A/N: I actually managed to finish this chapter in one sitting and man, do I love this chapter. Also, my first Sado-Masochism story is being revised and crossposted on AO3 under the same name.
Chapter 2-5
With Martin Li
Martin Li hung up and pocketed his cell phone. He growled under his breath before walking away. He heads into the room where Luigi continues to torture the real Yuriko Watanabe and pulls a chair out to sit before her. He laces his fingers together which become clenched fists.
"You're working with Spider-Man?" Martin growls, his skin taking on a glowing light.
Yuri, who had a hole the size of a bullet in her left cheek, looked up. She smiled at him but her face contorted from the hole. "Surprised, you should be."
Martin shook his head. "This is not an act of justice, Captain Watanabe; this is corruption. As an officer of the law, you're supposed to uphold the law and enforce it. Yet here you are, working with a serial killer to get around the law." Martin smiles. "I can see how easy it is for you. If there's something the justice system can't do, you get your errand spider to do it for you. Need someone taken out, just give him a name and location. And when you need evidence planted, you have Spidey do the dirty deed for you." He opens his eyes. "The Kraven the Hunter seen on television was not the same Kraven the Hunter. Do you want to know how I know? Because I was meeting with Kraven, talking to him, chatting with him like old friends.
"That means you have Spider-Man use a Kraven double. It's a perfect way to kickstart the Spider Act. You malicious, psychotic, evil, manipulative bitch."
Yuri tilts her head, her mocking smile ever present on her face. "Pot calling the kettle black."
Martin stands up. "You are corrupt." He holds his hand out and allows it to glow for a few minutes. "I am here to fight the corruption in New York City. I am the one to bring balance to this world. You do not belong in this perfect world. I swear to god, you will never leave this room. I would kill you but that would be too easy. I will have Luigi here torture you in the most brutal ways he can think of. And while you're sitting in that chair, screaming your lungs out, I will have my Chameleon take your place. There is going to be an attack tonight and he - or rather, you - will order an attack on a factory of mine. Hundreds of SWAT officers will be killed and it will be all your fault."
He glows his hand and raises it high above his head. He slaps her hard across the cheek with the hole in it. The slap echoes throughout the room like a bell and Yuri falls to the ground while still bound to the chair.
"I will make sure my men will bring you the heads of every single SWAT that is killed so you can sit and wallow in your self-pity. This will be the consequences of your corruption." He powers down himself and turns to his regular self. He turns around before his full face can be seen and dons a Demon mask. "Luigi, make sure that she will never feel safe again."
Luigi pulled out a fishing hook from his jacket pocket. "Don't worry, boss, I'll be sure to have a good time in hell torturing her. A Demon does as a Demon does."
"Welcome to Hell, Yuriko Watanabe."
NYPD
Yuri 2 was on the rooftop as scheduled hours later and Spidey landed on the rooftop in front of her. He folds his arms over his chest, eagerly waiting for an answer.
"Spider-Man, figured I would be seeing you here sooner rather than later. Good, because I got some juicy information for you."
Spidey leans forward. "Oh, please tell."
"Brike Warehouse," Yuri 2 answered, "Like 'Bright' but with a K. That's the name of the warehouse where the gangsters are manufacturing their guns. I'm pretty sure it was supposed to say 'Pike' or 'Bright' but someone didn't want to bother changing that little typo. They gotta a lot of hardware coming in and out of that place. The good news is that I got a warrant for the police… and full authorization to use a SWAT team on the place."
"Please, Yuri, you'll be wasting less resources if you just send me."
Yuri 2 shook her head. "No, it would be too risky. If Spider-Man showed up after I got a warrant for the place, it'd look too suspicious. People might ask how you found out about the place. We do want to keep these meetings between us confidential, right?"
"True, true." He looks down at the ground. "So then, what exactly is your plan?"
"Standard raiding operation. And if these guys have some heavy equipment and superpowered equipment as you said, then it wouldn't be a bad idea if you hung around and waited."
"Ooh, I get to be a stalking spider, so excited; always been my biggest fantasy." He salutes her. "Don't worry, I'll be there at the Brike Warehouse and I'll make sure I'm a good little spider and hold back."
