Marvel: The Mutant Outbreak (IC)

"If you're up to it we've got a bigger priority than us getting up there!" X shouted pointing directly at the Mexican Wrestler who was falling out. "You can wait!" He shouted at the Shevarine pulling his sword axes off his back. "If you want to argue you can argue with these honey. What are you waiting for Angel, go do what the Lord sent you here to do, save lives!"
 
Kris was about to protest about knife woman going with the winged girl up the tower to follow the lizard and the other two. When he saw her extended the knives from her fist and pointed it at the girls belly, it was at that time Kris quickly raised his hand and pointed it at the girl once more.\

He saw the one named marry took of f in a sprint when she said she quickly start to climb the building, Kris watched as she slowly made her way up the side of the building with relative ease. If she could do that then anyone of them would be able to do it and that would make it one less person for angel woman to carry up

"I really don't want to shoot you this close, But I will if I have to" Kris quickly told the girl as he was prepared to see what she would do.


It was they when he started to hear the alarm erupting through out the building; he figured that the lizard tripped the alarms in its rampage. He quickly saw a figure that looked like they were falling to their death. If no one reacted quickly then the red and blue masked figure would fall to his or her apparent death.

It was then that X/Isaiah told the angel lady to do what god sent her to do and apparently save the falling person. If she did that then he would take up the girl with knives in-between her hands.


"You get him and I'll get her," Kris quickly told her as he took hold of Knife woman, In one quick move Kris launched the grappling hook claw. The claw struck one floor underneath the broken window that was better than five or more floors underneath the broken window.

Taking the girl buy the waist, Kris thought one thing which was that he prayed that she didnt squirm around when he took the two of them to the window. if she did squirm around he didnt want to let go of her. Soon another thought passed through his head. which was another thing bother him, as he never tested the tensile strength of the wire cable with two people. He only used it for one person. However, with this impromptu test it would allow him to figure out how to improve it.
 
Now Nell wasn't afraid of some close girl on girl moments, but with Knives threatening her for a free flight, Nell had been considering her options. As Kris pulled one of the woman's hands away, Nell spun around. Her wings opening enough to fling the woman onto the hood of the car if she didn't move fast enough to avoid them. It wouldn't kill her, but it would probably give her a grudge. Without checking to see how she had come out of it, Nell took off into the air and made a beeline for Spiderman. He had been falling for a long time, and when she reached him they were rather too close to hitting the pavement. She wrapped her arms around his chest, the impact a little harder than she would have liked before dipping down from the added weight. Her feet never touched the ground, but another second and it might have turned out entirely different.

She found her way back to the car, landing before Isiah and placing the unconscious or at least dazed hero on the ground before them. "Looks like you are my lucky winner," she smiled, noting that Kris and Knives were on their way, and Mary was climbing like a true outdoor adrenaline addict.
 
"Uuuh..." Peter moaned as he looked up at Nell. "Did you... Fly? Are you an angel? I... uuuh..." His vision kept swirling, the gas still effecting him. He felt lightheaded and weak, but tried to force himself to his feet. "We have... to stop him.... The giant lizard..."
 
Venom grinned wickedly as he stood tall within the office floor, his eyes scanning for Conners when he saw the corpses of security guards and FBI agents. Their chests had been carved open by claws, their throats slit open and their heads crushed like rotten fruit against walls and floors. Growling Venom moved forward, his black hide shimmering as it entered a camouflaged mode and with spiderman's powers he began to climb the walls and ceiling, moving swiftly across it on both arms and legs, rushing forward like an animal on all floor ignoring the laws of gravity.

He soon came upon Conners as he was at a security level on the building ,one of the labs by the looks of it, and there he was currently strangling a guard with his tail, several dead and/or unconscious FBI agents and guards lying on the ground around him, as the reptile calmly began to input a code into the doorway lock. Venom moved swiftly and with his camouflage activated he jumped forward and flew with both his feet aimed for the reptile's side and smacked the creature away from the doorway, the now unconscious, but thankfully alive, guard landed on the floor, cushioned by the bodies of his comrades.

Swiftly rushing forward Venom tackled the slightly dazed mutant through a wall of glass and began to pound his fist into the creature's gut, small spikes emerging from his knuckles penetrating the hide and being covered with green blood. But the lizard recovered quickly and Venom found himself flung across the room by its tail. The symbiotic vigilante recovered quickly and retaliated by emerging a mass of tendrils from his back, their tips shaped into sharp spear points.

The lizard's regenerative powers were recovering faster then venom could injure the former human, but the lose of blood was having an effect and Venom mananged to grasp hold of the creature's tail as he tried to toss him away again. Gripping the appendage with both hands he began to smash the creature into walls, floors, furniture and windows. After around ten swings of his lizard shaped sledge hammer the creature loosened its own tail off its body and Venom growled as the creature kicked him into a wall before darted out the hallway.

Standing up Venom snarled out in anger as Conners once more got away from him. "Your nature fits your shape, a cowardly lizard, we shall bring your cowardice to an end, for there is nowhere to hide from us. Just accept it Conners, you shall not get away." Venom's tendrils warped around the tail and absorbed the power of the Lizard. But he couldn't absorb the memories however, he needed to absorb them through a living creature not just a part of them.

