Author's Foreword.

When I initially set out to do this project back in late 2009, I didn't think I'd get very far with it. At the time I had just been offered a new job after a six month layoff, so I figured my time would be mainly occupied there. At the time, it was. And so by early 2010, after just five rather unsatisfying chapters the project petered out. But I never forgot about it.

Over the course of eighteen months, when time and focus allowed, I worked on the project. Something ambitious and something I could be proud of. And so, on 2nd December 2011, a day after my 22nd birthday, the first chapter for Frenzy Origins was released on my DeviantArt (check my profile for link). Since then I have been working on the story, expanding it, plotting new horizons and so forth. Recently I finished the layout for Frenzy Origins and how it can expand into future stories with Regina, Veronica and the other (mostly) original characters I created. So, there is certainly more to look forward too!

I definitely hope you guys enjoy reading this as much as I have writing it!

Note: While this story is based on Spiderman/Marvel Universe, it largely features a number of original characters with references to existing ones. This is a mature story, intended for mature audiences, expect violence, swearing and some sexual content. Some descriptions may be graphical and while I try my best to avoid 'smut,' don't be surprised if some manages to creep in.

"Bones twist and backs break. I guarantee it'll be a piece...of...cake." Fearsome words twisted and discomforted the retreating thug as he clutched the knife tighter. On the ground scurrying away, he backed into a brick wall stained with blood, the remains of his pals. The mysterious figure laughed with monstrous delight, taunting and mocking the thug.

Bearing razor sharp teeth and sickle tongue, its silhouette flailed to and fro, this poor thug picked the wrong girl to mug. He sliced and jabbed into total darkness, terrified and uncertain. A swift swipe and the knife got ripped from his grasp. The figure stepped into the single ray of light produced by a lone, flickering lamp.

"Please," he begged. Pushing his head back as far as possible, he could see in true form what had turned the tables as it crept into the light. What was prey had now become the predator, a tall female figure with white hollow eyes and sharp killer teeth. Its tendrils, flailing to and fro shattered the coward's knife in two. Crouching down like a slideshow in the flickering light, face to face with vicious delight. This creature ran its claws all over its prey's face, across the forehead and down his cheek, enthralled by the taste of sweat and the stench of fear.

Its face crept closer and closer, a huge blood stained teeth grinning from cheek to cheek. The devilish maw suddenly gaped open and the thug shut his eyes anticipating his demise...

Nothing happened, only the sound of dripping blood on asphalt. Slowly, the thug opened his eyes. The flickering glow highlighted the creature, features unlike before. Though still purple in body, there was a face so pure, so innocent, staring intently back through the creature's gaping maw. Her expression changed from blank and she grinned fiendishly.

"Get one last look. I hope it was worth it." The girl said with detest as her face vanished into the maw of the beast. Fear returned to the man crouched before her. He screamed out loud as huge teeth lunged forth to his face and crunched his flesh. Red nectar gushed forth. The screams became hoarse and distorted by the gurgling of fluid, until a snap caused the thug to become silent. The creature retracted and let out a deafening roar; justice had been served in the worst possible way.

Standing up and retreating slightly, the creature's appearance warped. Purple changed back to healthy skin and the fangs disappeared, folding back into the purple mass. The girl's young face was revealed. Dark brown hair and athletic figure visible as mass crawled into her skin. She opened her eyes just as the mass disappeared into the pores on her hands and under her nails.

Dazed and confused, she muttered three distinct words: "Who am I?"

"Regina, just a couple more hours and we'll be there!" Bryan said enthusiastically. Sitting in a car going somewhere, Regina stared out the window letting out a slight grunt of acknowledgment. Bryan, Regina's brother was driving, taking what little family he had with him. Given the circumstances you could say they were both escaping a life gone by with a purpose to start anew. "Look," Bryan responded, "I know I said we'd be staying in Chicago a bit longer but this will do you some good."

"Really?" Regina asked sarcastically, "because I'm sure going to New York is the right thing to do, for you at least."

"Come on don't be like that." Bryan quickly replied, attempting to reassure Regina. Knowing all too well there was more to this trip then what he stated.

"I will be like that. You can't fool me." Regina turned away from the window to look at Bryan his vision firmly fixated on the road ahead. "I know full well why we're going. You get one phone call from your former lecturer and suddenly you're all giddy and excitable. Next it's 'pack your stuff, let's go to New York.' Just be honest, dammit."

"It's a...opportunity," Bryan replied, something had intrigued him to go back to New York City. He refused to imply what the reason was.

"Aha! You had to think a moment! I knew there was something. So yet again it's all for your benefit, eh?"

