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Since the early 40s, New York's Fashion Week has been a staple in the social scene of the great city and this year is no different. There are spotlights shining up into the sky, dancing across low-hanging clouds and lending a festive element to the energized atmosphere. The sidewalks are in part cordoned off for sections of people to gather, for the press, for the beautiful people to see and be seen. Amazing outfits are worn almost casually upon the city's sidewalks as designers fuss with assistants and models. It all simply adds more chaos to the already chaotic venue of the city in the evening.
This year the majority of the event takes place in the ballrooms and event centers of the four hotels that rest at the edge of the Garment District. Inside there are parties being enjoyed, and shows to be seen with beautiful models walking runways. Even the security guards are dressed tastefully in black suits with colorful ties and long jackets that nicely hide their firearms.
Yet it's without the event centers that a rather fetching red and blue number is adorning the dashing silhouette of the Spectacular Spider-Man. From the Collection 'Fashion by Parker', he wears a simple onesie with spider-webbing under the arms and an overall web motif. Clearly it will be all the rage next year. If only the fashion critics noticed him hanging from his point of view, leaning over the edge of a rooftop and peering down at the long elegant cars pulling up to drop off their charges. Under the mask he crinkles his nose.
"So many peoples, not a single hot dog vendor to be found. Man."
*
Delphyne arrives from Midtown.
*
Delphyne has arrived.
*
Fashion Week.
A completely and totally foreign concept that Diana will quite possibly never ever understand even if it was drawn with random effigies from chalk to rock to chalk. But as she stands, the hooded, armor clad figure, one which was donned and downed upon her visage to watch from the darkness in betwixt two buildings, her eyes leveled upon the flash and garish manner of dress.
There was a gorgeous number there; a red dress alike Spider-man's own, though not complete with a onesie though she herself would consider it as such. The woman was tall, the dress clung to her like magic, the heels obviously so.
Even her hair was magnificent, the dark hair coiled up into pin curls and high hives. The gauntlet hand pressed against the building as Diana slips forward, a little into the light and out of the shadows to marvel the gown that the woman wears before she retreats into the .. aptly named Fashion Week.
*
It is a curious ritual apparently. They women on display for others to gawk at. It resembles nothing more than the ages past of an auction block with livestock being put through their paces to display the quality of wares to be sold. Yet this… this is all wrapped up in lovely elegance.
Unfortunately, it is an elegance that mostly goes unnoticed. By the vigilante hanging upside down from the aluminum framework under the billboard overlooking the intersection that gives him a good view of the hotels, the people, and the various vehicles that are moving up and down the streets. No civilian traffic tonight. It's all fine cars for the talent, but along the alleyways and certain portions of the road there are trucks and utility vehicles for handling the collections themselves as well as the lighting.
So it is rather easy for a large white van with heavy panels on the sides to roll up along the sidewalk short of the red carpets and the celebrities. Easy for the handful of men in loose fitting utility jump suits to rush out and to move amongst the crowds. Some of them begin to intersperse in the crowds, while others have distinct objectives in mind. Objectives that are revealed when a raised voice is heard.
"Hey, hey! Where are you taking that! That rack goes on in ten minutes!"
To which the man in the jumpsuit, who seems to be pushing a wheeled rack of clothes, responds by flashing the pistol in its holster under the jumpsuit. "Shut up, buddy. Or you'll be nothin' but a smear on somea these fancy duds."
*
The flurry of motion is what catches the Amazonian's eyes. Her head tilted a little to the side to catch the tone of the conversations gathered. Someone spoke about their children and a nanny. One spoke about a hot totty? Whatever the totty was, it was ready tonight. She.. she was ready. The totty apparently wasn't an it.
Another said something about not waiting to finally eat a decent meal after this..
Then..
'Shut up, buddy. Or you'll be nothin' but a smear on somea these fancy duds!'
