes, he relaxes a bit. He remarks to Doug, "I guess things are safe, now. I just have a very bad feeling about this." Michael gives a vague wave at the set, Times Square in general, Xavin, the crabby wardrobe staff.

That is the cue for a pentacle to light up beneath Rita's feet, and five hands to emerge at each star-point. The sixth wraps about Rita's ankle.

Rita, quite reasonably, screams.

Having finished the last of her danish, Xavin is just about to follow it up by lowering a bunch of grapes into her mouth when the pentacle and its accompanying scream interrupts her snacking. She tosses the fruit and the rest of her plate of food aside as she takes off running to ground zero; about halfway there, she fades from sight and continues running, leaving nothing more than a faint blue shimmer in the air where she was.

Beep beep... well, at least it was working, apparently, just a bit confused as though there were two... wait..

Eyes shifting to where the second beep was coming from, the young mutant immediately translates body language to action, diving through the portal, trying to get at what was there.

"Rita!" Instinctively, Michael grabs for the woman, throwing his arms around her in a bid to keep her from being dragged away. He is not wearing any sort of weapon, however; his wrist mounted blasters would have been far too visible under the clothing he needed to wear for the commercial.

"Oooh crap, it's back," comments the cameraman in quiet tones of dread. He was present when Missy was kidnapped. Even though the camera was set up for another take, he swings it and instead gets footage of the scuffle going on a few meters away from him.

It's back indeed. Though it probably prefers 'she', so don't be rude.

Booster manages to yank Rita away from the grasping hands, and the pentacle shimmers to even brighter life as SPIRAL comes floating up into the open air. "Always with the escort!" she coos. "Rita, my dove, surely you're not afraid of me?" Her grin is as cruel as it is hungry. Rita faints dead away in Booster's arms.

Xavin adds a little punctuation of her own to Spiral's taunting by sending a volleyball-sized force field hurtling at the demonic dancer's mid-section. The upper half of her body shifts into view just then, too, as if a curtain was just pulled aside; her right hand is pressed firmly to her temple and she's scowling up at the would-be kidnapper.

"If it wasn't for the madwoman trying to steal her away, the escort wouldn't be necessary!" she shouts.

Unable to get into the portal because it seemed to be a one-way, thanks to SPIRAL coming out, the young mutant pulls back. Trying to get a read off Spiral, Doug shifts to trying to grab ahold of Rita, to separate her from the six-armed figure while at the same time bringing a hand up underneath the arm holding the stuntwoman. C'mon, there's got to be nerve points at that joint...

"Okay, first off, I am not Rita's escort," Michael informs Spiral, taking a step back and turning away to put more of his own body between Spiral and the passed-out Rita. He is clutching the latter in one arm, as if she weighed no more than a feather. "I'm her friend and co-worker." His other arm comes up with the palm of his hand facing Spiral, as if to warn her off. There is a glossiness over himself and Rita now, a faint golden shimmer. "Secondly, where is Missy Cramer! I demand that you return her, safe and sound!"

"DEMAND?" Spiral crows, cackling with delight at the very idea. "Oh, my darling dear. You have no idea who I am, do you? I am Spiral, Mistress of the Wildways! None challenge me and live! Your demands will be your undoing, mortal fool." Six swords shimmer to life in her hands, a musical note accompanying their arrival. "Stay out of the way of my dance, Golden Boy. You won't like the steps." She does an ornate series of footwork motions, thrusting her arms out in rhythmic motion to deflect Xavin's forcefield and send Doug sprawling into the dirt.

It isn't often that Xavin has to deal with having her fields batted back at her, so dodging this one is mostly a matter of diving to the ground when it collides with Spiral's outstretched hands rather than her belly, and letting the invisible sphere bounce off of the concrete and into the sky.

Thankfully for any local birds, she manages to deconstruct the thing before it flies too far.

"Why," Xavin snaps at Booster as she pushes herself up, "are you trying to reason with her?! She has far too many swords for reasoning!"

Great, swords. And Doug'd sworn not to use guns, or he'd have just tried to re-enact that Raiders of the Lost Ark scene. As it was, the young blond rolls around in the dirt, before picking himself up. Glancing towards Rita, Doug murmurs towards Michael, "You've got a hole up your sleeves, right? Now might be the time."

Not so awesome; the swords have come out. Michael is fairly sure that Doug is not stab-proof, although Xavin might be. Just flying away with Rita could be a bad decision--either Spiral will follow and then he would have to deal with her alone, or she might turn and rampage on the people here just for fun or vengeance. Lifting into the air just a few feet, he answers Xavin with a slow murmur in Interlac, just hoping Spiral cannot understand that language. ""

In English, Michael then directs to Spiral, "And I am Booster Gold! You're not taking Rita, or anyone else!" Rather dramatically, Booster points at the six-armed woman and the glossy golden look vanishes from around himself and Rita's unconscious body, and a golden translucent bubble forms around Spiral.

The bubble of energy doesn't really seem to faze Spiral. She eyes it curiously, then turns to look at Booster Gold. "Such a pretty suit you have," she purrs, voguing with her hands as she strikes a series of dramatic poses. There's a soft 'vooommm' sound as something shifts in the machinery of Booster's armor, and then... lightning courses from the sky, a bolt that hits him directly where he stands. "You're a meddler," she says, licking her teeth. "Meddlers get fried."

Falling from Booster's arms, Rita's unconscious form thunks into the ground. She rolls limply on the sidewalk, still out cold.

