**
Ana Parker aimlessly, cluelessly looked around the white void “Hello? Anybody here?”
She scratched her head. One moment she was punching the daylights out of Rhinonaut, there was a beam of red light and suddenly here in this endless white landscape.
“Am I dead?”
“Not yet Chéri” hissed a voice from behind her as her spider-sense kicked into overdrive. She leapt into the air twisted around and landed, crouched low to the ground hands cocked ready to spray webbing. Standing there was a man in a grey and black costume, two nasty sickles at his side.
“Spider-Woman?” he asked.
“Spider-Rogue” she corrected “And you are, um, the Sickler? Mr Druid? Homeopathic-Man?”
“Thresher” he stated.
“Oh…that’s real friendly like.” replied Ana. She was staring, she didn’t mean to but he was the only thing to actually look at “So do you know what is going on?”
“No…not yet” he pointed to the two specs on the horizon approaching them “But I feel we’re about to find out”
A tall man with blue skin in a yellow robe was accompanied by a man in a blue-black bodysuit sitting on a hovering chair.
“Are you happy with your choice Metron?” asked the blue one.
“Very much so Grandmaster”
“Excuse me?” Ana raised her hand “I thought aliens were little green men, not tall blue men in dresses?”
Thresher smirked at the insult.
“You two will fight.” stated Grandmaster “The winner is the first to kill their opponent”
Thresher unclipped his sickles and walked over to Spider-Rogue. She fired off a burst of web fluid in defence only to see it paste against a wall of force that separated the pair. Thresher tapped it with his sickles.
“That’s why my spidey sense didn’t tingle” noted Ana aloud.
“Humans!” groaned Grandmaster. “Losers choice, Metron”
The New God scowled at the elder of the universe “You two will be sent to a city that appears in eight percent of all realities, New York. If you win, you and your entire reality live for another day and you return to where we took you from. Lose…and your reality along with your life will cease to exist!”
“Sorry to interrupt, NOT! But I don’t kill people” said Spider-Rogue.
“Then you will lose!” muttered Thresher just enough for him to hear.
“Now hang on just a…” before Ana could finish her sentence she was standing amidst traffic on the King George Washington Bridge. Her spider-sense screamed and she flipped out of the way of the oncoming traffic up onto a lamppost. Just on the foot bridge she spotted Thresher as he grabbed a passing jogger hostage.
“LET HIM GO!’ Ana screamed as she slung her way towards him.
With a casual flick Thresher sliced opened the man’s throat and turned to face her “I was about to enter the X-Men mansion and get my revenge. You have prevented that”
“Now hang on Threshy-weshy!” she landed near the bleeding man “Don’t be taking your pent up frustrations out on the locals okay. I’m going to get this guy to a hospital and…” Ana’s senses screamed as Thresher charged in trying to slice her to ribbons. Though naturally agile, she was having to work to avoid being tagged.
“Stay still!” grunted Thresher.
“And get my beautiful Southern face messed up?” She backflipped onto a wall and sprung off, tackling him to the ground. She got up “Tag! You’re it sugah!”
Thresher locked his legs around Ana’s hips and rolled through the tackle, pinning her flat to the floor with a thud. “No, you’re it!” He raised a sickle “And now, you’re dead!”
She couldn’t help but squeal as she shot a webline out to a passing car and shot out from under him like a slingshot as the point of the sickle ripped a fine tear down the her costume. Thresher flipped up and was after her with blistering speed.
-Who is this guy?-
Spider-Rogue turned and fired a spray of webbing but Thresher easily slid under it and was up in her face as her spider-sense warned of her mere microseconds before she saw them. The sickles lashed out at blinding speed, Ana was genuinely scared. This guy wasn’t playing.
“Look this is crazy!” said Spider-Rogue as she limboed out of harm’s way “Y’all can’t want to kill me; you’ve only just met me! Usually it takes two or three dates before YEOUCH!”
Thresher flicked the blood off the end of his weapon that had just clipped her shoulder slicing skin and costume off her “You talk too much”
She held the wound as she stared at the man trying to kill her “THAT REALLY HURT!”
“Stop moving and it’ll be painless” he moved forward as he spun the sickles.
-Oh this is bad!-
Ana glanced around and shot a webline up to the rooftops “You want me? Come get me!”
Thresher watched her shoot up over his head. He snarled took a short run up and leapt up onto the side of a building and power climbed his way to the rooftop. Spider-Rogue swung towards the bridge as Thresher leapt across the rooftops in hot pursuit.
-At least this way he’s focused on…spider sense tingling-
The webline was severed by a shuriken and she tumbled towards the ground. It was easily recoverable but the slip allowed Thresher to close the gap as they hit the suspension cables of the bridge. Spider-Rogue fired a cross pattern, making a net above the flowing traffic.
“Catch me if you can!” and with a smile and a wave did a quadruple somersault into the net and shot up high in the air. Without missing a beat Thresher followed suit and the dance continued on the upper echelons of the bridge.
Spider-Rogue landed seconds before Thresher but even then she was too slow as he tossed a barrage of shuriken her way making her jump back instead of attacking. He closed the gap again and slashed across her belly, opening her up.
“GOD!” screamed Spider-Rogue as she tried to hold her guts in, the razor sharp sickle had split her deeply. She shot a blast of webbing across her stomach to hold herself in place.
