Scorpions Sting (Open)

[Venom - Eddie Brock]

Deadpool had not been at the warehouse when they had returned but this had not bothered them in the slightest. They had not truly expected the mercenary to stick around. Never the less the hunt had to continue.

Venom crouched atop the new ultra security holding center where Super-Human and Mutant villains were incarcerated for study and in preparation for transfer to the Negative Zone Dimensional Gate Facility for transport to the new Super Villain Prison: Negative Zone Prison Alpha.

Their hunt had led them here after intensive investigative research by Eddie. They knew as much as possible about this place, as much as his past skills as a reporter could help dig up but it was the senses of the symbiote which confirmed all their suspicions. The Alien could sense another, or more precisely it could sense itself being held within. As confusing as that was they did know the answer.

Another mockery…

Another abomination…

This angered them, this enraged them, perhaps even more then the creature they had killed in the underground lab down south. This one was free, out in the open relatively speaking. From what they had learned a copy of them had ventured into the world, complete and whole, including the cancer which Eddie now found himself blessedly and mysteriously cured of. The clone had died but the symbiote was passed on. The story grew obscure after that but the copy at some point found its way into the possession of Mac Gargan aka Scorpion. This criminal had, by what they could tell from news paper clippings, twisted the symbiote to evil and had sullied the name of Venom by not only fighting with the blasted wall crawler Spider-Man but also hurting innocents and committing crimes in the process.

He was within, he had in his possession that which they sought to eliminate… it was only a matter of time till they struck and avenged themselves upon this thing… when they were done the world would truly know that the real Venom had returned.

[Iron Man - Tony Stark]

"I don't think you are supposed to be here, Gargan. Now get back in your cell, or I'm going to put you back there myself - and you won't like how I do it."

There was a whine of turbines under the electronically amplified voice, and War Machine landed on the roof of the holding facility behind him with a heavy clang, absorbing the impact with the knees and then straightening back up. The rotary cannon on the shoulder already had a lock for Venom's center of gravity, and he had both arms up, three barrels on each forearm glowing faintly with charged energy.

But there were parts of this that didn't sit too well with him... the armor's scanners were hard at work - the Venom symbiote and symbiotes in general had always been a weird enough substance that they liked to play with scanner systems in general... but there was one thing that was coming out of the scanner data once he increased the power.

The body type was wrong for Mac Gargan... the symbiote made it nearly impossible to tell, but there were traces of the original human shape, even as much as the symbiote warped it, and the shape simply didn't match up. In fact, the one person the database kept locking on was Eddie Brock, the symbiote's original holder... and someone who was very definitively deceased. And, according to the security footage, Gargan was still in his cell... All of which begged the question: what the hell?

"Hold on... Eddie Brock? Tell me the afterlife isn't the revolving door it seems to be these days... what the hell are you doing here anyway? This is a restricted area. VERY restricted. You're going to have to leave immediately, whoever you are."

[Venom - Eddie Brock]

Venom shot up the second they sensed the presence of another in their midst. They were not entirely surprised that this facility would be heavily guarded and especially by someone of the Hero community. At the mention of they being Gargan… the imposter… they spit and growled with rage. They would have the swine’s brains as a hors d'oeuvre soon enough and the abomination, the main course.

“We are not interested in taking apart an Iron-Man wannabe right now.” The snarled and looked to War Machine disdainfully. Nothing and no one would stand in their way, not even a tin plated, over inflated excuse for a knight in shining armor whose weapons obviously were more of overcompensation for his manhood than anything else. “As for the afterlife tin-man we would not know… we have not been their yet and we do not intend on finding out any time soon. Now back off before we have to peel you out of that sardine can and use your intestines as dental floss.” With these last words Venom’s monstrous fang filled jaw grew in size, their serpent like tongue protruding grotesquely and dripping what appeared to many as sticky green slime. At the same moment their claws also sharpened into razor like blades and increased in size to the length of short swords, all ready to rip the man from the armor if need be.

