Post by Stardrifter on Jan 30, 2015 22:52:36 GMT -5
by
Stardrifter
PREVIOUSLY IN THE SPECTACULAR SCARLET SPIDER!
A teenage boy with no memory of who he is is found running through the sewers under New York City. A flash of memory leads him to believe his name is Ben. He's taken in by a group of outcast mutants who live in the sewers known as the Morlocks, who believe his powers to mean he's a mutant like them. Their leader, Callisto, takes a liking to him. And good thing, since his normal appearance makes him a target for those Morlocks who hate "upworlders."
He also meets Marrow, a teenage girl in Callisto's care. She doesn't like Ben either. Doesn't seem fair, she hardly knows him! But then he doesn't know himself either.
A teenage boy with no memory of who he is is found running through the sewers under New York City. A flash of memory leads him to believe his name is Ben. He's taken in by a group of outcast mutants who live in the sewers known as the Morlocks, who believe his powers to mean he's a mutant like them. Their leader, Callisto, takes a liking to him. And good thing, since his normal appearance makes him a target for those Morlocks who hate "upworlders."
He also meets Marrow, a teenage girl in Callisto's care. She doesn't like Ben either. Doesn't seem fair, she hardly knows him! But then he doesn't know himself either.
#2 - Crawling Forward
He stands in front of his locker, head practically buried inside it, trying to breathe. He struggles to fight down his racing heart. Today is the day. He's going to ask. He knows he will.
He dares a glance at her. She's idly chatting with two of her friends across the hall. She runs a hand through her long blond hair and it sends shivers down his spine.
Another deep breath. Just breathe. If he can just breathe then he can ask. Being able to pass air through one's lips is the first step toward speaking.
Slapping himself on both sides of his face, he slams his locker shut and starts to walk toward her. He's still a few feet away when he begins to speak prematurely. "Uh, hey...um...Liz I..."
"BOOM!"
Suddenly he's on the floor. His ears are ringing from the impact but he can still hear the crowd of student gathering around him begin to laugh.
"You'll never make the football team with moves like that, runt!"
He knows that voice. It's a voice that's haunted him since kindergarten. For the first time in his entire life, that voice elicits more than just fear or insecurity. It brings anger.
"FLASH!" he roars, his voice cracking in the process. Leaping to his feet, he lunges for his aggressor, the crowd still laughing. He doesn't even see the fist coming straight toward his face.
Ben's eyes open and dart back and forth, looking for the fist he knows is coming for him. Only it's not there. The moldy ceiling of the sewer tunnel is all he can see.
"Another nightmare, Benji?"
A sharp intake of air fills Ben's lungs as he suddenly realizes he was holding his breath. It snaps him out of the last remnants of his dream and he looks over at Marrow. She's relaxed on the floor across from him, her back resting on an overturned wheelbarrow, staring at him.
"You could call it that," Ben whispers as he sits up. He tries to ignore Marrow's eyes on him. In the week since he's been with the Morlocks, he's found one of Marrow's favorite pastimes is watching him. Whether he's awake or asleep, he can feel her eyes on him whenever she's around. If he had to hazard a guess, he'd say it's probably what an animal feels like when a lion is stalking it.
"That's all but one night now," Marrow remarks, her voice filled with derision rather than concern. "I'm starting to think you might need your head examined."
Ben grabs his sleeveless blue hoodie and throws it on, raising the hood to cover his head. Ignoring her snark filled laughter, Ben stands up and walks away. After repeated attempts to get on to her good side, Ben's come to the ultimate conclusion that Marrow simply doesn't have a good side. Ignoring her is the only logical conclusion.
Still she does have a point. Except for the day before, after Ben helped Callisto and a small group of Morlocks raid a local drug store for supplies, he hasn't had a single day of good sleep. He would have thought it would be the opposite. That the act of theft from the innocent would keep him up from guilt. Instead he found himself overcome with joy at the fresh food and excited by the danger. It only serves to make Ben doubt the kind of person he must have been before now.
As he walks amongst the Morlocks he finds many of them bustling about with activity. He pulls a plastic digital watch out of his pocket. The front is a stylized golden wolf head with "The Pack" written under the clock. It reads 6:43 PM.
