Preparations

[webslingah.livejournal.com]

Elsewhere in the rebel lair, Peter Parker prepares for the final push. New, darker tints are being applied to protective goggles. A special batch of web-fluid was simmering over a makeshift burner. He pulls out a dusty old box, sliding the locks open - a costume, free of the wear and tear that his current one has. He's been saving it for just such an occasion.

Peter's mind wanders back to New York, before the real trouble came to town. For Silver, this skirmish was about survival - every fight, every vampire kill. She did it cleanly and efficiently. Simple survival. Survival wasn't Peter's concern - certainly, he'd taken a few injuries in the fighting, but if all he required was his own survival, none of the vampires would catch him. Spider-agility and a danger sense make it pretty easy to protect oneself.

Unfortunately, it sometimes isn't enough to protect others. Aunt May. Gwen. And now Dani, and Sooraya. Every time he's been hurt fighting a vampire, it's been while protecting someone else. And once, that might've been his whole motivation. With great power, comes great responsibility, after all.

But Peter doesn't fight for survival, or to protect others. He didn't concern himself with killing vampires efficiently. The new webbing laced with holy water to make them burn. The old spider-signal belt light modified to cast a 100,000 candlepower cross. He'd even concocted a facsimile of Greek Fire - the ancient world's napalm. He likes to make the vampires suffer before they go. He's even conducted a few experiments. His favorite, so far, was one he has enacted a few times at a particular rock outcropping. It blocks the morning sun, but as noon approaches, its shadow grows shorter and shorter. A handful of lesser vampires had been staked behind that rock in the last few years.

They didn't usually crumble completely into dust until the sun had disintegrated everything below the ribcage. The arms and legs and the lower torso were apparently not fatal losses for the creatures. It's a little bit revenge, and a little bit science. Peter doesn't care enough, anymore, to distinguish between the two.

But sometimes, right around noon, he misses his camera.

Comments

[spidey2099.livejournal.com]

He's followed the other Spider-Man at a discreet distance.

There's something unsettling about meeting the guy whose legacy you are carrying on (or whose schtick you are shamelessly co-opting).

He stands in the doorway of the makeshift laboratory he's working in, thankful to see there's at least SOME sort of science being practiced here.

He knocks politely on the doorframe.

[webslingah.livejournal.com]

He's lost deeply in thought, so it takes the sound a moment to register.

"Ah, come on in. Just finishing preparations for the big push.."

[spidey2099.livejournal.com]

"I noticed," he says, quietly, as he steps in.

"Is there anything I can help with? I never got below an A in any of my classes... well, there was penmanship when I was seven, but you'd be surprised how rarely you ever actually have to write the language anymore in the 2070s."

[webslingah.livejournal.com]

Peter thinks on that a moment. "I don't think any of the concoctions need tending at the moment, but if you wouldn't mind, I'd like to hear about this parallel Earth thing. I've studying the Einstein equations, so I understand that its possible, but.."

[spidey2099.livejournal.com]

He finds himself a seat.

Making sure he's not facing the doorway.

Then, with a sigh, he finally takes his mask off. Rubbing his eyes. Really tired of wearing the thing.

If he can't trust the originator, who can he trust?

"Honestly, the science behind this seems shaky at best. It was never my field - I'm in genetics, biological process, enhancements, et cetera. The most annoying man I've ever had the misfortune of having to call a colleague was working on dimensional physics, so I made a point to sneer at it out of spite."

A deep breath.

"Then came this little Timebroker guy, who has quickly taken Jordan Boone's place as the most annoying dimensional physicist ever. He's the one who just plucked us out of our various realities and forced us to do his dirty work."

[webslingah.livejournal.com]

"The pasty kid mentioned something about you fixing broken worlds. Had a lot of experience with it so far? I'm guessing not - no offense, but you folks aren't really working like a well-oiled team.."

[spidey2099.livejournal.com]

"Not at all. This is the second place we've been. The first one was a godawful technicolor nightmare, but I... think we pulled it off."

He rubs his face again.

"The pasty kid is about the only one worth a damn on the team so far. I hate Mystique, Nocturne's distant and uninvolved, and Morph makes puns, for shock's sake. If you've got any oil, we could sure use it."

[webslingah.livejournal.com]

"Actually, I meant the punster when I said the pasty kid.. sleeping beauty has the Hammer of Thor and the shield of Captain America, though - I imagine she is an asset. As for oil - well, the best man to ask about throwing a bunch of random people together and making them get along enough to get the job done would be Doc Strange.."