Er? That didn't sound right. But it t'was a threat. That much she knew. While she understood in American customs that to steal and damage property were punishable to the fullest extent of the law, any wrong doing should follow that same suit.
Right?
Spit gum out. Punch delivered.
Hurt harmless animals.
Its a reckoning.
So it is no surprise that Diana, fully clad in her longish cloak which flows behind her, approaches the scene with a hardened heart and thinly pursed lips. There was wrong-doing afoot.
Someone needed justice.
*
If she hadn't overheard that phrase, then the sudden whitening of the fashion designer's face might have caused her to notice the altercation, brief though it may be. The man's features fall as his eyes widen, stepping back even as the man in the jumpsuit rounds and starts to pull the rack of clothes along the sidewalk towards that large truck, even as across the street… in some of the theaters… all over Fashion Week, other people seem to be losing track of their collections. Some are being made away with subtly, while the one that has Diana's attention… is not.
The man in the jumpsuit turns around as the wheels squeak and the crowd murmurs. He makes it a few steps before the tall woman is in his way. He looks up at her, brow furrowed. The smell of alcohol is on his breath, alcohol and tobacco perhaps? A scowl touches his features as he mutters, "Yer lucky day, doll. Yer gonna still get paid but don't have ta do the time. Now outta the way."
*
It's not easy being a Gorgon in the City. Though, on the bright side, most people just assume she's a 'mutie' (whatever THAT means) more than any sort of mythological Amazon from a hidden island. In any case, in this part of town, Delphyne has taken to wearing a hooded cloak over her head to obscure her features. That, combined with stockings on her legs, serves to cover most of what might draw attention to her…
Wandering through a fashion show isn't exactly her element, but the young Amazonian is curious what these people use for clothing. Though she finds most of it impractical and lacking in places to hold a weapon, she hmms slightly at the same red dress that Diana fancied, before the altercation catches her attention, and she blinks in surprise as she sees Diana facing down the would-be thief. Quietly, she slinks around to come around behind the perpetrator, a bemused grin on her face as the ignorant mook threatens Diana.
*
Skali has arrived.
*
Of course the wolf god was at fashion week. Although a nigh immortal deity didn't need to follow passing trends, she had a strong affection for pretty things and human frivolities. How better to pass the millennia? Fashion was one of the few things that both her and the Sea Prince could appreciate, and thus she had taken advantage of the offer to be on the other side of the looped ropes instead of in the crowd.
Skali wore tall boots that stretched over her calves to the knee, carefully polished with a practical heel, the dark leather easing into a cute little pant suit that was really more of a short suit but the Mod era defied such definitions. A belt accented her thick hips, and the deep brown color of the entire ensemble with orange highlights only accentuated those perfectly coiled brunette curls and the light gold eyes that gleamed under the flash bulbs. It was turning away from one that her senses were attuned to the gravely growl of a threat, keen hearing focusing her efforts with a little sniff of mild interest in the general direction of the excitement.
Then a groan of inconvenience. Couldn't people leave Fashion Week out of their meddling? They already ruined Central Park for her, was nothing sacred? A hand held up as she quietly lowered three fingers in rhythmic timing as if counting - 3,2,1. Any minute now a hero would appear and they would all be saved. The predictability was getting dull. Nobody died anymore, it really made her miss the Gladiatorial era.
*
There was much ado about something; racks were being hauled off, including the one in question which was just within her reach. The words of the man were not lost on her, nor the precarious situation. Nor the smells. New Yorkers nearly smelled like bodily fluids, but this was just a touch worse.
An ear goes to Delphyne at her back, yet diplomacy was her game. It was time to see how the humans handled their lot.
"Good Sir." See? She can be polite. Many days of listening to the conversations around her allowed her to form words, ill as they were. "I am afraid I must ask you to please not threaten the locals. I am sure that there is a certain law against. Shall we drink, find common ground, ease the tensions that sullied your mood for this night?"
A golden dress was gripped, fabric slipped from her fingers as she attempts to keep her awe of the softness within.
