Snuggles the Symbiote
I'd gotten away from Mrs. Brandish and the Magneto clone easily enough. After a few hours of walking, Jorogumo's scent had led me to a poor looking neighborhood. There were a couple Mom'n'Pop businesses that had signs with Chinese letters. Or Japanese letters, I couldn't tell the difference… Then it occurred to me that I knew frighteningly little about where I'd come from and I couldn't ask because my parents were dead.
...Okay, Grandpa Patrick had taught me how to cuss in Gaelic, so I knew a little bit, but that was the Irish side of the family, not the Asian side, so it didn't count.
I also noticed that the sun was getting close to setting and that I was getting hungry. I hadn't eaten anything all day and I was kind of wishing I'd thought to bring a snack.
"Locate a criminal and consume their cerebral matter."
"That's your answer to everything, Mister Snuggles," I dismissed with a roll of my eyes.
We kept following Jorogumo's scent after that. She was around here somewhere. Somewhere close. There weren't that many people out and about around here, really. Just one or two people. We walked past a man closing up his shop for the night. A couple of people walking from place to place. A boy in Bad Boy colors sticking up a woman with a knife and-crud!
I didn't have time to fully shift so I had Mister Snuggles form the Cuddlebug mask under my hood while I ran up and grabbed the guy's hand.
He looked down at me. "Seriously?"
I responded by squeezing his hand just right. I'd looked it up. Squeeze a hand the right way and the fingers will spread open on their own. It hurts, but it doesn't cause damage. It's perfect for dealing with people like this.
His knife, a switchblade, fell out of his hand and I snatched it up real quick. Then we crushed it in our hands. "I'm going to let go of your hand now," I said. "And then you have a choice. You can run away and forget about this crime nonsense, or I can break your legs and call the cops."
And then I had mister snuggles do the scary face. We made our too thin lips open up into a too big mouth with lots of sharp teeth and stuck out our long, forked tongue. "Got It?" I finished with Mister Snuggles' deeper voice up over my own.
And then the man peed himself. When I let go, he took off running and we made the scary face turn back into the Cuddlebug mask. I turned back to the lady. "Are you alright?"
"Y-yeah," she said. "I, uh... Thank you?"
"You needed help," I said. "So I helped. That's what heroes do."
"Aren't you a little young for that," she said, looking around.
"You're never too young to help someone," I answered. "Do you need help getting home?" It'd be a bit out of my way, but if she needed he help...
"N-no," she said. "I live pretty close. I'll be fine."
"Are you sure?" I asked. "I'd feel really, really bad if I let you go and something happened to you."
The lady blinked. "Are you for real?"
"Would I be standing here if I wasn't?" I asked. I was blinking too, that was a weird thing to ask.
"Look," the lady said, "I'll be fine."
"Promise?"
The lady sighed. "I promise I'll be fine."
"Okay."
I didn't stop her as she started to walk away… I figured I'd follow her, just to make sure, but then I smelled something. Something other than Jorogumo.
Three people. One of them smelled really dusty. A second person who smelled like burning metal and motor oil… And that Meany. Lung.
They were close. A couple of streets over. I hid my mask again, just in case-after punching Lung in the groin, I really doubted he'd just let me go if he saw Cuddlebug, but some random little girl might be able to talk her way out of things if she got caught snooping.
"Ashley? This one feels the need to point out the inherent foolishness of this plan."
"And what if they're looking for Jorogumo?" I whispered back. "She was with Lung the night we met Taylor, was working with the Gang and the Mercenaries, and they called her Lung's pet."
I carefully, slowly crept over to the other street, hiding in an alley next to an abandoned looking brick building, and listened.
"...Again, why the fuck do I have to help you find the bug?" Came a voice exactly like the Skrull at the bank had when they were disguised. That must be the real Bakuda.
"Because it was your dumbass plan that let her get loose in the first place," came Lung's voice.
"Why do you even want this girl?" Bakuda asked.
