"Advent of Midnight"
Chapter 11: "Living Where the Sky Ends"
Disclaimer: Spectacular Spider-Man and related characters and properties belong to Marvel Comics, Marvel Entertainment, and Sony. Darkstalkers and Devil May Cry and associated characters and properties belong to Capcom. I make no money whatsoever from this story.
Author's note: Time for the endgame to start, and it'll start with the biggest bang I can think of. You wanna know what that is? Hell on Earth, baby! Spider-Man and his supporting cast and allies will be caught in a nightmarish battle for their lives and the safety of their city – nay, the world! Never fear, though, for out of the ashes of this destruction will come the debut of new heroes, as well as possibly the redemption of old enemies. But what am I wasting time talking for? You want the action, so I'm gonna give it to you!
Dante drew Ebony and Ivory, his twin handguns, and shot like a madman at Spider-Man, who was dodging so fast he'd be invisible to human eyes. Dante's eyes, however, could still track him, even if the wall-crawler's speed had increased greatly under his tutelage. "Is that the best you can do?" Spider-Man taunted.
"You haven't seen my best yet, kid," Dante retorted, continuing to fire . . . only for Spider-Man to suddenly appear in his face, chopping the hand that held Ivory and kicking the hand that held Ebony. Dante twisted and spun around Spider-Man, about to fire when Spider-Man kicked his gun hand again. "Heh, you're getting good at this."
"Watched you long enough," Spider-Man answered. "And I watched a lot of Equilibrium and Ultraviolet."
Dante fired past Spider-Man, anticipating that the noise would shock Spider-Man enough to throw him off his game. Sure enough, it staggered the web-slinger, and Dante took the opportunity to shoot some more at him. Spider-Man dodged the bullets with the kind of alacrity Dante hadn't seen in anyone but a demon or someone with demon blood up to this point. Then again, Spider-Man had a little demon in him, courtesy of Demitri.
Dante switched his guns for his sword Rebellion, spinning around to block Spider-Man's kick. "You like tricking, don't you?"
"What can I say?" Spider-Man asked. "I prefer to have the element of surprise on my side!"
Spider-Man jumped off the blade and back-flipped so that he was looking at Dante while in the air . . . and started shooting web bullets at Dante, who dodged them. Spider-Man landed on the wall and ran on it, shooting a web-line so he could zip across to kick Dante in the face. Dante sidestepped Spider-Man's kick and twisted to kick the web-slinger in the side, knocking him off his web-line. Spider-Man just twisted in mid-fall, landing on his hands and flipping onto his feet to fire more web bullets at Dante.
"What do you call those?" Dante asked. "Impact webbing?"
"Nice name," Spider-Man replied.
"Just be sure to give me credit when you're kicking super-villain ass with it!" Dante joked, before switching Rebellion for Ebony and Ivory and shooting at Spider-Man again. It was at this point that Spider-Man tried something new, namely spinning a giant web-shield to catch the bullets. By the time Dante stopped firing, more than two dozen bullets were embedded in the web Spider-Man had spun.
"Well, it's not quite Captain America's shield, but it'll do nicely," Spider-Man remarked, revealing himself from behind the web.
Dante gaped at Spider-Man before smirking. "Like the Devil Trigger, but won't it bring back memories?"
Spider-Man was now engulfed in a black aura that had bonded with his costume, changing it to a pitch black color with a very pale gold stripe extending to his waistline from the white spider symbol across his chest and razor-scalloped silver bracers on his arms. This was the power of his own Devil Trigger, created from combining the latent vampirism and symbiote remnants in his blood.
"I'll live with those memories," Spider-Man replied. "Now, don't you want these back?" He made his web flick the bullets at Dante, with enough force behind them that it was almost like he had a gun of his own. Dante dodged his own bullets while firing back at Spider-Man, who was dodging as he ran alongside Dante. The wall-crawler lashed out with a web-formed whip, catching Ebony and yanking it out of Dante's grip.
That, however, left him open to Dante shooting at him with Ivory. Spider-Man seemed to vanish from Dante's sight, reappearing above the experienced demon slayer and firing a web at him just Dante shot at him with Ivory. The web caught Ivory by the barrel and Spider-Man yanked on it, pulling Ivory out of Dante's grip. Having stripped Dante of his guns, Spider-Man landed on the ground and swept his leg out to trip an attacking Dante, who just landed on his outstretched hand and spun on it to kick Spider-Man.