Bryan laughed cheaply and shook his head, "I will not be drawn into a debate sis. I figured you could do with a fresh start."

"Nothing new to you though," Regina said as she turned back to face out the window. Bryan turned his head momentarily to follow Regina's gaze and sighed. He had been to New York a few months prior studying at Empire State University under a Dr. Connors. Biology had been the main focus of Brian's studying and then explored other unique fields particularly the unknown and spectacular, space organisms. Circumstances back home in Chicago forced Bryan to cut his studying short.

"That's hardly fair," Bryan finally responded after a moment's silence. "We've both been through a lot these past months. The best we can do is move on." Regina turned to face him. "Yes, I've been here before. Yes, there is a reason for me to come back. But I think you deserve a chance to 'reinvent' yourself. I've an apartment I leased when I was a student, we can stay there. Whatever happens I'll be here for you and will always look out for you!" Bryan proclaimed as he glanced towards Regina, "I promise."

"P-Promise?" Regina replied with a slight smile.

"Promise," Bryan repeated. Regina slumped into her chair as Bryan gazed forward, focusing on the road again.

"Do you miss them?" Regina asked quietly.

"Hmm?" Bryan grunted in response, quickly glancing over as Regina turned her head to face him.

"Do you miss mum and dad?" There was an awkward silence. Bryan bit his lower lip and rolled it into his mouth before returning to normal. Regina could've sworn that a slight tear began forming in his eye.

"All the time. I wish I was there for you, all of you." Regina's expression went blank and turned back to the window. Closing her eyes, she began recalling the accident. It was a bright summer day, the smell of petroleum in her nostrils and a faint scent of freshly mown turf. Regina remembered the murderer, a strong smell of vodka and rum, vacant expression and disorderly appearance. Shirt half tucked, ruffled hair from hours of couch crashing, someone unfit to drive.

A head on collision, glass shattered and shards rained down. The body work rippled inwards, crunching down from sheer force as the seats collapsed into each other. A distraught Regina witnessed her parent's demise. Her father's torso was crushed by the brute force of airborne cargo from the colliding truck. He just bled to death and no one realised until at the hospital, by then he was too far gone.

Regina recalled that final, terrified expression on her mother's face. In a desperate attempt to protect her daughter she suffered from several broken bones and never recovered, she died a few days later. Regina got away with a few scrapes and bruises; nothing fatal, but the trauma was irreparable. That fool driver survived, walked away with nothing more than a few cuts, a gashed head, scarred conscious and his license revoked. Regina demanded more. He killed her parents and got off scot free?

As the miles tumbled and the world went by Regina felt nothing more than to just make the most of this solitude before the next stage in her life. She began to drift off to sleep, remembering better days gone by...

"Ladies and gentlemen of the board, I thank you." A chorus of wheels along soft carpet erupts and minor bustle commences as Ellis King brings the board meeting to a close. His wife, Zoe smiled at him, sat directly beside him on the oval table. Ellis escorted her out of the room; placing his hand gently on her back with briefcase in the other. "It's getting harder to bullshit like that," Ellis said to Zoe as they started to walk down the corridor. "How the hell our predecessors kept this place afloat I don't know. Millions put into single projects, corporate sabotage, murder," Ellis scoffed, "It's a wonder this company's still operating, given its recent history."

"You did say we should broaden: What better way to tap into the American market than buy up one the leading suppliers to the US military?" Zoe remarked.

"And that, Zoe Germaine King, is why I love you." Zoe King is a commanding woman of thirty four, golden blonde hair and striking blue eyes.

Joint CEO of her own company along with husband Ellis, Zoe owns one of Europe's largest manufacturers of chemicals and of lesser note cosmetics. They had recently succeeded in an ambitious bid to buy the entirety of OsCorp; a former leading supplier of equipment and scientific advances to the military.

However OsCorp lost its way with the death of founder and disgraced CEO Norman Osborn, then later his son Harry took the reins. He single handily leading the company to the brink of bankruptcy. Harry's unexpected death saw the company plummet even further, forcing the remaining owners to sell up. Zoe's company, Kings Armament Tech succeeded in purchasing the remaining assets. Despite securing the company and its entire inventory, Zoe felt uneasy regarding the acquisition. Ellis' intervention ensured that OsCorp became a subsidiary to their company.

"What? Not because I'm the 'most beautiful woman' you've ever met?" Zoe asked with a cheeky tone in her voice.

"You always have your sights set so high; ambition, desire and of course, your gorgeous face." Ellis paused and gazed down Zoe's body. "And of course, you have a fine pair of..." Zoe pushed Ellis back slightly, off balancing him for a moment.

