Variant Strain

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Peter could hardly focus on the explosions. The rush of infected crowding around him effectively blinded him, filling his vision with nothing but screaming and shoving mutated infectees. He couldn't even begin to catalog the spectrum of deformities presented to him at a single glance. Some corner of his mind actually was trying to, but the lion's share of his attention was on simply fending them off and surviving.

They weren't the real danger. He was getting clawed at and bruised, but he'd been through enough fights with infected to know that the cannon fodder weren't going to be able to really do more than inconvenience him. The moment the crowd had closed in the material of his 'clothes' had shifted to something that felt like a combination of the thick rubber Thunderbolts uniform with an overlay of Kevlar.

It felt heavy, but it was also thick enough most of the scratching and pawing did almost no damage.

The real danger was from... he cut the thought off as a blur of motion above him resolved into a Hunter's claws flashing down to tear at him. Hemmed in as he was and unable to even flex his legs to leap out of the way, he was forced to bring his arm up, blocking the blow with his forearm at the Hunter's wrist and just narrowly avoiding the razor edged claws. A shift of mass was all that kept the Hunter from simply brute forcing its way past his relatively puny arm. The powerful shock of impact ran down his arm and might have driven him to his knees, if the crowd hadn't been holding him in place.

There was hardly a pause before a second set of claws coming from another Hunter stabbed at him through the crowd towards his mid-section. He only just barely had time to slap it aside, not having enough time to brace to block the blow and certainly not wanting too. He managed to divert it just enough to avoid taking real damage, but even then those claws tore into the edge of his hoodie. The gash in the thick material, which was really part of him, was stitching itself back together with black and red tendrils, but it stung like a paper cut.

It was at that precise moment that he noticed the crowd of infected parting before him to reveal Connors, barely twenty feet away, his deformed arm cocked back. The blade protruding from his oversized wrist gleamed in the dull red light.

He'd been played. The two Hunters to keep him occupied; the infected to crowd him in and limit his mobility... and now Connors for the finishing blow. He was sort of sure that the blade probably wouldn't kill him. But it would hurt.

A lot.

Don't just wait for it. Fight back, the Hunter barked testily. Make the Scorpion work for it.

Can't leap up. Can't duck. Can't move in any direction. Peter's voice drawled through his lack of options.

One way, Peter realized as Connors' arm began to glow red. He'd seen... or more precisely hadn't seen just how fast that blade was once fired. One moment it would be there, the next, embedded in its target.

There wasn't any time for anything fancy or tricky.

Peter twisted his wrist against the blocked Hunter's forearm. It was continuing to apply pressure, forcing him to keep the block and stay in place. That suited Peter just fine. His fingers blurred into claws and sank deep into the Hunter's forearm clamping through the muscle and getting a good grip on the bone. Once locked on, Peter twisted sharply at the waist, shifting mass to root himself even harder in place.

The sudden motion dragged the confused Hunter into an arc that swept through infected around them smashing through them and clearing a small space around Peter. That was a useful side effect, but the movement also forced the Hunter around in front of Peter just as Connors fired the blade on his arm.

With his vision blocked by the Hunter's chest, the only real indication that he'd successfully saved himself injury was when several inches of Connors' blade suddenly erupted from the Hunter's sternum. The Hunter made a pained bellow and its legs suddenly collapsed.

That thing probably cut through its spine, Cletus gleefully offered.

Peter had a moment to swallow nervously. He definitely did not want that anywhere near him.

The Hunter began shaking violently, despite its legs flopping uselessly underneath it, prompting more pained bellows as it used it's free hand to claw at the protruding blade in its chest. It coughed up blood, but the movements continued, finally ripping it free of Peter's grip, shredding its arm in the process, and sending it flying up thirty feet into the air.

It hung there for a long moment and Peter realized that it was dangling like a rag doll at the end of that cable of flesh that constituted Connors whip arm. The threads of red light running through it told Peter as clearly as anything else that the Pym particles were making a mockery of physics once more.

