Trans-4,5-epoxy-(E)-2-decenal … this is the chemical compound that gives blood its distinctive pungent smell.
To put it in layman's terms – the main contributor to the odor that wafts within a currently DNA spattered room is from iron oxidizing in the air – the presence of iron in hemoglobin is the protein that carries oxygen in red blood cells to create this scent.
Other volatile compounds include aldehydes, ketones, and sulfides. These too contribute to the overall complexity of an otherwise non-complex 'copper' or 'metallic' odor.
But nevertheless, this is absolutely the unmistakable smell of blood spillage. Sansa Tamakawa's twitching nose has caught a whiff too many times before of it, per previous crime scenes and murder investigations; he knows this smell as a police officer all too well.
Painted above a dead body – yet to be ID'd by the department's forensics team or the case leading detective – are various red rings that sequentially get smaller until reaching a bloody spider shaped symbol at a tiny epicenter. The killer has quite literally painted a target on Musutafu's residential vigilante.
Tamakawa's first thought is the Yakuza. However, they are an age-old criminal organization with many other methods of sending a message. A bloody bullseye doesn't quite meet or match their M.O.
When a camera flash that's much too bright to be coming from a crime scene photographer's camera causes Tamakawa's eyes to change their dilation perimeters, his thoughts about the investigation wander in the direction of where a police line keeps media & press out. Behind the slight form of a barrier, the cop notices & recognizes a familiar face.
His triangular ears turn upwards and he strides forwards. He calls out to the freckle-faced boy behind the line, "Izuku Midoriya!", and adds a welcoming wave for extra measure. "What are you doing here, my young friend?"
Izuku Midoriya returns Sansa Tamakawa's greeting with a slight bow and a small smile. He then presents a lanyard that hangs from around & underneath his head as a necklace – it must be fairly recent from the way he does so proudly – the lanyard provides a form of identification & credentials to show that he's now an official photojournalist for Juko News. "Came here on business since the job requires covering Spider-Man stories."
Tamakawa's right ear twitches, along with two of his whiskers on that same side of his cat-like featured face. It takes him a moment of thinking and a look back at the crime scene for him to put two and two together, "Spider-Man? Word gets around fast..", he hadn't really thought that details about the case would have been made publicly available as of yet but stands apparently corrected in that line of thinking.
"Can you share any details about what happened here?", Izuku looks past Tamakawa and at the crime scene with just as much of a critically eyed stare as a detective might do. It's something that makes the officer re-evaluate his interaction with the young photojournalist.
When Tamakawa tracks the gaze of the boy in front of him, he can't help but wonder what hero society and quirk civilization has made this generation come to. Sometimes, it is easy to forget that people like Izuku Midoriya are just kids. The way hero schools throw children into the fray with their acclaimed Sports Festival and practical training experience through first year internships can hasten their maturity level. It also hardens these kids' hearts. All the while, Tamakawa is unsure if kids like Izuku Midoriya should be seeing such gruesome stuff at all.
"Uh.. Officer?", Izuku's voice draws Tamakawa out of his rumination. The cop blinks and realizes that the kid he was pondering about is still standing expectantly in front of him. Maybe that whole maturity thing seriously does go to show Izuku isn't much of a child anymore when compared to himself and spacing out occasionally.
Tamakawa shakes his head to clear it of any unnecessary thoughts, "Sorry – Got distracted! – There isn't much to really tell at this time, actually.." He tries returning the workings of his mind to the investigation at hand, thanks to Izuku Midoriya's apparently much needed reminder for him to do so.
Izuku hums while also considering things about the case. Tamakawa can't help but wonder if the kid could have followed in Tsukauchi's footsteps in another life should Tsukauchi have stayed alive to provide proper tutelage. There's something about the boy's analytical stare that makes him believe so. "Just that someone sent a message to Spider-Man", Izuku is on the right track with the way everything is oddly weaved together like a web.
Tamakawa's already slitted set of eyes skewer into a thinner slanted state. Everything is connected somehow. Tsukauchi as a detective always had a corkboard with strings streaming from clue to clue. Tamakawa imagines if he did the same that those strings would now make up one giant web – and Spider-Man would be there directly in the middle of it. "Any ideas as to what that message is?"
Izuku has a serious expression – one far too serious for someone his age. "Nothing good", but the rational reasoning as to why he's making such a face can't be argued or refuted.
"No, I suppose you're right, it can't be anything good.." Sansa Tamakawa stares at the handiwork of whoever put a bullseye on Spider-Man. The last couple of times that this city saw characters with gimmicks such as this, anarchy was surely soon to follow suit.
Suddenly, a forensics expert on Tamakawa's side of the police caution tape comes forward to interject on his and Izuku's conversation. "Sir, we've got a partial blood report back" He shares an update on the investigation whilst glancing & reading information from a clipboard.
Tamakawa's set of triangularly tipped ears perk up with the raising of his facial whiskers. "Already? Was it from the mess with the victim?", he glances hopefully at the clipboard in the forensics expert's hands and then at the body in the corner of the crime scene that's now being covered by a plastic tarp.
The forensics worker shakes his head. "Even better! It was from what we think might have been a form of retaliation against the killer", he smiles with the promise of an improvement in what news he has to offer about the case. "The blood we got back matches Kaina Tsutsumi", he turns over the clipboard to give Tamakawa a closer look at the results of the blood report.
Sansa Tamakawa recognizes the name before he even sees the information that's detailed on the clipboard, "Lady Nagant?!", but he's in disbelief of that information regardless of it coming at him from both sides.
The forensics worker nods as his smile diminishes. "We're not sure what she's doing back in Musutafu killing again or what she wants with Spider-Man of all people but it's a lead", he sobers when thinking the same thoughts that Tamakawa must be having about the hired assassin.
