Rule number one of being a superhero in New York City: you are never actually fighting alone.
Whether it was the Avengers, the Defenders, the Fantastic Four, or the X-Men, Manhattan was practically crawling with enhanced individuals in spandex. Usually, Peter preferred to handle his own neighborhood. But when you were dealing with a parasitic alien sludge monster that possessed your best friend's future father-in-law? You didn't just hope for the best. You called in the guy who could casually generate temperatures north of six thousand degrees Celsius.
A blinding, yellow-orange comet streaked across the freezing October sky, leaving a trail of superheated plasma in its wake.
"Here's Johnny!" the Human Torch yelled, his voice echoing over the roar of his own flames.
The Vulture Symbiote froze mid-air. Its milky white eyes widened in sheer, primal terror as the blazing figure of Johnny Storm rocketed straight toward it. The intense, radiating heat instantly destabilized the symbiote's outer layer, causing the green sludge to violently boil and hiss. Panic overwrote its bloodlust. The monster banked hard to the left, frantically flapping its massive, dark green wings in a desperate bid to escape.
A few blocks behind them, Spider-Man swung from the edge of a Chrysler Building gargoyle. He deliberately hung back, letting the ambient heat wash over him. Beneath his suit, the black symbiote was violently recoiling, retreating as far away from Peter's skin as physically possible.
I despise the bright one, Venom hissed in Peter's mind, a wave of nauseating dread rolling through their psychic link. He is death.
"Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of overly enthusiastic kids either," Peter muttered aloud, firing a web-line to stay in Johnny's thermal wake. "Also, did he seriously just make a quote from The Shining? The guy has zero pop-culture originality."
Up ahead, the aerial chase was escalating. Terrified by the relentless wall of fire on its tail, the Vulture Symbiote pushed its anti-gravity harness to the absolute limit. It folded its massive wings inward and launched forward into a steep dive, accelerating straight past the speed of sound.
BOOM.
A concussive sonic boom shattered the windows of the empty office buildings below. The sheer kinetic force of breaking the sound barrier was agonizing for the symbiote. The green sludge rippled and tore, exposing patches of Adrian Toomes's leather jacket beneath, but the alien pushed through the pain, desperate to put distance between itself and the human fireball.
Johnny Storm didn't even break a sweat.
"What's wrong, ugly?!" Johnny laughed, easily matching the Vulture's supersonic speed. He flanked the monster, his entire body composed of blinding, white-hot plasma. "Is that all you've got? You're just gonna run? Man, I thought you space parasites were supposed to be tough! This is embarrassing!"
Infuriated, the Vulture snapped its wings outward. Hundreds of razor-sharp, biomechanical feathers detached and shot toward Johnny like a barrage of armor-piercing shrapnel.
Johnny just smirked. He didn't bother dodging. He simply flared his aura.
A wave of intense, localized heat pulsed from his chest. The metal feathers didn't even make contact. The moment they entered Johnny's thermal radius, they instantly melted into glowing droplets of molten slag, raining harmlessly down onto the empty rooftops below.
"Come on!" Johnny mocked, tossing a casual fireball over his shoulder that incinerated a secondary volley of feathers. "I don't think I've ever dealt with an enemy this fragile before!"
Using his intimate knowledge of the Manhattan skyline, Johnny executed a flawless barrel roll, cutting a sharp angle around a skyscraper antenna to perfectly intercept the Vulture's flight path. He dropped directly onto the monster's back.
The Vulture shrieked as Johnny's hands clamped down on its shoulders.
Johnny wasn't just a hothead; he had absolute, microscopic control over his pyrokinesis. He remembered Spider-Man's frantic pre-fight instructions perfectly: The guy inside the sludge is a hostage, so do not cook him. And S.H.I.E.L.D. needs a live sample of the alien.
Johnny's flames shifted from blinding white to a dull, heavily controlled orange. He carefully localized the heat, pushing the temperature of the symbiote's outer layer to an agonizing degree while completely shielding the human host caught in the middle.
"I strongly advise you to get off the old man," Johnny warned, his voice dropping its playful edge. "Or I'll just keep turning the dial until you're nothing but ash."
The green symbiote thrashed wildly, its screeching voice echoing in the night. You wouldn't! You are a hero! You do not kill!
"I don't kill people," Johnny corrected, raising the temperature of his palms just a fraction. "You're a puddle of space-snot. Watch me."
