Snuggles The Symbiote

I was feeling better by the time we got to Number 4 Yancy Street. I got a glimpse of Devil Dinosaur while Moon Girl was taking him somewhere. If I got the chance I'd have to see about asking her if I could ride him... At least, I think Devil's a he. All I know is that I want to ride a dinosaur.

Of course, feeling better about my meltdown at the portal didn't mean I was feeling okay. I was in the home of the Fantastic Freaking Four... It wasn't the Baxter Building, but still, this was... I didn't want to spaz out and start squealing, so I was just kind of sitting awkwardly in their kitchen not saying anything until I got called to Dr. Richards's lab for the "not-a-zombie" tests.

I was also sitting there with Dean and Tattletale... Sorry, Lisa, but they were having their own conversation. Apparently, they both had rich jerk-face parents and had bonded over that at somepoint when I was busy with Grace. Anyway, I was doing my best to tune them out since I wasn't involved.

A woman with pretty red hair felt her way into the kitchen. Noticing her made Dean and Lisa stop talking, but that didn't stop her from turning to where they were. "Hello," she said gently, "you're the children from the other world that Reed and the others are helping, right?"

"They are Miss Masters," I said, "I'm the girl from here that got stranded over there."

"It's Mrs. Masters-Grimm now," the woman corrected.

I squealed. Darn it. "Congratulations."

"I'm sorry," Dean said honestly, "we don't really know much about... Anything around here, who are you?"

"She's Alicia Masters, she's a famous and very talented sculptor who works with both stone and clay and she's the girlfriend... Sorry, wife, of Benjamin Grimm, and also the stepdaughter of the supervillain known as The Puppetmaster which I have to imagine is going to make family reunions very awkward becuase he hates the Fantastic Four... Sorry," I said, realizing I hadn't given her a chance to introduce herself. "That was rude... I don't know why I do that, I have a problem with just blurting things out and not shutting up... Sorry."

"You left out that she's as blind as a bat," Lisa added.

"But at least it wasn't as rude as that," I finished and then turned to Lisa, "I really see how that matters."

Mrs. Master laughed good-naturedly, "It's quite alright," she said as she took a seat, but I couldn't tell if she was talking to me or to Lisa. "So, please introduce yourselves."

And that was when Val rushed into room. "Hey aunt Alicia," she greeted quickly, then turned to me, "Ashley they're ready for you."

"Okay," I said and stood up. "Excuse me... Okay, you kind of dropped me here, where is the lab?"

Val laughed. "Come on, I'll show you the way," and then she led me down the hall, up the stairs, and down another hall.

"So I notice that your house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside," I said to try and make small talk.

"Yeah, since we lost the Baxter Building we've been short on the room so Dad did some spatial manipulation and... Vista shouldn't use her powers in the house," She said suddenly... "No, Dad would have told her, asking what they could do before they mutated was part of the tests. And then we rented out some of the tech to the other landlords on Yancy Street to double up on the number of apartments becuase some of them are scumbags and Wilson Fisk is the mayor and it was either that or letting the scumbags illegally evict all of the residents so they could charge people an arm and a leg for the privilege of being our neighbors."

"So now they're charging people an arm and a leg but didn't to evict or raise the rent on the people who were already here?" asked. "That kind of sounds like an imperfect solution that rewards the scumbags."

"Well, part of the deal was they had to keep the rent low, so they're not charging the new people more than the preexisting residents, but kind of yeah," Val admitted.

The others walked past us. I waved. "How was it?"

"No mutations problems, but it turns out that Parahuman powers are caused by interdimensional brain parasites," Missy said. "And for some reason, Taylor's is way stronger than the rest of ours."

...Then I noticed that Grace wasn't with them and my stomach clenched. "Where's Grace?"

"She's talking science with the doctors," Taylor said quietly. "They didn't hurt her, if that's what you're worried about."

"No, of course not," I said. Of course three superheroes... Three real superheroes, wouldn't hurt a little girl, even one who'd been made to do a bunch of bad things.

