Flood Ch. 4

REIGN OF SYMBIOTES
Part 3: Flood
A Fan-Fiction epilogue based on the game Spider-Man: Web of Shadows
Story by Orion Petitclerc

CHAPTER 4
CONTROL

Meanwhile, hundreds of miles west of Spidey's capitol, a lone S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier hums high above the United States, its crew suffering from exhaustion after enduring over twenty-four hours of being at their battle stations.  The radar operators' glued their eyes to their screens, scanning for any unfriendly units.  Captain James Cardiff shifted in his chair uncomfortably for the zillionth time, impatiently awaiting orders from the ground.  The helicarrier Credence had been cruising the hazy skies for two days since it lost communication with its ground commander.  It was reported about three days before that Colonel Fury had been captured by the enemy, along with his second-in-command Black Widow.  Maria Hill had then taken command of S.H.I.E.L.D. since their captures, but a day later all communication between S.H.I.E.L.D. forces had ceased.  Captain Cardiff did not want to assume that Hill was lost as well, but with the increasing number of attacks on the Credence and the lack of friendly units on the ground and airspace, Cardiff was beginning to suspect that he and his crew were all alone against the onslaught of symbiotes.
Shortly before the whole invasion began, the Credence was en route to the Vault, tasked with transporting the infinitely insidious Norman Osborn to his jail cell therein.  Captain Cardiff had valiantly defended his detestable cargo up to this point.  His orders, however, to eliminate Osborn if the ship was taken.  Cardiff had heard stories about Osborn – or the Green Goblin, as he is more widely known as – and wondered how many of them were true.  Was he really so dangerous as to need an entire helicarrier to escort him, the Vault to contain him, and an order like that to keep him from turning?  Each time Cardiff visited his prisoner in the ship's brig, Osborn seemed to enjoy his company.  He seemed so polite, so knowledgeable, so noble, and yet there he was, all tied up in a straight jacket and chained to a dolly.  It was hard for Cardiff to believe Norman Osborn was the villain everybody feared.
All eyes turned to radar station two when a sharp ping broke the silence on the bridge.  "Movement detected seven hundred kilometers southeast of our position, moving at 24 knots straight for us," announced the radar officer.  "Signature is confirmed: it's the enemy!"  The tension broke without a word from the captain as the crew scrambled to prepare for battle.
"All stations get ready for an attack," Cardiff relayed.  "How many contacts are we talking about here?"
"Calculating now, sir," replied another radar officer.  After a brief moment, "75 confirmed, captain!   58 Vulturlings and 17 ground units."
"All cannons, load anti-air rounds and fire at the enemy when ready," the captain commanded.  "Scramble the hover troopers!  Use incendiary rounds and sonic weapons only!  And bring the prisoner up to the bridge with guards!  I want Osborn at my side during the attack!"  The battle sirens screamed over the din of relayed orders.  The bridge vibrated as the cannons turned to meet their prey, and the deck became populated with a mix of hover troopers and foot soldiers, scrambling for defendable cover.  Immediately the cannons fired out to the winged enemy, their deadly payloads exploding into black puffs of smoke and shrapnel.  A few of the Vulturlings and their wingless counterparts fell screaming to the ground, but most were able to successfully dodge the attacks.  The Vulturlings swooped in, offloading their grinning passengers.  The deck erupted into a gunfight against hulking Smileys and Vulturlings as the winged villains plucked foot soldiers off the deck and tossed them overboard.
The door to the bridge slid open.  One soldier rolled the dolly containing the restrained Norman Osborn into the room while two other soldiers came in from behind, weapons primed.  Norman looked up at Cardiff and smiled.  "Good afternoon, Captain.  What occasion has given me privilege to join your presence on the bridge of this excellent ship?"  A Vulturling answered the madman's question as it thumped against the glass panel looking out to the deck, clawing at the crew inside.  A safety measure electrocuted the symbiote, which shrieked and fell from the crackling bullet-proof glass.  "Ah, I see," said Norman, half-surprised.
