XXIV. Transposition
Moments earlier…
Gwen ran out into the Thompsons' backyard. She went for the fence: it would be faster to climb over and cut through the other yards, and she had to let Aunt May know that Eddie Brock was in the neighborhood. Peter had made that very clear: the guy was dangerous, and he wasn't to be trusted. She reached the fence and jumped up, just barely catching the top of it. One foot found purchase on a knot on the wood; the other was still scrabbling for a foothold. She just need a little bit more of a boost…
And then something grabbed her by the ankle. Gwen gasped and looked down. It was a thick strand of blood-red spider-webbing. It pulled; she came flying off the fence. She struck the grass face-down, and it was enough of a blow to knock the wind out of her. Stunned, she barely registered the fact that she was being pulled across the lawn, slowly, leisurely, a little bit at a time, until at last something very strong picked her up by the ankle and dangled her upside-down.
Gwen blinked and shook her head. When she came to, she saw a monster—a creature in a suit that seemed to be made of red ooze with tendrils of black flowing through it. Its mouth—a wide, hideous grin, more unnatural than anything the Green Goblin had ever been able to conjure up—was open, because this thing was laughing at her. With its free hand, it pointed two fingers at Gwen, spinning red webs all over her.
"It's funny," said Carnage. "This suit… has some of Spider-Man's DNA in it. I don't care about Spider-Man, not like Venom does. But I'm really happy that I get to play with his toys! It's been a long time since I've gotten to tie up one of my playmates like this, hehehehe!"
"Who… who are you?" Gwen stammered.
"It wants to talk," said Carnage. "Should I web up her mouth too? No; then I won't get to hear the screams…" His free hand now once again became an enormous claw, and he slowly ran one sharp point along Gwen's neck—not enough to draw blood, not yet; just enough to intimidate her.
"I'm serious!" shouted Gwen. "Who the hell are you? What do you want with me?!"
"Oh, you can call me Carnage," replied the monster. "And as for what I want, well… I'm just looking for a little fun." Here, he let the mask recede, showing his face—so that he could look this frightened little girl in the eye and enjoy her terror before the fun really began.
But Gwen's reaction was altogether unexpected. Instead of the abject fear that he was hoping for, he got something else—stone-faced hatred. The very instant that Gwen looked him in the eyes, she recognized him—this was the face that she'd seen on all the newscasts, the face that haunted her nightmares and still occupied that small corner of her mind that simmered, day in and day out, with a slow and steady anger that hungered for righteous vengeance. And here, now, seeing the face of Cletus Kasady—being helpless in his power, dangling like a piece of bait on a hook, waiting to be his next murder victim—that made Gwen's rage boil over. She started to struggle against her bonds, to kick and fight from within the net of red webbing. She spat curses that would make a sailor blush. Most importantly, she felt—wrath, hate, and the all-consuming need to take revenge.
Cletus Kasady laughed in her face. He could see that Gwen was fighting not to let her emotions show. But her poker-face was starting to crack: her lip quivered, and her eyes were filled with such pure malice. Kasady realized that this girl had a personal grudge with him, something that went way beyond mere survival instinct. "You recognize me," he said. "You hate me. What's the matter, little girl? Did I kill somebody you knew?"
"Yeah," said Gwen. She spat at Kasady's feet and said, "You killed my dad. He was a cop."
"That doesn't really narrow it down," said Kasady matter-of-factly. "I've killed lots of cops. You might just be my first cop's daughter, though." He reached a red hand over to Gwen's neck… Oh, yes, I'm going to enjoy this…
The suit made contact with Gwen's skin. And in that moment, it felt itself in contact with two very different people. Different genetics, different histories, different minds. On the one hand, here was Cletus Kasady. The suit shared some DNA with Kasady, just as it had some from its past masters—from Eddie Brock, from Peter Parker, and from its original baseline genetic stock, Richard Parker. Mentally speaking, Kasady was a stone-cold killer in every sense: a psychopath, always straining to feel something, but ultimately unable; at his core, he was utterly devoid of emotion. And then there was this new person: the genetics were novel and different, but there was nothing terribly interesting about that. The mind, though—the mind of this girl was full of abhorrence, aggression, and rage. And despite everything that Eddie Brock had done to this new symbiote to make it different from his own, it was still a symbiote.
It was still a creature that fed on dark emotions.
