Back to GatefoldIssue #5 by Kevin Hardwick
September 2017 |
Venom, an agent of Silver Sable’s Wild Pack, pondered if he should disavow himself from the organization. He had succeeded in toppling Black Tarantula’s plan to permanently enslave a sizable portion of New York on New Year’s Eve, stopped the pscholar technology from falling into the wrong hands, and arguably saved thousands of lives. But now his handler, Paladin, had been taken captive and the Wild Pack’s database had been compromised. He couldn’t effectively contact Sable or use his standard resources without putting himself into jeopardy.
His options were severely limited. He raided the New York weapons cache, but decided not to head to the Symkarian embassy. Their systems would be compromised by now, too. If he wanted to stop Black Tarantula and get Paladin back, he needed help, but not anyone he had gone to before.
He felt the symbiote stir in the back of his head. Flash Thompson didn’t so much converse with the alien weapon as he did share emotions and general senses with it. Since Flash knew that he couldn’t use his own resources, the symbiote was urging him to open his horizons a bit and use its connections.
Connections, in the sense of its previous hosts. Eddie Brock was damaged, lost, and presumed dead. Even if Flash could find him, there was very little a civilian like Brock could actually do to aid him.
Parker was the obvious choice. Peter Parker’s life was an open book to Flash now. The symbiote had shared with him memories of its first adventures on Battleworld with the wallcrawler, their return to Earth, and everything leading up to Parker rejecting the symbiote.
It understood now that Parker had only been protecting himself. The symbiote had grown, matured during its time with Brock, and knew that its continued existence depended solely on its host, and therefore attempting to take over its host was ultimately bad for its own survival. It acted in a support capacity only now, taking cues from its master.
But would Parker see it that way? Flash’s own interactions with Spider-Man over the years had made him a huge fan. It had been kismet that he should have the opportunity to join with the symbiote, a metaphorical extension of Spider-Man, and wear the white symbol on his chest. Spider-Man was the hero that Flash desperately wanted to be.
Of course, his time in Special Ops had hardened him to the boyish hero worship that had once driven him. He was a soldier now. A mercenary. Still, that sense of honor and responsibility was integral to his being, and its roots had first sunk into him when Spider-Man had become his role model years ago.
# # # # # # # # # #
TEN YEARS AGO
“C’mon, MJ!” Flash called. He waved to the redhead and beckoned her to come over to him. He was in a hurry, like always.
She smiled at him and Flash knew that he would marry her one day. Or at least hook up. He saw the pretty model coming toward him and his hormones took over. Flash had no idea what he wanted right now; high school was finally over and this was the summer before college. His scholarship would take him where he needed to go. Maybe MJ would be in his future. Maybe not. But he couldn’t help but look at her and let his mind wander.
Of course, she was with Parker. The dork. Or had they broken up again? He couldn’t remember. For a bookworm, it was crazy how many girls Parker tricked into going out with him. MJ, Gwen, and did he have something going on with that Brant lady at the newspaper?
Harry was being Harry, which meant that he would catch up with them later, maybe. He would never commit to anything. Flash would try and round them up and go out for some fun, and most times Harry would join them, but just as often he would mutter something about having to meet his father at the OsCorp offices. Flash was beginning to doubt Harry’s future, or at the very least, his dedication to his friends.
But, hey. In a few months he would be playing ball in front of a packed stadium, and it wouldn’t matter. He was Flash Thompson, and he was destined for awesomeness.
MJ smirked and trotted over to him. “The movie doesn’t start for half an hour,” she said.
“I know, but I don’t want to miss the previews.”
“Is Peter going to-”
An explosion knocked both of them off of their feet. Flash and MJ fell down on the sidewalk in a tangle of arms and legs. The cinemaplex they had been walking toward had burst outward. It was only at the end of the block and already debris was raining down around them.
Purple smoke pushed out from inside the building, through the fresh hole, and even though it looked like fog and was somehow supporting a person through the air. The tendrils of smoke were wrapped around the green legs of Mysterio, the menace of Hollywood filmmakers. His fishbowl helmet would have given him away even if the gaudy green and purple costume hadn’t.
