Hum!
As the teleportation command echoed in Peter's mind, a magnificent purple magic circle expanded beneath his feet. Intricate runes rotated at high speeds, radiating powerful spatial fluctuations.
On the distant streets of London, the Ancient One, currently pursuing the traitor Kaecilius, suddenly paused.
Spatial fluctuations different from Kamar-Taj magic? Another talented sprout appearing out of nowhere?
She felt the urge to investigate the source of that energy, but Kaecilius was a more pressing threat. She suppressed her curiosity and turned back to deal with the zealots.
Brooklyn, New York.
The once-bustling commercial street was a landscape of chaos.
In the center of the road, the Hulk was pinned down, being pummeled by the Abomination. Not far away, a towering figure covered in blood-red biomass trembled violently, its massive fist clenched tightly around Felicia Hardy.
Despite Tony's repulsor blasts and Gwen's desperate physical strikes, the red monster didn't budge.
Strangely, despite having the strength to crush Felicia—whose durability was only slightly above a normal human's—the monster hesitated. Felicia scratched and struggled against the red membrane, but the killing blow never came.
Gwen, being the closest, could hear the monster "arguing" with itself in a fractured, guttural tone:
"No! ...said no more killing." "Shut up! If we don't kill her, we die!"
Gwen's eyes widened as she recognized the cadence. She screamed at the top of her lungs, "Alexei? Is that you, Alexei?!"
The red monster's body convulsed. After a moment of internal struggle, it raised its free hand and violently clawed at its own face.
Rip!
With a sickening tear, a gap opened in the red biomass, revealing the half-face of a rugged, honest-looking man: the Rhino, Alexei Sytsevich!
How did Alexei end up like this? To keep it short: just as the Venom fragment in prison birthed Carnage, the fragment Riot left behind when he threatened Alexei earlier had slipped into the man's wounds. Inside, it cultivated a new second-generation symbiote: Radiation.
Because Alexei had undergone extensive radioactive experiments, "Radiation" was naturally resistant to high temperatures and grew stronger by absorbing radioactive energy.
While the symbiote's personality was unstable, Alexei's newfound resolve to be a "good man" had kept them in a shaky peace—until tonight.
The battle between Hulk and Abomination released waves of active Gamma radiation. To "Radiation," this was a five-star buffet.
After half a month of starving, the symbiote lost all reason. It broke out of the Baker Island prison and lunged into the fray.
The reason Hulk was losing was simple: "Radiation" had backstabbed him, literally sucking the Gamma energy out of his cells. This influx of power made the symbiote massive, but it also flooded its mind with the Hulk's primal rage.
Now, "Radiation" saw everyone as a threat—especially Felicia, whose high-frequency singing was perceived as a sonic attack.
As the symbiote's grip tightened, Felicia let out a muffled groan, a trickle of blood escaping the corner of her mouth.
Is this it?
Her vision blurred. The red monster faded into a haze. In her final moments of consciousness, the only thing she saw was Peter's warm, gentle smile.
What a shame... There were things I never got to say...
"NO!"
Gwen threw herself at the monster's hand, using every ounce of her strength to pry the fingers open, but "Radiation," fueled by Gamma energy, was stronger than a base-level Hulk. Even with Tony's assistance, Felicia's fate seemed sealed.
Then, at the very bottom of their despair, a purple light erupted around Felicia.
The light formed a shimmering shield, a soft barrier that eased the crushing pressure on her body.
What is this? A deathbed hallucination?
Dazed, Felicia saw a figure standing before her—a figure that felt too real to be a dream. She whispered, "Peter, I..."
Chirp-chirp-chirp—!
The sound of a thousand birds chirping rang through the air. A masked man in a golden cloak appeared out of thin air, his palm glowing with blinding lightning. He swung his hand down like a blade against the red monster's wrist.
Under the stunned gazes of Gwen and Tony, that mountain-like, immovable arm was sliced clean through by a single "super-model" hand-blade!
The severed hand, still holding Felicia, fell toward the ground. Before it could hit, a pair of warm arms caught her.
"Whatever you have to say, wait until I finish cleaning up this mess."
A soft white light enveloped her, healing her wounds and purifying the red symbiote scraps off her suit into harmless white dust.
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