Here's the new chapter!
And, as promised...Carol vs Carnage!
XXXX
Chapter 14 :
"Ugh, I'll feel this in the morning", Carnage muttered, as he struggled to get up from the ground. The blow he suffered had fractured most of his joints, but these had already begun to regenerate.
About ten yards from him, Carol knelt before Spiderman's battered figure.
"Carol ..." he whispered, as soon as his brown eyes landed on those of the superheroine.
The woman held back a jerk, almost unable to stand such a vision.
Peter's face was completely covered with bruises and cuts, a red and purple mask bathed in the blood and water of the Hudson River.
"Don't move, you are very badly injured", she said softly, stroking his cheek in a reassuring way.
The Avenger closed his eyes, letting himself be lulled by the gesture, then burst into an excess of coughs. Carol's heart was wrapped in by chilling hold.
"How ... how did you find me?" the vigilante asked.
The woman smiled sadly.
"You forget that Karen is connected to the base network. It wasn't difficult to locate the signal in this area. From then on, I just needed to follow the sound of the explosions", she offered with an ironic tone.
A hissing called the attention of both.
They turned in unison towards Carnage, who now seemed to have completely recovered from the sudden assault.
With both eyelids tightened, Carol rose to her feet and pointed her hands at the serial killer.
"Cletus Kasady, you are under arrest for the murder of Vernon Claridge and James Erbert. You have the right to remain silent, everything you say can be used against you in court", she declared coldly.
In response, Kasady simply stared at her.
"You are really here", he whispered after a few moments of silence. At the same time, his bristling smile with sharp teeth seemed to widen.
Carol raised an eyebrow. "Were you waiting for me?"
The monster coughed a couple of bushes, spitting a few lumps of saliva mixed with blood.
"Eh eh", he chuckled croaking. "Fuck, for a moment I thought you wouldn't come. It would have been rather embarrassing."
Both Carol and Peter gave him a visibly confused look.
"What the hell is he talking about?" the wall-climber thought.
Almost as if he had read his mind, Carnage barked a loud laugh.
"Oh, come on, Spiderman. You didn't think I'd risk losing the battle for New York's soul…in a fist fight with you? No. You always need an ace in the hole. And mine…is you", he said pointing to Carol. "I knew that if I tried to kill this brat, you would show up. His feelings for you are strong."
The woman came between him and Peter, while her body began to light up with an intense golden glow.
" You hurt him", she growled through her teeth.
Cletus shrugged. "Your deductive skills are commendable."
"It will your last mistake", the woman hissed, activating the combat mask of the suit.
Carnage didn't seem at all worried by the woman's threat and put his right arm forward, gesturing for her to attack him.
"Let's dance, baby…"
Before he could finish the sentence, Carol had already travelled the distance that separated them.
The monster's lenses widened in surprise, while the woman grabbed him by the neck and slammed him violently against the floor of the room, raising pieces of concrete and splashes of water.
The creature opened its mouth wide and spat out a trickle of blood, as if the blow had taken away all the air he had in his body.
Carnage's jaws snapped forward and stuck into the superheroine's shoulder. Aside from a slight initial pain, Carol found herself completely unaffected by the monster's counterattack.
She jumped into the air and threw him straight against a column. Then, she punched him in the face, making a few of his teeth fly out.
Finally, she grabbed him by the neck again and nailed him against the iron beam.
Kasady coughed blood and saliva, his tongue hanging between his teeth like an injured dog. After taking a few breaths, however, he began to laugh. A chilling, high-pitched, grating laugh that echoed the length of the factory.
Carol narrowed her eyes into a pair of illuminated slits.
"Let me guess. Is this also part of your great plan?" she asked mockingly.
Carnage stopped laughing and stared at her with that timeless smile.
"Of course!" he exclaimed jovial. The woman didn't have the time to interpret the man's words.
The suit that covered Kasady opened suddenly, like a fan, revealing Cletus' human body just below the layer of filaments and protuberances.
Carol barely had time to widen her eyes, while the huge shapeless mass covered her like a blanket, wrapping her golden figure under the incredulous gaze of Peter.