Missy passed but Taylor turned around and followed behind us until we got to the lab. "I'll be right outside, call if you need me... Or if you decide you don't want to do any more tests."

Inside the lab, Grace was smiling and clinging to a wall. The lizard way, not the spider way, chest to the wall, feet above the hands, head craned up. "And that's everything I know about the passengers."

Two scientists and a sorcerer, one a blue ape-man, two who looked like normal people with dark hair and white streaks at the temples... I almost didn't recognize Doctor Strange because he was dressed like a regular doctor instead of like a wizard. Dr. Richards had a lab coat on over his superhero costume.

"That is all quite fascinating," Beast said while holding his chin with two claws, "but how do you know all of that?"

"...If I told you," Grace said slowly and evenly while shrinking into herself, "then you wouldn't like me anymore."

Beast looked like he was gonna question that, but Doctor Strange said "fair enough."

Grace noticed me and jumped over their heads and bounded to me like a cat, so I gave her a hug.

"Okay, how do we do this?" I asked. "I mean, I've had about five times as many physicals as I've had birthdays, but those were at normal doctor not Reed Richard's laboratory being examined by the Sorcerer Supreme."

"With any luck," Dr. Richards said as his arms and neck stretched around to fiddle with a few things on a tube looking machine that kind of looked like a glass version of the cat scan machine I went in a couple of times, "this will be nothing at all like a normal physical exam. This machine can wirelessly and non-invasively monitor heart rate, brain activity, respiration, perspiration, the amounts of flesh, bone, fat, hair, blood, lymph within your body by mass, volume, and body mass ratio, analyze your blood and brain chemistry, detect and analyze radiation, and sequence and interpret your genetic code and records and updates this information in real-time all without so much as a single prick of a needle."

"That sounds like it could revolutionize modern medicine," I said.

"Yeah, biology is my whole thing and I can't even begin to understand how that could possibly work," Grace added.

"And that is exactly why it hasn't revolutionized medicine and probably won't for many years," Dr. Richards said. "My gift is also my curse, I'm so far ahead of my time that only a handful of people can replicate my most impressive inventions and those that are like this would be too time-consuming and costly for me to mass produce with my own hands and the machines are far too... Sensitive to trust to even the most perfect of automated processes. The best I can do is publish the research that led to the discovery of the principles by which it works," he said while pressing a few buttons, "in the hopes that the ideas can be used by medical researchers to improve the general level of technology to a point that mass production becomes viable in the future. Until then..."

"While Dr. Richards calibrates the machine to account for your symbiote," Doctor Strange said as he approached the front of the lab and pulled a golden amulet from inside his lab coat. "I'm going to give you a quick look over with the Eye of Aggamoto. Now, the light might be a little bright..." The amulet floated up to above Doctor Strange's forehead and then there was a bright golden light, but it wasn't really a painful bright. "...I see that you have one of Mephisto's Hell-Marks. That wasn't mentioned in the briefing we got."

"Yeah, it didn't seem important so I didn't say anything to anyone," I said with a shrug. "so far all it's done is let me Penance Stare someone who really, really had it coming when I got really, really angry at seeing all of their sins. Mania knew about it though, so I figure that if she thought it was important she'd have said something."

"Where did it come from?" Was Doctor Strange's follow up.

I shrugged and smiled. "It used to be Wolverine's... Laura, not Logan, but it jumped to Mister Snuggles when he took her Venom codex and now it's mine since we're perma-bonded."

"So I'm going to consult with Hellstrom and Magyk on this and get back to you... maybe infusing some non-demonic or non-divine magic into the Uru will act as a buffer..." he muttered. "Now, speaking of the Uru... Are you wearing anything substantial under your symbiote?"

"Yeah, I've got a t-shirt and shorts on," I said while having the hoodie and jeans I hadn't bothered to switch from melt away... which I instantly regretted because the tile floor was cold on my bare feet. "Why?"

"Because wrapping yourself in a mixture of Uru and Living Abyss might have interfered with the scanner."