“Every theatre in New York will suffer the same fate,” Mysterio announced, “unless the studio credits me for stealing my special effects technology! No one will see their films every again unless I am given my due!”
“We have to get out of here!” MJ said. She pulled Flash to his feet and they both turned around just in time to see another familiar sight come down toward them.
Twin thwips of webbing lashed down and connected with Mysterio’s helmet, and as Spider-Man swung by overhead he yanked up on them, pulling Mysterio off of his simulated fog. As soon as he did Flash could see the levitating disc he had been standing out, shrouded by the purple smoke. Mysterio even brought his special effects magic with him on his crime sprees, making him appear more supernatural.
Mysterio clattered down to the street, but quickly rebounded. He shook his fist at the air. “Wretched wallcrawler! You would dare to intercede? My genius has been taken advantage of for the last time! Not even you can stop me from claiming what is rightfully mine!”
“And what’s that?” Spider-Man asked as he landed on top of a telephone pole. “I know it’s not for costume design. Blech! When are you going to get some new duds?”
MJ pulled at Flash, but he stayed his ground. He wanted to see this. I loved it how Spidey would toss a few insults in between punches. These supervillains had it coming! They should know better by now than to mess with Spider-Man.
Mysterio raised his hands and said, “Your bravado is as misplaced as always, bug! See how brave you are when my army of the dead has surrounded you!”
A burst of light flashed from Mysterio’s glass helmet, blinding them all. Even Spider-Man flinched and raised his hands instinctively to shade his eyes. When the light died down, Mysterio was gone and the street was littered with zombies. The partially decomposed horrors slowly tread toward Spider-Man, their teeth gnashing in anticipation of sinking a bite into him.
“You’ve pulled this trick before, Mysty!” Spider-Man declared. He vaulted off of the telephone poll and slammed both feet into the chest of the nearest zombie. He smashed on the ground and revealed wires and circuitry beneath. “Robots! Or androids. Or automatons. Whatever you want to call them, they’re just like you, Mysty – fake!”
Spider-Man started tearing through the dozens of zombies, taking them down easily with speed and precision. He would bash one in the face and before it hit the ground, broken and useless, he had already clobbered the next one. He tied several up with webbing, swung another around over his head on a webline, and wrecked through them like a force of nature.
When the last one was down, Spider-Man looked around for Mysterio. “I know you’re hear somewhere, Mysty! There’s no way you would have turned tail and ran, not when you could have a captive audience to see you perform.”
“Captive is right!” Mysterio announced.
Before Flash knew what was happening, he and MJ had been scooped up by Mysterio. A purple mist had wrapped around each of their torsos, yanking them straight up. They hovered on either side of Mysterio, who was also flying in the air with his arms crossed over his chest. While Flash could see the purple mist around his body, what he felt was more like thick cables that had somehow been slipped around him.
He saw MJ struggling against her bonds and wanted desperately to save her. He lashed a leg out at Mysterio and managed to kick him in the knee, but the supervillain barely felt it. His costume must have been padded. In retaliation he slapped Flash across the face.
“Let them go!” Spider-Man demanded from street level.
“Come now, Spider-Man!” Mysterio said. “Haven’t you learned by now that I am in control? I am the director of our little affairs. You are nothing more than an extra. You have no authority! Now, reveal your face to the world, stand down, and declare me your master! Or I’ll kill these two innocents right before your very eyes!”
Spider-Man didn’t even hesitate. His speed was incredible. Flash watched in awe as Spider-Man squatted and then sprung up before Mysterio had even finished his last sentence, catching the villain off guard. He tackled the villain around the waist and drove him into the sidewalk, where he quickly backflipped off of him and coated him in webbing.
Somehow between lashes of webbing, he managed to turn one hand back to Flash and MJ and weave a net to catch them when they fell, now free of Mysterio’s control. They landed safely in the bouncing web.
