Part 6 - Infected

Chapter 111 - Hollywood Action Scene

It would take a long time for the effects of the Scarlet King's rampage to disappear. Many fragments remained of the King's former power in many forms. The biggest threat to what was left of the omniverse was the cult known as the Children of the Scarlet King. However, Teresa was heading up a group to route them out and finish them off before the damage could be done. Another threat came in the form of the Kha'raar virus, still running rampant in Noladis. However, Max wasn't worried about that; he was worried about fighting the ghosts of Khahrahk himself. In Teresa's ever scathing words, he had finally managed to get his tongue out of Grace's mouth and was doing something about them. The only problem was how to fight a cloud. It was a month after the final battle and he was staring at a red patch of rancid smoke that was drifting towards him. On the wind he could hear Khahrahk's voice, taunting the young High Elder God with how much death and destruction he had caused. He didn't think it had quite hit him yet just what he had done to kill the Scarlet King, but he suspected it was just around the corner. But what wasn't round a corner was this cloud and he needed to stop distracting himself and deal with it. Max drew his sword, Furore Mortale, and raised it to the sky. A bolt of lightning ravaged the cloud but had seemingly no effect.

"I'm open to suggestions, Corbo."

"Perhaps a large fan, sir?" Conall's old assistant suggested.

"Sure."

Max clicked his fingers and a wind turbine popped up in the street creating a wind that still did nothing.

"I would like to point out the fan was metaphorical, sir. I meant a tornado."

"Oh…yeah…right."

He raised Furore Mortale to the sky again and a swirling column descended. At the same time, he snapped his fingers again and the wind turbine disappeared. The tornado did nothing as well, so Max let it dissipate before it destroyed anything more than the windows all along the street. He tried one last thing: with a few flicks of his wrists, he folded the very fabric of space around the cloud to form a sphere. It seemed to work, even though it left a large patch of nothingness in the middle of the road. Still, it was better than letting Khahrahk return and destroy the entire dimension, right? Max sheathed his sword and sat on an overturned car, watching the sphere just float there.

"Are you OK, sir? You seem distracted."

"I think the truth finally caught up with me."

"Perhaps a distraction would work?"

"I've been distracting myself too long. There's stuff I have to do."

"You can pause time, sir."

"The more time goes by the less I have left to put up with my choices."

"You see yourself as the villain?"

"Maybe."

"I would recommend speaking to your mother."

"I have stuff to do."

"There is a time when you have to be selfish and forget the needs of others in order to look after yourself, sir. You may be a High Elder God, but you remain susceptible to mental illness."

"Since you won't stop going on at me if I don't, I'll go speak to her."

"A wise choice, sir."

Gwen was sucking the blood off her finger. She had just managed to stab herself taking apart the narrative skipping watch Liam had made her to get home. Stanley had been helping, but had gone to get himself a coffee. Max had completely renovated Bastria, turning it from a bastion of the dead to a place people could feel like they were alive again. Gwen was proud of her son, although she hadn't seen much of him lately so she was surprised when her spider sense told her he was about to knock on the door.

"Come in."

He pulled up a chair and spun around in it a little. His silence meant something was wrong. She put down the screwdriver she was holding and turned to look at him.

"What's up?"

"Am I the bad guy for doing what I did?"

"No, you aren't. You did what was necessary. Anyway, I never thought I'd say this but Helltreader gets more credit for actually killing Khahrahk than you. He blew himself up to burn the Tree; you just put Khahrahk in chains and helped him die."

"That doesn't help."

"Look, I've been there, Max. The difference is that I was the villain; you aren't. You made a call that ultimately kept people alive, and that's what matters. There are three major things to know when you're a spider person trying to save people. Number one: 'with great power comes great responsibility'; I'd say you're doing alright with that one. Number two: no matter how many times you get hit, you always get back up; you did that, Max. You knew what was at stake when you fought that witch girl, but you still went back because without you we would have lost."

"I didn't get back up from that. I skulked off, screwed Grace for a few days then was almost gutted alive when I finally went back and faced her. The only reason I'm still here is because you popped up."