"Why didn't you just open with that?"

"...Dr. Richards, is the scanner ready?" Doctor Strange called out without answering me.

Dr. Richards turned one last dial. "It is now."

After that, they had me climb into the tube and lie down and relax. I didn't know how they knew if it was on because it didn't make a sound. After ten minutes of Dr. Richards or Dr. McCoy muttering or pointing to things on a monitor that I couldn't see the front of from where I was, muttering "X-gene" this or "Kree" that or "what the hell even is that?" or "tiny traces of T-O," Beast walked over to the tube.

"Miss O'Leary, we have some news. Some that's good, some that's not inherently bad but may be distressing to you, and some that might be bad."

"Give it to me straight, Doc," I said. "I've been mentally prepared to die before I finish puberty for a couple of years now, it can't really be worse than that."

"Well, you can stop preparing for that," he said bluntly. "Your mutation has stabilized, even if you were somehow separated from your symbiote your immune system would be fully functional and you would have the same physical attributes of a healthy mutant of your age... You might even make a full recovery from the slightly stunted growth you've had so far."

"...I know that that's good news, but honestly, I'm not sure how to feel about that." It was a miracle, but... "I've never really put any thought into what I'd do if I ever got a chance to grow up beyond a vague idea of joining the Avengers if I could get powers that didn't suck... I'm gonna need time to process that."

"...Unfortunately, young miss, there's more to it than that," Beast said hesitantly. "Because you are fully merged with your symbiote at the molecular level, to the point that some of your cells even have the symbiote's DNA comingling with yours and, vice versa. This means that you can't, strictly speaking, be called a mutant or even human, which based on your reaction earlier today I suspect that you may take issue with."

I blushed at the reminder of my meltdown.

"So how not-human am I?"

"At it's most generous, you could be accurately called a Mutant-Symbiote hybrid," Beast explained, "so most rational people would not take qualm with you claiming to be human or a mutant as it is, still accurate in the sense that a dog that has a wolf for a parent is both a wolf and a dog, but considering the wide variety of genetic samples incorporated into your symbiote's bio-lattice it would be most accurate to refer to you as one of a handful of beings classified as Suis Generis, a species of one."

"If it's all the same to you, I'd prefer to keep calling myself Homo sapiens," I said, "or a mutant if I have to be specific. Or Asian-Irish-American," I added as an afterthought.

"Why not be more specific than that?" Beast asked playfully. I think he was dumbing things down becuase I was a kid. He was normally more serious from what I'd heard.

"I don't know what kind of Asian I am," I said with a shrug. "I guess my parents didn't think it was important. The only reason I know about being Irish is becuase when I was little I asked why my Grandpa was white. Then he taught me how to cuss and insult people in Irish and I do not know how to shut up."

"According to this," Dr. Richards added, "you have genetic markers that are somewhat common in people whose ancestry can be traced to both the Sichuan region of China and the Kansai region of Honshu in the Japanese Archipelago. That doesn't guarantee that you actually have any ancestry in those places, becuase common doesn't mean exclusive," Dr. Richards warned, "but if you know your parent's names you might be able to trace their ancestry to see if you have any ancestors who emigrated from those areas."

"My parent's names were Sean Wei and Yuri," I said.

"Then you are most likely of mixed Chinese and Japanese ancestry," Dr. Richard's concluded. "If you'd like, it'd take me maybe ten minutes to confirm now that I have their names."

"I.. I'd appreciate it, Dr. Richards sir. Thank you," I'd honestly thought I'd lost my chance to find out... This was bigger than finding out I wasn't gonna die.

Then it occurred to me that Deadpool and best Wolverine both knew a bunch of languages.

"Mister Snuggles? I mostly wanna learn the rest of Irish but if we can learn to..."

"This one now speaks over a dozen languages in several dialects with fluency ranging from conversational to full fluency due to the codices we've absorbed."

"Do you think you could teach me—"

And then everything went weird for a second and when my head cleared there was a very angry Taylor in the room yelling "What the hell just happened!?"