As soon as Mysterio was secure Spider-Man knelt beside him and smashed his fishbowl helmet, revealing the shaken Quinten Beck beneath. “Lights out, Mysty,” Spider-Man said, and then he landed one right on Beck’s jaw to knock him out cold.
“Wow!” Flash exclaimed. “Did you see that? He just took him down like he was nothing! And he saved us! And he took out all those zombies! I mean, they weren’t real zombies, but still! And he was all like, ‘Lights out!’ And it was just so-”
“Flash!” MJ shouted, and Flash realized that she must have said it several times before he even paid attention. “Flash, he’s gone!”
Flash looked around and saw the unconscious Mysterio, the destroyed zombie robots, the decimated cinemaplex, and some approaching police vehicles. No Spider-Man. His hero had fled the scene, because Flash knew that he didn’t need credit. He was just a hero doing his job.
Flash might not know what his future held, but he knew for certain that he was going to be a hero, too.
# # # # # # # # # #
He just had to wait. Venom swung through the city, something he was unaccustomed to doing, but he knew it was the best way to cover as much as New York as possible. He didn’t have any particular destination. He didn’t really even have any particular plan. By way of the symbiote, he knew that Spider-Man would patrol several common areas every night. He had a pattern, and Venom was going to weave his own path over top of that pattern until he found who he was looking for.
It didn’t take very long. He attached a webline on the corner of the Daily Bugle and swung north, releasing and going into a dead-drop of nearly twelve stories before he anchored another webline on the next building, his momentum driving him straight toward Central Park.
When he hit the apex of that swing, he saw him. Spider-Man wore a colorful red and blue costume, but in the blanket of night, he might as well have been a phantom. The augmented vision that the symbiote gave him allowed him to pick Spider-Man out of the other shadows.
Now came the hard part. He didn’t have time to just call up Parker at home, even if he knew where that was these days, and he certainly didn’t have his number anyway. It had been a couple years since Flash Thompson and Peter Parker had last crossed paths, and with the speed that Spider-Man did his patrol, simply standing around under a street lamp wasn’t going to catch his attention.
He watched Spider-Man anchor his own webline onto a hanging construction crane and yank down, launching himself skyward. Venom changed his course accordingly and when Spider-Man shot out another webline, Venom matched it, firing his to connect in the exact same spot.
That caught his attention. There were a handful of people in the world that traveled via webline, and Spider-Man wasn’t on good terms with any of them. Spider-Man instantly jerked his body hard to one side in midair, firing another webline back at the crane, and thrusting his body back to force the shift in momentum. He spotted Venom instantly.
Venom dropped down on top of the crane with his hands spread. Spider-Man swung under the crane and pumped his legs hard at the apex of his swing, releasing the line, and doing an amazing series of somersaults that landed him perfectly at the opposite end of the crane. The guy had a unique style that even with the symbiote Venom would have trouble duplicating.
Spider-Man looked at Venom and said, “Nice symbol. Yours?”
“You have a copyright on it?” Venom said.
“The last guy who wore it tried to eat me. I get a little antsy in my pantsy when I see it.”
“I’m here as a friend, Pete.”
Spider-Man noticeably got more defensive. His body language changed and he crouched slightly, as if ready for the other shoe to drop. “Okay. So. You have that going for you. You don’t look like Brock, but you obviously have the same tailor. Since you didn’t set my spidey-sense off a minute ago, that means one of two things: you’re not lying when you say you’re here as a friend, or you’re wearing Brock’s symbiote, which negates my spidey-sense.”
“Can’t it be both?”
“That depends on who is beneath that mask.”
Something flashed in the back of Flash’s mind. Betrayal. Rejection. Expulsion. He saw red and almost lunged at Spider-Man. For some reason he wanted nothing more than to carve out a piece of his spleen.
No. That wasn’t right. He shook his head.
“My, what big teeth you have,” Spider-Man said, and he fired a pair of webs at Venom’s face. The thick, gray webbing coated his head, adding a second mask that was heavy and disorienting.
Venom snatched at the webbing, yanking it away with more than a little effort. When he did, he felt the fangs that somehow had formed over his chin and mouth, extensions of the symbiote, both unnatural and unwanted. The symbiote must have formed them as a reaction to the hatred that boiled up a moment ago.
