2013.10.06 - Falling Down The Rabbit Hole

Morning in Metropolis during the weekend is a slighty less crazy environment than it is during the weekday. But only slightly- traffic isn't as bad because it is a nice day and some people are out and about, taking in the clear morning. Sidewalk cafes display their best breakfast choices.
Keith walks down the sidewalk, one arm around Patrick. He has a soft, beatific smile, the kind that comes with a good night's sleep and the company of a loved one. "... it's such a beautiful morning, isn't it?"
Mornings in Metropolis are usually fairly nice, not that a certain clone that has an arm around Keith in exchange for the furry arm around his midsection thinks of this as morning. For him morning was much earlier, an hour or two before the sun came up, when he went jogging and doing the first part of his daily exorcise regime.
"Yes, it is a really nice morning. The weather is holding at just about the right place and nothing seems looming on the horizons just yet."
"I'm going to miss summer. This has been the best summer ever." The cat smiles, squeezing Patrick a little. "Oh, Pepper Potts told me that she met Van. Has he been talking to Stark?"
Patrick nods as he listens to the cat. "Summer is nice, but there are things to be said for fall. Going to have fewer people I pass while running that I have to get help for because they dehydrated themselves too much." He shakes his head a little at the number of extra water bottles he has taken to bringing with him on runs just because some people are morons. "Yes, or at least was planning to I think. Reminds me, need to see if I can make contact with Scarlet Spider again and see about setting up more with the attempt to create a loose alliance and training group with other Spiders."
The cat nods, "Having a group to fall back on would be nice. I personally don't like going solo, there are many times I've wished I had backup, but you can't be everywhere." He grins, and frowns for a moment. His ears twitch. As if he were trying to hear something that was just barely out of his hearing threshold.
Patrick nods and shrugs a little. "Honestly I prefer only having to rely on my brothers, and you." He is good with solo really, it means he does not have to trust people that he does not know the limits of and can't always predict the actions of. "The spider thing is more a group to share resources and training."
He shrugs again and then stops as he notices the ear twitch. He has taken a lot of time since Keith moved in to watch him, to learn his every tail and ear twitch so he can understand the unspoken language that the cat's body speaks in, often without him ever realizing it. That twitch is not one of the normal emotion ones, that one is like he heard something or thinks he did. In an instant he is setting up filters in his armor suit and readjusting the audio pickups trying to find any noise likely to trigger that reaction while keeping the smirk he wears that is as good a mask for his face as the one he wears as Iron Spider.
"...Come... you won't be hurt..."
The voice was silky, sibilant and oddly inhuman. There was some quiet whimpering as well, from a second person. The sounds came down the alleyway to their left, probably aplified by the close quarters.
Keith looks to Patrick, frowning. "... approach?"
Patrick's eyes narrow as he hears the words. Nope, this does not sound like a good thing. Especially when he hears the whimpering that is going with it as well.
He nods to the cat as he makes a suggestion and then hmms. "I'll go high, you go low. You make the approach and if there is trouble I will drop in?" He offers as a plan.
Once he gets a response yes or no he will step into the alley till he is out of sight of everyone but Keith and then vanish as he activates the camouflage functions on his suit and then goes up the wall to follow Vorpal in.
Being the designated visible one, the Cheshire quickly steps into the alley after Patrick vanishes. As he runs down its length, he can hear the voices growing stronger and stronger until he takes a turn to the right into yet another alleyway.
And stops dead on his tracks.
The whimpering seems to come from a small girl who is moving down the alleyway, dragging her feet in a show of reluctance. The little one seems utterly terrified, but what is more unusual is the figure further down the alleyway, standing there with his arms wide open and a toothy grin.
A white rabbit, dressed in a vest. But this humanoid rabbit is not 'cute' by any stretch of the imagination- there is something utterly vicious, from the large red eyes with a mad gleam in them to the unusual claws extending from his hands. That's something he shouldn't have.
And then, of course, there is the gaping hole that seems to have burst open in the alleyway floor, between the creature and the little girl who was suffling reluctantly and slowly towards it.
"That's alright... don't be afraid..." says the rabbit, whistling between its two large, gnarled buck teeth, "I'll take you somewhere nice!"
