Snuggles the Symbiote

"Shadow Stalker," Mister Armsmaster said when Sophia came in, "you're late."

"Sorry," she said gruffly, "I didn't see the memo until today and when I saw it I was with a civvie friend and couldn't get away easy."

Mister Armsmaster hmmed. "Alright then. These are your new teammates." He gestured to me and Weaver. "Introduce yourselves please."

"I'm Weaver," she said raising her hands. "I control bugs. If you want a spider-silk costume, take it up with costuming and they'll give me your information."

"I am Cuddlebug and I like hugs," I said. "We shapeshift and do big strong-guy stuff." We called up our claws again. "Snikt! See?"

"...Okay, three questions: One," Shadow Stalker said, "Why Cuddlebug? Two, why are you talking in plurals, and three, why did you say 'snikt?' "

"Image, there's two of us in here, and because my claws don't go snikt on their own," I answered. "Mister Snuggles, wave hi."

"Perhaps this one should just keep the biomechanical appendages deployed for the remainder of this time period?" Mister Snuggles asked. He sent out an Ocktacle and waved anyway.

"I am missing some context here," Shadow Stalker said.

"I'm a mutant from another universe and my costume's an alien but the director doesn't want people to know that so keep it quiet, okay?" I made a shushing motion. The whole rest of the team already knew I was a mutant so maybe if I acted like it was no big idea she wouldn't think it was either.

"Okay then," Shadow Stalker said, "So, Weaver… Nice costume. What happened to it?"

"Lung and his pet spider-woman," Weaver replied. "I'll be weaving a replacement soon. It won't look like this," she pointed to me, "Image wants us in matching costumes. I'm thinking black, blue or purple on white."

"Lung...Wait, was that you the other day?" Shadow Stalker asked, "I heard that he got wrecked so bad that he almost died."

"Oh, no," Weaver said, "he wasn't that badly hurt when we left him."

"...Well actually," Mister Armsmaster interrupted, "there was an unexpected reaction between my tranquilizer and the venoms in his system. While it'd be a stretch to say he almost died, if there'd been a little more brown recluse in there he might have suffered serious or even fatal injury. I'm already working on reformulating my tranquilizers to prevent any further accidents."

"Oh," Weaver said. I jumped up over everyone and landed next to her and gave her a hug. She sounded like she needed a hug.

"Anyway, " Mr. Smith said, "we were just finishing with Cuddlebug's power testing. Up next is toughness… Aegis, could you punch her as hard as you can?"

"If she's okay with it," Aegis answered.

"This one's biomass and ability to subtly manipulate its density should be sufficient to repel small projectiles of extreme velocity." Yeh, that matched what I'd learned about symbiotes when I googled Agent Venom that one time.

"Mister Snuggles says that we're bulletproof," I stepped back from everyone and held my arms out. "Come at me, bro." I heard someone give an awkward laugh.

Aegis came up to me, took a deep breath, posed, and punched me right in the middle of the chest with a grunt. Then something made a cracking sound. A really loud one.

"Ah, uh, um… Aegis?" I asked, "I don't think your arm is supposed to bend that way. Especially in that place… Uh, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he said quickly, "it's actually part of my power. I'm what's called an Alexandria package, do you know who Alexandria is?"

"Yeah, she's really strong, really tough, and can fly super fast," Taylor had given me the rundown on all the super stuff that everybody knew so I could better do my cover.

"Okay, so I can fly, and people think I'm super strong and tough, but the way my power really works is that I can use my full strength without hurting myself and when I do get hurt, my body adapts so that I can keep going till it heals." He then made his arm kind of squirm like a short tentacle with a couple of little tentacles at the end. It was kind of gross.

I looked at it, then back up at him "...Does it hurt?"

"That's part of my power," he said, "I can't feel pain."

"Still," Mister Armsmaster said, "there's no reason to let it go untreated when there are no urgent matters to attend to. Go to the infirmary."

"I think I can hold out until we're done here," Aegis answered back.

"That was an order."

"Okay." And then he left.

"Uh," I said, kind of feeling bad that I'd broken Aegis' arm, "what's next?"

Mister Smith had been scribbling on his clipboard. "A spar, if you're feeling up to it."

"A spar?"

"A practice fight," he explained.

"I know what a spar is, it's just… We don't want to hurt anyone."

"This one with honesty can state that this one couldn't possibly care if these ones bring harm to others… This one believes that the term is… You. Do. You. This one will oblige."

"Okay, I don't want to hurt anyone," I corrected, "Mister Snuggles doesn't care either way."