*
For a man like Edward 'Eddie' James, the prospect of sharing a drink with a beautiful woman like Diana is not one he'd let slip by. So when she offers those quiet kind words to him he sort of draws himself up short to look at her anew. And for a moment, a brief moment in that faintly tinged alcoholic haze the man induced in himself just to be able to get through this gig and one more damn day after his wife Louise passed some five years ago… well she might actually see some touch of humanity there and a wish for actual contact with another being.
But then in the next split second it's pushed away. Professionalism is the man's watch word. In his thirty years humping it for the Tataglia gang, he never once bailed on a heist and the two times he spent a stretch in the joint he never ratted out no one. Eddie's a professional. He takes pride in it. And a part of his ego is derived from it. Probably all of this makes no nevermind to the Amazons around him. But on some level it might explain his actions as he tells her…
"Look, lady… catch me in a few hours. I mean… I'd love to get a drink with you." He looks over to the side at the rack of clothes then starts to try and tank it forwards. "But I got obligations."
And with that said the back of the heavy white truck slides up with a rumbling whir. About six racks are pulled up behind it and now one guy is dangling out the back of the truck catching plastic-wrapped clothes in his arms and tossing them in the back.
A voice goes up, "Hey! Hey that hasn't been shown yet!"
And then suddenly there's a pistol crack as one of the security guards goes down with a bullet round slamming into his arm.
*
Delphyne frowns, then suddenly springs towards Eddie from behind. Grasping his gun arm with one hand and forcing it skyward, her other arm wraps around his neck as she stands behind him. The hood of her cloak falls off, revealing her gorgon heritage, green skin, hissing snakes for hair, and all.
Delphyne then looks at Diana, "Apologies, m'lady, but this one isn't worth your time, considering his /type/ I've seen since arriving in this land." She then smiles a bit, "Tell your men to surrender, since… well, my friends /are/ poisonous." The hissing snakes writhing as Delphyne's 'hair' hover menacingly over Eddie's head, saliva from their fangs dripping onto his skin as she doesn't seem to be joking.
*
The funny thing about a single gunshot, it induced a mob panic like a race start. One moment there was laughter and falsified smiles, the next screaming and a mired mess of limbs and heels, one half clamoring to get away from the source of the gunfire, the other pressing towards it with cameras held at ready for getting that money making shot. And Skali was standing somewhere in the middle of all of this, perturbed that she wasn't going to be seeing the new release line from that one European designer everyone was chattering about last week. A low growl was already forming in her chest by the time the chaos reached her, and swallowed her up. A woman went down with a broken heel, a reporter crushing her underfoot while she reached up blindly, finding the edge of Skali's boot, weakly begging for assistance to get to her feet.
"There is a time and a place for stilettos and this was not it."
Remarked the Asgardian in a bored tone, shaking off the fashionista much like a dog clears water from its coat before bunching her muscles and launching upwards.
Flight didn't work well like this, from a dead start, and thus the path she cut to get out of the dramatics playing out below was a bit clumsier than she would have liked. A few broken bricks, a gargoyle that really didn't add much aesthetically to the frontage of the hotel, and she was perched above the crowd panting and trying to make sense of the mess below. Strange's words about 'trying to be human' were in the back of her mind, but at this juncture, being human wasn't all that appealing.
*
Perhaps it was compassion that didn't allow her to act so cruelly as she could have, even after the gunshot rang out. The world slows as considerably as it does, enough so that there was time enough for the hood to come down from her head with gentle fingers as a breath was drawn in through the cacophony of chaos.
"Lady Delphyne.." Diana speaks, her head bowed in respect, lifting once again as she tugs the cloak tighter. "I leave this in your capable hands." She says that he wasn't worth her time, Diana.. somewhat agrees. Though, there is a curious sort of glance that she gives the man, her gold-clad finger tips lifting to tap a little upon her bottom lip.
