Chapter 256: Eddie
Inside the reinforced room, Riot watched the chaos outside with sadistic glee. His chamber was soundproof, making it the perfect sanctuary while his trap sprung. This was exactly why he had lured them here; he knew he couldn't defeat Spider-Man and Celestial in a fair fight.
But regardless of the outcome, that traitor Venom had to die. Riot couldn't rest until Venom was extinguished.
"AAARGH!" Venom screamed in agony as the high-frequency vibrations began to tear him away from Peter's nervous system.
Peter fell to one knee, hands clutching his head as he felt the symbiote being ripped out. Silas stood silently nearby, the noise merely an annoyance to him, though he kept a close eye on his brother.
"NO! PETER!" Venom roared one last time as he was finally separated. He collapsed onto the floor as a puddle of viscous black liquid—the primal form of a symbiote.
Peter panted heavily, looking down at the shivering mass of black goo scurrying across the floor. Despite the lies, a part of him felt a pang of sympathy. Over the last few days, Venom had been the only one he could talk to about certain things. The symbiote didn't seem inherently evil, just desperate.
"You want to taste your own medicine?" Peter snapped. He leapt into the air, focusing all his strength into a single kick aimed at the glass wall of Riot's "safe room."
"Oh no!" Riot realized the flaw in his plan too late.
SMASH!
Peter's ten-ton kick shattered the soundproof glass into a million shards.
"AGGGH!" With the barrier gone, the concentrated noise flooded the small room. To Riot, it felt like his entire being was being struck by lightning.
Drake scrambled toward the controls, his hands shaking as he slammed the red button. The speakers cut out instantly, and the emergency locks on the lab doors disengaged.
"VENOM!" Riot roared, recovering just in time to see the black puddle sliding out the open door.
Venom didn't look back. As soon as the noise stopped and the doors opened, he bolted. He had to find a compatible host immediately, or the oxygen in the room would kill him within minutes.
"Venom..." Peter muttered, watching the dark trail vanish down the hall.
A part of him wondered: if Venom had crawled back to him just then to merge again, would he have accepted it? He hated seeing the creature die, especially since Venom had kept him company throughout their long drive.
"Alright, Riot. What's your next move?" Silas asked with a cold smile, stepping over the shattered glass.
Riot glared at them. He had failed to kill Venom, but he wasn't about to get caught by these two. Unlike "trash" like Venom, Riot was strong enough to survive in temporary hosts for a short time.
"You think I'm stupid? Hahahaha!" Riot stepped on a hidden floor plate, and a trapdoor snapped open beneath him. He vanished into the depths of the facility.
"After him!" Peter shouted, diving into the hole without hesitation. In his mind, taking down Riot was now a way to avenge what had happened to Venom.
Silas rolled his eyes. Does he have to be so dramatic? Still, he didn't lag behind, blurring into motion as he followed Peter down the shaft.
Another Wing of the Facility
"HOST! I NEED A HOST!" Venom's internal voice screamed in a panic. In his desperate flight, he had ended up back in the primary containment wing where the symbiotes were originally kept.
Coincidentally, two people were already there: a woman in a lab coat and a man in casual clothes.
"Eddie, this is where they kept the specimens, but they're all gone," Dr. Dora Skirth explained to the man beside her.
Eddie Brock, a journalist, had recently lost everything—his job, his reputation, and even his fiancée, Anne Weying—all because he had tried to confront Carlton Drake about illegal human experimentation. Now, he was a man with nothing left to lose.
"Why are they gone?" Eddie asked, adjusting his camera. "This was the evidence I needed."
"I don't know. Drake hasn't told me anything lately; he doesn't trust me anymore," Dora sighed. She couldn't stand the "disposable" way Drake treated the homeless people he brought in for testing. To her, every life mattered.
"Hmm..." Eddie began snapping photos of the empty canisters.
"I heard you were fired," Dora noted.
Eddie nodded grimly. "Yeah. But I'm not stopping until I expose this place."
"Hey! Who are you?!" A security guard rounded the corner. He recognized Dr. Skirth, but the man with the camera was definitely an intruder.
"Run!" Dora shouted.
Eddie didn't need to be told twice. He bolted down the corridor with the guard hot on his heels.
"Huff... huff..." Eddie ran blindly through the dark halls. He burst through a side door and was suddenly met by a blur of black liquid. It lunged at his face, forcing its way into his mouth and nose.
"Gag!" Eddie collapsed, retching on the floor. He tried to throw up whatever had just crawled inside him, but nothing came out.
The sound of the guard's boots was getting closer. Eddie scrambled to his feet, disoriented.
"GO RIGHT!" A deep, gravelly voice echoed inside Eddie's skull.
"What?" Eddie froze. Did he just hear a voice tell him to turn right?
"Halt!" Five more guards appeared at the end of the hall.
Left with no choice, Eddie turned and sprinted to the right. As he hit the stairwell, he tripped over a step. He braced for a painful fall, but something impossible happened: his body performed a perfect, effortless backflip in mid-air and landed firmly on the next landing.
"Whoa..." Eddie stared at his hands in shock. Did I just do that? There was no time to think. He kept running.
The Command Center
"Damn it! Venom is still alive!" Riot growled. He had just received word from security that a black mass had bonded with an intruder. "Who is that man?"
Drake's face flickered through the silver-black mask. "I think I know him."
"Who?"
"I need to be sure." Drake turned to his men. "Bring me Dr. Skirth."
A few minutes later, two guards dragged a struggling Dora Skirth into the room.
"Let me go, Drake!" she yelled.
"You betrayed me," Drake said coldly. He waved a hand, and the guards exited the room, leaving them alone.
Dora straightened her coat. "You've lost it, Carlton. This isn't why we started the Life Foundation."
"You don't understand anything, Dora. Progress requires sacrifice—especially when those being sacrificed are the parasites of society." Drake's expression was indifferent. In his eyes, the homeless had no rights.
"You're insane." Dora pulled a small handgun from her pocket and pointed it at him. "Let me out of here."
"Are you threatening me?" Drake asked, walking toward her with a faint, mocking smile.
Dora felt a chill of dread. She realized she was in over her head. She pulled her ID badge off her neck. "I'm not threatening you. I'm resigning. I just want to go back to being a normal person."
"I'm sorry, Dora. That's no longer an option," Drake chuckled.
"You think I won't shoot?" Dora bluffed, her hand trembling. She didn't actually have the heart to kill him.
"She's yours," Drake said to the creature within.
"What?!" Dora's eyes widened in horror as Drake's body began to stretch and transform into a towering, monstrous silver figure.
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