2013.09.01 - That band Slayer sucks.

It's when the sun sets that the streets get the reflection off the bricks and things are shaded that amber orange. The favorite time of the day for romantics and those who hit up their local watering hole after work. It's always five o'clock somewhere, but tonight it's closer to seven in the heart of New York City.

Little Madelyn Gregory has worked the same job for 40 years-an assistant in the prestigious law firm Devishire and Burton. She never married, grew old, and regretful over never having the family she undervalued in favor of an exciting career in an exciting city.

Ms. Gregory is walking home after work on those orangish streets, focusing on what she needs to pick up from the market on the way home. Her smart purple suit is still neat after a long day, and her grey hair and eyes hint at a prettier face from years past. She never sees the man with the gun coming.

The timing is perfect. The mugger knocks her into a secluded alleyway in a move that has obviously been practiced. No one notices Ms. Gregory disappear into the space between the two buildings. No one can hear her muffled scream behind the mugger's hand.

"Give me all your money," the thug says as Ms. Gregory's eyes go wide. She nods frantically and reaches for her purse.

From behind, a figure slinks down via a line connected who knows where. Feet together. Legs splayed. Upside down. Red and Blue.

You know what you never see? A superhero just walking along the sidewalk. Unless that superhero was Circus that is. She's got her hood down and her curls have spilled out everywhere, oily and sweaty, much like the face that is surrounded by all those brown locks. She's got a pile of change in her left hand, and she's been counting it while she walks along admiring the backside of some older woman in purple up ahead of her when she looks up. She's been using the mature booty as a guide and when she looks up and finds it gone, Francesca comes to a halt, pulling her attention away from her pennies, nickles and dimes to see where the lady went. "Dang. You should pay attention to where you're going Franny. That lady just effing ninjaed on you."

Taking a morning off to run errands, a backpacked Doug Ramsey strolls down the street. This being New York, that very few people notice the patterns of people coming in and out, the city having its own language in the way traffic flows. So the disruption of the traffic pattern generally goes unnoticed, because that is the way things are.

And yet, pattern recognition in itself is -something- to be noticed, and Doug almost -senses- something off in the flow of the traffic, a prickle in the back of his head that -something- was amiss in the normal traffic. So when he slows down at the source of the disruption... which is quite likely -not- the woman checking out some older woman's booty... and not likely a man-spider doing something similar, it takes a moment before...

"HEY, THIEF!"

The Thief stops as both Circus and Doug catch the man in the act. Ms. Gregory becomes even more frightened as she's unsure how jumpy the man with the gun might be. Indeed, the thug realizes he's only got one card left to play: the hostage card and pulls Ms. Gregory into a defensive position.


 * THWIP THWIP*

The gun flies from the thiefs hands and bounces off the brick of one of the buildings before clattering upon the floor.

Spider-Man reaches back to throw a haymaker at the thief and end this party for good, but a funny thing happens. It's difficult to describe the Spidey-sense in any real way. The organics of it don't lend themselves to words in any easy way. But the feeling that Spidey normally feels is there, it's just muted. As if someone took the power and shoved it under water and the power was trying to yell at its master over and over again with little efficacy.

The grinding and whirring of servo-motors are the only sound the machine makes before it knocks Spider-Man down the alleyway away from Ms. Gregory, the thief, Doug, and Circus. It's tall and purple. Menacing looking with claws at the ends of appendages that look very human. Indeed it looks humanoid in appearance, but the telescoping eye at the end of a 'neck' strongly implies machine.

By the time Spidey catches his bearings, the machine is on him and delivering a vicious punch across the jaw.

Well, technically Fran didn't catch the thief in the act, but rather noticed the hole in her surroundings left by the sudden absence of Ms. Gregory. With the help of Doug calling out like that she was able to come to the realization that perhaps Ms. Gregory's disappearance had more to do with a criminal than with her cluelessness, and criminals meant alleys. Time compressed and in a rush of neon green and purple (For she was in her purple suit today) she arrived in time to see the strange robot knocking Spider-Man around, "Holy crap! Spiderman!" she squeaked, her words sped together as she forgot to slow her speaking voice down. Without thinking she lashed out, flinging her handful of change at the robot like so many bullets, trying to catch the robot unawares with the shotgun like attack.

The purple machine was surprising for -everyone- concerned. Thief, victim, and others. SHIELD reflexes took over. No time for self-recrimination, and Doug steps up while the thief was distracted, brings the hand up in a quick gesture to get the gun upwards and firing, and then proceeds to try and disarm the thief quickly, so that he can turn his attention towards getting the victim -gone- and then deal with the ... whatever it was.