"Alright then..", Tamakawa sighs before handing the clipboard back, "I want you to put out an APB on Nagant as soon as possible."
When the forensics expert gives him a salute and he finishes saluting back, Tamakawa realizes this must have all been overheard by Izuku Midoriya. Despite his acquaintanceship with Izuku, Izuku is still a photojournalist that helps report & write news with that job criteria to do. Tamakawa turns around to ask for the boy's off the record disclosure about what may have been overheard.
But Sansa Tamakawa discovers that Izuku Midoriya has already gone after eavesdropping on the crime scene report, having left the scene long ago.
Thanks to the symbiote's uncanny ability to change his attire within the blink of an eye, Izuku Midoriya's Spider-Man suit-ups are much more conveniently time manageable. He's in and out of an alley within seconds, and all without having to leave behind a pair of civilian clothes to worry about returning to pick up later. An all consuming darkness consumes his body as he swings across Musutafu. In the stark sunlight of the sky, it becomes apparent that his costume has gradually gotten darker. It's gone from a deep hue of purple to a blue-ish tint of pure black now. The edges of the legs that protrude from the white spider symbol emblazoned on both his back & chest have gotten sharper and more distinct. It's like the suit itself has evolved with stepping into this role as a nearly full time Spider-Man.
Together, Izuku Midoriya & the symbiote have even developed their own sense of a swinging sequence. What was once elegantly acrobatic by himself and aggressively channeled power in the beginning of their bond has now become a synchronized practice of precision & honing of senses. In other words, this new Spider-Man is locked in. He gets the timing on every turn correct and navigates the city in a way that predicts the best possible route to do so better than if the symbiote were a built-in GPS navigator. The best part is that he gets so good at this new method of travel that he's practically able to do it on autopilot.
While the symbiote compensates for his swinging calculations, Izuku Midoriya is able to ponder things a bit about this whole 'return of Lady Nagant situation' – or, as he has come to better know her, Lady Deadpool. The last he saw of her wasn't such a bad ending since she departed from Musutafu on good terms with him and severed ties with the HPSC. But now it seems like the message with the bloody bullseye might mean she has changed her mind about their alliance. She DOES have a damaged mind from all of The Commission's experimentation on her, afterall.
He wouldn't have been so worried about her return if not for the innocent lives that are now at risk. It's bad enough that she kills people at all but for her to do it in his name is even worse. Spider-Man cuts a corner to re-circle a block. He has to find her before she kills again. In order to do so, he plans on doubling his efforts by double checking his patrol paths. Should there be the slightest disturbance or discrepancy, his Spider-Sense should alert him. Spider-Man focuses on listening to the city's ambience, turning an ear to hear anything that might sound out of the ordinary.
What makes this whole search ironic is that it isn't Spider-Man who finds Lady Deadpool. It's HER who finds HIM. When swinging over his usual hot spots, he comes across a familiar rooftop, whether he remembers which rooftop it is or not. It's the same rooftop they last saw one another on. She shoots at him from it with a sniper rifle, per her past expertise. Of course, with his Spider-Sense and the symbiote, Spider-Man is able to avoid getting shot out of the sky. That doesn't stop the expert markswoman from being too discouraged to try firing off another round.
Spider-Man dodges his way down, making the sniper have to abandon her position before he reaches her. When he lands on the rooftop, she's placed herself on the other end of it. Lady Deadpool waves at him with an expression through her mask that looks happy to see him despite having tried to take a shot at him. Already, the vigilante is reminded of her crazy behavior. He raises his guard despite the show she puts on of lowering hers.
"Spidey! How's life been treating ya?!", she acts like they're old friends having a long awaited reunion – and maybe they genuinely would have been had she not murdered someone and then shot at him to get his attention.
"Why are you trying to kill us, Deadpool?!" Spider-Man darts forward with the symbiote serving as a shield should she try shooting at him again. He's surprised when she backs off rather than retaliating.
She cocks her head to one side to convey an outward gesture of confusion, her tied up ponytail swaying from the hair opening in the back of her mask. "Kill you?", she takes a few hops away to regain her distance from the vigilante before defensively denying his accusation that she would want to do him any harm, "The last thing I'd want to do is murder my boy toy!" …In her own way.
Spider-Man flips backwards to get behind a ventilation unit. Even without his Spider-Sense triggering to warn him, he remains wary of the woman's methods & tactics. With a form of cover, he should be relatively safe should she take aim and try to shoot at him again. He shouts at her from behind the air conditioning unit to ask, "Then what's with the gun?!"
"Bruh, it's only a paintball gun!" Lady Deadpool aims the firearm away from Spider-Man to let off a stray shot in order to demonstrate & prove her point as more than just a claim. The 'attack' earlier had been a literal form of friendly fire to get his attention. It was never going to do him any real harm should she have actually managed to get a hit on him.
"Okay…" Spider-Man keeps one eye fixed on the dangerous woman in a squinted state while his other eye raises a bit to convey his further confusion over this whole situation. Regardless of if she used paintball guns or water spraying guns on him, he denies the thought to lower his guard quite yet. "That doesn't excuse you using real ammunition on an innocent life to announce your return though!"
"Actually, that wasn't me!" Lady Deadpool goes on to deny that she's responsible for that murder. Which he maybe should have expected that she would regardless of if she IS innocent or guilty, but it still comes as something of a shocking surprise to the vigilante.
Spider-Man thinks back to what he overheard about the forensics report for the crime scene that he just came from and how it refutes Lady Deadpool's refute. "They found your DNA!", he shares this very crucial & important detail with her to see what she'll have to say in return.
