Author's note- Hello there, once again. i know that I had promised to write up more frequently but time has always against me this entire year.
But this time I have decide to break up larger chapters into two whenever it exceeds more than 10k a chapter. This chapter for one turned out to be so. Just for the sake of simplicity.
And as usual, my utmost thanks to all my readers, anonymous and others alike. For all the dear support that you have given me with. Ravenmore45, highlander348, kindleflame5, Winterrain36 and the others alike.
Cause I could have never ever thought of going so far into my story. And for that I can never thank you enough. :)
And please don't forget to leave a review as reviews keep me in check every time I take a wrong turn.
And rate my story if you like them.
Enjoy and please don't hesitate to let me know if I ever ever go wrong in facts or if I start out of topic.
I am just a review or a PM away.
Enjoy :)
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Gwen's point of view.
There were certain times when she sometimes wished that she would die. Like the world had been enough for her.
She had seen enough of it. Like that was all that her shitty life could give her.
The pain was so unbearable for her, the hollowness inside her had grown so big with the loss of her father and the fact that her relationship with Peter or whatever that was left of it, she had to be salvaged, scrounged and trying to pick up the broken shards and pieces, whatever was left of it just to make them work.
She was driven by such mad desire that was so impalpable to her, now that she could never imagine that she had been holding the answer in the hands right from the first.
Or was it because she really didn't need any of it? Or maybe she needed to get her head away from Peter.
She was confused cause she didn't know what to do.
There was nothing left for her to answer except ponder about the problem at hand.
The mutated spider venom was in the vial that she had carefully engineered. But there was a slight complication.
Millions of trial and error methods just to find the right combination, but another problem was killing her, threatening and questioning all of her research.
It was all because of the non-potency of the serum when she tried to administer it within her blood.
It was like it completely rejected her. She remembered the first time when, when she tried to isolate the mutating gene from Peter's blood during the countless number of methods as she tried to mutate it to her own blood during several of her experiments.
There wasn't any way her blood would accept the foreign gene.
Upon inspection she found the absence of any conventional receptors that she used in normal experiments.
And after that she tried every alternative combination, every permutation to make her blood accept the extra pair of gene but to no avail. Finally when she was just about to give up when she finally discovered the real deficiency that her blood lacked, that was causing all of this.
It was then when she found the need of an extremely volatile and strong accelerant that could stabilise the mutant genome by forcing her blood to change the receptor target shape for it to accept the foreign genetic anomaly.
But unfortunately she did not have any accelerant, that potent with her at that time except one.
The powdered form of extremis that Peter had showed her once.
It was a type of steroid and it could easily take on the role of an accelerant.
But it was available to her, only with a minor quantity, almost nil, but she knew that to make it work, she had to use it, even when her mind told her not to use it.
And the ill effects of the serum was staggering, not to mention the zombie like effect that it had on all of all the people who were subjected to it.
She was desperate but she wanted it to be completed as soon as possible.
Gwen felt a brick sliding down her stomach, because she knew that had struggled on it a lot.
Gwen had already spent too much time on it anyway to back away from it right now. She was desperate and was the despair that was effecting her.
She had synthesized the compound by working in her own home laboratory with the most basic of all equipment and any minor screw up could make all of this experiment all just a completely useless vial of failure.
She had been locked up in her room all alone with minimum sleep in a quest to do something stupid, or maybe something exotic but it was for Peter and that was going to be worth everything. All of her effort won't go complete waste. She was not going to get flunked and she was confident about it.
The exotic properties of the extrimis Peter's his venom and her blood could be the solution. A solution that could help her get powers.
She wasn't sure but she had to try it. After all experiments were all about trials and sacrifices and her mind was more than made up. She was head strong with her decision.
The series of steps she followed was meticulous, sometimes dipping it into a water bath for curing or in a mechanical agitator to get the desired results.
But at last she made the serum.
The colour was an amalgamation of a hue of red along with a slight yellowish at the centre swirling around it. It looked like the sun. It had the colour of the sunset and the brightness and radiance of the yellow sun.
She stared at it,
Did she do it?
Was it possible that she had finally made the serum?
48 hours of hard work, did it really pay off? Was the truth was in her hands?
