Title: Marvel: Tomorrow Ultimatum
Chapter 3: Never Said Forever
Author: V5_Vendetta
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: General universe Marvel's, future setting mine
Primary Characters: Audrey Hopkins/Arachne (OC), Karin Kusanagi/Fearless (OC)
Secondary Characters: Midnight Daughters (Charlotte Blaze/Ghost Rider, Andrea Kale/Pale Rider, Koden Cochrane/Masked Rider, Linda Slade/Phantom Rider, Atacante/Crimson Rider, Erika King/Nocturne Rider)
Summary: The reunited Arachne and Fearless team up with six brazen daughters of darkness to battle an even-greater and more malevolent darkness.
Warning: Non-explicit nudity at the end.
Ghost Rider tore down the streets of New York City on her hellish motorcycle, growling lowly in whatever passed for a throat with her. Pulling a 180-degree turn, she faced the razorbiker who was following her with a warning. “Stay out of this, mortal. This battle is not the kind for you to get involved in.”
The razorbiker, none other than the masked defender of Hell’s Kitchen known as Fearless, stared at Ghost Rider. “No dice. I still remember what happened the last time you haunted these streets.”
Her companion Pale Rider, engulfed in blue flame, looked at Ghost Rider. “You know this idiot girl?”
“We had an encounter,” Ghost Rider answered. “She was both a help and a hindrance. Along with her arachnid companion.”
At that moment, said “arachnid companion,” dressed in a Halloween facsimile of the original Spider-Man’s costume, peered over Fearless’ shoulder. “Whatever you’re here for, you’d best let us tag along. Not like you’ll shake us, and even if you could, you’d lose valuable time.”
“. . . She has a point,” the Masked Rider, garbed in charcoal black armor, growled.
“Maybe, but you think those two little girls can handle it?” Phantom Rider, dressed like a biker cowgirl, asked.
“I’d watch who you call little girls,” Fearless sniped.
The ruby-skinned brunette, Crimson Rider, took in hissing breaths. “That girl’s aura . . . it smells of power . . . can I . . . ?”
The chalk-skinned brunette beside her, Nocturne Rider, gave her a warning look. “Hold it in . . .”
“What do you want here?” Fearless asked.
“We’re stopping the end of the world as you know it,” Nocturne Rider replied. “Again.”
“‘Again’?” Arachne echoed. “Oh, right. The imminent end of the world is never too far away.”
“We don’t have time for chatter,” Ghost Rider growled, pulling another 180-degree turn and resuming her hellfire-marked ride. The Pale Rider followed, her own path marked by unnatural blue fire. The other four Midnight Daughters followed the two fiery riders, and Fearless and Arachne followed them.
“So what are we up against?” Fearless asked.
“Chthon,” Pale Rider replied curtly.
“I read up on that guy,” Arachne piped up. “According to the legend, he was supposed to be some kind of fallen god or something like that. I’ve heard of fallen angels, but I’ve never really heard of fallen gods.”
“Gods are no less subject to ‘human’ failings than humans themselves,” Masked Rider answered. “Those who fall too hard, too swiftly . . . Chthon is the exemplar of what befalls them.”
“You kinda remind me of someone,” Arachne remarked. “Some kind of superhero I’ve seen on TV. Rode a bike, wore a mask, fought evil, that sort of thing.”
Pale Rider growled. “Quit it. We have no time for talk.”
“Grouchy much?” Arachne shot back.
“Hey, hey, can it!” Phantom Rider snarled. “Just because she’s annoying doesn’t mean we can kill her.” She muttered to herself, “At least not so long as being annoying isn’t a capital offense.”
“Chthon . . .” Fearless repeated. Before she could voice her question, a giant SHRU hovercraft made itself known with a broadcasted threat to the superhuman bikers.
“Attention, unregistered superhumans! It is advised that you stop your vehicles and surrender peacefully and quietly! We do not wish to use force to affect your surrender, but we will use as much as necessary if you do not surrender of your own volition!”
“Some things never change,” Fearless muttered.
“Idiot mortals,” Ghost Rider muttered, before cranking the throttle of her motorcycle and speeding up further, becoming little more than a fiery blur. Pale Rider sped up alongside Ghost Rider, and the other four Midnight Daughters raced to catch up with them, with Fearless and Arachne trailing behind.