"Carol!" the vigilante exclaimed, appealing to the remaining forces to stand up. At the same time, the woman began to scream.
The symbiote began to merge with her, adhering to the Avenger's body and covering it from head to toe, while Cletus watched the whole thing a few steps away.
After about a minute of shouting ... everything stopped. Silence reigned in the chemical factory.
Carol Danvers was still and motionless in the centre of the room, almost completely unrecognizable. In her place, there was now a grinning Carnage with feminine features.
Peter found himself unable to make even the littlest sound, too shocked by such a turn of events.
"Not bad", Cletus commented, taking a quick look at the woman's appearance. "Now I have the most powerful human being on the planet under my control. Imagine how much damage I can do now!"
He burst into loud laughter. "I think my next stop will be Washington. I could even become President!"
Having said that, he turned his gaze towards Peter.
"But first ... Spiderman, would you help me test her?" he asked with a diabolical grin. At the same time, Carol ... no ... Carnage, turned to him and smiled in turn.
The teenager swallowed hard and, after taking a deep breath, began to run.
Cletus pointed to him.
"Eh eh eh ... kill him", he ordered coldly.
Beside him, Carnage released a roar that shook the windows of the building and set off in pursuit of the Avenger.
XXXX
She was woken up with laughter. Not that of the audience at a comedy show venue, nor what a person does when a friend tells him a joke, but a malicious laugh, without a touch of irony. That grim and scratchy of an animal about to devour its prey.
Carol struggled to her feet and looked around immediately. She was immersed in darkness. An endless darkness, empty and formless.
"Where the hell am I? What happened?" she thought with a panic.
The memories of what had happened a few minutes earlier all came together, making her jump.
She had Carnage at her mercy, nailed to a column ... and then ... and then ...
She jerked her head, attracted by a strange crackle. It was then that she realized that, suspended a couple of meters above the ground, there were televisions that floated like wads of dust.
"What the hell ..."
"Carol", a familiar and sudden voice whispered, diverting her from those thoughts.
Opening her eyes in surprise, the woman began to look around.
"Peter!" she exclaimed, sharpening her sight and peering into the infinite darkness that surrounded her. "Peter, where are you?"
No answer. Silence was the only thing that greeted her.
The woman let out a frustrated growl and began to walk without a precise direction. Then, after what seemed an interminable time, a distinct figure seemed to take shape a few meters away from her.
"Peter!" Carol exclaimed, smiling radiantly. Without wasting time, she ran to the figure of the vigilante. "Oh, thank goodness. I thought ..."
She tried to hug him ... but her hands passed through the teenager's body.
The blonde gave a start and took a step backwards, while the boy stared at her with a placid smile.
"Peter ..." the woman whispered, reaching out her right hand in an attempt to touch the teenager. However, the result was the same as a few seconds earlier.
The heroine's fingers crossed the wall-climber's body, producing small puffs of white smoke.
Carol's eyes widened and she stared in disbelief at the vigilante.
"I'm not really here, Carol. And you know that", he said, with a patient tone.
The woman opened and closed her mouth a few times, apparently unable to speak. Then, she released a visibly frustrated sigh.
"We are in my head", she muttered resignedly.
In response, Peter - or rather, her mental representation of Peter - simply offered her an ironic smile. He leaned forward and stared at her intently.
"Carol, you have to get out of here", he said with a much more serious tone.
The woman rolled her eyes. "Easier said than done. Do you have any ideas?"
"I'm as lost as you", the boy admitted the, rubbing his hair in an embarrassed way.
Despite the situation, Carol found herself smiling. "It's adorable in my head too", she thought amused.
A rattle caught the attention of both.
The screen of a television came on and a face disfigured by a grin filled the monitor: Cletus Kasady.
The shot widened and revealed that he was on the stage of a sort of TV quiz.
"Captain Marvel!" he began. "It seems that the time has come for you to play too."
There were shouts of approval and applause.
"Then come on, beauty, because the best is yet to come. But we also have rules, which means your friend Spiderman can't come with you. Sorry, kid. These are the laws of the state about gambling: the entrance is reserved for adults."
In that precise moment, a large green door materialized in front of the couple.