 * SLAM SLAM*

Spider-Man wriggles helplessly as he's attacked over and over again. Though his spider-infused DNA is complete with strength and endurance, the young man is not used to getting a beating like this. Why aren't his usual things working. What is this machine? No time to worry about that now...Must...get free.

Spider-Man wriggles in the grasp of one of the mighty claws as the other punches him over and over. His mask starts to split because of the terrible blows.

Meanwhile, the coins bounce off the machine and skitter all around. The monster stops pounding on Spider-Man long enough for the eye to turn to take in Circus. After a whir of machinery and a short delay, a large plume of fire bursts from the eye, heading towards Circus.

Doug move quickly into the thief. The gun goes straight up and a firing round can be heard for blocks. Doug is able to pin the thief against the wall as Ms. Gregory screams in terror.

"Holy shit!" This is serious! Circus rushes forward to grab Ms. Gregory about the waist as the fire is shot down the alley, the two of them winking out of existence the moment the embrace is secured. Back on the street the two women appear a heartbeat later, and Circus lets go. "We'll have this taken care of in a moment Ma'am. That's THE Spider-Man back there. Like, the real deal!" Then she springs back towards the alleyway, flipping and twisting midair to hit a wall, which she promptly bounces off to hit the other wall, and from their leap down to assist Spider-Man, trying to kick the beastie from above. Not like Spider-Man needs her help or anything. I mean, get real!

Prying the gun free, the young blond starts to call out "GO!"... except for Circus taking off with Ms. Gregory. No time to canoodle, though, as Doug moves to growl at the thief. "I haven't time to deal with this... get out of here. Now."

And then releasing the thief, Doug does a quick assessment check as Circus pops back in to try and help.

The eye. It had to be a weak point, at least. Waiting until it stopped firing things out of it, Doug takes aim, trying to find a good... no, too many people, he might hit something he wasn't trying for. And anyway, he didn't really like using guns for some reason. Which left...

"Hey! Gun, eye!" he calls out to the girl who'd apparently blinked in and out.

But Spider-Man needs help desperately. He's still pinned on the ground and unable to get out as Circus' feet collide with the machine. The kick does little, unfortunately, and the free claw-hand swings to attempt to catch Circus mid bounce.

The eye then moves over to Doug, taking his visage in. But since he hasn't acted aggressively, the Slayer doesn't attack Doug at all.

"Craptastic!" squeaks out of Circus' mouth as her kick does little to nothing to the thing. She twists and squirms mid air as the thing tries to snatch her on the fly. She gets a ripped costume and some missing hair in the process, but she does manage to avoid the fate of being snatched up. She thumps into the wall near Doug, "Gun eye?" she coughs as she thumps from wall to alley floor. Quick as she may be, she's not too quick on the uptake, but she does get it eventually, "Oh! Gun in the eye!" she holds out a hand for the wapon as she gets to her feet.

Shorthand. It'd do in a pinch, and Doug hands over the gun, although his attention is on how the machine doesn't do -anything- to Doug, which... was curious. Whether or not it could hear or react... was it just reliant on vision, or did it hear?

Hmmm.

"Can you hear me?" Doug asks, holding his hands up slowly. "Because you don't want to do this... you can... 1001001010010100010101..." His voice trails off into some sort of binary language, and it was going to -hurt- if he had to keep talking in zero-one, but... in absence of a laptop and an access port, what was he going to do? Tell it in binary that it didn't want to do this, and to let go... if it could even hear him. At the least, keep it occupied while Circus does something...

Abruptly, the machine stops pummeling Spider-Man, but still keeps the wall crawler in its grasp. Motors hiss as it turns back around to face Doug. It explains that it very much does indeed want to do this. In fact, it's the only thing that it has been programmed to do. Killing Spider-Man is its lone source of purpose.

Spider-Man, meanwhile, is getting none of this. "Uhm, thanks for the help, guy and gal...Hey, I know you...We met almost a year ago, right?" he asks of Circus; battered and bloody still in the monster's grasp.

Circus takes the gun, but with Doug doing all that weird talking she isn't sure if she should...Oh! She hops up and grabs Spider-Man, ignoring the machine and grabbing its target instead. And then she and Spidey disappear and reappear down the alley a moment later. She's panting after her second teleport in a short period of time, "Yeah. We did." She lands limply, but stays on her feet barely. "Circus." she introduces herself. With Spidey out of the things grip, this should all be over with in two shakes of a lamb's tail...whatever that actually means.

