Symbiote 0232: Breaking and Entering


    "I’m sorry,” Gwen shook her head. “It’s just that … whenever ites to Murdock, I just can’t …” She spoke with a tremble as she wrapped her arms around herself.


    Alex would havepletely wasted Doctor Faustus’ knowledge of psychology if he still couldn’t make sense of Gwen’s state. She had been traumatized after everything that Murdock had put her through and the man’s mere mention had be a source of stress and anger for her.


    “You have PTSD, you know,” Alex told her, his voice soothing as it rang in her ears instead of the previous telepathic method ofmunication.


    “What?” Gwen made an expression of disbelief, “I don’t have PTSD, we took care of Murdock. Not to mention no one truly got hurt with you protecting everyone close to me.”


    “Except you, Gwen,” Alex said. “Finding out that he was behind so many major problems in your life, it’s easy to understand the kind of stress that the mere mention of him can bring to you.”


    “I don’t have PTSD, Alex,” Gwen said finally. “Now I’m going to Queens. I have a Chinese warlord’s son to meet with.”


    “Or,” Alex said as Gwen felt the suit around her tightening significantly, giving a sense of resistance in her movements, “you could obedientlye with me to our warehouse where we do a small celebration. We have, after all, found the man we were looking for. He’s not going to run away in a couple of hours.”


    Before Gwen could even respond, she felt her piercings sending a weird feeling through her nipples as if they were vibrating. The sensation was stimting her already extra-sensitive nipples and making it very difficult for her to refuse. “We should —” She said, her reluctance unmistakable, “— get to him before he leaves, Alex.”


    “I’ll send a body to monitor him,” He said. “Come on now, take a turn here.” With his words, he intensified the vibrations of her piercings, intensifying the arousal that was slowly building up.


    “Fine,” Gwen said, “but only because you’re asking nicely.” Gwen forgot all about her stress and Matt Murdock as her mind started wandering toward what she and Alex would be doing for the next few hours.


    …


    “Are we not bringing Cindy with us?” Gwen asked.


    “Not yet,” Alex told her. “We’re just going to probe him for now. I want to understand his motivations, his strengths, whatever I can. After that, we will set a trap for him using Cindy. If he knows we are associated with her, then he would be wary.”


    “Are you sure that we can’t just beat him in the first ce?” Gwen asked him, “I’m pretty sure that he doesn’t stand a chance against me alone, even without youing into the picture.”


    “You’re underestimating him too much,” Alex said. “Without the rings, Shang-Chi is arguably the best melee fighter you will ever meet. With the rings, his strength can theoretically be boosted to the peak superhuman level if he really exerts himself. At best, you can bring him to a stalemate when you use everything in your arsenal.”


    “And with you in the picture?” Gwen asked.


    “Yeah we can beat him,” Alex nodded, “But I want to do more than just beat him. I want his techniques — his entire inheritance really. For that, I have to make sure he doesn’t activate some fail-safe and self-destruct the rings or something.”


    “What about the Mind Stone?” Gwen asked. “Can’t you just mind-control him into agreeing? Or even the Soul Stone. Hell, you should probably be able to use the Time Stone to look into his past and see all of those techniques that you keep going on about.”


    Alex heard her and went silent for a few seconds.


    [EP: 79]


    A few hours ago, while he was enjoying a fluffy time with Gwen, on another, with Jane, he had just emptied out all of his EP reserves fighting Adam Warlock andbating the Soul Stone that the High Evolutionary had given Ayesha. He could positively say that he wasn’t going to use the Infinity Stones until his EP reserves hit back up to ten thousand at least. Or if he found a better way to use them before that.


    “Using the stones isn’t an option for now,” Alex said, “And don’t you always advocate fighting fair? That too much power in a single person’s hands is too much?”


    “You don’t have hands,” Gwen said. “Nor are you a person. And I know you are going to be conscious of what you use your stones for.”


    “You mean The Stones,” Alex corrected Gwen.


    “I know what I said,” Gwen said as a sly smile crept up on her face, leaving Alex speechless.


