Absolute Symbiote Chapter 4: What Are We Now?

Chapter 4: What Are We Now?

(Ruin's P.O.V)

I made it out of the diner before collapsing.

The air outside felt heavy. My stomach churned. My legs barely moved straight. I kept thinking—it’s just the human body. I’m not used to it. That’s all.

But something was wrong. Neither regeneration nor shapeshifting helped. And I couldn't discard the body- my symbiotic form seemingly stuck in a prison of weak flesh and bones.

My muscles locked up. My skin burned cold. The pain wasn’t just inside—it was everywhere at once, like something under the skin trying to get out. The sidewalk tilted. People shouted. Then nothing.

(Thomas' P.O.V)

I woke up naked on the floor. The pain was gone.

Morning light cut through the blinds.

The carpet was soft, familiar. The room was small—pastel colors, a bookshelf, dolls on the shelves. I knew where I was before I even sat up.

Anita’s bedroom.

The memories hit fast.

I didn’t need to sort them. My mind just… processed.

The layout of the apartment. The paint on the walls. The smell of her old blanket. The unicorn lamp that flickered when it turned on. I’d stepped into this room a thousand times before.

I looked toward the dresser where I knew there was a photo.

Three people. Smiling.

Alice. Anita. Me. My family.

“Anita,” I said quietly.

The name didn’t feel like a memory.

It felt like truth. Just like the sensation of a rusty crowbar cracking my skull open.

It was all my fault. If I hadn't suggested taking a shortcut, the Joker Gang wouldn't have cornered us. And my girls would still be alive.

It's almost okay now. I had my revenge- thanks to that...creature. 'No, not creature,' a part of me corrected, 'monster, alien, ruin.'

I stood slowly, legs steady now. The body felt real. Whole. Strong, even after whatever happened. Even after death.

And as unbelievable as it was, I knew I'd died and left my corpse to Ruin. So how was I back?

I crossed the room, nude and not bothering to look for clothes. My hand touched the corner of the dresser before I turned to the hallway and made my way to the bathroom.

I looked in the mirror.

It was me.

Thomas. Alive.

Short dark hair. Skin clear. Grey eyes alert. Not hollow. Taller and bigger- the ideal form that I'd always dreamed of. I didn’t look tired, but I didn’t look human either.

I looked… returned.

Then the voice came, resounding from within my mind.

“Took you long enough."

I sniffed the air.

There was a thick scent—wet, acidic, faintly metallic. I turned and saw the bathtub.

Inside were pieces of something. Black, cracked, sticky. Like something had molted.

A shell.

A cocoon.

“What is that?” I asked.

A shape rose slowly from my right shoulder.

Red.

Shifting.

Alive.

It peeled upward, forming a head with no eyes, just a moving mouth filled with teeth.

“That,” it said, “is our mother. In a way.”

I stared at it. It moved like liquid muscle but didn’t drip. It stayed tethered to me. And despite the strangeness of it all, it felt right.

“You’re Ruin?” I asked, almost immediately realizing I was wrong.

It chuckled. A sound that was both internal and external.

“Close. I’m Carnage. I came from Ruin. Just like you did.”

I kept my voice steady. “Then why do I feel like… me? Why do I remember what It did? It's memories of feasting on dead Martians.”

“Because Ruin was all of it. Ruin was me and you. A whole made of many pieces. He evolved and broke apart but his WILL didn’t disappear. It was passed on to us as We became.”

“So what are we now?”

“You’re Thomas again. But not the same. I’m what came after Ruin. You’re what was inside him. Two halves of something new.”

I understood. My consciousness had persisted even after Ruin took over my corpse. Grief and hatred had kept me tethered to him.

And now I was here and Ruin was gone.

I looked back at the tub. The cocoon. It didn’t feel alien anymore.

It felt like a grave.

Or a birth.

“Did Ruin plan this?”

“No,” Carnage said. “He just… adapted. Split when he needed to. It wasn’t thought. It was survival. This is what we are now because this is what we had to be.”

I felt my heartbeat. My breath. My voice.

“Why?”

“Because this is the only way we succeed,” Carnage supplied. “This form. This fusion. You walk the world. I feed from it. We’re not fighting for justice. We’re not heroes. We exist so we don’t die. That’s it.”

I didn’t argue.

Because it made sense.

I was alive. Gifted a second chance to complete what Ruin started. My revenge was incomplete. The clown was still alive.