"To feed insolent subordinates to," Lung said matter-of-factly. "Besides, put a bag over her head and-"
"I don't want to hear this!" Bakuda interrupted.
"You knew about the farms and the slaves when I brought you in," Lung quipped back. "You should know what I'm about by now."
"Not that. She's a fucking bug!"
"A bug that..." And then they'd walked too far away for me to make out the rest. What the hell were they talking about?
Well, we knew that they were looking for Jorogumo too, and… Wait. I'd smelled three people. Where was dusty?
And then my Spider-Sense went off. I turned around just in time to see a man with a mask like a devil's face standing behind me and looking down at me. He had lots of knives and what looked like bombs and…
He also had a sword that he pointed at me. "Step out of the alley," he said flatly. "Slowly."
I turned back around and put my hands behind my head, then stepped out of the alley at sword point.
"This one believes the phrase is 'told you so.' "
The man in the demon mask slowly marched me all the way to Lung and Bakuda. "I found a spy."
Lung was a big man, with huge muscles, dragon tattoos, and a metal dragon mask. With the sun setting behind him he looked especially scary, but I kept calm.
"Tell me, little girl," he began, "what made you think that spying on Lung was a good idea?"
"I wasn't spying," I said with a big, cheesy smile, trying to make myself look as nervous as I could. It wasn't hard. "I was just in an ally and I heard you coming by and I figured that maybe it'd be best to just wait until you were done before I..." I laughed nervously.
"Smart kid," Bakuda quipped.
Lung didn't seem convinced. "Something's familiar about you…"
"That's impossible," I said as careful to sound as much like a scared nervous little girl as I could. "I only just moved here."
"She sounds like she's from New York," Bakuda added… "You know, if she's new in town we could probably take her and use her as a drug mule or something… There's gotta be some use for a cute nine-year-old. I could put a bomb in her brain to keep her from running off and… Actually, I was thinking of doing that to people in our demographic in general."
"Later."
And then Jorogumo's scent started to get stronger. I figured that I needed to get away quickly since it seemed like she was getting closer…
And then she literally just jumped over a building to our right and landed in the middle of the street.
"Shoot."
She looked a little skinnier than she was last week. She turned, looked at us, saw Lung, and said "Daddy?" in a scared tone.
"Lee?" Lung said. "Capture."
A second demon mask guy appeared next to Jorogumo and she jumped away from him. The demon mask guy behind me crumbled into dust. More demon mask guys popped in around her and then started crumbling to dust
This was gonna be a lot harder than it should have been, but it had to be done if Taylor was gonna wake up any time soon.
Wile Lung was looking away from me, at demon mask guy and Jorogumo, I punched him in the back of the knee as hard as I could.
His leg broke with a wet snapping sound and he started falling backward just in time for me to shift from street clothes to full Cuddlebug.
"By the way," I said as I jumped over him, "I'm ten!"
I hit the ground on all fours and quickly pushed myself up to run at demon mask-the one Lung called Lee. I didn't know if he had any powers other than teleporting and dust clones but I figured I had good odds of not hurting him too badly. A fresh one had just formed next to Jorogumo holding up some silver canister looking thing so I tackled him to the ground.
And then he crumbled to dust. Something metal clinked next to me. My spider-sense went off and I jumped, almost straight up and a little to the side to avoid a big blast of something freezing cold.
Like, seriously. I'd only barely dodged it and suddenly it felt like the time the heater broke in the middle of January, The ground where I was was covered in frost and there was an ice statue of a half crumbled Lee not too far away from that.
I was still in the air when I heard a pair of thwips and got snagged by the arms and pulled to the ground with a thud.
"Hungry," Jorogumo said. "Prey. Food," she went on as she climbed over me. Thing was, this time I wasn't weakened from fire forcing Mister Snuggles back.
I leaned back and raised my legs, then kicked Jorogumo in the chest with both of them as hard as I could. I ripped the web lines out of her arms and set her flying into a wall, and then I hopped up to my feet.
"I am so putting a bomb in her brain," I heard Bakuda say.
