Scene #6597: New York Actinides 4: Americium

Owner	Pose
Spider-Man	ACT 1: ENRICHMENT CHAPTER 4; AMERICIUM You have been asked to arrest Jackson "Wisp" Arvad. Arvad is a known Enhanced, and is a point of contact for the national weapons distribution network. He's protected by well-armed criminals who've been using from their own supply, and their meeting places are typically isolated, so expect itchy trigger fingers and high danger when making the arrest. "Alright, I'm gonna admit, I don't know what this guy's deal is. I managed to get a good facial scan, and there's just no criminal record before this! He only started doing this a month or two ago. Before that, it looks like he was a particle physicist for Oscorp. Disappeared for a week, and then suddenly he's in charge of moving weapons for a national crime syndicate. I don't get it. How does that happen? I really don't understand. Anyway, he's probably Enhanced now too, but we don't really know how. Some people say he teleports, some people say he's super-strong, all sorts of things. It's been hard to get it on camera." A convoy of unmarked vans is moving on the way to a distribution point out of New York City, towards a meeting with Arvad. Guards and guns, everything one needs. They're heading to a trainyard, near a taller structure. Openings on both ends for freight, and likely a train for Wisp himself. Arvad isn't visible yet, but at least it's becoming relatively clear which of the many freight trains is going to be used. Arvad's own men, armed with exotic particle weapons to guard the exchange and handoff, emerge from one of the empty cars, ready to help the loading. The exchange starts... Where IS Will-o-the-Wisp? The alert and focused will notice an increase in radio static.
Spider-Man	Jeanne is given directions. "Been looking for little Jackie! I want some words with him. Specifically, words about why he's been doing what he's doing. Didn't he have a nice life? Didn't he have a good job? Didn't he have a healthy salary and generous benefits? Now he wants to play cops and robbers? What's been making him do that? I need to know. Call it... aheh, thrillseeker's curiosity! Why is he doing what /I'm/ doing? Figure that out, and get him out of the picture, and we'll come away from this with something done."
Axel	Axel's in position, having scoped out the area. A tall structure over the trainyard, tall enough for him to climb up and perch with a pair of binoculars. Watching the scene distantly, he decides to wait for the gun vans to get closer - enough so that they don't get spooked before anyone can reach out for them - and then, consider. Where the hell is their target? Dressed in his black robe, hood over his head, Axel exhales and moves from his perch, aiming to get a running start. And then, Spider-Man mentions something and he absolutely comes to a halt. Taking the binoculars up again (they're not the best, so he won't get a clear view on anything), Axel scouts out. Is anyone wearing a weird backpack? Something they could be using to jam the group if they get close?
Staren	Staren's in the same red armor as last time, although he's not immediately at the handoff site. He was going to wait in ambush nearby, but when he got there he realized they were actually going to try to get away with the goods on a /train/. So, further up and down the track, he just starts... removing track into his matter manipulator. Even if it goes south, these guys shouldn't be able to get far. The mysterious static gets his attention, though. He starts comparing the signal interference between what scattered drones he can still reach, trying to tell if it seems to be coming from a specific place or any other odd patterns about its behavior.
Spider-Man	None of the backpacks from before. At least, none active; there might be some in a box somewhere! It's a good lead to help Axel motivate Staren to look at this more, which will find something interesting.
Spider-Man	Staren finds the weirdest thing in the world. The static occupies a limited area. It has one main mass, four odd extended field regions with folds in them, and one shorter extended field region at the fifth point of the "star"; the central mass and the shorter extension have much higher intensity of activity. It is moving, when Staren's drones check its contours. The shorter region was kind of leaning over the trainyard, but now it's rotating around in an odd motion, pointing to various locations. What?
Ritsuka Fujimaru	An armored woman is looking for Arvad. She moves directly towards the trainyard with purpose and looking like she owns the place, not for a moment caring about stealth nor even giving the guards a glance unless they stop her. She's really hoping they stop her. Should she be asked to leave or confronted in a way that doesn't involve getting shot at, she'll answer them (relatively) politely and mention her desire to speak with Arvad about recent news involving his distributors that she /knows/ he'll be dying to hear about. It's all in that haughty tone, of course, since she's absolutely itching for an excuse, and she lets it show through her tone. Also, talking big about her own recent endeavors and involvement in setting things on fire on a whim. The museum in New York, a SHIELD safehouse in Washington, multiple prisons. Should that not be enough to convince them or should they resort to violence, then the trainyard becomes her next fire target. One would almost expect her to be bored of it by now, but no. Jeanne's just itching for the chance to burn the entire place down, but she'll behave as long as nobody attacks her.