She had to be sure. She had to try it on her.
There was no choice. Human trials are always a vital part of all experiments that all scientists were willing to make. All sacrifices had to be made in the name of science.
She took one last look at the serum because she knew that this was going to change her life forever.
For better or for the worse.
God knows what it would do to her.
She was scared, if she would really turn out to be 'something' other than the mutation that she needed?
What if she lost sense in all her logic?
What then?
What would happen if she turned out to be a hairy monster with extra pair of limbs without the slightest bit of any intellect and god knows what not, because the preliminary tests showed that she now knew that every time the blood found another host it would not give them same abilities or maybe it would change the person all together, morph and mould her into an abomination.
Or maybe a complete spider itself.
She cast aside all her thoughts. They were disturbing and she did not want any of them to hold her back now, when she was this close. She wanted this to be a success no matter what…
And as far as her calculations had predicted her and proved to be right, she the side effects that would torture her thereafter, or if not completely, maybe then just a glimpse that would help her prepare for what she about to go through.
She rolled up her long sleeves and pulled out a medical syringe and pushed the needle into the serum and filled it completely.
It almost reached 20 ml mark and then she stopped and pulled out the needle from the small glass vial.
She let go a small sigh.
"Here goes nothing." so saying she pushed the needle into her veins and then was when the onslaught of feelings started to blast through her overwhelming her so deeply and profoundly that she never had ever imagined it to hit her this way.
It was something that was threatening to tear up her innards. A strong force that was building inside her, like someone forcing on her. Pulling apart every organ from her body.
Every inch on her skin was hyper and she could feel everything that was going on. The light breeze that blew outside seemed to be too loud.
The dripping of water from the partially opened up tap.
The neighbouring shouting at a stoner that was slinking just beneath the garbage telling him how rotten he was.
Her mother, humming to the tune of The Beetles as she flipped over the contents the morning newspaper.
The murmur of the silent movement of her lips read out something about a series of bizarre bombings that below up a dock in the sea side.
Gwen slowly sat up from her bed, her skin and fingers twitching and tingling uncontrollably.
She scratched her back like something was pushing itself from her back.
She tried to stretch her fingers and pushed her hands as far as she could, just to feel whatever it was that was causing this weirdness on the small of her back.
That was when she felt some protrusions. They were hard and almost a few centimetres big.
Gwen quickly got up from her bed scared shitless for unable to comprehend what was happening to her.
Her worst fears were coming true. She did not want the mutation to effect on her physiology but somehow that very thing was happening that she dreading for.
She had made sure that it really won't affect her and now everything that she did not want was happening to her.
She leaped up from her bed and onto the floor and stoofd in front of her dressing table.
She stared at herself long, good and hard.
There was nothing happening to her face, not so far.
She stripped herself nude and looked in from of her mirror, turning and twitching to see her back to get a good look.
Whatever was going on her back scared the shit out of her now that she could see what she really turned out to be
There were six of such protrusions. Three arms on the either side of her spinal cord that were growing with healthy and soft muscles.
They were growing and a phenomenal rate. Her cells almost growing and multiplying with each and every passing second.
Her eyes grew wide open, amazement and bewilderment that filled her, when she saw her arms finally stop to divide and proliferate, for now she knew that it was complete.
They were an exact replica of her hands.
She was beyond speechless.
She stared at herself in front of the mirror with awe and wonder.
"So this is what it does to me? Turn me into a monster spider freak? Made my senses so sharp that it now hurts me."
She looked at herself for one last time before the tears fell out of her eyes, undeniably heavy and full of sentiments and regrets for the mistake that she had done. The monster that she brought forth upon herself in spite of knowing the possible consequences.
The hard knock on her door shook up her so back that she almost slipped.
It felt to her like her innards almost threatened to come out of their mouth. Like every small hair on her arms would force itself out of their follicles.
"Honey, what is wrong with you? You haven't been out of your room for almost a day now. What is it? You have got to me, dear."
It was her mom.
Shit. This isn't happening right now. Of all the million possibilities, she had to knock that damn door right now? What do I do?
Gwen felt desperate in need of someone, of something.
God, I need a miracle….