"Bakuda," I heard Lung answer, "that is the brat the punched me in the dick. She dies."
"But look how strong she is! We could have that kind of strength and-"
Bakuda was interrupted by a banging noise close to where I was. While I was having Mister Snuggles eat up Jorogumo's silk and looking around, another bomb went off right next to the spider lady. There was smoke for a bit and when it cleared was was in the fetal position and trapped in some kind of goo.
"Woo!" Bakuda screamed which as… weird with the way it was distorted. "I wasn't sure the paralytic slime bomb would work, but it worked! Fear me, fuckers! I am Bakuda, I can make anything into a bomb and a bomb that does anything!"
"And you're only the lamest bomb power I know about!" I shouted back. Okay, to be honest, I only knew about her and Nitro but Nitro caused a city-wide civil war and nuked a city. Bakuda was super lame in comparison if a sticky bomb was the best she could do.
"...Lee? Kill the brat!" Bakuda replied.
"I am in charge here, Bakuda," Lung said bitterly. He was pushing himself up. "Lee, kill the brat!"
So then I had to deal with Lee and his clones all trying to stab me with knives and swords. With my spider-sense and reflexes though, it was easy enough to avoid it.
And then Bakuda threw a thing at me. Spider-sense went off really big and I jumped away from it just in time for it to turn a bunch of Lees into glass.
I landed on my feet and stared. I knew they were evil but… That's just… No regard for their own…
My spider-sense buzzed again and on instinct, I elbowed whoever was behind me.
I turned and saw Lee fall to the ground, holding his groin. Okay, he's still alive. The butterflies in my tummy disappeared.
I looked up to see a big fiery scally man running at me and roaring. Why hadn't-oh, there's the buzzing. I jumped but Lung was able to grab me by the ankle.
He slammed me into the ground. Hard. I could feel something crack and… I totally wasn't crying. It didn't hurt that bad.
He picked me up again. And slammed me again. And again. And again. More cracking… Okay, maybe I was crying now…
Lung twisted around and started dragging me behind him, my back scraping against the ground before he tossed me in a jerky motion. I twisted in the air a few times, landed, bounced, rolled for a bit, and hit the ground again on my belly. Everything was fuzzy.
"Ashley, your ferrous vital fluids are slowly leaking into your bodily cavities. This one can repair the damage, but it is imperative that we flee immediately… Ashley?"
" ...All those who chose to oppose his shield must yi~ield… when it comes to a fight and a duel-AAAAAAAAHHHH! "
The good news is that Lung landing on me and breaking my legs cleared up my head. The bad news is that he broke my legs and that hurt like Hell!
I didn't even think it, Mister Snuggles acted on his own, sprouting all four ocktacles. He sent two of them to attack Lung and the other two to try and drag me away…
But Lung reached down with flaming claws and slashed them off at the base. Mister Snuggles screamed. In my head. A loud, piercing cry, like white-hot nails being jammed into my brain and piercing my soul.
Lung flipped me over and lifted me up by the neck and chest-he was huge, big enough to hold me in one hand. He had the ocktacles in the other hand, fire around them making them wither and burn to nothing.
His face, like a scaley cat with an X version of a lamprey mouth, was pushed up close to mine and opened up.
"Ooo Abve Urast Words, Burat!?"
All I could think off where some words that Grandpa Patrick had taught me. "Téigh dtí diabhail," I coughed and then finished, "a thóin mór." It's something that would have gotten me in a lot of trouble if it'd been in English.
Lung growled, then got a running start and slammed me through the wall of the brick building I'd hid by earlier. And then the next wall. And the next. Like the Juggernaut, he'd just kind of run through while holding me out…
The good news is that I was past the point where I could feel pain. Yay…
We hadn't gotten all the way through when he slammed me down int the floor hard enough to crack it. And then he left me… A second later, I flipped over and pushed myself up in time to see him at the hole where we came in from, reaching up and pulling the building down.
Bricks crumbled, wood splintered, and the building collapsed on top of me.