Random Art
Dante had never frowned so much as he did in the last ten minutes. Students crossing the main walkway turned to stare at him. Plenty stopped their conversations and began whispering. Some even openly pointed and took pictures of him. A professor in a tweed jacket nearly bumped into a lamppost.
'The biker jacket was a mistake.'
He was beginning to regret borrowing it without a second thought. It either made him look like a super-hot celebrity in disguise or a runaway criminal.
A wry sigh slipped past his lips as he made his way past the main courtyard. He needed somewhere quieter. Somewhere fewer eyes would pay attention to him. The gym was separated from the academic buildings by a stretch of lawn. Not a single soul lingered here.
He dialed Felicia and waited through two rings before her hushed voice came through.
"Darling?"
"I'm here at the gym."
"Sorry. My lecture just started…" she said apologetically. "You'll have to wait a while, I'm afraid."
"How long?"
"Maybe thirty minutes? I'm so sorry." She lowered her voice even further, probably trying to avoid her professor's attention. "I honestly didn't expect you to be this quick."
"Don't make me wait too long."
"I'll rush over the second I'm free—shit, Professor Amy is giving me the death glare."
The call ended with an abrupt click. He pushed open the gym door, which was completely deserted at this hour of the morning.
'Might as well train while I wait.'
The ESU's gym had excellent equipment, but it all paled in comparison to what Silvija had at her facility. She had custom equipment for superhumans, whereas this one was made for normal humans. The thought of Silvija brought with it an unwelcome wave of longing.
'Shit, I keep missing her, but she doesn't even want to talk to me.'
He was a sad panda. A pathetic, lovesick sad panda.
To distract himself, he shrugged off the biker jacket and tossed it onto a nearby bench before grabbing a pair of training gloves from the rack. He positioned himself in front of the heavy sandbag with the fighting stance that felt more and more natural with each passing day.
Control was everything here. He couldn't unleash even a fraction of his real strength without exploding the bag. So he dialed his power back to levels of skilled humans. His fist shot forward and connected with a satisfying thud. The bag rocked. Another thud and then another.
He fell into a rhythm, focusing on the mechanics of each movement with intense concentration.
None of his Resonance Links offered weapon expertise. Death just delivered death. Hyperion fought with overwhelming power. Neither Strange nor Sue fought with weapons.
He wasn't in the mood to start a new Resonance either. Going through someone else's life while synced with their consciousness was taxing. Not the best experience, especially when their life was full of pain and misery. He might lose his mind or make no progress at all.
He funneled all that sadness and longing into refining his movements until only the mind-to-muscle rhythm remained. His skills improved tremendously, all thanks to his high intelligence and the experience from Sue Storm and Strange's martial expertise.
He knew he'd have to pick up weapon training eventually, but nothing beat the raw satisfaction of fighting with his own fists.
But he wasn't just training his skills. His enhanced intelligence allowed him to multitask. While his fists pounded the bag, his mind raced through potential solutions to the symbiote problem.
High-frequency sonic waves would always work on most symbiotes. Silvija might be able to get specialized sonic emitters and maybe sonic grenades.
Extreme heat could work too. Anything above a certain temperature would roast the symbiotes.
Telepaths could suppress symbiotes directly by dominating the symbiote. One of the reasons he needed Emma Frost on his side when all hell broke loose—because it was going to.
Invocation mystic spells might work, but they would also attract attention from high-tier beings he wasn't nearly ready to deal with. Astral Projection was another way... not really useful since he would have to perform it individually.
Anti-Venom was another option. He could tap into that version of Eddie Brock's Resonance and gain access to the bane of all symbiotes. However the idea of allowing any symbiote to bond with his body made his skin crawl.
No, his realistic options boiled down to arming Silvija's men with high-frequency sonic devices and weapons capable of generating extreme heat.
'Maybe I can work out a chemical compound instead.'
Things would be a lot simpler if he could create a kind of tranquilizer that purged the symbiote completely. He didn't even have to experiment on living symbiotes. All the data about symbiote molecular structure was present in the facility, which he had memorized. Sue Storm's scientific knowledge combined with his own augmented intelligence meant he could reconstruct the symbiotes' chemical makeup and design something that exploited their biological vulnerabilities. A compound to disrupt their molecular bonds.
It was worth a shot.
He could get someone else to fill his gaps of real experience. Gwen Stacy. She had designed her own web fluid. Surely she could assist him.