"My DNA isn't THAT hard to come by! I'm a pretty sexually active gal, ya know!" What he gets is a joke. Or, at least, he HOPES that it's a joke. Lady Deadpool teeters between the border of being psychotic and being serious that it's hard to tell.
"Enough playing around! A life was taken because of you!", Spider-Man abandons his cover to advance on the ex-heroine during a fit of rage. She evades his offensive approach yet again.
"That was my bitch of an evil twin sister!", Lady Deadpool cartwheels away while still trying to argue her case. If Spider-Man weren't so spurred on by his emotions & blinded by the symbiote enhancing them, then maybe he'd notice she is staying completely defensive and not actually bothering to fight back.
"Seriously?! THAT'S the best excuse you can come up with?!", Spider-Man secretes a set of tendrils from the back of the symbiote to serve as pseudo web lines when reaching for Lady Deadpool this time around. He neglects to consider he himself had a 'twin' appear in his life recently.
Lady Deadpool unsheathes a katana from her back to hack and slash at the incoming tentacles. "Back, foul beast!" She does well to keep them at bay. But, eventually, the appendages manage to snare and snag her by both her ankles & wrists. "Uh oh – I've seen enough hentai to see where this is going!", she's dragged down by the tentacles and reeled in by their wielder.
She struggles and squirms when being pulled under by the darkened vigilante who has caught her. Spider-Man stands over the woman with one foot planted on her stomach to keep her pinned down. The white eyed lenses of the black suited individual's mask narrow to convey a wordless sign of expression.
"Be gentle with me", Lady Deadpool reacts by being submissive and surrendering to his superior show of strength.
"Is everything a joke to you?", THIS current state of Spider-Man is unphased by her sexual innuendos and teasing – instead of being reduced to a shy stammering mess, he is only increasingly agitated by her behavior.
Just as he's about to finish this and hand her over to the authorities, his Spider-Sense indicates that there's danger all of a sudden. His eyes widen when he looks at the woman beneath his feet, fully expecting her to go on the attack at long last. But the attack comes from behind him instead, from somebody else entirely.
Spider-Man swerves his body to avoid getting shot by a bullet that comes flying at him. It whizzes by his side, slightly grazing the symbiote that covers his skin. The bullet shatters the rooftop, proving it to be a powerful form of ammunition. The close call reminds him a lot of Lady Deadpool – Nagant's – shooting. Someone this skilled with a special bullet casing meets her M.O.
Spider-Man's enhanced sense of sight helps him to hone in on a particular window from the direction that the bullet came. Sure enough, what looks like Nagant's purple hued hair flows out from the back of a partial face covering; and emblazoned upon the forehead of the half-mask is a bullseye mark much like the calling card that had been left at the crime scene earlier. This lady – Nagant's 'evil twin sister' – is definitely the culprit. Spider-Man does a doubletake that nearly gives him whiplash when looking between Lady Deadpool and this 'Lady Bullseye' character.
"Now do you believe me?!", the Deadpool variant of Nagant tackles Spider-Man to the ground when another gunshot rings out. This bullet grazes her instead of the vigilante, knicking the top part of a shoulder.
Spider-Man, pinned beneath the bosom of Lady Deadpool, sucks in a breath. "Y- Yeah.." He awkwardly squirms to get her off of him but she's completely laid her body across his own.
The mischievous merc with a mouth notices this herself and smirks from behind her mask. "Not used to being the bottom? Would you rather be the top?", she flirtatiously teases him despite the precarious situation that they're still currently in.
Thanks to his Spider-Sense signaling him to do so, the vigilante knows to forcibly make himself and her move out of the way when the Bullseye hitwoman takes another shot at them. He grabs Lady Deadpool by the shoulders in order to shove her off before rolling them over. A bullet smacks the spot that they once were as they turn over.
Now with their positions swapped, Lady Deadpool is the one beneath Spider-Man. Though, her chest is still very much pressed up against his own. "Ooo! Looks like I was right!", she continues to tease him by squirming in a way that's more seductive than actually trying to get free.
"Take cover!", Spider-Man jumps up when cued by his danger sense to do so. A bullet flies between the space that he makes by briefly bouncing over the 'good' version of Nagant. When he comes back down, he pushes her to make her obey his order to find cover.
"You're not as fun as you used to be", Lady Deadpool complains that he isn't giving in to her flirting but listens to him nonetheless while ducking down behind a ventilation unit.
Without having to worry about her getting caught in the crossfire, Spider-Man focuses on now advancing on Lady Bullseye. He throws up a defensive wall with the help of symbiote to use both as shielding and a means to conceal his exact positioning. It gives him the chance to press forward and close the distance of the rooftop that he's on, at the very least.
But much like her counterpart, Lady Bullseye is an expert markswoman that she finds a way to counter the defensive measure on Spider-Man's part. She uses the reflection from both her sniper scope and the windows opposing either side of the rooftop that she has in her sights to pinpoint the vigilante's placement. When she shoots this next bullet, it's a ricochet with a special coordination that SHOULD strike Spider-Man's spine – the vigilante is only saved by his Spider-Sense telling him to dodge.
Spider-Man somersaults when he feels the bullet brush by his back. Still in motion, he then proceeds to swing from the rooftop. He can't stop for anything. Like when he faced Lady Deadpool, this is a crucial period in overcoming the sniper's superior upperhand. When bullets slice through his web lines in an effort to bring him down, he utilizes the symbiote's backup tendrils to support him.
Spider-Man flings himself forward with various tendrils to make sure there are too many to sever with gunshots. He's bound to reach the window where Lady Bullseye is firing from. As he draws near, he sees that the gunwoman has realized this too. She picks up and leaves her post. Spider-Man moves with haste to make sure that she doesn't get away from him. She CAN'T escape.
