capeandcowllogs | [ BRING ON THE AZURE ARTHROPODS ] [open to Blue Beetle and Speed]

WHO: Araña, Jaime, Tommy if he wants I guess
WHERE: near the Stark building that Tony doesn't own derpadur
WHEN: backdated to Anya's intro!
WARNING: Oh my god, ~~BEES~~ bugs! Millions of bugs!
SUMMARY: Anya's about to curl up in a spidery cocoon to fix her carapace. ¡HALP!
FORMAT: Parapace

More than anything, Anya'd missed the carapace. Sure, it'd been ugly and buglike and got her mistaken for a boy more often than not---the fact that Spider-Man's first words to her hadn't been "Good job!" but "You need a haircut!" still rankled---but it'd been hers. It'd made her different, made her strong. It'd felt like a gift, and when Miguel had told her that it was one---well, her chest had felt tight to the point of bursting.

The carapace was a gift. Her mother may not have been with her in body, but she'd made sure that she'd kept her baby safe. The mottled blue exoskeleton had done that for over a year, until Doomsday Man had dug his fingers in deep and pulled it off, piece by piece.

The pain had been excruciating. More than being attached to her skin, the carapace was her skin. Anya hadn't known what to do when she'd woken up in the hospital and tried to call the armor out---only to have ragged little pieces of it emerge, utterly useless and on fire from exposed nerves. She'd cried, when Carol and her father hadn't been there to see her. Anya had cried because it'd hurt, cried because she had failed, but mostly cried because the carapace had felt so much like her mother that sometimes she imagined she could hear her through it like some sort of abstract ancestral memory.

That was supposed to be that. She'd moved on. Dealt with it. Accepted its loss like most people would accept a limb that a war had taken.

But now it was back, but in a bad way. It was back, but it felt wrong, stretched thin---a carapace a size or two too small for her. Instead of not fitting entirely, though, it felt like it was eating her down to fit. It was sluggish, not responding like it should.

She leaned dizzily against the wall of the Stark building, trying hard to breathe and not succumb to the panic attack cinched around her throat.

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Tommy wasn't exactly the knight in shining armor type. You could ask anyone he'd worked with and get the same answer: 'insert laughing acronym here'. He was, however, the go-to guy in situations that required some quick ass kicking and little regard for public property - and that was when he felt like it. In a city so saturated with superheroes and a lack of a team to call his own, it was hard to keep himself organized. It was hard enough to even bring up the possibility.

Still, there had been something about Anya's post that had called his attention. Mostly the reference to 'blue' and 'bug' and - let's face it - a pretty good looking girl. When things started to get ugly before his eyes, he figured it couldn't hurt to lend a helping hand. As soon as she gave him a location, he took off.

"Blue Beetle girl?" He uttered, staring at her. Much like he expected, the ugly things had only gotten worse. "Holy crap." Tommy--currently Speed--stepped closer to her with a growing sense of urgency and bafflement in his face. His hands didn't reach out. "Can I touch that thing?"

"Holy crap," came an echo. On a patrol when Anya had made her debut, Scarab was already way ahead in tracking the girl, whether he decided to go or not. In the end, 'you're a good guy, do good guy things' won over 'shut up and mind your own business'. That sort of thinking wasn't exactly going to keep him out of trouble or stressful situations, but...

He had to know if that thing had anything to do with the Reach at all. Even if she said it didn't, well. Jaime had no clue about the Reach until they'd showed up to invade like the glorious d-bags that they were, right?

And Pixie had to go and put that alternate-dimension-~~daughter~~relative notion in his head. God.

So his echo, though from high up as he flew in, rang out just a few seconds after Tommy's. Maybe a bit out of earshot, but it bore repeating, and he did so when his feet touched ground.

"Holy crap."

Scarab, is that--?

Anya's head jerked up when a boy just sort of appeared in front of her when she'd blinked. The burning nausea coupled with the sensation of surprise made her lunch contemplate a reappearance. Ugh. Cafeteria tuna surprise, too. She swallowed hard, then took a deep breath. The carapace had dug deeply into her right side, one of the mandible pieces actually cutting into her cheek. The cut bled sluggishly down her chin.

"Yeah, you can touch it," she said, then jerked with a flinch when the carapace bit down harder in reaction to the other hero touching down. "Just no fast movements. It doesn't like that."

Tommy turned his head as soon as he noticed Jaime arriving to the scene, right after acknowledging Anya's warning. His expression was pretty much the same throughout the whole process.

"Dude, is this one of your freaky alien bug thing's friends or something?"

"I--" Jaime cut himself short, watching the Scarab sensors pick apart the components of that...thing. It wasn't tech; the suit couldn't communicate back to it. This thing was biological, just like she sad. At least that knocks off the whole "alternate-reality-relative" thing, right?

"No, it's not from the Reach. It's--" he winced, watching it work. Tech or no tech, there was still the problem of it hurting her. Scarab scrolled through the options, still not in the habit of omitting the lethal options, much to Jaime's aggravation. He huffed a little, just to himself.

"Okay, we need to...get this thing off before it crushes you, right? So, so hold on, I can..." Jaime's left hand stretched and flattened like a spade, stepping forward.

[ BRING ON THE AZURE ARTHROPODS ] [open to Blue Beetle and Speed]

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WOW LET'S JUST BE STUPIDLY SLOW TO EVERYTHING EVER gj elle gj

Anya - Tommy - Jaime posting order?

SOUNDS GOOD TA ME

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