Erich: Ah now I get it, no she'll still be the same. And you know Peter will regret a lot that he did while with that suit. The next chapter may be a little different then what you had in mind but I hope you like it.
CloudsHalo: I don't want to spoil how he gets rid of it I prefer to write chapters that weren't in the show but occasionally I throw in those episode based chapters to give the feel like he was there.
The Uncanny R-Man: I thought that was fitting punishment for both of those and of course she will, but I'm getting ahead of myself. But you know when Peter gets his head straightened he'll feel like crap about it.
KSimonT-X: Big thanks, and yes Cletus will be Carnage and it will be like in the main Marvel comics, I'm trying for a sequel, I might go to or past the series I'm not sure. Yes Ben Riley will show up in the next one.
Emerald Knight1: In the main Marvel it was affected by both fire and sound and so is this one. Yeah I was going for having people guess how much is Peter and now much is the suit.
Episodic: Okay…not sure if you were for or against Peter/Rogue but I got a Romy or two that will be up in the future sometime, but they're a long way off.
Slickboy444: Don't worry things will work out and it's the symbiote not Venom.
Jaguar: No I'm staying with 50 chapters.
Morlin: What's the 616 universe? You'll see later on how it will go.
Mark C: Yeah it is slowly taking him over, everyone will be surprised by when they find out what's wrong with him and it won't be just Rogue that thinks things are wrong with him.
Worker72: Yeah I still want to keep Venom evil. I'm bringing Carnage in the next story.
And thanks to: X-Over, Red Witch, ldypebsaby, psychobunny410, Kaliann, celtcath74, Sparky Genocide, Stoneman85, Lord Destroyer, sweegy, ShadowHawk, Karakin
SPIDER-X
CHAPTER 49: DARKNESS REVEALVED
Brock was score as hell and ached all over. Betty, JJ's secretary saying that Jonah wanted to see him, called him in to the Bugle. It had already been a day since Spider-Man attacked him and he was wondering what this was all about. He entered the noisy and busy offices of the Bugle and walked up to the desk in front of Jameson's office and saw Betty the secretary there. "Hey Betty." Brock said to her.
"You better get in there, the boss is pretty pissed," She warned him and Eddie got a bad feeling at the moment.
Brock walked into the office, the smell of cigar smoke in the air and saw JJ there and not to happy looking, less then usual even. "Brock can you tell me what THIS is about?" JJ yelled at him and slammed down the paper of another major paper. Brock looked at the front page and saw one of his photos that Spider-Man took from him and it show him fighting those two freaks. "You told me that Spider-Man was in on it Brock!"
"Well I figured you would like that angle, you do it all the time," Brock told him.
"I don't come out and say it," JJ yelled at him taking the cigar from his face and pointing at him. "I say 'was he' or suggest he was. I don't come out and accuse him unless all the evidence points to it, that's the different between my job and libel." He slammed his fist into onto the paper on his desk. "You lied to me Brock and now the Bugle's reputation is in question Brock. Not since I started this paper has that EVER happened, not once!"
"JJ, you got to understand," Brock begged him. "I figured I was doing you a favor I mean I'm the only one that had those pictures," Jameson raised and eyebrow and tapped a finger against the picture on the front page. "That's one of mine."
"WHAT?"
"No you don't understand, Spider-Man he, he took those photos and must have sold them." Brock told him.
"Let me get this straight," Jonah, said to him studying him intensely. "First you lied to me about the photos and what happened, now you're telling me Spider-Man took your photos and sold them."
"That's right! He kicked the crap out of my, messed up my place and took my film, he was wearing this new black and white suit too."
Jonah just stared at him for a moment. "You honestly expect me to believe you?" Eddie was about to respond but was cut off. "That was rhetorical Brock! Get your stuff out of here you're finish!"
"But Jonah-"
"I said you're gone so get before I have security drag you out and throw you out!" JJ said pointing to the door. Eddie just turned and walked out the door. "And don't let the door hit you and the way out and don't expect any references from me Brock."