Spider-Man blocked Dante's kick with his arm, and flipped him with his other hand. Dante twisted in midair and drew Rebellion again, slashing Spider-Man across the chest with it. The wound quickly healed, and the Devil Trigger suit repaired itself. "Time we got serious now," Dante said. "Now, you ready to party?"
"Oh, yeah . . ." Spider-Man replied, cracking his neck muscles.
Just as they were about to really step up their training session, they were interrupted by Morrigan, who was "dressed" in civilian clothes. "You have a visitor."
"I do?" Dante and Spider-Man asked at the same time.
"Dante does," Morrigan replied. "I think she's an ex-girlfriend."
Dante sighed and sheathed Rebellion. "Damn it."
"What, you have unfinished business?" Spider-Man asked while he powered down his Devil Trigger to revert to the costume Lilith had designed for him.
It was still red and blue, but the design was much different than before. To begin with, the stripes of red on his arms that connected his shoulders and gloves were rather narrow compared to before, curving in at his elbows and linking with the underside of the forearm-length red patches (instead of the top side like before) until ending at the wrist-mounted triggers of his improved web-shooters. On the tops of his forearms, those red patches went as far as his middle and ring fingers while stopping midway on his index and pinky fingers, leaving the rest of his gloves very blue.
The spider symbol on his chest took up more of the vertical stripe extending from his shoulders, but the four legs pointing down simply kept going down until ending at his hips. While web patterns still framed the spider symbol and covered his shoulders and mask, they stopped about halfway down the torso stripe, which now ended in an arrow that Peter couldn't help but think was aimed for his junk. His belt was still there, in a manner of speaking, but it was incomplete and now just framed the arrow-like end of his torso stripe.
His boots had been redesigned, too, but only slightly in comparison to the rest of his costume. His mask had also suffered very little altering in comparison to the rest of the suit, although the black frames of his lenses were much narrower and the lenses themselves were wider and larger than before. The opaque coloring was still the same, if only slightly more silvery than before. He had somewhat mixed feelings about the new suit, but Lilith had tried her hardest and seemed to really want to please him (in ways Peter shuddered to think about), so he figured he owed it to her to wear it.
"You could say that," Dante replied as he went into the den to find a beautiful blonde woman in a black corset and leather pants lounging on the couch waiting for him. "Hey, Trish."
"Hey, Dante," Trish greeted him.
In a space Miles Warren had managed to borrow for the purpose of seeing his test subjects in action, said test subjects were testing out the extent of their newfound powers. While all of them had received spider-based powers, they did vary somewhat from subject to subject.
Mattie Franklin grew four spiderlike limbs out of her back that could fortunately be retracted, which Warren theorized could be used as extra hands or for boosted climbing ability. Her wall-crawling ability, if Warren was not mistaken, resembled psychic phenomena of a sort, as though she were willing herself to adhere to whatever surface she touched. With a little more careful study, he might very well crack the mystery behind Spider-Man's powers.
The costume he'd given her was ultrathin latex resembling Spider-Man's costume, only with the red parts colored bluish-silver and missing the web patterns, plus a thin false braid sticking out of the back of the mask. In all likelihood, it would enable her to exercise the full extent of her powers while keeping her somewhat protected from the elements.
Anya Corazon had developed an armored carapace that Warren theorized was some manner of internally grown symbiote that could provide extra defensive ability. Additionally, she seemed to be even more flexible and dexterous than Spider-Man himself. Her costume was an ultrathin black latex full-body suit with a white spider symbol covering most of her torso, the thorax's diamond-shaped end passing over her groin like a leotard.
The costume was also equipped with built-in grappling devices that ended in spider-shaped grips resting on the backs of her hands like armor. A black half-mask, cut to expose her auburn ponytailed hair and lower jaw, concealed most of her face with orange goggle-lenses shielding her eyes.
Brian Kornfeld had developed talons on his fingertips and toes, as well as spinnerets for internal web generation and venomous fangs to paralyze the enemy with. He also seemed to have explicitly enhanced senses, specifically sight, hearing, and touch, which boosted his already phenomenal reaction time. In terms of physical prowess, he was on par with the web-slinger himself.
