BGM-Spider-Man: Web of Shadows OST-Web of Shadows
Spider-Man: Look out! It's your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man! The entire city now hates me. Must be that time of the month again. This time hating me for trying to stop symbiotes disguised as humans. Wolverine and Raven nearly gutted me thinking I was another mindless alien, but I convinced them that I have my symbiote under control. It's up to us to find out who's normal and who's a symbiote, and stop them before they overrun the city.
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Issue 9: Sense of Dread
Manhattan, New York City
At a back alley, Qrow has his hands crossed while leaning his back on a large garbage container. He stares at a group of normal-looking humans minding their own business, sharing jokes and laughing at them. He narrows his gaze at them, until he was approached by Spider-Man, Wolverine, and Raven.
Qrow grins at Peter, "Long time no see, Webhead. Been busy throwing people off of rooftops lately?" He joked.
Spidey shrugs, "Only the ones infected with alien symbiotes."
As Wolverine approaches Qrow, he says with a serious face, "Been keeping an eye on this group. Something's not right about them. Can you confirm?"
Wolverine sniffs the scent of the suspicious group from his position. "Yeah. There's several in that group right there." He confirms the huntsman's suspicions.
"Right WHERE?" Peter commented in confusion, not realizing the civilians in front of them are actually symbiotes in disguised.
Raven exasperates while rolling her eyes, "Look." She walks toward the civilians, getting their curious attention. Swiftly, she whips out her blade while into a fighting stance, glaring at the group. In a blink of an eye, the civilians crouch onto all fours and growl like monstrous symbiotes hiding in plain sight.
"Aaahh. There." quips Spidey, getting into his own fighting stance while confronting the Hidden Symbiotes.
BGM-Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 OST-Riot on the Raft
"Graaaagh! GRAAAAH!" A Hidden Symbiote lunges at Raven, who easily moves away from it. It repeatedly tries to claw her chest open, but she continues to dodge its strikes before finding an opening to counterattack, killing the creature with a single deadly slash.
"You symbiotes are TERRIBLE disguising as humans. All you do is snarl and growl like Wolverine. Skrulls you ain't!" quips Spidey, backflipping away from an attack of a symbiote. He webs it before delivering a dropkick that launches it back onto other symbiotes. Wolverine slices a symbiote with his vicious claws until it's dead, as Qrow leaps to the last symbiote and slashes it dead when he lands.
"Anymore, Logan?" says Qrow, as the group follow Wolverine out of the alleyway and onto the sidewalks of the city.
Wolverine sniffs the air, "I smell one." He turns to Spider-Man, "Try that Black Suit of yours. Maybe that's the key."
"Okay…" Spidey said unsurely, reluctant to dig deeper into the dark powers of his symbiote.
"Concentrate. Gotta find a way to see them without being seen yourself." Logan advised.
Spidey switches to his Black Suit, which stuns the Branwen Twins to see him having control of his evil symbiote. As Peter closes his eyes, he takes a deep breath and concentrates on his Spider-Sense. He can feel the symbiote enhancing his Spider-Sense, making it stronger and connecting to the Symbiotes' hive-mind. He lets out a calm sigh as he triggers his new Symbiote-Sense.
Suddenly, hidden Symbiotes that were walking along the sidewalk reacted to his Symbiote-Sense and instantly rampages towards Symbiote Spider-Man. Wolverine unsheathes his claws, "Good job, kid! Let's tear 'em apart!" The Mutant Avenger lunges into combat with claws outstretched, knocking down all the symbiotes in his path. Raven stabs, while Qrow slashes, the weakened symbiotes. Symbiote Spidey latches a tendril on the remaining symbiote and pulls it towards him, then swings it over his head to be brutally slammed to the ground.
"The symbiotes must sense one another. I think they're reacting to MY symbiote." Symbiote Spidey commented.
"How can you STAND walking around with some alien ringworm crawling around in your guts?" Raven asked him.
"It's not like that!" Peter retorted.
