Scarlet Starlight | By : DarthMeow504 Category: zMisplaced Stories [ADMIN use only] > Spiderman Views: 35790 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 3 |
Disclaimer: This is a work of non-profit fanfiction. The Marvel Universe, the DC Universe, the Image Universe, and all characters and elements thereof are copyright their respective companies. Additional disclaimers within. |
[Author's Note: This is a special Halloween chapter to celebrate the most thrilling month of all! In the Halloween tradition of Trick or Treat, this one is divided into two parts. First the "trick" which is a scare-tastic horrorfest to chill you to the bone, and the "treat" will be a sexy romp with enough mind candy for any appetite. All newly-introduced characters in this section except for the special surprise guest villain are copyright Marvel, and his disclaimer will be listed at the end to not spoil the reveal. Enjoy!]
Scarlet Starlight Halloween Special
Part 1: The Chiller
The insertion had gone perfectly. He'd taken a Stark Technologies stealth drone supplied by the Avengers --membership has it's privileges-- to the drop point indicated on his Spider-tracer and had free fallen from cloud level to barely a hundred feet above ground, popping a chute made of webbing and cutting loose from it as soon as he'd decelerated completely, dropping the rest of the way to the ground from two stories up. The normally reflective white spider symbol on his black outfit was instead rendered in gloss black on flat black, and the lenses in his mask were similarly polarized and non-reflective. No spec-op soldier in the world could have taken the drop in as perfect stealth, and the chances he'd been spotted were virtually nil. Even if his targets expected to be found, they couldn't know he was onto them now. Surprise was on his side, and he planned to remain unseen and undetected for as long as possible and spring the surprise attack at the last possible moment.
Crawling low, military style through the thick grass and brush on the perimeter of the property to get closer, he reached a good observation point and thwipped a web into a large oak tree to get a nice high vantage point. Moving silent through the branches, he caught first sight of the building his foes were using as their base of operations and his heart sunk in his chest. He couldn't know that the building was one of New York's infamous Kirkbride institutions, elaborately designed complexes built to house the mentally ill and largely abandoned since not long after WWII. He just knew that the place looked like the very image of the Hollywood horror movie haunted mansion, it's elaborate and decaying architecture rendered sinister in the pale moonlight. What month was this again? Oh right. October. How appropriate.
Chiding himself for the irrational fear, reminding himself of the deadly dangers he'd fought and beaten over his career and of his own formidible abilities, he steeled his will and prepared to find an entrance. He'd never been much for the Halloween haunted house experience, but it seemed he was going to get one whether he liked it or not.
-----
Jessica raised an eyebrow skeptically, looking down at the tickets in her hand and then back to the man who'd given them to her, Tony Stark the inimitable Iron Man.
"Umm? I'm sorry, I'm flattered but these are really expensive and exclusive and I wouldn't feel comfortable going with you... I know you don't expect a quid pro quo but I'd feel uncomfortably obligated anyhow. As much as I'd love to go, I'm going to have to decline."
He smirked, and shook his head. "On the contrary, I'm flattered that you'd consider it a date but I'm afraid I have other commitments. As large a deal as the New Orleans Hellfire event is going to be, I've already accepted an invitation to the New York branch for an evening with the lovely Ms. Emma Frost. I'm afraid you'll have to take someone else. I suggest Tigra. Purr, meow, all that."
Jessica frowned in confusion as that skeptical eyebrow spocked higher. "A gift...? What's the catch?"
He grinned in reply like the proverbial canary-eating cat. "Alright, you caught me. The tickets don't come from me, well not technically I did supply the funding but the invitation was arranged by a mutual acquaintance by the name of Valerie Cooper. You remember Val, right?"
Jessica blinked softly at the new information, mind racing through the possibilities. "Is this a personal gift from her, or something more official?"
Her suspicions ran firmly towards the latter despite that she'd slept with the lovely Ms Cooper earlier in the year, and Stark confirmed it with his next words.
"Business before pleasure I'm afraid. She's expecting your call in the monitor room, secure channel. You'd better go, it's not nice to leave the lady waiting."
Minutes later, she was looking over the dossier of a General turned Senator William Stryker Sr, father of the infamous anti-mutant preacher who had fallen to scandal following a high-profile conflict with the X-Men and Magneto. Along with Peter Henry Gyrich, he was the man most heavily associated with government contracting for the Sentinel series of anti-mutant robots and the architect of the most recent iteration of the program that had gone into effect during the Superhuman Civil War. That program had been shut down as part of the negotiated settlement that ended the war, but from what she was reading he was expected to revive it under the military black budget administered by his congressional committee. The other dossier she had read over, on the membership an other important details of the New Orleans branch of the famous and notorious Hellfire Club, juxtaposed with his made putting two and two together a simple task for even someone without her detective's deductive skills.
"Let me guess, the Hellfire Club has their sights on this Senator and you need us to stop them before they get him?"
Valerie smiled, but shook her head. "Close... our intelligence indicates they already have him, and that for now at least he's still alive. What we need is an extraction, as quick and quiet as possible. You'll be going in on Halloween night under cover identities using the tickets Stark supplied to you, using the opportunity of the party when their resources will be stretched thin dealing with all the guests and the logistics of the event. There will be quite a few celebrities and VIPs present both local and national, so they'll have to be careful with how open they can be regarding displays of force and that will work to your advantage if you operate with stealth. Don't worry about busting them, try not to get caught or fight at all if you don't have to, just get the Senator and get out. We'll worry about the rest after he's safely freed."
Jessica nodded and absorbed this. "Just me and Tigra?"
Valierie nodded. "We can't risk sending in too many people or the chances we get caught increase to unacceptable levels. We believe the two of you are competent to handle this mission, you don't plan to prove me wrong do you?"
Jessica smiled, steel in her eyes. "I wouldn't dream of it."
The blonde government official nodded and smiled in return. "See that you don't. Cooper out."
-----
Less than twelve hours prior to drop time at the abandoned mental hospital, Peter Parker was facing a challenge of a different sort --explaining to his wife what had happened and what he needed to do about it. And as suited his typical Parker luck, it wasn't going well for him. It had started simply enough, letting her know that he'd encountered a clone of Gwen Stacy, his first true love, and that his Spider-sense had warned him of such extreme danger that he was certain she was wired with explosives meant to go off as soon as she got close enough to him to make sure they did the job. She'd waved to him, called his name and made as if to greet him with a warm embrace, but he instead tagged her with a Spider-tracer and got himself lost in the New York City crowd. Explaining that part had gone well enough, but when he told her that he was going to track her down that things had gone downhill, to the point that it bordered on their first real fight as a couple since they had been reunited. Her second, sword-slinging self made that a more physically dangerous proposition than it had ever been before, but he feared losing her more than he did his own head. The torment of fury and pain in her eyes was like an open wound in his chest, a strike to the heart as icily painful as any blade. And yet, he couldn't back down.
"Why do you have to do this?!" she shouted, demanding again an answer that satisfied her. So far, nothing had. "So she's a trap? Let it remain unsprung! You don't have to see her again, and you sure as hell don't need to go alone. Sonja can go with you if you have to follow this up so goddamned badly."
He sighed, wounded at the unspoken accusation. "You don't trust me when it comes to her... you don't think I'm over her."
