The Marvelous Spider-Girls!

by RedDragoon2691

The iconic web-slinger of Earth-919 faced many trials across his career. After enduring years of hardship, the time has come for the friendly neighborhood hero to get a happy ending! Of course, somebody still has to go out there to save the day, and that's where the next generation of heroes enters! Read about the new Marvelous trio: the daughters of Spider-Man united at last!

14. Chapter 14

Issue #14: Maximum Mayhem (Part VI)

Part III: The Truth

[Winter 2001]

A chaotic anthem of cheerful music and colorful laughter filled the air of the famed Brooklyn theme park, Thrill World. Abandoned decades ago, it saw a resurgence and now sees thousands of happy visitors every night, including one unhappy visitor. Huddled inside a bright red phone booth in the middle of this cacophony of whimsy stood a tall, blond man. He was so huge that many visitors mistook him for a circus strongman; he also smelt like he crawled out of a sewer. The putrid smell and the wide, white emblem plastered on his dark coat and grizzled look unnerved many attendees.

"Listen, these things happen. I'm not happy about this extension either. If this job didn't pay good cash, I'd be—" he said, exhaustion clear in his gruff tone.

"Eddie Brock, you've been away for almost two weeks now," a woman said over the phone. "Dylan misses you." Eddie leaned against the phone machine, using one arm to clutch his abdomen. He could tell from her voice that she, too, was tired.

"And do you miss me?" Eddie winced at how desperate he sounded and from this nagging gut pain. He was ready to slap himself over such a creepy question if not for his ex-wife's mature response.

"I miss you making Dylan happy on the weekends," she answered. "And I know he will miss you if something terrible happens. I've long moved on, Eddie, and I'll be alright, but I worry he wouldn't. Have you at least tried calling?"

"I've been calling him, Anne," Eddie insisted, twiddling the phone cord. "You know, like, asking about school and stuff."

"He would rather you ask him that over at the local diner than on the other side of the country."

Eddie Brock smacks his head on the glass, the breath of his sigh fogging up the panel. His heart practically screams at him that she is right, and he'd love to leave this godforsaken city on the first plane he can take. However, the searing pain in the gut reminds him that his 'job' is far from done.

"Look, I gotta go, okay?" Eddie grunted, "You'll be getting the support money in the mail soon, Anne."

"Eddie," Anne urged, "promise me this isn't about your…obsession." Either from guilt or the pain in his abdomen, Eddie can't bring himself to speak. "Right…I knew you had that look on your face the day Spider-Man vanished. If that has anything to do with you leaving—"

"It ain't about that, Anne," Eddie insisted.

"Then what, Eddie?!"

"A hunch," he answered. A second, familiar voice spoke harmoniously with his. "Or it was a hunch. Now, we know we must be here. We know what to do when we find the lunatic lurking around this city. To finally settle the score and keep you two safe."

After a long pause on Anne's end, she said, "Don't die out there," then hung up.

Eddie opens the door with his head down low when a sharp tingle is felt down his neck. His mind recognizes a familiar whiff that makes their whole beings tense up in spiteful anticipation. "There you are," they growl, crushing the phone as a dark ooze morphs his hand.

Attendees hear cracking and growls from the direction of the phone booth, their gazes staring as what was once a man transformed into the infamous lethal protector who once called New York City home. The sight of the white spider across their chest and back was enough to send the crowds running. Their large maws, containing rows of sharp teeth, let out a guttural roar as they terrifyingly cried out, "No one escapes Venom!"

Firing their webs, Venom leaps over the dazzling neon lights of amusement and into the cold, dark skies of New York City. Black tendrils wiggle on top of their upper back, their vibrations directing Venom to where their target is heading. They did their best to ignore the pain from their fresh wound from a recent battle. Venom swung high into the air, filled with a fiery determination to make this the night Carnage died. It all began on a regular day for Eddie Brock. He was at his dingy apartment in San Francisco, doing another tabloid assignment beneath him as a writer. Suddenly, he stumbled upon an article from a fellow writer. He'll never forget the chill down his spine upon reading that Cletus Kassidy, the psychotic Carnage, had escaped from prison. Eddie felt his other half seething with anger, that something must be done.

Now Venom's tracking senses have brought him to Queens, the home of his former rival, Spider-Man! Eddie swore he could sniff out Peter if he stopped, but upon finally fixing his wound, the symbiote was urging him that Carnage was heading northward. Eddie understood and swung away. They knew Carnage was undoubtedly the most dangerous foe they'd ever fought. Their first battle went so bad that they even needed help from Spider-Wuss to beat him! That alone made Venom utterly despise Carnage. Eddie would've jumped into action immediately in his younger, more reckless years, but the picture of his son and Anne Weying made him pause.

However, the suit wouldn't stop warning him that something was different, that Carnage's movements weren't a random killing spree but a hunt. Eddie was still willing to look the other way. It was only when the suit insisted that his innocent family would eventually become a target of Carnage that Eddie finally agreed. Before boarding the first plane to New York City, he left money and a note for Dylan. Venom quickly believed they had located Carnage, only to realize too late that Carnage had found them instead. Their secluded first battle in years was epic. It would've been weirdly nostalgic for Eddie if he weren't left half-dead by the end of it. It quickly became a cycle. Carnage would either already give them the slip, or they would battle, only for Carnage to slip away anyway. Venom swore this time would end this vicious cycle with Carnage's death.

Venom could faintly sense some heroes on nightly patrol, but they knew better than to ask for superheroes' help. Not only do they always misunderstand Venom's unique code of honor, but Venom also wishes to uphold their last promise to Spider-Man.

'Let's make a deal! You don't come after us, and we won't come after you!'

Even if Peter were somehow dead, which they doubt, Venom wouldn't sink so low as to defile a dead man's deal. Keep a low profile, steal only what needs to be stolen to survive, and never lose track of Carnage's trail. This has been Venom's mission, and they vow this will be their last fight against Carnage. 'There!' Venom thought. Carnage's scent had brought them to the cold shores of an abandoned Manhattan dockside. A shanty pier devoid of life, not even a sewer rat dared to cross here. At the center of this little dark corner of Manhattan lay the tall, abandoned ACME warehouse where Carnage's scent led.

'Why here?' Venom wondered. They knew Carnage could hide anywhere, but Carnage wasn't dumb. That psycho should know better than to use this desolate place. 'There must be another reason. Perhaps we can beat it out of him before we finish him off!' Venom's senses bring them to an ordinary brick wall on the sixth floor. Eddie didn't get it until the symbiote guided their hands to a slightly sticking-out brick. Venom's lenses widen in shock upon pressing it, revealing a hidden door with an elevator behind it. This was no old-timey elevator either. It looked too advanced, too recent. The echo of Carnage's cackling was all it took for Venom to step into the shadowy lift and be lowered to the bowels below.

When the lift stopped, wide metal doors opened to reveal something that made the unusually unfazed Venom ask himself, "What have we gotten ourselves into?" Venom liked to believe nothing could truly shock them, but discovering a secret laboratory filled with the brim with dusty tech was close to doing it. Aside from some equipment in the walls, the steel room was empty. 'Nothing but generators and big, fancy machines,' Venom observed, their gaze catching one monitor showing life signs readings. Life signs of...something, something Venom will soon find out. Venom senses were going haywire, signaling that Carnage was just on the other side of a broad, thick steel wall leading to "The Experiment Chamber." However, what was confusing the symbiote was something- no, someone else in there. "Bahh! It matters not who Venom must face; we'll destroy them like we will this door," they declared, sinking their claws into the door and pulling it open. "Nowhere to run, Carnage! This underwater tomb will be your grave!"

Venom breaks the door's locking system with his enormous strength, and upon opening the door, he takes a sharp gasp at the sight of the massive machine in the center of the experiment chamber. This laboratory's power and tech were funneled into a single stasis tube. Carnage stared at what was inside this tube, the sole inhabitant of this cramped, cold place shut away from the world: a little girl. 'A…innocent,' Venom thought, frozen over such a discovery. As if in slow-mo, they watched Carnage look back at them, devilishly smiling before morphing their arm into a blood-red axe. It's raised in the air, aimed directly at the girl in stasis.

"NO!" Venom fired a barrage of webbing, catching Carnage's arm and swinging him into some machines. With barely a second to think, Venom knew this strange girl's presence made it too difficult to deal with Carnage directly. Venom also sensed something familiar about the girl Carnage had seemingly been hunting. Eddie knew this wasn't the time for questions. Now was the time for action, and their first goal was to save this girl before Carnage could get their filthy hands on her. 'That's it,' they realize, 'we can't defeat Carnage by ourselves, but even Carnage can't survive metric tons of earth and water crashing down.'

Their bitter rival was already back on his feet, so if Venom was going to tear this place down, they had to do it quickly. If there's one thing Eddie knows, it is movies, and the best movies always show that secret lairs have an emergency self-destruction system, and Eddie has a plan to set it off. "Hang on," he said, leaping over to the girl entangled by wires while floating in green liquid. Clenching his fists, he bashed open the bulletproof chamber, releasing a flood of some strange serum and hot steam. The stench of the serum reminded Eddie of the scent of a long-dead rival to Spider-Man. Their hands carefully caught the girl, and Venom smelt a familiar scent while tearing wires off her.

A scratchy laugh from Carnage echoes in the room. "Keep your eye on the Birdie!"

Venom's unable to shield themselves and the girl as Carnage throws a hulking generator at both. Buried beneath its nearly two-ton weight, Venom is tossed to the other side of the experiment chamber and feels the heat of a fire breaking out.

[SUBJECT'S VITALS GONE] the primary security system announced, [INITIATING SELF-DESTRUCTION SEQUENCE]. Venom was right, but unfortunately, it won't be Carnage who'll be trapped underneath here. Carnage quickly turns the tables by redirecting the fire around where Venom and the girl are trapped before letting the security system do its thing.

"Well, lookee, lookee! It seems Daddy's little plan is falling apart. Literally!" Carnage crackled. "But look at the bright side of things. You two will make for an adorable pair of crushed red paste in a minute. Sayonara, ya two, have a lovely death!" The echoes of Carnage's laughter soon vanished as he escaped, closing off their only exit.

The situation worsened with each passing second as Venom struggled to push away the falling debris above them. All the while, they were protecting the girl in his arms from drowning as water flooded in. Even as they brushed away the last of the rock and metal falling on them, the fire spread across the walls, and the icy water was up to their knees. "Can't die like this," Venom said, looking down at the unconscious girl in their arms. He growls upon noticing a streak of blood leaking from her forehead. "Can't let you die like this."

A new hole tears open in the high ceiling, releasing a waterfall onto them. Venom then formulates a desperate plan. Knowing they had only seconds, they wrapped the girl in airtight webbing, hugged her to their bodies, and leaped into the rushing waterfall. It takes all their will to resist the force of the sea pouring against them. They are so deep underwater, so strained by the climbing, that they barely maintain air for Eddie.

