Animal Instincts: Infected Humanity *Book 1* (Ultimate Spider-Man *Cartoon*)

Chapter 11: His Pack

Spider-Man walked through the halls of the Academy; the sounds of the others following him resonated around him and made the arachnid almost croon with excitement. His body was still sore and ached all over, but his happy attitude made his body jittery with enthusiasm and he felts an odd rush of energy which overlapped the achiness.

The arachnid was delighted to know that the others were listening, and he hoped the other two prisoners in this metal cage wouldn't put up much of a fight with him. But even with the obedient behavior of the others, Spider-Man still kept his senses on high alert. They might be listening now, but he could smell their nervous anger, and hear their frustrated (but low) growls hissing under their breath. If they decided to attack his vulnerable back, he would know. And he would have to punish them, something he didn't actually want to do.

When Spider-Man had awoken after his recapture, he found that the voice he had been hearing in his head, the one telling him not to hurt anyone, had somehow taken control of his body. Spider-Man was angry, and would have fought to reclaim domination over the voice, if he hadn't been overwhelmed with the feeling of curiosity. Earlier the only thing Spider-Man could feel was anger and pain, but now. Well, now the anger had gone away, and the pain was dulled drastically which allowed clear and reasonable thoughts to bloom in their place.

Why did the voice seem to know these people? How did they know of it? What did they want? Why were they stopping him from moving? Maybe if he waited, and listened then he'd find something out. It took a lot of patience, and a lot more curiosity but Spider-Man remained in the back of the voice, and allowed it to keep control, all while listening to what was being said. It was fascinating, all these people, all these weird machines and contraptions. Spider-Man wanted to know more!

Eventually Spider-Man figured out the voice had memories, memories that he had full access to. He had eagerly searched through them, sucking every bit of information and details he could manage. Eventually Spider-Man started matching the names he learned to the faces he was seeing. There was a dark skinned man with one eye....Nick Fury Spider-Man thought. There was another one, a man with one arm...Doctor Curt Connors? It was weird, when thinking about Connors, pictures of an odd, lizard creature-kind of similar to Spider-Man-often appeared; Spider-Man would look up more on that later though.

There were others: Power-Man, Iron Spider, Iron Fist, Cloak & Dagger, Nova, and Agent Venom (the one he nearly killed). As well as a group of older, more powerful people...um...the Avengers? Weird name....but all that he was learning, it astounded Spider-Man and made him hungry for more. But what astounded him more, was the sheer amount of emotion involved in his situation.

So many feelings roamed under his skin, as well as in the air around him: anger, worry, sadness, frustration, stress. Spider-Man could smell it, even felt the ones the voice was experiencing. What was so emotional about this? He didn't understand. Although he did notice the difference in behavior between him and the voice, when they were in control; for Spider-Man, the crazy and wild side, whenever he was in control everyone was afraid, and sad, and worried-they kept telling him that they could help and could fix him. Why? Was something wrong with Spider-man? Well, aside from the odd pain spikes he experiences, but he wasn't sure if that was what it was.

While when the voice was in control, everyone seemed...happy, relieved, still worried and sad, but they were definitely lighter in attitude. Why were they only afraid of Spider-Man and not the voice? All he wanted to do was go somewhere safe, it was the peoples fault for trying to stop him. Besides, they hurt him. Wasn't he allowed to attack them?

So many questions and so many answers awaiting him in his murky sub-conscious, it was both exciting and frightening. But one that Spider-Man was able to isolate, was the odd relationship the voice had with the people, like the weirdly dressed kids he remembered. It was interesting, how much they cared and it really struck something with Spider-Man. It would be nice to have someone to look out for his back like that....maybe....maybe he could have something like that. He was contained with a group of other creatures like him; all were probable experiencing situations similar to his. Maybe...maybe he could get them to be his-what was that word the voice used? Team? Family? Friends? Something like that.