Chapter 29, baby! Who else is excited?! I'm excited! So, some time in the future I'm going to be away for roughly a week. I may not be able to upload in that time, but I will if I can! I've been writing a lot of chapters in advance, this one included, and I might have finished the story by the time I'm gone. Another thing I want to make clear is that I will be taking roughly a month's break when th story is done before I start working on and uploading another. Just some time to let my brain accumulate new ideas. Believe it or not, writing this stuff can be hard. I've heard of writers for books and news articles spending a whole day fixated on one sentence!
Well, enough jibber jabber.! Here's chapter 29!
Ethan couldn't believe how strong Sturm was! He hadn't been this resilient or as vicious when they ran into eachother back in that military base! The green was also new. According to his symbiote, it had been there after they both got electrocuted, but it wasn't nearly this bad. Sturm was howling with laughter as he swung wide punches at Ethan, who stuck to dodging and delivering single, powerful blows when he had an opening. So far though, it didn't seem to be doing much good. Sturm had several bruises on his face where Ethan had gotten lucky, but they were already fading.
On the bright side, Marie seemed to be fairing better. Her bioelectric blasts and arm spikes were allowing her to keep pressure on Medusa and stay on the offence. Medusa was still sputtering and shrieking while lashing out with bladed tendrils. Ethan returned his focus and began firing webs at him to slow him down. Then the mountain shook. Everyone stumbled and shifted their foot to find their balance, sans Sturm, who had his glider to adjust for him.
Ethan and Marie looked at eachother, knowing what was happening. Medusa merely dropped to all fours and hissed, her hair tendrils mimicking her in a discordant hiss. Sturm stopped cackling and charged up and electrical blast in both gauntlets. He aimed them at Ethan and Marie and let loose. However, Their symbiote senses alerted them of it before he fired and they dodged, causing both blasts to hit Medusa. She made a noise akin to a cat screaming while dragging it's claws across a chalkboard before the red symbiote launched several tendrils from it's host's back began dragging said host out of sight.
Their success was short-lived however. Sturm had already geared up a second blast and caught them unawares. They both fell to the ground yelling in pain as their symbiotes writhed, sections of them peeling off their bodies and flailing in the air. He sustained the blast until something large collided with him and broke the blast. Ethan and Marie's slowly recovered and they turned to see Will grappling with Sturm. He was pushing Sturm back, but then it went south.
Sturm activated his gauntlets and sent Will sprawling back. He pinned him down with an electrical blast and kept it sustained. Marie leapt forward to fight back, but she met the same resistance as Will. Ethan watched in horror as his friends writhed in pain under the electric blast. He turned and saw Sturm howling away.
Ethan charged, his fingers becoming claws. As he went, white symbiote mass sprouted from his right elbow region and wrapped itself around his forearm, creating a weblike pattern over the usual black and turning his claws white. He swiped and cleaved through Sturm's bicep armor to reveal green, almost scale-like skin. There were four red slices in the green flesh, which started steaming and turning back to normal! Sturm began clutching the wound and yelling in a pained voice.
Ethan looked at his hand and back at Sturm. He leapt up onto Sturm's back and tore off the armor around his upper back before plunging the white claws down into the breach in the armor!
Sturm began howling in pain and began wildly swinging his arms around, trying to remove the source of the agony, but he couldn't reach him. Marie and Will got up and watched in awe as Sturm's body began to change! He grew shorter, thinner and the green vanished to become very pale. Soon, he fell over and Ethan pulled his claw free. There were a few drops of blood, but nothing major. He bent down over Sturm and checked his vitals.
"He's breathing and he has a pulse."
Ethan hefted Sturm over his shoulder and several pieces of armor fell off of Sturm, revealing that he was now unhealthily thin. There was a little blood leaking from his arm and back, which Ethan wrapped a web bandage around.
"Let's get him on the jet and get out of here!"
They sprinted down to the hanger and saw the jet's engines glowing, ready for takeoff. They boarded swiftly and stowed Sturm away in a medical bunk, making sure he was safely secured before strapping themselves in while Ana started the takeoff.
The engines roared and they accelerated out of the hanger, immediately climbing out of the way of a mountain peak. Looking out the window, they could see about half a dozen enormous, bulky, bipedal machines with massive cannons for arms, a mini-rocket silo on the left shoulder, a machine gun turret on the right. Each one stood roughly 35 meters tall.
They watched as the arm cannons began to glow with a purplish blue light before unleashing a blast into the mountain, throwing rocks, snow and ice everywhere. The jet cleared the mountains and started picking up speed. They were headed due south.
Ethan had the symbiote pull away from his face and let out a breath that he hadn't realized he had been holding. He turned to Ana.
"Your dad's in the back. Whatever they pumped him full of is gone, but he isn't looking good."
