There was a serial killer on the loose in Westchester County.
I hadn't noticed them the last time I was out here. Not even as my range started to expand out really far had I realized he was there. It was only after my trip upstate, after sucking the marrow out of Kassady's bones that I realized that there was an unaccounted-for symbiote host at large. It was like their symbiote had some weirdly high priority in the Hive Mind and it wasn't until I was higher up myself that I could notice it.
Even now, I wasn't sure exactly who or what they were. I just knew that they were killing people and that apparently, they could teleport. So after I got back from upstate, I took a few days laying low and used my technopathy to try plugging into a few networks. My goal was to see if there was anything... Funky, going on. Ever since Knull's invasion, there have been periodic mysterious deaths. No apparent external cause, no sign of forced entry on the buildings, just... Dead. A dry, aged corpse where there'd been a healthy, living person that morning. As if all the life had been sucked out of them.
The deaths all lined up with the general area I could feel this guy in, so... Partly, it's because not helping would make me an asshole. I know where the problem is, I can help, so... But partly, it's because I wanted that teleportation power. I had the beginnings of a plan on how I could get to Asgard, but... One thing at a time.
They weren't at the Asylum, and that was good since I seriously doubted I'd be able to get back in there again, but they were near the Asylum and that was enough.
With my connection to the hive mind as it was, once I was actually in the area where the killer was active it was pretty easy to track them down to... Oh, Hell.
Another abandoned warehouse out in the middle of nowhere. It was a little unusual how many of those were.
More importantly, however, it was surrounded by... Hmmm, state police, SWAT teams, what I think was a National Guard regiment? Non-Powered law enforcement were doing their jobs on this one. Unfortunately...
"You know they can teleport, right?" I said while dropping my camo. I'd also shifted my form to be more... human-looking. Mostly it just meant ditching the symbiote costume in favor of jeans and a baggy hoodie, hood up. No need to be overly threatening.
Naturally, this got a bunch of firearms pointed my way before they realized that I was just a teenage girl. The guy in charge, a real hardass-looking guy with the stereotypical 'cop mustache,' turned to me and spoke.
"And where did you come from?"
I lifted a few inches off of the ground. I didn't really need repulsor boots to fly anymore after my latest Codex collection mission. "Flew here."
"Well fly off," he said gruffly. "This is an important joint operation of—"
I decided then and there to have some fun with him and took a peak into his mind. "You're here to kill the superpowered serial killer who has been stalking the county since the Symbiote invasion a while back and you've tracked him to this place," I began, "I know you're here to kill because you're loaded for bear and you would have called in some heroes if you wanted to take them alive. Based on your tone, body language, and general attitude... I'm guessing that you don't think you need the help of those 'costumed freaks' and also that you came here in that specific cruiser over there," I said while gesturing to a state police cruiser with a small Punisher's skull decal placed on the driver's side door. "And given that the killer is a teleporting symbiote host—"
"Ain't no symbiote host, kid," another cop interrupted. "Surviving witness describes the killer as a skeletal figure, with an unnatural purplish glow and overly long arms. Also, long hair that stood up on end and a wild man's beard. It's clearly some kind of ghost or zombie or some shit."
"So ignoring the fact that I know for a fact that it's a symbiote," I began, "you think that bullets are gonna work against the undead?"
The head hardass pulled out his sidearm, pulled out the clip, and slid the last bullet out of the chamber. I could see some symbols I didn't quite recognize and also a cross etched into the jacket and the actual bullet was... "Silver bullets, blessed by a Catholic Bishop. The Jackets have additional blessings and some alchemy symbol mumbo jump on them which gets transferred to the bullet somehow, and they're all coated and polished with this stuff that's made of sacred oils and rosewood extract. The inside of the bullet has a liquid core made of holy water, silver nitrate, wolfsbane extract, garlic extract, sea salt, cat hair, and some blue paint that some hoodoo guys down south insist will keep your house from getting haunted. Cooked up by the Military as a standard issue all-purpose ammunition for use against vampires, werewolves, zombies, ghosts, spooks, specters, skeletons, mummies, and ghouls. Our friends in the National Guard," he gestured to a National Guardsman who was keeping an eye on the warehouse, "were kind enough to hook us up when we told them what we were dealing with."
"But they won't do dick against a symbiote host," I concluded.
"It ain't a symbiote host," the guy in charge insisted. "Now, why are you here?"
"I came to stop the serial killer and preferably eat their symbiote to gain its powers," I said honestly. "I'd be a real big asshole if I just let him go on serial killing when I had the power and opportunity to stop him and also I really want his powers."
"So you're confessing to attempted vigilantism," the head cop replied. "Well just wait right here and we'll arrest you as soon as we're done with this."
"The supreme court rules that a superhuman attempting to apprehend criminals or assist in emergency situations is both within their legal rights and protected by any and all good Samaritan Laws and all attempts to circumvent that ruling have been overturned as unconstitutional as soon as they're challenged if they even get that far," I replied back, "and I've been flying for the last five minutes so don't give me that shit."
"That ruling only applies to 'costumed adventurers' little missy," Asshole replied, "and I don't see no costume."
I looked past him. "How's your life insurance?" I said to the assembled Law Enforcement agents and National Guardsmen, "Because a lot of you are going to die if you go in there."
Asshole glared at me and then gave the order "Move in," he said.