"Good, that's all I ask." Yuri 2 quickly informs him of the warehouse's location before waving him goodbye. With Spidey swinging away, she turns away to the edge and smiles. "I'll see you in hell, Spider-Man."
Spidey lands on top of the same antenna as before and looks back in the direction of the NYPD.
Okay then, the meeting went better this time, especially on Yuri's end. So far, her heartbeat was at a normal rate this time. I know my plan was to have the police do a raid and everything but all of a sudden, she's requesting that I come in and stay back just in case. I was joking earlier about going to the warehouse; my entire plan hinged on the police being useful for once. I wasn't planning on being there but I guess it couldn't hurt. But I will admit that Yuri does seem a bit off.
He shakes his head.
It's probably nothing. I have a few hours before the raid so I better inform everyone.
Brike Warehouse, Greenwich
Spidey swung to a building one block away from the big warehouse spanning at least two blocks. The night gave him a certain sense of camouflage from prying unwanting eyes but not enough to hear anything. Plenty of trucks, semis, and vans with the F.E.A.S.T. logo were parked outside the building and people wearing construction uniforms were walking around the outside of the warehouse. Spidey narrows his eyes behind his mask, leaps over to a building closer, and perches down.
Huh, it looks like the gangsters are using F.E.A.S.T. vans as some kind of front. Interesting.
He leans forward as if that would help him with his hearing but the only thing he heard were the sounds of Venom, Silk, and Black Cat dropping in behind him.
With all four present, Spidey stroked his chin.
"Hello, my lovable squishable insects and cats." He grins. "This should be interesting."
Venom looked ahead. "What are we going to do?"
"We're going to do plenty, Venom. I have a feeling these gangsters aren't going down without a fight so it's only fair we give the SWAT raiding this place a helping hand when we need to." He cracks his knuckles. "I have a feeling there is going to be a bloodbath but I have a plan of my own. We're going to let the SWAT go into that place and raid everything, but we're going to be moving pieces around so that at least one gangster escapes. When that happens, Venom will use a piece of his symbiote to attach to one of the retreating gangsters. I will swing in, demand that he deliver a message to his boss and he will lead us right to the rogue leader." He snaps his fingers. "This gang war will be over just like that."
"If we need at least one of those guys to escape then I should use my bad luck powers." Felicia bats her eyes. "After all, what good is a black cat if she can't cause bad luck?"
"You are so right, kitten," Spidey laughs. "This is going to be a fun sight."
"And what about me?" Silk speaks up, "What am I going to be doing during all of this?"
Spidey looks at her. "You don't have to do anything, Silk. This is going to be a bloodbath, at least for the gangsters and I'm pretty sure you don't want any blood on your hands. You can leave if you want to."
Silk's eyes widened. "But... is there anything useful I can do?"
Huh, I couldn't help but notice that she used the word 'useful' instead of helpful. When I think about it, this entire plan mostly relies on me, Venom, and Black Cat. Silk is just the innocent bystander in this group; the least involved in the group. She seems to have realized this and that is why she is pushing for a role in this operation. I could say that she should walk away and not get involved but that would be the opposite of what she wants. If it means keeping her mentally and emotionally happy, then I guess I can give her a role.
"Protect the police officers," Spidey ordered. "I want you to swing down there and keep a very close eye on the gangsters. If a police officer is wounded and in dire need of help, you help them. We leave most of the work to the SWAT and gangsters and if we're lucky, the only casualties are the gangsters. But we need one alive so he can lead us to their boss."
"Why can't we ussse usss to look into their memories?"
"When you say 'we', do you mean 'we' as a team or 'me, myself, and I?'"
"We, ourssselvesss and usss."
"Thank you for clarifying. And to answer your question: Because there's always the possibility that the gangster probably doesn't know where his boss is. Venom, when you attack a piece of yourself to the criminal, I want you to give it orders that in the event that the bugged gangster doesn't know where his boss is, he is to hp onto a higher-ranking gangster. If we bug the gangster and instead of running directly to his boss but rather a lieutenant, the symbiote leaps to the lieutenant and then the lieutenant leads us to the leader. If we're lucky, the higher-up he went to is the supreme commander."
