Chapter One
THE DAILY BUGLE OFFICES, 2:56pm, Saturday
Peter Parker stared down at the pile of paperwork littering his desk, a coat of snow on the brown, wooden surface. He had spent all morning as Spider-man, swinging through buildings, fighting crime.
This was a twist.
How 'bout that, thought Peter, a smile spreading across his face, I've gone from halting bank robberies and beating up bad guys to filling out paperwork on what I was doing. Yippee. Just to give in some photos! I bet even Nick Fury doesn't have this many forms to sign!
Recently, J. Jonah Jameson, the 'generous' publisher of The Daily Bugle, had started giving something back to his loyal workers. Unfortunately, what he was giving was large amounts of official documents to fill out. He was in his 'professional' stage, making sure everything was done by the book; his book.
The Bugle had been getting a loss in readers ever since Norman Osborn had run the paper; people were sick of 'Bounty on Spider-man's Head' this, and 'Reward for Spider-man's Capture' that. Jameson just wanted to be sure all that nonsense had gone so that people would come back to New York's 'finest paper'.
Then he would start printing his own spider-bashings again. Just how his paper should be run.
There was that, and the fact that the Bugle offices had recently been attacked by the madman Venom.
Eddie Brock had, not long ago, rejoined with his symbiotic other and had decided to pay a visit to all the people he had declared vengeance on. Jameson was one of those people. After all, when your name had been linked with 'maniac' and 'unbalanced' on the front pages of best-selling newspapers, how are you expected to feel?
Luckily, Jonah managed to leave unharmed but cautious. So, getting more attention on his paper was the only thing to keep his mind off the ordeal.
Peter, however, couldn't think about anything else. One of Spider-man's deadliest enemies had returned, and he had only just got rid of the Green Goblin and an evil Spider-woman! All Peter wanted to do was settle down with his wife and his Aunt May, but even that seemed like it would never happen.
Peter finished putting his signature on the forty fifth and final paper and made his way toward Betty Brant's desk, when he was stopped by Ben Urich, who seemed to be in a hurry to show him something. He looked panicked, something the calm and collective reporter never expressed.
"Peter, TVs. NOW!" he said, grabbing the photographer by the shirt and pulling him towards the several screens lined up against the walls. Many screens showed the usual news drivel about celebrities and who they went to bed with this weekend, or interviews with Johnny Storm about who made the Human Torch feel hot, but one screen caught Peter's eye immediately.
Empire One News was broadcasting live pictures from somewhere downtown. In the camera's view was what seemed to be a recently demolished building, but on closer inspection, Peter could see it was still being demolished; but not by bulldozers and cranes.
Out of the dust clouds ran the Rhino, all muscle, no brains. His armour was all dirty from the hard task of slamming into walls, but he showed no signs of resting.
Whatever he's up to, Peter thought, someone's gonna need to stop him.
He looked around as though expecting to see Captain America or Wolverine pop out from behind a skyscraper, and then thought to himself Yeah, like that'sgonna happen. Time to don the tights…
Sneaking toward the bathroom, Peter realized that this was going to be one of those days.
SOMEWHERE NEAR THE EAST RIVER, 3:02pm
Venom's skins crawled. Something wasn't right.
They sat there in Eddie Brocks motel room, all three of them; Eddie, the symbiote and his offspring. It felt good to have the family together again, even if it meant Cletus Kasady missing out on some Carnage-based prison time. Now he was all alone in his cell, and Venom was whole again.
But this made him more aware of change, and the symbiotes had noticed a big change, not just in New York, but in the galaxy. Something unwelcome had arrived in the city last night, and it was making Venom crazy. It hadn't changed anything or interacted with anyone, but that was what worried them. It was waiting for something.
Venom didn't want to give it a chance at anything.
"We don't need another weirdo in this city!"