Spider-Man	The fifth, shorter field-zone points at Jeanne while Staren is scanning it. Almost immediately, one of the guards sets down his gun out of sight to not spook the civs, and starts striding over confidently to stop her. The negotiation is short, tense, and strained. After a time, the bulky fellow speaks into his radio. "Boss. Ashmonger is here to talk with you." Apparently they've taken to calling Jeanne "Ashmonger". Nicknames are so punchy around here, when you're Enhanced! He waits a moment. Unnerving, staticky tones emerge from the radio, just barely resolving into a human voice. "tell her to speak" The voice says. "i'm listening" The guard looks to Jeanne expectantly.
Axel	Axel moves back to his running start after Jeanne arrives. Looks like they'll have trouble. Staren's disabled the train's escape...so this is the best time, Axel thinks. He leaps off the structure, boosting through the air with a dash and moving to soar down straight into the mess of guards and Jeanne. Specifically, Axel's going to break his fall on the shoulder of the guard looking at Jeanne, likely breaking it in the process, and then rebound off and take him as a hostage, grabbing him and preparing to manifest a chakram. "Gentlemen, gentlemen, lady, I'm looking to meet with Will o' the Wisp." "Turn him over and things can go smoothly, yeah?"
Ritsuka Fujimaru	Ashmonger. Jeanne likes the sound of that. Her grin grows even wider when she hears that, and she makes sure to maintain eye contact with the bulky guard as she reaches for the radio to just up and take it from him. She's not going to just blab in front of the guard, after all, and she needs to make sure these no-names know their place on the ladder. Also because she needs to buy time to figure out what her next line is going to be. Before she can even reach that radio, however, Axel's made his sudden appearance! Jeanne squints briefly at him as she tries to remember where she had last seen him, then nods slowly in recognition. "Oh. You're the one with that spiked wheel thing." She has no idea what his name is. Instead of drawing attention to that, she just brushes it off and reaches for that radio again. "Arvad, right? I was going to say that others would be arriving to capture you or do whatever it is they feel like, but they're already here. Change of plans, then. Are you going to come out to have a nice chat with us and let you go on your way, or are we going to have to burn this place to cinders first?" Her gaze turns back to Axel, that grin widening further as flames begin to consume the banner held behind the Avenger. "Because I'm feeling really good about the second tonight. It's such a nice night out for a barbecue~"
Staren	Staren considers the strange pattern. He has some drones fly high, and try to get eyes on the center and fifth point of that star.
Spider-Man	Axel hasn't been active enough to get a nom de guerre assigned to him, or even get immediately recognized, but his nature and his attack draw the immediate hostility he's looking for. The guard goes down. One of the men nearby immediately rounds the corner with an actual weapon and opens fire. The radio that the thug was using gets knocked free, and Jeanne will be able to pick that one up. The static on the radio intensifies just around Axel, and Staren stops being able to pick it up as effectively. A mass of green and flickering light suddenly flashes into being. Four long fields of light, one shorter field at the top, and a pulsing mass in the middle. One of the longer ones lashes out to try to smash Axel in the chest; if it lands, it feels first like being hit by a stiff breeze for half a second, and then like getting smashed in the chest by a big construction beam of feldspar. "then meet" Right before this happens, Staren might be able to give warning that the five-pronged field-shape looks, from above, exactly like the silhouette of a human body.
Spider-Man	"go away" The radio voice is flickery and uneven. "please don't make me" The voice tries to say something, but it's scrambled. Jeanne has yet to attack the goons, which seems to be why the humanoid-looking flickering mass of popping lights hasn't attacked Jeanne yet. That doesn't mean that more goons, converging on the encounter, aren't going to keep back from her. One fires a warning shot. "Fuck out of here!" He shouts, before they start getting into focusing on Axel. Spider-Man, of course, swings in shortly as well, immediately bouncing off of the chest of one of them with a high-flying kick, and diving into battle. "Woah, guys, hey! Lot of lights! We're getting complaints from the neighbors. You can't go pointing floodlights at people like that." He'll be bouncing and swinging around the trainyard to attack these goons for quite a while, and no doubt engaging the brilliant battle-lights himself shortly.
