2013.04.15 - Solomon Grundy, born on a Monday


 * SMASH*

The two figures go crashing from one tunnel, downward at a 35 degree angle, and straight through to another tunnel. The one dressed in black, with the pale skin and the dead eyes beats down on his adversary mercilessly. Underneath, Superman takes the blows to the face much better than anyone else could, but the immense strength of his foe has the punches leaving quite an impact.

"Grundy, I'm warning you," the Man of Steel says in between punches, "You're going to regret this."

The next wallop smashes Superman's head into the rail, bending it badly. In the background, a pair of lights show that an oncoming train will be arriving shortly.

It's been a slow day for Jessica, and probably would have stayed that way if not for the sudden influx of people running out of Grand Central in terror. Jessica runs into the buil;ding, rather than away from it. Her Spider-Sense is less than pleased, as it screams of danger, but she hardly cares. She leaps up out of the way of the cameras and pulls off her civilian gear, underneath which is her Spider-Woman costume. Once fully clad (the whole process takesd less than thirty seconds once she's inside), she's swinging her way towards the source of the disturbance, guided by her Spider-Sense.

Superman is pretty recognizable, but she's not sure who the other guy is. But As he's trying to use the Man of Steel's head for a railroad spike with an incoming train, Spider-Woman tries to distract Grundy by webbing him, and pulling back with all her considerable might, hoping to pull him off Supes and send him onto the platform so that Superman can get free and save teh trail from being derailed due to that bent rail line.

"I don't think this is quite what they mean by catching the six-fifteen, pasty-face!"

It's not clear if Grundy is distracted or if Spider-Woman was able to pull him back and away off of Superman. What is clear is that the distraction is enough to get Grundy up and off of Superman and now the massive hulk of a zombie begins coming for her.

Taking advantage of the situation, Superman bends the track back into place, just as the lights are getting brighter and brighter. Without a moment to spare, Superman uses the ground as a launching pad and soars up, out, and straight into Grundy's back before he gets the chance to get his mitts on his prey.

The two go barreling into a set of vending machines, sending sparks flying in all directions. Superman lands upon Grundy's back, and just as the Kryptonian is about to deliver the knockout blow to the back of the head, Grundy leaps upward and smashes both of them against the ceiling; enough to get Superman to lose his grip.

Spider-Woman is no slouch in teh speed department. She's up and out of the way before Grundy can get anywhere near her, performing a pretty acrobatic series of flips along the ceiling as she does.

The train passes by safely, which gets a quick sigh of relief from the Avatar of the Spider, before instinctively leaping away from teh ceiling as her Spider-sense goes off.

As the two start coming back down due to gravity, Spider-Woman leaps towards them, intent on planting both her feet into the ghostly-white plant/zombie creature's gut, and getting some distance between him and the Big Blue Boy Scout.

"You okay?" she asks the Kryptonian in mid-leap.

Spider-Woman hits Grundy with a massive force, but surprisingly the zombie only staggers and is not knocked from his perch.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Thanks for the help," Superman says, with breathing a bit labored. Grundy reaches back as to take a swing at Spider-Woman, but his arm is taken by Superman's smaller one and held back. Grundy pivots, and in one move, grabs Superman by the torso and puts him through the wall. Tile, dry-wall, and brick make quite the dust cloud as Superman disappears into one of the bathrooms.

Spider-Woman winces behind her mask as Supes goes through the wall.

"No problem. But I think there's easier ways of getting to the john." she quips. Then she's in action, leaping in front of Grundy and using her webs to try to blindfold him.

"Then again, I think the mirrors will be safer without you wanting to see your ugly mug." she jokes at the zombie before following Superman inside.

"Do we have a plan here or is it basically just 'fight until he gets tired and leaves?"

Superman slowly appears out of the hole that was made and enters the fray once again. "You're looking at my third plan. None of them have gone too well. Any ideas?" he asks, giving her a headtilt and half-wince, in a somewhat lighthearted way given the circumstances.

Meanwhile, the webs cover Solomon's eyes, much to the disagreement of the dead ogre. He roars as his hands try to claw the webbing away. "Grundy no see! Bug girl pay!!!"

"Huh. I dunno whether to be amazed he can talk or insulted that he thinks I'm a bug." That said, she frowns behind her mask. "Does this guy have any weaknesses we can exploit? I wasn't trying to use my full force earlier because I didn't want to put him in traction or anything and it still felt like I was kicking a reinforced steel door." she says. "We can't just let him keep rampaging around. Too many people still in the area to get hurt. I could try webbing him up though if you can give me a shot where we can stop him from getting any leverage."

"Try being on guard because here he comes!" Grundy has finally ripped the webbing from his eyes and tries to go for Spider-Woman once more. In trying to intercept, Superman puts his body in between Jess and the monster, but the tactic is ill advised. Grundy grabs Superman by his red boots and takes his body in a backward arc before slamming him down into the ceramic flooring of the terminal. Then again. Then again. Then again and again.

