Issue 14: X Factor VII

Activating their suits, the Symbiotes engulfed their bodies, covering them completely moments before the elevator door opened.

The Spider-Heroes were shocked to see that the entire room shielded in by barricades made of household items and Sue's barriers.

Ben was grappling with giant insect-like creatures. The top half of the monsters looked like a gargantuan prey mantis mixed while the lower half had the appearance of a caterpillar covered in dozens of razor-sharp legs.

Peter felt his stomach pinch in worry as he recognized the creatures and thought, "Oh, god no! It's the Arthrosians!"

He saw chitinous exoskeletons, claws, pincers, mandibles, and eyes that appear to glow. Barbed mandibles that are able to easily rend flesh and armor, even the spaceworthy Nova uniforms stood no chance against some of these creatures' formidable strengths.

Some of the Arthrosians have other abilities, such as flying via wings, the ability to breathe fire, and fire blast of energy like massive bombs.

They come in a wide variety of shapes, from bipedal semi-humanoids to strange centaur body types, beetles, wasp, spiders, and centipedes.

They also come in a wide variety of sizes, from insects as tall as humans to monstrosities the size of dinosaurs and spaceships!

Thankfully after gleaning that there were only ground-type insectoids flooding the room, Peter managed to notice that the portal they were coming through was also restricting the bigger ones from entering.

However, the more that came through that small portal, the larger the portal expanded.

Peter and MJ tried to rush out of the Elevator to help but were suddenly stopped by one of Sue's barriers. It appeared that she blocked the area off so that the creatures couldn't escape the building.

Peter started to pound on Sue's invisible barrier while yelling, "Sue open up! I can help!"

Sue, who was holding back a large and invisible bubble around the Negative Universe Transportation Pod, noticed the powerful strikes that Peter was railing against on her containment field.

Johnny was inside the fighting off the swarm of insect monsters with everything he had. His entire body glowing white rather than his usual sun-orange, and every time the creatures attacked, they were burned to a crisp by Johnny's fires.

When he looked like he was growing tired, Peter started to ram against Sue's Barrier with all his strength.

"SUE! OPEN THE DAMN BARRIER NOW!" Peter shouted at the top of his lungs as he and MJ relentlessly assaulted the invisible barrier.

Sue felt her head pounding as the strain of holding two barriers began to take its toll on her mental state. She then shut down the one surrounding the elevator and focused her attention on the remaining barrier around the Dimensional Transference Machine.

Not wasting any time, Peter and MJ jumped into action. First, Spider-Man used his concrete webbing to reinforce the building's structure and metal shutter barricades that covered the windows.

MJ clogged up the elevator and started fighting the first creature she could get her hands on.

Peter jumped over to Ben while the giant prey mantis that he was struggling against, pinned him to the ground and attempted to claw off his face. He then quickly punched his arm inside the back of the creature's torso before he ordered his Symbiote to take the shape of barbwire and launch it out in every direction.

The creature turned into a porcupine before Peter's suit ripped the giant prey mantis's body into shreds.

Helping Ben up by picking him up effortlessly off the ground, he then turned to the approaching foes and said, "Ready for some Smashing-Time big guy?!"

"You're saying it all wrong kid. It's not Smashing-Time, but, CLOBBERING TIME!" Ben shouted as he jumped over to the nearest enemy and began clobbering away,

MJ was burning through her arsenal of weaponized webbing cartridges. She blasted her shock-webbing like a machine-gun, she used her concrete-webbing to seal their bodies before dispatching them, she used her blast webbing to blind and lock their limbs, and after she ran out, she switched to suffocating them with her Symbiote's webbing.

Peter charged up his Chi as his arms and legs as he watched them be enveloped by a golden hue of energy. He was pleasantly surprised by the control and quantity of his Bio-Energy. Peter could only be reminded of Iron Fist's ability as he rushed forward and punched through his foes slaughtering his way through his around the room.

Greenish-blue blood shot out over his decapitated and smashed foes as Peter zipped around the room at incredible speeds while busting through their shell-like exteriors using martial arts alone.

