Coulson was in the main office of the Triskellion watching the monitors showing riots around the country and Avengers and SHIELD personnel were once again called in to try and deescalate things. There was Steve among those trying to appeal to the masses to calm down as well as break up fights in New York. "It might be a while before we can calm things down and it's hard to tell what side anyone is on: there are people thinking that things were better when Tony was still in charge and there are those blaming me for things going this bad from Tony's actions and the honeymoon. I am wondering myself if they are right." Steve said through communications with his voice showing some guilt in it as Coulson shook his head.
"You did the best that you could and even Captain America needs time to relax as well as recharge, I am sure that we can calm this mob down such as the others and in the meanwhile please keep being yourself which usually works." Coulson replied as he then got Natasha coming in through the communication line as she was in San Francisco. "Please have a talk with your husband Agent Romanoff-Rogers about blaming himself and what do you have?" Coulson asked.
"I will have a talk with him but here in San Francisco, the local news got some sort of video which they showed and it went trending quite quickly in the last fifteen minutes. I had to listen to it on the building screens while helping the local authorities." Natasha said as Coulson raised an eyebrow as he then got a monitor to bring the video up.
There was the cloaked criminal known as the Hood in front of a blank backdrop as he said facing the camera "I am the Hood and I have brought a Cabal together to end the status quo of the so called Age of Heroes! Captain America and his ilk want things to go bad to the way they are while ignoring the victims left behind by the big shows of their fights. Not too long ago the boxer Carl Creel who the media has dubbed the Absorbing Man was found murdered in the night with a red beam that destroyed the area and the Avengers have hardly cared. Just another day in the office for them. Who really takes down those responsible for society's troubles? Who will have to clean up the mess left behind by Tony Stark? In his presidency, he was too busy invading countries to know what his company's executives were doing! Dennis Golembuski who was the top Stark executive in San Francisco, enjoyed his power and went under his boss's nose in setting up his own smuggling ring and became the Kingpin of the city until I killed him! Stark surrendered and now the crime groups of the city turned it into a warzone before I united them all! I bet Stark and the Avengers never cared about Golembuski or the aftermath of his death! The Cabal are here to fight for the victims of society who have been declared terrorists and criminals!"
Coulson shook his head and said "unfortunately some fools will eat up his words but Golembuski will be someone I need to look into. Perhaps the Hood in his boasting has given us a clue as to who he really is. Please do your best in deescalating things." Coulson then thought about Creel's death and how the Avengers and SHIELD were stunned to find the wooden corpse of Creel and their examinations of the crime scene (which seemed to be the workshop of Mason) suggested that it was optic blasts that had done the job but no one in their databases had something like this. The place had no security cameras except for those inside his secret workspace which could only be accessed in a computer inside the workspace, Mason probably didn't want anything to incriminate him if the police came over and he was found talking to fugitives or unsavoury individuals.
Speaking of Creel; he called for Luke Cage and Danny Rand the Heroes for Hire who had been doing their part in helping with riots and fights. Plus Coulson had hired them to look into whoever could have killed Creel and kidnapped Mason. "Mr Cage and Mr Rand, I hope that you don't feel too bitter that this case has taken you from keeping your city from tearing itself apart." Coulson said as there were scoffs from Luke.
"Don't worry Coulson, there are so many problems popping up that helping to fix one will hopefully stop it from becoming a bigger one. I know your time is valuable so I won't drag this down but we found some underhanded contacts who had been lying low since Stark became President and I had a nice friendly conversation with them to get them to spill what they know if you know what I mean." Luke said and Coulson knew exactly what he meant.
"There had been guys looking for someone who could break into the Raft to kill Stark, one of them has a mask he never takes off and answers to the name Sarge and his main guy looks, sounds and acts like Castle the Punisher." Danny said as Coulson facepalmed.
"Wonderful another new player in this Sarge and now there is a doppelganger of the Punisher running about, you know I thought things had been too boring lately." Coulson said sarcastically shaking his head. "Thanks for your intel, please tell me if you find any more information." Coulson said and then found a portal behind him and Loki entering through it. "I hope that you have something important to tell me!" Coulson fumed as Loki smirked.
He then had the Book of the Vishanti appear open up and there was an illustration of the red cloak that the Hood wore on one of the pages. "You found the Cloak that the Hood uses, is it like the inspiration for Red Riding Hood?" Coulson asked as Loki shook his head.
"It was crafted from a piece of the cloak of Mephisto himself, a powerful dark demon that your mortals have long mistaken for the Devil. This cloak has given such great power to whoever possesses it but they end up risking losing their soul to Mephisto himself. It was last used by a dark sorcerer who lost himself and the mortal sorcerers of Midgard hadn't been able to track it down." Loki explained as Coulson looked at the pages of the book.
"We know what the Hood uses and he may end up losing his soul to hell, I will take anything that even resembles good news at this rate..." Coulson said as Loki then gave a blow and then went back through the portal. He then went to find Daisy Johnson who he had made the deputy director of SHIELD to look into Dennis Golembuski as well as a figure in New York going by Sarge.
In the base used by the group known as the Guys, Mason was helping Petey to improve Sarge's suit, "How exactly did you create this Mr Parker?" Mason asked looking at the exoskeleton of the suit on beyond the pieces of the Iron Legion parts.
"Well the exoskeleton was built by Tarleton a partner of Sarge who he worked with before he formed our group of Guys, back when he had secret funding from the CIA before his contacts got dealt with. I had to build onto this." Petey explained.
"Any progress?" Sarge asked as he came forward as Mason shook his head.