Ana looked at him briefly before unbuckling and walking to the medical bunks to see her dad. Ethan also got up and went to the supply room before sitting down and webbing himself to the wall so that he didn't get thrown about by the plane. He looked straight ahead and mentally prodded his symbiote.
"We need to talk."
The council all sat at a semi-circle table, watching a screen displaying a live feed from one of the mechs. Since the mechs were designed to keep symbiotes out, there wasn't any glass on the cockpit that could be broken through. Instead, there were multiple, specially designed cameras that constructed a digital enviroment and displayed it on a large screen inside the mech. There was a radar display on the left that showed the other mechs. Suddenly, a friendly blip appeared on the screen, moving too fast to be a mech. The pilot noticed this and switched to a feed that displayed a 360 degree capture and turned replayed the footage, seeing a jet take off from inside the mountain!
There was a two, maybe three second delay between the council's perspective and the pilot of the mech, and the jet was already almost out of range on their feed. The pilot never managed to take a shot. The head of the council slammed his fist against the table.
"Deploy two hornet drones and take out that damn plane! We can't let them escape!"
The message was sent, but then they recieved unsavory news.
"The plane is equipped with a stealth unit and it's been activated. The drones won't be able to find the plane."
The council all looked at eachother. They were too close. They couldn't be found out now!
"What direction were they headed in?"
A screen popped up.
"Based on the last known position and trajectory of the jet, their flight path would resemble this."
A path was projected onto the screen.
"Are there any places of interest along that flight path?"
The screen flickered for a second before bringing up a satellite image of a large group of people gathered near a large body of water in the south. There were also a large number of water fowl in the area.
"Every year during winter, the humans how live in the wilds all travel south for winter. They usually live more pressed together during this time, so it's possible that they are heading to one of these groups."
The councilman immediately pressed a button on the table in front of him.
"Inform Hawthorne that we want a squad ready to deploy ASAP. Details of deployment shall be given en route to destination."
Hawthorne was grinning like a madman as he watched a squad of his symbiote soldiers march into a carrier to transport them to the site of their first mission. The squad consisted of five standard soldiers, three heavies, and his latest creation, two frog men. He had made them based on Markus's AS-02. They were able to breathe underwater and had stingers in their wrists that injected a neurotoxin that caused temporary and complete paralysis of the victim.
The squad was being deployed south in an attempt to capture, and/or eliminate the escapees. They all stood impeccably straight and completely silently as they finished their briefing. Once it was over, they marched onto the transport in perfect unison before seating themselves and strapping themselves in for the flight.
Hawthorne's mind turned back to a little side project he had been working on. He had discovered in Markus's notes that she had been considering the idea of making her own 'personal' symbiote for an emergency situation. There were several plans in the folder he had found for various power sets and other attributes that she had considered. She never started actual work on any of them, but Hawthorne had felt giddy at the thought. At first he considered revealing the folder to the council, but he refrained for two primary reasons. First off, he could use it as leverage the next time she was working on something he wanted in on or he just needed something from her. Second, having a personal set of living armor that granted one unthinkable power was just too good an idea to give the council.
He had started his work based on the sequences of AS-01 and built on them, increasing the strength of the symbiote and how it was able to morph it's mass into other shapes. Thus far, he considered the work to be almost done. He just had a few more sequences to adjust before he was ready to craft the symbiote. For purely protective purposes of course.
Markus resisted the urge to sigh with relief. The pilots of the mechs had stopped site beta to refuel on coolant on the way back to site epsilon, and she had lucked out when she overheard them talking about the escaped plane. That at least meant that Ethan, his friend in blue, and AS-02 and 03 were in the clear for now. As to where they were going, she had no idea. Hopefully she would be able to open a communication line to them to figure that out, but for now she would get back to work on her contingency.
Larkson had told her that the council was starting to maintain an unusual radio silence with the other sites. Markus had started debating whether or not she should inform him of the council's supposed doomsday plan Ethan had warned her about. It would explain why they were so eager to blow site Theta to kingdom come and why they had started maintaining radio silence. They were afraid that someone had discovered their plans, they would want them out of the picture. And if they escaped, they would want to play for time. In that scenario, everything made sense.
Still, even if she told Larkson about council's supposed plans to create the apocalypse, she would risk him locking her up or even being executed! And without assuming that anyone would believe her. For now, she had to remain under the radar, possibly look into it more and finish her contingency. The armor was almost complete. She just needed to finish the armor for the lower left leg, then add the finishing touch.
She had spent a her spare time looking at shipping manifests between the different sites to spot anything unusual. The manifests were accessible by anyone in any form of R&D so that they could get an estimate on when supplies and equipment would arrive. She had noticed that there were several things going to each site in every three shipments that had absolutely no reason to be there. Strange chemicals going to epsilon, mechanical parts going to gamma, all parts or supplies that shouldn't be at whatever site they were going to. In addition to that, there was also a shipment called "Biological Necessities" that kept showing up every six shipments. It was always large and went to every operational site.