"Carol, don't do it", Peter pleaded. "It's a trap."
"I know", the woman replied, with an ironic smile. "It's always a trap. But I'll go there anyway, because it's the only way I have to get out of this place. But first ..."
She approached the boy's mental projection and gave him a kiss on the cheek.
She opened the hinges and entered. She entered the dark.
She reached out a hand in front of her and saw her fingers. Then Kasady's voice echoed in the dark.
"Welcome to the room of bad memories! There are quizzes designed to make you smile ... mine will dishearten you so much that you'll want to kill yourself!"
Suddenly a spotlight came on and bathed it in the light. The rest of the room was still in the dark, but something stealthily moved in the dark.
Carol began to relive every moment of her life, as if past and present were happening simultaneously.
Her father's mistreatment, constant bullying, her years in aviation, forced to compete with cadets and instructors who didn't consider her good enough for the army, the torture she suffered by the Kree ... everything.
She shook her head, brushing those hallucinations away.
"They weren't real, Kasady. None of this is real. But I promise you one thing: I won't let you hurt anyone else."
"Oh, Carol, poor girl, you are very wrong", the serial killer said.
Another spotlight revealed a quiz set, and the figure of Cletus Kasady was in the centre.
"Come on, Carol", he chuckled. "I want to sing you a song that I wrote especially for you, but not in the shoes of myself. In the shoes of the one you will soon become!"
The man disappeared. Now in his place was Carnage, standing in front of a microphone.
"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls!" he exclaimed with a scratchy voice. "There is a nice song that I've reserved for all of you. So make yourself comfortable and relax, while I sing you a nursery rhyme that I called ... 'The asylum blues'!"
He nodded to an invisible orchestra and the music began to play.
He waited for an attack ... and then he started singing.
"Lights ... engine ... action! Take me home to the asylum. You are never alone in the asylum. Total anarchy, a paradise, but in all that time you never smiled! You are the fool, I am in your head ... and now I laugh!"
He slipped on stage to a coat rack that wasn't there a moment before, took it in his arms and started dancing as if he were Fred Astaire.
Carol tried to reach out to him, but found herself unable to move.
"In New York, in the past, my beauty I killed. They left me dying ... but then I looked at you, and in a second ... I understood: you and me always together! And now I'm laughing!"
Carnage let go the coat rack and twirled it backstage, where it fell into the darkness of the room. The serial killer ignored the ensuing noise as if nothing had happened, and continued singing.
"I am a nail in your head, and I laugh! Your deepest fear, and I laugh! I had a party with mom and dad, and how much I laugh! And what else could I do? You won't be able to get rid of me anymore!"
A gun appeared in his hand.
The creature laughed hysterically and fired a couple of times, aiming for something off-screen.
A moment later, two train drivers staggered in the frame, bullet holes in the head, and ended up face down on the stage.
Carol watched everything, but couldn't help but sit there and watch. She still couldn't react, she felt wrapped in hundreds of tentacles that prevented even the slightest movement.
There were other enthusiastic shouts and applause. Then, Carnage went back to being Cletus Kasady.
"Excellent", he congratulated himself. "Excellent. And now ... I'm Carnage, the king of torment! The two of us together, how much fun we'll have! Now you are part of me, as I'm part of you! You can no longer get rid of me! When I finally check you ... believe me, my dear, I will laugh, I WILL LAUGH!"
Another figure took a seat beside him. A woman that look exactly as Carol, but dressed in a red and scarlet dress, covered in blood.
She held out her hand gracefully, and Kasady took it, leading as they began to dance.
The pirouettes were impeccable, and went on for almost a minute, until the body of the copy seemed to melt in a swirl of filaments.
Kasady turned darkly towards his only spectator.
"I'm eating your brain, and I laugh! By now I am your twin, and I laugh! Your friends are ready for slaughter, and I laugh! And what else could I do? You can't get rid of me anymore!"
The spotlights went out, leaving the room again in the dark.
Then, a single beam of light illuminated a small part of the stage: Carnage emerged from the darkness, ready to sing the final verse.
"I already feel your terror, now that the time has almost come! I'm in your body, I'm alive, let yourself be guided until we arrive!"