"You're missing the point. Anyway, number three: you can't save everyone. It hurts to know that, but it's true. You chose to save as many as you could. You aren't the villain; don't let anyone tell you otherwise."

Max sighed and shook his head.

"Corbo, your advice is terrible."

"I disagree, sir."

"Of course you do."

He stood up and left without a word. Gwen sighed. It was obvious Max was breaking up, but if he wouldn't accept her advice there was nothing she could do. Stanley returned with his coffee.

"I saw Max coming out. Did you see him?"

"Yeah."

"He looked like he was about to cry."

"He's going through a lot."

"I guess."

Gwen felt her phone buzz in her pocket. Stanley frowned as she took it out.

"You get a phone? Most of us are stuck with iPads."

"You can't really complain about that. But yeah, Max made me and a few other people new phones."

"That's lucky."

She looked down at the notification and frowned. The sender was a random jumble of letters and numbers. She unlocked the device and read it.

'Hey Gwen. Remember me, Michael, from the narrative above? Liam's gone mad. He's changing everything. If you get this, meet me ASAP.'

There was an address below it. Gwen looked at the disassembled watch on the table next to her.

"We have to work this thing out."

Stanely shrugged.

"That's what we're trying to do."

"The disc thing: Liam said somebody would re-wire it someday and get back to his narrative. Can we do it?"

"We can try. Since it was designed to take you down a narrative, flipping the circuitry round may take you up."

"Do it. I have to go."

"Why?"

She showed the scientist the text. He frowned but nodded.

"Let's do it."

A couple of hours later, Gwen gave Miles a farewell kiss before taking a few steps back. She was wearing her spider suit, minus the katanas, but plus the narrative watch which now boasted a little storage slot for holding the disc that would allow her to come home. Miles gave her a thumbs up.

"Don't die. And don't get hit by any trains."

"I'll try."

She at looked her wrist and took a deep breath before tapping the only visible button: 'jump'.

Gwen wondered where she was. She appeared to be in a neighbourhood of flats. This was certainly round about the right place, according to her version of Google Earth. She began walking in the direction her spider sense told her was right. After a few minutes she spotted what looked like the place she had seen on Google Earth. She walked up the stairs to the front door of the flat and knocked, hoping this was actually the right place and she wasn't knocking on someone's door in China instead of the USA. The door opened and Michael peered out cautiously. When he saw it was her, he checked behind her then pulled her inside. Gwen double tapped the side of her head, morphing away her mask and hood.

"Hey." She said.

"Isn't that Miles' line?"

"Sure, but it can be my line as well."

"Right. Right."

"You seem really on edge. Has Liam hurt you?"

"No, but he probably will once he finds out I hacked his fan-fic account to start writing a part six."

"Probably not a good move."

Michael showed her through to a room with a couch, a table, TV and armchair.

"Sit." He said.

She did as he asked, intending to do so anyway. He took the armchair.

"So, what's Liam been doing?"

"He wiped out North Korea's government and replaced it with a democratic country…"

"That's not too bad, although it breaks the promise he made me."

"He did pretty much the same to China and the rest of the governments he thinks are corrupt."

"I guess that means most of them."

"Pretty much all of them."

"I'll admit I'd do the same."

"No, you'd start an Empire after knocking them out."

Gwen shot him a look.

"If you want my help, that's not the right way to go about it."

"Sorry."

"Has he been up to anything else?"

"Other than the fits of psycho laughter, that sort of thing, yes."

"Tell me."

"He snapped his fingers and made Google, Apple, Amazon and a bunch of others collapse. They were replaced with a company called 'Corbo Intelligence'."

"He really likes the name 'Corbo', doesn't he?"

"It's his dream, and he made it true. This Corbo runs on quantum computers. It blew the Turing Test out the water."

"I'm not a computer geek. What's the Turing Test?"

"Me neither, but I Googled it after he told me. It tests an artificial intelligence for sentience."

"Oh, that test."

"Yeah. I did miss something: he snapped his fingers and suddenly Sony are turning part five of the fic into a movie."