She thought frantically a way to cover her back. The three pair of hands would creep the hell out of her mother.
Forget about creeping the hell out of her, Gwen would only be grateful that she does not have a heart failure.
She had to think of something right now.
"Honey I am opening the door right now."
Shit. Shit.
But it was already too late. The door swung on its hinges. The sound of the creaking noise freaked her out ever more because she knew that the more she would try to hide this thing, the more her mother would grill her and more to find out what it was that bothered her.
.
So she held her breath and waited for the inevitable to happen. She closed her eyes.
Her mom gasped with shock.
Ok. She saw me. She saw me. Shit I should have concealed myself. What the hell was I thinking? Gwen cursed herself.
"Gwen, honey what is wrong with you? What are you doing there standing naked staring at yourself?"
Her mother came into her room and pulled the drawer to pick out some clothes that were neatly stacked up.
"What?" Now it was Gwen's turn to be shocked.
She saw me naked and that is it? No arms?
She opened one of her eyes and took a quick peek at the mirror trying a bit desperate to see her reflection, expected those deadly looking developing outgrowths at their early stages.
There nothing behind on her back. It was smooth. She turned to her left side, trying to see herself over her lest ass cheek. No marks or protrusions her on her back. Like there had been nothing on it.
It was almost like she had imagined the entire thing.
Where did they go?
She quickly snapped back and looked at her mother who came forward and handed clothes to her.
Gwen tried to cover herself desperately.
But there was only one thought that she was spiralling and revolving around her head. She was happy that her mother did not see those arms.
Just after she had left there was only one question that was bothering her now.
Because she wanted to stay in her room for some more time, figure things out.
How could she control those arms? Was there any definite trigger? Or maybe her thoughts were enough to keep a check at it? She did not know.
She had work to do, now more than ever…
She had to take control on these things.
Putting on the dress that her mother handed to her, Gwen slinked back to her bed.
God knows what happened the moment when she closed her eyes, like she was sucked into the dark abyss.
And that night she slept soundly, without any stray thoughts to bother her.
A completely dreamless night, she had.
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Gwen got up early at morning.
She was surprised. There was no bed and the blades of the stationary ceiling fan was right beside her.
Like she was only a hair's breath away from it.
She was surprised to find everything upside down.
She realized that she was hanging on the ceiling. The tip of her fingers were stuck to the walls, like it was glued down and her feet was stuck to the ceiling, like she held on to her ground and like everything had been there just right before her memories filled her up once again.
Whatever that had happened to her, the serum, the arms that she had developed, everything filled up her head like as she came to a starting realization.
The previous night.
But Gwen had found hope, like she had started seeing the positivity in everything. Something was instigating her to see the good for all of this.
This would help her sort things out and things were going to be good.
But right now, how could she let herself go.
Gwen was still stuck to the ceiling. To her it felt like this was her normal position, like was her true equilibrium, she slowly let go of her hands and stood up. Her golden curvy locks of hair was the only thing that made her feel, like she was on the wrong plane.
She knew that somewhere deep inside the answer lay. Gwen closed her eyes, searched for it as she slowly willed herself to let go of the ceiling.
The gravity pulled her down. Every strand of her hair silky furled and it looked like everything had slowed down for a moment. It was like she was caught on a time warp, caught in an infinite space time loop where she could no longer fall down and act according to her own accord, just like the way she pleased but her hands and feet moved at the same speed at which she moved them, undeterred by the sudden slow of time.
She made an easy twirl and landed on her feet without even having to support her weight on her arms.
THUMP.
She stood up and there was a strange surge of renewed confidence in her. She could feel it so vividly like the last night, like today and the next day, like every day was going to be the start of something new from the beginning.
She had to get to school, so she looked at the mirror. One last time.
The morning light peeked behind a scraper and it fell on her like a sudden spark, igniting a sea of diamonds. Just like from the dark, a light breaking the silence.
There was something different about her. For some unknown reason, her features were more pronounced, more vivid whatever it had been before and her features were so much sharper.
Her eyes were the bluest of all blue, a shade even beautiful that the oceanic and cerulean blues, a shade darker and a tad bit lighter at the same time and an undeniable shade of yellow mustard along the blueness, like small cracks on glass.
