Variant Strain

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They pulled back to the parking lot next to the station. There weren't enough of them to really get the area cordoned off, but a few returned patrol vehicles had parked across the street on either end and they were waving traffic off.

Rubberneckers were out in force, but no one braved getting too close to the police staion proper. Luckily the people in the businesses next to the police building and across the street from it had decided that they didn't want to risk whatever strange thing had happened to the building and had walked briskly past the makeshift police line.

The less injured of the officers who had made it out of the Forest Hills Police Station before it sealed itself were tending to their more badly injured companions. Jean DeWolffe sat heavily on the sidewalk. Her suit jacket had been hastily converted into a compress to stem the flow of blood from her arm. Another officer had a broken leg and was lying flat on the ground. He'd hobbled on it during the panicked escape and it looked like the broken end was just shy of poking out of his skin and would need to be reset. His pantleg had been torn open to let others tend to it.

One of the officers, a pretty brunette woman in a police uniform and still wearing some sort of phone headset was on a cellphone calling for ambulances and trying to get every other officer still on patrol to come back to the station.

The unconscious and deformed infected had been pulled to one side and hand-cuffed to each other, then to one of the cars parked in the lot. It wasn't ideal, by any means, but what else could they do? A few of the less mutated ones had already woken up and were staring blankly and passively out. The man with the bullet wounds in his torso and the caved in chest was up and moving again.

Peter had watched the sucking chest wounds around the indent in his sternum whistle in and out as his massive chest heave. He could even see it's chest growing and thickening visibly as he watched. Apparently the poor man's mutations hadn't finished yet.

The whole thing had become disconcerting for the officers who were there.

It had taken less than twenty minutes to try and get some organization into the mess around the police station. Peter had made himself useful, by helping tend the injured and move the infected around. He was doing his best to look like he was supposed to be there. Keeping busy also kept him from dwelling on what was happening inside. He didn't even know if he could even help them.

This had gone way beyond him now.

He could feel George Stacy's eyes on him every so often as they moved. The older man probably had all sorts of questions, but they would have time later. For the moment, there was still too much to be done, organizing things, dealing with the injured and trying to keep everyone else away.

The whole time the stench of infected had settled into the same stink he'd encountered around the Bellevue hive. He'd had to keep his sense tuned as weakly as possible, otherwise he wasn't going to be doing much of anything except throwing up.

The Thunderbolts were on their way. The knew how to deal with a situation like this. Peter had to hold on to that thought.

They'll deal with you too, boy. Cletus drawled. We need to get out of here. The text message had been right. Who had sent that? Maybe the same person who had unlocked the door for him in the Gentek facility under Bellevue. Who was Hank?

And if the Thunderbolts really did know what they were doing? Did that mean whatever was happening here and now was unrelated to Jessica?

He turned his glance back to the station. Fifty or more people were trapped inside. The heartbeats that he'd still been able to hear had started to synchronize. As though every heart within had been hooked up to the same metronome. Til the entire building seemed to resonate with the same slow, steady rhythm.

Thud-thud.

He could possibly cut his way in with claw and tooth and talon... but then what? He could pull them out and then they'd still be just as infected. The brunette officer on the phone, the dispatcher, had told George that they were the only ones who hadn't passed out suddenly. Maybe they had some sort of resistance... or they simply hadn't quite been exposed as everyone else had been.

Thud-thud.

Not enough info. The changes the Hydra had been imparting were fast. He had no context for just how fast the infection changed and induced mutations. He'd assumed that Jessica had been doing whatever it was she'd been doing under Bellevue for long enough to lure everyone together and infect them... and create multiple hunters. But with what he'd seen, it could have been just a day or so. Or just an hour before he'd arrived.

Thud-thud. Thud-thud.

As Peter watched, a nodule began to form around the area of the front door. It started with a thickening and swelling of the plug sealing shut the front doors of the station. The swelling grew rapidly, turning bulbous and almost spherical. The skin-like substance covering it turned taut and shiny as it grew even larger. It's front edge bulged out almost to the street, the whole of it looked like a massive abscess. The veiny fibrous tendrils surrounding it grew thicker... like blood vessels feeding matching size to accommodate the growth.

George Stacy had pulled a shotgun out from the trunk of his car and was aiming it at whatever it was. "Now what?"

Thud-thud. Thud-thud.

A few other officers, especially the ones who hadn't been there when the hive had sealed itself had also drawn their own weapons.

Thud-thud. Thud-thud. Thud-thud. Thud-thud.