"Bring him when you're done here." T'was an order, was it not? Yes, the screams were annoying as such that Diana partly couldn't be assed. It wasn't like her, but there was a mission in mind that she had dedicated herself to, and none shall draw her off her path.
No matter how pretty the fabric was.
A dig in her top retrieves a twenty dollar bill, given to her by one most kind, which was soon carefully shoved into the top of Delphyne right after. "Purchase me one of these gowns." And without further word, the hood is tugged upright to hide her visage.. and she moves into the crowds of the screaming and fleeing few to disappear moments after.
*
The surge of the crowd is a palpable thing, almost as if it was the movement of a single-minded creature, flowing in several directions all away from the man holding the pistol and standing over the fallen form of the grimacing security guard. The fight's gone out of the guardsmen even as he holds one hand over the wound, trying to still the flow of blood as he pushes himself away from the gunman.
"Get the junk in the truck, you bastards!" The voice cries out from the man who had loosed the round, even as he breaks into a run towards the vehicle.
But that leaves Eddie there, suddenly locked into a chokehold by the slithering hissing snake-haired woman. His eyebrows shoot up and he holds up his arms. "Hey hey. Cool it, lady!"
But then Diana steps forward and says her piece. He looks worriedly between the two women, even as the crowd surges around them when he then tells Diana nervously. "Ok, sure. I give up. This whole thing's gone south already."
But then over at the truck, the man who is supervising the loading has pulled out his gun as he stands in the back of the heavy vehicle. "Hurry it up you lugs, get a move on!" Dress after dress is thrown into the back…
And it's only then that a fairly calm sing-song voice is heard as a masked face peeks over into the depths of the truck's trailer, white eyelets widening with curiousity as Spider-Man is apparently perched atop the roof of the truck. "Say, you fellas got any flannel for sale? Maybe some nice slacks? I need something for Wednesday night work functions and the old chinos aren't cutting it."
To which the response simply is, "It's Spider-Man!" And the sound of more gunfire.
*
Sousa has left.
*
Delphyne nods, "Of course, Highness." as Diana gives her the money and departs, as she looks at Eddie with a wry expression, "Good. Then stay out of trouble. I don't want to have to hunt you down." At that, she releases Eddie from the chokehold, but does snatch his gun away.
However, even if Delphyne was a crack shot (she is), the panicking crowd makes it too difficult for her to try a clear shot. Frowning, she grabs a rack of dresses and yanks hard on the frame, causing the dresses to scatter… and giving her something that almost could resemble a quarterstaff as she moves towards the remaining criminals.
*
Skali muses from her perch as she slowly puts together the parts and players in the scene below,
"Who the hell steals clothing?"
It was a question for a later time. Another cacophonous burst of gunfire and her tender ears were wincing again, a twitch of her lip in subtle snarl at the chaos that had been such a nice evening. Snake head. Spider guy. Add in a wolf and they practically had a Monster Mash.
The Varg had an eye for dramatics, and no particular need to preserve her anonymity. When she descended, it was without applying brakes to a free-fall from twenty stories up, her weight leaden as it smashed unceremoniously into the hood of the getaway vehicle. The impact would have lifted the back half up before bringing it crashing into the cement as she plunged through the engine block, radiator fluid guttering over her cute little outfit. She found herself framed in by twisted metal and picking herself out of the mess as gunshots rattled around her and - Was there a tear in her boot? Her brand new Zodiacs?
"Gross."
She grumbled as she was brushing away metal fragments and little traceries of something that was probably antifreeze off her attire.
"See, now I'm unhappy."
She muttered to nobody in particular, though the closest gunman (who may have been a security guard, she wasn't going to spend too much time sorting through the particulars) turning his weapon upon her was enough to fixate her indignation upon mortal consequence.
*
As the crowd parts like waves breaking across the rock of Delphyne's determined stride forwards, she'll see what's left there at the back of that truck. It's little more than half a dozen clothes racks stacked with rather elaborate bits of fashion. A dozen foot soldiers for the heist are all focused mostly upon the… what the heck is that?
