Snuggles the Symbiote
There I was. Dressed in a long-sleeved hooded sweatshirt and jeans, partly hunched over... Was it weird of me to think it's weird that just going out in public in civilian clothes made me feel super uncomfortable even though I know that I have nothing to worry about anymore? I almost had a panic attack going home to get clothes for the trip.
The crime scene clean up people had done a good job getting the bloodstains off the wall in the basement, but as I packed away some of Ashley's underthings it occurred to me that I'd probably have to switch rooms with her. If we even stayed in the house. Dad and I had talked about moving. Not out of town, he wasn't leaving the DWA and sure as hell wasn't leaving Alan when he was so emotionally fragile, but... Just a house where a nosey neighbor hadn't exposed it as the home of two juvenile superheroes who'd been attacked by and then been instrumental in the defeat of the Slaughterhouse Nine. We'd talk about it more once we got back from the trip.
When I got back from that, Ashley was standing in front of the mirror we had in our room on base, with... Grace crouched on the floor next to and semi-wrapped around her legs, not unlike an oversized reptilian cat. Honestly, it was kind of frightening that someone who had literally tortured Ashley to death just a few days ago was now acting like a lost, dependent puppy. I can understand that having a major change in your life can change your behavior... All too well, but...
It seemed like she was on the up and up and Ashley seemed to trust her... Was Ashley being so willing to forgive something so horrible a sign of good character or a sign of mental illness?
Ashley was out of costume and had inexplicably turned from purplish-grey... sorry, periwinkle, to an eye-stabbingly bright shade of lime-green. Her black hair had also turned powder blue. Before my very eyes, her whole body rippled and from head to toe she turned into a solid mass of blood-red. This prompted Grace to gag, for some reason.
"Sorry," Ashley apologized and with another ripple, she was back to normal. Well, new normal.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"All of our powers are stronger now," Ashley explained while turning around and pointing to her face with both index fingers. "That includes the Mystique powers. I can't quite do the thing where she walks around naked and just shapeshifts to look like she's wearing clothes... I'm not sure why I'd want to though. One depower beam and then poof, not only am I powerless but I have literally no protection."
"Depower beam?"
"Or a bomb. Collar. Taser. Drug. Lots of people have spent a lot of money to take away the things that make mutants special. And yet nobody can find a way to take away powers I didn't want and were hurting me without killing me." She didn't sound sad or bitter, but... "Anyway, I haven't quite figured out the exact limits of what I can and can't do with it, but I know that I can change the color of various parts of my body so now I'm messing around with that."
She rippled again and suddenly... It was just like she was back to how she was before the whole thing with the nine. Bright green eyes, and all. "See, now while we're visiting my world I'll be able to go outside without people on the street seeing me and judging me for looking like Ancient Egyptian Mutant Hitler."
"I thought you wanted to own your ancestry?" I teased gently.
"Taylor. A few years ago, Apocalypse tore his way through the walls of the UN and gave the ultimatum that every country in the world had to cull 90% of their baseline human populations or he'd release an adaptable metaplague that would kill everyone in the world who hadn't specifically been immunized. There's owning your ancestry and there's walking around in public in a full SS uniform." Ashley had slowly gotten snarkier over time.
"Okay, fair point," I concede. "You ready to go?"
"Yeah," Ashley replied with a nod. "Grace, are you packed?"
Right. The Gremlin was here. She was coming with because injecting herself with a cocktail of like, five different mutagens that purged and replaced at least half of her body mass might have had side effects and Ashley was worried about her. And also that if she left without her she'd be railroaded into the Birdcage. What a tragedy that would have been.
"Ye-yeah," Grace said shyly. "I mean, I've only got a couple of changes of clothes, so... it was easy enough to pack up." She smiled big and awkwardly. It might even have been endearing if not for the vampire's teeth. And that I knew exactly who she was as of a week ago.
"Well, I think we're leaving soon, so..."
I waved awkwardly to the door and Ashley's symbiote formed around her as her usual outfit.