[Iron Man - Tony Stark]

"Wannabe? Well aren't we original." Never heard THAT one before. He didn't even bother with the standard rebuttal - as if he wanted to have all of Tony's baggage. But Venom went on, and he lifted his arms, targeting computer dropping crosshairs over Venom and establishing a hard lock

"All right, Brock. You want a war with the War Machine, it's your funeral. Maybe you just will get that look at the afterlife after all." The data window appeared next to Brock on the display. THREAT LEVEL: MODERATE. KILL NUMBER: 456 Rhodes grit his teeth behind the visor. Good. He didn't have to hold back on this one. Brock might have supposedly reformed at some point, but he was still a murderer... and that meant he didn't have to dial back his attack.

He selected the repulsor cannons on his forearms first, and cut loose with a full barrage from all six barrels. The boots of the suit locked into the roof beneath them to absorb the tremendous recoil from the cannons as the blinding light streaked out towards Venom, an intense blast of heat and force. Venom had picked a bad fight - those claws weren't sharp enough to do worse than scratch the paint on the specialized armor Tony Stark built into his suits, and War Machine's armor was heavier by far than the one Tony kept for himself. Handled a bit like a tractor to Stark's Ferrari, but having the firepower to take down a Helicarrier and the armor to take hits from the same sometimes meant tradeoffs.

[Venom - Eddie Brock]

Much like the accused Spider-Man, Venom had their own early warning system in the form of the symbiotes advanced alien senses. It had felt the micro-movements of War Machine’s weaponry locking into place and the subtle movements in the air, the heat generated by his repulsor cannons charging then firing. All this gave them mere seconds to act.

The light from the repulsor blast was blinding and the heat akin to a raging inferno which charred everything in its path. When the blast subsided all that remained in view was the charred remains of the roof and a half melted satellite dish. The night now was quiet for the moment but for the sizzle of the burning area and the sky above was clear. A perfect night except…

The boots of War Machines suit may have locked to the roof of the building for support but if the roof itself was not stable….

Black clawed hands and tar light tentacles quite suddenly burst up from under War Machine, wrapping around his metallic body tighter than any vice and pulled down. Under War Machine the ceiling cracked and crumbled before giving way.

Venom pulled the armored Hero down one level, two levels, three levels though brick, iron, plastic wiring until finally stopping with a hard slam in one of the sub level basements of the complex. “We are not amused… We warn you one last time stay out of our way!!!” They roared and slammed a hard right and left combination into his helmet before flipping backwards and sticking on a nearby wall. “We are not here for you nor are we here to release any of the murderous scum in this place. We only want the imposter…” This was said with conviction and utter truth albeit leaving out the gory details of how they were more than ready to tare Gargan limb from limb and feed on his entrails. In fact they could feel the abomination not far from where they now stood, at least one level up and to the south in the complex. They only needed to get past this mechanical menace and they would free to eviscerate the copy at their leisure.

“One last chance Avenger… stand aside… or we will cut that suit open like a can and eat your brains like Tuna.”

[Iron Man - Tony Stark]

There was no backflash from a repulsor impact, so Rhodes knew almost immediately that Venom had not been hit by the blast, and he was already scanning for the target again when the armor computer blared a warning, just before the monster ripped up at him through the roof under his feet. "Dammit!" he cursed inside his helmet, but firing his bootjets at this point would only send him off on a random trajectory. So, for that, he took the pounding as Venom crashed his suit down through the floors, then he flipped up, landing on his feet just in time to receive a quick one two from the symbiote's fist.

Beneath the heavy armor of the helmet, the punches were little more than an annoyance, a light ringing in the metal. But Venom was again telling him to back off... that he wasn't amused. "Kinda figured, I'm not laughing either." he called back, then, as the creature jumped away, he locked two missiles onto the wall and fired them from the chest. The missiles curved around Venom and impacted the wall before they exploded, the concussion shattering the wall and blasting Venom back towards War Machine - who lit off his bootjets and shot straight towards him.

