Chapter 9 - Spider-City
Avengers Institute - Indeterminate Amount of Time After World War Hulk
"Basically the writer's way of saying 'Fuck the timeline! Comic books make no sense in that regard anyway!'"
Fuck you, Deadpool!
"I already have six ladies to do that for me, or do you not remember the awesome news at the tail ends of the last two chapters?"
You always have to have the last word, don't you?
"Pretty much."
Well I'm the Narrator, so that means I get the first word! And I say the first word is that all your contraceptives failed!
"YOU CAN'T DO THAT!"
I'm the Narrator! I can do whatever I want! Have fun with fatherhood and six sickly, spewing, mood-swinging, and swollen spouses!
*Frightened Gasp!*-"Clever alliteration! My one true weakness (other than a cure for cancer, and the comedic charms of the Olsen Twins and the late Bea Arthur)! Damn you! Also, to everyone leaving anonymous reviews, please stop it, the writer deletes that spam without distinction. And could somebody please put this story on the recommended fanfiction list on TVTropes? Maybe even make a page for it? Thanks!"
Wasn't there something else here earlier?
"Yeah, but the writer got rid of that because the fans didn't like it. I'll summarize the best points by saying that the writer is completely making up the story as he goes along, and adds and drops girls to and from the harem at the drop of a hat, or based on pre-established couples from various 'canon' continuities. He's got a general idea for the story, but the details are ever changing. For instance, both the beginning and end of this chapter have gotten slight modifications from the original version, so those of you who didn't like the first version, and those of you who just want more, will want to reread at least those parts."
I thought it involved politics.
"I can't hear you when you don't have any quotation marks like you do." Deadpool blatantly lied. "But I also mentioned moving to Japan to help establish Big Hero 6, get away from the writer's version of Civil War in the next chapter (Spoilers: which won't be a war, so much as a one-sided and highly cathartic beatdown for anyone who hated the original and second Civil Wars, which is everyone with a functioning brain), and help my new girlfriend Ashley get into sumo wrestling."
"For the last time Wade, we're just going to Japan for a photo shoot, not to make me a sumo wrestler." Ashley Crawford - the greatest bikini model in Wisconsin, as well as the mutant super heroine Big Bertha - tipped her mirrored shades as she slicked back her faux-hawk and strolled up in red heels and a bikini. "Though I wouldn't be opposed staying and seeing the sights for a while, super crime is pretty low in the Great Lakes area."
"Okay, you don't have to be a sumo wrestler." Deadpool moaned as he stopped narrating. "It's not like you really could become a sumo wrestler anyway, since women aren't even allowed to set foot in the ring for religious reasons anyway."
"What was that?" Ashley inquired crossly as her body began to expand with fatty tissue. "Those sumo wrestlers actually think that women aren't as capable at sports as men?" She growled as she flexed her blubber laden arms, squeezing her increasingly massive breasts into her increasingly tight bikini top. "Well I've got 900 pounds of adipose tissue that says I can out wrestle any man in the ring!" She boasted proudly as she slapped her massive, flabby gut, sending ripples across her entire massive, seven foot frame of flab and flubber. "And don't think I didn't notice what you did just now." She said as she stomped the ground, her custom-made, super stretchy shoes cracking a hole in the concrete floor with her heels. "You and I are going to be having words later on while you're giving me a sponge bath and deep, deep tissue massage."
"I am both terrified and aroused!" Deadpool grinned stupidly as Big Bertha carried him away in her armpit and stomped away like a cavewoman. "I don't suppose we could get you into the Savage Lands in a leopard-skin bikini by any chance?" The chubby chaser giggled eagerly at the mention of cavewomen.
Actual Chapter - Now
"Good going Komodo, remember to strike with the end of your tail!" Spider-Man instructed the hero-in-training as he vaulted around the training arena. "Trust me, I know from experience that that's the part that hurts the most." He shuddered as he got mild flashbacks to his fight with The Lizard.
"Got it!" Komodo flashed a toothy grin as she swiped her tail at the 'legs' of a weighted training dummy, knocking it several meters through the air before colliding with a wall and landing upright. "Yesss!" She hissed with glee at the distance she got.
"AD, GR, how's your sparring going?" Spidey asked as he monitored the clash between the shield-toting heroine and the motorbiking anti-heroine from a safe distance.
"Getting a little fired up!" American Dream panted excitedly as she deflected whip after whip from the circling Ghost Rider's flaming chains. "But nothing a little heat shield can't fix!" She joked as she tossed her shield right in-between the spokes of the bike's front wheel, sending Ghost Rider flying head over handlebar into a padded wall, dissipating her bike in a puff of hellfire and sending the handlebars flying far away from her.
"Quipping, very nice." Spidey nodded in approval as Shannon picked up her shield as it rolled back to her. "I see my private lessons have been paying off."
"You two quip when you're having sex?" Alejandra questioned, her fire burning hotter as she took in their shocked reactions. "Oh, were those not the private lessons you were talking about?" She managed to contort her skull into a mocking grin.
"She just quipped us." Spidey whispered in astonishment. "A Ghost Rider just quipped us. Is that even allowed? Shouldn't there be some kind of, I don't know, unspoken rule that gritty anti-heroes aren't allowed to make jokes?"
"Says the guy dating multiple gritty anti-heroes while fancying himself a comedian." Finesse taunted from the rafters before dismounting, rebounding off the wall, and landing in Spider-Man's traditional crouch on a gymnastic bar. "I guess you're just rubbing off on all of us, though whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is debatable." She chuckled before swinging around and somersaulting to the ground.
"Ouch, go easy on my fragile ego, won't ya?" He recoiled in mock shock. "It's scary enough that you've already copied all the even remotely humanly possible physical skills of every hero and villain the Avengers have on record. If you start making jokes too I might be put out of a job."
"You already sort of are." Nico countered as she levitated over in a lotus position. "After that raid on a HYDRA base you, Spider-Girl, X-23, and the Punishers did a few months back, the Punishers have been using looted HYDRA tech to go on a cross country mass murder spree against criminals."
"Okay, first of all, that was a very impromptu alliance, and I regret helping them get their hands on all those weapons and armor, even if it was accidental." Spider-Man defended himself. "Second, your magic practice is coming along great Nico. You sure are making a lot of progress under Dr. Strange's tutelage. Third, their methods may be... extreme, but despite my many, many moral objections, there's no logical way to deny that the Punishers are doing far more good than harm. Murder rates are way up, but all the victims are known criminals and gangsters, and all other crimes are down. As much as it kills me inside to admit it, their methods work with absolutely zero drawbacks on innocent civilians and other heroes, and really well at that." He quickly snapped out of his musings and noticed the worried looks he was getting. "Don't get me wrong! I'm not gonna go off the deep end and start killing every baddie I come across, but maybe there's a good reason some places still allow the death penalty to be used on the worst of the worst."
"Glad to hear." Laura smiled as she pushed a stroller into the room. "You are unsuited to killing, and I do not want our children to have two bad role models."
"They aren't even gonna have one." Spidey grinned gleefully as he jumped over and began tickling his young triplets. "That's right, isn't it my precious little big girl, Zelda? My little shining albino, Bellona? And my sweetest little baby girl, Gabby? Mama is a good superhero with high standards, isn't she, isn't she?"
"Her standards can't be too high if she's together with you." Evangeline remarked sarcastically as she handed her boss a stack of paperwork. "These need your signatures by the way. They're the parts orders for the flying cars you've been working on."
"Oh, hey there Vange." Spider-Man chuckled nervously as he took the papers. "Long time no see... I... honestly I was kinda expecting Jennifer to bring these."
"She's visiting family on Sakaar, and our new assistant is on a date with her girlfriend." The dragonesque woman remarked with a sigh. "Look, I know things have been awkward since our little spat, but do you think we could at least try to get our relationship back on track?"
"Whoa, what spat are they talking about?" Hazmat turned to Veil and Finesse quizzically as Spider-Man and Vange discussed matters both work related and personal. "I know I've been buried in my training since I got this curse, but you'd think a fight between my boyfriend and a dragon woman would be hard to miss."
"You didn't know?" Finesse chuckled in disbelief. "It happened months ago. Apparently Vange got pretty hormonal once she found out she got knocked up, and they've been avoiding each other ever since. You really have been focusing too much on your training."
"Vange was kinda freaked out after Hulk attacked and Galactus showed up." Veil sighed sadly as she made her hands into little smoke figures resembling a large woman with wings and a proportionately smaller man. "Couple that with finding out that she was gonna be a mother no more than a few days later, and you've got a recipe for disaster." She remarked as the smoke figure of the dragon woman started breathing a plume of smoke, forcing the male smoke figure to retaliate and hogtie her.
"Ah, I guess I can see that happening." Hazmat nodded in acceptance. "I don't really know Vange that well, so it doesn't matter much to me, but Spidey must be pretty upset about it."
"Yeah, but sometimes relationships hit a little snag from time to time, y'know?" Finesse swung her arms over the shoulders of her two sister lovers. "Powers or not, Vange is more comfortable in a courtroom than fighting criminals or having a baby. Besides, he still has us and about a dozen other girls to keep him warm at night while they smooth things over."
"You mean he still has you to keep him warm at night." Hazmat huffed as she pulled herself away. "If I try to keep him warm he's liable to get cancer or something, mild radiation immunity be damned."
"Oh shit!" Finesse hissed as she realized her serious slip-up. "Jennifer, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to-"
"No, it's already out there." Hazmat held up her hand in a halting motion. "I get it, I'm just a walking nuclear fallout just waiting to happen."
"Jennifer, that's not what she meant and you know it." Veil assured her friend as she wrapped her bandaged arms around her. "Maybe you just need to get out there with him on a simple date. Take your mind off your problems and just spend time with him. I know it always makes me feel more confident whenever I'm feeling down. He has this warm way of paying attention that just makes me feel like I'm always going to be loved and understood."
"Was that supposed to be poetry?" Finesse scratched her head in confusion. "Anyway, Maddie's right you know. You said you wanted to be one of his girlfriends, so go out there and act like it already." She pushed her toward Spider-Man eagerly, much to Hazmat's ire. "Come on, I know you two haven't had any one-on-one time since you hooked up. Look at it this way; if you always focus all your time and energy on learning to control your radiation levels, you'll never unwind enough to actually use that control for some fun." She gave her friend two thumbs up.
"Don't you have a shield to throw or an arrow to go shoot or something?" Hazmat scoffed defensively as she stood her ground.
"If you insist." Finesse shrugged playfully as she fluidly notched an arrow on her bow, pointed off into a seemingly random direction, and let it fly. "Might wanna watch your step though." She teased as she turned and counted off three steps.
"What on Earth is she talking ab-oh shit!" Hazmat panicked as she tripped backwards trying to avoid the arrow Finesse had just shot, realizing too late that it was a bouncing arrow when it harmlessly ricocheted off the floor, and again off her helmet. Unable to right herself, the inertia from her initial stumble and the arrow caused her to fall right into Spider-Man's arms, just as Finesse smugly caught the arrow once it ran out of momentum.
"Easy there Jennifer, don't wanna risk any head trauma." Spidey joked as he propped her back up. "Bandaging it up would be a real pain in the butt, or cranium as the case may be."
'That jerk!' Hazmat glared at the ground, her helmet glaring up as Jeanne's soft chuckling reached her ears. 'I don't know how she knew everything would fall into place like this - no, actually I do know, I just don't want to sound like an idiot accusing her of it without evidence - but she will pay for it!'
"Uh, Jennifer are you alright?" Spider-Man asked worriedly, drawing the radioactive mutant out of her internal musings. "Look, I'm sorry if I struck a nerve with that joke just now, but that's just what I do when I'm worried. I crack jokes. I was just worried about you, and I couldn't stop my mouth before it-"
"Stop." Hazmat cut him off abruptly. "Just stop. It's fine, I'm fine, everything is fine."
"Are you sure? You seem like your mind is on some personal troubles. You know you can always talk to me if you need a shoulder to lean on or something." He offered kindly.
'Damn his observant kinder nature!' Hazmat blushed hotly, spiking her radiation levels. Still, despite her embarrassment, part of her didn't want to let this golden opportunity go to waste. "Well, if you really want to help, then maybe we could spend some time together, just the two of us?" She requested as she averted her eyes nervously.
"Just the two of us, like a date?" She couldn't see it, but she knew her sort-of boyfriend was grinning like an idiot under his mask.
"Not like a date, exactly a date." Hazmat corrected him as she struggled to ignore the exaggerated gestures of encouragement from Finesse and Veil. "We've been boyfriend and girlfriend for a few months now, and we've never really been on an actual date."
"I know, but I figured that you needed to work through some personal business before you were comfortable with an actual date." Spidey shrugged. "That's part of the reason why I've been focusing so much extra attention on your training."
'I didn't even notice that!' Hazmat blushed as she thought back on all the times he was there to help her out, or just to talk, or whatever. 'Some girlfriend I am, I barely even notice when my boyfriend is paying more attention to me than the rest of his girlfriends.' Shaking that thought from her head with a shiver, she turned her full attention to her boyfriend. "Well I'm ready for an actual date now, so let's go do something, though I'm not sure what kind of date we can have with my condition and all."
"I'm sure we'll think of something nice to do." He assured her as he wrapped an arm around her shoulder and guided her off. "Hey Laura, you mind putting Zelda, Bellona and Gabby down for their nap without me? Jennifer and I are gonna have some alone time." He asked his lover gently.
"Of course." Laura nodded curtly. "You two have fun. Try to make some more half-siblings for the triplets." She requested nonchalantly as she pushed the stroller away, leaving Hazmat a stuttering wreck.