His costume was a full-body black suit with connecting red spider symbols on the front and back. When the uppermost outer legs connected at the shoulders, they extended down his arms and then expanded into red web patterns over the forearms and hands. When the lower inner legs connected at the hips, they extended down his outer legs and expanded into red web patterns over the calves and feet. His mask was almost entirely black, but with a red spider symbol over the face with the legs arranged to vaguely resemble Spider-Man's lenses.
Harry Osborn was fairly close to Spider-Man in terms of the nature of his abilities, with one important exception – he had spinnerets that enabled him to internally generate webbing, similar to Brian. His costume was a dark green-and-black one-piece affair with the sides, gloves, and pants being black and the sleeves, chest, mask, and boots being green. The mask also had red eyepieces styled similarly to Spider-Man's and a black spider symbol spread across the front of his costume.
Benjamin Reilly's costume was primarily a very vivid red with the insides of his arms and his outer flanks, from his underarms down to his feet, colored midnight blue with strategically placed red notches breaking up what would have otherwise been endless deep cobalt. Identical dark blue spider symbols covered his chest and back, with the first three legs connecting to each other by stretching over and under his shoulders. The eyes of his mask were colored a reflective indigo-black that shone in bright light both to provide the wearer with enhanced night vision and to help obscure his identity, with silver triggers mounted on his inner wrists leading to the web-shooters just underneath the outer layers of his gloves.
Warren found him to be the most interesting case of his five guinea pigs, as his abilities were completely identical to Spider-Man's, and never mind his costume colors almost matching the web-slinger's. If Warren didn't know better, he'd swear Reilly's DNA reacted the same way to the genetically modified spiders as the original's had. He chuckled to himself slightly as he watched them, having done a comparison between Reilly's DNA and the sample he'd surreptitiously gained from the scene of one of Spider-Man's more brutal fights.
Their Y chromosomes were identical, as though they had the same father. That didn't make sense, as Reilly was supposed to be Peter Parker's cousin, not his brother, not unless . . . Oh, this was going to be worth investigating.
It quite amused Warren that he knew the truth behind Spider-Man's mask, even when his boss didn't. It was the one secret he kept from Norman Osborn, as other than the secret work he did for the man, it was how he would remain valuable in Osborn's eyes. Osborn couldn't very well kill him off if Warren knew something he, for all his supreme arrogance and overconfidence, didn't.
With a slight smirk, Warren turned to his aide in this endeavor, a man who went by the alias of Tony Masters. Masters was a man with a unique talent, the ability to absorb the sight of another's movements into his own muscle memory and then replicate said movements as skillfully as his own physical abilities allowed. Masters had used this talent to give himself frightful mastery of most martial arts, acrobatics, gymnastics, and athletics he cared to watch on par with the best in those fields.
Masters had even managed to do the same with certain "street-level" heroes who relied most often on their physical talents to see them through a fight, such as Spider-Man. That was where he entered the story here, as Warren had commissioned his help to teach his personal "Web Corps" the original web-slinger's best tricks.
"The telemetry suits were quite above and beyond my expectations," Warren said to Masters.
"Yeah," Masters replied. "You gave me the retainer for them, and I know not to give anything but the best. Those kids are gonna wipe the floor with ol' Web-Head."
Warren scowled a little. "We'll get there when it's time. I find Reilly the most interesting, though. Out of them all, he matches Spider-Man almost exactly, as though they were somehow related."
"Probably the guy's brother," Masters remarked apathetically. "Not like it matters."
"Oh, but it does matter," Warren insisted. "Spider-Man's identity would be worth a lot to certain interested parties."
"Not to me," Masters replied brusquely. "I'm just trying to make a living. I could care less who the wall-crawler is. I'll wait till he's dead to find out. Besides, isn't there some angle you're working that you don't exactly want your boss to know about, whoever the guy is?"
"Nothing you need to be concerned about for the moment," Warren stated simply. "Your payment is taken care of, and you'll find that you've been more than adequately compensated for your help here."
"Sure," Masters said. "Not my problem if this whole thing blows up in your face, Doc. Just consider me a middleman." He sauntered out, leaving Warren alone with his "Web Corps."