Shadow Stalker scoffed. "Kid, if you're worried about hurting people, you should just give up on being a hero now."

"Heroes only hurt people when they have to and as much as they have to," I countered, "because it's their job to help people. Which sometimes, unfortunately, involves hurting bad people who are trying to hurt innocent people. Unless you're The Punisher, but he's a serial killer that only thinks he's a hero." I think. A lot of the websites and stuff that talked about him were blocked. The parental controls on my computer only seemed to block that and that one website that time I was doing my health homework. I know that Mommy and Daddy got upset that one time when I asked about the mutant concentration camps in Canada so I think it was supposed to block something else but didn't work.

"You sound like you're quoting a boy scout," Shadow Stalker said in reply.

"I got it from a guy who was a Brigadier General in the United States Army during World War Two." Kind of. I was kind of paraphrasing a bunch of stuff I'd read that Captain America and Spider-Man had said, and Captain America was called Captain because Brigadier General America wasn't as catchy, so technically I wasn't lying. "And anyway, I don't need to hurt anyone right now, so why should I risk it? Especially since we're all supposed to be friends."

Shadow Stalker actually chuckled a little. I noticed that Vista kind of seemed to be glaring at her. "Look, kid, you're gonna need to know how to fight to last out here. If you're that worried about hurting someone, fight me. I know you won't be able to hurt me."

I looked at Weaver, then back to Shadow Stalker. "...Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"O-okay..."

Mr. Smith led us all into another room. There were mats on the floor, a couple of full-wall mirrors on the wall, and the ceiling was high up but not like, super high up, like maybe a couple of feet higher than a normal ceiling.

Mr. Smith was about to explain something, but Shadow Stalker shoved a pair of crossbows into Kid Wins arms and took her place in a big circle that was on the mats. "This room is for learning and practicing unarmed CQC. Get in the ring."

I looked back at everyone. Weaver seemed kind of glarry at Stalker and our new teammates seemed kind of resigned to this except Gallant who was just kind of standing there. Mr. Smith shrugged so I went into the ring and made fists.

"No, no, none of that," Shadow Stalker said, "you're holding your hands wrong." She held up her hand and made a fist. "See how I've got my thumb across my fist? This is how you do it." I looked down at how I had my thumbs inside. "The way you've got them now, you're gonna break something and I don't want to be held responsible for that."

I fixed my hands and held them up. "Like this?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, when you're ready," Mr. Smith said.

And then I got that weird buzzy feeling in the back of my head and jumped up and the next thing I knew I was standing upside down on the ceiling and Shadow Stalker was just a little bit past where I'd been.

"Nice," she said, "you've got good survival instincts."

Behind my mask, I had my tongue between my teeth. "Hey, Mister Snuggles? Is there anything else we can make? We've got the claws and the tentacles and the tail, but..."

"This one has the genetic or physiological information to generate… A. Handful. Additional bio-constructs. This one suspects that this one's host will find enjoyment in these ones."

I felt a bit of shifting along my back, kind of like when the tentacles came out, but different. Like, between my shoulders and spine but in the middle of my back and-"oof!"

After a bit of shifty tingling, a pair of wings popped out of my back. I had to turn and twist a bit and use the mirrors to get a good look at them, but they were like… Not quite a bat… I know I've seen wings that looked like these before but I was blanking on it. Still. "EEEH! We have wings!"

I gave them a flap and let the stick-em powers Mister Snuggles gave me go and fell right to the floor. Kinda. I got the buzzy feeling again and landed on my feet. "...But we can't fly."

"Flight appendages not strong or large enough to support these ones' full weight well enough for true flight. Should assist with long leaps or slowing descent with practice."

Buzzy feeling again. I sort of automatically leaped to the right to avoid Shadow Stalker coming in from my left with a grab. "Can we embiggen them like we did with my arm the night we met Weaver?".

"Neg-"

"How can you dodge so well?" Shadow Stalker asked. "It's like you're not even paying attention."

"Easy: 'Cause my Spider-Sense was tingling," I said automatically. It was a joke I used to do with Mommy and Daddy sometimes and… Wait. Oh my gosh, that' the buzzy feeling. I had Spider-Sense! Okay Ashley, play it cool. "Also, Mister Snuggles was trying to speak so please be quiet for a second."

"Negative. This one can only contribute so much biomass to each construct at this time and the genetic information this one is using to allow for such enhancement of extant biomass is rather difficult to parse and seems… Hostile to certain other samples." He kind of hummed in the back of my head. "In certainty, this one believes that it would be better able to adapt to other samples and to one designated Ashley without it as reconciling it with X-Gene samples and this one's host's genetic code proves difficult."

