Hello to all my loyal readers. I know a lot of you are probably confused why I am publishing another story, when I said that I wouldn't be publishing anything until December 10th.
Well people the reason is it that this chapter was not actually written by me. This chapter is actually a gift from my dear friend bcarandang1 who took it upon herself to write this chapter as a tribute to my story.
While this was a truly wonderful gesture on her part, however there were some parts of the plot that do not line up with the continuity of Avenging 10. So I made some adjustments to the chapter so that it would fit the main canon.
That being said I still wanted bcarandang1 work to go by unnoticed. She put all this work in for me and so her original work deserves to be seen.
As such I will be publishing both versions of the same chapter. The first being the original, written by bcarandang1. And the second one, which it the altered, extended edition written by me. Think of this like a Special Edition DVD set, where you have the original release and the Directors Cut Extended Edition.
So enough talk and on with the show.
Mania (Original Version. By bcarandang1)
Ben is currently yawning while his head is resting on the table. With everyone but Wasp out of the Avengers Mansion today, he's not really in the right mood to do some patrolling today. Sure, he's done that before, but that's because he had time. Today, he just wants more sleep. But since no one else is around but him and the size shifting heroine, he needed to wake up earlier than usual to patrol.
"If you keep frowning like that, your face will melt and spill on the table." Janet joked as she places a plate of fried eggs and a mug of hot chocolate in front of Ben.
As Jan dusts her hands, Ben complains, "Why couldn't Hulk or Thor stay? What does Hulk even do when he's not smashing?"
"Actually, today, he's Bruce Banner and he's out fishing with Cap. Besides, Thor's in Asgard, Tony's having a meeting, Hawkeye's still searching for Black Widow, T'Challa's in Wakanda to visit his tribe and Hank's, well... doing science stuff again in his lab." Jan replied to Ben while she prepares her coffee.
"That's all they're doing?! Come on! I need my sleep. Why can't they do the patrolling?" Ben complained more as he finally gets his face off the table and grabs a fork to finally eat.
As Ben pokes the egg on his plate, Jan rolls her eyes and takes her coffee mug to the dining table and sits down. "For someone who claims to be a saviour of his universe, you sure complain a lot about waking up early." Jan points, smirking before sipping her coffee.
"I've always hated waking up early since my first time in school." Ben replied while chewing on a piece of the fried egg.
"Clearly you're such an inspiration to everyone." Jan replies sarcastically with yet another smirk on her face.
Ben just shot her a glare as he chews his food.
In the West Philadelphia High School, a simple girl named Andrea Benton walks through the halls. Wearing a simple sleeveless purple shirt with black stripes, black skirt, purple knee high socks with black shoes, brown eyes and a short black hair, Andrea holds her books closer to her, nervously trying to avoid anyone that walks the opposite direction.
However, she failed to avoid someone, causing her to bump into her and spill the person's own drink on her cheerleader uniform. It's Sally Avril, the most popular girl in school. Sally looks at her uniform in disgust then looks at the innocent Andrea with anger. "You did not just do that." Sally sarcastically and angrily said as she puts her hands on her hips while her other cheerleader friends behind all look at each other, whispering to each other. Some of them even say "Uh oh" mockingly at Andrea, as if warning her about what's about to come.
"I'm really sorry! I... I wasn't looking. I'll... I'll make it up to you..." Andrea apologized as she tries to wipe off the spilled soda on Sally's uniform, but it does nothing.
The passive aggressive cheerleader simply just swats away Andrea's hand that was wiping her uniform and says, "Stop. Just stop. You really wanna make it up to me?"
"Yes..." Andrea replies as she shyly covers her mouth with her books.
Sally smirks at the "peasant's" response. "Turn around and close your eyes." She says. When Andrea does so, Sally opens her palm and gestures to her friends behind her. One of them hands her a different cup of soda. Sally then opens the cup...
...and pours it's contents on Andrea's head, the soda dripping all over from her head down to her chin. Andrea didn't even do anything. Not scream or complain. This is her life. Constantly bullied everyday.
Only this time, even the most popular girl in her school is now bullying her too.
As Sally and her friends all walk away, laughing, Andrea just silently cries as she walks to the ladies' bathroom.
Meanwhile, Taskmaster suddenly crashes down on top of the very same school, causing the roof of the place to crack as his armor softened the blow a little bit. As he tries getting back up, Four Arms and Wasp arrive just in front of him.
"Just went out patrolling and we run into you, Tasky. It's like this universe wants us to be best friends." Four Arms joked as he cracks all four of his fist while Wasp stands on his shoulder.
