Well, we are WAY overdue for this chapter. I'd like to apologize but truth be told, there wasn't much I could do. Fact of the matter is, college requires time and energy, and I have to put it before writing. In addition to that, Finals were almost a month after midterms and you need to devote as much time as you reasonably can to those.
The good news is, that I am currently on break from college! None of the courses I need to take a being run during the summer (Thank you, universe), so I can finally bring this story to an end.
Creativity: And then we can work on other stuff!
Author: Sure. We got other stuff we're working on so be sure to look for that in the future. We'll post a notice here when the other stuff starts popping up. Until then, enjoy chapter 36!
P.S. People may be wondering why I refer to the queen using gender-neutral terms like "it" and "they", as opposed to "she" or "her". Simply put, symbiotes are effectively genderless. I never imagine them having actual "voices" to speak with. Rather, they just "spell out" words in a host's mind, or use their host to talk. I only chose to label the symbiote big bad as "Queen" to give the feel of a colony of insects, as insects can seem very alien at times. Besides, what else would you call a symbiote who controls most other symbiotes? Actually, suggestions are welcome on that note. I'll go back and edit it if I get a suggestion I like.
Ethan glared at the queen, who didn't seem to be paying attention to him at all. It's posture, as well as what facial expression it gave off an impression of amusement. Ethan started running through scenarios of how best to get him and his friends out of the sticky situation they were in.
Ana and Will were both still trapped in the cocoons. They had given up struggling when the queen had stuck them a few times with small needles from the cocoons as a warning. By now, Medusa had pulled herself to her feet and was hissing and sputtering as hunched over, her claws scratching at the ground.
"We will kill you. No matter how long it takes, we will kill you!"
The queen sighed and snapped it's fingers. Several tendrils rose out of the ground and wrapped themselves around her ankles, wrists, torso and neck. Medusa sputtered and snarled with surprise and rage, but was swiftly silenced when a spike was pushed against her spine.
"You have only demonstrated your own incompetence at besting him. Not that it matters now. I believe that everything is ready. Now all we need is..."
Ethan made his move. He leapt into the air and formed his anti-venom blades before slashing through the cocoons. The queen let out a high-pitch hiss, followed by a snarl as it's mouth became much more like a standard symbiote.
"YOU DARE!"
Ethan leapt forward as he spun, slashing at the massive tendrils that shot out of the walls at him. Will and Ana had also begun dodging the tendrils, as well as fighting the enrage symbiotes that were now leaping from their perches.
Ethan leapt over one last tendril and reared his fist back to bore a hole through the queen's face, but was instead met with a punch to the chest. The blow through him clean across the room and through the wall, which began to repair itself. Ethan leapt through the hole and caused a multitude of blades and spikes to emerge from his body as he resumed his charge. The queen actually stepped off the throne as it shrieked and leapt into the air, claws reared back to strike. Ethan leapt into the air and the two of them collided mid-flight. However, Ethan was thrown back again, this time with four deep gashes across his torso.
"You thought you could best me?! ME?!"
Ethan snarled and launched a blob of anti-venom webbing from his hand. The queen, caught off guard, was struck in the chest and began shrieking in pain and terror before hacking and clawing the partition of mass that was affected away from it's body. Ethan took this opportunity to form his knuckle spikes, also in anti-venom form, and deliver an uppercut. The blow lifted the queen into the air and threw it across the room. As it lifted itself off the floor, Ethan was already closing in, blades ready. He reared back and plunged both bladed fists through the queen's chest, causing the symbiote to writhe on it's host, rearing back and knocking Ethan away with a wild and desperate flailing of limbs. Ethan landed upright, but not very gracefully. When he looked at the queen, he froze.
Underneath was a woman whose skin was pale as death, eyes soulless and empty, and blackened veins across her face. Ethan's various spikes and blades receded back into his symbiote in shock.
"Impossible..."
Back in site Alpha, the other team had gotten lucky and managed to redirect and scare off a large platoon of soldiers that would have made for a very annoying and squishy obstacle between them and the council's chamber. In addition to that, AS-04 was extremely helpful by creating shortcuts for them by melting through the walls. Mr. and Mrs. Sturm were covering their backs while they kept heading for the fourth level below ground.
"Okay, we're almost to the elevator." AS-04 announced as they emerged from another shortcut. They turned and the elevator was literally within sight! They started walking forwards, only to be stopped when the symbiotes' danger sense kicked in. Suddenly, several Gorgon soldiers rushed into the open, wearing brand new armor and wielding new weapons. most notable were twin knives that were discharging electricity and a good sized one-handed axe with a single blade.
"Seriously? An axe?" Marie complained aloud as the soldiers charged them. Mr. Sturm began spraying bullets behind them with Markus adding her own blasts to the mix. Meanwhile, Marie and AS-04 began unleashing bio-electricity and acid down the other way, forcing the advancing soldiers to backpedal. This opened them up to Mrs. Sturm to take them out from the ceiling with her tail.