"Don't worry about her Jennifer, she was only joking about the half-sibling thing... I think, it's kinda hard to tell with her." Spidey shrugged as he held his radioactive lover steady. "So, what do you say to ordering a couple of extra large pizzas and illegally downloading movies over the internet?"
"Aren't you supposed to be a hero?" Hazmat questioned skeptically. "Isn't illegally downloading movies... illegal?"
"Confucius Say: Any movie over ten year old is victimless crime." Spider-Man recited in an unoffensive old Chinese sage accent. "Besides, movie and television companies are too focused on keeping their stuff off of YouTube to notice any of the lesser known video streaming sites, especially if we're talking foreign films."
"Japanese Horror!" Hazmat requested eagerly.
"I was thinking more Abbott and Costello, the Marx Brothers, Kamen Rider, or Super Sentai, but whatever works for you I guess." Spidey shrugged as tried not to shudder at the possibility of watching the original version of The Ring.
"How about we meet in the middle?" Hazmat suggested, working really hard to pay attention to the subtle physical cues her boyfriend was giving off. "I've heard some pretty awesome things about Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl."
"That sounds like it's either going to be really scary, really violent, really dirty, really funny, really awful, really over the top, or most likely a really wonderful combination of all of the above." Spider-Man grinned like a madman. "Make sure the latches of your suit are on tight, because the ladies tell me I get pretty grabby whenever something really tickles my funny bone." He teased as he quickly squeezed Hazmat's butt, causing her to jump with a start.
"Two can play that game." Hazmat grinned as she returned fire, eliciting a giggling yelp from her boyfriend. "Damn, you've got a sweet ass!"
Some Random Temple in Africa
"Finally, after months of effort, the last of the Spiders have arrived." 'Or at least as many as I can summon and control with my dwindling connection to the Web of Life and Destiny!' Anansi bitterly panted as he leaned on his cane, looking far from the once great and powerful divine image he used to portray as he stood above the high above a room of hundreds of men and women, most of whom were dressed in some variation or other of Spider-Man's iconic attire. "Now then, my children of the Web, many of you are no doubt wondering why I have summoned you all here." He tried to sound loud, omnipresent, and awe-inspiring, only to sound much more like a rasping old man on the verge of death in ear bleeding surround sound. "There is a great tragedy among us, for your noble chosen triad has shifted wildly off-course. The Other has shunned his destiny, and in doing so rent the Web of Life and Destiny asunder, placing us all at grave risk!" He paused so he could begin coughing loudly, his throat very sore from just speaking loudly for a few consecutive seconds. 'And by us I mean ME! I couldn't care less about any of your insignificant mortal lives so long as I hold all the power I am entitled to!'
"Now then, my loyal subjects, allow me to introduce to you all the Two whom shall help us to rebuild the Web, as it was meant to be!" Anansi waved to his left as theatrically as a geriatric old coot could, ushering forward a man in a poor imitation of a Spider-Man suit, who was pushing a clear container with a frantic and frightened looking Asian teenage girl trapped inside.
Unbeknownst to the egocentric fools and their helpless hostage on stage however, a pair of predatory eyes gleamed from within the shadows of the crowd.
Parker Family Loft (Formerly the loft of the Osborn Family)
"Wow..." Spider-Man stared blankly at the screen as the credits rolled. "That was one of the most gratuitous, hilarious, arousing, and over the top displays of girl-on-girl violence I've ever seen."
"And that poor male lead." Hazmat giggled uncontrollably. "Out of the frying pan, and into the fire."
"I feel his pain... somewhere, just not here," He grinned as he held Hazmat close, wrapping his arms around her midsection, and snaking around to rest his hands on her hips. "With you." He whispered gently to her.
"Yeah..." Hazmat smiled as a dangerous but tempting thought entered her mind. "You know... I've been training really hard to get things-" She was cut off by Kiden, who picked the worst time - in her opinion - to walk in wearing nothing but lacy black lingerie and cuddle up to their shared boyfriend.
"Hey there Petey~." Kiden cooed as she trailed her fingers across his muscles, which had been getting somewhat bigger lately. "Think you could see your way into doing your horny girlfriend a little favor~?" She tried to pull off a seductive look, but she just came off looking slutty.
"First of all Kiden, can't you see I'm kinda in the middle of something here?" He calmly tried to diffuse the situation as he felt Hazmat heating up in his lap. "Second, we've been over this before, I'm not giving you money for drugs."
"I wasn't gonna ask for drug!" Kiden pouted in her best imitation of offended she could manage. "...This time anyway." She sheepishly added. "What I was gonna ask you is something else entirely, not at all illegal, and actually sorta altruistic." That got Spider-Man's attention, almost as much as her attire in fact, and he pulled out a pad of paper and a pen. "You see, I've got this friend from school named Tatiana - she's a mutant like me, only she temporarily takes on the traits of any animal whose blood she comes in contact with instead of doing what I do - and she's kinda in a fix right now." Kiden ignored Hazmat muttering something like 'of course' and continued. "See, ever since her parents kicked her out for being a mutant she's been seeing this guy, Bobby Soul, and he's a real gentleman and all, but he's kinda homeless and jobless. Well not really jobless, he does a few odd jobs here and there as some extra muscle for the mob - but it's only to provide for his little brother, I swear!" She took a moment to collect herself. "Anyway, he comes from a bad neighborhood and a broken family - not to mention he's a mutant who can astral project at the cost of a spotty memory, which clearly didn't help things - so the fact that he managed to stay as nice as he is - comparatively speaking - is a strong sign that he's a good person who just got a raw deal. Anyway, Bobby kinda knocked Tatiana up recently, and I don't want my friend's baby daddy to be a criminal, so-"
"So you were hoping I could give him a job." Peter completed her sentence as he handed Kiden the slip of paper he'd been writing on. "Give this to Bobby, and tell him to bring it to the front desk of Alchemax immediately. Tell him to wash up, and look presentable. If he's doing some odd jobs for the mob, then he's probably pretty intimidating, so let's put him to work as an apprentice security guard. He does a good job, he moves up, and if he's as nice as you say he is, he probably will. It's not exactly mob money, and he'll have to pay taxes, but it's a steady income, and Alchemax recently bought an apartment complex just a couple of blocks away, so he, Tatiana, and his Lil' Bro can stay there for free until they get on their feet financially. Not to mention that Alchemax has started offering mutants a thousand dollars a person just to run a few quick, painless, and entirely humane tests on them to better our understanding of mutant biology, so he'll be off to a good start right from the get-go."
"...Wait, what?" Kiden just stared blankly at the piece of paper for several long seconds, making Hazmat grin at the stunned look on the time-stopping mutant's face. "That's it? I just hand him this paper and 'boom', instant job and house? This all seems a little too convenient..." She hummed suspiciously.
"It wouldn't seem suspicious if you paid attention to the news, or just the conversations during our family dinners," Peter shook her head playfully as he ruffled her already messy hair. "Which, unlike many other members of the family who sometimes have other matters to attend to, you always attend. That paper you're holding is from the Alchemax Worker Outreach Program; a way to combat unemployment and homelessness, where trusted members of the Alchemax staff can recommend pretty much anyone they come across for any job. The free apartments for the homeless we bought are for the convenience of those very employees we hire with this method to save money on housing, or just for homeless people in general looking for work. After all, about 90% of all problems homeless people have can be easily solved once they have an actual address. And the testing we do with mutants? Like I said, it's totally on the level. With so many people out there who hate mutants, I figure offering things like free health care for mutants and doing a few harmless tests on blood samples would put a big target on my back."
"...And... that's a good thing?" Kiden blinked in astonishment at her boyfriend.
"Yeah, because I can handle being a target." Peter nodded. "It wouldn't be the first time anyway, and it could draw out a bunch of mutant-hate groups for the cops and capes to round up. Not to mention my company is well protected, and the tests we do could help mutants everywhere live better lives."
"...I wanna have your babies sooooo~ badly right now." Kiden remarked in monotone before shaking the stars from her head. "I gotta go give Tatiana the good news! She and Bobby are totally gonna FLIP when I give them this!" She squealed in unrestrained joy as she bolted out the door.
"Put on some clothes before you leave!" Peter called out to her as an afterthought.
"I will! My body is only for you to enjoy, Babe!" Kiden called back cheerfully. "And you're gonna enjoy it big time when I get back!"
"Now then, where were we?" Peter remarked as he turned his attention back to Hazmat, who had left his lap to sit on the far end of the couch.
"The Ring." Hazmat pouted as she played the next movie.
Back in Africa
"Greetings, my fellow Spider-Totems!" The ugly old man called out to the forcefully assembled crowd. "I am Ezekiel Sims, the true center of the Web, and The One who shall fulfill the prophesy of the Web." No one responded, the mind control only so strong. "This is Cindy Moon, The Bride of the Web, and another crux of our grand destiny!" Still no response from the crowd, though the young Asian girl began pounding on the glass even harder and more desperately. "As you can all see, she has been contained where none can reach her, for her own safety of course. If the Inheritors knew where she was, if they knew where they could devour her vast power, they would not hesitate to deprive us of the key to our sacred mission." Yet again there was no response, everyone present unconscious of the world around them. None of the parties present besides Ezekiel, Anansi, and one other even knew what the Inheritors WERE. More to the point, none besides that one interloper was even aware that the Inheritors were now all dead.
'It is all working perfectly!' Ezekiel thought to himself delusionally as he continued to stress the importance of the fate he and Anansi had foreseen for everyone, a fate that favored him to the exclusion of all else, even reason. 'Peter Parker may have reclaimed the good fortune I stole from him, along with my own, and dumped all his misfortune upon me along with it, but the Web and that fool Anansi are still on my side! You got greedy Parker, you were supposed to be the decoy, the sacrifice! While I was to rise to the top of the world! These were our roles, this was MY destiny, but you STOLE it from ME! I couldn't care less how much you have suffered, so long as I come out on top, and regain MY glorious youth and power, nothing else matters!'
As Ezekiel continued to delude himself, falling deeper into his madness, the unknown face in the crowd grew angrier as they heard his thoughts.
Back in New York
"Nonononononono!" Peter shuddered as he and Hazmat held each other in fear. "Why did I let you talk me into this? Why did you wanna watch this!?"
"I was upset about Kiden butting into our personal time." Jennifer admitted tearfully, every second of the film making her more and more anxious and forthcoming about her true feelings. "I've been having confidence problems ever since my powers developed, and Kiden prancing around you in her underwear like it was no big deal didn't help matters. You're just such a nice, generous, and understanding guy, and I've just been some pampered 1% girl who's only recently realized just how harsh and unforgiving the world can be, especially to mutants. I've been worried that you might just forget all about me since you have so many other girls that are eager and able to be intimate with you, that I've been trying to distance myself to avoid the pain, and then all of that happens and I just got really mad. I'm sorry for putting you through this!"
"You shouldn't be so worried about physical intimacy." Peter assured her as she flinched away from the screen to bury her face in his strong chest. "I've been admiring you since the moment you began your training. You have things WAY harder than I ever did back when I was first getting the hang of my powers, but you just keep on going strong. I was respecting your space and determination when I tried a slightly more hands off training regimen with you, but that was only because I had every confidence that you were strong enough to handle anything that came your way. I'm sorry that I wasn't paying closer attention my beautiful tsundere."
"I'm sorry I didn't put more trust in you." Jennifer bared her heart and soul to her boyfriend. "I've just been so angry about my circumstances and trying to get back to normal that I didn't have time to think about anything else. I didn't even really want to watch this nightmare fuel, I just wanted to get some attention!"
"Wait...so if you don't wanna watch this, and I don't wanna watch this, then..." They parted slightly and looked each other in the eyes with a hint of humor. "Why are we even watching this?" Peter chuckled, quickly eliciting laughter from his radioactive girlfriend, before they both descended into full blown guffaws. "Oh man, what do you say we turn this off, and put on something we can snuggle to?" He suggested as he stroked her back.
"Snuggle? I can't even touch you without-"
"We don't need skin-to-skin contact to cuddle." Peter assured her as he pressed a soft spot on the small of her back, eliciting a gasp of pleasure from Jennifer. "One of the benefits of having such a promiscuous womanizer for a boyfriend is that he can make you feel things with just a slight touch that you never thought you could feel in an hour of lovemaking." He whispered to her as he proceeded to demonstrate with his fingers on her outer thigh, making her quiver gently.
"...I don't suppose you have anything... dirty to watch, do you?" Jennifer purred seductively as she nestled her head in the crook of his neck.
"Does Harold and Kumar qualify?" Spider-Man joked as he shook the remote playfully.
"It better, or else I came home early for nothing." She-Hulk grinned as she plopped down next to the snuggling couple, making them fall into her lap. "Hey there handsome, did ya miss me?" She flashed her pearly whites at her boyfriend, before looking at Hazmat thoughtfully. "And... Jennifer is it? Small world, I'm a Jennifer too." She chuckled as Spider-Man and Hazmat got back up, the moment gone.
"You would refer to escorting the deposed queen of the Inhumans and her sister to Earth as 'nothing'?" Medusa - the Inhuman with the living hair - scowled as she and her sister Crystal - mistress of water, fire, earth, air, and electricity - stormed into the room. Her gaze transitioned to Spider-Man, her expression darkening somewhat, sending a mild tingle through his Spider-Sense. "So this is the man who is to be our... husband." She remarked disdainfully.
"Husband?!" Spider-Man panicked as he turned to She-Hulk. "What the hell happened out on Sakaar?"
