267 Horrors of War(2)

– Paris, France, Europe - 2:40 PM –

Carnage, the red symbiote maniac, with its host Cletus Cassidy, fixated their gaze upon Spy and Finn, the ones who had become the Stands Silver Chariot and Soft and Wet, with a mad grin on his face that said it was time for some carnage... literally.

"Ah, more heads to bite off and fuel the tank. Hehehe. Lovely." Carnage giggled sadistically as he gracefully descended from the wall he was on and landed before the duo with an ominous presence.

"You killed a lot of people here, you big sack of shit." Finn spat at the alien, contempt dripping from his words.

"And I shall continue to do so, relishing every moment! HAHAHA!!" The psychopathic alien erupted into maniacal laughter as his tendrils unfurled menacingly from his back, each barbed tip sharpened to a deadly point. "Once I deal with you both, there will be more CARNAGE!!"

In response to Carnage's declaration, Finn and Spy both took their battle stances, preparing for the impending clash.

~ Death Battle: Chorus of Change (From the ScrewAttack Series) ~

"En garde then!" Spy's voice rang out.

With a wicked grin, Carnage inhaled and let out a thunderous roar that echoed through the air.

"RAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRR!!!"

[GIF]

"Time to die!" Finn declared.

"That's the spirit, mon ami!" Spy grinned at Finn.

"No! We are! We are going to be killed by this maniac!" Finn exclaimed.

As the two were busy talking, Carnage immediately leapt towards them, only to find himself trapped inside a large bubble that appeared around out of nowhere.

"Huh? What gives?!?" Carnage bellowed in frustration.

Finn smirked, "This."

Snapping his fingers, the bubble shrinks to the size of a basketball, compressing Carnage into a crushed red ball. As Finn drops him to the ground, Spy fires a shot from his revolver, blasting the crushed red ball into scattered red symbiote pieces.

"Well that was easy." Spy remarked casually.

"No, it ain't over." Finn said solemnly.

True to Finn's words, the scattered red symbiote pieces suddenly merged back together, restoring Carnage back to his original shape and form.

This caught Spy by surprise, "The fuck?!"

Carnage cackle with glee. "HAHAHA!! Not even close!"

With lethal intent, Carnage extended his tendrils towards them, aiming to impale them. However, the nimble duo evaded his assault, causing the tendrils to embed themselves into the ground instead. Seizing the moment, Spy rushed forward and swung his rapier sword horizontally, decapitating Carnage's head clean off. But to his horror, a new head sprouted instantaneously from the severed stump.

"!?"

"Your head is mine!" Carnage declared, his voice dripping with malice.

Opening his jaw wide enough to swallow a watermelon whole, Carnage lunged at Spy and aimed to bite his head off. Swiftly, Spy intercepted the attack by thrusting the barrel of his revolver into Carnage's gaping maw, preventing the grisly outcome. Finn, meanwhile, sends two bubbles in front of Carnage's eyes and they pop, their plundering ability robbing the symbiote of its sight and plunged him into momentary blindness.

"NOW!"

The moment Finn shouted, Spy pulled the trigger of his revolver and the round tore through the top half of Carnage's head. Following up with deft swordsmanship, Spy cleaved Carnage into four different pieces. However, the resilient symbiote promptly regenerated, reshaping itself back into its formidable form with a guttural roar of rage.

"RAAAAAAHHHHH!!"

"You've got to be kidding me!" Spy shouted in frustration as he retreated to Finn's side.

Recognizing the futility of their efforts to permanently kill their relentless foe, the duo bolted down the street with Carnage in hot pursuit, moving with animalistic agility on all fours.

"I've blown his head off twice and sliced him to bits! Finn! What the fuck is he!?" Spy demanded his companion, his incredulity evident.

"Crazy alien goop created by an overpowered fellow from space that wants to eat us and is merged with a serial killer!" Finn explained grimly.

"...No wonder why he loves bloodshed so much." Spy muttered darkly.

"Our best bet is fire and sound, but we need an opening on him to use any of that!" Finn strategized as they continued their frantic escape.

As Carnage halts abruptly, he unleashes a barrage of knives fashioned from his own symbiotic flesh, launching them at machine gun speeds towards the duo. Reacting swiftly, Finn and Spy dive behind a nearby car, seeking refuge from the deadly onslaught as Carnage's blades rained on the vehicle incessantly.

