Shards of Destiny
Interlude: Mirror, Mirror

***For previous chapters, go to the Marvel/DC Cosmic Crossovers Archive***

The earth was coming to an end. Both earths – for that matter both of the cosmoses were collapsing in on itself. In the pale light of the Brothers’ death was having an adverse effect in both universes. If the Gathering was not completed within the next few hours then all life will cease to exist.

Nigthwing stood there, over the vista that is Gotham City. Once it had been a testament of the human spirit! Now it was merely a silent testament to death and mayhem. Overhead the mighty Bat-signal – the signal flare that Commissioner James Gordon employed to summon the Dark Knight and inform him Gotham City needed it’s dark defender – a signal that would go unanswered, and especially now that Gotham City needed him the most.

Nigthwing leaped off the building's confines and plunged to the dark streets below.

Spider-man stood there, over the vista that is New York City, rain pounding on him, soaking his red, blue webbed out-fit. Once it had been a testament to freedom, and man’s unalienable rights, with Lady Liberty standing watch close by. Now she stood there, silent, paying bitter homage to the atrocity that man can release upon their fellow brethren and carnage rein in the streets – literally.

Spider-man could see the symbiont creature known as Carnage, one of Spidies deadliest of opponents. The friendly neighborhood Spider-man leaped off the tile rooftop and swung his way toward the blood covered streets below.

“We are Venom!” the dark creature roared, lashing out of the alleyway, his long dark nails missing Nigthwing by a matter of sheer inches. “Where . . . where are we?” he asked searching his surroundings. “What happened to the rain?”

“Gotham City!” Nigthwing roared, charging toward the stranger, lunging forth at the temporally confused hulk before him. “And this is the welcoming committee,” he brought his long leg up and around, it collided with blinding forth to Venom’s jaw. The beast roared, tumbling over onto the right side, colliding and crushing several trash cans. In the Venom’s wake a white cat lunged forth, claws extended, as it tried to grasp for freedom.

“We are not amused!” Venom bellowed, in rage, it’s long tongue struck out, hideously, licking the blood that poured from his mouth.

“We?” Nigthwing asked, taken aback. “But there is only one of you . . .”

“Wrong!” Venom pounced like a wounded animal; it smiled a toothy grin. “We shall crucify you!”

Cletus Cassidy was a convicted serial killer, who shared a prison cell with Eddie Brock – otherwise known as Venom. When Brock escaped, the spawn of the symbiotic alien costume that gave Venom his powers bonded with Cassidy, turning him into a being more monstrous than Venom itself: the most dangerous super-powered killer on the planet.

And guess whose job it is to stop him now, Spider-man mused to himself, the world swinging by him in a blur. But, Spider-man wondered how did he escape his tomb of ethereal energy that the Silver Surfer placed on him shortly after the symbiont left him? Sky-Rider said that it was unbreakable!

Spider-man webbed his way down toward the streets below, where the creature known as Carnage reaped the roof off of a baby blue Volkswagen, its long crimson red and black fingers started to descend upon the terrified occupants of the ill fated car.

“Now, now. Now, Carnie!” Spidy said, disapprovingly, he swung down, his iron grasp wrapped around a rope of webbing that he had attached to a neighboring builder across the street, his extended muscle-bound legs collided with Carnage in the small of his back. Sending him flying toward the pavement below. “Didn’t your mother teach you not to have an snacks before bed time? Tsk, tsk, tsk. She’ll be so ashamed,” he taunted, flipping in the air backward and landing on the wet streets below.

“Web-slinnger! I shall kill you! And feast upon your lifeless husk!” Carnage lunged forth, in sheer rage. The symbiont that covered all over Cletus Cassidy lanced forth, on his left arm, slamming and pinning the webbed clad Avenger onto the ground helpless to move, the other morphed into a massive stone cutting ax.

“Time to die, Spider! For the rains here and its going to wash you out!” Carnage laughed, demonically.

A golden, blinding light covered them, bathed them. Soon the light gave way and Spider-man and Carnage were gone, no where to be seen. Overhead lighting lashed out and the rainstorm continued.

“You! What are you doing here!” barked Venom his massive fist colliding with the newly arrived Carnage, sending him flying into the windshield of a nearby-parked car. Spider-man quickly scrambled out of Venom’s way, as the massive muscle-bound beast stalked its “son.” “We shall kill you, Cassidy!”

Spider-man sighed, clutching his head, he was feeling dizzy. “What - - What happened to the rain?” he asked, not feeling the constant pounding of water upon him.

“It has rained in Gotham for about three months now,” Nigthwing stated, approaching Spider-man and helping him to his feet.