It didn't take long for Ben to fall into the nocturnal habits of the Morlocks. Not that there's any difference between day or night here in the sewer, but night time is when they're most active. The cover of darkness makes their forays to the surface safer. Not everyone goes, many too traumatized to return to the surface world. Others come and go as they please, doing who knows what on the surface. As long as no one leads any trouble back to the group, Callisto and the others don't usually ask any questions.
"Hey Ben!" a young girl with gray, rock covered skin shouts at him. "Razor and I are going to sneak into a movie. You want to come?"
"No thanks, Shale," Ben smiles at the teen. She was one of the many from the group who raided the drug store and has become attached since he carried her up the side of a building in order to evade the police. "I'm gonna stay in tonight."
She frowns as she runs a hand over her bald, rocky head. "You'll never remember anything by staying cooped up down here."
"Maybe you're right," Ben sighs, patting her on the shoulder as he walks off. "I'll work on it."
Eventually Ben makes his way to the food stores for the community. He pokes around the various crates, boxes, and bags looking for something appetizing. He settles for a bruised but otherwise tasty looking apple and takes a bite. As he chews he sees the area mostly cleared out. In the far corner he sees a young, green skinned boy sitting by himself, kicking a stick in his hand, and heads toward him.
"How ya doing, Leech?" Ben asks in a playful voice, rubbing the boys bald head.
"Fine." Leech swats at Ben's hands. He laughs despite his annoyance. "How are you, friend Ben?"
"Oh you know. Another night in the sewers." Ben kneels down next to Leech and moves to whisper in his ear. "I was thinking about going on a hunt. You know, for the legendary alligators. Interested?"
"There are no alligators! Silly!" Despite his protest, Leech raises a finger to his lips and looks upward in thought. "Well...except maybe that one time..."
"Uh huh," Ben rolls his eyes. It makes him happy to see Leech smile. When he first met him a couple days ago, he was shocked to see most of the Morlocks avoid him like the plague. When he asked around he learned that beyond the ten year old's pupilless eyes and hairless green skin, he emitted a small field about five feet around that dampened the powers of any mutant. Most of the Morlocks hated him, as he made them feel week when he was near. A select few others had to be kept away, their desire to be normal causing them to try to stay near him at all times. It all seemed silly to Ben. He never felt any different around the boy.
"Would you like to play a game?" Leech asks, excited. "Friend Callisto has been teaching me chess."
"Sounds great."
Leech leads Ben over to his sleeping area and pulls out a chess board. He sets it on top of a wooden crate and sits down, putting all of the pieces in place. The pieces vary in size and style, obviously cobbled together from various sets to make one whole.
Ben lets Leech go first, moving his white knight out. Ben follows by advancing his pawn. "It's so strange," he muses out loud.
"Strange?" Leech asks, confused.
"This half-assed memory of mine. I mean, I can't remember anything about my life but I know chess? And I know it well. Like, really well."
"Obviously you had a privileged life," Marrow snipes as she walks up. She makes a point to stand next to Ben and at a distance from Leech. "You could waste your time on pointless kids games rather than important things."
"Like social skills?" Ben jokes without looking over, instead moving his bishop out to take one of Leech's pawns.
"Like how to survive," Marrow says in a deep, even tone. She reaches down and snatches one of his rooks off the board. "How to fight."
"Chess can help you learn to fight," Ben barks back, reaching out for his piece. Marrow lifts her hand up out of his grasp like a child trying to keep her toy. "It's about strategy and critical thinking. Outwitting your opponent."
"Then you must be a crappy player," Marrow laughs. "You need to have wits to outwit someone else."
Ben reaches for his rook and Marrow lifts it up again. She smiles sadistically, the same kind of smile he saw in his dream. The smile of a bully.
Without thinking, Ben reaches down and grabs her ankle, yanking up and causing Marrow to tumble back. As she falls, he realizes she's going to land on the hard concrete and slides over, positioning himself so she falls into his outstretched arm and across his lap. With his other hands he pries her fingers open and takes the rook before she even knows what happened.
"No wits, huh?" Ben smiles.