"That's not good." My wings melted away as I sprouted my tail and whipped it out behind me and to my right. Shadow Stalker had gone around behind me but she couldn't sneak past my brand new spider-sense that I was totally going to geek out about later. "Anyway, what else can we do?"

"Hold manipulator limbs down with forelimb at a ninety-degree angle, appendages designated 'hands' in the position designated 'palms up' "

I held my arms at my sides and out, bent at the elbow and then my hands and forearms stretched a teeny bit and turned into scoops. Then a big screw looking hinge thingy and another scoop jutted out just below my elbow and closed on the bottom scoop with a clack and I had neet pair of biomechanical pincer claws. I moved them around and punched them outward and snapped them with another 'clack clack.' "These are neat. I don't think they'll be very useful. Did they feed you another one of those meat machines for this?"

"Affirmative, some sort of armored apparatus. Based on the genetic sample in the biological components it was meant to enhance one's capability while granting features similar to another genetic sample as well as these appendages and a 'tail.' This one was able to create a simplified version of these appendages which lack a… Folding. Feature."

"Armor with claws and a… The Scorpion? We've got the DNA of a C-List villain and the worst Venom in us?" That was kind of disappointing. "I mean, the claws are still cool and-" Spider-Sense, I jumped and backflipped behind Shadow Stalker, thwaking her on the head with my tail at the same time. When I landed she was a spooky ghost skeleton thing in a cloud of darkness, but then she went back to normal and turned around.

"Kid, you need to take this seriously." She sounded kind of angry. "Throw a fu-freaking punch already."

"...do you turn into the spooky ghost thing whenever you get hit hard enough or did you do it on purpose."

"Both, now do something other than dodging and talking to your imaginary friend… Wait, did you get taller?" She looked down. "Okay, what even the hell are your powers?"

I looked down too. "Okay Mister Snuggles, what gives? We can't fly with wings but we can float without them?" Yeah, I was hovering like an inch off the ground and didn't even realize it till I looked.

"This one was strange, almost tangential to the genetic code to which it was attached. This one was uncertain what it would do until it was attempted."

"Okay then, that's fair." It was still weird. The only time I could ever think of symbiotes being able to fly was the time Carol Danvers was Venom for a little bit and I'm not even a hundred percent sure that was real.

I couldn't go higher than an inch off the ground, but I had a lot of fun zooming around the ring. It seemed that I could go about as fast as I could run. It wasn't quite web-slinging, but it was neat.

"Seriously!" Shadow Stalker shouted, sounding angry, "we're supposed to be sparring here."

"Technically," Mister Armsmaster said from the sidelines, "we're here to test Cuddlebug's powers and for she and Weaver to get to know the team and vice versa. I, I don't see anything wrong with her behavior." Mister Smith was scribbling on his clipboard.

I had Mister Snuggles collapse the Scorpion pincers back into regular arms. She said she wanted me to punch her and she did say she'd poof into a ghost thing if she got hit too hard, so…

"This one has one other construct it can make. It should prove effective for what this one's host desires." Yes Mister Snuggles, respond to my thoughts before I even think at you… Honestly, I keep forgetting we could do that.

My hands started to swell up until they were at least twice normal size. And cracks and splits formed around them with the texture changing to something more solid.

I smiled when I realized what that meant. "Hey," I said. Shadow Stalker had her back to me like she was just waiting for me to take things seriously. "Shadow Stalker? What time is it?"

"I don't know. Two thirty? Maybe three?" She sounded fed up.

"Wrong," I said as I started zooming at her as fast as I could. "It's clobberin' time!"

She turned around with a "huh" and then exploded into darkness as I ran past her and sent my fist through her.

I turned around just in time to see her turn back to normal. She seemed really, really angry. "What?" I said, "You asked me to punch you."

She sort of stretched her neck a little, then she spoke. "Kid, let me ask you something: Why do you want to be a hero?"

"I'm really strong and really tough," I said, "and that means that there's lots of ways I can help protect people, and if you can help people, you should help people." I smiled. "If just one person can sleep better at night because they know I'm out there, then I'm doing my job right."

"Then you need to be taking this a whole lot more seriously," she said sternly. "Because if you don't shape up you're going to get yourself killed."

"How so?"

