Hello, I'm here and ready to assist with the writing!
...
Hello? Hmm, how rude of them to accept my application and not even be here to welcome me. Well, may as well make myself comfortable. WOW! LOOK AT THAT THRONE! (Jumps onto the Chair) Oh, that's comfy. Oooo, so many buttons! Which one to push first. Hmmm. ALL OF THEM! (Presses every button they can get their hands on. Chaos spreads throughout the studio as explosions, floods, magma eruptions, male and female models pop out of nowhere, different species of birds appear as well.)
Author: ACK! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE YOU IMBECILE! DEADPOOL?! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE?!
Deadpool: Well you accepted my application to be in your story, so here I am!
Author: YOU IDIOT! THIS IS STUDIO 616! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE IN STUDIO 919!
Deadpool: Ohhh. Well, gotta go! See ya!
(Starts skipping through the devestation and leaves)
Author: CREATIVITY! GET TO THE MASTER DELETE BUTTON! I AM GOING TO END YOU DEADPOOL!
Creativity: WOOAH, WHAT HAPPENED IN HERE?! ARE THOSE MODELS?!
Author: THAT'S WHAT YOU'RE FOCUSING ON?! WE NEED TO STOP THIS MADNESS!
Creativity: FINE! I'M GOING!
(Author is submerged in a see of birds)
Author: NOOOOOO!
We are experiencing technical difficulties and will address the readership at the end of this chapter when this matter is resolved.
Ana was unbelievably hungry. She had been searching all day for food but had come up empty handed. She wandered down a street, resisting the urge to kick at the shards of concrete that littered the street in frustration since she was still in her night clothes. That meant no shoes or socks. It was getting dark. She needed shelter.
She ducked into a nearby building and found mess of vines. She crawled inside a huddled into a ball before falling into a fitful sleep.
Ethan knew that getting these kids ready to survive was going to be difficult, but all things considered it was going pretty well. In the morning, he had them run laps around the inside of the building for an hour and thirty minutes before he showed them how to identify places to look for caches of supplies. From there, he had them do pushups, pull ups and situps. They complained of course, but he would then remind them that they needed to do this to survive. Then he gave them examples of when all of this would be needed. some of these examples included outrunning the rippers, hanging off buildings and instances where they would need to fight. All things considered, it was going well. As luck would have it, they also ended up getting a rain storm, allowing them to completely refill their water bottles. Once they were able to repeat back to him exactly how best to navigate an unfamiliar area as well as find supply caches (He also taught them what to put back into a supply cache) without pause, he then began to give them physical training for navigation.
Never the less, he had one recurring question. This time it was while he was preparing their dinner.
"When can we leave the shelter?"
He groaned inwardly and recited in monotone:
"When I know you can handle yourselves. You'll be staying up here for at least two more weeks. Any time after that depends on you."
"How does it depend on us?"
"It depends on how hard you work to be ready."
He hadn't told them that last part. In truth, he wanted to them to get the basics down so he could leave them in the hands of another Runner to teach them the finer points. He intended to spend some time shadowing them after that just to ensure everything was fine. He had actually grown quite fond of the two kids. Plus, they had really come a long way in the short time he had been looking after them. He had started them doing some manual labour around the shelter such as collecting wood for their day fire and other tasks as a way to gauge their strength and endurance.
He had gone back to check on the crowd he had discovered the other day and thus far things seemed to be pretty normal. He could see that the group was becoming more spread out and that it was also thinning out. Either that meant that people were leaving or dying. He felt kinda bad that he wasn't doing anything to help them, but fact of the matter was that if he left a can of beans down there, they would fight over it like animals. There simply wasn't enough to go around and his priority was himself and the siblings first.
He snapped back to reality when he saw that today's special: canned beans, mixed roots and three day old coyote (A new one) was ready. He divided out everyone's portions and dug in. The kids still weren't used to the food yet, but they had accepted that this was about as good as they were going to get out here. He looked out at the sun. It was dipping low. He doused the fire with a sack of dirt and made sure that the kids were safely tucked away and warm before climbing onto a web overhang he had constructed to sleep in while allowing the symbiote to take watch.
Meanwhile, far away and deep underground, a council of men and women met once again. They all seemed very apprehensive and it showed. The first person spoke.
"We all know why we're here so lets not argue about who's fault it is. All that matters is how we procede from here on out."
Immediately a debate began.
"We need to push for project Antivenom to be completed! If the species is really on the brink of evolving, then we need to exterminate them before they render all our hard work pointless!"
"That plan's stupidity is matched only by your own! If they are on the brink of evolving, then we should be focusing on developing the Gorgon program further to buy us time! If they do evolve then it is only a matter of time before we are found and attacked! We need suitable defence upgrades immediately!"