The quarter dome that covered most of the sidewalk and would have blocked it entirely if anyone were still being allowed on the block. The top edge of it was just barely under one of the air-conditioning units poking out of a window on the second floor. Maybe sixteen feet in height. It had taken barely a minute to grow to that size.

Peter stared and the whole thing seemed to pulse in time with building's heartbeat.

Thud-thud. Thud-thud. Thud-thud. Thud-thud.

The tight skin of the growth seemed to glisten, thinning closest to the street. Shadows moved and shifted within the bulbous thing, the midday sunshine almost making the whole translucent. Peter felt the ground quiver in time to the beat. No one else seemed to have noticed it, but Peter could feel the vibrations through his feet.

Thud-thud. Thud-thud. Thud-thud. Thud-thud.

Then in a sudden wave of crimson and yellow fluids the the thinning skin of the nodule burst, deflating almost as quickly as it grew.

Like a burst pimple. Peter's voice drawled.

The officers closest to the door were caught in the tide of pulpy, semi-gelatinous liquids as they spewed out.

"Oh, what the he--?" One uniformed officer began to say, trying to wipe the material from his eyes.

Another, a chubby officer in plainclothes wearing a badge on chain around his neck turned and began throwing up noisily.

George Stacy had kept back from it, but the flood of it had caught even him up to his knees in the gunk. He glanced down at it in distaste. Thankfully the injured had been far enough away to not be caught in it.

The smell of fresh Hydra grew. Like carrion, ripe and sweet and clinging.

No one had really been paying attention to the door after it had burst. The shreds and tatters of the nodule's outer skin collapsed down and draped on something at the heart of the nodule. He couldn't see it clearly with the covering, but it looked like an uneven semi-spherical lump roughly six feet in diameter.

Peter was about to move in for a closer look when his hearing caught it. One thunderously loud heartbeat that was just slightly off-sync from the building's. It had been in time, but was slowly beginning to diverge. Growing more individualized as every second passed.

He stared at the lump and he could hear breathing.

The lump shifted.

It moved.

It began to rise and unfold itself.

The skin of the nodule began to slough off on either side of it as an immense humanoid form rose up and unfolded itself. It stood a good twelve feet tall and was almost eight feet wide. It's skin was corpse pallor gray, but thick and rough, like the hide of an elephant or a rhino, but marred by the tumorous lumps that Peter had seen on nearly all the infected.

The skin was shot through with thick veins that seemed to pulse and glow red. Like the eyes of other infected. Or the red haze of a Drago.

It was squat and barrel-chested. The arms were like the outsized one on the poor officer George had had to shoot earlier, but in this creature's case the arms matched and were proportional to the rest of it. Both arms were hugely muscled, extremely long and ended with short, blunt fingers tipped with almost hoof-like nails. The legs were short and stumpy and seemed to have too many knees. The foot broadened into a flat pad that reminded Peter far too much of elephant's feet.

Two massive horns jutted from the center of it's low-browed head, one above the other. The head was misshapen, being too broad and too flat. Human features were squashed and deformed to unrecognizeability even as the massive proportions had enlarged them. The face seemed to have retained pinkish skin, unlike the tough gray elsewhere, but it was shiny and stretched thin across it's outsized skull.

It stood staring out at everything with tiny eyes... the eyes, Peter noted, were still human sized. Human proportioned. Impossibly small and inadequate in it's enlarged face.

It's lips curled back, exposing the broad too-white teeth of it's mouth in a fierce grimace.

It could've gone Syetsevich, a voice rose in Peter's memory, not something speaking to him, but a memory of the Thunderbolts right before the Drago had torn into them. Least they would've authorized tanks.

Rhino form, the nameless Hunter's voice in his mind supplied.

Peter clamped down on an urge to start screaming at the sight of the monstrosity. He wasn't even sure a tank could deal with something that big. It had taken less than two hours to produce... that. How fast had the Thunderbolts been acting that last night to stop people before they'd gotten to that point? How were they supposed to contain anything if Hydra acted that quickly?

The uniformed police officer who'd been closest to the Rhino got a good look at it once his eyes had been cleared of the muck. He didn't bother keeping his own scream of fear and surprise bottled up. He raised his gun, took a shooter's stance and immediately began unloading his pistol's clip into the Rhino with the rapid reports of panic fire.

That touched off the other officers and those closest began pouring gunfire on the huge gray form. The world exploded into a riot of explosive shots, multiple guns roaring out drowning everything into a single solid wall of sound that slammed into Peter. The smell of burnt cordite filled his nostrils and managed to displace the carrion reek even if only briefly.

Peter's eyes however were good enough to show him exactly what was happening to the Rhino.

Absolutely nothing.