It seems to be a middling fellow, thin, lithe, in a rather elaborate blue and red costume. But what he wears, contrary to the belief of most of the designers there at Fasion Week, is not the most defining thing about him. What is seems to be the way he moves from point to point. The utter grace and precision in motion, the blur of red and blue that has him flipping off the back of the truck as pistols fire, bullets whizzing past. The way he lands in a crouch upon the ground with a splay-fingered hand bracing him and then being the focal point of a flip that has him leaping forward to land on a man's shoulders and smack the fellow to the ground… even as he twists into the air, rebounding off the side of that truck and caroming straight into another of the gunmen. It's this wild chaotic cavalcade of movement that is hard to follow with the naked eye, whose main evidence of its existence is that it leaves crumpled unconscious bodies in its wake.
But then, of course, the mayhem is interrupted by a loud /KEEERRRRASH!/ as the heavy Skali smashes straight through the front of that truck, ruining any hope of a fast getaway for the heist crew. The one closest to her shrieks a scream that sounds like it'd come from the fairer gender as his pistol comes up and barks a few rounds straight at her.
*
Delphyne moves up behind the mooks distracted by the Spider-Man, and shouts, "HOLA!" before she suddenly swings her improvised quarterstaff at the head of one of the mooks. Not even pausing in her swing, she twirls the weapon fluidly in her hands, then sweeps it low, looking to take out the legs of the mook next to him, her snakes hissing in agitation as there's battle to be had!
*
The bullets ping uselessly into the crumpled mess of metal where the Asgardian had been perched. It wasn't that she needed to move to avoid them, being a god had its benefits when it comes to bulletproof skin. It was that sound he had made, that delicious little note of fear that can only be coaxed from the back of a human being's throat when they are near pissing themselves in shock and awe. Skali had never been so good at the hero thing. Too much mortal terror, a little dab of chaos, and her sensitive proclivities towards violence were all aroused.
She hit the gunman from the side like a predator flanking prey, far too much force applied to the pounce that knocked him into the cement and a little bit farther still, bones crunching underneath a knee as a hand lovingly cradled his head, or what was left of it. Whoops. The gun was taken from where it had been dropped, looped around a finger, and stashed in that belt still perched just above the hips. The woman sighed, rolling back her shoulders, something akin to wicked little smile tracing her lips that was just too difficult to subdue. Oh well, the bad guy was dead. Who cared about the use of excessive force in these tumultuous times?
*
The staff cuts through the air with a whirl of sound, whistling just before it clocks hard into the side of one of the men's heads, sending him down in a pile of limbs and the pistol skittering off across the street to slip into the abyss of a sewer drain. Then she whirls and slices the legs out from under another, knocking him onto his back as he scrambles to pull the gun from inside his jump suit. It leaves her amongst two other thugs who try to step back quickly as they bring their weapons up, bracketing her with their firearms. For a moment she can see one hesitate, he's not wanting to fire, doesn't want to shoot her even though she's got those crazy snakes on her head…
But the other, he has no such compunction as the pistol barks several times.
Yet then a scream is heard, a short sharp one that's cut off a split second later as Skali leaps and suddenly steals the life from one of the men, the one apparently who had shot the security guard. For most in this commotion they might miss it, but for some people… some people with perhaps a sense for such things, they'd become aware that suddenly this other person is abruptly more of a threat than the others.
Spider-Man's flipping back on one hand, leaping into the air and his web-shooters spraying a web over two of the men who had been taking pot shots at him, leaving him with just the one left between him and Skali and Delphyne. His white eyelets whir faintly as they widen. For a moment he looks at the Gorgon Girl, "Whoa, nice hair do. Very Beany and Cecil…"
But his words trail off as suddenly he realizes Skali's dance partner isn't moving.
"Hey!" /THWIP!/ And suddenly there's a webline joining between the two as Spider-Man tries to pull Skali back from the fallen man. "The heck's gotten into you, lady?"