Not bothering to transmutate himself tails or claws, since he didn't want to strain his body further, plus he had claws from the start anyway, Venom leaped after the reptilian mutant on all four. As he moved were the many scratches and wounds on his shape regenerating swiftly from the lizard's regenerative powers added to his own suit's regenerative powers. As he moved through the hallways Venom shifted his black skin into a camouflage again. The shifting silhouette of Venom as he moved through the hallways looked like a shifting of heated air, or like a ghost, he roar echoes through the building as he chases after the lizard's trail, he was most likely in the lab he had been trying to enter before.
 
"Okay." X replied to Nell, he wasn't exactly comfortable with flying but he was a man of faith and when a genuine angel of the lord was volunteering to fly him into battle that wasn't something one turned down. When God is guiding your feet you follow the path that is presented to you.

The flight was definitely exhilerating, he just wished she hadn't caught him from behind, the feeling of her firm ripe breasts against his back was one thing but. . .perving over an angel. . .again. Hell. I'm going to Hell. He leaped from her arms to the open window. "Stay safe."

Isaiah had spent his formative years in the thick of World War II and a lot longer than that wandering around Africa until he finally stumbled into Wakanda and life there wasn't always a treat either. So the sight of the corpses didn't disturb him, it wasn't anything like finding a man who'd been on the business end of a crocodile or a lion and it was positively tame when held up against what he'd seen hippos do. He didn't think twice about the Angel on his shoulder either, she was an agent of the Lord, she'd been witness to carnage thousands of times worse than this, to things he could only imagine. He pushed those thoughts aside as he moved farther in following the sounds of chaos and combat until he found the demon and dragon locked in combat.

He was about to step in but the dragon's tail fell off. None of the stories said anything about dragons having detatchable tails, at least none of the ones that he remembered. The demon roared in frustration then charged off and. . .went invisible. . .well not quite. He looked like a heat shimmer but it was easy enough for X to keep track of him mostly because he knew where he was and he wasn't exactly being gentle to the landscape either, he considered confronting the demon but that could wait a moment, he needed to stop both of them and. . .God give me strength. He wasn't sure how he was going to do this, how he was going to stop those two and save everybody but he was going to find the strength.

He was right on the heels of the demon when they burst into a test facility. The sounds of animals trapped within was deafening, monkeys and chimps screaming, pigs grunting, dogs barking, cats hissing, mice squeaking. As loud as it was the smell of their waste was even louder and the Dragon was holding some kind of chemical.

"Put it down." X shouted. "If this was done to you we can fix it, I don't know how but we can fix it or I can take you to a place where nobody will judge you." He looked around the the room, animal testing. Disgusting and look what these men had done with their science. Seventy years ago he'd been just a few hairs beyond these poor creatures, they'd tested a formula on him and his brothers in arms and then one by one they'd been killed during the science experiment. This creature was clearly the latest victim of this madness. The reason he'd been called back.
 
It was James turn to fill the ATMs, and Jose's turn to drive the truck. The driver didn't get out during ATM fill ups, that was procedure. If anything happened the driver was required to drive off and radio for help. Not exactly reassuring to the guy filling the ATM, but at five bucks over minimum wage, it was a living.

James heard the crash and spun around, revolver drawn and at the low ready in both hands. There was no unusual activity on the street but when he looked up he saw a giant green tail out of a hole in the Oscorp building, with Spiderman and some black and white... thing chasing it.

James shook his head. It had to be Oscorp. He worked for them his sophomore year as an intern and now that he had a masters inn chemistry they wouldn't hire him. Bastards. But, bastards or not he had friends in that building. And people he respected, like Curt Conners.

James holstered his sidearm and finished loading the ATM. He unlocked the back of the truck, put the supplies back in, took off his uniform shirt and threw that in there too. He keyed his radio and said, "There's an unrelated violent crime in progress Jose. I'm securing the truck, you drive to the next stop and call it in, I'm going to intervene."

He could hear Jose protesting over the radio as he locked it in the armored car. James kept the rest of his duty belt, including his Smith & Wesson 500, the reload roads, pepper spray and handcuffs. Out of his cargo pocket he pulled a ski mask made out of some kind of polymers that wicked the sweat from his face. It also concealed his identity. He was now dressed in combat boots, black cargo pants, a party naked t-shirt, a gun belt and a ski mask.

"I look ridiculous," James muttered. Then he started to run toward Oscorp and everything slowed down. He assumed he was speeding up, but all of him was speeding up, his reflexes, his processing speed, everything. The cumulative affect was that it felt like he was living in a slow-motion world and the faster he got the slower things moved.

He got to Oscorp as a a winged girl dropped an armored man in the hole in the side of the building and another man and woman were heading up there on some kind of retractable grappling machine like out of The Phantom Menace. James ran up the side of the building, out pacing the rope crew. He stopped when he got in the room and looked around.

Then he vomited. At super speed. He looked around and vomited again.