The music ended and the monster knelt.
The screams and applause seemed to go on forever.
"Thanks", he said, in his best imitation of Elvis, while flowers were thrown on the stage as a sign of appreciation. "Thanks a lot!"
And, at that moment, Carol found herself tied to a hospital bed. She tried to move, but the laces that held her still were too strong.
In spite of all her power ... in that world she was completely defenceless, against the desires of a madman.
Carnage walked over to her and placed a clawed finger on her forehead.
"And now ... let's drop the curtain!"
XXXX
There was a flash, followed by an explosion that lit the room like a lantern.
Peter jumped into the air and used a spider web to catapult himself to the factory ceiling. Behind him, a fireball incinerated whatever was within a dozen meters.
He remained hidden among the iron boards of the roof, while the figure of Carnage made its way beyond the cloud of smoke and debris.
The creature stood still and motionless, analysing the surrounding area.
It sniffed the air a few times, producing a low, contemplative hum. Then its white lenses landed on Spiderman.
"Shit", he muttered. At the same time, Carnage smiled and threw some harpoons at him.
The teenager dropped to the ground to avoid being impaled.
"Carol, please, I know you can hear me. You have to fight it!" he screamed, while dodging another blow by the woman.
Performing a somersault in mid-air, he landed on the nearest wall and remained attached to it.
"Is it for that time that I told you that you looked fat?" he said ironically. "It was a joke in good faith, I swear!"
In response, the beast simply roared and launched itself against him.
Peter jumped and landed on a beam, while the wall on which he was until a few seconds earlier exploded in a myriad of splinters and pieces of concrete.
"Ok, bad choice of words", he muttered with a low voice.
At the same time, a ray of cosmic energy departed from Carnage's hands, pointing straight in his direction.
Peter jumped up, clinging to the ceiling of the room, and began to run to avoid the bullets of light.
When he reached the end of the roof, he fell to the ground and crouched on the floor. The opponent joined him shortly after, landing in front of him and hissing menacingly.
"Let's talk about this, Carol", the vigilante offered the vigilante. The creature roared at him, pouring copious amounts of drool on his mask.
"Okay, you don't want to talk? Take this!" he exclaimed, shooting a spider web on the monster's lenses. She growled in annoyance and brought a hand to her face in an attempt to free herself from the sticky substance.
Once done, the blonde's right hand turned into an axe, accompanied by the golden glow of cosmic energy.
She launched herself against the Avenger.
"Oh god, no!" Peter said, while doing his best to avoid the weapon.
Carnage continued to wave its arm, trying to end its opponent's life. However, when it noticed that its attempts were proving unsuccessful, it punched the floor.
The resulting shock wave causes the boy to lose his balance.
Before he could recover, Carnage grabbed him by the right leg and started slamming him from one side of the room to the other.
XXXX
Carol Danvers, in a child's body, woke up suddenly in her old bedroom, hearing a whining cry from her parents' room.
She froze and bowed her head to listen.
"... I had it. I swear to you, I had it!"
"Did you take it off on the beach? Before swimming?" the unmistakable voice of Joe Danvers – Carol's father - asked.
"I told you that I have not taken a bath", Marie Danvers - wife of the aforementioned – replied.
A thud echoed throughout the house. Internally, Carol hoped she wouldn't wake her brothers up.
"I saw you! You took it off to put on sunscreen!" Joe exclaimed, his tone adorned with a slight touch of exasperation.
They continued on this tone for a while and the little girl decided she could ignore them.
At the age of nine, Carol had stopped worrying about her father's outbursts for some time. His screams of anger were part of the daily soundtrack and only rarely they were worth something. Especially if she wanted to avoid the belt. Carol hated it.
Suddenly, she heard another anguished lament.
"I knew it ended like this. As usual. You're a wimp!"
"I asked you to look in the bathroom. Did you do it?"
"Yes, and I haven't found anything. And do you know why? Because you lost it yesterday on the beach! You and that other slut, Jane Bennet, sunbathed all afternoon, drank one margarita after another and you relaxed so much that you almost forgot you had kids. You slept, and when you woke up, you realized that you would arrive at work an hour late ..."
