Chương 117: All me.
Upon hearing the news that Venom was still out there, Eren stood in place silently before speaking in a cold, low voice. "I don't know what to do anymore..."
No one else said a word to him, just watching silently from afar. "Every time I think that I've won, it gets one step ahead of me...
Every timeline.
Every version of myself...
I always lose.
I know all the answers, but how can I outsmart someone who has the same answers as I do."
Again, no one said a word. There was nothing to be said that hadn't already been said to him time and time again and they knew that.
'It'll be alright.'
'We'll beat him.'
'It's okay, Eren.'
'Don't give up.'
It's what they were all thinking but they knew saying it out loud would only make him spiral further into the madness of his own mind. He hid it well, pretending that madness had gone away when the symbiote did but this wasn't true in the slightest. Having the symbiote again, a version he was fully in control of while nonetheless still being under its influence, made that rage and bitterness inside of him boil.
He no longer lusted for human flesh, but he did feel all of his negative emotions ramping up greatly within him. I was taking everything inside of him not to erupt at that moment. Godspeed energy began to crackle at his palms, once again flickering between blue and black, though he failed to notice the change in color.
"I always lose." Eren repeated.
"Eren..." Cindy, from behind, grabbed Eren's hand, prompting him to turn around and face her. "Hey... look at me."
Eren retracted his mask, showing his face to everyone around them. The world was ending soon, and identities no longer mattered.
Once Eren's face was shown, Cindy placed her hand on his cheek and caressed his face with her soft, warm hand. "Stop pretending like you're alone." she spoke to him softly, but her words were still meaningless.
"Cindy. Thank you." Eren spoke with a raspy, soft voice, grabbing her hand that rested on his cheek. "I always lose, every single time. But you're always there for me. Every single time. Thank you."
"We'll save everyone. Together." Cindy whispered, getting a soft smile as a response from Eren.
"No. It's just me. I need to come up with a new plan. I need to be alone."
"What? What do you mean you need to be alone?"
"Cindy... I probably won't be seeing you for a while. If that's the case, just know I love you more than anything else in this world. Know that I'm sorry for everything I've done to you, all the hurt I've caused you. I want to say so much more, but if I do, you'll try to stop me."
Harry stepped forward, frowning at his best friend's confusing words. "What about the civilians? You're just gonna let them die?"
Spider-Man didn't even look at him. "Yes. With Venom alive, he'll keep making hives and more and more people will need help. Let's be realistic, Harry. We can't bring everyone here. It's already getting really full in there. We'll run out of resources. Just worry about bringing those who matter. The Moons, Felicia, and Liz. Other than that, we'd have to start making some tough choices on who eats and who starves."
"So you're going to pin that decision on us?" Harry asked him.
"I'm making the decision of closing the doors to Oscorp for you. Whether you listen or not is up to you." Eren spoke with a cold, monotone voice. It was shocking to hear him speak this way, especially since he'd do whatever it took to save people. However, the situation was dire.
"That symbiote is-" Harry tried to speak, but Eren already knew where he was going and cut him off.
"Don't even say it. This isn't the symbiote talking. This is all me, Harry. The symbiote is only giving me the guts to speak my mind. I told you, I'm the one in control." Eren's words muted both of his friends, creating silence for a few seconds.
"I need you two to keep everyone inside safe, okay?" Spider-Man stepped away from Cindy and Harry, turning his back on them before stepping through the anti-symbiote barrier. It hurt, but he passed through with ease. "Once I figure out what to do on my own, I'll come back to you guys. Hold it down while I'm gone."
"Eren-" Cindy called out, following him through the barrier before he covered his body with the symbiote and blasted away, leaving a blue and black trail of energy behind him.
"That color..." Cindy whispered, seeing the difference in the color of his trail.
𝘖𝘯𝘦 𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘬 𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘳...
New York City had completely fallen.
Though Dr. Beck was able to finish creating the barrier that covered the entire city before getting sent back to prison by his own choice, the city itself was completely in ruin.
The streets were filled with nothing more than Walkers and corpses.
The buildings all over the city were covered in black sludge, causing the city to look as if it were an alien planet. Flames spewed from many buildings that weren't covered in symbiotic tendrils and there was no fire department to put them out.
No one knew for sure, but it was estimated that at least seventy percent of the city's entire population was either dead or infected.
Harry did what he could, letting in refugees to stay at Oscorp, the only place that was safe in the city. Food and water were running low and people were starting to get hungry, people were starting to get violent.
There wasn't enough for everyone.
People were turning on each other, getting physically violent with each other, turning Oscorp itself into its own little bubble of chaos. It was just as Eren predicted.
Harry sat alone on the top floor of the building in his father's office, trying to figure out what his next plan of action would be.
Cindy was elsewhere, looking for Eren and checking the places he might be.
Eren was nowhere to be found. It'd been a week since anyone had last heard from him. Not even the civilians had seen Spider-Man running around the city, it was as if he was erased from the face of the planet.