Eddie couldn't believe what was going on, he had just lost his job and all because of Spider-Man. Eddie clenched his fist until the knuckles were white. He swore he would get even with that freak, if it was the last thing he did he would get even with him.
-Two days later-
It had been a few days and Rogue had been watching Peter closely. She had thought of going to the Professor but she just wanted to make sure that it wasn't serious at first and that maybe it wasn't as bad as she thought it was. She was worried about him and she wasn't the only one. Over the last few days Peter had been acting more and more strange. That and Peter had been avoiding her all the time, even when they were close he made sure that he didn't touch her.
It hurt how cold he was treating her, she wanted to know what was going on with him, why he was so strange, and most of all she wanted the old Peter back. The one that made her smile and feel special. She wanted him back in her life, she just didn't realize until now how much she missed him and it was hurting much more then she thought it would.
In the Danger Room even though Logan had been impressed with the amount of skill he had been showing lately his attitude was worse then he had ever seen. He had been argumentative and didn't listen at all to instructions. May had tried to talk to him and had blown her off. Kurt tried next, then Spyder and Scott tried as well since he was the leader of the X-Men and needed to know what was going on. Peter ended up getting angry and actually hit Scott giving him a black eye.
Peter had been grounded for that for a week, even Doc Connors had pulled Kitty aside after class and asked her if there was a problem with Peter since he wasn't himself in class. After that even Kitty was wondering what was going on.
Xavier was also worried he called Peter for a private chat into his office wondering to get to the bottom of this. He was sitting in his office waiting for Peter to join him. He was going over his mind about what was going on with him.
Peter was in his room at the moment feeling strange. There was a part of him that kept telling him to leave to go before he talked to Xavier but he didn't want to go, this was his home where all his friends were and family. He was getting large headaches but was fighting it off. 'I need to see McCoy, something is wrong with me.' Peter thought to himself. The pain increased but this time he fought it, he wouldn't let this control him.
He staggered up to his feet and slowly walked out of the room. He pressed a hand against the wall and slowly made his way to the stairs. At the foot of the stairs he fell to his knees. "Wh-what's happening to me?" He weakly asked himself.
Rogue had come into the room on her way to confront Peter directly about what was going on. She couldn't just sit back and try to find out what was wrong she needed to know now. Then when she got to the large foyer she saw Peter on his hands and knees in pain. "Peter!" She rushed over to him kneeling down next to him. "What's wrong?"
"I…I don't…ARG!" Peter clutched his chest.
"Ah'll go get help," Rogue told him but then felt an iron grip on her wrist. She turned shocked to see Peter's hand grabbing her only his hand was all black with a white square on the palm. "Peter what is that!?"
"You will not take him from us," Peter said coldly and then suddenly let go and backhanded her in the face. Rogue flew back a few feet and was dazed from the blow. She shook her head and suddenly she felt herself being lifted up by the front of her shirt. She looked into an angry Peter's face only it wasn't his face, his eyes were cold and hateful, she knew it looked like Peter but she knew him well enough to know that this wasn't him.
She still had on the bracelet so she couldn't zap him and now he raised another fist in order to punch her again. She tasted some blood from her lip already and was afraid, she never had been afraid of Peter and never thought she would be but then again this wasn't her Peter. "Peter, please fight this, ah know ya got ta still beh in there, fight!"
She saw the fist coming towards her and then slow and finally stopped. The fist started to shake and soon it grabbed his other hand, the one with the black stuff on it and released her to the floor. "Rogue…" Peter said weakly to her and she saw in his eyes it was really him and he was hurting. "Please…help me…get…get the others."
She nodded her head and started to yell out at the top of her voice to get the attention of anyone or everyone.
"What's the hell is going on in here?" Scott said coming in with a few of the others. They saw Rogue with a bleeding lip and Peter but with this black stuff growing all over him. "What in God's name…" Was all Scott could say seeing it.
