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Hot child in the city. Runnin' wild and lookin' pretty.
It's a cool night in the city for summer. The temperature is down to 75 degrees, and it's a nice night for a stroll. Brooklyn tends to be quiet, but one can still see the night owls coming out.
Even in the bustle of the city, snatches of conversations can be heard.
"…need to get some space…"
"…shopping for the kids…"
"…explaining to you why you screwed up…"
That last one is coming from an alley off the main drag.
Jessica Jones is walking towards the subway, a pair of cheap sunglasses hiding her eyes whether it's night or not. She's spent most of the evening laying on a rooftop listening to a bug she planted in an office building, trying to figure out if the sounds she was hearing were somebody using the water fountain or the sounds of an illicit affair between Chester Harrington III (Esquire) and his tow-headed secretary, a Miss Rita Mulkey, formerly of Pontiac, Michigan.
Chester's wife was paying good money for her to tell the difference, but there were no good angles to snap pictures through the window. So, wiretap, at least for now.
NOthing juicy today, though, so she was walking home, a cigarette hanging from the corner of her mouth and looking forward to her warm bourbon dinner.
The city was always full of noise, but the same couldn't be said for all of its residents. Some? They prefered to be silent. After the experience of finally creating her sanctuary of the Hotel Elysium? There had been a few changes for the young woman whom had grown up in poverty. First of all? She wasn't hiding anymore!
Her disguise used to keep her looking a little closer to 'normal', but now? Ne walked in her 'civillian' clothing, skirt and boots and all. Her unnatural colored hair, half pink and half brunette was plain to see, free from ties and falling lightly down her shoulders with bangs partially obscuring one of her two odd-colored eyes. Even now, with the weather having taken a fairer turn, the mutant woman walks with her parasol open and resting over one shoulder to idly twirl with small movements of her other hand. It was a nice enough night to walk around with no particular place to go, her head inclining a little as she catches errant conversation on the wind.
The voices get louder from the alley near the subway.
"You like a girl, you should be more CONSIDERATE of their feelings. Talk to them, let them know who you are, pay ATTENTION to them when they are talking to you."
A man's voice. "…why am I stuck to the wall?"
A pause. "I'm GETTING to that! You know, that was your first mistake. Stalking her like a cat stalking a mouse, bringing a KNIFE…"
"…she wouldn't talk to me."
"And your two friends here? What about them?"
"Hey, he told us she liked to party…"
Jessica Jones hears the voices as she walks by the alley. She should probably ignore it. Sounds like trouble. Mess. Pain in the ass. When she was young and optimistic and wore that stupid wig, she'd have dived right in. Now. Now she knows better.
Well, at least she ought to know better.
"God dammit," she mutters, moving to peer down the alley and flexing her gloved hands as she tries to get a better lay of the land.
It did indeed sound like trouble, but then not everyone was the sort to turn away from trouble. Some? They go sauntering towards it. Things -had- been a little tame lately, so Ne is indeed practically prancing as the silent girl walks towards the alleyway. Likely she'd spot the more cautious Jessica, but the young mutant simply glances towards the other woman in passing, her lips curling to a slight smirk as she closes her parasol with an audible 'snap' and moves in towards the alleyway itself. Whatever sight she may lay eyes on, Ne is likely a strange enough one herself as she holds her umbrella horizontal with both hands behind her waist and regards the encounter curiously.
Oh, it is an interesting sight. A female ninja…or acrobat…is walking up and down the alley in front of three men. All three are planted against the wall, their torsos covered by what looks like spiderwebs. Only these spiderwebs are strong enough to pin them against the wall, one foot above the street. They all look like big men, rough as they come. One of them looks down to the boning knife on the ground in front of him.
The ninja says, "Now, before the cops show up, is there anything you three want to say in your defense?"
"Lemme go, or I SWEAR i'll gut you!" The guy above the boning knife barks at her.
The ninja ponders. "Hmmmm…nope. Weren't intimidating when you had the knife, even less intimidating now. Got anything else?"
Jessica Jones isn't much inclined to intervene. She'd done enough superheroing in her day, back before she realized it was a fool's pursuit, to know it when she saw it. She chains another Camel off the first, the tip flaring as she applies one to the other.
Ne gets a raised eyebrow, "So, Spider-Chick and…Candy Cane Girl?" she says, nodding towards Ne's hair.
To be fair? Ne had been called 'Icecream' girl for her usual attire and her 'hair', but she still raises an eyebrow at the nickname from the smoking woman before she steps closer towards the 'ninja' and the angry thugs she'd snared. The web was impressive, and one didn't have to be a mind-reader to notice the mute was clearly wondering how the hell it had occured. Looking towards the Spider Girl once more she counts off three fingers and then gestures towards the knife questioningly, sweeping her hand towards the empty alleyway. These three had been after someone, she'd heard that much. Where had the intended victim fled to?