    …


    [Do we go in all sneaky or do we break into the building, guns zing?] Gwen asked Alex as she looked at what seemed like an abandoned warehouse from the outside. She was perched on top of a water tower, at a spot where she could easily look into the building through the windows, but it seemedpletely empty.


    [That’s your choice.] Alex told her, [I can help out with either method. I’ll even make makeshift guns for you that will shoot webs instead of bullets if you want.]


    [As tempting as the idea sounds … Some other time. Let’s sneak in. Considering that I can’t see or sense anyone inside, they are probably underground. He might escape if we spook him.] Gwen decided as she jumped down and swung down to a side door of the warehouse. [Can you open it from the inside?] She asked Alex as she camouged herself andpletely disappeared. With Alex using Chaos Energy to mask her presencepletely, hence using ?Advanced Camouge?, it was going to be virtually impossible to find her.


    Alex didn’t respond, but Gwen heard a very suppressed clicking sound that indicated to her the unlocking of the door. She steadily opened the door as little as possible before slipping in and closing it behind herself. The entire warehouse waspletely dark, barely illuminated by the midnight moonlight that was shining through the windows. However, it was enough for Gwen. She may not have had night vision, but her vision was better than most even without Alex’s support. She was easily able to navigate through the dark room despite the minimal light.


    [Yeah, this ce ispletely empty.] Gwen said to Alex, [If not for my sensitivity to electricity, I would have treated it as an abandoned warehouse without a second thought.] As she said that, she moved to a non-descript wall without anything of note on it. Pressing her palm on the surface, she clearly felt the electrical impulses behind the hidden mechanism all the more clearly. [Is there any way to go down other than the elevator? Using it wouldpletely blow my cover.]


    [I’m looking for it.] Alex told her, [The elevator seems like our best bet. Instead of calling it up, I’m going hack into the terminal to open the door so that we can descend the shaft.]


    Gwen nodded at Alex’s words and kept her palm pressed on the surface of the wall. Feeling something slithering over her palm and going into the wall, she knew that Alex was looking for the terminal that controlled the elevator. The whole process took a little over a minute before the door finally opened, only to reveal the dark hollow shaft of the elevator.


    [We can go down now, the elevator is five floors lower than us, we get out on the negative fourth floor.] Alex told her.


    Gwen didn’t say anything and shot her web at the ceiling of the elevator shaft before hanging from it upside down and distributing her weight equally all over the web. She started extending the web and started descending headfirst through the shaft.


    [Isn’t this both a slow and a risky method?] Alex asked as Gwen passed the negative second floor after thirty seconds, [If someone attacks you, your head is the first thing that gets hit, not to mention how slowly you are descending.]


    [It’s afortable method, I guess.] Gwen answered, [You’re correct, I could just jump down and stop myself just before hitting the ceiling of the elevator, but this kind of descent justes more naturally to me.]


    [Spider people.] Alex said with a sighing tone.


    [Bite me.] Gwen said as she passed the third set of doors and descended toward her destination That was when her spider-sense red, making her look down. Despite the pitch-ck darkness she could feel the air currents moving and understood that the elevator wasing up. Before she could even call out to Alex, the door to the third floor opened up and she quickly shot another web at the frame of the now-opened door. Pulling herself up, she stuck herself to the ceiling of the room that she had found herself in.


    “Huh?” A muffled voice spoke as Gwen’s eyes homed in on a masked man wearing a kind ofbat suit that emphasized mobility. He spoke something in Chinese that Gwen couldn’t understand, but she had enough context to understand that he wasining about the elevator door malfunctioning. She looked around what seemed to her to be a dimly lit corridor with metallic walls. The yellow lights attached to the ceiling at equal intervals were barely enough to illuminate the entire corridor.


    As the door closed once again, Gwen was quick to shoot two webs at the man. One to suppress him and wrap around him and the other to pull him up toward the ceiling. Before he could even react, the man was wrapped in Gwen’s webs and was attached to the ceiling. Not seeing anything, he tried to scream a muffled scream to alert his patrol partner, but a poke at his throat sent an electric shock through him. Trying again, the man realized that he had lost his voicepletely, unable to make the slightest sounds.


    [Let’s go, there’s another guard approaching us.] Alex spoke in Gwen’s head.