Truth be told, Masters' remarks had hit a sore spot. With Morbius and the first Spider-Man clone he'd created running loose, the deal he had with Norman Osborn had become rather more tenuous than he'd like. Both failed experiments had the potential to expose what he'd been doing for Osborn behind the Connors' backs, not only costing him his job at ESU but also costing him his autonomy, such as it was. Fortunately, he knew never to put all his eggs in one basket.
Elsewhere in the city, Gwen had come over to Mary Jane's house at the redhead's behest. "Hey," Gwen greeted when she saw Mary Jane. "Heard from Peter yet?"
"No," Mary Jane admitted glumly. "He's just completely dropped off the grid, and there's only so long I can keep Aunt Anna from calling the police to go look for him."
"Not to mention there's only so much I can do to assure my dad that Peter's not somewhere getting himself killed trying to find his aunt," Gwen added.
"Except he probably is, isn't he?" MJ surmised. "Or worse . . ."
"What do you mean, worse?" Gwen asked.
"You remember when he was acting so cold when his aunt was in the hospital?" MJ asked. "And when we found out who he was?"
Gwen remembered all right. The cold anger in Peter's eyes had frightened her. It had frightened her even more when she'd been trapped in Venom's web with Harry, Liz, MJ, and Ben, and a black-suited Spider-Man had come to save them. The fury in his body language, in his movements, as he fought Venom and his accomplice had chilled her even more, especially when she realized . . . it was Peter under that mask.
"I'm scared for him, Gwen," MJ admitted. "He's been in a bad place lately, ever since what happened to his aunt. I'm scared he's out there doing something horrible to himself to try to get her back."
"You mean . . ."
"He has the suit again, the one that turned Eddie Brock into that monster. Who knows what it could be doing to him right now?"
"And what about Lilith?" Gwen asked.
"I don't trust her," Mary Jane confessed. "Something about her just feels wrong to me, and I'm pretty sure she wants something from him. Something he can't give without . . . without not being the guy we know –" and love, she silently inserted "– anymore."
"Where do you think he is?" Gwen inquired.
"I don't know," Mary Jane replied. "If I knew where Lilith was, I could go over there and try to wring some answers out of her neck."
"Peter's a lot stronger than we give him credit for," Gwen confessed. "I always used to think he was so fragile, especially since his uncle died, like at any second he could fall apart completely . . . but he hasn't. He keeps going, no matter how much he suffers for it, so long as he can keep protecting people, so long as the people he cares about are still ok . . . he can keep going."
"You love him a lot, don't you?" MJ remarked.
"Yes . . ." Gwen admitted. She smiled ruefully at Mary Jane. "You love him, too, don't you?"
"He's my friend," Mary Jane averred. "And I've got someone else, who just happens to have a fetish for ruby shades."
"From what you've told me about him, he and Peter would get along well if they knew each other. And maybe that's why you're going out with him . . . because you're convinced you're not the one Peter really wants."
"Even if I did want him that way," MJ admitted, placing a hand on Gwen's shoulder, "I wouldn't do that to you. You're too important to me, Gwen."
Gwen hugged Mary Jane. "Thanks."
Back in Aensland Manor, Peter Parker had removed the top half of his Spider-Man costume and was patiently submitting to Lilith's tattoo artistry. These weren't ordinary tattoos, but runes of protection she was etching onto his skin, special magic designed to keep the curse of his latent vampirism from taking over completely. If that happened, he would be another thrall of Demitri, just like the rest of the demon lord's servants.
The pain wasn't important. Peter could take pain; he'd been taking pain ever since committing himself to his life as Spider-Man. Despite that, the runes reminded him of the one thing he'd lost he'd hoped to all Heaven he never would: Aunt May. That was what had been sustaining him all this time, cold rage over Demitri claiming Aunt May as one of his numerous vampiric concubines. The worst part was that his former friend and now worst enemy had helped Demitri to do it, had led him to everyone in Peter's life that Peter cared about, and made them all suffer to make him suffer, to teach him what it was like "to be alone."
"Ooh, you're tense," Lilith remarked, finishing the runes. "Would you like me to give you a massage?"
"No," Peter replied.
"Something else?" Lilith asked. "Like maybe a little . . . ?" She slid her hand down his well-muscled yet lean torso as she spoke, only for Peter to grab her hand and stop it from roaming further.