He got so completely absorbed in theorizing molecular interactions that he lost all track of time. Only when his phone rang did he realize that forty minutes had already passed. A bead of sweat dripped down his nose to splash onto the mat beneath his feet.
He blinked.
'Sweat?'
His body had evolved to a point this light workout routine shouldn't have produced any sweat at all. He had somehow exerted himself mentally to the point of actually sweating.
He stared at the caller's name. Silvija. Quickly swiping, he answered just in time.
"Hey!" she said with a cheerful voice he'd never heard from her. "Where are you?"
"ESU."
"University?" Silvija laughed. "You couldn't have gone there to pick up college girls."
"Well, I'm picking someone up."
"You…"
"It's for work," he clarified before she got any misunderstanding. "I swear on my soul."
"I trust you."
When he was expecting her to explode at him, she said something completely unexpected.
"You do…?"
"It's just common knowledge that every man wants an understanding woman," she said with a chuckle. "Okay, return soon… I'm ready for that talk you promised yesterday."
He felt his heart flutter. No way Silvija was forgiving him when he had yet to take any action.
"I'll be there ASAP. Before you go, do you have a way to get your hands on things like…"
He described the countermeasures to symbiote.
She thought long and hard before answering, "Local sources will be cheaper but take time to produce. The Black Market will cost upwards of half a million, but a lot faster."
He sucked in a deep breath. "How much did Norman pay for this contract?"
"Thirty million for the three-month contract, paid on a monthly basis." She laughed as though reading his speechless reaction, despite not being here. "This is my biggest contract to date. Not only will it tremendously boost my homeland's GDP, it'll get me more high-profile clients in the future."
"Maybe—"
"Don't even finish that. Just… we'll continue when you come here. It's not right to talk about it over the phone."
"Alright."
As he bent to pick up his jacket from the bench, a familiar teasing voice pulled his attention.
"Silver is such a nice woman~"
He found Felicia leaning against the wall in a silver wool coat left open over a black turtleneck and tailored trousers. A plaid scarf in muted grays was draped over one shoulder, and leather gloves tucked in her coat pocket. Yet another outfit that looked like it had been pulled from a fashion magazine. Maybe he should go shopping with her after this whole symbiote crisis resolved itself, just to have her choose his wardrobe.
"How long have you been stalking me?"
"You ought to pay more attention to your surroundings." She shook her head with disappointment before approaching him. "What if someone shot you in the head while you're spacing out."
"I probably won't die."
He had programmed Null with a failsafe protocol. Any critical damage would start Death Resonance Link and the injuries would heal instantly. Death's power operated on that high of a level. He had taken his first real step toward becoming truly invincible.
Felicia's eyes widened slightly before she started clapping. "Amazing. You're playing a game with cheats on while we're stuck on the 'death means game over' difficulty."
He chuckled and slid the jacket back on. "Let's go visit Gwen."
But Felicia made no move to follow him toward the door. "Darling, you really don't understand how cats work, do you? We don't move without proper motivation." She stretched out one hand with her palm up. "Where's my treat for being such a good, patient kitty?"
"What do you want?"
"A promise."
She placed one finger against her lip as her head tilted innocently. He would've believed her if she didn't have that calculated look in her eyes.
"Promise me that you'll break my father out of prison if our heist doesn't work out... or if something happens to me during it."
The request caught him completely off-guard. He had been expecting something impossible like magic powers or something even more absird. It was easy to forget that underneath all that flirtatiousness and seductiveness was a loyal woman. A daughter trying to ensure that her father wouldn't die alone in a prison cell even if she couldn't be there to celebrate it.
The promise was her insurance policy to make sure Walter Hardy reunited with her mother during his final moments. She knew Emma Frost's deal might not work out even if she successfully delivered the symbiote sample as promised. Or a mistake would get her killed.
So she asked the one person who might survive anything because of Death's favor.
How could he possibly say no to such a sweet request?
"You have my word."
"Thank you…"
No extra flirtatiousness, no witty cynicism. Just a sincere word of gratitude.
He didn't call out on it. Just chuckled softly and followed her out of the gym.
Together they began searching for Gwen across the sprawling campus. They found no signs of her anywhere.
Felicia was genuinely puzzled by this point. "I definitely saw her in our Applied Ethics lecture. Where the hell did she go?"
Dante knew exactly where Gwen had gone. He could picture her seeing news alerts on her phone, making some flimsy excuse to MJ before ducking into a bathroom to change into her Ghost Spider suit. But revealing that information to Felicia would put Gwen in a tough spot.
