CHAPTER 5

"What the hell is that?" Spider-man asked, looking at the armoured creature that stood before him. "And why is its head so big?"

"This is why we needed to speak with you." said Venom, pointing to the creature. "This has been giving me a huge headache, it's bad news. It's been hanging around town since last night; we felt its presence."

"Venom, I am your father!"

"This is no time for jokes, bug brain!"

"Agreed. My spider-sense warned me about something, I sensed it earlier today. I think it's been following me."

Then, the creature raised its left arm by ninety degrees, opened up a panel on its gauntlet and began to type something onto a small interactive screen. Strange markings covered the black surface as a red beam of light shot from its helmet and it scanned the area. It then closed the panel and stared at Venom.

There was a pause before Spider-man had the balls to say something to it. "Er, hi. Look, I don't know if you can understand me, but I think you need to go back home to your other Martian friends. They love you for who you are. I, to be honest for a second here, think you look like something that he spat out!" He pointed to Venom, who growled softly.

The alien continued to stare at Venom, causing the symbiote half of the team to shiver sharply with shock. Wha? thought Spidey, looking at Venom. He's scared? Venom's never scared! Have they met before?

The creature made a croak-like noise-and charged straight for Spider-man, knocking him out of its way. It ran toward Venom, used its blades to slice off some symbiote and placed it in a compartment of its belt.

Venom keeled over, clutching Eddie's now bleeding arm in pain. The alien creature stood upright once more and noticed MJ, still tied up in Venom's tentacles. The creature knelt down to look at her, its face inches from her own. The terror she was already experiencing rose to the next level as the creature held her chin and examined her face. The red beam extended from its helmet again, scanning Mary Jane's face with interest.

"Please, d-don't hurt m-me…"she said as the creature stopped the scan and purred at her.

"Get the hell away from her, you alien slime ball!" The alien turned round to see Spider-man leaping it, fists, yet again, clenched.

The creature simply moved and left the webbed wonder to smack into the wall behind MJ. As he began to get up, it grabbed his throat and held him at least two feet from the ground. Its grip was powerful; Spidey couldn't breath. Whatever it was, it either had super strength or full body power.

Suddenly, it yanked Spidey's head toward its own and spoke in a hoarse, croaky voice like fingernails down a chalkboard.

"Rarrrrrrrr…bug brain…."

Promptly throwing Spider-man off the building, the creature then leapt to the next rooftop and out of sight, before Eddie could fully recover.

8:30pm

Spider-man's eyes opened. He could see the sky, stars a shinin', and could feel a hard surface beneath him. Then he remembered.

He shot up, standing within the second and scanned the area. It was the alleyway behind the party venue. Ok, the thingy tossed me off the building and Venom was-oh god, MJ!

Then he heard a faint, light snoring noise from around the corner. He recognised that snore; he woke up to it every morning. He sped around the building to find, cocooned yet again, but this time in webs, a sleeping MJ. Held above the ground in the centre of a huge spider's web, her head poked out from a mass of fluid and, beneath her still bare feet, was a message spelt out in webbing.

It read:

Thought you might want your girly back. She was a nice hostage though; think I might kidnap her again some time. She musta fainted or something; she was asleep when I found her.

Yours hatingly, Venom

P.s: She's got nice boobs.

Bastard, thought Spidey, but still glad to have MJ back. "I better get her back home; I can leave my tux here. Her shoes can stay lost though; they're the third pair this month. How does she keep losing them?"

He looped another strand around her waist, tying her to his back, and swung off, trying his hardest not to wake her.

THE CRAFT, CENTRAL PARK, SOME TIME LATER.

The test was complete; the symbiotic life form had indeed been one of a race that the creature had encountered previously. It placed the sample back into a containment bubble and moved to the head of the table.

Along it sat the Elders; the clan's most respected hunters and killers. They were here to see what their apprentice had in mind.

Several large, dome-shaped screens covered the wall at the head of the table, each displaying a readout of flight stats or DNA testing of symbiotic life forms. The main screen, however, was blank. It was a big screen, almost as tall as the aliens themselves, and the creature was stood beside it.

It looked out at its 'crowd' and gave a slight growl. It then pressed a button next to the screen and waited.

A second later, several readouts appeared on the great monitor before it began to show pictures and scans taken from the scene that was visited; there was a human girl, then a combination creature that contained traces of symbiote DNA structure, and then there was the target: the Spider-man.