Standing in the center of the shattered street, Peter Parker stared at his own black-gloved hands in absolute bewilderment.
He hadn't just defeated Riot. According to the strange, heavy pulse echoing through his mutated nervous system, Venom had actively stolen Riot's Codex right out from under Knull's nose.
Where did this game mechanic come from? Peter thought frantically, pacing around the crater. This wasn't in the comics! I've read the wiki pages!
I do not know, Venom replied, the symbiote sounding equally confused, albeit significantly heavier after digesting its sibling.
You really don't know?! Buddy, if I had known eating the gray one was the actual off-switch for his resurrection beacon, I would have just let you turn him into a mid-night snack at the harbor yesterday! Why did we go through all this exploding-dock trauma?!
Venom remained silent, digesting the criticism along with the alien biomass.
Peter rubbed his masked temples, an idea sparking in his brain. He thought of the old Prototype video games he used to play. "Wait. Venom. If you absorbed his Codex... can you transform into Riot? Can you use his weapons?"
That is impossible, Venom rumbled bluntly.
Peter slumped. "Then what exactly can you do with the Riot Codex?"
I can... converse with him.
What is the point of chatting with him?! Peter yelled internally, throwing his hands up in exasperation. I don't want a roommate in my head! What did he even say to you?!
He is currently screaming profanities.
Peter let out a long, helpless sigh. Neither he nor Venom had possessed any idea that cannibalizing another symbiote would transfer the localized genetic imprint. Venom had always insisted he was just an average, run-of-the-mill grunt from Klyntar. He had no special pedigree.
But as Peter stood in the smoke, the tactical implications finally clicked.
If Venom could successfully devour Riot and steal the Codex... what about Grendel? What if Venom could just eat the entire fifty-meter dragon?
"We have to get to the Baxter Building," Peter said aloud, turning to Cindy. "Do you want to come along? It's probably the most heavily shielded place on the island right now."
Cindy, still reeling from watching a man get his head bitten off, simply nodded quickly. The two spiders fired their web-lines and swung seamlessly through the ash-choked morning sky toward the headquarters of the Fantastic Four.
The Baxter Building was an absolute fortress under siege.
The lower levels of the high-rise were swarming with the grayish-white elite symbiotes—the ones immune to standard countermeasures. They crawled up the glass like a zombie apocalypse. But they couldn't breach the perimeter. Susan Storm, the Invisible Woman, stood on a lower balcony, her hands raised, projecting a massive, frictionless, invisible force field that encased the entire building. Any symbiote that managed to slip past the barrier was immediately incinerated by the Human Torch, who was flying tight, supersonic laps around the tower.
The Thing was currently relegated to standing on the roof and angrily throwing heavy pieces of lab equipment down at the horde.
Peter and Cindy phased perfectly through a localized opening Susan created in the shield, dropping into Reed Richards's primary laboratory.
The science brain-trust was operating at a frantic, caffeine-fueled pace.
"Spider-Man?" Reed asked, not looking up from a complex holographic molecular model. He didn't even question why a second, unfamiliar spider-hero had walked in with him. "I apologize, but we're still running the permutations on Knull's biology. We haven't made any significant breakthroughs—"
"I'm pregnant," Peter announced bluntly.
All three of the smartest men on the planet instantly stopped what they were doing and snapped their heads toward the teenager in spandex.
"What do you mean, you're pregnant?" Tony Stark asked, lowering his hydro-spanner.
"Uh, bad phrasing. It was an accident," Peter quickly corrected, holding up his hands. "I was fighting Riot out on the street. The gray one that Knull resurrected. Anyway, Venom just ate him. And something weird happened—Venom actively absorbed Riot's Codex. We hijacked the signal. Knull didn't get it."
The three scientific titans stared at Peter in stunned silence.
Hank Pym was the first to recover, adjusting his glasses. "Fascinating. It could be a unique biological quirk of your specific symbiote. However, looking at the macro-scale of their species, it makes logical sense. Under normal cosmic conditions, a deceased symbiote's consciousness uploads into their interstellar hive-mind. But because these specimens were severed from Klyntar and trapped on Earth, they lacked the bandwidth to connect to the primary network."
"So," Tony jumped in, a smug, brilliant smile spreading across his face as the puzzle pieces snapped together. "If a localized Codex is fully formed, and another localized symbiote consumes it, they naturally forge their own, isolated micro-network!"
Tony pointed a finger gun at Peter. "Which means we just found a secondary win-condition. If your suit can eat the gray one, it can eat the big one."
"Whoa, hold on," Peter said. "First of all, that dragon is fifty meters long. My symbiote is ten feet tall on a good day. Hank, you're the resident expert on mass-shifting. Can we shrink the dragon?"
Hank frowned, tapping a stylus against his datapad. "Considering Knull's absolute mastery over symbiote biology, he likely controls Grendel's mass at a molecular level. We can assume the dragon maintains its current size because it is the most tactically advantageous. If we hit it with shrinking Pym Particles, Knull would likely just override the localized physics and expand it back out."
"Okay, so shrinking the dragon is out," Peter noted.
"But expanding you is viable," Hank countered. "To prevent catastrophic physiological trauma, I rarely enlarge my own body past twenty meters. However, Venom's base height is roughly three meters. If we apply the maximum safe Pym Particle amplification to the symbiote, Venom would easily hit the sixty-meter mark. You could physically wrestle Grendel."
"Yeah, but if Knull realizes a giant Venom is trying to eat his dragon, he's not exactly going to sit still and let it happen," Tony pointed out.
"Unless... we completely arrest the dragon's molecular kinetic energy," Reed realized, his eyes widening. "Iceman."
"No good," Tony shook his head. "Knull isn't an idiot. The second we deploy Bobby to deep-freeze the dragon, Knull will prioritize him. He still has thousands of drones, and we just got word that another wave of superhumans got infected. We can't risk our only cryo-asset getting assimilated."
Tony suddenly turned, his eyes locking onto the bubbling beaker of experimental polymer sitting on Reed's workbench.
"Wait. That won't work, Tony," Reed objected immediately, following Tony's gaze. "That aerosol compound only solidifies the outer membrane. It just prevents the symbiote from shifting its physical form. It doesn't kill it."
"Exactly!" Tony laughed, clapping his hands together. "That's exactly what we need! We don't need to kill the dragon; we just need to put it in a straightjacket! If we coat Grendel in your polymer coagulant, Knull won't be able to alter its mass or fly away. Then, Giant-Venom goes in for the all-you-can-eat buffet."
The tactical plan was insane, highly dangerous, and mathematically perfect.
"But to pull that off, we need to significantly drain Knull's psychic stamina first," Reed calculated. "And we need to drastically increase the yield and duration of the coagulant."
"Give us a few hours to mass-produce the chemical and calibrate the Pym discs," Tony said, walking over and patting Peter firmly on the shoulder. "Until then, kid, you need to find a cot and get some sleep."
"I don't think there's going to be any time for naps, Mr. Stark," Peter said gravely, turning toward the balcony doors. "The streets are falling apart out there."
Cindy gave a quiet, respectful nod to the scientists and followed Peter out into the chaos.
Watching the two spiders leave, Tony Stark turned back to the holographic workbench, his expression dead serious.
"Alright, gentlemen," Tony addressed Reed and Hank. "If we're going to weaken Knull enough for the kid to eat a dragon, we need the heavy hitters back on the board. We have to figure out a cure for the possession. Ideas?"