Once they had cleared out the Gorgon soldiers, they ripped the elevator open and began climbing down, after Sturm collected the knives and a sword for himself, as well as cutting the cables, thus preventing the elevator from working and reinforcements from getting up or down to them.
They slid down the elevator shaft before melting through the door to level four and began making their way towards the council chambers. Along the way, they encountered light resistance, but nothing that really hindered them. Soon, they reached the chamber and smashed down the door before entering. They filed into the room, but only found it to be empty!
"Are you serious?! Where else could they possibly be?!" Markus yelled frustratedly. Then the screen lit up with the face of the head councilman.
"Were you really so foolish to believe that we would have simply waited for you to come here and slaughter us. We aren't idiots. What we are is disappointed. We knew your obsession with those foul creatures was unnatural, Markus. But we never imagined you would go so far as to ally yourself with them!"
Markus snarled.
"Says a monster who committed genocide against site Theta and intends to wipe out all life on Earth! I simply changed my stance and thought process in response to new information, like any human being might do! You and the rest of the council are nothing but murderers in fancy clothes!"
The councilman chuckled.
"We shall let history be our judge, shall we? I'm sorry that none of u will learn what that judgement will be, but I will find satisfaction in having outlived you."
All of a sudden, the room was filled with loud beeping noises and red flashing lights around the underside of the large table and the rim of the ceilling.
"Bombs!" Markus cried out as a thick sheet of metal dropped over the way they had come in. Markus instinctively tackled everyone to the ground and felt a massive blast above her. She felt massive pain and strain, but after the shaking and loud noises had stopped, she slowly opened her eyes and realized that despite the pain, she was completely unharmed. All of them were!
"Okay, whatever happened, I'm not complaining. But can everyone get off me?" Marie groaned from the bottom of the pile.
They pushed the rubble off of themselves and slowly made their way out of the room, only to find several soldiers waiting for them. Fortunately the smoke from the explosion obscured them long enough to launch a surprise attack. One of the soldiers tried to call for help via radio, but Marie destroyed it before he even depressed the button to speak. She then gave him a roundhouse kick upside the head, sending him straight to dreamland.
After they finished with them, they immediately left and began working on trying to figure out where the council would have gone. The immediate answer was wherever Project Ark was.
"Given the sheer size of it, they would likely have an entire floor dedicated to it. They also don't want anyone without authorization to have access to it, so it won't be listed in a level directory." Markus muttered, trying to figure out where it could possibly be. Marie shrugged.
"I'd say just go down."
The others looked at her for a moment before coming to the conclusion that she did indeed have the best idea. They made their way back to the elevator shaft and started sliding down. They kept going until they saw the broken, sparking remains of the actual elevator. They waited as AS-04 melted the door open and they all made their way through. No surprise, this floor had full power still.
"They must have a separate generator for this floor. It would have been really stupid of them to have this floor connected to the rest of the base if they were planning Armageddon down here." Markus muttered. She turned to the rest of them.
"We need to find the other generator, or generators as the case may be, and disable them. Then we can worry about the soldiers and the council. I'd bet that they have a safe-room of some sort down here, in the case of anyone infiltrating this place like we did. If we can cut the power, that'll shut down any security measures on that safe room." Markus explained quickly as they stealthily entered the first door.
What they saw stole the breath from their lungs.
Ana couldn't believe that Ethan was standing frozen at a time like this! She dodged and flipped over several symbiotes and tendrils while firing blue spikes from her palms. She looked to see Will busy smashing his giant fists against the seemingly endless amount of enemies that were pouring out of the holes in the walls. She snarled under her mask and webbed her way up before beginning to spray as much webbing as she could to clog up the tunnels. When turned to check on Ethan again, she saw that he had unfrozen and was now grappling with the queen, attempting to physically overpower it. She heard him bellow angrily before delivering an uppercut that threw the queen straight over it's throne and into the wall behind. She also saw that Medusa has started struggling against her bindings again, and was starting to succeed in breaking them. Ana groaned and used the webline she was currently hanging onto to slingshot herself around a pillar and towards Medusa.
Luckily, Medusa didn't see her coming and only realized when Ana had firmly planted her foot on the back of Medusa's head and sent her face-first into the floor. Ana bounded away and started swinging around for another pass. Medusa rose to her full height and bellowed angrily as she prepared her claws for brawling.
Ethan snarled and began raining blows down on the queen.
"I am going to peel you off that body, piece by piece!" He snarled as he delivered another blow to the queen's ribcage, only to have his fist caught and be thrown against the wall. He suddenly gasped in pain and looked down to see the queen's claws buried in his gut.
"Oh please. Even if you could, this body's been dead for years. I'm surprised your defective friend didn't inform you that I don't need a living host to survive. I'll discard this old sack of bones soon enough for something more... fresh."
Ethan bellowed and sprouted a one-and-a-half foot long blade from his arm and drove it through the queen's shoulder, causing to retreat, sputtering and hissing as it did. He then formed his anti-venom blades and advanced on the queen, who immediately became much more nervous.
