Chapter 30: The End of the Battle
Venom Spider-Man seized the Winter Soldier's mechanical arm and tore at it with brutal force.
Agony surged through the Winter Soldier's body. Gritting his teeth, he struck Venom Spider-Man's symbiote covered torso with his remaining hand, desperate to fight back.
It was useless.
His strength was nowhere near enough to make Venom Spider-Man feel pain.
Venom Spider-Man unleashed his full power.
Crack.
With a sickening sound, the mechanical arm was ripped clean off the Winter Soldier's body.
The Winter Soldier let out a muffled groan, clutching at the wound with his remaining, intact hand.
"Food."
Venom Spider-Man opened his maw and bit down savagely on the severed mechanical arm, still slick with the Winter Soldier's flesh and blood.
For the first time, despair flickered in the Winter Soldier's eyes.
In this dark grove of trees, what stood before him was not a man at all, but a monster that had broken free of every chain.
After devouring the mechanical arm, the pitch black suit covering Venom Spider-Man began to change.
White spider patterns appeared on his chest and back, and white markings spread across his arms.
The mechanical arm gave him more than a cosmetic transformation. His strength surged even further, his limbs thickening with raw, terrifying power.
"Tastes bad…" Venom Spider-Man grumbled.
"Let's give you a try, food. Hope you're tasty."
He turned his attention back to the Winter Soldier.
Despair filled the Winter Soldier's eyes. Against a creature like this, resistance was meaningless.
Just as Venom Spider-Man opened his jaws, ready to devour him whole, a sudden, piercing pain tore through his head.
Venom Spider-Man clutched his skull and roared, staggering back in agony. The Winter Soldier, still facing him, stared in confusion at the abrupt change.
Venom Spider-Man no longer cared about his prey. The one thing he dreaded most had happened.
The Spider-Man consciousness inside him had awakened.
"Venom," a familiar, sarcastic voice echoed from within, "did your mom never teach you not to use other people's bodies without permission? Oh, right. I forgot. You probably don't have a mom. Or maybe your mom, Doctor Octopus, is already in prison and couldn't teach you properly."
A moment later, Spider-Man's head burst out from the symbiote covered body.
"Get back inside!" Venom roared.
"Venom, this is my body," Spider Man snapped as he struggled fiercely from within. "If anyone's saying 'get out,' it's me. Get out of my body."
The black tendrils binding the Winter Soldier retracted as Venom shifted all his energy to suppress Spider-Man.
Power surged back through the symbiote. Venom forcibly shoved Spider-Man's head back into the mass of black matter.
"This body… is ours," Venom Spider-Man's hoarse voice rang out.
"Venom," Spider-Man's voice echoed again from inside, strained but resolute, "when you move into someone's place, you ask the owner first. And my answer is no. Venom, get out of my body."
Venom Spider-Man's right arm suddenly rose against his will and slammed a brutal punch into his own face.
The impact sent him staggering back several steps.
The dark, viscous substance covering Venom Spider-Man's body instantly coalesced and deformed, forming a multitude of jagged black spikes that hurtled outwards in all directions.
Crack! Crack!
With several thunderous crashes, thick tree trunks around them snapped apart, splinters exploding through the air.
The Winter Soldier glanced at the shattered trees and swallowed hard.
Fortunately, he had dodged the black spikes in time. Otherwise, his fate would not have been much better than those trees.
He looked back at Venom Spider-Man, who was still attacking himself as the internal struggle raged on.
At that moment, he finally accepted the truth. The mission had failed. He was no match for Spider Man.
Silently, he withdrew from the grove.
Both Venom and Spider-Man noticed his retreat, but neither had the luxury to care.
For Spider-Man, failing to capture the Winter Soldier was regrettable, but it was far better than letting Venom continue using his body to kill.
For Venom, no prey in the world could compare to the sheer perfection of Spider-Man's powerful body.
"Feel this power," Venom roared inside Spider-Man's mind. "Together, we can be even stronger. No restraints. No pathetic 'responsibility.' We can do whatever we want!"
"Wow, Venom, you're getting smarter. You actually learned how to tempt me. Doctor Octopus must be so proud of your progress."
"But you've got one thing wrong, Venom. That responsibility you're mocking isn't pathetic. Not even close."
Venom and Spider-Man wrestled violently for control. Venom Spider-Man tore through the grove like a rampaging beast, trees crashing down in his wake.
"We are one," Venom insisted. "We are your perfect form…"
"Perfection isn't about power."
Spider-Man seized control just long enough to fire black webbing around his own body.
"Venom, wish us luck."
With that, he triggered the electric shock mode at maximum output.
Zzzzt—!
Agonizing pain instantly coursed through his entire body. Spider-Man gritted his teeth.
But the pain was even worse for Venom.
The symbiote writhed and shrank inside him, twisting in sheer torment.
"Stop!" Venom shrieked, his voice revealing genuine fear for the first time.
Black matter gushed out from under Spider-Man's skin, forming irregular clumps, before being forced back in.
"We give you power! We can act according to your will, become better heroes together! Venom wailed.
"My body doesn't welcome you," Spider-Man replied through the pain.
As the electrical output intensified, Venom finally broke. He tried to flee Spider-Man's body.
But this time Spider-Man refused to let go, struggling to absorb Venom and prevent it from leaving his body.
"What are you doing?! I don't want your body anymore!"
"I think… it's better to finish this right here," Spider-Man said with a weak, breathless smile.
Under the overwhelming current, Venom could no longer hold his form. Its body disintegrated piece by piece, torn apart by the electricity.
"You'll regret this!"
The web shooters hit their absolute limit. With a final surge of electricity, a brilliant blue flash tore through the night.
When the light faded, only Spider-Man remained.
Venom was gone.
Spider-Man dropped to one knee, gasping for air. Large sections of his suit were scorched, and faint sparks still danced across his skin.
"It's finally over," he murmured.
After a moment, he forced himself to his feet. The grove was utterly ruined.
Broken trunks lay scattered everywhere, splinters carpeting the ground.
"Guess Jameson was right after all," Spider-Man muttered, surveying the devastation. "I really am a public menace."
Once he had recovered a bit of his strength, he left the shattered grove behind.
Not long after Spider-Man departed, another team of well-equipped agents arrived at the scene.