MJ was no slouch either, just like Peter, she had learned to control her Chi from the same master and continued to practice their techniques daily.

The only difference in her Chi; was that as her arms and legs glowed red rather than gold. She webbed, kicked, and punched her way around while easily managing to hold her own alongside Peter.

"I hate BUGS!" MJ shouted as she kicked the head off a strange bipedal beetle.

"Arachnids are cool though!" Peter chimed in as he bisected an alien insect with a single chopping motion.

MJ then punched her hand through a strange looking antlion and ripped it in half, and as she threw the monster's head into a group of insectoids, the tail of a giant centipede slammed into her waist and sent her flying across the room.

Peter called out her name in worry as he caught her and asked, "You okay?"

"I'm fine, except I'm pretty sure you just blew my cover," MJ stated as she stood up and noticed Ben yelling at the top of his lungs while slaughtering back the hoard of insect monsters.

"I don't think he heard me," Peter replied as he helped placed MJ back on her feet.

Thanks to the defensive properties of the Symbiote, she only felt that her ribs slightly bruised before a tingling feeling quickly spread across her body while the wounds on her body recovered.

Seeing her condition improved, MJ shook off her nerves and jumped back into the fight.

Peter charged up his Chi and looked at the monster that hurt MJ before he said, "You got a lot of nerve, touching my woman."

Running over to centipede creature, Peter swung his fist out with as much force as he could muster. His punch landed against the creature's body, causing the room to shake and creak. If Peter hadn't reinforced the room earlier, than with that single punch, he would've caused the entire floor to collapse.

Peter looked at his own fist and smiled before kicking into overdrive. As he and MJ hopped around killing every monster they touched, they started to notice the numbers thinning.

After clearing out the room, Peter, MJ, and Ben, all ran towards Reed's lab and was stopped by another one of Sue's Barriers.

Reed was frantically typing away at a massive computer with a very frustrated expression on his face, Johnny was doing everything he could to hold the army back, and Sue was straining to hold everything together with her barriers.

Peter looked around and started pounding against Sue's invisible wall.

"Sue open up!" Ben shouted joining in on the pounding.

Noticing the fluctuations coming from her barrier, Sue looked over to see the three yelling at her to let them in.

Joy spread across her face as she saw her fellow FF teammate and the Spider-Hero couple that she heard about recently.

Sue quickly waved her hands and opened up a small section of the barrier so they could pass.

Without waiting for an invitation, Peter, MJ, and Ben ran in before Sue replaced the barrier.

"Reed, you're storage crystal prototype, where is it?" Peter shouted out in a hurry.

Reed looked over and saw Peter in costume, confused how he knew about the prototype, he glared at Spider-Man before he shouted back, "Who are you and how do you know about that?"

Peter looked at the growing portal to the Negative Universe and made a rash decision.

"Desperate times…Arrrggh…it isn't worth keeping it from them."

Knowing that they were running out of time, Peter suddenly pulled back his mask and shouted, "Where is it? We don't have time waste!"

"Peter!?" Everyone shouted, even Johnny who was on the other side of the portal, almost lost his cool and undid his 'flame on' form.

"Danmit answer me!" Peter shouted again, snapping them out of their shock.

Reed stretched his arm out to a large cabinet and pulled out a large technologic metal box with a fist-sized temporal crystal placed inside the center of it.

Tossing it to Peter, Spider-Man webbed it over to his position while he towards the portal and shouted, "Johnny move!"

Johnny jumped back through the portal and to the side of his family. As Peter placed the high-tech box on the ground and turned on the machine, a bright light suddenly flashed causing the hoard of insectoids to be pulled into the empty space that existed inside the temporal crystal.

Peter slowly moved it closer to the Portal's entrance. He then lined up the portal to the box's sub-space before placing the spatial device on the ground and backing away.

The room started to grow quiet when Peter took a deep breath and said, "Phew! This will only buy us a few minutes! Reed, what the hell happened here?"