"Oh great. That's…weird."

"I'm kinda jealous of him for it, to be honest. He literally gets to meet yours and Miles' and everyone else's voice actors."

"Right. I'm sure that will come up. Anything else?"

"He's really aggressive about everything. If he asks you to do something and it isn't up to his standards, he'll either rip it up and make you start again or rip you up and find someone else to do it."

"What sort of stuff?"

"Just about anything."

"And do people do it?"

"Most want to keep their heads, so they do what they're told. Fortunately the last he asked of me was to draw up a new suit for Max which was years ago."

"You designed Max's suit?"

"In my narrative, yeah. I designed yours and Miles' newer ones too."

"Grace did Max's in my narrative; Stanley and Lisa did mine and Miles'."

"Yeah."

They sat in silence for a minute as Gwen thought things over.

"I'm going to talk to him. Where will he be?"

"Somewhere in Hollywood working on the film is my guess."

"Wish me luck."

"Break a leg…or don't."

Liam sighed as the current recording session was interrupted. Someone was saying the real Gwen Stacy was outside, but she shouldn't be. It was never written, therefore it never was. Still, he figured investigating was worth the time in case someone had hacked his account and changed something. He pushed through the crowd and stopped, narrowing his eyes at Gwen. The first thing he noticed was the lack of katanas, then that she looked younger than the last time he had seen her. The scar above her eyebrow, where the Borg implants had been, was almost gone. Gwen glared at him.

"Do you remember the promise you made?"

The other people around looked at him expectantly. He gave her a grin that instantly made her feel even more uneasy.

"Of course. No tearing down world governments."

"So why did you do it? And not just governments; major corporations? Really?"

"They had their problems as well. Did you know Amazon listens to every word you say through Alexa? Or they did."

"I don't care. Fix it."

"I'd like to see you make me."

"Don't do this to yourself. I've been there with that much power."

"Actually you haven't. An Ethereal Plate has a fraction of Max's power. I have at least twice his."

She realised this wasn't going to work. Maybe a bit of aggression would do the trick? Nothing crazy, but a bet or something?

"Arm wrestle. I win, you fix this."

"And if I win, you go back to Hell or whichever bit of Bastria I put you in."

They made their way to a wall and prepared themselves. This had to be the most important arm wrestle in history.

"Three. Two."

"Go."

For the first few seconds it seemed even; neither made any headway. Then, Gwen grit her teeth and put all her strength into it. Liam tried to fight back, but he couldn't do anything against the super strength that came with spider powers. He chuckled as he took a step back, having lost.

"You really think I'm going to fix things?"

"We made a deal."

"You made me promise something, and I clearly didn't keep that. I thought you'd know better."

Gwen took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

"I don't want to do this. But as a spider person I'm supposed to save lives."

"Because you did so well at that before, didn't you."

She delivered the first blow, a fist to the side of the head. It wasn't hard enough to knock Liam out, or at least SCP-3812, but it made him stumble. He sighed and backed away as she morphed her mask and hood up and advanced on him.

"Hey! What are you doing?" Asked one of the onlookers.

"Stay out of this. Please." Gwen replied, raising her fists again before trying to sweep Liam off his feet with a kick.

He jumped it and began to laugh.

"You'll have to do better than that."

She started throwing more punches, aiming the chest and head area. He blocked them, seeming to predict her every move. After a few seconds of this, he caught her fists and headbutted her in the face. She grunted, stumbling back a little as he took the upper hand. She had a feeling she wasn't going to get it back, so figured it was time to spice things up a little. She ducked a swing and leapt onto a wall from which she webbed up a car tyre and threw it at him.

"Y'all might wanna hold onto something." Liam said to the onlookers.

