Snuggles the Symbiote
He was sweeping up when his employer arrived.
How long had it been? A couple of weeks, at least. He'd woken up naked in a tube, in the midst of a brawl between every superhuman he could think of.
And then he'd been in Boston Massachusetts.
Okay, technically he wasn't 'him,' but honestly, cloning more of a technicality. There'd been one Roderick Kingsley, now there's two Roderick Kingsleys.
Regardless, a few weeks ago he'd had nothing, not even a shirt on his back. Now, he had a job with the greatest criminal Mastermind in Boston. You'd be surprised what careful arrangement of suit stolen off the rack, some well-spoken, polite words, and a rudimentary demonstration of one's genius could do. He had funding and shelter now, in this strange world, and that was everything he needed. The Hobgoblin would rise.
Accord, accompanied by two bodyguards, dressed identically, one on either side of him so that they formed a symmetrical profile, entered the laboratory that the crime-boss had so generously provided Kingsley with.
"I'm terribly sorry about the God-awful mess," Kingsley said graciously. In truth, the mess was so incredibly minor that only someone with an obsessive attention to detail would notice it, but it'd taken all of five minutes for Kingsley to realize that this was the case for Accord. "A handful of ruffians managed to get inside, but it was nothing I couldn't handle." Kingsley gave a measured smile. "They won't be troubling any civilized gentlemen ever again. I'd hoped to finish cleaning up before you arrived, however, it seems that in that endeavor I've failed."
Accord seemed distracted. His gaze was drawn to a single floor tile with just a small, barely noticeable, bit of blood on it. "Do you need to reschedule?"
"Oh, no no no no," Kingsley said. "Nothing occurred that would jeopardize the demonstration, and I'm sure that you scheduled the demonstration of my technology at this time for a reason."
"...Yes, of course," Accord said after a moment. "When we're done here, I'll be sending someone to speak with you regarding the so-called ruffians."
"I have the bodies in storage," Kingsley said professionally. Kingsley lead his current employer and said employer's bodyguards around the laboratory that he'd been provided with.
"This," he said with a gesture to a metallic structure modeled loosely on a bat, "is a military grade glider. It is operated manually with slight movements of the pilot's feet or remotely with a device hidden in the wrist of the flight suit." Kingsley gestured in turn to a lightly armored bodysuit. He approached it and revealed a panel of buttons hidden in the wrist.
"The glider is rocket powered," Kingsley explained, "turns on a dime with the slightest movement of the pilot, can experience days of use without the need for refueling, can support up to twice its weight, and has both an automatic assault weapon and a pair of blades concealed within it. It is aesthetically customizable-I'm personally fond of a variant I call the 'demon glider.'" Kingsley pressed a button hidden in the flight suit, deploying the glider's hidden blades.
Accord took in the glider. He was clearly impressed, but something seemed… Off. The crime lord cocked his head to either side as if trying to measure something. Perhaps trying to judge if the glider was mounted evenly.
"Onto the flight suit itself," Kingsley continued, "it is lightly armored with highly durable composite materials capable of taking light arms fire with minimal damage-not enough to make a bullet not hurt, but enough to keep it from killing you. The suit is light enough that it can be worn under other clothing or armors, though one will want to leave the wrists exposed." Kingsley removed the gloves and put them on.
"Within the gloves of the flight suit are a pair of high voltage tasers that are activated by gripping just right," Kingsley demonstrated the movements, "with variable settings. The default setting is enough to kill an injured man."
Kingsley had a target set up in the laboratory, opposite of the glider's mount. He pointed both index fingers at the target, a standard bullseye, and green lasers erupted from the tips and scorched two spots on the bullseye a burnt black.
"And a low-level laser weapon is hidden in each index finger. In and of itself it's not enough to be lethal, but sustained repeated fire could cause severe injuries and could be used to inflict the coup de grace on a defeated enemy if that is what is desired."
"Most impressive, most impressive," Accord admitted. However, like before he seemed distracted and approached the target, examining the scorch marks. Kingsley allowed him to do so, waiting until he returned his attention to Kingsley to move on.
"Most importantly, of course," Kingsley said as he went to the far end of the room and pulled back a curtain he'd had affixed, revealing a massive glass vat. "The goblin formula."