"Got it." Venom scoots forward. "We'll be heading down there. Wisssh usss luck. We'll ssset up a camera too."
"Only the good kind of luck," black Cat smiled.
Venom leaps off the building and swings forward.
Spidey looks over at Silk. "Silk, it would be a good idea to go into the building and scope the place out. We got five more minutes before the police raid begins."
"Okay," Silk said shakily. She leaps off the building and swings forward.
Black Cat stays behind and pulls something out of her utility belt. "Spider."
He turns towards her. "Yes, my delicious kitty?"
She shows her a picture on her phone. "I wanted to show this to you. I don't know about you but those look like attack sites to me."
Spidey looks at the map with the red and green highlighting. He recognized one of the locations. "That's Kraven's hideout; I burned it down to the ground last night."
"Recognize the other two locations?"
Spidey squints. His eyes widened. "J. Jonah Jameson and Mayor Melissa Peletier's residence?"
"Exactly."
"Why is it highlighted in green?"
"I was hoping you would know that Spider, but I guess even your detective's abilities are fallible." She pockets her phone. "If I had to guess, I would say that Jameson and Peletier are not targets, or at the very least, not targets for them to kill. Conversely, it could also mean that they are people to not be targeted. There were three locations highlighted in green and since Kraven's hideout was one of them, it means that the gangsters probably aren't targeting them."
Spidey clenches his fists. "That's the best-case scenario."
"I'll do an investigation; maybe Jameson and Peletier have some priceless artifacts in their homes." She smiles once more. "Maybe Jameson has a Spider-Man costume in the closet and plays dress-up with it."
"Yeah, that would be the picture of the century." Spidey looks ahead and sees several SWAT vans pull up. Spidey moves to the edge and looks back at Black Cat. "Want to come with me?"
"How could I ever resist wrapping my arms and legs around you?" She climbs onto his back.
"Of course, you like riding me." Spidey leaps forward and swings to the roof of the warehouse. He sets Black Cat down and they climb over to a skylight.
Inside the warehouse were more construction workers who were coming and going with construction equipment like jackhammers, forklifts, and even a tractor. There were no signs of anything looking like a weapon. No shipping containers, nothing.
With the SWAT outside of the warehouse all armed to the teeth with assault rifles and tactical vests, Yuri 2 sat in a police cruiser with Anderson riding shotgun.
Yuri 2 picks up her radio. "Commence the operation now." She reaches into her jacket, feigning reaching for a zippo, and turns on her phone. She sends out a single message to one individual.
'C: D'
A reply came back.
'D: O'
The SWAT kicked open the doors and aimed their guns at the construction.
"Go go go!" a SWAT officer shouted as he waved his machine gun at the construction workers.
"Get on the fucking ground!" a SWAT shotgunner ordered.
A construction worker transporting a jackhammer held his hands up. "What's going on?"
"Back away from the jackhammer!" the shotgunner snapped. "I said back away from the jackhammer!" He grabs the construction worker and subdues him. He pins him to the ground. "Don't you fucking move or I'll blow your fucking head off!"
More SWAT entered the building and subdued the other construction workers, who put up little resistance as they were knocked to the ground.
Watching from the skylight, Spidey tilted his head curiously.
Huh, from the outside, it looks like nothing more than construction workers doing their jobs but I'm smart enough to know that this is a front. But where are the guns? Is it possible that they moved them after Black Cat's raid last night? Possibly.
His spider-sense went off.
What, there are several bombs planted all throughout the warehouse? Where?
He looked around and one of the forklifts lit up in an explosion of glowing white flames. Several SWAT officers were caught in the blast and immediately incinerated. That's when gunfire broke out.
A construction worker who had been hiding shot several SWAT officers subduing his comrades and he quickly donned a Demon mask before going guns blazing. The SWAT gunned him down but more Demons quickly took his place.
The Demons wearing suits came running out wielding glowing whips and swords that managed to cut through the SWAT like butter. One of them had a glowing shield that was impenetrable to all bullets and allowed the Demons to close in. Some more Demons had sticks of glowing dynamite being thrown. One of them had glowing brass knuckles that turned humans into mashed potatoes in a single punch.
"Shit," Spidey curses, "it was an ambush from the very beginning."