"Fire I get, but what type of sound are we talking about exactly?" Spy asked, narrowly avoiding a volley of red fleshy blades.

"High-frequency ones," Finn clarified.

"I see. We'll need radio speakers or sirens for that," Spy noted, formulating a plan amidst the chaos.

In a sudden display of brute strength, Carnage lifts the entire car up with his monstrous hands, catching Finn and Spy off guard as the beast slams the vehicle down at them. Reacting swiftly, the duo rolls aside just in time, narrowly avoiding being crushed as the car crashes into the ground with a deafening thud.

"Before anything else, we need to create that opening," Spy declared, his voice tinged with determination.

"Aye... by kicking his arse first!"

Morphing his right hand into a ten-foot curved sword, Carnage launched a ferocious horizontal swing at the two. Reacting with lightning reflexes, they evaded the deadly arc by ducking beneath it before springing forward towards Carnage and delivered a swift knee strike to his face in a synchronized assault, momentarily stunning the monstrous entity. Seizing the opportunity, Spy quickly brings out his butterfly knife and stabs it into Carnage's head, while Finn followed up with a devastating punch that punctured through Carnage's chest.

To their astonishment, Carnage absorbed the punishing blows without faltering, retaliating by wrapping them with his writhing tendrils. Lifted into the air like puppets on strings, they were mercilessly slammed onto a nearby car, then flung against a solid wall, the impact reverberating through their bodies. Spun around like ragdolls, they were hurled towards a nearby window, crashing through it and found themselves landed in a five-star restaurant, complete with lavish furnishings and ornate chandeliers.

"Not a bad job with the interior," Spy quipped, albeit with a hint of admiration.

"Get up!" Finn's urgent command snapped Spy back to the dire reality of their situation.

At that moment, Carnage bursts into the restaurant through a shattered window, and Spy and Finn immediately spring into action by erecting a makeshift barricade using tables to shield themselves from the barrage of symbiote knives hurtling towards them. A moment later, they retaliate by tossing the tables at their assailant, but Carnage simply swatted them with his sinuous tentacles and started closing in on his prey.

"Blast him!" Finn's command pierces through the chaos as he unleashes a stream of bubbles from his fingertips, while Spy peppers Carnage with bullets from his revolver. Despite the barrage piercing his body relentlessly, Carnage approaches them unfazed, his regenerative abilities constantly healing the wounds inflicted upon him.

"Nothing's working!" Spy exclaims in frustration, his ammunition seemingly futile against their formidable adversary.

Spotting a potential advantage overhead, Finn's eyes lock onto a massive chandelier suspended from the ceiling directly above Carnage. Without hesitation, he fired a bubble towards the chains supporting it, causing the ornate fixture to drop on top of Carnage with terrifying force, crushing him beneath its weight.

Spy breathes a sigh of relief, "That should-"

But Finn interrupts as he shouted, "Make a run for the kitchen! We need fire!"

Before Finn could finish his sentence, Carnage bursts out of the floor behind the duo and unleashes a vicious horizontal swing with both claws. Reacting instinctively, they raise their arms in a desperate attempt to block the attack, but the sheer force of the blow sends them flying through a nearby wall and into the kitchen beyond.

With a pained grunt, Finn assesses the situation, "That'll do. Spy, buy me some time!"

Acknowledging Finn's directive, Spy nods resolutely, "Okay."

As they scramble to their feet, Carnage bursts into the kitchen, only to be met by a flurry of thrust from Spy with his rapier sword while Finn quickly activates the gas stoves, endeavoring to fill the air with flammable gas in order to blow Carnage up to kingdom come.

"Why won't you stay dead?!" Spy's frustration echoes as he presses his attack.

In a swift and unexpected move, Carnage grabbed Spy's sword with his formidable right hand, halting the assault and swiftly healing his wounds in the process. Before Spy could react in time, Carnage delivers a devastating uppercut, sending him hurtling towards the ceiling, but the alien beast snatches Spy's flailing leg midair and slams forcefully into a nearby fridge before tossing him across the kitchen counters, the impact with the wall sending him crashing to the ground.

