"People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls." -Carl Jung
MAXIMUM CARNAGE! Part 1 - The Beginning of the End of the World
Summer vacation would start in only two weeks.
It was currently lunch period. Because of the increasingly nice weather, half the students were eating outside the school. Peter and Gwen weren't eating anywhere. They walked through the hallways side by side, in the midst of people who already finished lunch.
"I asked around, and I heard Cletus didn't attend any of his classes today," Gwen explained, keeping her voice down.
Cletus was supposed to check in with them between each period, but they haven't seen him all day.
"Then he really is... him today," Peter muttered.
"He probably won't show up at all today," Gwen said. "He's causing trouble outside, somewhere."
"Not necessarily. He might still come. He likes watching people in school... Picking targets."
A buzzing started in Peter's head. He stopped in his tracks, and Gwen stopped after him. Speak of the devil...
"He's here," Peter said. Gwen followed his gaze.
At the very end of the hallway, a certain redhead stepped around the corner and into view. He gave the two of them a nasty smile.
"It's definitely him right now," Peter confirmed with his enhanced senses. "He skipped morning classes to get that suit." He looked at Gwen. "Wait for me outside."
"You sure you'll be okay?" she asked.
"This should be a one-on-one conversation."
Gwen still looked concerned. Peter was just as concerned, but he tried not to show it. "Everything will be okay... I promise." And then he kissed her on her forehead.
He quickly walked down the hall to meet his opponent. Carnage was smirking at him like the troll he was.
"So that girl from yesterday was YOUR girl," Carnage mused. "The world keeps getting smaller. Seems like EVERYONE I know knows you."
Before Peter could respond, his cell phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket and looked at the caller ID. It read "Harry."
Peter hung up and shoved the cell back in his pocket. "I want to talk to you."
Carnage snorted. "Talk, talk, talk. All anybody does around here is talk. Doesn't it get boring? Well, I don't mind. I have some time to kill before-"
He was interrupted. Once again, Peter's phone was ringing. Even though he could see it coming, Peter checked it anyway. It was still Harry.
"It's tough being popular," Carnage said with a smirk.
Peter ended the call. And before Harry tried to call again, Peter turned his cell phone off. "There, we won't be interrupted now."
"How nice... So where should we have our chat?"
Outside in the courtyard, Mary Jane was patiently waiting for Peter and Gwen when her phone suddenly rung. The number wasn't from her contacts - she didn't recognize it - but answered anyway. "Hello?"
"Where's Peter?" a voice shouted at her.
"Harry?" Mary Jane was confused. She and Harry didn't really know each other except through Peter. "How did you get my number?"
"That doesn't matter right now," he snapped back.
"It sorta does-"
"I can't get through to Peter, and Gwen has me blocked all the time anyway, so you're the only one left. Where is he?"
Mary Jane hesitated. Normally, she wouldn't reveal important information, but Harry's urgent tone got her worried.
"Is he talking with Carnage - no, Carnage or Cletus - right now? Is he?"
Finally, she answered, "Probably, yes."
"Stop him!"
"Why?"
"I don't have time to explain. I'm not even sure if I'm right. But if I am right, Peter and Carnage can't be left alone together! Trust me, it'll trigger the worst-case scenario!"
Mary Jane ran towards the school building.
Peter and Carnage found an empty classroom to use. Peter shut the door behind him and faced his antithesis.
Carnage wasn't in his costume. It was just Cletus' clothes and Cletus' face... It was surreal for Peter to watch. He saw the eyes, hair, nose, lips, ears, skin, and limbs and recognized them all from Cletus' body. But the way he smiled was not like Cletus. The way his stare burned holes into you, his rocky pacing, the way he propped himself up on a desk, and even when he was perfectly still... it was nothing like Cletus. It was like watching an actor you knew personally perform a scene on TV, but Peter knew in his gut it wasn't an act.
I wonder if this is what it feels like for Gwen.
"Well..." Carnage drawled out. "Here we are..."
"Carnage, please stop using that suit to hurt people," Peter asked firmly but empathically.
"Spider-Face and your special lady asked me that yesterday, but I noticed none of you have given me a good reason yet."
"Protecting people is the only reason," he replied. "You're only concerned with making yourself happy. But I'm thinking of a way to make everyone involved happy. The only thing my friends and I want is to settle this conflict without anybody getting hurt... The best-case scenario is you making peace with Cletus."