The girl turns and blinks behind the mask. Spider-Chick? She REALLY needs to upgrade her costume or something.
"Oh! I'm sorry. Was I too loud? I hope I wasn't too loud…"
The first guy suddenly blurts out, "Get us down! She's CRAZY! Put us up here for no reason!"
She looks up at the guy. "Really? The reason is looking for a cop right now to haul your butts off to jail."
"Her word against ours." My, he was stubborn.
"Maybe, but after they get your prints and her blood off that knife, it'll be more than he-said-she-said."
Jessica Jones blows smoke and shrugs, "Hey, mugshot, I hate to break it to you, but I don't actually care," she says to the guy who keeps complaining.
Ne's gesturing makes Jessica furrow her brow further, "I have no idea what she's doing," she says, then makes a slow yawn. "Nobody's gonna call the cops in this neighborhood, so I hope you got a dime for the phone. Nearest one's about two blocks down on the corner. You could try and see if Clancy at the bar across the street will let you use his phone, but he won't and he'll slap you on the ass if you ask."
Blood on the knife? Well that's enough to make Ne's little smirk from before vanish, Gwen's apology? That gets a casual handwave of dismissal before the odd-color woman steps towards the 'first guy' and leans in, close enough to the man's face to be…well, rather unsettling. That smirk returns after a moment and she reaches out a hand towards man, the air around her index finger seeming to carry the faintest of frost. 'Spider-Chick' seemed like a nice girl, but the mutant had learned from practitioners of a different school. A trace of the sub-zero slender digit leaves a freeze-burn along the man's cheek before she draws back her hand, tracing a faintly glowing pattern in the air to form the words she wouldn't physically speak. <Scream for the cops, tell them the truth.> She doesn't say the rest of the threat, but the 'or else?' it's pretty damn clear.
A rather nicely-dressed woman approaches from the street, shortly behind a beat cop. Not Clancy, but Taylor. Older, more jovial, but he steps past Jessica with a polite smile. He opens his mouth before the woman points and explodes, "Them! Those are the men! THAT one had the knife!"
Taylor steps forward, and the girl in black steps back a few steps. "Well, well, well…Shull, they let you out? What's the excuse?"
He was going to softpedal it. Ask for his rights. Yell assault.
Then he shivers as if cold and says, "The bitch was asking for it. She wouldn't put out, so I was going to spoil her face after the boys and I had a go at her."
The other two look at him as if he's lost his marbles.
Officer Taylor blinks, but says, "Nice to know you're saving taxpayer money." He looks at the webs. "Uhhh…wha? Who did this?"
The girl in black stepped forward. "Me. It'll come apart in an hour, though."
Jessica Jones just keeps her place against the wall, although she definitely raises her eyebrows at Ne's bit, both the frosty freeze routine and the words floating in the air. That was a new one on her. Seriously, she was beginning to think there was something in the NYC water. Well, besides the obvious germs and pollution and brainwashing crap that SHIELD puts in there already.
Not that she could talk, freak that she was.
"Kind of like your last marriage," she says to Taylor. She knows most of the neighborhood types.
Well, 'singing' for the cops worked as well, if not better, than screaming. It didn't make Ne look half as crazy to the witnesses. Stepping back, her parasol is reopened and she rests it over her shoulder lightly, flashing a smile all 'innocent' and 'sunshine' towards the cop as she steps back into the background, blinking and fluttering her eyelashes at Jessica as she turns her way. Letting the spider girl handle the cop wrangling, she is perfectly content to try and stay unnoticed.
Taylor picks up his radio. "I've got it from here. I can call for backup and get a statement from her." He looks to Jones, then adds, "And I can call Animal Control for the bitch with rabies."
The girl in black frowns, then says, "Just the would-be rapists, please." She looks to Ne, then decides not to leap out, but to walk towards the mouth of the alley, pausing to whisper to Ne as she does…
Jessica Jones makes a kissing gesture with her mouth and then flips Taylor off. She climbs up onto a nearby fire escape and kicks up a booted foot, puffing away and watching it go down. She's not going to rat Ne out for her little torture routine. Hell, she'd have probably broken the guy's fingers herself, so, really, quiet girl was being nice about it.
She does notice a detail, though, detective that he is.
"That one's got cowboy boots on. Weren't you guys trying to find a guy with cowboy boots recently? Something about a liquor store…"
Ne was turning to leave, unphased by the namecalling but more importantly? Not stopped by the cops. Her eyes do follow Jess and her departure, not to mention that exchange, but Gwen's approach? It earns a tilt of her head and a shrug at the request. She wouldn't be hard to keep up to for now.