Taskmaster rubs his head to make the ringing in his ears go away as he shakes his head in pain. "Should've known you'd get in my way again, Tennyson. But I don't have time for games. I got a delivery to make." Taskmaster says to the Tetramand as he finally gets back up and takes out his sword.
"Awww, Ben, he's gonna be a father! Give him a hug!" Wasp says with an obvious hint of mocking on her tone as she smiles at Taskmaster.
"That's not what I meant!" Taskmaster angrily replies, but was only greeted with Four Arms running at him, forcing him to swing his sword at the alien. Unfortunately, all it did was break upon contact with Four Arms' skin. This gave Four Arms the chance to bear hug Taskmaster and start tightening his grip, causing the mercenary intense amount of pain.
Fortunately for Tasky, he has trick literally up his sleeve. As he endures the pain, he produces a small circular device from his left sleeve and stuck it to one of Four Arms' arms. It then produced an electric shock that blasted the Tetramand with a lot of volts of electricity. This forced him to let go of Taskmaster, who unfortunately was also zapped in the process as he and his enemy fall down, still feeling a little bit of sting from Tasky's own device.
Because of this, Taskmaster accidentally dropped something from his pocket, the one he's supposed to deliver: two small capsules with a little bit of the Venom symbiote that was taken by Doc Ock from Venom during their formation of the Sinister Eight.
Wasp, worried for Ben, flies towards Four Arms and asks, "You okay?" as she rubs his head with her tiny hands.
While the two heroes are distracted, Taskmaster barely recovers as he sits up and attempts to endure the remaining shock in his system. He finally noticed that the capsule holding the symbiote is out of his pocket. When he tries to grab it, he was unfortunately zapped multiple times by Wasp in his face. This forced the villain to try and block the stingers but Wasp started zapping around his eyes to prevent him from seeing her. "Take this! And that! And... the other thing!" Wasp said as she keeps zapping the one that hurt her friend.
In the midst of battle, Taskmaster accidentally kicked one of the capsules holding the symbiote into a nearby vent, leading to one of the bathrooms in this school.
Andrea is still in the bathroom, crying her eyes out as she washes her face with the water from the faucet. She's been in this school for almost four years now. But nearly everyday, she has to endure being bullied just because she's weird and some sort of nerd. Her whole life, she's been enduring such pain. It doesn't really help that her father's already sickly but still tries to help her by working and paying her tuition. With her mother gone and her father driving himself to death, Andrea just wants to have a normal life.
But she's alone. No one there to help her but herself and her father. It's all those bully's faults...
As the noise of the faucet pouring out water and Andrea's inner monologue cloud her own sense of hearing, the symbiote capsule drops from the vent leading from the roof. It crashed on the floor, breaking and freeing the symbiote.
"It's all their fault... I didn't do anything wrong but they always hurt me..."
The symbiote sensed the intense emotions of a nearby host. It followed the voice it hears and slithers towards her.
"I already try my best to hide from them... but these bullies... they always... they always find me... and find a way to hurt me..." Andrea whispered to herself as she wipes away her tears.
However, with her emotions only growing stronger, the symbiote finally attaches to her, shocking her. "What?! What is this?! No wait!" She yelped as the symbiote covers her whole body.
And after the bonding process...
...Andrea opens her new white eyes.
Four Arms finally wakes up, rubbing his head in pain as he tried to make the sting go away. However, he was immediately surprised when the tiny Wasp lands on his lap, hurt. Wasp coughs as she dizzily tries to get back up. Four Arms looked at where Wasp came from and only saw Taskmaster picking up the only symbiot capsule left on the ground and puts it back in his pocket.
"I'd love to hang around, Tennyson. But like I said. I have a delivery to make. And my client can't wait any longer." Taskmaster says to his arch enemy as he takes out a small ball and throws it on the ground, exploding into a wall of smoke, covering his tracks.
When the smoke settled, Taskmaster was gone. "Great. All of a sudden, Tasky's Batman." Four Arms' complained as he and Wasp recover, standing back up. In Wasp's case, flying back up.
"I dunno. With a dark brooding personality, gadgets, a ton of money and knows almost any fighting style he sees, I'm starting to think he's Batman. Then again, there's that Moon Knight guy on the news..." Wasp comments on Four Arms' joke.
Before Four Arms can ask who's Moon Knight, they hear a ton of screaming down below. They looked over the edge of the roof they're on and see a bunch of students running out of the school. They all look like they're getting away from something inside the building.
As the last students running from the school emerge, which is Sally Avril and her friends again, there's one last person coming out of the place. And she looks angry.
With her body covered by the black symbiote, complete with spiky "hair", spiked gauntlets, spiked kneecaps and bots with the familiar white spider symbol on her chest extending to her back, its Andrea.
Or as she claims...
"I AM MANIA!" She yelled as black tentacle-like tendrils emerge from her back.