"Not in the mood for games right now, Lil," Peter hissed warningly.
"Too bad I am," Lilith purred. "And you're really sexy when you're mad. Makes me wanna pounce on you and . . ."
"Not in the mood," Peter whispered dangerously.
Lilith moved around so that she was sitting in Peter's lap, straddling him. "Tell your cute sister Lilith about it," she prompted in a sexy-cutesy voice.
"My aunt is in Demitri's clutches," Peter whispered ruefully. "He's probably doing all manner of depraved things to her right now, things I'd rather not think about, and I haven't been able to stop him . . . I haven't been able to save her. What good am I, if I can't even save the one person who's always been there for me?"
Lilith pulled Peter's head against her chest and stroked his hair. "You're plenty of good. And we're going to get your aunt back, and then we can all be one big happy family."
Peter pulled his head back from Lilith's chest. "Wait, what the hell are you talking about?"
"Simple," Lilith replied cheerily. "Morrigan is the yummy mommy, Dante is the dashing daddy, and you and I are big brother Spidey and his cute little sister Lilith!"
"Gonna be a real twisted family relationship, way you're on me right now," Peter remarked incredulously.
"Like you don't like it," Lilith retorted, shifting slightly on Peter's lap, seemingly for a more comfortable perch. Peter knew better, though, as he felt certain parts of his anatomy respond in ways they shouldn't, given that he was seeing Gwen now, for certain qualifiers of "seeing."
"Do you mind?" Peter asked. "I'm an attached man, now, remember?"
"Bring her over," Lilith suggested impishly. "We can all play together."
Peter did his best to keep himself under control, suppressing the ancient instincts that demanded he throw Lilith on the floor and seal the claim she wanted to make on him. "I wonder how Dante and his ex-girlfriend are doing," he remarked, changing the subject quickly.
Back in the den, Dante was lounging on another chair across from Trish, who was still on the sofa. "So what's the deal with you and Morrigan?" Trish asked skeptically. "Don't tell me you're following in Vergil's footsteps and embracing your inner demon."
"Little different," Dante replied. "There's a war in Hell right now, and I'm simply backing the least evil side."
"And you call Belial's daughter the least evil side?" Trish asked warily, with a trace of bemused "you expect me to believe that?"
"Yeah," Dante answered nonchalantly.
"And you wouldn't just be saying that because she's a wildcat in the sack?" Trish inquired, arching a slender golden eyebrow.
Dante cocked one silvery eyebrow, smirking impishly at his longtime partner. "What's the matter, babe? Are you jealous? You could have spoken up."
Trish chuckled. "You overestimate yourself, Dante, as always."
Dante snickered. "Look at you, trying to act like you don't care. It's kinda cute."
"What about the kid in the Spider-Man costume?" Trish asked, changing the subject. "Is he your protégé now? Your new Nero?"
"Funny how I pick 'em," Dante mused. "Kids with hella attitude, but they can back it up once I get 'em worked up enough. That and they're both lovesick idiots who can't spit it out."
Trish laughed a little. "Sounds like they'd get along well. Lady misses you, you know."
"She does?" Dante asked, surprise written all over his face. "Wouldn't have figured that one."
"Oh, you'd be surprised what we talk about when you aren't around," Trish replied, smirking at Dante. "But I didn't just come here to talk about old times."
Of course she hadn't, Dante found himself thinking. "Let me guess, the bastards are creeping up on Earth, too."
"In a nutshell," Trish confirmed with aplomb. "Good news is I met a guy. His head was on fire, and it didn't bother him one bit."
"Well, that's just nuts," Dante remarked.
"Not so nuts," Morrigan interjected, cutting the levity short. "Sounds like the Ghost Rider, our answer to the mortals' boogeyman: a fallen angel bound to a clan of demon slayers, using the flames of the Fire Hell to punish the wicked."
"Ghost Rider, huh?" Dante repeated. "Sounds like he's got a sick ride, if he's gonna be going by 'Ghost Rider.'"
"It was a flaming motorcycle with headlights set in a giant skull," Trish filled in. "Sick enough for you, Dante?"
Dante whistled. "Oh, yeah. I always wanted to see for myself if that guy was real. Sounds like he is."