There was carnage everywhere. Something had torn threw people, real human beings, like a ravenous beast. No, like a monster. James had studied biology, predators killed to eat, not to slaughter like this.

James moved to the other side of the hole in the wall, away from the vomit. He slowed himself down, easing out of superspeed and waited. When someone entered he asked, "What's the situation."
 
The coffee in Seth O'Connel's thermos had grown stale and bitter since he'd brewed it this morning. " Fucking perfect. " he muttered, pouring the rest of the dark brown liquid down the drain.

He glanced at the clock on the break room wall, cracking his knuckles as he counted the hours left till he could go home. The security job at Oscorp was a nice gig. His friends had laughed at the idea of the former Marine patrolling an office building, but Seth was no mall cop. There was a lot of money tied up in Oscorp's towering property, and they were willing to pay top dollar for good security. The vest, sidearm and radio he carried were all top of the line too.

Still it rankled Seth that he was stuck there tonight. He hadn't even been scheduled to work that day. But ever since the outbreak things had been falling apart. Every day it seemed like someone else was being called to the main office to meet with the lawyers, then escorted off the property, pink slip in hand.

Now Seth was stuck wandering between his security post and the nearest source of caffeine. He'd been up all night with Sarah before he'd gotten called in this morning. Thinking of the previous night's escapades brought a grin to Seth's face though, and added a bit of spring to his step. That was when his radio crackled and, as if they were synchronized, alarms began blaring throughout the building.

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Laura barely had time to jump back as Nell's wings exploded outward. Growling angrily she bared her claws and was halfway to leaping on the woman's back when she hit the limit of that damn wire.

When Kris put his arm around her waist she decided he must be insane, and was resolved to slide a claw through his heart when they were suddenly being pulled towards the building. Long black hair streamed behind Laura as they flew through the air, she felt a shoe slip off her foot and glanced down to watch it plummet to the street below.

Seeing they were fast approaching a still closed window, rather than the shattered one a floor above, Laura quickly crossed an arm in front of her face and held the other out straight as an arrow, with her claws as the point. It was reinforced glass, but when the adamantium tips of those razor sharp blades struck home it shattered easily enough. Laura ducked into a roll as they broke through, slipping out of Kris' hold and coming up on her feet. They were in a spacious office, glass panels separating it from a hallway outside. It all seemed vacant however, and the constant howl of an alarm filled the building. Reaching up almost casually Laura slowly pulled an inch long shard of glass from her cheek. With moments only a small streak of blood remained on her smooth skin.

Turning back she looked down on Kris who was just getting up off the ground, seemingly unharmed besides a few scratches. Laura approached him silently, crouching down to look him in the eyes as he rose to his knees. Before he could speak one of her claws had slid under his chin and pressed against his Adam's apple. "If I see you again," she whispered, her face inches from his, "I will have to kill you." There was no threat in her voice and deep in her emerald eyes was the glimmer of something else, regret maybe, or guilt.

Stepping away Laura raced out of the office and towards the nearest stairwell. Even if she hadn't seen the other two creatures enter a floor above she could have smelled them. There was the reptile, all flesh and blood and scales. Then there was the other scent, like nothing Laura had ever smelled before. It seemed alive, but completely alien to any other living thing she had sensed. Reaching the stairs she opened the doorway.

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Seth O'Connell would have expected just about anything besides what came through the door. It was just some teenage girl. Her outfit was torn and dirty, one of her shoes was missing, and her raven-black hair was a wind-blown mess. There were those knives though. Four of them, attached to her hands somehow and looking as sharp as anything. More disturbing was the look on her face. Seth was a big man, trained to kill and with a gun in his hand, behind him were three other security guards just the same. He'd expect to see fear if she was a criminal, or relief if she wasn't, instead there was something else. Remorse?

He raised his gun, opening his mouth to shout at the girl to get on the ground. That was when she moved, and the entirety of Seth's existence seemed suddenly focused on those bright glinting blades.

In the cramped stairwell the guns sounded like cannon fire, bright flashes casting strange shadows up and down several floors. It was all distant to Seth though, lying on the ground he could only focus on the strange pool of blood spreading around him. The crimson stream soon creeped off the edge of the stair, trickling down like a small waterfall. So strange he thought as everything faded to black.

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Laura stepped over the corpses of the guards, claws dripping red. Several new holes in her shirt briefly revealed fresh bullet wounds before they closed up, the small bullets falling out of her to bounce across the floor. She looked up the stairs at the door to the next floor, huge red letters spelling out RESTRICTED. Then she glanced over at a vent in the wall, an idea forming in her head.
 
Spider-Man had regained enough of his senses to follow the large black man sporting America's colors, and came up behind him in the doorway to the lab where Conners was holding the chemical.

"Don't do this, Doc," he pleaded. The Lizard smiled as he threw the large glass bottle on the floor, shattering it. The green liquid immediately exploded out in a cloud of gas as Peter grabbed Isaiah from behind and pulled him out of the lab to avoid the fumes. There were shrieks of pain coming from within the room, bones reforming and flesh morphing. Metal cages were torn open, scurrying feet on the ground, and then a moment later, large mutant animals poured out of the doorway.