Raven shrugs as she walks away, "Whatever helps you sleep at night, kid."
"How 'bout you and Qrow? You two aren't bothered that you can turn into birds?" asked Spidey, crawling on the side of a building while following his friends.
"Turning into birds is less freaky than being fused with alien slime." Qrow quipped.
"How can you turn into birds anyway? Got bitten by a radioactive corvid?" Spidey joked.
"Close enough. When Raven and I attended Beacon, Ozpin gave us the magic power to transform into birds. It was our choice to gain those powers to help him fight Salem." Qrow answered.
"You mean LOSE to Salem." Raven quipped, annoying her little brother as she doesn't believe Salem can be stopped.
"I remember Ozpin using magic when he was mind-controlled by Goblin. And I also remember hearing he's like super-old." Spidey replied.
"By at least a thousand years." Raven quips, "The man you know as Ozpin designed the Huntsmen Academies and has followers inside each of them on Remnant that are loyal to him and no one else. The old man did it because he has a great and terrible secret. One that could spread fear across the world. One that he eventually entrusted to our team, Team STRQ, and once I knew, there was no going back. I needed to know more, but with every new discovery I made, the more horrifying the world became."
"You talkin' about Salem? A little extreme why he did all that, but I can sorta understand. I'm a little more surprised you and Qrow are working together again, 'cause last I remember, you two don't like each other." Spidey quipped.
"We don't." Qrow replied. "But we do like Logan, and it's not all the time we fight aliens in another dimension."
As Spider-Man and the Branwen Twins follow Wolverine to a small plaza, the mutant sniffs out the scent of more symbiotes. "Got a scent. Spider-Man, you know what to do!" Logan told him. Spidey nods in acknowledgement, triggering his Symbiote-Sense to detect the hidden symbiotes. Logan points out a Hidden Symbiote crawling up a building, "Found one!" Qrow taps on the mutant's shoulder after spotting something worse. Logan turns around and stares in shock at another building, which is swarming with Hidden Symbiotes that are crawling down towards the heroes. "Awww…" He groaned.
"This one…This one…" said the symbiotes, as they converge towards Symbiote Spider-Man.
"They all want a piece of me." quips Spidey, supercharging his right fist with tendrils, then slams it into the ground, unleashing a large shockwave that scatters most of the symbiotes.
Qrow transforms Harbinger into a Scythe and throws it at a symbiote, keeping the weapon encircling it, "What can you tell us about symbiotes, Spidey? Any weaknesses?" He asks before being tackled by two symbiotes.
Spidey kicks a symbiote away, "Symbiotes are like Grimm. Not only they are attracted to negative emotions, they FEED on them!" He says while smacking a few symbiotes with a tendril whip, "Gives them more control over their hosts! They're nearly unstoppable unless you hit them with fire or loud noises!"
"Why didn't you say that earlier?" Raven charges her sword with Fire ISO-Dust, delivering a flaming spin slash on the symbiotes, killing most of them instantly. "You make it sound like symbiotes are more dangerous than Grimm." She quipped dryly.
"That because they ARE!" Spidey retorts while punching several symbiotes, "Venom has all of my powers times 100, and you all know how tough I am!"
"When you take things seriously." quips Raven, slashing away the remaining symbiotes.
"Venom has always been one of my deadliest enemies. Each time we fight, I barely escape with my life. He can manhandle an entire army of Grimm by himself if he's serious. I mean, look at what his symbiote is doing to the city." Spidey reminisced his battles with Venom.
"Kinda reminds me of Salem." Qrow compared.
Wolverine scoffs, "I wouldn't go that far. Brock's a nutcase, but at least he tries his best to help people. He just really wants Spider-Man dead."
"I don't see much of a difference between him and Salem. This is a little much to squash one puny spider." Raven quipped.
"You're right. I fear Venom has finally subverted the personality of his host, and the people he has infected. Where to next, Wolverine?" Peter asks his teammate.