She fixed a blazing blue-eyed gaze on him that virtually pinned him to the wall. "Are you?"
His heart sank as she nailed her accusation home. "As much as I'll ever be..."
She nodded in victorious snarl as she crossed her arms over her chest. "My point exactly."
He sighed deeply, and gathered himself to speak what he knew in his mind he had to do but his heart was so far unwilling to accept.
"You don't understand... I'm going there to kill her."
The redhead gasped in shock, shaken from her fury by the lightning bolt from the blue that was that revelation, struck speechless, and he forced himself to go on.
"You're right, part of my heart will always belong to Gwen, because of how we ended. How -she- ended. We didn't break up, she didn't leave me, she -died-. In large part because of my mistakes. There was no closure for us, no running of it's course that would lead us to a natural seperation. One day she was in my arms and we loved each other, that night she was gone forever. Ripped away from me, from the world, from life itself. Everything we had, everything of myself I had invested in us, was abruptly turned to ashes. In one unimaginably brutal moment, we lost it all."
Mary Jane absorbed this, knowing it already but realizing it was a preamble to more.
"I'm older now, I'm a different person. I have to be, because a large chunk of me died with her that night. Emotionally, psychologically, I was an amputee with a pit in my heart and mind so deep and dark it threatened to consume me entirely. Nothing could fill that hole, not ever,so in the healing process I had to learn to route around it so I could function. And even though it's scarred over, the hole is still there. It always be there. But..."
She looked at him expectantly at that, and he continued.
"Of course part of me wants her back. It always will. But it can't ever be and I accept that as much as humanly possible. It's the past, and a good one. Who doesn't look back at good things they've lost and want to go back, even just to visit? I miss my Uncle Ben, and my Aunt May, and I miss Gwen. I always will. But it's the past. She hasn't been here these years, she's still that sweet and innocent college girl and I'm not the niave and dorky college boy that loved her. I can't be that person again. She wouldn't even know me now. As much as a piece of my heart wants it, there simply is no going back. Not now, not ever. I'm a different person now, I've grown and changed because years and life events do that to everyone. I'm not that college boy that loved Gwen Stacy. The man that I am now loves only one woman, and her name is Mary Jane Watson-Parker. I gave her my name when I gave her my vows, and I've never forgotten them and I will breathe my last breath before I ever break them."
There were tears in her eyes as she absorbed this, but her question yet remained. "Then why...?"
"That clone isn't Gwen, but she thinks she is and I'm the reason she exists. That makes her my responsibility. And you might not know this, but she has a lot of hell in store for her, even if the bastard that made her doesn't abuse her. You see, the thing about the Jackal's cloning process is that it's unstable. The clones just don't last. They decay from within, slowly at first but more rapidly as it goes until they're basically falling apart. Dissolving from inside out. I'm scared to imagine how much pain that is, and she did nothing to deserve it. And while I don't and can't love her, she loves me and she deserves to have her end come swift and painless and held in loving arms. She's going to die anyhow, and sooner rather than later... the only thing I can do for her is make it as gentle as possible."
The redhead shuddered and sighed. "Why you? I can't even imagine how hard that will be on you... let Sonja do it. She's a natural born killer and can do the job just as swift as you could."
Peter shook his head. "I wish it were that easy... she doesn't know Sonja and however good the warrior woman might be at killing, she's never struck me as much for subterfuge. She'll either tell Gwen straight up what she plans out of some sense of honor or whatever, or just not be subtle and sneaky enough and scare the hell out of her. I want Gwen to have as peaceful an end as possible. I don't want her to die in pain or in fear. I'm the only one who can accomplish that. As much as my heart screams in wanting it otherwise, it's my responsibility. I'll do what I have to... and when I find the Jackal..."
His eyes and expression grew dark as he spoke the last.
"...when I find the bastard, I'll avenge her."
-----
It was those words and the vow he'd made to put an end to the clonemaster and his innocent puppet that drove him on as Spider-Man followed the canopy of oak branches to the roof of the foreboding structure that had housed so much madness and so many screams in it's decades of operation, so many lobotomies and shock treatments and bad drugs and everything else that went with the horrorshow which was psychiatric practice in the darker early half of the last century. If anyplace had good reason to be haunted, this one did and he surpressed an inoluntary shudder and steeled his nerves to continue as he crawled along the outside seeking a good place to enter above ground level. He found it in the form of an attic bedroom window that at first he couldn't be sure if it belonged to a patient or a member of the staff or ownership unril he saw the restraints fitted to the Victorian-style four-poster bed. Combined with a lock that only worked from outside and the rusted mounts of bars that once were bound to the decaying windowframe, he realized that it was nothing more than a more domestically decorated prison cell and shuddered at the thought of whom might have been kept here and what horrible things might have happened to her. And given the Victorian stylings of the room with bedcanopy and feminine decor, it was certain the occupant was a girl or woman. The bits of makeup and personal hygiene belongings on the dresser --bolted to the wall with a polished steel mirror instead of glass, for safety-- just confirmed it.
Something was off, though, and he didn't need to be a detective to notice it, As much as the room displayed it's age and state of decay, nonetheless there were signs of recent use. The bed had blankets and sheets that were in good condition as compared to the dry-rotted shreds of curtains that hung in the window, and among the antique silver makeup and grooming set were some modern plastic items of makeup. Checking them out with a sinking feeling, he confirmed the color of the lipstick, and the golden blonde of the hair in the vintage silver hairbrush. It was hers. The clone of Gwen Stacy had slept here, and recently. There was no way to know where she was now, or what was happening to her.
As he looked down the long hallway leading from the bedroom, he knew there was only one way to find out.
-----
On the other side of the country, Jessica and Tigra stood at a much more well-kept and populated entry hall than did Spider-Man in the north, but it was no less Victorian and certainly older than the mere 19th century vintage of the anandoned mental hospital he found himself in. It was also no less likely to be haunted, especially given it's location and history. Most outsiders to the city knew of the famous St Louis cemetary near the French Quarter where Marie Laveau's most famous and well known of her several graves was located. Fewer knew of the much larger above-ground cemetaries father north, away from the tourists up Canal Street where it met City Park Avenue. Here, where the city limits once ended, no fewer than six such "Cities of the Dead" lay within mere blocks of one another, many bordering directly against one another and creating a seemingly endless landscape of tombs and crypts, some small and simple and others as large as houses and elaborately decorated with statuary both holy and grotesque. Some were neatly arrayed like city streets in an orderly grid, but others were more like a maze of twists and turns and dead ends that would baffle all but the most experienced cemetery tour guide. None were a place anyone sane would feel comfortable in at night.
Not far away, another large mansion that had once been an elaborate high-class funeral home also admitted a line of entrants and checked their tickets at the gates. In modern years it was called the Mortuary, and was billed as the city's A number one "haunted attration". Of course if one actually believed in ghosts such a storied location that had seen so much death would surely have some, and the same could be said for what was now the southern headquarters of the famous and infamous Hellfire Club. Both were staffed by costumed attendees and ostensibly sought to serve their guests a spookily good time, but the similarities ended there. The Mortuary was more overtly and deliberately scary, but to those who knew the history and nature of the Hellfire Club there was no question it was far more dangerous.