"What a wonderful plan! Everybody becomes friends! We all get along and live our lives together with sunshine and rainbows happily ever after! Yay, yay, yay!" Carnage snorted. "Are you retarded? There's no way an evil villain would agree to that just because you brought it up."
"Is living with Cletus really that unbearable for you?"
"I'm going to kill Cletus," he said simply. "I'm going to be whole. That's what I want."
"You're making a mistake. Being alone isn't the only way to be an individual. Spidey and I are the proof of that."
"After talking with Spider-Face, I realized it WAS stupid to think we were the same. You don't like what I like. What works for you isn't gonna work for me. So stop preaching, man."
But Peter wouldn't give up just yet. "I won't stop until I'm finished. I told you, Spidey and I are the proof that coexistence is possible between alters. It's not always easy, but we've found comfort in this way of life. Each of us 'exists' as a 'person,' and that's enough for us."
"Our situations are totally different. I know how to kill an alter, YOU don't. You're going on and on about how wonderful it is to live together in harmony, but who are you kidding? It was your ONLY choice - at least until now," he added with an even more sinister grin. "Spider-Face rejected my offer, but if you join me-"
"It wasn't my only choice..." Peter quietly interrupted, lowering his eyes.
"Huh? What was that?" Carnage asked with a mocking smile.
Peter repeated, louder, "It wasn't my only choice. It wasn't even my first choice... I had any number of options. I could have tried harder to keep him trapped in my bedroom whenever he came out. I could have told Gwen, or my family, and asked for their help. I could have blackmailed Spidey into submission. I could have committed myself to a hospital, use medication or therapy to stop him from coming out... I could still do most of those options. But I chose to treat him like an equal and let him have some freedom."
He stared Carnage in the eye. "It was the best option, but it's not perfect. Spidey causes me a lot of problems and I'm scared of losing my sense of self. I had to sacrifice a lot of things for his sake, but that's what I chose, and I'm content with it."
Carnage stared back at Peter for a long second. Then he burst out laughing. He bent over, clutching his sides, almost lost balance and needed to support himself on a desk. Loud, hysterical, and totally uncontrolled laughing.
"Wow! How magnanimous!" Carnage looked up at the brunette. Tears were actually coming out of his eyes he was laughing so hard. "You're so noble! So righteous! I should elect you for sainthood! AHA HA HA HA HA! You'd help anyone in trouble, wouldn't you?"
He wiped the tears away. "Let me guess: if you got the evil me instead of the superhero Spidey, you'd still be just as nice, huh? You'd still sacrifice half your life for me 'cause you're just SO compassionate! GYA HA HA!"
"No, I wouldn't," Peter said bluntly. "You're not worth it."
Those four words sobered Carnage up completely. He instantly became silent. He stood up straight and calm and looked at Peter with raised eyebrows. "Oh... Is that so?"
"I came here to speak with you because I thought I could reform you," Peter spoke calmly and coolly. "Cletus is a good person, so I thought you might be a good person too, deep down. I thought you had a shred of decency. I thought you could be redeemed... I made a mistake."
"Man, did I have you pegged wrong," Carnage muttered. "I thought 'good people' would forgive anyone. I guess you're not so good after all."
"I never claimed to be a saint who did good deeds naturally. I'm only making a conscious effort to do the right thing... Because of that, I was willing to put aside my own feelings to help Cletus, but I don't think I could ever really forgive you."
"Why not?" Carnage asked. "What makes me so different? How come you accept Spider-Face and Cletus but still reject ME?"
"It's simple." Peter looked him in the eye and answered, "Because I love Gwen more than anything in the world and you almost killed her."
"I had to!" Carnage shouted back. "Hurting others, being a supervillain, it's the only way to assert my 'existence'! To prove that I'm not Cletus!"
"The only way?"
He buried his face in his hands. His body stared to tremble. It seemed like he was sobbing. "What was I supposed to do? What other choice did I have? I NEEDED some way to show the world that I was different from Cletus. I only did those horrible, evil things because... because..."
"'Because you thought it would be fun,' right?" Peter repeated. "'For no good reason at all,' right?"
Carnage stopped trembling. He lowered his hands and stared at Peter. He was surly like a kid caught in a lie.
