New York City

Baxter Building

Days Ago

The lab was in shambles, paper thrown left and right and stations turned into bent scraps of metal and chipped plastic. Behind broken bulletproof glass was a ring-like machine that was burnt to a crisp and bent out of the perfectly circular curvature. Electricity flickered out of a cord that dangled from the ceiling of the room every now and then, becoming a distraction to the man on the other side of the broken window.

A white streak on either side of his head was almost as iconic as his stretching appendages that were already working to shut the electricity down for the top floor he was stationed on.

The elevator door rang just before it opened, revealing a younger man in a red and blue spandex outfit that was beaten and torn. He limped inside, meeting eyes with Reed Richards, the leader of the Fantastic Four.

"Eddie got away but Cletus is on his way to jail now. Lucky for us he won't have his symbiote to help him escape." Spider-Man looked into the room with the broken ring device, "So the only question is where the other two slops of goo went, right?"

Reed shook his head, "Because of your fight with them, the whole lab is going to be in need of repairs." The scientist wiped his face as he spoke, "And as of right now, that was a blind jump to an uncalibrated destination."

Spider-Man pulled off his mask so he could wipe off the blood from his lip. He looked back to the machine, "I thought this was made to be able to use another pocket dimension like the Negative Zone. Wouldn't they be there?"

"In order to travel there, a tethering point must be made on both ends. Meaning I have to isolate the point of entry for a stable transition. Otherwise the person would be thrown to any dimension within the realm of possibility."

Peter sat on the floor with a groan, "Okay, so how long until the portal is back up and running?"

The power finally shut off to that floor and Reed turned to Peter, "This lab won't be up and running for a while. It will take few months to-."

"A few months!?" Peter was on his feet again. "We don't have a few months; we have a couple days, maybe just a few hours before both symbiotes are up and killing people again!"

Reed scrunched his brows, "We don't even know if they landed anywhere hospitable."

"If they did, it would be our faults people died if we didn't help! They may not be our dimension's people, but they still matter." Peter was in Mr. Fantastic's face now. He reeled back, pulling his mask back over his head, "If you don't help then I'll find someone who will."

Peter began marching towards the window, getting halfway to it before Reed called back.

"Hold on, Pete. I sent Tony the schematics for this a while back ago. He should have a replica of it in one of his labs."

Peter looked back, then to the window again, "Let me get home before I head over to Avenger's Tower. I need to get one of my backup costumes. I'll be there soon."

Tokyo

Now

I leapt out of his bedroom window to deviate from his usual routine before going to school. My goal was to look around town for people that needed help. Nothing much came from this, however, and I went to school soon after. This was when everything got a little weird. There was a new teacher for the math class. She seemed fine to me, really good looking even, but a bit disconnected at the same time. She introduced himself plainly and directly as Ryoko Tamiya before starting the lesson.

Venom kept droning on and on about how bored he was which got old fast. I wanted to go out and fight bad guys as badly as he did, but I still had other responsibilities to keep up with. She also spoke in a monotone which didn't help too much. Actually, her whole set of expressions seemed to be more robotic than human.

When she looked to a student she would look at them as if they weren't even there. Yet, her eyes were still locked on them. A boy was called on and got the right answer.

She answered with a quick, "Correct."

A girl got a question wrong and the teacher answered just as quickly with an, "Incorrect." Then she wrote the right answer on the board.

Alone, those things don't seem too bad, but it was just how little she elaborated on things. The girl obviously flipped a part of the equation, but Tamiya didn't explain anything to her. Again, alone there wasn't anything wrong with what was going on but it just felt weird.

Lunch time eventually came around and I went to the rooftop as per usual.I sat down against the fence, pulling out my lunch and digging in. Venom emerged from my tie, frowning through the lenses on its face.

"What are you thinking? "

"I'm hungry."

"Hey, I'm eating lunch now." I began to chew on some squid. I pulled out my phone, opening a map of Tokyo. "So, which part of Tokyo should we look over later?"

The alien didn't even look at the map, it just flicked its tongue, "Why don't we tail that new teacher?"

"Okay, no." I chuckled, shifting over and picking up a rice triangle for a bite, "I didn't take you for a perverted alien."

The symbiote struck me on the back of the head, followed by a quick "Ow!" from me.

"The wench's body is not our focus!" It closed in on my face, frowning further, "Think about how her body language compared to the man from the other day. Her voice, too. It was very similar. "

I shook my head, "But, she didn't kill any of the students, did she? If she was one of them, she would be out there killing people as we speak."

