I own nothing!
Chapter 12
Alternative Ending -- 1
With a growl, Verakka burst through the rubble. He winced as a piercing agony spread through his body, and he looked down to see his left arm was gone. Clutching the stump and leaving his metal bar and tree branch behind, he slowly limped over to Clover's giant body. "Well, friend..." he said with a sigh, leaning against the giant brute. "...I guess we both got what we wanted. At least, at first..." he looked down for a moment. "I wanted you dead...and you wanted an escape from all of that pain." he looked up at the beast as he spoke. He smiled half-heartedly. "But then, I wanted more than anything to go down with you, if I was going to go down at all."
Surveying the destruction that was Manhattan, he saw that hardly any buildings had been left standing. He could see all the way to the remains of his apartment, more than seven miles away. He tapped his foot slowly on the ground, as if waiting for someone. When nobody came, he slowly pushed off of Clover's corpse and walked to the wreckage from which he had emerged. "If I must die..." he whispered, limping to the pile of rubble that had encased him just moments before. He sifted through the bits of rock and concrete until his hand found his metal bar. He used it to pry away the bigger pieces of wreckage and revealed his parasite, dead and in a pool of its own venom. A small tear went down his cheek and hit the body's back. "...then I will die with the ones who saw me through so much." he finished. And with that, he turned, closed his eyes and, with a smile, fell backwards into the pool of poisonous blood.