Every bullet flattened on it's gray hide, embedding, but barely making any real impression on it. George Stacy's shotgun left scorched patches where the buckshot had peppered it, but had done no harm.

There was a moment of dead silence as every gun clicked empty finally and the stillness was only broken by the thing's rough, loud breathing. It took one particularly deep breath, as though considering things. Then gave a bellowing roar.

Peter stared. It was almost like it had taken that long, those extra several seconds for it to even realize that it had been hurt. No... not hurt. Stung. Like a man being bitten by a few ants. Annoying, but ultimately inconsequential.

It lashed out with a huge meaty hand and struck the officer who had first opened fire. It's fist was almost the same size as the poor man's torso. It struck him square and flung him almost the length of the block with a single blow. Peter heard the man's heart stop from the moment the fist made its crushing impact.

The creature bellowed again and the tiny, beady eyes seemed to focus on the other officers that had shot at it from the south-eastern direction on the street. It dropped it's head and charged, running on all fours. It thundered forward, cracking the asphalt beneath its fingers and feet and the pitifully few police officers scattered away from it.

One unfortunate man had been caught a glancing blow by the thing's shoulder and was flung down hard, then trampled. Peter smelled the sharp tang of blood as the man was crushed under that thing's massive foot.

The rubberneckers decided this was a little too exciting for them and they began to run away as well, all screaming in panic and terror. The Rhino built up a massive head of speed as it crunched headfirst right into the police car that had been acting as a makeshift barricade.

The impact was incredible. The side of the police car crumpled like paper. The door was completely bowed in, the Rhino's horns piercing entirely through the car door. It lifted it's head, tearing the door entirely free of the ruined car. It threw it's head back and bellowed once more, an almost triumphant braying sound.

The car door was still impaled on its horns. It would have almost been a ludicrous sight... if it hadn't been for the fact that it decided the wrecked police car had offended it. The Rhino leaned down, grabbing the undercarriage with both hands and hauled the car up and over it's head.

It whirled, it's bulk making the movement ponderous despite its speed, still holding the two and a half tons of twisted metal in the air and oriented on George Stacy and behind him, the injured police officers, including his partner.

The Rhino hurled the car in the Detective's direction. George tried to throw himself flat, out of the way of the flung car... the numbers lined themselves up in Peter's head in that frozen instant. Cold and precise and logical. The older man wasn't going to make it. Then once the thrown car crushed him into a fine paste, the sheer mass of the ruined metal was going to send it skidding across the asphalt of the parking lot and right into the injured and the pretty little brunette dispatcher who was doing her best deer in the headlights impersonation.

Peter's heart roared and his senses went into overdrive. He couldn't afford to hesitate anymore. Gwen wasn't going to lose her dad. He couldn't let anyone else get hurt. Not even if it meant everyone would see what he could do.

He leapt up, over George's head, flinging himself towards the airborne mass of the car. He couldn't just grab Detective Stacy out of the way. He couldn't also grab everyone else behind him before the car arrived.

He'd have to alter the trajectory of the car. Luckily that was entirely a function of it's mass and the forces acting on it. His new body gave him the right tools for it. Peter made contact with the car at the apex of it's arc. His body rippled and his hands and feet shifted into claws, latching him on tightly to the car. He flared heat, the red haze rising around him as he pulled his biomass back from wherever it was his body kept it.

An extra thousand pounds and a sudden shift to one side of the mass's center of gravity tilted the car's trajectory sharply, dropping it well short and to one side of it's target, crashing it right into another car, which arrested any further motion.

Peter didn't linger and had leapt off the car before it crashed. He streaked at the Rhino, claws extended out, but it was faster than something that size had right to be and slapped him out of the air.

The asphalt cracked under him as he slammed down hard. Peter felt the air driven out of his lungs and he gasped on the ground, stunned and disoriented.

He almost didn't get his bearings in time, but once he did, he was greeted with the sight of a tremendous, flattened and calloused foot filling his field of vision. He rolled out of the way to one side and actually felt the displaced air push against him as the foot smashed down missing him by inches. He kicked up to his feet,

Somewhere during those panicked seconds of movement, his body had shifted to Cletus's form. The form he'd gotten used to fighting in. Even his outfit had shifted to the black hoodie and jeans. He didn't look anything like Peter Parker and he wondered idly if George Stacy had seen him change or not. It didn't matter. This thing had already killed two people for certain. It had to be stopped... he just wished he had a tank handy.

