Harsh criticism

In the living room, Franklin and Valaria continued to play their two-player race on the screen, oblivious to the noises happening in the hanger bay as nothing more than the Fantasticar taking off.

“I hope Mom’s okay.” Said Franklin, pressing buttons on his controller. “I wonder where she’s been this whole time.”

“I don’t know. She’s been acting strange for days, all I’ve seen her do is eat chocolate and disappear at odd times of the day.”

“Yeah…”

Unseen by either of the two, their mother scurried through the hallways behind them with three cocooned masses behind her back as she made her way to Reed’s lab and pulled her prey inside, closing the door behind her.

“I hope she’s okay.”

“I’m sure Dad is helping her right now.”

*

Tossed up into the air with the same ease as throwing pillows off a bed, the three were webbed to the ceiling before gravity had a chance to pull them down. Looking over to his two friends, Reed continued to try and reason with his wife, despite his mouth covered in black webbing.

Smiling up at the three, Lady Anti-Venom retracted her thin, spindly legs and stood under her own power, resting her hands at her sides and tilting her hip as she admired her handywork. Hearing Johnny groan and shake his head, the man looked up to find Reed gagged and Ben still woozy.

“Oh good, the three sssstooges are awake, you three are in BIG trouble once my husband comes home.”

“Okay sis, I don’t know what your on, but Reed’s right there.”

Hissing back at her brother, Susan pointed accusingly at the man where three tentacles behind her back snapped out with black-toothed maws hissing at him like snakes. “Not a peep out of YOU imposter!” clenching her hand into a fist, she covered Johnny’s mouth in webbing, keeping him from making another sound save to murmur in protest.

“Ugh… Anyone get the license plate of the truck that hit me?”

“That would be ME bucko!” Grinned Lady Anti-Venom, crouching slightly to meet Ben’s tired gaze as he looked up at the smiling creature. “And don’t call me a truck ever again!”

Webbing up his mouth as well, Susan backed up and giggled to herself, taping a clawed fingertip against her fanged teeth, deep in thought. For a moment it looked like she was sniffing the air as she narrowed her eyes staring back at her husband and family.

“Honestly, you three have NO idea how lucky you are, I can just smell it off you.” She snerked. “You three are sick, I mean REALLY sick. Cosmic radiation exposure… Ooooh. Nasty stuff, I managed to cure myself with my new friend here.” She gestured to herself with a pose. “But don’t worry, I can CURE you three, make it so you were never blighted with the stuff. Won’t that be great?”

“Hmmpm, hmm hnnngh hmmmph!” Mumbled Reed, still struggling against his bindings that seemed to be alive, constricting him at key places and preventing him from slipping out.

“Uhp? I take it Moe has something to say. Hope its good because Larry and Curly are just ‘hanging’ by a thread here.”

With a quick flick of her clawed finger, the webbing around Reed’s mouth was cut open, granting him the ability to speak again.

“SUSAN! IT’S US! YOU’RE BEING AFFECTED BY THE SYMBIOTE!”

“Oh, DAMN RIGHT I’m being effected by the symbiote!”

Susan smiled as her appearance changed, her claws, tentacles and spikes receded back into her mass as she shrank down to her human height, the symbiote peeling back to show the woman underneath who posed back to the three wearing white silk lingerie and white heels. Her figure was in a word; perfect. Her body was athletic in muscle tone, like someone who regularly went to the gym to maintain an impressive physique, and yet still possessed generous curves that showed she was very healthy, her skin creamy smooth without any sign of sag, wrinkles, or moles of any kind. She looked almost 10 years younger! The peak of her best self… Except for one key detail as the woman tossed her long, flowing blonde hair behind her to show dark circles under her blood shot eyes. Her face a mask of manic glee like some lunatic on a sugar binge.

“What do you think? Pretty HOT huh?”

Johnny had squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head furiously to get the mental image out of his mind, while Ben diverted his attention away, the orange tint of his stoney cheeks looking almost darker while Reed could only hang there with his jaw slack.

“COME ON Susan, snap out of it! This is insane!”

Fast as a viper, Susan’s appearance changed back to that of Lady Anti-Venom, grabbing Reed by his chin with her clawed hand and opening her toothy maw impossibly wide as if hinting she would bite his head off at any moment.

"How ungrateful! I give you an eyeful and you call ME crazy?! What man would EVER turn down a hot package like me? Then again, maybe your right. My HUSBAND hasn’t appreciated all this in years… Maybe if I pick your brain on the subject, I might have a better idea on how to pull him away from the microscope for 5 FUCKING minutes!!!!!”

Looking down the gullet of his wife planning to bite his head off, Reed’s mind raced for a solution before he came up with an idea on the spot.

“HERBIE?”

“Yes Professor Richards?” The AI of the building chirped, making Susan pause as she looked up to the ceiling.

“Play audio from the living room on August the 14th at 5:30 pm.”

Realising what he was suggesting, Johnny and Ben shook their heads back at the man, pleading him to change his mind when the two heard HERBIE acknowledge the request and braced themselves. Stepping way from her webbed-up husband, Susan bristled at the singing coming from the intercom, her gleeful expression souring as she felt more and more uncomfortable hearing it go on and on in a loop.

“What IS that?! Sounds like a cat being gutted in the street.”

“It’s our daughter singing…”

Wincing and hugging herself, Susan’s tentacles and hair squirmed painfully at the crescendo. “We REALLY need to talk to her music teacher!”

“HERBIE, increase the volume and speed up the recording to 3 times as fast!”

What started as terrible off key singing soon became a shrill static laced white noise that had Susan clutch at her ears and stagger aimlessly across the lab, visibly in pain as she cried out for it to stop. When she stumbled into the center of the lab, Reed called out again. “HERBIE, activate the container unit.”

Shuts from the ceiling and floor opened like a pair of rings and glass partitions slid out, joining together midway to create a perfect air-tight seal and trapping Susan in a glass tube that she thrashed and hissed like a cornered animal. Seeing her punch the treated glass and causing a crack from the impact, Reed didn’t have a lot of time to act and called out to the building’s AI again.

“HERBIE, decrease the temperature of container A to zero degrees Fahrenheit.”

A hiss of air in the container immediately made Lady Anti-Venom stop cold, shivering as she clutched at herself to keep warm and look around in confusion. Looking down at her claw, her skin began to crack and grow brittle like eggshells. In a matter of seconds, the symbiote began to fall off in chunks, becoming a pile of broken white pieces with Susan free of the bond collapsing nude to the floor of her glassy prison. With the will holding the webbing together stunned, Reed, Johnny and Ben found themselves breaking free of their webbed-up prisons and got up to their feet, surrounding the cylinder as Reed turned off the recording and gave HERBIE more commands.

“HERBIE, open the container.”

A hiss of cold air blew out as both partitions returned to their storage. Johnny had collected a lab coat and wrapped it around his sister to keep her warm while Reed stretched out his arm to reach for something that could gather the frozen chunks of the Anti-Venom symbiote.

“Don’t worry Susan, we got you.”