Uncanny Spider-Man #3

Orchis:
Director Vulture and his boss – namely Nimrod – watch a video about a recent event:

The giant Deviant Gaap the Integument (presumably undergoing excess deviation) makes landfall outside Manhattan at around 7:37 pm. Observed by Orchis, whose Stark Sentinels are already waiting, guarding the crowd of people.

However then, Nightcrawler (in his Creepy Crawler identity) teleports to shoulder height of the giant Deviant and attacks him with his Hopesword, shouting: “belay your landlubbing, seadog! Get ye back to Davey Jones, where ye belong!” followed by several Aaars.

Nimrod wonders if he is an imbecile. Vulture explains he is having fun.

The video:
That momen,t the Wild Pack enter on flying platforms and fire at him. Playing up to the audience, Nightcrawler dodges their blasts with short jumps, shouts out some advice to the crowd and that the Creepy Crawler loves NY, before disappearing.

Nimrod points out that they have seen no return on their investment into Silver Sable Inc. so far. He considers them a liability and Vulture was not given permission to hire them. He orders him to fire them. Vulture sighs he has tried. But it is some sort of honor thing… they don’t stop until the job is done. Besides, if he hadn’t hired them and instead rushed out his prototypes before they were ready, they’d have failed and Nimrod would have mothballed his project, before it was ready. He stresses that now they are ready. He muses that no one was capable of capturing Nightcrawler but, thanks to the one captive Nimrod brought in, Vulture has been able to engineer marvels from his code. He insists that they be permitted to test his creations.

“Insists?” Nimrod repeats darkly and warns him. He grabs Vulture by his lab coat and warns him not to make the mistake of believing because he wears the skin of an angel, he may make demands of gods. He drops Toomes and continues, Wagner is a target of extreme value. They have theories regarding his evasion of scanners – his history with the reality warper Legion is the probable cause, but most important is the doctrine of narrative authority. Orchis cannot tolerate a popular rebel. His Hounds are cleared for a field test. He warns him not to fail. His hired help will serve as a control against which Orchis will judge his creations. They may continue their work for now. But do not trust them. They are, after all, only human.

Elsewhere, Silver Sable releases her team for the night and orders them to get some sleep. She herself heads for a clandestine meeting with Nightcrawler, unaware that her second in command Redsargant Kremer is suspicious.

She and Kurt have sex on a warehouse rooftop. Afterwards, they cuddle and drink champagne. He warns that she does know they can’t keep doing that. Of course, she replies, deliberately misunderstanding. Winter is coming, and she doesn’t have velvet fur. They will need to find somewhere indoors. He asks, isn’t she even tempted…

To tranquilize him during an unguarded moment? she asks, then suggests several other questionable scenarios. She explains, she is a professional and her team costs a truly absurd amount. They are in fact the economic foundation of her entire country (as her blood pressure and chronic insomnia just love to remind her), because they adhere utterly to the stipulations of their contracts. Including negotiated periods of non-operational rests. When the helmet’s off, she is Silvija Sablinova, off-the-clock-tourist, highly deserving of fun. And he is merely Kurt Wagner, velvety himbo with a remarkably prehensile tail. And when the helmet is on: he is the Creepy Crawler… and she is Silver Sable, and sooner or later she will get him.

The psychic Bamf mutters to Kurt about the separation of church and state. He’s always been real good at that.

Disappointed, Kurt asks if fun is all this is. How could it be more? she asks. Of course, he replies sadly. “Our fields are out of phase.” Amused, she continues “Our electrons just won’t cross.” “We’re particles in contraction. Our waveforms at a loss,” Kurt continues. “But then I see you smile.” “And something deep within me stirs,” she begins to sing. “Our love’s entangled quantumly,” he joins her and they begin to belt “across the multiveeeerse… Superpositional! Superpostional!”

He didn’t have her down as a Lila Cheney fan. Only her pop-science phase, she replies and recalls her father once took her to a gig. It was the only time he did something like that. It turned out to be a cover for a manhunt, but still. Whatever happened to Lila?

