The Bronx [Mettle's Territory - MEGATHREAD]

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My feet graced upon another rooftop as I leaned over the edge of one of the many smaller buildings in the Bronx.

I was on the hunt for a certain gang and their leader. Mettle and his band of little misfits. All I had to go on for now were the fact that they tended to operate, and that a number of the businesses were under their particular brand of protection. Normally, I would not have an issue with a bunch of hero-for-hire types running around, but, if any of the rumors were to be believed, they might not be anything like that. At least, not quite.

But to investigate that particular group and finding them was only one of the things on my agenda. I just found out today that some people had no taste or class. Case in point, a certain schmuck, a punk calling himself something as unoriginal as Tarantula, was running around, stealing my look.

Normally, I could care less if someone was cosplaying as me at Comix-Con, and I could just relax like an absolute baller any other day of the week. But when the symbiote and I put the time and effort to created a look, a brand, all-new and all-original for my superheroic alter-ego, I had a bit of a problem. Black suit, white webbing and spider-symbols. Practical, sleek, minimalistic, and, most of all, absolutely slick as ice.

And this guy could rip off of that and put a stain on my reputation? Operate on a less-than-friendly neighborhood basis with my brand? My motif? No way, no how. I draw the line. This was going to stop today. One way or another. If he would not drop the black and white look, I would turn him black and blue. It was about time this knock-off learned how to be original for once.

End of story. There was not going to be a debate on this.

So, what did I start doing to begin my search? Easy.

Firing a string of webbing before swinging, I began accessing my inner New Yorker.

"Oi! Paging Mr. Mettle and his band of merry idiots! Paging Mr. Tarantula and his extra jack off hands!"

I was absolutely going there. I can be kid-friendly, alright? But I've got a mouth on me, and I had yet to use even one-percent of its full power. And my tolerance for just about anything was shot right now. The filter was gone. All jokes, puns, and whatever else I had under my sleeves was fair game. The big guns were out now. I make a sling for the guy, and he lets someone run around with my whole getup. Not like I was asking to be friends, but a little respect on that would have been appreciated.

"Where the hell are they? I don't have all day."

Okay, yelling my lungs out might not work as effective as I thought. But I knew a few other ways to get my message across.

Super-tensile strength ebbing flew from my wrists, spinning together to create an intricate pattern of words alongside a webbed background. There, now that should get a bit more attention.

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Well, okay then.

I made the thing. Now what? I should keep swinging around? Maybe make a few more of these?

Because this was a little hilarious. There were even people down there taking photos and videos while I sat atop my tapestry of disrespect. I chuckled. I sure hope that Mettle did not have a Twitter account because this was gold.

Still, should I switch tactics? Maybe move along?

The symbiote perked up. It had a better idea. We should be talking to people and see if they had any idea if they noticed Mettle passing through the area recently. If nothing else, a good reference for the general areas he operated in or frequented could make searching for him much more efficient.

A good idea. We could get more information and a better idea of how he might operate while not leaving the giant sign I left for Mettle's gang.

I fired off a line of webbing, connecting to the webbing with my little callout, and began descending towards the people below, all the while hanging upside down. The perks of having an altered physiology and anatomy was that my veins and heart operated not dissimilar from a spider's, allowing blood to flow as easily back up to my feet as it is rushing to my head. In short, no headaches or head rushes for me, no matter what.

Keeping about seven feet off the ground, I looked around before coughing and clearing my throat.

"Hello! I know it has been a minute since I been back in New York! Anyone mind telling me if they seen Mettle or Tarantula? You know, one's the guy who might be the secret lovechild of Diva and TE? The other is the more anatomically correct but freakier rip off of me? Anyone?"

I tapped my chin before mock acting that a lightbulb of an idea had just popped into my head.

"There's a crisp one dollar bill for anyone who tells me something worthwhile. One whole crisp dollar bill. Any takers? No? Yes? Maybe so?"

If the symbiote could do the mental equivalent of a facepalm, it did just that. This was a waste of time. It urged me that we should shake down a few of the stores or even hunt down a few baddies. Maybe even investigate that rumored Goon's place that I did not have a chance to investigate before I left for Millennium.

Still, I was nothing if not persistent. Someone had to give and tell me something.

"Listen, there's been a bit of mix-up in the costume department. I'm just here to get it sorted. The sooner someone points me in a direction, the sooner I can go home and watch Cowboy Bebop."

Okay, if no one was going to speak up, this was going to be more awkward than I planned for. Maybe my NanoSym partner had the right idea after all.

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Nothing? Still?

