"X-Men/Spider-Man:
Tangled Up In Evolution"
Chapter 3: "Burning In Your Light"
Disclaimer: X-Men: Evolution and Spider-Man, along with all related characters and properties, belong to Marvel Comics, Marvel Studios, 20th Century Fox, and Sony. I make no money whatsoever from this story and my only profit comes from your reviews. Remember; I'm doing this for you guys, not for Marvel and certainly not for Disney.
Author's note: Well, we've certainly left things on a tense footing as of last chapter. Wolverine knows something about Spider-Man, but he can't quite remember what. Peter Parker's relationship with the X-Men has been strained by the revelation of his secret identity as Spider-Man. Norman Osborn is scheming away from a position of inordinate influence and power. With all this going on, could things get any worse? Hmm, maybe.
Emil Blonsky, currently costumed as Citizen V, thought. Why, of all places, does Osborn send me here? I'm a soldier, not some . . . some goddamned costumed debutante! And speaking of costumed debutantes . . .
I can't believe I'm here,
Meteorite, formerly known as Moonstone, nudged Citizen V with her elbow. "You could look a little more enthusiastic," she muttered.
"I'm wearing a mask," Citizen V muttered in retort. "How the hell are they supposed to know what I look like?"
"You could still try," Meteorite mumbled back.
Just then, the New York City mayor looked at them curiously. "Something you'd like to share with us?" he asked.
Citizen V resisted the urge to draw his sword and take the mayor's head off. Meteorite answered for him, smiling winsomely. "Just a little harmless chatter about what a lovely skyline you've got here."
"Glad you appreciate it," the mayor said, winking at them as though he was in on some kind of conspiracy with them. "Anyway, it's time to cut the ribbon for our new hospital." He extended a giant pair of scissors to them, blade pointed toward him. "Would you two do the honors?"
"Sure," Meteorite answered with a charming smile, holding one of the scissor grips while Citizen V held the other. Together, they cut the ribbon surrounding the new hospital, which had interestingly been named "The Norman Osborn Medical Center," to the applause of the crowd watching them.
Across from the hospital, a figure crouched on the opposite building like a gargoyle glared at them. The figure wore red and blue, the red covering his head and shoulders, tapering down his chest to wrap around his waist, and overlaid with a web-like pattern. A spider emblem rested in the center of his chest and a larger red version covered his back.
This was Spider-Man, and he was very much not happy.
Idiots, he thought. Fawning after these bastards like they're heroes, naming a hospital after Osborn, of all people! They don't know what he's done, what he's going to do . . . not like I do. He looked at the clock tower ahead of him. Time to get to school, but why should I care about that anymore? I'm probably going to get crap for being a "mutie banger," and on top of that, my new friends probably don't want to be near me after last night.
As Spider-Man was about to depart from the vision that disgusted him so much, he was spotted by Citizen V, who smirked under his mask while muttering, "Finally, some action!" He pressed a button hidden within his costume, and it summoned a vaguely V-shaped hoverboard that flew to him. "As fun as it's been," he shouted to the crowd, "we really must be going! Crime to battle, villains to stop, cats to rescue!"
He jumped on the hoverboard, retching internally from how cheesy he'd sounded, and soared away, chasing down Spider-Man. Meteorite shook her head slowly, thinking to herself, He's gonna screw up everything. She waved at the public and shouted, "See you all next time! Remember, the Junior Thunderbolts are recruiting!" She then flew after Citizen V, who had by then caught up to Spider-Man and was now engaged in battle with him.
"Another loser on a glider," Spider-Man taunted.
"You think so, do you?" Citizen V retorted, drawing his sword. "Remember this? Cut you good last time."
"There won't be a next time!" Spider-Man shouted, swinging into a kick to Citizen V, who merely swerved out of the way and slashed Spider-Man's arm in mid-swerve. Spider-Man winced under his mask, but didn't let that stop him, grabbing Citizen V's blade with his other hand and using it to yank him over for a knee to the stomach. While the blow succeeded in knocking Citizen V for a loop, the patriotically garbed soldier quickly regained his bearings and attacked Spider-Man again.
