Snuggle the Symbiote
Vista was on her A-game. As soon as the evil crystal version of me spoke she immediately leaped up and stretched the floor around the crystal creatures, adding a few feet between them and the stage and them and the rest of the crowd.
"Everyone not in a costume needs to get out of here now!" she shouted, and that was all that was needed to get the civilians to start evacuating.
Unfortunately, the few feet she'd given us weren't enough to buy us more than a few seconds. By the time I stood and got back from behind the table, the crystal creatures were already up on stage.
The small one in the crystal dress with the sausage curls was right in front of me. Tendrils of slime emerged from her back and formed a dozen slim tentacles in orange and blue tipped with scalpels, scissors, tongs, and bone saws.
...fuck.
"Momma-Skitter says I can take you apart to see how you tick," the crystal Bonesaw said. "Just as soon as we get my new little sister."
So I did the only logical thing someone could do when faced with a slime and crystal copy of one of the world's most dangerous and prolific serial killers intent on doing something horrible to my foster sister and then me.
I lifted up my mask and opened the hidden vents in my throat so that I could vomit spiders on her.
Apparently, crystal Bonesaw had enhanced reflexes, however, as she was able to backflip off the stage, land in the crowd and grab a fleeing civilian man all in the time it took the three dozen spiders I'd coughed up to hit the floor.
The crystal Bonesaw's tendrils lashed at the man only to stop short as rings of red energy materialize out of nowhere and pinned all of the psychotic crystal child's limbs, tendrils included, were forced tight to her body.
The man then continued fleeing.
It was then that I took a second to survey my surroundings:
The red one was on the ground, similarly bound, with its right arm turned into a crystal and slime ax, not a foot from where Gallant was standing.
Evil crystal me was still where she'd been the whole time. She stood while bound, and spiders made of black slime started crawling out of her joints and rushing the stage. I sent the spiders I already had to go and fight hers and spawned more as backup becuase she had more. As my spiders and hers killed each other, I took note that PRT security had already killed four of the small ones with weird heads. At least, I assumed they were dead. They were on the ground, not moving and something green was leaking out of places where the crystal had been hit with batons.
I swiveled, looking for the fifth, to find Cuddlebug staring at a beautiful Asian woman.
Her eye lenses were wide. "...Mommy?" She reached out to touch the woman's outstretched hand.
And then a gunshot rang out, the woman fell to the ground, Cuddlebug screamed, and then the woman vanished and was replaced with a tiny crystal thing with a huge hole blown clean through its head.
I turned to where the shot had come from and saw the woman with the cape and tux. From this angle, I could see that she had a green, feathered domino mask that obscured the entire top half of her face. Her left hand was held up with her fingers held in something close to rocker horns. The other held a comically large handgun.
I asked the only question that came to mind: "What the fuck is going on?"
"In a minute," was lady Tux-and-Mask's only reply. She grabbed the hem of her cape and pulled it around herself. The cape spiraled around her and she vanished.
She then immediately reappeared behind Cuddlebug and grabbed her. I stepped forward, but they'd already vanished in a massive puff of smoke.
"That bitch! That-!"
"Hey, I can hear you," the woman's voice came from the earpiece sewn into my mask. "All I did was teleport Cuddlebug to the Ward's console room where she's not at risk of being captured by people that literally want to eat her to get her powers."
"What the shit is wrong with her reality!?" I could hear Vista shout.
"Trust me, Earth Bet's not much better, but you'll learn that later," the woman continued. "Also, anyone who hasn't been evacuated yet just heard you announce that someone isn't from this reality, so..."
"Damn it," was Vista's response.
"So, to get everyone caught up: I'm Ms. Mystic, Sorceress Supreme of Earth in the Bet Reality and founding member of the Earth Bet branch of The Avengers. You haven't heard of any of that because it hasn't happened yet, I'm from the future."
"Yeah, right," Shadow Stalker scoffed.
"Your stepfather's head is torn out of every picture you have of your family."
"How-?"
"It comes up in group therapy. Yes, you end up in group therapy. No, it doesn't help very much. You're an irreparable mess."
"Why you little-"
"The Poisons are from the future too," Ms. Mystic interrupted.
I shed a few more spiders to join the battle against Evil crystal me's while Aegis spoke up.
"Poisons. New Poison Hive," our leader began, "and now you're from the Future. Please start explaining."
"And put Cuddlebug on the line," I added.
"I'm fine," Cuddlebug's voice came over the coms. She didn't sound like she was doing so hot. "Future Tattletale just bamfed us into the console room."
"How did you-?"
"You smell exactly like Tattletale and sound like an older Tattletale," Cuddlebug explained.
"...Well, I need to yell at big-you when I get home."
"So we're getting mission control from a crook," Clockblocker observed. "Yay," he finished flatly.
"Look, the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak aren't going to hold if I'm not there to maintain the spell and the Protectorate won't be there for-"
There came a sound. A sickening sound, the shearing of metal combined with the crunch of bone
I twisted my head to find that the red one had just punched Gallant in the knee. He was on the ground but still managed to fire a blast into her chest as she was pushing herself up.
"And Poison Panacea just broke Gallant's leg, which means he's about to find out that the Poisons aren't vulnerable to emotion effects because they're all a bunch of raging sociopaths. Stay alive until help gets there, I'll have a more in-depth explanation later. Ms. Mystic out."
My doppelganger was content to stand still and shed spiders, so I continued to do the same.