Fair enough. No one wanted to get involved. At least I still had the same effect of causing mixed feelings in the general populace with everything I did. There was also the bystander effect involved, and the statistical evidence that the continued presence of metahumans increased the likelihood of a metahuman event to occur within the general proximity of the exact metahuman or their area of occurrence.

There I go again. Being the real nerd when I needed to be busting heads and cracking skulls. I need to get out of my head and see if I can get answers from one of these stores or buildings. Somewhere I could be more confrontational and get answers, like the symbiote had proposed. Speaking of getting out of my head, something was up. Not that anyone needed hyper senses to pay attention to the cars blaring loudly and one of the bulbs for the lamppost blew out, smoking as glass fell and shattered on the pavement. The symbiote, monitoring my surroundings while my sixth sense laid dormant, did not see anything other than a spark or two.

No, there was something there, tangible and intangible, just out of reach. Invisibility? Intangibility? Something else? Something or someone was there. Nearby. Waiting. That vague sense of being watched, as the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, except, in my case with these hyper-senses, that vague sense was amplified to a level of pure instinctive awareness that something was not kosher here in the Bronx.

What was it? Where? The cars? The lamps? This was not normal phenomenon unless this happened to be a coincidence. But several cars in a row? When they were not even touching each other?

The symbiote did not buy it either, which was good enough for me. Time to do something, and there was only one thing I could do, especially as a budding scientist.

Shake up my variables and put this little science experiment through the ringer.

I checked around my surroundings, noticing one shop that I knew had a back entrance from all my swinging around the area during the early days of my career. Just a small sandwich shop.

I hit the ground before walking over to the shop, closing the door behind me.

"Sorry! Big time superhero coming through! Just taking a shortcut! 'Scuse me!"

And booking it past everyone, leaping and bounding, towards the back of the shop before slamming open the backdoor. I leaped up into the air, sailing several stories before hitting the roof of the next building before taking off, firing a line of web before yanking on it and soaring through the air. I picked up speed before landing on the nearest building with large glass windows, scanning for anything weird going on near me.

I need a plan. Some way to find Mettle. I could shake down some thugs or shake down the stores. I'll try the stores first.

The symbiote had other ideas, pertaining to the strange occurrences that happened earlier. Namely, its paranoia of there being any sort of invisible predator or unseen foe had it set on edge, and the alien began to shiver in anticipation.

No time to focus on that now. We only could keep a lookout for anything else that was strange.

"I better not have been spooked by my own metaphorical shadow. That'd be lame."

Just focus on finding Mettle or Tarantula. My sixth sense should warn me if anything bad was going to happen to me or anyone else nearby.

So I swung down, landing on the sidewalk, before popping open the door of a store. This time, I walked straight up to the counter.

"'Sup. Can you help a brother out and tell me if you seen Mettle or Tarantula passing through here? Maybe one of them bought some chips here?"

And I would enter another store. And another. And another store.

Either until someone had any useful information pertaining to Mettle's whereabouts or until I got tired enough that thrashing a few crooks and getting information out of them sounded like a better option. It certainly did to the symbiote.

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Mr. Leiter?

After opening the door, my lenses scanned the store for a moment before landing upon an older individual, the Indian shopkeeper with a pair of glasses as thick as the diameter of my webbing. He looked normal enough, if not a bit gruff and rough around the edges here and there.

Although, his accent with how he pronounced a single name in response to my question brought a small smile to my face. Mr. Leiter. There were a few ways I could play with that sort of information, if that was Mettle's name. Or it could be possible this old man heard me wrong completely and we are on two completely different wavelengths of conversation.

I was leaning towards the former as the lights began flickering. Not just here, the symbiote noted, but outside as well.

And the slushie machine behind the man at the counter seemed to be on the fritz as well, blinking and turning off and on again and again. Was this Mettle's power at work? He did have quite the range in regards to his electromagnetic prowess, able to cover the entire Crumplezone arena, but on a scale this big to affect the entire block? To be this specific and precise to affect electronics? Could it be possible or was something else at play? Not even Total Experience could do something like that, or, at least, he never demonstrated an ability to do so.

I don't know. I don't know yet at all.

Something else, the symbiote cautioned. Or, at least, there was a variation of what I was thinking. Something else yet similar was causing all of this.

But what exactly?

The owner began trying to force me out, frantically telling me to get out of here. Now.

"But I didn't do anything except-."

The shopkeep was insistent. Whatever was going on, he was frightened. Scared. I had heard Mettle had been offering protection in exchange for money, especially after hearing about his tussle with Diva and the whole restaurant incident with Baba Yaga, but this was something else.

Genuine panic. Heroes were only supposed to scare criminals.

Not regular people. Was the owner afraid a fight was going to break out? What exactly was Mettle doing here?