“That was your singular warning! Sentinel drones, deploy now!”
From the massive hovercraft came roughly 50 Sentinel wardrones, which upon deployment fired up the jet thrusters on their boots and gloves and pursued the superhuman motorcyclists at high speed. This did not go unnoticed by any of them, as Phantom Rider performed a 90-degree turn and shot hellfire bullets at the Sentinel drones. The hellfire bullets, due to their supernatural properties, pierced the armored shells of the Sentinel drones and burned them from the inside until they combusted. The Masked Rider turned around and rode at the Sentinel drones, jumping off her motorcycle and striking one in the chest with a rising flying kick. The Sentinel drone crumpled around her foot and upon release crashed into several other drones, which were all shot down by Phantom Rider.
The Masked Rider landed on her motorcycle and rode alongside her fellow Midnight Daughters again. The Crimson Rider launched herself off her motorcycle and slashed at the Sentinel drones with her telekinetic blades. While the Sentinel drones were very agile flyers, they weren’t necessarily agile enough to escape the berserker rage Crimson Rider was entering. She sliced them apart with telekinetic blades on her arms and with one final swing of those blades she flew back onto her motorcycle and resumed her ride.
With a roaring battle cry, the two-tailed spirit feline escaped from its cage within Pale Rider’s body and ripped through the Sentinel drones. Pale Rider lunged through the spirit feline, absorbing its blue fires and channeling them into a violent outburst that destroyed the remaining Sentinel drones. Once the smoky wisps remaining from the explosion faded to nothing, Pale Rider dropped onto her motorcycle and rode again.
The whole time, Fearless and Arachne had been watching with something akin to dread on their masked faces. If it hadn’t been clear to them before, it was clear now; they were not dealing with anything that could be considered “human.” They silently thanked their lucky stars that for now, the Midnight Daughters did not see fit to turn that wicked power upon them. Of course, they quickly reminded themselves that this Chthon was certainly a worse monster than what they had allied themselves with and that these “monsters” at least seemed intent on doing something that could be considered the “right” thing.
“What does Chthon want?” Arachne asked.
“Access to our world so that he can conquer it, like any demon worth his salt,” Phantom Rider replied.
“How does he expect to get it?” Arachne wondered.
“The Darkhold,” Phantom Rider answered. “If we can seal it away and keep it that way, we can stop him from ever entering our world again, in any form.”
“Why not destroy it?” Fearless asked.
“The parchment on which the Darkhold is written is indestructible to all known forms of science and magic,” Nocturne Rider replied. “Possibly the only thing that could destroy it is the same chaos magic that created it, but . . . none of us have access to chaos magic and even if we did, the power has very, very nasty psychological effects on its user. Those history books ever tell you about Scarlet Witch’s little freak-out that nearly eradicated mutants?”
“You’re saying the Scarlet Witch was a chaos mage?” Arachne asked.
“Exactly,” Nocturne Rider confirmed. “Huh, you learn something new every day, don’t you?”
Ghost Rider snarled. “Decoys again . . . decoys.”
“Again?” Masked Rider asked.
“Five different locations,” Pale Rider answered. “They’re playing it smart this time, forcing us to split up.”
“There’s six of us,” Phantom Rider brought up. “One for each of them, plus one more.”
“You mean eight,” Arachne sniped.
“Sorry,” Phantom Rider remarked. “Guess I forgot. What are we gonna do with you crazy kids, anyway?”
“Fearless can go with Masked Rider,” Nocturne Rider suggested. “The spider-girl will be coming with me and Crimson Rider.”
“It’s Arachne.”
“Sure,” Nocturne Rider assented.
“Why are you splitting us up?” Arachne asked.
“Because, lover girl, you two might simply prioritize each other over the mission,” Nocturne Rider replied. “Can’t have that.”
Arachne scoffed. “You don’t know us that well, do you?”
“Come on, schoolgirl lesbians in the throes of first love? Not necessarily big on objectivity.”
“We’re superheroes.”
“And that’s your problem. You’re clinging to a long dead ideal that was worthless in the first place. All you’re going to do is get yourselves killed in the long run. But if you insist . . .”