Behind him, Finn quickly fired a bubble at Carnage's head that pierced right through it, momentarily staggering him. However, he swiftly regenerates the wound and retaliates by fashioning a symbiote spear and throws it at Finn, who simply catches the projectile and throws it back at Carnage, piercing his chest. But to his dismay, the spear absorbed itself back into his body since it was made out of his own symbiote flesh.

"...I don't know what I was expecting," Finn admits with a hint of resignation.

Across the kitchen, Spy rises to his feet and swiftly throws a flashbang at Carnage, engulfing him in a blinding light. Without missing a moment, Spy and Finn make their escape through a back door leading to an alleyway. Just as Carnage regains his vision, he was about to chase them down when suddenly, he paused his steps when he sniffed the air and detected a familiar scent in the air. A familiar scent of...

"Gas?"

A sudden thud grabs Carnage's attention, and he spots a live grenade on the ground which was thrown by Spy. With a sense of impending doom, Carnage glimpses the duo at the back door, with Finn closing the door and before he could close it fully, he stared at Carnage and spoke those words.

"Game over."

With a final, desperate attempt to evade their impending demise, Carnage lunges forward, but Finn slams the door shut. In an instant, the grenade detonates, igniting the volatile gas within the kitchen and explodes in a fiery explosion which engulfs Carnage in a torrent of flames, his agonized shrieks echoing through the alleyway as he is consumed violently by the inferno.

—————————————————————

"AHAHAHAHAHA!! He won't be coming back from that!" Spy exclaimed, a triumphant smirk playing on his lips.

"Definitely!" Finn agreed, his laughter mingling with Spy's.

"At least this restaurant doesn't have a fire sprinkler system..." Spy remarked casually, but as the realization dawned on him, his expression shifted to one of dread. "Oh."

Finn froze alongside Spy as he realized their grave error, "Please don't tell me."

In perfect synchrony, they flung the door open, only to be met with a scene of devastation. The kitchen lay in ruins and engulfed in flames, but to their horror, the sprinkler system in the main dining area had been activated, dousing the area with water. But there was no sign of Carnage

"I have a bad feeling about this," Finn muttered, his apprehension palpable.

Pressing forward into the dining area, they navigated through the darkness, the sound of water raining from the sprinklers above mingling with the ominous silence that enveloped the room. Broken lights cast eerie shadows, and red webs adorned the windows, putting the entire area in complete darkness.

"Activate night vision mode," Finn instructed, his voice steady despite the tension in the air.

With their night vision mode engaged on their helmets, Spy and Finn get a better view in the darkness as they meticulously scanned left and right to anticipate where Carnage will pounce out.

"Hmmmm…" Spy hummed, his gaze sweeping the area for any sign of movement.

At that moment, they soon caught sight of a fleeting shadow running past tables, prompting them to unleash a flurry of shots in its direction. However, their shots missed their mark, and a maniacal laughter echoed around them in the dining area, taunting them.

"The scumbag is tryin' to toy with us!" Finn bellowed in frustration.

Then, the shadow they had glimpsed clung to a non-lit chandelier on the ceiling, prompting another round of gunfire from the duo. But before their bullets could find their mark, the shadow leaped off the chandelier, evading their shots and causing the chandelier to shatter into pieces. Carnage's mocking laughter echoed once more as the shadow vanished into the darkness.

Spy and Finn exchanged a knowing look. They understood that Carnage was toying with them, exploiting the darkness and chaos to his advantage. Despite having seemingly perished in the fire, he had managed to survive, using the sprinklers to extinguish the flames.

"Coward! Show yourself! We burned you once! We'll burn you again!" Finn's voice reverberated through the room, laced with defiance.

"Try me!" Carnage's taunt echoed in response, his form still concealed within the shadows as his presence a menacing specter haunting their every move.

At that moment, a red-curved blade of symbiote flesh descended from the shadows to their right, but Spy and Finn swiftly evaded its lethal arc, narrowly avoiding being cleaved in two. Simultaneously, a red symbiote hammer swung horizontally from the shadows to their left, but the duo managed to block the attack, though the force pushed them back momentarily. With a sinister grace, both weapons retreated into the darkness, only for Carnage to materialize from the shadows and launched a vicious dropkick that sent both Spy and Finn hurtling out of the restaurant and crashing into the alleyway below.

With a pained grunt, Finn mustered the strength to raise himself up, and from the corner of his eyes, he spotted a catwalk ladder and stairs in the alleyway.