"So as to cool my nerves a little, I decided to keep you close to my person in case we happen to lose this battle," Cardiff explained.  "No doubt you are aware of my orders in case that were to ever happen?"
"Of course, Captain," Norman understood.  "You are only doing your job."
"Captain, I have received reports that the enemy ground units have been eliminated," interrupted an officer at the communications station.  "However, the Vulturlings are inflicting major casualties on our crew."
"Sir," chimed in a radar officer, "I'm getting additional pings from our stern!  Thirty additional unknown signatures, all in flight and headed straight for us!"
"More Vulturlings?" asked Cardiff.  The radar officer turned to him, her face white and clammy.
"Unknown, sir!  The signatures are not of Vulturlings!  They're something else!"  Cardiff jogged over to the stern-facing windshield, grabbing a pair of tactical binoculars from a spotter.  He spotted the incoming horde of winged symbiotes.  However, these ones were not like the others: they were blood red.
"What the hell are those?" Cardiff grumbled.  He ignored the tsk tsk from Osborn behind him.
"Composure, Captain," smiled Norman.  "Must keep vigilant for your crew!  Every effective commanding officer should know that."
"All cannons realign to meet those buggers on our stern!  Open fire," ordered Cardiff.  The cannons shook the beleaguered crew where they sat or stood, but none of the new winged enemies were taken.  They were much faster than the Vulturlings, too, arriving at the helicarrier before a third round could be fired.  The blood red symbiotes screeched as they flew by the deck, launching razor-sharp darts of solidified symbiote into the bodies of soldiers and Vulturlings alike.  Claws and teeth flew as the blood red symbiotes tackled the Vulturings.  The soldiers and hover troopers shot aimlessly at both enemies, confused as to why they were attacking each other.  The blood red symbiotes made quick work of the Vulturlings, focusing their attack on the soldiers afterward.
"What's going on out there," yelled the Captain in frustration.  "Those red ones help us take out the black ones, and now they're killing my men!"
"I suspect," said Norman, matter-of-factly, "that those are opposing factions of symbiotes, Captain.  They're both at war with each other, and we're just stuck in the middle of it."  Blood, guts, and severed limbs flew across the bridge windows, causing the crew to gag and vomit.  "And these guys don't appear to be in the recruiting mode, might I add."  One of the blood red symbiotes flew up and hovered before the bridge.  He was the largest of the murder, his teeth large and yellow, shaped in the customary twisted smile.  Something was strangely familiar about this one to Norman.  With his bladed wings, the symbiote effortlessly sliced an X into the electrified bullet-proof glass.
Norman's guards stepped in front of the captain and their prisoner, but before they could raise their weapons to meet their foe, the symbiote pierced the glass with a single tentacle, which then separated into multiple razor-edged tentacles.  The guards fell with their captain.  Norman toppled to the right as the captain fell on him, the final tentacle narrowly missing his chest.  As Norman brought his hand to his aching head after the initial shock, he finally took notice that the tentacle had severed his straight jacket. And a single link on one of his binding chains.  Norman stood, more or less shrugging the rest of the chains off and shuffling out of the heavy jacket.  He stretched out his arms and flexed his hands.  "Ah, so much better," he groaned.
The symbiote crashed through the fractured glass, screeching and letting loose more tentacles that pierced through soldiers and officers.  Norman let out a sigh in annoyance and grabbed up one of the dead guards' rifles, switching the ammo to incendiary rounds, and unloading six bursts into the symbiote's chest and wings.  It fell with a screech as the symbiote burned away, revealing its host's chest.  Norman's suspicions were confirmed by the red and white strip of costume running down the chocolate-colored, ripped chest.  The symbiote began to reform around its wound, and it struggled to stand.  Norman flipped a switch on the rifle and pulled the trigger, unleashing endless sonic blasts into his foe.  The symbiote and host screamed in unison, writhing on the floor in pain.  The symbiote finally fizzled away and Norman ceased his punishment, leaving the curled up, twitching, winged body.