That was all that mattered.

And whoever stood in our way—hero or villain—would be dealt with.

""""Together."""" Carnage and I echoed out.

(General P.O.V)

Gotham was still soaked in rot.

Even in the early morning, the streets of Crime Alley felt like they hadn’t slept. Broken glass in gutters. Flickering lights that no one bothered to fix. The kind of place where you kept your head down or got put down.

Thomas walked through it slowly, hood up, hands in pockets. Carnage pulsed beneath his skin, moving like something just under the surface.

"You know, I’m still not sure why we’re out here," Carnage grunted from somewhere inside his chest.

“Because you need to feed,” Thomas said, keeping his voice low. “And I need to understand what I am now. This body Ruin left me with... it’s not just human. It’s something else. I can feel it.”

Carnage rolled lazily beneath his ribs, amused. "Yeah, yeah. Super special chosen one. Just get me lots of brains, and I’m good, partner."

Thomas smirked faintly. “Don’t worry about that. Breakfast is on its way.”

He looked behind him. A group of six, maybe seven, men were weaving through the crowd, not hiding the fact that they were following. Faces marked by cheap tattoos, jackets tagged with local gang symbols—one of the splinter groups left behind by the Joker Gang after he disappeared into Arkham.

Thomas turned into a side alley without a word. Let them follow.

The alley stretched deep, with cracked walls, rusted dumpsters, and puddles of something that wasn’t just water. Before they were even halfway through, more men stepped out from the other end, cutting them off.

Carnage stirred in excitement. "I knew this smelled like a setup."

Thomas stopped. He faced the group head-on. Calm. Relaxed.

“You fellas need something? We’re not looking for trouble.”

The tallest one stepped forward. Leather jacket. Knife in one hand. Smile full of rot.

“Just leave everything you have with you. Let us relieve you of the weight of what you carry, and you can walk away with your life. Maybe.”

Thomas nodded slowly. “Let me think about it for three seconds.”

He raised one finger. “One.”

Another. “Two.”

Another. “Three.”

A pause.

“Ah, I don’t think so.”

The gang tensed, caught off guard by his nonchalant attitude.

“Listen, if you want to rob me, you’re gonna need a much bigger army. I count seven of you. That’s not nearly enough.”

One of them laughed. “There’s only one of you.”

Thomas tilted his head with a twisted smile. “You sure about that?”

"Whaaaassssuuup breakfast bitches!"

His hoodie shredded as Carnage exploded from his back—red, spiked tendrils shooting outward, piercing two of the men through the chest before they even screamed.

"Shit!"

"He got Miles!"

"Shoot the freak!"

Carnage laughed as the alley filled with chaos and panic.

The gang scattered in all directions.

Two tried to run back into the street. Thomas’s hand shifted—green, strong, heavier than steel. He grabbed a nearby dumpster and hurled it across the alley.

The impact turned both men into pulp. The metal of the dumpster folded inward with a loud crunch as it slammed against the far wall and stayed there, dented and slick with red.

Carnage was biting into one of the fleeing gangsters, tearing into him like wet paper. He looked over his shoulder mid-bite.

"Stop smashing the heads! I need those!"

“How was I supposed to know I was this strong?” Thomas shouted back. “I’m new to this!”

Gunfire answered. Two of the last remaining goons had pulled out pistols and started firing. Bullets slammed into Thomas’s chest and staggered him back slightly—but none of them broke skin.

Carnage pulled inward, fusing over Thomas’s body. Their form expanded, twisted—flesh merging, bones thickening. They became something else.

Eight feet tall.

Red.

Veined with green lines.

Eyes black.

Jaws wide.

The bullets kept coming.

The monster kept walking.

One of the gunmen turned to run. He didn’t make it more than three steps before something invisible lifted him into the air.

He flailed for a second, then his whole body compressed with a wet pop. Bones snapped inward. His spine snapped in half. Only the head remained untouched before falling to the ground like trash.

The final gangster screamed and emptied his clip directly into Carnage’s mouth.

Carnage swallowed the bullets, then burped loudly, spitting out a handful of crushed metal shards onto the man’s face.

The man trembled.

“W-What are you?” he asked, voice cracking.

The thing leaned down, its voice deep and ragged.

"Ruinous Carnage. Or just Carnage… to my friends."

The man nodded quickly. “C-Can I be your friend?”

Carnage grinned, teeth wet with gore.