He drove one massive gauntlet into Venom's stomach, two bodies meeting at speeds better than a highway crash, and fired the three cannons again at the same time. The punch and cannon blast reversed Venom's direction quite handily, and delivered him hard through the wall Rhodes had just blown apart, while War Machine himself slowed in the air, locked his shoulder mounted cannon, and fired that as well, a stream of pulse bolts aimed with nanometer precision for the spot he'd just blasted, hoping to exploit the wound before it healed, as his computer assured him it would.

"The prisoners here are my responsibility, Brock, ALL of them. And I'm not letting you munch on any - or on myself."

[Venom - Eddie Brock]

Venom’s enhanced alien senses were quick and useful in situations like this yet they were not perfect. They were taken by surprise; they had not expected such speed from an armored warrior so large and lumbering. The punch into their stomach was hard but having experience in maneuvering in mid air they had twisted their body to lighten the impact of the metallic fist, coupled with the natural endurance the symbiote brought to Venom’s duality the hit itself was hurtful but nothing near life threatening. The Blast that followed however was more of a problem, the sudden burst of intense heat pained the symbiote enough for the alien entity to scream of its own accord, a piercing high pitched shriek of pain as it recoiled instantly from part of Eddie’s body. This recoil of his alien other nearly pushed Eddie into unconsciousness but his anger and fear for the symbiotes safety kept him awake as they flew through the air and the hole in the wall created by War Machine’s attack.

Venom’s body slammed excruciatingly hard into the far wall of the next room. Brock felt immediately the air in his lungs leave him while 3 ribs snapped like twigs under the combined impact of War Machines fist and wall they struck. They could have screamed in pain… they may have but they were smarter than to give in to such a feeble show of weakness when the Hunt was yet incomplete. However hurt the Symbiote may have been the bond still existed between it and Brock, Venom still existed and their senses still existed. They felt the bolts of energy coming at them seconds before they saw them yet they dodged in the nick of time to avoid the Coup de grâce attack.

They needed time, Brock needed to catch his breath and the Symbiote needed to restore itself as well as begin to mend Eddies injuries. They took a quick moment to look around and smirked to find themselves in a long mess room where no doubt the personnel of this facility came to eat their meals and take their breaks. The lights were off all around, most likely this battle had shorted out main power on this level and only emergency power lit the rooms with danger lightings. “Perfect…” They hissed and fired out blasts of solid, sharp symbiotic material at each of the little emergency light boxes causing them to short circuit and smash upon impact driving the room into utter darkness… their element.

Moving into the shadows they crawled along the walls silently, carful to make no sound as the symbiote once again merged completely with Brocks body then darken out any markings such as the spider symbol on their chest, their white eyes and bestial jaw to better hide their location from he who now hunted them.

They would wait…

They would watch…

As War Machine slowly, cautiously made his way into the room Venom crouched low on the wall, ready to pounce like the predator they truly were. They did not know what Rhodes was thinking, could he be wondering if they had died or was he expecting an attack? It did not matter…

Before War Machine could react of scan the room fully with his sensors Venom moved to the ceiling and dropped down like the preverbal spider. Landing directly on top of the armored warrior they lost no time in his attack. At the speed of thought the symbiote swirled from Venom first wrapping around War Machines head, blackening it completely in the hopes of blinding his sensors with its alien nature. At that same moment they grabbed a hold of Rhodey’s right arm, pulling up and sending the same symbiotic material into the three repulsor barrels. “This is gonna hurt but it’s worth it!” they snarled and expanded the alien tendrils outward doubling and redoubling the pressure until the weapon itself cracked, cracked, cracked and then exploded. “Goddamn It!!!” They snarled the tendrils instantly disintegrating at the intense heat of the explosion yet they could not let up, more tendrils lashing out to replace the others and entering into the suit through the damaged wrist weapon.

