Chapter Eight

Monstrosity

Carnage rolled onto his side, his symbiote suit writhing in agony. His entire body felt like it was being pierced with fiery needles; a result of his fall at the hands of Spiderman, no doubt. He reached up, his hand trembling, to touch the wound on his neck. Already his symbiote suit was expanding to cover up the wound and replace it with new flesh. The holes in his stomach from Spiderman's stingers were gone, likewise. The venom and the paralysis poison that Spiderman had injected into Carnage had been powerful enough to kill any human being, possibly even Carnage's father, Venom, but not enough to kill Carnage.

Carnage grinned and sat up, wincing slightly. He thought back to his birth.

Peter Parker paced back and forth on the wooden floor of his apartment, scratching his chin. His black Spider-Suit lay on his photo album, which contained photos of Harry Osborn and Mary Jane, like a dark omen of what was to come. Peter had been trying for hours to get a sample of the black organism that had covered his suit, but the black 'stuff' appeared to have actually become part of the suit's material, much like Peter's Spider-enhanced genes were now a part of his DNA structure.

Upon hearing a squelching sound, Peter whirled around. On the ground, was a writhing piece of black ooze, similar to the ooze that had encompassed his suit. Peter quickly grabbed the scientific container that lay on his desk, and advanced on the small piece of ooze. The ooze then seemed to take on a tendril-like form, with multiple legs trying to carry it away from the advancing teenager. But Peter pounced just as the creature tried to scurry under his bed, and clamped the jar over the ooze.

To Peter, it merely appeared that the ooze had simply dropped off of his suit. But, it was actually a new symbiote, produced by the black suit's reproduction system, which produced a new baby every five years.

Carnage got unsteadily to his feet, and walked forward, his feet splashing in the occasional puddle that adorned the floor. At birth, as all symbiotes did, he'd learned that he was more powerful than his father. Carnage would've killed Venom had he still been alive; that was normal behaviour for a symbiote, hard-wired into their minds, so that it was even more than instinct. Because, although Carnage appeared wirier and slightly slimmer than the muscle-bound Venom Symbiote, he was actually much stronger, faster, more agile, and could mould himself into whatever shape he saw fit, which was useful for creating weapons. All in all, Carnage was a killing machine. Unlike Venom, who was driven only by the need to slaughter Spiderman, Carnage simply enjoyed killing.

Spiderman cruised through the air, gritting his teeth as he neared Electro. He could see Electro; the green and yellow costume stood out ridiculously well against the steel roof. The villainous murder was leaning in a relaxed manner against the Chrysler Building's spire, arms folded. The casualness of Electro solidified Spiderman's inferno of rage, and he roared as he flew towards Electro.

His Spider-Sense tingled just as Electro extended a long, crooked finger. A white lightning bolt, just like the one the wall-crawler had encountered in the jeweller's last night, shot out, racing towards Spiderman.

Spiderman grunted, and time slowed as his Spider-Sense truly kicked in. Everything except Spiderman slowed down; a second was like a minute. The web-spinner could clearly see the lightning bolt moving towards him at a crawling pace.

Firing a thin tendril of web off to his left side, Spiderman waited until the web found its target; the corner of a building. The web suddenly went taught as Spiderman grabbed it, and used it to swing himself out of the way of the lightning.

Spiderman released the web as time resumed its normal pace. He was propelled away from the Chrysler Building, but he corrected his course by firing another strand of web back at the Chrysler Building.

Swinging back around, Spiderman twisted in mid-air, and a bolt of lightning flew past, inches above his face. The blindingly bright light from the bolt temporarily blurred Spiderman's vision, but the superhero didn't care.

Spiderman landed on the building on the west side of the Chrysler Building. He was about twenty stories below Electro, and a gap of maybe fifty metres separated the two buildings.

Spiderman's breath came laboured and loud, like a bull facing a matador. He lowered his head, ands charged forward.

At the last second, just at the edge of the building, he bent his knees and leapt into the air.

A bolt of lightning flashed past, hitting the building where Spiderman had been a half-second before.

The superhero soared upwards, a full fifteen stories into the air and well across the street.

Spiderman hit the building and stuck to it. He crawled up quickly, and when he was just a floor away from reaching Electro, the villain's head appeared, looking down over the side of the building. Electro grinned nastily.

"Hello, there," he smiled. "Spiderman!" Electro feigned surprise at seeing the hero, and his grin widened. Spiderman fired a blob of web at the evil man, but Electro merely twisted and avoided the fast-moving attack.

Electro's feigned grin turned into a sneer. "Hurts, doesn't it?" he said, and fired a blast of lightning down into Spiderman. His sneer turned into an haunting, malicious laugh.

The hero screamed as his body was enveloped in a sea of burning pain. He lost his grip on the building's sheer wall, and toppled backwards as the lightning tormented him, making him thrash and writhe.

The pain stopped as soon as it had started. But Spiderman was already falling into a chaotic tumble, fifty floors above the cold unforgiving tarmac streets of Manhattan. The wind roared in his pained ears as the ground rushed up to meet him. His muscles were numb and completely unresponsive from the shock, and he could do nothing but scream as he fell, helpless, towards his death.