"Medusa was trying to lead an Inhuman rebellion against my cousin." She-Hulk shrugged nonchalantly, the idea of anyone so stupid as to oppose the Hulk and a small army of beings of comparable strength barely registering to her as a concern. "Obviously it didn't work out so well for her, so he sent the big wig and her sister back to Earth for a political wedding. Both to strengthen the diplomatic relations between Earth and Sakaar, and just to get them out of his hair." She chuckled at the hair puns gleefully.
"Your mockery of me is most unwelcome." Medusa remarked haughtily as her younger sister just shook her head and groaned.
"Sister, please just stop this already." Crystal massaged her forehead. "You have already lost any control you had left in the affairs of our people, and now because of you we are both shackled to prevent any attempts of further rebellion." She traced her fingers across a metal collar around her neck sadly. "Just let your racial pride go already, it's not as if Inhumans have a future anymore anyway."
"We will rebuild!" Medusa insisted adamantly. "The loss of the rebellion against the Hulk is an acceptable setback to our return to power. Spider-Man's mutated blood will reinvigorate the genes of the Inhuman race, and his connections will rebuild our status on this planet. It may start small, but in time selective breeding with numerous Earth Mutates will create a new race of Inhumans that have no need for the Terrigen Mists to gain our powers."
"Don't I get a say in this?" Spider-Man spoke up hesitantly. "It sounds like you wanna treat me as breeding stock and a political pawn, and that's something I am not okay with." He turned to Crystal quizzically. "Has she always been this crazy? And if so, follow up question; what did Black Bolt ever see in her?"
"She's always been strict, but recent events have made her even more so." Crystal glared at her sister, who glared back, and got an immature raspberry for her troubles. "As for her relationship with Black Bolt, she's the only one who ever visited him in his soundproof cell back when he was locked up just for having potentially planet shattering vocal powers. Not to mention Black Bolt is our cousin, and keeping the royal bloodline 'pure' was encouraged in Inhuman society." She frowned dryly.
"You were married to your cousin?!" Hazmat guffawed at Medusa, who flared her hair menacingly in response. "I didn't know that 'Inhuman' was just another word for 'Hillbilly'!" She quipped as she rolled over laughing.
"Hazmat, that's not nice." Spider-Man tried to take a stern tone to his girlfriend, but found it hard to keep some of his own giggles from bubbling over, making him sound more ridiculous than anything else until it got to be too much for him to hold in. "Even if it is true! Hahahahahaha!" He burst out in laughter, barely hesitating to fire a messy glob of webbing at Medusa's hair when his Spider-Sense went off. "But seriously, there's no chance of me marrying someone just for politics, especially when they aren't even being nice about it." To privately emphasize his point he gave Hazmat a firm squeeze on the butt with both hands, sending a pleasurable tingling sensation down her legs. "I respect wanting to save your species from losing everything that makes it unique, but aren't there any other supers who would have the same effect on Inhuman DNA as I apparently would?"
"Johnny's DNA would work just as well as yours, better even." Crystal spoke up quickly and hopefully, getting a glare from her sister for bringing him up. Thankfully, the webbing in her hair kept her from stopping her younger sister. "The cosmic radiation that gave him and the rest of the Fantastic Four their powers is direct runoff from the original cocoon of Galactus, making his DNA the perfect catalyst for reinvigorating the genetics of the Inhuman race."
"And you know this how exactly?" Peter inquired with playful suspicion, grinning under his mask when he saw a happy blush rapidly rising up Crystal's face. "Ooh, so you and the Human Torch have a history together, don't you?" He poked teasingly, making Medusa even angrier than before.
"Yes, but the late king Black Bolt decreed that they never be together, due to the sheer immaturity of the Human Torch." Medusa informed Spider-Man, as if he even cared. "Though his time may have tragically passed prematurely, his decree still stands as absolute law to ALL Inhumanity."
"Well I'm no Inhuman, and I say they CAN be together." Spider-Man retorted, a mischievous plan rapidly forming in his mind. "In fact, if you two were REALLY sent here by Hulk to serve as part of some political marriage, then I'm actually obligated to send you both his way."
"By the Hulk's order, we are obligated to be wed to an influential individual of Earth to deepen the ties between our planets." Medusa strode over to the web-slinger with arrogance and poise - webbed up hair aside. "By my diplomacy skills, you were the one I selected to serve this purpose, and the Hulk has supported this decision. What possible reason could you have to justify refusing this great honor?"
"The Bro Code." Spidey answered easily, eliciting snickers from both Jennifers as they began to catch on to his plan. "Johnny and I are total Bros now, and because I already have so many lovers, and because my 'sister' broke his heart when she pulled a love'em-and-leave'em after making out with him helped her realize she was a lesbian, I swore to him on the Bro Code that the next time a hot girl tried to make a pass at me for whatever reason, I'd be his wingman and recommend they go after him instead."
"What is this 'Bro Code' of which you speak?" Medusa inquired skeptically, as Crystal made a silent prayer for her sister to cave eventually. "And why would it supersede such an important political move?"
"The Bro Code is the ultimate sacred bond of trust between Bros." Spidey explained, silently gesturing for both Jennifers to play along. "A promise made from one Bro to another Bro on the Bro Code cannot be broken, no matter what. Sorry, but that's just how it works. I know it, Johnny knows it, even the Hulk knows it. Hell, Hulk is so tough that he's totally hardcore about the Bro Code. Isn't that right Shulkie?" He nudged his gammazon lover.
"Absolutely." She-Hulk 'confirmed' in her best lawyer voice. "A Bro never breaks the Bro Code, and there's no Bro more Bro than my cousin... Bro?" She trailed off slightly uncertainly, hoping that her deception wouldn't show on her face. "I guess you're just gonna have to marry Johnny instead." She remarked as she forcefully ushered the sisters out the door and back to their ship, which was parked on the balcony. Medusa was seething furiously as she was pushed back on the ship, while Crystal gave Spidey an appreciative thumbs-up. "Finally, and here I thought they would never leave." Jennifer sighed as she slouched back onto the couch. "Thanks for getting rid of them, I don't know if I could take another minute with Medusa, let alone a whole life. Did you know that the Inhumans actually had slave labor until Hulk forced them to stop?" The trio of heroes were aghast and disgusted at the appalling and twisted actions and policies of the Inhuman society. "And these weren't just normal slaves either. These were genetically engineered slaves. Grown in tanks, completely sterile, unable to develop mentally beyond a five year old level, and created to serve Inhumans like beasts of burden for their whole lives, which only lasted 50 years at best. The moment my cousin slapped those electrified slave collars around the necks of all the Inhuman rebels I shouted hallelujah to the sky for them getting their just desserts." She let out a cathartic laugh as she snuggled with her lover. "Still, it's awfully convenient that you had that deal worked out with Johnny, isn't it?" She smirked knowingly.
"I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about." Spidey turned away suspiciously. "All I can say is that part of the Bro Code requires hyping up your Bro to potential babes, and that no Bro can ever expose the hype for what it really is, especially to said babes."
"Then I guess you better give us some incentive not to expose your secret." She-Hulk smirked as she unfastened the seals from Hazmat's suit, removing the radiation containing device against her protests. "Don't worry my fellow Jennifer, you see this gem in my forehead?" She-Hulk tapped on the Power Gem for emphasis. "In addition to making me even stronger and sexier than I'd ever be normally, I can use it to absorb and contain any kind of energy, even radioactive energy like yours."
Hearing She-Hulk say such amazing words so casually, so happily, was too much for the already aroused Hazmat to take. Hesitantly, she inched forward towards She-Hulk, her hands trembling as they approached her face, as if worried the near indestructible gammazon might break like fine porcelain.
"It's okay." She-Hulk assured her gently as she took Hazmat's smaller hands in hers. "I can take anything you can dish out, I was just waiting for you to come out of your shell on your own. I can't help people who won't try to help themselves after all."
Throwing caution to the wind, the two Jennifers began passionately making out, slowly stripping each other of all their clothing as Peter just watched in satisfaction for a few moments. Not that he was just aroused at the sight of two of his girlfriends making out - which he totally was - but also because he was just so glad to see Hazmat finally having the opportunity to come out of her shell, if only temporarily. After a while of just watching, Peter got tired of being left out and joined in, the movies long forgotten as the three of them became sensually intertwined with each other.
Back in Africa
"The time is now my fellow brothers and sisters of the Web!" Ezekiel spoke dramatically to the crowd, his glee at his approaching revenge and restoration to power rising. "In order to restore our glorious destiny, we shall march upon the city of New York, regaining the glory that is the true destiny of the Web!" He was so focused on regaining his former glory, that even with his own Spider-Sense, he failed to notice the figure rising up behind him until her hand had already forced itself through his back, clutching his still beating heart in her grasp as he looked down in shock. "What... on... Earth?" Ezekiel managed to squeak out through the delayed pain.
"That's quite enough nonsense out of you." A feminine yet authoritative voice remarked coldly as she retracted her hand, bringing the heart to her mouth and devouring it in a single gulp, much to Anansi and the now late Ezekiel's collective shock and disbelief. "I don't have time for meaningless platitudes, and I certainly don't have the patience for entitled weaklings and cowards."
"How dare you!?" Anansi protested as he stepped back in fear, only to stop cold when a set of four massive spider legs burst from the woman's back and reached around to prod his back. "I am your creator! I am you master! You must obey-HRK!" He was cut short as the dark-haired woman casually stabbed her hand through his chest, pulled out his heart, and ate it as swiftly and casually as she did Ezekiel's.
"I must obey no one." The woman grinned, her lips and prominent canines red with blood. She sadistically slammed Anansi's barely living form to the stage as another four spider legs burst from her back. Stomping on the decrepit god's head, she made sure to apply just enough pressure to make his last moments as painful as physically possible without actually crushing his head. "Allow me to tell you something you may not know about me, foolish god." She spoke down to him like the miserable, sniveling little wretch she saw him as. "My name is Adriana Soria. I was one of the first women in American history to be allowed to join the military. I fought alongside Captain America during World War II. I was one of the most decorated soldiers of my time, and I wasn't some weak and feeble nobody, who needed some pathetic Super Soldier Formula to give me a handicap. I reached greatness under my own power, I did it by making my own opportunities, and I didn't rely on handouts. My will is far too strong to be subverted by something as weak and pathetic as a mere god. This is all especially notable, as I was a woman during a time when women had to work twice as hard to get half as much respect and authority as men did. I easily could have risen to power as the most powerful and influential person on the planet after the war, and I would have ruled fairly, creating a world with no inequality between classes, race, religion, or gender. It would have been a complete meritocracy, where respect and authority was EARNED by individuals under their own power, rather than given based on titles, lineage, or connections. I had it all planned out, and it would have been paradise." Her rapture in her speech immediately turned bitter as she roughly kicked Anansi aside.
"But because I was a woman, the higher-ups simply couldn't allow me any chance to usurp their crooked old rule." Adriana literally spat on Anansi's still warm corpse, before turning her attention to the fearfully shaking Cindy Moon. "They tricked my whole unit and I into going into a nuclear weapons testing zone, under the belief that it was an undercover enemy camp. The shadows of the government justified it to their public face as a failed effort to make more super soldiers, but it was doomed from the start, and they knew it. They just wanted those loyal to me out of the way, and it was only by luck of my genes and sheer determination that I went into suspended animation instead of dying outright." As she said this, she ripped open the cage holding the frightened teenage girl. "They buried me in an unmarked grave, where I awaited my revival inside a cocoon, viewing the world changing around me by training my connection to the Web. Now my vengeance and justice are at hand, and I shall seize power and authority by hook or by crook, as is the right of anyone who dares to try and stand above others in the natural order."
"...Excuse me..." Cindy raised a shaking hand fearfully, asking if asking a question of a terrifying teacher in class. "Can I go home now? That maniac you killed, the first one anyway, kidnapped me about two years ago. My parents must be worried sick about me. I promise not to say anything about what you're planning, I just wanna go home."
"I understand your plight, poor child." Adriana assured the young girl as she stroked her trembling shoulders. "You were stolen away from everything you ever knew without reason, and imprisoned without justification. You have every right to want to go home to your family."
"Then you'll help me get-"
*Spider-Sense!*-She's gonna-!
"...Why?" Cindy whimpered tearfully, utterly heartbroken... literally.
"Because you have something I needed." Adriana remarked coldly as she pulled her hand out of Cindy's chest, devouring her heart with complete indifference to her suffering. "I said that I understood your plight, but that doesn't mean I CARED in the least." She explained casually as Cindy collapsed on the stage, rapidly bleeding out from the gaping hole in her chest. "My time in my cocoon has made it clear to me that I can only truly rely on myself, and that it's far better and wiser to have pawns that cannot resist. I took your heart because I knew that devouring it would grant me greater power, simple as that. Survival of the fittest and all that." By this point Adriana was just talking to another corpse, so she decided to stop. "Now then, all that remains is to decide what to do with my new army." The Queen smiled sadistically as she surveyed the crowd of Spider-People gathered beneath her.
Back in New York
"I think I may be pregnant." Hazmat muttered as she tried to regain the feeling in her legs.
"What makes you say that?" Spider-Man asked casually as he helped her get her suit back on. "I thought this was your first time."
"It was." She admitted as she fumbled to get her helmet back on. "But with how much of your... stuff... went inside me, I don't see how I couldn't be."
"It doesn't work like that Mini-Me." She-Hulk chuckled as she pulled her bike shorts back on. "Yeah, it can happen when you least expect it, but there are safe and unsafe days, and-"
"I know about the birds and the bees." Hazmat held up her hand in a halting motion as she tried to pull herself to her feet. "And will you please stop calling me by that stupid nickname? We may have the same first name, but other than that we're nothing alike. As for why I'm worried about getting knocked up, I just am okay? You are a fucking machine Spider-Stud, raunchy pun absolutely intended." She groaned in arousal as she stood up and arched her back.