Her hair had grown slightly darker the ends.
She looked like a carving of God himself, like he himself had come down and formed her out of his own hands. Like a female nephilim.
She had grown more lady like. Like a gorgeous beauty. Better than any model.
Such was the exquisite beauty that she had turned in to. More like a beautiful lady, than a hot babe.
She smiled at her reflection shyly and went back to dress up ready and eager now more than ever…
Her mind with endless possibilities, curiosities, what her body could turn out to be.
Because she knew that this was just the start of the manifestation of her muations.
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Peter's POV
Peter gasped for air. The exertion had a taken a serious toll on him.
There was nothing more he could do.
He had done all that he was capable of.
The Iron Fist wasn't faring well himself.
He somehow held his ground.
The brutal fight had sapped most of their energies and they could not push themselves any further.
But they had inflicted a lot of damage to him but his ability to heal himself was too uncanny.
The way he sucked on energy to regenerate himself was scary, although the last assault that the both of them had inflicted upon him was a bit too much. So the healing, was taking a bit more time than usual, but his bones and skin patched themselves up with phenomenal rate.
And it was no way fair to the two of them.
They had no backup. And they had only a normal healing except that of Peter but his healing and his reversion to his original self, was no way as powerful as Davos.
The Iron Fist pulled out a totem like device.
"Now what is that?" asked Peter, his voice showed no signs of restraint, the extreme frustration and the fatigue that he was going through, taking a serious toll on him. And he had already seen enough to not be surprised of anything else.
"Figured that this would be the last of the remaining means of capturing him." said Spidey as he got up to his feet.
"Alright then. I don't really have to know all that weird mojo that has been going on with your people but just tell me what to do. I am just beginning to get this would be another some kind of your precious relics." said Peter with a bit of weird accent that made him realise how pissed off he actually was.
"Just slow him down for me and leave the rest up to me." said the iron fist finally standing up and heaving his chest up and down.
His eyes were strained from the obvious extreme pain and exhaustion that he was in.
Peter looked at him as he tried to draw in energy and concentration as he drew in. He looked into those eyes of Davos and he found himself musing through a jolly kid, Davos' memories, difficult memories of a small boy in his past.
Peter leaped on his feet and checked on his web shooters. Should be enough to last him and also he had spare pellets stacked up in his utility belt.
He could do it.
All he had to do was trap and hold him down, long enough for Iron Fist to do his own mojo.
Peter leaped off and sprinted with everything that he had in him.
Davos was still dazed from the intensity of the last attack that the two of them launched at him.
Still the rate of his healing was almost instantaneous.
Peter launched a flurry of web balls at him, at his general direction.
The balls hit him with smacking noise as it hit his feet, heat and chest.
Davos struggled to move his feet.
But he was weak. He wasn't that strong enough now.
Every strand of his thread was almost capable of holding almost 50 times the weight of any commercial aircraft and tearing them apart now, provided the weak state that he was in was no joke.
It would take a lot more than strength or brute force to tear his way through, he intellect in which he lacked.
Still he did not pause his struggle.
The soil, and the rocky surface that he stood beneath was loosening up, the way he was struggling, the huge monster that he was, Peter, wasn't surprised a bit.
But still Spidey did not want to cut him any slack and leave him. He crawled on top of him and started to form a cocoon around him as quickly as he could, as efficiently as possible.
He crawled around Davos like he was his pray and there would be no absolute no way for him to escape from to him.
And Peter on the other hand had no intention of sparing any web fluid. He poured on more and more web around him, at first gluing his feet together first and then going for his hand as the other hand had no, material construct to it, so he let it remain hanging and sticking out as he dealt with the rest of his entire body.
Just like any spider looking for his prey, he pulled his other hand and twisted it hard and webbed it to the back of his hand, pinning him in the most atrocious way, a submission move. The most deadly he could think of.
He could hear the rapid beat of his heart as it struggled to cope up with the sudden pressure of his heart and the inability to move his limbs. And the other hand that was almost impervious to the human sight, was almost useless to him.
Peter did not leave even an inch of his skin, taking no chances.
He crawled around his body and as he moved up to his head and the neck.