From the roof, as Four Arms turns back to Ben, he and Wasp are just too surprised at what they're looking at. "You have got to be kidding me..." Ben just complained, having had enough of the symbiote after his encounter with Venom.
Mania walks over to Sally and her friends menacingly. When the school guards attempt to attack her with their batons, all the batons did was break upon contact on Mania's face. Mania just looks at them in a bored manner and uses her tendrils to grab them by their feet and throw them at the school fountain nearby.
"Okay. I gotta stop her before anyone else gets hurt." Ben says as he activates the Ultimatrix and starts scrolling through his alien forms.
"Wait, what about Taskmaster? We can't let him escape!" Wasp points out as she flies up to Ben's face to distract him away from his Ultimatrix.
"Ummm... Why don't you call Hawkeye and track him down? Someone's gotta keep She Venom over there busy." Ben replies and he finally slaps down the Ultimatrix covering his entire body in emerald light.
As Sally and her friends attempt to run away, Mania simply just jumps over them and stops them in their tracks by landing in front of them. Mania simply then just grabs Sally by her neck and begins choking her. "You think it was so funny dumping my head with soda? Let's see you laugh when I dump you in your own blood!" Mania yelled, choking Sally harder.
Sally struggled to breathe. When she looks at her friends to get help, they simply just ran away from her and Mania, as does every other student in the area. Sally just looks back at Mania as she just waits for her breath to disappear.
Suddenly, Mania gets tackled, forcing her to release the cheerleader. Sally begins coughing and sees the person who just saved her. It's Echo Echo. Four of him, to be exact.
"Okay. Miss." The Prime Echo Echo said.
"Let's. Get. That. Suit." One of his clones added.
"Off. Of. You." The next one ended.
Mania's right eye twitches in annoyance. "Get out of my way! I want that girl dead!" Mania yelled and she immediately fires webbing at the alien clones.
The Echo Echos all jumped away go dodge her webs and they all surround her in a circle. They then all used their sonic screams at the symbiote infected girl, causing her unpleasant pain. Not just her, but it affected the symbiote more. The black suit began screeching more than Andrea herself as it looks like it's getting separated from Andrea's body. However, Mania just webs up the mouths of the Echo Echos while trying to withstand the pain.
As the fight kept going, Sally took this time to run away.
"So Ben ditched you to go with a different girl? Man, every guy you meet just tries to avoid you, huh?" Hawkeye says to Wasp through their Avengers card. "Hank, Ben... Who's next, Tony?"
"Clint, shut up. And for the record, Tony ditches every girl he finds to find another." Wasp points out as she continues flying around the skies to head back to the mansion. "Meet me back at the mansion. We're gonna need something to track down Taskmaster."
"I'm halting my search for a copycat? No thanks. Go grab Hulk or something." Hawkeye just replied and is about to turn off his card until Jan says something that catches his attention.
"You know... Taskmaster works for Zemo... and Zemo leads Hydra... You know who else works in Hydra?" Wasp says with a teasing tone.
Hawkeye was silent over the card for a few seconds. He finally replied, "I'm on my way."
"Knew you can't resist. You just love Black Widow that much." Wasp joked.
"Alright. That's enough. Geez." Hawkeye retorts and turns off his card.
As Wasp puts away her own card, she kept flying, asking herself, "Wonder where Taskmaster is headed, though. Does Zemo have some secret hideout or something?"
However, Wasp's guess was wrong as Taskmaster is now currently on top of some sort of tall skyscraper of a building, with giant letters on the side forming the word "OsCorp" on it.
Taskmaster kept looking at the view from his position as he waits for his client. He's been here for a few minutes now so it's no big deal to him. He's patient.
Right on cue, the door to the roof opens and out comes a man wearing a business suit and brown faux hawk hairstyle. With a serious demeanour and a couple of sunglasses wearing bodyguards, Norman Osborn approaches the mercenary.
"I got what you needed." Taskmaster says to his client, Norman, and hands him the symbiote capsule he has left.
Norman Osborn takes the capsule and immediately starts heading back to the door. Taskmaster raised a brow under his mask and crossed his arms in confusion. "Where's the payment you promised?" The skull masked mercenary asks. This time, his patience is growing a little thin.
"You will get your money once I find out that this symbiote is what I actually wanted. False advertising is bad for business." Norman replied. He then does an over the shoulder look at Taskmaster, doing a small smile that, for some reason, sent chills down the merc's spine. "You should know that just as much as I do." The business man pointed out and he went back inside his building, his bodyguards following him.
Taskmaster, after growling a little in annoyance, follows them as well. He's not leaving without getting paid.