"Perhaps." The alien flicked its tongue, closing in again, "We should do it just to be sure, though. If anyone dies, it will be on our hands!"

I tried thinking of some excuse to not, but I had nothing. We didn't know how they operated or how they went about things. If we had a lead on one, we had an obligation to check it out as a person with extra abilities. Otherwise, they very well might win what seemed to be a war. They've already killed countless people and they were clearly not stopping.

"Alright, fine. We'll tail them after school under one condition." The symbiote nodded, obviously pleased with getting its way, "We will trail them as Venom, not Spider-Man. I don't want the hero associated with stalking a woman."

"We are okay with this."

I continued my lunch, happy to have a bit of peace and quiet before going to class.

Outside School Grounds

The young man opened the door to an alley with a woman he was clinging onto by her shoulder. He was wearing a grey beanie over medium length brown hair. He had on a loose red hoodie with a black shirt on underneath and a pair of black loose-fitted pants that were also sagging. With a smirk, he pushed the woman away.

The girl was wearing a pair of pink ear muffs over her long black hair. She had on a brown coat over her school uniform. Below her skirt was a pair of black leggings and the typical pair of school shoes. She laughed as she turned around.

The boy nodded towards the school, "Go on, Kana, get to class so the school doesn't come after ya or anything." He remarked.

The girl began walking, "Alright, Mitsuo, I'm going! But you better be here when school gets out, hear me?"

He nodded, waving her off, "Yeah, yeah, I know. I'll be here."

The two departed, Mitsuo deciding to go to the city for a bit of business. He whipped out his phone, calling a buddy of his, "Yo, dude. Some idiot decided not to pay me back some money I had, I'm planning on going down there myself to get it after I drop my girl home."

"I got your back, meet me at the train station when we're doing it." The boy hung up the phone and was on his way thereafter.

Sunset

I sat between two buildings in a dark alley across from the entrance to the school as the hulking form. As Venom, we finally saw the teacher walking out of the school with the same face she donned in class. It was time.

We scaled the wall, jumping over on top of the building to look down below. Good thing too, because she took the alley we were just over.

We stalked over her, jumping over buildings and occasionally moving away from the ledge to avoid being detected. It didn't take too long for her to go into another alley. She was met with a dead end by a gate that separated one side of the alley from another. She turned around, then turned back to the fence.

Her entire head separated from itself, opening into almost a flower-like shape made of flesh and teeth. A few tendrils shot out from the same mouth, pushing off the ground and lifting her up.

"She really is one of them." Tamiya heard us, turning immediately.

We jumped forward, shooting a black web towards her. She sliced at the web, cutting it in two before launching herself up. She jabbed at us with a tendril, catching us in the stomach! We returned by grabbing her with our huge arms and shooting large tendril appendages at the walls ourselves. The tendril stuck to the wall and we pulled towards the wall with the alien facing towards it.

She almost hit the wall but she swiped our face with the tendril. I won't lie, that one really did hurt and even blinded us for a few seconds for Venom to recover. While we did so, all three of us fell to the floor.

We were almost going to strike another time, but the woman was holding up her hands.

Venom and I gave her a look of confusion, "What are you doing?"

"Surrendering." Her mouth closed back to her face from class, "I'm surprised. I did not expect you to be able to speak with that tongue in the way."

We were on our feet now, even when hunched over we towered over her by almost four feet. "Are you insulting us?"

"No." She paused before continuing, "You said us, is there another of you?"

"Never mind that!" We closed in, Venom getting close enough that our saliva dripped on her face, "You gave up, so what do you want?"

"I've heard about you and that you were able to overpower one of the other of my kind. I would simply realize that fighting you alone would prove futile." She looked over to the alley entrance, where a girl in our school uniform was stuck staring at us. She screamed and ran out of view. The parasite looked back at us, "Perhaps we should find someplace else to talk where no one will see us. There's another I want you to meet."

I was about to decline when Venom answered for me instead, "Meet us in the Harold Coffee Shop, in a booth so we may speak frankly. We will wear our hood up."

We leapt out of the alley in a single bound, leaving a crater behind as we did. Venom leapt once we hit the rooftop, going even further before casting a thick, black web to a building to swing. We landed on a flagpole as Spider-Man so as to not break the pole once we landed.

"Are you kidding me?! Meet us in a café! What were you thinking?"

"We did not want to make another scene there, people would hate us more." The symbiote emerged from my chest, looking back up at me, "If we want to learn about them, we must ask questions."

I sighed, "I guess I did complain about that earlier, didn't I?" I looked back over the city. "How did you even know about Herald café? I never talked about it."