"Named for mythological creatures of trickery, mercantilism, and artifice, the goblin formula was meant to vastly increase the intellect-in every conceivable way-of those who imbibe it. However, the finished goblin formula beyond pushing human intellect beyond that which can be measured also enhances physical attributes to between four and sixteen times peak human limits and bestows a slow but powerful healing factor." Kingsley paused for effect. "The effects of the formula are permanent, and are accompanied by heritable genetic mutations-not only will one who is dosed with the formula be enhanced in mind and body, but any children they conceive will likewise possess enhanced physical and mental capabilities."
"...Why is there a drop of paint on the floor?" Accord asked, apparently ignoring everything that Kingsley just said. One of his bodyguards flinched while the other seemed to brace himself as if for a coming explosion.
"What?" Kingsley asked, sounding genuinely surprised.
"There is a drop of orange paint, in the middle of the floor. Center tile, roughly one inch to my right from the center of the tile. Why?" Accord was slowly walking from where he'd stood to th offending tile. "Did one of the so-called ruffians come in here with some comically inefficient paint based weapon?"
"No sir," Kingsley said sounding concerned. "Only two men entered and neither of them… I-wait!"
Just as Accord made it to the tile, the wall to Accord's left was punctured simultaneously to the sound of an explosion and a bullet caught the crime boss in the throat... Kingsley hit the ground as three more wall piercing rounds sounded off and a meaty thump announced that Accord had hit the ground.
When it was clear that the gunfire had ceased, Kingsley pushed himself up to find that Accord's panicked bodyguards were checking their employer for signs of life.
"This is my fault," Kingsley said with a tone and expression of horror. "I should have asked to reschedule… The men who invaded, that wasn't an accident… They must have been a distraction," Kingsley rambled. "Someone, some rival crime lord must have learned that I was working for Accord. Must have learned he was coming today, and… they must have sent someone to distract me while they planted something to draw his attention..."
Kingsley was shaking.
"The bullets could only have come from the abandoned warehouse next door. If you're quick, you might be able to find the shooter."
Accord's bodyguards left the lab.
One minute later, Kingsley stood, approached the cooling corpse of his most recent employer, and smiled. "Hook, line, sinker." He gave a subdued laugh. "This is why the mentally ill shouldn't engage in organized crime. It's why Osborn never succeeded in anything worthwhile. The compulsions. The psychoses...They're weaknesses. They make you so predictable. I'm surprised that no one else tried this."
Accord's bodyguards would find a bare-bones turret linked to an infrared sensor. As soon as a heat signature in that exact location had been detected, four armor piercing rounds would be fired from a rifle into the heat signature. The generic nature of the weapon combined with the lack of prints-Kingsley was careful-could point to anyone in town. Staging the results of an attack that Kingsley had just barely finished cleaning up both began to set Accord on edge and gave Kingsley an alibi. The slightly off balancing of the glider on its mount, the just slightly asymmetrical scorch marks stressed Accord slightly and ensured that he'd take notice of the small paint stain, sealing his fate.
"Of course, the Ambassadors can't afford to let the public know that you're dead. The city would fall into absolute anarchy." Kingsley laughed again. "And it just so happens that you recently hired a genius with impeccable acting skills who is oh so broken up about his inadvertent part in your death who is willing to pose as you and keep your dream alive…"
And he'd already subverted the security in the building. The digital security cameras would have no record of anything that would implicate Kingsley or contradict his story, as what would be detected as a 'one in a million glitch' had caused them all to malfunction on the first day that Kingsley had set up shop.
"Honestly, the hard part had been finding two low lives who I could kill easily who also had ties to those… Teeth people. Don't worry. I'll take good care of the Ambassadors. And make a fortune doing it."
And then, Kingsley returned to a look of concern and horror, going back to his act, so that the bodyguards wouldn't suspect anything when they returned.
"Of course," he said as he gestured to the restrained homeless man who was now panicking as he'd turned into a green scaled, bat-eared creature, "this was a rush-job with insufficient resources." He'd had to burglarize a high-school in a bad neighborhood for ingredients, "so there were some side effects."
How long had it been? A couple of weeks, at least. He'd woken up naked in a tube, in the midst of a brawl between every superhuman he could think of.