Kasady only meant to wrap a hand around Gwen's neck and slowly choke the life out of her—to enjoy himself while the breath disappeared from her lungs and the light in her eyes slowly dwindled away to nothing. But instead, the red ooze started flowing along his arm, away from Cletus Kasady and onto Gwen Stacy. It felt what she felt, and it hungered for more. Her anger was its sweetness, its sustenance, its everything.
"No…" said Kasady, suddenly very frightened and confused. "You're… you're leaving me? But why? Think of everything we can do together!"
Gwen was now terrified too. The red ooze, like something out of a monster movie, was flowing over her, swallowing her whole. It's… it's eating me… cold, like ice, all over my skin… eating me! So cold… There was sudden pain, as the suit covered her, its tendrils flowing into every opening in her body, every pore in her skin, down her throat, up her nose… was she drowning? Gwen screamed as loudly as she was able.
And then all was quiet.
Kasady sat on the lawn, naked as a newborn and completely baffled.
Then Gwen Stacy stood up, the red suit painted against every inch of her skin, like liquid rubber. She ran clawed hands down the curves of her body and said, "Mmm… yes. We like this. We like this very much."
Kasady stared up at Gwen like a jilted lover. "No… it was supposed to be for me. It was supposed to be for ME!" He got up and lunged at Gwen; she caught him easily with one arm and held him up by the neck.
"No taste…" said Gwen, pulling Kasady close and looking into his eyes through the white-eyed red mask. "No touch… no feeling. It was like being blind and deaf. Being starved! But now we see… now we feel…" She started to squeeze.
Kasady choked and sputtered. "We… we were going to kill so many… we would have been magnificent… Carnage…"
"Oh, but don't you see?" said Gwen. "We can be Carnage too… only, with this host, we'll enjoy it so much more!" She held up a clawed hand and extended the fingers into long spikes, razor-sharp, like flaying-knives.
It's possible that before he died, Cletus Kasady actually regretted killing at least one of his victims. Not that he remembered who exactly the girl's cop father was, even at the very end.
• • •
Mary Jane and Venom were still fighting when Gwen half plodded, half skipped into the room. Occasionally, as she walked, she spun in a little circle, just so that she could feel dizzy for a moment. She moved like a drunken ballerina, and she perceived everything around her as if she were high on a mild hallucinogenic—which, technically speaking, she probably was. The suit was positively flooding her brain with all kinds of hormones and chemicals.
Gwen danced over to the shredded remains of the Thompsons' couch and sat down on the pile of springs and stuffing. She picked up one of the pieces of flat-screen plasma TV that Kasady had carved up earlier and stared at it in fascination. She saw her reflection—red mask, oddly-shaped white eyes, jack-o-lantern mouth—and let out an "ooh" of admiration.
That was when MJ and Eddie both finally noticed her. They both froze in mid-punch, staring blankly.
"Hey, MJ," said Gwen with a childlike giggle. "Hey, new guy." She waved a clawed hand "hello" at both of them.
Venom was stunned. "What in the…?"
"Gwen?!" cried Mary Jane. "What… when did the… what?"
Gwen stood up, put her hands up over her head, and stretched out. "You like my new look? I feel… really good."
"Is that a symbiote suit?!" MJ threw a heavy right hook at Eddie. "You made another one of those things?"
Eddie put up an arm to block MJ's punch and backed off a few steps. "What's going on here? Where's Kasady?"
"Oh, he went all to pieces," said Gwen. She held up a bloody claw—snikt!—extending long spikes from the fingertips again. "Little, bloody pieces."
"You took his suit… killed him with it," said Venom, astonished. "How did you do that?!"
"The real question you oughtta be asking yourself, big boy," said Gwen, strutting up to Venom, "is, what are you gonna do now that I've got it?"
"Peter's probably gonna be here in a few minutes," said MJ. "Think you can take all three of us, Eddie?"
Before Eddie could reply, Gwen shook her head and said, "Oh, no… he's only gotta worry about me!" And then she dove at him.
If Venom's fight with Mary Jane had worn him down a little, then this was something completely different. This was raw brutality: it was Gwen taking her anger out on the nearest convenient target; and it was Eddie fighting for his life. The rage boiled to the surface again, and it showed in the red symbiote: it was all teeth and tentacles now, whipping and scratching at Venom with unrestrained fury. "Won't let you hurt Peter!" roared Gwen… or maybe it was Carnage now. Whoever she was, she was incoherent, babbling. "Our brother! How could you do this to our brother!"