Staren	Well, that's troublesome. Staren tries to stay out of sight for now, but has some drones approach where Axel was headed, trying to get eyes on what's going on and communicate through their speakers. "Look, we're offering to talk rather than fight. The whole suicide-by-hero thing is just so old. We all want things, and enhancement's not evil regardless of what the law says. There's a multiverse of possibilities, maybe we can find a way to all get what we want without messing up the lives of innocent people so much, what do you say?"
Ritsuka Fujimaru	Jeanne narrows her eyes at the radio when the voice goes from telling them to meet to telling them to leave. The scrambling is noted, but clearly this man is confused and doesn't want to comply! "Hmph! If that's the way you want it, then fine." Jeanne's suspicions are confirmed when that guard fires his warning shot, and the fire trailing her banner burns hotter and brighter than before. "If you want anyone to blame, blame your peons for standing against me!" The Avenger draws her sword and points it forward as spears form by the flaming banner, although they don't fire right away. Instead, she's staring right at Spider-Man. "You again, too? Ugh... Don't you ever get tired of playing the hero?" Shaking her head, Jeanne turns back to the humanoid light golem thing and sends her spears blasting right through the banner, all aimed at said golem thing. "If you want to live, listen to the bleeding heart! Otherwise, we'll just incinerate you here!" Strangely enough, though, her fire is all directed on the golem. None of her stuff is being launched at the goons yet.
Axel	Axel gets fired at with bullets. Several pierce his robe, so instantly, he blinks away, several feet off-aim so that they're distracted, and draws his chakrams in a flash of darkness, throwing them at gunhands. At least, at first, he does. But then, long fields of light smash Axel in the chest. For a second, he's thrown backwards, and staggers, and then - it hurts. He groans loudly, spitting up a small amount of blood, and then overhears Staren's speaker trying to negotiate. Axel mutters. "We're throwing him in jail, do you really have to lie to the guy?" With his radio out, Axel has nothing to do except to try and fight light itself. The chakrams are thrown, aiming for the giant pulsing mass, and ignite with flames in the process, moving to try and burn into it and see if it can Actually Be Damaged.
Staren	"Please." Staren responds. "I'm not beholden to local authorities. If he presents a compelling enough case, I'm willing to help him clear up misunderstandings or find another way. And even if his goals are straight up evil... well, alright, he's not going to be willing to go to jail, he'd probably rather die fighting. But I at least like to check for misunderstandings before I kill people, you know? It seems like a good general policy to have, especially when dealing with an elusive figure who apparently noone connected to the authorities has actually /talked/ to since he disappeared."
Spider-Man	"not my choice" The radios intensify their static. The wispy lights take the spears in several ways. First, one passes through it, and while the physical impact seems to be absent, the heat seems to cause it pain, making it recoil and hunch over. The static gushes for a moment. Axel finds a similar effect; the being's body is seemingly selectively intangible, but it can't escape the effects of heat. "stop" The voice speaks through radios, and even can be heard whispering all around. "stop stop stop" the whispers strengthen. There's a flash of light as the body moves, and one can see through the blinding lights a mess of long, blonde hair and a thin, wirey scholarly body among the white lights. "go away before i have to--" Scrambled static concludes that sentence. Trying to get away via train may wind up being easier than it seemed, because despite the absence of the tracks, the light-being hoists an entire train in both hands like it's made of paper, and then throws it at Jeanne. Axe gets another, lifted and wielded like a club. Spider-Man rushes in, swing-kicking clean through the being, but when he tries to lift another train, Spider-Man leaps above and kicks it down onto him. "Woah woah! Hold on! Stop with the train collection, the habit gets excessive really easily! Trust me!" He lands near Jeanne. "Never get tired of it actually, you'd be really surprised how energizing it is! Don't you want to try it sometime?" "i don't want to kill you but i will" The fluttery static-voice speaks in a clear tone of frustration and... a kind of despair? He moves to a mix of heavy super-dense strikes and weird ultra-light maneuvering.