"Stop it. Not here," She replied, embarrassed and looking around, "You must be a gentleman to me in public."

"Ok, my Queen..." Ellis replied humorously, "Let's go home," Ellis placed his hand over Zoe's right shoulder and escorted her out of the building into their waiting Rolls. The two got comfortable and Ellis called to the driver to take them home. Zoe then remembered, something she'd forgotten to do all day, she rummaged through her bag. "Are you alright?" Ellis glanced at her as she frenetically scoured her belongings.

"Huh? Yeah, yeah. I'm just...I was supposed to contact one of my clients today. I swear I had their contact info in here." Zoe finally felt the creases of paper between her fingers and produced a green tinted file. She flicked the pages through pages. "Veronica Pyke," Zoe said aloud.

"Someone I should know about?" Ellis questioned.

"Just a personal client I need to keep track of. She's made outlandish claims of a medical breakthrough. Though given the progress she's made, I probably should've just taken it as hearsay," Zoe explained and continued, "she's had a time frame and she's not delivered."

"How come I know nothing of this?" Ellis replied, taken aback by Zoe's 'personal client'.

"She's a personal client. Strictly off the books. Call it a...investment of great interest." Neither spoke to each other for the remainder of their journey…

"Introduction of sample yields positive results. By combining the DNA of multiple reptiles I may have finally found the solution." Veronica Pyke said into a Dictaphone, whilst peering deeply into a microscope. Safely within the confines of Dr. Connors lab at Empire State University, Veronica observed her life's work taking shape.

While nothing to the common eye, Veronica's Petri dish bore an ominous substance. A crimson red liquid; blood, though no ordinary blood. Blood was the base for her experiment, engineered with dozens of reptile and amphibian DNA. "The...uh, introduction of various reptilian DNA has managed to greatly accelerate the rate at which limbs regenerate." Veronica continued to speak into her Dictaphone. She stepped up from her desk and slowly hobbled over to a wall of small glass enclosures. Each with a lizard inside; iguanas, young crocodiles, sail fins and more. Veronica stared at one eye to eye, her breath formed on the crystal glass.

"Our lizards have been injected with a supplement of this vaccine and results are...very promising. Where it would take days, weeks for one of these reptiles to regenerate limbs it now only takes minutes." Veronica said with glee but followed with a sigh and paused as she paced back and forth along the wall of glass. "However, I have yet to replicate this same success with humans. I've no subjects to test on nor am I a hundred percent certain it will work. Uh, the DNA structure of a human is much more advanced than that of a lizard. Simulations show promise. However, antibodies in a human would most likely dissipate the vaccine..."

Veronica felt discomforted; she switched off the Dictaphone for a moment and scratched her left shoulder. She pulled her sleeve up, revealing a tight bandage wrapped around her upper bicep. Placing the Dictaphone onto a nearby desk, Veronica took her lab coat off and unravelled the bandage, revealing several spots where needles had been inserted. The spots were sore, veined and bleeding slightly. Veronica scratched the spots gently trying hard not to irritate them; she sat down and scanned the enclosures once more.

All the lizards were just doing what they do; basking in the individual lights that each enclosure had, standing to attention or finishing a morsel that Veronica had fed them. The meagre sound of rustling in the enclosures was the only ambience that filled the room, echoing around the bleach clean lab. Veronica swung her right leg back and forth, producing a mechanical grinding sound. She looked down at her trouser leg and pulled it upwards. Veronica had lengthy legs, fine and slim, however the beauty of her right leg was obscured by cruel machinery; a leg brace, the sign of a broken fibula.

This handicap saddened Veronica; she relaxed her head and shook it regretfully. Releasing the trouser leg Veronica grabbed the Dictaphone again and clicked it on. "I must find a way to bypass the body's natural defences." She clicked off the Dictaphone and slammed it on the desk. Veronica sniffed, "I must find a way." She got up and went back over to her microscope and gazed inside, much to her disgust. "No, no, NO!" She cried out.

Throwing her arms up, she aggressively brushed the microscope aside with great force and let out a tremendous roar. She quickly walked over to her piles of research she'd accumulated. Large amounts of documented research. Veronica took wads of paper and soaked it in chemical vials then proceeded towards a trash bin. Producing her lighter, she tried to set the paper alight. However, Veronica moved too quickly, her brace buckled and cracked. Veronica whelped and came crashing to the ground with a thud. Paper floated in the air and Veronica's lighter slid under a preparation table. She groaned in pain. At that time the lab doors swung open and along came Dr. Connors and saw Veronica chest down on the floor.