When the vigilante dives through the opening in the building that Nagant's sinister 'sister' is hiding in, he doesn't even pause to look around the room. He pursues her through the doorway that she left open and runs down a hall with many corners that require hard turns. He winds up flipping his feet off from the floor so that he can crawl quicker than he can run.
Lady Bullseye dives out a window that's on the opposite side from where they came. When she does, she lands on a davit for window cleaners. The dangerous woman whirls around to shoot the supporting string system so that it drops quicker than it would descend if she had used the service controls. Spider-Man flips and nosedives after her. They both practically plummet down flights of floors.
The hitwoman throws herself off of the platform that she's on when it draws nearer to the final floor. When she does this, she also casts out a grappling hook to assist with her velocity so that she doesn't go splat on the pavement. Spider-Man follows suit with a web line to pull himself up at the last second. Then they're both hitting the ground running. Pedestrians on the sidewalk duck out of the way with startled gasps and shouts.
"Surprise, mothafucka!" Lady Deadpool cuts Lady Bullseye off at a corner, having caught up on foot while Spider-Man was chasing her other half. Since Lady Bullseye lacks Spider-Sense, she gets met with a hard right hook to the face.
At the seams of the bullseye shaped symbol on her head, the woman's mask splits. Her face is fully exposed. It's an exact replica of Lady Nagant's – minus the experimentation scars & damage that Lady Deadpool has – and she looks PISSED.
The punch from her 'sister' must have knocked a tooth loose. Lady Bullseye digs into the back of her mouth to pluck out an oral cavity. And then, she flings that same tooth as a projectile. It flies through her body after it pierces Lady Deadpool's stomach from the force of the throw.
"Holy shit!", Lady Deadpool reels from the attack as she clutches the bleeding wound by her gut, "This chick is crazier than I am!"
Spider-Man rushes forward to grab Lady Bullseye from behind – only to be met by a back swung elbow to his jaw. She then sweeps her leg out to bat both him and Lady Deadpool out of the way. They're put off balance long enough for her to take off running again. As she flees, she drops and leaves behind her a grenade. With the pin pulled free.
An explosion erupts within feet of their feet.
The symbiote shudders when it feels the heat of a brief blazing inferno. However, it still maintains enough functionality to assist its host with lassoing Lady Deadpool with a tendril in order to pull her away from the grenade's blast radius.
When the short lived fire settles, Spider-Man and Lady Deadpool look through a cloud of dissipating smoke and see that Lady Bullseye has vanished. The two of them move forward together in the vain hope to pursue her and hopefully still be able to catch the villain.
However, when the two turn the corner ahead of them, it's not Lady Bullseye that they find on the other side. It's Officer Sansa Tamakawa, who had responded to reports of a disturbance in the area what with all of the gunfire and commotion.
Having not seen the other version of Nagant, Tamakawa can only make an assumption based on what he sees from Lady Deadpool. "Hold it right there!", he goes to unholster his gun while preparing to try to apprehend her.
"Crud", Spider-Man doesn't see much of any other choice but to help the innocent version of Nagant escape – he does so the non-violent way, at least, by grabbing ahold of her and swinging them both away on a web line.
Still, Sansa Tamakawa sees a vigilante aiding a supposed murderer and is only left there to further assume more assumable assumptions. He lowers the gun he drew but not without holding onto it with a tighter grip.
Spider-Man continues to swing with Lady Deadpool even after fleeing from Tamakawa. Ordinarily, he'd stop off on a rooftop somewhere to break for a talk with her. However, as of this moment, there's no time to waste.
That doesn't stop her from still finding a way to talk though…
"We're like the modern day Bonnie and Clyde now!", she shouts over the wind that whistles around them as they fly through the air.
Now dressed all dark & emo, Spider-Man comes with an attitude adjustment. "Not exactly", he frowns through the masked features of his face and shakes his head with a grouchy grumble.
Lady Deadpool remains unphased. She merely snuggles closer to him – she has to hang onto him while they swing to make sure she doesn't fall anyways. "Fine, then we're like Batman and Robin but if they were a gay couple!"
"Who?", Spider-Man looks at her with confusion crossing his masked face, "Wait.. What?"
The fourth wall breaking merc with a mouth giggles. "It's a meta joke! 'You wouldn't get it' -Jonkler (2019)!" This particular gag is just for you all, dear readers!
Spider-Man sighs and shakes his head. It's been a while and so he had forgotten how weird it was when he had last teamed up with her. "How about you just be quiet the rest of the trip?"
Lady Deadpool acts as though she may actually be considering that suggestion, "Mmm~Nope!", but the sing song response that she gives that ends with a playful pop of the ending P note says otherwise. "Not really my style, Spidey!" She nestles her head in the crook of her transportation's neck. "So, where are we going?"
Spider-Man continues to carry them along with a practiced web swinging motion to get them from point A to point B. All the while, he tells his passenger where point B is. "To find your evil clone", he tells her that the pursuit of Lady Bullseye has not been given up just yet.
Lady Deadpool nods along, "A short shitty clone saga storyline would definitely explain it", she summarizes the situation as best as she can for the sake of herself AND the poor readers of this part of the fanfiction.
Spider-Man ignores some of what she said in favor of the important part, "It's just a hunch but there was another clone situation very recently that might be connected", he tells her a bit about Akatani Mikumo so that she understands there's something bigger going on here.
Lady Deadpool getting caught up continuity wise is fine & dandy but she doesn't want the readers getting bored with a bunch of recap since Akatani Mikumo's inclusion was literally in the last chapter; she goes on to make Spider-Man explain something else plot wise instead, "That's all very interesting but you're leaving out how we're gonna narrow this all down."
"During our scuffle, we managed to get a Spider Tracer on the clone" This is the part where a quick anime flashback would be inserted to show Spider-Man slapping a tracking device on Lady Bullseye. "Our Spider-Sense will lead us right to the clone!"