Staren	It /picks up a train/. "Oh COME ON!" Staren shouts. He's visible now as he takes to the sky and approaches, but also tries to keep to a 'safe' distance. He's not entirely sure what the safe distance is for people who can throw trains. Over the speakers, he continues, "It sounds like you're of two minds about this. Is there any way we can seperate them, or help you to think more clearly?" He considers attacking, but the others are doing okay, and maybe being The Guy Who Hasn't Attacked Yet will make this person more likely to listen to him? Worth a shot.
Ritsuka Fujimaru	Not his choice? That makes things a little stranger. It's not quite strange enough for Jeanne to actually hold back, but it does make things all the more interesting. It's certainly not enough to get the Avenger to STOP hurling flaming spears at the light-being, though, compared to that train being hurled towards her. That's going to sting in the morning. Leaping upwards, the train clips Jeanne's leg rather badly, and she digs her other foot into the surface of the train to jump off that just to make sure she isn't carried away with the train crashing and rolling further behind her. Landing moments later, she turns slowly to Spider-Man when he continues with that incessant quipping. "You're lucky I don't care either way if he lives or dies." She sighs lightly and shakes her head, focusing again on her banner as the flames start shooting out towards the light-being. "... Just this once. But he'd better answer my questions when we're done here!" She snaps after that, looking immensely peeved as she resumes her attack. Instead of just aiming to incinerate the light-being whole, the flames instead split to target whatever looks the most like 'arms' on it. She still hasn't figured out why she's even bothering to do it this way.
Axel	Heat is the only source, huh. Axel realizes that as the chakrams return to his hands, and then, the being of light picks up a train and moves to swing it at him. It impacts, causing Axel to flip, bruised, battered, and coughing up more blood because it's a goddamn train, but as he flips, he moves to land on top of the train-club, and run along it. Running towards Will-o-the-Wisp's arm, Axel leaps off the train, and points his chakrams. Lances made out of incredibly hot flames burst into existence, and move to try and burn into his legs and try and either stop him from moving or knock him over if at all possible. "Sorry, but you need to come with us. You had your chance to give up, but now we'll have to take you in by force. No complaints, y'hear?!"
Spider-Man	"if i don't kill anyone who interferes" The whispers and radio speak in concert, in a stressed tone. "he'll kill me" His arms cease to look like light for a moment, instead suddenly gleaming in feldspar textures instead. It's an effort to stop Jeanne's blasts of heat. It's not as successful as he wishes it was. "stop stop stop" He doesn't keep up with the train assault, and instead he pursues Jeanne directly, closing in fast. His arms hurt like hell, and the punch he was going for clearly provokes a short wince of pain. A kick it is, then, though almost everything but the leg is intangible, making a counter-attack difficult! But her tactic was sound! Spider-Man leaps above Jeanne, lashing at his wounded arms with webbing, and just barely managing to snag them before he goes intangible again, limiting the motion for her and locking in her hold there. Then he's nearly shot out of the air by an additional rush of goons, ones he has to bounce away from the battle to fight them for a moment.
Staren	"Who? Who will kill you? If you're being forced to commit crimes under duress, the local justice system may be more lenient..." Staren asks, and then goons show up to harass the friendly neighborhood spider-man. Staren blasts them with particle beams if it looks like they can take it, or otherwise gets out the taser bullets again, shooting, charging into their midst, and shock-punching them. "What about you guys? You know who's forcing Mr. Now-You-See-Him-Now-You-Don't over there to work for him? Talk, folks, if they're forcing you too we'll kick their ass!"
Spider-Man	Now Will-o-the-Wisp is making use of those legs, Axel goes for them instead. He blasts out with fire, and the legs have to harden up with ultra-density for a moment while Wisp leaps back, fast as possible. The density goes wild and it's hard to keep up with him. "no" His radio and whispers say. "stop". Spider-Man hasn't gotten back yet! Someone needs to pin the guy down or something like that, for a given value of pinning! At the very least, his rapidly-oscillating intangibility still seems to have the adhesives of Spider-Man's webbing still stick through it. And thankfully, he might be coming back shortly... "i can't give up or--" He starts, before his flickering lights suddenly intensify. It's almost like Masked Marauder's shitty lightblast-mask, except this one isn't so bright it's hard to see. Instead, it's some kind of... mental attack? Wisp barely seems aware he's even doing it, mostly taking the moment to get away, but the light seems to be trying to conduct right through Axel's eyes and into his brain, giving him a moment where he has to struggle to breathe, where his heart might struggle to pump-- well, no, probably not that knowing the physiologies of his world, but it's clearly an effort to hit him right in the life-instincts, encoded right in the raw light.