He caught a glance of Jessica and noticed that she had blown Connors a kiss. Connors smile widened. The action just seemed so incongruous that he almost missed what happened next.

The Hunter at the end of Connors' Scorpion blade exploded into a mass of black and red tendrils. Peter grit his teeth. Connors had the same feeding capabilities he did. That made sense given that he'd had Peter's blood.

No, his own voice drawled, calling his attention back to the disintegrating Hunter. The black and red tendrils flowed down Connors' deformed arm; building up thick muscles and more bone as the material broke down to augment his already oversized limb. The Hunter's being broken down for parts, but he's not consuming it. There are no feeding tendrils from him. He didn't feed himself. Jessica fed the Hunter to him.

That sounded right to Peter, but at the same time, he had no idea how that would help him. Or the distinction really mattered.

As he'd watched and realized that Connors' arm was now bigger than he was and the already large blade had swelled to truly absurd proportions, the crowd of infected had closed in around him once more. The tiny bit of room he'd cleared was gone.

Hunter's claws flashed out from the crowd, the infected blocking his view moved out of the way just a fraction of a second before each blow arrived. The stir of motion actually helped him. Peter found himself shifting and moving in time with the crowd, just narrowly avoiding each attack.

He almost fell into a rhythm, finding the movements around him, when they once again caught him off guard, when almost the entire crowd surrounding him ducked down in unison. As they did, hands locked on his legs, the closest infected to him forcing him to stay standing.

Having his line of sight completely unobstructed for the first time since the fight began allowed him to notice that several of the tunnel entrances closest to Jessica's position were all collapsed now. The explosions, he realized, must have been to close them off.

There wasn't quite as much time to gawk as he would have liked because in that moment, he also spotted why the Walkers had all ducked.

Connors was still smiling widely as Peter realized he was whipping his arm around horizontally. The red lines were blazing in the twisted cable of flesh and the man-sized blade at the end of it was arcing towards him at absurd speeds, edge first.

In the fraction of a second between spotting the approaching blade and its impact, Peter had already run the numbers through his head. Even using the entire mass of that absorbed Hunter as the bare minimum for the blade given the speed it was travelling and assuming all that force was concentrated on the keen razor edge of the blade... even if he shifted to full mass and shifted to his skin to something like the Rhino's being cut in half was high on the list of possible results. He wasn't eager to see if he could survive that level of damage.

Meeting the blade head on would have been the Rhino solution to the problem... that would pretty much have been the first instinct of any of the infected. Always straight down the middle. Peter couldn't afford to think that way.

Black and red tendrils fluttered across his body as he thickened his skin to the example of the gray Rhino hide. Even if it worked, it was probably going to hurt. He crossed his arms in front of himself, his fingers shifting to claws preparing to block the blow... then flared heat.

The blade struck against his claws, throwing up glowing red sparks from the impact. He could feel the bone blades crack and splinter under the impact, but the clash of blades saved him from worse. The momentum of the blow smashed into his forearms, up his shoulders and had he been braced against the blow by his full mass, probably would've just torn through the block and into his torso anyway.

Which made him extremely glad that he had instead chosen to flare his weight down to near nothing instead.

The momentum of the massive whip arm tore him free from the spot where he'd been, carrying him away from the densest crowd of infected Walkers. Peter could feel the mass within the bulbous flesh just behind the blade adjusting and clashing against his own in that moment of contact. The whip-arm lashed to a half-circle arc with Peter stuck to it before either Connors or Jessica fully registered what had happened.

The moment of surprise was all Peter needed to move. The Hunter was right, Jessica had been calling the shots the entire fight. He needed to get out of a situation that kept them in control of the battlefield and into one where he could have the advantage.

To do that, he needed some room to breathe. Room to think.