Gwen didn't have to wait long to find out what he meant. He formed a Z shape with his arms and suddenly the laws of physics seemed to be unwritten. Gravity went berserk, hurling things into the sky and bringing them crashing down in other places. The world itself began to spin so that Gwen wasn't sticking to a wall anymore, but standing on top of a building without having to move a muscle. She stood up as Liam drifted up to join her. She saw people all over the place trying desperately not to fall to their deaths just by walking down a street. Skyscrapers began to bend under the shift in orientation. Gwen heard a shout for help and fired a web to catch one of the onlookers who was falling along the road. The spider helped them back to safety as Liam watched. She joined him on the 'wall' again.

"Feeling out of your depth, now? What was it Spiderham used to say…"

"You can't save everyone. He's right, but you can always try."

She leapt at him, in response to which he made the Z shape again and everything went upside down. People fell into the sky, screaming in terror as the ground fell further and further away. Gwen fired a web at Liam and reeled herself in, trying to kick him in the face but being grabbed by the throat and slammed into the underbelly of a helicopter. She struggled, trying to get free, as a knife appeared in Liam's hand. He held it to her throat.

"Anything to say for yourself? This is, after all, your fault. I didn't want to hurt these people."

"Then why are you flipping the world on its back?"

"Because you need a demonstration."

"What happened to you? You used to be a good guy!"

"Funny that. The bad guys became the good guys, the good guys became the bad guys. It's poetic."

"Stop this, Liam! For goodness sake! I'm begging you!"

"Begging? Everyone walks past hundreds of people begging on the streets. Why should I do what you ask?"

"Please!"

She was desperate, and Liam could hear it in her voice.

"Fine. I'll spare you. And them."

He drifted away a little. With a snap of his fingers, the ground reappeared. Nobody fell into the sky, nor down the street, but they were terrified. Gwen picked herself up and looked around for Liam. She couldn't see him, so she ran over to make the onlookers to make sure they were OK.

"What the hell is happening?" Asked one.

Gwen did a double take, recognising Miles' voice. Then she connected the dots with what Michael had said about Liam having a film being made of his fan-fiction.

"Read the script. It'll help." She replied.

Suddenly, as she was going to help someone else up, she heard someone shout in her own voice to look out. Her spider sense said the same, but she couldn't react fast enough. Liam drove a black and green sword through her back and dragged her away from the onlookers who stared in horror. Gwen fell to her knees, clutching the stab wound, struggling to breathe and choking on her own blood. She stared into Liam's eyes in terror as he walked around in front of her and knelt down.

"I'd like to see you get back up from that one."

"Why?" She asked after coughing up a mouthful of blood.

"I said I'd spare you. I never said I'd leave you in one piece. Anyway, you stumbling into your husbands arms speaks far higher volumes than walking home with a pretty note. Stay out of this. You cannot kill what is not your creation."

He kicked her to the floor and grabbed her wrist, slotting in the disc for the return journey and stepping back.

"Tell Miles I said hello. And good luck finding Max."

She sat up and spat in his face as she pressed the jump button. Liam chuckled to himself as the sword disappeared from his hands.

"What is wrong with you!?" Yelled one of the onlookers.

He sighed.

"You forget a thousand things everyday. Make sure this is one of them."

"How will I forget this?"

"How will you remember it?"

Liam snapped his fingers and suddenly everyone was back in the recording studio as if nothing had ever happened. He rolled his eyes.

"Too easy." He muttered.

Miles stood up expectantly as he saw the bright flash and heard the tell-tale bang of Gwen returning. His heart skipped a beat and he rushed forward to catch her as she began to fall over.

"Gwen. Look at me. You'll be alright." He said, looking her in the eyes to try and give her something to hold on to to keep her conscious.

"Jesus Christ." Muttered Stanley.

"Medic!" Teresa yelled.

Someone appeared with a stretcher which Miles lay Gwen on. He ran with them to a hospital ward. The medical staff set to work immediately.

Crossovers in this Chapter

- SCP Foundation

And of course a sort of fourth wall break, but not quite. You'll understand in a couple of chapters.

Note

Welcome to part six! Personally I don't think this is the best part (that title goes to part five) but I don't think it's bad. There'll be plenty of fourth wall breaks, some good old fight scenes and that sort of thing. It's not too long, either, so we'll be on to a better part soon enough. Enjoy!