The whole mess continued on for an obscene amount of time before a woman stood up and knocked on the table for attention.
"If you are all done squabbling like children, then I might get on with some new intelligence from the invasion."
She tapped on a tablet computer she held in the crook of her arm a few times and a massive screen lit up behind them that displayed several images from the battle. They were all relatively poor quality (Seriously, why are all informing images from important events an eyesore to look at).
"I don't expect any of you to see what I see, so I'll point it out."
She tapped on one of the images and drew a circle around it. There were several symbiotes with one humanoid one slashing them into fine pieces. Another showed a different one punching and pummeling one. They were all rather subtle so it was obvious they would have missed it. Then the woman brought up a window with a video. This one had actual fight footage of a black symbiote with a grey spider symbol gutting its way through several of it's brethren, completely ignoring other humans around it.
"What are you trying to tell us Miss..."
"I am doctor Markus of symbiote biological studies and I am saying that we are seeing one of two things. Either the symbiotes in these images and this video were attacking their own, or that the hosts of these symbiotes wrestled control from them and used their symbiotes to attack the invading forces. Either way, it presents us with a third and more promising course of action."
"And what would that be Dr. Markus?"
"Fight fire with fire. If I can obtain one or both of those symbiotes I could use them to create our own anti-symbiotes that we use to destroy the invaders."
Several of the people began muttering under their breath while others chuckled.
"Why would we do that Dr. Markus?"
"Because, sir, as these images and video demonstrate, these two individuals killed more symbiotes than all our Gorgon soldiers combined! Think of it!"
"And what makes you so sure that you can create these 'anti-symbiotes' Doctor?"
Dr. Markus smiled a little.
"If there is one thing I understand, it's symbiote biology."
Ana was walking aimlessy down another street that looked like every other goddamn street she had been wandering for the last day and a half. Her feet were ragged and she felt like one misstep would leave her unable to walk. Not that it was easy now. She had been lucky and chanced upon a sack of food, probably stashed their by a survivor and had was now lugging it along with her. Problem was that the only food in it was several strips of some overly salted meat. She ate it anyway, but it left her extremely parched. The rainstorm the other day had helped, but she was starting to feel hopeless. Her nightware had several holes in it and reeked to high heavens. But most of all, she felt like the only person alive. She clearly wasn't since there was that sack of food she had 'borrowed' but she had yet to come across anyone. All the same however, she couldn't shake the suspicion that she was being watched. It started a few hours ago. She kept looking over her shoulder, feeling like there were several pairs of eyes on her, but nothing was there. She kept going.
She saw a large building that had what looked like old glass doors. She walked carefully, avoiding broken glass as she went and stepped into the building. She appeared to be standing in a large lobby connected to a long hallway. There were several large rooms connected to them. She walked through quickly then did a double take and fought back the urge to whoop. She was standing in front of an old clothing store!
She rushed inside and grabbed a black tank top, blue hoody and black sweatpants with blue lines running down the side. She also grabbed two pairs of blue socks. She kept explore what she deduced to be an old mall and found a shoe shop. She grabbed a pair of black and blue runners and threw them on. Feeling much better and much warmer, she jogged outside and decided to keep going the way she was going before.
Ana had a faster pace now that she had proper footwear. She still needed to solve one important problem. Water. She was unbelievably thirsty but there wasn't any sign of fresh water anywhere! She was starting to feel tired, so she ducked into a building to rest for a few minutes.
Unbeknownst to her, several shapes started to converge on the structure. Several of them held knives or bludgeons.
Ana had only been resting for a few moments when she saw a few people climb in where she had come from. She stood up, excited and relieved to have found actual people!
"Hello! Finally, someone else! I've been so lonely and..."
She stopped when one of them bellowed at her and charged, knife raised. Realizing that these were not people to talk to, she began running for another opening, suddenly terrified. She ran as fast as she could, staying just barely ahead of the screeching maniacs behind her. But she was tired. The only thing keeping her running was the adrenaline pumping through her veins. She kept running as hard as she could until she tripped on a crack in the ground below her and she tumbled over to a stop. She got up and tried to keep running when she felt herself being tackled to the ground. She swung her elbow back and felt it make contact, allowing her to squirm free and pull herself to her feet. Then one of the other lunatics swung their knife at her and cut a gash on her arm. She screamed in pain and grabbed it, then she felt another knife enter her shoulder. She screamed again and toppled to the ground. She looked up and saw these beasts of people closing in. Then one of them screamed as a fist collided with it's face. She felt herself falling unconscious as she saw someone begin to fight with the man-beasts.