Everyone proceeded to move toward the entrance to the warehouse. "Apparently it's great," I deadpanned. I started to move to head off this stupidity but Asshole grabbed me by the shoulder.
"You're staying right here, little missy," he insisted.
"Their deaths are on your head," I said curtly and steeled myself for what was about to happen.
Within moments there was a cacophony of gunfire. It lasted only moments. Asshole turned to look at me with a smug grin.
Then the screaming started. It too lasted only moments.
Asshole seemed unnerved. He pulled a radio from his belt. "Jenkins, do you copy? Jenkins, respond." No response.
Then there was a flash of pinkish-purple light and the killer appeared in the streets before us. He was, as described, a rather large, glowing purple skeleton-man with disproportionately large arms and the beard and mane of a mountain man. It was understandable why they didn't think he was a symbiote-host, he didn't look like one. If I didn't know better I have fallen for the same trap they did.
Asshole, whose sidearm had been reloaded during our conversation, drew and emptied the clip at the killer. The anti-undead bullets crumpled against the killer's bones, their liquid cores slashing on him to no effect.
The killer looked at me and... He knew. I could feel it in my bones.
"A daughter of my bloodline?" He asked in an older, vaguely English accent and... Oh God damn it.
"No. I'm not. Cortland Kassady, I presume?"
"It was my Christian name, but my Lord has dubbed me Plague," came the response from the reanimated bones of America's first serial killer and great great great great grandfather of the man whose legacy I'd sworn to subsume.
"Hey, Asshole," I called back over my shoulder, "turns out we were both right. He's undead and a Symbiote host.." I turned back to Plague. "You know that your God is dead, right? Venom killed the shit out of him like, the same night he got to Earth."
"And Jesus of Nazareth was crucified to death. Do you see many of Christ's flock renounce their faith when one points that out?"
"Fair enough."
"Now, child... You bear the blessing of the King in Black as well. What is your story."
"Your bastard hellspawn and his xenosexual life partner infected me, but I took control, made it my own, and then I evolved." I shifted into my symbiote form and transformed my arm into a massive blade. "And the name I chose for myself is Massacre."
"You intend to fight me?"
"I intend to kill you," I replied.
Plague began to resemble a purple flame before vanishing in a bright flash. But this close, even his high priority in the Hivemind didn't fully protect him from my own connection to it. As he appeared to my side to strike me, I twisted and ran him through with my blade. Then I tapped into Scream's sonic knife ability to make it vibrate.
Plague Screamed. Then I charged the blade up with lightning using the same principles behind Miles's venom punch.
The bones of Cortland Kassady clattered to the ground and I stomped on the purple mass of Living Abyss in the middle of it, flexing my clawed toes as I absorbed it.
Cortland's memories, of having once been a good man who was driven insane by an infection of Living Abyss by the cannibalistic 'Others,' of committing murder and cannibalism, of killing his lover who... Okay, I needed to look up the Ravencraft Family Tree later... Anyway, it was bad, but no worse than anything else I'd seen at this point and... It was looping. Why was it looping?
...Oh, that little shit. Corltand's mind was in the symbiote, not the bones. Whatever. That Extrembiote thing I'd gotten from Mister Stark had power over Symbiotes. Now that Cortland was inside me, now that I knew he was inside me, it was easy enough to destroy him and take all of his power for my own.
Once that was done, I turned back to the last remaining cop. "So yeah. Cortland killed all of them. How many good men just died because of your pride? Your desire to be the one to kill the killer? Your desire to show up the supers? Your willingness to rush in half-cocked based on a surface-level understanding of the situation based on looks? Because you refused to listen when someone who knew better than you tried to help?"
As I spoke, tendrils from my back slowly slithered down to Cortland's bones and snapped them all open to suck out whatever preserved marrow or living Abyss might have been hiding inside. Every little bit counted after all.
I briefly considered imprinting Cortland's memory of sucking the life out of those men in the cop's mind, but that would just be kicking him while he was down. I'm not even sure he heard a word I said, he seemed shocked speechless, and probably had been since shooting Plague.
"Next time, when you're dealing with a super, call in people who know how to handle supers."
I began to glow red and resemble a scarlet flame as I decided to test my new powers, and in a flash I appeared back in Manhattan.
...Unfortunately, I appeared on top of Stark Tower, not my lair in the sewers. I'd need to work on precision jumping over long distances and—
"MUTANT DETECTED."
There was a Stark Sentinel behind me. Not sure how something that big snuck up behind me, but it did.
I rolled my eyes. "I'm not a Mutant, I..."
Was just someone who'd absorbed a hell of a lot of mutant DNA into a symbiote that was in and of itself merged with my DNA and had my whole body rebuilt based on that DNA once.
"Well fuck me then," I replied and turned around. Luckily I still had my blade out.
"Facial Recognition Scan: Target Identified. Maria Marshall, high priority target for crimes of mass aggravated assault, jailbreak, and theft of Stark Tech property. Updating database with new information: Maria Marshal is a mutant. Calling Reincofrcements."
Three more Stark Sentinels fell out of the sky.
Well, this was gonna suck.
"My name," I insisted, "is Massacre!"
"Updating Database: Maria Marshal identifies as Massacre. Firing synaptic disrupters."
Synaptic what? I flew up planning to dodge but I was surrounded on four sides and they all shot at once... Then everything got a little blurry.