Earth 319201: Clone Saga (Chapter 6)

Art is from the cover of the Game X-Men Legends.

The Avengers and the X-Men were talking as Spider was wrapping up what was left of the fake Avengers and criminals that attacked the real Avengers. Spider-Man pulled one arm free finally and was trying his best to get the rest of his body free, "Is this how criminals feel when I web them to a wall?" he asked himself before a few more pulls and and he just collapsed on the ground, "Ow," he whispered before pushing himself up. He rubbed his left shoulder before going towards the two hero groups, "Ok... I think someone needs to explain what is going on!"

"I'm with the kid on this one," Hawkeye chimed in while leaning against a bent traffic light. "We've faced a few crazy things over the years but these guys. They knew our moves and even looked like us."

"Not to mention that thy imposters were not Skrulls!" Thor exclaimed before setting Mjolnir down.

Spider would come up and pointed at the captured prisoners, "Ok, their tied up and won't be able to get out for another three hours," he said before noticing Spider-Man coming up to him. "Woah, woah, chill!"

Spider-Man pointed at Spider's mask, "Who are you?"

"I already told you. I'm Spider."

"No, I mean really," Spider-Man clarified, "You sound like me, you act like me, even the way you move is like my own moves!"

Spider would look at the X-Men for a moment before rubbing the back of his head, "That's... um... a bit hard to explain in front of everyone."

"Why?" Captain America asked.

"Does Hulk need to smash new Bug Man."

"No Hulk," Rogue stated as she shook her head with a smirk. "Spider here is with the X-Men and he's a friend. So don't worry sugar."

"He's what?" Spider-Man asked.

Wolverine came up and put a hand in Spider-Man's shoulder, "Listen Bub. Before you freak out, how about we go to the Baxter Building and we can tell you about what is going on with the Fantastic Four."

"A little bit late to tell me that because, I AM FREAKING OUT!"

"Uh... guys," Spider called out as he turned to look at the fake Avengers.

"Spider-Man, please calm down. This doesn't help anyone," Magneto tried to get the hero to calm down.

"Guys..."

"Calm down? CALM DOWN! YOU'RE NOT THE ONE THAT HAS BEEN ALMOST KILLED BY PEOPLE WHO HAVE CAME BACK FROM THE DEAD AND A GUY PRETENDING TO BE DAREDEVIL!"

"GUYS!" Spider yelled catching everyone's attention. "We have a problem," he said before motioning to their prisoners. Everyone turned to see that the remaining fake Avengers were all dead, some of them were bleeding from their noses while others were bleeding from their ears. "Usually, in horror movies, that is not a good sign."

Daredevil knelt down and listened for a few more moments. "They're dead," he said before tilting his head. "Scorpion is still alive and... the other one that has Spider-Man's powers is gone."

Wolverine just sighed before looking at X-23, "Get the team and Spider-Man on the Blackbird. Professor X will meet us at the Baxter Building," he looked at Spider-Man before he popped his claws out. "You better get on the Black Bird kid," he growled before going over and picking up Scorpion. He slung the villain over his shoulder as the Black Bird automatically came in and opened its hatch to allow Storm, Rogue, Gambit, X-23, Magneto, Spider, and Spider-Man to get on the jet. Wolverine came in afterwards and then the plane took off, going to the Baxter Building and to give Spider-Man part of the answers he desperately needed.

***

Reed was getting most of the medical devices up and running again, he stretched his left arm for a few adjustments before it retracted it back to its normal length. He turned around to see Susan coming in with Beast and Professor X, Reed just smiled before walking over to the group and extending his hand. "Welcome back Charles."

"Reed, thank you for allowing us to come."

"From what you told me, it was urgent and this has something to do with why Peter showed up to the balcony barely alive."

"Indeed," Charles said before Herbie came in and offered some tea. "Thank you Herbie."

"Thanks Herbie," Reed thanked before seeing the group come in with Scorpion in tow and webbed up. Reed felt the tension in the air between Spider-Man and the X-Men before looking at Scorpion, "This the one that you told Sue and Johnny about?" he asked to which Spider-Man just nodded. Reed nodded in return before a loud thud would be heard, Reed and everyone looked at Logan basically tossing Scorpion to the medical cot. "Seriously Logan?"

"What?" Logan asked before shrugging, "He's on the cot Richard's, and the kid has a lot to know if this thing is related to him or not," he said gesturing to Scorpion.

"To us," Spider pointed out.

"No, me!" Spider-Man stated as he walked up to Spider and poked his chest, "Far as I knew, I was the only spider themed superhero in the entire world. Then within a few days, another Scorpion attacked me while Matt is still at the Raft, Lizard is back from the dead, been almost killed by another Daredevil, had to fight another Avengers team, and some other guy that has spider powers! So who are you and what is going on?!"

Spider held up his hands, "Hey, Peter!" he said gently which caused Spider-Man to back up. "I know that tensions are high but dude, trust me. I've been doing this for what? Two months?"

"About," Logan stated as he would just shrug as Herbie gave him a beer. "Thanks," he said before cracking it open and started to drink it.

"Spider's been with us for three months," Laura pointed out as she crossed her arms before looking at the two Spider heroes. "Now do I need to get in between you two before Peter starts fighting Ben?"

"Ben?!" Spider-Man asked before he pulled his own mask off. "WHO ARE YOU?!" he yelled before grabbing Spider by the hoodie, "And why did they tell you my name?!"

