Finally back in New York, Spidey decides to stretch his legs with an early morning swing through town. "It's good to be home. Fighting super villains in another state just felt so wrong. But now I can just relax and clear the streets of home grown baddies." He sees a mugging taking place down below and jumps down. "Hey pal, guess what? You get the honor of being my first Manhattan victim this week." He delivers a powerful uppercut to the thugs chin and knocks him down. But to his surprise the thug jumps up and runs off.
Spider-man gives chase. "Wow, most guys go down after a witty one liner and punch. This guy's booking it." He nearly loses the crook until a ring of fire surrounds him. He then transforms into a Mysterio-bot. Before it can do anything it is immediately fried by the flames. Spidey looks up and sees a fiery figure descend down.
The figure dies down and turns into a regular form that appears to be Spider-woman's costume, it is however black now, with red and orange flame colored boots and gloves. "Welcome home Petey."
"Liz? Is that you?" The two head off, as the girl explains the recent events surrounding her new powers and the battle at OSCORP. "That must have been a hard time for you Liz. You did well all things considered."
"Yeah but it wasn't easy. On the good note we might have some new friends to help out."
"So how's MJ doing? Did the serum help?"
"Well she didn't get any powers from what I can tell but she did start to heal quicker. The doctors say she should be able to come home soon. By the way, what do you think is going on with me?" She says as she lands down on a roof.
"Well I did bump into doctor Connors when I was down there and he showed me something. You might actually be a mutant. The best I can figure is you've always had the gene, but getting the serum started it up and, in time it overrode your spider powers."
"So I'll probably have to get a new name."
"Hey how about the Human Torch?" Peter says to Liz who looks at him annoyed and flies off. "Better hurry before you're late for your first day back." She says.
"Okay not digging that huh? How about Flame Girl, Burner, uh…Heatwave?" he says as he continues to follow her.
In another part of town, Eddie Brock arrives to his empty apartment and plops down on his couch and turns on the television, ready to start his new life. As he sits he hears a strange scratching sound. He looks around and sees nothing, then turns his attention back to the television. He hears the sound again and when he looks up he is suddenly face to face with an orange creature hanging from his ceiling. He screams and stumbles onto the floor, attempting to make his way to the door. The creature however, shoots a large mass of webbing at him, pinning him to the wall. "What are you?"
"Oh Eddie, we're hurt. You really don't remember us?" it says to him. "But we found another."
"Venom?"
"Don't call us that!" it says as it slashes at his face with one of it's tendrils, missing and hitting the wall. "When you were us we were Venom, but now call us Scream. You abandoned us. But we found a better partner…" it says as it peels back the symbiote from the head to reveal the new host. "…in Sally."
"Sally, you have to fight it, don't let it take control." Eddie implores her.
She simply chuckles as she leans in toward him. "You really don't get it do you? I want this, We want this. We can have anything we want. We will let you live for your service to us. We'll even let you in on a little secret. We're thinking of killing someone, your old bro Peter Parker. Or maybe we should call him Spider-man. We will do what you never could. And all you need to do to make the death of Spider-man a reality is keep your mouth shut." She says as she slips out the window, leaving Eddie stuck to the wall.
At a secret location in the city, Bernard Gou is sitting with some of his men at a table discussing his next plan. "Alright gentlemen we need to pick up the pace, Negative is taking us apart piece by piece and Sable is no help."
"What do you suggest Capitaine? Don't you trust the Hobgoblin?" one of his men asks.
"I don't trust anyone I don't hire personally. But if we can take care of Spider-man that will endear me to the rest of the bosses and free us up to take care of Negative. Pardon me gentlemen I have a call to make." He walks off and picks up his cell phone.
At M3 high school Liz and Peter walk down the hall as she gives him some news. "By the way Captain Stacy was asking for you the whole time you were gone. I had a heck of a time explaining where you were."
"What did he say?"
"Not much, only to tell you to meet him when you could."
"Peter your back. I missed you." Gwen Stacy says coming down the hall.
"Hey Gwen, it's great to be back." Peter says to her.
"Hey Pete, your back." Harry Osborn says as he seemingly comes out of nowhere and wraps his arm around Gwen . "So how was Miami?"
"Great, really great, but it's good to be home again. I heard you guys had a lot of excitement while I was gone."
"Yeah mom's still pretty shaken up, but we'll be fine."
"We were on our way to see MJ." Gwen says standing next to Harry.
"Yeah I heard about that."
"Why don't we all go together?" she says.
"Great idea, besides I'm sure Mary Jane would love to hear about your trip Petey." Liz says.
"I'll catch up with you I just need to grab some stuff from my locker." Peter says as he heads up stairs. He opens his locker and grabs his books and stuffs them in his bag. When he closes his locker he is surprised to see Sally Avril leaning against the lockers next to him. "Woah! Sally I didn't see you there." He says.
"Oh hey Peter, heard you were back. Thought I'd give you a heads up."
Peter starts to smile as he takes it as a joke. "Okay, about what?" he is suddenly surprised as he is grabbed by the throat by an orange tendril that extends from under Sally's shirt.
She lifts him in the air and throws him into an empty classroom before anyone can see. She jumps into the room and locks the door. "We're back." As she says this the symbiote covers her body. "And we've got a new look. Be truthful. Does it make us look fat?"
"Venom, your back?"
"You know you're the second person to get that wrong today. From now on call us SCREAM!"
"How ironic." Peter jumps up to attack her, but he finds that will Venom was a combination of strength and speed, she adds agility to that list. Scream easily counters his moves as they engage in hand to hand combat. She ducks under one of his blows and slashes at him with her left hand that she has morphed into an axe. "Hey hold it, timeout, technical foul, no weapons allowed."
"Shut up!" she says as she unloads a furious combo of punches and slashes on his body. "Have you ever spent ten minutes in a room with yourself? It is so annoying!" she picks him up off the floor and then slams him again. "But you know, we're not like Eddie. We could care less about making you suffer. I think we'll just make this brief." She forms her right hand into a sword and prepares to slash him.
"Okay we'll make this quick. I have an appointment to keep." He surprises her as he reveals his web-shooters hidden on his wrists as he webs two of the desks and pulls them, causing them to slam into her, knocking her down as he jumps out the window. She recovers and looks out the window, and after finding no trace of him roars in frustration before moving back into the building, not even noticing Peter clinging to the wall under the window.