"What?! That wasn't in one of the previous paragraphs!", Lady Deadpool is a bit surprised by this sudden development since there was no hints or clues to it being a thing – but sometimes stuff has to happen this way to advance the plot – or maybe it's just lazy writing.
Spider-Man is lost to the humor of this part of the chapter, "Huh?", as he often is when it comes to fourth wall breaking moments.
"It's another meta joke", Lady Deadpool looks through the computer screen directly at you now.
"Whatever", Spider-Man shrugs off the strange fleeting moment as he has come accustomed to doing with Lady Deadpool's shenanigans. He's relieved when they finally arrive at their destination, "We're here", he sets her down on a rooftop and points to a building across the way, "Your clone is in there."
Lady Deadpool looks in the direction that Spider-Man is pointing. "Oh… Oh, fuck.." Her shoulders slump and her head droops.
Spider-Man notices the sudden shift in his temporary partner's demeanor and becomes slightly panicked. "What? What is it, Nagant?"
"It's Lady Deadpool now", the Lady Nagant variant has to correct him that she's no longer 'Lady Nagant' before addressing the other issue though. (Yes, this is as serious a thing as leaving the hyphen out of Spider-Man!)
"Just tell us what's wrong!", Spider-Man grabs and shakes Lady Deadpool to make her get serious about the situation that's at hand.
The shake must have jostled her brain enough to make it begin working again since she actually does switch to a more serious state of mind immediately after that. "This is an old HPSC facility", her voice gets lower as shadows somehow cast across her masked face despite it being a bright sunny morning, "It's been long since abandoned but only myself and a few others would know about it."
Spider-Man takes a step back while taking that in. They're on the playing field of Lady Nagant's assassin self. More yet, this particular place can't be a coincidence to how the clone came to be in the first place. "She's sending us a message…"
"She wants us to know the HPSC is behind this", the mentally (and physically) scarred version of Nagant shudders when remembering what horrors were done to her and what horrors she had helped The Commission commit, "I thought my past was behind me."
It's times like these when he sees Lady Deadpool most vulnerable that Spider-Man can feel some sense of sympathy for her. "Sometimes it's our past that defines us", he places a hand on the woeful woman's uninjured shoulder in an effort to help console & comfort her.
Lady Deadpool looks at the young aspiring hero and gives him a grateful nod. "With great power comes great responsibility", only a simple sentence needs to be said to let him know that she understands exactly where it is that he's coming from.
Spider-Man stares at her in surprise. "Yes… How did you– ?"
"Ssshh", she holds up a finger to the vigilante's masked mouth in order to hush him. And just like that, she's back to getting on his nerves by being her usual comedic self. "Don't ruin a magical moment, bug boy!"
When the unlikely dynamic duo enters the old HPSC outpost, they're welcomed by a horror house comprised of booby traps. "Heh.. Boobies", Lady Deadpool makes her set of boobs bounce a bit with her laugh. Though, the traps that were laid by Lady Nagant are most certainly not those type of boobies.
Rather, Spider-Man makes his oddball partner step over tripwires and duck beneath movement sensors. One mishap could lead to one heck of an explosion – much worse than some small grenade. The two are guided by Spider-Man's danger detecting senses all the way through a dark facility.
When they make it to the final room of the building, with nowhere else to go or check, they find a chair turned away to be facing the wall opposite to them. Spider-Man spins a web on its back and gives it a good tug so that it swivels around. When he does so, his Spider-Sense screams at him for being so careless. A machine gun is rigged to open fire on him and Lady Deadpool when the chair turns around to point in their direction.
Spider-Man shoves Lady Deadpool out of the way before diving in the other direction. Bullet holes riddle a wall instead of them. But they aren't in the clear just yet. Spider-Man's Spider-Sense alerts him to another form of danger prone to harm him and his unlikely ally.
Lady Bullseye, now with a replacement for her mask that got damaged, stares down at them from a cargo crate outside the building. She holds in her hand a detonator for a set of C4. In between the long claw-like nails on the fingers of her other hand is the Spider Tracer she was always aware of. This had been her plan all along to eliminate them – she lured them into a trap. She pushes the button on the trigger to activate the C4 rigged building's bombs.
An explosion consumes the old HPSC outpost. Because it was rather aged, it collapses like it was made of old cardboard instead of cement bricks. It crumbles and becomes engulfed in fire. Smoke rises from a fallen fortress.
Lady Bullseye smirks as she watches a place that was full of bad memories burn to the ground. The added bonus to this murder method is that she killed more than just two birds with one stone by demolishing the building with both Spider-Man and Lady Deadpool inside of it.
Or so she had thought. Her smile falls off her face when she spots a shifting in the rubble of the destroyed outpost. Debris is turned over and tossed aside by Spider-Man who somehow managed to survive the explosion.
Lady Bullseye squints her eyes and sees how she had miscalculated. Despite some parts of Spider-Man's suit having been scorched and currently regrowing as a form of repair – he had protected himself, and Lady Deadpool, by creating a thick covering of webbing – a charred cocoon of goop melts around him and Lady Bullseye's other half.
"Fine then", Lady Bullseye plucks a pair of daggers from a belt of weaponry while preparing to engage the surviving pair of targets in close combat, "I'll just kill them the old fashioned way."
She chucks a dagger so that it gets flung straight into one of Lady Deadpool's legs. "My leg!", the merc with a mouth is immobilized before being further immobilized by a second blade striking her other leg, "My other leg!"
Spider-Man springs into action on her behalf. He's able to dodge Lady Bullseye's knives well enough – only a few close shaves create momentary cuts in his costume. He and the hitwoman meet one another up close and personal then. Engaging in hand to hand combat is awkward for them both. Bullseye is highly skilled in martial arts but it gets countered by the vigilante's predictive Spider-Sense regardless of a lack in experience on her opponent's end.
