The slice Chrom inflicted across the man's chest should have been enough to take him down. But instead, Chrom realized that had not happened. In fact, the man was standing like it had suffered no wound. And rather than blood, what came out of the wound was the same smoke that came through his mask's mouth. But what unsettled Chrom the most was the hundred and eighty degree turn his head did. And how the man's glowing red eyes met his.

In his stupor, Chrom was barely able to parry the man- no the thing's next swing, Falchion meeting the rusted axe. And meeting a strength behind it that could not be human.

Mustering all his strength, Chrom managed to push back the fell creature, sending it stumbling back before it lost its balance. And before it could get up, he leapt and landed on top of it, making sure to stick Falchion in its spine.

That apparently did the trick, as the creature let out one final pained growl. But rather than falling motionless, its whole body dissolved in more of that smoke, leaving nothing behind. Not even the armor it was wearing. Just its weapon and a thin layer of ash.

"What was that thing?"

Unfortunately, Chrom would not have the time to ponder on that question further. The panicked cry of his sister drew his attention to her and he found her cornered by the other monster against a tree, her staff raised as a desperate means of defense by her shaky arms.

Without wasting any moment, he rushed toward her, hoping to intervene before its axe could cut her down. He acted so fast, he barely noticed a blue blur at the edge of his vision.

When the monster's axe came down, Chrom was still too far away to protect Lissa. But as it turned out, he did not need to.

Shock stopped Chrom in his steps as a warrior - a swordsman dressed in blue armor with a butterfly-shaped mask - got in between Lissa and the monster, his own sword raised behind his back as it protected both him and Chrom's sister from the other blade.

Chrom could not get a good look at the sword from where he was standing. And yet, something about its look seemed...familiar.

"Help!"

The mysterious swordsman broke Chrom out of his reverie. And only then did the Lord realize that he was struggling beneath the monster's weight.

"Right," Chrom muttered, raising Falchion as he resumed his charge.

The monster took notice of Chrom, and the Ylissean prince prepared himself to intercept another swing.

But that did not come to pass. Taking advantage of the distraction, the masked swordsman pushed back the monster's axe. And then, with a twirl on himself, his sword struck true across the monster's neck. Just at the same time Falchion severed the monster's torso in two.

Just like the other one before, the monster dissolved into smoke, leaving just its weapon and ash behind. But this time, Chrom did not have the time to pay attention to it. He just rushed to his sister's side.

"Lissa!" he exclaimed, arms wrapping around her shaky shoulders. "Are you alright?"

The cleric's eyes were widened and full of terror. But upon hearing her brother's voice and feeling managed to calm her down somewhat. "Y-yeah, I think so."

A galloping sound drew the two siblings' attention back to the woods, specifically in the direction where their camp was. What they saw was a sight for sore eyes.

"Milord! Milady!" Frederick announced his presence as his steed came to a stop near the two royals. He stood tall and proud as always with his signature stern expression, a stark contrast from the dark-cloaked tactician sitting in front of him as he desperately held himself to the horse. "Are you hurt?"

"Frederick! Robin!" Lissa cried out in relief at seeing the two.

"We're alright Frederick," Chrom reassured his retainer.

But right as he said that, several moans similar to the ones from the two creatures came from all around the four Shepherds. And looking around, red lights appeared from within the shadows of the woods. Lights that soon revealed themselves to be the eyes of more of those monsters. Many more.

Chrom barely managed to suppress a curse at that sight. The fact that the other swordsman had seemingly disappeared did not help.

"Are such horrific creatures common place in these lands?" Robin asked worriedly.

"They're not from Ylisse, I promise you that," Chrom responded, his eyes darting from one monster to the next as he kept Falchion raised defensively.

As if to make matters worse, a new blood-curling sound soon covered the moans of the monsters. A roar, unlike that of any beast Chrom had ever heard, loud and savage in its power, from deeper into the woods.

