Snuggles The Symbiote

"...And once the quantum-field stabilizes," Dr. Richards finished, "you'll be transported to Avengers Mountain. Any questions?"

Doctor Strange had come over early in the morning to pick up Lisa, now the rest of us were going to meet the Avengers... Honestly, it was mostly so that Dean could get some advice on how to Thor and Missy could talk to She-Hulk, but we were all going and...

I wasn't... not trembling with anticipation.

Missy raised a hand. "Can you repeat that in English?"

Dr. Richards started stroking his beard. "Have you ever seen Star Trek?"

"Yeah."

"It's absolutely nothing like that," he said flatly. "My teleporter actually teleports you."

After that, we all got onto the teleportation pad thingy. Then a thought occurred to me. "Should we be holding hands or something so that if it goes wrong we all end up in the same place?"

Dr. Richards's head stretched out on his elastic neck so he could look at us without moving. "I assure you that the odds of something going wrong are slim to none."

"...Dr. Richards? I say with this complete respect... I know how you and your family got your powers."

"Actually, it turns out that the planet we were heading for was inhabited and the cosmic storm that empowered us was a deliberate attempt to kill us by an authority on that planet who believed us to be invaders," Dr. Richards corrected. "While I'll readily admit that, in hindsight, breaking into a government facility defended by the military in order to steal an experimental spacecraft was horribly irresponsible—"

"Wait, what?" Taylor interrupted.

"In my defense, I built the craft and we'd been scheduled to fly it, but the flight was pushed back for reasons that I still don't fully agree with."

"Why aren't you in prison?" Taylor asked.

"That is a very good question," Dr. Richards replied.

"Ashley, I'm very concerned about your choice of role models..."

"Really, only the Thing is my role model out of the Fantastic Four," I admitted. "You know, once he managed to save the Earth by just refusing to stay down no matter how badly he was beaten." I smiled as I remembered my Grandpa telling me that story.

"This digression aside," Dr. Richards, "Holding onto each other couldn't possibly hurt with... This method of teleportation. Only someone deliberately tampering with the process could result in you ending up anywhere but where I send you, I guarantee it, but if holding hands makes you feel more comfortable then go ahead."

I wrapped one arm around Grace's and laced the fingers of the other with one of Taylor's hands. Then I spawned two ocktacles and offered one to each Dean and Missy. Dean gave a small laugh and placed a hand on the one I sent for him but Missy only took hers when she noticed she was the only one not holding on to me.

"Okay, now three, two," Dr. Richards said while clearly making a show of it, "one!"

And then there was a burst of blue-white and we were somewhere else. Everything was metallic and clean and high tech and stuff. We were in a room with a bunch of vehicles. Stark-Tech flying cars, fast-moving combat vehicles, what I think was a space ship, and a suped-up black muscle car.

"...So, does anyone else think that the '69 Charger is way out of place here?" Huh, Dean knew about cars.

"I think it's too darn cold and I regret agreeing to come here," Grace replied. I could feel her shaking so I embiggened and enfloofened the arm I had wrapped around hers.

"To be fair, we are in the Arctic Circle," came a strong, refined and dignified voice with a Wakandan accent.

Now that I was settled from the teleport... I could feel pieces of symbiotes. A piece of Carnage, two pieces of Venom, another bit of symbiote that felt kind of like venom but not the same, and one that felt... Ancient, powerful, and—

"Ashley no," Mister Snuggles whispered in my ear, "that symbiote... This one knows that symbiote. Even as just a codex, it's best to ignore that one's existence completely."

I could feel a few more off in the distance, but not enough to tell if I could recognize them.

We all turned around as a group to see the man who'd spoken and the people with him. And now I was shaking more than Grace was.

