The Seed—?
'Dooon't! Don't touch it! DON'T!'
'Symbiote? Symbiote? Hello?'
It was gone again, leaving Adam to speak and explain:
"Seeing as the princess trusts you to come this far, here is some classified information. Over half a year ago, on October 31st, a meteor fell from the sky. This meteor fell into the possession of the Oscorp—mostly anyway. They had no method of fully extracting the meteor. Some of it was left behind and, in my opinion, consumed by the Lizard Creature that nearly destroyed New York."
Felix grabbed his own wrist, pretending to be relaxed, and asked, "Consumed or—"
"Destroyed makes no logical sense to me," Adam interjected. "A monster like that was beyond human creation. Only some sort of alien interference could have brought that thing to life. Ah, but then again, this is but my conjecture. If you have an opposing idea, I have no qualms."
'He has good instincts. He's right on the dot, absolutely correct. Made the same deduction as me. The question is…'
Felix turned to the Seed.
'How? How much does he know about this Seed?'
"A hundred years ago," Adam continued, assuming his silence to be acceptance, "on the very same day and date, this meteor fell. We suspect this too came from the moon."
"A hundred years ago…?"
"It was during a time of conflict between Kenya and Wakanda. Seeing as you're American, I don't expect you to know this. However, the driving reason for Wakanda opening up to the world was because of the Vibranium that this meteor brought. Already, Wakanda was the only country to have Vibranium naturally growing in their environment. But this, this meteor brought even more. Made them completely untouchable in terms of volume. The Kenyans, however, saw the meteor too. It was right near their borders. So, the Kenyans got greedy. They fought Wakanda and they ultimately failed. The only thing the Kenyans got away with was…"
Adam pointed his finger at the Seed.
"The Seed."
"It's like a heart…" Felix murmured. "It's beating...not blood but...something else. Something inside."
Lifeforms, maybe?
"Glad to see such an astute observation—"
"Is it difficult to break? This glass, I mean."
That was Gwen asking. Adam turned and the veins in his eyes, they darkened again.
"No. This glass is made of a special Vibranium-Adamantium synthesis. It's quite close to what Captain America wields."
"In other words, indestructible."
"The only way to open is through me authorization and Dr. MacTaggert. Through our cards." Adam flashed said card. "We don't disturb it often though. It's better that we keep our distance."
"Why?"
"I'll show you. Come."
Striding forward, a console appeared from the ground. It was quite the complex specimen and opened up in order to show a monitor and then project a hologram.
"It recognizes my footsteps. Only I can use this console," Adam stated. "Dr. MacTaggert too."
A discreet glance at Gwen. She was planning something. 'Think. Your Spider-Sense doesn't work on her, Felix. That tendril shit she does, I can barely keep track of it with raw speed. My Spider-Sense should technically extend to Adam, so could it work on him? Ugh, but what if she's not genuinely trying to hurt him? If there's no hostility, which is the feeling I get from her as human to human, then it's useless. Regardless…'
His eyes narrowed. His senses were at their utter peak.
'If I see those tendrils, if I hear them, should I act? Or should I continue being Felix Faeth?'
"Quick question, Doctor," Felix said, speaking a bit too fast. "You called the Seed but why? Is it the Seed for an alien?"
"A bit of an old name. The Kenyan scientists from a hundred years originally believed it was a seed to growing Vibranium. Let's just say they were very, very wrong. The Seed houses aliens that, quite frankly, we were and are unable to control—until recently, it seems. We didn't know it, of course, we've tried and failed. It was Gwen Stacy and the recent Spider-Man emerged, they somehow have controlled the Symbiotes in the Seed in ways we never could."
Hobie eyed Gwen. Felix could hear every little muscle twitch. Every movement of their eyelids. He was locked in. Nothing was going to escape him right now. If Adam lied, he would notice. If Gwen acted, he would notice.
"My guess," Adam continued, "is that the Spider-Man is an Oscorp created hero. The powers and the Symbiotes, I'm guessing they are a method to create the ultimate Super Soldier. Osborn asked me to do the very same thing ten years ago. I rejected him since I was already here and Princess Ororo had a better offer."
"The ultimate soldier…?" Hobie murmured.