Peter left just enough gap on his face to let breathe.
The savageness of Davos, his anger only made him struggle more and more against his wishes which made him panic even more.
It further emphasized him, the torture he felt for not having being able to free himself from the shackles that he was bound to.
Sensing the fear, Peter could tell that he had never been in such a 'sticky' situation ever. No one had ever ensnared him the way that he had just done to him.
He almost chuckled at himself, seeing his plight, the menace that he was proving to be before and now seeing him so helpless at the same time.
Just like a spider traps his prey and finally when the deed is almost done the spider would then begin to ingest its meal, taking all the time in its world without a care.
After completely engulfing his prey in his web, Peter leaped down and shot in some more web pinning him suspending him to the nearby trees and rocks till he was almost suspended mid-air.
Peter moved a few steps back.
He had done his work and now it was the Iron Fist's turn.
Iron fist ran quickly and leaped on top of him.
His fists glowing fiercely.
The talisman glowed in synchrony.
It was weird. But whatever that was, it was strong.
But there was something wrong about the way, he handled it.
And for some reason, the talisman, moulded around his hands, took the shape of his wrists and turned his hand into gold. The fingers resembled some priceless gems that Peter had only seen in museums and the History channel.
Spidey moved a few spaces back.
His spider sense had been warning him, the blaring inside his head, growing stronger by each and every step, Iron Fist took towards Davos.
He did not have to rely on his senses to tell him to get away from the Davos, to tell him that he was going to try something dangerous.
Iron Fist delivered a solid blow on his face.
The crunching sounds were horrifying.
The precise shattering sound of the breaking of every plate on his skull.
His nose hung at the most awkward angle Peter had ever seen any one do that.
That was when he realised of the devil that dwelt within every one.
Like a black rider that had a hand over all of us. Slowly and silently calculating, the inner dilemma that dwelt within all of us.
It was absolute, the only undeniable and unmovable fact.
Seeing Iron Fist tear at him, having his own way with Davos made him realise that fact.
The coolest and the only guy Peter thought to have filled with all human principles, priciples that would put the church at shame and that very guy had gone frustrated, long gone enough to drive him completely insane.
And there he was, just on the brink of stripping every flesh from The steel Serpent's body.
Peter had to stop him.
It was true that he wanted to be in Iron Fists position so very bad for pissing him. But he had to draw the line.
This is New York.
Protecting it had always been his greatest responsibility.
And that was his pride, he had to uphold it.
By any means if necessary.
The blinding light followed, took him by surprise.
He squinted his eyes.
He could distinctly see the light erupting from his fingers followed by a distinct hum, from his wrists.
It was so bright that it completely engulfed the Steel Serpent. Like he was shrouded of the heavenly light, like the ever forgiving aura of Kun Lun.
Davos' mouth opened up to a scream but the scream was doused under the low hum that had slowly begun to get inside spidey's head.
It was enough to make him realise that The Steel Serpent was really being subjugated so very bad and strong that it shook him, the pain and the hurt that he felt by whatever method he was being subjugated by the Iron Fist was really having an effect on him.
There was way one could deny that.
It took him some time for his hypersensitive eye to come back to its original state as the blinding light subdued.
Just during the final reminisce of the remaining rays of light, he saw something.
It looked as though Davos was being absorbed by the blinding light.
The hulking mass of Davos', his steroid induced muscular figure that would have been so impossible to miss, but now all that remained was a part of his face.
The cleansing light threatening to consume him, now without even a moment's grace.
Davos' eyes were mad.
Mad with rage and grief, like he was unable to understand.
The confusion and the rage lashed out altogether.
Peter could not help but feel a bit for him.
There was something more to his story that clouded Peter.
Something did not make sense.
Peter had faced many deranged people and all of them had at least some reason for their turning into the darkness that fed them, however lame the reason could have been, there was always a reason for their turning out to be demented.
Peter knew that it was something that didn't involve him anymore but he had to ask him later.
He had to know what it was all about.
By now the blinding night had covered up the entire space into blackness. Like the darkness being pried away from the everlasting light of the Lord's almighty touch.