Spider-Man dodged his assault this time, but Citizen V sliced Spider-Man's web-line, causing the wall-crawler to plummet. He saved himself by shooting a web-line at Citizen V's hoverboard and using it to catch himself. "So you wanna play like that, huh?" Citizen V asked. "Fine. We'll see if you can hold on." Citizen V accelerated his hoverboard, practically skating on the facades of the skyscrapers along his path . . . and dragging Spider-Man on those same facades on his belly. "Having fun back there?"
Spider-Man shot another web, this time at the back of Citizen V's head, and yanked harshly on the web. This caused the hoverboard to spin out of control due to Citizen V's suddenly shifting weight. The result was Spider-Man getting knocked around on the skyscrapers as opposed to just being dragged on his belly. He ignored the pain, climbing the web he'd used to catch the hoverboard to get closer to his enemy.
To his astonishment, though, Citizen V just turned and elbowed him viciously in his concealed face. "Think I couldn't spot you, punk?"
"Oh, yeah, sure, like I'm going to credit a cheap Captain America knockoff with foresight," Spider-Man mocked, managing to stay on the hoverboard through his adhesive ability. He punched Citizen V in his masked face before jumping off the hoverboard and landing on a skyscraper façade. Citizen V just glided up after him as Spider-Man jumped down to kick him.
Their attacks met around the same time, Spider-Man's kick striking Citizen V's midsection and Citizen V's sword cutting through the fabric of his costume and into the flesh of his other leg. While the wound stung, Spider-Man wasn't willing to let that stop him. He fired a web-line at a nearby skyscraper and swung around Citizen V to attack him from behind with a corkscrew kick.
"You're a pretty damned good fight, web-head," Citizen V remarked. "I'm having more fun like this than I was last time!"
"I'm not here to amuse you!" Spider-Man snarled, attacking Citizen V again, only for Citizen V to catch his punch and viciously punt him into a skyscraper.
"Well, you're doing it, anyway," Citizen V mocked.
Spider-Man glowered at Citizen V with cold rage running through his veins and lunged at him again, only to be intercepted by Meteorite, who kicked him through the skyscraper window. "That's enough," she said. "You've had your fun. Now it's time to act like a grown-up."
"Who the hell do you think you're talking to?" Citizen V asked irately.
"I'm talking to someone who's jeopardizing our operation," Meteorite replied. "We're not gonna keep their trust by picking fights just for the hell of it. We're done here."
"Fine," Citizen V grumbled. He aimed one last jibe at Spider-Man. "You're coming with us next time, web-head."
Spider-Man rose to his feet despite the pain in his leg from the cut Citizen V had given him. Without a word to the office workers he'd stunned by his sudden entry, he dashed out the window and web-swung away. He'd get his wounds patched up the best he could, and then he'd go to school. He hoped his face wasn't banged up too badly; that would be hell to explain to his teachers, let alone Aunt May.
"You're late, Mr. Parker," his homeroom teacher remarked to Peter as he came in, having had to detour to get himself patched up. "And you look awful, too. Burning the midnight oil?"
"Yeah, something like that," Peter responded.
"Very well," the homeroom teacher said. "I'll try not to report you for truancy."
"Thanks," Peter muttered.
After homeroom let out, Peter limped to his locker to gather his things for first-period math class. As he gathered his things, he heard Kitty shouting, "Peter, wait!"
Peter turned to see Kitty coming toward him, accompanied by Jubilee, Bobby, Kurt, Ray, and Tabitha. "What?"
"We're sorry . . . about last night," Kurt replied. "We got the wrong idea about you."
"Sure did," Peter remarked dryly.
"Usually when people break into our house, they're doing it because they wanna kill us," Bobby said half-jokingly.
"Well, you're the ones who started shooting first," Peter retorted acidly.
"What right do you have to get on our case?" Ray asked cuttingly. "You hide behind a mask! And you get to pretend you're normal! If you wanted to, you could just throw that costume away and spend the rest of your life no different from any other flatscan!"
"Hey, chill, Ray," Tabitha said. "We don't need to blow his secret ID."
"Well, maybe we do!" Ray retorted. "Maybe he needs to see for himself what it's like for us!"
"And maybe some people need to stop acting like everybody else is the enemy!" Peter shot back. "Believe it or not, not everybody has it in for you guys just because you're mutants!"