He would kill the pest. He would drain him of his blood and-
No. What was happening to him? He was in control, wasn’t he?
When he tore the webbing off, Spider-Man was gone. He looked up just in time to see Spider-Man descending on him, his fist cocked back and ready for a haymaker that would flatten an elephant. Venom instinctively twisted his upper body, lifted his arm, and caught Spider-Man’s elbow in his own. He slipped his other arm under Spider-Man’s other side and pinched his palms together behind Spider-Man’s neck, locking him in a hold.
“We didn’t come here to fight,” Venom growled and Flash realized that his voice wasn’t entirely his own. The words came out thick and heavy, like they were forced.
“We?” Spider-Man choked out. “Brother, you need to make up your mind. You’re not fooling anybody. You’re sprouting the biggest denchers East of the Mississippi and using the wrong pronouns! Red flags if I ever saw them!”
Spider-Man twisted his shoulder blades in an almost impossible maneuver that gave him enough wiggle room to drop down. He backflipped in place, pushed his hands down on the crane, and donkey-kicked with both feet. He caught Venom under the jaw and sent him flying off of the crane.
Venom felt the world slip away from him. As he tossed end over end toward the ground, he was barely aware of being wrapped up in more webbing. When his head stopped spinning he was perfectly snared, his arms and legs held in place, and he was hanging twenty feet beneath the tip of the crane.
He struggled, but Spider-Man lowered himself down upside-down in front of Venom, shaking his finger. “No, no! You need to learn some manners. It’s a time out for you, young man!”
Venom took a deep breath and concentrated. He knew that the façade of his body armor was back in place. The teeth were gone and his head was clear. Maybe he just needed a good kick to the head. He focused, and then willed the helmet to peel back from his face, revealing the quickly weathering features of Flash Thompson.
“Flash!” Spider-Man declared. “I can’t-are you-what?”
“It’s me, Pete. Look, I’m sorry for-”
“What are you doing? We need to get you out of that thing right away!”
“No, Pete-”
“I’m calling Reed Richards! He’ll get this thing off of you. Hold on, buddy!”
“Peter!” The shrillness in his voice finally caught Parker’s attention. The pair dangled for a moment, the cool night air whistling between them. Finally, Flash said, “I’m sorry I lost control. I’m okay now. Really.”
“How in the hell did you get Brock’s symbiote? Where have you been for the last two years? What in the name of Jameson is going on?”
“Silver Sable bought the symbiote on the black market after it was tortured off of Brock, she gave it to me after I toured for the teams, I joined her Wild Pack, and now I’m hunting bad guys.”
“Oh.” Spider-Man was so shocked by the brevity of the explanation that, for once, he was at a loss for words. He finally said, “Tortured off of Brock?”
“Look, we don’t have a lot of time, Pete. I need your help.”
He guffawed. “You’re not kidding. We have to get you out of that thing. It nearly ate Eddie’s mind when he wore it.”
“No, not that. I need the suit. I’m in control.”
“Yeah, I could tell, what with the enormous chompers sprouting out of nowhere and all. Flash, you don’t seem to grasp the danger that comes with wearing that alien suit. Let me help you.”
“I need it. People are in danger and I need to get the person who is putting them in harm’s way first.”
“And you need my help?”
Flash nodded, causing him to swing slightly.
“And you’ll get rid of the symbiote after the job’s done?”
Flash hesitated. The suit was power. Unattainable power. Without it he was just a normal guy again. Without it he never would have stopped the takeover of New York. All of his other missions for the Wild Pack would have never happened and he would be just another unemployed vet.
He thought of the urges that ran through him when the symbiote seemed like it was taking over. How he wanted to grind his enemy’s bones into powder.
“Okay,” Flash said. “After we take down Black Tarantula, I’ll get rid of the suit.”
