Variant Strain

- - -

Anna visibly relaxed, with a murmurred, "Oh, thank God."

"And where exactly is the rest of your team, soldier?" Norman asked, his eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Basement." The largest man in the group below, Petruski, replied, jerking a thumb over his shoulder.

Osborn's wrinkled face twisted in confusion and revulsion, "This house has no basement!" He shouted down.

May glanced from Norman, then down to the armed new arrivals. Cletus and Shultz both took up stations on either side of the entryway they'd come through.

Norman continued to shout down denials to the imperturbable Petruski even as everyone else stared.

Donna had a hand to her ear and Peter's enhanced hearing let him catch the conversation easily.

"Be advised. We've reached the front foyer. We've got Norman Osborn, Doctor Essex and everyone else here. Detective Stacy's injured, but Essex is looking him over. Over."

The voice on the other end was grave and as sounded to him as familiar as Donna's and Cletus's voices. "Copy that. How's Peter look? Over."

Donna glanced at him and met his gaze briefly. A ghost of a smile flickered across her lips. "Confused and covered in other people's blood. Pretty normal, to be honest. Also sure he's eavesdropping. No, wait. He's definitely eavesdropping. Over."

"If you're hearing this Peter, please scratch your ear. Over."

Peter flicked a hand up and scratched at his earlobe.

Donna again allowed that flicker of a smile to appear. "He hears us. Over."

"Let me sum up," the voice from Donna's radio graveled on. Peter was certain it was Cain, "We are pulling you and everyone else out of here. Your part's complete--"

Peter mouthed, "What part?" Silently.

"Hold one, Cain." Donna murmured into her radio, "He just asked 'what part'? Over."

Cain graveled back, "The one where you make your way into the very secure Osborn home to find your Aunt and everyone else. Over."

"You guys got here on your own." Peter mouthed to Donna, exagerating every word.

Donna smirked and replied quietly, "Peter, it only looks that way because you mapped everything out for us and got us the security codes ahead of time."

His expression was stunned.

Donna nodded. "The house's security runs a stand alone UltronOS server. Except your phone is now on their wifi. Conners has access to your phone and all the back door codes."

Peter's eyes widened. Oh.

"Are you talking to him or me?" Cain demanded.

"Him. Sorry. Over."

"In any case, once the rest of you are out, we can deal with what this place is built on. Over."

"And by deal with," Donna murmured back into the radio, but her eyes were still on Peter, "We mean Plan A."

Peter frowned as he tried to remember what Plan A actually was. He vaguely remembered some of his conversation with Donna when he was still beneath the ruins of the Gentek building.

Plan A might have been the usual Plan A which was to rush in and wing it.

Or it could've been explosives. He was reasonably certain it was going to be explosives.

He mouthed, "And the T-bolts?"

Donna replied, "We needed more warm bodies in case we ran into trouble. We tried to make a combat unit entirely out of ourselves, but we didn't have enough fully functional and stable minds to run everything. Connors tried running four and he was halfway comatose in all of them. We had to leave him behind to play mission control. So we invited the T-bolts to join in on the fun. Over."

"We're heading up the stairs." Cain's voice came through Donna's earpiece and Peter could hear a faint echo of it from down the hall. "Confirm that the area's secure. Over."

"Confirmed," Donna said, in a more normal tone of voice. Then moved across the Foyer to open the front door and peer outside, her pistol trained at the darkness beyond. "The lights are out on the lawn, but there's no movement. We should have a straight shot to the gate. Over."

Peter allowed his attention to drift back to the argument at the stairs and noticed that Osborn had gotten a wide-eyed and confused look as he continued to murmur denials about the existance of a basement. He was leaning even more heavily on his cane.

He took in everyone else's reactions.

Cletus was holding his pistol in one hand, keeping the barrel pointed well away from everyone. He had a hand on a combat knife at his belt. His visor was still down, hiding his face, but Peter knew enough about him to know he was relaxed and ready. A coiled snake ready to lash out.