Jean closed her eyes and concentrated on Peter and felt something else there. For the past few days she had been sensing a shadow of something among them, she thought she was just imagining it since it didn't seem to be human but there it was and it was no longer hiding itself. "Scott, that stuff…it's alive!"
Everyone turned to Jean at that with the same thought that they just hadn't heard right. "You will not stop us." Came a raspy voice from Peter as the costume completely enveloped his body. It knew that it was found out and now It has to take the host away, the bonding was done yet but it was close and soon the host would belong to It.
Now others had joined in and were surprised and shocked to see this new black and white costumed Spider-Man. Logan extended his claws. "What the hell is goin' on here Parker?" Logan demanded and started to take a few steps forward. Jean tried to tell him to be careful but Spider-Man was too quick, quicker then he normally was and snagged Logan with two web-lines and lifted him into an high arc in the air and slammed Logan hard into a couple of students that were slow to do anything. Jean tried to reach Peter's mind but was being blocked by the other presence there. It felt her and knew it was Jean since It knew everything the host knew. It fired a web blast in Jean's face covering it.
Jean couldn't break with it on and Scott tried to help her get it off, he thought about blasting Peter but he didn't have his visor on and if he turned off the watch that kept his powers off then he might hit some of the others. The other mutants tried their best to subdue Peter but the costume made him faster, stronger and a lot tougher then normal.
Iceman kept trying to freeze him but didn't get close. "Man how the hell are we supposed to nail this guy?"
Jubilee saw Spyder and ran over to her. "You can corner him with your webbing?" She asked the younger girl. Spyder looked a bit her lip, she was still trying to figure out how to use her webbing without draining her but she nodded her head. Jubilee smiled to her and when Peter was in the right place she nodded to Spyder who fired two separate strands of her webbing and Jubilee sent fireworks all around him hoping to overload his spider-sense.
It was working since there was too many danger signals for him to discern from major or minor danger. Amara hadn't expected him to slow down and accidentally nailed him in the back with a fireball. Peter screamed out so loud that everyone had stopped and Amara was scared that she had seriously burned Peter. She placed a hand over her mouth trying to see if his skin was burnt badly or not.
Everyone didn't see his back burnt in fact the suit was squirming from the blast. "Hey Amara I think fire hurts that stuff lay it on him." Bobby shouted out and she readied another fireball.
"Wait!" Scott said after managing to get the webbing off Jean who had helped with her telekinesis. "What if that goes through the suit and burns Peter?" Amara froze. She wasn't sure if her fire powers would burn just the suit or at one point would go right through to Peter's flesh.
Logan saw Rogue was edging close to Peter, who was still recovering from the pain of Amara's attack. He leaped forward and growled trying to get all of Peter's attention on him.
Rogue had taken of her power dampener and was trying to see if she could drain that thing off of him but the suit could see everywhere and saw Rogue easily enough. It formed a small fist from the back and slammed into her chest with surprising speed and strength. "No!" Peter shouted out. He knew what had happened even though he hadn't seen it.
He was trying his best to take control but the suit was too powerful, he only had moments of control. But he knew one thing, he had to get out of here before he hurt anyone else. He jumped through one of the first floor windows and onto the lawn. A few of the students went through the front after him. They say Peter there crouched low on the lawn but then he just disappeared.
"The hell!?" Bobby said looking back and forth. "Where is he?"
"There!" Logan pointed most missed it but a few saw something that looked kind of like something out of the Predator movies. "Some kind of chameleon ability I think," Logan said while running off. He chased Peter but he was fast and was over the wall in no time.
After some time after Beast looked after Rogue and the others two had minor injuries and Spyder who was sleeping off the draining of her powers. Everyone was talking and wonder what had happened to Peter. Rogue was sitting on one of the beds in the medical ward with an ice pack to her face and another to her chest. "Rogue?" She turned to see Kitty and Kurt looking at her. "Like what's going on?" Her roommate asked her.