"No, Doc..." Spider-Man whispered to himself at the sight of the monsters. The monkeys had grown into large, ogre-like creatures that were about six feet tall. The canines now looked like werewolves. The mice were the size of large cats and all of the creatures seemed to be plagued by madness. They scattered in every direction, some of them jumping out windows to the streets below, killing anything that moved.

"Oh my god..." Peter gasped as the Lizard smashed through the wall behind the mutant animals -- the chemical gas had advanced his mutation. He was almost twice as tall, extremely muscular, and seemed to be overcome by rage. The Lizard-Hulk shrieked loudly and crashed through a few walls and then out a window, jumping to the street below, leaving a crater where he landed. He turned and ran down the street, grabbing cars and flinging them at random buildings, knocking over light poles, and ripping apart any person foolish enough to get in his path.

"He's gone insane!" yelled Spider-Man as he and the others looked out through the window Conners had smashed through. "We have to stop him and the other animals! Maybe I can come up with something that will reverse the effects of that gas, though it may take a few minutes -- I don't even know what chemicals are still intact in the lab. Can you guys buy me some time?"
 
Captain X watched the lizard shatter the chemicals and then all hell broke loose. The luchadore yanked him out of the way but Isaiah shruged him off after a moment. If whatever this stuff was was airborne it was too late already and if it wasn't there wasn't point in being concerned any longer.

He peaked his head in and the room. . .the animals had all be turned into monsters, he'd never. He watched in horror as the animals twisted and grew, he could hear their pain as flesh tore and healed, and bones stretched and warped. If he'd had more time he might lost himself but he didn't. The cages were being torn apart.

"Can you guys buy me some time?" The voice didn't sound like a man, it sounded like a boy barely out of his teens. Far too young to be in the middle of an inferno like this.

"No. We can't." X replied coldly. This wasn't time for them to be worrying about being delicate, this was a salvage mission. He thought for a moment about burning down the building but the Dragon was already out of the building, and people with this illness were popping up all over the place, it didn't matter if the Oscorp scientists had some new corpses to experiment on. X was already determined to leave them little else. "We need to stop them, here and now."

X tilted his head one way until the vertebrae began audibly popping, then the other way. He glanced back at the angel and behind her saw the redhead was joining them.

X strained his mind hunting for a good way to deal with the scenario he found himself in, he needed to get someone back to the ground to deal with the animals already escaping, if the Shevarine had been around he'd have simply thrown her out a window after them and hope she'd worn herself out before getting back to him.

His thoughts were quickly interrupted when one of the monkeys back handed him easily sending him through a plaster wall and sent him skidding across a table. The beast was right behind him but X was quick rolling to his feet and bringing one of his sword-axes, Truth, up. He meant to go through the ape's arm but when the axe hit against the bone it sank in with a thunk and then the beast pitched X across the room again.

"Well ain't that bout a bitch?"
 
Kris watched as she quickly shattered the closed window in front of them. Quickly shaking his head he knocked loses what few shards that managed to fall on top of him. As he looked back up, he found himself faced to face with the girl who had hidden knives in her hands. It was then he could fell cold steel underneath his chin. Its point resting on his Adams apple, He did not know what she was going to do nor how was he going to react if he needed to.

he heard the words if she ever sees him again she would kill him, the way she had said it didn't really convey to a real threat. However, he would have to be on guard if she really did mean it.

"Sure okay" Kris quickly said as he looked back down, from the ground it did not look that high, but from up where he was at it did look high.

" Though before you do give me a kiss so i can have a good memory to take with me" Kris said as he saw her take off.

Fully rising to his feet, Kris quickly straightens his coat along with the tie he wore. He wanted to make himself look like he would work in this place. He didn't see her around which he figures that she had already left to find the creatures. It was then he heard the sounds of gunshots, following the gunshots, he heard silence. He did not know who it was but it may have been his newfound friend.

Without a certain direction of where all of them went to he figured that he would walk around and act normal. With the hallways empty Kris quickly made his way, he would look for the stairs but figured that the elevator would be faster.

He knew that he would be able to find them faster if he were able to get to a security post and access one of their computers. He quickly made his way down the halls and looked in almost every room looking for the right ones. All that he found was empty rooms as well as papers scattered all around, He figured many of the workers evacuated do to the alarms going off.


He was able to find his way to security room; it was small in space and not much to in weapons or other items. it allowed him to watch the security feeds and he was able to see what was happening, He saw that lizard guy release some type of gas and soon all the animals along with him.

as he looked around he found what he wanted, he found several 9volt batteries which he actually needed, kicking the door open Kris quickly exited the room in hopes he could deal with some of those animals before any more got loose into the city.

As he rounded a corner, he thought he saw what looked like a mouse, but it was far too large to be one as it was as big a normal house cat. Its fur and mouth already stained with blood, as it started to turn back to the female it had found. She looked like she was one of the researchers but now she was food for those new mutant beasts.