There was yet one more similarity of note between the two locations, and that is that each affixed it's confirmed ticketholders with identification that they belonged on premesis. For the Mortuary, it was simple plastic wristbands of the type sometimes given out in nightclubs, while the Hellfire Club was using something decidedly more elaborate. Each guest was affixed at the entry gate with a locking leather collar marked with the insignia of the Club and something very similar to an iPod Nano mounted at the front, a one inch square OLED screened device with no visible controls. Upon seeing this, Jessica and Tigra-- actually, Marie as she was in human form-- nearly pressed the panic button and briefly considered aborting the mission. It didn't help that they'd both seen the original Battle Royale recently, and visions of that groudbreaking Japanese film's iconic explosive collars were fresh in their memory. However, that possibility seemed remote while the far more realistic likelihood was that the devices were equipped with trackers that would make slipping away from the party to accomplish their mission that much more difficult. Still, Marie correctly pointed out that Jessica could simply zap the little devices into oblivion with her bio-electric abilities when they were ready to slip away, and none would likely notice until it was too late. Thus reassured, they proceeded through the line and accepted the collars like nothing was wrong, presenting their false identification that matched the cover identities on the tickets, roles they'd prepared thoroughly to play. No one would know that there were Avengers in their midst.
Inside, the air of old world opulent decadence was as redolent as the nose of a fine vintage wine, complex and multilayered and oh so very rich. Costuming was mandatory, but the rules carried a strict warning that tastefullness and quality was a non-negotiable requirement. And thus, while there were indeed true costumes amongst the crowd, many more were in formal masquerade ballwear and those in costume were a cut far above the typical costume party. Elaborate gothic and Victorian gowns, theatrical quality costuming, and formalwear dominated the scene and a cheap store-bought costume was grounds for ejection. Jessica and Marie had gone the theatrical quality costuming route, and while they were a bit unusual in having chosen a science fiction theme rather than the vintage finery and traditional costume choices more common in the crowd, there was no argument that they were anything less than stunning.
Actually, to be fair it could more accurately be said that Marie had chosen their science fiction theme, decided as she was nearly from the start on her costume while Jessica was more undecided. She'd initially decided to go the simple route and go as Elvira, the famous and gorgeous iconic Mistress of the Dark, but Marie had complained that it was overdone. And while she had a point, her true motivation was that she wanted them to match to some degree and the gothic horror ensemble clashed with her own chosen outfit. She'd lobbied for Jessica to go as classic Princess Leia, but Jessica shot that down with the pointedly true observation that the Star Wars heroine was a similarly overdone costume choice, and suggested that she wear one of her kimono and it's attendant accessories and go as a lady samurai. Marie admitted it was an improvement, but it still didn't go together with her outfit thematically and they went back to the drawing board. Together, they'd springboarded from that idea to something of a compromise between them, and Jessica had to admit it worked.
And so it was that her silk kimono set had been paired with boots instead of geta and rather than geisha style pinned up in chopsticks her hair was down and bound in leather behind her in a half-ponytail akin to what bikers might wear to bind their hair back while two small braids on either side of her head hung down and in front bound with cord and tipped with LED lights. Instead of the traditional sash, she wore a leather utility belt mounted with pouches and attachments for various props and gear, most notablly a silver laser gun prop on hr side and a lightsaber hanging from her belt. In this way, she was transformed into a stunning image of a female Jedi, an outfit she could move and fight in and feel quite comfortable wearing, and one that satisfied Marie's wishes that they remain in theme with one another. Marie had reassured her that she looked amazing, and Jessica couldn't find reason to disagree.
Still she felt she paled next to Marie, who was jaw-dropping in a perfect crushed velvet rendition of an Original Series Star Trek miniskirt uniform from the classic 1960s television run, in a rich royal blue and accessorized perfectly with shiny black patent leather thigh high boots, dark stockings, and props consisting of a screen-accurate phaser pistol and communicator set on her hip and a tricorder case that doubled as a purse.in the same black leather as her boots. Each of the props were precisely detailed and electronically enhanced, and the detailing on the costume dress was screen quality perfection. Completing the look, she wore pointed latex eartips over her natural ears and above, woven perfectly into her hair and part of the piece that held it back and behind her shoulders was a pair of animatronic black cat-ears that matched Marie's own natural black hair in her human form and moved like they were part of her. Her character was intended as half Vulcan and half Catian, the feline race originated in Star Trek: The Animated Series in the 1970s and most notably represented by the fan-favorite Lt. M'Ress. She looked so delisciously sexy that part of Jessica burned to say to hell with the mission and decorum and take her on the spot. Judging from the reaction they got and the eyes on them when they walked in, that sentiment was neither uncommon nor limited to Jessica. As they walked the red entry carpet, there was no doubt that they cut an image that would earn the appreciation of even the most discriminating tastes.
This was perhaps fortunate, as discriminating tastes were certainly evident in every person and detail around them. The guest list seemed to start at millionaires and VIPs and go up from there, with enough assembled wealth present to buy a small nation and enough star power to fill an autograph book. Amid the celebrities and CEOs were politicians and athletes and influential people of all stripes, and no county club on earth could boast a more powerful and prestigous guest list. Serving this spectacularly well-heeled clientele were a staff and budget that would make even the Avengers seem almost plain by comparison, though in truth what the Avengers lacked in decadence and opulence they certainly made up for in technological and security amenities, though that was beside the point. To match the opulence of the setting and the wealth of the guests, the food and drink selection was second to none and cost was no object. On the hors'deourvue table were decadent delicacies starting at caviar and foie gras and moving up from there, while the drinks at the bar were made from bottles of fine spirits that cost more than an average middle class paycheck, and stll the tickets were all inclusive and everything on offer was free for the taking. Tip jars at the main stations stuffed with tens, twenties, and hundreds, and the staff was plentiful and talented and so well coordinated that no drink remained unrefilled or food item depleted from the serving station or any issue unhandled within a mere minute or less. It was akin to witnessing human clockwork, and perhaps even more impressive than what and whom they were serving. After all, money could buy finery but the level of service on display took serious skill.
The mostly male staff was dressed in uniformly costumed theme, in tuxedos and matching zombie makeup, while the female servants were dressed in french maid finery and similar zombie makeup. This serving staff flowed through the crowd like water, making sure everything was perfect at all times, seemingly numberless and yet completely unobtrusive. The logistics involved were staggering, and Jessica's trained mind was picking out the details and pondering the fundamentals behind them while Marie simply wanted to enjoy it. Given that they had time to kill and appearances to maintain for some time before they could reasonably expect to slip away to complete their mission, Jessica couldn't argue the point and she allowed Marie to loosen her up and get her into the mood and swing of the party.
There was no reason not to enjoy it while they could. The difficult and dangerous part would come soon enough.