"Perhaps Super Soldier is inaccurate. I recall him saying as much. He wanted the ultimate human, rather. I remember reading the project files. It was the crux of everything he built. There were branch projects connecting it: one to do with the body and mind—"
'Project Rebirth and Project Oscorpeus.'
"After that, a supercomputer to support the ultimate human and finally, an element to power the supercomputer. It was awfully complicated. He swore me to secrecy but, well, here, Norman Osborn can't reach me, much less hear me." Adam chuckled. "An arrogant, proud man, though admittedly, with a fascinating mind."
Everything Oscorp had been doing, everything Norman had been planning with the projects was to…what? "He's trying to create the next big step for man," Felix summarized.
"Not all at once, more like…bit by bit. The same way computers became common. The same way vaccines did. Ah, here." Adam had been typing on the console this whole time. On the hologram, an X-ray and thermal scan of the Seed was shown. "You see this? Life is withering inside there. We've taken and studied what we could. The earlier Kenyan scientists went through many, many trials with the Symbiotes inside. We've lost five of these Symbiote specimens."
"These Symbiotes, you say, are the same ones the spiders have," Hobie remarked.
"Correct. Within in the Seed, or should I say in our possession, there are three Symbiotes. There's three layers of the meteor: the outside that we see, a deeper part that houses the alien Symbiotes, and the last layer for something we don't know. Do not be concerned, we have the Seed and the Symbiotes inside cooled to absolute zero. No molecules are able to move. Impressively, everytime we unfreeze the Seed, it instantly bounces back to full capacity. It's phenomenal."
"Yeah. Phenomenal. Say," Felix wet his lips, anxious, "you said this thing fell from the sky, right?"
"Yes, it did."
"A similar meteor that fell into New York somewhere?"
"Mhm."
"A hundred years apart."
"Funny coincidence, isn't it?"
'That's not it. It's not the timing that's important. It's where it landed and why.'
"The meteor that fell into Oscorp's hands, did you know that it fell from the moon?"
"...? The moon?"
"Yes, the alien creature, it came from the moon."
Adam gave him a look. "No, it certainly did not."
"It did. It had to. Have you heard of Cindy Moon?"
"This Seed," Adam turned away from the console, confused, and jabbed a thumb over his shoulder, "from our calculations is over six hundred million years old. It's as old as the universe itself, the moon is, well, to this thing, the moon is a modern day invention."
Felix checked the holograms. "Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation…"
"Mhm, it's VERY dense. When the Kenyans first took it into their study, they figured what they had had was older than our planet. Then it became older than the solar system, the galaxy, other galaxies, until we finally learned it was more ancient than we could have thought possible."
…
'A hundred years ago, a meteor older than the universe crashed into the moon and into Africa. In it was Vibranium and this Seed. The Wakandans got the Vibranium while the people of Kenya got the Seed. But Earth wasn't the only thing the meteor crashed to: the moon. It crashed through the moon and left something behind. The Seed's broken pieces, one could say, and those pieces ended up becoming—'
'Usssss.'
Symbiote. Again. Only to become dead silent. Gwen suddenly looked over at him before looking back at Adam who was typing again.
"By the way, what are you trying to do, Adam?" Felix asked.
"Open it of course." Adam smiled uncharacteristically and extended a hand. My Lady?"
Gwen walked forward, flashing them a smile, and with a tendril brought out—wait, what? Felix tapped at his pockets. He didn't panic.
'She took it. That confirms it, not only is she immune to my Spider-Sense but she's astronomically faster than me. Consuming Mary Jane's Symbiote and adding it to her own must have changed her. No, it can't be just that—'
Moira MacTaggert's card was slid it down the card slider. The multiple layers of Vibranium-Adamantium glass opened up layer by layer. The Seed remained held up by the anti-gravity mechanism.
"Gwen," Hobie said gently, "you told me this thing was a powersource, not an alien Symbiote seed."
"It is, it is, trust me. Those Symbiotes he's talking about? They're not important, they're just protectors for what lies inside." Gwen flashed Felix a smile. "Now, this is where you come in. I have no idea how to actually access what's inside. Neither does Adam here. All these years and even though he has a guess as to what is inside and how to access it, he hasn't done it yet because he can't. You're the smartest person in the world. If there's anyone in the world that, you can. So, uh, if you don't mind…" She sheepishly rubbed the back of her head. "Could you figure something out?"