“Black Tarantula!” Spider-Man exclaimed. “Maybe you better start at the beginning…”
TO BE CONTINUED! Venom and Spider-Man team-up to go after Black Tarantula. Can Flash keep the symbiote in control long enough to free Paladin and stop his enemies? All hell will break loose when they storm Black Tarantula’s very own training grounds, and the symbiote faces off with the man who inflicted so much pain on it that he abandoned its last host. Yes, the return of Tombstone!
His options were severely limited. He raided the New York weapons cache, but decided not to head to the Symkarian embassy. Their systems would be compromised by now, too. If he wanted to stop Black Tarantula and get Paladin back, he needed help, but not anyone he had gone to before.
He felt the symbiote stir in the back of his head. Flash Thompson didn’t so much converse with the alien weapon as he did share emotions and general senses with it. Since Flash knew that he couldn’t use his own resources, the symbiote was urging him to open his horizons a bit and use its connections.
Connections, in the sense of its previous hosts. Eddie Brock was damaged, lost, and presumed dead. Even if Flash could find him, there was very little a civilian like Brock could actually do to aid him.
Parker was the obvious choice. Peter Parker’s life was an open book to Flash now. The symbiote had shared with him memories of its first adventures on Battleworld with the wallcrawler, their return to Earth, and everything leading up to Parker rejecting the symbiote.
It understood now that Parker had only been protecting himself. The symbiote had grown, matured during its time with Brock, and knew that its continued existence depended solely on its host, and therefore attempting to take over its host was ultimately bad for its own survival. It acted in a support capacity only now, taking cues from its master.
But would Parker see it that way? Flash’s own interactions with Spider-Man over the years had made him a huge fan. It had been kismet that he should have the opportunity to join with the symbiote, a metaphorical extension of Spider-Man, and wear the white symbol on his chest. Spider-Man was the hero that Flash desperately wanted to be.
Of course, his time in Special Ops had hardened him to the boyish hero worship that had once driven him. He was a soldier now. A mercenary. Still, that sense of honor and responsibility was integral to his being, and its roots had first sunk into him when Spider-Man had become his role model years ago.
# # # # # # # # # #
TEN YEARS AGO
“C’mon, MJ!” Flash called. He waved to the redhead and beckoned her to come over to him. He was in a hurry, like always.
She smiled at him and Flash knew that he would marry her one day. Or at least hook up. He saw the pretty model coming toward him and his hormones took over. Flash had no idea what he wanted right now; high school was finally over and this was the summer before college. His scholarship would take him where he needed to go. Maybe MJ would be in his future. Maybe not. But he couldn’t help but look at her and let his mind wander.
Of course, she was with Parker. The dork. Or had they broken up again? He couldn’t remember. For a bookworm, it was crazy how many girls Parker tricked into going out with him. MJ, Gwen, and did he have something going on with that Brant lady at the newspaper?
Harry was being Harry, which meant that he would catch up with them later, maybe. He would never commit to anything. Flash would try and round them up and go out for some fun, and most times Harry would join them, but just as often he would mutter something about having to meet his father at the OsCorp offices. Flash was beginning to doubt Harry’s future, or at the very least, his dedication to his friends.
But, hey. In a few months he would be playing ball in front of a packed stadium, and it wouldn’t matter. He was Flash Thompson, and he was destined for awesomeness.
MJ smirked and trotted over to him. “The movie doesn’t start for half an hour,” she said.
“I know, but I don’t want to miss the previews.”
“Is Peter going to-”
An explosion knocked both of them off of their feet. Flash and MJ fell down on the sidewalk in a tangle of arms and legs. The cinemaplex they had been walking toward had burst outward. It was only at the end of the block and already debris was raining down around them.
Purple smoke pushed out from inside the building, through the fresh hole, and even though it looked like fog and was somehow supporting a person through the air. The tendrils of smoke were wrapped around the green legs of Mysterio, the menace of Hollywood filmmakers. His fishbowl helmet would have given him away even if the gaudy green and purple costume hadn’t.
“Every theatre in New York will suffer the same fate,” Mysterio announced, “unless the studio credits me for stealing my special effects technology! No one will see their films every again unless I am given my due!”