Ethan watched as Kyle and Cathy were in the middle of their morning exercises. He had been doing pushups with them for a stretch to show them just how far they had to go to be ready to survive on their own. Even without the symbiote he still could do well over a hundred pushups before he collapsed from exhaustion. He had them using a metal bar nearby for pullups. Since they were taking a five minute break before switching to the next exercise, he took the time to observe the terrain below him. He had gotten into a habit of that recently. He had seen several Rippers moving through the area over the past few days. It didn't bode well that they seemed to be gathering for something. He waited for a while until the siblings had finished their exercises before giving them a bottle of water.
"How long of a drink do you take?"
"Two seconds." They answered in unison.
Satisfied, he waited until they were done and stashed away the water in a hidden web sack. He had caught them trying to take extra water a couple of days ago and he wasn't about to trust them with it again for some time. He kept the leftover food from their meals open for them, but since it was heavily salted meat, they usually waited until their next water break to eat it. He was impressed with how much they had dedicated themselves to their training. Kyle could do twenty five pushups now before he needed a break and Cathy could do twenty. He felt proud of them.
He looked up and saw the sun was approaching it's highest point. Time for patrol. He felt the symbiote form into his costume as he leapt into the air and started to swing.
He had been traveling for about five minutes ( Almost his whole route. He still didn't like leaving Kyle and Cathy alone for too long) when he heard a scream from the streets. He landed on a rooftop and looked down to see a girl holding her arm, which had blood running through her fingers. There were several Rippers closing in on her, one of which just stabbed her in the shoulder with a knife, eliciting another scream of pain.
"Oh, you've gotta be kidding me!"
He jumped off the rooftop and had the symbiote transform back into his usual outfit while he rushed forward and introduced the closest Ripper to his fist. The Ripper spun back, snarling gutterally as he kicked the next one in the shoulder blades, creating a loud cracking noise. He then caught the wrist of the next Ripper, who had attempted to knife him, and twisted his arm over his shoulder before dislocating it with his shoulder. He then spun and threw the knife into the shoulder of the furthest Ripper. By this point, the Rippers decided that this prey wasn't worth it and ran away with their tails between their legs. He turned to the girl and swore when he saw the amount of blood coming from her shoulder. He had the symbiote cover his arm and used webbing to bind it as tight as he could before doing the same to her arm. From there he went full costume and swung back to the shelter. Needless to say, Kyle and Cathy were shocked to find he had brought a guest. He set her down on the ground and went to one of the supply caches he had grabbed the previous day. He was lucky enough to find a first aid kit inside. He carefully removed the web bandage from her shoulder and applied an antibiotic to the wound before stitching it closed and wrapping it in gauze for good measure. He repeated the process on her arm and grabbed a bedroll he had found in one of the other caches and set her up to rest. Kyle and Cathy just watched. They hadn't used the bedroll since it wouldn't have been fair if one person got to use it and everyone else didn't.
Ethan turned to them and rubbed the back of his neck.
"I'm not gonna drill you guys today since you'll be too distracted by our 'guest'. Just take a day to relax. But only for today. Understood?"
They both nodded and went to rest against a wall. Ethan walked over to a section of rock he found to be very comfortable, for rock that is, and sat down to collect his thoughts.
"Something isn't right. We haven't seen any Overlords since the invasion. I would have thought there would still be at least one or two skulking around. Do you have any thoughts?"
Ethan pondered this for a few moments before responding mentally, so as to avoid strange looks from the siblings.
"Look, I don't really care right now. I just care about making sure they have a chance to survive. They deserve that much."
"I've been meaning to ask, why did you bring them here? Why not leave them with the survivors?"
"I saw my older past reflected in their recent past."
"I know you lost your parents too. There's something else here. Something you're keeping from me."
"I'll tell you when I'm ready. For now, I just want to keep them safe."
Author: Oh, thank god that's over. This is why I don't write for Deadpool. He never cleans up after himself when he leaves the studio.
Creativity: Yeah... By the way, why were all those models there?
Author: I ordered the delux when I set up shop here. I didn't really look at the feature list.
Creativity: Feature list?
Author: All the buttons you dunce.
Creativity: Wait, you said you mail ordered this chair? Where do I get one?!
Author: NO! I WILL NOT GIVE THAT INFORMATION UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!
Creativity: Alright, jeez! Psycho much?
Author: Just get back on the wheel, I have to address the readers since I didn't get to at the beginning.
(Ahem) YAY! NEW CHAPTER RECORD! SOMEONE ORDER THE 11 DECKER CAKE! Seriously, this feels like a big deal to me. I wrote a lot of chapters in advance before college, this being one of them, and I feel so alive! I think this is my favourite story to date, of my own creation to be precise.
So, on behalf of me, myself and I, I want to say just two words.
THANK YOU!