It was all strange. She was considering doing another hack job to try and figure out where those supplies were going. Perhaps communications between the council those who were higher up in the main body. If there was something to find, then it was there. Or she could take the more sledge hammer option and hack into the council's list of all active projects. There were plenty of projects she didn't know about, so that wouldn't narrow it down. But something might stick out.
She snapped back to reality when she realized that the armor was finished. She layed it out in front of her to admire it. It was gray and had several black lines of a special modified kevlar to allow even greater flexibility. It was designed to be pressed into position and automatically 'snap' onto the wearer's body, allowing for greater speed when donning it. Thus, she wouldn't have to waste time if there was a break in. It didn't form one giant suit, only covering sections of the body. Still, that wouldn't be an issue if she could complete her plan.
Now she just needed to get to the bio-engineering lab.
Ethan and his symbiote had been inside the hold for quite a while, having a very long discussion. The others were rather curious as to what was keeping them. They didn't bother interupting though. Ana was a little more preoccupied with her dad. She had gotten her symbiote to form a basic t-shirt, hoodie and sweatpants and had asked her friends to also have their symbiotes transform into ordinary clothing so as to not scare her dad if he woke up. The plane had reached a cruising altitude and she could walk around without using the symbiote to stick to the floor and not get thrown around like ping pong ball in a washing machine. She hoped he would be okay. So far, he was just in a coma. His breathing was calm and he had a normal heartrate. She almost wished he wouldn't wake up for a while. He looked much more peaceful than he did when she, her father and mother lived in the city. This was almost like a well deserved rest.
She heard a heavy iron door open and close and turned to see Ethan walking out of the hold. His face looked incredibly neutral. He sat down in a chair and clicked the buckle before sighing. Ana got up and took the seat next to him.
"What took you so long?"
Ethan ran a hand through his hair.
"Turns out that symbiotes have this sort of evolutionary cycle. Every one hundred or so years, their genetic makeup gets extremely unstable and mutates, thus giving them new abilities or drastically upgrading the ones they already have. Anyway, this mutation can trigger in any number of ways. Response to a new enviroment, pure chance, physical trauma, their all a number of triggers."
Ana was starting to get a sense of what was happening.
"All that experimentation and that electrocution caused your symbiote to mutate."
Ethan nodded.
"Turns out, it developed this ability in conjunction with me. As in, it can't use it without me, and it can't control it at all. I'm the one who controls it."
Ana crossed her arms.
"You're avoiding what this mutation actually is."
Ethan shook his head.
"Because I don't like it. Neither does the symbiote. It just doesn't... feel right whenever I use it."
Ana shrugged.
"You're still dodging."
Ethan threw up his hands in defeat.
"That white symbiote mass is like an antibody against symbiote tissue. It allows me to 'corrode' the cellular bonds between a symbiote and it's host. According to my symbiote, whatever they pumped your dad full of had a lot of symbiote mass in it. Like I said though, it feels unnatural. Like it just shouldn't exist. It makes me feel... wrong. Every time I use it."
He lowered his head and looked at his hand.
"The symbiote wanted to avoid talking about it because it's terrified of what it can do now. We're a danger to the whole group and I suspect that their symbiotes all know it."
Ana had noticed that her symbiote had seemed a little apprehensive around Ethan since they broke him out. She hadn't payed much mind to it, but when they had talked for brief intervals, it always avoided saying anything about him.
She reached over and put a hand on his shoulder.
"That ability saved my dad. You cured him of being that... thing. I think that you're supposed to use that ability to protect people. You've been protecting me and them from all sorts of danger, even when we have our own symbiotes! Maybe you can save people who have been trapped in one of the bad ones all this time."
Ethan smiled a little.
"Someone's optimistic."
She shrugged and lightly punched his shoulder.
"We can't have our fearless leader moping about can we?"
Ethan smiled and punched her back before getting up and walking into the cabin. They were further south now and they could see lots of forests, swamps, even some of the ocean. Ethan pointed to a clearing.
"Land us there. We'll keep going on foot."
Ana set the autopilot to land in the indicate clearing before lowering the ramp. The group hauled the supplies out of the ship and set up a camp. They also set Sturm up on a set of camping mattresses they found in the hold to keep him comfortable. They kept him on the ship, which was temperature regulated, but covered him with a decent amount of blankets for comfort. The stealth device that Ana had found was still in function, so they didn't need to be worried about being found via radar.
After a meal of potatoes and rehydrated meat that they cooked on sticks, they doused the fire and went back on the craft to sleep. It had been quite an eventful day.
Hmmmm... I might have further to go than anticipated.
Creativity: Hmmmmm. I think you should have let me chatter at the beginning.
Author: No.
So, yeah. I decided to do include a little of Anti-Venom (Ultimate Spider-man version). I thought it was a good idea for how this story is going. So, I guess I'll see you next week! See ya then!
Creativity: But I had something funny to say!