Arachne simply carefully squeezed Fearless’ shoulder and jumped off her razorbike, flipping onto the back of Nocturne Rider’s motorcycle. “You’ll eat those words.”
“Sure,” Nocturne Rider scoffed.
The Midnight Daughters split up, with Ghost Rider, Pale Rider and Phantom Rider going in three separate directions, Fearless following Masked Rider, and Crimson Rider following Nocturne Rider and Arachne. Ghost Rider and Pale Rider could feel the dark power that they were soon to confront, weaker than its zenith but intimidating to the point of suffocation for lesser beings. Phantom Rider rode down the path to her destination, consuming the dread that was welling up inside her. Fearless and the Masked Rider went down their route, Fearless smelling something almost toxic in the air the further she and the Masked Rider went. As for Arachne, she clung unconsciously to Nocturne Rider, something inside her recoiling at the warped energy she could sense.
“It’s ok if you’re scared,” Nocturne Rider murmured, her voice strangely not mocking for once. “We were all scared once. You just have to kill the fear.”
Nocturne, Crimson, and Arachne ultimately made their way to a desolate mansion, which was surrounded by shadowy creatures known as Darkwraiths. “And just what the hell are those things?” Arachne asked.
“Darkwraiths,” Crimson replied. “The earthly avatars of Chthon’s power. Since Chthon himself can’t come into this plane in all his glory, he sends minions through the dimensional barriers to goad his human servants along. They’re not exactly all that powerful, but they’d slaughter your run-of-the-mill human.”
“So whoever’s really in charge, or so they think, is inside?” Arachne mused.
“Probably,” Nocturne replied, getting off her motorcycle and drawing her claymore blade.
The Darkwraiths immediately swarmed the three women, only for Nocturne to start slicing them apart with her claymore. Crimson simply extended her psychokinetic blades and dived into the mass of shadow menaces, tearing through them with her mind and with her sheer physical strength. Arachne dodged the Darkwraiths when she wasn’t striking them down, but unlike her companions she had no way of killing them. Just as one Darkwraith was about to attack her, four astral spider legs emerged from her back and speared it, causing it to disintegrate.
“How . . . ?”
“Don’t just stand there!” Crimson yelled. “Fight!”
Arachne shook her head to clear out the fog and leaped into the air, coming down with a hard knee to the head of one of the Darkwraiths. She flipped off that Darkwraith and slammed the heel of her foot onto the head of another Darkwraith. With a vicious 180-degree spin, she impaled four Darkwraiths on each of her astral spider legs, disintegrating them as well. She blocked another Darkwraith’s attack with a thrust of her elbow, which simultaneously penetrated its head, and then thrust her knee up into the midsection of yet another Darkwraith.
Crimson and Nocturne stood back to back, guarding each other from the oncoming Darkwraiths. Crimson somersaulted into the air and landed on Nocturne’s cupped hands, which pushed her into a spinning slicing attack with her telekinetic blades. Nocturne drew her claymore again and cut down a slew of Darkwraiths with it, while Crimson massacred even more Darkwraiths. The two Midnight Daughters came together and sped through the Darkwraiths while weaving out of the way of Arachne’s astral spider legs, which were impaling Darkwraiths with almost crazed abandon.
“Is this all?” Arachne wondered, her tone raspier than normal.
“I understand how you feel,” Crimson spoke. “I, too, lust for good sport.”
“But we have things to do,” Nocturne added. “And those things concern whatever is inside that mansion.”
Arachne sped toward the door to the mansion and kicked it down, springing inside to find herself immediately confronting a mass of lesser devils spawned from Chthon’s realm. When Nocturne and Crimson entered, they saw Arachne dodging the lesser devils and dispatching them just as viciously as she had the Darkwraiths. Seeing no reason not to join her, the two Midnight Daughters cut through the lesser devils with their swords.
Elsewhere, Ghost Rider and Pale Rider were battling the more human thralls of the Darkhold. Red hellfire and blue hellfire ripped through them, burning out Chthon’s influence and leaving the former thralls catatonic but alive. Of course, those who resisted the “cleansing” ended up almost entirely spiritually hollowed out. Ghost Rider’s human half might have cared, but the Rider could not find it in herself to pity those who had surrendered themselves to Chthon.