*
Delphyne twirls in a roundhouse kick, taking out the last gunman with a quick shot to the head as she blinks in surprise, noting the unmoving figure, then at Skali, "I don't think that was necessary." She frowns, as the Princess is /not/ going to like this, dress or not, and she passes a glance to Spider-Man while muttering, "What is a Beany and Cecil? A combat technique?"
*
The lines of webbing tightened around her figure before the wolfling could dodge their thin lines of imprisonment, and though Peter tugged, the white strings thrummed with resounding protest. Skali's boots set as she stared down the line of the entrapment at the boy, something behind those eyes bristling as her teeth bared and she snarled in a voice edged with affront that bordered upon fury,
"An accident. Release me and I can be a boon."
There was no need to add the alternative. She was not a creature that suffered restraint well, and the lines connecting them gave another resounding creak as she threw her weight and strength at them suddenly - all twenty five tons of fierce determination to be free that would certainly give the webbing a run for its tensile strength.
*
The last gunman goes down, barely registering at the last moment as he says just before impact, "What the heck…" But he'll get no answers as boot meets head and down he goes. But that leaves the matter of the sound of sirens in the distance, and the abrupt tug-of-war going on between Spider-Man and Skali.
"It's a… kids… show. Nevermind." But then he's watching as Skali makes the web strands fray with faint crinkling sounds. He looks to the side, then shakes his head as he looks back to her. "Yeah, no can do, chief." He hops atop the truck, landing with a light thip-thap of feet, then takes one of his hands off the line as he gets ready to shoot the other web shooter. "Cops are gonna want a big ole chinwag with you."
*
As Delphyne looks between Spider-Man and Skali, she does the prudent thing. Namely, stepping back out of the way. And then she adds, "A man is dead, and the lawful authorities will demand to know why." She looks at Skali, knowing /that/ much about this place, even as her snakes hiss and look around at the various prone would-be robbers, making sure they don't go anywhere.
*
"Enough."
The voice in her head announced its intent with a merging of low growl into building roar, the pupils now lost in the color gold as if the sun itself had burned out the humanity she was playing out. Her teeth were framed in by a smile that seemed particularly amused by this attempt at dialogue, but then they were lengthening, the jawline twisting and sharpening with a cracking of bones. The flesh underneath the dress rippled as every pore opened up to dark fur, black strands so long and thick that they almost had a serpentine life of their own. Halfway through the transformation, the second web shot was caught by jaws that were now twisted past recognition, the canine form that had once been a woman shredding the bondage easily and shaking it free with a huff of indignation. There's a moment, as she stares quietly across the mess of mangled henchmen and wavering, celebratory lights that her muscles bunch as if she's considering Spiderman as her next target. Then she wrinkles her nose up, sneezes, and through the jaws of the beast comments,
"Insolent whelps."
With a few bounding leaps, she claims the sky and lets the night swallow her up.
*
The webline goes snap and Skali is making her departure with a speed of movement that is entirely surprising for the instant that Spider-Man is left holding onto the nub of the webbing and looking back and forth between where Skali ran off to and back towards Delphyne.
He points for a moment, "A werewolf? Freaky." And with that as enough commentary offered Delphyne, he only hesitates a beat before breaking into a run forwards and leaping off the front of that shattered truck. He flips into the air, one arm extending and a webline /thwipping/ forth to catch the corner of a building. He swings smoothly in a clean arc even as he calls up, "Hold it, Fido! You're not getting away that easily!"
*
Delphyne looks after the Spider-Being breaking off after the woman-wolf, then glances around. Hearing the telltale sound of sirens, Delphyne does the prudent thing… namely, vanish to avoid questions she isn't equipped to answer. However, she does take the red dress that the Princess was interested in, clipping the twenty-dollar bill in its place and hoping that is sufficient recompense before she leaves, darting out in the confusion.
*