"Ben~"
Venom Robin drew out his tone, sending a shiver of goosebumps straight down Spider-Man Benjamin Reilly's spine:
"Robin, could you please not make that... sound?"
Benjamin Reilly put on a look as though he were about to throw up.
"Heh heh," Venom Robin chuckled, manipulating his vocal cords to emit a singularly lascivious, "Ben~~"
"Robin!" Benjamin Reilly nearly tumbled right out of the air at that shout.
The two of them were currently tracking down the movements of the serial killer Cletus Kasady.
They had been at this for the past few days, and tonight they anticipated following the trail to locate the hideout of that serial murderer Cletus.
Although the target was a serial killer, he was fundamentally just an ordinary human.
Yet the two of them—one was an alien symbiote, blessed by the power of the Moon God Khonshu and trained by Batman; the other was quite literally cloned from Batman, a superhuman endowed with a suite of abilities including super strength and super reflexes.
Bantering and fooling around all the way, their progress had been thoroughly relaxed.
Venom Robin's bizarre, screeching calls made tonight's operation feel more like a sightseeing trip.
However, right as the two of them were weaving between buildings and approaching Cletus Kasady's scouted hideout, Venom Robin snapped his head around, fixing his gaze on a patch of shadows far off in the rear.
"Who's there?" Venom Robin imitated Batman's raspy, low-pitched tone to make himself sound imposing.
Robin was currently wearing a facial mask, outwardly appearing like a teenager of fifteen or sixteen, but he wouldn't mind tearing off this harmless-looking mask to reveal his ferocious, true visage if the other party failed to know what was good for them.
"Something's up?" Seeing Venom Robin stare into the shadows, Benjamin Reilly instinctively closed his eyes, hoping to utilize his spider-sense to detect the intruder.
Yet his spider-sense registered absolutely nothing.
"Ben, when you're with me, your spider-sense stops working," Venom Robin said in a low voice.
"Why?" Benjamin Reilly hadn't realized this until now.
This was largely because they hadn't encountered any opponents worth noting over the past few days, leaving the spider-sense dormant and untriggered.
"It's a long story."
While speaking, Venom Robin kept his eyes glued to the shadows without blinking.
At this moment, he looked remarkably steady, entirely shedding the flashy, provocative demeanor from his earlier shrill wailing.
"Come out, I've found you," Robin said to the shadows, before whispering to Benjamin Reilly, "Don't use that sense of yours; use your super senses to locate them."
He instinctively fell back on the tone Batman used when training him:
"Also, when dealing with outsiders, you need to disguise your real voice—like this."
Benjamin Reilly obediently followed suit, and this time, it indeed allowed him to detect the anomaly.
Within the shadows, an athletic silhouette was clinging upside down against the wall, its head tilted upward to peer in their direction.
"Strange, my spider-sense actually failed when facing you two," a deliberately raspy, sweet voice drifted out from the shadows.
"A chick?" Venom Robin curled his lip. "Who've you got your eyes on? Stalking us for this long?"
"That has nothing to do with it. I'm looking for Spider-Man." The figure in the shadows flicked a hand, sending a strand of webbing flying across—it was none other than Gwen Stacy, clad in her suit.
"If you want to look for trouble with Spider-Man, you'll have to get past me first." Venom Robin grinned, exposing a full set of pearly white, razor-sharp fangs.
One of his hands reached behind his back to unship the massive double-edged battle-axe strapped there, weighing it in his palm:
"Come on, let me see how many of my axes you can take."
"I'm not here to fight either; I just have a question," Gwen shook her head, planting her feet at staggered heights against the wall a short distance away from the two, raising both hands to signal she bore no hostility.
An unmasked flash of disappointment crossed Venom Robin's face, though his hands remained gripped around the double-edged battle-axe.
"What question?" Robin asked.
Gwen maintained her pose with both hands raised, and this posture allowed Venom Robin to clearly spot the Batarang adhered right to her chest.
Venom Robin let out a quiet spit, muttering under his breath:
"Old Bat in drag?"
His voice was extremely low, so quiet that even Gwen not far away failed to catch it, though Spider-Man Benjamin Reilly standing beside him heard it clearly, prompting Benjamin to turn his head and cast a puzzled look at Robin.
Gwen Stacy naturally had no inkling of what the two were thinking internally, continuing on her own accord:
"I noticed that Spider-Man was unusually active in July, only appeared once in August, and completely vanished ever since—until he suddenly reappeared recently."
"The reason I tracked you down is simple~"
Gwen paused, coughing twice as if speaking in a raspy voice was somewhat taxing for her, before starting up again:
"I want to know how you train yourself."
Spider-Man Benjamin Reilly wore a blank expression, turning to look at Venom Robin for help.
"Training? If you really want to undergo training, I'll take you to see someone later," Venom Robin tightened his grip on the battle-axe. "But not right now."
Robin's gaze swept past Gwen, locking onto the shadows behind her:
"Come out, I've found you. That last remark was meant for you."
Gwen looked at Venom Robin in bewilderment.
"Oh?"
Right as Gwen stood there in confusion, a mature male voice rang out from another patch of shadows behind her:
"You actually managed to spot me?"
Venom Robin spat out a glob, a savage grin plastered across his face:
"If you'd hidden just a little better, I genuinely might not have noticed, but unfortunately your methods aren't top-tier."
"Is that so? I originally wanted to set traps and hunt you down one by one, but it now appears that wiping you all out in one fell swoop is the correct choice," the mature male voice stated.
"What kind of trash is running around playing god here!"
Venom Robin cursed, a myriad of pitch-black tentacles instantly erupting from his back to propel his body airborne, raising his double-edged battle-axe high to bring it crashing down directly.
Crash!
The sound of something shattering echoed out, followed by the billow of a cyan smoke screen that enveloped Venom Robin as his axe-strike cleaved through empty air.
The voice shifted to a different direction, still concealed within the shadows:
"A spider, a bat, a little monster. Your heads seem barely worthy of serving as my trophies."
"In case you don't know who I am: I am Kraven, the greatest hunter in the world, and unfortunately, you've become my targets."
"After I carve off your heads, I'll have to go hunt down a fellow called Batman; he's my true target for coming to New York. Consider yourselves a warm-up before that."
The hunter Kraven's voice carried a mocking edge; even though Venom Robin had displayed extraordinary traits, he appeared completely unbothered.
The twang and release of bowstrings rang out in rapid succession, and wooden arrows came flying from tricky angles, locking directly onto Gwen and Benjamin Reilly's eyes.
--
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