“Stop struggling.” growled Thresher as he came at her again. She parried his blow and caught his other hand as he followed up, holding both his hands above his head.
“Darlin’ struggle is my middle name”
She went for the big punch when Thresher jumped and double-knee’d her in the face as he kicked out of her grip. He slashed forward cutting open her forearms as she tried to protect her neck from another savage attack. Blood leaked from her.
“You are in the way of my revenge” stated Thresher “Stop delaying the inevitable”
“Oooo that’s it! No more Mrs Nice Spider!” she pulled off her gloves.
She flicked her hand and watched him dodge, so she fired a blast of webbing with her other hand catching him around the neck. She pulled it tight and jerked him over and as he sailed towards him punched him heavily into the top of the bridge. Thresher fought his way out of the broken masonry when she made contact with his face with her bare hands. Ana screamed! The biophysical shock pulsed through her body as Threshers skills, powers, memories, hatred coursed into her cells and psyche also blending with the Rhinonaut’s power she’d absorbed earlier. The air grew thick around them.
-Davin Leroux. Remy LeBeau. Belladonna. Taskmaster. The Hand-
Names, feelings, smells, memories ricocheted through her brain as she held onto him. Thresher lashed out, punching her in the face several times to finally break the hold. The pair stood panting on the bridge glaring at each other.
“Davin Leroux” wheezed Ana “Y’all a sad little boy”
Thresher snarled and charged forward. He lashed out but Ana now had his powers, reflexes and skills coupled with her own easily deflecting the blows.
“You really hate Remy don’t you sugah?” she laughed as she slapped a sickle out of his hand, it sailed off into the cold water below “But your, well my new skin really itches! I need some aloe vera or Vaseline because it is rough!”
Thresher swung the sickle with both hands but Spider-Rogue easily sidestepped it and elbowed him in the kidney. She pulled the webline bringing his head up and smacked him in the jaw.
“We done?” she asked.
Thresher spat blood into her face as forced the sickle towards her throat “DIE!” Ana fell back under the ferocity of his attack, her fingers being sliced as she held the curved blade away from her throat as her spider sense screamed in the back of her head like a car alarm.
“You know nothing of me!” snarled Thresher as he forced the blade down. Ana shrieked as the blade cut deep, resting on the bones of her fingers as she held him off from decapitating her.
“You’re wrong Davin,” she panted “I get your memories, everything. I know you!”
“Then you know I won’t stop until you’re dead!”
Ana screamed as the blade ground against the bones in her fingers “GET OFF ME!” She curled up her legs and kicked out. Thresher sailed into the air like a rocket being launched…only to suddenly stop as the webline pulled tight.
SNAP!
Thresher fell down on top of Spider-Rogue in an unmoving heap. Ana quickly got up and then looked at him. He wasn’t breathing. He wasn’t moving. “No, no, no, no, no!” She rolled him over and checked his vitals as best she could with her mangled hands.
“Oh please no!”
She titled his chin to commence CPR when her spider sense went off. Standing in mid-air beside the bridge were the Grandmaster and Metron.
“Help me!”
“You win...again!” growled Metron at his opponent.
“Luck of the draw” smiled Grandmaster “Shall we play again?”
“HELP ME! PLEASE!” screamed Ana at the pair who barely acknowledged her existence.
“I could,” said Grandmaster “But that would break the rules of the game.”
Spider-Rogue leapt at them in anger only to hit an invisible wall of force that kept them safe. She hammered at the wall “Damn you! You bastards!”
“Nobody likes a sore winner.” sneered Metron as he turned his chair away and floated off “Reset the board Grandmaster!”
“You have won Ana,” smiled the Grandmaster as the city disappeared back into a white void “You and your timeline live on. Thresher and his are now wiped, now and forever, from existence. Be happy.”
“Happy? You made me kill someone!” snapped Ana as she pulled off her mask.
“No, we didn’t” replied the Grandmaster as he faded from view “That was all you”
Ana Parker curled into a ball. She felt dirty. She felt ashamed. These hurt more than the deep cuts all across her body that bled vigorously. There was a beam of red light.
**
Spider-Rogue looked down on the beaten body of Rhinonaut. Ana wobbled on her feet. The cuts were still on her body though there was no bridge, no Thresher, no blue man. She looked at the mask in her hand and pulled it back on.
-What the hell just happened? Oh god I need a hospital!-
From the shadows Victor Kraven couldn’t believe his eyes. Spider-Rogue had briefly disappeared from her pummelling of Rhinonaut only to reappear like she’d just been put through a blender. He watched as the young heroine shakily swung off. A cruel smile rippled across his lips.
**
* A big thanks to Wildvine for lending me Spider-Rogue, Rhinonaut and Victor Kraven.
More Spider-Rogue can be found here: http://www.comicvine.com/forums/fan-fic-8/marvel-nexus-spider-rogue-721411/#38 and here: http://www.comicvine.com/forums/fan-fic-8/marvel-nexus-spider-rogue-2-742010/#12
* Thresher comes from CCC #8 found here: http://www.comicvine.com/forums/fan-fic-8/character-creation-contest-8-757108/?page=2 and is henceforth erased from all existence.
* Metron & Grandmaster are owned by DC & Marvel respectively
* Rated MA because of the violence mainly
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