Its eyes soon feasted up him now as it gotten its fill on the girl, it slowly let the loose meat drop from its mouth as he crawled towards Kris.

"Crap," Kris quickly whispered as he raised his arm and was prepared to shoot the giant mousey. Before he got the chance, he saw what look a lizard came charging and attacked the mousey. He was lucky in that matter but unlucky when the creature turned its attention to him.

Kris got a better look and could see that it was or was a frill necked lizard, with a load screech it quickly charged at him. Firing the last blast of the battery, he missed due to the lizard ducking down, the creature turned back to the now destroyed window before turning back to him. A low hiss started to emerge from its mouth as it sunk low to the ground and quickly charged.

As he tried to quickly change the battery out with a fresh one, he felt the creature tail strike him squarely in the chest and sent him crashing through the wall and into the other room.

"Damn” Kris said as he looked up at the ceiling, he knew that if he hadn't been wearing that jacket he would have gotten several broken ribs and maybe a few ruptured organs. Seeing the shadow of the creature emerging from the dust cloud. Kris quickly changes out batteries before looking for a spot to hide, he thought about fire into the ceiling and collapsing that on top of it.

Taking a deep breath before he popped out from behind the desk he quickly fired another blast into the ceiling. Lucky for him the creature ducked down when he fired the shot. One thing he wished was that no one was one the floor above him.
 
"No. We can't," the large man replied coldly. "We need to stop them, here and now."

"Oh, so your plan is to track them all down and slaughter them before they hurt anyone?" Spider-Man asked with a bit of an attitude, raising his eyebrow under his mask. "Even the Lizard who now looks like the Hulk? How do you plan to defeat them? You think brute force will end them all within the next ten minutes? If I can create something to reverse the effects of that gas, we can end this threat sooner. I can't guarantee it will work, but I have to try. So, whether you like it or not, you need to buy me some time. Ciao!"

Peter turned and ran back towards the lab, and began searching the cabinets. He grabbed a cotton swab, collected some of the chemical residue from the floor where Conners smashed the bottle, dripped it onto a slide and analyzed it under a microscope. He discovered it was a concentrated version of Oz, designed to shift from liquid to gas when exposed to oxygen. Since it was directly inhaled by Conners and the animals, the cure could also be inhaled. It would not eliminate the virus, but it would reverse the effects of the gas.

About fifteen minutes later, Spider-Man showed back up where-ever the battle was taking place and ran up to Captain X, carrying a large bag. He pulled out a sealed test tube filled with a blue liquid. "Smash this in the face of the mutant animals and it should change them back. I was able to make about thirty of them before I ran out. It's a very simple formula that will attack the Oz that they inhaled from the gas. This won't cure the virus and turn Conners back into a human, but it will at least change him back to his smaller lizard form."

Peter turned and flung the test tube in his hand at the closest ogre-monkey... and nothing happened. He sighed loudly. "Well, guess it's your plan after all, Cap!"
 
Mary made her way up into the Oscorp building faster than even she'd expected, leaping and climbing leaping from window to window until she was at their destination just slightly behind Captain X and the winged woman.

As soon as she got there though she immediately doubled over and vomited. Then she looked up again at the corpses torn apart by that animal and vomited again. It was too horrific for words and she sank to her knees until her stomach was completely voided of its contents. She was still there when the monster responsible tore its way through several walls and nearly trampled her on it's way to the street.

Then all hell started breaking lose, there were mutant. . .everythings running around attacking her. She didn't know how but she managed to knock out a few rat looking things before Spiderman showed up with a solution! Only it didn't seem to quite work.

"Does anybody have a plan? A plan right now would be good and it might start with why I'm here to begin with!" Mary shouted.

Mary jumped straight up into the air just in time to dodge giant mutated pig as it smashed through a wall. How she'd known it was there though she hadn't the first clue.
 
"In a minute!" X shouted at the luchadore before charging back at at the ape with his axe. The luchadore threw something at the monkey and when nothing happened he conceded to X's plan. With absolutely no pleasure Captain X retrieved his axe and decapitated the ape.

He looked over at the luchadore. He could already hear the dissapointment in the kid and wanted nothing to do with it. Isaiah knew the kid was expecting to hear some 'I told you so' crap, he wanted to say something about running away in the middle of a fight but they weren't exactly a team and he didn't have any right to expect that of him.

Besides the truth was he didn't want to kill these things, he just knew that if they. . .especially the rats managed to make it into the wild there would be no way of containing them. The rest of the animals would be easy enough to track down, as would the Dragon but rats in New York? They could easily breed an army in months.

Unfortunately he could do this alone, this was a war and he needed troops to fight it and at least for the moment he was stuck with a kid in dressed up as a Mexican Wrestler, an Angel of the Lord, a not so sexy while she's puking her guts out redhead, and somewhere a kid with gizmos and the Shevarine. Of which the Shevarine was probably loving getting to slaughter anything moving towards her but the others. . .this was going to be an extremely long day.

