Riot abandoned strategy in favor of overwhelming force.
The larger symbiote closed the distance between them in two massive strides, biomass flowing across Drake's enhanced physiology like living armor. Venom barely had time to raise a defensive barrier before Riot crashed into them with the momentum of a freight train.
They collided in a tangle of black tendrils and serrated edges.
Venom formed blades from both forearms and drove them toward Riot's center mass. Riot twisted, letting the strikes glance off hardened armor plates that formed across Drake's ribs. The larger symbiote's counterstrike came from three angles simultaneously—spiked fist from the left, bladed tendril from the right, and a whip-like appendage from below that wrapped around Venom's ankle.
Eddie's consciousness surfaced long enough to scream internally as Riot yanked hard, pulling their feet out from under them. They hit the concrete in a controlled roll, came up in a defensive crouch, and immediately had to dodge as Riot's hammer-fist cratered the pavement where they'd been a heartbeat earlier.
"We're holding our own!" Eddie thought with desperate optimism.
"We're surviving," Venom corrected. "There's a difference."
They grappled again—a brutal exchange of strength versus technique, Riot's raw power against Venom's superior agility. For maybe ten seconds, they seemed evenly matched. Venom got inside Riot's guard and wrapped tendrils around the larger symbiote's throat, squeezing with enough force to crush steel.
From the sidelines, Alexei's voice carried across the launch facility. "Ha! Venom's going to win! The weak defeating the strong!"
Riot's biomass rippled.
Eddie felt the shift a microsecond before it happened—Riot's surface tension changing, hardening, restructuring.
Then spikes erupted across every inch of Riot's body.
Thirty-centimeter barbs punched through Venom's tendrils and drove deep into Eddie's shared biology. Pain exploded through their nervous system—alien agony mixing with human nerve signals in a feedback loop that left Eddie gasping.
Venom's grip broke. They staggered backward, biomass retracting instinctively from the barbed surface.
Riot didn't give them space to recover.
The larger symbiote's arm became a club—massive, dense, edged with bone-like ridges. It swung horizontally and caught Venom across the torso with a sound like a baseball bat hitting a side of beef.
Eddie felt ribs crack despite the symbiote's cushioning. They flew backward twenty feet, hit the ground hard, and tried to rise.
Riot was already on them.
The larger symbiote landed with both feet on Venom's chest, driving them back into the concrete. Eddie's vision whited out from the impact. By the time it cleared, Riot had grabbed their ankle and was spinning.
The world became a blur of motion. Riot whirled them around twice—building momentum—then released.
Venom flew through the air in an uncontrolled arc that terminated against the Life Two rocket's support structure. Metal shrieked. Warning alarms blared. They slid down the scaffolding and collapsed in a heap at the launch pad's base.
"Get up," Venom growled through their shared consciousness. "We have to get up."
Eddie tried. His body—their body—responded sluggishly. Bones were knitting back together. Tissue was regenerating. But the process took precious seconds they didn't have.
Riot stalked toward them with predatory confidence.
The larger symbiote's biomass shifted constantly—weapons forming and retracting, armor plates thickening and thinning, adapting to anticipated threats with the fluid precision of something that had spent millennia perfecting the art of violence.
Riot reached down and grabbed Venom's head with both hands.
Eddie felt the separation beginning—Riot's biomass finding the seams where Venom's tissue merged with his own, peeling them apart with surgical precision.
"No!" Eddie's voice came out strangled, terrified. "Venom, he's—"
"I know!" The symbiote fought back, trying to maintain their bond, but Riot was stronger and more experienced. The larger symbiote knew exactly how to force separation.
Black tendrils withdrew from Eddie's skin. The armor covering his torso began peeling away. Another few seconds and Venom would be completely removed, leaving Eddie vulnerable and the symbiote at Riot's mercy.
Eddie's hand scrabbled across the concrete, seeking something—anything—to use as a weapon. His fingers found nothing but broken pavement and scattered debris.
"Guys!" Eddie screamed toward the observation team. "I can't take it anymore! Help!"
Selene moved first.
The vampire elder crossed the distance between her position and the launch pad in a blur of superhuman speed. Her approach was silent—no footfalls, no battle cry, just sudden lethal presence manifesting where she'd been absent a heartbeat before.
Her kick caught Riot square in the center mass with the full force of her enhanced strength behind it.