Back at the school, all the Echo Echos get knocked into each other and end up fusing back together into one. Echo Echo rubs his head in pain as he just thinks about what just happened. Peter once told him that to beat a symbiote, you need a ton of noise like sonic waves. For some reason, Mania is more resistant to sonic waves than Venom is.
"This. Is. Not. Good." Echo Echo comments as he looks back at Mania, who is walking towards him menacingly. Realizing that Echo Echo might be too weak for this but Ultimate Echo Echo being too strong that he might accidentally kill the host of this symbiote, he switches to something different.
He slaps the Ultimatrix symbol on his chest and switches forms. After the light died down, in Echo Echo's place is Diamondhead. "I need to make a phone call." Diamondhead joked as he waves his hands in front of him and suddenly, Mania is trapped in a pyramid made of diamond, imprisoning her until Ben gets a clue to how to beat this new symbiote. With Mania trapped, Diamondhead taps on his Ultimatrix symbol, turns back to Ben and then tries to contact someone through the same device.
Peter Parker, currently enjoying a bit of down time as he just kick the butts of the Sinister Eight some time ago, is watching a sitcom on the TV in the living room of his and his aunt's house. As he laughs at some puppet hitting a real man on the head with a bat comically, he suddenly hears a ringing sound. He places his bowl of popcorn to his side and searched for his phone in his pockets.
However, when he did find it, he finds out it's not even ringing. Something else is making the noise. He looks everywhere until he noticed the Ultimatrix communicator Ben gave him, is ringing while on the small table beside the couch. The gadget is just right beside the lamp the whole time. Peter grabs it and sits back at the couch. He presses the Ultimatrix symbol on the side and answers the call, asking, "Parker residence. This is Peter Parker."
"Hey, Pete! It's Ben. Say, uhhh, I just wanted to know, aside from sound waves, what else can harm a symbiote?" Ben asks casually, to make sure Peter doesn't think he's in battle. He doesn't want Peter to leave the comfort of home, knowing that the guy deserves a little rest after that Sinister Eight battle.
"Uhhh, well, fire works too. Probably try some electricity as well. Why do you ask? You're not fighting another symbiote, are you?" Peter asks back through the communicator.
Although Peter can't hear it, the diamond prison Mania is in is beginning to crack. "Uhhh, nope! Just doing some research for Hank and Tony. Uhhh, thanks for the tip! Bye! See ya tomorrow!" Ben rapidly said.
"Huh? Okay, sur–" Peter tried to reply but Ben immediately dropped the call, not wanting Pete to get involved any further.
"Okay. Fire and electricity, huh? I got two fire forms and... a couple of electric forms. Man, I'm starting to think the universe ran out of ideas for my powers, now that I think about it." Ben lampshaded as the diamond pyramid explodes into dust. As rubble and small diamond shards fly off, Ben narrows his eyes and sees Mania coming out of the cloud of dust she made. The She Venom then growls and lunges at Ben.
As she does that, Ben activates the Ultimatrix and slaps down it's dial.
Norman and Taskmaster walk down a hallway in OsCorp leading to the main lab of the establishment. As they walk, Taskmaster noticed that behind the glasses making up the hallway, there are multiple scientists working on multiple objects that can only be identified as strange looking and sinister.
One of them even look like multiple power suits with black coloration and spider symbols on their chest plates.
Once they've finally reached the lab, Taskmaster and Norman are visited by the sight of a scientist. Wearing the typical lab coat and sporting brown hair and a bushy moustache along with eyeglasses, this scientist is Miles Warren.
"Professor Warren. If you don't mind." Norman says to the science man as he hands the capsule to him.
The scientist nods and loads the capsule into a machine connected to a huge cylinder located in the lab. The cylinder itself also has a bunch of rubber tubes connected to it from above. As the machine starts stirring the symbiote like a blender, Professor Warren presses a button on the console connected to the machine. This prompted the machine to stop stirring and transfer the newly stirred symbiote into the cylinder. The symbiote tried to escape by trying to go through the glass, but the cylinder is reinforced so it's not going anywhere anytime soon.
"The data that has been shown to us, this 'symbiote' provides it's user incredible power and speed but it is also unstable and causes aggression to the wearer. However, after weeks of studying, we finally found a way to stabilize this symbiote while also enhancing it's capabilities further." Warren explained.
As the scientist starts pushing buttons in correct order, the tubes from connected to the cylinder the symbiote is in starts spraying some sort of white gas into the container and it began covering the parasite.
"By combining the subdermal armor's enhanced durability and resistance, the DNA samples from our genetically engineered spiders to enhance it's abilities and a small dose of the gene cleanser to stabilize it, the new symbiote will now be much stronger without gaining the weaknesses of it's previous form." The scientist explained more as he, Norman Osborn and Taskmaster all watch the raven colored symbiote...