When Lady Bullseye throws a calculated cross, Spider-Man hooks her at the crook of her elbow and throws her aim off with a reflexive twist of survival instinct. She tries driving a knee up into his stomach but he's durable enough to dodge that close ranged attack as well. It's like an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. When Lady Bullseye produces a knife and slashes at the vigilante's stomach, he strikes her at the wrist the way a spider may defensive lurch and bite something that threatens to harm it. He may as well have hit a pressure point to make her drop the weapon as fast as she drew it.
Despite her legs being rendered useless for the time being, Lady Deadpool provides support to her partner by whipping out a set of pistols to provide cover fire. "Bang! Bang! Bang!", she also adds her own onomatopoeia the way Manga Fukidashi might with his quirk. Bullets whizz by Lady Bullseye and Spider-Man with no promises that they are non lethal rounds.
Bullseye uses her grappling hook that she had used previously to flee from the fired off shots. Spider-Man stays right on her heels by climbing after her with a set of pseudo webs, courtesy of the symbiote. The two scale the building that the vigilante and Bullseye's counterpart had staked out the HPSC fortress from moments ago. It too is long since abandoned, so Spider-Man has no problem tackling Lady Bullseye through a thick wall of cement since property damage concerns aren't an issue.
Lady Bullseye juts out a foot to nail Spider-Man in the gut. With the vigilante right on top of her, there's no way to miss her mark now. She additionally delivers a palm strike up under his chin. Spider-Man is forced to back off, but not without attaching himself to her with a web line like it's a leash, and not without her getting one final hit in either.
"Care to take this back outside?", Spider-Man begins to forcibly pull her with him out through the opening that he had made in the building before–
–only for her to willingly go along with him by diving forward and grappling his waist, "Honestly? That's a great idea!", she launches them both outside through the wall hole with a sudden tackle.
The two plummet a few floors. And, as Lady Bullseye had planned it, she uses Spider-Man as a landing cushion. Spider-Man takes the brunt of the fall, if not the full force of it. His back creates an indent in the ground – cracks are produced around the impact spot.
Now, while she has him at her momentary mercy, the skilled assassin raises a dagger over him in preparation to end their brawl. Fortunately for him though, she isn't the only expert targeter there. With practiced precision, Lady Deadpool shoots the knife out of Lady Bullseye's hand.
The symbiote then aids Lady Deadpool in saving its host – a tendril much bigger than any pseudo web extends from Spider-Man to grab Lady Bullseye and hoist her high into the air – Bullseye is brought down into the ground HARD and creates a pothole very similar to the one that Spider-Man made.
"You know what we call that? A web slinging ass kicking", Spider-Man stands over his opponent with a rekindled strength that trumps hers any day of the week.
That doesn't mean someone such as herself will go down easy though. Lady Bullseye foolishly flicks out a sharp stick to try and stab Spider-Man. But this time, it's not just him that counters her attack. It's the symbiote that responds with the vigilante's Spider-Sense. And it doesn't merely just dodge.
He catches her outstretched arm and uses his spider strength to strike her scapula. She cries out in pain as the hand that was clutching her weapon releases it, "You dislocated my shoulder!", Lady Bullseye glares at the vigilante through watery eyes.
Spider-Man glares back. Except, his whitened eyes hold no tears for her. "But you're still just as deadly with the other arm, aren't you?"
Stop her. Permanently.
Spider-Man does more than dislocate her other shoulder. He breaks the aiming specialist's second arm at the elbow. She screams loudly in both agony & despair.
"Not anymore", and Spider-Man's response is but a careless whisper.
Caught up in the moment, he continues to aggressively handle her in a rough interrogative way that he normally wouldn't treat any of even his worst enemies. He's so consumed by his anger that he doesn't even notice the voice in the back of his mind spurring him on isn't his own.
Stop others like her permanently too.
"It was the HPSC, wasn't it? What do they want from us? What's their goal? Tell us EVERYTHING", Spider-Man carries her by the throat to the top of the building that they came from moments ago – except, this time, he isn't offering himself as a landing cushion … plus they're going much higher up than they fell from previously.
Lady Bullseye kicks her dangling legs as a futile attempt to resist Spider-Man's forceful carrying. Despite all of his torture tactics and intimidation moves, she doesn't give in. Through a choked cough, "I have nothing to say to you", she makes sure what comes out of her mouth is nothing useful to him.
Spider-Man tightens his grip on the woman's neck. He just might go ahead and strangle her right then and there. He'll end this all by depriving her of the oxygen that she needs. Or, he could end this a split second sooner by snapping her neck with a squeeze of his spider strength. Her life is quite literally in the palm of his hand.
"How about…", but there's a reason why he climbed to the top of a building, "..Goodbye."
Lady Bullseye's eyes widen when she realizes that he's about to drop her.
But if someone is going to end her life, then she's damn well not going to allow it to be some snot nosed brat. She would rather meet her end by her own means. She has one final knife left in her arsenal that she uses to slash at Spider-Man's arm which is what keeps her suspended. Either the attack will harm him and make him let her go or he will let her go to avoid getting cut. Whichever of the two things that happens, it will be because of her that she falls to her death and not him.
Spider-Man yanks his arm back. She swipes at the air with her knife.
He lets her go. "Heh.. I missed.." Lady Bullseye then falls.
When she hits the pavement, her body ACTUALLY splats like a pancake.
Just like Akatani Mikumo, the clone is reduced to a pile of gray goop.
Spider-Man's eyes are wide as they watch Lady Nagant's copy have her life taken by a gruesome fate. Worse yet, he isn't too sure whether it was because of himself or her. No matter what … he definitely had a part to play in what happened.