Logan sniffs the air, "There was a car accident not too far from here."
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"Let's check it out." Spidey launches a webline to swing on, as the rest of his friends catch up with him on foot. It wasn't long until the heroes arrive at the crash site, where a van crashed into a car and destroyed a hydrant in the process, causing water to erupt near the damaged vehicles. "I guess they're not good drivers." Spidey joked.
"I can tell there is at least one critter here. Find 'im!" Wolverine orders the young superhero.
BGM-Spider-Man: Web of Shadows OST-Gang War (Black Suit)
Spidey triggers his Symbiote-Sense, alerting his presence to nearby symbiotes, "Weiss always said that I'm a magnet for trouble, or symbiotes in this case."
The growling symbiotes rush towards Spider-Man, who leaps away from them and fire a thick wad of webbing back at his pursuers, immobilizing them for Wolverine and the Branwen Twins to finish off with a simultaneous slash. "Yeah, teamwork! Who said a spider, a wolverine, and two birds can't work together?" Spidey jokingly asked.
An ambulance is seen driving past the heroes. One of the surviving symbiotes leap onto the top of the vehicle, repeatedly pounding on it as it tries to break in. The ambulance was forced to crash in front of a hospital, which is being assaulted by more hidden symbiotes.
"We need to get to the hospital! We can't allow those things attacking the patients!" Qrow said.
The Branwen Twins transform into birds and fly towards the hospital at high speed. "Hold onto your claws!" Spidey grabs Wolverine by the back of his costume as he swings to the hospital.
"Webs, throw a fastball!" Wolverine proclaims as they near the hospital entrance.
"One Fastball Special, coming right up!" Spidey throws the mutant down at a symbiote. Wolverine impales the creature to the ground, then wildly slashes his claws on other symbiotes, tearing them to shreds.
A few symbiotes manage to break through the front door into the hospital, roaring at the employees and patients inside as Qrow flies towards them in his bird form. Flying over the symbiotes into the lobby, he transforms into his human form wielding his scythe, delivering a fierce spinning slash that knocks the creatures out of the hospital. "Excuse me, gorgeous!" Qrow briefly flirts with a beautiful nurse as he runs past her, leaping into the lot to continue fighting the symbiotes.
"Here's one for you, and one for you!" said Spidey, hitting symbiotes with web shots, stunning them long enough for Raven to swoop in for the killer blow. "It's like fighting side-by-side with Yang." He commented.
"Except I'm older and I'm not into annoyances." retorts Raven, deflecting several claw swipes from symbiotes.
"Harsh. But can an annoyance do THIS?" Spidey switches to his Red Suit, surrounded by symbiotes converging onto him as he shouts, "RISING-WEB!" releasing a rising spiral of webs that vertically launches the creatures, then blows them away with a powerful explosion of webbing, "Bye-bye!" He lands on the ground with a dramatic landing pose as he says, "Nailed it."
Raven shrugs, "Not bad, for an annoyance."
"Why thank you." Peter quipped.
As Wolverine kills the remaining symbiote, he says, "This city is really starting to stink."
"In the middle of all this you're complaining about odors?" Spidey quipped.
Logan snarls, "I'm talking about how many of these freaks I'm smelling."
"It does seem like the number of infected people is growing." Qrow noted.
"You two are part of those 'Avengers' now. Where are they during this pandemic?" Raven asks the two New Avengers.
"The main team is busy outta the city for a few days, but the New Avengers are around if things get too complicated." Spidey answered.
"We might have to consider assembling the rest of the team. Not sure if the four of us are enough to stop this infection from spreadin', but we'll keep trying." Wolverine says, turning to Spider-Man, "We'll split up and cover a district. Take out as many of these things as we can. Use that Spider-Sense of yours to find these creeps and take them out."
Spidey nod, "You got it."