...change it's color into a white one with only a few streaks of black on it.
"Gentlemen. May I present... the Anti Venom symbiote." Warren introduced as he gestures to the symbiot's new form.
"Interesting. Will this be enough to impress Mr Tombstone, though?" Norman asks Warren and himself.
Warren fixes his glasses by pushing it up back on his nose, replying, "Well, we'll need a test subject in order to see what it's capable of."
Before Norman can answer, however, his phone suddenly rings and he takes it out, looking at whoever is calling. Once he saw who it is, he looks at both Warren and Taskmaster and says, "I'll be right back. Your payment will come later, Taskmaster." He then leaves the lab and heads downstairs.
Taskmaster huffs in disbelief and crosses his arms while Warren heads inside a different room that's still part of the lab. Taskmaster then just waits alone in the main lab, just hoping he could finally get paid so he can go back to Zemo and the others. He may be part of a group now, but he still needs the cash.
However, he just got karma as the door to the lab gets busted open by an explosion from the other side, causing dust and smoke to emit from where the door used to be. When the smoke clears, Hawkeye and Wasp are at the doorway, with the latter in her shrunken size.
"Found ya!" Wasp excitedly says as she makes her hands glow with yellow energy. Hawkeye takes aim at Taskmaster as well.
"By the way, whoever owns this building... Call Tony to pay for the damage." Hawkeye joked.
Taskmaster groans in annoyance and lazily pulls out his sword from his back. "How'd you two find me?" The mercenary asked.
"For a guy named Taskmaster, you sure don't know how to multitask. You can't even make an escape while also dodging traffic cameras?" Hawkeye joked some more but also pointed out Tasky's flaws.
"We had JARVIS scan all traffic cameras that may have picked you up in their footage. We found some that did and they lead us here." Wasp explains some more.
Taskmaster huffs in annoyance and just goes ahead and takes out one of his pistols, firing it at the heroes. While the size shifter and the archer managed to dodge by either flying to the side or diving into cover, Hawkeye fires an arrow at Taskmaster, heading for his head.
But, surprising Clint, Taskmaster merely swatted the arrow with his sword with intense reflexes. The deflected arrow ends up spinning in mid air before landing on the ground like a useless stick. "Don't take it personally when I bullseye an arrow through your skull." Taskmaster says menacingly to Hawkeye as the mercenary puts away his pistol and takes out a collapsible crossbow and starts firing small yet deadly arrows at the purple clad trick shooter. Hawkeye ducks behind cover again to dodge the shots and prepares an explosive arrow.
"You're going to try to out-archer me? Good luck with that." Hawkeye taunted back and he gets up from cover and fires the arrow.
Unknown to them, however, in the skies just above OsCorp, a familiar villain on a glider is watching the fight between the two Avengers and the mercenary through a hologram projector in his hands. With green skin underneath purple armor, gauntlets and boots, a jack-o-lantern designed belt buckle, and an impish face with smile big enough to rival the Grinch, the Green Goblin chuckles maniacally as he watches the battle.
"Alas, the wasp and the hawk has the grim reaper cornered. But this little scuffle is about to get awkward." The Green Goblin began rhyming as he started tapping on the same projector that seems to be connected to the building itself. "For when you trap a snake that's survived many fights... Be careful, the more it's provoked, the more it bites!" He gleefully added and tapped one last button.
Even with this simple action, the Goblin somehow finds it amusing as he cackles like the madman that he is...
...and there's a good reason why it makes him laugh. He just pressed a button that frees the Anti Venom symbiote from it's glass prison.
The white symbiote slithered, looking for a host. As Hawkeye and Wasp kept firing at Taskmaster, who is forced to block the attacks with his shield, the Anti Venom sees Taskmaster as the right host.
However, before it could even move, Professor Warren, who just exited the other lab, accidentally steps on the symbiote after panicking about the noise he's been hearing from the main lab.
"What's going on?!" Warren exclaims but got no answer as the heroes and the villain are still busy shooting at each other. When he tried moving, however, he finally felt like je stepped on something. He looks at his feet and sees the white symbiote underneath his shoes.
Back to Goblin, he grins once he sees the symbiote is currently under the professor's shoes, giving him the opportunity he needed. "The curse of one, I can use for another. Like the suit made of flame, I can do the same to the white armor. Stable, you say, about this slime. Well I say... you're all out of time." The glider riding villain rhymed again and began cackling mad as he tapped a button on his projector.
And this is a button designed to control the symbiote like it once did with the subdermal armor of Molten Man.