Mary Jane suddenly felt like a helpless bystander. Gwen was in a frenzy now, and there really wasn't any stopping her. Then MJ heard the sirens and saw the flashing lights… "The cops are here!" she shouted. "Gwen, come on—we gotta go!"
But Gwen paid her no attention. She picked up Eddie and threw him out the living-room window, out onto the front lawn. Then she rushed at him again, and now the fight was outside.
"Oh crap," muttered MJ. Out on the lawn, Venom and the new Carnage were still locked in a mêlée with each other. Two police cars had pulled up to the curb; which meant that there were now four armed officers pointing their guns at the two monstrous combatants.
"Freeze!" shouted one of the cops. "On the ground right now, you freaks, or we'll open fire!"
Eddie at last managed to throw Gwen off of him. He leaped into the air and came down hard on one of the squad cars, crushing its roof. Then he sprang off, fired a couple of webs, and pulled himself onto the rooftop of one of the houses. The two cops who had been shielding themselves behind the open doors of that car were both thrown aside; the other two opened fire at Eddie, but they never hit him—and he fled.
Gwen, of course, wasn't about to be left out of the fun. She released a wordless, animalistic howl and leapt after Eddie. The chase was on.
Mary Jane, realizing that Gwen's fate was now out of her hands for the time being, only paused long enough to check on Flash and make sure that he was still breathing. Then she slipped out the back, jumped a few fences, and made her way home.
• • •
With her Scarlet Spider costume on under her clothes and her web-shooters snapped onto her wrists, Mary Jane went over to the Parkers' to wait for Peter. Aunt May was waiting for her on the front porch. "Mary Jane!" she said. "I heard police sirens! What's going on—oh my!" May saw that MJ was covered in cuts and bruises. "What happened?" she cried.
"Long story," said MJ breathlessly. "Confusing story. I'd rather only explain once, once Peter gets here."
May shooed MJ inside and ran to get bandages and antiseptic. Mere moments later, May was back, and she directed MJ to sit at the kitchen table while she tended to the girl's wounds.
A while later, Peter came in through the back door, still dressed as Spider-Man. "MJ!" he cried, peeling off his mask. He rushed over to her. "What happened? Are you okay?"
"She still hasn't told me anything," said May
"There are cops outside of Flash Thompson's house," said Peter. "It looks like a tornado went through the place."
"Actually… it was me and Eddie," said MJ.
"You fought Venom?" asked Peter.
"Yeah… but, Peter, that's not the worst part. Listen… Eddie had a partner. From the way they were talking, I think it was that Kasady guy who killed Gwen's dad—"
"So they did escape from Ravencroft together!" said Peter.
"I guess," said MJ. "Anyway… Kasady had a suit."
"Say what, now?" said Peter.
"He had one of those bio-suit thingies that your dad invented, just like Eddie was wearing—"
The mention of Peter's father made May gasp in surprise; but Peter was more thoughtful. "Then that was why Eddie broke into the lab… he needed his old research notes on the suit. To help him replicate it!"
"Peter, you're not letting me finish!" snapped MJ. "It's Gwen! Something's happened to Gwen…"
That got Peter's attention. "MJ, what happened to Gwen? Is she all right?"
"I don't know," said MJ. "And I don't know how it happened, but… the other suit, it got onto her, somehow. She's wearing it now, and she went chasing after Eddie!"
Peter pulled one of the chairs out from the table and let himself fall into it. "Gwen… is bonded with a symbiote suit."
"That's what it looks like," said MJ.
"What about Kasady?" asked Peter.
Mary Jane paled and shook her head. "I saw… what was left of him, in Flash's backyard. It wasn't pretty."
"She wouldn't!" interjected Aunt May. "She… Gwen couldn't have killed someone!"
"It wouldn't be her fault if she did," said Peter. "These suit things, they mess with your mind, make you do things you normally wouldn't. Believe me, I know!" He had already explained to his aunt some time ago that the suit Eddie now wore, he himself had worn for a while. Whether May fully understood just how evil the symbiote was; well, that was an altogether different matter. But there wasn't time to explain further.
"We have to go after them," said Peter. "Will you help me this time?"