"I wasn't late."
"... so you ran away in panic. You forgot the sunscreen and the ring too. And now ..."
"And I wasn't even drunk, if that's what you're insinuating. I don't drive drunk with our kids in the car. That's YOUR specialty."
"... and now you have the courage to blame me! You bitch!"
Something was heard shattering.
Almost without realizing it, Carol slipped into the dim light of the bedroom, towards her parents' room.
The door, open by a span, revealed a slumped bedside table and a broken glass in the corner. Her father must have overthrown them in anger.
"My God, you are really a bitch", the man muttered, appearing in the girl's view. "And to think that I had children with you!"
Carol winced.
She felt a sting in her eyes, but didn't cry. She bit her lips, an automatic reaction, and the pang of pain kept tears at bay.
At the same time, a strange sense of deja-vu crossed her mind ... almost as if she had already experienced that scene once.
"No, go away ..." she thought desperately. Too late.
Her father's eyes landed on the crack of the door.
"You!" he exclaimed, crossing the room with rapid strides and opening the door.
Carol tried to withdraw but the man was faster and grabbed her by the arm.
"You were eavesdropping, weren't you?" he growled through his teeth, while the girl began to feel a burning pain that crossed her limb.
"N-no ..."
"Liar!" her father interrupted her, dragging her into the room with a strong jolt and closing the door behind him. All under the terrified gaze of the mother.
"Ugly wretch! I told you hundred times you don't have to eavesdrop!" Joe yelled, grabbing her by the shoulders and forcing her to stare straight at him in those black eyes mixed with rage and alcohol.
Carol swallowed hard.
"I'm sorry" she whispered with a low voice. At the same time, the man's pupils were crossed by a flash.
"I'm sorry... I'm sorry?!" he exclaimed incredulously. Then, he hit her in the face with a powerful slap, making her fall on the floor. "If you were really sorry, you would have listened!"
PAM! Another slap.
"Why are you making me do this to you?!" he barked on the helpless daughter's figure.
Tears of pain and sadness began to line the girl's cheeks.
She crawled and reached out to her mother.
"Mom ... help me ..." she whispered.
Suddenly, a dark laugh rang out from a corner of the room.
Carol turned her head slightly. Cletus Kasady was there with them, comfortably seated on a rocking chair, his face adorned with his unmistakable psychotic smile.
"Oh, my dear, she can't help you", he said with a mocking tone, pointing to the woman.
Carol looked back at her mother ... and stopped. Marie Danvers' face had become gaunt, withered and devoid of orbits, an agglomeration of worms that rubbed between the bones of the skull like small snakes.
Her body was thin and dry, grey and without muscles. A corpse that seemed dead for decades.
Cletus got up from his chair and tapped the woman's head, which detached from her neck and rolled up to Carol.
"Say hello to mommy! AH AH AH AH AH AH!" the serial killer laughed, while the girl gave a scream full of fear and despair.
She stepped back instinctively, crashing into something. Looking up slightly, she realized that it was her father. Except that Joe Danvers no longer looked like a human being, but a creature that emerged directly from the innermost nightmares of a mentally ill person.
He had yellow eyes, his face adorned with a crooked smile full of sharp teeth.
"Hey, Carol? Are you still my little girl?" he said with a low and scratchy voice.
He put his right hand forward and grabbed Carol's shoulder. The girl just wanted to escape from that horrible place, but found herself unable to make even the smallest movement.
The grin on the parent's face seemed to widen. "Are you?!"
"Leave her alone!"
A red and blue blur launched against the man, making him bump into the opposite wall of the room.
Carol jumped in surprise and took a quick look at her saviour.
"Peter ..." she whispered between sobs, recognizing the vigilante's figure.
There he was, in the middle of the room, standing between her and her father like an impassable wall. His hands were clenched in slightly raised fists, his legs spread apart to assume a fighting position.
Somehow he had managed to reach her ... and now he was there to protect her.
In front of the couple, Joe Danvers got up with difficulty and stared hatefully at the wall-climber.
"How many times have I told you not to bring boys home?!" he growled with a voice much more similar to that of Cletus Kasady, who seemed to have disappeared into the air.
