“Are we There Yet”
Page 1: Kraven stands in front of the shattered containment stand facing the group. Both mouths are drooling. He says “We only need Cross to lead us to our children. The rest of you are prey.” Feral tries to talk to him, calling him “Sergei”. Nightshade is loading an injector but her hands are shaking. Bob has wet himself. Kraven grabs Crossfire by the neck. Crossfire shoots him to no effect.
Page 2: Single panel of Siryn screaming briefly. The symbiote goes wild before retreating into Kraven as he falls over unconscious. As soon as Crossfire is breathing, he aims at Kraven’s head. Feral grabs his hand to stop him. She asks Nightshade if there is a way to separate them. Nightshade says there’s no chemical antidote (beyond fatally poisoning the host), but more hypersonics should do the trick if he’s strong enough to survive. Everyone stands back as Siryn prepares to scream again, but Kraven says “no”.
Page 3: He stands up, looking like normal Kraven. He says he has the “beast” under control. Nightshade wants to separate them anyway, and Crossfire still hasn’t stopped pointing his gun at Kraven. Mockingbird’s voice comes through to Crossfire, telling him to stand down. Feral asks Kraven how they can trust it’s him talking. He tells her “The best and I are both hunters. But it’s a dire, wild thing without the patience for deception.” Mockingbird tells Crossfire that a Symbiote on their team is useful for now. Plus, if they don’t manage to kill the alien fast enough, it might jump to another host. What if it gets Siryn and there’s nobody to scream at it. Or worse, what if it gets Scarecrow.
Page 4: Lockdown alarms start sounding, and Nightshade asks if it’s the law or the cult. Crossfire says “who cares”. A 10-man armored SHIELD team runs through the door after a flash grenade thrown in, but it doesn’t seem to disorient any of them. Bob is up and around again, and shoots at the agents. Scarecrow attacks them one by one, Nigthshade and Crossfire take cover. Kraven joins the fight, and doesn’t turn back into symbiotic form, but his daggers and bolos are made of black goo. Siryn is punching a far wall down for an escape route.
Crossfire shouts asking if they look legit. Bob asks how they can tell. Crossfire says “well are they missing eyes?!” Scarecrow bites one on the face and says “This guy is!”
Page 5: Siryn breaks through the wall, and tells everyone to get their heads down. She screams at the remaining assailants but they don’t fall. “Well, crap. They were ready for the Morrigan?” She disappears in a cloud of black smoke. Crossfire and Nightshade stand up & start shooting along with Bob and they back through the hole in the wall and run.
Page 6: Topside, they find their van on fire. And the SHIELD-gear team isn’t far behind. Crossfire tells them all to split up, each steal a car and rendezvous outside the city. But Kraven, Nightshade and Bob tell him they don’t know how to hotwire a car, so it will have to be in groups of 2. Crossfire is too bemused by this to argue. Scarecrow is already carjacking a college student, and says “Who’s riding with me?” Nightshade decides she’ll go with Crossfire and Bob.
Page 7: Feral and Kraven. Feral brings up what he said about his kids. Kraven tells her about how he died, and he was finally at peace until Ana and his family brought him back. None of the Kravinovs get to die. She asks what makes him think Crossfire can kill them if The Hunter couldn’t. He says it’s either faith or desperation.
Page 8: Feral tells Kraven they should both probably forget about their families and be happier for it. Kraven says that’s good advice. Then says they should have sex. Feral asks him if that’s a weird jungle mating thing or if he’s really thought this through. Before he can answer she declines. At least until the Symbiote isn’t in the mix.
Page 9: In a sedan Crossfire, Bob and Nightshade are weighing out loyalty against survival. Bob says Kraven’s a Symbiote, Siryn pops in and out on a whim and Scarecrow wants to murder them all for fun. Nightshade agrees, and says that whatever enemy they’re supposed to fight is less dangerous than staying together, even for $5 million. Bob looks at Crossfire in the driver’s seat. “You’re paying her FIVE?” Crossfire smiles and tells Bob “It’s the Order of the Day”. Nigthshade has no idea what that means, but it seems to calm Bob down.
Page 10: Crossfire’s car stops to doge a column of fire. Coming from the air, they’re being attacked by Nick Fury with a jetpack and a flamethrower. Bob is the first to return fire, screaming about “New World Order Scum!”
Page 11: Feral and Kraven are also under attack. Their car is rammed by an armored sky cycle, piloted by Nick Fury. They both jump out the windows as the sky cycle fires an energy cannon at the car. Feral jumps onto the cycle to fight Fury, and Kraven runs to the remains of the car.