Taylor gives her the stink-eye, but says, "I'll…have it checked out." He will, too. Unlike Clancy, Taylor doesn't stick at a lead. He looks at Gwen, then says, "What do I call you?"
She pauses with Ne at the corner. "White Widow."
Taylor frowned. "But…"
"YES, I know, I'm having it re-designed!" She grumps as she heads around the corner with Ne. "Ever'body's a critic…"
Jessica Jones pushes up and grabs a flask out of her leather jacket, starting to head down the street herself, "I like Spider-Chick better," she says, taking a hard swig.
"Sorry about your husband, though," she winks, starting to make her way towards her office/apartment and her hot date with a fold-out bed and the late late show.
White Widow? Ne just smirks a little at that, some thought she hadn't voiced and had not the effort to write in the air crossing her mind. Perhaps the woman hadn't thought through the connotations of her moniker entirely.
Even so, the Mutant looks sidelong at the costumed hero, switching the sides of her parasol and blinking questioningly at the other woman. What is it Gwen wished to speak with her about?
Taylor gives Jones a dirty look, but looks back to the trio.
Gwen whispers, "How did you DO that? I thought you couldn't a confession out of him with a pair of PLIERS…" She is unable or unwilling to disguise her amazement on how Shull just…confessed.
How? Ne shrugs and smiles, raising a finger and lazily doodling a frosty, glowing 'snowflake' in the air with her fingertip before exhaling a foggy breath to blow the fragile construct away into the night air. A gesture to Gwen, then a shake of her head before she mimes a 'claw' with her free hand and a baring of her teeth. Gwen…wasn't really all that scary.
Gwen whews and looks admiringly to her. "That was pretty impressive." She pauses, then said quietly, "Do you talk, or is it just when you're…doing what you did?"
A snap, that parasol is closed again and held in one hand, tip resting down against the pavement while the girl rests it against her thigh and reaches into her jacket. A little digging in pockets later and she retrieves the previously recommended and now rather worn-down notepad within, along with a small pencil, swiftly scratching a few letters onto the paper. It drew less attention then her 'glow-flakes'. <It's all the time> she writes in smooth, elegant cursive before pausing and tapping the pencil against her lip at a thought and writing a question of her own.
<How did you make that web?>
Gwen looks at the words, nodding to herself, then looks to Ne. "That's really something." She chuckles, then extends her arm in front of Ne, baring the inner wrist and allowing her to see the slight depression there. "This is a spinneret."
Gwen looks at the words, nodding to herself, then looks to Ne. "That's really something." She chuckles, then extends her arm in front of Ne, baring the inner wrist and allowing her to see the slight depression there. "This is a spinneret."
Now that's certainly 'something' too. A smile, a nod, Ne scratches another word onto the paper of her communication tool: <Mutant?> she questions of the other woman, blinking a little. Perhaps it was the lack of speech that always seemed to make her expressions more pronounced, or perhaps she'd gained a certain level of 'theatre' in her functioning to make up for it.
Gwen says softly, "No…I don't know." She looks to see a Chevy Nova taking up two parking spots. "Hang on." She points the hand at the car, and Ne hears a sudden "thwipp!" and just like that, there is a line running from the spinneret to the side of the car. She grasps the line easily…
…and then she is pulling the two-ton vehicle SIDEWAYS to sit squarely in the center of one parking spot. Tires grind against the pavement, but they cannot keep the car in place until she stops pulling and the line goes slack.
That earns a blink, even a slight parting of Ne's lips in suprise. The spider girl was strong it seemed, strong enough to move a car! Well, at least it explained how she'd bested the thugs…not that they looked to be the most sinister of menances as far as ability goes.
'Don't know' is a answer that really just begs questioning, but the woman with the parasol seems to consider for a moment before she reaches into her jacket once more and pulls a small business card from her pocket, the lettering in light blue. 'Hotel Elysium' is printed across the surface with the words 'A visit to paradice' proclaimed beneath along with the address.
Gwen smiled and took the card, looking at it for a few seconds, then at Ne with curiosity that shows even through the mask. "What's this place, this Hotel? I've never heard of it…"
Come to think of it, immediately inviting a stranger to a hotel might be easily taken the wrong way, but it seems Gwen's brain had stayed out of the gutter. Ne places a hand to her chest, indicating herself. Ownership perhaps, before she takes the pencil up once more. <A nice place. A safe place.>
Gwen took the hint and nodded. "Okay…but when I do show up there, who should I say invited me?"
More writing, Ne tears off the page and hands it to the masked woman, tucking the notepad away in a single deft movement and tucking the spare page into the Spider's hand. <Call me 'Ne'> it says simply before she flashes the woman a silent smile and steps back…only to vanish in a flash of light and a trace of frosted air.
She never did answer the 'When'. Seems Gwen would have to work that out for herself!
Ne goes home.