Snuggles the Symbiote

The good thing about being out of the house for about a week? The contractors were able to pick up the pace and get Ashley's basement bedroom done by the time we were ready to move back in. Don't get me wrong, my foster sister is adorable, but it's nice to be able to sleep in my own bed instead of a sleeping bag or a bunk at HQ.

Well, I wasn't there now. I'd celebrated the return to normalcy by picking back up with my morning jogging routine. Even if my normal routine wasn't enough to really get my blood pumping anymore, with the enhancements I'd gotten when I awoke from my coma, it was nice to feel the cool morning air flow through my hair again after the last few weeks. It was a nice morning. A little foggy, but not too bad. Honestly, I'd been away from this for so long that I could have sworn that the air smelled sweet.

As I ran, my thoughts turned over those weeks. How much of that chaos and weirdness had just been normal Cape business and how much of it was specifically because of some influence from Ashley's homeworld? Ashley had acted like it was more or less normal other than that last bit targetting her specifically but was that normal cape stuff in her world or was there extra stuff on top of cape business?

I was pulled from my thoughts and forced to stop in my jog by the vibration of my Wards issued phone. Dad hadn't been happy about it and, frankly, I'd been a little uncomfortable with it at first... Cellphones had been a touchy subject since my Mom died in a car accident she could have avoided if she wasn't texting. But the PRT needed to be able to quickly contact us in case of emergency and a cell phone was more discrete than a tinker-tech communicator.

I'd gotten an alert. Shadow Stalker, or someone like her, had been witnessed using her powers out of costume last night and someone got a picture. Her breaker state was enough to protect her ID, or at least no one had put two-and-two together if anyone recognized her at all, but apparently, she hadn't gone home last night and wasn't responding to attempts to make contact. Command wanted us to call in if any of us knew where she was or what she was doing last night. I didn't call in because I had no clue, I hadn't seen her since the debriefing the other day. Honestly, I figured that the psychopath had gotten fed up with the rules she had to follow instead of going to prison and gone AWOL, but I couldn't actually say that without explaining my history with her and I didn't want to get into that. If it turns out that she's done something wrong, then I'll turn over my evidence and make complaints. Otherwise, well, she can't hurt me anymore and I'm the one the Trio always hurt the worst.

I'd already been near the end of my circuit when I got the call, so while I didn't exactly have the momentum behind me to jog the rest of the way it didn't take long to get home.

Dad was up when I got back. Getting ready to get back to work, doing his best to look nice. Uber and Leet's robot had damaged some buildings. No casulties, thank God, but a few million in property damage. Between that and the street being torn up by the Poisons in the business district, there was a bit of clean up and construction work to do. Not enough for everyone, of course, but Dad had said that today was the day he put in the DWA's bid for a cut.

I greeted him with a "hey" as I got in, but before I could go further the phone rang.

Dad stepped over to the phone and answered. "What..? Alan, calm down, you're talking too fast... Oh... Oh... No, I haven't seen her." He turned back to me pulling the receiver back. "Taylor? Alan says that Emma was studying at a friend's house last night and never came home. They didn't come here last night, did they?"

"No," I said quickly. "I mean, I don't think so..." I started checking in and around the house with bugs, looking for any signs of the Trio or anything that shouldn't be there while more metaphorical bugs began squirming in my belly. Sophia being missing was one thing, but Sophia and Emma both going missing the same night meant one of three things: They'd run off together, either to join a gang or to confirm a theory I'd formed about Sophia a year ago but quickly dismissed; They were planning something huge, or something had happened to them.

"No, there's no sign of them... Wait," I hadn't checked the basement, Ashley's room. I'd been thorough when I removed my nest of widows, clearing out any other bugs that had been down there to, so there hadn't been any down there when I started looking. And then, when I got some bugs down there, just before I could make out the beginning of images, some of the bugs smelled something that translated as metal in my mind.

And then Ashley let out a bloodcurdling scream of terror with something thudding against the floor and I didn't wait for visual to come in, I bolted for the basement between frozen heartbeats.

The first thing I saw, which let me breathe, was that Ashley was okay. Physically, that is, she was clutching the ceiling with her eyes bolted shut in fear.

Then I looked down to find whatever it was that had made her jump and the smell of blood hit me. There, on her bed... There was Emma. Madison, too.

Or, at least, their heads. There was bruising where their necks were cut and, steeling my nerves and stepping around their faces were twisted in horror.

"...Sophia?" I asked out loud. "What did you do?" She must have snapped or something. I'll be honest. I didn't know how to feel about this. I hated them. Emma betrayed me and these were two of the people who'd made my life a living hell for the past few years, but she'd been my best friend once and Madison was a bitch at the worst. Neither of them deserved this.

And, as much as I hated to admit it, some small part of me, some part of myself that I felt disgusted with, complained that we'd literally just moved back in.

"Ashley? Are you okay? Can you get down on your own, or do I need to come up and get you? You... We can't stay in here right now."

She didn't answer, and I turned to climb the wall and get her and that's when I saw the huge message scrawled in blood on the far wall.

"CARNAGE RULES!"

Snuggles the Symbiote

Once I'd gotten Ashley upstairs and swaddled in a clean blanket, I'd called the PRT while Dad... Dad did the harder job.

Afterword, we waited outside while waiting for investigators or a forensics team or whoever.

Alan... Alan had come over after Dad gave him the news. I don't know what he'd been planning to do or what he'd expected to happen, but what had ended up happening was that while I held my foster sister, still in shock the whole time, I watched a grown man collapse to his knees and cry like a baby. He'd just barely composed himself when the forensics team walked out with the... Coolers and loaded them up to be carried away as evidence. It didn't take a genius to realize what was in them and Alan broke down all over again.

Part of me wanted to say something to him, but what could I say?

"Why...?" Ashley whispered as she finally stirred from her shocked state. "Why didn't my Spider-Sense go off? Why didn't your Spider-sense go off?"

"Well, that's an easy enough question ta answer," spoke a man's voice in some kind of southern accent from right in front of Ashley and I.

And in that instant, it started fading into view, from the ground up, a seven-or-eight-foot skeleton coated in something blood-red and slimy with spikes and tendrils jutting off. It looked at us with jagged-crescent lenses that glowed an evil yellow and pulled apart thin not-lips to form a manic grin, like a demented Chesire Cat, full of curved, dagger-like fangs before a throat glowing the same yellow.

"Ya see kiddo? Spidey-Sense don't work worth dick on symbiotes," it said in demented cheerfulness.

My eyes went wide in shock. It'd been here the whole time, waiting for, for some reason. Or it was clairvoyant and it could teleport, or something.

Ashley clearly recognized whoever this was, because she quickly squeaked "oh fuck!" and I had the feeling that that was the most appropriate thing to say.