“We have to get out of here!” MJ said. She pulled Flash to his feet and they both turned around just in time to see another familiar sight come down toward them.
Twin thwips of webbing lashed down and connected with Mysterio’s helmet, and as Spider-Man swung by overhead he yanked up on them, pulling Mysterio off of his simulated fog. As soon as he did Flash could see the levitating disc he had been standing out, shrouded by the purple smoke. Mysterio even brought his special effects magic with him on his crime sprees, making him appear more supernatural.
Mysterio clattered down to the street, but quickly rebounded. He shook his fist at the air. “Wretched wallcrawler! You would dare to intercede? My genius has been taken advantage of for the last time! Not even you can stop me from claiming what is rightfully mine!”
“And what’s that?” Spider-Man asked as he landed on top of a telephone pole. “I know it’s not for costume design. Blech! When are you going to get some new duds?”
MJ pulled at Flash, but he stayed his ground. He wanted to see this. I loved it how Spidey would toss a few insults in between punches. These supervillains had it coming! They should know better by now than to mess with Spider-Man.
Mysterio raised his hands and said, “Your bravado is as misplaced as always, bug! See how brave you are when my army of the dead has surrounded you!”
A burst of light flashed from Mysterio’s glass helmet, blinding them all. Even Spider-Man flinched and raised his hands instinctively to shade his eyes. When the light died down, Mysterio was gone and the street was littered with zombies. The partially decomposed horrors slowly tread toward Spider-Man, their teeth gnashing in anticipation of sinking a bite into him.
“You’ve pulled this trick before, Mysty!” Spider-Man declared. He vaulted off of the telephone poll and slammed both feet into the chest of the nearest zombie. He smashed on the ground and revealed wires and circuitry beneath. “Robots! Or androids. Or automatons. Whatever you want to call them, they’re just like you, Mysty – fake!”
Spider-Man started tearing through the dozens of zombies, taking them down easily with speed and precision. He would bash one in the face and before it hit the ground, broken and useless, he had already clobbered the next one. He tied several up with webbing, swung another around over his head on a webline, and wrecked through them like a force of nature.
When the last one was down, Spider-Man looked around for Mysterio. “I know you’re hear somewhere, Mysty! There’s no way you would have turned tail and ran, not when you could have a captive audience to see you perform.”
“Captive is right!” Mysterio announced.
Before Flash knew what was happening, he and MJ had been scooped up by Mysterio. A purple mist had wrapped around each of their torsos, yanking them straight up. They hovered on either side of Mysterio, who was also flying in the air with his arms crossed over his chest. While Flash could see the purple mist around his body, what he felt was more like thick cables that had somehow been slipped around him.
He saw MJ struggling against her bonds and wanted desperately to save her. He lashed a leg out at Mysterio and managed to kick him in the knee, but the supervillain barely felt it. His costume must have been padded. In retaliation he slapped Flash across the face.
“Let them go!” Spider-Man demanded from street level.
“Come now, Spider-Man!” Mysterio said. “Haven’t you learned by now that I am in control? I am the director of our little affairs. You are nothing more than an extra. You have no authority! Now, reveal your face to the world, stand down, and declare me your master! Or I’ll kill these two innocents right before your very eyes!”
Spider-Man didn’t even hesitate. His speed was incredible. Flash watched in awe as Spider-Man squatted and then sprung up before Mysterio had even finished his last sentence, catching the villain off guard. He tackled the villain around the waist and drove him into the sidewalk, where he quickly backflipped off of him and coated him in webbing.
Somehow between lashes of webbing, he managed to turn one hand back to Flash and MJ and weave a net to catch them when they fell, now free of Mysterio’s control. They landed safely in the bouncing web.
As soon as Mysterio was secure Spider-Man knelt beside him and smashed his fishbowl helmet, revealing the shaken Quinten Beck beneath. “Lights out, Mysty,” Spider-Man said, and then he landed one right on Beck’s jaw to knock him out cold.