"At least you tried." X finally said looking back at the Luchadore. "No, I don't plan on solving this with brute strength alone." He spoke slowly because he was forming his thoughts as he went. "Make sure none of the rats escape, the rest need to be stopped, killed, knocked out, incapacitated by any means necessary. If you think there is a way to cure them make sure at least one of them survives to be a test subject for yourself. The next time this happens I would love nothing more than having a solution in a bottle." He smiled.
 
The sounds of chaotic fighting echoed through the cramped vents as Laura crawled through. She could hear voices as well, she recognized Captain X and Kris, that boy who'd carried her to the building. There were other voices too, one's she didn't know.

Laura frowned, pulling herself forward one hand at a time. It was boiling in the vents and her hair hung heavy, beads of sweat dripping onto her face and the metal around her. As she slid along Laura kicked off her other shoe, bare toes giving better grip.

Suddenly the vent began shaking violently, and a cloud of dust suddenly rushed up from behind and enveloped her. She lay flat in the shaft, waiting until the cloud had passed. Craning her neck Laura could see light filtering in from behind her. It looked like someone had blown apart the ceiling back there.

Once she was reasonably sure the vents weren't going to collapse around her Laura continued forward. She could hear the sounds of glass clinking and someone muttering under their breath. Her eyes glinted as she gazed down from the slits in one of the vent openings. Below was a man dressed in red and blue, working diligently over a chemistry table. Slowly the claws began to emerge from her hands, and Laura was just ready to cut her way out and drop on the man when something caught her eye. Something was moving in the hallway beyond, an indistinct shimmering but accompanied by that strange smell.

Laura glanced back at the man below, but he seemed too focused on whatever he was doing to go anywhere, and she moved on to follow the strange shape. Silent as a shadow she stalked her prey, and as she got closer Laura could see that whatever it was definitely had a human shape. A few more feet and she was right above it.

With a sudden crash she burst out of the ceiling from above, claws slicing deep into the creature's back. It's roar was too inhuman for her to tell if it was in anger or pain, but in either case her attack seemed to draw it out of it's camouflage. It was a massive black thing, and where she had sliced its back the flesh had parted to reveal something else beneath. Before she could make out what it was though it's skin writhed and squirmed, closing up again. She rushed forward, all six claws bared, ready to take it down before it could turn to fight. But before she could strike its' back seemed to explode outwards, black tendrils spreading around Laura for a moment before collapsing inward.

A moment later Laura found herself enveloped. Her body was wrapped tight in dozens of the strange oozing limbs. The claws on her hands and feet were still free, but useless as her arms and legs were held tight in the creatures iron grip. Squirming uselessly she even tried to bite down on one of the thing's tentacles, but with eerie reflexes it whipped one around her neck, the end coming to rest on her cheek and holding her head still. Though she continued to struggle Laura was caught as the creature finally turned its' face toward her.
 
Everyone ignored him as they ran for the battle. James stood by the entrance, immobilized with fear. He focused on his breathing, calming himself, trying to find his center. Nothing in his life had prepared himself for this slaughter, and the idea of facing what had caused this scared him. What he wanted to do was run away, run far away, and no one could run like he could run.

But then if he ran, what happened? What happened if this monster ran roughshod over this city? James didn't have many people he really loved left. No one he would put his life on the line for. He had friends, acquaintances, people he would face manageable amounts of risk to ensure their safety. But putting his life on the line to save strangers? What about saving the entire city? 10 million people? Or was it more than that? He wasn't a sociologist, he wasn't up on the latest census data.

Then a pretty red-headed girl came through the hole and had the same reaction to the slaughter that he had. James smiled. There was something incredibly human and normal about that. He started walking over to her to help her up when a giant crocodile monster broke through a wall.

James' world slowed down. The reptile man changed direction toward them. James pushed the girl out of the way, and dodged around the creature, pulling up his foot and bringing it down on the back of the Creature's knee, just like he did against the purse snatcher the day he first got his powers.

It didn't even notice.

The creature leapt from whatever floor they were on, the 30th maybe, and James didn't hesitate. He followed it down, running down the side of the building as the creature landed and made a small crater in the asphalt. James followed after it, looking for a sledge hammer or something he could hit it with.

He had his hand cannon on his hip, but he would have to slow down considerably to use it. It took time for a hammer to cock and release, to strike the primer, to ignite the gun powder, to launch the round down the barrel. Once the slug was past the barrel James would be fine, but it took a fraction of a second to aim and fire a round, and at the speed he was going a fraction of a second was too long.

James came up on the creature and kicked him twice. The creature swung at him. James ducked under the swing easily and landed three quick open-palmed strikes to the creature's adam's apple. That seemed to stagger the beast but then, it could just be surprise that James wasn't where the creature expected him to be. By the time the creature was swinging around to retaliate James was well out of melee range, searching for something he could hit the creature with.

The Creature spotted him and charged toward him. James continued searching for 4 tenths of a second before he ran toward the creature, leaping in the air, flipping forward 270 degrees and planting both feet on the creature's chest with a jump kick. James went flying backwards as an equal and opposite reaction to the impact of the kick, recovered in the air and landed gracefully. He felt it in his feet though. He wouldn't be doing that again.