Professor Warren didn't have time to react as the symbiote finally started to entangle around his legs, then his body then his face until the symbiote finally fuses itself with his whole self. As the slime completely bonds with him, he began screaming for help, catching the attention of the heroes and the mercenary.
Taskmaster, Hawkeye and Wasp stopped what they were doing and look at the cause of the screaming, only to see that in Professor Warren's place is a new creature. The creature is a buff humanoid that has orange eyes and an orange mouth, and his face is black and white. He is white all over with a black spider symbol. He is larger than his previous human body and he looks really mad.
This is Anti Venom.
"You claim it to be stable and at rest. But now the Goblin must put it to test. But in order to see it at work, we all must see it berserk." Goblin rhymed one last time and tapped one last button.
After tapping it, he grins maliciously and waits for the party to start.
Anti Venom looks at himself in horror, realizing that the symbiote is now bonded to him, Miles Warren. "No. It's alright. It's stable. I can just–"
But before he can say a sentence that would be wrong either way, he suddenly yelled in pain as something in his head, or rather the symbiot's head, is starting to hurt him. That's when his yellow eyes changed to red and he looks at the heroes and the mercenary with an expression that can only be interpreted as mad.
Anti Venom then roared, his voice seemingly sounding like a monstrous roar being played along side the sound of a person screaming in pain.
This time, both the heroes and the villain realize that Anti Venom seems more of problem than each other as they all aim at him this time.
"Friend of yours?" Hawkeye jokingly asked Taskmaster despite the situation as the berserk symbiote stopped roaring and lunges at them.
Back at the school, Andrea weakly wakes up, rubbing her head in pain as she slowly opens her eyes. Once fully opened, she sees some sort of humanoid creature made of flame, molten lava and rocks. This same creature is looking at a splat of black liquid ooze on the ground.
"Lady, you really need to get better clothes. May I suggest a friend to help you in shopping?" Heatblast joked despite himself.
"You're... You're one of those Avengers. Wh-Why did you stop me? Those girls... They had it coming..." Andrea attempted to complain only to experience pain in her head, causing her to clutch it in pain.
"Easy, there. You took beating... from me..." Heatblast says to Andrea but he whispered that last part to himself. "What do you mean they had it coming?"
"They've... They've been bullying me. I just... hate them so much... If only you didn't stop me, I would've..." Andrea tried explaining.
"You would've, what? Killed them? Would that make you any better than them?" Heatblast pointed out, causing the girl to look at him in realization, eyes wide at the Pyronite. "Revenge isn't always the best solution, kid. And trust me. I've been bullied before. Would've kicked their butts with all this power I got. But I didn't. You know why? Cause bullies like them aren't even worth it. Don't waste your time and power on people as lowly as them. Whatever you're going through, I'm sure you'll get through it. Those girls are just sad."
Andrea looks down in deep thought, thinking about what this Avenger had just told her. Maybe he's right. Maybe...
The moment was interrupted when the Ultimatrix started beeping. When Heatblast tapped on it, it brought his Avengers ID card from it's sub storage. Heatblast picked it up and it started playing Wasp's voice, saying, "Ben? You there?!"
Heatblast facepalmed at Wasp's words. "Jan, you do realize you just said my real name out loud, right? I'm in public."
"Oh, I'm sorry. It's just that I didn't have time to think things through when THERE'S A GIANT MONSTER TRYING TO KILL US!" Wasp yells through the comms, even causing both Heatblast and Andrea to wince.
"What is it? What's the sitch?" Heatblast asks.
"No time to explain! Just come here fast! We're at OsCorp, top floor." Wasp rapidly said. In the background, Heatblast and Andrea can hear a roar and Hawkeye complaining. "AND HURRY!" Wasp added loudly and the comms turn off.
"I'm going." Heatblast says as he puts away his ID card and slaps the Ultimatrix symbol on his chest, switching him to XLR8.
"I'm coming too."
XLR8 looks at Andrea, who crouches down and puts her hand on the black ooze on the ground. It's the symbiote that was temporarily weakened by Heatblast earlier. It began to feel alive again as it began fusing with Andrea once more. Back in black, Mania stands back up and clenches her fists tight, feeling the symbiote all over her body. "I figured I could use a little redemption while I'm at it." Mania pointed out.
XLR8 smirks at the She Venom and closes his visor. "Hop on." He suggested to the lady.
Zooming across the city, XLR8, with Mania on his back, her arms wrapped around him, hurries as fast as he can to OsCorp. He's been to the place when Peter introduced him to his friends, including Harry Osborn, son of Norman Osborn.
Once he nears the skyscraper, he immediately runs up on the wall and headed for the too floor. However, from the very top, Taskmaster is suddenly sent out of the building, crashing through the windows and began falling to his death. "Mania!" XLR8 signalled the symbiote girl on his back and, as Taskmaster just passed them, Mania fires black webbing at Taskmaster, attaching to his foot. Mania then attaches the other end of the webbing to the side of the building, preventing Taskmaster from falling.