Spider-Man	Staren moves in on the thugs. "Fuck him up!" "Shit! Is it one of Stark's--" "No! It's some other piece of shit tech!" "Watch it! Shit!" "He's got stuff like Shocker!" The men shout, and seem to have nothing for Staren; they don't even know enough to form a coherent counterargument against the possibility that they could be responsible. "What the fuck 'forced' shit are you talking about? Man, fucking /die/!" They continue the efforts to blast, but he's mostly got them covered and pinned for now. Not just guns now, men are bringing out staves to try to bash Staren's body in with heavy swings. "Star! Keep them handled, I gotta help with Wisp!" Spider-Man calls out. "I think we've almost got him!" He swings off, moving to start trying to web up Wisp's momentarily-solidified legs.
Axel	Axel continues to fight, but as he does so, and strikes Wisp, Wisp strikes back with some sort of mental attack. Axel has trouble breathing. That's not actually the worst of it. He feels a sharp fear in his survival instincts, a twinge, one that causes his eyes to widen and sets him off. Axel immediately slides back, tries to force his breath to work again, and promptly panicks. He might die here. This is a casual mission and he might die, he can feel it. He can't let that happen. Axel lashes out as the guards attack - if any of them focus on him, he throws a chakram at them in an attempt to /kill/, trying to preserve his own life. But if they don't attack him, it's Wisp he focuses on. Luckily, he still doesn't want to kill AWisp, but he's not against hurting him badly to survive. Axel spins his two chakrams, and starts dashing around him, as fire begins to build up in massive walls. The walls burst up, flames moving to try and wrap around where Wisp can move. If he tries to move through the walls, he'll burn from the white-hot flames, so it's a cage. The flame intensity has been increased - not too hot that it actively is Going Too Far for Axel, because he doesn't want to expend too much energy, but hot enough that if Wisp just threw himself at the walls over and over again, he could burn to death (maybe?).
Staren	"You do that!" Staren shouts back. He fires some riot foam missiles to inconvenience the group, then drops the gun and turns to hand-to-hand plus his beam cannons. Trying to use his forcefield to block the ranged weapons, then grabbing the staves in melee and trying to shock through them. It's a combat robot body with advanced tech from multiple worlds. It can take a beating, but Staren can't keep this going forever. Ideally, they'll go down quickly. If they don't, he tries to kill half a dozen of them with miniature HEAT missiles (it's okay, he can fix them!) to see if that will either make the rest manageable or make the rest scatter. "Stark's? Piece of shit? You guys are really in the dark, huh? Find a new line of work, fast."
Ritsuka Fujimaru	"Oh? Tell us, who is this person? Maybe we'll just have to kill him instead!" Jeanne shouts at Arvad as her flames continuing whirling about, her efforts to keep him at least somewhat restrained seeming to work when he can't quite seem to punch her right! And then he instead kicks her right in the everywhere. To be fair, Jeanne was quite expecting it from someone that looked so weak inside all of that gleaming light, and it does do quite a number on her as the kick sends her hurtling back into that busted-up train he threw earlier. It takes the Avenger several moments to pull herself out of that impromptu wreck she's found herself in, and she looks incredibly angry by the time she bursts out of the wreck in a fiery explosion. Sort of bursts, anyway. The wreck bursts, but she's stepping forward slowly. Menacingly. Definitely-not-hiding-leg-injuries-ly. "You say you can't give up or he'll kill you, but if you don't give up now..." Jeanne starts calling upon even more spears to gather in the air around her, each one wreathed in dark edgelord flames. With her legs jacked up as they are, though, Jeanne can't quite run, but she can still maneuver those spears just so as Axel brings up his FIRE CAGE. "... Then what difference will it make if we kill you instead?!" Those spears point into that cage Axel forms to complete the threat of imminent execution, slowly inching closer just to make the point ever more apparent. "Tell us. Why are you involved in this? Who are you working for? And wha reason do we have not to kill you right here for wasting our time, you piss-soaked coward?!"