"You've been saying that all along, but now that karma's catching up to you, you try to get sympathy? Sorry, but my friends and I aren't that gullible. Your split personality isn't the cause of your actions - just a cover."
Carnage shrugged with exaggeration. "Okay, man. You've proven I can't be reformed... Now what? You still don't know my Grand Master Plan, so you can't save Cletus. And you're still not strong enough to beat me in a fight. The way I see it, you're screwed."
"We still have options. We can put a watch on Cletus. He'll never be left alone. And whenever you come out, my friends will confine you somewhere so you can't cause trouble. You're just a normal person without your suit after all."
"What if I start wearing the suit full time?" Carnage asked.
"Then you'd still be wearing it when you switch with Cletus," Peter answered. "He gives it to us, and the problem reverts to the previous scenario."
"Okay..." The plan actually had some merit - some. "But you never know when I'll come out. Can you really watch my container twenty-four seven?"
"If Gwen, Mary Jane and I can't, then we'll ask Harry to help," he confidently replied. "If things get desperate, we might ask Debra and her friends to help too. And if the plan still fails, we'll think of something else. We'll do whatever it takes to stop you."
Carnage lowered his face and spoke quietly. His clenched fists dug fingernails into his palms. "First Harry, then Norman... Spider-Face, those girls and the fatso from yesterday, and now you... People are always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always getting in my way."
"Whose fault is that?" Peter shot back. "You attack us for your own sick pleasure. Of course we'd try to stop you. You're like a little kid who thinks it's okay to break the rules just because he wants it!"
Carnage flinched. Peter sounded just like Harry did that day.
"Hurting people is what I want. It's who I am! Is it wrong to be myself?!"
"It's absolutely wrong to hurt others, no matter what excuse you use! Even if you were born with an impulse for violence, you chose not to fight that impulse. You chose to value yourself more than others. Everything that happened after that is your own fault!"
"Screw you!" Carnage's rage was reaching its peak. "Go to hell! I'm sick of listening to you! I'm going to kill Cletus no matter what!"
"To prove your existence, right? Being the only personality in a body doesn't prove anything. My mind exists and it's separate from Spidey's because I believe it. 'I think, therefore I am'."
"Those are just words!" he spat.
"But I believe them," Peter calmly asserted. "Messing with someone else won't change you. You have to change yourself. It's your own insecurity you need to get rid of, not Cletus. But you're just too weak to let it go. So you hurt Cletus instead."
"Weak...? Me...?" Carnage tried to giggle, but it didn't really work. He was too angry. "You'll see... The whole world will see... Once Cletus is gone..."
"Then you'll still be weak!" Peter told him. "Even if Cletus is gone, you'll still be the same: petty and unconfident. You'll never be whole. You'll always have a big scar on your heart, because you felt inferior to Cletus!"
At that point Carnage lost the ability to make words. His anger took the form of a loud, senseless growl.
Peter raised his voice to still be heard. "I won't let myself devolve into someone like you. You're a shallow, one-dimensional person, and it's not Cletus' fault. It's not even the fault of being born second. It's all your own fault!"
"SHUT UP! SHUT UP!"
Carnage covered his ears and screamed. "I AM... WHOLE!"
Red and black coils shot out and wrapped around his body. It was a physical explosion of anger that created a literal shockwave, knocking over desks and pushing Peter back a few feet. More tendrils shot out from Carnage's costume and stabbed the walls.
Peter stared in shock. He didn't expect Carnage to use the power suit inside a public school. He realized he made a horrible miscalculation.
"AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Carnage's transformation wasn't like normal. Even after the blood-colored gel covered his body, it continued to spread out from his feet and back. Tentacles covered the floor and walls like mutated ivy. The industrial schoolroom was quickly turning into a bloody thorn bush.
What is this? Peter thought. Is this... Carnage's version of Rage Mode?!
The fully costumed Carnage grabbed Peter's neck and lifted him into the air.
"I'm sick of everything," he hissed into Peter's face. "I'm sick of being treated like a sub-human... I'm sick of waiting for Norman to finish our deal... and I'm totally sick of YOU... If you see Norman, tell him that his time is up!"
And then Carnage threw Peter out the window. The boy crashed through the wood and glass and fell outside the building.
"What is all that screaming?" said someone's scared voice from outside the room.
