The two returned home disappointed. Morbius apologized to Eddie for not being able to help find Annie. He could easily guess at the relationship between Eddie, the woman, and Dan, and it was probably some kind of messy love triangle.
Eddie held his head in despair and slumped onto the sofa, his eyes fierce yet somewhat confused.
"Relax, Eddie. Annie is the bravest woman I've ever met. She'll be fine." Venom comforted him in a rough voice. "The symbiote needs a host to survive, and Annie may have been chosen as that host. After all, I once stayed in her body. That's probably why that guy was able to find Annie!"
It had to be said that although Venom was easy to trick and coax most of the time, his intelligence was actually not low. He was not the mindless killer portrayed in some versions of the Spider-Man stories who only knew how to kill. The symbiotes in this universe all possessed intelligence no lower than that of humans. Otherwise, Venom would never have been selected to come to Earth as a member of the advance team.
In fact, what he said was absolutely correct. Knull had sent Contempt to San Francisco, where the entire advance team had been wiped out. He wanted to see what powerful warriors existed on Earth who could kill the invaders.
The symbiote's weaknesses were unknown, but they could be easily discovered through testing.
Contempt sensed the presence of her kind when she arrived in San Francisco. It was completely different from what Knull had told her. There were still other symbiotes living on Earth!
She followed the scent toward Eddie's home, but along the way, that same scent appeared again!
Contempt stared closely at a passing car. She sensed the presence of a symbiote within it. It was very faint, but extremely strong. Contempt concluded that this human woman must have encountered a symbiote before, and their relationship was definitely more than a passing meeting. She had even been a host before.
Dan told Annie jokes along the way. He sincerely hoped that his girlfriend could break free from the shackles of the past and forget all the unhappiness she had experienced before. No one wanted the woman they loved to have another man in her heart, even if that man was a superhero.
"You hate Eddie?" Annie asked.
"Hate? Uh... not really. I just don't like him." Dan shook his head and stared at the road ahead. "He loves you very much, but it's a pity that he lost you. Some failures can't be undone. I wouldn't envy a man who lost what he had, but the life he once had is now mine." Dan looked at Annie affectionately. This woman was everything to him.
"In the future, I can at least brag that the superhero lost to me."
"Ha! Eddie will go crazy if he hears that." Annie covered her mouth and chuckled. "I hope he can find his own happiness."
"Me too!" Dan kissed his fiancée, but he did not notice the car driving in the opposite direction, speeding straight toward them.
Boom!
Dan saw the car at the last moment and desperately turned the steering wheel. The driver's side collided with the oncoming vehicle. The airbag suddenly burst from the steering wheel, and Dan was knocked unconscious.
After a while.
Annie woke up faintly in the passenger seat.
It hurts!
The woman covered her forehead and felt something wet on her hand. The next second, the strong smell of blood entered her nose, while the severe pain in her abdomen nearly tore her body apart.
"Ah... ah!" Annie lowered her head. A steel pipe had pierced through her abdomen. The pain running from front to back made her moan and whimper involuntarily. She grabbed the steel pipe embedded in her abdomen. Blood had soaked the metal surface, and fragments of unknown internal organs hung from the end, bright red and horrifying.
Annie wanted to call for help, but the moment she opened her mouth, a mouthful of blood immediately poured from her throat. The smell of blood seemed to fill every inch of her body, flowing unconsciously from the corners of her mouth and making her look frightening.
"I'm going to die..." Annie was barely conscious. She glanced at Dan beside her for the last time, her eyes full of sadness. "Goodbye, Dan... Goodbye, Eddie..." She had already begun saying goodbye to the world, and the reflection in her eyes gradually blurred.
Tick-tock, tick-tock!
What? Is it blood? Annie wondered, but she could no longer see it.
"My eyelids are so heavy... I really want to sleep..."
Where she could not see, purple viscous liquid dripped drop by drop onto the woman's body, gradually invading her wounds. It was as if her injuries had never existed. Granulation sprouted in the blink of an eye, and new flesh rapidly grew together. Annie's appearance was completely replaced by a purple monster.
