New chapter!
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In the end, Evan left the buffet.
Not because anyone threw him out.
He left voluntarily.
The restaurant had run out of food.
Or close enough.
He had eaten through everything they had prepared for the day, and after watching the manager cry three times and the owner cry five, Evan decided to leave before the place went bankrupt.
Outside, he stood on the sidewalk and rested a hand on his stomach.
Still hungry.
Unfortunately, he was also broke.
The last thug he had robbed had carried less than three hundred dollars.
Two hundred went to rent.
A few small expenses ate another fifty.
The final fifty had just gone into the buffet.
Peter looked at him, half horrified and half fascinated.
“Don’t tell me you’re still hungry.”
Evan gave him an embarrassed smile and nodded.
“Growth spurt.”
It was the only excuse he had.
“I had growth spurts too,” Peter said.
“None of them looked like a natural disaster.”
“That explains why you stayed short.”
Peter was around five-nine.
Normal enough.
Still, Evan needed the cheap shot.
Peter laughed despite himself and patted him on the back.
“Go home.
I have a shift.
I’ll bring pizza when I get back.”
Peter worked part-time at a pizza place.
Whenever there were leftovers, he quietly brought some back for Evan.
He had done that for days.
That was why Evan was grateful.
They had met by chance, and Peter had still helped him like it was the obvious thing to do.
Evan already counted him as a real friend.
“Okay,” Evan said.
They split up.
Evan did not go home.
Peter’s shift would last at least two hours, probably longer.
Evan might starve before the pizza arrived.
He needed food.
First, he needed money.
Money opened doors everywhere.
No money closed all of them.
He headed for Fisherman’s Wharf, one of the busiest and messiest parts of San Francisco.
Tourists, vendors, dockworkers, thieves, smugglers, and worse all passed through the piers every day.
If someone wanted to rob, steal, buy, sell, or betray someone else, the Wharf was a good place to start.
The mood near the docks felt wrong the moment Evan arrived.
Police and port security stood around the area in numbers he had not seen before.
He frowned and decided to try somewhere else.
Then a low voice reached his ear from more than a hundred yards away.
“Stark Industries has raw materials coming through today.
We take the shipment.”
Evan stopped.
‘My hearing is that sharp now?’
His senses had improved when he and Venom fused, but this was new.
The speaker was deep in the crowd, voice low, speaking into an earpiece.
Evan still heard every word.
‘Mutation must have sharpened it.’
Stark Industries meant Iron Man’s company.
Someone was about to rob Tony Stark in broad daylight.
Bold.
Also none of Evan’s business.
He turned to leave.
The attack started before he made it far.
Armed men erupted from the crowd around the Wharf.
Rifles came up.
Gunfire tore across the docks.
Police dropped.
Port security dropped.
Civilians screamed and fell with them.
Evan pressed his lips together and kept moving.
The city had more superheroes than anyone could count.
He was not trying to become one.
He wanted food.
But trouble did not care what he wanted.
Several gunmen burst from between two parked trucks and rushed directly into his path.
They raised their rifles without hesitation.
Bullets sprayed toward him.
For one sharp second, Evan’s mind went strange and quiet.
If an ordinary person had been standing there, they would have died.
Someone’s child.
Someone’s parent.
Someone with a family waiting for them to come home.
These men would not have known.
They would not have cared.
Heat surged up from the bottom of his chest.
“You stupid son of a bitch.”
He moved before Venom could cover him.
This time, it was not strategy.
It was anger.
Evan shot forward on instinct, nothing but a blur cutting through the gunmen.
Less than ten seconds later, all twelve were on the ground.
Each head had been twisted at an angle no living body could survive.
Venom’s voice came alive in his skull, genuinely impressed.
“Well, little host.
Speed, strength, reflexes.
All very pretty.
You did that without me.”
Evan froze.
He looked down at his own hands, then at the bodies.
No black slime.
No symbiote armor.
Just him.
Twelve men.
Bare-handed.
A cold breath dragged through his teeth.
I hope you enjoyed this chapter.