"I'll even the odds," Black Cat told him before looking through the skylight. She winks at several Demons before sitting back. "Are you going to go down there?"
Spidey narrows his eyes. "No. I already gave Cindy her instructions so she should be able to do that. But if things get heated, then I will step in and help her out. She is still new to this superhero thing."
I'm curious to see how things are for her."
"I have faith in her. I have complete utter faith in her."
"Are you trying to tell me that or you?"
"Yes."
With Silk
Silk jumps through the window on the top floor and lands on a catwalk. She somersaults forward and runs to the edge. She looks over and gasps at the carnage before her. "Oh my god," she gasps. She tugged on her mask, making sure it was secure before she gripped the rail hard enough to cause it to bend.
"Who do I save first? What should I do?" She pants heavily and looks around, the Demons and SWAT officers shooting at each other with equal casualties on both sides but the Demons are causing more collateral damage.
Silk swings into the center of the warehouse and in the middle of the Demons, all of which jumped at the sight of her and aimed at her.
As if everything was happening in slow-motion, bullets were flying toward her at a speed akin to a sloth crossing the street. Silk tracked the bullets with her eyes and leaped out of the way. She backflips with all her strength a few feet away, missing the bullets by inches. More bullets came her way and she turned and did a front aerial to dodge them. Picking up a fallen shield from the ground, she uses it to block the next set of bullets. She rotates 360 degrees, throws the shield at a Demon, and knocks him back.
All of the bullets were expended from the Demons shooting at her so they decided to bring out their melee weapons.
One of them uses a whip on her. She performs a triple backflip to avoid the attack. When he swings at her again, she rotates 360 degrees counterclockwise and fires a web at his mask. He is being pulled forward and she knocks him out by kicking him across the jaw.
The one with the shield had a sword with him. He charges for Silk from behind, the sword clutched tightly behind him, and Silk doesn't bother to turn around. She backflips high over him and catapults herself to him. She lands on him, both of her feet connecting to his lower back and disabling him. She webs him to the ground after kicking his sword and shields out of the way.
One of them had blowing brass knuckles sharing for her.
She turned around and jerked her head back. In slow motion, she forces his hand to open so she can remove the brass knuckles before he knows what happened. She shoots a web for the ceiling and wraps the end around his knuckle. He is launched into the air and left him dangling.
With more SWAT coming into the building to raid the place, more Demons came in to defend. Silk counted at least ten Demons, all armed with glowing melee weapons they were going to use if their firearms ran dry of bullets. They paid no attention to her so she decided to leap forward and take them down. She leaps over their head and clings to the ceiling. She quickly spins a giant funnel web spanning twenty feet across the ceiling before she leaps to the ground. She quickly fires webs from all ten of her fingertips at the backs of the Demons before sending them flying upward into the spider's web. She webs them to the web for extra measure.
Seven more Demons came rushing in, running and gunning for Silk.
Silk stands her ground and once again entering a slow-motion state, watches as the bullets come flying toward her. When one of them gets too close to her chest, she flicks the bullet away. She does the same thing for several more bullets and causes at least ten bullets to flick off course. One of the Demons has a shotgun. He fires a single shell at her. Silk bends backward at a 90-degree angle, which has her seeing all the shotgun pellets fly over he head before she stands up once more.
When the group of Demons fires on her once more, Silk activates her slow-motion perception more and spins a funnel web to catch all of the bullets and shotgun pellets. She leaps over her handcrafted web and lands on the seven Demons and webs them to the wall. Two more came charging out with a pack of dynamite. Before they had a chance to light it, she web-yanks the dynamite out of their hands and swings it back at them with enough force to knock them unconscious.
Up above, Spidey smiles.
Man, I knew Cindy was faster and more agile than me but man, to see it in action is something else entirely. She flicked several bullets away while they were coming at her. Impressive.
Silk's eyes widened. Her Silk-sense went off and she leaped out of the way as a semi plowed through the warehouse wall, running over several Demons and SWAT in the process before it slowed to a halt.
The back of the semi opens to reveal Kraven the Hunter.
Spidey's eyes widened.
Well, well, well.