“Wow!” Flash exclaimed. “Did you see that? He just took him down like he was nothing! And he saved us! And he took out all those zombies! I mean, they weren’t real zombies, but still! And he was all like, ‘Lights out!’ And it was just so-”
“Flash!” MJ shouted, and Flash realized that she must have said it several times before he even paid attention. “Flash, he’s gone!”
Flash looked around and saw the unconscious Mysterio, the destroyed zombie robots, the decimated cinemaplex, and some approaching police vehicles. No Spider-Man. His hero had fled the scene, because Flash knew that he didn’t need credit. He was just a hero doing his job.
Flash might not know what his future held, but he knew for certain that he was going to be a hero, too.
# # # # # # # # # #
He just had to wait. Venom swung through the city, something he was unaccustomed to doing, but he knew it was the best way to cover as much as New York as possible. He didn’t have any particular destination. He didn’t really even have any particular plan. By way of the symbiote, he knew that Spider-Man would patrol several common areas every night. He had a pattern, and Venom was going to weave his own path over top of that pattern until he found who he was looking for.
It didn’t take very long. He attached a webline on the corner of the Daily Bugle and swung north, releasing and going into a dead-drop of nearly twelve stories before he anchored another webline on the next building, his momentum driving him straight toward Central Park.
When he hit the apex of that swing, he saw him. Spider-Man wore a colorful red and blue costume, but in the blanket of night, he might as well have been a phantom. The augmented vision that the symbiote gave him allowed him to pick Spider-Man out of the other shadows.
Now came the hard part. He didn’t have time to just call up Parker at home, even if he knew where that was these days, and he certainly didn’t have his number anyway. It had been a couple years since Flash Thompson and Peter Parker had last crossed paths, and with the speed that Spider-Man did his patrol, simply standing around under a street lamp wasn’t going to catch his attention.
He watched Spider-Man anchor his own webline onto a hanging construction crane and yank down, launching himself skyward. Venom changed his course accordingly and when Spider-Man shot out another webline, Venom matched it, firing his to connect in the exact same spot.
That caught his attention. There were a handful of people in the world that traveled via webline, and Spider-Man wasn’t on good terms with any of them. Spider-Man instantly jerked his body hard to one side in midair, firing another webline back at the crane, and thrusting his body back to force the shift in momentum. He spotted Venom instantly.
Venom dropped down on top of the crane with his hands spread. Spider-Man swung under the crane and pumped his legs hard at the apex of his swing, releasing the line, and doing an amazing series of somersaults that landed him perfectly at the opposite end of the crane. The guy had a unique style that even with the symbiote Venom would have trouble duplicating.
Spider-Man looked at Venom and said, “Nice symbol. Yours?”
“You have a copyright on it?” Venom said.
“The last guy who wore it tried to eat me. I get a little antsy in my pantsy when I see it.”
“I’m here as a friend, Pete.”
Spider-Man noticeably got more defensive. His body language changed and he crouched slightly, as if ready for the other shoe to drop. “Okay. So. You have that going for you. You don’t look like Brock, but you obviously have the same tailor. Since you didn’t set my spidey-sense off a minute ago, that means one of two things: you’re not lying when you say you’re here as a friend, or you’re wearing Brock’s symbiote, which negates my spidey-sense.”
“Can’t it be both?”
“That depends on who is beneath that mask.”
Something flashed in the back of Flash’s mind. Betrayal. Rejection. Expulsion. He saw red and almost lunged at Spider-Man. For some reason he wanted nothing more than to carve out a piece of his spleen.
No. That wasn’t right. He shook his head.
“My, what big teeth you have,” Spider-Man said, and he fired a pair of webs at Venom’s face. The thick, gray webbing coated his head, adding a second mask that was heavy and disorienting.
Venom snatched at the webbing, yanking it away with more than a little effort. When he did, he felt the fangs that somehow had formed over his chin and mouth, extensions of the symbiote, both unnatural and unwanted. The symbiote must have formed them as a reaction to the hatred that boiled up a moment ago.
He would kill the pest. He would drain him of his blood and-
No. What was happening to him? He was in control, wasn’t he?
