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He had become this strong overnight.
The realization hit Evan hard enough to scare him.
Then joy followed.
The world around him was crawling with geniuses and madmen.
Science and magic existed under the same skyline.
One bad day could erase a city.
The stronger he became, the better his odds of surviving.
How could he not be happy?
He looked at his fist, and a cruel little smile tugged at his mouth.
If devouring made him stronger, hesitation was a luxury.
“I’m hungry, Venom.
Start the feast.”
“Gladly.”
Black slime rolled over his skin.
In an instant, Venom covered him.
The smooth black head, the wide white eyes, the mouth full of teeth.
Horrifying, almost absurd, and somehow a little too pleased with itself.
Venom grabbed the dead gunmen, opened his jaws, and swallowed.
The strange part was how easy it felt.
Yesterday, three symbiotes had left Evan’s stomach swollen and miserable.
Today, after the buffet, he still had not felt full.
Now Venom was eating bodies, and there was no pressure, no nausea, no sense of his body pushing back.
His evolution had not only changed strength and speed.
It had changed capacity.
Digestion.
Everything.
He felt less like a person eating food and more like a furnace.
Whatever went in became fuel.
Venom ate noisily, smacking like he was enjoying every second.
Soon, nothing useful remained.
“Better?” Venom asked.
“Yeah.”
Evan did not want to admit it, but meat worked better than donuts and pizza.
Then he paused.
“I can feel it this time,” he said.
“There’s a warm force moving through my body.
It’s spreading into my muscles, bones, and organs.”
Venom sounded pleased.
“Told you.
You accidentally activated some advanced human evolution.
Hunger is the price.
Your body needs absurd amounts of energy, and if you keep feeding it, you’ll evolve until you hit the ceiling of your current evolutionary stage.”
“In other words, you’ll move from the First Evolutionary Stage into the Second.”
Evan’s eyes brightened.
For a brief second, his mind leapt toward gods, immortals, and the kind of beings who stood above ordinary life.
Only for a second.
That was far away.
The immediate problem was hunger.
He looked back toward Fisherman’s Wharf.
The area was in chaos.
People were dead or wounded.
Sirens screamed from every direction.
Venom clicked his tongue.
“We ate a lot of meat,” he said.
“But there are two of us now, and I’m not full.”
The meaning was obvious.
More food.
Evan did not hesitate.
“Go.”
Venom let out a delighted sound and launched himself up the side of a nearby building, racing toward the center of the fight.
When he reached the rooftops overlooking the Wharf, he ran into someone familiar.
A figure in a red-and-blue suit hung upside down from a webline, firing strands of webbing to restrain the remaining gunmen.
Evan almost said Peter’s name.
He stopped himself.
He was wearing Venom.
Peter was wearing the mask.
Spider-Man saw the monster too.
Peter did not know who was inside.
The moment he saw Venom’s teeth and black bulk, he abandoned the gunmen and swung straight for him.
Webs shot through the air like arrows.
Evan felt a flash of mischief.
“Play with him.”
“Oh, I like this one.”
Venom sprang away from the webbing.
A long black tendril lashed out from his shoulder and whipped toward Spider-Man.
Venom and Spider-Man were both built for movement.
The rooftops became their arena.
Peter swung, flipped, and shot webbing from every angle.
Venom climbed glass and concrete like gravity had given up arguing with him.
Back and forth, they chased each other across the buildings.
Spider-Man fought to restrain, not kill.
Evan knew who he was fighting, so he held back too.
The result looked fierce from a distance, but neither of them was truly hurt.
Unfortunately, distance was exactly where the cameras were.
Drones captured the fight in crisp detail.
Within minutes, half of San Francisco and most of the country could watch Spider-Man battle a black, toothy monster over Fisherman’s Wharf.
At the Life Foundation’s symbiote research lab, Carlton Drake sat in his office, watching the footage.
Drake was the head of the Life Foundation.
He was also Riot’s host.
“Venom,” Drake said, slamming a fist onto the desk.
“He is still alive.”
A brutal gray face pushed out of his back.
Riot.
“The traitor survived,” Riot growled.
“I thought he died with Eddie.”
His white eyes narrowed.
“Grave.
Take a team.
Kill him.”
Outside Drake’s office, twenty-four people answered at once.
Behind each of them, a symbiote face rose from the skin.
I hope you enjoyed this chapter.