Ray's eyes flashed, as electricity sparked between his fingers. He swung at Peter with his charged fist, but Peter caught it and squeezed brutally, cold rage in his own eyes. "Peter, stop!" Jubilee shouted.
"Maybe I wear that mask for a reason," Peter continued on, ignoring Jubilee. "Maybe I wear that mask because going public means I put my friends and family at risk from all the lunatics I've fought that'll use them as leverage to get at me. Maybe one of those lunatics already succeeded once. Maybe my life sucks as badly as yours does. Maybe you need to get over yourself a bit."
He slammed Ray into the locker and stalked away, too angry to care about the pain in his leg. "That guy . . ." Ray snarled. "I'm gonna . . ."
"No, you won't," Bobby denied. "Enough damage's been done already. The last thing we need is a fight on school grounds."
"What's his problem, anyway?" Kurt asked, bewildered by Peter's shift in demeanor.
"What a rage case," Tabitha commented.
Lunchtime came around and Peter ate by himself, either unaware or uncaring that he was being watched by several of the X-Men. "You're kidding me, right?" Rogue asked. "Peter did that to Ray?"
"Yeah," Ray admitted, rubbing his hand. "Hand's still sore after what he did. Had no clue he was that strong."
"I don't think any of us did until he kicked our asses," Kurt remarked. "Didn't think anybody besides Quicksilver had reflexes fast enough to drop me in mid-teleport."
"I've been watching archive footage of him," Laura said.
"Archive footage?" Tabitha repeated. "Sounds like someone has a crush."
"I want to know what he's capable of," Laura answered stoically.
"Well, do you?" Tabitha asked teasingly.
"He's fast," Laura replied, "but sometimes he seems to act or react outright before a threat fully materializes."
"Maybe he just has really good senses," Kitty mused. "Like you and Mr. Logan."
"Possible," Laura admitted. Peter Parker was an enigma, and a dangerous one at that. Where did his powers come from? What motivated him? And why did she care, anyway, beyond keeping him away from the other X-Men?
Elsewhere in Bayville, a silver-haired young woman wearing red-tinted sunglasses and a black silk dress with spidery red patterns woven into its fabric stared out the window of her quiet apartment. "You're walking a dangerous path, Peter Parker, a path that will lead to your ruin and the ruin of everything you still hold dear."
"Try telling him that to his face," a sardonic young male voice remarked.
"My friend," the young woman responded. "Certainly you can tell him yourself."
"Revealing myself now?" the young man, a handsome brunet with a white streak in his hair and wearing a black duster over a triple-weave Kevlar suit, asked. "Sorry. Not my plan."
"Your plans will have to wait," the young woman stated. "Acting too late ensures only the doom of everything you wish to accomplish, Cable."
"And acting too soon makes things even worse, Cass," Cable shot back.
"Very well," Cassandra assented. "If you wish to dawdle until that mythical 'proper moment,' that's fine by me. I don't mind. Not like it affects me or you one bit. Oh, wait . . . it does."
"Are you trying to say something?" Cable asked irritably, his left eye flashing with psychic fire.
"Yes, I am, Cable," Cassandra admitted. "I'm trying to say that there are people who are in danger now, which is enough reason for you to act quickly. Particularly people you wish to . . . oh, I don't know . . . form an alliance with?"
"Ok, you got me," Cable conceded. With a swish of his coat, he walked toward the door.
"Thank you for doing the right thing," Cassandra stated humorously.
"Shut up," Cable grumbled good-naturedly as he pulled a pair of ruby quartz sunglasses out of his pocket. "You know, you're the most irritating woman I've met anywhere, anytime."
"I'm glad your feelings for me have remained unchanged," Cassandra replied. "I would hate for the nature of our relationship to change."
"What relationship?" Cable mocked, just before walking out and slamming the door, prompting a chuckle from Cassandra.
At the Brotherhood house, the five teenage mutant troublemakers lounged about, Todd Tolansky blasting rap music throughout the manor. "Will you turn that crap down?!" Pietro Maximoff yelled.
"Get up and make me, yo!" Todd yelled back.
"Ok, I will!" Pietro shouted, speeding up to Todd's room and throwing the radio out the window, then dragging Todd downstairs with the rest of the Brotherhood. "Look, we can't be wasting time here! While we're doing that crap, the flatscans are mobilizing against us!"