Then, the man opened his jaws bristling with sharp teeth, while his hands turned into a pair of sickles.
He launched himself at Spiderman, waving his arms like a helicopter propeller. The vigilante stepped aside and hit the monster with a punch to the jaw, then with a powerful knee to the stomach.
"Carol, this is not real! You have to wake up!" he screamed, while the man recovered from the assault and kicked him in the chest, sending him to hit the bed in the room.
Carol put both her hands to her head, in an attempt to suppress the noises caused by the fight.
At the same time, Peter's voice continued to ring in her ears.
"Wake up!"
XXXX
Peter's body was thrown through the brick wall with the same force as a racing car, pouring shards across the room.
He tumbled to the ground and continued his advance for five meters, before ending up against a beam.
"I think I broke something", he muttered with a strained voice, while an indescribable feeling of pain and fatigue began to grip his bones and muscles.
His regenerating factor had already begun to do its job, but he seriously doubted that he would survive another beating.
He had to find a way to fight back ... but how? Carnage itself had already been able to overwhelm him. How could he, a mere neighbourhood vigilante, keep up with one of the most powerful beings in the universe? The answer was simple: he couldn't.
The only logical solution to surviving this battle ... was to free Carol from the control of that monster.
Looking around, the teenager noticed that he had ended up in an area of the factory still under construction, judging by the numerous building materials scattered around the room.
Iron beams, nylon ropes, concrete bricks, steel pipes ... none of this would have been useful against a person like Carol, capable of taking a missile in the face without suffering the slightest damage.
As the boy brooded over this, the figure of Carnage through the hole he had opened in the wall of the room a few seconds earlier, smiling maliciously at him. Cletus followed him shortly after, looking at the whole scene with a satisfied expression.
Peter struggled to his feet, spitting a trickle of blood.
"Think about it, Parker. It's not invincible, that thing must have some weak point", he thought with a frown.
He went back to memory, carefully evaluating everything that had happened during his previous confrontations with the monster.
"Wait a second ..." he muttered to himself.
In fact ... there had been a moment, during their last battle, when the creature had seemed to be more in pain than usual.
Before the cistern exploded, in that same laboratory, when the railing had fallen to the ground, producing that deafening din. At that precise moment, he had seen Carnage exhibit pain like never before. But why?
Had he been taken by surprise? He doubted it strongly. Or…
"Of course ... the noise!" Was the thought that crossed the boy's mind. "It was all that noise that hurt him!"
It was the only logical explanation. Or, at least, the only one that seemed logical to him.
After all, many animals - such as bats and cetaceans - were sensitive to high-sequence vibrations. Maybe that dress had a similar weakness? Such an eventuality was worth considering, especially as he was running out of alternatives.
At the same time, Kasady pointed to him with his perennial grin.
"And now, Spiderman ... you will die. It was a really fun game, but I'm afraid it's time for the Game Over", he said dramatically.
Shortly thereafter, Carnage jumped up at him with his jaws wide open, ready to grab him.
Peter was not intimidated.
"Last chance" he muttered.
He fired a spider web and grabbed two metal bars. Then he slammed them against each other, hoping with all himself that his theory was correct.
Carnage's reaction was instantaneous. It stopped abruptly, bringing both hands to its temples and releasing a desperate lament, while snake-like tendrils protruded from the monster's body. Cletus also seemed influenced by the sound and fell to his knees, screaming in agony.
Under the mask, Spiderman gave a mental cry of victory.
He grabbed another bar and drove it into the floor of the room, making a high-pitched, rattling sound. He did the same with those in his hand, just as the creature seemed about to fight back.
Carnage hissed, withdrawing from the vigilante as if it had been burned.
Before it could recover, Peter grabbed another bar and slammed it violently to the ground. The monster fell backwards, writhing.
The vigilante imitated the action a second time. And then a third ... and a fourth.
After this, he grabbed six more bars in quick succession and proceeded to surround Carnage in a sort of cage. Finally, he took one last tube and started rubbing it against the others, while the creature screamed in anger and pain.
XXXX
Carol's mental landscape began to change.