"We're just gonna leave him hanging?" Mania asked jokingly as she remains hanging on to XLR8 as they head to the top.
"I like you already." XLR8 compliments the young hero.
Finally entering the window Taskmaster got thrown out of, the Kineceleran and the symbiote heroine see Anti Venom attacking Wasp and Hawkeye.
Hawkeye fired a sonic arrow at Anti Venom, but even with the intense sound waves, Ant Venom didn't so much as bat an eye as he caught the arrow before it hit him and bit off the tip of the arrow, breaking it. The berserk symbiote then growls at Hawkeye. However, it was immediately interrupted when Wasps started firing her stingers at it's face.
"Take that! And that!" Wasp kept yelling at Anti Venom, even though her stingers aren't doing anything. Anti Venom merely grabs Wasp, causing the size changing heroine to struggle out of the symbiot's grasp. Anti Venom attempts to crush her, but then Mania tackles him, forcing him to release his grip on Wasp.
"Why do I even bother doing that?" Wasp lampshaded as XLR8 joins his teammates.
"Who's your girlfriend?" Hawkeye asks XLR8 as he gets up and takes out another arrow.
As XLR8 facepalms while Mania uppercuts Anti Venom in the face, sending him flying, the Kineceleran responds with, "First, not my girlfriend. Second, she calls herself Mania. She's on our side."
"Well, she seems to be doing some work." Wasp comments, pointing at Mania and Anti Venom, the latter getting his butt kicked by the former.
Mania punches Anti Venom multiple times in the face then does roundhouse kick to his gut that sends him sliding backwards. However, when Mania goes for another punch, Anti Venom caught her fist and punches her in the face in retaliation. The jab sends her flying into a wall, embedding her in it.
Anti Venom transforms his right hand into a blade and jumps at Mania, attempting to stab her. However, he gets blown back by sonic waves, sending him crashing through a wall and ending up in the other lab.
Mania looks at the one who saved her and sees Ultimate Echo Echo, giving her a thumbs up. Mania thumbed up back, albeit weakly as she falls off the wall she was embedded on.
"Have you guys tried using sonic waves or fire on him?" Ultimate Echo Echo asked his teammates as they head to Mania, helping her back up.
"I did. Didn't work. Looks like this thing's immune to them compared to that other Venom guy." Hawkeye replied.
"How about electricity?" The hyper evolved alien asks again.
"I tried it. Didn't work either." Wasp replies.
As Mania rubs her head in pain while Ultimate Echo Echo thinks of a plan, Anti Venom roars once more, catching everyone's attention. Anti Venom suddenly tackles Mania, somehow not even bothering with the others anymore. Something's not right.
"Why is he suddenly after Mania? I just attacked him but he completely ignored me." Ultimate Echo Echo pointed out.
"Stop pointing out the obvious and help your friend!" Hawkeye exclaimed and fires an explosive arrow at the white symbiote, causing him to get knocked away from Mania.
When both Mania and Anti Venom gets back up, Ultimate Echo Echo noticed the look on the villain's face. It looks angry. Angrier than usual. It looks angry at Mania.
That's when it hit him. "It's after Mania's symbiote! It hates it!" Ultimate Echo Echo yelled and he immediately flies at Anti Venom, blasting his foe with sonic waves, sending him sliding backwards.
"Why does it hate me? Didn't your Avenger friends attack him first? I just got here." Mania asks. When Hawkeye and Wasp rejoin the two, Mania immediately adds, "No offense."
"Some taken." Hawkeye joked.
"How do we beat it?" Wasp asks Ultimate Echo Echo.
"Lure it to a trap. Once we corner it, we zap it with all we've got." Ultimate Echo Echo replies as he clenches his fist, watching Anti Venom recover.
Hawkeye raises a brow at Ben's plan, commenting, "Uhhh, in case you forgot, genius, electricity didn't work on him."
"The problem isn't electricity. The problem is the amount of electricity. We need to zap him with more voltage." Ultimate Echo Echo explained. "Mania, you okay with playing bait?"
"Let's just get it over with." Mania complained. With that in mind, the Avengers all go separate directions as Mania remained facing Anti Venom. Mania then mocks Anti Venom by suddenly creating a large, toothy mouth on her face/mask and sticks her tongue out at him, blowing raspberries. "You really put the ug in ugly, ugly!" Mania taunted the white symbiote as she makes her mouth disappear and ran off.
Angry, Anti Venom chased the She Venom, following her into the other lab.