Nonetheless, slowing down means letting the girl suffocate. They will not allow that! The innocent must be saved. Venom WILL live! Eddie and the suit pick up the pace, digging their claws to fight the stream, fight to protect the innocent! After a grueling climb up, Venom finally reached open water and hurriedly swam to the surface. Eddie gasped for air upon reaching the surface, tearing the webbing off the girl, who instinctively took a sharp breath. Venom carried her back to the rocky shores of Manhattan.

Any signs of Carnage's presence were gone, for now.

"We're safe, kid, we're safe," Eddie sighed, leaning against the rocks as he cradled the child. Now that the danger's gone, Eddie got a good look at the girl. She appeared to be no older than five and wore a simple, one-piece black test suit. He gently brushed away a lock of her long, brown hair until something incredible happened. Merely a second after touching her forehead, the girl's hair shape-shifted from brown to black, and she opened her eyes. Eddie swore he saw her with blue and green eyes, only for her to blink again, and they had changed to just blue. She exhaustedly glanced at Eddie and his white spider symbol before passing out.

This proved a sneaking suspicion Venom had the moment they saw her. Eddie and the symbiote didn't know how, but this girl's ability to shapeshift her appearance like that proved she had a symbiote. However, she didn't just have a symbiote; the pair were completely fused. 'A hybrid,' Venom figured. Gently placing their forefinger at the temple of her head, the symbiote glimpses the youngling's codex, the psychic core of a symbiote that contains the host's DNA. 'A perfect symbiosis of man and symbiote. Not just any symbiote, not just any child. The codex of this symbiote's structure reads like an evolution of ours and Carnage's. An evolution of our bloodline.'

Eddie could see all this, too, and the detail that baffled him the most was who this girl was. "And this girl, that look in her eyes…they're exactly the kind of look Parker has. This girl is his daughter!"

Amid this bombastic series of revelations and the questions that still linger in their minds, Venom wiped away the trickle of blood from the girl's head. 'Blunt trauma. Must've been while buried under debris,' they reasoned, sensing the girl's symbiote not doing anything to stop it. 'Must do something. Can't leave an innocent so young alone, but how?'

Venom knew Carnage was out there, and a child staying by their side 24/7 would only mean the girl would never know peace or safety. Even if they did skip town, what then? Eddie's barely scraping by being a tabloid reporter, doing only the occasional merc job. Most importantly, Eddie's already dedicating himself to supporting his family, regardless of the divorce. His home was neither big nor safe enough for a little girl, especially a girl who's undoubtedly Peter Parker's lost kid.

The sounds of approaching sirens echo in the air. The locals likely called them in, frightened of a potential sighting of Carnage. Venom still has a lot of thinking to do, but Eddie's consciousness will never be at ease until he is confident this innocent girl is safe from Carnage. He gently laid the girl at the foot of the warehouse and patiently waited until the authorities found her. The moment paramedics carried her to the ambulance, Venom disappeared into the night.

Part IV: Poor Wandering One

[Back in the present...]

Within the Baxter Building's mission briefing room, Mary Jane Parker and Peter Parker were in front of a crowd. The parents are about to finish recounting everything they know about their daughter April Parker's origins. Their audience consisted of Reed Richards, Sue Storm, and Ben Grimm, each of whom had recently returned from a mission. Alicia and the FF kids remained in the guest quarters. Next to them were Ben, Kaine, Jessica, and Aracely. Finally, their children, Mayday and Annie, sat in the front row. Annie held onto her sister's hand for the retelling, trying to wrap her head around this revelation.

While a great weight felt like it was slowly being lifted off M.J.'s and Peter's backs, an even greater weight of shame and guilt replaced it. M.J. herself has struggled not to be dissociative over this nightmare scenario in which April and the whole family have found themselves. Even as her mind could barely comprehend the fact one of her daughters had vanished in a fit of betrayal and rage, her heart knew April, and the family needed her more than ever before. She needed to focus and do something to make things right, and she started by telling everyone the truth about April's true nature. "For the next three months," M.J. said, "Venom became a guardian to April. Always checking up on her from a distance, keeping Carnage from finding out she's alive and investigating why she was there in the first place."

"The whole time, April didn't know. She couldn't remember anything. Not a clue to where she came from, why she was there, or even who she was, " Peter said. He noticed his siblings share a look of understanding over April's situation, for they knew better than anyone here over being dealt with such an existential crisis. "When Venom finally tracked Mary Jane down, he tried to approach her gently."

"And though he and that symbiote scared the living daylights out of me, I decided Peter and I should listen. Venom told us everything that we are now telling all of you. After showing us which orphanage April was being housed in, he said, 'And now our business is over, Parker. The girl's fate is up to you two, so do what you do best,' then he vanished. Neither of us has heard from him since."

"After wondering if Eddie's story was true, M.J. and I went to the orphanage. The little girl who stepped forward not only matched Venom's description...her face was exactly like Mayday's. A quick test from Doctor Conners double-confirmed that April has the exact genetic template as Mayday's."

"Because she's my twin," Mayday said, drawing everyone's attention as they looked in anticipation concern. "April's my lost twin. She looks kinda different, but we were both born that day..that's what you told me." There's a pause from her parents, as nearly everyone in the room already knew what Peter and M.J. would say.

Annie looks around, asking, "What's wrong?"

"Identical twins aren't genetically the same," Peter answered. "Early in life, a twin's genes will mutate and alter their DNA sequence. Tiny differences, yes, but they are still different. April's DNA, however, is precisely like yours. Everything about her is like you: her blood, bone marrow, cells, brain patterns-a copy so perfect you wouldn't be able to tell the difference."

"But then that'll mean April is..." Annie said casually before the last word of her sentence utterly stunned her.

"A clone," Mary Jane revealed, looking straight at her eldest daughter, whose eyes widened in shock as the life she once knew changed forever. "April is your clone, Mayday."

While stunned by such a bombshell, Annie gripped her sister's hand to offer comfort, but Mayday looked like her life was flashing before her eyes. In Mayday's head, every memory of April ran through her head like a film reel, but every piece of memory wasn't the same because April the twin, was now April the clone. To her, this recontextualized everything: why they share the same toys, the same interests, the same diet, and even the same fears. Mayday sometimes, in the back of her head, felt as if talking to April was like talking to herself. In this spiral of existential crisis, she sees only her reflection whenever she tries to remember April's face. She pressed her clenched hands on her forehead, barely able to whisper, "My clone. April is me...or am I her?"

M.J. and Peter were quickly by her side, shooting down this line of thought. "Mayday, no," Peter said, "I've been down that road before, and it'll only lead to bad things."

"You and April are your own persons," M.J. urged, feeling like this was one of the most important things she had ever said. Mayday nods, but her continued silence is worrisome to the whole room.

Annie then processed what her dad had said. "Wait, what'd you mean by that, Dad?"

Peter's brother, Ben, stood up and told them another secret. "Your Aunt Jessica, Uncle Kaine, and I are clones of your father. How and why we're clones is a long story for another time, but Mayday, look at us. The three of us are clones, but you never saw us as copies of your dad for your whole life because we aren't your dad."

"That's right," Aracely said, "Kaine is still your irritable, gruff uncle."

"Yeah, I am," Kaine reaffirmed.

"I'm still the same aunt you knew, Mayday—the same woman. Being a clone will never change that," Jessica said, more sure of herself than ever.

"And I'm still your Uncle Ben." Approaching her, Ben gently placed his hand on her elbow, reassuringly saying, "It's not the face of the person that defies them, Mayday. It's the content of their character."

The whole room knew this moment was critical for Mayday, not only to process all this but also to make it clear that she and April would never be viewed differently. Mayday takes a breath and calmly says, "Thanks, everyone, but...I still don't get how that symbiote latched onto April."

"I can help explain that," Reed said. Using his incredible powers, he stretched his rubber body to the front. With a snap of his fingers, the lights are dimmed, and a digital screen is projected in front of the audience. "What you see is what your father sent me upon his arrival: a complete readout of April's DNA he and Dr. Conner recorded annually."

Annie gasped, "So that's why only Dad took her to the doctor."

Reed continued, "Like all DNA structures, especially for human mutates, it was a little tricky to analyze in such a short time. However, I can positively confirm what Peter and Dr. Conner have initially theorized: April Parker is a human-symbiote hybrid." Mayday and Annie both couldn't believe what they were looking at. What should be a typical DNA sequence instead was nearly entirely coated by a dark substance. Next to that was zoomed-in footage of April's cells; all had their membranes and nuclei coated by the same alien genetic material. Both of which functioned perfectly, a complete symbiosis. "My family and I encountered some of these hybrids across a few parallel earths, but April's certainly a first for this universe."

"How fascinating, Doc," Kaine said sarcastically. "Now, can you tell us if the same weakness still applies?" Though his insensitive comment earned him some glares, Reed answered his question with a nod. "Good. Don't get in my way," Kaine said before attempting to leave the room, only to smack his face into an invisible wall.

He sees Sue's eyes glowing white and asks, "And where do you think you're going?"

"Yeah," The Thing said, standing up, "Watcha' mean by that, pal?"

Kaine shakes his head, "Aracely."

The room glanced at Aracely, and she quietly gasped as if Kaine had given her a signal. Hesitatingly, she shook her head. "No, Kaine!"

"There's only one true way of subduing her, Aracely."

"Subduing?!" Mary Jane yelled, standing up.

"You're trying to get the sonic rifle!" Jessica realized.

The Thing immediately grabs Kaine, restraining him. "What's wrong with ya?! You must have rocks for brains if ya thinking of using something so deadly on a kid!"

"For all we know, Johnny's on his way back with her," Sue suggested.

"He's not," Kaine grunted, fruitlessly trying to escape The Thing's grasp.

"Then we'll find her all together," Ben said. "We have to. I can't only imagine what she's going through right now."

"I can," Kaine said. "She feels the whole world's out to get her, that her existence is just one bad joke, and would lash out against anyone in her way. But, want to know the key difference between her and us, brother? At least we're not one of Osborn's weapons now unleashed." The whole room is stunned at such an accusation. The FF are confused and disgusted at Kaine seeing April in such a way. The Parkers are appalled at his words, but a tiny bit of doubt could be seen in Peter's eyes.

"What on earth are you..." Jessica said before memories of that fateful night against the Goblin sprung up. Pieces things together, she quietly gasps, "Oh god."

Amid the quiet dread rising in the room, the mention of the name and her worry over April cause Mayday to recall a talk her family recently shared. With all this new knowledge about her twin's true nature as a clone, Mayday asks but one question: "Dad, you said the Goblin kidnapped April, but what really happened?"

"Go on, Peter," Kaine said, "You knew the whole time and kept it from all of us. I know who I saved that day, and it was only Mayday."