"Let the X-Men handle it," Fred Dukes brushed it off. "If they need help, we'll come in and help them."
"The X-Men are pansies, Blob," Pietro stated. "They're not gonna do anything except spank the humans a little and tell them to behave themselves. We need action! Real action!"
"You saying we ought to go after them ourselves?" Lance Alvers asked. "That's crazy talk!"
"No, it's sane talk," Pietro replied. "Very sane talk. Why wait for them to come to us? Why not go to them and strike first?"
"You're starting to sound like Father," Wanda Maximoff, Pietro's twin sister, commented warily.
"Well, you know . . ." Pietro trailed off.
"Oh, hell no!" Lance exploded. "Tell me Big Daddy Magneto isn't putting you up to this crap so he can get us killed!"
"Why would he do something like that?" Pietro asked.
"It's no big secret your daddy don't like us, Pietro," Todd replied. "Why do you think he got himself an all-new Brotherhood?"
"And look how good they turned out to be!" Pietro shot back. "The big metal Russian guy went to the X-Men, and that smooth-talking card shark is probably thinking about doing the same thing just to get into Rogue's panties! He's got nobody now except complete psychos like Sabretooth and Pyro, and we all know how reliable those are!"
"Still, this ain't the best idea you've ever had," Fred remarked. "Hell, I don't think you've had any good ideas."
"Oh, screw you, Blob!" Pietro snapped. "I know what I'm talking about!"
"Yeah, because you can always run away at the speed of sound if the situation gets bad," Lance brought up. "The rest of us aren't that lucky."
"Mutiny all around me!" Pietro yelled. "Wanda, sis, you agree with me, right?"
"Since when have I agreed with any of your ideas?" Wanda drawled.
Just then, the door was blasted open, knocking the Brotherhood teens for a loop. "The hell?!" Fred shouted.
The smoke and dust cleared away to reveal a beautiful woman in white-and-red armor with black and silver highlights. Her hair was long, straight, and an almost glossy black, her skin was a deep tan, and her eyes . . . her eyes were glowing with a robotic light.
"Targets locked in. Subject: Lance Alvers. Alias: Avalanche. Mutant power: Seismic manipulation. Subject: Pietro Maximoff. Alias: Quicksilver. Mutant power: Hypervelocity.
"Subject: Fred Dukes. Alias: Blob. Mutant power: Invulnerability, immovability, and superhuman strength. Subject: Todd Tolansky. Alias: Toad. Mutant power: Toad-like qualities; superhuman agility and leaping, prehensile tongue, and orally released paralytic slime.
"Subject: Wanda Maximoff. Alias: Scarlet Witch. Mutant power: Probability manipulation."
"Oh, crap!" Lance shouted. "A freaking Sentinel! Again!"
"Sentinel?!" Todd shouted, terrified. "I didn't know they made Sentinels that looked like beautiful women!"
"Well, I don't care what she looks like!" Wanda exclaimed, using her hex powers to throw everything within her immediate line of sight at the Sentinel, who merely deflected it all with a force field.
"Why don't I rock your world?" Lance taunted the Sentinel, using his powers to make the ground shake beneath her feet. Of course, the Sentinel stood her ground, seemingly unaffected by the shaking of the earth beneath her. "Why isn't it working?!"
"Magnetic clamps," the Sentinel replied, just before shifting her arm into a hyperextension blade and spearing Lance on it.
"YO!" Todd yelled, shocked and appalled. "What the hell is wrong with this chick?!"
"She's a killer robot designed specifically to go after us, that's what's wrong with her," Fred replied. "And she's really pissed me off now!" He charged the Sentinel, only for her to retract her hyperextension blade and convert her arm into a pulse blaster that sent Fred flying into the farthest room in the house.
"Awww, damn it . . ." Todd groaned. "How are we supposed to fight this chick?!"
"We don't," Pietro replied. "She may be human-sized, but she's a Sentinel just like the ones that came after us before. She ain't gonna stop until we're all dead, so let's book!"
"Always running, Pietro," Wanda mocked. "Well, you can take Toad and run! I'll deal with her!"
"Wanda, are you crazy?!" Pietro asked. "We can't fight her!"
Wanda's eyes narrowed. "Watch me." The house began to shake again, and this time the house itself seemed to attack the Sentinel, who didn't seem to care all that much about what Wanda was doing. The Sentinel stalked toward Wanda, her glowing eyes emotionless and inhuman.