Right then, his head sucked right inside the blinding light and right then the light left altogether and the weird feeling that Peter had been feeling all the time diminished slowly that felt to him like someone pouring icy water on him. The transition was unpleasant. He remembered, when he entered the black hole, was something different, more aggravated but there was something more. The experience was something but that wasn't just unforgettable but it was like a dream to him.
Space and time travel, black holes, dimensional rifts always had a special place in his heart. To him, it occupied a very unique position in his mind, solving the mysteries of the universe.
Following the incomplete works of Albert Einstein and his work on relativity, the postulates that he out forward.
He was more than stunned to take all of it in him.
The closing of the hole and the way it had opened up and the inbuilt resistance that Peter shared with the the rest of the people living on the other side.
A place that MJ had referred to as the heavens. Was it really possible?
Could he really find a way and go all the way up there.
How would the travelling seem?
Will it be a rush?
Will it be overwhelming?
Of course, its going to overwhelming. What did you think it would be, like travelling from New York to Sacramento?
The questions stormed up his mind like fireworks.
The fight, the rift that had occurred, its effect on everything nearby, disrupting all the nearby communication channels, the continuous static within his ear.
It was like a can of gatorade for him that only the most interested and the insane meekness in him would get satiated by it. The entire thing.
The Iron Fist walked up to him.
Spidey stared at his hands.
His right wrist where the totem had constructively wound itself around his fingers envelope in his fingers, till it looked like an overpriced prosthetic jewelry.
It had come to its original shape.
"Did that thing absorb you pal right in there?"asked Peter hardly curious, by now, upon having seen almost everything, nothing would faintly.
He looked at the totem again again.
The shiny glow that had before the Iron Fist used it was replaced by a green deposit, like copper oxide and the patches of rust that it had was undeniable.
It no longer looked like it was really valuable.
But Iron Fist took care, of it, now more than ever, just like a small little baby that needed cuddling.
He careful placed it deep within small cloth pouch that he pulled out of the inner lining of his torso.
He turned it inside out. The inside looked like some kind of a smooth silky cloth lining, where he carefully placed the rotten worn out totem inside, like it were a small infant.
He tied it using a rope that was already sown to the mouth of the satin cloth pouch.
He tied it carefully and hung it around his waist.
The entire design was old school.
Still Peter ignored it.
He was just glad that it was over.
The fight had sapped just enough of his strength.
And he just wanted for all of it to be over for good. He was willing to let it all go.
Iron Fist came over to him.
His eyes looked distant. Like something dawning upon him, showing repose. His eyes showed gratefulness.
"Peter. You have my regards and my gratitude. I could not have brought him down without your help.". His fingers curled into a fist and he placed it on his chest and stared at Peter straight at him, looked into his eyes.
"I am sorry, for encroaching upon your privacy for everything that did that I know was wrong. I know I haven't been the most sublime at hiding myself out to you. But you have done your part and played it out the most beezer way you could. For that you will forever have my thanks."
Peter lifted his right fist as well and balled it to a fist mimicking him and placed it just above his heart.
"And now, since my work here is done you won't find me anywhere. I have to go back. Spells have to be placed so that the he doesn't escape anymore." Said iron Fist.
He brought his fist down and turned back.
"Back to heaven?" asked Peter.
"Oh if that's what you would like to call it.." he smiled slightly at him.
"How are you gonna go back?"
The Iron Fist did not turn his head back. He continued to walk into the dark depth of the blackness, the dawn creeping up on the night by now.
It was the light of heaven, the healing morning lights of Kun Lun.
Spidey got one last glimpse before he disappeared in it, in a small flash of light.
The dawn had begun to disappear slowly, his spider sense could register all of it. He disappeared right there, leaving behind small fumes at his wake. The night was had become black once again.
Peter just thought for a moment.
For some weird reason there wasn't any fatigue in his body. He felt springy and alive as ever but his mind was fatigued. He looked at himself there was nothing on him. Not even a scratch.
His costume was good as new.
Completely new, unscathed just before he had begun to fight.
It felt to him like everything had happened in just a blink of his eye.
He was just about to turn back with his mind confused as ever when the static greeted his ears once again.
The Agents were trying to contact him.
They wanted to know what had gone wrong. And he would have the most fascinating story to tell them.
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