And then he'd been in been in a slum in some city he'd never even heard off. He'd murdered a homeless man for some clothes and made to do research. It'd seemed that he'd found himself in an alternate reality. No connection to his home universe, as far as he could tell, but that just meant that no one here had ever heard of Norman Osborn.
Okay, technically he was a clone, but he didn't see how that was relevant. He had Norman Osborn's DNA, his powers, his knowledge, skill, and memories. He was no more or less Norman Osborn than the original, and if he somehow met the original and he disagreed then they'd simply have to fight to the death.
"This," he said as he performed a backflip and landed upon on palm, "is more akin to what the perfected goblin formula is capable of. Physical attributes and intelligence enhanced to superhuman levels. And a strong healing factor. I was stabbed to death once and spontaneously reanimated with no brain damage a few hours later."
"Yes, yes, I can certainly see the potential of something like that..." Said the crime lord who Osborn had had the luck to gain an audience with. "And these blueprints… I don't normally evaluate Tinker-Tech myself, but this is simple enough to understand… I can see these goblin gliders seeing a lot of use..."
Finding Coil had been quite fortuitous. In truth, Osborn hadn't had a bit of bad luck since he'd ended up in this Brockton Bay. The closest thing had been that bush-headed beanpole with the overly excited oriental brat that walked into the library while he was using one of its computers to research the local history. She didn't think he saw her disdainful look, but he saw it… Maybe he'd throw her from a bridge? No. No. That'd been a special night. He'd at least have to bleach her hair first if he was going to recreate it, and it wouldn't be the same without a spider to taunt over it.
"I do have to ask," Coil began, "what your long term goals are? I can see the ambition in your eyes, you wouldn't be satisfied with just being the tech-man for an accomplished supervillain."
"You have quite the eye on you," Osborn complimented, "and you are correct. My ultimate goal is to relocate to another city and establish myself as a crime lord and supervillain in my own right. However, due to circumstances outside of my control, I am without funding, credentials, or connections. I'm no stranger to starting with nothing and having to work my way up, I've done it before and I'll do it again, and I'm sure that you can see the value of, in ten years time, having a criminal organization elsewhere owe you for the hand-up you gave it's founder when he was just starting out." Patience. That was the key. It was something that fool Kingsley never learned.
"That I can, that I can," Coil said as he stood up from his seat and began walking with his hands folded behind his back. "However, that is a rather hefty, long term investment. I'm not sure that what you're providing up front is enough… Tell me, Mister Osborn… My spies in the Parahuman Response Team tell me that there's an incident with Parahumans from another reality. I can't help but notice the timing of your appearance… Are you one of these so-called Mutants?"
Osborn's blood boiled, but he held his tongue. "No. I've got nothing personal against the muties. I respect a couple of them, even, but I'm not one of them. They're not even really people."
"But you are from the other Earth, then?"
"Yes."
"Would you, perhaps, be willing to share with me details about your world?" Coil was now standing directly in front of Osborn. The opaque mask prevented direct eye contact, but Osborn got the point. He himself made a point of standing tall and looking his prospective employer directly in where he was certain his eyes were.
"Of course, sir."
"Good… Oh. and one more thing..." Coil said as he turned around and walked back to his chair. "I've been working on… Discrediting the local branch of the government-sponsored superhero team. The thought has just occurred to me that having an independent hero, someone who can't be traced back to me easily, in my pocket could only be of benefit to me, and so many, many parahumans just arrived out of nowhere..." He turned back around to face Osborn halfway to his seat. "So, have you ever considered being a Superhero, Mister Osborn?"
Osborn thought of his time as the head of HAMMER. "I've dabbled."
Phil Ulrich had been a good man once, at least that's what people say. He was the fourth Green Goblin. The good Green Goblin, but only briefly.
Eventually, he lost his stolen goblin equipment and retired.
And then he formed Excelsior, a support group for current and former teenage villains, and something or other made him lose his mind. He became the Hobgoblin, the Goblin Knight, and the Goblin King… The maddest and most violent of all the Goblins,
And now his clone was running naked through the streets of Chicago, destroying random buildings with the super-sonic laugh that for some reason only he got from the Goblin formula.
It'd seemed that the cloning process had not been kind to Phil Ulrich, but it'd been kinder to him.