Schultz seemed the same as always. Slouched up against the door, his rifle still hanging off of one shoulder, but he seemed ready to take it back into his hands. The head piece of his bright yellow hazmat suit hid any expression.

Petruski seemed just as unflappable as he continued to gently argue with Norman.

Peter realized with a start that he actually had no idea what either man actually looked like even though he could recognize them by their voices.

Aunt May seemed to be running on a barely controlled simmer from where she stood next to him. It was clear she was trying to deal with being frightened by being angry and it seemed to be mostly working. Except Peter knew he'd have to tread lightly. He still had a hand lightly supporting her upper arm... and was getting blood all over her pajamas, which neither of them wanted to think about too closely.

MJ seemed calm, but he could see the way her eyes darted around, scanning possible exits. Keeping an eye for dangerous movement. Looking for weapons. She seemed to have no fears. No doubts. Just that serene certainty, but this time tempered by a sort of excitement that Peter was worried he understood all too well.

Gwen cradled her shotgun even closer to her. Ready to use it at a moment's notice. She was a bundle of nerves, but the shotgun seemed to be keeping her calm. She didn't seem to be paying any attention to Norman or Petruski. She shot occassional worried glances towards her father.

Anna seemed confused as she watched the conversation play out, but more about Norman's apparent denial. The fear and tension had lessened in her posture, but still definitely there.

George was too distracted by pain and blood loss to really be paying attention. He was sitting up with his back to the wall as Dr. Essex tended to him.

But Essex himself... Peter noticed him twitch slightly at every denial of the basement by Norman. Peter hadn't gotten much of an impression of the man when he'd been examined. Superficially friendly enough, but not much more than that. The man's eyes as he glanced down at the infected bodies on the floor, then back to Norman before he'd seemingly turn his attention to George just seemed far too... detached. Too clinical. Perhaps he was simply taking it all in dispassionately to keep from being overwhelmed.

He'd just finished his assessments when the footsteps and scents that had been slowly closing in resolved into more men coming into view through the dark hallways.

A squad of yellow-outfitted Thunderbolts soldiers with readied rifles walked behind a pair of men.

Captain Isiah Bradley walked in. His scalp smooth shaven and dark glasses concealing his eyes despite the time of night. He was still dressed in the less concealing black and gray urban camo fatigures in addition to the heavy rubber of a bright Thunderbolts yellow armored jacket that Peter remembered from their last meeting (which did not happen, Captain Bradley had assured him as he left) in front of the Stacy house.

He also noted that the man had a newriot shield slung across his back, obviously to replace the one he'd lost beneath the Gentek building. He carried what looked like one of the Thunderbolts standard issue rifles, only someone had removed the stock, making the whole thing look like an oversized, misproportioned pistol that he was carrying it in one hand. Peter suspected the man was strong enough to compensate for the stockless rifle. The Colt pistol he'd pointed at Peter's face before was in a holster at his hip.

Next to him was a broad-shouldered man who stood a perhaps an inch or two shorter than Bradley's impressive height. He had the same black para-military uniform that Cletus and Donna wore, right down to the Red Spider unit patches. He turned briefly to check something behind him and Peter noted with some confusion that his flak vest had the red spider design sprawled across his entire back... Peter realized that it was intended to resemble the brightly glowing organs and vessels that flared to light beneath the skin on his back whenever he was shifting mass.

In fact, the entire uniform was meant to evoke Peter's usually hoodie and jeans combination, in that it could have easily been that outfit, seen blurrily at a distance and through the fog of war.

The man's face was faintly familiar. Someone Peter had seen before, but he couldn't place. He had been speaking to Bradley, keeping only the right side of his profile visible. He turned to regard the room and Peter realized that the left half of his face was a ruin. Tumorous, uneven lumps sprawled over his features and where there should have been an ear, was just another set of lumps, the whole threaded with thin scars and showing pale, white bone at his cheek. His left eye was filmed with a faintly reflective cataract.