When Kraven stepped out of the semi to face Silk, he paused. He turned around and shielded his chest with his arms as Spidey came swinging in. Kraven was sent flying to the opposite end of the warehouse, where he left an impact crater on the wall but showed no signs of physical ailments or fatigue. Kraven pulls himself off and cracks his neck.
"We meet again, Spider."
Up on the skylight, Spidey smirks.
Have fun, Venom.
Spider-Venom stands up and motions for Kraven to come at him. Kraven draws his sword and holds it out. He charges for Spider-Venom before he pauses.
Another person comes out of the semi and holds a glowing hand out.
A blast of glowing energy is shot from his hand and hits the back of Spider-Venom, making him fall forward. Spider-Venom lands on the ground and the momentary confusion causes Spider-Venom to lose his appearance and show off his Venom features in full display. Mouth, eyes, tongue, claws, build, and even the white spider symbol.
Spidey's eyes widened behind his mask.
Oh shit, Venom's real appearance has been seen.
Down below, Silk panted with wide eyes as she stared at Venom but did not let herself be distracted and turned towards the glowing man.
"You are the one who impersonated me," Kraven deduced, "Impressive." He clenched the sword tightly in his hands. "But show me you are worthy to die by my hands."
Venom smiled. "With pleasssure."
Venom lunges for Kraven, who manages to move out of the way and slash his sword at Venom. Venom blocks the slash with his forearm and swings at Kraven, who dodges. Kraven slices at Venom once more but Venom grabs both of his hands and lifts him above his head. Kraven kicks Venom in the mouth and manages to rip himself free of the symbiote's grip. He leaps to his feet and somersaults away. Venom advances on him, not bothering to charge for him, and opts to walk.
Kraven takes out a grenade and throws it at Venom. Venom catches it and clutches it tightly in his hands. The grenade goes off but it was a smoke grenade that blinded Venom. Venom closes his eyes and listens carefully. A spear is launched at him and he grabs it. This time, the spear detonates in his hand, and Venom winces.
Silk turns toward the glowing man and makes a fist with both hands. "Hey, glow-buster, nice costume. But just so you know, it's not Halloween yet."
The glowing man fires negative energy at Silk, who leaps out of the way in time and shoots a web for his chest. She yanks him forward and was about to deliver a kick to him when her Silk-sense went off. The negative energy attached to his chest began traveling along the web and made its way to her fingertips. The negative energy gets under her fingertips, making Silk wince and back away. She yelps and closes her eyes shut. Her skin takes on a glowing hue and she drops to the ground, convulsing. Once her convulsing stops, she opens her glowing white eyes and sits up. Her hair was white and her costume was now the negative color of what it originally was. Her red masks, fingerprints, and symbol took on a green color, the light and dark gray on her costume inverting.
She looked up and stared at the glowing man with raging eyes.
"Hello, my puppet," the glowing man growled, "where is Spider-Man?"
Silk said nothing.
"Got nothing to say? Tell me where Spider-Man is right this moment."
Silk continued to say nothing.
"Find Spider-Man and kill him!"
"No," Silk's deep voice reaches the glowing man.
Without missing a beat, she leaps through the skylight and swings away.
Spidey watches her leave and is about to chase after her when he hesitates.
Shit, do I go after Cindy or do I stay behind and kill that glowing guy? Obviously, he is the source of all those flashlight bombs and those glowing weapons so...
He presses his lips together furiously before turning back. "Cat, keep an eye on Silk!"
"On it." Black Cat quickly swings after Silk and follows her.
Damn it, I should've gone instead; Black Cat has a grappling hook to help her get around but she's a regular human being and can't match our speed. And she's too far gone. I gotta stay here and take down this glowing guy and Kraven. No, Venom can take care of Kraven, I'll focus on this glowing son of a bitch."
Spidey stands above the skylight and fires a web at the glowing man. Like before, the negative energy traveled up his webs and was slowly inching toward him. He quickly releases his grip on the webs and rips them from his web-shooters. He leaps down and narrowly avoids colliding with the man.
"Spider-Man!" the glowing man glares at him. "Nice of you to show up."
Spidey grabs an unconscious Demon left by Silk and tosses him at the glowing man. The glowing man falls to the ground and the unconscious Demon glows up.