Ru-roh, the Bamf mocks. Kurt replies he heard the Sentinels snapped her in half. They took out the teleporters before anyone else…

Silvija quickly kissed him. Deserving of fun, she reminds him. And they didn’t take out all the teleporters yet, he states. Snuggling, she points out that they have to find him first. And he has a particular talent for refusing to be pinned down.

Kurt begins, he doesn’t know why he doesn’t show up on their sensors. The psychic Bamf appears to him, chiding that is a lie. It’s just he chooses not to wonder who or how.

Silvija interestingly says the same: that he doesn’t want to know. Facing toward fun can be a very good cover for facing away from pain. He likes her, the Bamf grins.

She muses that her mother always told her not to fall for a complicated man. Of course, she married a single-minded Nazi hunter who got the whole family blown up, so…

Mother! Kurt recalls something. He apologizes and states, he is late. He’ll find her tomorrow, he promises and teleports away. Not if she finds him first, she states.

Kurt puts on the Creepy Crawler outfit and teleports to a place in the park which, he has noticed, Mystique visits every night. He calls out for her, then belatedly realizes that Silvija revealed she was falling for him.

A moment later, Mystique runs past him, gun and knife drawn, and shouts at him to run. They took her baby here in these endless forests of Bavaria, but they won’t take anyone else! She orders him to run as far and fast as he can. They have his scent now. Who does? he asks confused.

Why, the Hounds do, comes a reply from above. On a rooftop stand brainwashed versions of Dagger and Feral, both partially. Techno-organic. The Hounds of hell! Feral adds.

Run! Mystique shouts and, a moment later, he gets hit by one of Dagger’s light daggers. He barely manages to teleport onto a rooftop, but the two Hounds easily follow him by scent. He makes several teleportation jumps but doesn’t get far. He tries to appeal to them. They both jump after him, while calmly explaining this isn’t one of those situations where he can appeal to their humanity. They are not being controlled. Their master’s just changed what matters. The wash of sensation. The ecstasy of data. They went into their heads and changed what feels right. He will see soon.

Crouching in a corner, Kurt stammers that Tyrone needs her. Dagger informs him that Cloak found her first, and right now he is behind Kurt.

Kurt screams as he gets swallowed by the cloak of darkness. Immediately, Feral and Dagger are summoned elsewhere. Cloak orders them to regroup here afterwards. There is another scent.

Cloak, in the meantime, has found Mystique. She seems to be paralyzed under his powers, as he notes that she is related to the prime target and seems to suffer a traumatic breakdown. She whimpers for her baby. A moment later, from within the cloak, Kurt cuts himself free with his hopesword.

Momentarily, Cloak is back to his human form, Tyrone Johnson. Kurt tells him there is always hope, in darkness more than anywhere! Mystique scoffs at his foolishness and shoots Tyrone in the head over Kurt’s protest. She replies that they have the scent and drags Kurt with her into a compost container.

Moments later, Tyrone turns back into the Hound Cloak again and searches for his quarries’ scent.

When he is gone, they climb out again. Kurt is disgusted. She calls him a fool. If she cannot have her baby, she can at least try and save her kin. She told him to run, not fight. She was trying to lead them away!

Not far away, the other Hounds have more mutant captives. The Bamf grimly states to Kurt that he recognizes it, doesn’t he? The techno-organic circuits and what not. This is how they do it. “This is how they turn us into them.” Kurt was busy being a monster at the time but heard what happened. How Nimrod hacked Krakoa, sneaking in through the code of a mutant A.I. - namely Warlock. How Legion saved Kurt and the others before he vanished forever, but nobody ever figured what Orchis did with that poor crazy code….

Kurt just sputters that the Bamf isn’t real. He can’t know that! The Bamf tells him to screw himself, swears at him and shouts he can’t ignore this and bury his head any longer!

In the meantime, Mystique changes her shape to a harmless looking woman and walks off.

The Bamf continues, noting Kurt knows what they are doing… what that bald bastard has bottled up there. Supervisor Toomes has turned Warlock into warpaint! the Bamf shouts.

In the meantime, Vulture rises from the newly-infected mutants, connected to them via T/O strains and announces he is giving mutantkind what they refused to give his people… immortality!