Peter recognized Cain after a moment. The military styled brush-cut the man was sporting had made him harder to recognize than the huge mane of hair he had previously had. The new version of the left half of his face reminded him uncomfortably of Cletus's face when he'd first met him.

The Thunderbolts soldiers following them flowed into the room, taking stations at each exit. A few moved up the stairs to assist Essex with George. Peter could hear Gwen's audible sigh of relief as she flicked the safety on for her shotgun. MJ moved up the stairs to stand next to Peter... who was himself getting some odd looks from the men given that he was practically covered in blood and gore.

Everyone quieted down as Bradley's eyes swept the scene.

Osborn stared at Bradley for a long moment before calling down, "Well, this is a surprise."

"Mr. Osborn?" Bradley called back reutrning the man's stare.

"I see the years have been kind to you, Sergant Bradley." Osborn chuckled.

Bradley replied blandly. "It's Captain, now. Thank you."

"Moving up in the world," Osborn said, tottering over to begin tentatively walking down the stairs. "In retrospect, I really shouldn't be surprised to see you. How long as it been?"

Bradley glanced around uncomfortably. "Longer than I really care to remember, Mr. Osborn. We really should get ready to move everyone out."

"Oh, yes," Osborn responded, his creaky voice dripping with sarcasm, "Because that worked so well back in Middleton. It's five decades later, Bradley. Why don't you look like you've aged a day?"

Bradley pierced the man with a stare, but Osborn was imperturbable. "This really isn't the time."

Osborn sneered as he reached the landing that Peter and May were on. "It never is. Then before anyone knows it will be on a 'need to know'. How is Captain Rogers, then?"

"He's been gone for a long time, Mr. Osborn." Bradley replied back flatly.

"I don't suppose you'd know if he had any grandchildren?" Osborn asked with a smirk, giving Peter a glance that only served to confuse the young man further. If anything it seemed to confuse everyone, except for Essex who was smirking.

The exchange was interrupted by Cletus's sudden burst of laughter.

At that point Donna glared at him. "What?"

"Oh, he's doin' that thing," Cletus chuckled. "Y'know. Where you just kinda talk around what's goin' on and pretend you know stuff. I just ain't never seen it from this side."

The drew Norman's gaze down at Cletus, his expression thunderous for a long moment. But then the old man just seemed to deflate. He was withered enough to begin with, but that just seemed to leach the last of his energy out of him. His voice was small and faint now, as he glanced down to Bradley, then back to Peter. "I just want to know what is happening."

May gave the older man a sympathetic smile. She moved away from Peter, walking the short distance across the landing with small winces every time she took a step.

She put a hand on his shoulder, helping keep him upright. Peter noted the blood stains on her sleeve where he had been holding her just a moment ago. "I'm sure we all would, but they're right, Norman. We really should get out of here first."

"It's fine for you," Norman said to May peevishly. "They're obviously going to prioritize getting your nephew out."

"What do you mea--"

Cletus piped up again, his voice taunting, "Fishing..."

That earned him another glare from Osborn. He sighed, then turned to face Bradley squarely. "My son, Captain. Have you seen Harry?"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Osborn." Bradley rumbled back. "I don't know what he looks li--"

Cain interrupted, "I do." He looked up at Norman and shook his head, "We have not seen him at all, sir."

Norman gave Cain a long, hard stare. He was unashamed at the way he openly gawked at the mutated half of the man's face. He seemed to come to some sort of realization and snorted. "And if he'd gotten infected, you wouldn't have recognized him I suppose."

"Also true." Cain replied flatly.

Peter frowned as he noted another fleeting smirk from Essex.

Donna called out from the front door, "We're still clear to the gate. No movement on the lawn."

Cain nodded then glanced to Bradley. "Ready?"

"Just abou--" Bradley said, then frowned, cocking his head. Cain turned sharply, looking over his shoulder.

Everyone else froze in confusion.

