122. Cloth 2

(3rd POV)

- Lex!!! - Gwen and Ashley exclaimed in horror when they saw their boyfriend being swallowed by black ribbons and wrapped in a cocoon.

- We need to pull it out! - Gwen exclaimed in panic, rushing towards the cocoon.

- Nothing works, these tapes seem to be made of steel. - Ashley said with difficulty, trying to break through the cocoon, but her strength was not enough for this.

- Try to absorb them, maybe then it will turn out. - Gwen suggested, after unsuccessfully attempting to break the ribbons with magic constructs.

- A good idea! - Ashley said and touched the cocoon, trying to absorb the unknown material.

- I cant…. I can not. - Ashley screamed in horror after failing to absorb matter for the first time.

- So you have to take it out by force. I'll just burn these tapes, damn it! - Gwen said decisively, lighting her flame.

- Wait, you can hurt Lex. In addition, it is not known how these tapes will behave if you direct fire at them. Suddenly they explode or something like that…. - Ashley said worriedly, stopping his friend.

- What do you propose to do in this case? Just wait and hope for the best? - Gwen asked angrily, but still put out her fire.

- Maybe there is nothing dangerous in this, and we just overreacted? - Ashley asked thoughtfully, beginning to think more clearly.

- Lex was swallowed up in front of our eyes by some terrible tapes that escaped from his body, and you say "overreacted"? He might be being digested inside this cocoon right now, now is not the time to be careful. We urgently need to get him out of there ... - Gwen said expressively, preparing to attack the cocoon.

- Don't be so hasty. These ribbons are due to Lex ingesting the tissue that Hope sent. Maybe that's how it should have happened... - Ashley suggested, keeping her friend from acting rashly.

- I knew that bitch couldn't be trusted! This is probably a trap to avenge Hex. - Gwen exclaimed, clearly letting her fear and anger cloud her judgment.

- Hope would never do that to Lex. She loves him too much, just like we do. And you know it very well. So stop acting like a crazy, jealous bitch and get a grip on yourself. - Ashley yelled, hitting Gwen as a preventive measure.

- Okay, maybe you are right. But in any case, it doesn't change the fact that he is now locked in this cocoon and we do not know what is happening to him there. - Gwen said more calmly, rubbing her cheek.

- Maybe we should call Hope and ask her about this fabric? - Ashley offered a good idea.

- Then call quickly. We need to find out what the hell is going on here and why she didn't explain anything in the note. - Gwen said impatiently, looking anxiously at the cocoon.

- Now. Don't rush me, I'm worried about Lex too. - Ashley said quickly, pulling out her phone. But before she could dial the number, sounds came from the direction of the cocoon.

- Something is happening…. - Ashley said softly watching as the cocoon began to shake, and small cracks appeared on its body.

- Lex, are you okay? - Gwen yelled, watching with concern as more cracks began to appear on the cocoon.

- Lie down. - Ashley yelled and pushed Gwen to the floor. Just in time, because the next moment the cocoon exploded and a man emerged from it.

- Lex… - Gwen asked uncertainly, seeing that the one who escaped from the cocoon was dressed in a black, sleek full-body suit. And only two large white eyes on the head somehow stood out against the completely featureless mask.

The man in the suit didn't say anything, and slowly raised his hand and began to examine it with curiosity. Then, all of a sudden, a large white spider emblem appeared on the chest of the suit, which complemented the look and completed the concept of the familiar suit.

- How curious…. - the man said softly continuing to examine his body when the spider emblem disappeared and the Omnitrix emblem appeared on the entire chest.

- Lex, don't scare us, please…. - Ashley said carefully, trying to figure out what was going on….

***

(Lex's POV)

*A little earlier*

'Eh, who would have thought that cloth was some kind of symbiote….' - Being inside the cocoon, I thought, listening to the conversation of the panicked Gwen and Ashley.

As soon as I was in the cocoon, information began to flow into my consciousness that clarified the whole situation. Everything that happened before, it was necessary for the cloth to recognize me as the owner and become attached to me at a fundamental level.

Now the last assimilation is taking place, which will end in a couple of minutes and I will be able to go outside. And I didn't call this cloth a kind of symbiote for nothing, since, in fact, this is the closest description of my new acquisition.

In this universe there is a race known as Contumelia. They are beings of the fifth dimension and in some way act as neutral observers. In terms of capabilities and, in general, in fact, they are an analogue of the Bat-Mite race and Mister Mixispitlik from DC Comics.