Keith takes a few seconds to look at this, eyes wide and an expression on his face that says 'Am I really seeing this?'
Patrick blinks and then blinks again inside of his costume as he sees the white rabbit. Ok, this is odd even for someone that is engaged to the Cheshire Cat. He, however, does not take more than a second to take in the scene or pause.
If the rabbit had been a friendly looking nice cartoon version he might...nope Pat would trust it even less than he does the monster looking one. Anything that tries to look friendly is just trying to pull one over on you after all.
*thwip* *thwip* The sound of web shooters going off can be heard from over head as the gaping hole in the ground gets a nice web over it to prevent anyone getting tossed down it into who knows where. "I think you're going to be late Mister Rabbit."
The rabbit's eyes go wide and quickly snap upwards, towards where the voice was heard- but sees no-one. The pupils instantly glow red and his victim, the little girl, seems to break away from the ensorcellment as soon as the rabbit's attention is diverted. Pale and shuddering, she takes a few steps back, turns around as if to flee and then emits a high-pitched scream as she sees the purple cat further down the alleyway. She makes a mad dash in the opposite direction, towards the rabbit, too panicked to think correctly.
The rabbit laughs and opens his arms to try to catch her, "You won't be getting away, my dear!" he says, and narrows his eyes at the Cheshire cat. "He won't have you. I won't let him!"
Keith finally reacts, running towards the rabbit and Sidestepping to try to catch the girl before she reaches him.
Panicked girl running towards danger. Not a good thing. Iron Spider decides that with the escape/kidnapping route blocked off now is a time to let the stealth end and go for a real attack.
The Iron Spider lets go of the wall where he clings as he starts to become visible doing a full flip in midair dropping straight down. He aims to land directly in front of the rabbit and between him and the girl. "Will you come and join the dance?"
Iron Spider has been trying to learn that whole quip and witty banter thing. All told, his tries are not too bad given his handicap in that area. He does not, however, give the rabbit time to quip back like most Spider heroes might before aiming a simple kick to his solar plexus.
The kick connects with the very solid rabbit- no hallucination there, that's for sure! The Iron Spider's kick sends him flying, almost melodramatically, across the alleyway, where the rabbit lands among trash bags.
Keith manages to get to the girl, who screams at him and kicks when he picks her up. "...Ow...stop it, I'm not going to hur--- Spider, take care of him for a second, I'm going to take her somewhere else and I'll be back, okay?"
He runs, struggling with the young child as he does not want to hurt her, until he finally summons up a little ball around her and uses that to carry her off.
"... you shouldn't have... done that." comes the high-pitched voice from the trash heap. And suddenly, a blur of white leaps towards Iron Spider at an inhumanly fast speed, one clawed, large rabbit foot extended to return the kick with considerable momentum.
Iron Spider plays what sensory equipment he has in the suit over the trash waiting for a response. He had figured one of three reactions given the persona taken on by the being that he is fighting, a high flying jump burrowing under the ground or speed.
He is only slightly surprised that the rabbit comes at him with a kick going at a speed that is only slightly faster than his own top speeds, and that surprise does not last long. As the rabbit flies at him he steps to the side and reaches out to attempt to grab the ankle of the White Rabbit's foot and redirect his momentum towards a wall in a simple judo based throw.
"Go Vorpal. I can handle the White Rabbit." He says watching the angry bunny for him to attack again.
The White Rabbit, not knowing the Iron Spider at all, is caught by surprise and thrown against the wall. He hits it, hard, even cracking a few bricks as he slides down with an 'oof.' As Vorpal vanishes, the rabbit narrows his eyes.
"We lost a guest for tea... the Queen will be mad. Perhaps I will take you with me instead..."
As he says this, a hole opens up right behind Patrick.. for some reason, it didn't open directly under him. But there is little time to ponder that, as the rabbit jumps, kicks off the wall and flies across to the next wall... and the next, and the next. He keeps this ricochet motion for several jumps, each time passing Patrick but not close enough for him to strike... almost as if he is mocking him. Holes keep opening up over the ground as well, making the area into a complex boobytrap.
"She would not like me for a guest. I have no manners at all." The Iron Spider responds to the mention of taking him as a guest for tea instead of the little girl.