War Machine though would not go down without a fight no matter how well they had surprised him and Venom knew it, they could feel their enemy thrashing about and trying to throw them off and it was a pure and simple fact that War Machine far outweighed them in pure, raw power… or at least fire power. “Why not…” They laughed and leaped off as suddenly and quickly as they had jumped on. They grinned darkly as they started to slink back into the shadows. “Oh… Our Good Good Friend… Before we go… we left you a present… You see we can detach some of ourselves… Normally this is a function used as a weapon. In fact our accursed offspring Carnage uses it to fire blade like weapons which disintegrates after a short time. But we can also give the alien substance instructions… instructions which it will carry out till it is no more… “ Oh and just so he would not follow them, climbing high once again they aimed and from the palms of their hands fired strand after strand of webbing to hold down the man tank while their little saboteur time bomb did its job and tore apart any and all systems it would come across as it spread through the armor like a plague to immobilize the hero.

Venom was no fool… they knew this would merely slow down the man of metal but it was their hopes that this would be long enough for them to finish their hunt and enjoy their meal!

(ooc: The Tony Player who is NPCing War Machine has given permission for me to mod the character to a small degree for the sake of play. This is accordance with the Rules)

[Iron Man - Tony Stark]

"Hiding in the dark, Venom?" War Machine landed at the edge of the hole, eyes glowing a faint red as he stepped into the darkness, which was already lighting up bright as day as the optical scanners went to starlight mode. Still, it did make for reduced color perception, and nearly everything in here was black... just like Venom. He knew perfectly well that the creature was a master of the stealth assault... and that made the soldier tread carefully. But luck was against him, this time, and the armor was just a touch too slow reacting as the creature pounced from the darkness and straight at him.

"Shit!" he cursed in his helmet as the black substance enveloped his helmet - common mistake, the majority of the suit's sensors were NOT in the head, but it was fairly immaterial at this point, as the substance was flooding over most of the suit anyway. He drove a knee hard into it, then he threw a hard right punch, but the creature was stronger than hell, and holding him back better than he'd thought able. Gritting his teeth, he dialed the servo response up to maximum, pounding on Venom's body as best he could with the free hand, and that was when the armor began blaring warnings as Venom breached the right cannon housing.

"Hurt you worse than me!" he shouted, triggering the beams on full power just as Venom flooded into the barrels. The symbiote had already clogged the assembly, and Rhodey was expecting it - he'd already shifted his shield coverage to protect the rest of the suit as the arm mounted cannon exploded in a blinding flash.

SHIELDS: 67%

"Dammit..." He pulled back slightly as the creature left away, chest plating parting to expose a number of additional cannon barrels, which blasted at the darkness, though he had no hard lock, and Venom was gone again. He kept firing, though, trying to blunt the assault of webbing, but the tide was against him, and the narrow focus beams weren't destroying enough of the webbing as it bound him back against a wall, and the creature was gone.

The armor continued to wail warnings in his ears as the mini-symbiote tried to work its way into the components of his right arm, working against the electronic collimation that turned the plating from simple metal to something only adamantium surpassed. It WAS wrecking the hell out of those parts damaged by the explosion, though, and the suit was now damn near immobilized... given enough time...

SHIELDS: 58%

"Not getting me like this, you little shit..." he growled, scrolling though his weapon selections even as his servos whined, trying to force his way out of the webbing... Screamers... He pulled up Venom's file again, and his eyes snapped to one bit of data in particular.

WEAKNESSES: SONIC WEAPONRY, EXTREME HEAT

"Got you now..." he muttered, sending orders to the deployed weapons, reconfiguring their output, and shunting the generators heat sinks directly to the plating of the armor itself. He ran all of the weapons through a full charge cycle then, using all the power he had as the suit's external temperature began to rise, and the organic webbing started hissing with the heat. It took another moment for him to get enough space that the screamers would work, and he cut loose. A shattering, 200 decibel screech shook the concrete of the basement, and the little creature screamed as well as the webbing, trying desperately to disperse and escape the terrible noise.

"Too late for you, shithead."

WEAPON MODE: HEAT BLOOM

The unibeam cannon in the chest, and all eight of the smaller weapons that had been exposed when the armor parted lit with a cherry red glow, and the intense heat they emitted scoured the rest of the webbing from his suit, then burned down the pieces that had tried to flee, as well as the symbiote fragment. Only a few web strands remained, but War Machine pulled away from them almost without effort, shattering another piece of wall in the process. He looked at the half shattered right arm for a moment, considering, then he walked back into the other room and lit the thrusters, shooting out to the roof of the facility.