Peter realized they were both listening for something. He frowned and realized he was hearing it too. Noises from down the hallway the Thunderbolts had come from. A crashing, rumbling noise. Too heavy footsteps against straining concrete. A syncopated heartbeat like a cyclical car crash.

"Something's coming." Peter, Bradley and Cain all said at the same time.

Peter was closest of the three who'd been paying attention and perhaps only he really caught the other noise. It was a small noise compared to the rapidly growing crashing and stomping. Somewhere between a chuckle and a snort. Peter looked away from the hall and up the stairs towards a slightly smirking Essex who was still kneeling next to George Stacey at the top of the stairs.

He turned his own glance up the stairs towards the doctor. "What's so funny?"

Essex glanced down at him, the ill-concealed smirk vanishing into what Peter finally realized was very badly feigned confusion. "I beg your pardon?"

Peter growled. "What's coming?"

"How would I--?" Essex began to say, but was cut off as Bradley began hollering orders.

"Out! Get everyone out of here!" Bradley called out, gesturing wildly for the open front door with one hand, even as he brought the stockless rifle up, pointing it towards the open corridor they had come from.

The noises were growing louder. Even Aunt May seemed to notice them now. Everyone turned their attentions towards the corridor, but the the Thunderbolt soldiers reacted quickly. The ones closest to the stairs ran up and began ushering everyone down.

Peter, however, still stood at the landing, glaring up at Essex even as Norman, Anna, MJ and May were escorted down.

"Peter! Peter, what are you doing? Come on!" May called out.

MJ glanced at Peter then up towards Essex. "Peter, what's wrong?"

One of the yellow-suited Thunderbolts soldiers reached the top of the stairs and helped George Stacy to his feet, calling to Essex, "Sir, we need to go."

Peter caught a shift in the scent in the foyer's air. The carrion stench of Hydra seemed to sweeten, a sickly honey sweetness laced with a bitter copper tang. Livelier. Not a particular scent he'd encountered before. It washed over him radiating out from Essex.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Cain glance up in his direction, clearly having caught the same scent.

George Stacy screamed suddenly, writhing in the grip of the Thunderbolts soldier who had been helping him. One arm flailed wildly, knocking the man painfully down the stairs.

Everyone looked up. Anna Watson screamed as well. Gwen Stacy had already made it up a handful of steps before a Thunderbolt soldier caught up with her and held her back.

George was holding up his wounded arm. The blood, which had been flowing freely beneath the bandage seemed to be boiling. The flesh on his arm seemed to be bloating horrifically. The fingers suddenly swollen to the size and shape of sausages, the joints disappearing into the sudden expansion of flesh. In contrast his chest seemed to be collapsing into itself, the muscle and guts shrinking down as flesh shifted places with a disturbing liquid quality on his body.

A disturbingly familiar shifting of flesh.

Gwen cried out then, a sobbing, broken noise. "Daddy, no!"

Peter crouched down, intending to vault up the stairs, but that was when a pain raked across his entire body, causing him to collapse heavily onto the landing. He grit his teeth and heard Aunt May begin screaming as well.

The blood spattered generously on his body had begun to seethe and boil. His sharpened eyes could see tiny hook-shaped teeth-like protrusions rising up from the drying blood. It rasped like sandpaper against his own skin through the thin material of his pajammas.

He glanced down to where Aunt May was. Donna had ripped the bloodied sleeve off the older woman's pajama top and thrown it into the mess of bodies at the foot of the stairs. Everyone else was giving the bodies a wide berth as those had also begun moving again.

One of the soldiers had tried to vault over the moving bodies to reach Peter, but had been slapped aside by the flailing bodies, a razor tipped arm that scored a long cut on the man's armored biohazard suit.

More ruined bodies lumped closer together, entirely cutting the stairs off.

Unfortunately, this still left Peter on the middle part of the stairs, with the rapidly transforming George Stacy at the top of it.

Standing next to George, was Doctor Essex watching everything impassively.