I could harbor a few guesses. None of them good if I threw the metahuman fight hypothesis out the window.

But I was not someone who used fear as an easy resort. This man wanted me out? I was gone.

"Okay, I'll get out. I promise everything will be okay."

I stepped outside. Whatever had shaken that poor man, I was not going to let it shake me. Not at all. I gave a small shrug.

"Mr. Leiter? I barely even know her!"

Still, no more playing around this time. If finding Mettle had not been already urgent for its own reasons, this made it a top priority.

But what was happening?

The symbiote had a theory.

I was inclined to agree with it.

These were the only clues we had uncovered. Electronics were being disrupted. All of it was following me and not being quite so subtle about it. Right after what I wrote. Either it was Mettle or something else that was related to him. I doubted it was a ghost or something to do with my own abilities or anything completely unrelated to this. And there were sparks everywhere anytime.

Sparks. Wait a minute. Every time I moved, the symbiote noticed sparks between some of the devices. Was that the key? Did he manage to get his powers to be more transferable, more transmittable? Or did he have someone else as a part of his gang with these powers?

What was I missing here?

Only one thing to do right now. Test my theory.

I ran, accelerating to a blurring superhuman speed faster than anyone except speedsters before leaping above several stories into the air and firing my signature silk before swinging fast and quick, not too fast.

Just slow enough so I could have my symbiote confirm if something was indeed following us, even down to the smallest detail.

Then, I stepped on the gas pedal.

My destination? The tallest building I could find for now, the largest, biggest skyscraper I could get my sticky feet ahold of.

But not before performing few corkscrews and heading down a few lefts and rights, all of which I did right before landing against the middle of the building. I ran up the side of the building before leaping up and over on top of its roof.

Less electronics up unless I counted the entire building.

That and anyone else should be safe from whatever it was that was happening if I kept it contained up here, and it should narrow down the possibilities of what exactly was going on and give me time to form a strategy. Should I go to the Goons or Gallows or somewhere else? The docks? The park?

None of that mattered right now, the symbiote chastised. We needed to figure out what was going on here first.

So I waited.

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All the pieces were in place. Everything made sense. All I needed was a plan.

The symbiote gave a mental smile. It had an idea.

Showtime?

Showtime.

I stood on the edge before crouching, facing the A/C machine with my hands resting behind my head.

"Alright, so this is happening. Let me guess. Since this is probably not some weird coincidence, either that's you, Mettle, and you somehow got your powers to work on this level of precision."

My lenses narrowed before I leaned forward, almost predatorily as my hands held onto the ledge. The nice thing about the suit is that I did not look like a gaudy clown dressed in red and blue, actually giving me the chance to be intimidating rather than just a sad color-theory disaster.

"Or you're someone else who's been hopscotching between devices. I'm leaning towards the latter because I know for a fact Mettle isn't half as creative with his powers as Total was, but, just to be sure, I suggest you let me know for certain, for your own safety of course."

I waited for a moment before resuming, in case any rebuttal were to be spoken. Then, I got to my real point.

"Because I've got a few ideas on how to shut you down and some of them might not be exactly kosher for you if you happen to be alive. So, we can do this the easy way or the hard way."

I raised my hands, as if weighing the two.

"Take me to your boss and we all talk about the copycat. Or I just ignore you like the nuisance you are and find him myself. One chance. I'm not giving another one."

I would lean back, hands resting once more behind my head. It was time to see how smart any of these bozos were.

My alien partner-in-crimefighting didn't seem to think any of them even approached basic intelligence.

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Nothing?

Really?

I guess that was it then. Either no one was up here or there was no dice on the deal. Either way, I was going to find Mettle and figure out what was going on exactly.

And, more importantly, put my copycat out of business.

What I had not been planning on was for Sparky to suddenly go the offensive, rather than just stalking me like the creep it was. Lightning sparked forth from the ventilation system, striking and slamming into various other objects and metallic structures on the roof. My senses flared, all of them along with my sixth sense as I tried shielding my eyes and ears from the sudden light and sound as these bolts of energy cascaded my surroundings, throwing my arms up as my symbiote forced my lenses shut as I fell backwards off the roof.

Even with my eyesight impaired--and hopefully improving as rapidly as possibly with my healing factor--I managed to launch a line of webbing to the building before swinging on its glass surface. The ringing in my head kept me company, dancing around in my cranium like a row of tap-dancers. No, like a row of drum kits.

Just perfect. I don't think I'm blind. Not completely at least. But I sure can not make out the difference between ten fingers and one finger right now. So much for dancing around lightning. Even with my sixth sense, I couldn't avoid the barrage completely unscathed.

And it was still buzzing, ever so slightly.

I wasn't out of the woods yet.