In the middle was a man in a sleek black metallic suit with a clear feline design, the Black Panther. Next to him on the left was a brown-haired woman in a purple and white leotard, who I recognized as Jennifer Walters, and next to her was a blonde woman in a form-fitting red and blue Kree-inspired military uniform, Carol Danvers, the current Captain Marvel. Next to her was a man who'd changed a lot since the last time I saw a picture of him, his hair was longer, he'd shaved, and his arm had grown back. He was also wearing a slightly different outfit, one more... cosmic than he'd had before, with what I was pretty sure was a Norse run spelled out across his torso... And, of course, the Hammer.

Thor, God of Thunder, Lord of Storms, and Prince of Asgard... Was it all in my head or could I feel the power radiating off of his divine presence?

To Black Panther's right was Captain America. The One and Only Star-Spangled Sentinel of Liberty with the Mighty Shield made of the most indestructible metal in the universe, damaged only a handful of times by the most dangerous of foes and reforged stronger each time presented proudly as a perfect metaphor for what a hero is.

Next to Captain America was a dark-haired man in a military-type outfit and a prominently featured cyber-arm. Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier. Next to Bucky Barnes was a dark-haired, bearded middle-aged man I'd recognized as Tony Stark wearing a tank top and slacks instead of his armor or a business suit like I'd have expected, and next to him was a young man that I think is Hispanic but I didn't recognize him at all. he smelled like sulfur though.

"Respect the charger," the young man said. "If you don't it might eat you." Dean laughed, but the young man didn't. "That wasn't a joke." Then he checked his watch and grimaced. "Your highness? Mind if I cut out? It's looking like if I stay for this I'll be cutting it close picking up Gabe from school."

"It should be fine."

"Thanks."

And then the young man exploded in fire and was replaced with a metallic skeleton dressed in a racing suit with a tongue of flame coming out of a hole in the forehead of his stylized metal skull. The muscle car they'd been talking about exploded to life and, turning around, I could see that it was now on fire. The motor sounded angry and it drove by on its own coming up right next to us, close enough that Missy could have touched it if she tried.

The Ghost Rider... Who else could it be? Jumped into his car from a standing start through a window that rolled down as he made the jump and it tore down one of five hallways to a giant hanger door that opened up and the car literally flew off into the distance before the hanger door closed again.

Grace let go of me. "I'm not cold anymore..." So then I hugged her. Just becuase she wasn't hugging me that didn't mean I couldn't hug her, especially since I could maybe guess why she wasn't cold anymore.

"You know," Tony Stark deadpanned, "it was his idea to do this meeting in the hanger. I think he knew that he wasn't gonna be to stay but wanted to make an impression on the kids. Mostly because I've gotta be in a board meeting in half an hour and was planning to do the same thing. It's why I voted for his idea."

He snapped his fingers and an instrumental version of a certain Black Sabbath song started playing very loudly from speakers that I couldn't tell where they were. While he was doing that, nanomachines came out from inside his shirt and formed around him to make a very impressive looking armor. Then, like the Charger before, the Stark Tech flying car turned on by itself. Unlike the Ghost Rider car, it came apart and flew around Mr. Stark with the pieces connecting to his armor so that it looked like a Hulk Buster with tires on the arms and legs and a huge repulser on the back.

He turned around and flew down a different hallway towards a different hanger door just as the song got to the "ba na nuh nuh nuh na na nuh nuh nuh" part of the song. The music stopped once he was gone.

"Would anyone else like to—"

The Black Panther was cut off by another, more generic flying vehicle coming in this time. It parked haphazardly in a corner and a black man dressed in black leather and sunglasses stepped out. He reeked of blood and old plants, which made sense because he was covered in blood and had a little tiny creature of plant and fungus sitting on his shoulder opposite the arm he was holding a silver katana is.

"The Weapon X program's plans to use an army of genetically engineered cyborg-vampire-Wolverine-dinosaurs for I don't even give a damn what purpose has been foiled and... Oh." The man said hen he noticed us. "I thought this was next week... I'll go, uh... Wash off the mutant-vampire blood."

"If it makes you feel better, I don't think you traumatized any of us," I said. "I've already died and come back once already, Missy killed a clone of Carnage, and Dean..."