"And...and that?"

"Not that either."

"Look out!" Lissa warned as she pointed up in the sky.

Chrom's first reaction was surprise at seeing the strange circle had vanished from the sky. But then he realized what his sister meant as he watched something being tossed out of the trees and then falling near them.

When it landed, it turned out to be one of the monsters. Or what was left of it.

Everything from the waist below was gone, its intestines spilling out of the holes where, presumably, there were once legs. An arm had been bitten off, teeth marks adorning the stump that was left as smoke poured out of it. Weakly, the creature tried to crawl toward the Shepherds, only for its broken body to give out and dissolve.

"Wh-" Lissa tried to say. "What could have done...that?"

Frederick furrowed his brow at the ash left behind. "Nothing friendly, milady."

Eddie was not sure what had happened. One moment, he was lifting weights down in his lair in the sewers and then, just as he was about to finish, the ground beneath him had started shaking and he felt himself being dragged down by some kind of eye that had formed beneath his feet.

The only thing he knew afterward was that he was in a forest. It was still dark out, so it couldn't have been too long, but he also couldn't recognize where he was. It definitely wasn't Central Park, that was for sure.

Before he could get a better feel for his surroundings, Eddie's attention was drawn by the sounds of moans coming from within the woods. Turning in their directions, he was met by three pairs of red glows. And as they came closer, the source of those moans was revealed to him.

The glows came from the eyes of three...Eddie wanted to call them men, but that description was not right. Their skin was a sickly gray color and they walked in an erratic way, like puppets controlled by strings.

Their outfits were also not normal. The only proper article of clothing were their leather pants. Otherwise, they walked bare-chested, safe for mismatched pieces of armor covering their left arms and metallic masks shaped like screaming faces spouting out smoke. And they all carried axes in their hands.

"Fresh meat," Eddie's partner whispered in his head.

"No wait," Eddie responded as he narrowed his eyes at the three. "Let me figure out what's-"

The shirtless man at the head of the group let out an unnatural roar and then sprinted in Eddie's direction with his axe raised, his speed something not natural for a regular human being.

Of course, Eddie was not a regular human being.

Calling out his partner and letting it envelop his arm, Eddie raised it and grabbed the man's face as he tried to chop down the former journalist. The symbiote then revealed itself in its entirety, exponentially increasing Eddie's body mass as he grew in size.

"Now," they said as they held the man by the head. Who was struggling with much more strength than he should possess. "What are you?"

The two leaned in to inspect the superhuman. A smell of decay greeted their nostrils. One akin to a body where rot had long since taken hold of it.

"This thing is dead," Eddie's partner commented. "Hardly worth feasting upon."

"Agreed."

They had no idea how they were dealing with the living dead. All they knew was that there was no doubt about the creature's unholy nature. A fact further confirmed when they crushed its skull and instead of brain matter and blood they were left with dust that slipped between their fingers.

The moans of the other two zombies drew the two's attention next. They fully opened their jaws and roared at them in response, their serpentine tongue sticking out and dancing between their fangs all the while.

Both of the undead rushed at them in a similar manner to what their compatriot had tried before. But this time, Eddie and the symbiote didn't let them approach as much, as they shot their webs at them. They then pulled them mid-rush and started throwing them around like rag dolls, battering them so hard normal people would have been killed.

Only when they saw the two lose their grips on their axes, did they decide to pull the undead by their side. As the two landed at their feet, one was quickly dispatched as they stepped on its head with their full weight. The other was not as fortunate.

Eddie and the symbiote grabbed and lifted the undead by an arm and a leg and started pulling. And pulling. And pulling.

The crunch sound as the undead was torn in two covered the louder moan it made. The former lower half of its body dissipated shortly after, but the undead still tried to hurt them - tried to claw at their face. Their maw grabbing its arm stopped that. And then they made sure that arm would never be used again.