MJ nodded. She was already taking off her clothes and pulling on her mask. "For Gwen. And for Eddie. We have to save our friends."
"Be careful, both of you," said May. She pulled MJ and then Peter into a quick hung. "Bring them back."
After that, Spider-Man and Scarlet Spider were out the back door, up onto the rooftops, and slinging themselves in the direction that Eddie and Gwen had taken.
• • •
Venom was in a panic. How could his plans have backfired so completely? He had thought to take Mary Jane hostage and use her to draw Peter out into the open. But MJ somehow had spider-powers now, so that wasn't going to work. He had thought to give Kasady a suit like his own, to have an ally against Spider-Man—and a psychopath like Kasady should have been easy to manipulate, to control. But Eddie realized that he'd apparently made a terrible miscalculation in that regard. Kasady had actually been too crazy to keep his symbiote. And so now one of Peter's friends had it, and after giving him a vicious thrashing, she was nipping at his heels, eager to dish out more punishment.
Aunt May was now Peter's only weak point, reasoned Eddie. She would have to be his next victim. Once, that is, he got the red suit off of the crazy blonde.
The answer had to be at Doc Connors' lab. The suit had a couple of weaknesses, and Eddie knew all of them well. There was sound: intense sonic vibrations were how Peter had rid himself of the suit in the first place. There was emotion: that was how Peter had drawn the suit off of Eddie the first time they'd been separated from each other, and he suspected that this was how Gwen had taken it from Kasady. Then there was a certain cocktail of enzymes and anti-mutagens that Doc Connors had developed, which acted as a sort of "gene cleanser" when it came into contact with altered DNA. This was how Peter had taken the suit from him the last time, and the forcible separation had been… painful, to say the least. It had shredded Brock's mind, at least until such time as he'd been able to reunite with his symbiote. That, Venom decided, would be a fitting fate for his misbegotten offspring.
"Brooock!" roared Gwen, swinging on red webs just a few yards behind him. "Brock, you're DEAD!"
Genuinely afraid of what this… this "She-Carnage" might do to him, Venom redoubled his efforts and sped towards ESU.
• • •
It was actually pretty easy for Peter and MJ to stay on the trail of their quarry: all they had to do was follow the webs. Eddie and Gwen had both left plenty behind. Peter soon realized that they were heading in the direction of Empire State University… and it was right on the campus's main quad that they finally caught up to them. Venom and Carnage were having it out again, locked in a no-holds-barred battle of fists, webs, teeth, and oozy tendrils. Those few students who were still on campus this close to midnight had mostly already fled, except for the brave few determined to get video of the fight on their smartphones. Campus security and the NYPD were doubtlessly already on their way by now.
Spider-Man and Scarlet Spider landed a short distance away. (One of the students filming the battle on his phone exclaimed "Holy shit!" in a giddy, delighted tone.)
"Gwen first?" said MJ.
"Agreed," said Peter.
They both fired a pair of web-lines each—thwip-spack—sticking all four lines to Gwen's back. Then they tugged.
Gwen was quite surprised to find herself suddenly pulled away from Eddie. She screamed in annoyance and clawed at her back, trying to tear the webs off. Eddie, recognizing his opportunity to escape, leapt away and raced for the genetics lab.
"Gwen!" shouted Peter, racing up to her. "Gwen, calm down!"
"No!" she yelled back. "Have to save you… have to kill him!"
"She's lost it," said MJ, who came up behind Peter a little more cautiously.
Peter wasn't ready to give up. He took Gwen by the arms and said, "Gwen, look at me. Get ahold of yourself! I know what these suits are like—you have to take control!"
"NOOOOO!" bellowed Gwen. She threw Peter violently away and finally sliced the web-lines off of her back with her claws. MJ caught Peter and kept him from stumbling, but Gwen was already racing after Venom again.
"They're going for the lab," said Peter. "Jeez, this can't be happening…"
"We'll figure something out, Tiger," said MJ. "Come on."
• • •
Eddie found himself once again furiously searching through the ESU genetics lab. But this time, he couldn't find what he was looking for. He'd been out of the loop for a while, after all, and so he had no idea that Miles Warren had taken over the labs recently, and that the Doctors Connors had taken many of their personal projects with them when they'd left. Consequently, the enzymes he needed to make the antidote were almost all missing. "They're not here!" fumed Eddie. "Why aren't they here?"