"We if we had more materials could reinforce this suit to be stronger and even then, the tests of the NuForm showed that it could be unpredictable and so it could overpower the suit, even if we upgraded it. We would need some stronger materials to make sure that it was safe to have the power on for what it would take to storm the Raft." Mason explained as Sarge frowned and then looked towards Micro on the computer.
"On the Rising Tide chats and some other dark areas, I may have found inside people inside the Raft who could help us breach the defences but I don't think we have the firepower yet to storm the place. Right now we wouldn't get very far, much less be able to find and kill probably the most heavily guarded prisoner in the place." Micro said as they found something wrong with the lights as suddenly appeared was Arthur Parks the Living Laser.
Out came Masters who with his shield was able to restrain Castle easily and then there was a furious MacPherran who lifted up Sarge by the throat. Masters restraining Castle was near the crib where the crying Scotty was and so the scared Micro and Petey were unable to try and retrieve him. "Which one of you killed Carl? My husband who I never expected to lose so soon! I will rip you to pieces and your skulls as well as your insides shall decorate the road to show as an example!" MacPherran snarled into Sarge's defiant face as Mason had his hands behind his back in surrender.
Then there was Robbins appearing through a portal and he forced a reluctant MacPherran to put Sarge down, "So we have managed to track down the killers of one of my Cabal cohorts and the ringleader seems to have the face of the Director of SHIELD! I am the Hood and here are some more of my allies and we should just kill you. However I hear that you are putting together a plan to storm the Raft and kill the former President! I feel that lies within our own goals so how about we work together or else I let the grieving widow do with you as she pleases." Robbins said as Sarge looked around him.
He sighed as he hated the idea of working with these freaks but they have little option at this point, besides during the raid on the Raft he could always arrange for this Cabal be left to the Avengers which could keep them preoccupied allowing him to kill Stark and then escape with his team. "Consider us on a mutually beneficial alliance then." Sarge agreed as Robbins smirked with the other Guys members knowing from the look on his face that Sarge wasn't happy with this.
It was a busy day as Peter had been helping the Avengers defuse another riot with Jennifer taking a break to help with, then it was another Spider-Man patrol. He web slinged to the Avengers Tower and then went through the window to the room which he shared with Jennifer. She was in her human form smiling as she was clad in her favourite Spider-Man shirt which Peter had used during the time between quitting the Avengers and getting his Advanced suit made. "So with your identity out in the open, do you plan on never using a door ever again?" Jennifer asked smirking as Peter came closer for her to take him down by the collar, unmask and kiss him with him eagerly returning.
She then pushed him gently onto the bed as she said seductively "my turn to be in charge of the bedroom..." Peter was smiling but ended becoming panicked when he saw a familiar black figure crawl onto the roof from the window and pushed Jennifer out of the way. Jennifer had been taken by surprise but was lifted by the collar by Venom as she transformed into her Hulk form.
"Parker is going to lose everything he loves and that includes you! We are going to rip his awful face right off your chest and I will eat your head off and leave your corpse in the streets. Imagine what legacy you leave behind when they find your body in that state of dress!" Venom said as Jennifer angrily took his tongue and pulled on it as he got her closer to his face. Venom then turned his attention to Peter who tried to attack him and then suddenly the Avengers Tower's alarm went off and Venom then literally jumped out of the window and then threw Jennifer to the ground as Peter jumped down to help her get up from her fall.
"You really think that you were going to get away with how you ruined my life Pete? You got my dad killed as well as Gwen and I was willing to forgive you for that but then you spat in my face when I came to you for help! My company is gone, MJ left me and I am left with nothing and it's all your fault!" Harry snapped as the Venom face was peeled away so Peter could see his glaring face and that he had a beard growing. Peter sighed as he glared up at him.
"Your father was a criminal Harry and he needed to be stopped, I didn't want him to die but he dug his own grave! I know you had it hard having to run Oscorp after that but you were the one that tried to get me to fall in line with a fascist regime for your benefit and it was your decision to experiment on MJ: Your decisions since then are your own!" Peter snapped back as the Symbiote face then covered Harry's face again.
Then there was Sam and Janet flying in the air firing at Venom as the Hulk slammed into him and punched him with him trying to fight back with the symbiotic tendrils. "Osborn weak and inexperienced..." the Venom Symbiote snarled as it was starting to split from Harry but he got it back. Venom then jumped into the air as he charged at Peter with him doing his best to try and kick him back.
However there was a figure that took Venom's notice on webs and its hands seemed to be glowing electricity as Venom shrieked in pain as the palm of the figure's hands touched Venom's back. Peter raised an eyebrow at the figure that seemed to be shorter, in a black version of the Spider-Man suit but with the spider logo red and spray painted on it. "Let me guess, alternate Earth doppelganger?" Peter asked the figure as then there came Steve, Natasha, Wanda and Loki to join in with cornering Venom.
Then came a portal underneath Venom dragging him through with him protesting that he could still fight. Peter and the Avengers then looked to this new Spider-Man who nervously stammered "sorry I came here through a portal last year and i had been wanting to keep a low profile since... I already kind of exist here... You see I took over from the Spider-Man on my Earth and since the Spider-Man that was dead on mine is alive here, I thought it would be best to keep hidden but then I learned you fought the Prowler off my Earth..." this Spider-Man said as Peter's mind went to work remembering the talk with Davis.
"Miles Morales, I presume?" Peter asked interrupting and from his reaction he knew that he had gotten the jackpot.
"Yeah... I came here with my Mum dealing with the fact that we existed here and my Dad is around as a cop... I can show you where we had been staying..." Miles said as Peter wondered how many alternate doppelgangers are here.