The creature staggered and fell to one knee. James smiled. Superpowers, monsters and everything else may be falling apart, but force still equaled mass times acceleration. James couldn't add mass to the equation, but acceleration was something he had a new affinity for. He probably had more acceleration than the creature had mass. Now he just needed to find something to hit the giant lizard crocodile man with.

Why were there no large stones in Manhatten?
 
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Venom snarled at the young woman who had stabbed and cut into his body, thankfully was his heightened regeneration doing quick work of the injuries but it still fucking hurt. He put a hand on the wild woman's head and growled out in a rumbling voice. "You think yourself a predator hunting its prey girl? Well we're no prey. Let's find out a bit more of our quarry." Thin tendrils emerged from his fingers as he grasped her forehead and he began to absorb part of her memories, intending to discover a weakness or a way to make her less of a would be beast.

What he found was... troubling. While he couldn't absorb her entire memories did he find out more then enough. This HYDRA was of the same filth as the people of Oscorp and the crime lords of the city. Looking at the girl with sympathy and respect Venom lowered his hand from her head and spoke up in a calm tone. "We can see you have more then enough pain in your memories then we could grant you now. We will forget your deeds of today. But we will act in defence of others and ourselves if you attempt to harm us or others. Hopefully we can cleanse the world of the living filth that has poisoned your mind and soul, this Kimura woman and the organization of HYDRA won't get away with their crimes."

Lowering the mutant gently to the ground Venom turned towards the battle field and with a casual wave of his left arm he crushed the neck of a rabid rabbit mutant attempting to bite down on his left side. Removing his tendrils from the woman Venom suddenly leaped forward.

A cat mutant got its neck snapped by a tendril as he rushed past it. When a tiger mutant tried to tear off his arm he speared its skull with a black spike from his side. Venom then leaped upwards and his entire body was covered in spikes which then exploded outwards with tendrils, spearing three fox mutants, one bear mutant and two dog mutants in four to eight places, killing them swiftly. Retracting his tendrils and spikes the vigilante landed on the back of a turtle mutant and with a swift jab of his knuckle split a spike into its skull.

Suddenly a group of canine, feline and insect mutants rushed him in a dog pile, biting, scratching and punching his body repeatedly. It lasted for around ten seconds before a mass of spikes split out of their bodies before emerging back, the corpses fell down bleeding variously coloured body fluids. Venom's badly scratched body emerged from the pile, his suit regenerating, but trails of red blood can be seen being absorbed by the suit before the scratches are sealed. While Venom regenerated his wounds he appeared to be breathing a bit heavily.

Turning to the side as a wolf tried to charge him he broke its neck with a sudden straight punch into the side of its skull. He then bull rushed four snake mutants and with spikes emerging from his shoulders split their bodies against a wall.

Then as a bull frog, with actual bull horns, came charging towards him Venom jumped up onto its back and pressed his hands over its eyes. The mutated animal roared out and attempted to buck off the symbiotic hero off by ramming into one of the walls. But Venom steered the mutant towards the hole in the floor and with a brutal twisting motion as he grasped its horns he snapped its neck and kicked himself off its back, causing the corpse to fall into the hole.

Turning towards the others Venom spoke up to Spiderman as he walked bath towards them. "We have an idea. We have a heightened regenerative power, even more powerful now that we have the power of Conners and the winged woman. We are not affected by the gas so it would be possible that our blood contains the antibodies needed to restore the animals. It won't cure Conners though, he was already mutated and has mutated even further, thus to consider him equally possible to cure of this additional mutation is not something we see as possible."
 
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With the ceiling crumbling down on top of the lizard creature it was pinned to the floor by the various desk chairs and other items that was on the floor above them. One thing he was glad for was that no one was above them to get hurt.

" Well I'll see you around lizard" Kris quickly said as he walked past the lizard, in retaliation it qouickly snapped at his legs in the hope it could make a meal out of his leg. Bending his knees kris quickly jumped upwards and landed on the next floor. He could see that X and the red and blue guy were fighting what once looked like a monkey before but now it seemed liked it was bigger near the size of a gorilla.\

Kris saw that the man with X threw what looked like a blue liquid in its face but it seemed like it did nothing at all.

" If i may make a suggestion " Kris quickly said as he approached the two of them, " if you can facilitate a gas compound of the cure it may work faster that that liquid or a shot" Kris added as he looked a the giant ape with what looked like a ax blade stuck in its arm.

From what he saw on the camera he saw that the giant lizard/Conners Sprayed what looked like a gas substance that enveloped the animal testing area which in turn mutated every animal in the area but left the humans alone for the most part.
 
"There would be a considerable risk in that method," Spider-Man replied to Venom. "Your blood might actually make them stronger or advance their mutations further." He then turned as Kris made a suggestion. "That's actually what I designed this bag of test tubes to do -- when the liquid inside is exposed to oxygen, it becomes a gas. The plan was to smash the tubes on the faces of the animals so that they would have no choice but to breathe it in as it became a gas -- the gas Conners used in the first place introduced the chemical to the animals' bloodstreams through the lungs. My serum was supposed to enter their system the same way and isolate the chemical compounds that mutated them. It didn't work though... I rushed through it, I must have slipped up somewhere..."