Mayday and Annie turn to their parents, as does the rest of the room. All the adults begin to realize the truth behind the last secret Peter and M.J. have kept. Mary Jane, thoroughly sick of keeping such secrets from family, looks back at her daughters. The room is dead silent, waiting for her to tell them the last bit of truth. With a heavy heart, she tells them, "Norman, the green goblin, is the one who cloned you. He created April."

Not even a second later, an alert from the Baxter Building's systems snapped everyone's attention to the window. A large window opened as Johnny Storm landed inside the room, partially out of breath. "I looked," she gasped. I swear I was on her tail, but then she..."

While Sue is quickly beside her brother, Peter stands up and asks, "Johnny, what happened? Where's she?!"

"Where's my sister?!" Annie worryingly asked.

"I don't know," Johnny said, frustration and shame evident in his voice. "It's like she turned invisible, just up and vanished."

Upon this dire news, everyone looked out the evening skyline of New York City, where an urban laboratory April was hiding somewhere. A labyrinth filled with a bunch of scared citizens and angry cops eager to dispense swift and permanent justice to a terrified child whom they see as a monster. Without a moment to lose, the adults of both families quickly sit up and get a move on. While the Fantastic Four prep the Fantasticar for search & rescue operations, the Parkers head to where Johnny last saw her to begin their search for April. Peter kept a close eye on Kaine as he dons a replica of Ben's Spider-Suit to search for his daughter. He prays this would be the last time such a horrible event would happen to them, but the Parkers are rarely so lucky. All he can do is ensure this emergency doesn't spiral into a tragedy; he and his family couldn't bear such a horrible ending.

Mayday remained almost dazed while all this was happening, staring off into space as one remorseful feeling spiraled in her mind: 'April...May...I'm so sorry for making you feel alone.'

[Later...]

April Parker loudly sobs in a dark alley cluttered with trash while shivering behind a garbage container. The cold wasn't making her shiver. No, it was this grotesque, creepy skin that consumed her entire body.

Everything felt so alien; she could see, hear, and smell almost everything in humanly impossible ways. It was utterly dizzying. Perhaps the most vile smell was the blood on her hand, the blood from her mom and sister. No smell before has filled her with such shame. "What's happening to me?" She carefully rubs her eyes because her fingers remain stuck as razor-edge talons. A part of her supposes it doesn't matter because when she stares at the puddle beside her, all she sees is the face of a monster. Instead of her brown skin, she had this dark, blueish rough flesh. Instead of her bright blue eyes, she only had sharp, white lenses for her eyes. Her pearly white teeth were now black fangs. The only thing that was the same was her long, dark hair, but even that was off as it hovered in the air, each strand capable of moving on her command.

It all disgusted her, made all the worse; her attempts to tear it off were futile. No matter how much she tried to scratch at this strange new skin, ignoring the pain she was inflicting on her face, her nails couldn't tear it off. "Get off! I hate this face! I just wanna be me!" she sobbed, digging in her nails and tugging her face like taffy. Such pain from attempting this could only be described as trying to tear off one's limb. As if a cruel joke was being played, her 'face' slaps back, and April falls flat on the pavement. She wished she could scream out in despair, but April didn't have it in her anymore after the sixth attempt. So there she lied: Alone and empty.

People treated her differently for as long as she could remember, even after her parents discovered her. To feel alienated by classmates, called ugly during recess, and deemed 'troubled' by adults, April has been met only with cruel words from those who don't care about understanding her. How else would a child respond to such cruelty other than to lash out? Who cares if it justifies their opinions? It's not like she cared about them anyway. Looking at her black and blue hands, she now sees that everything they called her was true.

"Even my twin sees me as a freak." Any rage she had left in her burnt itself out, leaving only despair over what she'd done to the only people who loved her. "I hurt them," she sobbed, her throat burning up as she remembered the red of her mother's blood. "I hurt Mama...I hurt May." Curling up, April sobbed, but there were no tears, for her new form had also taken that from her. "I can't go back," she cried, staring at her twisted reflection, "I'm alone again. Stuck as some ugly, stupid monster..."

Then, a shadowy figure appeared in the reflection behind her. "That's not what I see," a voice uttered, their tone distorted as it echoed in April's head. She turned to see a tall humanoid cloaked in darkness, like some specter, looming over her. Panicked, she crawled back until her back was against the wall. "Wanna know what I see?" April shielded her face from the specter who walked up and kneeled beside her. "I see potential. I see power." April's eyes glance up to see this stranger's face, only to see nothing but a void. "I. See. Perfection."

April felt a strange sense of deja vu, causing her head to ache. The sharp pain is disturbingly familiar. She tried to squirm away, but the specter calmly approached her. "Hey now, no need to be afraid. I'm here to help you. I'm the only one capable of setting you back on the right path."

Despite the seemingly kind words, part of April doubted every word he said. "S-stay away..."

The specter leans closer, whispering, "Why?"

"Or I'll hurt you!" she roared as she climbed onto the roof, scurrying away on all fours like a tiger dashing at full speed. Upon leaping across a few rooftops, April's eyes widen, and she skids to a halt, a familiar figure casually appearing out of thin air in front of her.

"Running won't help you," the specter from seconds ago said, a smile across their face. "Where could you even go? The second the masses see you, torches and pitchforks will be everywhere."

April crawls back, frightfully keeping her distance. "How'd you get up here so fast? What are you?!"

"The answer may be too complex for your little head," they replied. "For now, see me as the angel on your shoulder, an angel looking to win back his wings."

Angels didn't look like shadow demons the last time April checked, and his smile was hardly welcoming. A tingling feeling rang in her mind, but it was such a new and irritating sensation that April couldn't tell if this was warning her of this specter or something else. "You want to help me?"

"Of course. I've seen you tossed away just now. Those Parkers must be heartless to shun someone as magnificent as you."

"No, no, you're lying. They wouldn't...," April said, yet her doubtfulness wavered upon remembering the fear in her mother's eyes. Her jaw still stung from the impact of her twin's kick. "No. You're not real."

"They did."

"I'm not listening," April yelled, turning away while clutching her head. "You're only in my head. I-I'm seeing things!"

"Well, it wouldn't be the first time that happened, or have you already forgotten?"

Upon the snap of his fingers, April's head snaps back; her eyes widen as a strain of memories plays inside her head. In that brief moment, she relives key moments in her nightmares, glancing at some distant phantom and warning Mayday of some incoming flying person. The one relation each of these memories had was a shadow, the same shadow who was standing behind her. She turns around, the phantom looming over her. "You," she gasped.

He raised his arms in a boastful manner. "Bingo, kiddo, me! Be it the park, the training course, or your nightmares. Like a good angel, I'm always watching over the exceptional."

She growled with her claws out; whoever this phantom was, she knew he was responsible for invading her dreams. "You call this exceptional? I don't even have a face anymore! I'm not human anymore!"

"Is that so bad?" April gawked at the stranger's brushing off her concerns as he pointed at her claws. "You're now stronger than ever before. You can morph any body part into a weapon. You can even turn yourself invisible. All this, and you've barely even scratched the surface of this power."

"Who cares about power!? Look at me; I'm ugly!"

"No, my dear," he said, trying to manifest a sense of comfort behind his words. He kneels, hovering his hand over her head while April clutches her face, sobbing over what she sees as a repulsive form. "You're now who you're supposed to be. This is the real you—the side of you that sorry excuse of a family tried to repress."

"R-repress? No, Mom and Dad wouldn't..."

"I'm sorry, kiddo, but they did," he said, each word reinforcing this claim somehow subtly convincing a confused and frightened April. "Your dear old parents practically said so on the phone."

Upon the man snapping his finger again, April tried to shut her eyes as another flood of memories was forced into her mind. Unable to stop it, she saw her mom on the phone again. The words coming out of her mouth felt familiar, and the rush of memories made it hard to remember what was exactly said.

"She's hiding something. What if it has something to do with the symbiote..."

"Forgive me for worrying that April, the little girl lying next door to May and Annie, could inflict such mayhem."

"They didn't," April struggled to say, "they never said...!"

"They have, remember? You're dear mother & twin sister said so themselves."

"Try getting out of that, freak!"

"What is wrong with her?"

April falls to her knees, no longer able to resist what her memories are showing her. Though her heart tries to deny it, her brain will never lie. Even if these memories aren't exact, a voice in her head enforced how the sentiment was all the same: Her parents were afraid of her. They knew and yet must've been scared enough to want to hide it, only for April to transform into the very thing they feared. "Mom...! Why?!" Wallowing in despair, the push the phantom needed was the reality that April's family seemingly saw her as an outsider and in such a guilt-ridden state she was in. This was accomplished smoothly.

The phantom hid his sneer behind his sweet words. "It hurts to say it, but it's the truth," he sighed. "The fact is that your parents see that side of you as a mistake."

"Why?" she cried, "I didn't mean to hurt people."

"People refuse to accept something they don't understand, kid. They pretend to love, and your family pretends well, but it's all shallow love. Lies to keep you in line, but even they can't control you forever. You wanna know why they still tried?" April remained silent as the man extended his hand and tightened into a fist. "Because they're afraid. They're all afraid of you."

"Even my sisters?"

"Especially them!" April flinched at the upsurge of ferocity in the specter's voice. He calmed himself when asked, "And what do you think they are afraid of?"

Pondering momentarily, April winces at the times she frightens Annie and feels regret at every fight she has with Mayday. "That I can hurt them."

"Close. They're afraid you're better than them, stronger than them. Is it hard to believe they're afraid you'll be a better hero than they'd ever be? One day, they'll snatch away the legacy that belongs to you because they believe you'll never be a real daughter to Spider-Man."

"I'm just as real as they are," April grumbled.

"I believe you, but those phonies never will unless you prove it to them. What better way of showing them than by revealing just how superior you are?"

April paused, practically hearing a broad smile from the specter's voice. It was as if he knew something she desperately wanted to know. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that I can show you the truth," the shadow revealed as he pointed at April. "The truth about why this is happening to you, why you have such a large gap in your memories, why you were gone all those years, and who you are. All these answers can be yours if you let me help you."

Despite the kind, friendly tone, April isn't some foolish child. Even if everything he said was true, April was weary enough to trust this phantom to follow him to who knows where. However, April assumes she can't say no to him forever, given he can appear just about anywhere. There was always the prospect of returning to her family, but the fear of retribution lingered in her mind, picturing the worst that could happen. They could toss her back to the orphanage, force her never to use her powers, or worse, they'll try to 'cure' her. As much as she despised her powers and appearance, the prospect of removing all of it sickened her to her core. She can only describe this feeling as comparable to tearing away her very identity, leaving only a shell.

The more she dwelled on this, the more tempting the possibility of discovering why all this was happening. Still, coming from a suspicious figure like this phantom, April is at least cautious enough to ask him a few more questions.