Our departure point was in the lobby, which was currently closed to the public for "S9 cleanup" reasons. In the time it'd taken me to go to Wards HQ to get Ashley, hand her her luggage, for Grace to get the cheap backpack she was keeping her changes of clothes in, and come back down everyone who was going was assembled. Dean, Missy... Tattletale, now Ms. Mystic, gave her name as Lisa... I wasn't sure how'd she'd gotten cleared to go, then Ashley, Grace and I for the visit and Klara and that boy Mike who'd taken out the Siberian for keeps. Missy's clothes looked like they hadn't been worn in a couple of years and Dean was holding tight to his "walking stick."
Klara was holding her hands out, palms up, to Agent Anti-Venom... His name was kind of a mouthful. He had his hands over hers and... Then her white costume melted and oozed from her hands into his and vanished into his armor.
"Now, you're absolutely sure you don't want to keep the Anti-Venom symbiote," he asked her. "It's not too late for me to give it back."
"I'm sure," Klara replied sternly. "I never wanted to be a superhero, I just want to get home to my fathers. If I get in trouble, I can just use my roses to get out of it."
Ashley sprouted a lizard tail and shifted her luggage to it, then ran forward and suddenly pulled Klara into a hug. "We are going to find a way to stay in touch," she declared with certainty. Not 'try,' they just will.
"...I should call Molly when I get home," Klara said evenly.
"I'd like to meet her someday," Ashley said casually. "...She's the one with the dinosaur, right?"
"No, that's Chase... But I think he gave Old Lace back to Gertrude now that she's miraculously recovered from dying in a fire."
"...Klara, is the fact that I can breathe fire now gonna make it hard for us to be friends?" Perfect certainty to a nervous wreck in no-time flat... We really need to see about getting her some therapy.
"No," Klara reassured. "As long as you take care of those roses I gave you we're not gonna have any problems."
The whole time, the boy Mike was awkwardly looking away from where Klara was.
Eventually, Ashley let go of Klara and came back over to me. Then Mania walked over. Whatever she was about to stay, however, was interrupted by the Bright Red Ninja and the Ghost Marshmellow stumbling out from behind an invisible wall.
"Everyone," Deadpool declared with complete seriousness, "stay out of this world's Canada. There're no Wendigos, but this world's version of Alpha Flight has a giant nudist with forefield powers and she is such a Kyle's mom." Was he talking about Narwhal? Was he insulting Narwhal? "Also, they didn't appreciate me trying to prove I was Canadian by showing pride in my home country," the man finished.
"Wade," Gwen began, "you glued a fulled sized Canadian flag to your head, spoke in a cheesy accent with 'eh' at the end of every sentence, were so polite that it wrapped around to being rude, and poured maple syrup on macaroni and cheese: They weren't mad that you were being a patriot, they were mad that you were intentionally acting like an obnoxious stereotype."
"The Canadian Ninja Syndicate gets away with it!"
"The Canadian Ninja Syndicate are based just outside of Jersey City, New Jersy," Ashley interrupted. "I don't think the Village Hidden in the Maple Leaves actually has anything to do with any actual Canadians." She shrugged. "I think it's a Jersey thing."
"No, we think they're weird, too," Ms. Marvel interrupted.
Gwen sighed. "So I'm just gonna use the reality-warping powers I have because I'm totally a mutant and not because I achieved a twisted form of enlightenment after realizing that I was no more or less real than the characters I read about in comic books to take Wade home a little early, make sure the coast is clear since he can't behave himself." And then dragged Deadpool by the collar behind another invisible wall.
"Anyway," Mania continued, "kid, you haven't had any more problems with the, uh..." She awkwardly tapped her sternum.
"I haven't turned into a monster or burned anyone else's soul," Ashley chirped with far too much cheerfulness for what she was saying.
"I'm sorry, what?" I asked while a sour feeling forming in the pit of my stomach.
"Mister Snuggles accidentally stole best Wolverine's Hell-Mark," Ashley said as though she was talking about something perfectly normal. "It's dormant right now but I might turn into a demon-princess at somepoint. Mania's way ahead of me in line to be Hell Royalty though." She shrugged again. "No biggy."
"Yes biggy!" I shouted. "Ashley, for future reference, 'I'm possessed by Satan,' or whatever else this means is the kind of thing you need to tell me ASAP. Okay?"
Ashley shrank back, wide-eyed, and now I felt like shit. "Oh-okay."
