Not long after the call, enough of my strength came back that I could get up and start walking again. As I marched through the sewers, however, I came to a startling realization. Whatever that electrical blast had done to my symbiote wasn't healing. Or at least, it was healing a hell of a lot slower than it usually did. Even when I was back to nearly 100%, it was still mostly unresponsive. I couldn't tap its senses, I couldn't make it shift, could barely work the extradimensional pocket and the camo took way too much effort to turn on and maintain.

This was bad. I couldn't make the symbiote look like normal clothes, so I couldn't pass for normal. And well, Fisk had a whole plethora of enhanciles and mutates he could call on, it was the Carnage stuff that got him to work with me. With that gone, on the off chance that he wasn't planning to burn me out of spite all along, I'd likely be treated as a used-up asset to be disposed of.

...Something was wrong. There was a new scent as I got near my base. A person, but,.. Off. Like they were really, really sick or something. As I got closer I realized that the scent was coming from inside my lair. Hesitating only slightly, I activated the hidden switch that opened the hidden door in order to see who or what had gotten in...

And was met with a chest full of buckshot.

"So I'm not the most responsible person, but there are a few things I try to stay on the ball about."

While my healing factor tried to force the hot lead from my body, a red and black ninja-looking Spider-Man knock-off toting a combat shotty of some make or another stepped out.

"So when that algorithm I blackmailed Weasle into setting up for me picked up chatter about what looked like a Carnagized Itsy-Bitsy being seen around New York, that got my curiosity peeked." Who the shit was Itsy-Bitsy?

As I got a better look at Technicolor Ninja, something clicked in my mind. "Aren't you the guy who murdered Phil Coulson?"

That seemed to take him back a bit and while he was distracted I lept forward and scratched. My symbiote might not respond well right now but it still had claws.

I managed to draw blood slashing across his chest, but he responded by striking me across the face with the butt of his gun which threw me off balance for a second.

"Dick move Susan," he said, "dick move. Okay, since the plasma breeder didn't work I'm gonna have to get creative."He dropped the gun and drew twin katanas from his back. "Special commission, just for you. A core made from a composite of micro-ceramics and secondary adamantium lets them hold a monomolecular edge that can cut almost anything while the plating is a vibranium/carbonadium alloy that should stop even your bullshit healing. After that, I've got a whole heap of exotic thermite and a big ole vat of acid to dispose of what's left after that. Then I'm gonna call in a few favors and see if I can get that tossed into the sun."

Okay, who the hell did he think I was and what has this Susan done to get him so pissed off? Still, getting hit by those seemed like a bad idea. He was fast but I think even without my symbiote was faster and...

Scratch that. My symbiote was reacting again. I wasn't up to full, and I wasn't sure what had happened and... I looked at my claws. It'd absorbed the blood I drew from this guy and... He had codices. Lots of codices.

And judging from how fast the bleeding stopped when I cut him open, he could handle what I was able to do.

I dodged around his sword slash and slid behind him. Then I buried my fingers in the small of his back and felt around for his spine.

"Ah, fuck. I should have rigged my spine to explode like I did the last time I dealt with a Carnage," he screamed. Well, that confirmed it. Once I got my fingers deep into the goo I pulled and ripped out a writhing bundle of black and blue and orange and green and purple and grey and so very much red. Then I squeezed, and the collection of codices was absorbed into my Symbiote.

Immediately my mind was flooded by chaos as I assimilated the knowledge of a madman and the symbiotes he'd worn. My symbiote finished healing... And then kept going and... Oh fuck, he had like... A hell of a lot of cancer.

I doubled over and my symbiote, veins of all the colors of the codices streaking through and across it, became filled with lesions and tumors that healed almost as soon as they formed only to be quickly replaced add infinitum.

At the same time, I could feel microscopic strands of my symbiote mass threading themselves in between my muscle fibers and around my bones, especially in my legs, and more muscle mass was layered on top of them, my senses and those of the symbiote growing greater. Caustic bile rose up in my throat, and razor-sharp spikes formed on top of grotesquely bulging limbs.

One of those giant arms grabbed the man... Deadpool was his name. I grabbed him and slammed him up against the wall. "I don't know who you think I am," I said, as that information had yet to be sorted, "but you've got the wrong girl. Now, I have had one hell of a day, so..." Taking a gamble, I had the alien costume pull back from my face hoping he'd see that I wasn't this Susan girl, "please, I'm going to ask you nicely... Leave me the hell alone."

Then I dropped him. He seemed to deflate."...You're just a kid. How does... I'm sorry."

"Leave. Now!"

I picked up his dropped weapons and tossed them at him. He got the message and scampered off. I slinked back into my lair and shut the door before collapsing on the mattress I managed to scavenge.

Eventually, my symbiote stabilized and returned to its previous form. And that's when I noticed an anomaly... According to the information I'd gleaned from my symbiote's memories, I should have lost everything when my Symbiote did that. I'd keep the information I'd absorbed—like the fact that this Susan was some sociopathic heroin addict that'd gotten spliced with Deadpool and Spider-Man's DNA—but only a small fraction of the raw power of the symbiotes whose codices I'd taken... This time, I'd kept everything and... Oh, I understood now.

That was the power my symbiote had gotten when I'd been enhanced. The chemicals that turned me into a fast healing super soldier had let it better integrate and recreate the powers of other symbiotes it got its hands on... I could use that. because if there was one thing I'd learned today it's that if I wanted to go without being hurt again I would need a hell of a lot more power than just my symbiote alone could give me.

And I noticed another thing as well. I could always sense codices and other symbiotes, but now... It was like I was plugged in much deeper. I was picking up a lot more than before, and a lot more information... More than just codices, too, I could feel other things touched by the abyss...

A smile fell on my face as I drifted off to sleep. That personal day I was taking? I'd be spending it hunting.