"What can I say?" Spider-Man shrugged as he helped She-Hulk get her sports bra back on. She didn't 'need' help, but she certainly 'appreciated' it. "With the way my powers work, I literally get better with practice."
"I can vouch for that." She-Hulk purred seductively as phantom pleasure went up her spine at her lover's touch. "I mean he was good when we first started, but with the way he is now I can barely go a day without wanting him inside of me." She blushed happily as she placed her hands on her abdomen. "Although, with the way things are now, I'm gonna have a part of him inside more for the next nine months."
"You're pregnant?!" Hazmat shouted in a panic, once again fearing for the state of her own womb as Spider-Man just latched onto She-Hulk and kissed her in excitement. "How are you both taking this so well?!" She asked them in shock.
"I'm used to getting the women I love pregnant by this point, and Shulkie and I have actually been deliberately trying for a while now." Spider-Man shrugged casually as he rubbed She-Hulk's adamantium hard abs tenderly. "Hey there future Spider-Hulk, I'm your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Daddy." He cooed happily.
"Now now babe, it could just as easily be a future Spider-She-Hulk." She-Hulk bantered with her lover as Hazmat just threw her hands up in surrender and decided to watch TV.
Back in Africa
"Now then, let's see where the last piece of this supposed 'Trinity' is." Adriana grinned thoughtfully as she summoned an ethereal web, each gap between the strands showing a different scene. Despite how many there were, Adriana was browsing them all with casual ease, even as she used her remaining power and focus to empower and control even more Spider-People all over the world. 'What fools those three were. All of this power right at their fingertips, and they hadn't a clue how to use it properly. I would pity them if they weren't such detestable creatures... Well, maybe the girl deserved some pity. She went out of the frying pan and into the fire, never for even a moment aware of what she did to deserve her fate. Oh well, necessary sacrifices are necessary for a reason. I suppose I can make a memorial in her name once I conquer the world, if I can be bothered to remember what her name is.' After glancing at almost a hundred different windows in 1/10th as many seconds, she found what she was looking for.
And immediately averted her eyes in embarrassment.
"Well that was something I didn't need to see." Adriana repressed a shudder as she tried to get the mental image of a jade green giantess spooning a man barely half her height and a tenth her mass out of her head. "At least I know where I can find my prey now. All that's left is to formulate a plan, and to do that I'll be needing some information." With a thin grimace on her face Adriana reached into the window that had Spider-Man in it. In an instant, a flood of information came rushing through her head. "WHAT THE-!" She panicked as she recoiled in shock and disgust. "...I don't wanna say the F-word, because there's already WAY too much of that already... but SERIOUSLY!? Power derived from SEX?! I know my knowledge about my current biology is still settling in, but that's just wrong!" This time she couldn't suppress her shudder. "The worst part is that even with my new powers I'm still outmatched by this... Spider-Man and his harem. My army is strong, numerous, and blindly loyal, but I lack the force necessary to counter and consume him. I need something else to give me an edge..." Humming thoughtfully as she browsed the windows of the Web, each one displaying a different Spider or potential Spider, her gaze became all too predatory as she zeroed in on two very tempting options.
Back in New York - Metropolitan Sewer System
'Find host, kill Spider-Man!/Find host, reclaim Spider-Man!' The Symbiote had an internal debate as it oozed through the pipes, following conflicting thoughts and plans to seek out some kind of host, any host at this point. 'Spider-Man betrays us, kill him!/We betrays Spider-Man, save us!'
"How interesting." Adriana's mental voice cut through the ooze's internal musings, further confusing the lost alien. "It seems that you are of two minds my fellow Spider. Fortunately for you, it's just the violent one I'm interested in."
"Who is you?!/Who is you?!" The Symbiote questioned; half in anger, half in fear.
"That is unimportant." Adriana scoffed as she began forcing the two mindsets of the Symbiote into separate parts, the more aggressive one being given the bulk of the physical form, while the part that was still loyal to Spider-Man being given just barely enough to contain its mind. "All that matters is that you do what I say, and in return I will give you power the likes of which you have never before dreamed of, not to mention revenge on Spider-Man."
"Revenge!" The violent part of the Symbiote hissed in acceptance as it made the final push to sever itself from its merciful half, turning blood red as it disappeared into a small psychic web in the pipe, casting off what little remaining good it had to die alone in the pipes.
'Must... have host...' The minuscule amount of good in the Symbiote panicked as it was swept along in the now overpowering current of the pipes, barely mustering the strength to ooze out of a shower drain and onto the first living thing it could find, which just so happened to be a teenage girl. 'Any... host...'
Meanwhile - Stamford, Connecticut
'This is so awesome!' Damien Sharpe, a young superhero fan, thought to himself as he and about 60 of his classmates watched a superhero/supervillain fight from the relative safety of their bus, which had been damaged to the point of non-functioning during the brawl. 'Superheroes are the BEST!'
"Do you want to be a superhero?" Adriana's voice whispered temptingly in Damien's head, her own superior willpower quickly overwriting his own sense of logic and self-control by putting images of him swinging through New York on webbing, wearing his own fantasy supersuit in his head. "I can make you one, if you do me a little favor."
"I wanna be a hero." Damien thought listlessly as he sleepwalked out of his seat and up to the front of the bus.
"Good child." Adriana lied smoothly as she forced young Damien to knock out the bus driver and pry open a panel below the driver's seat with a surprising amount of strength and skill for a child. "Just modify the engine as I tell you to, and I'll have all the Chaos Energy I need to make you the superhero you were always meant to be."
"Was always meant to be..." Damien muttered dreamily as he began turning the engine into a powerful bomb under Adriana's direction, heedless of his own impending death.
Back in New York
"Remind me again why you suddenly came back?" Hazmat muttered enviously and bitterly as Cloud 9 (real name Abigail Boylen) cuddled up with Spider-Man.
"Nobody told me that the world's greatest superhero was gonna be our boyfriend if I stayed." Cloud 9 cooed excitedly in her new brown leather aviator get-up, as she and Spider-Man circled the room on her cloud. "Besides, I don't NEED to be in the thick of things to be a superhero, do I? I can just focus on learning how to make my cloud bigger and faster, and giving the rest of the team a lift. Just think of Cloud 9 as your own personal Flying Nimbus handsome." Abigail winked at Spider-Man, not that he could see it under her aviator goggles.
"Never really got into Dragonball much." Spider-Man chuckled as he dismounted the cloud, landing comfortably between his two Jennifers. "I mean, the first saga was okay, even pretty good if I dare say. But everything from Z and onward was just too heavy on the beam spamming, tired cliches, and stagnating episodes to stay entertaining. It almost got as bad as Star Wars once aliens started getting involved."
"You hate Star Wars?!" Hazmat gasped in shock. "How can a nerd hate Star Wars? Isn't that a crime against nature or something?"
"A crime against nature would be something like heroes fighting other heroes over pointless nonsense." She-Hulk gave a none-too-subtle wink to the screen. "A nerd hating Star Wars is just a simple difference of opinion. Nothing to get too worked up about only to instantly regret it."
"Are you trying to tell me something Shulkie?" Spider-Man questioned his lover. "You're getting that weird look in your eyes again, you know the one."
"Oh I know it." She-Hulk grinned as she pulled all three of them into a big hug. "Don't you worry that handsome little head of yours. Just keep doing the right thing and keep adding more and more girls like Cloud 9 here to your harem, and you'll never have to find out."
"I'm in? I'm in!" Cloud 9 cheered excitedly. "You two heard her right? She totally says I'm in, so that means it's okay for me to be here, right?" She stared at Spider-Man in eager expectation.
"Of course you're in." Spider-Man chuckled before kissing her deeply, the relatively simple act of his mouth exploring hers nearly making her climax from sheer pleasure. "At this point I'm mostly just accepting any girls that wanna join. I mean, turning down a girl at this point would just be hypocritical of me."
'You could stand to do it a little bit at least.' Hazmat silently fumed for about five seconds, at which point Spider-Man took notice of her sullen expression and began massaging her legs to brighten up her mood again. "...Dammit, why do you have to make it so impossible to hate you?!" She quivered pleasurably as she collapsed in his arms.
"My Spider-Sense has been getting a lot better since I killed Osborn." Spider-Man explained as the light on Hazmat's helmet that blinked whenever she was going to the bathroom - or releasing certain other fluids from her nether regions - started going off. "When someone that means a lot to me is in some kind of trouble or distress... I can just feel it, you know? Same with their emotions, I just understand them better now."
"Does this mean that I mean a lot to you?" Hazmat grinned as she nuzzled into her lover's strong chest.
*Spider-Sense!*-TROUBLE EVERYWHERE!
"Something's wrong!" Spider-Man panicked as he separated from his girlfriends, confusing them by his sudden change in behavior. "My Spider-Sense, it's going off stronger than ever!" He explained as he activated the police scanner in his suit, listening for any signs of strange activity. "Something's happening. I don't know what exactly, but I do know that it's really, really, REALLY bad!"
"I'll put a call in to the Avengers." She-Hulk snapped up and pulled out her private Avengers line. "See if they know any-" *Brring*Brring* "Could not have timed that better if I tried." She muttered worriedly as she answered the communicator. "She-Hulk here, what's the emergency?"
"People with Spider powers." Iron Man answered, momentarily offending Spider-Man before he picked up on a very worrying communication from some officer named DeWolff. "We don't know how just yet, but people with powers similar to your boyfriend's are popping up all over the state of New York, causing havoc and devastation wherever they go. I'm not pointing fingers or anything, but I'm hoping Spider-Man might know what the deal is with all these hundreds of copycats running around."
"I don't know what's going on, but I know someone who might." Spider-Man replied after hacking into Iron Man's frequency, cutting him out and switching to Galacta's personal line before the armored Avenger could protest having his system hacked.
"I know what you're going to ask Spidey, and I just want you to know that I had nothing to do with this." Galacta preempted his question. "If anything, this is only vaguely related to me. I repeat; this is NOT the result of my actions messing with you and the Web, merely a reaction to them. I had NO influence in making this decision."
"Then I don't suppose you have any idea who did?" Spider-Man asked as he jumped out the window, Cloud 9 and Hazmat following immediately after on the former's cloud, and She-Hulk jumping from rooftop to rooftop shortly after. "Or anything about how they did it?"
"The most likely candidate is Anansi, the Spider-God." Galacta replied as Spider-Man saw some officers trying to restrain a gliding brunette in a red and yellow jumpsuit, only to get zapped when she flew by and touched them. "He's the former owner of the Web, and the only person I know of who could possibly retain enough control of it to empower and brainwash so many potential Spiders."
"I thought you said brainwashing wasn't gonna be an issue anymore after what you did to the Web." Spider-Man replied as he shot some webbing at the Spider-Woman, only for her to preempt his ambush and dodge, leaving him easy prey for a solid kick to the gut as he failed to pull away from his descent quickly enough. "Okay, I really need to work on my abs more." He winced as he rubbed the soreness away, quickly flipping over the Spider-Woman and managing to land a glancing blow on her back as he did so.
"Let me guess, you're chatting while fighting again, aren't you?" Galacta chuckled amicably as Spider-Man bobbed and weaved through Spider-Woman's highly precise strikes. "Anyway, like I said before there are gonna be a few side effects while the new structure of the Web gets settled. Anansi must have had some residual control left, and he's using that to brainwashing his victims in a bid to regain power." She explained succinctly as Spider-Man got a glancing jolt of energy from Spider-Woman's hands. "Don't worry about the Spider-People too much sweetie, they may have similar powers to yours, but they're all somewhat different. Most only have the bare minimum amount of strength to be called super, and even brainwashed they don't have your fighting experience. You got this."
"No fighting experience? This chick is like something out of a Bruce Lee movie." Spider-Man quipped in protest as he tried to put some distance between himself and his opponent, only for her to keep up with him every step of the way.
"I got your back Bae!" Finesse called out as she leaped into the scene, comboing a toss of her bouncing black and white shield with an arrow to ricochet off each other, and strike Spider-Woman from two angles, while Finesse herself rushed in with bolas from a third angle. Trying to avoid the shield merely led to her getting struck by the arrow and bola, before Finesse grabbed the shield out of the air and slammed the domed side into Spider-Woman's torso. "Damn, I am getting good at this!" She grinned as she turned Spider-Woman over and hogtied her in two seconds flat.
"Yeah, a little too good." Spider-Man joked appreciatively. "How did you have such an easy time, while I was getting my butt handed to me? And how did you get here so fast? Your response time is through the roof."
"She was using advanced SHIELD combat training." Finesse explained as she placed a tracking device on the restrained Spider-Woman, signalling her for pick-up. "I recognize it from the SHIELD training videos I saw. As for how I got here, a SHIELD agent named Jessica Drew went missing a few months ago, so when Iron Man noticed her tracking beacon showing up all of a sudden in the middle of New York I volunteered to investigate."
"So she's with SHIELD then?" Spider-Man remarked curiously as Cloud 9 and Hazmat arrived. "That would explain why she was so hard to pin down. Hopefully the rest of the Spider-People will be easier to get under control then."
"The rest of them?" Finesse remarked uncomfortably as she looked around, only now noticing the uncharacteristically large number of people causing chaos all around with spider powers. "...That's a lot of Spider-People." She remarked uncomfortably.