He lowers himself down on a web line. Now close up and inspecting the body – or lack thereof – isn't much better. He looks at his symbiote covered hands. There's some of the same gunk that Lady Bullseye was reduced to on them. That gray goop may as well be her blood.
"Hey.. You okay?", the still living version of Lady Nagant – the original – limps over to him with a worried expression easily conveyed even through her facial covering.
"She.. It wasn't.." He wants to say it wasn't me but he doesn't know if he can.
"I've killed plenty of people in my life, kid… I can tell you that not all of them deserved it" Deadpool – Kaina Tsutsumi removes her mask to show him that she's taking this seriously and isn't going by the persona that she adopted right now. "The version of me that died just now was basically the same person that took those lives and I can also tell you that she definitely did deserve it."
"..But.." Spider-Man's voice trails off as it trembles to a tipping point of going nowhere.
"Besides!", Kaina Tsutsumi covers her face with her mask again before opting for a different approach to try to convince the boy that he did nothing wrong, "Look at that pile of goop! There's no way that stuff made up a REAL person! It was just a clone! She wasn't real, dude!"
Spider-Man stares at the puddle in front of him. It really doesn't show any signs of belonging to a human life. There's no brain to show the clone had any thoughts of its own. There's no soul ascending from a body to heaven through the clouds. There's not even a physical heart to prove there was a person with life beating in them.
But… He knew Akatani Mikumo… and whether Akatani Mikumo was the same as himself or not, Akatani Mikumo had most certainly been a person. Even if it was way too brief that he had lived his life.
"I know what will take your mind off it~"
Spider-Man is brought out of his internal monologue when he feels Lady Deadpool press up against him. She's physically pushing her breast against him while caressing his shoulders with a gentle set of hands.
He realizes what she's trying to do. She's making an attempt at seducing him. Like with Black Cat – Yaoyorozu – there's a strong part of him that wants to give in. But… There's reasons why he can't give in that he has to remember. Why can't he remember them?
Forget.
"Responsibility…" Spider-Man strains himself to remember what it is that he swore to never forget and somehow has.
Forget… and feel better.
Spider-Man shakes his head in an effort to get his thoughts corrected. "No.. This isn't responsible.."
Lady Deadpool slides her hand down Spider-Man's chest, past his abdominal region, until her fingers glide along his groin. She feels it react as a male's sexual organs do when touched by a female and smirks behind her mask. Her efforts to seduce him continue when she whispers in the boy's ear, "A little irresponsibility never killed anyone."
"...What did you just say?" Spider-Man grabs her by the wrist and yanks her hand off of him. He no longer permits her to touch him.
What she said was the mental shower that he needed. Now, he remembers. He remembers EVERYTHING. That with great power, there must also always come great responsibility.
"Y- You're hurting me", Lady Deadpool tries tugging her arm free from Spider-Man's grip on her wrist but is no match for his enhanced strength.
Spider-Man realizes how hard he's holding her and lets go. Lady Deadpool immediately backs off while massaging her wrist that's now badly bruised.
"Go", he turns his body to be facing away from her so he doesn't have to see her anymore – he doesn't think that he can after all of that – he doesn't want to see Lady Nagant ever again in any way, be it clone or real deal. "Leave the city. The police still think it was you that killed that guy to get us here. It's not good for you to stay any longer."
Lady Deadpool is hesitant to say anything back since she can tell one too many lines have been crossed with them but protests anyways, "But the HPSC–"
"Will be dealt with", Spider-Man spares her only a sidelong stare behind himself, "Now go.."
She clearly doesn't want to leave things the way that they are. She stays still for far too long to be okay with it. Her reluctance is also evident by how slow she makes herself move. But… Eventually, she does fully listen to Spider-Man and leaves.
Which resolves things somewhat there for now. And makes the HPSC the last problem to be otherwise resolved.
One of Lady Bullseye's throwing knives penetrates the tabletop desk of the HPSC Director's office. The chairwoman turns around to see that it was surprisingly Spider-Man who threw it.
"Expecting someone?", the dark suited figure stands as a silhouette in the open doorway to her private room.
"I was", The Commission Coordinator hums as she spares a second glance at the dagger sticking out from her desk. When her gaze raises back up to stare at Spider-Man, a small smile quirks along the corners of her mouth. "Wasn't you though."
Spider-Man's frown is apparent through his mask as he steps deeper into the office. "Sorry to disappoint", he kicks the set of double entry doors to the room closed behind him while entering the private space, "But this is the only visitor that you're getting."
The HPSC Director doesn't show any signs of being nervous or worried about Spider-Man's presence though. If anything, the closest thing to being bothered by his visit is conveyed through a hardly heard sigh. "Why is it that you came here to see me?" She tests the knife that's stuck in her desk with a tiny tug but it doesn't come loose. "It's not like you can lock me away without proof of my involvement."
Spider-Man stops at the edge of the desk – the only thing between him and her IS that desk – and he has the strength to pull the knife free from it or to toss it all aside if he really wanted to. "Who said anything about putting you in prison?", his voice is a low growl.
The Hero Division Director's small smile gets a bit bigger. "High off a kill and back for more", her stare goes back to the knife stabbed in the space between them, "I remember that feeling."
Despite her well crafted disguise, Himiko Toga's cat-like pair of slanted eyes gleam through the facade that is her appearance as the HPSC Director. That same set of eyes flit up to look at the vigilante who has come to see her.
When he asks, "Why are you doing this?", she intends on giving him a real answer.
She drops the whole other character act to tell him flat out, "Because you took away my uncle" Her stare holds resentment in it. After what happened all too recently, she has all the more reason to want revenge on him. "You took him away from me twice now."