"Well, actually, that's the perfect segue," Val Richards deadpanned loud enough for everyone to hear. "So, after spending a few days rushing back and forth and working it out with my parents and some others in the Supercomunity, this is the plan: We are going to take my dimensional portal back to our Earth. We will land just outside the Manhattan Krakoan Portal. Wolverine, Honey Badger, and Gwen will then take Klara and Mike to Krakoa, Mike will stay on the island, Klara will be escorted across it to the LA portal and taken home. Deadpool, Spider-Man, Energizer," who I noted that Missy was still hanging near, "And Ms. Marvel will head their own separate ways to handle their own business. Dr. Hank McCoy should be waiting for us outside of the portal, he is an expert in all kinds of scientific mutations, and with him with us, the rest of us will walk a short distance to Number 4, Yancy Street, where my family currently lives. You'll be staying at our house, please be mindful of our property and do not touch anything in the laboratory without permission or you will die. Or worse."
"Doctor Strange should already be there when we get there," Val continued, "and as soon as we get there he, Dr. McCoy, and my dad will run some simple, non-invasive tests and examinations to make sure Taylor, Missy, and Grace aren't going to have any major problems since, well, you don't naturally have these kinds of mutations. My Dad will be providing the equipment and running some general tests, Dr. McCoy will be handling specific tests regarding mutation, and Doctor Strange will be there partially to examine you with his mystical senses to look for anything that the scientific tests miss and partially becuase neither my Dad nor Dr. McCoy has a license to practice medicine. Then they'll run some more thorough tests on Ashley to figure out what the heck happened when she terrigenisized and to make sure she's not a zombie becuase apprently resurrection doesn't happen in this world but zombies do and your bosses are paranoid."
"Assuming that none of you have serious health problems tied to your new powers," Val finished, "then while you're staying with us we've arranged for you to meet with some people who can help you get the hang of your new abilities: Doctor Strange has already agreed to take Ms. Mystic under his wing for a few days and apprently this isn't even the first time Thor's hung out with other Thor's this month."
She pulled out a device and bright blue-white light with energy crackling out of it tore its way into existence. "If there are no questions, we can get going now."
No one had questions, so we carefully filed through Val's portal and with that were in the New York City of another Earth.
A few minutes were taken for goodbyes to be said, Ashley hugged Klara one last time before she vanished into the portal full of flowers, and I took in our surroundings.
The scenery was everything I'd thought of when made to think of Manhattan, but the people... Well, the first thing that drew my attention was the politely smiling pointy-eared blue ape-man whose face was best described as a mixture of human and simian with just traces of feline... dressed in a lab coat and wearing the sort of spectacles you'd expect to see on a librarian.
And a respectable distance away from the portal where a congregation of people in robes on their knees bowing to the portal and the people coming in and out of it.
Apparently my confusion showed on my face because the ape-man spoke to me. "Don't mind them," he said in a voice that's level of refinement didn't match the man it was coming from, "they are just the Order of X: A group of individuals who, following the telepathic announcement of the existence of Krakoa, have chosen to believe that mutants are deific beings. These particular ones are harmless, I made sure to chase off any of the particularly deranged or dangerous ones before you arrived."
"They're all dangerously deranged," Ashley scoffed bitterly. "Mutants aren't Gods. Mutants are human."
"...Ashley?" Val began, "my brother creates entire universes for fun. Galactus was his Herald for a while."
"That doesn't make him a God, that makes him an absurdly powerful human. It takes more than power to be a God, otherwise, we'd all be Gods," Ashley said defensively. "Mutants are human. One gene, even a full gene complex, isn't enough to distinguish between full siblings, let alone a whole subspecies. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a complete and utter idiot."
"In terms of strict genetic taxonomy, yes," the man who I presumed was Doctor McCoy admitted, "but in terms of things like physiology, biochemistry, or even metaphysics that one gene complex is responsible for significant differences: Ignoring cases like myself who possess physiological changes that remain even when our specific powers are suppressed," he briefly gestured to himself, "there are several traits that are almost universal among mutants: All mutants are immune to HIV, among certain other viral and bacterial pathogens. Per the studies of · ··|A|·· ·, it has been determined that Mutants have slight differences from humans in terms of how they interact with mystical energies and in fact slowly build up such energies in their bones over time, even after death and the recycling of their bone minerals into other structures, and of course," the man finished, "ignoring outliers, all mutants possess a strength, a speed, a physiological durability, a tolerance for drugs, alcohol, and other toxins, and a general vitality that is just slightly above that of a baseline human of comparable build and general health.