BGM End
Meanwhile at the New York Docks…
BGM-Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 OST-Ultimate Confrontation
"I DON'T want to talk about it." Carnage shouted inside a burning warehouse. The psycho symbiote spots Emerald running towards him and shooting him relentlessly with her Thief's Respite. He blocks the bullets before violently lashing his tendrils onto the thief, smacking her through burning boxes. Suddenly, Mercury hits him with a powerful diving kick to the head, then proceeds to combo him with a flurry of kicks. Luckily, they don't do much damage to Carnage as he endures them for the chance to grab his legs with body tendrils, then smacks the assassin away with an axe sweep, "You kids stay out of this! This is between me and daddy!" He taunted. "The whole thing DISGUSTS me. It's sick and I don't even want to talk about-."
"TOO BAD!" retorts Venom, lunging at Carnage's back and slashing it. He then grabs his son and slams him to the ground, pinning him, "Arrangements must be made. You're Number 998…"
"This is none of your business, Venom." Carnage retorted.
Venom growls, "I'm your father, that means-."
"That means NOTHING!" Carnage smacks his father away with a sneaky finger tendril.
Carnage web-swings out of the burning building, as Venom gives chase whilst swinging himself. "Don't be ashamed, Carnage. It happens to all of us." He tries reasoning with his son.
"I'm not ashamed. I just don't want anything to do with it." Carnage retorted.
"But-." Before Venom could say anymore, Carnage clings onto the side of a tall skyscraper and wraps tendrils around his father's neck, choking him.
"Push this and I'll kill you. I'll finally do it." Carnage said, webswinging while taking the choking Venom hostage, "Maybe if my host had a little filial sediment…a little more human love for his own daddy…some of it would have crossed over to me. As it is, I feel nothing but COLD EMPTY CONTEMPT! I HATE you, daddy." He angrily points at Venom.
"Good." Venom responded, "The relationship between symbiote and father should, by our long tradition, be cold and, if need be, downright hostile. Any other way is beyond comprehension. Love? Between father and child? That's creepy…perverse…unsymbiotic." He said as Carnage lands them on a rooftop, "Carnage, I've LOATHED you like a son. Now believe me, this thing that's happening…you cannot…You cannot run away from it!"
"If I can't stop it being born…" Carnage whips his annoying father across the city, crashing into the Hudson River. "I'll kill it before it's A DAY OLD!"
"Not happening, freak!" Suddenly, Cinder jumps to the rooftop and surprises the psycho symbiote. Her clothes ignite into flames as she delivers a destructively powerful dropkick onto Kasady's face, sending both of them flying off the roof. Pushing a little more power into her kick, Cinder smashes Carnage onto the streets below and causing lots of collateral damage.
Carnage lies on the ground, groaning, looking weakened from that flaming kick. Cinder stands fine, confronting the symbiote with a looming glare upon him. "Give up your child. You can't run away from this." She warns him.
As Carnage slowly stands on his knees, he can feel his chest beating in pain like before as it glows yellow again, meaning he is about to give birth to his child. "You can't run away, he said. You can't run away, she said. You can't run away." He extends his claws and burrows through the ground, much to Cinder's surprise, "So bury it…Kill it…suffocate it…Deep. Deep…Uh oh…It's…coming…out…"
"You can't hide forever!" Cinder taunted him.
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But in a split second, the former Maiden can feel the ground beneath her trembling before she and the entire area was hit by a massive explosion from underground. Windows were shattered as buildings collapsed. Cars were toppled along with streetlights. Most of the civilians that were caught in the explosion died, except for Cinder. Her remaining Aura protected her, leaving her unconscious body on the ground near the massive hole. Inside the deep hole lies Carnage, who took so much damage from his own explosion that he nearly separated from his host.
Slowly, Carnage recovers. He coughs badly as his symbiote covers his body again, "Venom never said…birthing hurt this bad…Make me feel this…wasted…Must be from those crystals I ate…"
He jumps out of his crater and lands near the unconscious Cinder, looming over her with his monstrous presence, "Ahhh, and here's our host for the evening. If I had any spit left in me, I'd finish this right now…but you can't go anywhere I won't find you…And that's a PROMISE." He sneakily infects his newborn child into Cinder before swinging away.
