Peter landed on the roof in a classic perch, taking note of the students still filling the halls on his side. He peered into the windows facing the courtyard in the middle of the school.

"I really should have asked for a better description…" He took notice of a man who seemed to just be wandering the halls, calmly taking a stroll. "Or just look for the only calm dude in the chaos."

Spider-Man dove forward, aiming two stories above where the intruder was like he had done plenty of times before to other criminals. He let gravity do its magic. "I really hope you're the bad guy."

With that, he smashed through the glass with his feet and slammed into the man. Peter pushed off with his feet, sending him flying into a deserted classroom. When the hero landed, striking a pose as he did, he was the only one standing between the man and the exit to the room.

That is, if he doesn't consider the window an exit. Peter considered.

"Okay, so this is gonna go one of two ways pal. Either you give up on your own and let the police handle you or you fight and be forced into their car and thus put in jail. Your call." Peter lectured, as per usual.

"Odd," the man answered in a monotone, "I wasn't tracking you down, Spider-Man. I was tracking down Venom." He looked up finally, showing no expression of pain or anger. "Though, I thought I remembered you wearing black and white."

"Venom? You're tracking him too?" Peter turned around frantically, "Don't tell me he's here! And impersonating me at that. I thought he was over his 'Lethal Protector' phase."

The man was finally up on his feet, "He mentioned one of my associates as his teacher, so I came here to kill him myself. But now, I will need to kill you, too, it seems."

Peter crouched down for a fighting stance, "Hang on, pal. If you're after Venom we might have just had a misunderstanding!"

"Are you human?"

"What? O-of course I am, what does-?"

"Then you must die, Spider-Man."

Suddenly, his head split apart and unwound itself to show a new muscly mass of skin, tissue, bone and two eyes looking ahead at Peter. Three tendrils with sharp, curved blades stuck out from where his neck was.

One of the tendrils shot forward and Spidey just barely dodged it before hopping into a backflip to gain distance from it.

"I know what this is." Peter frowned, getting ready to strike the opponent, "A really bad decision, is what this is."

As the creature ahead of the hero began to step forward, a black mass shifted through the window and crashing into the room. With a screech, Venom and the intruder from the Twilight Zone started slashing, clawing and hitting each other before Venom was knocked back towards Peter.

We dug our claws into the ground to slow to a halt. We stood to Spider-Man's left, facing the creature in front of us.

The hero didn't look in our direction, "Venom."

"Spider-Man." We responded in a snarl.

"Let's deal with this guy first, then we can hash it out later. Deal?"

"Deal. How do you want to play this?" I spoke through Venom.

Spider-Man leapt forward, casting a web on a desk and yanking it towards the parasite, "This ain't my first rode-OH!" His attack was countered by Mr. A; he slammed against the desk and shoved it towards the hero with the meaty tendrils, sending him out of the classroom and into the hall.

We didn't give the parasite a chance, opting to charge in and create a tendril with our right hand and swinging as it emerged. It connected with Mr. A and threw him into a wall, through the podium and into the chalkboard. The board shattered and fell to the ground, broken in half and uncovering the now cratered wall. We flicked our tongue before screeching into Mr. A's face. This mistake led to the parasite stabbing us in our mouth, stunning us and giving him enough room to smack us back and into the hall with Spider-Man, though partially through the wall and door frame.

Spider-Man was already up but our wounds were still healing. As they were, and Mr. A slowly walked towards us, Peter hurriedly asked, "You've been here long enough to learn these guys' weakness, right?"

To give us time to answer, we launched a web at the feet of Mr. A, which forced him to cut down the durable substance. We used that opportunity to lurch forward and shoot our fist into his gut. This sent him flying into the level above us. We turned back to Peter.

"Their head is the only thing that isn't human. Their bodies are still like everyone else's. But killing the head is much easier."

"Without killing him if possible."

I took control over the mouth, "These parasites kill the person they take the bodies of anyways. The people are already dead, the only thing that's left is an alien insect." We looked over to Spider-Man. "Their innate goal is to cannibalize whatever they host. This isn't a normal criminal, otherwise we wouldn't suggest killing."

Spider-Man frowned under his mask, "Like you have any room to talk!" Spider-Man turned to the hole, "But that thing clearly isn't human. Let's just fight this thing and get the situation under control."

"Fair enough." We jumped through the hole, Venom, Spider-Man and I, and landed on the floor of the higher level.

Blood was trailed out of the room and into the hallway. We followed, to where the man with the tendrils for a head seemed to be crawling. The body was obviously about to die, meaning the parasite was too. If we were going to feed, it would have to be soon.

