'Face him', the symbiote spoke to her. Obeying her counterpart she turned on her heel facing Spider-man.
"Now…are you going to hit me this time?" Spider-man quipped keeping a healthy distance between the two of them. He tried to study her at his distance but she began to circle him like a panther teasing its prey making it hard for him to stay in once place.
"It depends on what you want with me. You've obviously been following me, otherwise you wouldn't have been able to have found me so quickly and easily." She spat.
"You're female…" he made it more of a statement rather than a question.
"Ding! Ding! Ding! Ladies and gentlemen, he got the surprise of the day. Shall we tell him what his prize is folks?" She said sarcastically moving closer to him.
"Hey-wait a minute. Don't come any closer until we have a mutual understanding here. Do you even know what you've got yourself into? Bonding with the symbiote and all.." He said nervously as he leapt away from her to the side of the torch.
"I know just well what I have gotten myself into, thank you very much. I also know what you have given up and rejected. I think you're very stupid for trying to get rid of it." She growled feeling her symbiote's seething anger towards Spider-man.
"No, it made me do things that I didn't want to do, that I was against. It will do to you the same it tried with me. Instead of sharing it will try to control you and take over you. There is no compromising with it, not matter how much power you desire from it, and it's not worth giving yourself up for. Get rid of it now before it gets any further." He tried to reason, reaching a hand out to her. He felt responsible for her getting mixed up with the symbiote since it was he who separated himself and didn't bother to catch it afterwards.
She paused for a moment as if in actual thought. Her body jerked forward to him in unbelievable speed. "Liar!" it hissed as her fist came at him. He wasn't able to move away in time, his spider sense not even going off and he fell victim to her punch, his body denting the side of the torch. He groaned as he fell, jerking his wrist out he shot a web out, catching the bottom of the statue's wrist. He hung in the air feeling sore as he tried to shake the dizziness from his head.
'Good, good, now kill him!' The voice spoke in her mind. "But…he didn't harm us..he was only talking to us. We were the ones who attacked him." She tried to reason. 'Damnit, kill him now!' Her symbiote took action and launched her off into the air. She shot a thick, sticky strand of webbing in the same area that Spider-man had and swung herself towards him sticking her legs out. She collided into him, her feet delivering a swift blow to his mid-section causing him to lose his hold on the webbing and fly back sailing towards the water.
He smashed into the water with a sick plunk, sinking down quickly. Mary Jane felt dread sweep inside and she began to think of ways to help him.
'You forget that we share mind as well as body.' The symbiote spoke. "Yes, yes I know. But I thought you wanted revenge against him. This is too easy to get rid of him. I thought you would have wanted something grand to feel proud of." She said hurriedly, her eyes staring at the spot where Spider-man had disappeared.
'You're right. I hate to admit it but you have a point. This is too simple and too kind for him. Alright, get him out.'
Mary Jane released her hold and shot out another thick strand of web to throw herself into the air and positioned her body into a dive. She slipped beneath the cold surface of the water paddling her arms and legs as hard as she could; trying to see through the murky water any trace of the unconscious hero. She found him in fetal position near the bottom, his arms limp. She reached out and grabbed a hold of his forearm pulling him to her. Wrapping one arm around her waist she back paddled back up to the surface releasing air from her lungs in one long cough. "Now we're even." She said as she pulled him towards the docks, using the combined strength of the symbiote and her own to pull him out of the water and drop him gently on the wooden dock. She stood up and the mask on her face dissolved away revealing her pale beautiful face. She looked down at Spider-man, suddenly pitying him in his helpless state. She wanted to take off his mask, to see who he really was. She kneeled down on one knee reaching out for his neck.
'That can wait. You're not ready to find out who he is.' She nodded in agreement as she stood back up, although a part of her wished she could go through with it and just look. Could he possibly be someone she knew? She had once suspected that Peter Parker was Spider-man but then she had regained her senses and realized that it was just impossible. Was it? Her face was once more covered as Spider-man rolled over onto his side coughing, specks of water falling from his mask, as he was once again conscious.
She turned and began to walk away when she heard his voice ask her clearly.
"You saved me? Why did you do that? You could have left me to die."
"It isn't your time to die yet. You will know when it is, I will make you suffer, Spider-man. It will be more than your inferior brain could comprehend. I will have my revenge and I'll make you regret ever giving up such a gift that we could bring you." Her voice joined the symbiotes as she spoke to him in an eerie tone.
"Who are you?"
She turned around to face him, having waited for someone to ask her that. A sinister smile appeared on her face through the mask, something that was damn near impossible as a long, reptile like tongue emerged through the mask, sharp teeth glinting in the pale moonlight. "We call ourselves, Venom!"