Chapter Thirty Eight:
Spider-cide smirked at the brown-haired boy in front of him... not that Scott could see the half smile due to the mask covering his face. If he wasn't mistaken, he had killed him on his own earth before he too had been killed. Spider-cide guessed that is the problem with the multiverse no matter how many times you kill a person there is always another one you haven't killed yet. His spider sense warned him about the attack and he flipped and stuck on a wall behind him.
"Aw, Scotty boy I guess this means you don't want to be my friend." He quipped taunting the obviously emotional boy with a frown on his face.
"Can you ever shut up?"
"Such ugly words… No wonder you have such a hard time making friends." He said shaking his head.
Scott, Logan and Storm the latter taking on the 'Spider-man' directly everyone else had already broken into three-man teams taking on the clone army. Spider-cide's words were true it seemed the 'Guardians' were mere cannon fodder to the twenty people currently in the room. The team's skill level was impressive.
On Fury's side there was a man dressed in purple shooting arrows, and a red headed woman that had impressive martial arts and sharp shooter skills. While Fury wasn't really a slouch himself the other ten SHIELD agents were at least well trained not dragging the overall group down.
"Ga! These things smell like Toad's lunch on a really bad day!" Kurt said dodging two guardians as they tried to encircle him.
"Ya got that right!" Amara replied shooting a ball of compressed magma at an oncoming horde. It was true one on one these things were no match for them, but if they were overwhelmed a year from now would be their death day.
With glowing eyes Storm floated into the air while a powerful force could be felt as wind whipped through the clustered combatants, "POWER OF THE SKY HEAD MY CALL!" Streaks of lightening were then thrown down through the broken portion of the dome striking around twenty-five guardians turning them into steaming piles of liquid.
"Yeah, I've definitely lost my appetite." Rogue said looking a little green.
Flashes of deep red beams were shot towards the new 'wall-crawler' but before any of them could actually hit their target, Spider-cide had already flashed away. His ability move from one place to another was no worse than his original's Warren himself would swear it exceeded him in this ability.
Spider-cide was soon found several feet away crouching his head cockly tilted to the side in a questioning pose. The spider-man look alike mocking words towards Cyclops had caught the attention of several people during the battle. It didn't become apparent what his motives were until the dome began to shutter every time Scott shot out another beam.
"Kid if you don't stop shooting beams around like some blasted water sprinkler, you're going to bring the entire place down on our heads!" Logan shouted at Scott.
Understanding lit the expressions of several as they spotted how the place was already looking unstable. This wall crawler was absolutely insane! He planned to kill everyone along with himself.
"Poor little orphan Scotty, never getting any love from anyone." Spidercide's eyes on his mask drooped as if he was sad.
It wasn't known how the person wearing the Spider Man costume knew Scott well enough to mock him so thoroughly, but he seemed to be able to enrage him without much effort.
"How is your friend doing... what was her name again? Jean wasn't it? A spicy number if memory serves me..." Spider-cides voice faded as the figure himself disappeared into the shadows of the broken dome.
Another blast of the crimson beam shot through the surroundings disregarding the warnings from Logan and the other X-Men. Scott refused for this bastard to taunt him and run away without him getting at least a few singes along the way. So, it wasn't long before he left the group attempting to catch up with the wall crawler much to the surprise of his remaining team members.
Running after the kid he yelled, "Scott! If you abandon your team here..." Logan didn't finish his sentence before Scott's figure disappeared in the dim light of the broken dome's massive space.
Growling, Logan speared a few Guardians leaving the clones disintegrating into puddles beneath his feet, the large man didn't say anything else as he continued to work his way back towards the other X-Men and SHIELD agents.
Familiar sounds of web shooters announced the presence of Ben, Peter along with Jean. As soon as they arrived the 'Guardians' retreated almost immediately.
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Kaine wanted to ignore the blonde in his efforts to make his way to the Dome Base but one look at her face left him frozen in place.
"Who are you?" Gwenpool asked curiously.
"You… are… Gwen Stacy...You are a clone..?"
"Sorta... Why... are... we... talking... like this?"
Scowling, Kaine decided he didn't have the time to speak with this person, she obviously wasn't right in the head. He thought briefly of just killing her but by the way she was jumping around he figured Warren must have been up to his old tricks again. Giving powers to a deranged mad woman seemed like something he would do, not believing for a second it hadn't been his intention from the beginning.
Without giving her a second glance, he began to jump in long distance leaps towards the broken dome. If he didn't get there soon, they would lose Mary Jane, and that was not something he was willing to see.
Keeping pace with Kaine, Gwenpool kept smiling next to him as they jumped through the Sandy dunes of the Sahara.
"Oh, I know! You are Kaine, aren't you! That clone of Spider-Man. Oh I see, so you haven't been cured of the cellular degeneration. You are about as crazy as people think that I am. It's really a shame, even after you get your cure it wouldn't be long before you are murdered by Kraven the Hunter on that island. Of course, you were later brought back..." Gwen's words were momentarily cut off by Kaine's large hand wrapping around her throat.
At first her constant rambling just annoyed him but as soon as she started speaking about future events, he felt the truth in her words. It was an odd sensation; he could tell she wasn't bullshitting when a feeling akin to an extension to his spider sense flared. Possibly because he had a similar power, he knew her words to be near prophecy.
"Tell me... what you know... Now..."
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For several minutes after they had arrived every person was aiming their weapons at them. Well not at them per se, it was actually only directed towards Peter. It was a while after that until they were able to convince everyone Peter was actually the genuine Spidey instead of another copy cooked up by Warren.
Looking around his senses were nearly overwhelmed by the toxic smell that permeated the surroundings, they didn't even want to know what that smell actually was. Of course, Kurt couldn't help explaining… Jean and Peter wanted to throw up while Ben just looked angry. He didn't really know what to feel, he was similar to these… 'creatures' in more ways than one. The knowledge that this might be all he would be when he left this world made him feel... uneasy? Sick? He wasn't really sure.
Jean couldn't see the face of the boy she had gotten to know for these last few months because of the mask. But by his stiff posture she could guess what was going through his mind at the moment, she only wanted to reach out to him, be a friend… comfort him. But she couldn't. She had said her piece inside the Phoenix, any more and it would be too confusing.
"Alright everyone let's move." Fury said to the group.
"We need to go after Scott, he ran after… the other Spider." Rogue said looking frustrated.
"I'm not here to hold punk kid's hands. We have our objective. If you want to be a wet nurse don't expect us to join." Fury said scowling. He hated dealing with teenagers, thank god there was an age limit to enter SHIELD academy.
"Rogue, Amara you're with me we will track Scott. Everyone else follow SHIELD and track this ringleader, shut this circus down." Logan said eyeing everyone. "Fury, if I learn you have taken advantage of my absence for your own purposes…" Three metal claws ripped through the skin of his hand shining in the dim lighting of the dome. With the words hanging in the air Logan and the others went off towards where Scott had left, while everyone else ventured deeper into the dome in search for Warren.
Unknowingly a mysterious force was guiding the actions of everyone as the night progressed.