Echo, Destiny, Marge, and Jessica Drew (aka Spiderwoman) sat around Destiny’s kitchen table with my kluged together Kree holoprojector (an embarrassment to any true Kree Engineer, but the closest I could get using off the Frost Industries bleeding edge shelf human technology to make a Kree design that would interface with freaking Apple tablets. Screw you Jobs, your software security couldn’t stop a clone wet from the Kree vat).

The women were again having Black Forest cake, and I was stuck drinking black coffee. Really good black coffee, but Echo passed on the “he ate a brain so no cake for you” dictate from my therapist, and neither Destiny nor Marge were going to allow me to violate my therapists orders.

I could tell it was one of Marges cakes. She isn’t a mutant, but her cooking ability is not human. My tentacles are a total of sixteen feet of chemical receptors and I was a telepath in a stable polyamourus relationship with three of the women at the table. Falling unconsciously into a metaconcert was impossible when we were together and two of us were active telepaths. I COULD FEEL THEM TASTE EVERY BITE.

They got Black Forest cake, I got black coffee, good coffee mind you, but black coffee and the memory of flensing Ronald Sung’s brain to devour. Life was not fair. Murder should be more fun if it is going to be a crime. Now it just sucks and I am not going to sulk because Kree are noble warrior heroes and Mind Flayers are apex brain eating predators. I am totally not going to cry because Marge made cake and everyone else is really enjoying it.

Plans for Invictus Life lab facilities were up on the main screen. To the left is an array of what Jessica knows about Lady Viper’s known tactical team of choice, and my own listing of the Mark XIV combat armour capacity.

Spiderwoman was looking at the capacity of the Mark XIV Kree battle armour that Kraken wore and her gaze was troubled.

“I could maybe take him alone, but not with Lady Viper in the mix. She is as skilled as I am, but only human. With her, the tac team is a problem. She is probably a better combat leader than Kraken, she got trained by Taskmaster in hand to hand like I did, but she learned her small unit tactics from Red Skull himself. If he wasn’t such a misogynist dinosaur she probably would have been in the central council by now, but she didn’t have a mustache to twirl like Baron Strucker or an edge lord beard like Fury so got stuck in the field leader role.” Spiderwoman said.

I was two kinds of apex predator, superior to humanity on a genetic level, I could not be denied. I watched as Marge waved her fork as she talked, and a chocolate coated cherry fell from her fork into the shadow behind her teacup. I began to snake a tentacle out.

“I was going to take Kraken and the Mark XIV. Send a Kree to catch a Kree, the tech is mine and I have the single most devastating weapon to use against him.” I said puffing out my chest with well deserved pride. I let the admiring gaze of three of my lovers stray to my half bare blue chest as my tentacle creeped over the edge of the table and slunk towards the undefended cherry.

Marge’s fork struck like lightning and since I had heightened my awareness of the nerves in the tentacle for maximum dexterity and enjoyment of the stolen cherry, it hurt like a bitch.

“No cake for you.” Echo pronounced firmly, as Destiny laughed,and Marge popped the disputed cherry into her own mouth. Three minds rippled with laughter as I realized they had played me, reading my intent and using each other’s eyes for targeting. So unfair.

Spiderwoman looked at us all like we were crazy, and got back on topic.

“What weapon are you planning on using? We are doing this fight in Invictus Life Labs so anything heavy enough to take down that armour is going to put the facility and the scientists at risk.” Spiderwoman asked.

I flicked an unforked tentacle at my holo display and called up another menu.

“The most devastating weapon to use against any advanced weapon system.” I smirked. On display was the title page and rotating holograph ‘Mark XIV Battle Armour advanced care, modification, maintenance and troubleshooting manual.’

Hydra may have been passing down stolen/inherited Kree tech for a century or so, but the Kree designed and fielded that equipment for thousands of years and several wars. We wrote the book on it, and as any good Kree warrior, it was part of my basic hypnoconditioning package. Nick Fury’s baby brother the traitor was a cave man running around in F35, and I had the engineering manual and software codes to override it. He would have a better chance facing me in his underwear.