"According to the scanner, she had a four-second seizure," Dr. Richards said. "I'm not sure why."

"Mister Snuggles uploaded a dozen complete languages to my brain," I said out loud... And only then realized I'd said it in Japanese. I shook my head, "sorry, I realized that we would have gotten a bunch of language skills when Mister Snuggles took all of those codices and he misunderstood me when I asked if he could teach them to me. I can now speak a dozen languages but not the one I really want to learn."

"Never do that again," Taylor said, concerned.

"Okay. Sorry, I scared you," I apologized.

"Now, if we could return to the results of the test, there are a few more details we need to cover," Beast said. "Miss O'Leary, I'm somewhat concerned as to how you'll react to this knowledge considering how you reacted to our first bit of news, but, your aging has arrested. You'll continue to mature as normal, but your cells don't degrade anymore as a side-effect of your molecular-merging with the symbiote's biomass. This, combined with numerous healing factors..."

"...I'm Immortal?"

"Unless your symbiote's warring Inhuman and X-genes cause it to destroy itself and thus you, yes. Unless your body is completely destroyed beyond its ability to repair, you can theoretically live indefinitely and will never naturally die."

Wow. That was kind of heavy. "Okay, my first thought is that I need some immortal friends so I won't be alone for eternity... And my second thought is that I get to keep helping people forever... wait, instability? I thought we fixed that."

"It's much better than it was, but it's still an issue that this one is working on a solution to. Absorbing codices helped, but..."

"But I don't want to absorb any more codices after the one we got from the Poison," I finished. I was able to do some good things with what I'd learned from it but Riley Davis's memories were horrible and just thinking about it made me wanna give Grace a hug once I got out of the machine.

"What was that?" Dr. Richards asked.

"Oh, Mister Snuggles was telling me how absorbing the codices from Ms. Marvel, Wolverine, and Deadpool helped him make his DNA a little more stable and helped him temporarily adapt better," I spent the next minute or so sharing the details as Mister Snuggles explained them to me, "but he's not sure if the reason the best result came from Ms. Marvel's is becuase of the modifications made to the symbiote she had or if it's becuase DNA stolen from her was where he got the Inhuman gene in the first place."

"...These codices?" Doctor Strange asked. "Do they come from any instance of a symbiote possessing a host?"

"Yeah, even just a piece of a symbiote." Mister Snuggles whispered in my ear. "If we wanted to, Mister Snuggles and I could even put a bunch of small pieces of our selves that aren't really noticeable in a bunch of people, wait a bit for them to mature, and then harvest them all in one go to get a whole lot of power and knowledge at once... I'm not sure why I'd want to do that though. It sounds like it'd just be using a bunch of people and superheroes don't do things like that."

"And how does one go about harvesting and absorbing these codices?" Doctor Strange continued.

"If I don't want to kill or permenantly hurt the person I'm taking it from, in through the ear or nose, under the brain down through the spine and then a yank but it's really uncomfortable for the person." I didn't like where this was going. "I really don't want to absorb any more codices though. Where would we even get any codices?"

"I have one," Dr. Richards said. "There was a period of time when the symbiotic life-form that would come to be known as Venom was stored in my lab at the Baxter building and possessed myself, Sue, even Franklin for a short time each until Franklin was able to scare it into submission."

"And I should have one as well," Beast added. "During my teenage years when myself and the other founding X-Men were trapped in this time period by an... Error, committed by my current self, we recruited Venom and went on an adventure to outer space to rescue the star Jammers and during that time we were each bonded to symbiotes that had been modified in the same manner as the one bound to Ms. Marvel... If Miss O'Leary extracts and harvests these 'codices' from us..."

"One at a time and examine the changes..." Dr. Richards continued where Beast left off. "During would be best, but I'm far from an expert on magic so I'll take Strange's word about the symbiote interfering with the scanner, so it'll have to be after."

"Not only could we examine exactly how much absorbing the codices heals the genetic instability of the conflicting genes," Beast finished, "but gain potentially valuable data on symbiote biology in general which, as you know, is an area where the field of astrobiology is sorely lacking. What are a few moments of discomfort compared to scientific progress."