Ethan began building up speed as he raised the blades and scratched them against each other in a show of intimidation. The queen began to back off before leaping through the hole they had made earlier when Ethan leapt forward, slamming a blade into the ground where the queen had been. He leapt through after it, seething under his mask. However, this left him wide open.
The queen immediately slammed him with a tendril from the ground that was at least as thick as he was tall! The queen snarled and slammed a foot down on his ribcage.
"You honestly thought you stood a chance? I have been preparing for this day for 100 cycles, and you thought that you, a mere human with a defective whelp as his weapon could stop me?!"
The queen grabbed him by his shoulders and hoisted him up before beginning to relentlessly beat him.
"You are nothing but an insect to be crushed beneath me heel. A fleeting afterthought. And make no mistake, once I am through, I will raze all you sought to protect."
The queen raised a fist to slam against him, but was shocked when Ethan caught it.
"Spiders aren't insects."
He grabbed onto either side of the queen's head and his symbiote began to mentally assault the queen. While it was buying him time, he concentrated as hard as he could. Anti-venom mass began spreading from his shoulders and turning both of his arms completely bleached. The queen howled in pain before tearing itself free and swatting him aside while clutching at it's head.
"WHAT DID YOU DO?!" The queen shrieked.
As his arms returned to normal, Ethan formed spikes on his knuckles again.
"Did you get anything."
"I got enough while you did your part. Here."
Ethan felt information surge through his brain. His eyes widened.
"Oh no."
The queen had recovered from his vicious attack and saw Medusa locked in combat with Ana. It snarled and formed another tendril from the floor and slammed Ana across the room before Medusa was once again shackled.
"How dare you do this to us!" Medusa howled in rage. The queen marched over to Medusa with a sick grin that was contorted with pain.
"I've had enough interruptions. This world belongs to me! AND NOW I SHALL MAKE MY FINAL CLAIM!"
The queen began to shudder and convulse. It grabbed onto the sides of Medusa's head and the symbiote began to separate from the corpse beneath. As it pulled free, it began to wrap around Medusa, who began shrieking and screaming. Soon, Medusa was encased in a black, white and red cocoon which occasionally convulsed like a heart. Suddenly, the entire nest began to rumble and twist. Tendrils began springing out from everywhere, trapping symbiotes and flailing around, causing massive damage.
Ethan swore and grabbed the corpse before sprinting over to Ana, who had just picked herself up from the blow the queen had dealt her. Will swiftly joined them and Ethan began using his anti-venom blades to slash through the walls and escape. Soon he and the others burst free from the nest and immediately began a mad-dash away. They could feel the earth shaking and hear the nest twisting and bubbling. It was changing.
They turned around and they felt dread pierce their hearts. What they saw, above all else, absolutely and utterly terrified them.
Markus, Marie, AS-04 and the Sturms couldn't believe their eyes. They were inside a massive hanger-like complex. They could see a massive door labelled "Weapon Silo" on the other side of the room and many workstations in between. There were areas for food-production, military supplies, weapons developement, all sorts!
Markus began scanning the room for anything that would indicate a powersource. Soon enough, she saw some massive power cables connected to a large cylinder that had a vivid blue glow coming from a gap near the top. She motioned for Marie and AS-04 to handle that one while she searched for more. She spotted two more in relatively close proximity to eachother on the opposite end of the chamber. She motioned for the Sturms to stay hidden while she went to take care of those two.
She slipped into the shadows and carefully made her way over to the generators before unleashing twin blasts into the generators. She smirked when she saw Marie perform similarly and the whole facility was plunged into darkness. Immediately, using her night vision, she saw two heavy-looking doors on the far side of the facility slide open. She and the rest of the team began making their way over to the doors. They met very little resistance and soon found two more ornate-looking doors in front of them. Mrs. Sturm kicked them in and they proceded inside. The council was all there and they looked ready to soil themselves.
"Now it's our turn to gloat. Did you really think a few fireworks were going to stop us?"
The council didn't answer. They didn't need to. Markus looked up to see a countdown.
"Alright. shut it down."
Now, the council seemed to get a little brave.
"Why? We have victory in our grasp! What can you do? Besides, it would take a fingerprint authorization from the majority of the council to shut down and none of us would crack under whatever torture you choose to employ." The head council-man retorted.
Marie sighed.
"Well, thanks for telling us exactly what we need to know to stop this."
She unleashed blasts of bioelectricity from her hands that knocked out the council, then turned to Markus.
"How do we start the shutdown?"
Markus smirked under her mask and walked over to the head council-man's seat and tapped on a digital keyboard and selected "Abort."
Once that was done, they merely placed the hands of the council on the fingerprint scanners and watched as the countdown was aborted.
"Well, that was simple enough. I wonder how the other team is doing." Marie commented. Markus tapped a few more times and brought up a live image of the nest and everyone's breath was caught in their throat.
The nest was gone, replaced by a symbiote that was standing at at least 600 meters tall!
Yeah, bet you never saw that coming.
Creativity: I can't wait to see the reactions to this one.
Author: Oh, it will be spectacular.
So, again. I apologize for being so late, but it really couldn't be helped.
See you again next week! For certain!