"..."
This was it.
Should he stop her now? Turn into Spider-Man?
Or should he wait till the inside of the meteor was in his hands…?
Felix decided it was better to wait. Right now, his senses were at their peak. He was fully confident that if Gwen Stacy attempted to steal it, Spider-Sense or not, he could react.
"I'll do my best, Gwen. I trust you."
Gwen seemed taken aback by his sincerity. "Thank you, Doctor."
He got to analyzing. Arms crossed, hologram hovering over the console, the light reflecting against his eyes. Gwen waited quietly at the line after the glass fell, watching him think. She could see it—he was already somewhere else. The man had slipped into problem-solving mode, and that meant the laws of reality were currently being re-negotiated.
The Seed hovered silently in its magnetic trap. The temperature in the chamber was at Absolute Zero and on top of that, there was zero gravity. Gwen was able to stick to the floor because she was Spider-Woman. Zero gravity meant nothing to them. But the meteor? Absolute Zero and zero gravity made the Symbiotes inside helpless.
Felix wasn't interested in containment. He was interested in penetration.
"Okay, okay." Felix started typing on the console while his eyes scanned readouts. "There's three layers in the meteor; the outside we see now, the layer that is keeping the Symbiote, and the layer that is protecting the core."
"And what is protecting the core?" Gwen asked.
"Vibranium," Felix answered. "So first thing's first…"
"Running an analysis of the Vibranium-alloy composition," Hobie commented. "Good start. Is it pure?"
"Pure as it can be. No known fault lines. no inclusions. surface energy stabilized by internal magnetic ordering. Shell is self-hardening too."
"Right, right." Hobie rubbed his head. "Meteor literally crashed into Wakanda with a shit load of Vibranium. Of course it's going to be made of Vibranium too."
Gwen stood on her toes. "So? Can we crack it?"
Felix tapped a few notes into the console, then began circling the floating Seed.
"Not even you or a nuke could dent it. Pure Vibranium with no lattice imperfections? That's basically nature's best version of absorption" He pointed at the reactor beneath the platform. "The cold and gravity fields are keeping the Symbiotes dormant. If we lift both—"
"They wake up," Gwen finished.
"Right. You can kill them."
"Easily."
"That's not the problem. The problem is that shell. We can't brute-force our way in. So…" He turned, snapping his fingers. "We go around brute force."
Hobie gave him a look, hands shoved in his pockets. "How do you go around Vibranium, bruv?"
"Shot in the dark: resonance."
"Resonance?"
"I need equipment. You two are security guards, right? Go back and get stuff for us."
"Are you sure—"
"Adam," Felix pointed at the man, "you go with them."
Gwen was silent for a moment. Almost…guilty. It was clear she was controlling his mind one way or another.
"Do we have to?" Gwen said quietly.
"It's the only way, Gwen. There's not enough items here, not for this."
Gwen pursed her lips and nudged at Adam. "Go."
***
Under the guise of security guards and the authority of Adam, Felix got Hobie and Gwen to wheel in a compact array of equipment: a nanovibration emitter, a focused positron laser, and a subatomic waveform amplifier—each a marvel of Wakandan engineering and very much not rated for whatever he was about to do.
"Vibranium's strength comes from its ability to absorb kinetic energy," Felix said, adjusting the waveform settings. "But its Achilles' heel is that it has a very specific frequency range where its internal molecular bonds can enter a semi-chaotic phase. Think of it like playing a wine glass with your finger—hit the right tone, and it hums."
"Hit the wrong tone," Hobie said, leaning toward Gwen, "and it shatters."
"Exactly."
He was walking around in a hurry to make sure the subatomic waveform amplifier was at the proper place and distance. "Problem is, that frequency is in the terahertz range. Too high for conventional resonance, too low for standard laser harmonics. But if I bridge them—combine the low-frequency nanovibrations with a tight positron field—I can create a micro-environment at the surface of the Seed that breaks its ability to hold a stable vibration mode."
Gwen blinked. "You're, uh, destabilizing the shell? Is that right?"