Riot flew backward off the launch pad, tumbling through the air in an uncontrolled spiral. The larger symbiote hit the ocean forty yards from shore with a massive splash that sent waves crashing against the facility's seawall.
Eddie gasped as Venom's biomass flowed back into place, reestablishing their bond. The pain from his cracked ribs faded as the symbiote's healing factor accelerated his recovery.
"Thanks," Eddie managed, climbing to his feet with Venom's assistance. "I thought we were done."
Selene landed beside him in a three-point crouch, her expression unreadable. "Be careful. Riot will attempt parasitic transfer if given the opportunity." She said to the other two.
Michael and Alexei approached from different angles, forming a loose perimeter around the launch pad. The Red Guardian's weathered face showed concern rather than his usual confidence.
"The coward ran?" Alexei asked, staring at the churning water where Riot had disappeared. "After all that talk, he retreats?"
Venom shook Eddie's head, their voice carrying both human and alien harmonics. "No. Riot wants the rocket. Wants to bring millions of symbiotes to Earth. He won't abandon that goal. He's planning something."
Beneath the launch pad's support structure, hidden in the shadows where seawater met concrete, Riot clung to the underside of the platform.
Drake's consciousness was barely present anymore—suppressed deep in their shared biology while Riot dominated their combined thoughts. The symbiote peered through gaps in the scaffolding, studying the three new arrivals with calculated interest.
The woman had kicked him. Fast. Powerful. Enhanced physiology beyond what Drake's body could achieve.
The large male—massive frame, obvious musculature, the bearing of a professional soldier. Enhanced as well. Possibly superhuman.
The hybrid creature—carrying genetic markers from multiple apex predators. Unknown capabilities, but clearly dangerous.
All three were superior hosts to Carlton Drake.
Riot felt regret pulsing through his alien consciousness. Drake had been convenient—wealthy, ambitious, perfectly willing to commit genocide for resources. But his body was merely human. Baseline. Weak.
"I should have brought the scouter," Riot thought, Drake's memories providing the reference. "Would've known which one to target first."
The symbiote analyzed the three potential hosts, comparing them through Drake's eyes. The woman moved with supernatural grace. The hybrid carried an animal quality that suggested raw physical power. But the large male had the most obvious physical strength.
Bulk. Muscle mass. Bone density that suggested enhancement beyond natural human limits.
That one would be perfect.
Riot made the decision in microseconds. Drake had served his purpose. Time for an upgrade.
The symbiote launched itself from the underside of the platform, erupting through the scaffolding in an explosion of black biomass and salt water.
Alexei saw the attack coming and reacted with trained reflexes. His fist came up—a devastating right cross carrying several tons of force behind superhuman muscle.
The punch should have connected. Should have sent Riot flying backward. Should have given Alexei time to retreat and the team time to coordinate a proper defense.
Instead, Riot flowed.
The moment before impact, the symbiote abandoned solid form. Black biomass liquified, flowing around Alexei's fist like water around a stone. The punch passed through empty space where Riot's center mass had been a microsecond earlier.
Then the symbiote was on him.
Riot poured into Alexei through every available opening—nose, mouth, ears, the microscopic gaps between skin cells. The transfer happened in less than two seconds, too fast for anyone to intervene.
Alexei's eyes went wide with shock and horror. His mouth opened in a strangled gasp that never became a scream. His hands clawed at his own throat as he felt the alien presence flooding through his biology.
Behind them, Drake's body collapsed to the concrete—abandoned, empty, lifeless without the symbiote that had been puppeting it.
Venom grabbed his own head with both hands. "Oh no. This is very bad."
"What's happening?" Eddie demanded.
"Riot transferred. He's inside Alexei now."
The transformation was instant.
Black biomass erupted from Alexei's skin, flowing across his enhanced physiology like oil over water. The Red Guardian's massive frame became the foundation for something nightmarish—Riot's alien biology merging with superhuman musculature to create a hybrid that exceeded the sum of its parts.
The symbiote formed armor plates across Alexei's chest and shoulders. Weapons sprouted from both forearms—blades, spikes, serrated edges that gleamed wetly under the facility's security lighting. Riot's characteristic white eyes appeared where Alexei's face had been, set in a mask of obsidian that showed far too many teeth.
Then the newly bonded symbiote roared.