"Pe..pet...Peter is Spider-Man?" Johnny was pinching himself to make sure he was awake.

Sue also pinched Johnny and as he let out an ouch, she said, "Yep, you're awake."

"Why'd you pinch me?" Johnny yelled out.

"Seemed like the better option," Sue replied.

"Peter you're. . ." While Reed was pointing his finger and bumbling, Peter snapped his fingers and said, "Pay attention, Reed! We don't have time to chat and catch up! Now, tell me what happened!"

Reed took a deep breath and said, "Something on the other side is keeping the Portal to the negative universe open. No matter what I try I can't close it. Damn it, is there nothing I can do?!" Reed slammed his hand on the dashboard of the supercomputer.

Peter did his best to try and come up with a solution, but it was only a matter of time until the alien insects filled up the temporal crystal's sub-space.

Since they hadn't yet found a way to jettison the stuff inside into Void Space, they had a solid half an hour to come up with a plan. With that time, they spent every waking second racking their brains for a solution for their current predicament. When the clock hit the five-minute mark, Peter and Richard managed to discover that the portal had been hijacked by the invading species, but they still didn't have a way to close the portal, short of destroying the creature responsible keeping it open.

Johnny looked at everyone in the room, then to Sue's stomach, and then at Peter before he said, "Hey Pete, you have a lot to explain, but I'm afraid I won't get to hear it. Sue take care of yourself, you're gonna be a great mom."

Everyone knew Johnny was about to do something stupid when he shouted, "Flame on!"

The room lit up in a flash of light and heat as the Human Torch charged through the portal, Peter knew he couldn't stop him and his only option was to chase after, but for a second he hesitated.

Peter thought that if he jumped through that portal, he may never return. Even if he didn't get lost or stranded somehow, there was a great abundance of dangerous beings on the other side of that portal, and even with his regeneration ability, it might not be enough to protect his own life.

On the other side, Johnny sent out waves of explosions taking out everything he could get his hands on.

Suddenly, as Johnny destroyed a giant space-ship insect-looking creature, the portal started to shrink.

Peter then felt a boiling sense of disappointment running through him, he slapped himself in the face with both his hands before thinking, "I'm Spiderman! I'm Peter Parker, and Peter Parker never hesitates to do the right thing."

Peter turned to MJ and smiled before he said, "Go get Doctor Strange. He'll be able to find us. I'll keep that moron from dying."

The moment Peter made this decision something very special was happening across the city at Strange's Sanctum.

Inside the magic-vault were the Merlin Stones sitting upon a pedestal. All of them glowed with an intense light signifying that they were in the process of choosing their true owners.

MJ's eyes widened in fright, and as she reached out her hand to stop him, Peter slipped through her grasps and jumped through a collapsing Portal.

Everyone tried to stop him, but it was too late. Whatever Johnny was doing over there he managed to close the portal.

MJ was freaking out when she turned around and started to run away.

Seeing her leaving and thinking MJ was abandoning Peter, Sue shouted, "Wait, where are you going?"

"To get help!" MJ shouted as she ripped a hole through their barricades and webbed out of the building as fast as she could.

Meanwhile, in the Negative-Zone, Peter jumped out of the other side of the portal screaming, "He~re's Johnny!"

As Spider-Man landed he saw Johnny burring up like a small sun in the distance.

After using his power to disrupt the portal and kill the creatures holding it open with their strange biotech, Johnny's flames died down as he reverted to his human form.

Peter knew this technique as Johnny's Nova Flame Burst. The Torch refers to his highest, hottest levels of plasma that he can create, and causes a huge explosion that he calls his Nova Flame.

The exact temperatures that his 'Nova Flame Body Form" can attain are similar to the heat of a star that's reached the peak of its explosion. As an adult, Johnny could stay aflame in this form for about 16.8 hours. However, this is his younger days, where he could only maintain his flame for much briefer periods, and it constantly exhausts him while in combat.

As a teenager, he could not maintain his 'Nova Flame Form' for as long as could maintain his usual flames.