-----
Many miles away from the Mortuary and it's carefully crafted theatrical horror show, Spider-Man was recieving a real haunted experience in a place where many real horrors had taken place. As he searched the building, there was no shortage of evidence to be had, including padded rooms torn from within by the clawing hands of desperate fingers, racks of dry-rotting straightjackets, a surgery room with lobotomy instruments still present, an early electroshock machine too bulky to dismantle and remove. Every surviving bed had restraints, some of them were even bolted to the floor. Overturned beds in rooms beaten from within and others formed into makeshift barricades against the staff proved why, and apparantly they had not managed to convert all the rooms to bolted furniture before the institution had finally, mercifully been shut down. At one point he found a room where damaged mattresses were stored presumably prior to being discarded or perhaps because they had nothing else to do with them, and some had been burned and many more had bloodstains and other evidence of gore and trauma. Some of them looked bad enough to seem as if they'd come from a triage ward in a war hospital, and there was no doubt in his mind that he was looking at a collection of deathbeds for the unfortunate bastards of society that had been held here. Perhaps worse was the contrast between the rich Victorian opulence of the wing that housed the senior staff that lived on premesis and the worst of the conditions he'd found evidence of. Throughout, the once elaborate architecture was rendered sinister by decay and dim light and debris and all the other effects of decades of disuse that Halloween decorations and haunted attractions tried to emulate with varying degrees of success. He would never view any of them the same now that he'd experienced them for real.
The grimmest discovery of all came after he'd swept the upper floors and moved reluctantly into the basement sublevels. Surely, if above was a sort of nightmarish purgatory for those held there, below them must surely be hell. It was certainly a change of scenery, though he couldn't argue it was for the better. The pipes and boilers and heavy equipment of the steam era bowels of the building were often horrifically claustrophobic, other times cavernous and looming with shadow monsters made of pipes and equipment casting their ghastly images in the harsh but inadequate light of his solitary lantern. It made him feel like he'd moved from "The Haunted Mansion" to Freddy Krueger's personal factory lair. It was hardly a welcome transition. In the end, it was in a section that seemed more akin to a prison than a hospital that he found it.
It was hard for him to imagine how any more strong a degree of confinement could be necessary than the locked rubber rooms and their supply closet full of straightjackets that he'd found above, but there was no mistaking that he had found himself on a row of heavy metal holding cells. They were almost identical to the construction of solitary confinement pens in some of the oldest and most brutal penetentiaries in the nation, and it made his mind reel to imagine what sort of monsters would have been so dangerous that they could not be safely held in the rooms above ground and had to be imprisoned in steel. How much worse then would be one they felt the need to padlock from outside?
He had to know. Breaking the heavy old lock with it's thick steel, even decayed as it was by nearly a century of rust, proved to take a significant amount of his superhuman strength. Behind the door it sealed was a sight that made him wish he never had.
The corpse was huge even as it was skeletal, empty skull eyes staring with mouth hung open in silent scream. Peter himself echoed it as his mouth opened to shout his shock and horror, but his voice failed him as his throat closed on it and emitted only the most strangled of breathy squeaks, like the sound of a drowning rat. It, the thing that was once a him, was lying, manacled hand and foot, on a blackened and pitted matress on the floor that was eaten into by the rotting of the corpse such that it set actually inside the remains of the mattress rather than atop it. What in the hell?! Could he have been forgotten here, or deliberately abandoned? Who was he that they were so terrified of him as to apply extra chains and locks just to hold him? Could they have been so in deathly fear of him that they would not dare risk letting him out long enough to move him?
As much as his imagination struggled to concieve such a horror, his rational mind grimly reminded him that he would never know and almost certainly any knowledge had gone to the grave and never to return. He had to move on.
The dead and gone had done their worst, and had chilled him to the very core. Now he had to face the horrors of the monsters still living. It was time to finish this.
-----
They knew they were in trouble when, after a couple of hours of realistic partying and mingling, they slipped away to the ladies room to zap the devices on their collars and begin the mission. At first, when Jessica tried to touch the little gadgets to jolt them with her bio-electric blast , Marie thought she was playing around when nothing happened. To Jessica's dismay, she tried a few times more and still nothing. As Marie started to worriedly ask her to drop the joke, Jessica shook her head and insisted it was no joke.
"I wish I was kidding... I can't fire my blast." She paused a moment, and then jumped a foot or so in the air and also pawed at the wall for a few moments. It would have looked supremely silly if it wasn't so deadly serious. "Nothing works... I can't levitate or stick to the wall at all, either. My powers are gone."
Marie blinked in worried shock, no longer accusing her friend and partner of playing jokes, especially after reaching for her amulet that would turn her back to her Tigra form and finding it completely unresponsive. She was as powerless as Jessica.
As she shook her head to Jessica's unspoken question, the woman frowned in confusion and asked her another one.
"How is that possible? Isn't your transformation magical? Neutralizers shouldn't work on that."
The normally tawny-furred and bestriped woman, now in mere human skin bereft of the power and magnificensce of her Tigra form, sighed. "Power scramblers usually work by disrupting certain brainwaves... no signal is getting from my mind to the amulet. It could probably work, but it doesn't know I'm trying to tell it to. It requires a mental command to activate and I just can't send it." She paused, and laid on the worse news. "And yes, that means I can't summon the Sword either. I already tried."
Jessica's heart sank as the reality of their defenselessness hit home. "But how? I'm sure it's probably the collars, but that only leaves two possibilities. One, that they put nullifiers on everyone just in case, at one hell of an expense, or..."
Marie finished for her. "...or else they know we're here."
Jessica nodded, and her eyes hardened in determination as she made a decision. "Alright, give me a timestamp, I'm officially aborting this mission as of right now. New plan, we slip back out into the crowd, and then call it an early night and head out. Maybe pretend you drank too much or something. Stay in fhe eye of the crowd so the Club's people don't try anything. We can call for a pickup as soon as we're away and work on getting these damned things off then. Agreed?"
She didn't have to suggest it twice, getting immediate agreement from Marie who quipped. "Avengers, we are bugging the fuck out!"
It was not to be that simple, however, as when they exited the bathroom they were suddenly bathed in a spotlight and all eyes in the room were on them. Dead eyes, softly glowing from greyed and sunken sockets set in no fewer than a hundred faces, some dressed in staff uniforms and others in costumes and finery indicating they were mixed into the crowd and in disguise. The remainder of the guestlist, presumably human and genuine partygoers, were nowhere to be seen. It was just them and the horde of what could only be described as the undead.
"Holy Ackbar!" Marie muttered, a clear reference to a famous line from the Star Wars films. She was of course correct. It was indeed a trap.
This obvious fact was confirmed as a second spotlight snapped to life, illuminating a pair of women on the room's stage bedecked in stunning dresses that matched the color of their flowing hair, one in ebony and the other crimson. The raven-haired one Jessica recognized from the Avengers' dossier files on known superhuman threats. She was far less surprised than dismayed to identify her as Selene, ranked Black Queen in the Hellfire Inner Circle and a powerful psychic vampire, unimaginably old despite her youthful and attractive appearance. The other... her jaw dropped in shock as she found herself staring into the face of--
''...JEAN?!"
Her shout was of betrayed disbelief, but the familiar redhead's eyes narrowed into a fierce scowl as she spoke. "I should hurt you for that... but I suppose you couldn't have known that Jean had a clone, could you? You couldn't have known that I was used as her replacement for purposes most unpleasant, and how I utterly despise being called by her name... That's strike one. You won't get a second."
The woman who wore Jean Grey's face and form let that sink in, and continued. "They named me Madelyne Pryor, once known as Anodyne, once known as the Goblin Queen... now I prefer to be called by my proper title, the Red Queen."
Though Marie was normally quick with the sarcastic quips, this time Jessica beat her to the obvious line. "Does that mean off with our heads, then?"