"Go for that!"

Without hesitation, Spy and Finn sprinted towards the catwalk ladder and stairs, scrambling up to the rooftops with a bloodlust-fueled Carnage chasing after them.

"Any plan left?! He won't get fooled by the same stunt we pulled!" Spy shouted over the roar of their desperate flight.

Finn and Spy reached the edge of the rooftop, confronted by the daunting drop below. With Carnage rapidly closing in on them, Finn made a split-second decision and conjured a large bubble filled with an immense amount of air.

Creating a small hole on the bubble, Finn released the compressed air, propelling the bubble forward like a makeshift projectile. Before Carnage could react, the massive bubble collided with him, sending him hurtling through multiple buildings and crashing into the Seine river below.

"Since when can you do that with your bubbles???" Spy exclaimed, clearly taken aback by Finn's unexpected display of power.

Finn offered a cryptic smile in response. "Practice makes the man perfect, Scout's real dad."

"What?" Spy's confusion only deepened, but Finn ignored the inquiry as he swiftly descended from the rooftops, with Spy following closely behind.

As they reached the ground, Spy's keen senses detected a projectile hurtling towards them.

"DODGE!"

With lightning reflexes, Spy and Finn dodged a red symbiote hatchet hurtling towards them, narrowly avoiding its deadly arc as it embedded itself into a lamppost nearby. Their relief was short-lived as they beheld Carnage, who appeared unharmed but more royally pissed off rather than being in his usual pleasant psychotic manner.

"Oh please, can you drop dead already!" Spy's frustration boiled over as he shouted at their relentless adversary.

With a deafening roar, Carnage unleashed another barrage of symbiote knives, raining down upon the duo with relentless fury. Spy skillfully deflected the projectiles with his sword, while Finn punched away the knives with calculated precision. But Carnage showed no signs of stopping as he continued firing with unabated ferocity.

"He's not stopping!" Spy grimaced as he parried another projectile.

"Keep steady!" Finn urged, his focus unwavering as he narrowly evaded yet another incoming knife.

In a cruel twist of fate, several of the knives managed to pierce Finn's right knee and Spy's right arm by going through the armor gaps or the armors themselves, causing excruciating pain to shoot through their bodies.

"AAHH!!" Both cried out in pain.

Finding the perfect opening, Carnage stopped the barrage and brought out his claws before leaping towards them, but Spy fired another round from his revolver which obliterated Carnage's head in a burst of gunfire. But the symbiote villain regenerated his head anyway without much effort.

Without hesitation, Finn leaped over Spy and launched a powerful punch to the alien's face, stunning him momentarily. Taking advantage of the opening, Spy slid between Carnage's legs and swiftly severed his tendrils with a single, decisive swing of his blade, followed by slicing off his legs in a fluid motion, causing the alien to collapse to his knees.

Capitalizing on Spy's maneuver, Finn delivered a knee to Carnage's chin before unleashing a barrage of punches.

"ORA! ORA! ORA! ORA! ORA! ORA! ORA!"

"ORA!!!"

And send a right hook straight at Carnage's face into the ground. With ruthless efficiency, Finn ripped Carnage's arms from their sockets before grabbing him and spinning him around, hurtling him towards a colorful circular glass window of a nearby building.

However, Carnage's formidable regenerative abilities proved to be a formidable obstacle. As he grabbed onto the window with his tendrils and swiftly regrew four new arms and his legs, his rage undiminished.

"I'M GONNA PAINT YOU BOTH RED!" Carnage roared, his voice reverberating with primal fury as he prepared to unleash his wrath upon them once more.

As Carnage lunged himself at the two with his deadly tendrils, Spy and Finn leaped to meet him head-on. But Carnage swiftly morphed his arms into razor-sharp blades and swung horizontally at the two which slashed through their armor and cut deep gashes across their chests. The impact sent them flying through the air and crashed onto the hood of a wrecked car with blood gushing from the wounds on their chest.

"Damn it!" Finn's voice rang out, mingling with the agonized grunts of pain.

Wrapping his tendrils around the two tightly, Carnage brings them close to him and opens his jaw wide, preparing to bite their heads off.

"Well, we're fucked," Spy muttered resignedly, acknowledging the dire situation they faced.