The heat became unbearable. Lasher couldn't maintain the cellular bond. With a final, wet tearing sound, the green sludge violently peeled itself off Adrian Toomes. The heavy, mechanical wings sparked and powered down. Without the symbiote holding him aloft, Adrian's eyes rolled back in his head, and he began to plummet toward the rooftop below.
Johnny instantly killed his flames, caught the unconscious engineer by the collar of his jacket, and gently touched down on the gravel roof.
The detached puddle of green symbiote hit the roof a second later. It weakly tried to slither toward a ventilation shaft, thoroughly exhausted and partially scorched.
Thwip.
A thick net of white webbing pinned the sludge to the concrete. Peter landed lightly on the edge of the roof, immediately pulling a heavy, reinforced S.H.I.E.L.D. containment cylinder from his utility belt. He scooped the shrieking green mass into the glass vial and twisted the pressure-locking cap tight.
"Unless you're planning to eat that thing to absorb its memories and find the other three, I think S.H.I.E.L.D. gets custody," Peter said, tapping the glass. He walked over and checked Adrian Toomes's pulse. It was steady. The man was just out cold, completely unaware of the nightmare he had just survived.
Peter stood up and extended a hand toward the Fantastic Four member. "Seriously, thanks for the assist, Johnny. If you hadn't shown up, that aerial fight would have been a massive headache."
"Anytime, Spidey," Johnny grinned, his grip still radiating a comfortable, residual warmth. "You ever run into another highly flammable space monster, you know who to call. By the way, you should swing by the Baxter Building sometime. Reed built this new zero-gravity ping-pong table. I'll show you around."
"I'll keep that in mind. Assuming I ever get a day off," Peter chuckled.
A mile away, perched on the absolute edge of a darkened Manhattan high-rise, a hulking, gray-and-black behemoth watched the entire exchange.
Riot's milky, jagged eyes tracked the Human Torch's fiery descent. The symbiote's massive musculature didn't twitch. It simply observed, absorbing the tactical data.
Should we intervene? Doctor Otto Octavius's cold, analytical voice echoed from within the shared psychic space of their bond. Your brethren was just captured.
"No," Riot rumbled aloud, its deep voice vibrating the concrete beneath its heavy claws. "They did not execute Lasher. They contained him. This is an opportunity."
An opportunity? Otto questioned, his brilliant mind instantly dissecting the alien's logic. You intend to let S.H.I.E.L.D. analyze the captive. You want them to develop a detection algorithm based on Lasher's biology, entirely so you do not have to do the work yourself.
"Precisely," Riot chuckled, a dark, wet sound. "We are not the first of our kind to visit this miserable planet. If the humans successfully calibrate a global scanning network to find us, they will not just locate my siblings. They will uncover the ancient, dormant symbiotes buried deep within this world."
Otto went silent for a moment. "What exactly are you planning, Riot?"
"What does it matter to you, Doctor?" Riot stroked its massive, bladed chin. "Are your people not utterly obsessed with harnessing our power? If you desire the strength of the symbiote, you should be thrilled that we are about to wake the others."
Without waiting for Otto's response, Riot vaulted off the edge of the skyscraper. The massive creature plummeted toward the Hudson River, diving flawlessly into the freezing, black water without making a splash.
Deep beneath the surface, a heavily modified stealth submarine waited in the current. Riot grabbed the exterior airlock and hauled itself inside the pressurized cabin.
The moment the heavy steel hatch sealed, the gray-black mass rapidly peeled away. It retreated into a contained bio-suit, leaving Otto Octavius slumped heavily into a motorized wheelchair.
Otto gasped, gripping the armrests. The transition was agonizing. Without Riot's cellular reinforcement, the devastating reality of his degenerative nerve condition rushed back into his system. His legs were entirely useless dead weight. His spine ached. The sheer physical frailty of his own body disgusted him.
The gray sludge coiled in its containment unit, its voice echoing in Otto's mind. You despise the weakness, do you not? You miss the perfection of our bond. Do not interfere with my siblings' work, Otto. Help us achieve our goal, and I will ensure you walk permanently.
Otto glared at the sludge, his breath ragged. "That pyrokinectic hero... the Human Torch. He is a catastrophic threat to your biology. If he finds you, you will burn."
Riot didn't seem concerned. A low, vibrating laugh echoed through the submarine cabin.
Do not worry about the fire, Doctor. The heat will be ending very soon.
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