The redheaded Hellfire Queen grinned wickedly, but it was her ebon-haired partner that replied. "An excellent idea, but I have a better one. Modern society is obsessed with the zombie, it would seem, and events are held around the nation to play out a zombie survival scenario. I hear it's a delightful game, and our parties are known for the most cutting edge in entertainment and so that's what we'll be playing tonight. You two have the honor of playing the role of humans in distress, without powers or weapons to rely on and pursued by a relentless horde of undead. The object of the game is simple: survive. If you can. You will recieve a one minute and thirty second head start, ladies... I suggest you run."
The pair didn't need to be told twice, breaking for the emergency exit at the rear of the room which was the only clear way out, pursued by Selene's laughter and the groans of the zombies waiting to be unleashed on them. The last thing they heard before the doors slammed shut behind them was the Red Queen's mocking words, affecting an English accent as she repeated a famous movie line voiced by a character of the same name in another zombie scenario.
"You're all going to DIE down here!"
-----
There wasn't much left of the search to be done, and for a while there he'd felt sure he'd covered everything and wondered if perhaps somehow he was wrong, or if they had been here and subsequently moved on. Maybe the place had hidden cameras tucked around and he'd been spitted during his search and they'd evacuated. Still, that didn't follow as surely he'd have found some evidence that they'd been there just as he had in the attic bedroom.
It wasn't until his third pass of the same area that he noticed the carefully concealed hidden entrance, only realizing now that he'd seen it closed that it resembled one that was open and had led to the cellblock where he'd found the dead inmate. Apparently, even in the dark years of the early 20th century there were things too far beyond the pale to reveal to outsiders or inspectors. The holding cells had been one, this was clearly another. Opening the passageway --which slid rather smoothly given it's extreme age and giving weight to the theiry that it had been recently used and thus would lead to his quarry-- and slipping inside, he soon saw why.
The large space was one part morgue, one part surgery ward and one part medical laboratory, filled with the leftover evidence of a century's worth of butal bonesaw doctoring in the era of eugenics. Not only were controversial procedures like involuntary sterilization done in wards like this, it quickly becaue apparant that far worse was done besides. He knew that human medical experimentation had taken place during that era, and not just in Nazi Germany but in many places around the world including the United States. He'd also known that mental institutions were hotbeds of such things, and now he was seeing the proof. Now that he thought of it, much of this may well have been concealed not simply from outside inspectors but also from a large chunk of the staff in the upper wings of the hospital. At least, he liked to think that would be necessary and this sort of barbaric medical torture wasn't simply accepted by the average person. As he passed one section, he was inspired to think up a grim Halloween riddle, "What's the difference between an autopsy table and a vivisection table?" The answer was that the latter was equipped with restraints. Finishing his search of the ward, including a morgue cooler where skeletal remains still lay, grimly unsurprised by them this time, he met one final sealed door. This was it.
Pushing it open, he found he'd hit paydirt.
The chamber was large and higher of ceiling than even the largest of the machinery rooms in the rest of the subcomplex, reaching in fact to the surface where a dome with skylights let in the light of the moon. It was also lit by the soft glow of computer consoles --something that obviously didn't exist when this place was operational-- and the displays and blinking lights of other advanced electronic equipment and the power systems that ran them. Nearby and hooked to the power and monitoring equipment was a familiar blonde female form, naked and unconscious and strapped to a frankesteinish stainless steel table and hooked to various medical monitors. And leaned over one of the computers was the horrid form of the man he was looking for.
Miles Warren, the Jackal, Carrion, whatever the hell he was called these days. The author of so many nightmares. He refused to dignify him with any of his codenames or his first name, merely shouting out his last name like he was a common criminal. The monster spun in shock and bestartlement, completely taken off guard, and before he could make a move Spidey had bound him securely with well aimed shots from his web shooters. He wanted to use web darts and put an end to the vile creature on the spot, but he restrained himself. He had an hour to question him before that web dissolved and he could always apply more in that time. He would get answers before his vengeance.
Getting near him to interrogate him proved more difficult than usual, as this incarnation was the worst yet. Seemingly a cross between his Jackal and Carrion incarnations, and looking like nothing else more than he looked like one of those mutated zombie dobermans from Resident Evil but in roughly human shape. Still, Peter forced down his disgust and closed on the man-thing, grabbing him by the neck and brandishing a fist that could shatter a human skull as easily as it punched through brick and sheet metal, if he didn't hold back. With Warren, there was no holding back.
The yellow eyes, actually glowing eerily, narrowed on him in hate. "How... how did you find me, Spider-freak?!"
Peter's fist lashed out like a shot, shattering one of the computer monitors and startling the helpless mad doctor. "I'm asking the questions here... what's all this? What's your plan?"
The insane freak sneered. "If I don't, what then? You'll kill me? You can't."
Peter scowled behind his mask and slapped the thing that once was a man, snapping his head around like a normal man's punch. "Don't play games with me, Warren... I know the deal with you now. You're a clone like all the others, the original Miles Warren died years ago, the Carrion virus just copies you into a new host. Serial immortality, that's what you were after to begin with isn't it? But the clones are unstable, you burn through them too fast and end up like this, an abomination instead of a man. So you copy yourself into another one and start all over again."
The freakish cloned doctor's eyes narrowed, saying nothing but revealing the truth of the accusation. Peter shook him roughly as he asked the next question.
"And what about her? She a toy for your sick fantasies? Bait for me? A living weapon doomed to die? Why do you keep doing this to her, WHY?! If you love her why put her through this again and again?!"
The madman spoke through swelling lips with blood-flecked spittle along with his words. "Once I kill you, once you're out of the way forever, I can finish my work, perfect the cloning process and give her and I a happy ending... she'll learn to love me given time, once she knows how much I love her and how much you don't..."
"NO!!!" Peter roared, backhanding him so hard he crashed over the table and to the floor. And though he tried to hide it, he squirmed to try to get his bound hands on a remote control device, surely to trigger the explosives in the Gwen clone's gut. Fring a web dart, he impaled him through the upper right chest, pinning him to the floor and immobilizing him completely, even as the cloned freak bled and shrieked in pain. Pain and shock, stunned at the fury and violence in his enemy's actions.
"Don't bother, I know about the explosives. And I know you're just a copy and bound to fall apart like the others, so who cares if I kill you? It won't make any difference. But when this strain of the virus gets back to the colony and updates these memories into you, remember this. One day, I will find the source of all your copies and destroy your final body and the means to make them, and I'll find a way to contain or destroy the Carrion virus. Your sick little vision of happily ever after with your personal copy of Gwen will never happen, understand? I will end you, and let her finally rest in peace."
The deranged carbon copy puppet body opened his mouth to make some reply, but Peter didn't want to hear it. Instead, he shot a second web dart that caught the abomination directly in it's open, twisted mouth and pinned it's head to the floor through the spine. He watched it decay into dust like they all did, and then turned his attention to the still unconscious Gwen Stacy clone lying as if in state on her silver medical table. In those moments his heart caught in his throat and his eyes blurred with tears. Oh dear god, she looked like a perfect angel, sleeping peacefully and looking just like she used to. Dammit, how could this wound ever heal if it just kept getting ripped open again and again?
