Earth-Bet gets some visitors from Earth-616.
Summary: Earth-616 is lost. Those at the epicenter of the phenomenon during the final battle were flung across the Multiverse when their dimension shook itself apart. A few of them landed on Earth-Bet. It's just a handful of more capes in a world already filled with superpowers. How much of an impact could they possibly have?
Warning: I am not at all savvy with the Marvel timelines, continuities, etc. There will likely be a lot of discrepancies from the canon Marvel timeline. This is an intentional choice. Also some of my Marvel characters might be OOC. My knowledge of a lot of these characters is spotty so I'll be taking some liberties and filling in those holes with whatever will fit the story. Many (probably most) of the Marvel characters that show up will be from the X-Men comics but not all of them.
00000
Make a friend. It was a logical next step in her current assignment. However even after months of careful observation she still felt like she had at best a superficial understanding of how to go about completing her mission. It was frustrating and for some reason the idea of making a friend made her nervous.
She walked around the halls of Winslow High evaluating students in the hallway for suitability. It was hard to tell who had the qualities she was looking for. Her "mother" had at least been helpful by giving her parameters; a friend is someone who you can place some degree of trust in, someone you have things in common with, and someone whose company you enjoy. The teen felt a bit of annoyance and a tiny trace of inadequacy. To all these people in the high school these things seemed to come naturally, almost instinctively. For her it was a struggle to get through even the simplest of social interactions without doing something that elicited confused or awkward reactions. Whatever it was that allowed people to understand and navigate social situations the teen was starting to wonder if she had been born without it.
She knew these skills were necessary if she wanted to learn how to infiltrate socially instead of just rappelling through windows or dropping through skylights. She also knew that she had made a great deal of progress. The teen could now imitate behavior she had observed in her classmates with what her mother had deemed an "adequate" degree of competence. But she still didn't understand what was going on and that could very easily get her into trouble. Just imitating others was a pointless dead end without understanding the underlying logic. Her new mother had assured her it would come with experience. Hence the teen was back on the first day of school after their break on the lookout for a perspective friend.
It was stumping her how to go about it though. How do you determine if you can trust someone? How do you go about figuring out if you enjoy their company? She had some ideas but then she wasn't entirely sure how she should try to implement them.
Her hearing suddenly picked up something faint half way across the school. It was screaming and someone banging on what sounded like one of the metal lockers the students used. From the way the sound echoed the teen thought it sounded like someone was trapped inside one of the lockers. When she focused on the sound what she heard next confirmed it for her.
"Let me out! Please let me out! HELP! HELP ME!"
An unpleasant feeling twisted in the girl's stomach. Without hardly any conscious thought the teen began to walk in that direction.
The noises became more frantic but she forced herself to walk. By the time she got there someone probably would have helped the screaming girl out of the locker already. She was almost all the way across the school. Taking off running now would only give rise to questions and suspicions.
As the teen drew nearer she sounds of panic didn't stop. She picked up her pace. The girl's frantic screaming and banging against the locker was bringing back bad memories and it made her move a little bit faster.
When she arrived the teen was surprised at what she saw. There were students standing around the locker whispering to each other and sniggering. She didn't understand people's behavior in general very well but this was baffling. Wasn't helping a classmate in distress something they were supposed to do? Why were people standing around seemingly enjoying the spectacle? Was there some kind of acceptable group sadism the she didn't understand?
With a frown the girl focused on listening in to the conversations around her.
"Oh my God, I can't believe Emma and her posse did that. I kind of feel bad for Hebert."
"What, that mean you gonna help her then?"
"Hell no! I don't want to get on the bad side of those three bitches. Besides this is kind of funny."
And another conversation.
"She's such a fucking loser. I would never let someone treat me like that."
"I know what you mean. It's her fault for being such a loner really. If she had any friends they could protect her but she insists on being weird and isolated. Of course those three are going to see her as easy prey."
And another.
"This is fucking hilarious man."
"You know after she gets out of there she might be all traumatized. In need of a little comfort. A shoulder to cry on."
"Oh don't tell me you're gonna want to tap that? Dude you have more tits than that chick does."
"As long as she gives it up I don't care."
"You're such a dog man."
"Hate the game, not the player."
She stopped listening after that. Those conversations weren't helping clear up the matter and they were just starting to make her angry. They didn't understand. They didn't understand what it was like to be caged against your will, to be at the mercy of others. It wasn't something she would wish on anyone.
Making a split second decision the teen strode purposefully towards the locker. The smell of decomposition and fermented blood and hygiene products was singularly unpleasant to her sensitive nose but she had been trained to ignore overpowering or distracting scents. A hush came over the crowd as they saw her walk up to the locker. The teen ignored them.
She examined the lock. Normally she would have taken the time to pick it but the situation struck too close to home for her to want to take the time. The noise inside the locker had degraded to painful sobbing that was growing more and more quiet. The teen made a risky decision.
Covering the view from prying eyes with her body the girl flexed the muscles in her forearm. Twin blades coated in indestructible adamantium sprang from between her knuckles with a scraping sound, each as long as her forearm. With a flic she snagged the lock with her claw and cut through the metal like it was made of cheese. With another twist of her muscles the claws retracted and the teen discreetly slipped the broken lock into her pocket to hide the evidence. Without wasting any time the girl opened the locker and the teen she had overheard was named Hebert came tumbling out.
The teenage girl caught Hebert by the shoulders. She appeared to have passed out. The girl was also had many minor lacerations and was covered in filth and insects. She would need medical attention to make sure nothing got infected.
The teen picked up the unconscious girl forgetting how she wasn't supposed to be strong enough to carry that much weight with ease. She made her way to the nurse's office as furious whispering sprang up all around them.
The teenager looked down at the face of the girl, a face which was covered in filth and vomit. The girl – Hebert – now knew at least in a small way what it was like to be caged like she did. It wasn't close to being the same thing but at least some similarities were there. Maybe that was what her "mother" meant when she said to find someone she had things in common with?
It was worth thinking about. Maybe Hebert would be a good candidate for a friend.
00000
AN: In case it wasn't obvious enough the girl in this introductory chapter was a certain clone of a certain Canadian mutton-chopped X-Man. This idea came to me and I can't believe there aren't more Worm/Marvel or Worm/DC crosses out there. At least I haven't found too many. Let me know what you think. This could be fun :)