The sound was primal—layered with Alexei's human vocal cords and Riot's alien harmonics, creating something that belonged in nightmares rather than reality. Countless barbs erupted across Riot's surface, each one sharp enough to pierce steel.
An aura of pure menace radiated from the transformed figure.
Selene's hand went to the Scouter at her belt. She activated it, aimed it at Riot, and watched the numbers climb.
150.
Her expression shifted to something between concern and calculation. "We have a problem."
Michael transformed partially—enough to enhance his speed and strength without committing to full combat form. "How bad?"
"Riot's power level is one hundred fifty. The combination of Alexei's enhanced physiology and the symbiote's augmentation..." Selene trailed off, already running combat scenarios in her mind. "I can't match that in direct confrontation. Best I can do is use speed to evade."
Above them, Smith Doyle hovered in midair—arms crossed, watching the chaos below with clinical detachment.
His mind made connections that would have seemed obscure to anyone else. The way Riot transferred between hosts. The parasitic control. The exponential power increase from combining with enhanced biology.
It reminded him of Baby.
The Tuffle parasite from Dragon Ball GT had operated on similar principles—jumping from host to host, controlling their bodies, using their power as his own. Baby had parasitized the Z Fighters one by one, turning Earth's defenders into an army serving his revenge.
But Riot had critical weaknesses Baby had lacked. Fire. Sound. And most importantly—the previous host survived separation. Baby's victims had remained controlled even after the parasite moved on. Riot's hosts were freed the moment he abandoned them.
"If symbiotes operated like Baby," Smith mused, "they'd be unstoppable. Able to parasitize anything in the universe. But they're not. They're powerful, but limited. Exploitable."
Below, Riot savored his new strength.
The symbiote flexed Alexei's enhanced muscles, feeling power that dwarfed anything Carlton Drake's baseline human body could have provided. Inside their shared consciousness, Alexei fought for control—pushing back against Riot's dominance with superhuman will.
But Riot was experienced in suppressing hosts. He allocated a portion of his attention to containing Alexei's resistance, accepting the slight reduction in overall capability as a necessary cost.
"Still stronger than before," Riot growled. "Still more than enough to deal with you."
His gaze swept across the opposition.
Then his eyes locked on Selene and Riot smiled with far too many teeth.
"I should have chosen your body first," the symbiote said, his voice carrying Alexei's Russian accent filtered through alien harmonics. "Your speed is beyond my expectations. So much better than this brute."
Riot's hands transformed. Left arm became a meteor hammer—a massive spiked weight on a tendril that could extend and retract at will. Right arm became a scythe—curved blade long enough to bisect a human torso.
The symbiote pushed off the ground with explosive force, launching himself into the air above the launch pad.
The meteor hammer whipped toward Selene in a devastating arc.
The vampire elder's enhanced reflexes saved her life. She saw the attack coming, calculated the trajectory, and moved—not away from the weapon, but toward its source. She slipped inside the hammer's arc and rushed toward Riot's exposed midsection.
Her hands came up in a rapid-fire series of strikes—palm strikes aimed at nerve clusters, pressure points, anywhere that might disrupt the symbiote's coordination.
But Riot had anticipated the maneuver.
Armor plates materialized across his torso where Selene's strikes were aimed. Her palms hit hardened biomass instead of vulnerable flesh. The impacts rang like hammer on anvil, producing no visible damage.
"Did you think I wasn't prepared?" Riot's grin widened. "I've fought opponents faster than you. Stronger than you. More experienced than you."
Three tentacles erupted from Riot's back—black tendrils that moved independently of his main body. They whipped toward Selene from different angles, seeking to entangle her.
One wrapped around her ankle. Another caught her wrist. The third aimed for her throat.
Riot yanked, pulling the vampire elder off-balance and dragging her toward his waiting blade.
"Your body will be mine," the symbiote purred. "And with your speed combined with this strength, I'll be unstoppable."
Venom saw the opening.
While Riot's attention focused entirely on Selene, the smaller symbiote charged. Eddie's fear had evaporated—replaced by desperate determination to protect his teammate and stop the launch.
Venom's right arm shifted, biomass flowing and restructuring until it became a javelin—narrow, hardened, designed for penetration rather than blunt force.
They covered the distance in three massive bounds, building momentum, converting their entire body weight and Venom's enhanced strength into a single devastating thrust.
The javelin punched into Riot's side just below the ribs.