Even through the pain and the confusion, Peter could hear Norman's voice call out, "Essex, you bastard! What are you doing? Where's my son?!"

Essex gave an amused snort and smiled. From Peter's closer vantage, he could see the doctor's mouth was filled with familiar tiny, razor sharp needle teeth.

"Oh, Norman," Essex's voice drifted down, smooth and silky. "If you'd only shown this much care for poor Harry when he was growing up, maybe things might have been different."

"What are yo--?!" Norman called up, before his voice broke off, coughing harshly.

Norman was leaning heavily against the soldier who had been supporting him, the coughing worsening as his entire body seemed to be convulsing.

"Oh, dang." Peter heard Cletus murmur as the Thunderbolts practically dragged the protesting civilians the rest of the way out the front door.

Peter finally overcame his paralysis. He fought past the pain from the boiling blood and clawed at his clothing, tearing it off him and trying to wipe as much of the painfully vicious blood from his hands and face with the cleaner parts of the pajamma top. The blood seemed to coagulate and reshape itself into larger, more jagged points, the crimson material developing bone-white points at the tips, that Peter had needed to rip out of his own skin.

Shirtless, Peter tossed the blood soaked top to the twitching bodies at the foot of the stairs. Their motions had become less chaotic. The blood and bodies were shifting together. Blood flowed up and over the bodies, white-tipped hooks and ropy, fleshy threads. The broken forms of the infected were rolling into others and the whole melding beneath the cover of blood into a large mass at the base of the stairs.

Peter had filtered them out, but there was still more shouting from the rest of the room. The Thunderbolt soldiers had moved almost everyone to the front door. Not quite out, but close to it. A handful of the armed soldiers were maintaining a rear guard, including the three former voices in Peter's head. Cain, stood next to Bradley. Donna and Cletus flanked them. Petruski and Schultz were also close by.

He couldn't help but note that while May, under protest, had pretty much been dragged to the doorway, MJ seemed to have slipped whoever was herding her and had managed to take up station next to the open door and picked up someone's gun in the process. Norman had also managed to avoid being entirely led out but was still bent over and was still coughing harshly.

Peter swallowed nervously. There was almost too much to keep track of. Almost.

Essex took a step down the stairs, his entire form rippling as he did. Black and red tendrils flowed across his body. He addressed Norman even as he changed. "Considering how little attention you paid to Harry most of the time, I'm not surprised you didn't realize."

Peter was fascinated to watch the process from the outside. He didn't really know what he looked like when he shifted forms. He had a vague idea, but it had all been from the recollections of others. Not something seen with his own eyes.

The tendrils flicked out in a rolling wave that left flesh altered in their wake.

The tendrils settled down and Essex's face and form were gone. Standing a few steps down from top of the stairs was Harry Osborn.

"Don't worry, 'dad'. We'll fix everything right up." He continued, smiling and showing a great deal of brilliantly white and far too even teeth. "It'll be just like back when we made you forget about the basement."

At that moment, an immense Rhino, larger than the ones which had hauled the train cars beneath the ruins of Gentek tower, burst forth from the corridor, charging for the front door to cut everyone off from the easy exit.

Harry's grin grew more vicious. "Okay, we lied. This might be a bit messier."

Peter turned, bracing himself to leap, but almost as though he had been anticipated, George Stacy, eyes glowing bright red and sporting a single oversized arm, leaped down from the top of stairs right at Peter, knocking him down to the base of the stairs.

Right into infected mass.

Peter felt the blood-hot flesh crawl across his body even as George used his blunt-fingered, oversized hand to shove Peter deeper into the mass.

"A lot messier." Harry added cheerfully as more gunfire and screaming erupted around Peter, but he couldn't see what was going on. His vision was entirely taken up by the mass of infected flesh surrounding him.

Peter didn't have time to do anything. He tried to scream out, to try and reason with anything that might have been left of George Stacy, but the moment his mouth opened, more tendrils of hook-barbed blood flooded in and choked him off. The points of pain that had lingered flared brighter, spreading across his skin, even as George's immense hand closed around his throat.