Mr. A hissed back at us, "Neither of you can stop us! We will consume all of humanity and sustain ourselves. There are countless of us!" He turned his body around, showing his front of which his organs were spilling out of. "I am insignificant compared to the rest of us."

We turned to Spider-Man, who was turned around already, "Proof enough?"

"Yeah… I guess." He turned to the classroom, "Leave the human remains at least. He might have family." With that, Spider-Man left the scene.

We fed on the parasite.

I found my way to the rooftop, where Peter was sitting, perched. He noticed us right away, standing up and turning to face us. "You're done, I take it."

"We are, but we must speak with someone."

"No." He put his hand on the symbol on his chest, "We need to find Carnage and get him back to New York, our New York, so both of you can serve your sentences!"

"Peter, this world needs help. There's an alien invasion right under everyone's noses and the people don't know what they're up against."

"Is that Venom, or the person underneath talking?"

"Both. We want to help these people if we can. We have to talk with someone first, another one of the parasites."

Spider-Man shook his head, laughing, "There's a parasitic invasion possessing people into cannibalism and you want to talk to one of them!" Peter took a step away to the edge of the building, "Then again, you would feel right at home with cannibals like yourself, wouldn't you?"

"Please," Venom let my head rise from his, letting me and Spider-Man talk face to face, "I'm trying to wrap my head around this myself, but this is my world here. I want to defend humanity and Venom is giving me the power to do it. I remember bits and pieces of you saving others, you understand what it takes!"

The masked hero turned to me, "Yeah, kid? He tell you about his time before he was in this world? When he was eating people right off the street? Not just the normal feeding, I mean tearing people limb from limb." He crossed his arms, "I get wanting to help, but Venom isn't the way to do it."

I tensed up, "You keep bringing that up as if he's still doing this now! He's not, I'm keeping him in check!"

"You act like that hasn't been said before. Other hosts did the same thing and failed!" Shrugging, he turned back to the city, "Even Eddie, the original Venom, was changed from those memories. He was turned into a cold-blooded killer rather than being hellbent on killing me alone."

"But I haven't been changed like that and right now we have other things we need to worry about. Carnage and the parasites are out there; you and I are the only good defense this world has against them." Venom formed back over my face, "We can deal with the parasites if you focus on Carnage. If we catch wind of either one, we will save the day yet, SM."

"Ugh, do not let him call me SM again. I hate that name." He turned back to the city, putting a leg on the ledge. He waited a second, then sighed, turning back once again, "You seem like a good kid, so I'm warning you now, he will corrupt you and once he does, I'll be there to stop both of you. But judging from that fight with that parasite alone, I think I will need the help, so I'm trusting you for now." He turned away, "Don't make me regret this."

The red and blue hero leapt off the building and cast a grey line to the surrounding buildings. He swung down the street before running on the wall of a building and rounding the corner with a web attached to the corner. Spider-Man fled the scene, and now it was time to meet with Reiko Tamura to talk about what happened.

She was walking away from the scene, turning into an alleyway. One of the buildings narrowed the path and created a corner for Tamura to turn into. Above her, we sat, one claw inside a building. She tilted her head so her eyes me our lenses.

"Was that a plan of yours?"

Her body remained unfazed, as per her usual mannerisms, "I told you already, my goal is only to observe and to learn to coexist. That fool merely followed his basic instincts, and was a liability. In fact, you did me a favor by killing him."

"We did not do it for you, gruel! He threatened the lives of those children, protecting them was our priority."

"That's another thing," one of our lenses narrowed in confusion as she continued, "I had not realized you and Spider-Man were separate people. When I saw him on the television, his resemblance to you was striking."

"We have heard it before."

"Regardless, this has changed the situation drastically. I want you and Spider-Man to know that I am not a threat to you, can I trust that he will respect my space as you have been willing to?"

"Spider-Man may just try to do something," we cast a web at the top of the building, not needing to look at it, "But we will try explaining it to him. He may not go for it, though. You did kill a person, after all."

"Have you never killed a human before?"

We left the conversation, rushing towards the rooftop. When we were high enough to scale the opposing building, we pushed off the building we were on. We flew over the roof, landing on the ledge and hopping up so we could cast a web, sending us on our way.

I just want today to be over.

This chapter was EXTREMELY short for my usual per usual, but I've been sitting on this chapter for a while now and I know if I stacked anything on in this chapter now, it won't be as well thought out as what it could be. As some of you may have seen, I have actually started another series on top of this, so I've been using that to get into this with some ease. My hope is that I'll finish at least one of these stories I've started by the time I'm off to college in a few weeks.