We see your mind, Shinichi.

I nodded to Venom's telepathic answer.

"Whelp, let's go to the café then." I jumped off the pole, casted a line of web, and then swung towards the train station for the possibly dangerous meet up.

New York City

Avenger's Tower

Peter arrived at the laboratory of Tony Stark in a cloth version of his black and white costume. As he leapt to the runway of the Quinjet he made his presence known. "Don't be alarmed! I'm not wearing a murderous goop; it only looks like I am."

Tony raised an eyebrow, "You have a suit like that?"

The young hero let his head hang, "Yeah, I do. A friend of mine made it for me because she liked the look." He pepped back up, raising his hands, "Okay, she's not always a friend. She kind of plays both sides of the law, but she's not too-."

Iron Man raised his hand, prompting the young adult to quiet down. He nodded to the machine, which looked exactly like the machine Reed had. "This is the machine you'll need to catch your sister-totes."

"Symbiotes." Peter walked towards the machine, "You have their signal, or signature or whatever?"

Tony shouted, "Get away, its not ready yet!"

Spider-Man quickly hopped away from the machine, landing on a pillar next to a console. The vigilante turned to the Avenger, raising an eyebrow, "Why isn't it ready?"

"We still have no clue where your aliens are. If they're in the same dimension then this will be much easier, but if they aren't then this will be difficult to figure out." Tony walked towards the machine, beckoning the spider-themed hero with him towards the other side of it. There lay a machine with a capsule inside of it. "This device is going to be able to pick up any signatures related to them, so if we got something they were tied to in this dimension, we could tether the dimension they are currently in with that item."

"So we need something from them to find them?"

"That's where the money is."

Clapping his hands together, Spider-Man laughed, "Well, we could probably get something from Kassidy considering he's on his way to a comfortable estate in prison. As for Venom we could probably get some of Scorpion's DNA considering he was Venom for a while."

Tony nodded, "Scorpion? Was he bonded to the symbiote recently?"

"How recently are we talking?"

"Tell me how long its been since then and I'll judge whether or not that would be recent."

Peter scratched the back of his head, "U-um, about fiv… onths.. . go."

"Excuse me?"

"Five months… ago."

Tony scrunched his brow, "Why can't we get Eddie, Parker? Wasn't he bonded with this thing just before you got here?"

"Yeah, he was." There was a pause before he continued, "Bu-u-u-t, I kind of couldn't catch him because he bonded with another symbiote and ran away." There was another sigh as Tony began thinking about what to do next.

Herald Café

Twenty Minutes Later

I sat in the booth with a gray hoodie made by the same alien that made up the mass of black monster and the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. I had ordered some tea and half of it was already gone by the time Tamiya arrived with a man beside her. Venom noticed her first, as by the time I turned to face her, his face was over mine underneath the hood.

The man immediately went for a tendril, but Venom had a similar idea. His meaty tendril and our black spear stopped in front of each other's faces.

The only reason we didn't pierce each other was because Tamiya ordered, "Enough!"

We both retracted our makeshift blades, though Venom did so with his evil chuckle.

The two sat down across from us. When the waitress came by, Venom retracted the tongue. She took our orders, the other two just wanted water and I ordered a lemon scone. I did keep my head lowered the entire time so as to not petrify the hostess. Once the order came back around, we began.

Tamiya started, "Let me introduce myself, I-."

"Ryoko Tamiya, a teacher at the high school starting today. We know." We growled. "We are Venom."

Tamiya continued, "This is Mr. A, another one of us as you have probably deduced."

"Yup, we noticed." I took a bite of the lemon scone, which really wasn't as difficult as I thought it might be. "Why was it important that we meet him?"

Mr. A frowned, "Why are we speaking with this creature?"

Tamiya closed her eyes, speaking plainly as in class, "There is more value in having him as an enemy. He was the one that defeated another of us."

"So it is hostile towards us and should be eliminated."

Tamiya continued on her own, "Mr. A and I do not wish to harm humans. In fact, we are curious about human life and wish to study it further." She paused before continuing, "Mr. A and I had sexual intercourse and I am now pregnant."

"So the parasites breed now." Venom inquired, but I continued, "Is that even possible considering the human part of you is dead?"

Tamiya elaborated motionless as I took another bite of scone. "The humans we took over are not decaying. We took over their bodies in such a way to allow us to keep them alive. As for the functioning of the organ, it is my experiment to see how it works and to understand humans."

"Which I think is pointless." Mr. A chimed in, "There is no point in this. We do not need to understand them or ourselves, we must only eat humans. There's no point in asking otherwise." He stood from the table, walking out of the café swiftly.