Dammit! I should have expected that! Symby! How we doing?! Any threats?

Just the one, the symbiote mentioned. And whatever it is, it is right on us.

Right on us?

The symbiote began elaborating quickly, which took less than a second or two through our shared mental space. While my senses may have been overloaded from the sudden rush of sensory overload, the symbiote could absorb information from its surroundings as usual. And, even thought it had not seen the little spark of energy enter one of the devices on my person, my camera, it had certainly felt it. My alien partner was not only my suit but also held all of the tools I needed on the job. Trackers, a camera, and a few more small tools, in case I needed them. The sudden feeling of electricity coursing through its alien cells had been a foreign sensation amongst all the other distracting stimuli, causing it no end of hostility towards the sudden intruder.

It gave the mental equivalent of a growl, snarling and clawing at the chance to destroy whoever had dared to even approach this close to us without our permission.

Whatever it was, this living lightning, it was on our person.

And the symbiote wanted this potential threat gone. Right. Now.

Hold on. I got an idea.

The symbiote inquired further into my mind. Once it saw what I had in mind, it smirked. It was a rather good idea on how to handle this.

"Sunnuva-! AGH!"

I rubbed my eyes a little before sliding further down the glass a few feet. Then I leaped far out into the air and as high as possible, ensuring I was far enough from all buildings.

Now.

Natural spider-silk was naturally nonconductive, acting as an insulator. My variation of the silk formula, which my symbiote copied and modified as well, had a similar, if not highly improved, effect. With a little adjustment to the formula, however, I could cause it to become even more nonconductive while also have the tradeoff of becoming stiffer, hardening into a sort of stiff yet somewhat pliable resin as it dried in the air. The inside of the suit shifted my belongings all into one, different area of the suit.

Then it began coating all of them inside a singular ball of my patented webbing before it would then begin adding a second layer of the more resinous webbing. Two layers of insulation would be far better than one.

I don't know what the endgame was to try and get into the few electronics I did have. Maybe take me out without my knowing or even . . .

Following me around without my knowledge.

As soon as all these devices were quickly coated and extracted from my suit, insulated from the outside world and any nearby electronics, I would send one last string of silk towards the air, splitting into two lines at the end and attaching between two buildings, forming a Y-shape as I hung onto the bottom of the string.

And, if everything went according to plan, I would hold in my other hand and observe this ball of webbing trapping all the stuff that used to be mine but is now home to a freaky piece of electricity.

Go me. I really liked that camera.

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Nothing.

Just stillness as I held the ball of artificial silk, the same one that had captured whatever had blinded me and passed through the symbiote's defenses to access my electronics.

And now, after leaving nothing to chance, all of those same electronics, along with whatever or whoever had been following me, were trapped, at least to the symbiote's perception. That and my sixth sense had dulled considerable from the already meager trembling along the back of my head.

Or that could just be my eardrums still banging around and drowning everything else out. A little hard to tell at the present moment.

I think we're good. I don't sense anything, except maybe in this ball. And you don't see anything, right?

An affirmative response was sent my way. Okay, that settled it. Unless we were both missing something, everything was fine now. Everything was good.

The pulsing of my heartbeat began to slow and settle. The thrumming sensation whittled down and petered out, moment by moment.

What next? I had not even been able to confirm if this belonged to Mettle or something else.

"What the hell now?"

I had the symbiote draw up webbing to attach a sort of strap to the ball, to put it around my person and keeping both hands free. Climbing up to the top of the web-line, I perched there for a moment.

What to do? Well, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

The symbiote, however, was going to need to guide my arms on this one. My eyes still needed time to heal before I could even see half-decently enough to do my proper brand of web-swinging.

I began swinging towards the East River, slower and a bit steadier this time than usual yet cutting down the time needed to reach there. Once I was within about five blocks or so, that was where I formed my next silk-based masterpiece.

The only other way I could try and confirm what exactly was happening or if this thing was related to Mettle at all. If it was a thing unrelated to him or having to do with his powers, There was always that off-chance this could be unrelated, even with the evidence and coincidences being a little too numerous to ignore If nothing else happened, I was either dropping this thing in the East River and wait for the webbing to dissolve after about an hour or two, or I needed to find a place that could hold this stuff safely for further study. I still had to determine whether or not I had even properly captured this thing.

And, if I did have it and the webbing was dissolving, I would need to reapply more sooner or later. Probably sooner, to be safe.

You sure we got it? That thing? If it got loose somehow before we . . ."

The symbiote did not doubt that we got whatever it was trapped. Even if it somehow failed in it capture, it suggested that I needed to be patient and wait.

The answer would either come to us or not. We just needed to simply wait.