"Annie..." Dan suddenly cried out in pain. His ribs were broken, and he could not move. His eyes were covered in blood that had flowed into his pupils. Vaguely, Dan seemed to see Eddie. The pair of pale, narrow eyes were set into a smooth head, while a slender tongue like a poisonous snake—or a pitiful puppy—licked its own wounds.
"Eddie?" Dan struggled to open his eyes. "Eddie" turned his head and revealed a sad smile. Dan suddenly saw "Eddie's" face clearly.
"You... you're not Eddie..." Dan's face instantly filled with terror, and his already pale complexion became even paler.
Contempt wanted to kill the man, but the host's strong will interfered with her actions.
"Save him! Save him!" Contempt heard a woman scream with all her strength, and a heart-wrenching pain spread through her body.
Contempt could not understand the complex emotions of humans, but she still agreed with the woman. She helped her, and a small strand of the symbiote split from her body and slipped into Dan's body.
Contempt was different from Eddie. She could precisely control the symbiote fragments she separated, and they possessed no independent consciousness. The symbiote's excellent self-healing ability repaired Dan's broken ribs, but that was all.
She had no responsibility to save people. Everything she did came from the guilt of the woman inside her body.
Contempt threw Dan out of the car and looked at the dashboard in front of her. She tilted her head. Her body was like sun-melted sesame paste, swallowing all the electronic equipment in the wrecked car and leaving only an empty shell.
She glanced at the people in the other car. The driver had been injected with a portion of her body. She had been the one controlling the driver's actions and deliberately causing the accident.
"Venom!" Contempt sensed the presence of the remaining symbiote within Annie's body and searched through her memories again, completely discovering Venom's existence. This loser had actually broken free of Knull's control? How did he do it? Contempt was shocked.
But it didn't matter anymore. Everything would be revealed when they met.
...
"Are you saying that other symbiotes have come to Earth?" Eddie sat on the sofa with a serious expression. Dan's face was pale. He had lost too much blood. Even after Renzo rescued him, his body was still extremely weak, and it would probably take several days to recover.
"Do you know that purple symbiote?"
"I don't know them," Venom said in a deep voice. "They're on a very high level, and I can't come into contact with them. Besides, I've never encountered a purple symbiote before. Most of them are white, black, gray, blue, or yellow..." Venom paused. "Purple is a relatively rare color, and it's mostly associated with leaders."
The most advanced symbiote Venom had ever seen was Riot, that silver-white monster.
In addition, the lowest-level symbiotes were red and black, mass-produced by Knull as disposable soldiers during the symbiote conflict.
"Stronger than Riot." Eddie fell silent when he heard that. He could not forget the scene of being beaten by Riot half a year ago. He and Venom had been completely powerless against him. If not for the fire and noise from the rockets, they probably would have been defeated then and there, allowing Riot to escape back to the symbiote planet. Perhaps by now, Earth would have become a paradise for symbiotes.
"Go save her!" Eddie said firmly. So what if it was stronger than Riot? He was no longer the same Eddie and Venom from six months ago. During Renzo's two weeks of brutal training, both of them had been transformed. Venom had also developed a certain resistance to flames and sound waves. At least, noise would no longer cause him unbearable pain.
If Eddie and Venom encountered Riot now, it was uncertain who would win.
"But we don't know where she is." Morbius extinguished the man's fighting spirit with a single sentence. Yes, they had no idea where the symbiote had taken Annie.
"Uh... excuse me!" Renzo raised his hand at an inappropriate moment. "Although I'm very pleased that you're getting along so harmoniously, there's one thing I must tell you."
The eyes of Eddie, Venom, Dan, and Morbius all focused on Renzo.
"What is it?"
"You may be facing more than one symbiote."
"???"
Renzo explained that someone had come looking for him while Eddie was away, and that his body was also filled with the scent of a symbiote.
"Maybe he's from the military. The information I found about that person suggests that he's a soldier." Renzo projected the information he had found through the Mind Stone. "Eugene Thompson, known as Lightning, was a member of the Midtown High School football team. After graduating from MIT, he joined the army and lost his legs in the recent war in the Middle East."
"Disabled?" Eddie was a little surprised. "Then how did he stand up?"