Since the Rabbit is going to start bouncing from wall to wall he leaps up to grab the bottom of a fire escape to swing himself up to cling to the wall on the other side of the alley way.
The Rabbit really does not know Patrick at all if he thinks the bouncing ball routine or the mine field on the ground will be of any help. He really prefers to fight alongside of walls anyway so the danger to him is way less than it is to most other heroes and between his geometry skills and the equipment in his suit Iron Spider has a better than average chance at knowing exactly where the rabbit is going to land next.
After a second or three taken to watch the Rabbit move and pick his pattern up he picks the next three places he is likely to hit the walls and *thwip* *Thwip* *Thwip* sets his own sticky trap. If he manages to catch the Rabbit Iron Spider's next course of action is of course a leap, a kick to the face, and a bounce away to one of the other walls out of immediate reach.
"Not to mention, I have these nasty White Knight tendencies paired with the training to snap the necks of people that really deserve it. I am sure you would hate to be the one that brought an assassin to sit at the Queen's table
The White Rabbit is ill-prepared- either he is just new to this world or he is simply too insane to think rightly, but Iron Spider's kick connects along with his webbing. When kicked, the rabbit falls down, flailing in the air and falling fast towards the ground. "No! No! I can't show up without guests!"
Suddenly a golden chain appears in his hands, emerging from a lovely pocketwatch. In an act of desperation, the rabbit swings the chain and it grows incommesurably long, whipping around to try to catch Iron Spider's foot as the rabbit falls towards the enormous hole that's just opened up on the ground.
"I'm back! What the---" that's Vorpal, who is back just in time to see most of the alley floor disappear under a huge, gaping hole.
Iron Spider tucks his legs up to his body as he bounces away from the kick he landed on the White Rabbit's face pulling him into a ball and making him spin more. It is a good thing he saw that chain coming at him like a Jiujiebian or he might not have moved to avoid getting caught by it.
He lets his body flip around a couple of times before arms and legs come out catching onto the wall opposite of the one that he had glued the White Rabbit to long enough to kick him splayed out upside down.
"Vorpal, watch his chain!" Iron Spider yells out in warning just in case the Rabbit tries to drag his Cheshire Cat to the party.
The chain misses--- and manages to latch onto Vorpal's ankle, moving almost as if it had a will of its own.
"AHA! One guest!"
Vorpal gasps, summoning a stationary handhold in midair to keep himself from being dragged. As the rabbit falls down the hole, eventually the chain becomes taut as the rabbit hangs from it and the hole begins to close.
The cat tries to teleport out of the way, but suddenly finds that his teleportation isn't working. And, worst of all, the stationary object begins to slowly move towards the hole- something Vorpal had never seen happen before.
"Iron Spider, help!" he calls out, panicking as he feels himself being dragged towards the increasingly smaller hole.
*thwip* *Thwip* *thwip* Iron Spider sends several streams of Webbing first to cover the closing hole, second to anchor Vorpal to a wall, and a third one to swing himself down to the ground by the hole.
Once there he reaches to try and grab the chain around Vorpal's ankle in an attempt to break it. If that does not work though, he is going to grab the cat at the last second and cling to him cause he is not letting him get sucked into another world without him again.
Also, he is going to want a chance to apologize for any fur that might get ripped off thanks to the webbing he has tried to anchor the cat with.
It is a struggle, but the Iron Spider manages to anchor vorpal fast enough that he can't be pulled. The chain, though, doesn't seem to come off by hook or crook- it seems unbreakable, and that is impossible. The links bite into the cat's flesh as there is pull, and he clings to Iron Spider tightly.
"NO! You must come, you must! You ---"
The hole seems to be out of the rabbit's control, however, as it closes over the taut chain, his high-pitched voice vanishing into the ether, and that breaks the chain finally. It disperses into fine golden mist, and Vorpal falls against Iron Spider, still clutching him. Where the chain was, now there is only a bloodied ring from where the chain wrapped around his ankle- for all purposes, it seems to have bitten down on his flesh.
The alleyway returns to normal once the rabbit is gone, no more holes, no more madness, but Vorpal still clings for a few seconds, eyes shut tightly.