"Get off me!" Marrow shouts loud enough to draw eyes. She pushes Ben back and scrambles to her feet, embarrassed by both his success and the awkward position she was in.
Ben, now finding himself equally embarrassed by the people staring, meekly slides back over to the chess board and motions for Leech to take his turn.
"Marrow!" a young woman shouts while running up. "It's time."
Ben's mouth drops open. The woman is thin. Not malnourished thin, but almost two dimensional thin. Her hair and skin are striped with every color of the rainbow.
"I know, Tommy," Marrow grumbles. She stands up and Tommy leans in to whisper some more into her ear.
"Friend Ben?" Leech asks, trying to get Ben's attention.
Ben doesn't hear him, instead focusing on Marrow and Tommy. Once he gets over his initial shock at her appearance, he can sense something is off. After Tommy is done whispering, they both look around, scanning the room, and then head off toward one of the exit tunnels. They slink off, trying hard to not look like they're trying hard not to be noticed.
"Friend Ben?"
"Sorry buddy," Ben says as he leaps to his feet. "I'm gonna have to take a raincheck. I got a feeling..." He doesn't wait for a reply or even look back, instead he heads off in quiet pursuit of Marrow.
****
Sweat drips down Alistair's brow, heading for his eyes. He ignores it, unable to lose his focus or the entire procedure is ruined. He can feel the sweat running through his eyebrows. Just as it starts to become a distraction, his assistant reaches up and wipes his brow.
"All right," Alistair whispers to himself, his voice muffled by the surgical mask. He stares down at the exposed brain before him, keeping his hands as steady as possible. With one hand he folds back a section of the brain, revealing the metallic device underneath. With his other hand he reaches his tool in and finishes the last connection.
"How are we doing, Ron?" Alistair asks.
"Two minutes," his assistant says. The young man's voice quivers in excitement and fear. Every time they have gotten this far before it has ended in failure. The brain just isn't equipped to handle this kind of stimulus. Most of the previous subjects died almost instantly. He shudders at the horrific memory of those who didn't.
"Almost done," Alistair says, quickly placing the brain back in place and cleaning it up. "Get ready to activate."
"Yes sir."
"It's going to work," Alistair says to himself. "It has to work."
This latest iteration of the control device was his greatest chance yet. Despite his father's anger at the previous failures, each one had given him more knowledge than he had before. So what if a few homeless mutants had to die. They were giving their lives to a greater cause.
"Ready, sir," Ron says, his hands shaking over the keyboard of the nearby computer.
"Activate!" Alistair's heart is beating so fast he barely hears himself.
Ron types the command out on the keyboard. There's a soft pop inside of the patient's brain. Both men hold their breath in anticipation.
"C'mon!" Alistair shouts, clenching his fists at his aides. "Work damn you!"
"BOOT UP IN PROGRESSSS."
Alistair's eyes light up. He looks at Ron, who is equally shocked and elated.
"SSSYSSSTEM ACTIVE. AWAITING INSSSTRUCTIONSSS."
"Ah ha!" Alistair slams his fist on the tray next to him, sending his surgical instruments flying. "Finally! I knew it would work!"
"Amazing sir," Ron slaps Alistair on the back. "You were right. You did it."
"The X-Gene is the key! It's malleability allows the brain to adapt to the implants!"
"AWAITING INSSSTRUCTIONSSS."
Trying to calm down, Alistair coughs and gathers himself. "Stand by. Await repair and additions."
"SSSTANDING BY."
"That lisp is going to be annoying," Alistair mumbles, looking about for his instruments. "Dammit. Get a sterile set."
"Yes sir." Ron heads over to a nearby metal cabinet. "And the lisp can't be helped. It's physical. Unless we replace his jaw and tongue."
"No, no I'll deal with it. His scales are going to make the standard cybernetics a pain as it is. Now that we have the sequence right, we need to get some fresh mutants."
"Sir," Ron begins as he hands Alistair his first instrument, "it was a success. Shouldn't we tell your father? So he can report it to Mr..."
A sharp look from Alistair silences his assistant. "My father is a weak old man. He'll order us to stop and wait while he reports to Xanatos, who will then swoop in here, take all our data, the credit, and the profits. This is my project! My work! And I'm going to see it through."