He shoved hard, shifting heat within his body internally to launch himself off of the swinging blade. The blade's own arc coupled with his leap send him shooting off. Unfortunately, he'd been spinning around so fast he wasn't entirely sure where he had hurled himself.

His luck held true to form as he realized absurdly that he'd sent himself further away from the open tunnel that he'd come in through. His arcing flight was sending him towards the collapsed tunnel that the Thunderbolts had retreated into.

He rolled back to his feet as he landed. He was grateful that the area was mostly clear of infected. Mostly because the crowds that had been here, had been the same ones that had been hemming him in at his previous spot.

Unfortunately, they were also surging back towards him and he had no easy exit.

Worse still, Jessica was now much closer. She still smiled sweetly at him, her scent impossible to ignore at that distance. He vaguely noticed that the Rhino she was riding? Fused with? Seemed to be cracking its knuckles.

He was close enough that a determined charge would probably be enough to put him into the wall behind him.

Not to mention the honor guard of six Hunters that Jessica had kept near her had all ducked down preparing their own charges.

He blinked as he realized that they weren't ducking down to charge.

Peter dove to one side as the immense blade seemed to appear suddenly embedded into the stones of the collapsed tunnel behind him.

He sprawled for a moment, staring at the blade and realized absurdly that something was digging into his back. He glanced down to find that he'd landed on the riot shield Captain Bradley had been using earlier.

There was a small wave of motion down the length of the trailing cable of flesh and the blade abruptly tore free of the stone and viral matting, drawn back to the Scorpion. Peter couldn't even see him through the crowd of approaching infected, but realized that as long as any of the infected could see him, then Connors probably had line of sight.

He wasn't any less cornered in this spot than he'd been where he was previously.

While the blade pulled away, the first of the Hunters leaped for him.

Peter moved aside, his fingers hurt when he'd shifted them back from being claws. The blow from the blade probably did more damage than he'd realized. Unfortunately, no one was giving him a moment to recover. His pained fingers brushed the edge of the damaged riot shield.

Tool using animal, remember? His voice drawled at him.

The Hunter stood where he'd been and was turning to orient on him when Peter smashed the edge of the shield into its head with his full mass-shifted strength. The blunt edge bit into the back of its head, driving the blow deep enough to sever the top of its spinal cord, causing it to collapse into a twitching heap at his feet.

A second Hunter moved, charging at him and this time he whirled, spinning the face of the shield around to smash into the Hunter's torso in an arc that ended up smashing it into the rough, viral matting coated wall behind him. It embedded, its chest collapsed into itself. Peter could see it fighting to pull itself free, but it would take it a moment.

He didn't have any time to admire his handiwork as the leading edge of the walkers came within reach.

Wall! The Hunter barked.

Maybe his situation now wasn't as bad as it was earlier, Peter thought hurriedly as he understood exactly what the Hunter meant.

Walkers... were walkers. They weren't wall walkers.

Still clinging to the shield, he ran up the wall, leaving the infected crowd below him.

Running up the viral matting felt strange. It was... welcoming. It was much easier to travel on than steel or concrete were. He could practically feel his feet sinking into the material where it would hold him in place until he was ready to take his next step.

He got about eighty feet up the wall before he looked down. The Walkers were stuck at the base of the wall, all looking up at him. A few Hunters were clawing their way up the sheer wall after him, but none of them were quite as fast as he was.

Jessica continued to look faintly amused. Her seat on the Rhino's shoulder was high enough that none of the Walkers ever really came too close to her. His new vantage and the breather let him take stock.

He could fight them. Everything in the chamber. He could probably even take a respectable number of them down with him if he really cut loose, but sooner or later numbers would tell and he would lose. The Hunter assessed his odds clinically and dispassionately and simply getting out of their immediate reach was only a start. He had to get away from them. He couldn't win given the circumstances and there was no reason for him to keep fighting. So... the plan would be to cut and run.