"And none of them are in control of their actions." Spider-Man remarked bitterly, his involvement in this happening, no matter how small, making him twice as determined to stop it. "You guys let everyone know that these people are being controlled against their will by an evil spider god named Anansi, and are NOT to be seriously injured."
"And what are you gonna do?" Cloud 9 asked worriedly, the rookie not yet fully prepared to be doing actual hero work, even just in a support role.
"I'm gonna try and get to the bottom of this." Spider-Man replied as he slung the struggling Jessica Drew over his shoulder and fired off a webline. "Make sure She-Hulk doesn't overexert herself!" He called back as he retracted his web and shot off through the air.
"Why would he be worried about She-Hulk overexerting herself? She's not even on Earth right now." Finesse asked, only to be proven wrong as She-Hulk landed several meters behind her, casually scooping up and knocking out a Spider-Person in each massive hand. "Okay, so she's back early, but she's still super badass."
"She's also pregnant." Hazmat explained, shocking and elating Finesse at the happy news. "Hey Shulkie! Spidey says not to get too worked up!"
"I got it, I got it." She-Hulk remarked nonchalantly as she pounced on another Spider-Person with a grace that defied her size, easily knocking them out with a gentle tap to the forehead. 'I'm not even showing yet and he's already this worried. I knew I picked a good husband.'
Elsewhere in New York - A Middle School
"Mommy, why are you doing this?" A young redhead girl with pigtails and a pick hoodie cried to herself softly as she watched a redheaded woman in a red velvet colored, spider-themed jumpsuit and mask effortlessly countered the well coordinated strikes of the Runaways. 'I don't understand mommy. First you disappeared for so long, making grandma and grandpa really worried and angry. Now you're back, but you're trying to hurt me and my friends. I'm scared mommy, please stop being so mean.'
"Don't worry Rachel, I'm sure there's a perfectly good explanation for why your mommy is acting this way." Gert assured the little girl quietly, so as not to let anyone else overhear. "There isn't a mommy or daddy in the world that doesn't want their child to be loved and safe." She lied smoothly, knowing from hard experience that it wasn't true. "I know it must be hurting her as much to do this as it hurts you to see it."
"How do you know?" Rachel cried into Gert's chest. "How do you know mommy doesn't want to do this? Molly is always talking about how much you think all parents are evil!"
'Dammit Molly, do you have to talk so much about your hero work and family to your classmates?' Gert huffed bitterly, though not angrily, she could never be angry at her precious little sister. Suddenly, as she noticed her boyfriend Chase managing to corral Rachel's mother Julia into a fire cage with him and the rest of the Runaways, an idea entered her mind about how to assure Rachel that things were going to be alright. "Rachel, I'm going to tell you a secret about mommies and daddies, but you have to PROMISE not to tell ANYONE about it. Do you understand?" Gert was satisfied by Rachel's simple nod in agreement. "Okay then, the thing about mommies and daddies is... until you are, or are about to become a mommy or daddy, then you have no way of knowing for sure if mommies and daddies are good or bad. Do you wanna know how I know that?" Rachel nodded again. "Because my boyfriend Chase and I are gonna have a baby of our own pretty soon, and I just know that we're gonna be awesome parents." Gert smiled gently as she rubbed her belly, glad that her own above-average level of body fat kept her pregnancy hidden well into her second trimester. "So cheer up kiddo. I know that once your mommy calms down she's gonna be so glad to see you again, and so sad that she had to go away for so long."
"You and Chase are gonna have a baby?" Rachel grinned excitedly, making sure to keep her voice at a whisper.
"That's right, but remember, you can't tell anyone." Gert grinned as she ruffled Rachel's hair affectionately, happily enjoying this little preview of what things will be like with her own baby someday. "It's a secret that even my team doesn't know yet."
"What are we whispering about?" Spider-Man whispered to Gert, shocking everyone with both his sudden arrival, and the hogtied woman slung over his shoulder. "Hey Gert, do you mind keeping an eye on this for me for a second? Thanks." He waved goodbye as he dropped one Spider-Woman off his shoulder to jump into the fray with the other one, leaving Gert worried that her adoptive brother no doubt overheard her talking about her teen pregnancy.
"About time you showed up, Spidey!" Nico frowned as she fired a blast of magical energy from a metal gauntlet on her left arm, while Karolina tried and failed to keep the Julia in one place with her forcefields. "This crazy bitch copying your act is trying to turn this school into the next Columbine, and we can't get a hold of her!"
"It's not her fault, she's being controlled by an evil spider god." Spider-Man defended Julia, while also trying, and failing, to restrain her. Noticing the dry looks he was getting from the Runaways, he just shrugged as he dodged a psionic web Julia launched from her wrists. "I know, this can only happen to us, am I right? Nice gauntlet by the way Nico, it really suits you."
"This isn't a gauntlet, it's a magic prosthetic!" Nico shouted angrily as she slammed her left hand onto the ground, creating a burst of violet energy that shattered the ground around her, some of the debris managing to trip up Julia, although the heroes got caught up in it too, mitigating the usefulness of the tactic. "Mrs. Carpenter's crazy partner cut my arm off!" She pointed angrily at a magically bound, short-haired brunette in a predominately black and red Spider-suit, with four large, yellow spider legs sticking out of her back. She was just outside of the cage, and strictly guarded by Molly, who stood at attention and saluted like a soldier.
"You lost your arm!?" Peter panicked worriedly for his gothic girlfriend.
*Spider-Sense!* Look out for-
"Oof!" His Spider-Sense was too slow, as Julia snagged him by the arms and legs with her psionic webs. "What the-?! How did you hit me faster than my Spider-Sense could-?" At then it hit him, both figuratively and literally, as while Julia punched him hard in the chest, Peter remembered that Nico said they couldn't get a hold of this unwilling copycat. 'Her Spider-Sense must be stronger than mine.' He realized as he tried to roll away, only to be easily out predicted. 'That must be how she's so powerful even without training. I know from experience how easy it is to beat someone when you know what they're gonna do well before they do it.'
"Stay away from him you... Spider-Slave!" Nico shouted angrily, her momentary lack of focus at seeing her boyfriend getting pummeled accidentally activating her Staff of One, turning Julia Carpenter into her obedient slave.
"What... what happened?" Julia muttered as the spell shook the effects of her brainwashing away. "Where am I?" She asked fearfully as she looked around, shaking in her suit as she noticed that she was surrounded by angry looking superheroes, with one in particular pinned beneath her. "Spider-Man! What was I doing? Why are you here? I-"
"Stop talking." Nico ordered her as she ran over, her massive breasts smacking into the older woman and knocking her down off of Spider-Man. "You are going to tell me why you were attacking this place, why there are so many Spider-People running around the state, causing a huge ruckus, and who made you do all of this."
"I... I don't know what you're talking ab-wait!" Julia panicked as she remembered something. "I can remember getting a headache after dropping my daughter off at school... then someone ordering me to go... somewhere, I can't put it into words exactly." She grunted as she clutched her head, trying to remember something just out of reach. "I... I can't remember exactly who or what's been telling me to do these things, but I do remember something about... bringing Spider-Man to some... master of some sort, a Queen I think."
"A Queen?" Spider-Man inquired curiously. 'That's weird. If I know my mythology, then Anansi is a male god. Something's screwy here.' Deciding that was a question for another time, he gently grabbed Julia by the shoulders and looked her square in the eyes. "Listen, Julia was it?" She nodded. "I'm gonna need you to do something for me, and it might seem a little weird, but I wouldn't ask if I wasn't at least... 30% sure you could do it."
"Only 30%?!" Julia began to panic again.
"Don't worry, it's nothing too dangerous." He assured her as he signaled for Chase to disperse the fire cage. "Now do you remember the feeling you got whenever someone was about to hit you in this fight? The feeling that made you want to dodge one way or another."
"Vaguely." Julia nodded, something about Spider-Man's voice just so soothing to her. "What about it?"
"I'm gonna need you to focus on that feeling as much as you can." He explained. "Someone tried to hijack control of my body once before using that feeling, and I'm pretty sure you're better at using that feeling than I am. With a little determination, you should be able to use that feeling to get us some clues as to who's behind all this."
"But what if I lose control again?!" Julia panicked, setting the Runaways back on edge. "They made me do... something before. What if they make me do something worse this time?"
"I won't let that happen." Spider-Man gave her shoulders a reassuring squeeze. "I'll be right here to help you however I can if something happens."
'How can he be so calm about all of this?' Julia wondered in awe as she found herself being taken in and put at ease by his words. 'I know he's a hero, but this could just as easily affect him too if things go wrong. How can he have so much confidence in someone he's only just met?'
*Spider-Sense!*-Open your mind!
All at once, images and memories of Spider-Man's sheer strength of will and determination came flooding into her mind. 'This is... Amazing... Spectacular even... He's done all of this?' Julia blushed as she gazed at Spider-Man in a whole new light. 'Such bravery, such strength, such kindness... such talent in the bedroom!' Her blush became even hotter as she fantasized Peter doing those things to her. 'I've never seen a man get so big, or last so long! And he really just keeps getting better and better the more women he fucks?! Oh yeeaaaahhhh~!' As she continued to browse the memories, she unknowingly began broadcasting her thoughts to all nearby Spider-People, including Jessica and the other unconscious Spider-Girl (Mattie Franklin) that was already down for the count.
'Hello new boyfriend~!' Jessica, Julia, and Mattie catcalled mentally, each of them taken by surprise as they realized they were sharing their thoughts with not just each other, but the new object of their shared affections as well.
"Well... ignoring that bit of awkwardness." Spider-Man scratched the back of his head nervously. "So do you think you can do this for me?"
"Only if you do something for us afterwords handsome!" Mattie grinned eagerly, the shared memories and thoughts rousing her and Jessica from their brainwashing as well.
"What she said." Julia grinned as she flung her arms around Peter lovingly. "My little girl needs a step-daddy, and you're the best man for the job."
"How broken can your sex appeal be?!" Chase shouted at his adoptive brother enviously, wiping tears from his eyes before anyone could notice.
"Apparently pretty broken." Peter remarked as Julia began flooding his mind with both her own memories, and those of Jessica and Mattie. The whole experience lasted only a few seconds, but to Peter it was like months of dating, getting to know all about each other. How Jessica was kidnapped by HYDRA as a child and experimented on before escaping into SHIELD protection. How Julia lost her husband to the mob and was left to raise Rachel on her own, quite well at that. How Mattie was bounced from orphanage to orphanage for years, then lived on the streets when she ran away, robbing various odds and ends to stay alive. All of their hardships and joys were being fed into his mind, and Peter, being the loving guy that he is, accepted them all. "Okay, you help me out here, and you can start calling me Daddy Long-Legs."
"You're already a father, and a damn good one at that." Julia smiled as she instinctively took his head in her hands, placing her forehead against his. "Just... place your trust in us, and we'll do the same for you."
Meanwhile - A Local Cafe
"Dammit! This is not what I needed right now!" A man in a light blue spider-themed hoodie with the arms torn off, jeans, and a red shirt and mask frowned as he webbed up another spider-person. "I just went out for a cup of coffee, and now I'm fighting off an army of mind slaves with spider powers! Where are the Avengers when you need them?!"
"They're too busy dealing with other attacks all over the city!" Answered a dark-skinned woman who was hiding under the counter, along with several customers. "Besides, you're Spider-Man. This sort of thing should be a piece of cake for you!" She looked at him hopefully.
"I'm not Spider-Man! I'm..." Ben Reilly floundered for a bit before coming up with something on the spot. "...Scarlet-Spider." He finished lamely as he casually tossed another spider-person over his shoulder and webbed them to a wall. "And for the record, I'm not a hero. I'm just a guy with spider-powers, trying to live a simple day to day life. I didn't ask for any of this." He grunted as he boarded the door with a table and some webbing. 'Being a hero is Peter's thing, I'm just... a clone, a nobody who happens to have the same genetics as a real hero.' He may have taken his name from a combination of Ben Parker's first name, and May Parker's maiden name, but Ben Reilly was taking every step he could to prove that he was his own man.
"Well whoever you are, you're totally my hero at least." A short haired platinum blond in a green and black stripped midriff and skinny jeans grinned as she approached Scarlet-Spider eagerly. "Hi there, I'm Desiree Winthrop, amateur model and huge party girl. It's a pleasure to meet you Scarlet-Spider." She pressed her chest against him seductively.
"Don't mind my co-worker, she's just a total slut for superheroes." An equally attractive, long haired redhead in the same outfit pushed her friend away. "My name is Elizabeth Tyne, and I love reading, sunbathing, and gentlemen who know how to treat a lady right. My dreams for the future are to go pro in the modelling world, and eventually work my way into modeling maternity clothes." She traced circles on Scarlet-Spider's chest, weirding him out as he backed into a wall.
"Pay no attention to my clients, I just got them a nice contract and we came here to celebrate." A short haired redhead in a pinstripe suit pushed both models aside and forcefully handed Scarlet-Spider her card. "The name's Carrie Bradley; stockbroker, self-defense instructor, and agent to up-and-coming stars." She spoke fast and with purpose, like a slick talking saleswoman out for a huge score. "I can tell you're a guy with a good head on his shoulders and a bright future ahead of him. Work with me and you could be a future millionaire: the first superhero to double as a superstar, or at least that's what we'll tell to marketing. I'll even promise to keep your identity strictly between us. What do you say handsome, you in or out?"