Ghost Rider snapped her chain apart and the links flew everywhere in a storm of hellfire-charged flechettes that struck like bullets. When the chain reassembled and returned to her, the “corpses” of the Darkhold thralls lay before her, unmoving . . . until they started getting up. Ghost Rider charged her chain with hellfire and lashed at the Darkhold thralls with it as though it were a whip. Finally, she ensnared one of the Darkhold thralls and channeled the hellfire through her chain to burn the Chthonian taint from her.
Meanwhile, Pale Rider unleashed the raging feline spirit within her and it charged through the Darkhold thralls, slashing them with its claws. The two-tailed feline spirit remerged with Pale Rider, whose aura now blazed a fiery blue as she jumped onto her motorcycle and ran through the Darkhold thralls. Spinning on her front wheel, she struck them down with the burning back wheel of her motorcycle and finished by transforming herself and her motorcycle into a blue sphere of hellfire that tore through the remaining thralls.
“Is this all?” she wondered.
“No,” Ghost Rider answered. “We must gather the others as quickly as possible. Chthon’s scheme is more layered than this.” She got on her motorcycle and, together with Pale Rider, rode away from the devastation they had caused.
As Ghost Rider and Pale Rider made their charge, Fearless and Masked Rider were battling Darkhold soldiers. Fearless lashed out with her energy chain-blades from her batons, cutting through the Darkhold soldiers. Masked Rider simply waded through the Darkhold soldiers, making her way by kicking them in between every step she took. When the Darkhold soldiers attempted to attack her, the Masked Rider blocked those attacks with her legs and retaliated with brutal kicks that knocked them down.
She jumped into the air and came down kicking a Darkhold soldier with both feet. She flipped off that Darkhold soldier and kicked off another, twisting in midair to kick another, and another, and another, and another. The coup de grace came when she performed a sideways corkscrew kick that practically caved in the chest of a Darkhold soldier.
“Are these still human beings?” Fearless asked.
“They’re lost to Chthon,” the Masked Rider replied tersely. “Forget them. Do what you have to.”
Reluctantly, but no less fiercely, did Fearless cut down the Darkhold soldiers with her chain-blades. She combined her batons into one staff and extended the energy blades on both, spinning with the dual-bladed staff to take down as many Darkhold soldiers as possible. At one point, she stabbed one end into the ground and used the staff to pole-vault into a kick to another Darkhold soldier, before pulling the staff out and swinging it to cut down more Darkhold soldiers. On a whim, she ran toward the Masked Rider and vaulted off her shoulders to impale a Darkhold soldier with her separated energy blades.
“You’re surprisingly vicious for someone who was worried about their lives just a short time ago,” Masked Rider remarked.
“Old habits,” Fearless answered, smelling two different varieties of brimstone. At that moment, Ghost Rider and Pale Rider arrived in front of her and Masked Rider, trailing red and blue hellfire respectively.
“Time to go,” Ghost Rider snarled.
“Go where?” Fearless asked.
“Chthon’s plan was to divide us,” Ghost Rider answered. “We must regroup, if we are to stand a chance.” She and Pale Rider immediately rode away, leaving Fearless and Masked Rider to get on their own motorcycles and follow them.
As the Midnight Daughters and Fearless sped to find the rest of their number, Phantom Rider was having herself a jolly time shooting up Darkhold devils with her guns, which were firing hellfire bullets. She dodged their assaults with lightning reflexes and shot them down with deadeye aim. When one Darkhold devil charged her with his arm extended to impale her, Phantom Rider jumped onto that arm and spun on the foot she was using to ground herself to kick him in the head with the other. Flipping off him, she fired a hellfire bullet into his head.
Landing on her feet, Phantom Rider spread her arms out and performed a 360-degree spin, firing her guns as she did. By the time she returned to her original position, Darkhold devils were lying dead all around her, the hellfire bullets having incinerated their insides. “Huh. Job well done, I suppose.”
Just as she was about to get on her motorcycle and ride away, she spotted Ghost Rider, Masked Rider, Pale Rider, and Fearless riding toward her. “Hey, what’s the deal?” she asked.
“Chthon! His plan was to divide us all along!” Pale Rider shouted. “Hurry up and follow us!”