"More like tricking it into forgetting what it is." Felix tapped the control pad. "Once I isolate the resonance field around a single point, I'll blast it with a positron beam loaded with quark-level randomness. That'll create just enough localized chaos to confuse the Vibranium's bond structure. A microscopic fissure should open up, and once it does…"
Gwen didn't get it. Hobie did. "You thread a molecular blade through the gap."
Felix nodded. "Atom-width blade, energized. We slice the top like a lid, neutralize the Symbiotes, and crack the vault."
"Wouldn't the inside resist?"
"It will. But the moment I introduce Vibranium-negative harmonic feedback from the amplifier, the internal structure collapses like a souffle in a sonic boom."
"I'm going to pretend I understood that," Gwen said. "But this will work, right?"
"I…am REALLY good at making the most outlandish things. It's how I made my first major thesis."'
"Which was…?"
"I'll tell you later."
It was time to get everything in place. The Seed now hovered in the recalibrated chamber, gravity fields disengaged but stasis temperature still holding.
Felix brought over the custom-fabricated emitter unit—something he'd cobbled together from three machines and a backup capacitor the size of a shoebox.
"All right," he said. "Adam, return it to ambient temperature. Gwen, get ready."
The controlled Adam did as he was told. The room hummed louder as the temperature began to rise. The air grew heavy with tension. The Seed began to pulse—a slow, ominous glow growing along its cracks.
Felix held up a small, crystal-sharp rod no longer than a pencil: the vibro-blade.
He took a breath. Engaged the emitter.
The anti-gravity was disabled next. The Symbiotes were waking. With no Vibranium glass, they could escape. Felix expected an attack. His Spider-Sense went off.
Hobie was on-guard. He anticipated a battle.
"Rah!"
Until all three black Symbiotes achieved freedom for less than a second when Spider-Woman threw huge Symbiote tentacles forward and swallowed up the hostless Symbiotes into her own. The raging red arms were veiny and bloody and Gwen let out a small gasp as the three Symbiotes merged with her. No, as she consumed them and grew stronger.
"Done," Gwen said with a smile.
Time for Felix's machines to kick in.
Reality around the Seed shimmered faintly as terahertz resonance licked across the meteor's surface. The frequency was nearly inaudible—like pressure behind the eyes. Felix tapped the positron field into phase.
The meteor vibrated. Not violently—but confused. Uneven. Its flawless balance suddenly wobbling under the strain of opposing harmonics.
A snap-hiss sounded as the fissure appeared.
A seam. Not large. Not loud. Just... present. Felix inserted the blade. Guided it with precision, rotating it slowly as the shell began to split like an eggshell under pressure.
Inside, the glow grew stronger.
Felix whispered, "Now."
With a final hiss of pressurized gas and the hum of ruptured energy fields, the meteor—The Seed—split open like a great, cosmic fruit. The twin halves peeled back under Felix's hands, his fingers shaking slightly, not from fear—but from his damn Spider-Sense.
The adrenaline.
The need to crush it.
Destroy it, destroy it—!
The interior was nothing like the blackened outer shell. The inside of the Seed was smooth, almost organic—gleaming like obsidian glass, veined with red pulses of light that flowed like slow magma. Suspended in the center, encased in a transparent resin-like structure, was an object that shouldn't exist.
It was long, curved, and dark—so dark it devoured the light around it. No reflections. No edges. A sheath, perhaps. A housing.
A scabbard that screamed silence.
Felix stared at it, his voice caught somewhere between confusion and calculation.
'Felix, run! RUN! SHE IS COMING TO TAKE IT! JUST RUNNNN!'
'Symbiote, you...!'
Ngggh!
He dropped it. The Symbiote forcibly made him drop it.
Gwen was happy to see it fall and to see in her full view. Her eyes were locked on the object—fixated. She looked... reverent.
"Finally," she whispered. "The Sheath of All-Black the Necrosword."
Both Hobie and Felix said: "The what?"
Her Symbiote instantly took over her form, except for her head. Gwen's lips curled into a small, cryptic smile.
"Thanks, you two. I appreciate your help."
He tried to react first. Gwen's face was already covered and her fully-transformed tendrils were already there, reeling in the glassy black surface of the sheath toward herself—and vanished. Space-time twisted in a nanosecond.
Felix stood alone, an arm outreached, staring at a question that now echoed louder than ever.
'What. The. Fuck.'