"Why did I almost kill my Mom and sister over at Baxter?" Her voice rose with each word she uttered. "Why did I hear a voice in my head? Was it you?!"

"Gotta earn your trust, eh? Smart girl." His compliment rang hollow for April until the specter explained. "Simply put, your symbiote-half instincts kicked in."

"S-symbiote..." she whispered. The name felt familiar as if she had heard it all her life. "Was it the one speaking?"

"Correct. Those creatures' brains operate very differently from humans. They're more complex in some ways. More often than not, they're primal beasts ready to pounce at the first sign of threat. They're smart enough to see your family as one, will you?"

"But how am I one of them?" April demanded, tugging her slimey arm. "How did this get on me?!"

"You got your free sample, kid. Do you want all the answers? Then come with me."

In one last moment of doubt, April asked, "Why you?"

"Because no one understands you as I do," he said, "If you see through this to the end with me, it'll all be worth it."

Nothing told April this specter was lying, whether it be her intuition, gut feeling, or spider sense. She stared as he lent a guiding hand to unearth who she was. With a mind of its own, April's hand reached over to take his offer until he suddenly retracted it. "Ah, it seems they're already hunting you."

"APRIL!"

That familiar voice made April turn to see her father in disguise, swinging over to her alone. "He's not alone. You can sense it. Be careful," the specter warned as the specter's presence proved invisible to her dad.

"Thank god I found you," Peter sighed with deep relief. When he extended his arms and saw that smile he always does, a part of April wanted to jump and hug her dad. However, after everything she's done, what her parents likely have done, a part of her didn't see it as a hug but a trap. April retreated on all fours, her shoulders tense while tendrils popped out and defensively shielded its host. "April...it's me, your dad," she said, his tone warm. "You're safe now."

If only such words were true, they couldn't be to April. Not when it feels like every fiber of her body could so easily hurt anyone and everyone. She curls up, her head hung low. "Nobody around me is safe," she mutters.

"You were scared and confused," Peter reasoned, "I felt both those things when a symbiote bonded with me, but that's over now."

"Say that to Mom's arm," April whimpered, her voice cracking over such an awful act she committed. "I hurt her. I hurt May...they hate me now."

"We don't hate you, April," Peter said with all the earnestness in his heart. He kneels, removing his mask and showing the utter concern that plagued his eyes. "Come back home, and you'll see how much they still love you. You won't believe how relieved they'll be to see you again."

April sees her father's extended hand, her eyes capturing its gentle, welcoming gesture before glancing down at her hands. "But I'd be too scared even to touch them, Dad! Look at my hands!"

"I know, sweetie, I know," Peter said reassuringly while acknowledging his daughter's distress. "What's happening to you is surprising to all of us, but you don't have to go through it alone. We can help you."

"Like fixing you?" the specter voice echoed in her head. "As if you were an animal?"

With every word the specter uttered, April felt compelled to repeat them without question. "Like fixing me? Like some wild animal to be tamed?"

"No," Peter quickly rebuttals in a gentle tone. "April, that's not what I'm saying. You're not an animal."

"Then why the 'special' tests?" Peter shuts his eyes in shame, wishing his past, scared self had never said something stupid. "What am I, Dad? Do you even know? Am I even April, or is that just another lie?"

"You're our daughter!" Peter's raised tone almost echoed across the rooftops, but this was no annoyed anger but a passionate declaration fueled by a father afraid of failing his daughter. "That's all that matters, and nothing will change that."

"Daughter..." April mumbled.

"Ah yes, one of the daughters of Spider-Man," the specter's voice echoed, "at least, that's how it's supposed to be, right? But what's the reality? Come on, say it. You know your mind speaks the truth."

April's teeth grit, showing off her fangs. Her previously defensive, scared posture shifts as she rises to her feet. Her hair flutters high as tendrils sprout out of her back, lifting her high until she's looming intimidatingly over her dad. April aggressively growls, "The daughter you all forgot until you couldn't! The daughter whose powers scare you while May and Annie get all the love and support!"

"April, I was never scared of you," Peter urged, "I was scared of who gave you those powers and what would happen if they ever took control of you!"

"No one's controlling me! The only one doing that is you, Dad!" April looks at herself again, realizing what her anger is doing to her and her body. Her guilt, sadness, and the pity of others were holding back her potential. However, fueling herself with hate and rage made her stronger and more confident. It made her feel like herself, her true self. "Maybe...maybe this new power is good for something after all."

"You're not the first one in this family to say that, April," Peter said, "I thought my anger with the symbiote would make me better, but all that new power means nothing if you don't have the-"

"Shut up! I don't need your sappy speech! It's probably just a copy of what you told Mayday anyway." With every hate-fueled word she uttered, April's tendrils extended, becoming stronger as her voice mixed with her symbiote's. "This power is mine, and you're not taking them away!"

"It's not the powers, April. It's who made them. I know it sounds crazy, but it's possible the Green Goblin did something to you. Gave you-"

"Stop lying!" she roared, her now longer hair whipping over and entangling around her dad's neck with its intense grip. Peter struggled to find a grip to free himself from the hair while resisting being lifted into the air. "You told us he's dead! You're just using him to trick me!" April raised her arm and shapeshifted it into a sledgehammer before stretching it towards her dad. "If you still won't tell me, then go away!"

Peter shielded himself with his arms as her surprisingly strong hit struck him, nearly throwing him off the roof, but he quickly stopped his fall with a quick web shot.

April's lenses widen when her spider senses tingle. Her tendrils instinctively lash at someone hiding behind a rooftop entrance, the attack destroying the brick structure, but the assailant dodges out of the way. April whipped her head back to see her Uncle Kanie carrying some magenta rifle before an intense ringing noise rippled across her entire being. Her body froze, and her tendrils flailed about. Every cell in her body wanted to run, get away from this excruciating pain. She barely caught herself upon collapsing, and the second she did, Kaine stopped firing. "I...I got her," Kaine said, a wince in his voice, for he shut his eyes the entire time he fired.

Peter reached the roof, and a fire erupted in his gut upon seeing Kaine with a sonic rifle and his daughter on the floor hurt. "Kaine!" He leaped after his brother, and the two were soon in an intense struggle, throwing punches and trying to restrain one another. Kaine isn't sure if Peter wants to beat the crap out of him or the sonic rifle. Most likely, it's probably both.

Amid their fighting, April squirmed where she lay, her limbs twitching while struggling to get them moving. Her vision is a blur, and her ruptured ear drums make it impossible to hear what's going on. With her body stunned and her senses dulled, April almost wanted to shut her eyes and fall back to sleep. The hate from before felt so far away; with it gone, she was left with nothing to feel besides shock over what happened. 'Dad...he tricked me...'

"I told you. It's a trap," the specter whispered to her ear.

April's hand twitched until she could clench it into a fist. That fire of hate has found new kindling and was ready to be re-ignited. A low guttural growl emitted as she thought, 'He...hurt us!'

"Like a hunter to an animal."

April slowly began to move her arm enough that she smashed it into the ground and lifted herself back up.

All the while, a rage-blinded Peter decks Kaine across the face. He got him pinned to the ground and was close to prying the sonic rifle out of Kaine's hands. "I don't know how you snuck up me," Peter yelled, "but I'll make you regret what you just did to my little girl!"

"She was losing control, you blind idiot!" Kaine argued, seeing from the corner of his eye that April was already recovering. "I had to stop her, but she'll escape if you don't move out of my way!"

With a deafening "NO!" Peter tore that blasted rifle out of Kaine's hands and ripped it in half. He vehemently said to his shocked brother, "I WON'T LET YOU OR ANYONE HURT APRIL AGAIN!"

Kaine stared, stunned at his brother's reaction. It was like seeing the old Peter, the one he first fought many years ago, briefly return. One look in Peter's eyes, the same look Kaine himself has whenever protecting Aracely, was all he needed to see and consider that perhaps a line was crossed. Glancing back at the girl, he tensed up as his spider senses tingled intensely. "Have it your way, then. Good luck against this tantrum..."

Peter turned and stood back up at seeing his daughter's symbiote powers unraveling themselves. April stood hunched over, snarling at them as her dagger-like fingers twitched with hate. Half the tendrils out her back lifted her several feet into the hair while the other half stretched across the rooftop floor, encircling Peter and Kaine. Something within this pitch-black surface was moving, like a group of sharks swimming around its prey. While Kaine anticipated April's retaliatory attack, Peter's previous anger vanished as he tried to earnestly, desperately reach out to his daughter one more time. "April..."

"Not April," she said, "I. AM. MAYHEM!"

Within a split second, the whole symbiote-infected floor flung up and attacked them. Over two dozen piranha-like fangs flung up, biting and ensnaring the brothers, cutting into their flesh while shredding pieces of their suits. Kaine wasted no time tearing the vicious mouths and tendrils off him while Peter tried not to lose sight of April. Mayhem, however, used her newfound powers to leap away at incredible speeds. Her trap intended to buy her time to put distance between them until she could rely on her immunity to spider-sense to stay under the radar. As she got further away, she could faintly hear her father pleading, "APRIL, I'M SORRY!"

'Dad...' she thought. Maybe it meant nothing, only an acknowledgment of their blood ties, but even now, she can't find in it to call him Spider-Man. 'I need the truth. If I must do it alone, then fine. Who needs ya. I'll get my answers soon enough, and then...' Mayhem sighed, unable to find an answer. Nonetheless, she continued to go where the specter was guiding her.

[Soon After...]

The Baxter Building was deafeningly quiet to Annie. All the adults were gone, even Mom, who joined Sue in the Fantasti car to search the city for April. Franklin and the others were in the building's command center, listening to all city frequencies. It's only been roughly an hour, yet each passing second feels like an eternity. Her mind was buzzing with thoughts; she couldn't sit still, so she drew. At first, she tried to make sense of all this new craziness, page after page of writing and drawing all she'd been told and seen. Of course, after a while, her writings began to look like a crazy person drew them, and she quickly crumpled them all up. "Urgh! I can't just sit here!" She usually loved the quietness, but something about it was different. It was unnerving, and it was like something in the very air was wrong. "Was this what it used to be without her?" she mused.

Her memories were fuzzy, but she still remembers when it was just her and Mayday—just two and only two. That's what it seemed life was supposed to be. And yet, there was one memory Annie recalled that was never true in the first place. She was around a year old and had been walked back to bed by Mayday in the middle of the night. As she was tucked into bed, Mayday suddenly stared off at the full moon. She remembers asking Mayday if she had a bad dream, and her sister shrugged. "I'm sad," she mumbled.

"Why?"