Peter rubs his chin thoughtfully. "Say, you mentioned being from the 2070's - you're not my grandson, or anything, are you?"

[spidey2099.livejournal.com]

Right. Sarah's just pale. About as white as you can get without being Morph.

"Not as far as I know. You don't strike me as Irish or Mexican." Still hesitant on giving the real name... paranoid. Yeah.

"But Crusader says she's the daughter of Captain America... who was just made president in 2099 before I got pulled here. Suppose they really needed a flashy successor to President Doom."

He stretches his neck. "And I'm sorry, but the only Stephen Strange I know is an greasy degenerate with a predilection for hookers and goats. Not exactly someone we're gonna trust to whip us into fighting shape."

[webslingah.livejournal.com]

"The Parker bloodline's pretty WASP-y, but a lot can happen in a century or so.."

He mulls over the comment about Strange - he's not quite as defensive about the man's reputation as, say, Bobby. "Here, he's a good guy - one of the best, and a big reason that most of us are still alive. That there was such a different version of him where you came from - indicates to me that there are a lot of very different Earths out there. Each person from your team is from a different place?"

[spidey2099.livejournal.com]

He nods. Deeply disturbed once again at how different things are.

"Yeah. Sarah's from some world where everyone from the Heroic Age was taken to some planet and forced to fight, and never got home until recently... and apparently the world had been taken over by evil death robots. Sentinels, they were called. Nocturne and Morph are from similar, but different happy Heroic Ages. Mystique... some joker named Magneto rules the world."

[webslingah.livejournal.com]

He nods, soaking all the information in. "That's.. that's good. It's reassuring to know there are worlds where this didn't happen. I lost some people very close to me, in New York.. I'm glad to know that somewhere, Gwen and Aunt May are okay, even if they're not the same as I remember them."

[spidey2099.livejournal.com]

Never thought this little curse could be considered good tidings, but... any port in a storm.

"Were... I..." he starts. Not sure why he's here right now. Something's compelled him.

"Did you start doing this before the vampires came?" he asks, lifting his mask.

[webslingah.livejournal.com]

"They'd surfaced elsewhere. Not in the States - at least, not that we were aware of. The U.S. pumped a lot of resources into locking down the borders, making sure to keep out anyone infected.. but they can only do so much."

"The theory is that it came in the country with Charles Xavier, or one of his retinue - since the disease seems to affect mutants, mainly, he'd been travelling abroad, trying to investigate, to save uninfected mutants.. "

[spidey2099.livejournal.com]

That wasn't really his question, but maybe he was trying to deflect it for good reason.

"So, it's a viral thing, vampirism? Seems to me if that's the case, there should be a way to cure it medically."

Then he remembers where he is.

"Unless, of course, it's all magic."

[webslingah.livejournal.com]

Peter rubs his eyes, and then shrugs. "You know, that's never been quite clear - Reed Richards was working on that angle, but I don't even know if he successfully evacuated when the Baxter Building was overrun. Some of the team, did, but there's been no further contact.. I'm handy with a test tube, but with my abilities, I was of more use on the street, and then suddenly I didn't have access to a real lab anymore."

[spidey2099.livejournal.com]

He blinks slightly, thinking. Reed Richards. Seems he's an ubergenius in EVERYBODY'S reality.

"Do you happen to have a DNA sample I could look at? Maybe there's a reason we don't have any vampires in 2099..."

[webslingah.livejournal.com]

"Samples, I have. From a few of the infected, from many of us here who are uninfected.. what I lack is sophisticated diagnostic equipment to sequence the samples or compare them to a genome map."

He gestures to a small case. "I keep the vampires' samples to test different countermeasures.."

[spidey2099.livejournal.com]

He heads toward the case, driven with purpose. Hoping that his background in science might actually come in handy...

[spidey2099.livejournal.com]

... and suddenly, there's a glowing, angelic image not unlike Marilyn Monroe standing in the center of the room.

"How can I help you, Spider-Man?"

[webslingah.livejournal.com]

"Whoa. That.. she seems handy to have around."

[spidey2099.livejournal.com]

"That she is, and I'm sure she knows it, too."

Then, he finally looks up at her. "Lyla, can you access the human DNA sequencing data, and the human genome maps? They should be in the fifth sub-folder in the alterations directory."

A beat.