Page 12: Crossfire, Nightshade and Bob are inside the first floor of a building they’ve broken into for cover. They’re still under assault by flamethrower, and Nightshade is spraying a foam to extinguish it when it gets too close. Crossfire is asking how and why they’re facing Nick Fury over comms, but Mockingbird doesn’t answer. Nightshade gets sight of him and sprays Fury with some of the foam. She tells Bob and Crossfire it’s an LMD: That “Fire Extinguisher” was also a bio-solvent that would have melted the real Nick Fury in seconds.
Page 13: The Sky Cycle Fury shakes Feral off. Kraven has pulled a rifle out of the trunk and shoots at him, but the Sky Cycle has a force field that deflects the bullet back at Kraven. When he’s hit, the symbiote flows out of the wound and covers him again. His arm stretches out and grabs the Cycle, flipping it over and knocking Fury to the ground. Feral jumps on him with her claws out. She starts to ask him why SHIELD is after them, until Kraven bites Fury’s torso. He chews a couple times, and spits out organs that aren’t the stereotypical sparking robotic wires, but are still clearly artificial.
Page 14: Crossfire gets in contact with Feral to tell her they were attacked by a Nick Fury LMD. She says they were too. Kraven screams that Cross betrayed “us” and they would eat him and Mockingbird, but he catches himself and forces the Symbiote back down. Feral says they need to find out how this SHIELD cult is tracking them, and if it turns out Cross betrayed them, she actually will eat him.
Page 15: On Crossfire’s side, he’s still trying to contact Mockingbird. He asks if there are any leads about where Fury’s people are. Siryn appears and says “Park Avenue”. He’s not even surprised by her sudden materializing, just asks how she knows. Siryn tells him that She’s been to his office, and Mockingbird knows where it is too. The others hear this and get annoyed. Bob asks why they’ve apparently been sitting on the enemy’s location instead of going over and shooting him. Crossfire says it’s more complicated than just going over and shooting him. Quetly, he says “Mockingbird, why the hell can’t I just go over & shoot him?”
Page 16: This time, Crossfire gets an answer. “It’s more complicated than that. He’s protected and the organization is distributed. But if you think it’s time for a direct attack, go right ahead.” Siryn gives them the address, and Crossfire relays it to Feral.
Page 17: The whole team, except Scarecrow, meets outside an old 5-story building. Nightshade asks if this is really it. Siryn says he’s on the top floor. Feral says they should go in by roof, but assume he knows they’re there. Crossfire suggests they wait for Scarecrow, but Feral says there’s no time, and she’s kinda hoping he ran into the Punisher and won’t be a problem anymore.
Page 18: On the roof, Nightshade asks Kraven if he’s going to use the Symbiote again. He says he is the man who buried the Spider: He has the will to use the Symbiote’s power without letting it consume him. Bob says he still thinks they should use some sonics and get it out of him. Kraven says he can control it. Nightshade says “Wonderful. ‘The Man who Buried The Spider’ is a Venom addict.”
Page 19: Bob unlocks the roof door, and they step down into a maintenance room, then the office where Siryn met the shadowy man last issue. Feral says she can hear someone else there with them. Then Siryn gets electrocuted by The Kraken.
Page 20: Nightshade throws a handful of pods at The Kraken that expand into green globs to suffocate him, but the armor burns them off. Kraken (in Negative speech balloons) tells them their loyalties are misguided. He says they follow someone with no path, no goal. Bob tackles him with a harness that weighs him down to the floor.
Page 21: Siryn is moving again, and tells Kraven to hold the Kraken down. She goes to take his helmet off, but it flashes and the room goes dark. The Kraken stands up again. Crossfire says it was an electromagnetic pulse. Feral attacks the Kraken, who ducks behind his desk and starts shooting at her, and everyone else while laughing. Nightshade shouts to hold their breath, and throws a gas capsule at the desk. The Kraken is still laughing.
Page 22: The Kraken’s shadow appears in front of a window. Kraven jumps at the form, but passes through it and crashes out the window instead. Fire comes from another direction at Bob and Nightshade. Siryn blocks the shots and screams back. They brace for another shot, but the laughing stops. Crossfire asks who wants to go scrape Kraven off the sidewalk.
NEXT ISSUE:
Mindgames
The Face of the Enemy
Space-Based Weaponry on a Budget!
Be here in two weeks.