Oh man. Edits are a royal pain. At least I finally got around to fixing mistakes in some of the previous chapters. Feel free to go back and play 'Spot the Difference.' Edits and all, I plan on writing up a storm tonight. Anyway, thank you KuriMaster13 for reviewing. It made me happy to hear that I did a good job at portraying Dan in the insanely twisted way I wanted him to be. I normally would have updated tomorrow, but I'm pretty fired up for this chapter. I hope you are too. Onwards!

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Chapter 22

Final Battle

Part I

(Danny POV)

"For your world?" mocked Dan as he looked over in my direction, only serving to make me angrier.

"The one that you ruined, yes," I snarled, my fist glowing a blinding neon green as I poured a ludicrous amount of energy into a single ectoblast.

"Now, now, don't forget to control your temper," said Dan. The two-voiced laughing started up again, causing the majority of the S.H.I.E.L.D. force below to freeze up. That was pretty impressive, considering all of those people were highly trained professionals.

"I wouldn't say he's the only one with bad temperament," said Hood, coming up behind Dan and shooting that white energy of hers at Dan. Even the indifferent Hood seemed taken aback when Dan simply soaked up the energy.

"You can do that?" yelled Hood.

"I found a simply wonderful way to deal with attacks," said Dan as he kept on smiling with that insanely creepy smile of his.

I was once again sucked into the vacuum of seething rage that never failed to completely consume its victims until there was nothing left. It ate away at its victims until the only thing left to live for was burning hatred.

I seemed to be a victim of a lot of things.

"D-Danny," I faintly heard Peter say below me. "Is that really you?"

I ignored him and lunged at Dan with the ferocity of a starving wolf. At this point of time, I wasn't afraid to show a little animosity.

Dan turned around from the busy work he was making of the S.H.I.E.L.D. force just in time to get a dent in his face via me.

"Ah yes, the true colors of a ghost! Surely you know that no ghost is truly good," said Dan delightfully as his face fixed itself courtesy of Venom.

"You're right," I said in such a bloodthirsty manner that I sounded like an animal. "I'm not good. But I'm above the likes of you."

"Now that was just mean," said Dan, still smiling. His eye began to cloud over with red. "But no matter. We have more important business to attend to."

"Like my slow and painful death."

"I hardly want to rival myself."

"What?"

"There are windows all over the place. No one is stopping you from looking at your reflection."

I rushed over to the nearest window and took a look at myself. I knew I was taking the bait but I was too scared to care. I had barely even noticed my hood was down all the way to the fight. I stopped and took a good long look. What I saw was worse than any kind of torture Dan had thrown at me.

My ears were pointed and I was starting to get small fangs. I didn't have the black around my eyes. I didn't have the green skin either because I still had my humanity. However small a fragment it might have been, I still had it. Those awfully familiar cracks had started appearing on my face. Even more than that, what scared me the most was my eye. It was a blood red and the look in it practically radiated ruthless destruction and blood thirst.

Even in the air, I managed to stumble backwards. Dan appeared right behind me. His smile and laugh weren't affecting me anymore.

"You're well on your way. I'm torn. On one hand, you might be a valuable asset to my power. On the other hand, you might rival me. What to do, what to do?" asked Dan in a relaxed tone.

"It really is a shame that you found a way to suck up ectoplasm," I said, acting strangely calm about the whole ordeal.

"I can still use it just fine, and that's what matters to me. Oh, hey, I have a good idea," said Dan. Without any more warning, he used his ghostly wail on the S.H.I.E.L.D. force below.

Everything leading up to that point had seemed like a dream to me. The fact that I realized Peter and others were on the ground snapped me out of my stupor.

"No!" I yelled, nose-diving downwards.

I heard very loud and very colorful curses coming from S.H.I.E.L.D. as they were blown backwards into the surrounding buildings. A lot of dust and debris later, Fury emerged with his finger pointed at me.

"You look different," Fury said. That was, in fact, the only thing he said to me before the surviving members of S.H.I.E.L.D. came from the collapsed building.

"Get him. Both of them." Fury barked into his little communicator.

By this time, I had landed on the ground. I found myself slowly backing up from a quickly advancing and angry S.H.I.E.L.D. force.

"Stop!" cried out a female voice. I looked over to see Dani floating down to the ground. I was glad she was vouching for me, but I was worried they would turn on her too. Not that I had S.H.I.E.L.D. on my side to begin with.

"Why should we? Just take a look at him. He's clearly on Dan's side," yelled an unidentifiable voice from the crowd.

"What makes you say that? He just tried to kill me!" I yelled, seriously becoming fed up with them. Even at a time like that, they still couldn't get it through their thick skulls that I wasn't evil?

"Do you know what someone once told me? 'Never argue during a fight. It could cost you your life.' I think that was a very wise thing of him to say," said a deep voice from the sky. Everyone looked up to see Dan standing there with an insanely sized ball of ectoplasm mixed with the Venom symbiote.

No one had time to react.

The symbiote spread through the ectoplasm latched onto the first living thing it sensed as it hit the ground. In the blink of an eye, the entirety of S.H.I.E.L.D. was just another one of the symbiote's slaves.

From what I gathered, it was in Venom's nature to attack anything it saw. That created a very unfortunate and unpleasant situation for the few who escaped Venom's clutches.

"Haven't you had enough?" I yelled at Dan, rising up in the air to meet him face to face.

"Even if you were pitiful, I was not entirely without ignorance the first time. What fun is there in ruling a dead world? No, I want to rule a world that is filled to the brim with fear!" said Dan.

With that bold statement, I decided to do the one thing a ghost was not supposed to do. Especially not me. Especially not me with this particular ghost.

I turned intangible and dove straight through Dan's chest.

"Hey! What are you-" barked Dan in surprise before the world became silent. I briefly caught a glimpse of his face before I was completely cut off from everything. His face was contorted with an odd mix of anger and pain.

So it seems I caught the snake by surprise, I thought.

I saw something that caught my attention in my daring yet idiotic attempt to overshadow Dan.

Just like me, there was a time medallion lodged in Dan's body. It occurred to me that maybe if I could remove the time medallion…we might have a chance.

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I'm splitting this chapter into two parts. It would be too long if I didn't.

I'm going to work on the part after this one tonight. Tomorrow I'll post and finish it. There may be two parts, maybe even three. There's no way it has any chance of exceeding three though. Anyway, enjoy your partial chapter. You'll see this story again tomorrow in your emails.