"He will be an issue for us." Venom added.

"Please, do not mind him. He still has not gotten over his hunger to be able to see the bigger picture."

I took another sip of tea before coming back to the conversation, "How does your kind breed anyways? Eggs, right?"

"Actually, we do not reproduce with each other. In fact, I do not recall how we reproduce."

"That doesn't seem like something you shouldn't know." I said before Venom continued, "Though, we can't say we know how we reproduce either, personally."

"I am still curious about you referring to yourself as a plural noun, but I think I know why. So let me make one thing clear to you, Venom." She let the side of her face that faced the wall open into a tendril, "If you try to fight me again or expose my identity, I will not hesitate to kill those you call classmates in the span of three seconds." With that, Tamiya stood from the booth and walked towards the door.

I paid for my scone, finally looking at the hostess with my face rather than looking down, then walked into an alley before swinging away as Spider-Man towards home. I took my time, allowing for long, wide swings rather than the usual rapid and quick swinging and zipping I did.

I took a deep breath as I swung around a building, a groan emerging as I did. "We gave way too much away back there. Why did you have to go and tell her that we know she's a teacher? The name would be enough!"

I believed it would intimidate her. The symbiote defended.

"Yeah, well great job pal," I pushed myself high into the air so I could have a longer fall for the next swing, "You intimidated her right into threatening us with the people in my class!"

As we closed into the end of the fall, I casted another web and was sent swinging a bit faster through the air than I had been the past few minutes. I let go a bit early, picking up speed as I rounded another corner. As I finished letting go of that rope, I flew through an alley past the train station and landed on top of a train so I could head on home with a bit of laziness instead.

"Here's to hoping she's telling the truth about wanting to understand humans rather than killing them."

Elsewhere in Tokyo

Mitsuo jabbed the blade into the man's side just barely stopping his strike with the bat before throwing him to the ground. The man whimpered as the blood just began to trickle out of him, warm and scarlet.

His partner in crime stood there with his hands on his head, shock plastered on his face.

Mitsuo shrugged, "I told him I'd do it."

"You ain't actually supposed to kill the guy! We're hustlers, not murderers!" He turned around, pacing in a circle before shouting, "SHIT!"

"Look, the guy pulled a bat on me, man! I had to go in or I would be in a puddle of blood myself. Sometimes, its you or the other guy. I chose me!" The beanie-wearing thug looked back at the man, who was now motionless. "With those Mincemeat Murders plus that other monster people been saying eats people whole, I don't blame him for being scared." Mitsuo crouched down, digging in the man's pockets for the money he was owed.

New York City

Avenger's Tower

Reed Richards was in the lab by now, explaining the situation much better than Peter.

Tony turned to Peter, "Venom was made using your DNA and you didn't think to tell me!"

Peter jumped, holding his hands up, "I was going to but then you asked more questions and-."

"Zip it!"

Peter zipped it.

Tony continued, "Is there any other details being left out? You fought them there, didn't you? Which order did they all in? Was there any debris with them that could have had your blood on it? Maybe a trace of the other symbiote; anything?"

Peter nodded, "They actually fell in at the same time, a few papers fell in too but they were charred from some of the electric fires. No DNA on them."

Tony turned to Reed, who was already calculating the equations. He looked up, holding his chin with an enlarged hand, "If my calculations are correct, they most likely ended up in the same dimension."

Tokyo

Mitsuo was by himself now as his partner left the house to heave up his dinner. He was checking out the house to see if there were any valuables he could manage to steal to pawn. After searching for a good ten minutes, he found nothing.

He finally stumbled back over the old man's body who's blood must have been drying, because some parts of it were already incredibly dark. Mitsuo crouched down, scoffing, "Should'a drank more water ya goat. At least you had the mone…"

The dark spots of the blood began to slither a bit faster, forming closer to the center and getting darker as it did. As the dark spots accumulated, the blood began to rise from the ground.

Mistuo jerked up, "What the fu-!"

He was wrapped in the blood, being squeezed and surrounded by what felt like five or six or seven voices laughing in his ear! The blood encased his body, replacing his clothes with a skin that was much smaller than his own shape. His hands turned to claws and the blood wrapped around his face, making the already dark house disappear.

Everything was dark and everything hurt, it was like a roaring pain that made his mind go blank in desperation. But one this was on his mind, a thought that was not his own and yet was oh so enticing. As if the angel on his shoulder had been slaughtered and laid to rest across the mantle of metal bars, the devil was empowered and spoke clearly in his ear.

We are now living Carnage…