By the time they finished, I'd already climbed out of the tube part of the scanner. "I'm really not comfortable with this."

"My colleagues' perhaps inappropriate excitement aside," Doctor Strange said as he approached and crouched down to my level, "I wouldn't suggest this without a good reason: 'I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients, according to my judgment and ability, and I will do so at any cost,'" he recited. "That was the first oath I ever swore, long, long before I even knew that magic existed, and I take it more seriously than any dept to a God or Demon or any magically binding contract. Right now, young miss, you are my patient. That makes your well being my responsibility." He smiled gently. "I won't force you to do anything, but understanding how something that has improved your physical condition could help me understand how to cure a condition that, while harmless now, could cause you severe problems in the future. Wouldn't you like to not have to worry about that?"

I looked to Taylor, who had her eyes scrunched up all suspicious like, and to Grace who looked back at me and shrugged. "Okay... But just one or two."

I wasn't so sure about it though. I was still getting used to the powers I had and honestly I kept forgetting about the Scorpion powers.

"Ashley, based on your knowledge and memories of these two, they wouldn't grant any abilities we don't already possess in some form. Mister Fantastic's malleability will serve only to moderately enhance that which we already possess and Beast's abilities seem to be a generic brute. The most advantageous thing to come of this is further adaption and, at the rate that we've already adapted to our archived DNA samples, that would amount only to raw power." That reassured me a little. "Also, two of the greatest scientific minds in the world are offering to do something that would give this one access to their skills and knowledge, which this one could then share with you..."

...I did like science. I costumed up and extended my right pointer finger into a thin little tentacle. "So, how are we doing this? And ear or nose?"

GOD IS COMING

Susan Storm...will you marry me?

After all these years... all our adventures... we're still together... we're still a team! The greatest team ever!

I'd lay down my own life before I'd let a villain like Scratch harm a hair on Franklin's head.

Marriage is not easy, John - it takes more love, effort, and understanding than you may think you have. But making it work is an experience greater than you could imagine!

Hold it, Hulk! The only way you'll get to her is over my dead body!

As long as you're with friends...there's no limit to the adventure out there

I love you, Susan. More than anything in the world. Happy Anniversary, darling.

You saved the lives of the two most important women in the world to me. Don't forget that - I never will. And that's why Sue and I want you to be Valeria's godfather

GOD IS COMING

I expected Dr. Richard's strongest memories, the ones that stuck with me after I was done riding the rush of memory and emotion, to be like, scientific discoveries or superhero adventures. But, but they weren't. They were memories of his friends and family that were full of love.

I smiled a big goofy smile and wiped tears from my ears while I pushed myself up from the ground. "Back in the scanner?"

"If you would?" It seems like it took longer to recover from the discomfort of having a symbiote tentacle wrap around your spine and peel off the bits of symbiote goo bound to it than it did to absorb and process an entire lifetime of archived memories and knowledge.

Climbing back into the machine and laying there for another ten minutes while they compared the new readings to the old ones and Doctor Strange took a second look at me with the Eye of Aggamotto was boring. I wasn't even worried or nervous anymore, it was just boring.

And then I got back out, reached out another tentacle, and took Beast's when he offered his ear.

It was different this time. I could feel myself physically changing as the rush of memory and emotions came... And then something tackled me and I was pulled out of it before I could experience any of it clearly, which was kind of annoying, but...

It was Grace. Grace was snuggling up to me. "So fluffy. Like a giant monster kitty."

Mister Snuggle's mass had bulked up and turned to fur... "Is there a mirror in here?"

It didn't take long for Dr. Richards to pull a mirror over, and... I did look like a giant kitten. I had scary demon horns curving maybe half a foot from my brow, but otherwise, I was a big kitty, with a kitty fang poking out from the lips of my kitty snout.

"Where did the horns come from?" I asked.