Jessica was suitably impressed, but her mind was still deep in tactical mode, made only slightly odd by the chocolate on her chin.

“That is fine, but it is going to get noticed, not to mention while I am dancing with Viper and the tac team, some of them are going to be free to target the scientists and their research. Ronald already gave them the two computers they need to strip to get it all. Viper will not get distracted, she will keep her eyes on the prize and she will know enough to keep me busy while they do it.” Spider woman said, scraping the last of the icing with the edge of her fork, and licking it off.

Destiny reached out with a napkin and wiped Jessica’s chin and then mused softly.

“What you need is another psychopath. Since tall blue and sexy is off breaking his diet on freshly shelled Kraken, and Spiderwoman is busy fighting Viper and her goons, you need a raging psychopath who Hydra will react to as a proximal threat as soon as they show up and totally derail their thinking. Make Viper start thinking about how to get out, not how to finish the mission.” Destiny said, almost wistfully.

Jessica pointed a finger at me and electricity sparkled as she seriously thought about shooting me with a bolt of living lightning.

“Where do you find these women? Were they all normal before you got your tentacles on them? Do you do something with them that makes them all turn this way?”

Marge reached over and gave me a hug. “Lots of things. Wicked, tentacly things. You can never have enough tentacles.

Echo froze, a telepathic “Eeek!” of shock ran through her and Marge, Destiny and I turned to face her as she pulled out her Iphone and started scrolling, then Marge, Destiny and I began to chuckle as what she had been reminded of flowed into us all through our link.

“Okay, stop that. It is really creepy. What has you all suddenly laughing like horror movie rejects?” Spiderwoman asked.

“Tentacles. What we need is clearly more tentacles. And a psychopath, the kind of dangerous and unpredictable psychopath who will make anyone abort a carefully planned operation because just his being there destroys any chance of a controlled operation.” Echo said.

She cast from her phone to my Kree holoprojector, becuase Kree are blue, bluetoot technology almost goes without saying. On screen was the very picture of a mad scientist. A deranged supervillain with a serious technological focus, a proven track record of mayhem, and most importantly, tentacles.

I beamed, turning to Spiderwoman to introduce our next victim/co-conspirator.

“Jessica Drew, be known to Doctor Otto Octavius, also known as Doctor Octopus”

The man hanging in mid air, surrounded by three living steel sentient tentacles moved on screen, locked in battle with Spiderman in his last battle.

Spiderwoman looked between the hologram and myself several times, wide white mask eyes shaping in surprise.

“You must be joking, he is insane and uncontrollable. You can’t be thinking of working with him? He will turn on us in a heartbeat. Even he won’t know its coming.” Jessica said, quite reasonable given what she knew.

Echo smiled sadly. “He was part of my morning briefing from Mother because of his condition. He isn’t naturally insane. He is trapped in a gestalt mind with the AI collective of his tentacles. He had a buffer between them and his own nervous system that got breached and drove him insane. Mom scanned him once and made an offer to rehabilitate him but SHIELD didn’t trust her enough, and was happy enough to keep him in one of their cages under lock and key to see if they can reverse engineer his tentacle technology.”

Jessica shuddered. Having her own memories of Hydra labs, and wanting to object that the organization that saved her, SHIELD, would not do that. She stopped short of saying it, because she knew Nick Fury had almost no limits to what he would do for what he considered his duty.

“All that is fine, but why was he part of your morning briefings?” Spiderwoman asked.

“Because his lawyer Foggy Nelson has him before the New York Superior Court for a test of his mental fitness this Tuesday. Apparently Nelson and Murdoch don’t think disappearing him into a SHIELD holding facility without trial isn’t legal if he was mentally not responsible for his actions at the time.”

Now it was four smiling faces around the table. Taking advantage of the shared joy, I reached out for a finger full of the icing fallen on the table, and this time one hand and two forks slapped my tentacles.

Still no cake.

No cake, but one psychopath with a side of tentacles was definitely on the menu.