Chapter 3
Bounty
Mac's patience was beginning to wear. Ever since his retreat from Ryker's and Carnage, he's been down in luck in trying to enter Manhattan Island. The defenses for the dismal palace of Spider-Man's kingdom had been increased exponentially to not only keep out Spidey's enemies, but also trapping any rebels trying to escape. Mac was still licking his wounds from his last battle with the newly turned Daredevil, accompanied by Ms. Marvel and Storm of the X-Men. There was no chance he was going to have a shot at Spider-Man without help, and an even smaller chance that anyone would willfully assist Mac - as neither Scorpion nor Venom.
Venom had suggested that Mac should focus on building an army that could help him get past Spidey's defenses, but there wasn't an unturned civilian or superhuman in sight. Mac was the only soldier to his cause against Spider-Man and Carnage's armies. However, once Mac's plan works, Spider-Man and Carnage will both be none of concern. No one will.
As Mac sat in an alley back in New Jersey, he pondered his next move. Would he go West to see if he could find any unturned rebels that may have been missed in the initial wave of infection? No, any stragglers that weren't taken by Spider-Man were most likely cleaned up by Carnage, he thought to himself. Maybe to the East, across the ocean. If I go far enough East, I'll probably beat both of the armies to the fresher pastures.
"And how do you suppose we'll get to the East?" hissed Venom inside Mac's head. "All air and sea traffic have most likely halted once the infection began spreading outside Manhattan! And I've had my fair share of dragging your and Eddie across water, so don't expect a swim across an entire ocean!"
"Hey, I'm trying my best here," Mac retorted. "You chose me for my hatred and determination, not for my smarts! You got any better ideas, oh great-and-powerful Venom?" Before Venom could threaten unbinding from Mac for his back talk, both of them spotted a red blur from Mac's peripheral vision. Mac and Venom hissed in unison as they followed the direction it went, "What the hell was that?"
Mac slowly stood, his tail waving fluidly behind him. His muscles tensed, ready for whatever came his way. He sniffed the air, attempting to recognize the oily stench of a symbiote. That was foolish of him; the entire atmosphere reeked of smoke and symbiotes. Another red blur flashed past Mac's peripheral vision. He was really getting tired of this.
"Come out and show yourself," he growled. "I know you're there! Come out so I can rip you a new one!" Silenced filled the echoless air for a few moments. Then, a shift in gravel from a rooftop above him caught Mac's attention to a falling red-and-black suited psycho with two katanas extended out from his body like a pair of deadly, featherless wings.
"Geronimo!" Deadpool rang as he descended towards Mac. The time it took for the merc with a mouth to fall wasn't fast enough to dodge Mac's scorpion tail, which swatted Deadpool into the alley wall. Deadpool recovered from the unexpected blow, setting a few ribs back in place for his amplified regeneration. "Well that never happened to me before! You must be Scorpion, and by the looks of it you're one of bug boy's schmucks now."
"In his worst nightmares! No, we'll never serve under Spider-Man," hissed Mac. "And we're not just Scorpion anymore, we're-!"
"Scorpion dipped in dark chocolate and with a minty center? Mm, my favorite!"
"Will you let us finish?" Mac growled. "No, we're Venom!"
"No, no, I liked 'Scorpion' a lot more," squinted Deadpool. "Venoms don't have tails; Venom is what's in a scorpion's tail. It just doesn't make any sense to dress up as a scorpion and not call yourself 'Scorpion'! If you're going to look like something, call yourself that something. For instance, I'm dressed up like a Deadpool, so I call myself-woah!" Mac had no time for chit-chat, so he skipped to the fighting part of their meeting. Deadpool rolled to the sides as Mac brought his stinger down in a sharp crack.
"Quit you're yapping and sit still!" Mac hissed. As Mac brought his tail up once more for a sting, Deadpool whipped out his pistols and fired several shots into Mac's chest. He recoiled from the force into the opposite wall, saved from damage by Venom. Venom howled in rage, and as Mac began to advance towards his mouthy prey, he was suddenly held in his tracks. A pair of boney arms wrapped themselves around Mac's waist, restricting him from moving. He looked back to meet the ghastly mercenary, Ghost, who leaned half-in and half-out of a wall.
"Now, Deadpool," gasped a thin voice from within the bulbous helmet on the merc. Mac turned back to come face-to-face with Deadpool, who held a pistol under Mac's chin.