When he tore the webbing off, Spider-Man was gone. He looked up just in time to see Spider-Man descending on him, his fist cocked back and ready for a haymaker that would flatten an elephant. Venom instinctively twisted his upper body, lifted his arm, and caught Spider-Man’s elbow in his own. He slipped his other arm under Spider-Man’s other side and pinched his palms together behind Spider-Man’s neck, locking him in a hold.
“We didn’t come here to fight,” Venom growled and Flash realized that his voice wasn’t entirely his own. The words came out thick and heavy, like they were forced.
“We?” Spider-Man choked out. “Brother, you need to make up your mind. You’re not fooling anybody. You’re sprouting the biggest denchers East of the Mississippi and using the wrong pronouns! Red flags if I ever saw them!”
Spider-Man twisted his shoulder blades in an almost impossible maneuver that gave him enough wiggle room to drop down. He backflipped in place, pushed his hands down on the crane, and donkey-kicked with both feet. He caught Venom under the jaw and sent him flying off of the crane.
Venom felt the world slip away from him. As he tossed end over end toward the ground, he was barely aware of being wrapped up in more webbing. When his head stopped spinning he was perfectly snared, his arms and legs held in place, and he was hanging twenty feet beneath the tip of the crane.
He struggled, but Spider-Man lowered himself down upside-down in front of Venom, shaking his finger. “No, no! You need to learn some manners. It’s a time out for you, young man!”
Venom took a deep breath and concentrated. He knew that the façade of his body armor was back in place. The teeth were gone and his head was clear. Maybe he just needed a good kick to the head. He focused, and then willed the helmet to peel back from his face, revealing the quickly weathering features of Flash Thompson.
“Flash!” Spider-Man declared. “I can’t-are you-what?”
“It’s me, Pete. Look, I’m sorry for-”
“What are you doing? We need to get you out of that thing right away!”
“No, Pete-”
“I’m calling Reed Richards! He’ll get this thing off of you. Hold on, buddy!”
“Peter!” The shrillness in his voice finally caught Parker’s attention. The pair dangled for a moment, the cool night air whistling between them. Finally, Flash said, “I’m sorry I lost control. I’m okay now. Really.”
“How in the hell did you get Brock’s symbiote? Where have you been for the last two years? What in the name of Jameson is going on?”
“Silver Sable bought the symbiote on the black market after it was tortured off of Brock, she gave it to me after I toured for the teams, I joined her Wild Pack, and now I’m hunting bad guys.”
“Oh.” Spider-Man was so shocked by the brevity of the explanation that, for once, he was at a loss for words. He finally said, “Tortured off of Brock?”
“Look, we don’t have a lot of time, Pete. I need your help.”
He guffawed. “You’re not kidding. We have to get you out of that thing. It nearly ate Eddie’s mind when he wore it.”
“No, not that. I need the suit. I’m in control.”
“Yeah, I could tell, what with the enormous chompers sprouting out of nowhere and all. Flash, you don’t seem to grasp the danger that comes with wearing that alien suit. Let me help you.”
“I need it. People are in danger and I need to get the person who is putting them in harm’s way first.”
“And you need my help?”
Flash nodded, causing him to swing slightly.
“And you’ll get rid of the symbiote after the job’s done?”
Flash hesitated. The suit was power. Unattainable power. Without it he was just a normal guy again. Without it he never would have stopped the takeover of New York. All of his other missions for the Wild Pack would have never happened and he would be just another unemployed vet.
He thought of the urges that ran through him when the symbiote seemed like it was taking over. How he wanted to grind his enemy’s bones into powder.
“Okay,” Flash said. “After we take down Black Tarantula, I’ll get rid of the suit.”
“Black Tarantula!” Spider-Man exclaimed. “Maybe you better start at the beginning…”
TO BE CONTINUED! Venom and Spider-Man team-up to go after Black Tarantula. Can Flash keep the symbiote in control long enough to free Paladin and stop his enemies? All hell will break loose when they storm Black Tarantula’s very own training grounds, and the symbiote faces off with the man who inflicted so much pain on it that he abandoned its last host. Yes, the return of Tombstone!