He moved to her, pulling off his glove to stroke her face with his bare skin as he looked over the readouts from the monitors and the notes left behind in the mad doctor's binder. He was right, the explosives were inside of her, a brick of C-4 where her womb should be, he'd hysterectomized her and removed her ability to create new life in order to turn her into an instrument of death. Stroking that scar softly, he thought of all that would never be and of the real, original Gwen who surely by now looked as skeletal as the corpses he'd found in the morgue chiller. And as he skimmed through the notes, he saw the blood samples, some fresh and red and recent and turning paler and weaker until they turned to water and then to dust. His fears were confirmed, she was as unstable as all the others and she didn't have much time left. Soon, the agonizing torture of decay from within would claim her, and he'd sworn to save her that pain.
Gently unhooking her from the machines, he waited until she awoke to softly speak her name. His heart nearly broke as she opened those perfect blue eyes that for so long had been the very definition of love for him, but he forced himself to think of the real Gwen, bones and dust buried in her family's plot next to her father. Still, he put on a smile he didn't feel for her sake as those beautiful blues found him and grew wide in relief.
"Oh Peter, you did come for me!" He forced himself to bury his reaction as she propelled her naked form into his arms and pulled off his mask, peppering him with kisses, her savior. If only she knew.
Instead, he simply nodded and choked back his tears as best he could. "Yeah, always for you. And I always will."
It wasn't quite a lie, but she couldn't possibly know the horrible nature of that truth. Instead, he softly stroked her hair and looked into her eyes for what he knew was the last time.
"I love you, Gwen Stacy..."
She opened her mouth to reply, about to say she loved him too, but he couldn't bear to hear the words. Instead, a single blast of impact webbing, delivered at point blank range to the base of her skull where her spine and brainstem met, put an end to her. Instantly and without pain, just like he'd promised. He watched the light fade from those eyes just as he had the first night the real one had died, the hole in his heart and soul tearing wide open and lancing through him like a gunshot. As her body dissolved into dust in his arms until he held nothing but grisly empty air, like a symbolic microcosm of the reality of losing her so long ago, he sunk to his knees and roared his pain to the heavens, a primal scream of pure soul-deep torment that echoed in the cavernous space. The sound of ultimate suffering.
As his scream collapsed into wracking sobs, tears streaking his unmasked face, he slowly came to realize he was hearing an outside sound. The sound of clapping. Hastily pulling his mask back on, he turned to face the source of the sound and his stomach sank at the sight of the most hated face in his world. As bright and hot as his fury for Miles Warren burned, it was like a candle to a bonfire compared to the white-hot hate he felt for the green faced man in his vision. The man who had torn everything from him. The architect of his pain.
"Bravo, my dear boy, bravo! You know, it's just as good seeing it again as it was the very first time. And your screaming tears are just as sweet. And here I thought old Miles was a near useless fuck, but look what he's given me. I might just have to give him a bonus...."
Out of the shadows he stepped, the form to match the face and voice, armed for battle. Armed for murder.
"...after I kill you, of course."
Spider-Man rose to his feet to face his nemesis, even as others stepped into view and his Spider-sense belatedly sounded warning. Osborn, two Hobgoblins, Morbius, the Scorpion, Vermin, the Man-Wolf, and others besides... hell he even thought he saw the glowing red eyes of the Basilisk in the shadows. More than just the Sinister Six. Too many for him to ever defeat.
"I'm sorry, MJ, I guess I won't be home after all..."
He thought this to himself even as he went cold and numb in the face of his enemy. If he was doomed to die here, he would drag his hated foe screaming to hell with him. He didn't have to beat the whole group, he just had to last long enough to feel Osborn's neck crack in his hands, to feel ribs and skull shatter under his blows, to watch his eyes die like he had to do with Gwen. As long as ke killed Osborn, that was his victory.
The last stand of the Spider-Man. And he intended to make them pay for his life in blood of their own.
-----
It was over really before it had begun. It was only a matter of time. They'd known it from the moment they realized that the doorway they'd been herded to led into the vast, labyrinthine cemetery complex behind the Hellfire mansion. The City of the Dead, they called it. That had never been more true than it was now. The dead were all around them, in the often massive and looming crypts that made up the "houses" and "buildings" of the metaphorical city, surrounding and pursuing them in the the form of the undead creatures that hunted them, and so it seemed that they themselves would soon be among the dead. With their powers, they might have stood a fighting chance against the horde arrayed against them. Without the trackers attached to their necks and the enemy coordinating the movement of the hordes to effectively corral and contain them, they might have had a chance of escape. Neither were the case, and it was clear from the word go that they were rats in a maze, doomed from the start with no way out. No weapons, no powers, no options, no escape and no place to hide. Even as they ran, they knew their time was short.
The rats in a maze metaphor was made even more accurate when they realized that the enemy was playing cat and mouse with them, driving them along and toying with them. Hiding in ambush and jumping out at them from the shadows like the monster figures at a scare show, dangling seeming escape routes in front of them and closing them off, trapping them and then allowing them temporary escape. Herding them in the direction they wanted them to go, never letting them get fully away but allowing them moments of calm only to let the suspense build and then attacking again to maximize their terror, allowing moments of hope only to to brutally dash them. It was a masterfully orchestrated symphony of terror, the envy of any horror show attraction, made all the more powerful by the dread knowledge that this was very real and there would be no exit into the normal safe daylit world. There would be no "Final Girls", only final moments. And like the crescendo of a symphonic movement, the finale was inevitsable from the moment the first note was played.
And now, finally, it seemed time for the endgame.
They'd been cornered into a closed alleyway, boxed in with no place to go, and the horde had gathered at the entrance to the trap and was slowly closing in. They knew from having run from them that the creatures could move faster than the slow, methodical zombie shuffle that they were effecting now, and the crawling pace of their impending doom was one final game to toy with them before they were torn apart. They could measure the time they had left to live by the pace of their creepily encroaching killers and the distance they had left to cover. Their final moments of life, ticking down like the countdown on a bomb. The hands of doom stood at two minutes to midnight and counting.
Marie, the Tigra, had just finished making a quip that if they ever got out of this alive then she'd never be able to watch Micheal Jackson's famous Thriller video the same way again, when she was startled as Jessica relaxed her fighting stance and dropped the pointed iron fencepost she'd acquired as a weapon. Only when the woman pulled her into her arms and looked deeply into her eyes did she realize, Jessica had accepted the inevitable and chosen how she would die. Not the blaze of glory fighting to the last breath that she was expecting, but instead in the warm embrace of one another until they were only rent from one another as they were torn asunder and ripped away from life itself. It was a choice that the warrior woman coulf not agree with but could understand and accept. Dying in the arms of Jessica Drew was a fate many would argue was an end worth having,
"I love you, Tigger. Forever. I'll see you on the other side."
The feline trapped in human form smirked, and toyed with the idea of saying "I know" in echo of the classic line from Empire Strikes Back, but instead she just softly smiled.
"Love you too, spider-lady. It's been a hell of a ride."
With those final words, the pair of doomed women pulled tight together to share a final kiss as the sea of walking death closed in to seal their doom.