Anti Venom enters the other through the hole in the wall he made when Ben blasted him earlier. He looks around, searching for Mania. But before he completely searched, black webbing suddenly sticks to his face, covering his eyes.
Ripping the web off his face, he roars in anger and looks , where the web came from. Finally spotted Mania, hanging upside down from the ceiling using a thick string of black web.
Mania does a little mocking wave at Anti Venom, who angrily lunges at her. But before he even got close, Mania dropped down and Anti Venom ends up embedding his head into the ceiling, causing him to get stuck.
However, he quickly recovered by pushing himself of the ceiling and landing back on the ground, creating cracks on the ground in the process. He roars at Mania, but his rage blinded him as Mania simply webs up Anti Venom's hands and attaches them to the walls. She does the same to it's feet, attaching them to the floor.
Anti Venom tried to break free, but Mania webbed him up more, attaching more strings to his hands and feet to the walls and floor. "Now!" Mania signalled her allies as she jumped away...
... and reveals Hawkeye and Shocksquash was behind her the whole time. Hawkeye fires a simple arrow that has a metallic string attached to it and it embedded itself into Anti Venom's body. With that, Shocksquash grabs the string and releases intense amounts of electricity into it, the bolts of electricity surging through the string and traveling to Anti Venom, zapping him, making him scream in pain.
After a minute of his attack, Shocksquash stopped once Anti Venom stopped struggling. The symbiote finally detaches itself from it's host, only reducing itself into a puddle, rendered useless.
As Mania lands back on the ground right beside Hawkeye and Shocksquash, Wasp rejoins them as they look at the unconscious Miles Warren on top of the dead Anti Venom symbiote. "Yeah! Go team!" Wasp cheers, despite no contribution to the actual plan. Mania giggles at the adult heroine while Hawkeye shakes his head.
Minutes later, authorities have arrived at the scene, mostly are SHIELD agents. As medics put the unconscious professor in an ambulance, Norman Osborn, who just arrived after leaving his building, talks to Hawkeye, Wasp, now in her normal size, and Mania. Ben left earlier as his Ultimatrix was about to time out and he didn't want his secret identity to be revealed in public.
"I would like to thank you for saving my friend and my company. Truly, I have no idea why on Earth would a creature like that be in OsCorp. We've stopped doing mutation experiments a long time ago." Norman says to the two Avengers and Mania.
"But why was Taskmaster in your building then? We found him first before we met mister monster." Wasp asks, still confused.
"OsCorp creates advanced technology and makes scientific breakthroughs almost every single day. He was most likely hired to steal something from us." Norman pointed out, even though he's lying. But no one can tell. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get my building repaired." He ended and headed back to his company.
As the shady business man left, Hawkeye whispers to the two ladies, "That guy creeps me out."
"Shut it, Clint." Wasp retorted. She then faces Mania and smiles. "You know, you'd make a great Avenger."
"Thanks but I don't think I'd be able to provide my services on a regular basis. I got school and work, plus, i think I'm a little inexperienced to be part of a superhero team." Mania points out as she scratches the back of her head. "But whenever I'm available, I'll try to help."
"Sure! Just get rid of the punk rock look then we're good." Hawkeye joked, prompting Wasp to elbow him on his gut.
As Mania giggled, XLR8 suddenly arrives and opens his visor, telling Mania, "Need a lift?"
"No thanks. Appreciate it though. I guess I'll see you around?" Mania asks.
"Eh, sure. But not Wednesdays though. That's video game day." XLR8 joked.
Mania giggled at XLR8's joke and, unexpectedly, she recreates her toothy mouth, albeit smaller this time, and kisses XLR8 on his cheek, making the alien blush as she makes her mouth disappear. "Thanks for the tip, by the way. See ya!" She says and fires a black web onto a building and swung away like Spiderman does in the news.
Once she has left, XLR8 shakes his head as Hawkeye smirks. "Not your girlfriend, huh?" He taunted Ben.
"Oooh, Carol's gonna love this." Wasp also joked.
"You guys are the worst..." XLR8 replied, covering his face with his helmet's visor in shame.
Back on the top floor of OsCorp, in the ruined labs, the Green Goblin giggles in delight as he takes out a small device and injects it on the dead symbiote. Only now, it's not quite dead, as it starts wriggling wildly due to the device. The same device then suddenly sucks up and symbiote into itself, capturing the slime.
"Step one, complete. Step two, in progress." Goblin said to himself as he looks at the device holding the symbiote. That's when he began laughing mad again and flew out of the building.
His plan has just begun.
And there you have it people. If you enjoyed this chapter then please direct all your praise and admiration to bcarandang1. She's a truly remarkable person and a talented author, please give her other stories a read, when you have the time.
Until next time Captain Rex75 out.