Spider sighed as he held up his hand to keep Laura from trying to cut off Peter's arm, he just raised his left hand and pulled his mask off. Reed, Sue, and Peter gasped at what they saw; Spider's real face was exactly identical to Peter's, except he had shorter hair with blonde highlights. "Um... hey guys," he said as he waved, Peter let him go and just backed up, "My name is Ben Reilly and I'm actually related to Peter in DNA wise. Before you ask again, they didn't tell me your name, I knew it already."

Peter started to breathe heavily as he looked at the X-Men before at his adopted Father and Mother, feeling the weight of everything on him and with coming face to face to someone who looked exactly like him. Peter fainted to the ground and Susan just ran to his side and pulled him up. "Peter?! Peter, you ok?!"

"Put him on the cot farthest away from Scorpion Sue," Reed stated as he helped her move Peter on the cot. Putting a heart monitor on Peter, and making sure he was ok before looking at the X-Men and Ben, "You better have a good explanation for this."

Ben took in a deep breath before he looked around the two parties, rubbing the back of his neck with his right hand since his left one was holding his mask. "To be honest, he took it better than I expected. I thought he was going to start punching me in the face," he said as a joke which caused everyone to just glare at him. "Ok... not the time for jokes," he said as he pointed to the wall, "I'll just be over there," he said before walking to it.

***

Peter slowly opened his eyes a few hours later before turning his head to the left to see MJ next to him. He rubbed his face before shaking his head, "MJ, I had a weird dream. There were two of me," he groaned before she gently caressed his cheek.

"Oh trust me, it's no dream," Ben called out from the corner which caused Peter to sit up straight and Peter stared at Ben. "If it is then please wake up for both of our sakes."

Peter pointed at Ben as he would looked at MJ before looking back at Ben, "You're real."

"Yep."

"Why do you look like me, why do you even sound like me?!"

"We're about to explain that kid," Logan chimed in before shaking his head, "As soon as stretch over there gets the mask off of Scorpion."

Peter turned to look at Reed as he was typing on a holographic keyboard, going from one monitor to the helmet of Scorpion. He wasn't even sure what was going on anymore but he held MJ's hand for comfort since right now he felt like he was going insane.

Ben looked at Peter and felt bad, especially with what he was going through. He knew what it was like for a few days to have the entire world flip upside down onto his head, even now, he sometimes didn't know how to deal with it but thankfully the X-Men did help him through those times. Ben looked up at Reed as there was a small hiss of gas came from the helmet, then the helmet was loose and Reed took it off. His eyes went wide which caught Ben's attention, Ben went over and took a look at who was the new Scorpion. "Oh, no..." he whispered as he would just shake his head before looking at Peter, "Pete, you need to see this."

Peter looked at MJ, she nodded to encourage him, he would then get up and went over to the cot. When he walked over, he glared over at Ben for a moment before looking down at Scorpion as Reed set the helmet on a table next to the monitors. Peter saw his own face inside the Scorpion suit which made him just back up a bit. Logan would go up and see the face of the new Scorpion before he just twisted his face in anger before looking at the people around in the room. "Ok, you said you would explain what is going on Logan. So... what is going on?! Why are there three of me?!"

Logan would take a deep breath and sigh to release a lot of the excess anger he was feeling, "Peter," he started. "About a year ago, there was an intake in activity at the old Weapon X facility. I went in and found records of my blood being used in experiments."

"We kinda knew that when we had to fight Deadpool when X-Force cut in the last time we teamed up against Sentinels."

"But what I found was tubes of failed experiments, they were trying to clone me or figure out how to get the cloning tech right. I kept on going in and then... found out they were successful in creating a clone."

"Wait, there are now two Logan's?" Peter and Ben asked at the same time, the two would look at each other before looking back at Logan.

Logan would just nod for a moment, "My clone is somewhere out there, being a farmer or whatever, but he is living his life and not as a weapon," he said while feeling Laura's eyes burning into his skull. "It's a better life than I ever had."

"But why? Cloning is illegal?"

"Probably for most scientists, Dr. Richards," Charles spoke before taking a sip from the cup, "But apparently for government institutions or more accurately, military personnel that are hungry for power, don't adhere to the moral laws that some scientist should have."

"But what does this have anything to do with there being more than one version of people who are already alive or dead?"

"I was getting to that point kid," Logan spoke before shaking his head and tossed Peter a water bottle. "Now, listen. About three months back, I was ed by someone working with the CIA. The voice was female but she sounded scared and begged me to come to an underground lab  near the Empire State Building. I did and I thought I was alone," Logan glared at Laura and a few before continuing the story. "We found a trashed lab with a few broken vats but one was intact, and that vat had Ben in it."

"They think I was supposed to be picked up and taken to the new lab because some soldiers came in and well, here I am three months later after a lot of time training and telling me that I'm a clone of you Peter," Ben said as he looked at Peter. "I wanted to say hi and introduce myself sooner but Logan wouldn't let me, the only time I actually interacted with you was when you faced off against the clone of Daredevil."

Peter looks at Ben, "That was you?" He asked as Ben just nodded for a moment. He looked at Logan and the others before taking shallow breaths. Processing the information of what he just heard before he started to leave the room.

"Peter."

"I need to be left alone for a bit," Peter said as he looked over his shoulder, "Just... leave me alone," he said as he walked out of the room. Leaving Ben with the rest of the group while the clone looked back at Scorpion. Staring at a tortured face of Peter Parker while feeling something was off about the clones more than anything else. Like something more sinister was forming underneath the surface, however. He couldn't do anything but go out of the room and get some food from the kitchen. Leaving everyone to process the information.