The answer was self-evident. Eddie slammed his fist onto the table in anger, and the hard surface trembled beneath the blow.
"Don't you think the military has caused enough trouble? They actually want to control the symbiote! Are they out of their minds?" Venom suddenly felt that not everyone's brains were worth eating. Some people might not even have enough brains to begin with.
In Eddie's opinion, the military's attempt to control the symbiote was completely suicidal. They did not understand the horror of these creatures at all. Only those who had personally experienced and fought them could understand what kind of existence a symbiote truly was.
Their ability to recover was extremely strong, their will could influence humans, their numbers could multiply, and they lacked empathy.
Venom was an exception. When an exception met Eddie, a man who still possessed a conscience, a completely different kind of symbiote emerged.
"How about I go to the appointment while you go look for Annie?" Morbius, who had been silent until now, spoke up. With his abilities, he was practically a natural counter to symbiotes. A single ultrasonic wave was enough to make countless symbiotes wish they were dead.
"Let me tell you in advance that I won't get involved." Renzo said, "But I'll help you find Annie's location. As for the symbiote... you can deal with it yourselves."
Renzo suddenly realized that constantly helping the protagonists solve their problems was not necessarily a good thing. The tragedy of the 838 universe was still vivid in his mind, and a hero who had not experienced hardship was not worthy of being called a hero. Wanda was a lesson learned from the past.
"The day after tomorrow is Saturday. Eddie, get ready and go to your appointment."
Eddie agreed, while Renzo took responsibility for finding Annie's whereabouts. His search abilities were much better than those of the two amateurs. He discovered that the network in this world was unexpectedly easy to infiltrate. It was much easier than the Avengers' world. Even satellites could be breached with ease.
Renzo couldn't believe that the satellites covering the entire United States could not find a single symbiote. Unless she could hide in some remote wilderness, Renzo could use the Mind Stone to sense her presence. As long as she was still alive and still existed somewhere on this planet, Renzo would definitely be able to find her.
...
"Who are you?!"
Annie asked as her face forced its way through the body of purple slime.
Contempt did not answer. It could be said that she had no interest in answering an Earth woman's foolish question.
"Symbiote?!" Annie suddenly thought of Venom. The black head looked as stupid as if it had been kicked by a donkey, and the slime covering his body was just as disgusting. "Are you one of the four symbiotes that landed on Earth half a year ago?" Annie knew Rocket had brought four symbiotes, but she had seen Venom and heard Eddie mention Riot. She had no memory of the other two.
So she naturally assumed that this was a hidden danger left behind from half a year ago.
"You'd better not touch me. Eddie will come and find me. He's very strong! Extremely powerful! He can lift a truck and throw it in your face." Something felt wrong after Annie said it. She seemed to have used her body again, so she didn't want Eddie to hurt his face.
Annie had no real measure of Eddie's strength. She had heard that Eddie defeated Riot and naturally assumed that Eddie and Venom were the strongest.
Contempt paid no attention to the foolish woman. She continued absorbing electronic equipment. In fact, the two of them were now inside a research facility. A large number of purple tendrils extended from Contempt's body, spreading viscous liquid over the equipment and producing a faint sound of corrosion.
This was Contempt's characteristic ability: she could absorb electronic components and use them as part of her own body, taking on the capabilities of the devices.
Renzo would have plenty to say to Contempt if he were here—two electronic biochemical beings.
When Renzo had chosen to become human, he had not given up his ability to connect to the Internet. Like Vision, in addition to becoming a human body, he retained all the abilities Vision could use. He was even stronger than before!
As Contempt absorbed a large amount of electronic equipment, the right side of her body transformed into something resembling mechanical and electronic components. Annie suddenly felt that her mind had become much clearer and fuller, and even her thoughts became faster and more agile.
"What are you going to do?" Annie felt Contempt's movements. She seemed to be constructing some kind of device, but Annie's limited knowledge did not allow her to understand what it was for.
"It's just a little gadget, used to deal with Venom." Contempt's hoarse voice sounded. "And your ex-boyfriend."
"He will be punished for his betrayal!" Contempt shouted. "And I will be the executioner!"
"Venom... Eddie... I'm waiting for you!"
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