“Sure,” Phantom Rider answered, getting on her chopper and speeding up to the other three Midnight Daughters and Fearless. “But what does he get from splitting us up?”
“Distraction,” Pale Rider replied.
“Why would he do that?” Phantom Rider asked.
“To blind us to what he really wants,” Pale Rider replied.
“And just what does he really want?” Phantom Rider inquired.
“Have you ever heard of totems?” Masked Rider asked.
“You mean those Native American totem poles?” Phantom Rider surmised.
“Not quite,” Masked Rider corrected. “No, the totems I’m talking about are animal spirits. Every so often, someone is born who possesses a unique connection to a particular animal spirit. If that person learns to synchronize with the animal spirit within them, they can wield great power, both physical and spiritual. We have cause to believe that he is after a particularly strong totemic spirit.”
“And who would that be?” Phantom Rider asked.
“She’s been among us all along,” Masked Rider replied grimly. “But now she is apart from us. If we’re lucky, Nocturne and Crimson will shelter her. If we aren’t . . .”
Back at the mansion, Arachne, Nocturne Rider, and Crimson Rider were battling the Devilwraiths. Nocturne stabbed and sliced Devilwraiths with her claymore, while Crimson put her psychic and physical strength to brutal use. Arachne continued her deadly dance, knees, elbows, and fists viciously impacting the Devilwraiths when she couldn’t reach them with her astral spider legs. Dodging the assault of a particularly murderous Devilwraith, she twisted in the air and impaled him with all four of her spider legs. With a vicious toss, she threw him into several other Devilwraiths.
Crimson Rider glided above the ground, “sliding” into a telekinetically reinforced punch that ripped through a Devilwraith’s chest. Pulling her fist out, she flipped over the Devilwraith and threw herself into a flying kick that caught another Devilwraith that was trying to attack Arachne. She extended a telekinetic blade and swung it with inhuman speed and precision, killing six Devilwraiths.
“Thanks,” Arachne rasped out, sweeping her leg out to take down another Devilwraith.
“Don’t mention it,” Crimson murmured. “Seriously. Don’t.”
Arachne ran up a wall, turning in mid-run and kicking off the wall to strike down several Devilwraiths. Her astral spider legs sprung out from her back and speared four more Devilwraiths, just before she jump-kicked another Devilwraith. She grabbed a Devilwraith by the head and slammed it down while flipping over it to scissor-kick two more. Landing on her hands in a back-flip, Arachne positioned herself on her widespread feet in a quasi-crouch, ready to attack.
At that moment, the other Midnight Daughters and Fearless entered the mansion, signaling their arrival with a flechette storm of hellfire-charged chain links and the attack of a burning two-tailed cat spirit. Masked Rider threw herself into a series of ricocheting flying kicks, taking down several more Devilwraiths. Phantom Rider fired her guns in what seemed to be a ballet of hellfire bullets. Fearless extended chain blades from her batons and sliced through the Devilwraiths with an eerie grace.
Finally, there was only one Devilwraith left, and it was surprisingly small, slender, and sleek. Its features were rather smooth and angular, instead of the demoniac fierceness usually seen in Devilwraiths. It almost seemed . . . womanly, for lack of a better term. It certainly would look harmless to an outside observer, if not for the aura of sheer evil that emanated from the creature.
“Yeah, definitely final boss material,” Arachne remarked.
Phantom Rider looked at Arachne curiously, prompting the red-and-blue-costumed girl to explain. “In a lot of modern RPGs, the final enemy is never some big, hulking monster that’s easy to feel justified in killing because it’s huge and ugly. No, a lot of the final enemies are quite . . . dainty-looking. Doesn’t make them any less dangerous; hell, they’re more dangerous because they look so harmless, since you underestimate them.”
“Smart,” Phantom Rider remarked. “You’re annoying as hell, but you got a working brain.”
“Gee, thanks,” Arachne answered.
The Devilwraith Boss seemed to vanish, and seconds later, the Midnight Daughters, Fearless, and Arachne had all been taken down. “What the hell?!” Nocturne Rider yelled. “How did it move that fast?!”
“It did,” Fearless groaned. “Even I couldn’t see it move.”
“Where did it go?” Crimson Rider asked. “Hah. Screw that. Wherever it went, I’m going to find it and kill it.”