And meanwhile, Doug is altering his approach. It's more coaxing, trying to over-write and replace 'kill' with... ... something probably more useful. Like 'help', maybe. "You don't have to be a slave, free yourself from the directive... 10101010001001 Let me help you... 101010100101..." Help Spider-Man. Be Friends with Spider-Man. Be a good boy, Lassie...

The machine stands there, staring at Doug, and not moving. Eventually, as its programming begins to be overwritten, it's anxious stance lowers and becomes more relaxed. "Be friends with Spider-Man," it repeats via code to Doug.

"We gotta help that guy!" Spider-Man exclaims, "oh, and thanks for the help too." As Spidey begins jetting off /back towards the scene/, he yells over his shoulder, "Good seein' ya again, Circus!"

After he turns the corner to the alleyway, Spider-Man stops abruptly. His spidey sense gives him nothing. Is it still wonky?

"Be Spider-Man's friend," it repeats, this time using a robotic voice.

Meanwhile, miles away in an underground bunker, Dr. Spencer Smythe is banging upon the controls of his computer mainframe. "How can this be!? We were so close!!!" His hands try to rework the programming, but Smythe is overruled by Doug's superior skills.

Circus bounces along after Spider-Man and sort of falls from the side of the alley when she pauses too long with her mouth hanging open. She hadn't expected to hear the evil robot thingie to be talking about making friends with the Web-Head. Twisting like a cat to land on her feet she stares at the guy who has saved the day...by talking? "What's going on?"

Reaching out to pet the ... Spider-Friend, for lack of a better word, Doug coos, "That's a good boy. You don't -have- to do things you don't want to. So be a good friend to Spider-Man, now, will you?"

Tilting his head, the young mutant turns towards the other two, rubbing his throat. "Um... say hi to your new friends. I uh... need a drink of water or something. I think I hurt my throat."

Spider-Man looks back over at Circus, "I...I have no idea." He's definitely relieved, but in no desire to approach the bot that just gave him a concussion. "Thanks, we can remain friends from a distance," he says to Doug. "And thanks for your help. I'm not sure what you did, but my brain thanks you for scramble prevention."

"Normally I could help you out with that dude, but I'm all out of water." says Circus, whose cupboard/backpack is currently empty. "Is that robot like...safe now? What did you do? Did you stop it by just...asking it to be friends? This is like a saturday morning cartoon. I feel like I've learned a valuable lesson."

"... Uh... kind of," Doug grins sheepishly. "I sort of asked it to re-think its programming." He really didn't want to get into the details, as he looks at Spider-Man. "Just wanted to let you know, I don't believe a word the Bugle says about you. And uh..." Swallowing several times to get some moisture back in his throat, Doug motions towards the bot. "Want him, or can I take him in?"

"Uhm, be my guest," Spider-Man says to Doug. Clearly he wants nothing to do with the monster. To Circus, he chuckles a bit at her remarks. "I learned something too. If your head is being smushed, it's a good thing to have a chick who can teleport your bug butt out of harm's way." He sighs, "I need to get out of here."

"Yeah. Me too. I got to..." she looks around the alley at her hopelessly scattered change. "Oh eff it. I got to cave and go visit the Odinsons. Eff my life." She heaves a sigh then says to Spidey, "It was good seeing you again and stuff. Next time you will have to sign my costume for sure." Then she looks over at Doug, "Great save there dude." Then she's off, rushing towards Thor and Sif's place to mooch a meal and shower.

"Uh, thank you! The... Odinsons?" Now Doug scratches his head, looking back at Spider-Man. "Er, I won't ask. Anyway... you going to be okay? Or do you need, uh... a doctor? I mean, you seem to have taken a hard hit to the head..."

"Nah, I'll be fine." Spider-Man waves him off before waving to the quickly departing Circus, "Thank you!" He turns back, holding his head for a second. "Okay, that was weird. Thanks for your help, dude. I think I'm gonna go hit up an ice pack. What did you say your name was?"

"Oh... sorry. Name's Doug Ramsey," the blond mutant smiles, as he offers a hand. Spider-Man, or rather, Peter, might have had heard that name before, in association with Illyana Rasputin.

Spider-Man shakes the hand, "Thanks for your help, Doug. I really appreciate it. As for now, I gotta split." He fires a shot upwards and bounces up into the sky. "Damnit," he mumbles. "Now I gotta make a new mask."

Now Doug looks back towards the bot. "Well... I guess it's you and me, Lassie. C'mon. I'm gonna introduce you to Kitty..." A smirk. "And Lockheed."