And then Grace lost her breakfast. All over me, becuase I was still hugging her. "Never mind."

The man sort of awkwardly shuffled out of the hanger while Grace wretched and heaved a bit more. No more puking or anything, but it still took her a bit to get back to normal. "You okay?" I asked while giving her a pat on the back.

"Yeah. Sorry..."

"It's fine," I reassured. It was easy enough to generate just a tiny bit of metabolic acid to destroy the vomit. "Compromised immune system, this isn't the time I've been puked on... It's usually my puke, but still."

I turned to the Avengers. "Okay, I've got a couple of questions: Just to double-check, that was Blade, right? The vampire that goes out in the sun just fine and kills other vampires instead of eating people? And he's gotta little tiny Man-Thing now?" Missy started giggling. "And can we start over with introductions because I think the mood is gone."

Introductions started over, the Avengers introduced themselves. Black Panther was the Chairman now and Bucky wasn't technically an Avenger but on one of the support teams. I gave the proper bow and/or military salute to King T'challa, Thor, Captain America, and Bucky. Carol Danvers asked why I didn't salute her, but I didn't answer.

I... didn't like Carol Danvers. Not since the second civil war, not since she went around abusing her authority to arrest people for crimes that hadn't happened yet and might never happen and violate like half of the bill of rights. She beat Iron Man into a coma and put Boy-Hawkeye in a position where he panicked and killed Dr. Banner and from what I'd heard before I'd been taken he'd been feeling super-horrible about it.

But I didn't want to say anything because if I started on it I'd get worked up and start ranting and having a meltdown and I was not humiliating myself in front of the Avengers. So I didn't say anything.

After we introduced ourselves, we kind of split up. Thor had Dean tap his walking stick and become a thor himself, then took him outside to spar in the Asgardian tradition while Jen Walters hulked out and walked Missy to some other part of the mountain base.

I'd managed to get a picture with Captain America and was even able to ask without freaking out, but then he and Bucky took grace to go have a talk... Which made sense. Grace was Brainwashed into being a killer back when she was Riley, Bucky spent decades as a brainwashed killer. If Val told...

But it did leave me and Taylor alone up until the Black Panther came up to us. "Would the two of you like a tour of the facilities?"

I didn't say anything, but I nodded enthusiastically. Taylor gave a more reserved okay, and the King of Wakanda led us out of the hanger to a sophisticated elevator.

"Avenger's Mountain," he explained, "is not a true mountain. While we have only occupied it for a short time, it's history goes back four billion years to when the Earth was still young and molten."

And then he explained how this was the body of a Celestial called the Progenitor that had caught a horrible space-disease and crash-landed o the earth long ago and threw up all of its cosmic-mega-cyber-god blood into the molten rock and how the Earth itself and everything on it was infused with traces of that Celestial's power and that of the disease that killed it and that's the origin of superpowers on this planet and why celestials were so interested in us.

After the current Avengers, and Doctor Strange, were able to combine their powers to cure a bunch of Celestials who'd been driven insane by the same disease, the Celestial Host pulled the Progenitor's body to the surface and gave the Avenger's their blessing to use it as they saw fit as long as the body was left in place as a symbol of life on Earth.

All the while, we took an elevator made from the Celestial's Spine while his Highness showed us rooms made from the Celestial's various organs and explained what they were and how the celestial's organs or other body parts contributed to the functionality of the room.

I didn't say anything the whole tour, but once we finished off in a laboratory, I had to speak up: "So we're in the partially reanimated corpse of a super-god and we evolved from his blood and vomit? That's more metal than an All-Ghost Rider Thrash Band."

"I will have to take your word on that," his highness replied in good nature. "Now there's one more thing to discuss."

He worked some buttons and out of some storage unit slid a sciency type glass jar with a bunch of writhing pieces of darkness. "Not long ago, there was an invasion by an alliance of malevolent beings from across the ten realms spearheaded by Malekith of Svartalfheim. During this War of the Realms, he managed to get his hands on the Venom Symbiote and bind it to his will. In addition to using it himself, he placed portions of it into some of his elite soldiers to create 'Spider-Elves' which eventually merged together to create a being that was dubbed Svartalvenom."