What had been a perfect representation of her parents' room until a few seconds earlier began to crumble and deform, as if the house itself had been hit by a tornado.
Thunder and lightning echoed beyond the windows of the house, while Joe Danvers and Spiderman continued to fight in the centre of the room, shattering the furniture and the plaster on the walls.
"I love family reunions. Don't you?" the man said, with the voice of Cletus Kasady.
Peter punched him in the back. He attacked a second time, but the opponent grabbed him in mid-air and smiled at him with his mouth bristling with fangs.
He sprang forward and bit the boy's right shoulder, making him scream. And the scream rang in Carol's mind, who curled up further on herself.
Then, Joe grabbed the vigilante by the neck and nailed him to the floor, while his free hand turned into a scarlet knife.
"The tongue beats where the tooth hurts!" he exclaimed, sinking the blade into the Avenger's belly.
"GHAAAA!" Peter yelled, forcing Carol to open her eyes for the first time since that fight had started.
With her great horror, the little girl saw her father kicking the boy's lifeless body, making him bump into the opposite wall of the room. At the same time, the ceiling of the house began to crumble on itself.
Hesitantly, Carol crawled to the superhero figure.
"Peter ..." she whispered weakly.
She placed a hand on the teenager's injured shoulder and began to shake it. Nothing. The boy remained motionless.
The girl tried a second time, but the result was the same.
"No ..." she whimpered with a low voice, while a copious stain of blood began to wet her knees.
Without paying too much attention, Carol embraced Peter's body and hugged him to herself, as rivers of tears began to flow down her cheeks.
He was dead. She ... was alone. Completely abandoned to herself.
"Peter, please ... don't leave me …" she sobbed, through the lightning of the storm.
At the same time, Carnage's dark laughter echoed behind her.
An unexpected fury replaced the sadness that gripped the girl's heart.
Carol stood slowly, her face adorned with an empty expression, her hands wet with the blood of the one who had tried to protect her.
She turned to his father.
"You ... you're not real" she said after a few moments of silence.
Joe Danvers tilted his head slightly, peering her from head to foot with deep black eyes.
"What is it, little angel? Don't you recognize your daddy anymore?" he asked mockingly, raising both lips in a grotesque grin.
Carol was tempted to take a step backwards. Instead, she clenched her hands into fists and took a deep breath.
"You're not here ... you're not real ..." she repeated with more force, while a faint glow began to wrap her fingers.
Seemingly surprised, her father's face went from a grinning mask to a worried look.
"Because if you are real ... Peter is dead ... and Peter cannot be dead", the girl growled, her eyes now illuminated by a golden light.
Joe Danvers' projection seemed to swallow. "Carol, darling ... light of my life ..."
"You are not real!" the little girl screamed, while that same glow began to illuminate her like the flame of a fire. At the same instant, a shock wave started directly from the girl's body, throwing the parent against the opposite wall of the room, breaking the windows of the house and the last planks of the roof into pieces, and making the whole house tremble.
"None of this is real!" Carol shouted, with more force. And now she no longer had the body of a child, but that of an adult woman in her prime.
A ray of golden light illuminated the darkness of her mind, piercing the storm as if it had been generated by the sun itself.
And then, Peter's voice rang in the superheroine's ears once again.
"CAROL!"
XXXX
Carol Danvers opened her eyes.
The world around her was blurred, scarlet, as if she were observing her surroundings through a red veil.
She saw Peter a few steps away from her, and the cage of pipes that surrounded her. She heard the symbiote screaming for the pain caused by the sounds and flames burning inside her.
Taking a deep breath, she tapped into the anger she felt and began to release cosmic energy.
The symbiote began to scream louder, like an injured child, while tentacles and tendrils stirred madly around the superheroine figure.
Cletus and Peter looked at the whole scene with wide eyes.
"Impossible…" the serial killer muttered, visibly shocked by that unexpected turn of events
The light surrounding Carol grew more intense. And as the glow grew ... the hold of the symbiote on her became weaker and weaker.
Carnage's mask half retracted, revealing the woman's face.
"Peter ... run", she whispered, as soon as her eyes rested on the teenager.