Carnage turned around and burst through the door - literally. He tore through the wooden door like it was made of tissue. His tentacles stretched and trailed behind him like a marionette's strings. He left footprints like red acid that bubbled and covered the floor.
He looked like something from a horror movie, an alien experiment, and Dante's Inferno, all rolled into one.
The people in the hallway screamed and ran. Carnage raised his arms and shot two tendrils from his palms. They each stabbed a person in the stomach. The two students groaned and collapsed to their knees. They moaned as their skin turned pale.
"Oh, stop whining, you wussies," Carnage sneered. "I'm not gonna kill you. I'll only suck you a LITTLE BIT dry."
His tendrils released the students and they fell unconscious. More strings shot out of Carnage's body and connected him to the walls, spreading more of his dark red gel everywhere.
"I'll need as many transfusions as I can get... ANY VOLUNTEERS?"
It happened so fast Peter almost didn't realize what happened. Carnage threw him, then he crashed through a closed window, and then he was tumbling through the air. The classroom was on the second floor. Which meant Peter crash-landed and rolled across the ground a little after a two-story fall.
The grass was soft - and he had superpowers - but it still hurt. He took a minute to reorient himself.
Other students saw him and ran over to help, but Peter pushed them away and got to his feet on his own. He looked back up at the window he came from. It was the only window with broken glass, but the red vines quickly grew in its place, blocking it from entry.
"Peter!" Gwen pushed through the crowd and ran to Peter's side, but the brunette was still looking up at the building in horror.
"I messed up," he said, partly to Gwen, partly to himself. "I shouldn't have provoked him. I made everything worse..." He ran out of the crowd. "I have to get back inside!"
Peter ran around the building's corner and towards the front entrance. But before he could get there a crashing sound interrupted him.
The windows around the first one shattered, then the ones around those, and so on. It spread like a ripple until those red vines blocked every opening in the building. In just a few seconds, the school looked like an abandoned building overrun by blood-colored ivy.
Peter pulled and banged on the front doors, but they wouldn't budge. Carnage's tendrils were keeping it closed from the inside. Not even Peter's super strength could break it open.
"No, no, no!"
Carnage turned the school into his stronghold, and he had half the students and staff trapped inside with him.
Peter turned around. He saw a lot of people staring at the building in confusion or fear. He saw Gwen staring in worry. But there was someone he didn't see.
He moved to Gwen. "Where's Mary Jane? I thought you were waiting with her?"
"She... She ran back inside... And then this happened..."
Peter's horror reached a new low.
Inside the school, nothing looked industrial or civilized anymore. The red goop was everywhere. It was a war zone.
Unconscious people were scattered all over the place. Some were slumped on the ground, some pinned to the walls, all stabbed with tendrils and being slowly drained.
And in the center of it all was Carnage. The tentacles on his back connected him to the whole network. He was basking in his creation.
"Now... the rampage begins!"
To be continued...
Author's Notes: (8/31/2013) A big chapter and the start of a new arc. I'm sorry if I disillusioned anybody with Peter - who is usually a kind person - telling Carnage how much he sucked. I mean, Carnage totally deserved it, but still.
Special Shout-Out to LandofMidnightRain for reviewing. I've honestly been down in the dumps lately. This story has gotten barely any new reviewers in several months, and it stings more when I compare it to other, more recent stories. But then I saw what Land wrote. And it reminded me that I have some actual fans who really seem to enjoy what I write. Their words - cliché as it sounds - warmed my heart, and made me feel silly for wanting quantity readers when I already have quality. I'll try not to forget you guys again.
Disclaimer: Peter's talk with Carnage was inspired by a lot of other stuff. The context is totally different, but it was largely influenced by Anri's talk with Haruna Niekawa in the anime "Durarara!" ("No, I wouldn't," Peter said bluntly. "You're not worth it.") It also had elements of the battle with Insomnia in the manga "DNAngel" ("I'M A REAL THING!") and Captain Picard telling off Armus in "Star Trek: The Next Generation." I don't own any of them, of course.
Details came later, but I had the idea that Carnage might take over the school for a long time. I FEEL like it was before "Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions" came out, but that was such a long time ago, and Carnage took over S.H.I.E.L.D. in such a similar way, I'm not sure anymore... Either way, I don't own that game.