"I don't know. In my dreams, it's like...something's gone." And that's all Mayday would've shared about it, putting on a smile for all of them while hiding her sense that something's missing in their life. Then came the day April appeared at their front door, and life was never the same. For a while, Annie didn't know what to make of April. This girl looked and sounded like Mayday, yet was also loud, proud, chaotic, and borderline mean. She was unlike any kid Annie had ever met, almost too different, as if her home life had been thrown out of wack. For weeks, Annie found it hard to really like April, and feelings were mutual for the big girl. April wouldn't even call her Annie or Anna-May, but Anime! Yet, Mayday was happy, more than ever before. Even in the worst of times, when the two end up in a brawl, Mayday always gets back up and offers a middle ground between them, which April almost always accepts. Annie's little head didn't understand it. Just how was Mayday able to see eye to eye with this weirdo?

It was then Annie began to understand what Mayday sees in April. Those loud outbursts started to look like pleads for attention. Her proud, mean attitude on the playgrounds hid past bruises, and the hurt others were quick to dish out at her. And when all that chaotic energy dies down, Annie sometimes sees April look lonely. One night, when Annie found her particularly lonely in the backyard, she asked if she could brush her hair. April was stingy about who touched her hair, so it was a dangerous question. April sighed and said, "Don't ruin it, or I'll break that brush." With a nervous gulp, Annie did her sister's hair, copying what her mom taught her and gently combing it. April subtly grew less tense with each brush stroke until she finally relaxed into it. It was the first time she trusted anyone but Mom to fix her hair.

"Not bad, Anime," April said with a shrug.

"That's not...forget it," Annie sighed, "kinda jelly now. Your hair is way cuter than mine."

"Yeah, it is," April said. Annie frowned, staring at her long, dull red hair. April was unusually quiet, pondering until she grabbed Annie's hair. Annie flinched, but when she realized April's light touch, she shifted around and let April grip her hair. "Well..." she said, carefully separating and twisting the locks of Annie's hair, "since there's no way your looks can match mine, why not try this one?" When April was done, Annie gasped as she saw her reflection to see her hair tied up into two pigtails.

"So cute!" Annie bounced with joy, flinging and twirling her new hairstyle. April looked on, proud of her work, until Annie hugged her. "I love it! Thanks, sis!"

April pats her on the back; she's new to all this but not exactly hating it. "Uh, sure. Annie." Everything naturally fit into place from then on, and Annie fully embraced April as her new big sister.

That's how life seemed like it was supposed to be. Now? Well, that's what Annie's been contemplating for the past hour. Who was April to her now? What even was April? 'Is she...bad now?' Now, there was a question that perhaps scared Annie the most. 'Mayday would know. She always does.' So, to clear up these questions, she gets up and heads to the other room. She opens that door, expecting her sister to not only have all the answers but that she probably already has a plan to help find April. So when she opened that door, she was surprised to see Mayday sitting by the table, quietly crying to herself.

Stepping forward, the crunching noise of paper draws Annie's gaze to the floor, and she sees several crumpled-up papers. Picking two up, she sees they're half-finished and are messages of apology but to two different people. "Uhh, why does one of these start with your name, but the others start with April's?"

Mayday rubs her eyes, saying with a tired sigh, "Because I don't know anymore."

"Know what?"

"Which one of us is even the real May." Annie's eyes widen in shock, even more so when she sees Mayday's tear-stained face. With such a heavy sentence like that, Annie almost didn't know what to say, and she thought today would be another dull training day. She awkwardly hurries over to her sister, her fingers nervously tapping the papers in her hands. "Yooou wanna talk about it?"

Mayday sighs, "What's there to talk about? You're probably talking to a fake..."

"D-don't be silly," Annie said, a nervous chuckle over how absurd that thinking is. The kind of thinking she briefly applied to April minutes ago. "I mean, it's you."

"But what is me?" Mayday asked with such genuine concern. "Am I just some secretly evil freakazoid, flesh golem made to replace the real Mayday?" The bomb that their parents dropped about her and her twin's birth has shaken her resolve. It's almost funny to her that, once upon a time, she saw herself as an ordinary girl to an average family. Even when her powers manifested, they didn't radically change her perception of her family ties or sense of self. She knew who she was, and she had control of her life. The mere thought she never did, that someone like the green goblin potentially made her, is devastating. She can't even look at herself and see Spider-Girl; she sees a weapon, one last cruel joke by a phantom.

She flinched when Annie suddenly poked her cheek."You don't look evil to me."

Such an answer only frustrated her further. She shoved Annie's hand away. "Urgh! I'm serious, Annie!"

"Well, so am I," Annie insisted. "Things are weird and scary now. April's powers are insane, and most of our family is clones. I get that you're afraid-"

"No! You don't get it!" Annie gasped at the raw fury in her sister's voice; this was perhaps the first time she'd lashed out at her. "My whole life, I thought I knew who I was. When my powers appeared, I thought I knew who I should become. Now? I...I don't know anymore." She slumps her back against the wall, hugging her knees with her head down low. "Was I ever truly your sister? Or am I just some dumb little puppet? Maybe the real May was out there, trapped all alone for five years. Turned into something against her will." She lifts her head slightly, looking at her hands before seeing her reflection on the window. "Apr...or May, told me the night she returned that she felt I stole everything from her. That this was supposed to be her life. Maybe she was right, and she's all the sister you need." Her throat began to burn as these dark thoughts settled in, and her mind couldn't shake the pain in her sister's eyes. "I called her a freak, Annie, a freak. I've hurt her, might have been for my whole life, and didn't even know it...some sister I turned out to be."

Watching her sister crumple up, crying and shouting about all the mistakes and unfairness, nearly pushed Annie to break down, too. Witnessing her sister hit such a low was like a punch to the gut. She was always brave and confident, even more so when her powers appeared. Sure, she sometimes had bad days and a short patience, but everyone did. It didn't change how Annie viewed her. Suddenly, Annie saw the true fork in the road. What were her sisters to her, and what will she do about it? There was no spider vision to tell her the outcome; this was something she had to decide on her own right now. Was April's powers turning her bad? Who was the clone? And finally, should they all continue the family legacy if this is what it'll inflict on them for the rest of their lives? Pretty heavy questions for a nine-year-old girl like herself. She stared at the crumpled paper, her sisters' names scribbled on, confused yet earnest. Seeing her sister quietly sobbing, she's reminded of the nights April would cry the same way. Suddenly, Annie felt a fire ignite in her heart.

"Uncle Ben and Dad's siblings thought the same way," Annie said, squatting before her sister. "Still, it didn't stop them from being heroes. Didn't stop them from being themselves."

"It's because they're adults, Annie," she sniffled. "Even then, it took them years to settle things. Your real sister likely doesn't ever want to talk to me anymore, and who can blame her? I called her a freak to her face!"

"Yeah, things are...not great right now," Annie admits. She sat beside her sister, closing her eyes as she collected her thoughts, trying to keep herself from crying. "I have been thinking about all this and, in that thinking, I got scared. I was especially terrified of one thought: that one of you was bad now. But I see now that was a stupid thought."

Her sister was quiet until suddenly she asked, "Why?"

"Because you're scared too," Annie answered, "and if you're afraid, that means April's just as scared too. If I know anything about my big sister, it is that she acts tough and means to hide her loneliness. I don't think she meant to hurt anybody, just as you didn't mean to hurt her."

"What are you saying?"

Annie took a deep, steady breath. Suddenly, she shot up to her feet and declared at the top of her lungs, "I'm saying: who cares which one of you's the clone!"

"Annie!" her sister gasped.

"No, listen to me!" Annie demanded, pointing out the window. "Our sister's out there hurt, and she needs us, but you just want to sit here sobbing all night because of an honest mistake? Because either of you could be a clone? Nuh-uh! The Mayday Parker, I know, would spring into action and help her sister in her time of need! She wouldn't just write a letter; she'd march up and apologize to April on her face and remind her that she's family no matter how different she is! Where's that hero? Where's my big sister?!"

Annie was never a super quiet girl, but seeing her speak out boldly and passionately left Mayday almost speechless. Still, the lingering crisis plaguing her compelled her self-doubt side to ask, "But what if I was never your sister? What if I-"

"If, if, if!" Annie groaned, frustrated. "That doesn't matter because even in this crazy mess, nothing will ever change that both of you are my sisters!" If Annie's previous words didn't leave her speechless, then this declaration and the tears in the corner of Annie's eyes did. Annie grabbed her hands, clinging so tightly as if she'd lose her sister if she let go. "These hands, you carried me with these hands. Does that suddenly mean nothing now that you might be a clone? My hair, April braided my hair. Does that mean nothing now that she might be a clone? All our memories together...are you saying they mean nothing to us now?"

"...no, never," Mayday answered.

"Because these hands are still your hands," Annie said, smiling as she locked Mayday's fingers together. "Your eyes are yours. Your heart is yours. You are your own person, a Parker! All that's true for April, too. There's just one April Parker, darn it. She'd punch anyone in the face if they said otherwise! And if there's only one April Parker in this world, then there's only one Mayday Parker." Pointing her finger to her sister's chest, faintly feeling her heartbeat, Annie earnestly declared, "your name is Mayday Parker, and your only twin is in trouble. What are you going to do?"

Annie sees her sister frozen, baffled, over what she told her. For the first time, Annie experienced a glimpse into the weight of sisterly responsibility Mayday carries daily. Annie stands back, looking at her sister in a new light, understanding her better and feeling prouder to call her big sis. Mayday Parker turns to her reflection in the window. What stares back at her isn't some stranger or a copy but Spider-Girl.

Hearing a "Hey!" echoing from the elevators, Annie whips her head to her right to see the four fantastic children of the FF arrive on the scene. The young teen Franklin is holding a datapad in his hands while Jo and Nikki are holding back his sister Valeria. "Brother," Valeria protests, "time is of the essence. This is not a smart idea!"

"Let's at least show'em first," Franklin urged.

"Show us what?" Annie asked, "Is it something about April?"

"Val believes she located your lost sister," Nikki said.

Franklin shows Annie a recording; Mayday peeks over from where she sat. Valeria rolls her eyes and indulges in her sibling's insistence. "Look," she said, "some street cameras posted near Lower Manhattan caught these shadows. We've slowed down and enhanced them and saw this." The four kids point at the small screen as the blur transforms into a humanoid shape with familiar long, dark hair.

"That's April!" Annie confirmed with great relief.

"She's going pretty fast if our computers narrowly found her," Franklin added. "At her current pace and if she hasn't radically changed course, she's likely heading straight to the docks within the next five minutes."

Valeria jumped in with a "buuuut" before informing the group. "The problem is that over a dozen buildings are lined up in that district. She could be in any one of them."

Pondering these recent findings, Annie's memories flicker at the mere mention of the location. "The docks..." she murmured, squinting at the map, guessing April's current location. With a snap of her fingers, Annie turned to her sister. "Mayday, what place did Dad say he chased that burglar down to after his uncle was shot?!"

"Lower Manhattan...into the ACME warehouse," Mayday muttered before she shot up to her feet, having just reached the same conclusion Annie did. "She's heading to where Dad stopped that burglar?! But Why?"

