Ivan POV

Hiding behind Claire wasn't an altogether unpleasant experience, and despite the overwhelming magical force rolling off the psychotic infernal bikini model trying to smother me with her tits, I had to take a second to reboot my brain as my gaze drifted down to the girls rather shapely backside under the incredibly short bottoms of her extremely flattering cat costume. I shook my head to clear it and glared back over her shoulder at the scantily clad self proclaimed demoness. To be entirely honest I actually did feel a strange resonance between our magics.

The power rolling of her stunk of black magic and chaos, though in a somewhat more bubbly and effervescent way than my own. I got the feeling her powers pushed her more toward mischief than my own murderous gifts. Yay for her. The intense reaction was disturbing to say the least especially with the source of my powers being what it was. Claire cleared throat loudly, her cheeks still red from the crazy womans ranting.

"Lucy, we were just about to take our new friends here down to meet with Spider, I'm sure Ivan would be thrilled to have a conversation with you another time." I was so tense I almost missed Claires hair shifting from white platinum to twenty four carat gold as it curled up into ringlets on here shoulders. Crazy witch lady looked a little punch drunk from the effect, swaying slightly as she smiled at Claire and nodded to her, before happily tottering away.

I looked at Claire with a bit of trepidation, having just fought "Lucy" I knew how strong she was, to be able to bend someone like that to her will with a cute smile and a flutter of her lashes was downright terrifying. Thank god her ability didn't work on me, probably the only real benefit to having the incoherent ghost of an angry chaos god living inside my soul. Well, that and the metabolism. I could eat an entire food truck and not gain an ounce. It made Wade unspeakably jealous.

Claire flashed me that brilliant butterfly inducing grin, her hair back to its normal bone white, and grabbed my hand, dragging me away from the slowly dispersing crowd of supervillains. She smirked at the look on my now visible face as she cooed "Oh poor baby, did the mean devil lady scare you? Don't worry, I'll keep her away from you." Her face smoothed into a serious, almost nervous expression "Besides I wasn't lying, Spider wants to meet with you. Lucy is a bit off the wall but even she doesn't get in the way when the big boss wants something."

Her steps faltered as she pulled me toward a nearby building off to the side of the many tables stacked high with weapons and various evil knick knacks. I pulled her to a complete stop by the hand she was using to drag me, looking into her now worried eyes. "Hey, whats up? I've only known you a few days but you don't strike me as a nail biter. Whats got you so antsy about this Spider guy? " Claires face had actually gone pale, and she was slightly shaking, her eyes flicking to either side unconsciously as if she was afraid of being overheard. This was actually starting to worry me a bit, why was she reacting like this?

Claire grabbed my hands without thinking, staring straight into my eyes to drive home how serious she was "Spider…she's not what you're expecting, and she isn't someone to be underestimated. Spider is dangerous, and she keeps iron control over all the supervillains for a reason. Just, please don't antagonize her. A few days or not I know you well enough to know your immediate reaction to what you see as condescension is be as belligerent as possible. Promise me you wont start trouble here, because even if you're strong enough to walk out of this place regardless of trouble, Ray and Penny and I have families involved in this world, and if you break the rules and drag us into it, things could get really bad."

I squeezed both hands in mine and smiled reassuringly "Relax Claire-bear, I'm house broken, if you don't want me to throw a hissy fit I'll be good, unless Spider straight up attacks me I can grin and bear it. Or attacks, Wade, or you, or I mean I guess Ray or Penny or just in general if an attack goes down-" Claire giggled and put a finger to my lips to stop my embarrassed rambling attempt to cover up the fact that I was worried about her. Before I could react she replaced her finger with her lips and gave me a quick peck before smiling brightly at me, dropping my hands, and skipping off toward the building she had been leading us to.

I stood there, gobsmacked and slightly confused and managed to stop my hand before I touched my lips in wonderment like a stupid rom com protagonist, something that if noticed I would never live down, and smiled slowly. I think that might have been worth a few minutes of annoyance when I dealt with the crime queen of LA. I licked my lips as I followed the mystifying girl I was starting to grow more and more fond of. She must have been wearing lip gloss or something because I tasted strawberries.