"Oh come on! Who the hell uses moves like that outside of Videogames?" Spider-Woman asks in annoyance. "Hey fugly! You wanna piece of this? Come on!" she says, taunting the big man while darting around him back into the larger terminal which is now emptied of innocent bystanders. "Come into my parlor, said the Spider to the big white zuchinni."

Grundy seems obliged to take a gander. He flings Superman off to the side and down into the railway tube where the Man of Steel falls out of sight. He begins to stalk towards Spider-Woman angrily. "Grundy no like bugs. Bug go squish!" He stalks at her slowly and intently, the dead flesh almost dripping off his body. Hot date, this guy.

"I'm not as bug, fleshman. I'm a Spider! Get it right!" she calls back as she unloads with all ten fingers shooting webs at Grundy, trying to cocoon him in so tight he'd be incapable of movement barring some kind of miracle. Though given his raw strength, that may not be enough, unless she really pours on teh webbing, but she;s hoping that without any leverage to work from, the webbing will hold him.

Grundy seems to be getting stronger and stronger by the moment. As the webbing comes in, it's enough to distract him, but he bats it away making a real mess of things. Desperately he tries to get it off his hands, but growls angrily when he cannot seem to. Instead he has arms that now look like the ends of a Q-tip. "Grundy squish spider, too!!!"

Keeping teh webbing coming, Spider-Woman makes sure to keep a decent distance from Grundy at all times.

"Grundy's not gonna do anything except look like a Universal Horror film prop if Spider-Woman's got anything to say about it!" she taunts back. The more he flails around, the more he's likely to get caught up in her webs, she reasons, so why not make him so mad he walks right into it?

Gradually, Spider-Woman's webs adhere themselves to the floor, and to Grundy, and by proxy, eventually Grundy adheres to the floor. His body rolls around as he tries to wriggle free. It doesn't seem to be working at the moment, but Grundy has been showing more and more strength. Can he break free? It's not clear.

Thus far, it seems to be working for the moment, so Spider-Woman really isn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Her bigger concern is what happened to Superman, who fell so completely out of site she's wondering if he got knocked out or fell down a hole in the rail way or something.

But before she knows it, a red and blue streak whooshes past, and suddenly, the man she worried for is right in front of her and looking rather perturbed. "Pardon me," he says to her before reaching his hand back and delivering a blow so severe to the side of Grundy's head that it can be heard on the street three stories up.

Finally the beast slumps to the ground amidst all the webbing. Superman looks to Jessica and gives a nod.

Finally stopping the use of her webs when Superman arrives, she grins behind her mask and returns the nod.

"Great timing. If I'd had to keep that up much more I was either going to pass out or my webbing might have just become useless. I don't even want to think how much food I'm gonna have to pack away to recover from this one. What's teh story with this guy anyway? I mean, you I've seen on the news. But this one's all new to me."

Superman makes a face and and nods to Spider-Woman. "His name is Solomon Grundy. I have no way other to describe him other than he's not really living and not really dead. Perhaps a zombie by some definitions, but his power comes from a mysticism I do not understand. I've seen him die, but he returns over and over again. It's lucky he's probably one of the more dumb villains out there, I suppose."

"George Romero's lawyers would have a field day with this guy if it weren't for that whole copyright mess." The webslinger quips. Then offers Superman a hand to shake.

"I'm Spider-Woman. Hope you don't mind my having joined the fight. Saw people running for their lives and well...my Clan raised me to protect the innocent. I think you can figure out the rest." she says with a snicker.

Superman shakes his head, "No, of course not. I welcome the help. It could have gotten pretty cagey back there. I got the call an hour ago that Grundy had gotten out from Star Labs during a transit and had been fighting him until you got here." Superman takes the hand, "I'm Superman. I'm sorry, I can't say that I know much about you. Are you pretty knew to this sort of thing? I don't recognize you from any of the known teams out there."

Superman nods and smiles, fill of mirth. "You have quite the point there." After thinking for a moment, he adds, "I'm not sure if you'd be interested, but if you'd ever like to pursue one of those teams, please let me know. We could use someone like you in the League."

The thought falters, however, when Grundy begins to shift and groan. A giant kick from Superman sends him back into slumber, the leg itself nearly breaking the speed of sound. "I should probably get him back to the Labs."

"Hey, a little help now and then wouldn't hurt. So if you're sure, then yeah, I wouldn't mind joining the team, as long as you guys are okay with it." Then Grundy gets kicked back to the land of Nod and she winces. "Undead or not that one hadda hurt." she jokes. But then nods. "As I'm not entirely sure where it is myself, I guess it'd be better if you did. Oh, t ell them the webbing's organic and will dissolve in about a week, but if they got something sharp enough like adamantium or something, they can cut him loose. ...Though I really don't see why they'd WANT to."

Superman nods as he hoists Grundy up onto his shoulder. The massive size difference between the two makes it quite an odd thing to see, when one considers normal physics. "I'll let them know. Thanks again for your help. We'll definitely be in touch." Superman smiles once more and gives her another nod, before floating upwards and making for the street level exits. Well, he'll actually take the large hole that Grundy and he made before the beginning of this scene, but whatever.