"You said you're from another universe, right kid?" I nodded. "Well, I don't know what your world is like, but here things are rough-"

"There have been at least twenty attempted genocides of mutants in my lifetime." Why did I say that, why did I say that? I really need to learn how to shut up. I heard a gasp and Mr. Smith stopped scribbling. I looked over and Mister Armsmaster was frowning. "I mean-"

"Then you get it," Shadow Stalker went on. "The world is a cold place and there's really only two kinds of people: People strong enough to survive, and people who are too weak to fight back or escape when a survivor decides they want to mess with them. Lots of people have this idealistic view of heroes and villains, like in some old cartoon, but the truth is it's all really ugly. People die here." She grunted. "You want to be the big damn hero? You want to save everyone? You've gotta be strong. Not just enough to survive, you've got to be even stronger. Strong enough to deal with anything." She sounded mad. Really mad. "If you're not, then you're just prey for the monsters out there, and if you goof off like you're doing, they will get you, because you can't dodge forever. You've gotta hit, for real, or you'll lose. Are you strong enough to fight for real?"

"You're not a bad guy."

She cracked her knuckles and I couldn't see her face but I got the impression that she was trying to look me right in the eye. "Okay then, how about this. Are you strong enough, fast enough, to take out the mad gunman before some kid sees mommy's brains splattered on the wall?"

There were bad men in my room. I don't know how they got in the apartment, but one of them grabbed me. I couldn't fight. I wasn't strong, I could barely move, but I could scream, and I did as loud as I could. I heard running. My door flew open and there was Daddy, but one of the men had a gun. Bang. Daddy was on the floor, blood was getting everywhere and I could smell metal. I heard Mommy scream, then I saw her. She had a baseball bat and looked from Daddy to me to the men. She was mad. A man put a bag over my head and I heard another bang.

"...I'm just making sure she knows what she's getting into," I heard Shadow Stalker say. Mister Armsmaster looked mad and my mouth kind of feel funny. "What if an Endbringer hits and she ends up drowned, fried, or crazy because she thinks it's a game? It's been like a decade since the Nine were in town, what if they pop in and the brat ends up one of Bonesaw's medical experiments because she was just jumping around, playing, instead of going for the kill..."

They made me wear a hospital gown and a big man had me pressed hard into a cold metal table. There was a man in white with a mask like the ones I had to wear when we went outside. He had a lot of really, really big needles and he jabbed them all into my arms and legs and some of them had tubes in them and he left them there and I could see a machine sucking out some of my blood and the guys said something about lots of MGH and all I knew is it hurt so very, very bad.

"...Said that's enough." Mister Armsmaster said.

"Am I wrong? Isn't the whole point of this program to make sure kids like her don't end up like-"

"Shut up."

"Excuse me?" she said, turning back to me and then leaning back. For just a second I saw blood on her hands and a big clump of darkness deep in her heart.

"I said shut up!"

The next thing I knew, Mister Armsmaster was pulling me off of Shadow Stalker and there was a teensy bit of blood on the tip of one of my claws and that was really the only thing I could look at or think about.

"Now that's what I'm talking about, Killer," I heard Shadow Stalker say. "I think I'm gonna need stitches for that." She actually sounded happy about it.

"Allow this one to assume control," Mister Snuggles whispered in my ears. I let him. He didn't move my eyes away from the bloody claw.

"Shadow Stalker, go to the infirmary." Mister Armsmaster said, "and don't leave the building. You, the director or deputy director, and I will be having words about this incident later."

"She-"

Mister Armsmaster cut her off. "Trigger Trauma." I didn't know what that meant but hearing it made Shadow Stalker say a bad word as she got up to leave. From the corner of my eye, I saw her holding her shoulder.

Mister Armsmaster came around me. His ax-spear thing had changed shape to some kind of staff or scepter that he waved over me. It crackled a little bit and I saw him frown, but then he backed away and Mister Snuggles didn't move to look.

"...So!" I heard Vista's voice, "that's cool, but I don't think Image is going to let you use that… Like, at all."

I didn't know what she meant and-Mister snuggles twisted my head so I could see the mirrors and… That explained why my mouth felt funny. I looked like a bad guy symbiote, with a big jaw and lots of long, sharp, pointy teeth. And the long, slimy tongue. Mine was forked for some reason. My eyespots had also changed to crescents instead of ovals. Once I'd gotten a good look at them, Mister Snuggles shifted the changes away and my mask was back to normal and my mouth didn't feel weird anymore.

Then he turned to look at the Wards. Weaver looked super-duper mad. Vista seemed nervous, Gallant was trying way too hard to look normal, and Clockblocker and Kid Win were both standing super still-Clockblocker flinched when Mister Snuggles made me look at him.

"...I bet you really like KISS," Clockblocker said. "You know, the band?"