"LRAD... I know they installed them last year... bingo." He altered course and shot across the yard, then landed on a different roof, next to several startled prison guards. "I need to borrow this." he said simply, synthesized voice cold, and he held the damaged arm out, a blue glow wrapping around it and the series of octagonal devices, which tore away from their brackets and flew towards the suit, half disassembling and wrapping around the damaged arm, slowly reconfiguring at his suit's directions, while its own nanotech flowed out, establishing power and control channels, integrating the high power sonic weapons into the rest of the suit... coupling with the existing screamer circuits...

He hardly even let the suit finish before he took off again, towards Gargan's cell block. "See how you like the new additions, Brock..."

[Venom - Eddie Brock]

This was it.

This was their chance and they had to take it!

With War Machine incapacitated they were quick to move into the shadows again. “One level up and down a maze like corridor… They are there and they are ours!” Venom hissed moving up along the walls and through the hole they and War Machine had punched through the building.

They were quick to discover that emergency power was also in effect on this level alongside any backup generators this facility required to keep optimum containment of its super powered inmates. Venom knew they would need to move quickly; this little scuffle had to have attracted more attention then originally planned for. There was no doubt in their minds that the armed security force of this facility was already making full sweeps on every level of the building. To fight their way through would take too long for Venom had no doubt that their armored foe would eventually re-animate and come for them. They needed a better, less conspicuous way of getting to their prey.

Fate… or perhaps luck smiled on them it seemed as a pair of doctors, or at least what appeared to be individuals of medicine or science, in their bleached white long coats and sterile uniforms, raced into the hall where they crouched in the shadows. Little did the pair know until it was too late that the price for their haste could possibly mean their lives. When they were within meters of Venom, having not noticed them in the darkness, tendrils of the symbiote sprung out across the floor to trip the pain and send them down skidding across the laminate surface.

Venom hulked above the pair, a black mass of muscles, dagger like teeth and razor claws. The very appearance of the Lethal Protector made the pair cower in fear and the male of the pair scream then faint. They laughed at this somewhat sadistically and crouched down in front of the female. Before she could scream however black tar like tentacles wrapped themselves around her mouth and body making quite certain she could not run or scream. “Now, we are going to have a little conversation Doctor…” They paused and leaned in to read the woman’s tag. “Doctor Renfeild, hmmmm PHD, Criminal Psychologist. Well Doc we need your help. You may be innocent and we detest harming innocents but make no mistake we will rip your pretty little skull open and devour your precious and well educated grey matter if you do not point us in the direction of Mac Gargans cell.” They hissed and softly, slowly unwrapped her mouth.

Dr. Renfield whimpered in fear as well as confusion. She had, for several weeks, been part of this facilities staff and till now it had seemed utterly secure and relatively safe. She had been the psychologist for several super powered beings like Maxwell Dillon aka Electro, Aleksei Sytsevich aka The Rhino and even Mac Gargan aka The Scorpion and aka Venom. It had been in all Gargans reports that he had obtained the Symbiotic Alien some time after the original owner, Edward Brock, died of cancer. It was unclear between said time and Gargans procurement of the alien if any others had come into contact with it. All that was known to most was the original Venom had died and Gargan had taken up the mantle for himself. This incarnation of Venom was not a vigilantly however. The Gargan Venom seemed to have no compunction about hurting or even killing innocent people, he was a stone cold killer, a mercenary for hire. Additionally it was known to Dr. Renfield that there were more people on Earth in possession of or possessed by symbiotic aliens and though all were capable of metamorphic abilities in their base form each had unique appearances. The one which held her now, he one who would soon so her great harm if she did not help him looked identical to the original Venom, it spoke like Venom, in every way she could think this creature was Venom. Yet it stood here threatening to kill her if she did not direct him to the man she knew to be Venom. “Wha… Uh… Who… Who are you?” She managed to squeak out, her voice shaking with pure fear. “Wha… Wha… What do you want with G-G-G-Gargan?”