Poison Panacea reformed her ax and made to swing down at the prone Gallant, only for the stage to shrink a few feet.
Vista leaped through the compressed air and swung her baton down onto Poison Panacea, who proceeded to not react to the blow at all.
Instead, she turned her head to Vista. "Seriously? 'Little V?' The youngest and most pathetic Ward? Do you honestly think you can defeat me? Panacea was one of the most powerful and versatile bio-manipulators on the planet. She was wearing an instance of Carnage when I devoured her. You're basically an ant, except no, because Love can make use of ants."
Vista opened her mouth to say something but instead of words she suddenly gasped and fell to her knees and… I didn't know it was physically possible to go from nothing to sweating bullets in just a second.
Clockblocker ran across the stage, reaching for Poison Panacea… Only to trip as his feet were glued to the floor by a thwip of grey goo. I turned around in time to see Poison Bonesaw leaping back onto the stage.
"You know, the more people who try to stop Mama-Panpan from killing the boy, the more people she's gonna kill."
Aegis went for Poison Panacea while Browbeat went for Poison Bonesaw. I had to look away, however, because my spiders noticed that my double's feet were starting to move and I had to return my attention to her.
"You should just run now," she said calmly, looking at me. "You're not a match for me. You're not a match for Love. You're not a match for the kid. You don't have a Klyntar, little Totem. We promised Bonesaw she could vivisect you if she caught you, but only if she caught you. We only want the hybrid symbiote and its host. There's no reason you need to die." She cocked her head to the side. "Just run. There's an ex-Slaughterhouse Nine here and you're clearly outmatched. No one would ever blame you."
I looked my doppelganger dead in the eyes. "You're asking me to run away, let my new teammates die, and let you kidnap and eat a little girl who looks up to me. Just who the hell do you think I am?"
She'd stopped shedding spiders and mine overwhelmed and finished off her swarm. I set them to rush the stang to swarm Poison Panacea and Poison Bonesaw, where they were quickly crushed by the goo inside the poisons, while I jumped for my crystal copy and threw a punch.
Which she caught. Easily.
She squeezed down on my fist and I felt my bones shatter.
"You foolish child. Skitter was just as foolish, all of your impulse control issues aggravated ten times over by Venom. It was a match made in Heaven, the two of them. Venom's power combined with your senses and mind, but Skitter just had to keep punching above her threat level." She formed her other hand into long, curved blade of slime with a white-crystal at the tip. "And it just got worse when she was joined by Panacea and Bonesaw. When Venom's offspring found it's way back to its parent and Panacea lobotomized it and bound it to her will. When it budded and Bonesaw gained the power of Toxin..." She made a show of pulling her arm back. She took a good long time. "And that arrogance led to them being consumed, and now that power and intellect belong to the New Hive where it can be used properly."
"Do you know you have a healing factor yet?" She changed the subject all of a sudden. "As I understand it, it's from the traces of regenerative mutant in the mutate whose venom empowered you. It's slow, but you'll live through me carving out your spleen and Love and I won't have broken our promise."
She started to swing only to stop and was suddenly replaced with Emma, an expression of shock and betrayal on her face.
Just in time for a crossbow bolt full of some black liquid to hit her square in the forehead.
She let go of my hand. And fell to the ground. She seemed dead, and I could hear Shadow Stalker scream.
"What!? No, no... I didn't, how? I..."
And then 'Emma' reached up, a black cord of slime launching from her wrist with a thwip. She pulled, and Shadow Stalker was pulled from her feet to land face down at mine.
My doppelganger reverted to her true form and flipped to her feet in an instant.
And then she laughed. A cold laugh. A mirthless laugh. "You know, it's funny: I've been to eight Earth Bets, this one included, and she always falls for that trick. Even when she knows it's just an illusion. Who'd think that such a simpleminded psychopath would have such a soft spot for a pathetic, traitorous worm."
"Eees strnger dan oo, bit-th," Shadow Stalker mumbled from the floor. There was blood leaking out from the side of her mask.
"Now, we're going to need one of you alive so-"
And then the temperature in the room went up a couple of degrees while Vista let out a blood-curdling scream.
And then, a second later, the Poison Panacea and Poison Bonesaw impacted the far wall. The apparent elder had an arm burned off, the younger a leg.
And then the Protectorate finally got here. Armsmaster, Miss Militia, Dauntless, and Triumph.
My doppelganger dodged a bullet from a green sniper rifle and an arc from Dauntless's lance and rapidly back stepped away from Shadow Stalker and I.
And then a puff of smoke erupted on her shoulder. I could smell rotten eggs, and then the puff of smoke happened again, releasing more rotten egg smell.
I was able to speed up the cloud's dispersal with a wave of my non-broken hand, the smoke clearing enough to show my copy, now with a small devil made of dark blue crystal on her shoulder, grabbing the other two, and then they vanished in one last massive burst of smoke.
I turned around. To see the damage.
Aegis was holding his right arm with his left because his right arm wasn't attached to him anymore. Browbeat was… Honestly, he seemed fine but there was a bloody gash along his side. Clockblocker and Kid Win seemed fine, but Vista…
Vista was kneeling, breathing heavily, and her costume, soaked through with sweat, seemed… Looser, for lack of a better word.
And her skin was the color of freshly spilled blood, with her eyes glowing yellow bright enough to see through her visor.
"I don't feel so good."