And then the thing flew past them, around a skyscraper and turned back towards the balcony. Kodachi was already seeking a place of privacy when the explosions racked the building outside.
She glanced over her shoulder as she ran for a corner of the shaken building and saw the balcony crumbling. Two men were losing their balance, starting to fall off the splintering stone to the concrete below. She paused in her flight for a place to change to whip around and release a pair of weblines to quickly pull them away from danger.
And then she was vanishing into the crowd of people, turning aside to a now empty room to pull her kimono open and reveal her suit and what of her weapons she was able to conceal within its folds. Given her skill with such things, that was a considerable number.
She slipped her armguards on and the mask and gloves over her head. Everything else was in place already. And then she left out a window in time to see a green flash and several men reduced to bones.
"Oh god," she thought to herself. "I was too slow."
And in that moment, the man in the green body armor was kicked off of his vehicle by a man in a red and blue outfit similar to her own (but no roses, she noted idly in the back of her mind).
The flying freak fell into one of the booths below, but the flying platform flew into one of the balloons, a balloon attached to a large and heavy seeming arch which started to lean downward.
Spider-Rose moved, launching a swingline to take her to a path high above the slowly descending display. She turned to look down and launched a second webline to catch the metal arch. The weight was being slowly lowered, and with her holding it up, she had it completely stopped even as Spider-Man snatched the child from under its path, though doing so felt like it was going to rip her arm from her shoulder.
Seeing that there were no bystanders in danger, she dropped the arch and launched another swingline to get momentum to take her back down to Earth.
The villain was stepping out of the wreckage of his fall and facing a small group of policemen as she landed nearby and she could already tell they weren't about to bring him to a stop. She pointed her hand forward and twisted it down, triggering the firing mechanism of her armguard.
A dart flashed across the scene and bounced harmlessly off his body armor. Under the mask, Spider-Rose frowned and aimed with her second hand, this time striking one of the lighter padded sections of the armor. This time she caught the man's attention as he backhanded the last of the cops away.
The goblin glared in her direction as she stood and waited for the drug to take effect. But it was quickly obvious that that wasn't happening as Spider-Man stepped in and the villain caught his punch, returning one of his own that sent the male spider flying.
"What is it?" the green-armored menace demanded. "Is there a shortage of flies." Even as he quipped, however, he wavered a moment and Spider-Rose was relieved, her drug had some effect after all.
She jumped forward, taking up a pair of metallic batons in her hand, and planned to use the man's point of weakness to drive him down to Earth. She landed and moved right into a rapid combination of blows. Unfortunately, none of them landed.
She felt it coming, her spider sense flaring, but she was already into her attack routine and not able to completely move out of the way. So the flying platform hit her, but it only clipped her foot resulting in a hard landing that left her stunned even as the man mounted the vehicle and turned its weaponry toward Spider-Man.
The villain did not forget Spider-Rose, however, and tossed over his shoulder a metallic ball that split suddenly into three devices with razor sharp rotating wings. Spider-Rose was forced to go on the defensive, dodging the little mechanical monsters even as Spider-Man struggled to escape the gunfire.
The razor-winged creations were finally destroyed and she returned to the sky in time to grab a pellet from her built and toss at the green monster. It slammed into his armor and erupted into a thick choking smoke that might not have made it past the head-mask, but still obscured sight, and so he did not see her coming when she swung down and across to kick the man and machine off course.
It was not without cost, however, as the glider unleashed a burst of bullets and one of them past through her upper arm. Spider-Rose hissed as the shock of the wound caused her hand to open reflexively sending her into a far fall that she only minimized by combining her new found powers with her training.
She crashed to the ground hard, but not unprepared. Still, the impact dazed her and she had to take a few moments to stand up again and then straighten herself.
Peter noticed the exchange as well, especially as that random gunfire had cut him off from rescuing Mary Jane. He was just getting back to a position that would enable him to defend the girl when the green man slammed him into the window beyond.
Spider-Rose dazzedly stood and fired a net of webbing upward, connecting the collapsing balcony with the rest. But she didn't have the time or the position to truly prevent the collapse from continuing.
A short scuffle on the balcony above her, as she tried to weave a stronger net, resulted in the man's flying craft twirling off randomly into the sky.
"I'll get you next time, Spiders!" he shouted. "Next time!"
See other episodes by Thrythlind
(Posted Fri, 26 Dec 2003 22:54)
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