-----
This was it, then. Not much of a blaze of glory, even if he'd manage to startle some of his assembled foes with the ferocity of his attack and force many of them to simply get the hell out of his way as he bore down on Osborn like an avenging angel let loose from hell. And for a brief, fleeting moment he had the satisfaction of feeling his life's archnemesis break beneath the force of his fury, pouring out his rage into the face of hatred until he was nothing more than a wet sack of broken bones and mangled flesh. Even then he didn't stop, even as the gathered villains, scum of the earth and killers all, stood back and watched in shock. He'd snapped, that much was obvious, and he lost it worse still when the corpse of his enemy dissolved underneath him, proving him nothing more than a clone and rendering his final act of self-vengeance null and void. At some point during his breakdown someone found the courage to clock him good in the back of the head, and another had proceeded to zap the hell out of him with a severed electrical cord, and by the time he'd regained his senses he'd been bound to the table that had held the Gwen and his captors were discussing what to do with him. He couldn't see any of them from the angle he was, and his head was still swimming, but he could make out parts of the conversation even if he wasn't sure who was saying what.
"...I don't care what Osborn planned, we were supposed to turn him over alive!"
"And I don't care what we're supposed to do, we have a chance to kill the wall-crawler and I say we take it!"
Around and around it went, growing more heated by the momet. Two definite sides were forming, and there was clearly someone else above Osborn that had contracted them all. Someone who had made promises, dangled what they wanted in front of them. Promised a cure for Morbius, complete control of both sides of himself to the Man-Wolf, retirement and a return to normality for Mac Gargan. Problem was, that could be anyone from the Kingpin to some relative or regeneration of the demon that had captured him the last time. He'd made a lot of enemies in his years as Spider-Man. And some of them, including Osborn, had merely taken the deal to get a clear shot at him. That side seemed led by the Hobgoblins, but had no shortage of adherents. They seemed to see this as an opportunity to cut out both Osborn and the mysterious chessmaster and take revenge in the here and now. Others, like Morbius and the Man-Wolf who had been offered something more personal and compelling than mere riches were unwilling to give up what they'd been promised by breaking the deal. And though they acknowledged the point that there was no guarantee that this unknown party --not a one of them seemed to know who he was-- would pay up, they weren't ready to give up the chance. It was quickly degenerating from a debate to an argument to a shouting match, and if it continued on it's current trajectory, it could become a real fight sooner than later. And that just might save his life.
"That's the problem with these 'dream team' villain groups, they all fall to infighting. Fundamentally selfish and antisocial egomaniacs don't make good team players."
He'd been told that long ago when he first faced the Sinister Six, and it had proven true time and again. If you could count on one thing from assembled supervillains, it was that they were never more than a moment's notice from fucking each other over at the first good opportunity. That very dynamic was playing itself out now, and it was the reason he wasn't dead already or packaged securely for delivery to whoever the hell had financed his capture. It was why there was a glimmer of light at the end of this tunnel and he could only pray it wasn't an oncoming train.
As it was, they clearly hadn't been expecting to be distracted this long as he was only bound in the most cursory of ways, hands tied to the table with the other end of the electrical cord they'd knocked him out with. He could ...slip out of that... no problem. And the arguing foes hadn't noticed he was awake or that he was free. So far, so good. As his mind raced to plan out his next move, two good options occurred to him. One, he could use the element of surprise to blanket the arguing parties with a quick spread of web and get as many as he could as quickly as he could and then hit the ceiling to punch out through the skylight and make an all-out break for it. The key would be to slow them down enough to get a decent head start, and evade pursuit from there. There were a lot of them though, and he couldn't simply web-sling away. He'd have to make for the treeline and hope to slip the search net they'd surely be casting for him long enough to get enough distance to make finding him impossible. It was risky, but doable. The main flaw he could see in that plan was the Basilisk. His eye beams could nail him at a glance even if he was otherwise incapacitated, and extra time spent making sure he was blinded was time he couldn't spend getting a good coat of web on the others. He had mere seconds to get as many of them as possible tangled up and slowed down to give him time for a head start on evading the pursuit, and he already couldn't get everyone in that tiny window of time. The extra moments it took to blind the Basilisk could be the tipping point between escape and recapture.
The other was to simply drop to the ground, crawl for the door on his belly like a marine, and slip away before anyone knew he was gone. The attention of the room was clearly centered on the argument, it was entirely possible no one was watching him, after allto their knowledge he was unconscious and bound and no one had yet seemed to notice that he was no longer either one. As comical as it seemed for him to simply sneak away right under their noses while they were arguing about him, it seemed like a real possibility. And if he made it close enough to the door, he could make it through and web it behind him even if they spotted him during the escape. That would buy him precious seconds to slip into the underground labyrinth that was the subcomplex and lose them. He even had a good idea where he might hide. After all, the row of isolation cells had their own concealed entrance like the medical block they were in now, and if he could get to it unseen and close it behind him, chances were damned good they'd never see it. Then he could wait until their search had carried them a decent distance away, double back and go up and out through the skylight like he had originally thought. That way, he could be outside and making for the treeline before they'd even finished sweeping the subcomplex. With a little luck, he could be away and gone before they even finished searching the upper floors.
And there was one more option he didn't want to consider but he had to. The brick of C-4 and it's detonator mechanism still sit on the floor near his feet where it had fallen when the body of the Gwen clone had disintegrated around it, and the remote trigger to the detonator was still on the floor where it was when Warren had unsuccessfully tried to trigger it. Snagging it with a webline would be a simple thing as soon as he hit the floor.
That way, if his escape failed and he couldn't make it out of the room, he could at least make sure his enemies went into death with him.
-----
For the two women sharing their last kiss in the City of the Dead as the horde of undead shambled forwards to finish them, death certainly didn't feel like they expected it to. There was no pain, no feeling of their bodies being torn asunder, just a bright light and loud cacophony of sound that reminded oddly of... no wait, that was the roar of ducted thruster engines and the electronic booming of repulsor blasts. That meant the wind they felt was not the hot exhaust of hellfire from the caves of the underworld, but... yes, it was a Quinjet!
A second volley kept the already weakened throng of undead at bay while the familar cowled face of Barbara Gordon leaned out of the hovering aircraft and tossed a pair of items down to them, one for each of them. A touch taser, and... the Sword of Omens. Oh, hell yes.
Jessica caught the taser and quickly used it to fry the collars that inhibited their powers, and Tigra let out a triumphant roar as she activated the Eye of Thundera, it's blade growing from dagger sized to sword length even as she matched it's transformation with her own transition to her powerful tiger-striped form. Those zombies didn't stand a chance now. The game had changed.
She felt a tug on her shoulder, and saw Jessica already on the rope ladder that had been dropped for them, with both Jessica and Barbara urging her to forget the zombies and come on. Still, her instincts were screaming at her through the Eye that there was something she still needed to do. Following the urging she felt, she projected her will through the Eye and was rewarded by an echoing roar and blaze of fiery red light that knocked the zombies from their feet and scattered them like tenpins. As it faded, and she prepared to follow Jessica up the ladder to rescue, she noticed that some of them were starting to act most decidedly confused, as if they'd awakened from a deep trance and didn't know where they were. The telltale features of zombification faded from them before her shocked eyes, and she barely had time to process this before she felt Jessica tug on her again. It was time to go, and looking up the ladder at Jessica's sweet lower quarters was certainly an enticement worth following. Still, she was amazed at what the power of the Sword had done and wondered if there was truly anything beyond it's capabilities.