Elsewhere in the city, a heterochromatic-eyed woman (one eye blue, the other red) with short dark hair was in the middle of a fight with none other than Michael Morbius. The woman, the demon slayer called Lady, drew her large rifle, complete with a bayonet attachment on the underside of the barrel, and fired at the artificial vampire. Said artificial vampire dodged so fast he seemed to blur right into invisibility, although he wouldn't have such an easy time of it . . . because the bullets were tracker rounds.
"Who are you?" Morbius asked.
"Who needs to know?" Lady asked back as she swung the rifle at Morbius, who caught the bayonet with his bare hand and used it to pull her toward him. Lady pulled the rifle out of his hand, back-flipped agilely, and resumed shooting at him as soon as she could point the rifle at him. Morbius was still managing to evade her tracker rounds, but he couldn't do so forever . . . so he tried something else.
He started catching the tracker rounds!
"Is this a private party?" a voice hissed.
Morbius snarled. "Spider-Man!"
"Yeah, you could say that," the voice hissed, crawling out of the shadows to reveal a figure in quasi-organic body armor designed to resemble Spider-Man painted completely black.
"Spider-Man?" Lady asked, somewhat bemused by his timing. "So, you went back to black or something?"
The dark Spider-Man grabbed Morbius and sped up the side of the nearest building while carrying him, only to jump off at the top and body-slam him into the ground with enough force to crack the street. "Who are you?" Morbius asked. "You're not him!"
"I am . . . I am . . . and when I'm done with you, I'm coming for that imposter," the dark Spider-Man snarled. He flipped so that he was doing a handstand on Morbius's chest and started spinning Morbius around while they were both still on the ground, grinding the artificial vampire against the street so hard Morbius started to bleed.
Fed up, Morbius grabbed the dark Spider-Man by his wrists and threw him off him, succeeding in that and ripping his own skin off, as the dark Spider-Man had been clinging pretty hard. It healed quickly, though, the one thing Morbius supposed he could thank Warren for. The dark Spider-Man just rebounded off the building and swung at Morbius with his arm having suddenly morphed into a giant organic sword blade.
Well, this is just great, Lady thought. A vampire and a psycho shape-shifter who thinks he's Spider-Man. She switched out her rifle for a pair of large handguns and started shooting at both of them. This merely prompted the shape-shifter Spider-Man to morph his blade arm into a shield to block the bullets, while Morbius dodged them instead.
The shape-shifter Spider-Man then changed his shield arm back into its blade form and charged her, obviously intending to take her head off with it. Not intending to go headless, Lady switched back to the large rifle with the bayonet attachment and plunged it right into the shape-shifter Spider-Man's stomach. The aforementioned Spider-Man doppelganger just swung his blade arm at Lady, prompting her to jump back, ripping the bayonet out of his chest in the process.
"Just what the hell kind of demon are you?" she asked.
"Not a demon, not a demon, not a demon," the shape-shifter Spider-Man replied frantically, even as he healed from the wound Lady had dealt him.
"Oh?" the demon slayer asked. "Then what are you? You're obviously not human."
"He's another one of Warren's freaks," Morbius snapped out his explanation. "Just like me. Warren ruined us both."
"Who's Warren?" Lady asked.
"A scientist who revels in twisting life around to suit his own sick ends," Morbius growled. "He made me like this. And this sad excuse for a Spider-Man is obviously his work, too."
"I'm the real Spider-Man!" the shape-shifter Spider-Man snarled, lunging at Morbius in retaliation for the perceived insult. Morbius caught the Spider-Man doppelganger's blade arm and used it to throw him into the wall.
"No, you aren't," Morbius growled. "You're a hollow imitation of life, just like me."
"SHUT UP!" the shape-shifter Spider-Man screamed. "I'M REAL! I'M REAL! I'M REAL!" With that outraged and pained cry, a mass of bladed tentacles ripped out of his body and began wildly assaulting Morbius and Lady. Morbius dodged, grabbing the demon slayer and carrying her away from the maddened doppelganger.
"So?" she asked. "Why did you do that?"
"Because you're not the one I have a quarrel with," Morbius replied. "Now, you were saying something about demons. I've encountered my share recently."
"City's crazier than I thought," Lady muttered. "Science experiments creating real demons? What the hell is that?"