"While strictly speaking there isn't enough genetic variation between mutants and baseline humans to be considered a separate species, there is more than enough of a physiological difference to make an exception in terms of sub-speciation from Homo s sapiens to Homo s superior."
"Ignoring all outliers is the key phrase!" Ashley snapped back. "I sure felt 'superior' when I was nine and still couldn't bathe on my own because I wasn't able to stand up straight long enough to take a shower and if I slipped under the water in a bath I might not be able to get back up before I drowned! It was perfectly 'superior' of me to need to be checked for cuts, bruises, and bed sores at least three times a day!" Ashley rippled and her 'normal girl' disguise fell. The mutant-worshiping weirdos noticed, but it seemed that she hadn't. "Gee, how 'superior' I felt when I was old enough to understand that the reason I couldn't go to school and makes friends like the other kids my age was that my DNA betrayed me. Mutants aren't Gods. We're not the next step in evolution. we're not a new species."
"Ashley?" Grace spoke up.
"We're just people who pulled the trigger in a game of genetic Russian roulette," Ashley finished while brandishing a finger to the doctor, "I know who you are, you're smart enough to know not to try and sell the idea that the X-gene is anything else to someone who pulled the trigger when the bullet was in the chamber." And then her eyes went wide as she stared at her periwinkle hand. "Damnú!"
Some of the cultist people were literally crawling over on hands and feet. I heard a woman with an X pendant dangling on a chain around her neck muttering about kissing the feet of the child of the first one. So I summoned a handful of spiders planning to throw them at the freaks but Ashley noticed them first and shot an orange blast of energy from her fingertip into the ground right in front of one of them... since when could she do that?
"What did I just say?" She said while trembling with rage. "I'm not a God. Beast isn't a God, nobody here is a God... Except him," she gestured to Dean, "he's a Thor, but you all are a bunch of lunatics who should kindly get the hell out of here before I get madder than I already am."
This was, it seemed, enough to send the handful of nutjobs running.
"I apologize," Doctor McCoy... Beast? said. "I had assumed that because they hadn't burned Xs across their faces and hadn't offered to bear or sire mutant children that they were saner than the more extreme of the cultists who'd sprung up since the founding of Krakoa."
"I'm sorry too," Ashley said as she shrank into herself. Her clothes changed and reformed into jeans and a dark grey hoodie that she pulled tightly around her head. "I lost my temper over something dumb, and... I think I might have ruined everything, and I should probably go back to Earth Bet before..."
I went to put a hand on her shoulder, but before I could Grace pulled her into a hug... Who gave her the right to comfort Ashley after what she did to her!?
"I put so much effort into figuring out the shapeshifting thing enough to look normal so nobody could look at me and know I'm related to Apocalypse and then I lost my temper, lost control of it, and now like a whole bunch of people saw."
There were a lot of people coming and going through this part of the city.
"I should go back so nobody finds out the Fantastic Four are harboring a mutant that looks like Apocalypse and cause problems for..."
"I'm gonna cut you off there," Val interrupted, "nobody on the planet is stupid enough to make the Fantastic Four angry," she walked around to be in front of Ashley and started counting off on her fingers. "anyone who is stupid enough to think that harassing someone who is a guest in our home won't make the Fantastic Four angry would first have to get through Yancy Street, who even when they hate each other pull together to make life a living hell for trouble makers, in order to amass a protest. If they manage to do that and avoid being dispersed by angry Yancy Streeters, I just have to pull out my phone, call our neighbor Lunella, and have her turn loose her mutant T-Rex. Should that not be enough to scare them off, Uncle Ben will probably clobber anyone who thinks that picking on an innocent little girl becuase of who she looks like is a good idea." She winked. "Especially if she mentions that he's one of her favorite superheroes."
"Besides," Val finished "I already closed the portal back to Earth Bet and the machine won't have enough charge to open it back up until tomorrow, so you have to come to my house with the rest of your friends and stay over for at least one night."
I could tell by the look in her eyes that she was lying, but Ashley bought it. "Okay. L-lets go."
After a moment, Grace let go and I took Ashley's hand while we walked, Once we'd gotten to a residential area I asked, "Ashley, are you okay?"
"...Sometimes I kind of hate being a mutant."