Spider-Man falters. He's a little lost without context clues. "..Huh?"
So, the villain gives him those context clues. And more. She undoes her disguise.
When gray goop drips off the form of the HPSC Director, the gunk appears eerily similar to that of the goop that came with the clones melting. But this is no clone. This is the real deal.
"Himiko Toga", Spider-Man remembers the crazy girl that worked alongside The Hero Hunter and figures out what her connection to all this craziness is – at least, he understands things well enough to know it's not a good situation that he's found himself in here.
"You can call me Chameleon", the villain does a tiny curtsy of a bow like she just got done with a performance – however, the show is only just getting started – she grins with her fangs out on full display, "But I want you to see me here" She grabs the knife in the desk and gives it a good tug. It comes free. "I want you to know it's me helping pull the strings and that there's nothing you can do about it."
Spider-Man makes a fist when cocking his arm back. There IS something he can do. He can end this. Right here. Right now. She isn't as strong as him. He can punch her with his full strength like he punched the Nomu at the USJ.
But… he doesn't.
"We both know whatever happened was a flook", Chameleon calls him out on what transpired with Lady Bullseye. She points the pointed tip of the knife she's holding at him like it's the end of an accusatory finger. "I can tell when someone is a killer, and you, 'Spider-Man' … are no killer."
Silence.
Spider-Man wordlessly leaves.
Only after Himiko Toga knows for a fact that Spider-Man has left does she choose to address her OTHER visitor that had been there the entire time. Spider-Man had been wrong about that… just like he had been wrong about a lot of other things, for that matter.
"I'm surprised you didn't show yourself", Chameleon opens her desk drawer to produce a vial of the HPSC Director's blood and reapplies her disguise.
A pair of glowing yellow eyes watches her from the shadows of the room. "What good would that have accomplished? My whole reason for coming to you was to remain hidden in plain sight…"
Chameleon's voice changes from a young girl's to that of an elder woman's when her transformation takes its full effect. "Tombstone won't be happy with me if he finds out that I'm housing you here", she takes on a stern expression too – no longer does she have a wide rictus grin.
Her visitor stirs in the shadows. They could be slightly disturbed. Or, maybe they're giddy. "But you're happy so long as I help you torment Spider-Man…" The visitor's yellow eyes slant into thin slithers that bare an uncanny resemblance to Himiko Toga's when she isn't hiding her true appearance.
The Commission Coordinator nods. She takes a seat behind her desk and crosses one leg over the other. "Tell me more about this clone stuff."
"The dominant gene was Lady Nagant – easily obtainable thanks to your connections through the HPSC – but unlike my mistake with Akatani Mikumo, I was able to better hold this clone's cells together by adding the pro hero Snipe's DNA to the gene pool", the visitor stays in the shadows as they speak and share details about what was an unusual experiment meant to continue their cloning agenda.
Hearing Lady Bullseye had a boost in targeting prowess due to quirk splicing, Chameleon can't help but huff out an amused sort of sound. "Surprised she missed the bullseye's mark…", she looks at the dagger in her hand and spins it around in one fluid motion to hold it by its handle.
The creator of all these clones chuckles too, but isn't quite as amused. "Spider-Man can be a tricky one to kill", they're actually rather irritated by what's proving to be becoming a pest.
Chameleon looks up at her villainous ally, "But Spider-Man is not impossible to kill either", she grips the knife in her hand a little tighter.
"No.. Not impossible.." Her visitor agrees, and begins to grin for them both. He steps out from the shadows, standing up from a low crouch. He's gotten rather tall now. His lab coat hardly even hangs down past his chest to qualify as a shirt. What was once saggy old skin is now covered by green patches of fur. Elongated arms with claws at the end of them fold behind his back. This is a villain who has also undergone a transformation, except, this transformation is permanent.
He smiles widely with a mouth full of pointed teeth. Kyudai Garaki is no longer an aged portly man. He is now a monster of his own making, far greater than any of the Nomu that he ever created. As a scientist and as an evolutionary advancement, he promises to deliver on what his ally requests of him should he continue to conduct his research in peace.
The villain begins to cackle as he proudly proclaims, "Spider-Man is not impossible to kill at all for … The Jackal … !"
AUTHOR NOTES
So, funny story for you all about Lady Bullseye...
I had started finally watching Hit-Monkey a while back and realized after already turning Lady Nagant into Lady Deadpool that LADY BULLSEYE would have been a brilliant character meshing. I even considered doing a DaredevilDeku story just to make it a thing. Ultimately, my solution was to make her a clone - which is honestly what convinced and led me to doing this clone saga adaptation in the first place.
Well, at the very least, it gave me an excuse to bring back Lady Deadpool for those of you who missed her!
Anyways, I was expecting a bit of critique when going into the clone saga to begin with, so a lot of your responses from last chapter weren't too big a shock to read. I agree that Akatani Mikumo was very short lived and probably should have gone on for longer. The original plan was to make him very much more-so into a Ben Reilly type of character and fully flesh out this thing. But, I also didn't want to give too much focus on the clone stuff either since it's very hit or miss. Jackal is still out there so it can be something I potentially revisit but we'll see since there's many other things to take care of first & foremost.
Nevertheless, I've realized that putting a deadline / quota on these chapter releases may also be affecting my writing with the time management it takes to get them out in time. I really want to keep up the pace and deliver for you all but I may need to take a while longer to make sure nothing is too rushed from time to time. We'll see what happens going forward but I wanted to loop you all in so there's no panic if I miss a Friday or something.
All in all... I really do appreciate everybody's input and ongoing support. I'll make sure the next chapter is a real treat for you all since it will be the end of the 'Costume Chronicles' storyline.
-Courtesy of your friendly cloned author!