Morbius looked up at the sky, and what he saw almost made him into a praying man. "The sky . . . it's bleeding."
Lady looked up, seeing the unnatural discoloration of the sky with her own eyes. "Damn. Why do I get the feeling this night's going to get worse?"
Meanwhile, a silver-blond young man wearing a blue jean coat over a red hoodie and black pants with his right arm in a sling looked up at the bleeding sky, swearing under his breath. Just then, he felt a droplet land on his head . . . and it wasn't rain. The air smelled too metallic for that, metallic like . . .
"Blood?" the young man muttered.
"The damned will now roam these streets, young one," a deep, inhuman growl of a voice spoke, and the young man turned to see a flame-skulled biker straddling a motorcycle that was also on fire. "Be on your guard, descendant of Sparda."
"How do you know about that?" the young man, none other than Nero, bearer of the Devil Bringer, asked.
"How do you think?" the Ghost Rider asked, a rhetorical question at that. "The progenitor of your bloodline is most infamous among the denizens of hell."
"Are you here to fight or something?" Nero asked. "Not that I'd be surprised; you're not the first one to want to pick a fight with me."
"No," the Ghost Rider replied. "My fight does not lie with you, Nero. It lies with the one that has caused this invasion, this unholy merger of worlds." He rode away on his flaming motorcycle, not bothering to elaborate further. Nero knew enough, though, and that just made his visit to this city much more complicated than it'd seemed to him at first.
"Damn it," Nero muttered.
Inside the Nightstalkers' safehouse, Hannibal King looked out into the sky and saw it raining blood. "Is that supposed to happen on an evening like this?" he asked, his sarcastic tone belying the fear in his eyes.
"No," Rachel Hellsing replied. "Someone's done something."
"I'll say," Frank Drake agreed. "It doesn't just rain blood without some jumped-up demon behind it."
"Speaking of jumped-up demons . . ." Edith Murray loaded her pistols, and smiled grimly. "You'd better get ready, pretty boy."
"I could say that for all of us," Blade remarked. "It'll turn out the same, though; some jumped-up suckhead or hellspawn comes out, thinking they're gonna have an easy run of this place, and then we kick their sorry ass back to hell after showing them it ain't that easy."
King chuckled. "Nice one, Blade. I was almost scared you'd forgotten how to make a funny."
"Wasn't being funny," Blade answered, throwing his trench coat on before sheathing his longsword. "Now, why don't we show whoever comes out looking for trouble who's the sheriff around these parts?"
At Aensland Manor, Spider-Man, Morrigan, Lilith, Dante, and Trish looked at the blood raining down from the sky. "Why do I get the feeling we're about to step in it?" Spider-Man asked.
"Because we have," Trish replied simply.
A crack of infernal lightning later, a man in purple-caped dark teal armor strode toward the five of them, a large nodachi in his hand. "Hello, Dante," the man greeted. "Have a hug for your big brother?"
"Vergil," Dante spat, drawing Rebellion.
"Bad dude?" Spider-Man asked.
"Badder than you know, kid," Dante replied grimly.
"You get one chance," Vergil stated coldly. "Step aside and live, or fight me and die."
"Blah, blah, blah," Spider-Man cut in. "Listen to the super-villain monologue about how he's gonna conquer everything! At least Doc Ock knows how to put on a show!"
Dante, Trish, Morrigan, and Lilith all looked at Spider-Man as though he'd grown two heads or six arms. To their surprise, Vergil laughed. "You're an impudent one," the armored Nero Angelo commented. "Demitri chose well when he marked you."
Spider-Man gritted his teeth beneath his mask. "That reminds me . . . I owe him a rematch. I guess I could use some practice first."
Nero Angelo smirked beneath his mask. "Then take my hand . . . and we'll dance on a field of corpses."
End Notes: There you have it, the eleventh chapter of "Advent of Midnight" is complete, and the endgame has begun! The war in Hell has spilled out into the human domain and once things get rocking, they'll get rocking. The paths of the Nightstalkers, the Ghost Rider, Spider-Man, and the Devil May Cry gang will collide, but will they untangle before the invading demons have their way with the human world? And will Spider-Man ever get his Aunt May back? For the answers to those questions and others, you'll have to come back for the next chapter! See you next time!