He stuck low and to the ground. Fast as the Rhino was, he was faster. Physics and math were on Peter's side once again. It's ponderous bulk could move fast, but it couldn't make the sorts of corrections and adjustments with the same speed Peter could. He kept jinking and dodging, moving back and forth, darting in to lash his claws and talons at the Rhino's legs in an attempt to hamstring it. He couldn't afford to take to the air again. In mid-leap he was just too vulnerable, too easily struck and he didn't want to see if he could take another of those blows.

Unfortunately, all he could see were faint lines of red where he struck. The Rhino's hide was so thick, the raking claws quite literally, could only barely scratch at it.

Peter dove out of the way before it's fist could hit him, smashing deep into the ruined asphalt all around them. It was getting too easy to let his instincts to the fighting for him. Then again that was pretty much what he had to work with. Parts of him kept clamoring to just keep ripping and tearing, nipping at the Rhino's heels and taking it down by inches, but that didn't look to be a winning strategy. He was already breathing hard. He didn't know if he could keep the pace up of dodging and ducking for too long without a break... meanwhile the Rhino looked as fresh as the moment it had hatched.

He had to fight smarter. He looked around for something... anything he could use as a weapon. A few of the policemen had gotten back to their feet and reloaded their weapons and were firing useless shots at the Rhino.

He heard the roar of a car engine almost directly behind him followed by a two loud blasts of a car horn. Peter glanced over his shoulder. George Stacy had gotten into a police car and had it lined up just right. Peter leapt up and out of the way, drawing the Rhino's tiny little eyes towards him and keeping it from noticing Detective Stacy before it was too late.

Not that it mattered. George plowed the car right into the Rhino with an explosive crash. The thing had barely moved. It staggered back maybe a step. The car was totaled, it's entire front wrapped around the Rhino as though it had run into a tree.

The creature paused at that, blinking it's tiny red eyes furiously as though trying to process something. Peter noted idly that the twisted, jagged metal had actually managed to drive into the thing's tough gray hide, piercing it in a few spots around it's shins and lower thighs.

Scratches, his voice drawled with undertones of awe and terror. All that and it's barely been scratched.

George Stacy took those few seconds of the creature's disorientation to dive out of the police car. The glass from the windshield had shattered inwards and he was bleeding from a cut on his forehead, but otherwise seemed unharmed.

All the other cops had stopped wondering if that had finally done it... Peter didn't think they were anywhere close yet, but the stunned moment gave him an opportunity. He couldn't take chances.

He bound up on top of the car and finally got himself at eye level with the Rhino. He reached out with his right hand, grasping hold of it's immense horn, giving himself a good hand hold.

He drew his left arm back, Two clawed fingers held straight out. He would have used all his fingers, but the normally sized eyes made that impossible and the separation between the two eyes made trying to get both at once all but impossible.

Peter drove those claws into the Rhino's red glowing eye. He drove them in with all the strength, speed and leverage which he could muster, which was considerable. They slid in almost too easily. He pushed all the way into the second knuckles of his two fingers. Clear fluid mingled with dark blood and it gushed out around his fingers, flowing over his hand. He could see the tendrils unfolding around the back of his hand, lapping up at what flowed freely.

Cletus gave a delighted little cry in his mind.

Peter shuddered and fought to keep from being sick. He felt his claws strike against something hard in the ocular cavity and he wondered how tiny was the Rhino's brain within it's massive skull.

He stared into the Rhino's remaining eye and it met his gaze unflinchingly.

There was a long second of silence.

That one eye seemed to clear. The animal fury subsided, even as the red glow brightened. That single furious eye focused on Peter and he saw something in it that twisted his gut.

Recognition.

Its brain seemed to finally catch up with what its nerves were reporting and the Rhino roared out a pained bellow.

A massive hand grabbed, plucking Peter up in its grasp, pulling his claws out of the Rhino's eye with a sickening wet popping noise.

It gave another bellow, but it wasn't a mere animal noise this time. It seemed to have words in it, garbled by the Rhino's inhuman throat.

It hurled Peter away from it, slamming him hard into the cement wall twenty feet away before he had a chance to recover. The wall spider-webbed with cracks around him and Peter fell, stunned once more. His back was a alight with pain, but he could already feel his body burning through his biomass to patch him back up. Tendrils flicking on his back to allow bones to reset. His head still rang... and there was a flat spot on the back of his skull that felt... unusually soft and kind of crunchy that he really didn't want to think about.

The Rhino was clutching at it's ruined eye as it began staggering down the street, building up speed as it went. The red veins flaring on it's body as it shouldered cars out of the way with terrifying ease and made it's way northwards.

It bellowed again. Not wordless. It was still not exactly clear... but Peter could make a guess at what it was crying out.

He could also guess where it was going to go.

It had been saying 'Mary Jane'.

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