The Blast version of this allows Torch can release all of his body's stored energy in one intense, omnidirectional 'Nova-Burst' which can reach about 1,000,000 F. and is similar to the heat-pulse of a nuclear warhead detonation.

With an area of total devastation of about 900 feet in diameter and the power of a supernova, the Torch once claimed that he can destroy a small moon with his Nova-Flame Burst, this technique of his placed Johnny at the top 30 of Marvel's heavy hitter listing.

The drawback was that this violent discharge of heat uses up all the reserved energy in his body, with except for the necessary to keep him alive. Once he finishes entirely exhausting his flame power he enters a state of total weakness, and generally requires hours to recover entirely from such a feat.

Peter jumped down next to the wasteland that Johnny created and said, "Admit it you're glad to see me."

Johnny was so exhausted that he couldn't even get angry, he simply turned to Peter and asked, "Pete what did you do? Only one of us had to... "

"Shut up!" Peter shouted before he plucked Johnny off the ground and proceeded to scold him by saying, "I'm saving my friend from committing suicide! You gotta problem with that? Do you think you're hot-shit jumping in here without a plan?"

While he was being criticized for his choice of action, Johnny and Peter noticed a new wave of Arthrosians in the distance rushing towards them.

Johnny sighed and stood with his own strength before he asked, "So you got a plan!?"

Peter sighed as he enveloped the Symbiote over Johnny.

As it covered Johnny, he felt what it would be like if he had Peter's powers.

As the powerful strength of the Spider-Gene and Peter's Regeneration Gene flowed through him, Johnny lifted his arms into the air and shouted, "I feel great!"

"Easy, we have a Tony and a Tiger, we don't need you shouting that phrase," Peter joked.

Without being able to discern that his Fantastic-4 suit was gobbled up by the Symbiote, Johnny's stamina and power suddenly shot back up to max while his body was once again lit aflame.

Only, this time, a clear outline of the black from the Symbiote could be seen containing his fires, giving Johnny the same appearance as his Fantastic-4 outfits.

Johnny looked to Peter amazed that he could now perfectly maintain his Nova Flame Form and asked, "What the hell is this thing? I feel like I could blow up a star!"

"It's my suit and I'm only lending it until this whole ordeal is over," Peter answered before he quickly webbed up his body in a makeshift vest, arms, leggings. He didn't want to face an army of advanced alien insects in his spidey boxers.

Johnny looked back at the approaching army and gulped before he asked, "So about that plan?"

"Kick butt and survive!" Peter's arms started glowing with a great amount of Chi that would make the Iron Fist jealous.

"Ah, a classic," Johnny stated as he got ready to take off.

Peter continued to spread his Chi around his limbs until his entire body glowed with a golden hue.

Every time his Chi depleted, Peter continued to regain it through his healing factor and infused it into his body.

While he might not have as much Chi as a Dragon God of K'un Lun, as long as he maintained this pace of storing it in muscles, he could eventually rival one.

Peter then looked back to Johnny and asked, "You ready?"

Johnny smiled and nodded his head before he charged spheres of white fire around his hands while saying, "You know it bug-boy."

"Spiders are arachnids, you moron!" Peter shouted as the two charged into the war zone and started their onslaught.

Every one of Spider-Man's punches carried the same force as Thor, if he were playfully swinging his hammer. The air cracked and powerful concussive waves echoed from Peter's attacks as the blood and gore of hundreds of victims began flying about.

Johnny was mercilessly blasting white-hot flames at every insectoid creature in site. The ground surrounding his targets melted like glass and nothing of their corpses remained, not even ashes.

Back in N.Y, Spider-Woman could be seen flying across the city moving at very reckless speeds.

Seeing the Sanctum within her sight, MJ launched herself through the air. Landing a few feet away from the building, she then dashed towards the door before she started pounding on it.

"Hello, Doctor Strange! Please, open up! Peter needs your help." MJ shouted with panic in her voice.

The doors opened and Strange stood over her and said, "Lead the way, Spider-Woman."

Stephen had a strange expression on his face as looked over towards the Baxter Building.