After Carnage left, Cinder's body was quickly approached by Emerald, Mercury, and Venom. "Cinder?! CINDER!" shouted Emerald, kneeling next to her boss and shaking her body in extreme worry, "You got to get up! Venom, can't you help her?!"
"No need." Venom said calmly, sensing that Cinder is alive and will awake soon.
Right on cue, Cinder coughs herself awake, much to the relief of Emerald. She blinks her eyes multiple times as she weakly gets up, "Where's Carnage…?"
"Gone." Venom answered.
"And the child…" Cinder questioned.
"It happened." Venom replied, "He tried to stop it. And almost blew them both to pieces. But I can feel it. There is another one of us on Earth. Not a clone. My grandchild. I must protect the 1000th symbiote of our line. Before its father kills it."
Mercury crosses his arms, "And where is your grandkid?"
Venom creepily points at Cinder, "With her."
BGM-Spider-Man 3 (Game) OST-Black Suit Theme #2
Cinder and her two associates gasp in collective shock to hear that Cinder has been infected with the child of Carnage. Both Mercury and Emerald stare at their boss in disbelief, as she too couldn't believe this shocking news. "I…We're…bonded?" Cinder commented.
Venom nods, "Meaning Carnage will come for you and Toxin."
"Toxin?" Cinder questions his name for his newborn grandchild.
"Pretty, huh?" Venom grinned. "This is perfect. Imagine our power together against Spider-Man. You and I. Granddaughter and grandfather. All will fall before us! First Carnage, then Spider-Man, and finally humanity! The symbiotes will rule the darkness for all eternity!"
"Except for one small problem." Cinder proclaimed.
"And what would that be?" Venom asked curiously.
Swiftly, Cinder summons a fire sword and slashes Venom across his chest, much to the surprise of Emerald and Mercury. Venom roars in pain as he's smashed onto the ground while recovering from the flames, "What is the meaning…of this betrayal?!" He asked Cinder, surprised and suspicious of her motives.
"Keeping a promise." Cinder muttered, referring to her promise with Brock before they met with Salem. She pins down the symbiote with a few fireballs while stepping backwards next to her cohorts, "Let's move!" She shouted, as Team Cinder flee from the area.
Quickly, Venom gets back up and furiously sprout numerous tendrils from his stomach towards the fleeing Cinder. "LOOK OUT!" Emerald shouts as she pushes Cinder to the ground, allowing herself and Mercury to be caught by the tendrils themselves.
"HUH?!" Cinder turns around in shock, staring at her closest allies that sacrificed themselves to save her.
"YOU GOTTA STOP HIM! I BELIEVE IN YOU!" Emerald said to her boss as she's being dragged to Venom's stomach alongside Mercury.
"YOU GOT THIS, BOSS!" Mercury shouted.
As Venom is about to devour his former friends right before Cinder's shocked eyes, she realizes this is her only chance to escape. She quickly stands up and runs as fast as she could away from Venom, just as he kills his former friends. "Why must you break Eddie's heart, Cinder?" He quipped. Then, several hidden symbiotes appear as they land and growl behind their master. "Now we have no choice but to break yours." He said, vowing to kill Cinder for betraying the Symbiote Hive.
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BGM-Shadow the Hedgehog OST-Main Menu
KFX Here: Betcha some of ya are happy we're finally getting into the symbiote good stuff. Toxin has been born and bonded to Cinder. It'll be some time until you see it in action since it's a newborn. But this is surprising. Cinder is upholding her promise with Eddie Brock to stop him if he goes crazy and decided to betray him, and to that extent, Salem. The reunion of rivals is upon us!
Next Time: Spider-Man and Cinder team-up? Descent of the Symbiote Rulers!"
Remember: I have a forum page! Link can be found on my homepage or search for the "United Heroes Series" forums!
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