The same omnipotent beings who have nothing to do in life, so they do all sorts of crap to brighten up their immortal existence. And if Bat-Mite and Mister Mixispitlik decided to dedicate their lives to ruining the lives of their favorite idols, Batman and Superman, respectively, then the Contumelia found a more significant use for their limitless powers.

Contumelia love to experiment and then see what happens next without them interfering. True, their experiments are so large-scale that it is even difficult to imagine. They are able to create a completely new universe, and then watch how it develops further, and if they are not interested in the result, they can simply erase the universe and restart it to see how the story goes this time.

This is what happens when omnipotent beings have no purpose. They are looking for at least something that can brighten up their existence and usually they do not care about the consequences of their entertainment. And the consequences are almost always devastating, at least for ordinary beings.

It's also lucky that Contumelia mostly just observe and very rarely actually overwrite universes, so they can't even be considered a full-fledged threat, since this is, in general, part of the life cycle. Everything has to end someday for something new to start. No wonder Galactus exists in the Marvel Universe.

Something, I deviated from those but this whole story was needed to explain the origin of the 'cloth'. In general, as I said, Contumelia are five-dimensional beings, which means that the inhabitants of the three-dimensional dimension cannot perceive them.

And since, it is well known that all the most interesting things happen in the three-dimensional world, the Contumelia needed the opportunity to be in our dimension so that they could observe their 'experiments'.

Now, they can hide their true appearance, which is, in general, destructive to lower order beings, such as humans, and everyone else sees Contumelia instead as an animated projection of what has the greatest emotional influence over them.

But earlier, before they learned how to do this, for the first attempt, let's say, to enter the 3D world, they decided to create an artificial shell for themselves, a suit. And, as is already clear, the piece of cloth from which it all began is the remains of the prototype of that "suit".

I was never able to make out from the information received what went wrong, but in the end, the Contumelia abandoned this idea and simply threw away their developments. Of course, to the universe, so that you can observe where this leads. It's their style.

This prototype is already several billion years old, and in the end, after all these years of wandering around the universe, only a piece of a rag was left of it, which somehow miraculously fell into the hands of the Forever Knights, who could not understand its purpose, before I took it from them. Now, I even wonder how Hope realized what it was….

In any case, the prototype was created from fifth dimensional matter, so it has incredible protective properties and it's hard for me to even imagine that there is something in the universe that can damage this cloth.

The cloth itself has no mind of its own, but she has 'programmed' commands and can follow her master's will, take on almost any form, and absorb materials to add new powers and functions to herself. In fact, it's just a 'living', indestructible clothing that can take on any style. Like I said, symbiote.

Although, if in the Marvel world the Klyntars are just an alien race, then my new acquisition is an ancient artifact created by an ancient powerful being… This also applies to the Klyntars, right? Forget...

As far as I understood, the cloth chose me as its owner and I was able to bind it to myself only thanks to my special soul, otherwise there would be a huge chance that I could die, so I was lucky.

Although, I initially knew that there was no danger for me, since my instinct was silent. I, in any case, have long wanted to create a new one, a more advanced suit that could be tied to the Omnitrix, and I think this fabric is the perfect base for that.

It will only be necessary later to check in practice how it works and look at all its possibilities. While I was here digesting my new acquisition, the girls managed to quarrel a little, and I was surprised by the behavior of Gwen, she was somehow too hot-tempered, like all the last time, since... IDIOT!!! How did I not realize before that something is not clean here...

'That's it, time to get out of here….' - I thought and began to break out of the cocoon, by this moment the assimilation had just ended.

After breaking the shell of the cocoon, I got out with a small explosion, and then noticed that the fabric absorbed my clothes and took on the appearance of Spider-Man's black suit. Apparently, this happened due to the fact that all this time I compared the cloth with a symbiote.

- How curious…. - I muttered, noticing that as soon as I thought of Spider-Man, the spider symbol would appear on the suit. And when I thought it didn't suit my style, the spider emblem changed to the blue Omnitrix emblem.

- Lex, don't scare us, please…. - Ashley said softly, looking at me warily.

- Everything is fine, do not worry. - I said with a smile, and ordered the cloth to change its appearance to the clothes that I used to wear.

I ended up losing the jacket Gwen gave me because the fabric had swallowed it. At least now I can always wish that she appeared on me.

- What the hell happened here? - Grandpa asked loudly, who had just arrived and saw the RV kitchen destroyed due to the cocoon explosion.

- It's a long story…. - I said with a faint smile, looking at Gwen and Ashley, who were still dumbfounded by what had happened.