Ron can only nod in response, unable to look away from the intensity in Alistair's eyes.
"Send out the retrieval squad. Get me some more bodies. Then start on his arms. We have work to do."
****
Something's not right. Ben doesn't know why he feels this way. Just something about the exchange between Marrow and Tommy. A bad feeling. Instinct perhaps? Instinct relies on experience and that's one thing Ben doesn't have.
Nevertheless he trusts his feelings and stays close behind the two women. It's a difficult task, they know these sewers like the back of their hand and know how to move fast in them. Ben uses his one advantage and climbs along the ceiling, avoiding the constantly changing water level and any other impediments on the floor.
It's about twenty minutes before they reach their destination. A small junction room with large drain pipes running in every direction. Ben stays back in the next room, peering down through the tunnel to see what's going on.
Marrow and Tommy meet up with three other men. They all gather close, eyeing every shadow as if death itself might jump out at them.
"Thank you all for coming," says a tall, dark skinned man. His head is bald save for one section of white hair on the top that is braided and hangs down to his shoulder. "I wish we could have gotten more."
"Most of the other's don't have the guts, Maggott," Marrow spits. "They're all happy to sit back in their sewers and die, for all anyone cares. I'm sick of this shit."
"We all are, girl," Maggott says, placing a hand on her shoulder. She accepts it for a moment before shrugging it off.
"So what are we gon' do about it?" shouts a large, gray skinned man. He wears nothing save for a tattered pair of jeans. There isn't a hair on his body and large spikes protrude out of his back and arms. "I've heard yo' talk before, Maggott. You too, Marrow. It's all talk. Always talk."
"Hemingway's right," the last man says. He's scrawny and thin, a fact accentuated by his gray hair being spiked straight up for about a foot. He has an eyepatch over his right eye. "We meet. We talk. We part. I think you just like the sound of your own voice."
"Shut up, Erg," Marrow sighs, accustomed to his nonsense.
"Look, we ain't talking any more," Maggott says, swinging his hand for emphasis. "We gonna hit the upworlders. Hit them hard. And we gonna show 'em they can't keep treating us like dirt and not pay for it." Maggott takes a deep breath before continuing. "But we gotta do this smart. The other Morlocks are scared. They're so beaten down that they don' know what it's like to fight anymore."
"Still just hearing talk," Erg says, crossing his arms and looking away. "I don't got time for this bullshit."
Suddenly Marrow rips a bone out of her arm and jabs the point up to Erg's neck. "Will. You. Shut. UP!"
"Stop it!" Tommy shouts as the edges of Erg's eyepatch begin to glow. "The upworlders are our enemy!"
"You got a plan Erg?" Hemingway asks. He waits for a response, but all Erg does is stare at Marrow. "Thought so."
"I get that you frustrated, man," Maggott says, placing a hand on his and Marrow's shoulders to gently move them apart. "And I do have a plan. We all gonna volunteer for the next food run. While we're up there and have other Morlocks to see, we're gonna attack."
"Attack what?" Tommy asks, her tone unsure.
"I don know. A restaurant. A store. Something full of humans. We'll show em we can fight back!"
It's all Ben needs to hear. He starts to back away slowly. He needs to get to Callisto and tell her what's going on. Once he's back a ways, he turns around on the ceiling and moves off in a hurry.
Before he gets very far, Ben's ears start to ring. The now familiar danger sense seems to be indicating something on the ceiling he's climbing on. He stretches his arms out to look at it, only to see Tommy seemingly materialize under him. Her hands fly out from the stone ceiling and push Ben in the chest, knocking him onto the floor.
"What...the hell?" Ben says in between coughs of sewer water.
"Not as stealthy as ya think, eh?" Erg laughs from down the tunnel. He raises a hand to his eyepatch and flips it up. Electricity flashes from out of his eye, striking the water. It's only due to Ben's danger sense and his incredible reflexes that he leaps out of the water and lands on the tunnel wall.
"Why were you spying on us?" Tommy asks, her two dimensional form sliding down the wall opposite him.
"I wasn't spying!" Ben shouts reflexively in defense. "Okay, well yeah I was spying! But only cause you and Marrow were acting all shady! And I was right!"