By the time we arrived at the stair case leading down into the underground parking garage Claires easy going mask was back in place. Apparently once I'd agreed not to make a scene there was nothing else to say. Personally I would've loved some kind of warning or preparation for whatever caused that little melt down but apparently wishes were not horses today. Claire stopped at the bottom of the steps and gave me an apologetic look "I cant go in with you. It's…too much for me. I'll wait here for you. I don't know why she didn't ask to meet Wade too but her text only mentioned you, so once you're done introducing yourself your team should be considered full fledged super villains. Good luck Ivan, and be safe ok?"

I gave her my usual cocky grin and pushed through the door into the darkened garage, I only took about four steps before I stopped. I closed my eyes and inhaled trying to figure out the exact magical profile of whatever I was sensing. The being I could feel felt similar to me, but in a much different way than Lucy had. Lucy stank of chaos magic, her power a brighter, more manic version of my own, but this things power was completely different. No the similarity wasn't in the power signature but in the form it took. I could feel dark forces, restrained by a slowly fraying will. I sensed a mind unraveling, cracking under the unnatural weight of a being whose very conceptual existence was anathema to this world.

The being was weaker than I was, limited and small in some ways, and much greater than myself in other ways, ways that had nothing to do with raw power. I opened my eyes, knowing the sclera were a bottomless pit of black falling away from runes of angry sickening red, and looked to one side, right at the place where I knew I'd see something I really didn't want to look at. To anyone else she probably looked like a normal girl, albeit a strange one curled up in a ball and muttering to herself. I could see her for real though, see the inside, where the thing she played host to dug in its claws, desperate to keep a grip on its only access to this world.

It looked intelligent, which was very bad, but not necessarily malevolent which was potentially good. The being opened its eyes and stared at me from inside its slowly dying meat suit and when it spoke, I knew it was the girls voice. "Why do you come to our dwelling, great one? Why do you seek us in our safest place? We see your power, we see your hunger and your hate, do you wish to consume us, to add us to your power as you did the force that dwells beneath your skin? We do not wish to be consumed, we do not wish to cease this existence, we are not your equal, but this is our place, it would not be so easy to take us here, in the heart of our power, not even for one such as you."

I glared at the thing, and I could feel its fear and helpless rage as it dove to the back of the girls mind, desperately and futilely trying to hide from my gaze. I was angry. I knew what it was like to fight every second for control of your own skin, to rage against an implacable monster that never stopped. I mostly won my fights, and I had grown used to the battle, but that didn't mean I didn't hate myself a little every day for the ritual I had performed to gain my powers. "I do not wish to dirty myself by ingesting a speck such as you. You may remain but your attempts to subvert your host will end. The owner of that body will assume primary control. Work out a partnership if you think you can manage but I want to see the damage youre doing to that girls soul gone the next time I meet you, or I'll show you what its like to have your essence ripped apart by something bigger and more horrible than you."

I could tell the thing was angry at the order, I felt its resentment, it had been close to full possession and now it had to surrender everything it had accomplished with a few words from me. In the end though it didn't matter, the thing was ancient, and the few years the girl would live were nothing compared to the millennia it stood to lose if fed to the Dark inside me. With a hiss of frustrated anger the things claws released and the girl slumped to the ground like they had been the only thing keeping her bones solid. I shook my head in pity, but that wasn't why I was here, I stepped over the prone form of the unfortunate demon bike and strolled up to the giant web I had seen behind her as we talked.

The elephant size spider hanging in the web may have scared someone else, but I had seen so much worse. I could see why Claire was so unnerved by this thing though, it warped reality around it slightly, not enough to do anything really scary but you could feel that this giant arachnid was against the natural order and I imagined people with mental abilities probably picked up the distortion more strongly, since I could feel the telepathic undercurrents in the things signature. After the thing with the girl I didn't feel like dealing with pleasantries though, so I dispensed with the formalities. I looked it dead in the eyes and said in my best conversational tone "Spider seems a bit on the nose for you, doesn't it?"

Hey guys king here, been ages I know, I've been working on my book, this particular story was somewhat calling to me. Any readers id appreciate if you could mention this to your friends, this category is incredibly small and obscure and more readers would help motivation a ton. Hope you enjoy the chapter and look forward to seeing your reviews.