Huh, so it seems like my theory is proven true: physical contact with this glowing guy will result in his glowing energy infecting me.
"You are corrupt and you deserve everything you're going to get," the glowing man stated. "I will do to you what I did to your precious Silk."
"All talk, haha," he laughed. "So, what is your name? Firefly? Nah, that's a DC character. Glowstick, Mister Glowy Thing? Or, how about... Lightbulb?"
How the hell am I supposed to kill someone I can't touch? Well, the simple explanation would be that I shoot him but I don't do guns and I've always preferred my kills to be up close and in person. Oh well, looks like I'm going to have to make an exception. Maybe there's a shiny knife on the ground I can use. Or I can get creative and use a ruler. A thug killed by a ruler with a ruler, so poetic and beautiful sounding, and utterly embarrassing for whoever is on the receiving end.
"I'm going to light you up, Spider-Man."
The glowing man shot a beam of energy at him. Spidey dodges it and lands on the ground. The glowing man fires another beam. Spidey dodges once more and looks behind him to see the negative energy sticking to the wall behind him like mud. The glowing man held his hand up and extended all five of his fingers.
If I'm lucky, I can get this guy to strain himself by launching a lot of his glowing energy at me. I just hope he doesn't have an endless supply like Cindy does with her webs.
The glowing energy on the wall came right back to the glowing man and Spidey was in its path. Spidey leaps out of the way.
No way, he can RECALL the glowing energy he shoots off? This means, in theory, when he is out of his glowing energy, assuming that he has a limit, he can call the energy back.
Venom felt the flames set him on fire. The creature screamed and made a godawful wailing noise that sounded like nails on a chalkboard. Another spear was launched but this time, it pierced Venom in the chest and the creature tensed up, its body locking in place. It reaches forward and fighting through the pain of the fire, manages to pry the spear out of his hands. Venom roars and extends his tongue before looking around for Kraven. the Hunter had vanished on him and Venom gangshed his teeth looking for him. He patted the fire off of him before he felt something hit his back.
A Molotov cocktail thrown from the rafters struck Venom and set him ablaze. Venom wailed and leaped into the air and landed on the rafters. Fed up and still burning to the touch with flames, charged for Kraven. Kraven leaped over the edge and caused Venom to miss. Venom screams and falls over the edge but manages to catch himself on the way down. Another Molotov is thrown at Venom but this time, it hits him in the face.
Venom roars and swings at the air as if he were trying to hit somebody. The fire burning him torches his face but he uses every fiber of his alien being to regrow the symbiote around his face. If he doesn't, then his host would be exposed and a target to the world.
"You..." Venom growls.
Kraven stands in front of Venom with his hands out, with no sword or spear to show that he is no threat. The man did not smile but he gave off a sign that implied that he wanted Venom to charge at him like a bull.
Venom took the bait. He charged for him on all four like a rabid dog and was about to tear the living shit out of Kraven when a smokescreen blew up around Kraven and he vanished. Venom raised his hand out to grab Kraven before he could vanish but he didn't match the muscular physique of Kraven the Hunter.
No, he was grabbing the glowing man, who stared at Venom in his milky white eyes with horror. The glowing man kicked and thrashed and before Venom could bite his head head, negative energy flowed from the man and onto Venom.
Venom tosses the man aside like a ragdoll before he looks to the ceiling and roars at the top of his lungs.
Venom was a tall creature that was all black with the exception of his milky white eyes and the white spider symbol on his chest. Even his teeth were paper-white and his tongue was as pink as a flower. Now he was the complete inversion with his entire body white with his spider-symbol, eyes, teeth pitch black and his tongue took on a slightly green color.
Venom turns to the Demons still in the room and smacks them away. One of the Demons he picked up was screaming for his life before Negative-Venom bit his head off and swallowed it in one gulp.
"Venom!' Spidey shouts.
The creature ignores him before leaping to the ceiling and climbing out of the skylight. Spidey was about to chase him but he remembered the glowing man and Kraven. When he turned around, the glowing man and Kraven vanished.
With that vanishing trick I saw of Kraven, I wouldn't be surprised if Kraven saved his boss and escorted him out of here.