"Apologies," Mister Snuggles said with my mouth and throat, "This one felt that this one's host needed time to process the events that just transpired and requested that one designated 'Cuddlebug' cede control of speech and motor functions for a short length of time. This one does know, however, that this one's host's musical preferences fall into that which is designated 'Folk' or 'Country,' though this one is not sure what twanging sound apparati have to do with nations." Clockblocker laughed kind of nervously. I noticed the blood on my claw getting absorbed into Mister Snuggles' goop.

"One designated Armsmaster," Mister Snuggles continued, "is this one's host… In. Trouble. In response to behavior immediately following what this one believes to be designated 'Post Traumatic Flashback?' "

"No," he said. I didn't even know my tummy was all tied up in knots till it relaxed. "However, I'm going to have to talk to a few people about this. Cuddlebug will, most likely, be required to take anger management lessons or attend therapy. While understandable, lashing out isn't healthy and it's not something we can let happen, especially-"

"This one's host understands." Okay, reacting to my thoughts before I think them is kind of creepy when I'm not the one in control. "This one apologizes for that." Mister Snuggles made us stand up. "This one apologizes, but this one believes that this one's host would benefit from terminating this session early and returning to these ones' current dwelling to recuperate."

"Fine." Mister Armsmaster said.

"Yeah," Mister Smith said, "we'll need to look at all those new things you did, but that can wait for another day."

Nobody said anything until Weaver and I were walking down the hall. "One designated Weaver? This one suspects that this one's host would benefit from a demonstration of physical affection."

Weaver gave me a hug and then held my hand the rest of the way.

Snuggles the Symbiote

Mister Snuggles had slid back and let me have control again after we'd changed back to civilian clothes. Taylor had kept holding my hand the whole bus ride home. Mister Hebert had to work late so we were alone. Taylor had made me a sandwich and then gave me a notebook, telling me that when she'd had a bad day she wrote about it and it made her feel a little better. Then she left me alone because that kind of thing is private, but not before grabbing her school book bag and a different notebook.

I'd started writing. At first, I just wrote about what happened but then I kind of went into what the people who killed Mommy and Daddy did and all the other bad stuff and that took an hour and then I went to go find Taylor. The second I stepped out of her room I heard her call me down to the living room. She'd found this universe's version of the Princess Bride on the TV and remembered that I'd mentioned it and thought I might like to watch, so we sat there and watched it. I kind of leaned on her and she had an arm around me the whole tie.

"So," she said when it ended. "Does it hold up to what you saw back home?"

"Yeah. It's a little different," I said, "like, in my world Fezzik was played by Andre the Giant."

"The pro-wrestler?"

"Yeah, but… It's close enough." I smiled. "Thank you, for..."

"You're welcome," she said. "So, this is your favorite movie, or what?"

"Yeah. I used to watch it with my grandpa when he was watching me," I said, "and I was sick all the time and since the movie's a story that a grandpa is reading a sick kid, it um.. What's the word?"

"It resonated with you," Taylor added. "You could relate to it and that made it more special."

"Yeah..." I took a deep breath. "About earlier, with Shadow Stalker."

"You don't have to talk-"

"She's that Sophia girl from the mall."

Taylor got quiet for a minute. "...how do you know?"

"Our sense of smell is super strong," I said, "and they smelled exactly alike." Salt and metal. Blood and sweat. "And, and right before I lost it… She's evil and I could see it… She hurt you, didn't she?"

"How can you see evil?" Taylor asked.

"I don't know, it was just, for a second I could see blood on her hands and junk." I thought for a second. "Mister Snuggles, what was that?"

"This one has no idea."

"...Your eyes did look like they were on fire for a second." Taylor admitted.

"That's impossible, symbiotes hate fire." I yawned. "Anyway, did she.."

"Yeah," Taylor said. She sounded sick saying it. "She hurt me. Bad." She sighed. "I want you to promise me that you're not going to worry about it. If Shadow Stalker is Sophia… Just, just leave her to me, okay?"

"Okay, I promise." I sighed too. "The rest of the team is gonna be afraid of me, aren't they?"

"Maybe," Taylor said, "I mean, they tried to smooth things out afterward, but..."

"Eh. If they're afraid, at least it'll be something that makes sense instead of because I was born different." Honestly, being a mutant kind of sucked.

"...Yeah, I'm never letting you go home," Taylor said, "Like, this world is kind of awful but the more you say about where you're from, the less I want you to go back."

"That's fair." I was starting to feel bad again. "Uh… Taylor, this might sound weird, and be like… you can say no, but… C-can I sleep with you tonight."

Taylor looked like she was thinking about it for a bit. "As you wish."