Eren was actually hiding out at the Baxter building, finding himself in a dark room surrounded by papers and dry-erase boards with equations written all over them. He'd been in this room for almost the entire week, only leaving to use the bathroom or eat. Even though only a week had passed, it was about two years in Eren's mind. Each day, he spent months inside of his own mind, going through formulas and scenarios.
Like a movie, these scenarios would play in his head over and over, all ending in the exact same way. However, by the seventh day, he discovered an alternate ending. He discovered the potential rare reality where the coin toss caused the coin to land on its edge.
He stood in front of a glass dry-erase board, looking at the drawing he created and the formula beneath it. What he drew could not be described in words. It was a unique shape, one that only existed in two places: his mind and the board. It was somehow an endless shape, one with no beginning or end.
"I figured it out..." he whispered, looking at the board with his blank, tired eyes. "It all makes sense. How we're all connected. Godspeed isn't energy, not entirely. It's an essence... it's its own microcosm, like Hank Pym's Quantum Realm. I can access a part of this microcosm, but I need to figure out how to access it as a whole." Eren hummed to himself before he started writing more things down on one of the dry-erase boards.
"Equivalent exchange. That's why I couldn't use it with my normal body. The symbiote gives me access to latent energy within myself and its own energy... But my first theory deduced that it was a neurological type of energy, right?" Eren started jotting more things down.
"Emotion. Yes... that makes sense. When I thought about Dad or Cindy or Mom, I'd get those visions. I awakened Godspeed because of emotion. But if emotion is the key, if it really is a neurological ability like I originally deduced... how does Venom use my power? How do Bolters use my power?" Eren's marker stopped on the board, he was stuck in his own mind until he figured out the next step.
"Symbiotes are alive so they obviously have a brain... I tried looking at its anatomy but Earth technology is too far behind for me to even attempt to figure it out. But if they do have their own brain, that explains why it was able to 'speak' to me. It explains why it can use a neuron-based ability."
Eren looked at an equation on the board, one that was calculating how much energy his body would need to do whatever he was planning. He needed more energy, but the amount of it that was needed was far beyond anything he could create himself. "I need to access the microcosm. The Godspeed Realm, I'll call it. But if it requires equivalent exchange, what could I possibly give it in order to draw out enough energy..."
"So this is where you've been?" Cindy's voice startled Eren, prompting him to jolt and turn around to see Silk standing right behind him. "You've done all of this in just a week?" she asked him, looking at the mountains of papers and dozens of dry-erase boards scattered around the room.
"Has it really only been a week? I see... for me it's been a few years I think? I don't know, it's sort of a blur at this point." Eren walked over to Cindy and hugged her tightly. "I missed you so much." Eren, unlike a week ago, was speaking in a soft voice. It was as if throughout the years in his mind, he mellowed out once again.
"What do you mean by years?" Cindy was confused. She couldn't tell if he was exaggerating or if he literally meant years somehow passed for him.
"When I'm in my Ultimate Godspeed state, time slows down for me. I've been in the form for a week straight if what you told me is true. What's a few minutes for you is an hour for me." Cindy's eyes were wide as she rested her chin on her lover's shoulder.
'How could anyone do such a thing to themselves?' she thought.
"Eren... are you okay? Being isolated for years isn't healthy. How are you still functioning?"
"I just played scenarios in my head using Godspeed with you in them. Remember how I showed you a memory that one time? I did the same thing for myself when I could feel my sanity drifting." Eren spoke as if this was something completely normal. "The only downside was that I knew it was fake deep inside of me. I longed for your touch again. Your real touch..."
.
.
.
Harry, still sitting at his desk, glanced out of his office window. However, he noticed something rather peculiar. He saw people, regular humans, walking mindlessly through the barrier of Oscorp and out into the outside world. "What?" Harry muttered before standing up and walking closer to the glass wall to get a better look.
Lily sprinted into the room, looking at Harry with wide eyes as she too noticed the strange phenomena happening outside. "Harry!" the two looked at each other as she spoke Harry's name, compelling him to nod before looking back outside of the window.
The people were walking as if they were being lured in by something. Harry continued to scan the area until he noticed a symbiote standing on top of a bus with its mouth open. It had the figure of a woman, an alluring one, as it sang loudly for all to hear. Due to being so high up and inside the building, Lily and Harry couldn't hear anything, but they could tell it was singing.
"Is that a siren?" Harry whispered to Lily before immediately rummaging through the room for something he could use to plug his own ears. It wasn't long before he stumbled across a pair of earplugs on his desk, shoving them in his ears before he quickly geared up.
Lily ran out of the room and grabbed her laptop, ready to take the role of Seer once again.
Outside, the Siren continued to call to the people, entrancing them with her voice as they began getting picked off by Bolters and Walkers using their quick tendrils. This was a Siren's one and only goal, to attract humans with their voice so they could be consumed or kidnapped.
As the Siren continued to sing, a bomb could be seen hitting her body, stopping her in her tracks and prompting her to look down at it. The bomb chimed a few times before blowing up inside her body.