The warehouse was completely empty save for the Demons and hostile construction workers Silk left behind as a present for SWAT. Over 12 SWAT officers were KIA and 20 more were wounded. Spidey quickly retrieves a camera Venom set up earlier to take photos before he carries the wounded SWAT outside where several ambulances come for them.
"This is all your fault, Spider-Man," Yuri 2 tells him, "this is all on you."
Spidey leaps into the air and swings off.
He swings in the direction Silk and Venom swung off in and is confused when he sees Black Cat standing on a tall building rooftop with a water tower.
Black Cat turns around. "I lost Silk."
"Venom," Spidey begins, "he was taken over by that glowing energy."
"What does that energy do?"
"Apparently, it infects people and makes them hostile or something." Spidey looks down at the ground. "That glowing guy... it was him. He's the leader of the group. I should've killed him when I had the chance. Nothing went according to plan tonight. If anything, the only ones who won were the gangsters and the glowing guy." He clenched his fists. "I should've known; it was an ambush from the very beginning. These gangsters knew that as soon as their shipping factory was raided, the gun factory would be the next to go. So they set up an ambush to kill the SWAT raiding the place. And then after that, they had a contingency in case Cindy or I showed up. They had Kraven and the glowing guy show up to throw us off our game. Silk was infected by the glowing guy when she webbed him and then she swung off. I sent you to follow after her but I should've known better and I should've followed after her. Then Venom and Kraven fight and Kraven figures out Venom's weakness and uses it to his advantage. Then he tricks Venom into grabbing the glowing guy so he can be corrupted and then he swings away. Before things could escalate, Kraven saves his glowing boss and vanishes, leaving me in a warehouse with nothing but a bunch of dead and wounded cops."
He clenches his fists.
"It was supposed to be simple..." his voice raises in volume, "but we didn't accomplish anything tonight!" he shouted. "They exposed Venom to the real world, exposed his shapeshifting ability. That's going to ruin all the alibis we established. Once word gets out that Venom is alive and is able to impersonate anyone, all Spider-Man suspects who have been cleared due to an alibi will be investigated once more, INCLUDING ME!" He raises his hands only to drop them. "And worst of all, the strongest and fastest ones in our group have been infected with whatever that glowing energy was and now they're out in the wind! They know my identity, MY MOTHER'S IDENTITY! WHO KNOWS WHAT THEY'LL DO!"
He stares Black Cat in the eyes with a soft growl behind his mask.
"But I'm not going let them do what they're going to do. Venom, Cindy, I won't let them do whatever they're going to do. As for Mr. Glowy and Kraven, they're both going to pay. They're both going to die. As for Cindy and Eddie, if I can help it, then I would rather save them than kill them." He pauses. "The stakes are higher this time because, on one side of the battlefield, we have Mr. Glowy and Kraven taking over the city with their gang, and on the other side, we have an infected Cindy and Eddie running rampant, and they're stronger and faster than me. And then there's the two of us, right in the crosshairs for both teams. A murderous spider and a versatile black cat who curses all who cross her path."
Black Cat blinks slowly. "Must be Tuesday."
"A very bad Tuesday." He ground his teeth, rage bubbling up within him, ready to go off like a ticking time bomb.
For the first time in a long time, there is one emotion I don't have to fake.
I DRASTICALLY underestimated this glowing guy. Whoever he is, wherever he got his ability from, it is very powerful. I've already been corrupted by the symbiote so to see even the SYMBIOTE corrupted is something else. And as for Silk, she wouldn't hurt a fly but I have seen what she's capable of in that warehouse. And as for Kraven, I underestimated him too. I can't treat him like a distraction anymore, not after what I just saw.
I don't care how bleak my odds are; I WILL WIN.
A/N: And that marks the end of Chapters 2-1 to 2-5. What a thrilling set of chapters these were and I can't wait for the next chapters.
I know a couple of chapters ago, I made a couple of multiversal jokes in the chapters but there is one thing I want to clarify going forward: The multiverse concept will NOT be explored in this series. I've never really been a big fan of those multiverse ideas so I won't have David dealing with any multiversal threats or visitors. I love No Way Home and the Spider-Verse movies; I just won't use that idea in any of these stories. All the characters and stories will be kept in-house.