"There are two potential expansions," Beast said wearily while holding his head, still not fully recovered from me taking his codex. "One is that there is a further degree of Atavism or a latent mutation that the symbiote that bonded with my younger self was able to access but which has not yet manifested in myself as I am now... Or the lingering demonic influence from when I dabbled in sorcery in my younger days and almost became a demon as the result of a bad deal manifested within the symbiote as it sought out to get the most out of being adapted to my body..."

"So, basically I might have just put a bunch more demon magic in me without thinking and—" And Grace was scratching behind my ears now and I purred without meaning to.

"So, can you stay like this forever, or...?"

"Right now I can't change back, but... Stop that, it's making it hard to think straight." She stopped scritching. "But once the codex has run its course I should be able to floof up whenever I want now, why?"

"Becuase I still need to snuggle with you to keep my blood temperature up and the presence of fur will increase the temperature of your body which will in turn drastically improve the efficiency of using your body as a heat source" Grace explained. "Also, fluffy."

Eventually, I was able to change back and get back in the scanner. More comparisons were made and Doctor Strange said he had a fix for the problem of the instability and then Beast said that I'd gone from being an "Epsilon class chemokinetic" to an "Alpha class genetic adapter" and then we were done.

Snuggles The Symbiote

"You know, when they said five to a room I didn't think they meant three to a bed," Missy grumbled.

After the check-ups were done, we were formally introduced to the rest of the people living on #4 Yancy Street. Sue was nice. Franklin scared the hell out of Val when he introduced himself as 'basically a God' and she thought I'd explode, I'd gotten a selfie with Mister Grimm, and the Human Torch had a hilarious expression on his face when I told him that I'd only wanted one with The Thing. Also, he was dating an alien girl named Sky now. She had pretty wings.

Beast and Doctor Strange left after that, both mentioning the need for further research and duties to be fulfilled, and then we mostly just hung out until dinner time.

Nobody wanted to cook for five extra teenagers and the girl with the appetite of three teenagers, so as an added bonus to the whole trip I got to eat the first decent slice of pizza I'd had in over a year... Not counting the mushroom and anchovies pizza I'd cooked myself. I don't know what Missy was complaining about. She liked pineapple on pizza. She's just lucky that I'm such a kind and tolerant friend.

And then... Bedtime.

"Come on Missy, it'll be like a sleepover," I corrected.

"If you'd turn around, you'd see that Taylor and Lisa are rolling dice to see who sleeps on the floor. "

Yeah. I could hear it.

"Yeah, but there are only spare two beds and we're smaller than they are so we can all fit in ours."

"Yeah, but..." Missy glanced at Grace and... Oh. I got it. she wasn't comfortable sharing a bed or room with... Yeah, just because I'd forgiven her for what she did to me, that didn't make everything else she'd been conditioned to do go away and people tolerated her, but that didn't mean...

"Yeah, that's fair," Grace said. "If it helps, ever since this," she gestured to her scaly face, "I've been regretting my entire life and feeling violently sick at the thought of hurting anyone but... You have no reason to believe a word I say and... And I'm getting off incredibly light and I don't deserve this second chance and Ashley, seriously what the heck is wrong with you?"

"Everyone deserves to be loved," I said honestly. "If I don't love you, nobody will."

And then there was crying and Missy stopped complaining. About an hour later I was snuggled up in a big comfy bed between two besties with a warm blanket... And made myself extra floofy so Grace would be extra warm.

It was a bit hard to sleep though. I was tired and happy and extra comfy, but... There were two pieces of Venom, a piece of Carnage, two pieces of a symbiote I couldn't even recognize, and one more piece of another strange symbiote split between four people in this house. I could feel them and it was a bit distracting... Up until Grace started whimpering. Then I hugged her till her bad dream passed and I was able to get to sleep after that

AN: for the record, since Ashley is fully fluent in Japanese becuase of comic book bullshit, her default pronoun is the feminine, informal but assertive "Atashi." If my knowledge of Japanese phonemes is correct, Mister Snuggles would be "Sunagarusu-chan."