They smile at this, their maw of a mouth filled with what appeared to be dozens of dagger like teeth contracting in visible amusement to her questions. She was terrified, that was not hard to tell, yet she still had enough courage to question them. Admirable if not stupid “We are Venom and we are on the hunt. We hunger… for vengeance… and we are on the hunt and we will not be denied, where is Gargan?”

She did not understand, if this guy was Venom then what was Gargan? That in the end was a moot question. Her life was on the line… “Down this corridor, third hall on-on-on the-the right, down that hall, past the guard check point. Cell 337.”

They nodded enthusiastically then lightly caressed the woman’s cheek with their clawed hand. The feeling of the alien symbiote covering it made Dr. Renfield’s skin crawl. “Thank you…” they hissed then forcefully gripped the young woman doctor’s head and slammed it against the wall behind her. “We said we would not kill you if you helped us however we cannot have you interfere in our hunt. You will live and wake only with a monster of a headache.” They lightly lowered her boy to the floor and stood to look around. Men were coming; they would need to work fast. With a simple mental command from Eddie the venom symbiote melted away from his face and hands. It shifted and morphed across his body till it completely resembled the clothes worn by Dr. Greenfields male colleague. The moment the transformation was done they moved to the male doctor’s unconscious body, took all they felt they needed to fool the guards and moved on in the direction of Gargan’s cell.

“Well, Well, Well… what have we here?” Eddie sneered as he entered the secure cell area where Mac Gargan and the symbiote copy were kept behind sonic fields. They had slipped through the guard check point without a hitch and now their prey was within reach. “You are ours imposter…” Eddie snarled as his own symbiote once again flowed over his body like living tar. This immediately caused fear and shock in Gargan and his other. “Who are you!?... Eddie Brock is dead… We Are Venom Now!!!”

With a flip of a switch the sonic fields collapsed. There was a silent moment of staring between the two Venom’s.

Neither made a move for some time…

The time had come…

Venom had his prey in hand and soon it would die…

[Iron Man - Tony Stark]

As the two monsters stood, at a standoff with one another while each waited for the other to make the first move, sizing up one another, there was an almost eerie silence, alarms went dead, and then there was a huge sound, and the very floor of the massive prison shook. There was a momentary pause, then another BOOM and a rattle of the floors, and finally a last, and loudest one, as War Machine crashed through the ceiling and landed, hard, floor tiles buckling under the impact, while rubble clattered to the floor all around him, and broken electrical conduits sparked, lighting up the suddenly darkened hall, just for a moment before it fell into blackness - but only for the briefest of moments. There hadn't been time to go through the halls, Gargan would be dead before he got there. This was faster... Tony's foundation could pay for the damage, he was sure, or the place was well-insured.

An intense, piercing light flooded the corridor, shining from the unibeam in War Machine's chest, and then from eight other barrels as the armor split open, revealing the full arsenal of heavy beam and repulsor cannons set into the armor. The lights were mainly to blind and distract, and were far above the threshold for pain, but he wasn't relying on that against the symbiotes - he had a better weapon in mind. "Gargan, you better not step foot outside that cell. Brock, you will stand down immediate- ah, to hell with it."

He cut off and lifted the previously damaged right arm, which had a considerable mass of new parts attached - three huge hexagonal projectors snapped out from it, let out a sharp, high pitched charging whine, and then unleashed a shattering blast of high-frequency sound, sending another rattle through the floors and walls, but this was sustained, directed, and orders of magnitude louder. "Sorry," he said, sending his voice out through the amplifiers, making it just another part of the intense sonic assault, "but I'd forgotten how much you hate sonics like this. What was the other thing you hate? Heat, wasn't it?" The cannon barrels began to glow an angry, cherry red, and he twisted slightly to bring the full arsenal of weapons to bear on Venom, each selected for maximum heat, the unibeam itself capable of emitting temperatures more than twice as high as the surface of the sun, melting parts of the metal walls as the onslaught shot down them towards both Venoms.