"Sure."

The man exhaled in relief.

Carnage’s jaws snapped forward and bit his head clean off.

Thomas chuckled as blood sprayed out of the headless neck.

“I forgot to mention,” Carnage said through a red-stained grin. “I eat my friends too.”

The two left, Carnage full and Thomas...well he'd had a taste of his new power and wanted to more.

-0-

The junkyard sat just outside Gotham’s industrial zone. Silent. Secluded. The air smelled like oil and rust.

Thomas floated ten feet above the cracked concrete, arms outstretched. Around him, car frames hovered mid-air. Tires, doors, entire rusted-out husks of sedans and trucks spun slowly in orbit. Some wobbled. Others drifted just beyond control.

Then, they started speeding up.

The orbit tightened. Metal groaned. Wind stirred.

A loud snap echoed as a muffler split from a spinning shell.

Thomas exhaled and slowed everything down again.

The objects drifted lazily, circling like debris caught in low gravity.

He clenched his fist.

The pieces froze.

Held in place. Not with muscles. With will, exhibiting a bit more control than when he crushed one of the gangsters.

He wasn’t sure how he was doing it, exactly. The ability wasn’t learned—it was remembered. Somewhere in the sea of memory he inherited from Ruin, there were fragments of Martian minds. Dead minds. Scattered across Mars when the war ended. Whatever Ruin had taken in back then had passed into Thomas during the metamorphosis.

And now the powers weren’t just part of Carnage. Some were part of him.

Telekinesis. Common to Martians, but rare in strength. Ruin’s memory told him talent varied. Thomas didn’t know if he was talented—he just knew he was trying.

Carnage stretched lazily from his arm and dangled downward like a living scarf. He swung back and forth, bored.

"This is so slow," he complained. "We could be ripping the spine out of someone. Instead, we’re playing with scrap metal like some moody Jedi."

Thomas didn’t look at him. He'd quickly learned that the Symbiote was aptly named. All Carnage wanted was carnage. “We’re not storming Arkham without preparation.”

"Pff. Coward’s excuse. What, you afraid of another brute? Nobody out-brutes me."

“Batman isn’t a brute,” Thomas said. “That’s his territory. He’s probably got ways to shut someone like you down in ten seconds or less. He's faced worse. We’re not invincible.”

Carnage growled but didn’t argue.

The car frames accelerated again. Faster. Tighter. Thomas breathed deeply, keeping focus. He was almost at his limit of how many things he could control at the same time, but he wanted to add more.

Carnage spun tendrils in the air, long and sharp, waving them like a conductor’s baton.

"You’re missing the fun of it. There’s beauty in bloodshed. The crack of a skull. The scream. The spray. Why throw things when we could be painting the walls with their bones?"

Thomas didn’t answer at first.

The cars slowed. One by one, he gently dropped them back to the ground.

Then he said, “Because telekinesis was Alice’s favorite.”

Carnage stopped moving.

“She used to laugh at how most telepaths and telekinetics just... moved rocks or threw people around. Said they had the coolest power in the world and wasted it.”

A tear slid down Thomas’s cheek. He wiped it away, surprised.

He hadn’t even felt it coming.

He blinked, trying to reset, but the emotion lingered. Something tight in the chest.

Carnage pulsed a low vibration through his body. Cool, steady. Like a wave washing over his nerves.

Thomas exhaled. “Thanks.”

Silence stretched between them.

Then he added, “Besides... what if someone could separate us?”

Carnage chuckled.

"Not possible. We're not connected like strings. We're blended. Not just physically—mentally. We’re the same being. Two bodies. Two minds. One core. You and me? We’re water in water. Try separating that."

Thomas nodded, slowly descending to the ground.

“And if someone did kill you? Just you?”

"Then I’d reform. From you." Carnage was ready.

“And if they kill me?”

"Then I reform you. From me." No pause. The Symbiote even sounded prideful.

Thomas looked out across the junkyard. The twisted metal. The mess.

“And if we both die?”

Carnage paused, then laughed again, sharper this time.

"Then we fucked up massively."

Thomas cracked a smile. “Then you see the point of all this.”

Carnage grumbled, shifting into a loose coil around his arm. "I still say sharp tendrils are faster."

Thomas raised a hand. A car door shot into the air and landed perfectly in place against a rusted chassis.

“They’re not always the best tool.”

Carnage grumbled under his breath, but didn’t object again.