Yes, he was a clone. He didn't see how it mattered though. There'd been one Gabriel Stacy, now there were two.
Gabriel, the Grey Goblin-the Greatest Goblin-leaped from the building he'd been perched on, landed behind Phil's clone, and grabbed him by the head. With a wrench, Phil's neck was broken, and Gabriel carried the corpse back to a certain warehouse.
Okay, perhaps there was a difference between him and the original Gabriel. Original Gabriel was raised as an assassin, alongside his twin sister, to gain revenge on Spider-Man. He'd spent his entire life, up to the point that the genetic material used to make this Gabriel was taken, trying to earn Norman Osborn's love, respect, and acknowledgment. He'd even taken Osborn's attempt at recreating the Super Soldier Serum and posed as 'American Son' in his father's Avengers team.
This Gabriel, however, had found a family. Not exactly a typical one, but what was typical, anyway? Besides, he liked his new little sister much better than he liked his twin.
Chicago had been hit hard by the arrival of clones. Because of the chaos, most of it in the main city, Gabriel had a very uneventful walk to the warehouse despite the dead madman upon his shoulder.
Outside the warehouse was normal.
Inside was the wet dream of a medical torture fetishist, with mechanical boxes walking around on spider-legs tending to the mutilated corpses of Bonesaw's most recent victims. Gabriel recognized a few of them. There was Daken having his brain pulled apart. That sculpture of limbs and lungs had Komodo's face sewn onto it and the green scales on the arms and legs indicated that the rest of it was her parts as well.
He found Bonesaw next to a tube that had the conscious head and organs of a dark-haired man. He was screaming but no sounds came out. Bonesaw herself was sitting at a bloodsoaked cubicle desk examining something or other on a microscope. In her hand, she was fidgeting with a spike which, based on the massive pile of blood and orange scales on the far side of the warehouse, was one of Stegron's thagomizers.
"I didn't even know that there was a Stegron in town."
"Who? Oh, wait, is that the stegosaurus guy's name?" Bonesaw said as she looked up from the microscope. "Hey Gabriel-ooh, did you bring me a present?" she said excitedly when noticed Phil's corpse on his shoulder.
"That I did," Gabriel said as he sat the corpse down next to Bonesaw's desk. "I knew this guy, he's got the same powers as I do and a couple of others, from the same formula as me, but he's got less of it from a different version."
"Neat!" Bonesaw said with a smile. "So I went for a walk, tripped, fell down a torn open sewer grate, and while I was looking for the way back up. I found him mixing up something that's supposed to turn people into dinosaurs. He didn't want to play though, so I killed him with the same poison I use to finish off that lizard lady. Had to cut him up and make three trips to get back here, and apparently, he got his powers from the same thing that made lizard lady a lizard lady." She cracked her fingers. "I've already taken samples for more study and the thing he was gonna turn people into dinosaurs with because that's something I've been wanting to try for a while and-ooh, ooh, that reminds me of a story."
She stood up. "So, about a year ago we were somewhere in Kentucky looking for a guy Mannequin wanted to kill, a DNA tinker calling himself Genos. So we get to him, and he's built a chamber that can instantly rewrite DNA and have the changes take instant effect. Was gonna use it to cure cancer, and I'm like 'what a waste. With something like that, you could turn people into dinosaurs' and he's like 'I don't want to turn people into dinosaurs, I want to cure cancer.' Then Mannequin killed him." Bonesaw laughed, and Gabriel smiled.
"So," he said with a gesture to the desk and tube, "what are you working on now?"
"Well before we met you," she said while tapping the tube, "we ran into this Maximus guy. Tried to master us, but that set off my Berserker chip and I stabbed him to death. There's something or other in his body that I'm trying to figure out." She laughed again. "Also I accidentally reanimated his head so I hooked it up to some spare organs I have on hand and I'm measuring to see how long it'll take him to die again while I take another look at his tissue samples."
"Sounds like fun."
"Oh, it is. This has been a really fun and productive trip. Not even Bloodbath complaining about Myrrdin whooping his butt can ruin this for me." Bonesaw smiled. She'd confided in him, shortly after he joined the family, that she didn't much care for Bloodbath. "I'm gonna be able to make so much fun stuff with what we've found here."