Spider-Man	Axel's extensive efforts help quell the constantly-moving Will-o-the-Wisp. Thankfully, Staren's got the masses handled; no urgent need to kill, this time. This gives Spider-Man a good chance to latch onto those feet, spraying both the ground and the legs. "Hey, come on! Hold still a little! If I can get a good video of a will-o-the-wisp I think I can get a bunch of money from Buzzfeed or something!" Spider-Man calls out. "stop stop no no please" He's trying to harden up to force himself through the heat, but he can't manage it. He starts trying to disperse, but the edges of his flickering body hit the cage of Jeanne's spears, and they halt; the field of light recoils, in pain. It isn't long before he winds up slammed to the ground and pinned there. This is around the time that several HEAT missiles pierce straight into criminal torsos, turning them into mist and leaving behind gore-- and of course, intact brain, somewhere among the lost skulls. "Woah, hey, what!" Spider-Man calls out, leaping to start webbing up scattering whole criminals who are starting to have to disperse after this assault. "We don't need to paste them!" "stop stop please let me go or he's going to--!!" The static intensifies. The whispers get worse. The shining light has subsided, revealing a frightened man in a deep-green suit, wired with what looks like some mess of medical equipment. His face looks like he couldn't be past his thirties, and isn't the kind who knows much hardship except for right now. There's scrapes that aren't cared for, bruises from the fight. "please i don't want to be trapped" The static seems almost... sobbing. "he'll turn on the implant i'll die if you do this" He struggles to speak as fast as he can. "octavius can heeeaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!!" At that moment, the flickering lights return, centered right around Arvad's brain. He starts screaming. His body begins to disperse into a storm of light. He sounds like he's in unthinkable pain, and seems to also be having some sort of debilitating seizure. There's an implant in his brain, and it's hijacking his enhancement to disperse his atoms!
Staren	"It's alright I can fix 'em!" Staren shouts. Although in truth he thought they'd be a little more intact. Whoops. He'll adjust the warheads on them before next time. With the other criminals dispersing, he gathers up the six skulls of his unfortunate victims, applying nanites, putting them in containers, and stuffing them into his bag. Bonus: Before giving them robot bodies and releasing / turning them in, now he can interrogate them in VR to see what they know! Silver lining! "I'm gonna talk to these guys and see what they know, but it sounds like we just got another name to look into."
Ritsuka Fujimaru	"Buzz...? Hah! so even you're tempted by the call of money." Jeanne chuckles briefly before breaking into laughter at that discovery, and her amusement grows further when Arvad pleads for them to stop. She doesn't, of course, keeping those spears held in place near Axel's cage for as long as it takes until his light-golem-thing fades. "Was that so hard? We told you what would happen. Now get up and-" And then Arvad starts screaming. Jeanne narrows her eyes as she can't quite make heads or tails of what's going on, turning her attention instead to the guards that had been turned into soup by Staren's missiles. "And here I thought you cared about these fools. You're even more of a liar than me." She scoffs, then waves a hand dismissively at Arvad as she raises her flaming banner as if preparing to bring it back down on Arvad after Axel's warning. "You're some sort of science wizard, aren't you? Do your... Whatever it is you do with screaming men like him, or he'll get upset once I brain this guy. The..." She pauses, then turns to Spider-Man. "...What am I supposed to call you, anyway?"
Axel	Arvad's having a seizure. He's dying. Axel considers what to do. The man will be 'trapped'? He's got strange light abilities. Atom abilities? Axel doesn't know. He's not a scientist. He's not even a particularly 'smart' dude. "I don't care about you." Axel says coldly to Arvad, still snapping out of his panic. "But no one should 'live' that way." The chakrams spin. They go flying into Arvad's neck and chest. Hopefully, that stops him before he...disappears into another dimension or something?