Just as Carnage was about finish them off, a zipper suddenly tore open on the ground beneath him, and Jeff, the one who had become Sticky Fingers, rocketed out of the opening and straight up uppercutted Carnage, opening a zipper horizontally on his head and cleanly sliced off the top half before swiftly freeing Spy and Finn by chopping through Carnage's tendrils.

"Your emergency beacon turned on, and why the hell is Carnage here?!" Jeff demanded, his voice laced with urgency and disbelief.

"Don't know. Don't care," Finn retorted tersely, his focus squarely on the imminent threat before them.

"I'll paint these streets with your blood!" Carnage bellowed at Jeff, his rage undiminished as he took a menacing step forward.

Unfazed by Carnage's threat, Jeff stood his ground with his arms crossed defiantly. "It's a good thing I brought backup."

"Hm?"

Before Carnage could understand what Jeff meant, he was suddenly being hit by a geyser of acid fired from Moreau in his mutated fish form. Alongside Moreau stood Mobile Task Force Delta-3, "The Dragons"

Despite the corrosive acid eating away his flesh, Carnage's superior regenerative powers allowed him to slowly recover. However, the MTF soldiers, experienced in combating against creatures with regenerative abilities, wasted no time on bringing out their grenade launchers and began firing at Carnage, preventing him from mounting a counterattack as he was being stunlocked by a barrage of grenades and Moreau's constant acid spitting without stopping, denying Carnage any chance to heal or retaliate effectively.

Before Carnage could formulate a coherent plan, Moreau swung his massive fish tail with immense force, striking Carnage and sending him crashing into a bus in the distance with a bone-jarring impact.

"*coughs* Is that all you got?" Carnage taunted defiantly, his resilience unbroken despite receiving all these attacks.

But the moment he looked forward, his heart sank with dread as his eyes were met with at least five-hundred bubbles crackling with fire within them. Behind the infernal barrier, his eyes were met with Finn's, who stood with the rest of his crew.

"Does it hurt yet, laddie? Don't worry," Finn's voice echoed with grim satisfaction.

In a final act of desperation, Carnage made a futile attempt to flee, but he found himself trapped within yet another massive bubble conjured by Finn's mastery over his powers.

"I'll put ya... IN HELL!" Finn's words reverberated with righteous fury as he snapped his fingers with a decisive flourish.

"...I hate you,"

In the next instant, the bubbles around him erupted in a massive fiery explosion, unleashing a wave of searing heat and destructive force that engulfed everything within a hundred-meter radius. The ensuing inferno was shrouded by a thick cloud of dust, obscuring the devastation wrought upon the landscape.

As the dust settled, small flames flickered on the scorched earth, casting eerie shadows upon the desolation. Yet, amidst the aftermath, Carnage was nowhere to be seen, and the bus upon which he had crashed lay decimated and scorched.

~ Music End ~

"Did that do it?" Jeff asked, surveying the aftermath of the battle.

"It seems so," Finn replied through gritted teeth, clutching his wounded chest in pain. "Gah."

Moreau reverted himself back to his normal form, while Jeff sealed Spy and Finns wounds using his zipper abilities but this was only a temporary fix for now.

"So, you activated the emergency beacon on your armor and sent live footage of our fight with this alien to Jeff, all while we were battling him in the restaurant?" Spy sought clarification.

"Yeah. Gotta come up with a backup plan in case things go bad," Finn explained, casting a glance at Jeff. "And you're all late."

"Well, the Reich and dark aether forces ain't making it easy. They're everywhere, and this is the only MTF force we could gather at the moment," Jeff elaborated. "We tried to find more, but it wasn't feasible. They're either dead or hidden."

"How many do we have?" Spy inquired.

"Twenty-four at best, including me, you, Finn, and Moreau," Jeff disclosed.

Spy sighed, contemplating their next move. "We need to establish a secure base of operations, somewhere they'll never suspect."

Their discussion was interrupted by distant voices speaking in German, drawing their attention.

"Jerry's here," Finn remarked grimly.

"Your big fireworks caught their attention," Jeff added before turning his attention back at Spy. "And Spy, I know just the place."

"Then lead us."

