Catch me if you can! (Toxin!)

[Felicia Abigail Hardy]

Black Cat made her way through side streets and alleyways, trying to lose her pursuers in blue. Sirens wailed. She cursed. She must have tripped some kind of silent alarm. The big, clunky Picasso strapped on her banged into stuff, and she winced every time it did. She was afraid it would get damaged and the buyer wouldn't accept it. Then this whole damn chase would have been for naught, and she wouldn't even be paid. That would really suck.

She couldn't afford to get caught. Kingpin had warned her never to get caught, and if she did, under no circumstances was she to testify against him. He had told her quite plainly that Wilson Fisk was not going to jail, and would do whatever he deemed necessary to have that happen. Gazing into those cold eyes, she had shivered. She believed him.

Fortunately, though, the Kingpin had also given her an earpiece which jacked into police radio frequencies. It was helping her stay ahead for now, but if they started scrambling the choppers...well she had to lose them fast.

Finally, the noise of the chase died down and she leaned back against a dirty alley wall, then grimaced and stepped back.

Suddenly she spotted a police officer coming toward her. She released a grappling hook at a fire escape and hit a button, causing the line to retract and pull her upwards. She smirked at the cop as she drew away from him. She just hoped he didn't feel particularly lazy and decide to shoot her rather than chase her.

[Patrick Mulligan]

The high-pitched, enthusiastic blaring of the flashing blue siren was quickly reduced to a melancholic drone, crushed by a series of violent impacts, as Patrick Mulligan's patrol car rolled magnificently down an entire city block. Only Patrick would be the one to know that his brilliant crash was in fact intentional; but to any onlookers, or anyone to whom they might care to recount the events of this evening, the wreck would appear to be nothing more than an unfortunate and unavoidable accident, as the young, noble cop risked his own life to swerve, at just the right moment, out of the path of some careless pedestrian standing helplessly in the middle of the road. They could also add that he valiantly climbed from the smoking wreckage and continued the dangerous pursuit on foot, but more likely than not, Patrick suspected, they'd grumble over the wasted taxpayer dollars.

At any rate, Patrick believed that this culprit the police were after – an art thief or some such – clearly had them all at a disadvantage, as he seemed to be able to maneuver the alleyways with ease and finesse, where the bigger vehicles, like Patrick's patrol car, would only be a burden to the chase. Instead, Patrick would follow the culprit's example and take to the narrow back streets where, hopefully, Patrick could force him into a corner. But this wasn't something Patrick could do on his own strength; he'd need some help.

Patrick could sense Toxin's joy as he called upon its power and abilities, finally allotting it some time to play. The symbiote's gooey form oozed all over Patrick's body, slowly enveloping the young man's figure in a strange black and red substance. Aided by Toxin, Patrick stormed along all surfaces of the alleyways at remarkable speeds before noticing the sudden disappearance of all the racket emanating from the chase. He must have strayed too far off course. As Patrick began to double back over the rooftops, he passed over an alley where he noticed a dark figure, along with a large picture frame. He was a bit surprised to discover that the criminal he had been chasing was actually a young girl, but before he could approach her, she shot a line from her grasp up to an overhanging fire escape, smiling confidently as it pulled her away. Patrick recognized another cop in the alley below, a large man with whom he was in the same graduating class at the academy. The man reached for his gun, aimed steadily at the fleeing girl, and was knocked down by a sticky, black projectile that kept him plastered to the asphalt. Patrick reasoned that it was for both the cop's and the girl's safety.

On the ledge of the rooftop, across the alleyway from the fire escape, Patrick wagged his finger at the girl disapprovingly, shaking his almost featureless head, marked only by two large alien eyes.

[Felicia Abigail Hardy]

Black Cat gasped as she saw the reddish, gooey substance come out of nowhere to cover her pursuer. Was that...

"Carnage?" she whispered. She didn't know what she had done to earn that strange psychopath's attention, but she was pretty sure he wasn't just about to invite her to lunch. It seemed there were worse things to be caught by than the police after all. She watched as the thing wagged its finger at her from down below, taunting her.

She fired the grappling laucher again, hooking it on the edge of a taller building. Screw Picasso! Her life came first- she couldn't spend money if she was dead, now could she?

She leapt off the building, twisting her body and firing the other grappling hook and retracting the previous one. She thought her heart had been beating quickly during the police chase. Now, with Carnage after her, she was worried it might explode out of her.

[Patrick Mulligan]

Why do they always run, Pat wondered to himself - although, to be fair, this was the first criminal he had ever encountered that opted for swinging as a means of doing so, which could prove problematic for the young cop. While the symbiote allowed him to maneuver in a similar fashion as the girl did, Patrick hadn't yet mastered that ability, or for that matter, used it for more than several minutes at a time without crashing into something. Tonight would be different though; it'd have if he had any hopes of catching this girl.