"Ah don't know," Rogue told them. "But ah think that thing whatever it is…that thing is why Peter had been so strange lately."
"You zhink so?" Kurt asked her sitting down next to her. He hoped that whatever was going on with Peter they could save him and help him. He was one of the few kids that got his sense of humor and was one of his closest friends lately.
Xavier had other matters. He was heading to Cerebro in order to search for Peter and this living thing that had somehow attached itself to Peter as well. "Charles." Came a soft and worried voice. He turned to see May standing behind him looking like she was just holding on.
Xavier wheeled himself closer to her. In the short time that she had been here Xavier had been pleased to have her. She had been wonderful help with the children and to be honest he liked her company. "Don't worry May," He said gently and taking one of her hands. "We'll find him."
She nodded her head. "I know…thank you." Xavier nodded and went on his way to Cerebro. It had been upgraded to find others like Peter now but he was worried that whatever that stuff was might mask itself. It had already done so for who knows how long. Xavier felt disappointed in himself that he hadn't found it. He had sensed something now and then but thought maybe it had been something else, he never expected something like this. Now because of his oversight a young man was in trouble.
Across town Eddie Brock was in his car looking for signs of Spider-Man. So far that bug had ruined his life and he was going to do the same. He was going to follow him around and find out who he really was and expose him to the world. If he wanted publicity then Eddie was going to give it to him. It was by blind luck and change that he spotted Spider-Man swinging away, and he followed him.
Peter tried to get some control over his body as best he could but it was hard, he tried to fight this thing with everything he could, he couldn't believe how stupid he had been and didn't see how he had let himself get into this. He should have gone to the others before all this but it was too late now. Now he just needed to get out of there before he hurt them more.
He needed somewhere isolated and alone. He say this old church that was closed up and managed to swing himself through a broken window that wasn't boarded up. He landed into the dusty place seeing that no one had been here for some time. He staggered to his feet to the alter that was till there. "Get…off…of…ME!" Peter shouted out trying to rip the substance off his skin.
But it wasn't coming off. He was afraid that he was going to be stuck with this thing, that this thing was turning him into some kind of monster. If it were true he would have to leave, he couldn't just sit by and let this thing take over him and he wouldn't hurt the others anymore then he had.
They were his friends, his family and he wouldn't let this thing hurt them anymore. He thought of Rogue laying there and felt sick to his stomach. This thing was twisting him around inside bringing out the darkness inside of him. The fact that there was a part of him that could have hit Rogue hurt the most. He looked up at the old cross there behind the alter in front of him.
Please…help me…" He prayed. He might not have been as spiritual as Kurt but he did have faith, his aunt and uncle had raised him to believe in God and that he was there for you in darkest times. 'Well…this counts.' Peter thought to himself feeling this stuff crawling over his skin doing who knows what to him.
Then he was aware of another presence he shot out a web line and from the shadows pulled out someone he didn't expect. "You!?" Spider-Man said seeing Brock. He heard a 'thunk' sound and saw a camera hit the floor. Peter had enough of this and now was not the time for this. Before Eddie could start spouting off he webbed up his mouth and tied him up and left him there behind the alter. 'Out of sight out of mind.' Peter thought, he didn't even want to look at him.
He felt the 'urge' to leave to go and he tried to fight it. He saw a door and hoped it let to a small room to lock himself in it. When he got in he saw it let to the tower, and a way out. "Oh hell no." He said to himself as he felt his legs move.
He tried to fight it, tried to grab the railing or the walls but it didn't stop him. But after some time he found himself in the bell tower. There was still and old bell that hung there only that the rope used to pull it had rotted away long ago and it had most likely rusted so much that it never ringed anymore.