"Wanda, no!" Todd shouted, leaping at the Sentinel and spitting slime at her. The Sentinel merely sidestepped the slime attack and snatched Todd out of midair by the throat, throwing him through the wall.
"Todd!" Wanda shouted. With cold rage in her eyes, she directed her hex attacks against the Sentinel herself, albeit for naught, as the Sentinel kept walking toward her. Realizing she couldn't stop the Sentinel, Wanda turned her efforts to protecting herself, generating a hex shield . . . that the Sentinel punched through, grabbing her by the throat and throwing her right where she'd tossed Todd.
"Wanda!" Pietro yelled. "Ok, that's enough!"
Pietro went into a hypervelocity attack on the Sentinel, punching her hundreds of times in the space of a few seconds. To his shock, the Sentinel blocked every punch Pietro threw at her, finally catching his fists and kicking him down to where she'd blasted Blob. Just then, the ground shook beneath her once again, this time from the wounded Lance, still conscious enough to try to fight her despite his injury.
The Sentinel turned to Lance and started walking toward him, ready to finish him off. Suddenly, a crimson-colored force blast knocked her down briefly, but she got up again, finding herself up against a young man with white-streaked brown hair, dressed in black triple-weave Kevlar with gold piping, and concealing his eyes behind a pair of ruby quartz sunglasses. "Wanna try me?" he asked.
"Target unknown. Mutant powers unknown. Approach with caution."
"Shut up, will you?" the young man grumbled in annoyance, zipping toward the Sentinel for a punch. Unfortunately, her reflexes were quick enough to block his fist with her arm.
"Begin threat assessment."
"Assess this, bitch!" the young man shouted, moving in for a kick this time, only for her to block his attack again. This time, he jumped back to try to attack her from a different angle, but the Sentinel flashed behind him in an attempt to ambush him with her arm converted into a blade. The young man whirled to catch her blade arm with one hand and kicked her in the midsection. The kick didn't seem to bother her that much, if at all. Briefly stabbing her in the head with what appeared to be a psychic knife, he managed to knock the Sentinel away from him.
"Where . . . where am I?" she asked, her voice suddenly humanlike in just how confused and frightened she sounded.
"Well, I can't explain that, but I've temporarily disabled the Sentinel programming overriding your brain," the young man replied. "It's a talent of mine."
The Sentinel looked at her hands. "What did they do to me?"
"What's your name?" the young man asked.
". . . Karima," the Sentinel replied. "Karima Shapandar."
"Who are you?!" Lance shouted at the young man.
The young man turned to Lance. "Pretty big talker for someone as banged up as you are." He walked over to him and knelt beside him. "Hold still and I'll have you taken care of."
"You didn't answer my question," Lance replied. "Who are you?"
"Call me Cable," the young man said. "Now hold still." He placed a hand over Lance's wound and the first thing that happened was that it stopped bleeding. The second thing that happened was that the wound began "knitting" itself back together. Just as he was finishing, he was impaled by Karima's arm-blade. The young man just head-butted Karima with enough force to knock her back and pull the blade out of him, revealing that he'd partially phased to avoid the injury. "Can't stay here."
He pulled a device out from underneath the cuff of his glove and began striking keys seemingly at random. "What are you doing?" Lance asked.
"Saving your life," Cable replied. "Bodyslide by two."
At the moment Karima was about to attack them again, her mind having been overridden by the Sentinel programming again, Cable and Lance disappeared in a silver teleportation orb. The Sentinel straightened up and surveyed the destruction that had resulted from the Brotherhood's attempts to fight her.
"Threat assessment completed. Unknown subject's mutant abilities include limited time manipulation, optic force beams, telekinesis, telepathy, insubstantiality, and empathic machine manipulation. Unknown subject is skilled in close-quarters combat, and possesses technological means of enabling teleportation of self and allies. Threat assessment: Moderately high."
"Has your mission been completed, Omega Sentinel?" Norman Osborn asked through a communications link.
"Interference from unknown mutant subject," the Sentinel responded. "Unknown subject managed to escape with Subject: Lance Alvers, alias Avalanche. Unknown subject also temporarily shut down programming. Subjects Pietro Maximoff, Todd Tolansky, Wanda Maximoff, and Fred Dukes have been successfully neutralized."
