“Don’t talk to me about The War!”
The old Karnage’s eyes were shut. His teeth gritted. Karnage felt him straining against the violent hallucinations running through their shared mind. Old Karnage’s Sanity Levels rocketed upwards. The old man’s mind reached out to his through the chaos and the flames: Cookie, Velasquez, Heckler, Stumpy, Koch, Sydney. Cookie, Velasquez, Heckler, Stumpy, Koch, Sydney. Come on, kid. Concentrate. We can stop this. Think, kid. Think! Cookie, Velasquez, Heckler, Stumpy, Koch, Sydney. Cookie, Velasquez, Heckler, Stumpy, Koch, Sydney. Come on. We can do this.
Karnage tried to focus on the chant. Cookie, Velasquez, Heckler, Stumpy, Koch, Sydney. Cookie, Velasquez, Heckler, Stumpy, Koch, Sydney. He could feel it pushing through the noise and the fear. Cookie, Velasquez, Heckler, Stumpy, Koch, Sydney. Cookie, Velasquez, Heckler, Stumpy, Koch, Sydney.
That’s it, kid. We’re doing it. We’re doing it!
The visions slowly pulled themselves apart, replaced with the faces of each of his missing comrades. Cookie, Velasquez, Heckler, Stumpy, Koch, Sydney. Cookie, Velasquez, Heckler, Stumpy, Koch, Sydney.
The last of the visions spilled away, and Karnage let go of his grip on the old man’s neck. The old man’s Sanity Patch went silent. They looked at each other and smiled. We did it.
The container door banged open behind them. A Patrick appeared in the doorway, holding a gun. “No!” Mayhem screamed. Another Patrick knocked the gun down. “We need the meatbag,” he hissed.
“Follow my lead!” The old Karnage grabbed the wheelchair and charged forward, ramming through the crowd of Patricks like a battering ram. Patricks flew in all directions, some diving out of the way, others knocked away by the onslaught of the chair. Karnage followed close behind in its wake.
“Get to the flightpacks,” the old Karnage barked.
Karnage headed for the platform while the old Karnage ran with the chair towards the cloning tanks.
“Protect the tanks!” Mayhem screamed.
The Patricks raced after the old man, but he slammed the wheelchair into the base of a tank, knocking it down. It smashed against the floor, spilling its underdeveloped contents across the concrete.
Karnage jumped onto the platform and grabbed a flightpack. He turned and saw the old man go down in a sea of Patricks. Go on, kid. Get outta here!
Karnage nodded and strapped himself into the flightpack. He hit the hoverball activators, and they hummed to life. He rocketed up towards the open skylight above.
Pain exploded out of Karnage’s shoulders. The hoverball bucked and spun out of control, and he crashed back down to the platform.
He writhed in agony on the platform, the flightpack pinning him to the ground. He felt like he’d been hit by twin shotgun barrels. He could hardly breathe. The pain grew worse, coursing out of his shoulder blades in hot waves. It felt like he was being torn apart. He caught something squiggly from the corner of his vision. He looked over his shoulder.
A pair of tentacles hovered in the air above him.
He followed their squiggling length down, and was horrified to find them attached to his back, squeezing out between his shoulders and the flightpack.
He caught the eye of the old Karnage, who was pinned to the floor under a mob of Patricks. They all stared in horror at Karnage. Mayhem slowly backed his wheelchair away until he hit the far wall.
Karnage locked eyes with his older self, and the realization of what was happening hit them both at the same time. He wasn’t just missing the Sanity Patch on his neck.
There was no band around his leg.
“Monkeyfucking squidbugs!” Karnage screamed. He writhed on the ground in agony. Squiggles danced across his vision as the alien DNA took over his body.
CHAPTER FOUR
Karnage watched in horror as his younger self writhed in agony beneath the flightpack. A second set of arms shot out from the kid’s armpits. The straps of the flightpack snapped off as his body doubled in size. The shoulder tentacles grabbed the mangled flightpack and tossed it through a cloning tank. The Patricks scrambled off of Karnage and backed away.
The young Karnage slowly rose to his feet. He was at least eight feet tall. His shoulder tentacles waved violently above him. He opened his eyes. His pupils had become long drawn-out squiggles. His skin pulsed and flowed with colour like a squidbug. He looked down at his four hands and the tentacles flowing from his back. His clothes lay in tatters over his body. He locked his squiggly eyes on Karnage. He pointed with one of his four arms at the flightpacks. He opened his mouth to speak, straining to untangle his twin tongues into a single coherent syllable:
“Go!”
Karnage nodded and ran for the flightpacks. The mutant Karnage charged past him, his skin turning red as he let out a squiggly scream.
The mutant Karnage swatted the charging Patricks aside like flies. His open palms made loud scrunching noises when they collided with the bodies of the Patricks. Tentacles grabbed a pair of Patricks by their necks and whipped them back across the hangar. There was a loud smash, and Mayhem screamed something about the tanks, but Karnage couldn’t make out exactly what over the mutant’s angry, defiant roar.
Karnage pulled a flightpack from the wall. Gunfire whizzed past his head. He looped his arms through the straps. A Patrick tried to pull him out, but a tentacle appeared out of nowhere and grabbed the Patrick by his ankle and whipped him away. There was a painful scream and something exploded.
Karnage hit the activators and rocketed up through the skylight. He came out above a small abandoned airport nestled at the base of a low ridge. He looked down at the hangar below and caught one last glimpse of the young Karnage through the skylight. He was looming over Mayhem, his tentacles quivering fiercely above him. Mayhem lay in the corner, his wheelchair knocked over, surrounded by the broken bodies of the Patricks. He shakily held a pistol up towards the young Karnage’s chest, then smoke billowed out of the skylight, and they disappeared from view.
Give him hell, kid, Karnage thought. Give him hell.
MK#10: ALIEN KARNAGE
CHAPTER ONE
Karnage cleared the ridge and the flaming airport disappeared behind him. Nothing was visible but a column of smoke growing smaller in the distance as he sped away. There’s your funeral pyre, kid. Rest in peace. Karnage closed his eyes and took a moment to mourn his wasted youth.
There was a loud bang, and the flightpack bucked violently, spinning out of control. Karnage’s eyes flashed open to see a giant ball of pink goober growing out the side of one of his hoverballs. The ground was quickly hurtling up towards him.
The controls fought him as Karnage struggled to pull the flightpack out of its tailspin. He couldn’t keep it flying for much longer. He aimed for a soft field of pinkstink nestled in a dry riverbed surrounded by dunes of shifting sand, and brought the flightpack down as gently as he could.
He bounced twice before finally skidding to a shuddering halt in the middle of the field. The flightpack listed over and fell on its side, taking Karnage with it. He fumbled with the straps, but the goober had swelled over the buckle. He touched the hardened pink ball, close to his head. Someone had taken a potshot at him. But who?
A loud squiggly screech ripped across the field. The ground shook under Karnage’s feet as a horned worm lumbered over a sand dune and down toward the riverbed.