"Give the poor guy some space, will ya?" An angry looking goth with wild black hair pushed the busybodies away. "Sorry about my friends making your job so much harder than it has to be." She apologized to Scarlet-Spider, who was as vividly red under his mask as his namesake color. "They're just huge superhero nuts, and they made a stupid pact that if they ever ran into an actual superhero - a male hero, mind you - they'd all start trying to seduce him at once. They even made a second pact to be okay with sharing the same guy if they suggested it. Sounds crazy, doesn't it?" She gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder while shaking his hand in gratitude.
"Not nearly as crazy as you might think." Scarlet-Spider remarked dryly as he looked at the card the goth girl had slyly placed in his hand while shaking it, the name Jessica Carradine and her phone number written on it. "Believe it or not I know a guy who's been getting involved in that sort of thing himself." He muttered disinterestedly.
"Is that so?" Desiree grinned playfully as she and her three friends shared a mischievous look, before circling Scarlet-Spider like hungry sharks. "So I take it a nice, upstanding guy like yourself knows how to party?" She caught his attention with a cup of coffee and a condom.
"Party like a gentleman, party with power." Elizabeth teasingly took the two items from Desiree, handing the coffee to Scarlet-Spider, and tossing the condom aside. "Party some babies into us?" She twisted her torso from side to side seductively.
"What is wrong with you two?!" Scarlet-Spider panicked as he began to regret barricading the door.
"It's part of the pact I mentioned before." Jessica purred as she wrapped her arms around him from behind. "The pact that I forgot to mention I was part of too." She grinned as she dug her nails into his sweater.
*Spider-Sense!*-Sexy Party!
'This is both awesome and terrifying.' Scarlet-Spider thought as the four girls jumped him. 'I can see why the original Spider-Man likes this so much.'
Meanwhile - Alchemax Legal Department
"This is the last thing I needed right now!" Petra Parker grunted as she struggled to pull her clothes on and fight off hordes of mindless spider-people at the same time. "Seriously, you people just HAD to attack right when I was about to go all the way? You couldn't have waited about half an hour before ruining my social life?" She growled as she tossed five spider-people through the door at once, webbing them to the wall after they crashed into it. "It was bad enough when I was a man, but you'd think the universe would cut a woman a break once and a while, right?! Well too bad bitch! Chivalry is dead, and so too will whoever is responsible for this bullshit!" She winced as she pulled on her suit a little too quickly, immediately pulling her mask over her face to hide her pain.
"Petra, don't you think you're overreacting a bit?" Questioned a nervous looking woman with short black hair, who was stripped down to her black lace undergarments. "I know we've been anxious about our first time together, but remember that these people aren't in control of themselves."
"Oh I am well aware that they aren't in control of themselves Jazinda." Petra chuckled darkly, unsettling both her girlfriend and Evangeline, who was cowering behind her desk despite her size and strength. "I just don't fucking CARE that they can't control themselves! Do you wanna know why?" She hissed dangerously as she pulled off an ax kick on one guy, before roundhousing another in the gut. "Because I am on my FUCKING PERIOD right now!"
*Spider-Sense!*-Shit got real!
In an instant, the surge of spider-people rushing into the office for whatever reason suddenly stopped cold, as if someone had just stepped across their collective graves. As Petra, decked out in her hastily donned super suit wobbled menacingly, every single one of the controlled spider-people, in what little of their conscious minds were still aware of what was happening, felt as though she every step Petra took was the step of the reaper herself.
"...Oh. My. Gods..." Jazinda muttered fearfully as she tried to avert her eyes from the brutally one-sided beatdown her girlfriend was giving dozens of spider-people, only to find her gaze instinctively drawn to the increasingly attractive woman she loved. "I am gonna marry that woman." She sighed longingly, her outspoken attraction to the beating getting an unsettled glance from Vange.
"Do any of you have any idea what it's like being a man trapped in a woman's body?!" Petra cried in a mixture of savage fury and painful sorrow, as she barreled through the halls, brutally knocking out everyone that dared cross her path. "I have all sorts of weird feelings, aches, pains, and confusing hormones and bits that I never had as a man! Life was simpler when I was a man! I didn't have to go through this complete AGONY every single month! My mind is attracted to boobs and vaginas, but my body is attracted to DICKS! It's so fucking confusing, and so fucking hard! God, life would be so much easier if I just had a shapeshifter or a hermaphrodite for a lover!"
"I'm a shapeshifter!" Jazinda admitted as she clung to her lover like a slave girl in a sci-fi poster, her skin turning green as her chin became ridged and her ears became pointed, shocking her lover of the past several months. Quickly realizing what this looked like, Jaz got up and dusted herself off sheepishly. "Well technically I'm a Skrull, which are, by default, shapeshifters. I'm actually not supposed to be here in all honesty, what with galactic laws and all, but I accidentally ate the most precious and valuable artifact of my entire race a while back, and the only way to get it back is to compress my entire body until all my organic matter is juiced away to leave the artifact behind, and I clearly don't want that so I had to run away and... I'm babbling because I'm just so attracted to you that I can't think straight sometimes." She chuckled nervously.
For several long and awkward seconds, Petra just stared at Jazinda as she processed what was happening. 'My girlfriend is an alien shapeshifter on the run from her people, I'm fighting against an army of spider-powered mind-slaves, and I'm more focused on how horny I am than on the seriousness of these situations.' She took a deep breath, counted to ten, and let out a sigh. "What the hell, I may as well count my blessings, cut my losses, and go full throttle into the abyss." She grabbed Jaz and kissed her deeply, greedily exploring her mouth with her tongue, and fondling her from top to bottom with her sticky fingers. When they parted, Jazinda was a quivering, barely coherent mess of an alien lesbian, while Petra just looked hungry for more. "Two things are going to happen from now on Jaz." Petra grinned as she counted off on her fingers right in front of Jazinda's face. "First off, I wear the pants in this relationship. Just let me take the lead and be the responsible one in everything except your day job. Understand?" Jaz nodded happily, more than willing to let Petra be the dominate one in their relationship. "Second, you CLEARLY don't have the stamina to keep up with me by yourself, so I'm gonna need to hunt down some more lovers. We're gonna be one big happy lesbian harem, where everyone loves everyone equally, and we all live together in a big fancy mansion. I'll still be the Alpha Female of course, and unless we can get another shapeshifter, you'll be the designated sperm donor. Understand?" Jaz instantly went wide-eyed in absolute joy and ecstasy, already enthralled by the promises her lover was making her.
"That sounds absolutely perfect." Jaz purred contentedly as Petra scooped her up bridal style and made a beeline for her private office. "Can we get started right now?"
"Get started with what exactly?" Petra growled like an apex predator about to feast, Vange suppressing a shudder at their public displays of affection as she set to work bandaging up the poor mooks. "Letting me take charge? You're already my bitch in heat. Building our harem? My foster sister Karolina has been giving me the eye for weeks now. Making babies? Yes to all of the above." With that, she slammed the door to Jazinda's office and webbed it shut. Against her wishes, Vange couldn't help but overhear the very loud sexual noises coming from the door.
'Note to self: Soundproof the whole office.' Evangeline shuddered as she continued patching up the unconscious civilians.
Meanwhile - Kinney Family Apartment
"Are you sure you aren't going to go out and help the rest of the Avengers?" Dr. Sarah Kinney, reformed mad scientist of HYDRA asked her guest somewhat nervously. "I'm quite certain that they could really use your help."
"Nah, it's more important that I'm here right now." Logan scoffed gruffly as he downed half a cup of coffee in a single swig. "Gotta make sure nothing happens to... ya know."
"Do not be so aloof father." Laura scolded the elder mutant mildly as she took a sharp knife from her albino daughter. "No Bellona, I told you before, no teething on the cutlery." She chided her daughter as she gave her a small metal pipe with many small dents, which the infant quickly began adding to. "Use this instead." The teenage mother then turns crossly to her father. "She gets her rebellious nature from you." She calmly remarks as she stops Zelda from picking on Gabby. "Zelda, no. You protect family, you do not hurt them." She wagged her finger mildly at the firstborn of her triplets, who had the instinct to look sorry when admonished.
"I still don't know how she manages it so easily." Sarah sighed sadly, guilt and remorse flashing across her face. "I was a horrible parent to her for her whole life, and whenever she acted out with her powers it just made me angrier and more frustrated." She shook her head, aware that her daughter was obviously hearing everything, yet continuing her self-deprecation out of guilt. "Yet somehow she manages to raise three little mutant troublemakers with ease and happiness. Clearly when it came to nature vs. nurture, it was her nature that won out in the end, and by a huge margin at that."
"Mother, stop being stupid." Laura scolded her easily with a playful boop on her mother's nose, but an incredibly serious and deadpan expression on her own face. "The progress in studying mutant biology you have made at Alchemax has already gone a long way in providing a better standard of living and coexistence for mutants and humans alike." She paused as she deftly caught the teething pipe Bellona threw at her without even looking. "You were bad, now you are atoning, just like me." She remarked before going back to give Bellona another scolding about not throwing her toys.
'Still, I gotta admit that Sarah's got one point. I will never understand how she does that so easily.' Logan looked on in astonishment as Laura pulled a large plastic bowl out of the cupboards and filled it with freshly cooked applesauce she'd left cooling on the counter. She then put a cloth towel on the floor, placed the bowl on the towel, and watched happily as Gabby, Bellona, and Zelda quickly crawled over to the bowl and began eating like a pack of dogs.
"Should we do something?" Sarah asked Logan worriedly in hushed tones, as their granddaughters devoured their meal like wild animals. "This is clearly not normal behavior for children their age."
"They are clearly not normal children." Laura reminded her mother casually. "This just shows that they have good instincts." Suddenly, Laura's eyes went wide as a familiar scent entered her nostrils. "Trigger Scent..." She gasped in shock as her thinking became fuzzy and her head started to throb.
"Oh no!" Sarah panicked as she rushed over and placed herself between her daughter and granddaughters, immediately recognizing the signs of Laura's feral state. "Logan, the children!" She commanded urgently.
"Do not worry, under control!" Laura grunted as she shook the blur from her clouded mind, shocking her mother, while getting a proud grin from her father. "Trigger Scent cannot control me anymore. Just smells really bad, like father's farts." She quipped, eliciting a disgruntled grumble from the older feral.
"You've been spending too much time with the Webhead." Logan grunted as he gathered up his granddaughters in his arms, their faces also scrunched up and crying in disgust at the odor. "You're starting to talk like him."
"There are worse fates." Laura frowned as she traced the scent to the ventilation shaft, grabbing and donning a replica of her father's mask as she did so. "Keep mother and my daughters safe father. I have a lizard to cauterize." She frowned as she slashed open the vent and crawled through, trusting her parents to guard her children while she was out.
"What do you think she meant by that?" Sarah asked curiously as Logan shook his head in exasperation.
"The Trigger Scent was made by HYDRA, remember?" Logan frowned as he brought his grandchildren to the bathroom and turned on the fan, quickly clearing the air. "Hercules killed their namesake by burning their neck stumps after decapitating them."
"And you're still not going to help her?!" Sarah panicked as she began wondering all the things that could go horribly wrong. "They tortured and experimented on her for YEARS! You don't know what they're capable of, what resources they have at their disposal! Laura is tough, but she's not tough enough to take them on by herself! I was lucky enough that Spider-Man and the Punisher got me out of there with my life, but if HYDRA has come to take her back-!"
"Shut-up and listen up." Logan cut her off bluntly as he started running a bath for the little ones to get the smell out, leaving the bowl of applesauce within reach for them to snack on until the tub was ready. "I get it, you feel guilty about making her life hell all for your little science experiment, and you wanna make it up to her. That's fine, just don't get a martyr complex and start doing suicidal bullshit to try and make things right." Sarah looked down at the insinuation, because it was entirely true. "She's already told you time and again what you've gotta do to make up for it. Just keep on studying mutant biology, trying to find way to make our lives, and the world as a whole better. She told me to stay here and guard you all while she takes care of business, so that's what I'm gonna do." He remarked as he turned off the water and started undressing his grandkids for their bath. "I've seen her in action before, and she's got this. I'm her father after all, so I know her skills and limitations."
"You didn't even know she existed until a few months ago!" Sarah countered worriedly as she anxiously paced the hall outside the bathroom. "Even without the Trigger Scent, HYDRA is still too dangerous!"
"Not for her they aren't." Logan chuckled as the faint sound of screams of pain and terror reached his keen ears via the vents. "I've dealt with HYDRA more than a few times myself, and there's nothing they can dish out that I can't take. The only reason they were ever able to control Laura is because they conditioned her to fear them, and hate the Trigger Scent. Thanks to the Webhead though, all of that fear and hate is gone." He chuckled playfully as his granddaughters splashed water on him in protest of their bath. "Don't ever tell him I said this, but the kid's a good fit for her. They bring out the best in each other, despite my own reservations."
*BA-BOOM!*
"Case and point." Logan grinned knowingly as Sarah rushed to the door to investigate the sudden explosion.
"I am back." Laura remarked casually as she strolled into the room, her clothes only slightly damaged and coated in soot and the blood of her enemies, her right hand dragging Kimura's corpse behind her by her hair. "My assumption was only partially correct. Kimura was attacking, but she seems to have lost the support of HYDRA, resorting to common thugs to aid her. I could not stop her without resorting to lethal force, but the rest of them are tied up in the basement. I still need practice." She shook her head in disappointment.
"...I don't believe it." Sarah gaped in shock at her daughter's greatest personal enemy, reduced to a stiff, cooling corpse. "How did you kill her?! Her skin is completely impervious to your claws!"
"Her skin was, her eyes were not." Laura answered evenly as she started cleaning herself off with a towel and the kitchen sink. "Stabbing her brain through her eyes was easy. Her anger at both me, and her treatment by Deadpool prior to her escape during this attack was her greatest weakness. Not to mention she had no real skill as a fighter. Why did I ever fear her before?" She asked herself curiously, before shrugging it off, deciding that such matters were unimportant.