The symbiote and the woman underneath were blown to smithereens and the citizens were released from her trance. Immediately, they started to panic before the New Goblin flew downward on his glider, stopping right in front of where the Siren once stood. "Everyone get back! Get back inside!"
Meanwhile, Lily was trying her best to get a hold of Eren and Cindy, but neither of them was responding to her comms. It was as if their comms were being completely jammed. Even her computer wasn't able to see through Harry's visor as the feed was completely jammed. All she could do was watch from the window.
Harry then ran toward the crowd and began cutting through the symbiotes using his spear, doing his best to dodge any Bolters that tried to zip toward him. After a few seconds of fighting, Harry could hear the sound of an ear-splitting, monstrous scream behind him.
He turned around to face what was causing the noise, only to be shocked to find that Venom itself was standing right behind him. Slowly, all of the symbiote pawns backed off and gave the two enough space just as Venom ordered with his scream.
"HARRY! GET OUT OF THERE!" Lily screamed through the glass at the top of Oscorp as if Harry could hear her. There was nothing she could do at that point. She was just a woman without any type of power or fighting ability. Felicia and Liz, hearing the commotion, ran into the room beside Liz and looked out of the window with her.
This was their first time seeing Venom, causing them to feel an emptiness in their lower bodies. They too could do nothing but watch as they were also nothing more than mere humans.
"Osborn." Venom's dark voice teased the New Goblin by speaking his last name. Harry's eyebrows furrowed beneath his high-tech snowboarding goggles as he gripped his spear tightly.
"Venom." Harry said confidently. "You finally decided to show your ugly face again?" Harry's hoverboard started to float toward him before parking right beside him. Harry placed a single foot on it, remaining unmoved as he looked directly at the monster in front of him. "How'd you do it? How'd you get out of that explosion?"
Venom laughed before peeling itself back to show Flash Thompson's unrecognizable, charred body. He was still alive, suffering for every single moment he was alive. Harry winced under his mask, though he couldn't even find the words to react with.
"I simply hid inside the imbecile's body the second the explosion went off. I must say, he took it like a champ. He almost died on me, but I've been keeping his organs going manually to keep him alive. See?" Venom then retracted more of itself, showing that Flash's body was open at the chest. Venom was using its own tendrils to pump Flash's heart manually, basically acting as his living life support.
"Jesus..." Harry was speechless. This Lovecraftian sight in front of him was something he could've never even imagined no matter how hard he tried.
"I needed time to... prepare, so I grabbed the body of some human who looked close enough like the idiot and left him under the vehicle Parker struck me with." Venom covered Flash's body with itself before smiling at Harry once more with its almost endless rows of teeth.
"Prepare? Prepare for what?" Harry asked, trying to buy time for Cindy or Eren to get there. He was merely a human with enhanced strength, he knew this was a fight he likely could not win on his own. However, he wasn't aware that their communications devices were jammed. He assumed Lily was quiet because she was speaking to Cindy or hopefully both Cindy and Eren.
"Parker gaining a piece of us wasn't something I was expecting. He was powerful. Too powerful. I needed to get stronger." Venom sounded genuinely worried about Spider-Man's strength as he spoke.
"And you've done that now?" Harry asked him, still holding onto his spear tightly.
"I have. And I plan on testing my new strength on you, Osborn. You'll be my new and improved self's first kill!"
Harry was terrified at this point. His heart was pounding and his body was trembling. However, despite his fear, he continued on with a brave face.
Harry took a deep breath and his body stopped shaking. He thought about the past when Cindy and Eren talked about the feeling of being a hero. That moment when you aren't scared anymore and the only thing left in your mind was to protect everyone.
"You know, Venom, I'm just some guy. No superpowers, no webs, no parasite.. but I do have something of my own." As Harry spoke, he removed his mask and goggles, showing his bare face to Venom. He no longer looked scared, he actually looked confident. Whether or not this confidence was real would only be known by him.
Slowly, Harry's body started to become covered in white nanotech, something similar to Spider-Man's Spider-Matter, however, it was much different in the way that it interacted with his body.
"You weren't the only one who was busy for the last week, Venom. I created something to make myself stronger, something that could allow me to keep up with my best friends. I call it Anti-Venom." Harry's body was eventually completely covered in this Anti-Venom invention. It looked similar to Eren's white symbiote, having a white mask with massive black lenses. This Anti-Venom around his body appeared as an all-white battle armor with a black spider at the center of it. His utility belt, along with his weapons, were all still visible as the Anti-Venom assembled itself beneath them.
"When I saw that Eren was able to take a piece of the symbiote away from you, it gave me an idea. What if I made my own symbiote using a piece of you myself? Of course, I know my way around tech, but not enough to make this independently, but I guess it's a good thing I'm filthy rich with some of the most intelligent scientists in the world working for me.
You have Eren's memories. You know of his Spider-Matter. Well, I thought, what if I were to combine Spider-Matter and a symbiote together to create a new substance? For days, we tested on your offspring until we came up with this. Now, I have the strength of a symbiote without any of the downsides.
No heightened aggressiveness.
No canibalistic tendencies.
No heightened metabolism.
All me."
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