As steadily as he possibly could, Patrick aimed his arm toward the same spot that the girl had used to swing from, and by merely willing his transformed self, he produced a long, red and black chord that shot through the air and clung to its intended mark as well as any grappling hook would have. With a single unenthusiastic sigh, Patrick stepped off the ledge, carefully gliding through the narrow alleyways, though much more slowly than the girl, who clearly must have had prior experience evading numerous pursuers.

Gradually, Patrick accelerated, becoming a bit more comfortable with every line he shot, though still doing so in a very awkward manner. When he was within earshot of the girl, he called out to her, or rather, snarled in Toxin's sinister voice: “Stop, wait for one second!

[Felicia Abigail Hardy]

Black Cat almost laughed. Stop for one second? Really? Why would she do that? Getting caught by him would at the very least result in her getting arrested, provided he was actually a real cop. At the worst, it would result in her being killed and probably eaten. Sorry, those weren't very convincing reasons to slow down. She took comfort in the fact that he didn't appear to be traveling as fast as she did.

She heard a whirring sound and cursed. Helicopter blades? Great. Helicopters could present a big problem- they would surely have no trouble following her. But how could she lose them?

She vaulted onto a rooftop, then shot a grappling hook around the helicopter's legs. Haha! Now the strange cop wouldn't be able to chase her- unless he could fly.

Or unless he was able to repeat the same maneuver she had just performed, she realized. If the strange cop was able to grab onto the helicopter...well he would be too close for comfort.

She allowed herself to drop below again. She shot out another grappling hook and spun away in the opposite direction of the helicopter.

[Patrick Mulligan]

Helicopters? How in the world could she grapple onto helicopters? Patrick had a hard enough time as it was, doing the same thing with larger, stationary objects. He was fairly convinced that accomplishing a feat as reckless and suicidal as latching onto a helicopter had to be impossible – well, maybe just for him. Still, Patrick wasn't one to simply let himself be outdone, especially by some Picasso-thieving kid, so as he came to the pinnacle of one of his swings, he released himself from his line and shot upwards, though not with enough momentum to reach the helicopter. For a moment, Toxin's large, odd-looking figure hung in the air, his arms flailing wildly in hopes of propelling himself upward, but alas, no such luck. Patrick frantically shot line after line of the red and black substance, each one missing the helicopter until finally, he closed his eyes and released one last gooey tendril, guided by nothing more than chance and few last-minute prayers. Bingo! It worked. He managed to catch the helicopter.

If there had been time to celebrate, Patrick probably would have, but just as he got to the helicopter, the girl let go, descended through the air, and began swinging once more. The helicopter swiveled around and began pursuing her and Patrick allowed it to pull him through the air at a much greater speed than he had previously been traveling. Patrick was excited that he was now gaining on the girl, though the feeling soon passed as he heard gunfire from above. He was surprised to find that the gunfire was coming from the helicopter, and that it was being directed at him, but in all honesty, he couldn't blame them for opening fire on him – he did look pretty menacing after all.

Faced with the options of either taking numerous bullets to the body or letting go of the helicopter, Patrick decided upon the latter. Once again, he fell, attempting his panicky flailing and shooting tendrils in all directions, but this time, the method proved to be useless as he smashed through glass, brick, and floorboard, into an unoccupied apartment. Patrick rubbed his head and patted the soot off of his body before continuing in his pursuit, still just behind the girl. No doubt, he'd be feeling all this in the morning.

He shouted to her again, dazed and somewhat out of breath, “Are you sure can't spare a moment? I'm not so great at this swinging stuff.”

[Felicia Abigail Hardy]

Black Cat was glad that she had made the decision to jump ship- or rather, helicopter- when the alien thing grappled onto the helicopter leg that she had just been on. She didn't want to be anything near that- thing!

She soon began to regret her decision, though, as the helicopter- and the monster- began to outpace her. She cursed. She couldn't outrun a helicopter. She began to weave a difficult obstacle course that the helicopter would be hard-pressed to navigate through, swinging through narrow alleyways.

She heard gunshots. Were they shooting at HER? Didn't that seem a little extreme? I mean, I'm just committing grand larceny, isn't shoot to kill a little over the top?

Wait- the bullets didn't seem to be coming near her. Were they shooting at the monster thing, perhaps? That was completely fine with her.

The monster got close enough to shout to her, asking her to slow down. "Pretty sure I have nothing to say to you," she shouted back. Not unless he was going to offer her an escape route, which didn't seem likely.