“Gotham? Then I’m in the other ‘twin’ universe, just my luck, Mary-Jane’s going to kill me when she catches wind of this,” Spider-man mumbled to himself, his head was clearing fast. 

“Twin universe?” Nigthwing asked. “And who the hell are you?” 

“Friendly neighborhood Spider-man, at your service,” Spider-man said, comically, resettling in his first wind. “And you?”

“Name’s Nigthwing,” he grumbled, pulling out a bat-a-rang from his dark navy blue utility belt that clung to his lean muscular firm body. With a flick of his wrist the bat-a-rang unfolded, and he took up a throwing stance. “Know these guys?”

“Unfortunately, I do,” Spider-man grumbled.

“Any weaknesses!” Nigthwing launched the bat-a-rang forward, it spiraled through the icy cold air, and a long thick dark rope was tied to the back of one of its two wings. The rope wrapped around the massive bulk that is Venom – who was currently in the process of giving Carnage a lobotomy – and with a massive yank of the rope, Nigthwing pulled Venom’s enormous body and allowed it to smash upon the streets below.

“Bad move, Nigthwing!” Spider-man said. “We should be joining forces with Venom to defeat Carnage! He’s a bigger threat that even Venom himself!”

“What!” Nigthwing jerked his head around to stare at Spider-man as if he just spontaneously grown a second – or even third – head.

Venom flexed his muscles and the rope, which had the strength to even give the mighty Bane without trouble to free himself, and he had broken it as if it was nothing. “Arrgh!” he roared, in pure blinding rage, getting up to a kneeling posture. He turned to face Nigthwing, turning his back one the battered Carnage, a hellish glint in his eyes.

Giving Carnage the opportunity that he needed. He leaped onto the distracted Venom, his hands turning into blades and he started to pulverize the massive creature. “Hello, ‘father’!” Carnage smiled as he started to carver up Venom like a roast. “Does everyone know what time it is . . . IT’S CARNAGE TIME! Can anyone say . . . slaughter feast?” He roared through bolts of laughter, his blades slicing through Venom, like a hot knife through butter.

“A sonic pulse.”

“What?”

“They’re weakness is a sonic pulse,” Spider-man explained. “Massive shrieks of sound disturbs the bonding created by the man and the ‘living’ costume. In essence it tears them apart.”

“Why didn’t you say that earlier!”

“I tried.”

Nigthwing rolled his eyes, he pressed a small control button on his belt, a small compartment swung open and three small little vials encased in a dark blue bird-like embalm dropped into Nigthwing’s waiting hands. “Brace yourself!” he ordered charging forward and leaping over the disturbing scene before him. The three vials dropped onto Carnage’s back and gave way, sending pulses of sonic energy into the atmosphere around the two.

They screamed in sheer pain, there creatures that covered their skin like a costume started to tear away from them, and without them the human part of the joining could not survive and vice versa. Soon the sonic waves ceased, leaving the two archrivals laid there passed out, and their living “costumes” swirled around each other in a bath of ooze.

Within moments the boys in blue arrived, they handcuffed the two, nude men, that were bathed in their own alien symbionts surrounding them.

Nigthwing looked over to Spider-man and with a tired expression said, “What are those things?”

“Venom and Carnage. They’re bonded to an alien creature, and now they share a parasite-type relationship, none can survive without the other. First the ‘suit’ – if you would – was joined to me then I got rid of it, once its true nature was revealed to me. Soon the ownership traded off to what is now Venom, latter when the two were sharing a prison cell, the Venom creature spawned, and was bonded with what is now Carnage.”

Nigthwing sighed. “Next your going to tell me you’re a clone.” He smirked, hellishly.

“You have no idea,” Spider-man rolled his eyes under his mask.

“What was that?”

Before Spider-man could even open his mouth a massive golden light surrounded them, bathed them. But this light wasn’t the same that had “visited” Spider-man and Carnage in New York City, this light came from everywhere an nowhere at once. “People of this earth,” a voice called out, that Nigthwing could recognize as that of the Spectre. “I am the Spectre. Cosmic events have been casted that this universe will soon forever merge with another- its twin ‘brother’ universe. But the merger will bring about our salvation. For both us and our neighboring brothers from afar. Your lives will be forever changed. Be warned, these are parallels times, for us all.”

And with that the light dissipated and the voice diminished to nothingness. Nigthwing and Spider-man stared at one another not knowing what was to come . . . or even how they were going to deal with it.

The story continues in Shards of Destiny #18
and then concludes in Shards of Destiny #19!