- - -

Then Peter's eyes opened. He was no longer in the ruined Osborn foyer. He was standing on a stage. Above him, has a hugely elaborate chandelier made of brasswork. Before him was an oppulently decorated theatre that looked vaguely familiar. On either side of the stage were rich, red velvet curtains.

In the windows to the busy street outside, faceless, featureless people walked briskly, off to their tasks.

Behind him he heard a sigh and a familiar voice say, "I suppose it was too much to hope that you would've managed to stay out of trouble."

"What--?" Peter whirled around and found himself facing himself.

The other Peter Parker was older. It was still clearly him, but in his mid-twenties. The features leaner and lines of worry were etched around the eyes and brow. He was dressed like something out of a period drama. A very old fashioned black suit.

The man had a marked resemblance to Peter's father as he spoke with a rough humor, "As usual, there's not a lot of time and too much to cover."

"Where are-- who are you?"

The older version sighed again and waved a hand in a familiar dismissive gesture. "Let me try to sum up. The Dorrek Chitauri we're looking for, who seems to be based on Harry Osborn, has just had George Stacy shove you into a mass of infected and at the moment is attempting to overwhelm your built in Hydra immunity."

"This doesn't answer the question." Peter insisted.

"I'm Peter Parker." The older man replied.

"But I'm Peter Parker."

"Yes."

Peter growled under his breath. "So how are we BOTH Peter Parker?"

"Because we wanted you... to have a shot at being normal again. We needed you to get MJ, Anna, Aunt May, Gwen and Detective Stacy away from the place. But we couldn't have any active Hydra in our body or the Dorrek would have known right away."

"So I'm in a custom built body. Like one of the ones Cletus, Cain and Donna were operating?"

"Something like that."

"And no active Hydra means no shape-shifting or mass-shifting."

"Precisely."

"And is that also why we don't have an active connection back to the hive mind?"

"Yes. Something else the Dorrek would notice."

"You couldn't have left me some instructions or something?!" Peter blurted out.

The older version of him held both hands up defensively, "We really didn't have a lot of time--"

Peter wasn't able to keep his own sigh down, "There never is."

He rolled his eyes, "Fine. We're kind of stuck in the Dorrek's mental representation while your body fights off the fresh Hydra infection anyway. You are Peter Parker. A neural engram as close as possible to the original Peter Parker as it was possible to create."

"... I'm a copy."

"No. Yes. It's complicated." He gave an exasperated snort and threw his hands up into the air. "Do you really want to get bogged down in a debate about transhuman identity right now or do you want to get back what you didn't remember?"

"Fine. Fine. What did happen to my memory?"

"First time doing conscious rewiring of my own mind." The older Peter shrugged. "Mistakes were made. Be glad I only lost about an hour from your memory. When we were building Cletus, we almost forgot to include bladder control."

"And this is the Dorrek's mental representation of its hive mind. A theater."

"It fits," The older man shrugged once more. "I'm managing to get into its thoughts just a little. We've had practice with the Tainted Hydra... he's pretty much planning on subsuming everyone then sending them back to... huh."

"What?"

"Looks like it thinks Pym faked his death and sent the Thunderbolts and the Gentek securit personnel to him. He's planning on sending them back as sleeper agents before infecting Pym back. Not a bad plan, honestly."

Peter looked around once more. "You're getting all of that from a theater?"

The older man began humming a tune. "Masquerade... Paper faces on parade..."

"The facade of a theater." Peter's eyes narrowed as he swept his gaze around the room. "This is the Opera de Paris." He turned his gaze on the other version of him, "This is the set for Phantom of the Opera."

"Mm-hmm."

"Why are all these mental spaces we keep ending up in taken from musicals?" Peter asked irritably. "Pym had the Wizard of Oz, Jessica had something out of Grease, Osborn's is from Phantom."