"Then stand by and prepare for pickup," Osborn answered.
"As commanded," the Sentinel replied.
Back in the Thunderbolts headquarters, Osborn shut off the link and turned to Victoria Hand. "Well, four out of five. That's not necessarily bad." His expression darkened. "I want to find this interfering punk and I want his head on a pike."
"Blonsky will be trouble," Hand remarked.
"You mean his love of the more violent parts of this assignment?" Osborn deduced nonchalantly. "Understandable. As advantageous as it is to manipulate things behind the scenes, there is something to be said about the thrill of crushing your enemies personally. And he's a career soldier; of course he'd like combat more than he'd like the public relations aspects of the job."
"He abandoned a ribbon-cutting ceremony to go after Spider-Man," Hand stated. "Were it not for Karla Sofen, he would have killed Spider-Man in full view of the public."
"Spider-Man's a criminal," Osborn replied coolly. "The public would be able to reason easily that Blonsky was acting in the defense of innocent lives."
"Are you taking this seriously?" Hand asked. "Blonsky is a potential liability. Unless you get him under control . . ."
"I am taking this seriously, Ms. Hand," Osborn answered, his tone growing icy. "I just understand Blonsky's enthusiasm for his work."
"This operation will be jeopardized if you let your personal vendettas overwhelm our objectives," Hand insisted. "You can get Spider-Man later. Right now, we have to focus on the mutants. After we've built up public trust by taking them down, then we can go after Spider-Man."
Osborn smirked. "Then we should take down the mutants very quickly, now shouldn't we?"
"Yes," Hand acceded.
Back at the Xavier Institute, the X-Men were staring down Cable, who was supporting the still-injured Lance's weight. "First Spider-Man, now you? What the hell's with people thinking they can break in just to say hi?" Wolverine asked.
"Hey, Jimmy," Cable answered with an impish smile. "Long time no see. Of course, you and I haven't met yet."
"What's your game, kid?" Wolverine asked suspiciously. "And what are you calling me 'Jimmy' for?"
"Knew I was coming in a little too early," Cable grumbled. "Oh, well. This guy needs medical help. I've patched him up the best I can, but I think he'll really benefit from some TLC from you guys."
"Lance?" Shadowcat asked as she sprinted to the young man's side. "What happened to you? Who is this guy?"
"You know they're making Sentinels that look like humans now?" Lance asked. "Well, one of them came to our house and kicked all our asses, and this guy here saved me."
"Why didn't you go back for the others?" Storm inquired.
"Bodyslide doesn't work like that," Cable replied. "I can't transport more than one other person at a time, and it only works if they're right next to me."
"Who are you?" Cyclops interrogated, his outer calm masking his confusion at the sight of Cable wearing ruby quartz glasses just like his. He had his hand at his visor controls, ready to shoot the mysterious young man down if he so much as twitched.
Cable looked Cyclops in his visor-clad eyes and smirked. "Don't I get a hug? I come all this way just to see you, and I don't even get a hug? Figures. You never were the kind of guy to give your kid a hug and a pat on the back and a 'good job, son.'"
"How do you know me?" Cyclops asked, uneasy at how familiarly Cable was speaking to him.
"Do I have to spell it out for you?" Cable asked irritably. "Screw it. If you don't know, I've got no reason to tell you."
"You'll tell us," Cyclops retorted, his visor lens flaring.
Cable's eyes glowed beneath his glasses, making the lenses shine almost unnaturally. "Yeah, and who's gonna make me? You?"
"You wouldn't have come here if it wasn't important," Colossus stated somberly. "So quit posturing and tell us."
"Fine, I'll tell you this," Cable conceded. "I'm from the future . . . and you're all in trouble."
End Notes: There you have it. Cable has arrived from the future, but precisely what happened in that future that made him come back to this time? What impact will his revelations about the future have on the X-Men, and what do the actions of Peter Parker and Norman Osborn have to do with that future, if anything at all? Will Spider-Man and the X-Men patch things up in time to join forces against the common threat represented by Norman Osborn's Thunderbolts, and will it happen in time for Cable's future to be changed? For the answers to those questions and others, read on and thanks for sticking around so far!