He nudged Felicia's shoulder to get her attention. "Harry's part of her friend group, right? Why don't you get Gwen's contact information from Harry?"
Harry would immediately assume Dante couldn't forget Gwen after that night and asked her number. Felicia alone gave him enough misunderstandings with Death and Silvija. He didn't need more.
Felicia pressed one hand dramatically to her chest. "But darling, how can you send me to another man so casually? Have I become disposable in your eyes? You're breaking my heart—" She stopped mid-sentence and covered her forehead with both hands. "Okay, okay! I'll go! Don't flick me, you'll ruin my pretty forehead and then I'll never find a rich husband to take care of me!"
He couldn't help but laugh as she scurried off. While Felicia was gone, he browsed social media. Ghost Spider was dominating the trending topics. He clicked on her dedicated hashtag and scrolled through clips of her swinging through Manhattan and posing for selfies with excited fans on the street.
She was steadily building a fanbase despite JJJ's vocal outbursts.
As he hit the refresh button, the newest clip made him freeze. It showed Ghost Spider fighting two symbiotes.
The location tag read: Chase Bank, Lower Manhattan.
The two symbiote hosts moved fast. One lunged at Ghost Spider with its sharp claws. She flipped backward and fired webbing at its face. The symbiote tore through the webbing like tissue paper and continued its pursuit.
The second host tried to flank her. She caught it with a web-line and yanked it off balance.
Behind them, the bank's front door was kicked open. About eight armed men rushed out with bags stuffed full of cash. They weren't symbiotes.
"Run! I'll distract this dumbfuck!" The Symbiote screeched.
The men hurriedly got in their cars and zoomed away. Ghost Spider could only watch.
The implication of the scene sent a shiver down Dante's spine. Norman wasn't just building an army for himself. He was bringing criminals to his side as well with the bribery of superpowers. Or something more…
If this continued, the entire power balance would shift. Police would be completely outmatched to handle these criminals.
The city would burn while Norman sat back and watched the chaos.
This was so much worse than he had anticipated.
Footsteps approached him from behind.
"Darling, I got it!" She noticed his tight frown, and her smile faded. She grabbed his phone to see what made him so pale. All her skepticism evaporated as she stared at the screen. "Oh. Oh wow. This is… what does that psycho want? Why is he doing this?"
"I don't know, honestly."
"Luckily we have this Ghost Spider. She beat them without breaking a sweat." Felicia handed him the phone back. "I'm a fan of her work. What about you, Darling? Don't you feel attracted to the mysteriousness?"
He might have, if he didn't know who was under the suit. Still… yeah, a little. Gwen was an attractive woman by all standards.
Felicia nudged him with a grin. "Bet you want to add her to your collection now that you have Silver's permission. What a devious fiend."
He pinched her cheek hard enough to make her yelp. "If I'm really as ridiculously horny as you keep describing me, why exactly haven't I done anything to you?"
She was struck completely speechless for a long moment, her mouth opening and closing as she tried to think of something. She just sighed, disappointed. "Guess I'm not that pretty…"
"You can't be serious. You're a nine."
Felicia laughed. "Nine means I still have a chance. Thanks, Darling."
He really couldn't tell if she was joking or being serious. Shaking his head, he pointed at her phone. "Call Gwen."
She found Gwen's contact, tapped the call button, and put it on speaker. The phone rang. And kept ringing. Of course Gwen didn't take the call.
Felicia frowned. "I should've asked her to come with me. Sorry, Darling…"
He brushed her shoulder lightly. "You can make up for it. Call Emma Frost."
The name left Felicia frozen. The first meeting had left such an impression that she didn't want to see the blonde's face ever again. Being in the presence of someone who could read her mind was far too uncomfortable.
The sinister grin on his face didn't make her feel any better.
"D-Darling, let's not… Let's go to my apartment. We'll watch Netflix and have some pudding."
He put a hand around her shoulder and held her hand, using her thumb to unlock her phone. She was still hesitant to cooperate.
So he had to throw the bait out.
"Don't you want revenge for how she treated you?"
"Revenge…?" she whispered, looking at him skeptically. "She can read our minds. How can we one-up someone like that?"
"She can read your mind."
It took her a moment to grasp his meaning. When she did, she immediately dialed Emma Frost's number with a delightful little grin.
"Then let's be stupid together, Sweetheart."