"I don't know," Annie said, "but remember that vision I shared when Uncle Kaine showed up? The place it showed me was dusty and filled with old machinery, looking like an abandoned warehouse."

"That...might be right," Valeria hesitantly admits, "the ACME structure should still be standing, and it's the only building at the docks listed as a historical site."

"Then that super means April's hiding there!" Annie said confidently.

Mayday turns, her fingers tapping her brow, trying to imagine herself in her twin's shoes. 'Dad told the both of us that story. I remember your face when he did. Could it be his story briefly jogged a repressed memory? Is that why you're going over there?' She took notice of a keyword, memory, and saw where that line of thought went. 'Memory is very precious to you. You always liked taking photos and proclaiming how good your memory is. That's why it hurts so much that so much of your life is just blank. Then...is that why you're going to ACME? Is it to find out your past?' Mayday felt she was onto something but felt a critical step was missing: how did April connect the dots? Without their parents sharing the truth, how could April know the warehouse was where she was saved? 'It couldn't be a coincidence,' she thought, 'she's moving with purpose, almost as if she's being...pulled towards there by something.'

"He wasn't there…Why was I the only one?"

Mayday gasped upon remembering what she overheard April mutter after training. 'Something, or someone.'

A "Hey" from one of the FF kids snaps Mayday out of her deep thoughts. She turns to see the kids look at her, waiting for her call on what to do. "We're going after her," she proclaims.

"Yes!" Annie cheered with a fist pump.

"You crazy?" Valeria asked. "Did the butt-kicking you received on our roof make you forget how powerful she is?"

"She won't kill me," Mayday responded with dead seriousness.

"Given symbiote's short tempers and aggression patterns, the odds of you being right aren't in your favor."

"But none of those symbiotes act like my sister. Either way, we don't have time to argue. Annie and I are going after her before something down there hurts her or worse. Maybe with the both of us, we can calm her down enough to return home."

"And if that doesn't work?" Franklin asked, voicing a bit of his concerns.

"Thirty minutes," Mayday said, "give us thirty minutes to get there and talk. If you don't hear from us, alert everyone where we are." The FF kids exchange looks for a while before Valeria groans and clicks her watch, and the countdown starts. Mayday and Annie share a look, with the former looking on with some concern. 'Annie, you ready?' she asked through their shared spider-sense.

Annie looks back with great determination. 'With you? Always!'

With no time to lose, the two grab their spider suits and other gear before heading to the roof. Thanks to Franklin and the others, Mayday's suit is fixed, while Annie's armor is quickly reinforced. Mayday taps the mic in her ear, hearing Valeria's voice on the other end. Annie puts on her Force Field glove before giving the thumbs up. "Remember, double tap to release and thwip it out again," Mayday advises.

"I remember."

Mayday sees how high up they are, feeling the chill of the winter evening brush her before she leaps and fires her web. Fighting against gravity to complete her swing, Mayday suddenly felt some old self-confidence return. Glancing to her right, Annie swings beside her. The two are on their way to help their lost sister, with the help of the FF kids instructing them on where to go. With this being her last moment to think to herself, Mayday took this time to reach out to her other. 'April,' she thought, 'or Mayday...we can work that out after. I want you to know how sorry I am for how bad things got. I don't know how to patch things up yet, but that won't stop me from doing something about it. So please, I beg you to listen and tell us. Tell me what's wrong. What do I do to help you? What could I do? What do I need to do?'

Such questions linger in Mayday's mind as she and Annie swing to where Spider-Man was truly born.

Part V: Project Changeling

[Later...]

Here it was, the truth she'd been desperately seeking, somewhere within this decrepit ACME warehouse. Standing twelve stories tall and with an Art Deco-inspired design, the building looked nearly a hundred years old. A slightly smaller building connected to its right, and right next to that was a tall industrial chimney, its insides nothing but ash. "Don't get distracted. It's in that main building right there," the specter pointed. Begrudgingly, April does as he says and crawls inside. She gags at the amount of dust in the air; in fact, the whole place was pitched black if not for her senses and inherited ability to see in the dark. She walks by rotten wooden beams and glances at big, heavy machinery. She looks down upon stepping on some old pistol shells, and it draws her eyes upward to spot old bullet holes. They were riddled across the walls and ceiling like the target was crawling on them. April asked herself, 'Spooky, but is this it? Nothing around here is ringing any bells.' She grits her teeth as her patience thinned. 'I swear if this weirdo's in my head or tricking me, I'm gonna-!'

"Right there," the specter said.

April turned her gaze to a brick sticking out of the wall. Upon pushing this secret button, she gasped as a hidden door revealed itself. Inside was an elevator that'd seen better days, with a chilling breeze from beneath, but it wasn't any kind of cold. April's limbs tensed, feeling her body shiver at the mere touch of this strange wind. 'What is this wind, and why is it scaring me?'

"Go. You're so close."

Building up her courage, April steps onto the elevator. The machine shakes until its motor systems activate and begin lowering her into the abyss, the light from the open door above fading away. She nervously clutches her arms, lingering unease growing as she stands in this darkness. 'I can't turn back now,' she thinks, ' I gotta see this through to the end.' Finally, the elevator jolts to a stop. She hears the door begin to open, but instead of light coming in, it is freezing water. April hissed as the water rose to her waist, but thankfully, the doors short-circuited and only opened partially, allowing her to push against the wave and shut the doors.

"Huh, not that's not supposed to happen." Before April could ask what the hell was going on, a sharp pain stings her head and causes her to stagger back to the wall. Hearing a distinct pinging sound echo in her head, April endured this headache until the specter chuckled. "There we go." April felt the pain vanish as a red light flashed, followed quickly by the sounds of rushing water outside the doors. Heavy mechanisms followed their programming until a distinct ding echoed outside, and the doors slowly reopened. No longer were there metric tons of seawater outside. Instead, a new, unbearable force called memories struck April as she stepped into the ruins of an abandoned facility.

Though the flooding systems drained the room, nearly everything had fallen into decay. April trod carefully, barely noticing how quiet the specter had become. To her left, she sees some big cracked egg-shaped capsules. Wiping the grim from the glass, she peeks inside to see...something lying at the bottom. Within each capsule was a clump of rotten meat about the size of a fist mixed with a dark goo. April felt sick to her stomach at the sight of it. She turns away before she can throw up but accidentally knocks over some test tubes. After flinching from the loud noise, her eyes locked onto a closed drawer, and opening it revealed a stack of papers. Carefully pulling them out, she skims through to see that most are just formulas and notes on genes. April tosses away a ruined page, only to find an old handheld tape recorder beneath it and a photo of two identical babies beside it.

April sees the recorder is beaten up, so carefully she presses play and hears a voice that sends chills down her spine.

"Journal log number twenty-one," the voice of a middle-aged man said, "this was not how things were supposed to go, and I'm running out of time. Smuggling the package to Europe is now impossible, and I've barely completed all the necessary parts required for the suspended animation process. Why? If that blasted nurse didn't fail me! If that idiot Brock didn't turn his back on me! My enemies...they're all around me, they're surrounding me! Damn them, damn all who's abandoned me!" April could barely continue to listen as the speaker became increasingly more insane. She saw a faint smoke emitting from the recorder as the speaker chuckled sinisterly. "They don't know. None of them know that I can never indeed die. If this be my fate, to haunt all my enemies for eternity, then so be it! They don't know about my ace in the hole, my final revenge! Finally, after several failures, I've created her! My perfect changeling, my perfect weapon. Things have fallen into place for my grand endgame, but so long as one of these brats remained holed up here, I'll still have pawns on the board. Now that I've meddled with both girls' DNAs, my favorite task is at hand."

April's breathing quickens, and great anxiety builds up in her chest when she hears the cries of two babies in the background of the recording. Those cries were nearly deafening to her, and she felt scared. The speaker snickers with delight as he says, " Now then, which of you will stay here in your new home, and who will go and play house? What's the perfect way to decide such a thing filled with untold consequences that'll radically alter the course of an infant's life? Ah, I know how. Shutting my eyes and...Eeny, meeny, miny, moe. Catch a spider by the toe. If she hollers, let her go. Eeny, meeny, miny...you."

April was clutching her throat, barely able to breathe over the utter cruelty she was hearing. The cries of one baby grew louder as she heard it being taken away, the other baby crying hard as well, like she was reaching out for her sibling being dragged away. These cries would be the last shred of the past April would hear as the recorder died, its ruined state finally breaking it. April trembled, her mind reeling over every vile word this man uttered, her rage building, imagining the slimy smile he had while deciding her fate. All this rage funneled into her enlarging fist before she bashed it into the capsules, destroying them and the content within. "C-created," April sobbed, suddenly feeling like her whole world was crashing down. The only thing grounding her was the photo in her hand. Holding it like a delicate flower, an air of melancholy swirled around her while staring at the first-ever image of Mayday and her. The baby on the left was crying, like it knew it was scared and alone. The baby on the right stared at her sister while her tiny hand reached out, trying to help and comfort her.

This moment was then captured in a material image, not as a record or memory but instead objectified and ripped away from her and Mayday. This moment was captured because some greedy, petty man believed this belonged to him. And now, this man feels compelled to speak, thinking whatever he has to say is something April should listen to.

"If it's any consideration," the specter said, "I believe I've made the right choice. You turned out to be truly exceptional."

Tucking the photo into her skin, April morphs her arm into a sword and furiously slashes at the specter. But there is nothing to hit, for there is nothing there, at least not physically. Tiring herself out, April lowered her blade and asked, "Who are you?"

"Guess the disguise ain't necessary anymore." With a snap of his fingers, April's eyes buzz with static, briefly clouding her vision until she sees the specter has revealed his proper form. "Welcome to your true home, sweetie," said the voice of Norman Osborn, the original Green Goblin. "Your daddy missed you."

April nearly fell over in utter disbelief, and it was like experiencing a nightmare. "N-no," she stuttered frightfully, "y-your-"

"Dead? Well, sorry to disappoint, but I did die," Norman explains, "however, my endless intellect has discovered a new form of immortality: artificial intelligence." Tapping his head smugly, he continued, "And ever since then, I've been cooped up alongside you. Seething as I awaited the day you and this project will enact my final revenge."

"You trapped me in here," April uttered hatefully.

"Indeed. More precisely," he said, snapping his fingers and unlocking the door to the main chamber, "I kept you in there." April felt like she had entered a trance when she stared at the large chamber in the other room. She stomped forward, moving stiffly as she raised her arm and eventually touched the broken glass of her stasis chamber. All that remained were hanging cables, spikes, and tubes.

"I...I was stuck in this?"

"Stuck? You act like this was a prison," Norman scoffed, "like any good father, I gave you everything a growing girl needs. I didn't trap you in some void to go crazy in. I gave you paradise." April clutched her head as a painful memory briefly resurfaced. She couldn't see much, but the feeling of it reminded her what it was. "Ahh, you're remembering. Yes, my dear, a whole virtual world suitable for providing you with all the learning and training you need."