Except that he had stupidly managed to get himself to the side of the chamber where the only unblocked exits out of the room involved going through the crowd of infected below. He was fairly certain he could glide over them, but he was a clumsy flier at best. He wallowed through the air with the grace of a falling rock. Generally not a problem when all he needed to do was cover the distance, but Connors' whip arm made that proposition completely unworkable.

Thinking of Connors made him focus on the man. Peter made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat as he realized that even the brief pause in his movement had been enough for the Scorpion to take aim.

The viral matting's cooperation worked against him now, preventing his feet from being released fast enough to leap out of the way, he noted the tendrils melding into his legs from the material. He raised the shield desperately, bracing it with both hands in anticipation of the impact.

The blade, huge as it was, only just barely penetrated the shield. It occurred to him that he was further away from Connors now. The blade didn't have quite the same penetrating power it had had closer up. Nevertheless, a foot of the blade had pierced the tough plastic material of the shield. He realized that if he didn't have the shield, it would have gone through his midsection.

The blade pulled smoothly out of the shield. Peter realized with dull surprise that the plastic had melded into his arm and the damage was sealing over with red and black tendrils. He leaned forward, peeling himself free of the viral matting and realized that his back had erupted into feeding tendrils, leaving bare rock behind him.

The brief respite had been enough to help him. His regenerative abilities gleefully absorbed the surrounding viral matting for biomass.

He began moving once more, running along the wall to circle the chamber. It had taken Connors a few seconds between the time Peter stopped and the time Connors had fired his blade. He had the timing now and he had an idea. Peter flexed his arm as he moved. The shield had helped, but he needed to move both arms unhindered and the shield was just too bulky. It blurred into black and red tendrils and collapsed into his arm. He stopped briefly and began counting seconds down.

At zero, Peter shifted to one side and he felt the wind blast past him as the blade narrowly missed, embedding into the wall behind him. That was what he'd been waiting for.

Before Connor could pull his blade back, Peter's fingers blurred to claws and he wrapped both arms around the massive, fleshy forearm that was almost as large as he was. He took a firm hold, sinking his claws into it then shifted heat within himself, using his full mass directed towards the wall to suddenly drive blade almost entirely into the stone. The tiny fingers, already all but lost in the immensity of the swollen forearm that supported the blade, were entirely crushed against the viral matting. The material erupted into tendrils to heal the damage, but that would just help keep the arm stuck.

The trailing cable of flesh rippled as it tried to pull free and a glance down showed the frustration clearly on the Scorpion's face.

Peter wasn't sure how long that would stay stuck, but he expected it to give him the opening he needed to make a run for it. Or at least an uninterrupted glide. He coiled his legs beneath him, preparing to leap away. There really was no advantage in lingering. Even the Hunters were within a minute of catching up to his position.

So it came as a surprise when he suddenly found himself slammed hard back against the wall. The air exploded out of his lungs from the impact and something like a vise caught at his throat, keeping him from pulling any more air in.

He wasn't even certain if he actually needed to breathe, but he wasn't prepared to risk stopping.

He felt muscles he wasn't even aware he had, and possibly didn't have before, tense in his neck and while the pressure remained, he could draw breath again.

His eyes fluttered back open to find the madly grinning face of Kurt Connors staring at him. Peter could feel a pressure and heat against his body, pinning him against the wall, keeping him immobilized. The lines in Connors whip arm glowed brilliant red, but the man also had one foot pressed into his neck, the other foot was sunk into the viral matting right next to Peter's head.

Red light leaked around the tops of the man's tightly laced leather shoes through his mismatched socks. Given that the forces involved in shooting out the immense blade and just moving the whip arm, Peter shouldn't have been surprised that the Scorpion strain also included modifications to anchor the infected using it. What he hadn't expected was that same anchoring mechanism being used offensively.