"Well if it isn't the winged Avenger himself," smiled Norman condescendingly.  "Congratulations on reacquiring your freedom, Falcon."
"Th-thank you," Samuel sputtered before he fell unconscious.  As Norman turned to the crew of the bridge, he was met with six gun barrels trained on his grin.
"Freeze, Osborn!  You're under arrest," commanded a soldier.  "Don't you even budge!"
"Oh, come now," said Norman, his tone immediately changing.  "It's not me you should be worrying yourselves with at the moment, but the foes that remain a larger threat outside.  Now," Norman pushed a gun down as he walked forward, "If anyone wishes to join me for a little bird hunting, I'd be honored."  He picked up a shotgun from a fallen soldier and pumped another round in place.  "Who wants to save the world?"
A red flyer swooshed in behind Norman, clacking its teeth.  Norman snapped his shotgun and blasted the symbiote in the chest, knocking it out of the air.  The soldiers looked to each other, weighing the consequences of aiding a criminal.  Without a word, they followed Osborn in his footsteps, firing into the air at the carrion.  Norman charged ahead, knocking symbiotes out of the air with each shot.  A symbiote pinned a soldier to the ground, clawing at its victim with disgusting ferocity.  With one burst from his shotgun, Norman felled the symbiote.  However, the symbiote is inherently resilient to normal ammunition, so Norman placed a foot on the symbiote's chest, holding it down as he destroyed it with a continuous sonic blast from the rifle.  The host, a convict in a prison outfit, succumbed to defeat.  Norman helped the shaken soldier to his feet and shoved a gun into his arms.  "Up and at 'em, son!  We have a war to win," he winked at the confounded combatant.
One by one the symbiotes fell from the sky and fizzled out of existence after personal sonic barrages. The battle was at last won.  Soldiers helped each other to their feet and carried the unconscious and wounded to the hospital bay.  A team scanned the ship for any surviving symbiotes, eradicating them with their sonic rifles.  Norman stood in triumph, but was once again at the receiving end of a rifle barrel.  "Halt, Osborn!  You're still under arrest by order of S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Colonel Fury!  You will proceed to the brig without incident and will stay there until we arrive at the Vault," a soldier ordered.
"Is that any way to treat the man that just saved your crew?" Norman mocked.  "Besides, it's pointless to take me to the Vault now."  Norman pointed to one of the unconscious convicts saved from the symbiotes.  "Those men are wearing a Vault prison uniform, which implies that it was attacked and most likely taken by these red symbiotes.  I suppose as well that you've lost contact with the Vault?  Face it; there is no prison that can take me now.
"Also, I reckon that the late Captain Cardiff was the last person of higher authority by the way you all panicked and ran about getting yourselves killed," he continued.  "That would mean that you are without sufficient tactical leadership.  May I suggest that S.H.I.E.L.D. suspend my arrest and allow me to take point on this obvious resistance movement that the invasion has influenced?"
"In your wettest dreams, Osborn," growled the soldier, attempting to keep up with the superfluous dialogue.  "Are you too stupid to remember that we are modeled after militaries?  We have ranking officers that will take place of the captain!"
"Are you willing to risk the lives of the crew to someone lacking of the experience I offer?  My records should indicate how useful I could be to all of you right now, if seen in the right light," Norman grinned, confident that he would win this mindless dud over.  "Besides, morale is already broken.  You are proof yourself, son, what with those insensible, brutish remarks you just made."  The soldier slightly lowered his weapon in shame.  "Let me go free, and I will help S.H.I.E.L.D. and any resistance forces regain morale and fight the symbiotes!  Let me go free, and we will win this war, side-by-side!  You will be a hero."
The soldier stood solemn for a few moments as his tiny brain clicked and whirred in what Norman guessed the soldier regarded as "deep thought".  Finally, he lowered his gun.  "What's your plan, Osborn?"
"Captain," smiled Norman insidiously.  "Call me Captain Osborn."