Peter looked down for a minute, and then his head shot back up. "Wait a sec... This serum may not change any of them back, but if enough of them are smashed at once, it might overwhelm their lungs enough to weaken them, if even for a few moments. I don't have enough vials for all the animals, but if I shattered all twenty-nine of them in Conners' face, it might knock him out for at least a few minutes. What do you think, Cap?"
 
"It sounds like as good a plan as any." He frowned for a moment. "My priority is still the rats though." He twisted and caught one by the throat slamming it against the wall. Do you have any idea the speed or volume that vermin breed at? That Dragon is a single issue, a big one mind you but if we can keep him from getting near any more of these chemicals we can track him down at our leisure." Isaiah paused realizing unfortunately a large part of that plan hinged on something. "He can't make more of that stuff can he? I mean without Oscorp facilities, chemicals center fusilages or electro magnetic microscopes? He does need a lot of squint gear to get this done right? We're not worried about him mixing up a batch to drop in Time Square, or the zoo?"

Mice and monkeys were proving difficult to kill and. . .he was pretty sure he'd seen Gannondorf try to kill that lovely redhaired kid who'd been puking her guts out earlier. Just the idea of gorillas, tigers and elephants on this stuff was enough that he was willing to take a moment of his time to listen.
 
"He's not making any more Oz in his current condition," Spider-Man explained. "The gas has advanced his mutation further and apparently driven him bat-shit crazy. The biggest risk right now is the damage he'll cause to property and life. This is New York City, there are a lot of people out even though it's night now. Not to mention any second we'll probably have SWAT teams and the National Guard swarming all over the place, and I doubt they are going to do anything but anger the Lizard further. I hate to say it. but we need to put him down as soon as possible by any means necessary. And I do mean any."
 
Captain X paused for a moment thinking about what the Luchadore was saying. "Demon, Claw Girl, Kris find a way to lock this place down. We can't let these animals get out into the wild." He tucked his axes back into their case. "Angel, Luchador you're with me." He paused. He really wanted to tell the kid that with great power came great responsibility but the truth was he didn't need to see beneath the mask to know just how upset he was.

"I can't promise anything but as long as we can keep him safe, away from people we can try this your way. Help me drive him towards Central Park. It may not be empty but it's where he'll do the least damage. Now lets get me down to the ground."

He was halfway to the door when he remembered the redheaded woman. "Hey Red, keep yourself safe and try not to let anything out of the building, if you think the rats are bad in here wait until one of those things crawls out of your toilet because that's exactly what'll happen if even one of them leaves the building." He unhooked one of his sword axes and and hurled it near her feet before looking out the window then back at his two compainions, he sure as fuck wasn't gonna jump.

"Oh and you three, try to catch ASAP." I'm not saying I can't take a one ton mutated dragon with help from a Mexican Wrestler and an Angel sent from heaven but it would make me feel a lot better not to find out if I can."
 
"Luchador?" Peter said, raising an eyebrow under his mask. "I've been going by Spider-Man, haha." He walked up next to Isaiah and looked out the window. "There are quite a few city blocks between here and the park. If we're going to try and draw him there, we need to do it fast. I could be bait -- piss him off, get him to chase me, and then make a beeline to our destination. Oh, by the way, you want a lift down?" Spidey asked as he shot a strand of web up to the top of the window frame.
 
"Spiderman." X smiled. "Oh, those are webs I guess if I'd looked at your chest I might have figured it out and yeah a little help getting down would be nice. As for the Dragon, lure him, drive him it doesn't matter. Protecting civilians is a bigger priority than taking that big thing down. I'd rather hunt him down later than deal with him in the middle of a crowd."
 
Nobody has a plan! These people are all crazy! The realization of just where she was somehow dawned on her as she was suspended from the ceiling, her legs on either wall and one hand around a sprinkler. She looked like something out of a spy cartoon because nobody could ever hold that position and she was doing it almost without trying. Mary could have stayed there all day if she'd wanted to.

How could any of these crazy people know why I'm here if I don't know? Why did I follow them? Oh God am I crazy too? The woman she'd been calling Knives came out of the ceiling and started stabbing that black ooze monster. Mary wasn't sure but she thought they were supposed to be on the same team. The monster seemed to agree and then X started barking orders and then he threw an axe thingy at her!

"Are you crazy?!" He didn't seem to be paying attention but he told her to kill rats with that absurdly heavy weapon. There was no way she could hope to. . .it was light as a feather and balanced just felt kinda right. When one of the rats came around a corner Mary stepped neatly to the side and sliced it in two.

Okay that felt strange. Good. But strange. When the next one came she smiled and rushed after it with a feral scream, the sword axe-amabob lifted over head in clutched in both hands. It must have known what it was in for because in the five minutes since she'd entered the building she hadn't been aware that they were even capable of feeling fear. She was nearly on top of it when she heard a grunt behind her, and a shadow.

"Damn pig."
 
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