He realized what Connors had done. With his blade stuck to the wall, he'd pulled himself forward, at those same speeds he'd fired the blade with and managed to aim himself at Peter. He'd seen Connors use the trick before, so he really had no excuse for his carelessness in not considering the Scorpion would do it again.

Peter tried to shift or flare his weight to fight off the pressure radiating out from Connors' foot, but every attempt he made fizzled against the oppressive weight pressing relatively 'down' on him.

"Doctor Connors!" He spoke urgently. "You can fight her. You don't have to obey! If you've got some of my blood in you, maybe you can--"

Connors snarled back, "No. No more fighting. No more resisting. That's all Henry's voice kept telling me for years." The man's eyes blazed a fierce red and shifted to a mockery of Henry's computer generated monotone, "Fight it. Stop it. Don't give in."

Peter had to admit it was a good imitation.

Connors' voice dropped. "No. More. I am tired, Mr. Parker. So tired."

"But that--" Peter tried to reply back, but Connors cut him off once more, the foot pressing down harder. Peter felt himself sink deeper into the viral matting.

"My Queen just asks me to surrender." His voice dropped to a whisper. "She doesn't need me to fight the urges anymore. She simply keeps them away. She tells me what she needs done. No more fighting. No more struggling."

"We're still struggling!" Peter replied weakly, finding that he could now wiggle his fingers in the viral matting. It wasn't much, but it was a start.

"You don't have to." Connors said, his voice dropping to a more reasonable tone, but the smile on his face dropped somewhat. "I had five years of Henry Pym whispering in my mind telling me to be myself without actually telling me who that was. Now all I need to know is what she tells me to do." He reached his normal sized hand down to Peter, "You can have that too. No more fighting. No more struggling. No more questions."

"You're a slave, Doctor Connors." Peter rasped back. He was starting to be able to shift his arms once more. His body was adjusting to whatever was holding him, but he needed more time.

We always need more time, his own voice drawled cynically.

Then keep talking. Donna whispered.

"No." Connors replied. "This is pure freedom. Absolute freedom. I need never know uncertainty or doubt or insecurity again. My Queen loves me. I am her friend. Soon, you will be too."

"Pretty sure I'm immune." Peter replied cheekily, or as best as he could as Connors foot still ground against his throat. As he talked, his fingers were sunk deeper into the matting, but he could feel his tendrils unfold unseen and unaffected by the weight Connors was using to pin him to the wall.

"No, you're not. You were almost ready to give in. Once she gives you her kiss..." He drew the word out into a longing, sibilant hiss. "Nothing else will matter. We're sure of it."

"Um... tempting." Now that he wasn't focused on the fight and moving anymore, Jessica's scent slammed into him again. Mental images of how her lips would taste, how they would feel against him flittered through his head. He groaned as treacherous parts of his body reacted.

You do realize she's older than your Aunt May, right? Donna pointed out.

And yet, she still looks like she's barely legal. Cletus chortled, then paused and added, Not that I'm suggestin' you do anythin' with her. Y'all know my stand on stickin' it into crazy. Let’s not forget she's got Hydra... so I'm pretty sure she counts as diseased too.

Peter wasn't sure how one could glare when one lacked a face. Or eyes, but he was sure Donna was glaring at Cletus.

He forced himself to keep talking, his unfolded tendrils felt as though they were swimming through the viral matting, extending further than he'd ever managed before. Perhaps he simply hadn't tried. Or perhaps it was something in the viral matting that made it so malleable and cooperative. That was good because the rest of his body still couldn't move and he needed whatever advantages he could get.

To get them, he just had to keep stalling. "But I'm kind of in this... thing. I might possibly, kind of sort of have a girlfriend." Peter stammered on, finding himself blushing despite the dire situation. "It might be complicated."

Connors smile was back in full force. "You should introduce her to my Queen. You can be together forever."

Peter shook his head and ground out firmly, "It's not going to happen."