"All I remember," April shuddered, "was how cold it was. S-so cold, with no love at all."

"That's what made it the perfect environment to teach the ways of the Goblin. Your symbiote half made it so any hostile scenario or setting would be a breeze to survive in," Norman proudly proclaimed. "Besides, only the weak believe that love is free. Love is earned, and my dear, I say you've finally earned it."

April's claws scratch the glass as she asks, "I did, have I? Then I deserve to know this: am I the clone?"

Norman sighs and shakes his head, "You know, the darndest thing is, I think my original self forgot to program in that memory." His form crackles as April turns and slices at him, but he merely applauds her even as she furiously roars at him. "Now there's one gene trait I'm glad you inherited! That ol' Parker rage. Good, hold onto that rage. Let it burn within you until it's pure hate."

"Osborn," she shrieked, "I'll KILL YOU!"

"Urgh could do without the tantrum," Norman bemoaned. "Oh well, I suppose you deserve a cookie. While I don't remember, I hinge my bets that you are likely the true daughter of Spider-Man. It's possible, too, that the baby that your murdering uncle snatched was the clone, a perfect copy of you, before all the alien goo that is. Either way, the baby sent back would have her DNA spliced up to ensure she grows up to be but an ordinary little brat for the Parkers to love." Norman could barely hide his disdain when he continued, "But the subconscious barrier the supercomputer supplanted to suppress her powers somehow broke. Regardless, if the baby sent back is the clone, then the Parkers raised but a simple doll. Utterly unaware of the possibility that perhaps their real daughter would remain confined in stasis for the next twenty-one years."

April almost went numb at the number he uttered. Her mind was trying all it could to repress any memory she retained of her time in stasis, but all she did remember was nothing short of primal, testing her will to survive and conquer any environment. Imaging five years in such a place is stomach-turning for April, but imagining twenty-one years is too much to bear.

"Yes, that was the plan," Norman frustratedly admits. "Sadly, your twenty-one-year plan was reduced to only five when those blasted Venom and Carnage nearly ruined everything! I suppose an unexpected side effect of using the captured symbiote samples to complete you."

"Venom," April whispered, clutching her head as she remembered her first memory. She opened her eyes and saw a giant white spider over her—the same white spider she'd seen during those lonely nights at the orphanage. "He brought me to the real world," April said with a small smile. "He was the white spider. He looked after me until Mom and Dad found me. He freed me."

"Oh, don't be too proud of yourself," Norman talked down. "Five years should've been enough to program your kill mode. You were still my weapon, and that mode should've activated when you first saw those Parkers, tearing them into shreds. Accessing your cranial structure, it seems a random bump to your head saved that pathetic family...but not this time."

With a snap of his fingers, the remaining electronics in the lab flickered on and emitted a loud humming noise. April's eyes dilate as a sudden, searing pain course through her. Her head pounds, colors too bright to see. Whatever Norman's done has caused April's whole body to turn numb. She can barely move. "Nnrgh! Wha-?!"

"Time is of the essence, my dear," Norman said, pacing around April, "so from now on, I must insist I take the reigns from here. Even the most loyal steads need a reminder of who their master is. Your core programming will come to fruition after I utter the final sleeper phrase, and the world will see the true you."

"I'll...kill you for this," April defiantly growled.

"No," he said, squatting down with the slimy grin, "you'll kill what I want you to kill. The next question is: who should be the first lucky Parker to die?"

April's eyes were inflamed with rage. She tried all her might to fight against the programming, but every fiber of her body grew increasingly numb until she felt nothing, and this cold, unfeeling nothingness was close to enveloping her mind. 'No! Screw him! Aaargh, could all of this get any worse!"

"April!"

"April, it's okay. It's just us!"

Her heart stopped upon hearing the telepathic echo of two familiar voices. An expression of pure dread filled April when Norman curiously looked up before his mouth slowly crept back into a sinister smile. "Well, my dear," he shrugged, "ready for a little sororicide?"

Instinctively, April shuts her eyes and fights all these cold programs to tap into her spider sense, desperately shouting to her sisters, 'Run! Get away from me before he-!'

"So peacefully they've slumbered, but I never slept..."

Upon uttering the trigger phrase, April's iris shrunk, and a sharp static string zapped her head. Her mind falls subservient to an insidious sleep, and it traps her in a new kind of nightmare. Her body collapsed to the floor as her symbiote form shapeshifted, all while Norman looked on the same way an industrialist looked at a brand new product rolling fresh out of his factory.

Part VI: Evil Reborn!

Spider-Girl and Spiderling's senses rattled in her head upon April screaming into her minds before going deathly silent. "What was that?" Franklin said on the comms, "You two okay? What happened?"

"We're fine," Spiderling answered, squinting as she looked around what appeared to be the primary assembly floor in the middle of the building. "We think something terrible just happened to April! It sounds like she's in-" Before she could finish, Spider-Girl grabbed her shoulder, gripping it tensely as she asked, "You feel that?" Spiderling shook her head no. She felt nothing, but Spider-Girl could feel a tingle ringing in her head.

Spider-Girl protectively pulled Spiderling behind a metal mechanism, turning her head left to right as if trying to pinpoint something. "Hey, what's going on? Mayday?" Her sister remained silent; she placed a finger in front of her mouth shortly before a creeping echo was faintly heard. Annie looks up to see that, with each faint echo, dust from the ceiling glides down to her helmet. Spiderling's spider sense still wasn't activating, but her gut told her to run. She follows Spider-Girl's lead as the two quietly move away and hide behind a stack of wooden crates. "That can't be April," Spiderling whispered.

"I don't know. Something feels wrong here."

Unable to tell what her sister meant, Spiderling nervously readied her shield gadget as the silence turned eerie. Quietly, she followed her sister to the window so they could wallcrawl up to higher ground. Though Spiderling felt a tad exposed outside, the cool breeze and her sister's presence began to ease her down, that perhaps they could handle this.

CRASH!

A window Spiderling just crawled past suddenly and violently burst open, a geyser of black goo spewing out. An utterly terrifying shriek reverberated inside, rattling Spiderling's bones as such an alien noise petrified her. She barely heard Spider-Girl shouting at her to dodge from above, but a tendril wrapped itself around Spiderling's ankle and pulled her inside. Though dazed by the speed of these events, her heightened eyes could see a large pair of sharpened teeth lunging at her in time. A sharp gasp escapes her as her shield glove activates just in the nick of time, the deadly maw chewing on the reflective energy before quickly throwing her into a stack of crates.

Her device took most of the concussive force, but the sudden attack shook Spiderling. Her resolve is further tested when she stumbles to her feet and sees who her opponent is. "A-April?" she whispered, though what stood before her barely resembled her sister. It was like a beast as it stood on all fours, its back limbs adorned with talons while the arms were shapeshifted into bladed weapons. She was over two times larger in size thanks to the extra mass of symbiote flesh generated, creating a thick layer of gooey skin that looked almost impenetrable if one were to even get back past the dozen or so flailing razor-edged tendrils spewed out of her back. The only thing resembling Annie's sister was the humanoid symbiote's face, but even then, its dark teeth appeared longer while its long flowing hair was now like a lion's mane.

Looking into April's white eyes, Spiderling hoped to see even a tinge of her inside there, but what she was met with instead was the eyes of a predator eyeing its latest target. 'It's mine now,' a strange new voice crept into Annie's mind. Right as it did, April pounced to attack, and all Annie could do was hope her shield could take it. "Annie!" a familiar voice shouts as Spider-Girl swings through one of the windows and kicks April away. Though minimal damage, it threw off April enough for Spider-Girl to fire a barrage of impact webbing, ensnaring her sufficiently to trap her for a few brief moments.

It happened so fast, but Spiderling snaps back to reality when Spider-Girl grabs her hand, and the two dash away. Just when it seemed they put some distance between them and April, Spider-Girl saw a window in front of them suddenly be enveloped until it was boarded up. The two sisters skid to a halt until both could feel the floor suddenly turn squishy. They look down to see a thick layer of dark flesh spreading everywhere, including all the windows, until the room is pitch black. "We're trapped," Spider-Girl cursed.

"What's happening?" Spiderling muttered, "April wouldn't do this."

'You're partially right, brat.' The sister flinches at the new voice invading their heads, and a chill runs down their spines until Spider-Girl fires a web and carries them up. Spiderling follows suit and fires some webbing at the walls to create several web lines for them to crawl on. 'Ah, you picked up that my weapon can sense you through contact with the infected floor. Clever little spiders, but it will find you soon enough.'

'Who are you?!' Spiderling thought

'And how are you speaking to us? Only the three of us could talk like this.'

The voice cackled in thier minds, a cackle that particularly unnerved Spider-Girl as if it picked on an old wound. 'I suppose you can call me this thing's special imaginary friend! Conjured up by a man who once owned this city and whose dying wish was for me to enact his final revenge.'

The name suddenly appeared in Spider-Girl's throat, leaving a choking feeling just by its mere presence. "Goblin," she seethed.

'What a lovely reunion this is.' Spider-Girl's senses tingled quickly; she leaped and grabbed Spiderling as April's arms cut through the web lines. They tumble across the floor, but Spiderling re-activates her glove in time to block several strikes from April and allow Spider-Girl to try to web up her twin. 'Ha! New Parker but same old tricks!' Norman mocked as April burst free from the webbing effortlessly.

'What have you done to our sister!' Annie demanded.

'Who?' Norman asked.

"APRIL PARKER!" Spider-Girl screamed.

'Mmm...ooh, you mean my latest weapon. Quite an exceptional one, I must say. It even gave itself a name, MAY-HEM, ohoh I like that.'

Spider-Girl balled her hands into fists and furiously leaped in to strike. "She's not an it!" April easily swats her away. 'Annie, run!' was Spider-Girl's last thought before she's hurdled through a nearby wall. Annie does so, swinging from room to room while April gives chase.

'Swing, swing, little spider,' Norman chimed, 'make these last moments of your life fun for me!'

While trying to stay alive, Spiderling almost couldn't believe what was happening. The Green Goblin himself, somehow still alive in the form of a copy inside April's head? That he wanted to turn her sister into a weapon?! It left her gawking at the absurdity of the whole thing as if it were some bad comic book story. But it was real, scarily real. Fear instinctively told her to keep running, but her mind was already scrambling to figure out how to free April. Although her mind thinks fast, her body isn't so lucky, and her back is whipped by one of April's tendrils, knocking her onto the floor. "My back," Spiderling hissed, glancing back to see her reinforced armor narrowly saved her from a terrible wound. Then, in less than a second, the guttural roar of April shook the room as a huge, messy fist came down on Spiderling.