"Veronica!" Curt came rushing over and leant down, producing his left arm with hand open. "Come on." Veronica looked up at him, he was visibly concerned. She reached out with her left hand and got a tight grip on Curt's, she steadied herself on her left leg and reached out to the nearest desk. Before trying to put pressure back on her right leg, Veronica applied more strength to her arms and hands. "Come on," Curt repeated again, "sit down." He brought Veronica the nearest stool he could find.

Curt then grabbed Veronica's lab coat and did his best to put it over her shoulder, Veronica pulled the remainder over so it just hung off of her. "There. You OK?" Curt asked Veronica, she didn't say anything. Veronica sighed heavily and faced towards a window, observing the afternoon sky. Curt glanced around the lab, mostly undisturbed besides the carpet of paper, dropped when Veronica collapsed. Some of the lizards had taken an interest in the commotion. Curt smirked and noticed the microscope on the floor, he picked it up and placed it gently back on the desk next to Veronica. Peeping through the microscope, Curt could see why she had gotten angry: "Didn't work again. Did it?" he asked Veronica, she shook her head.

"Again, the serum dissipates, though at a slower rate than previously noted. So at least part of the theory is consistent, faster regeneration and slower to dissipate," Veronica said.

"That's exactly what you wanted though?" Curt replied, wondering where the flaw was.

"Yes, but if it dissipates too quickly then a subject's wound will only partly heal. Could you imagine an amputee, like yourself, walking around with half a deformed arm? That is if the serum even manages to regenerate that much." Veronica acknowledged Curt's missing right arm. An injury he picked up as a war surgeon. "There...must be something. Something I haven't tried yet that could...pfft. I dunno bind the DNA together so they act as one?" Veronica looked up at Curt; he was in deep thought. Veronica stared at Curt, expecting him to say something.

"Uhh. I have something that might help. Only possibly though so...don't get your hopes up." Curt walked to the far end of the lab, where his station was situated. Veronica watched him closely as he opened a series of pressurised lockers, stationed in a cylindrical pillar besides his personal desk. The pillar hissed and wheezed as each individual lock was released by Connors's key. He placed his hand inside for a moment; Veronica leant forward slightly, trying to catch a glimpse of what was inside these lockers. When Curt finally retracted his arm, there was a canister of sorts in his hands, no bigger than a soda bottle. Inside was dark liquid ooze, yet there was something quite strange about it. As Curt sealed the lockers and returned to Veronica, the substance was alive.

"What?" Veronica was stunned as Curt stood before her, producing this canister. "Wha- what is it?"

"Way I figure it's some kind of intergalactic organism." Curt dictated, rotating the canister in his hand, the substance, still wiggling around inside.

"An alien?" Veronica was stunned. She gazed up at Curt's face, he was serious, his face never twitched, not once.

"I'm certain. I've one of my former students coming in to take a look at this, but I've ascertained that this substance, alien or not, is a symbiote."

"Symbiote? Like a parasite?" Veronica asked - assuring her understanding was correct.

"You'd probably know more about this than me," Curt said, putting confidence back into Veronica. He passed the canister to Veronica who gripped it with both hands and turned back to the window, shining light onto the substance to make some kind of analysis. The ooze writhed around inconsistently, tendrils and deformities splayed from its being, clawing and crawling around the claustrophobic container.

"Unlike any parasite I've seen before...but a parasite needs a host to survive." Veronica turned back to Connors, standing, with hand in pocket. "How has it survived?"

"That canister is pressurised, so it hasn't been exposed for extended periods. Plus it's larger than when it first came into my possession."

"Where did you get it? And how did it get 'larger'?"

"A former pupil gave me a small sample, must have been, uh...about two months ago. He wanted my opinion, I didn't think much of it at the time, but I continued to study it." Curt walked over to the window and turned back to face Veronica. "I'd say it was perhaps a few days following that big story about Spiderman and the Sandman at that construction site, you remember that?" Curt asked pointing to Veronica, who just nodded in response, enthralled. "This symbiote, this small organism, managed to reproduce itself. Though, rather than there being two organisms, the original, the one my former pupil gave me uh, consumed the offspring, hence why it is larger than it once was."

"Survival of the fittest?" Veronica replied, quoting the terminology of Herbert Spencer.

"Yeah, you could put it like that." Curt finished. "Anyway, we'd better tidy this up."

"Huh?"

"Good first impression for my returning student?" Curt said as he began picking up the discards of paper from the floor. Veronica took one last look at the canister and placed it on the desk behind her, putting her lab coat back on she crouched down besides Curt and helped him clear away the documents.