Getting inside the waiting Quinjet, she found Barbara and Felicia inside to greet them and Carol at the controls flying the plane. Also there was the Senator, who still seemed rather out of it but seemed otherwise safe and sound. Jessica was clearly as confused by this turn of events as she herself was, and she listened as Jessica sought an explanation for how it all had happened. As she heard the explanation that came in reply, Jessica's shocked exclamation matched her own feelings precisely.
"What do you mean we were DECOYS?!"
-----
In the nightmare laboratory, as Spider-Man weighed his escape attempt options and his enemies argued over what to do with him while they had him captive, they were all interrupted by the unexpected arrival of a third party from seemingly out of nowhere. Cloaked in red, hunched over and walking with a staff that he was using as a cane to help his hobbled gait, he looked out of place in the extreme amid the laboratory and it's costumed occupants. As someone quipped about wondering who the hell let in "Mr Wizard", Spidey felt the words had been taken from his mouth as he wondered just like the rest of them who this interloper was and why --let alone how!-- he was here. At first, the seeming old man doddered to the middle of the room before he even seemed to notice anyone else was there, and then he perked his head only slightly, features still concealed beneath the shadows of the hood as his creaky, ancient voice spoke.
"What's all this, then? What are you folks all doing here? Shoo, all of you! Shoo I say, go! This is no place for the likes of you."
As the others stood stunned by this bizarre turn of events, one of the Hobgoblins took charge. Probably second in command under Osborn, he took it on himself to speak for the assembled villains.
"We won't answer to you, old fool. If you're lucky we'll let you walk out of here alive and forget you ever saw anything."
Despite the menace in the voice of the Hobgoblin, his frightening appearance and his intimidating figure looming over that of the stranger, the old man seemed unperturbed and undeterred.
"Threatening me, are we my boy? Not wise, that, not wise at all. And what is it you're doing here? Plotting harm on this fine young man you've captured? We can't have that now can we?"
Everyone was staggered at the audacity of the old man and the inexplicability of his arrival, but the Hobgoblin was having none of it.
"Are you insane, old man?! You have a death wish? Get out of here while you can, this is no business of yours!"
Against all reason, the hunched and wizened figure did not cower or give ground, instead his voice deepened to a croaking growl and he lifted his face to reveal glowing golden red eyes that would be the envy of even the Basilisk in their eldritch glare.
"Oh, but it is my business, child worm, and that is the last time you will speak back to me!"
The superhuman criminals, secure in their power until that last moment barely had time to register the depth of their predicament before they were struck down by a web of crimson lightning that lashed forth from the head of the staff and struck them down unmercifully. The old man's laughter echoed even in the midst of the lightning as his foes writhed in pain on the ground or broke for cover in panic to get away. There proved to be no escape for any of them as the blazing bolts tracked them and blasted them to the ground, leaving them in contorted agony. In less than a minute, it was done and the entire assemblage of enemies lay smoking and unconscious scattered about the room like broken and discarded dolls.
The old man chuckled at this, and idly cracked his staff across the head of one that was still struggling to regain consciousness as he hobbled across the floor towards Spider-Man, who wasn't at all certain how he should feel about his supposed benefactor. His wary reaction clearly amused the old man, who chuckled and made to reassure him.
"Oh my boy, no need for that. They won't bother you again anytime soon, I dare say!" He laughed, like the sound of a hyena crossed with a toad, and he continued. "Still, just in case you had best come with me and leave them and this place behind."
Spider-Man remained unconvinced. "I appreciate that, but I think I should be going my way on my own, thank you very much."
The chuckling turned icy as he spoke his next words, icy as the deadly chill in his voice, icy as the freezing grip of the grave.
"You mistake me. That was not a request."
The foreshadowing menace in the words and the display of power but moments ago made the shrieking, desperate warning of his Spider-Sense redundant as he dodged with all his effort to evade the seeking, sparking tendrils of bloody red lightning, splitting the air in it's fury as it sought it's prey. Only his pure speed and the precognitive danger warnings of that special sense kept him inches beyond the reach of those bolts as their thunder echoed along with the old man's monstrous, manaiacal laughter. Fighting was out of the question. all that was left to him was a desperate flight for his life The horrific wizard rose from the ground to levitate and give chase, still rending the air with eldritch electrical fire as he pursued his quarry and Spider-Man ran in near blind panic like a rabbit from a wolf.
Hot on his heels, the red glow and insane laughter pursued him doggedly as he made his desperate, winding course back over his steps through the complex, upwards and onwards seeking the entrance he'd come in and the slim hope of freedom. No, of survival, he was sure of that. He ran as if Death himself was on his heels, and that may very well have been exactly the terrifying truth.
In the end, he very nearly made it. He got as far as the women's ward in the very same wing he started in, below the attic room and it's window of blessed escape, before he was stymied by a feature he'd nearly forgotten about. Dubbed the "Hall of Truth", it was akin to a funhouse hall of mirrors with various trick mirrors next to real ones, with inscribed plaques to go along with them such as a distorted mirror saying "You are Twisted and Defective" and a real one saying "You are Normal and OK", or a mirror without reflection of the viewer marked "You are Invisible, No One Cares" next to a normal one saying "You are Valued, your Family Loves You". It was a surprisingly progressive idea for it's dark time, but he didn't care about that right now. All he cared about was getting through it and getting out, and that was proving far easier said than done. The section had seemed straightfoward enough and rather easy to navigate the first time through, but now it seemed like a maze and he was lost. Desperately, hopelessly lost.
Lost, and out of time. He was in a blind corner when the end came, boxed in a space the size of a closet with mirrors all around him and trapping him within. Dammit, this hadn't been here the first time, he was sure of it! His only hope was something he'd been too paniced to think of before, to leap to the ceiling and punch through it to the floor above. It was a good idea, but it came to him too late as the hellish red glow surrounded him and the face of his demonic pursuer gazed it's deathly gaze at him from every mirror. Eyes like the embers of a funeral pyre locked on him and transfixed him in place like a deer in headlights, set in a face of zombie blue-grey like the granite of a tomb. Teeth as sharp as a shark's in a lipless, yawning mouth cast open in demonic laughter as a clawed hand, dangling mummy bandages rose to cast the final blast that would finish him. His last coherent thought was that perverse part of his brain that thought of a final, unvoiced bit of snark that he made Emporer Palpatine pale by comparison.
And then there was no more thought, only pain. Pain, and then blackness.
-----
His final scream echoed off the walls of the room as he sat bolt upright in bed, shaking and wide-eyed in terror as he took in the sights of his own bedroom and his wife blearily asking what was wrong as she tried to shake off the sleep she had been shaken from. A dream. He couldn't fucking believe it.
Reassuring her that it had only been a nightmare and she could safely go back to sleep, he pulled himself reluctantly from the warmth of the bed and the red-haired angel there and into the chilly October air, making for the bathroom to try to regain his composure. Just a dream, but it had seemed so real and chilled him to the very core. Even as he acclimated himself to his safe and familiar circumstances, and reassured himself that it was over and everything was ok, he couldn't shake the ice in his veins or the sinking pit of fear still clenched in his gut.
Splashing his face at the sink, he must have still had some shred of the dream remaining, some half-asleep nightmare leftover, as he could swear he saw the blazing glare of glowing red death's eyes in the mirror and heard the echo of laughter shrill and cold as the sound of the Reaper's scythe.
-----
[Author's Note: Mumm-Ra, the Ever Living! is copyright Rankin-Bass]
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