[Venom - Eddie Brock]

Venom had to act fast. The sonic attack had been near immediate and the alien other was in sheer agony from the audio assault which in turn bled through to Brock. The Alien’s strength was evaporating like so much water on the desert sands; it was pulling away from Brock and screeching in an inhuman, ungodly tone. Their legs buckling under them, falling to the ground gasping for breath… this was torture but something told Brock that this was not all War Machine was going to give them. If he knew one of their weakness’ then he knew the other. Yes they needed to act fast if they were to survive let alone make the kill on their prey.

Their prey… They looked over as hard as it was to focus only to see Gargan and his own other, the copy of Venom’s own alien half, writhing in agony on the floor. Was this other more susceptible to the sonic barrage or was it the fact that they were already weakened by their time in this prison behind high frequency sonic shields? Did it matter? The answer was immediate as Brock raised his aching arms and mentally commanded the alien to fire web strands at the imposter. “Come here you piece of Scum! They growled even if no one could remotely hear them under the noise attack. “Better you then us!” They pulled Gargan from the Floor and held him in front of them just as another barrage struck, this one composed of intense heat.

Gargan’s symbiote shrieked in pain and immediately started to unravel and burn up from the double assault. The imposter Venom struggled for their mutual lives with the rage and fury as a cornered animal. Tentacles of their other lashed out whipping at the already weakened Brock along with their claws and fangs stretching back to slash and bite at him and his alien other. Never the less, struggle as they might Gargan/Venom have become a veritable human shield against the heat blasts of War Machine’s new weapons. The Sonics, being high frequency sounds, could not be blocked so easy and the true Venom still suffered as much from them as Gargan but without the added full blast of the heat weapon the symbiote held fast as best it could in this struggle of wills.

“Nooooooo! Don’t go, don’t leave me alone!!!” Gargan shrieked as the alien he had till now bonded with started to buckle, writhe in pain and start to disintegrate off of his very body. The pain for the pair was excruciating, beyond words, a part of Mac was being killed while still leaving him alive. Only one bonded to another could know what this felt like for him. Not even the loss of true love seemed to compare in comparison to this murder as the shreds of black tar like material started to fall to the floor, sizzle like and egg on a pan then disintegrate into dust. “No please… please stop… no…” Tears flowed in the hardened criminals eyes as he gripped at the suite on his body trying to hold on to it for dear life, trying to ignore its shrieks of pain and terror inside his head.

“Oh yes Mac Gargan, your reign of terror as Venom ends… Now!!!” Venom hissed as tendrils of their own reached out and encompassed the very last remnants of the copy suit and started to absorb them. “But fear not… it will live on in a sense. We need its memories… we need to know what it knew. It will become part of us now…” They grinned as the last remnants of the clone alien disappeared inside them and merged flawlessly with the true Venom alien. “We would like to kill you as well you pathetic piece of shit but we need to get out of here now…. Before we suffer a similar fate…”

By this point Mac Gargan had become a babbling, blithering, traumatized wreck. He could not form words, he could only moan and cry and scream in pain for the death of his other and the intense burning pain of the heat beam that still pelted his now exposed body. His skin started to burn instantly,1st, 2nd and 3rd degree burns appearing all over his body until finally Brock called upon all his and the alien others strength to lift Gargan up in their weakened state and throw his useless body through the door at War Machine. “Have a nice flight, happy landings Scorpion…” They laughed darkly when calling him by his former villain name just to stab deep into him that he was now alone, he was no longer Venom…
There was only one Venom…

They would need to survive and if they stayed they would not!!!

Turning to the walls just as the heat beam hit them full on they extended their claws, sharpened them to the fineness of diamonds and sliced into the metal, pulled it and held it in front of them to deflect the sustained beam hoping that Gargan’s body flying at War Machine would distract him long enough to rip through the wall further and flee.

[Iron Man - Tony Stark]

Now that was what he was after... something to really put the damn thing down. And from the effect the sonics were having, he'd definitely achieved what he was after. And then Venom nabbed Gargan and pulled him into the blast, too. A big part of him didn't care, and he almost dialed the heat all the way up to incinerate the both of them... but that wasn't his job here, was it? Still, if he burned the symbiote all the way... and then Brock threw Gargan at him, and he had to cut off the heat, or he really would kill the son of a bitch. "Son of a bitch... you think that's going to protect you!?"