"That's a terrible pun," I commented.

"It was not my idea," The Black Panther replied seriously. "Regardless, the bodies of the spider-elves were not reclaimed when Malekith's forces were routed and the Venom symbiote did not reclaim those pieces of itself. After some brief discussion and after the noting that, in Svartalfheim, tradition is to dismember corpses for mass cremation, it was determined that there would be no undue disrespect in autopsying the bodies of the Spider-Elves both to study dark elf physiology and that of the portions of symbiote still left within them before a respectful cremation and the bodies were transported to Wakanda for that purpose."

Honestly, that didn't really sit right with me but I wasn't really into the "cut people up" parts of science anyway.

"This past evening, Doctor Strange approached me and said that one of his patients was a young girl bonded to a symbiote who had a problem that could be treated by absorbing the remnants of a symbiote left in the spine of a current or former host," The Black Panther said. Then he picked up the jar. "He suggested that the codices within the Spider-Elves bodies would be suitable, providing the needed materials to completely solve the problem without posing too many complications. He also suggested that the remnants of fae magic that the symbiote would have been exposed to within the elves' bodies would be beneficial to you in another manner, but cited doctor-patient confidentiality and did not explain why."

He handed me the jar. "My scientists were nearly done studying the bodies of the dark elves, so it was not much effort to render out these codices before the cremation. Doctor Strange suggested that you may be reluctant to take them, but if you wish to cure yourself of whatever illness they treat they are yours."

"Thank you, your highness," I said graciously. I looked over the jar... Eh, what could it hurt? Worst case scenario, I get more unpleasant memories.

I opened the jar, took out the codices, set the jar down on a lab table so I wouldn't drop it while riding the rush of memories, stepped back away from everything, and took them in.

The memories were more jumbled than ever before. I saw clips of different battles, a hammer coming down on dark fae steal, flashes of elf-children collecting and taking apart corpses for burning... Honestly, after everything I saw from Poisonsaw's codex this wasn't that bad.

The physical transformations were a bit much though. At one point I think I had a dozen faces and a load of extra arms and eyes. And for some reason, I could hear someone with a deep, husky, spooky voice saying "God is coming" in my ear over and over again.

And then it passed, and I was back to normal in my normal costume... Except I was holding a black sword. A Viking sword sized perfectly for me. "Where did you come from?"

"This one's Biomass. Creating a blade of Living Abyss is one of the simplest and earliest uses of our powers. We could have created even a small blade as far back as our first bonding, but it seems that creating a blade of dark-elven make was an instinctual response to absorbing the memories of several dark elves... It seems that one of them forged his own sword."

"Oh, okay, cool... But seriously, you've gotta tell me that we can do things like that."

"We should also be able to change its shape to any kind of sword or any other weapon we know how to use, which should be a lot based on our assimilated memories."

And then an idea occurred to me. "Your highness, is there anyone I could have like a practice sword fight with?"

"I might be able to arrange something."

Snuggles The Symbiote

"So, Ashley," Taylor began while standing above me. I was laying down in the infirmary at Avenger's Mountain. "What have you learned?"

"That kung fu includes Chinese swordsmanship," I moaned. "And that Fat Cobra hits like a truck."

"Well, it's better than nothing. So who is Fat Cobra, anyway?"

"I don't even know," I said honestly. "But right now I'd bet on him in a fight over Iron fist."

I wasn't super hurt, I just needed to lie down for a bit. Once I was rested a bit we went to the Celestial's heart to be teleported back to the Four's house. Taylor and I were the last ones there. Dean looked tired but happy, Grace was crying but not sad crying.

And Missy was back to normal. Which meant her clothes were too small. I hugged Missy, hugged Grace, and then we were sent back to Yancy Street.