"How's it feel to be right? Worth dying for?"
Ben turns to see Hemingway barreling down the tunnel. The seven foot mutant seems to grow with every stride, until his hulking form is just short of the ceiling. He swings his massive fist at Ben, who dodges just in time. The tunnel shakes and the wall cracks from the impact.
With an unnatural fluidity of movement, Ben pushes off from the wall and flies through the air toward Hemingway. He soars over Hemingway's head, slamming his fist down onto his forehead, and then flips over and kicks with both feet into Hemingway's back. The giant stumbles forward and falls face first into the sewer muck, while Ben effortlessly sticks his hands to the ceiling and pulls his body up.
"I guess we know 'For Whom the Bell Tolls,' eh Hemingway?" Ben quips. The giant mutant simply growls as he lurches to his feet. Tommy gives him a confused look, so Ben looks back down the tunnel at Erg, who is equally confused. "For Whom the Bell...Hemingway? Ernest? God why do I bother?"
The air begins to crackle as Erg fires off more electric blasts. Ben dodges each one, leaping from wall to wall. Hemingway grows a bone spike out of the back of his fist and tries to skewer Ben. He misses, slamming the bone spike into the wall, which Ben then grabs and swings around like a gymnast. He kicks his feet into Hemingway's face on one swing, then uses his momentum from the next to fly down the tunnel toward Erg. He collides with the spiky haired man shoulder first, knocking the wind out of Erg.
"You guys fight like..." Ben grows quiet when his danger sense goes off again. He turns to find Maggott standing behind him with his shirt lifted up. Suddenly the most grotesque sound echoes through the tunnel as two dark blue slug creatures fly out from his abdomen.
Ben swats one aside but the other latches on to his left forearm. It's three ruby colored eyes glow as Ben's shirt begins to disintegrate beneath it's pincers. Ben waves his arm around like a man on fire, until he finally has to slam it into the wall to get the slug off. A red welt forms under the hole in his shirt.
"You betta not have hurt Eeny!" Maggott shouts, tackling Ben to the ground. Maggott's skin has turned indigo and he seems bigger and more muscular than Ben remembers.
The two roll around through the disgusting sewer garbage. Maggott gets on top for a moment and is able to land two solid punches into Ben's face, grinding his head into the concrete. With little choice, Ben throws fairplay to the wind and slams his knee into Maggott's crotch. He shuts his eyes and squeals in pain, allowing Ben to kick him off and regain his feet.
"Guys what the fuck are you doing?" Marrow shouts, trying to get everyone to focus on her.
"This punk ees'dropped on us!" Hemingway shouts, ready to attack but holding himself back due to Marrow's interruption.
"He'll...tell..." Maggott struggles to speak while curled up in a ball. "He'll tell...Callisto..."
"So we're gonna do what? Kill him?" Marrow says, disgusted. "One of us?"
"He ain't one of us!" Erg argues. "He's a pretty!"
"He's a mutant!" Marrow counters. "I thought humans were our enemy?"
"Marrow," Tommy says, popping off of the wall and placing a hand on her friend's shoulder. "What is this? I thought you hated him?"
"Well I do," Marrow replies, shrugging Tommy's hand off her shoulder. "But Benji ain't our enemy. He's just...a loser."
"Your master plan to get back at the humans is to attack an, 'I don't know. A restaurant. A store,' and I'm the one whose a loser?" Ben asks. "You guys are like, the lamest super villains I've ever heard of!"
"Villains?" Maggott shouts, rage in his voice, as he finally gets to his feet. His skin turns back to normal and the two slugs arrive by his feet. "You call us villains for sticking up for mutants?"
"I call anyone who plans to attack innocents villains."
"No one up there innocent! All tha' humans are responsible! Responsible for us bei..."
Maggott suddenly stops as a strange sound echoes all around them. It's distant and hard to discern. They all turn their heads, confused at the almost rhythmic, popping sounds. Eventually it dawns on Ben.
"Gunfire!"
"The others!" Marrow sprints off down the tunnel back toward the Morlocks' home. Ben and the others quickly follow behind.
-To Be Concluded-