"I mean that literally. She's explained everything to us. She's going to usher in a world where everyone is a friend. A world where we will never need or want anything. Our bodies will be perfected, strengthened, made beautiful." The light in Connors eyes glowed, but there was something off about the wistful tone that the man had spoken in.

Peter felt more than actually saw that the Hunters had now surrounded them, clinging to the viral matting by their claws. Peter realized he wasn't the only one stalling. He shifted his eyes to one of the Hunters making the glance as pointed as he could.

"You will see reason soon enough, Mr. Parker." Connors said.

"You don't have to do this! You be yourself again!" Peter said his voice rising once more. He was almost out of time, but he was so close now. "We can get out of here. Maybe I give you a bigger dose--"

"Never, Mr. Parker," Connors snarled, bending down to lean in closer. "I'm not going back. Not to Henry's incessant yammering. Not to the emptiness. Certainly not to the gibbering imbecile Warren! I won't ever leave my Queen's service. As long some part of me survives, she will always be able to rebuild me. I will serve her forever." The fanaticism drained from his voice as he spoke and Peter could see unshed tears in the man's eyes. "The only way out would be to kill me."

Peter stared. That hadn't been a boast. That had been a plea.

The Hunters closed in.

Time was up.

Connors repeated in a flat, uninflected whisper, "You would have to kill me."

Unbidden, Cletus's drawl rose up past Peter's throat and replied wryly, "Y'all asked for it."

Connors began screaming.

Peter's blood was in Connors. That much was clear from the moment of first contact. It was... it was like what had happened when the Rhino had bitten his hand off. It had made absorption easier somehow. Now that Peter considered it, even the Vulture had taken a bite out of him before he had managed to put it down. The Scorpion had been injected with Peter's blood. The fight had been just the thing to get the blood pumping. Blood that had had a chance to spread all throughout his system.

In some way he couldn't quite define, Peter could feel it. Eager to rejoin him. Not just the blood by itself, but everything that came with it.

Everything.

The Hunters were confused by Connors' cries. The bulbous forearm that was crushed into the viral matting rippled suddenly and the muscles began tearing themselves free, the flesh unfolding in a blur of red and black as tendrils slid free, exploding out of the overstretched skin. The tendrils rippled up the forearm, the swelling collapsing down, the tendrils unfolding then folding themselves back down, compacting.

Peter shrugged his shoulder as Connors continued to scream. His arm ripped free of the viral matting it had been embedded in, but his hand remained enclosed in a knot of viral material. As his arm rippled, impossibly flexible, a strip of the viral matting tore itself free of the rock.

A ribbon of flesh stretching from the end of Peter's wrist to the rapidly collapsing bulb that had been the Scorpion's forearm. The man-sized blade that had been driven into the wall broke apart, some shards of razor sharp bone rained down on the Walkers below, but the rest folded themselves back into Peter's arm.

Connors foot slipped from Peter's neck then. The cable of flesh from his right arm, merging with the end of Peter's left arm. He reached up, clawing at his shoulder, trying to tear it free even as the feeding tendrils raced up its length.

Peter gave his shoulder another twitch, ripples of black and red tendrils blurred down from his torso, shifting the torn and jagged ribbon of viral matting into the same sort of flesh cable that formed the length of Connors' whip arm.

As long as she's got a piece of him, she can rebuild him, his voice drawled.

Peter didn't want him. He didn't want another death on his conscience nor another voice in his head, but he couldn't leave the man to Jessica's dubious mercies.

Excuses again, his voice drawled. But then he really couldn’t stop what he was doing anymore. Struggle though he might, the feeding tendrils had already spread across Connors' torso and taken off half his face, stripping it down to bare bone.

He licked his lips. Out of time again. He wasn't sure how long he spent being assaulted by memories whenever he consumed an intelligent infected, but he couldn't afford to fall into a fugue in the circumstances he was in. Connors mind might have been badly damaged, but Peter was certain that it was intact enough to pose that danger.