With the undead all but made inoffensive, they just threw it away from them. And a moment later, the symbiote retracted, leaving Eddie Brock back to assessing their surroundings.

"Stop right there, fiend!"

Or perhaps not.

Eddie turned around and was met by the sight of a girl with strange blue hair and wearing some kind of...dark blue costume that resembled leather armor. But rather than actual armor, it looked so mismatched, so randomly put together that it seemed something out of a cartoon. The butterfly-shaped mask with slits for eyes didn't help the image.

The only thing that kept Eddie from being amused was the sword in her hands. An actual metallic sword, if the moonlight reflecting on it was anything to go by.

"Interesting," the symbiote whispered.

When Lucina had broken off from her father and the other Shepherds, her goal had been to find whatever Chieftain was commanding these Risen and end it. In her search she had expected to need to cut down all the Risen that got in her path, but the creature she stumbled upon was nothing she could have ever expected.

A hulking black behemoth with a white spider-like symbol on its chest and back and long slitted eyes of the same color with no pupils. Its general shape was humanoid if incredibly tall, but the clawed hands and unnaturally large mouth full of razor-sharp teeth with a concerningly long tongue suggested the creature was anything but.

But that was not what concerned Lucina. She had laid her eyes on the fell dragon Grima, a much more grotesque sight.

No, what concerned her was the ease with which it dispatched the three Risen that attacked it. And the brutality it inflicted upon the last one. Normally Lucina would not be concerned by Risen suffering, not after all she had witnessed them do. But the way the black creature did it like it was second nature...it disturbed her.

But besides that, if Lady Naga's ritual had worked, this should be the past. And if in the past such an uncanny being had existed, someone would have remembered back in her time. So where did it come from?

Lucina watched as the creature tossed away the Risen after biting its arm off. And as if it couldn't be any more uncanny, its black skin began unraveling into some kind of goo that revealed a person underneath it. A blonde man, with muscles that would have put Kjelle's to shame, and totally unbothered by the dark substance partially retracting within his skin and then forming pants and a sleeveless shirt around his physique.

Lucina had no idea what was happening in front of her eyes. But with the man turning his back to her, perhaps this was the right time to come out of her hiding spot. She raised Falchion after doing so.

"Stop right there, fiend!"

The man turned to her. And only now did Lucina manage to get a good look at his face.

He looked to be in his late thirties, the beginning of a beard over his cheeks and chin and with blue eyes that narrowed at the sight of her. All in all, he could have been anyone. Except for the monstrous display she'd just seen.

"Who are you, girl?" he asked in a low tone.

Lucina internally cursed her luck for him to realize she wasn't a man. And after that, she spoke in her normal voice.

"You may call me Marth," she answered in a low tone similar to the other man. "Now, who are you?"

The man arched an eyebrow at her answer and the angles of his mouth twitched upward for a moment. Just a moment.

"My name is Edward Brock." The name did not sound Ylissean. Was it foreign? "And whatever costume party you were going to, you had better return home to your parents, girl," he added, furrowing his brow. "It's not safe out here tonight. As strange as it may sound, there are monsters prowling about."

Costume party?! How...how dared he!

"As of now," Lucina hissed, tightening the grip on Falchion and raising it further, "you are the only monster I'm concerned about."

The so-called 'Edward Brock' narrowed his eyes at her. But then they returned to normal as he spoke again, "Ah, I see. So you have seen that."

"I have," she confirmed. "Now answer me: what are you?!"

Rather than answering with words, the man called out the goo again, which proceeded to enwrap him again and reform the black monster she had seen before.

"We," he said just before the black maw closed over his head, "are Venom."

Nothing fancy this time around. Just a little crossover idea I though of for Halloween. Although I may make an actual fic out of this if inspiration strikes. Hope you at least enjoyed it.

Thanks to Softandhappy for betareading. You can find us at the Fanfiction Treehouse discord server at: 9XG3U7a

See you all next time!