Spider-Man	"PLEASE" Arvad's trembling hands are decaying to light-motes as he raises them. The boundaries of his body are falling apart. Spider-Man stops criticizing Staren when he says he can fix the dead criminals to rush to the side of the man. "Me?" He answers Jeanne. "I'm Spider-Man, I'm-- Woah, hey, take it easy! What's wrong? How do we stop this?" He immediately kneels at his side to try to help. "PLEASE" Tears are streaming down his face. The moment they leave his cheeks, they turn to light-dust. Blood trails out of his mouth, his ears, his nose. Even the blood burns with light. "Talk to me! Tell me how we stop this!" Spider-Man is shouting, trying to find an implant port, a power source he can cut, maybe a transmitter he can remove. "PLEASE DON'T LEAVE ME TRAPPED" His limbs have almost fully unraveled. It's reaching his torso, starting to unravel up to his neck. Spider-Man doesn't really know what he's doing, or how to deal with it. All he can do is try to find a solution, anything that doesn't involve-- Splut. The static dies. The head rolls, leaving a trail of blood. The flickering lights dance on the surface of the limp face, and the burning wispy lights falter behind the eyes. Later, Staren would find that the brain has been so scrambled by atomic dispersal that it would take a neurology expert to make it scannable, if he chose to reclaim it. Spider-Man is immediately silent. He stands, taking a few steps back, one hand to his mouth. The situation is /terrifying/ to him, in deep and fundamental ways. And for the first time in his life, after a lethal incident like this there's no still-remaining disaster to refocus his mind, just a corpse and nothing else to do heroism at. Which means, once more for the first time in his life... He's silent. No quips. Just staring, goggle-lenses wide, trying to avoid hyperventilating through his mask.
Axel	There are no tears. There is no pain. Axel, truly, legitimately, does not care about killing this man. There's no guilt. No sorrow. No regret. As the head rolls to the ground, Axel moves over to Spider-Man. "Hey, it'll be alright." Keep team cohesion, or at least try, he says, briefly, before moving to radio in SHIELD and tell them the situation. It's one hell of a situation. But he words it to make him (and his allies) sound as good as possible without actually lying. Play the game. Keep going. Get the rewards. Find the next lead. Find Octavius.
Staren	Several moments later, Staren just walks over to collect that head like the rest. "Hey, you okay? Look, killing him stopped him from disintigrating, so I can probably save him!"
Spider-Man	Spider-Man remains a bit silent. The incident, whatever the outcome of some kind of resurrection attempt, is one that was a little traumatic. There's a bit of blood on Spider-Man's mask, from the spray that came out of Arvad's decapitation. His goggle-lenses flicker uncertainly. He visibly swallows, presumably an effort to quell nausea. It is not quelled. The skull still retains the IMPLANT. They'll need help from an expert on brain surgery to examine it in-depth. The interrogatees have minimal data, but come from a similar pool of ex-Maggia footsoldiers that have been flowing out of the Maggia crime families since Tombstone was taken down. They weren't coerced, and they have their own histories of crime; they probably won't be convincing him not to send them to jail. Most of them don't know many details about the mysterious Smuggler Syndicate. But they can, at least, provide the term that the rest of the underworld uses for them. It may be useful for asking questions of the rest of the underworld. They call them "Vultures".
Ritsuka Fujimaru	That's certainly one way to do it. Although Axel's method certainly works in the no-longer-disintegrating sense, it still results in a corpse rather than an arrest. Just as well for Jeanne, since she's gotten what she wanted: A lead on why Arvad was even here in the first place. "Firebrand.. That one's not bad, either. I'll take it. Or Ashmonger." She laughs that usual haughty laugh, then rests her banner against her shoulder as the flames die out. With the information to relay to Green, it'd be a simple matter to just slink off into the night. Two problems. One, her legs are kinda messed up, so going anywhere is going to take some doing. Two, Spider-Man isn't moving. She can tell he's still alive, but there's something wrong. Where's the incessant quips? The annoying banter? He mentioned not being able to vote earlier. Just how young is he? Letting out in irritated groan, she glances back once before rubbing her temples. "Spider-Man. Where's the nearest hotel? I need a drop-off." She taps on her legs, the armored boots looking all kinds of messed up and bloody, presumably from getting hit by that train earlier. The rest of her armor is a mess, too!
Spider-Man	"..." It takes a moment for Spider-Man to recognize that he's been spoken to. Jeanne might need to prod at him twice. "Wh..." He starts, shaking his head. "Uh. Yeah. Right, okay. Here, hop on. Remember to tip, that's the only thing that makes Uber close to ethical." He says, immediately trying to paint over his traumatic incident with a joke. As is always the case, with Spider-Man. Even his comedic delivery is... wobbly. Pained. He actually offers to help Jeanne with a swinging ride on a second web-strand, he's surprisingly strong enough for that and it gives him something to focus on that isn't this. That one's going in the repression vault. No doubt.