He shifted his shoulder and brilliant red light blazed down the length of the newly formed cable of flesh. Connors legs were blurring into black and red tendrils, fusing together forming into a single blade.

Hunters rushed for him and for what still remained of the man's head that was unabsorbed. Peter's new whip-arm flashed into an arc, slapping three Hunters out of the air and smashing two more off the wall. The last managed to get close enough to avoid the whip, but that one had gotten careless enough for Peter to backhand away from him with the full strength of his still normal right arm.

Run. His Hunter prompted unnecessarily.

Peter launched himself from the wall, the trailing whip-arm contracted suddenly as he moved. He could feel something like vertebrae clicking together as the entire arm compressed back to almost its normal size. Or it would have, if Connors half consumed head and torso didn't still protrude from roughly where his elbow would have been.

He could feel the feeding tendrils reaching into the man's brain, taking it apart. The flashes of memory would be hitting at any moment, he could feel it. He couldn't afford for that to happen while he was still trapped with Jessica and her mob.

He shifted mass furiously to hurl himself down to the floor as close as he could to a still open tunnel. Except he found himself having to glide further and further as the surging crowd of infected followed him on the ground at a run, denying him any open spots to land in.

Out of time, his voice drawled faintly to him as he caught a glimpse of a college biology class at NYU in his mind.

Another explosion closed the nearest tunnel off, forcing Peter to bank to one side, forcing him to focus on the here and now and not on prom thirty years ago.

He could smell the fresh tang of spent explosives in the air. Rubber and violence of the Thunderbolts mingled with it. They were closing the exits off. Which made him wonder why Jessica hadn't already taken her mob into one of the still open exits... why was she lingering? He didn't have time to think about that. Or time to think about Jessica-- or Doris and Billy or how they left... why did that feel so hollow? So empty?

Move! The Hunter barked, interrupting his reverie. It had caught sight of something approaching. He shifted his mass, awkwardly dodging aside in mid-air as something flailed past him, arcing through the air even more awkwardly than he did. Peter glanced down and realized that Jessica's Rhino was picking up a Walker and cocking its arm back to throw it at him.

He considered just landing and trying to fight his way through, but the Hunters he'd knocked down earlier had all recovered and were joined by their fellows. He couldn't. Not with his head filling up with Connors' life and memories-- his thesis defense--

He cocked his arm back, what little was left of the Connors' head lolling on the end of greedy feeding tendrils.

Instinct and Peter's own head for numbers guided him. Heat surged down his arm and the bladed end launched itself through an open tunnel with a crack of displaced air. He had no idea where it would lead, but it would have to do. It would give him a chance to get away-- backing away from Jessica as she smiled and he could feel himself smiling back, right before Richard Parker opened fire on her--

Peter growled and felt the blade impact solidly on the floor, mass shifting to the point of contact rooting him solidly even as the whip arm surged with heat and dragged him into the tunnel at speed, well ahead of even the fastest Hunter.

He released the blade from the matted floor, rolling back to his feet. He was prepared to sprint desperately in hopes of losing the mob, but he swayed unsteadily on the first step-- like when he'd been whipped around in the teacups at Disney on his honeymoon--

His vision was graying out as the flashes of images surged harder, but he forced himself to keep trying to run, the head was gone from his arm. His arm was just that. An arm and... There was a muffled thump behind him and the opening to the chamber was gone.

The ring of muscle in the viral matting coating the tunnel he was in had irised shut and the material seemed to dry suddenly. Going from fleshy to calcified in the space of a few seconds, turning the whole mass into a plug of hardened bone. He could hear the mob slam into it, Hunters' claws skittering and clashing against the new wall. The scent from behind him still lingered, but stronger still was Hank's scent of aged rot... old Hydra.

He hoped it would hold. He had to get away.

Running had to be accomplished. An unfamiliar voice murmured.

Peter tried for another step, but he stumbled to his knees and memory rose up.

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