Issue 40: Trials of Merlin Part XI

MJ was suddenly noticed by the others and Gwen freaked out, "Omg! You're Spider-Woman!"

MJ didn't even hear her as she started to run out of the Sanctum. She tried to contact Peter telepathically, but all she could get out of him was 'It's all my fault' stuck on repeat. MJ's worry grew even more as she felt Peter's mind descend into Madness, "I'll kill him, make him suffer, he'll regret."

"Peter, COME ON TIGER, SNAP OUT OF IT!" MJ shouted trying to snap Peter out of it. But it was no good, he was too entrenched in his fight with Mayhem to return to his senses. 

In his rage fueled daze, he continued to pound away at the Symbiote who was laughing hysterically. Peter noticed that the Symbiote was trying to steal away his powers, so he put a stop to that when he started going supernova. His body glowed with pure white heat making Mayhem Scream in agony.

Peter webbed his mouth and kicked Mayhem across the sky. The red and black Symbiote which became Mayhem instead of Carnage flew back and tried to make a move towards more people to absorb. 

"PETER! SNAP OUT OF IT!" Her voice rang throughout his entire body when he suddenly came out of his daze and looked around.

"What the hell is wrong with me? This isn't how Spider-Man should fight. Use your damn head, Peter!" Spider-Man thought as his head was starting to clear. 

Thanks to MJ's telepathic presence, his irrational behavior became instantly apparent, and he managed to finally come back to his senses. 

"Why didn't my suit stop the psychic attack? Don't tell me Shriek's powers aren't psionic or magical in nature, does her ability work on the soul like Mr. Negative's powers?" He webbed Mayhem in the back and pulled up stray pieces of metal, forming them into a sealed sphere which Mayhem easily broke out of.

Peter was starting to grow more worried, Mayhem had absorbed Tinker one of the smartest known villains in the Marvel universe that could give any Techno wiz a run for their money, Sand-Man is able to convert his body into molecular and quantum structures that can reform, and Shriek could control sonics, soul, and had Telekinesis, Speed Demon was essentially the yellow flash but much slower, and Killer Shrike was a warped version of Captain America. Peter didn't know if his ability to control gravity was the result of technology like it was in the 616 Universe or a Mutant Gene that was in the Ultimate Universe.

Mayhem dashed back towards the Prisoners a blast of speed that was hard for Peter to keep up with. He had to use his lighting form to catch up, shooting out his organic webbing coated in lightning. 

The webs covered Mayhem torso before he could touch another victim, Peter used all of his strength and threw him far out over the river as he could, yet Mayhem still laughed at Peter like he was having a good time. 

Peter shot out dozens of webs as he spoke to MJ, "Hey baby, thanks for pulling me out of that, I think you just saved my life. Contact the Avengers tell them that the Raft, you know, the place we keep all our supervillains at, is compromised, I need his help on this one." 

"Peter what is that thing!?" MJ asked with a worried tone.

"A mistake MJ, my mistake," Peter said as he dodged Mayhem's tentacles. 

Spider-Man continued to keep Mayhem away from the raft and was thinking of taking this fight into space. 

Realizing what he was up to, Mayhem let out a growl as he shouted, "Stop ruining my fun Spider-Man, why are you stopping me? You should be helping me! Have fun with me, brother!"

Peter felt his mind slowly slipping into madness when he said, "MJ, keep talking to me. Just tell me anything, I need your voice to keep me grounded."

"I'm almost there, Tiger. Just hang on." MJ started telling him about her time at Attilan, about the people she met, and the friends made.

Peter took a deep breath and managed to keep fighting back against Mayhem's ability to corrupt a person's soul. The hero kept him far enough away to reduce Shirek's ability, but he knew that he couldn't harm Mayhem either. After all, Symbiotes were practically immortal, and this one had absorbed some troublesome fellows that made him more so.

"Spider-Man, Spider-Man, can't save everyone, Spider-Man. Can he stop, me from killing? No, he can't, he's too wimpy. Look out here comes the crazy Mayhem!" Mayhem sang as he started to turn into dust particles spreading out over the distance, 

Peter was racking his head for a solution when MJ showed up and used her Hydrokinesis to create a dome of water rotating at an insane speed around them.

Mayhem reformed at the center of the bubble and shouted," Stop fighting me, we're the same, why don't you absorb and steal all the power you want? So, what if we kill people here and there, with them we could be all-powerful, with them we could absorb this whole universe. We can all be one!"

MJ held his hand and the two carried on with a conversation to stop whatever influence Mayhem's power had over them, something about their telepathic link allowed them to resist Mayhem's madness. 

Peter stared down Mayhem and said, "I'm not like you, the power I seek is to use it for righteous means."

As he spoke one of the Merlin Gems back in the Sanctum glowed with a bright red light. Strange smiled as he opened the Sanctum doors and exited the building with the Power Ruby. Raising his hand in the air, the Sorcerer Supreme said, "And with this the first trial is complete."

Peter continued to speak of the power he sought after, "The power I seek is indeed ultimate power, but with it will come ultimate responsibility." 

The Ruby shot out of Strange's hand and flew towards Peter so quickly that it was ripping through the space around it. Before Peter knew what happened, the Merlin Gem slapped into his back merging with his armor, red lines circulated on top of his suit glowing with the power containing a fraction of the universe's laws.

"Power Mode Active! One Minute to Power Ruby depletes energy, 24 hours are required to recharge Gem's energy. Make it count, Peter." Webster's voice echoed throughout Peter's mind. 

For one minute he could channel the portion of the entire strength of the universe, Peter didn't wait as he thought of a proper way to use this time, everything else around him faded away. Only MJ's presence and the problem before them remained. 