Sarah, for her part, was still having trouble computing just how much her daughter had grown in skill, maturity, and control in such a short time. 'And I had nothing to do with this.' Sarah brushed away her tears sadly. 'It was all Spider-Man and... and her father who helped her grow into such an astonishing young woman. If anything I've been holding her back with my own fears.' She shook her head sadly, steeling her nerves for what she was about to do. "Laura," The scientist began as she approached her daughter, who immediately turned her attention to her. "I... I am proud of you." She stuttered as she embraced her daughter with a warmth, attentiveness, and love that she never knew she was capable of. "I have no right to be, given my role in making much of your life so horrible, but I know how much you need this closure, this resolution to the emotions that burn through both of us." Both mother and daughter were crying and shaking in a mixture of joy, heartache, and relief by this point. "I love you so much Laura..." Sarah whimpered in a trembling voice. "And I promise to be a much better mother to you, a better grandmother to Zelda, Bellona and Gabby, and if he'll accept me... a better lover to your father." Sarah didn't need super hearing to tell that Logan nearly choked on his own saliva in shock when he heard that from the bathroom.
"You do not need to do that just for me." Laura assured her mother gently, the thought already more than enough.
"Who said I'm doing it for you?" Sarah teased her daughter playfully. "Being a single mom gets insanely lonely, and I'd have to be CRAZY to pass up a sexy catch like Logan."
"I am not hearing this!" Laura panicked as she covered her ears, unsure why she was so uncomfortable hearing her mother talking about her father in such a way, but desperate not to hear it regardless.
"And I know you'd just LOVE to have a little brother or sister." Sarah continued mischievously, having too much fun playing around. "Full-blooded siblings, from me that is. Between you father's natural wanderlust and Spider-Man's polygamous relationship giving him ideas, I sincerely doubt that I'm going to be your father's only mistress, or even his first for that matter."
"You do know I can hear you, right?" Logan complained bitterly from the bathroom.
"You were meant to." Sarah catcalled seductively in return, causing Laura to gag in response, too preoccupied by her embarrassing mother to notice a pair of glowing pink wings zoom past the window.
Meanwhile - New York Skyline
"Gotta get to Avengers Tower!" A familiar gargling voice echoed as a vision of various skyscrapers flew by. "Carnage-Queen is there! We have to destroy Carnage-Queen! Save Spider-Man! Mate with Spider-Man! Solidify WEB! Protect ALL REALITIES!"
"Yeah, you go do whatever you want, you freaky alien goo slash voice in my head." A voice that was halfway between goth-girl and emo-girl replied. "I'm just coming along because you promised me superpowers and a shot at getting with my favorite superhero. Seriously, between the spider-theme, his hilarious satirical sense of humor, and his lack of regard for any form of authority that tries tirelessly to keep him down, Spider-Man is the sexiest son of a bitch on the fucking planet."
"Hmm, maybe this was a bad host to bond to." The Venom Symbiote snarked.
"Beggars can't be choosers punk!" The girl grinned the signature Venom grin as her suit began to bubble and warp mid-swing. "Now let's see if I can't make this suit a bit more to my liking!" She let out a cackle as three long black spikes shot out from the back of her head, multiple spike-studded belts wrapped around her waist and wrists, and her shoulders formed into thick shoulder pads. "HELL YEAH NEW YORK CITY! Say hello to Mania: The Spider-Hero for Fun! FUCK YEAH BITCHES! Kick asses, break bones, and party all day long!"
Back With Spider-Man
"I've got it!" Spider-Man snapped his eyes open with determination. "Whoever's behind this, someone calling themselves Carnage-Queen, is at Avenger's Tower right now, and they aren't alone." His eyes narrowed angrily as the visions of his clones, his daughters, and the Symbiote eventually settled in his mind.
"We'll help out Spidey." Karolina pumped herself up as the Runaways gathered around, setting Mattie and Jessica free along the way. "Just tell us what to do, and we'll get it done!"
"Right now I need you guys to stay here, and keep everyone safe." Spider-Man instructed them, causing them to frown in disappointment and dejection. "Don't give me that look, I'm not finished explaining my plan. I need you guys to get on your phones, tablets, laptops, whatever, and spread the word about this school being a safe zone to everybody you can. Chase, Karolina, you two form a perimeter around the school. Molly, Gert, Old Lace, you three stay as close to the civilians as possible. Nico's in charge of keeping everyone organized and working in tandem. Is everyone clear?" They nodded in confirmation. "Good, now before I go, I just have two things left to say." They couldn't see his face, but his siblings knew from experience that Spider-Man was about to mess with them. "Karolina, I know you've been giving my opposite sex clone the eye, and so does she. Stop beating around the bush and just smooch already." The teenage alien glowed even brighter than usual and quickly lowered herself to the ground, embarrassed yet somewhat relieved that her feelings were out in the open now. "Gert, don't tell Chase what you want to tell him until AFTER this is all said and done, it might distract him if he knew." The purple haired BBW predictably flipped her cousin the bird and stuck her tongue out at him. "As for you three..." He turned his attention to Mattie, Julia, and Jessica. "You've been through enough today already, you can go home now if you want."
"What are you, crazy?!" Mattie jumped for joy and skittered around on her spider legs, reminding Spider-Man a little too much of Dr. Octopus. "I have superpowers, there's no chance in hell I'm gonna let them go to waste when the city needs saving!"
"Whoever's responsible for this threatened my daughter, and kept me away from her for months!" Julia clenched her fists with barely contained anger. "They will not go unpunished!"
"I'm a SHIELD agent, fighting criminal scum is my job." Jessica stepped forward as well. "If you try to stop me from getting involved, I'll have to place you under arrest." She grinned teasingly.
"Alright, I guess it takes a Spider-Team to handle a Spider-Queen." Spider-Man nodded before firing off a webline. "Off we go Web-Warriors!"
"WE ARE NOT CALLING OURSELVES THAT!" The three Spider-Women protested furiously as the followed behind; Jessica by gliding, Julia by psionic weblines, and Mattie on giant spider legs.
After they were gone the Runaways quickly took to their assigned positions, with only Chase lagging behind to talk to Gert. "...What was he talking about when he said that-"
"I wanna gain three hundred pounds and become a sumo wrestler slash fat model." Gert responded incredibly sarcastically.
"...Even though I know you're just joking, I actually think that would be kinda hot." Chase admitted sheepishly, drawing shocked looks from his family.
"...If that's what you're into, then maybe I actually will do that." Gert grinned playfully as she pressed herself against her boyfriend and squeezed his butt affectionately. "You'll have to feed me ALL of my meals though." She purred seductively as she traced circles on his chest.
"HELLOOOO~! Impressionable young children present!" Molly protested as she barely suppressed a gag. "I am going to need so much therapy after this is over."
Meanwhile - Avengers Tower
"Tony, I need eyes and ears on the whole city, more capture nets and crowd control, and as much backup at Avengers Tower as you can spare yesterday!" Captain America barked orders into his headset as he pushed away three spider-people with his shield hand, and then fired a net gun at them with the other. "Drat, out of ammo!" He hissed as six more spider-people began swarming to fill in for the three he just incapacitated.
"First of all Steve, it's damn, not drat. This is the twenty-first century, get with the times already." Tony playfully mocked his friend over his headset before switching to a more serious tone. "Second, I put in a call for reinforcements half an hour ago, but we're spread pretty thin even after calling in the reserves, so I had to outsource to some allies that might be... uncomfortable for you to work with." His tone took on a barely restrained giggle at the end of his statement, giving Steve the uneasy feeling that he always got whenever Tony was up to his shenanigans.
Just as he was about to inquire what Tony was getting at however, several widespread webs descended from the sky and covered the approaching spider-people, trapping them harmlessly against the ground as the webs continued to pile on, assuring that they were all securely fastened down.
"Sorry we're late to the party Cap!" Spider-Man apologized playfully as he, Julia (Arachne), Jessica (Spider-Woman), and Mattie (Spider-Girl) descended onto the scene. "I would have been here sooner, but I had to pick up my kids from school." He quipped.
"You do realize that's kind of an inside joke, right?" Arachne noted uncomfortably as Spider-Woman groaned while pinching her brow. "It won't make any sense to him."
"Who cares, I thought it was hilarious." Spider-Girl grinned as she casually fired several extra webs from the tips of her four spider legs, further securing the spider-people to the ground. "Also, can I just mention how AWESOME it is that we're now officially superheroes!? And we're meeting Captain America!"
"Work for SHIELD for a few years, the charm wears off really quick." Spider-Woman remarked stoically as she approached Captain America. "SHIELD Agent Jessica Drew reporting for duty Captain Rogers." She saluted him.
"Glad to have you on board soldier." Steve shook her hand before turning his attention back to his communicator. "You seriously think I'd be uncomfortable working with SHIELD and spider-people, Tony? I know SHIELD and I have had our differences over the years, but I'll take this help in a heartbeat."
"Uh, those aren't the reinforcements I called in Cap." Tony remarked sheepishly as more spider-people swarmed Avengers Tower from the left flank, only to be quickly brought to a halt by several black webs binding them to the street. "And neither are those black webs for that matter."
"The Symbiote..." Spider-Man whispered nervously, feeling very conflicted as a feminine figure wearing the Venom suit made a three-point landing on the street, her eyes glaring at him as her razor-sharp teeth were bared menacingly. "Hey there buddy... long time no see..." He approached her cautiously, not wanting to risk angering the alien parasite. "Look... I'll admit that mistakes were made on both ends of our relationship... I should have listened more... tried to meet you halfway... I didn't know you were sent to protect me..." The woman hissed angrily at him, causing him to stop his approach momentarily. "But you didn't make things easy on me either, you know that now, right?" He continued approaching her, this time causing her to flinch back. "We could have talked things over, SHOULD have talked things over. We could have made a great team if we had paid more attention to each other, and we still can." He held his hand out. "Just take my hand, and we can settle this peacefully, like we should have all along." He requested hopefully.
The Symbiote wearing woman tilted her head quizzically, a clicking noise coming from the back of her throat as her teeth and mouth faded into her mask. As the clicking noise became louder, the woman began shivering slightly, her shoulders twitching as she held her sides. It was at that point that Spider-Man realized that the clicking was actually laughter. "Oh, real mature Mania. You had me worried that the Symbiote had taken you over!" He scolded her mildly.
"I couldn't help it!" Mania spoke between her giggles. "It's just... after seeing all the memories this thing had of you... all the problems you had with it... and you're only just NOW trying to actually have a civil conversation to work out your issues? Like any sane, rational person would?"
"Yeah, I've already established that I should have focused more on conversation than confrontation, can you please stop laughing at me now?" Spider-Man asked, before letting out a brief chuckle himself. "Huh, stop laughing at me? That's literally the last thing I ever thought I'd say in my superhero career." He remarked quizzically. "So, I take it you're here to help?"
"Absolutely!" Mania pumped her fist eagerly. "Besides, considering that whoever's behind this already has their own Spider-God powers, and took most of the alien goo's body and the violent part of its mind, you're gonna need all the help you can get. The gunk that bonded with me is just the leftover scraps."
"I took on the Sinister Six singlehanded, I'm pretty sure I can take down a juiced up Spider-Goddess with some backup." Spider-Man spoke with more confidence than he actually felt. 'Bad enough that I'm apparently dealing with a Spider-Goddess of some kind that's at least partially my fault, but now they have most of the Symbiote's power, and that's DEFINITELY on me. Glad I'm not a lone Wolf-Spider anymore.'
"New superheroes are coming out of the woodwork like crazy now?" Iron Man questioned sarcastically over the communicators. "So does this mean I vouched for some of the most well-behaved super criminals in prison to help out on parole for nothing?"
"You let criminals out of prison Tony?!" Captain America protested irately.
"Well-behaved criminals." Iron Man assured his colleague politely. "I'm a genius, not an idiot. Besides, Spider-Man can probably vouch for a couple of them himself. Rhino and Sandman have turned Rockaway Beach and the surrounding area into a huge safe zone."
"Sandman survived the tanker explosion, and he's still helping people?! Good for him, and Rhino too. I am all for this idea!" Peter grinned enthusiastically underneath his mask. 'If nothing else, at least some good is coming out of all of this. I'm glad Alex and Flint are turning over a new leaf, I always knew they had it in them... Well, not so much always as just recently, but my point still stands.'
"Well, I guess things will be okay if Spider-Man supports the idea." Captain America consented, trusting in the idealistic young hero's judgement. "So I'm guessing the backup you're sending us are former criminals as well?"
"Ehhh, yes and no." Iron Man chuckled mischievously. "They're technically mercenaries, and it'll be more awkward for you to work with them than anything else."
"Mercenaries?" Steve repeated in shock. "Wait a minute, Tony, don't tell me that you called in-"
"Hey there handsome!" A woman with chin length purple hair, and a purple uniform with black diamonds catcalled as she threw several diamond-shaped throwing darts, nailing another wave of spider-people with incredible precision. The darts must have been laced with sedatives of some kind, as those struck by them immediately fainted. "Long time no see, Captain Cutie-Pie." She grinned as she grabbed Captain America and kissed him deeply.
"Captain... Cutie-Pie?" Mania barely managed to say between her snickering, before everyone immediately descended into full-blown laughter.
"Diamondback... good to see you too." Steve remarked with all the awkwardness of a blushing schoolboy being approached by his crush. "I'd love to stay and chat, but we really need to protect New York."