"Okay, Scorpie, here's how it's going to work," smiled Deadpool beneath his mask. "Ghost is going to let go of you and we're going to let you go on your way. You're not who we're after, and at the rate I've been killing all these slimy symbiote bastards I'd be as happy as a leprechaun in January if I still had ammo left to take out our bounty. We'll go our separate ways and call it even. The alternative-which I'm really praying you to choose-is that Ghost and I blow you up until all that's left are Jell-O cup serving sizes of bloody symbiote birs. So pick your poison, Venom!" Heheh, poison, venom, Jell-O…sounds like high school lunches, thought Deadpool.
"And who would be your guys' bounty? Wouldn't you guys have other pressing matters, like this symbiote invasion?" Mac asked.
"The invasion is a minor setback," answered Ghost.
"Yeah, invasion or no invasion we still have bills to pay and reputations to keep up," said Deadpool. "Just now we gotta worry about getting goo on our hands instead of Moon Knight blood. I wonder if he bleeds silver?"
"So Moon Knight's your bounty?"
"Yep," said Deadpool, inching the pistol further up Mac's chin. "Luckily, we now know where we can find him. A little birdie told us that Moonie is one of webhead's right-hand slaves, must be his new god or something. Didn't that guy used to mope and whine about some bogus Egyptian god?"
"Moon Knight is Spider-Man's guardian?" Mac began to ponder for a few moments.
"What could you possibly-oh," Venom whispered to Mac. "That's probably the smartest thing you thought up so far. Yes, they could be of use to us!" Venom translated Mac's smile as a sharp, toothy grin.
"Hey, we got a deal for the two of you," addressed Mac. "You two need to collect a bounty on Moon Knight's head, right? And you're worried about not being able to stand against Spider-Man and the rest of his army, right? Well, how about this: we'll help you get past the symbiotes and kill Moon Knight free of charge." Deadpool and Ghost looked to each other.
"Just you?" asked Ghost. "I think the three of us would hardly make a difference against an entire symbiote army."
"Not just us, but anyone else we come across with a score to settle with Moon Knight or Spider-Man."
"I smell the bacon," Deadpool squinted, "but where's the grease spit?"
"You two will help us kill Spider-Man!" Deadpool looked again to Ghost, shaking his head with a yes or no. Ghost shook his head no.
"No dice," replied Deadpool, pulling back the hammer on his pistol. "Ghost and I can't afford having a symbiote on our team. I'm sure you would pass the trust-fall test, but we'd like our consciences free of alien influence. Besides, there's all the paperwork and worker's comp. that we'd have to deal with for a new teammate, and I don't have the attention span for that kind of thing. So we're going to skip negotiations now and go right to splattering your tiny brain against the wall!"
"Shame," smiled Venom. "We were hoping you would be reasonable, but it looks like talking is out of the question, even for a talkative annoyance like yourself, mercenary. Tell us, do you know how we started this invasion?" Tendrils from the Venom symbiote shoot out and slither across Deadpool's body. Deadpool tries to pull himself away and begins firing into Venom's chest, but can't avoid being pulled towards the symbiote.
"Blah, nasty! Get it off!" he yells as he slices at the tendrils with his sword hand. "Ghost!" Deadpool's call to his partner is answered by a hushed sputter as Ghost is also pulled into Venom's body.
"You see, when Venom was attached to Brock, it learned how to replicate itself," Mac continued. "The infection spread like wildfire once the spawn learned this ability as well, and as you have seen the symbiote is becoming the dominating world power."
"My intangibility circuits," gasped Ghost. "Why aren't they working?"
"Once attached, the symbiote can mimic and amplify the wearer's innate abilities. In your case, the spawn has adapted to your intangibility power as it binds to you," Mac answered. "The beauty of replication is that the hosts become the slaves of the original symbiote. The only problem with the system is that it takes a little more effort to make superhumans subservient. That is part of the reason why we can't control Spider-Man when he is wearing a copy of us. The other part is that the Spider possessed Venom before Gargan and Brock, so he has the experience to resist our control. But you two will make valuable slaves to our cause!"
Venom ejects the two mercenaries from his body as the final processes of bonding are completed. Deadpool makes one last effort to cut the symbiote off of him, but stops as a toothy symbiote grin spreads across his face. "Ooh, tingly!" he chuckles. "Hey, this ain't half bad! Finally got that crick out of my back!"
"Yes, the power…it feels good," Ghost whispered.
"And you shall have more, our friends. This is only a taste," said Venom as they stood up, examining their new suits. "You shall help us kill Spider-Man and take back our throne! Then you shall know true power, a reward greater than any bounty your customer could offer you!"
Deadpool grinned and raised his katanas into the air. "Shoop da woop!"