Without wasting time, the boy launched himself towards the nearest window, while behind him the light became almost blinding. At the same time, the floor around Carol began to crumble, the pipes surrounding her began to melt and a loud buzz rang out the length of the factory.
And when Peter threw himself against the window, Cletus Kasady let out a resigned sigh.
"I knew it, I should have been an actor ..."
BOOM!
Carol screamed, as the cosmic energy around her exploded in every direction, burning everything it came in contact with.
The symbiote shrieked in pain and despair, feeling fear for the first time since it was created in that laboratory. Each of its smaller cells was reduced to a heap of ash, evaporating in the air.
Cletus was thrown by the shock wave, crossed the wall of the room and ended up in the Hudson River with a loud thud.
The whole factory caught fire in the fraction of a few moments.
The explosion illuminated the night of New York, and every person who was in the vicinity of the chemical complex found himself dazzled by the intensity of that flash.
Then, darkness and silence reigned over the whole area.
Peter was dragged by the river current for at least a couple of minutes, tossing from one side of the canal to the other. When he was able to restrain his advance, clinging to a nearby trunk, he was almost beyond the factory boundary.
Even in total darkness, it was not difficult to spot the flames rising from the now destroyed complex. Step by step, he tried to reach the shore.
Finally, the muddy bottom began to give way to gravel and rocks. The water drained from the armour as he staggered to land.
He slumped to the ground and took quick breaths of air. Shortly thereafter, a familiar light began to drive away the darkness that surrounded him.
A flicker of footsteps forced him to open his eyes.
"Carol", he whispered with a little smile, while the figure of the woman was revealed above him.
She smiled in turn and knelt in front of him, then began to trace his features.
Seeing his battered face full of cuts, the superheroine couldn't help but put a hand to her mouth.
"Peter, I ..."
Before she could finish the sentence, the young man threw himself against her and wrapped both arms around her dazzling figure, holding her close.
"You're ok. Thank goodness, you're ok", he muttered in her neck, while the blonde blushed furiously.
After a few moments of hesitation, she returned the hug and let herself be lulled by the familiar scent of the vigilante.
"Let's not do it again", she sighed tiredly. Regardless, Peter found himself chuckling.
Both parted.
Carol pinned the boy's cheek and peered at him with evident concern.
"You've lost a lot of blood. Don't worry, the others will be here in a moment", she said reassuringly.
Peter nodded weakly.
It was over. It was finally over. They had stopped Carnage and the city was safe. Tonight people would sleep soundly, away from the horrors of a world that was becoming increasingly insane.
"I suppose I'll have to call May, she must be really worried", he thought with a touch of irony.
He looked up to meet Carol's eyes ... and stopped.
"Watch out!" he exclaimed, grabbing the woman by the shoulders and pushing her to the side. She barely had time to turn her head.
Cletus Kasady was behind her, covered in blood and burns, his eyes red as a pair of burning embers and his lips curled into a crazy smile. In his right hand he held a sharp piece of foil raised in mid-air, ready to be lowered onto the woman's head.
Peter knew that Carol's skin was strong enough to survive the explosion of a surface-to-air missile, but the instinct to protect her got the better of common sense.
The blade went down to the boy's heart like a guillotine. Time seemed to slow down.
The sound of a gunshot was heard. A rush of blood. Silence.
Cletus Kasady widened his eyes in surprise, while a small hole formed right in the middle of his forehead.
He lost his grip on the blade and fell backwards, releasing a stifled groan.
Both Peter and Carol spun around.
About a hundred meters from them, perched on the top of a roof, there was a slender female figure wrapped in a white and silver suit that covered her from head to toe. In her hands she held what seemed to be a sniper rifle.
Both Avengers widened their eyes, dumbfounded. At the same time, the mysterious individual jumped out of the building with impressive agility and disappeared into the shadows of the night.
Carol prepared to chase her. However, just before she could even get up, the body of a certain wall climber slumped against her.
"Peter!"
XXXX
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BOOM!
I hope you liked the fight, I wanted to create something different from the previous battle, something more psychological.
Cletus's song was inspired by Joker's song from Arkham Knight.
The female figure was, of course, Sable.