He cut the heat just for a moment, long enough to grab Gargan in one armored gauntlet, shove him roughly to the side, and turn back to face Brock and his pitiful shield of hopelessly inadequate metal plating. The cannons glowed again, and he cut loose, this time switching the secondary cannons to concussive blasts to shred that metal plating for the followup heat assault. As for Gargan, crying pitifully without his symbiote, Rhodes had not one shred of sympathy. He was glad... one less of these damn things to deal with. Now he just had to catch Brock and scorch his away, too...

What Rhodes didn't realize was that Venom was just trying to flee, now, and that concussive force just might give him an opportunity to use it for escape.

[Venom - Eddie Brock]

With little to no shield left to the double attack of heat and sonics the true Venom symbiote writhed and like the fake they had just dealt with, began to unravel from Brock’s body and burn away. “Not… going…to… happen!!!” Brock and the symbiote roared in unison as Venom, turned behind the re-enforced synthetic steel sheet which provided a flimsy cover and unleashed their rage on the already torn up wall.

Punch after thunderous punch shook the room and yet War Machines pause and words were not lost on them neither was his renewed attack as the sustained heat beam was replaced by more intense blasts on a rapid fire setting. They had no time left, their strength waneing, the fierce energy blasts punching through the barrier they had erected with startaling tank like force, every second they took in their escape was a second closer to their capture or worse their demise. Then again…

That was it!! That was the answer! Venom grinned weakly at the revelation.

The cell was small, little more than a metal box, re-enforced synthetic steel walls with sonic emitters and other circuitry for lights and other containment devices, behind that another wall of metal, this being a thick, triple reinforced titanium alloy, beyond this the last barrier, the cement outer walls of the building itself. After their attack, weakened as it was, only the now beat up, dented titanium barrier and then outer wall to impede his escape. “You’re on metal head!!!” They called out as they ducked and huddled into a corner as swiftly as proverbial lightning.

Ordinarily such a move would be considered cowardly but as the synthetic steep piece of wall they had pulled out and erected as a barrier buckled the blasts of heat were unleashed on the exposed weaknd barrier and wall.

Within seconds War Machine had finished the job they had started. The outer wall exploded with a thunderous crash.

When the dust cleared the room was empty but for the debris of the shattered wall and equiptment…

Venom was gone…

[Venom - Eddie Brock]

Epilogue

Venom growled as they swung the door open to the dimly lit, formally abandoned warehouse where they and Deadpool had recently taken occupancy. They looked around somewhat annoyed as water dripped off of their living alien other half in buckets. To escape they had waited till the idiot War Machine had blown a hole into the wall of the detention center where they had hunted down Gargan and his copy of their alien half. Flinging themselves in the river below the fire that had ignited all over them had gone out and with their remaining energy Venom had converted their outer appearance to resemble the murky water all around them becoming completely invisible and untraceable.

They stood and looked around, the place was a mess, junk food wrappers and boxes everywhere… for a dump of a place this was a true dump. In the distance, at the far end of the warehouse they could see the flickering light of a TV, they could hear the familiar Jerry call of the Jerry Springer Show and smell the aroma of takeout food wafting from that area. Slowly they made their way towards the sitting area Deadpool had constructed with furniture he had found in the nearby garbage dump. He towered over the Mercenary’s tattered, old, stinky red reclining chair with its massive amounts of duct tape and crazy glue holding it together and looked down at his current partner with a deep, dark, deadly glare.

“And where were you all this time?!” They snarled angrily.

[Iron Man - Tony Stark]

Wade poked his head up over the back of the chair, blinking a few times. "Brocky! Now where the heck have you been? I got tacos!" He lifted a gigantic bag that had been sitting next to the chair, and a huge pile of discarded wrappers from already-eaten tacos was sitting next to the chair on the other side. Part of his healing factor and other peculiarities tended to induce an inhuman appetite in the Merc with a Mouth.