Peter suddenly thought, "What is Power?"

He raised his hand, "If I have Ultimate Strength then why can't I force apart the molecules bonding you and the victims together." Peter waved his hand and watched as the prisoners and guards he had absorbed shot out from Mayhem's body and landed naked on the ground. 

Only Kasady remained, and as much as Peter then tried to force the two apart, nothing happened. It appeared that there was a bond that not even fragmented Ultimate Power he had achieved could remove. 

"Fine let's do this the hard way."

Peter dashed over and shot into the sky rapidly climbing out into the stratosphere. He created an airtight chamber made of his Organic Webbing imbued with the Power Ruby's energy before placed Mayhem inside it. 

He shot over to the moon in an instant, using his lighting fire mode to finish the job, 

"30 seconds remaining!" Webster warned, Peter waved his hand and pulled out a pillar of the moon's surface then threw Mayhem into the Moon's core before putting everything back the way it was. Peter then blasted all the way back to MJ to see her helping all the people Mayhem spit out. Overall, there were 102 Inmates, and 32 Guards, and the six police officers he had absorbed that found themselves free. 

Even though they saved some lives, Peter still felt terrible about the lives Kasady claimed through their brutal slaughtering. 

After cleaning up the mess and securing the prisoners with the aid of the Avengers, Tony dropped by and saw him staring over the Raft.

"You okay kid?" Tony asked

"Yeah Tony, It's...it's just that this day has been pretty brutal," Peter responded, MJ could feel guilt and disappointment rolling off of Peter and held his hand tightly.

"Tiger, it's not your fault."

"Listen to her kid, bad stuff happens all the time, and you stopped it from getting worse. Go home and get some rest, the Avenger's will take it from here." Tony said as he blasted off back to the prison to help take care of clean up.

"MJ gave him a kiss on the cheek and said, "He's right you know, you should listen to me."

Peter smiled back at her as he said, "It is my fault though MJ, this happened because I shirked my duties as Peter Parker. I was so focused on the suit, I overlooked something that caused the deaths of others...the blood is on my hands."

"Pete..."

"Come on we need to go to Reed Richards Science Center," Peter webbed off.

They made their way to a lab room where a group of college students was picking up the mess made by Venom the previous night.

"Excuse me!" Peter said as he stood on the roof next to MJ, "You wouldn't happen to have seen a young man by the name of Eddie Brock."

"Spider-Man! Spider-Woman!" The college students shouted.

"Peter and MJ hopped onto the ground and Peter said, "I'm looking for a student named Eddie Brock."

A bunch of the students looked disgusted and said, "Us too, he was the last one to use the lab, and he left it like this." A young with black short hair and stylish attire spoke out in thick Greek accent "My name Dr. Michael Morbius, Eddie is one of my students, he hasn't returned to the dorms last night."

Peter looked at the future living vampire and sighed before he said, "Can you tell me anything else about him, like where he lived before moving into the Dorms, or where he would go if he had no other place."

Morbius went into his office and pulled out a student profile on Eddie, he came back out and handed it over. The Spider-Hero flipped through it and learned that Eddie had an apartment at a complex in the Bronx.

After handing it back, Peter and MJ thanked Morbius. Before Peter left, he slipped a nano tracker on him and said, "You should look into Reed's new Portable Lab Tech, you can create a pocket space to perform your experiments in, so things like this don't happen in the future."

Peter and MJ then headed towards the Bronx in search of Eddies tracks. They entered his apartment and found that it hadn't been used in a while. There were large cloth sheets covering up most of the furniture, trash littered here and there, and several books on genetic engineering lying about here and there.

Peter and MJ began searching through his stuff when Peter found a hidden floor cover. After opening it up he discovered a set of old videotapes, MJ looked over his shoulder and said, "Wow, don't know of anyone who uses cassette tapes anymore. You got a VCR, Peter? Cause there's not even a T.V in here."

Peter placed a few surveillance bugs around the room and headed to the window before saying, "Yeah back at my place, but we have to sneak in. I don't want Strange's spell to break."

After sneaking into his Aunt and Uncle's basement, they started viewing the videos, Peter and MJ discovered that Eddie's father was working alongside his parents, and most of the material was their experimentations on making the Symbiote prototypes.

They reviewed a lot of stuff they already knew about the Symbiotes, but only one video seemed to be of any importance to them.

After putting the tape in Eddie's father appeared on the screen. He was a tall well-built man with a scar over his left eye. He had buzzed short blond hair, piercing blue eyes, and wore a long white lab coat. The man stared at the camera, cleared his voice, and gave a stern expression before began talking.

"Eddie if you're watching this, then that means I have died or have returned to where I belong. The Parkers have been lying to me, they've started to suspect what I've been up to."

Eddie's father slammed his fist on the table, "They managed to figure out the Blank Gene. Their son just recovered from an incurable disease, and thanks to that, S.H.I.E.L.D been sniffing around looking to hire them. I managed to secure you a sample of the V.E.N.O.M, I stole from Richard's lab and will attempt to stop the Parkers from making contact with our enemies."

Eddie's Father stood up and placed his arm on his chest before shouting, "Hail Hydra, and take care, my son."

Peter's face paled when MJ remembered her history, "Peter! Is that?"

Peter called up Fury, "Good job with the Prison kid, but you have some explaining to do."

Peter growled, "No, it's you who has some explaining to do Fury, and it better be the truth or we're gonna have problems!"

MJ placed her hand on Peter and said, "Are you okay?!"

"No, we need to find Eddie Brock now, he's too dangerous to let run around. Fury I'm sending you some data, you should know what I need you to build to find this guy, and I need you to tell me the truth about my parents. I swear, Fury, if I don't like what I hear, we're going to throw fists."