"It's a simplified filter for dealing with the Chitauri language. There's a certain... rhythmic and harmonic quality to it. Like music. But there's a narrative embedded in the song. So the closest, most basic means for your mind to interpret it is through musicals. Also, Donna liked musicals."

Peter focused on his counterpart once more. "How can you talk to me now?"

"Your body is designed to interact with Hydra. We're hijacking the fresh infection and taking control of it. Your body's reestablishing its connection to our body to finish rebuilding the damage George did to you."

Peter's expression was briefly stricken. "Can we... is there anything we can do for him?"

Older Peter shook his head. "It's too late. Whatever the Dorrek did already subsumed his identity beyond our ability to repair."

"But we were able to for MJ--"

"That was just physical damage. We're tied into the Dorrek's mind as much as our own right now. George is... he's gone, Peter."

Peter's fist clenched and his gaze hardened. "This body I'm using... it's connecting through the mass-space to the rest of me... us, right now?"

"Yes."

"Does that mean I get my abilities back?"

"It could." He paused, "Do you want them back?"

"There's a fight breaking out in the real world. I need to help!"

"It is a fight. But now there's professional soldiers involved. And Donna, Cain, Cletus... they're as much part of us as you are. They could handle this while you get out with everyone else."

"I could run." Peter said bitterly, remembering the expression on Geroge Stacy's face. "But, their chances would be better if I have my full abilities, right?"

"Maybe." He shrugged. "But we need to deal with the Dorrek as well. We're almost ready."

"Just waiting to finish evacuation." Peter agreed, his voice thick with anger. "That body, Essex... or Harry... whatever... that's not the main form is it?"

"No more than the body you have now is ours."

"Do we know where the rest of him is?"

"We've got a good idea."

"Then we do it."

"We won't have time to custom build you another body and mind to the specifications we need," His counterpart insisted. "You would open yourself up to the Chitauri language again. You are throwing away your chance to escape this."

"We both know I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I did run away now."

"The consequences of going forward mean you don't get to see what comes after anyway," The older him said soberly.

"Why am I still trying to talk myself out of this?" Peter snarled. "We need to stop this thing."

"Because we were really hoping that at least some part of us would get to see tomorrow."

- - -

The mound of twitching, roiling flesh and blood at the base of the stairs quivered, then began to surge across the room. The massive Rhino strain infected roared as the mound smeared into tendrils, filling the air in the foyer with black and red threads of bloody flesh and biomass that began wildly snapping and whipping at the soldiers who hadn't managed to make it out the door. Tendrils stuck at the Rhino, but where they hit, rather than scoring against its nearly invulnerable grey hide, the tendrils attached and it's skin began taking on a bloody red color.

The form of Harry Osborn looked down at the one-sided fight below him and smiled. But an anomaly tickled against his mind. Something brushing lightly against his absolute control.

He frowned.

He tilted his head slightly even as another Thunderbolt soldier screamed his last and focused his gaze at the base of the stairs.

Not all of the mound had moved to the attack. One large section of biomass remained close to the stairs. It had shriveled a bit, the rust brown darkening to black. What blood seemed to still be on it congealing until the whole had collapsed into a rough sphere barely three feet across.

The sphere's black material cracked suddenly. The congealed biomass sloughing off as a rapidly expanding sphere of near transluscent material swelled past the cracks. The whole began to expand further. The interior filling with a bilous yellow fluid within seconds.

Osborn's eyes widened as the sphere swelled to six feet across, before the taut membrane, filled beyond capacity burst, spraying a noxious, sludgy yellow goop all across the floor, causing where it touched to steam. The larger mound recoiled away from the explosion of goop and attracted the attention of everyone who had been fighting.

There was a momentary lull as a soaking wet, naked human form stepped out of the remnants of the mound. It's skin rippled into black and red tendrils and was suddenly dry and dressed in black jeans and a hoodie.

His fists clenched.

Peter Parker glared up at Harry Osborn and ground out, "This. Ends. Now."

- - -