A crash and a shower of broken glass signaled that Carnage had caught up with him. She came barreling in through an upper window and landed deftly on her feet in the middle of the lab. "Eddddiieee…" she hissed. Snikt—her claws lengthened.
Peter and MJ swung in through the broken window that Gwen had just crashed through; they landed on the other side of her, so that she was flanked between the pair of them and Eddie. Eddie allowed his mask to recede and said, "Hey guys… what do you say we call a little truce here?"
"Your call," said MJ to Peter.
"Truce," said Peter. "Gwen's our first priority."
Carnage was now turning herself around in a slow circle, sizing up the three opponents who had surrounded her. Eddie, Peter, and MJ all remained in cautious, fight-ready stances as they spread out around her and discussed their strategy.
"Doc Connors' mutation antidote is gone," said Eddie. "I don't have what I need to make it here."
"He would have taken anything even vaguely lizard-related with him when he left the lab," said Peter. "That leaves us one chance: guys, hold her down while I do the genius thing."
Once again, Gwen gave a feral roar and launched herself at Eddie. But Eddie was ready for her: he sprayed webs, and MJ did the same thing from the opposite side. Between the two of them, they managed to gum her up in a thick cocoon that even she wouldn't be able to break free of, at least for a little while.
Meanwhile, Peter went rummaging through some of the larger piles of lab equipment until he found a couple of loudspeakers, which he rolled over to the middle of the lab. He pointed these at Gwen's webbed-up form and then attached the speakers to one of the lab's many laptop computers. He booted up the computer and logged on. "Please tell me I still have access…" he said, quickly browsing through network drives on the lab's cloud-storage system. Then he found what he was looking for: Deb Whitman's vampire bat research. He ran a search for sound-files, loaded one up at maximum volume, and hit "play".
The lab was suddenly filled with the ear-splitting sound of high-pitched squeaking, bordering on the ultrasonic. Venom stumbled away and kept well clear of the loudspeakers; but Gwen was stuck right in their path. She started flailing and struggling from within the web-cocoon, and the red symbiote lashed out with writhing tentacles that sprouted tooth-like bony protrusions. These spikes started slicing through the webbing, but the sound was still keeping the symbiote at bay. While Gwen screamed in pain and confusion, the symbiote let out a separate, agonized squeal of its own.
"There!" said MJ, seeing an opening between the tendrils. The moment she spotted bare skin, she shot a web-line and pulled. Eddie fired a black web-line of his own and added his strength to the struggle. The Carnage symbiote fought to keep Gwen within it, but it was weak. The sonic vibrations were its undoing. Mary Jane and Eddie pulled Gwen free with one final, mighty tug, leaving the symbiote, weakened and writhing, by itself in front of the loudspeakers.
While MJ reached for a nearby labcoat and draped it over Gwen's naked body, Peter grabbed a large plastic tarp and threw it over the screeching symbiote. Using the tarp as a sack, he picked up the struggling mass of ooze and tentacles and dragged it over to a chute in the wall—which led down to the incinerator the lab used for disposing of biohazard materials. After checking to make sure that the furnaces were indeed still running, he chucked the symbiote down the chute… and that was that.
Peter slumped down against the wall to rest. Mary Jane was gently shaking Gwen, trying to wake her up. Eddie remained standing in the middle of the room, looking a tad confused by everything that had just happened.
"Hey Eddie," said Peter, once he'd caught his breath, "the next time you need to come stalking me, think you can maybe make an appointment first? It's just polite."
"Always the little smart-mouth," said Eddie, shaking his head. "You ruined my life, Peter, and I'm not just gonna let that go. I'll get you back… someday." Venom's mask appeared over his face again. He spun a web, pulled himself up to the broken window near the ceiling, and swung away.
Gwen groaned and finally came to. When her eyes fluttered open, she saw Scarlet Spider looking down at her. "Hey, MJ," Gwen mumbled. "Anybody ever tell you, you look pretty good in that mask?"
"Some of us can actually pull off a red costume," MJ quipped.
"Hey… where are we, anyway?" said Gwen, her voice still faint.
"That's not important," said MJ. "Peter's here; we're going to take you home, okay?"
"Sounds nice," said Gwen. "Should prob'ly be getting to bed anyway…"
"Yeah," said MJ. "Come on." Then she and Peter picked up their friend, and they all web-slung home together.