"And, if there's any chance you've got any data about vampirism tucked away anywhere in your database, pull that up, too."

He doubts it, but he's been surprised by what she has access to before.

[spidey2099.livejournal.com]

"Certainly, Spider-Man. Estimated time, twelve seconds. Would you like to hear about the last banana bread recipes I downloaded before my worldnet access was eliminated?"

[spidey2099.livejournal.com]

"No, thank you, Lyla."

[webslingah.livejournal.com]

"Database, huh? What's her capacity?"

[spidey2099.livejournal.com]

"Honestly, I don't know anymore. Advertising now is beyond duplicitous, so there is no trusting anything in the promised schematics. Not to mention that she's been irrevocably altered by my techmonkey girl - ex-girlfriend in ways she refuses to tell me, since she understands how these holoagents work and I'm still fuzzy on the details."

[webslingah.livejournal.com]

"Pretty impressive technology. Any idea how you folks move from world to world?"

[spidey2099.livejournal.com]

There's suddenly a holographic keyboard/monitor interface and microscopic simulator next to him as well, as he pulls the samples from the case and starts to examine them. Fairly obvious that Lyla has served this sort of function before.

"If I knew, I could work on counteracting it and teaching this Timebroker a thing or two. We get thrown somewhere, get a frustratingly cryptic clue on what the shock we have to do, and we're left to fumble around blindly until we figure out what particular malady is affecting the planet. Hardly efficient, and it really makes me twitch."

[webslingah.livejournal.com]

He peers at the monitor display. "Cryptic clues and dealing in riddles? Almost sounds like magic, or the guy only has that vague an idea of what to do himself. What was the riddle this time?"

[spidey2099.livejournal.com]

"'Light The Storm Queen's Darkness,'" comes the terse response. "Whether it means shine a light on her until she fries, or give her a pony like she wanted on her sixth birthday so she finally cracks a smile, or change a light bulb in her kitchen, your guess is as good as mine. I'm leaning towards the first one, though, because vampires are - "

He stops cold as he's looking through the microscope.

" - really, really genetically strange."

[webslingah.livejournal.com]

"To what degree? Are we talking 'Alabama family reunion' strange, or 'How the hell is that happening' strange?"

[spidey2099.livejournal.com]

A very slight smirk.

"A bit of both, actually. Essentially undead, so it doesn't look particularly healthy... but there are some strangely inexplicable things going on here..."

He switches the view to the main monitor display, so Peter can see it as well, the standard genome next to it for comparison.

[webslingah.livejournal.com]

Peter nods as he studies the samples. "Well, since we have your portable lab, let's try a few things and see how the altered genetics react. Silver, Garlic, Holy Water - those are the traditional anti-vampire substances.."

[spidey2099.livejournal.com]

Silver, he can see. Garlic... far-fetched.

But he turns to regard the other Spider-Man.

"You actually put stock in 'holy water'?"

[webslingah.livejournal.com]

"Scientific method - it works. Burns them like acid."

[spidey2099.livejournal.com]

He squints slightly.

"Scientifically, how does it differ from straight H20?"

[webslingah.livejournal.com]

Peter grins a little. His initial reaction wasn't very different. "I didn't say the behavior was scientific. I verified it with the scientific method. Hypothesis, Experiment, Observation. Like it or not, there's a metaphysical component."

[spidey2099.livejournal.com]

"Put me in the like it not camp."

Then he takes another look at the DNA sample.

"Can you get me a sample of holy water molecules to look at? If it affects them that much... maybe we can watch the reactions and get some understanding of why this is so weird."

[webslingah.livejournal.com]

Peter picks up a vial and tosses it towards Miguel, trusting the man's spider-like reflexes. "Heads up."

[spidey2099.livejournal.com]

He almost doesn't even have to look to catch it.

He puts it on the table, next to the DNA sample, then nods to Lyla, who smiles and giggles slightly at him before she begins the processing.

"Metaphysics. Such a subjective crock."

[webslingah.livejournal.com]

"I understand where you're coming form, but apparently, magic does work. And maybe there are rational, orderly rules to it that we just can't perceive.. maybe it's all just science obfuscated by Clarke's Law."

[spidey2099.livejournal.com]

He gives Parker a long, surly look. The look you give a guy when he's right and you know it.

"You've been doing this too long. Let's take this out of Clarke's purview."

[webslingah.livejournal.com]

There's just a hint of a smirk. "Lead the way, Future-Boy."