“I think . . . I know . . . where it went,” Arachne groaned.
“What do you mean?” Fearless asked.
Masked Rider glared at Arachne. “It’s still here, isn’t it?”
“Y-yeah . . .” Arachne replied. “It’s still here . . .” She lifted one of her hands, which was now covered in leathery black hide with long, sharp crimson nails extending from the fingertips. “It’s here . . . in me . . .” She lifted her other hand, which was in the same condition as the hand she had lifted previously. “Isn’t it beautiful . . . ?” She reached up and sliced her mask off, revealing that her hair had turned snow white and six more eyes had grown on her forehead, four in the center and two directly above her original eyes. All eight of those eyes now glowed a malevolent violet . . . and her lower body was shifting, growing more spiderlike . . .
“Audrey . . .” Fearless murmured, horrified.
With surprising alacrity considering the lower half of her body was now a giant spider, the possessed Arachne attacked the Midnight Daughters and Fearless. Phantom Rider shot at her, but Arachne Mode Gone caught the hellfire bullets with her nails and flicked them back at the Midnight Daughters. Phantom Rider was caught in the bicep by one of the bullets, while Masked Rider’s armor thankfully deflected hers. Pale Rider lunged at Arachne Mode Gone with blue hellfire surrounding her, but Arachne Mode Gone caught Pale Rider’s arm and broke it.
Ghost Rider roared in fury. “I’m going to burn you out of her, demon.”
“Pot calling the kettle black, don’t you think?” Arachne Mode Gone mocked.
Ghost Rider lashed out with her chain, only for Arachne Mode Gone’s superior reflexes to enable her to catch the chain and yank Ghost Rider toward her. Arachne Mode Gone thrust her other hand into Ghost Rider’s midsection, her claws piercing the hellfire that practically composed her skin. That turned out to be a bad move on her part, as her hand was on fire when she withdrew it. That hand reverted to a normal human hand, signaling that the Devilwraith Boss no longer had complete control of Arachne.
Arachne Mode Gone threw Ghost Rider aside, just as her reverted hand grabbed her throat and began to squeeze. “What . . . do you . . . think you’re doing?”
Another voice answered. “Not letting you have my body! Not letting you use my power to hurt the people I love!”
“You miserable . . .”
“Oh, shut up.”
Arachne Mode Gone grabbed the hand that was choking her with her still-transformed hand, trying to pull it off her throat. The human-looking hand squeezed harder on Arachne Mode Gone’s throat. At that moment, Pale Rider lunged at Arachne Mode Gone, who extended her transformed hand to deflect her attack. Unfortunately for her, Pale Rider grabbed her transformed hand and injected it with a generous amount of blue hellfire. Arachne Mode Gone screamed with rage and threw Pale Rider off her. It was too late, though, as that hand also reverted to its former human state.
“Get . . . the f#$% out . . . of MY BODY!”
She squeezed her throat harder with one hand and slammed her stomach brutally with the elbow of her other arm. “What do you think this will accomplish, stupid girl?”
“Stopping you.”
She suddenly collapsed to the ground, her spiderlike lower body unable to hold her up any longer. Her multiple legs began to meld into two long, leanly muscled legs and her thorax began to shrink down into what an onlooker would easily recognize as a toned, muscled feminine backside. “You . . . you’re not . . . going to be . . .”
“You think? Idiot.”
“Damn you. I will . . . I will . . .”
“You won’t,” Fearless whispered in her ear. “We won’t let you.”
Black goop spilled out of Arachne’s mouth, while her darkening hair obscured her face. The goop writhed and bubbled, but twin blasts of red and blue hellfire struck it, incinerating it. Arachne jumped back, the motion throwing her hair back and revealing that her eyes were normal again, in both number and color. Fearless caught her, wrapping her arms around the younger girl’s midsection.
“It’s ok now,” she whispered. “I got you.”
“Thanks,” Arachne whispered.
“Unless you wanna go out bare-assed,” Phantom Rider called out, “you might wanna find some pants.”
Arachne and Fearless looked down, just as they realized that Arachne’s Chthonian transformation had ripped apart the lower half of her costume. Arachne sighed sadly. “And I really liked that costume, too . . .”