The shield glove activates just in time, but Spiderling is trapped beneath April's constant barrages, barely able to move with each hit struck. Spiderling's heart sank when sparks began to fly from her glove; it couldn't take this punishment any longer. April's latest hit cracks open the dome, exposing Spiderling as the redhead desperately tries to reactivate it. April's large fist quivers momentarily before raising to squash Annie like a bug. Spiderling looked up and froze up at what could be her imminent demise. She was so shocked that she didn't notice her glove going haywire and making a loud popping noise.

REEEEEE!

An agonizing ringing noise, sounding similar to scratching a chalkboard, loudly emitted from the glove. Spiderling winced at the noise but saw April nearly paralyzed by it. Her sister screeched and trembled as if she was about to fall apart. Seeing April try to shut her ears while glancing at her glove makes Spiderling recall a key trait about her sister that's been there since her return. 'Loud noises,' she thought, 'Mom and Dad said never to have April near them.' It all clicks together. Her glove could only form a barrier through soundwaves and condensing them into a powerful vibration, but the damage inflicted on it meant those soundwaves were now going everywhere. A short circuit briefly ceased the glove's sonic attack, allowing Spiderling to run for it while April struggled to recover.

'Mayday, I'm climbing up! Where are you?'

'Climbing up the opposite side. Where's April?'

'She's stunned for a bit. She's always been sensitive to sound, and now I know why.'

'Sounds,' Spider-Girl mused, her sight falling upon the ACME property's industrial section. 'Annie, head down and hang back. I'll draw her attention until we're deep inside the ACME factory. On my signal, we make it as loud as possible!'

'But we'd be hurting her.. .'

'Green Goblin's already hurting her, Annie. Our plan will only stun her long enough until help arrives; then, we can free her.' Taking Annie's silence as a yes, Spider-Girl lands near a window and loudly bashes it open. "Heeey, April! You keep acting like this, I'm telling Mom!" Spider-Girl leaps away just in time as April's beastly form bursts through the wall, swiping her claws at her twin. Spider-Girl lets gravity take her, a disturbed ache twisting her stomach not at the monstrous form her sister's taken but who was controlling her. She fires her web and swings away, propelling her body towards the factory and towering chimney stack, glancing back to see April chasing her. "Are you still that slower than me? I know you can do better than that, April!"

She gasps when one of April's tendrils grabs nearby debris and begins lodging them at her. Spider-Girl remembers her morning training, pulling out all the moves like flipping over and backward, somersaulting, and eventually slingshotting herself through a window and into the old factory. Pipes, handing platforms, and chains dangled above. The faint moonlight reflected off them. The main floor was cluttered with wartime-era assembly lines and machinery, including wires trailing off somewhere. Spider-Girl sprints off, following the cables into the factory until she's met with an old five-ton generator. "Come on, make some noise," she whispered upon grabbing the large lever and pulling it, releasing electricity discharge. Sparks spew from the generator until it's reenergized, and the whole factory slowly returns to life.

CLANK!

BANG!

ZAAAP!

All these noises echoed across the factory floor, and she could already hear April's groans of discomfort. 'April, just hang on for a bit longer,' Mayday thought, hugging the wall while sneaking back into the main floor, concentrating on her spider-sense for any clue to where April could be.

'You can stop calling it that silly name,' Norman echoed. 'Heh, April, what a lazy way to name something.'

'I know what you're doing, and I won't let you manipulate me like you did my sister,' Mayday thought, leaping behind a loud stamping device. Her spider-sense told her April was stepping back.

'Since when, and under what convention, did a clone become classified as a real human?' Norman asked. 'In fact, is it possible I'm talking to a clone right now?'

Mayday takes a sharp breath and ducks her head as an object is thrown as a loud machine, shutting it down. 'I couldn't care less what you think, Norman. There's one April and one Mayday. That's all that matters.'

'Maybe to you, but will this 'April' feel the same way as you? How long until it turns on you? When it grows bored of your family or sees them as they are: all failures underserving of such your powers!' Spider-Girl's spider-sense goes ballistic, and she narrowly backflips away from a swarm of symbiote tendrils crushing her. April quickly closed in, not giving Spider-Girl a chance to escape again. Indeed, Spider-Girl felt she was slowly being cornered herself, dodging and countering every attack by April, becoming slowly overwhelmed by her sheer power. 'So quick to hit back, I see!' Norman mocked, 'any clever planning you have won't stop my weapon now, leaving you with only two options, kiddo: perish or stop me by killing the monster before you. Now, choose!'

Spider-Girl is struck by April's arm, sending her into a storage crate. Her head runs from the blunt force while her sister's shadow looms over her. Seeing an axe head morph from April's hand, Spider-Girl's hand grabs onto something metallic while her eyes squint to see some barrels beside her. The axe heads swung down, and Spider-Girl rolled away before striking the oil drum with a metal pole.

BONG!

April reels in pain from the loud noise as Spider-Girl shouts, "Annie, now!"

At her signal, Spiderling leaped out from a shadowy corner of the ceiling and pulled a heavy chain that dropped a stack of large pipes across the factory floor. None struck April, but the banging and clanging they emitted was agonizing to her. 'Kill that brat!' Norman ordered. April wildly swung as the pipes dropped, blindly throwing them at Spiderling, but every missed throw created even more noise. One near miss, however, caused Spiderling to lose grip on her chain and fall to the floor. Spiderling saw April dash to her, but Spider-Girl stopped her by hitting her pole against the pipes surrounding April. Spider-Girl leaps from place to place, dodging April's attacks while banging the pipes. April grew more and more overwhelmed until she screamed, "STOP!"

The dying echo of the banging was heard as April collapsed. Her sisters and even Norman were utterly stunned that she spoke. "April," Spiderling gasped, her throat suddenly tight as she looked at the mess around them. "We did this," she said with utter dread, doing the same thing the Goblins were doing to April.

Spiderling witnesses the weapon in Spider-Girl's hand fall out of her hand, her breath shaky as a pang of tremendous guilt washes over her. Her sister looks down at her trembling hand before watching her pull off her mask. "No," Mayday says, "not like this." Mayday approaches her weakened twin, delicately placing her hand on April's cheek, no longer inflicting pain but displaying love. "You're strong, April," Mayday urged, "You can fight this. You're not his thing."

'Enough!'

When April swatted Mayday away, Annie gasped, leaving a dozen feet gap between them. It was like time came to a slow when her eyes saw a large blade form from April's arm, aimed directly at Mayday's heart. Annie's body moved before she even conjured a thought: her sister was going to die, and she was not going to let that happen, no matter what. Within a second, Annie swung and shoved Mayday out of the way. A splatter of blood flies across the air.

Annie felt her body flop to the ground, briefly feeling a cold numbness in her lower abdomen. She suddenly recalled that exact section from her biology class and guessed her appendix had just been cut off. She hissed when the numbness faded and was replaced by pain. A tear fell Annie's cheek when she saw her reinforced armor was punctured with the one-inch tip of April's blade arm puncturing her skin. Without her armor, without the reinforced material the FF kids added, this would've turned out unthinkably worse.

"ANNIE!" Mayday screeched, scrambling to her wounded little sister as April pulled out the blade tip. She frantically cradled Annie, webbing her wound to stop the bleeding. To her tremendous relief, her little sister was still breathing and awake.

"May..." Annie hissed, whimpering from the pain. Her green eyes turn to her attacker, who, for the first time since this fight began, appeared to be in disbelief. "April...?" Annie gasped, clutching her wound.

The blade vanishes as April looks as if she's choking up, mumbling to herself until she clutches her head and falls to her knees. Her body begins to shrink, ridding away the beastly form until she returns to her symbiote self. Her sisters wince when April hits herself as if it were the only way to stop herself. 'Impossible! Its psyche is fracturing. It's going out of control!' Norman gasped. 'Beast! Obey me! Obey!'

A defiant "NO!" roared out of April's mouth before she suddenly sprouted a pair of wings out of her back and flew out the window into the night sky.

Mayday sat speechless at what she saw until Annie asked, "Where's she going?!" Carefully carrying her sister, Mayday got them near a window. Glancing down, Mayday picked up something April dropped: an old photo of two twin babies. Peering through the window, they saw the FF and their family arriving, but beyond the clouds, they barely caught a glimpse of April. The two saw there was one direction their sister was going, and in its path was the source of April's pain: Alchemax, the home of the Osborns.

---

Sneak peek of the grand finale:

April lies in the darkness. It almost looks like she is sleeping, but really, she's trapped in an awful nightmare with terrible apathy numbing her mind and spirit. "Maybe this is where I belong," she mumbled, utterly exhausted, as the darkness suddenly looked more comforting. That is, until a faint golden light glimmers through her sealed eyelids, and a great warmth is felt on her cheek.

"That's not true. Don't ever say that about yourself," a kindly voice as sweet as honey whispered.

This warmth embraces April's whole being, and her eyes peek open. A pair of arms carefully cradles her as if she were being pulled out of a deep, cold pool of water. "So warm,' April murmured, feeling this kind stranger carrying her someplace far away from the dark. April grips this person's finely knitted coat, and this kind person reassuringly kisses her forehead. The next thing April registered was being placed on a blanket, the sounds of burning wood crackling against her ear. "Fire," she gasped, now wide away, as she shifted away from the flame until she saw a person on the other side, dropped in a white robe.

"Don't be afraid," said the stranger, her voice sounding like an older woman. "Hmph, think of it as a symbolic fire. It doesn't hurt."

She spoke differently from Norman, with a genuine sense of love in her tone, like she couldn't lie to April even if she wanted to. Feeling the dreaded apathy beyond the shadows, April scooted closer to the fire and felt the cold fade away like a bad dream. Rubbing her eyes, April saw she was back in the dark maze but wasn't alone this time. She faces the cloaked woman and rises to her feet, "Alright, grandma," she said, "you better start making sense very quick. What's going on here, and where am I?"

My guardian angel or something?"

A sad sigh escaped the woman as April caught a glimpse of her eyes, which were as blue as hers. Though something was troubling the woman, she still carried an assuring smile with genuine warmth. April felt comforted just seeing it as if everything would be okay. "What's going on, April, is that a great storm is brewing within you, threatening to tear your mind and spirit apart."

Rubbing the side of her head, April struggles to remember until the memories of that terrible crackle echo. "Norman..."

"Yes," the woman confirmed, "and while your family is doing everything to help you, you still need help here."

"Which is?"

"To accept yourself."

April felt chills down her neck and arms, scared at the mere thought. She tried to hide her fear by scoffing at the woman. "Hmph, so what does that make you, then? Are you my guardian angel or something?"

The woman chuckled heartily. "Something like that, April. Though, I prefer to be called Maybelle."

April looks on as the woman lowers her white cloak, and her eyes widen with disbelief at the elderly woman's true identity. She could barely stutter out, "G-great Aunt May?"

TO BE CONTINUED...