"No need to get up on our account." A woman with long black hair in a leather leotard assured Captain America as a cloud of black smoke emanated from her body and enveloped several more spider-people, causing them all to rapidly faint. "Asp, Impala and I already got a new teammate on this little adventure, so just leave saving the day to BAD Girls Inc. this time."
"Listen to Black Mamba," Asp - a long-haired and beautifully tanned Egyptian woman in a white leotard embroidered with green snakes - remarked mischievously as she and Impala - a similarly tanned bald woman in a white bikini and yellow bindings around her arms and legs and several javelins strapped to her back - joined their colleague, throwing sparks of electricity and javelins that released nets at several other approaching spider-people. "You two lovebirds can get caught up while the rest of us make sure nothing interrupts your 'alone time'."
"Yeeaaahh~ I'm guessing those two have some history together?" Spider-Man managed to ask the mercenary girls once he stopped laughing.
"More than you and I do, handsome!" A booming, southern-belle voice came from the air, immediately before sonic waves came down from above and pummeled the few still standing spider-people. Spider-Man's lenses widened in a panic as a woman with glowing pink wings, a teal and white armored jumpsuit, and long white hair and pink bangs landed in front of him, dispelled her light wings, and sashayed over. "I'm hoping to change that pretty soon though."
"Screaming Mimi..." Spider-Man gulped uncomfortably as he backed away. "You look... different than the last time I saw you."
"Glad you noticed shugah." She grinned as she boxed him against a wall and began tracing circles on his chest. "By the way, I go by Songbird now. I figured that, what with the way ya made me sing last time, screaming just weren't for me no more."
"I take it there's some history here as well." Mattie observed playfully.
"It's... not something I'm too keen on recalling." Spider-Man winced awkwardly as Songbird grabbed his butt. "BAD TOUCH! BAD TOUCH!"
"There's no such thing as a bad touch with you Spidey." Songbird sighed tenderly as she reluctantly parted from the object of her affections. "Look, I get it, you're still sore about the Grapplers capturing you to use you for my initiation, but after what you did to me, what you said, what you made me feel... I just knew I had to turn my life around so I could see you again."
"Care to explain what exactly is our new teammate is talking about?" Impala smirked coolly at Spider-Man. "She has been going on and on about you all day after all, so you cannot blame our curiosity."
"The Grapplers?" Spider-Woman inquired suspiciously as she approached Spider-Man. "I've read their file, they're an all female band of dominatrix-themed mercenaries, and their initiation for new members consists of capturing, raping, and killing a male superhero."
"I'll admit that I was almost one of 'em, but then Spidey here went and turned the tables on me." Songbird gushed as she glomped him. "Even with both of his arms and legs tied up, he still made such passionate love to me that I knew I couldn't go through with it."
"...You actually convinced a supervillain to reform by counter-raping them?" Arachne looked at Spider-Man stoically.
"The worst part is... I actually kind of expected something like that to happen at some point." Spider-Man sighed despondently. "Now I've got another girlfriend to add to the two dozen or so I already have."
"You've had a lot of practice, haven't you Honey-Webs?" Songbird smiled tenderly as she nuzzled her head under his chin. Before she could go any further however, a mass of red goo crashed into the pavement in the center of the gathering, cracking the ground, and splattering everyone present. "Ugh, what in tarnation is this disgusting gunk?!"
"Symbiote goo!" Spider-Man panicked as a thousand angry thoughts began pounding inside his skull, while he and everyone else struggled desperately to pull the alien gunk off. "And it's not the good kind! Songbird, you need to scream! Scream as loud as you can!"
"I already told you Honey-Webs," Songbird grunted as she pried the Symbiote goo off of her face. "I don't scream anymore. Now I SIIIIIIIIINNNNGGGGGG~!" As her sonic melody echoed around them, the red Symbiote goo cringed in pain as it recoiled off of the hosts they were attempting to take. Even Mania's Venom Symbiote recoiled into her body, leaving her with just a black a-shirt, piercings, spiked wristbands, and well-worn jeans. Songbird didn't stop singing until she was sure the evil Symbiotes were off of everyone, leaving her short of breath immediately after.
"Great job Songbird!" Spider-Man gave the reformed criminal a pat on the back, not realizing how loudly he was talking. "If you weren't here we'd be in big trouble!"
"Nice work soldier, but how did you know that would work?!" Captain America shouted.
"What was that?!" Spider-Man asked as he cupped his ear. "That noise messed up my hearing, and I haven't gotten around to installing noise cancelers on this thing yet! You're gonna need to speak up a bit!"
"I said-!" Captain America tried to begin, only for another red mass to crash into the same spot as the last one, and caused such a shockwave on impact that it sent chunks of pavement flying all around, crashing into everyone present.
'Ow, my aching everything.' Spider-Man winced as he tried to pull himself up, only to find that his ears and body were ringing and shaking too much to respond properly. 'Stupid equilibrium, can't a guy suffer through a few sonic booms without feeling like his entire body is made of pudding?' Though disoriented, he managed to right himself enough to get a look at what caused the second shockwave. 'Who... who is that?' He thought as he took in the figure rising from the dust. It was a woman, but other than that it clearly wasn't entirely human. Her skin was blood red with black spider symbols on her chest and shoulders, and her mouth was huge and filled with razor sharp teeth. 'It looks like she's saying something... but I can't hear a thing with this ringing in my ears...'
*Spider-Sense!*-BOW TO YOUR CARNAGE-QUEEN!
With that, Spider-Man, and all the Spider-People for that matter, immediately fell to the ground, as if pushed by some unstoppable force.
*Spider-Sense!*-I said BOW!
'What do you think we're doing?!' Spider-Man asked rhetorically as he managed to push himself up enough to see that the Carnage-Queen wasn't even facing him. Instead, she was looking at - "HOLLOW!" Peter panicked as he saw his daughter casually walking towards Carnage-Queen. All hesitation and weakness immediately vanished from his system as he bolted upright and rushed forward to protect his little girl. "Stay away from my daughter you Carnage-Queen!" He commanded as he slugged Carnage-Queen in the face, sending her flying into a building. "...That... was surprisingly easy..." His lenses shifted in confusion.
"Easy?" Carnage-Queen said shakily as she rose from the debris. "What part of that... that THING is EASY?!" She pointed a shaky and fearful finger at Hollow. "You... I can see you for what you really are... where you come from... what we are..." She gurgled in silent terror, confusing everyone greatly by the sudden panic attack of the arc villain. When Hollow tilted her head quizzically and took a single step forward, Carnage-Queen pressed herself against the building she had just crashed into, desperately looking to and fro for an escape. "Stay away from me you... you MONSTER!" She panicked, barely having time to turn and try to run before Hollow descended upon her and impaled her through the heart with her claws. "Why? I was so close..." Carnage-Queen cried pitifully as blood trickled from her mouth, and her Symbiote began evaporating into dust. "Something like you... it's not fair..." After the Carnage Symbiote had disintegrated off of her body and the streets around her, the Queen part slipped off of Hollow's arm, her corpse falling unceremoniously onto the street.
"That... was surprisingly quick and easy." Mania, currently still reduced to her civilian identity of Andrea Benton, remarked uncomfortably. "I know I'm still new to this hero thing, but it can't always be this simple, can it?"
"It's not..." Spider-Man said suspiciously as his daughter approached him. "And I think I have an idea why this encounter was so much easier than everything leading up to it. Do you think you guys can handle the cleanup here?" He requested as he shot off a webline.
"Where do you have to be in such a hurry Honey-Webs?" Songbird asked him worriedly.
"Let's just say that Hollow's mother and I need to have a little chat." Spider-Man frowned as he swung off into the skyline, Hollow scaling the buildings shortly behind him.
Later - Parker Loft
"...Hello there Peter." Galacta remarked somberly from her station at her supercomputers as her lover approached. "I know why you're here..."
"Do you? Do you really?" Peter asked tiredly as he stepped forward, stopping two meters away from the young planet eater. "Gali... I'm not going to judge you for keeping secrets from me." He assured her, though whether it provided her with comfort or fear and uncertainty neither could tell. "You've been alive since before humans had invented writing, so of course you're gonna have some things about your life that I'll never know, things in your past that may fill you with guilt. Trust me, I've been there, and you know that I have."
"This is different than what happened to your uncle Ben." Galacta replied, her voice cracking from her tears. "This is different than when you killed Norman, or sent Harry to juvenile hall. This is different than when I pressured you and several women into a polygamous relationship for my plans to save the multiverse from itself."
"I don't want to know what it isn't." Peter pleaded as he took a step forward, his expecting lovers who had stayed in the loft during the conflict of the day; Natasha, Silver, Liz, Gwen, and Felicia, stepping up to stand by his side. "I want to know what it is."
"What is Peter talking about Galacta?" Silver inquired sternly as she held both arms protectively over her swollen womb. "I thought we promised that the secrets were over between us all."
"I'm over eighty years old." Natasha spoke with the impartial wisdom of age and experience, though her body language of guarding her unborn child betrayed her attempts at fairness. "I've got secrets even I can't remember, I don't even know if Natasha Romanova is my real name. Galacta is over 18,000 years old, she couldn't share all of her secrets with us in the natural human lifespan."
"Even so, you'd think that she would share the relevant secrets with us." Felicia tapped her lips and gave a suspicious sideways glance. "You're as much family to me as the rest of us, and vice-versa."
"I don't want to be suspicious of you Gali." Liz pleaded as she rubbed her stomach tenderly. "If it weren't for you I wouldn't be here with the man I love, and a womb full of the growing proof of our love. I trust you Gali, so please trust us."
"Gali." Gwen stepped forward and grabbed Galacta by the shoulder, the cosmic woman stiffening in response. "Whatever is troubling you, you need to believe that we'll be there for you, whatever it is. Just talk to us, and we can deal with this together, whatever it is."
"...I'm not from this universe." Galacta began in a choked up tone. "I originally come from a universe designated with the number 616... I don't want to get into the exact details... the horrible... deplorable... unforgivable... nightmare inducing... and just plain awful reasons why... but some bad things happened... things that can never be forgiven, only locked away and forgotten by any and all sane, rational beings until the end of time... In Universe-616... I ate the Earth..." She barely choked out. "I ate Earth-616, and turned the energy into an egg inside my body... An egg that would later grow into Hollow after you fertilized it."
"...Is that it?" Spider-Man inquired casually, causing Galacta to turn around in shock. "Gali, we've know what you are ever since we met you, but we've also come to understand who you are. You're a good person who doesn't do anything without thinking it through, so if you ate this alternate Earth, then we know it's not only a justified act, but also something you're already beating yourself up for more than anyone else ever could."
"...You really are too much, you know that?" Galacta let out a half-chuckle/half-cry. "But you should know that there's more to it than just that." Everyone let out an exaggerated groan. "I know, I know, but I promise that this is the last big whammy that you'll be able to connect to me... that I know about anyway." She humorously amended. "You see, Earth-616 is kinda the favorite planet in the multiverse of The One Above All. Granted, Their definition of 'favorite' is extremely twisted and distorted by Their senseless sadism, but if They found out about what I did..."
"So how did you hide it from the guy?" Spider-Man asked curiously. "You'd think that an entity called 'The One Above All' would be all-seeing and all-knowing."
"I managed to make a device that could hide the truth from Them." Galacta admitted with a casual shrug. "It's powered by the corpse of a living Cosmic Cube named Kobik, and uses the brain of an Inhuman named Ulysses as a CPU." She explained as if it were no big deal. "Kobik provides near-infinite energy, even after death, while Ulysses has a brain that assimilates ALL surrounding data and energy to profile probable futures. Together with the machine I made, they project an illusion of Earth-616 that only fools cosmic beings. Regular mortals and other lesser beings can't even comprehend the device itself, so as far as they know Earth-616 isn't even there anymore. But the illusion projector is based on the principal of Schrodinger's Cat. If you don't look too deeply into it, then you can't tell what it really is. If you were too look deeper, or get this explanation from me, then the veil would be lifted, and Earth-616 would be exposed as having been consumed."
"So we're safe as long as The One Above All doesn't look too deeply into this?" Gwen observed.
"And They probably won't." Galacta assured them, feeling much better now that she knew her greatest sin was accepted and forgiven by the people who really mattered to her. "Despite appearances, The One Above All is a totally incompetent and inattentive moron on the whole."
"Well then!" Peter clapped his hands once with enthusiasm. "Now that that's all settled, what do you say we go out to celebrate a heroic adventure well accomplished? I've got six new girlfriends, and I intend to take my entire harem out for a night on the town!"
"Six new girlfriends?" Liz grinned eagerly as she rubbed her belly in anticipation of the inevitable lovemaking to follow the first date with the new meat. "My my, someone's been a busy spider today."
"Can you blame them?" Felicia licked her lips seductively and she trailed her fingers across his pectorals from behind. "Our Peter is the best hero in the world."
"And we wouldn't have it any other way." Silver smiled and she and Natasha rested their heads on Peter's shoulders.
Meanwhile - With Deadpool
"Exposition! Author's Tract! Take That! Fanon!" Deadpool celebrated as he cut a ribbon labeled 'Subtlety' with an oversized pair of scissors. "Thank you and have a nice day." He gave a flourishing bow to the audience.
"Get your skinny ass back here Wade!" Big Bertha growled as she picked him up by the scruff of his neck. "You've got to get me in shape for the upcoming maternity bikini competition in eight months."
"This may be a bit too much even for a hardcore masochist like myself!" Deadpool yelped as he was yanked away for another round of baby making sex with a lovely tub of lard in a lacy, leopard-skin leotard, lingerie, and love handles.