"NO!" Peter shouted to the suit. "What do you want from me? Just get off of me and leave me alone!" He shouted out again in anger and threw a fist wildly and slammed it into the bell. His strength caused all the rust to crack and forced the bell for the first time since the Church closed the bell rang out. Peter grabbed his ears in pain. He knew that being so close to a bell that large when ringing wouldn't be comfortable but this was more then that, in fact he hadn't felt this kind of pain since Amara burn him, no not him…the suit. He felt it's pain and it was weak against fire…and loud noises.
He saw the suit squirm all over his body and when the bell rang again from falling back the other way Peter felt the blinding pain again and felt the control of it weakening. He gathered up all his strength and punched the bell again forcing it to ring all over again. He kept it up all despite the pain.
It was the most painful moment in Peter's life, it was like someone was tearing him apart but he kept it up. He wasn't sure if he was dying, it felt like it and he didn't care if this thing did end up killing him. He wanted to be free of this thing and he would go to any cost for it. He didn't know how long he had kept it up, the pain made his mind hazy but he kept going and going.
It wasn't until he bloodied his knuckles against it that he realized it was coming off. He looked down seeing the black stuff flowing off of him down below him. He stood there in the chill only in his boxers swaying about slightly. He lost sight of the stuff in the darkness below but he couldn't think anymore, he was tired, his hand was bleeding and he collapsed onto the ground the pain of what he had gone through echoing through his core. He blacked out at that moment hoping that he had killed that stuff and it would never bother him again.
The others had arrived at the Church since that was where Xavier had felt where Peter's mind was at the moment. Kurt teleported himself, Rogue and Kitty to the top of the bell tower. They all saw Peter there sprawled on the ground, only in his trunks too, Kitty blushed and after Kurt prodded her with an elbow did she turned around. Rogue didn't really notice at first she was more concerned with Peter. "Oh god Peter." Rogue knelt to him and checked him out.
Peter felt like all his skin had been ripped off and then a belt sander had been used to polish him off. He felt something his head was resting against and someone stroking his head gently. He also smelled a familiar scent in the air. He slowly opened his eyes and a blurred vision cleared up to see Rogue's face. "Rogue?" He weakly asked her, not sure if he was awake or this was just some dream.
"Peter ah'm here, we all are." She told him.
"It's gone, the bell…the sound…hurt it…Rogue I'm so sorry…I didn't mean to…I…" Peter only had a hazy recollection of what he had done in the last hour but he did remembering hurting his friends and Rogue. That hurt worse then his body, he couldn't believe he had hit her, he felt like scum especially seeing the bruise on her face, that hurt worse then the bells.
"Ah know. It was that stuff." She told him gently.
"I'm an idiot." He muttered.
She smiled at him. "Probably…but you're mah idiot." Peter smiled a little at her joke and was glad to see that she didn't blame him even though he did.
"You're also kind of…naked." Kurt told him and Peter looked down and saw that he was only in his boxers and paled then blushed when he realized his girlfriend was seeing him like that. Rogue just noticed it too and also blushing madly.
Jean with Scott and Logan levitated up to them. "Guys what's going-oh my God!" Jean blurted out and quickly turned around.
"Why not just drag me around the Institute or take a picture for all the girls why don't you." Peter muttered. "This is the most embarrassing moment of my life."
"All right all you girls out," Logan said to them all then looked at Rogue. "Especially you stripes."
Rogue merely nodded and joined the girls as Kurt teleported them out of there. Peter looked up at Logan and Scott. "Guys…I'm so…"
"Save it for later Parker," Logan told him kneeling down and checking him out. "Say your sorry later after we get you checked out."
Peter nodded weakly and then started to fall into unconsciousness. Scott knelt down next to him. "You think he's going to be alright?"
"I hope so." Logan told him. 'At least physically but I got to wonder about his state of mind after this.' Logan thought to himself.
NEXT UP CHAPTER 50: EPILOGUE
Also I was wondering if you could help out a few writers that I think could use some support. Could you take a look and review the fics "Life in Bayville" by Violet Angel1 & "Rogue's Little Sister?" by LittlRogue. These are a couple of fics that I feel are overlooked lately, trust me you'll like them.