"" Xavin replies, over-enunciating every syllable to make sure Booster with his weird future-dialect can understand her, ""

Rather than wait for an explanation, she sweeps her eyes around the rest of the set and lets the rest of her body fade into view. "Small blonde human," she exclaims as her eyes flick past Doug "Clear the rest of these peo--"

The rest of her request is lost amidst the crash of lightning, and whatever plan might have been on her mind vanishes right along with it; instead, she stretches her hand towards the unconscious actress and erects a protective/invisible dome over her body, just in case.

Perhaps surprisingly to Booster, Doug calls out in Interlac, "< Just get her out of the way! >"

Mindful of Xavin's last spoken words, though, the blond mutant doesn't stop to ask questions, immediately moving to herd the rest of the set clear, calling out in both English and Spanish, and at one time, even resorting to rude gestures to get people moving.

"" Whatever Spiral did, it clearly is causing Booster some issues. The golden sphere around the six-armed woman is flickering, and he is glancing down at himself and frowning. It suddenly occurs to him that things are going wrong, very wrong, and even though it means Rita will have to get a few bruises, he drops her. She's a tough lady. As he is releasing the stuntwoman, the bolt of lightning strikes him. Rather than electrocuting him or killing him on the spot, it seems to be surging around and over him, causing the clothing he is wearing over his blue and gold suit to explode and tatter. The electricity never arcs to the ground just a foot below his hovering feet--apparently, he is absorbing the energy from the strike, and while it is not burning him, it does cause him to cry out in pain.

When Booster speaks, it almost sounds as if his voice were coming through a static-ridden channel. "Can't vent it--" He suddenly flies several meters straight up, a golden star with crawling bands of bright blue energy coruscating over his limbs. Even his eyes are glowing blue. And then, he explodes. It is like a supernova, sun-bright, and while there is no 'kaboom' there is a window-rattling shockwave and then a thunderclap as air rushes to fill the space where he was a moment ago. A fireball hangs there for a moment but quickly burns out.

"Oh, for the love of Christ," the director moans. "NOW what?" Lady Spice, clearly, is a cursed deodorant.

Now free of Booster's force bubble, Spiral hurls one of her swords at Rita, chuckling as she watches it clang off Xavin's invisible field. "Fine, fine. I'll let you keep her. For now." Blowing the alien a kiss, Spiral kicks her legs and vanishes back into her pentagram.

"Nngh--" Xavin grunts when sword meets dome. "You'll do more than that, you--"

Michael kinda, sorta just exploded above them.

Hissing something absolutely filthy in her native tongue, Xavin ignites the lower half of her body and takes to the sky to survey the place where Booster was.

"Other blonde human," she calls, eyes darting around for any sign at all of Booster's continued survival, "call out if you're--" Beat.

"Just--call out--please!"

But there was no answer.

No answer, no debris.

"Damn it!" Doug exclaims, after he's managed to get people away, though the cameramen who were still filming have apparently gone quiet and still, realizing what they'd taped...

"Uh. Wow." The cameraman is not so jaded that he can dismiss what just happened. He quickly goes to double check, just to make sure that everything he just shot is good; it would be a shame if he'd forgotten to record it all. As it happens, it is all safe on tape and on digital backup.

Rita stirs on the ground, a bruise blossoming on her cheek. "She knew my name," she murmurs, still groggy. "Why did she know my name?"

"He's gone," Xavin somberly announces upon landing. "Completely; no trace at all." After a moment spent glowering at the spot on the ground Spiral rose from, she thinks to shift her eyes towards Rita and offer a quiet, "I'm sorry."

"Okay, I need those tapes," Doug is all business now, as he immediately shifts to grabbing the cameras. "SHIELD's going to want to take a look."

And there was no way in hell he was going to leave these films in the custody of things.

Rita gets an apologetic look. "Ma'am, I'll need you to talk to SHIELD," Doug says. "We'll, uh..."

He eyes Xavin as well. "We’ll need to talk to you too."

"I... sure," Rita says, rubbing her eyes, "but I'm not sure what I can tell you. I've never seen this woman before these attacks. I don't know why she knows my name, or where she comes from, or what she is."

"Fine," Xavin mutters after staring at Doug for a few conflicted moments. Meeting anyone at all from SHIELD is not all that high on her list of things to do; she's heard too much of what Earthlings have to say about illegal aliens to not be wary. "You have my number."

And with that, the fire flickers and dies, and then the Skrull's body swiftly fades from view.

ELSEWHERE AND POSSIBLY ELSEWHEN...

Booster Gold's eyelids flicker, and then open. He sits up with a groan, rubbing his hand through his hair. His shiny power suit is intact, although lacking the cowl and goggles as well as the blasting gauntlets. The clothing he had been wearing for the commercial hangs from him in tattered and charred rags. He glances at the ground, which has an unpleasant melted look to it and is a Pepto Bismol pink. Then, his gaze is caught by something further up; there is some kind of monitor screen embedded in the twisted earth, flashing scenes from some kind of cheerful entertainment program.

Booster gets to his feet and looks around, noting that there are other floating screens bobbing nearby--some sort of televisions, in fact, mindlessly milling around. The landscape seems barren here, otherwise, and stretches off in the distance with a curve that suggests that it may be upon the inner surface of an enormous sphere. The mist that fills the atmosphere is initially a garish fuchsia, but moments later it shifts to a more soothing aqua, on its way to a bilious green. When the sky can be seen, if it is the sky, it sometimes looks like video snow. Even as Booster watches, the glimpse of sky turns the unnatural vivid dark blue of a lost digital cable signal, and then that is hidden by sinuous lemon yellow clouds.

With his mouth agape for a long moment, Booster finally snaps it shut, and rubs the back of his neck. He quietly murmurs, "Oh, boy."