Opening a zipper on the ground, Jeff and the rest leaped into it. As the zipper closed, the Reich soldiers arrived and searched the area but finding no trace of their targets before moving on, not noticing a small red piece of symbiote slime slithered into a nearby manhole, disappearing into the sewers below.

As the red symbiote piece landed on the grimy floors of the sewers, it gradually grew back into the form of Carnage, who retreated into the body of his host, Cletus, revealing himself at last. It transpired that Carnage had deliberately shed a piece of symbiote flesh before Finn trapped him and was able to escape along with Cletus.

"Way too close for my liking," Cletus gasped for breath, his heart still racing. "Those guys ain't normal."

[Coming from someone who fights superheroes, heroes and anti heroes on a daily basis.] Carnage quipped within Cletus' mind.

"Don't... push me," Cletus warned his alien partner, his breath ragged. "Woo!"

Suddenly, their thoughts were interrupted by the resonant voice of Forsaken echoing in their minds, nearly startling them.

"The hell do you want, purple boy?" Cletus demanded.

[You failed.] Forsaken's voice intoned.

Carnage emerged from Cletus' back like a snake in his symbiote form and replied, "More or less."

"Hey, you trapped us in a glass cube and let us have our fair share of carnage by releasing us here, what you didn't tell me was that this world has its own set of power users!" Cletus shouted in frustration.

[I thought you might handle it easily without problem.] Forsaken reasoned.

"We did... almost," Carnage acknowledged.

Forsaken sighed, [Well, you survived... which means you're still of use to me.]

Suddenly, a portal of dark aether materialized before them.

[Head for Germany and assist the Reich and my forces in their effort to claim it. We need that place so that we can use it strategically to spread our forces to the eastern and western fronts of Europe. Don't disappoint me. And enjoy unleashing carnage on our enemies, since you thrive on that, obviously.]

"...Fine," Cletus grudgingly agreed.

After a moment of silence, Forsaken's voice faded away.

"...Fuck that guy," Carnage cursed silently.

"Yeah. Fuck him," Cletus concurred.

With that, Carnage went back into Cletus' body, and they walked into the dark aether portal as it closed behind them, disappearing from the space once more.

—————————————————————

In the dimly lit catacombs beneath Paris, a zipper materialized on the stone wall, and Jeff, Spy, Moreau, Finn, and the members of MTF Delta-3 emerged from it, entering the eerie subterranean realm of the catacombs.

As Jeff sealed the zipper shut behind them, one of the MTF soldiers surveyed their surroundings, taking note of the countless bones and skulls on the walls. "That's a lot of bones," he remarked, his voice tinged with awe and unease.

"Six million, to be exact. The catacombs were used to deal with the problem of the city's overflowing cemeteries back in the 1700's," Spy explained, his tone matter-of-fact. "They constructed this vast underground network under ancient stone quarries to house the remains of the dead."

"Woah," another soldier murmured in astonishment.

"We are now hiding here and they have accepted us in their resting place and make use of it, so let's not disappoint them shall we," Spy asserted, his gaze solemn as he addressed the group.

"Understood," the soldiers chorused in unison, their determination palpable as they prepared to navigate the labyrinthine catacombs.

After a brief absence, Finn rejoined the group as he delivered his findings. "I've thoroughly inspected the place. No one's here. I've also taken the precaution of securing the entry points that lead into this place, so we should be safe here for now."

"Good," Spy nodded in approval, his gaze shifting to the assembled MTF soldiers. "Arrange several tables here and there throughout this area, and make sure each one is equipped with a radio. Do an ammo and weapons check, and be diligent in replenishing any supplies that are running low."

The MTF soldiers sprang into action, arranging tables and setting up radios while conducting checks on their ammunition and weapons.

"This is crazy. Forsaken is dragging characters from other universes into this war," Jeff remarked, his expression grim with concern. "Who knows what else he may have at his disposal."

"Indeed. We can only imagine what else he has instored for us," Spy concurred, his tone reflective. "I will say though Jeff, this place might be the best place to hide at the moment. Let's make use of it to the fullest."

Agreeing with Spy's assessment, Jeff nodded solemnly. "Yeah."

As the group busied themselves with their tasks, Spy's thoughts turned inward. "If Forsaken has recruited villains from other universes, it's possible that the same is happening elsewhere."

Spy's intuition proved correct. In other places, similar threats lurked, and they were as deadly as Carnage if not more.