Patrick holds onto Vorpal for a long few seconds after the hole closes and the chain is snapped. He makes sure that the cat knows he is safe, even whispering it a few times in his ears before he lets go and gets down to the next important piece of business.
Iron Spider is all business when he can get loose and check Vorpal's injury making sure there are no injured arteries that will lead to bleeding out, that the muscle tissue is not torn up so bad he needs surgery, or anything else before he uses webbing to make a fast bandage.
Keith exhale once he is let go. Fortunately for him, the wound isn't too bad, but he'll have to stay off the foot probably for the next day or so. If the hole had not closed and the Rabbit would have kept pulling, it could have ended very, very badly for him, by how deep the cut had been made in such short a time.
"That was... that was crazy." It disturbs him because of the Wonderland theme. He sits down to ease the pain off the ankle, and to let Patrick finish the bandaging. "Thank you, love..." he says. Suddenly the day seems colder than it was before.
Patrick makes sure that Keith is ok, and has the ankle bandaged up before his costume melts away and then changes back into the clothes he had picked for it to emulate that day. "You're welcome." He says at the thanks despite the fact that he does not need to be thanked for doing anything for Keith.
Keith is not the only one disturbed by the attack, but Patrick is not going to show his reaction to it at all in front of Keith. Given what he knows about the events that made Keith what he is now, he is worried that this might only be the start of something big and potentially very dangerous.
"Can you help me up?" the cat asks, holding his hand out "I think I'm going to need a little help getting back home." He doesn't say it, but he could create a cane with his constructs... but right now, he'd rather be close to Patrick and far away from this place.
Patrick nods and double checks one last time that the bandage is working, and that it looks at least close enough to a normal kind of bandage instead of a wad of webbing that most people will not think twice. With a small grin he reaches down and pulls Keith up, for a second holding him entirely off the ground like he is thinking of just carrying him home before letting him put his weight all on his good leg and getting under his shoulder. "I do not know what I am going to do with you. All those cat like reflexes and still you're the one constantly getting hurt."
Keith smirks a little, and leans forward to kiss Patrick. "... that's why I've got you around, right? to make sure I don't spend my nine lives."
"six." Is said quietly enough that it is almost a whisper but loud enough that he can be heard easily when Keith mentions not spending his nine lives. He does lean in to kiss his fianc' back a little while making sure that they are all set for him to lead the cat out of the alley way limping while hanging on him.
"Six it is, then." Keith smiles, and heads off with Patrick, leaning on him as he limps. He was glad to leave that alleyway behind... and he hoped that had been a freak encounter. He didn't want to think of what else it could be.
Patrick smirks just a little that Keith does not even argue with his math in counting how many lives that he has left. He then stops mid step for a second and cocks his head to the side. "Wait, I forgot about when you were drug to Asgard and I found you with Brynn after. Five, five lives left. You need to be a lot more careful."
Keith cocks an eyebrow "... okay, just for that, you get to carry me home." The cat smirks, "And bring me lunch. In bed. With my favorite newspaper."
Patrick shrugs a little and then slides back a little and moves his arm that is not the shoulder that Keith is on under him and pull him up into his arms. "As you wish."
Keith eeps, as he is picked up and puts his arms around Patrick, giving him a wry smirk. "You know I was joking, right, Wesley?"
Patrick laughs a little at the response to him quoting one of his favorite movies that he has watched since he had moved in with Keith. "You should be careful doing that. You know I don't have much of a sense of humor." He does not, however, put the cat down. Instead he keeps carrying him onwards towards their home.
"We'll call it a happy accident, then." The cat grins, and rests his head on Patrick's shoulder. "I'll let you read the newspaper in bed with me, deal?"
Patrick nods and just a laughs a little as he carries Keith onwards. "Hmm, sounds like an interesting idea. Although you know I am not much for sitting around, or in this case laying in bed, doing nothing. And I still have to do today's cardio and strength training later. But I will certainly pamper you as long you stay off that ankle for at least 24 hours."
Keith grins. "I think I can cover the cardio bit... I'll be good." He gives Patrick a peck on the cheek and grins "Let's get home, I'm up for some... cardio, too."
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