"Well well, look what the cat dragged in."
"Heh heh, I get it, cat...Kitty." Everyone looked at Fred and shook their heads. "Well I got it that time!" He protested. "Hey," Lance said, "You think we should help her? She looks pretty banged up." "Lance said banged," Fred chuckled, "See, I caught that one."
"Shut up, Freddy," he shot back, "If the rest of us weren't here you'd probably try to eat her."
"Looks like we hit a nerve," Pietro grinned. Suddenly, a hand grabbed him hard from behind and crushed down on his neck until he was twitching like a stretched rubber band. "No, that's hitting a nerve," Venom said. Lance, Todd and Fred took battle stances, but as Pietro crumbled to the ground, Venom extended his hands in a gesture of peace.
"Couldn't help but overheard that you...supervillains..." he paused here and just barely kept himself from laughing, "....Want a shot at the web-head. It just so happens that he's due at my place any minute now." Skipping over some minor details, the Brotherhood cut a deal with Venom.
"Man, I can't believe you lost them!"
"You try to follow a motorcycle and a guy swinging from buildings!"
In the X-Van, Havok and Nightcrawler had just lost Wolverine and Spider-Man. They picked up the trail when Storm sailed overhead, pointing them in the right direction.
"So what's the plan?" Spidey asked Wolvie, hanging upside-down off a webline. "Plan? You're more of a rookie than I thought," he snorted, popping his claws and slicing the front door to ribbons. He waited impatiently for the webslinger and was caught off guard when he made his own grand entrance by swinging through a window and shattering it in a shimmering shower.
"Yep, this is his kinda place alright," Spider-Man observed the creepy, abandoned movie theater that was now more of a construction site for a new building. "I think it needs a little redecorating," Avalanche said, stepping out from the shadows. Spider-Man was jarred off the wall he clung to as the earth-moving mutant shook the place up. Wolverine leaped sideways as the ground under him shot up in spikes of rock.
Spider-Man shot a webline and prepared to swing around the far side of a large stone pillar and get the drop on Avalanche. But, taking full advantage of the fact that Spidey's Spider-sense didn't pick him up, Venom swung around the other way and nearly decapitated his old enemy in midair.
Wolverine, meanwhile, had been picked off by Quicksilver, who kept him busy just long enough for the Blob to smash him from behind. Logan rolled with the punch, only to be blinded by a spit spray from Toad immediately followed by a seismic explosion right under his nose. Having knocked the wall-crawler goofy, Venom shot out a symbiotic limb and hurled Wolverine into a pillar, smashing it to bits.
With an evil laugh, Blob put all his weight into stepping on the back of Wolverine's head with one foot. However, as soon as he was let up, Wolverine somehow rebounded by slicing Venom's grip and blocking an attempted jump kick by Toad. Todd screamed in pain as one of Logan's claws went cleanly through his ankle.
Not able to see very well courtesy of Toad's vile spit, Wolverine swung blindly, trying to keep distance between him and his attackers. But, firing a webline of his own and stealthily swinging over Wolverine's head and landing right behind him, Venom took the advantage. Turning and slashing, Wolverine only clipped a single slimy tendril off of Venom's shoulder before he was grabbed by the throat and rushed into a wall.
Pinned against the wall by a mass of earth raised by Avalanche, Logan's vision returned only to see a punching bag's-eye-view of Venom beating the holy hell out of him. Using whatever strength he had left to break one hand free, Wolverine slashed feebly at Venom before he was grabbed by the arm and held in place for a moment. His cuts healing slowly, by his standards, Logan panted heavily and wondered why he was given a breather...
Avalanche heard the breath being driven out of Wolverine's lungs as the Blob buried his huge fist into his exposed rib cage. Venom released Logan's and let him sink to the floor, choking and spazzing out to draw a breath. With a toothy grin, Venom flicked his tongue around gleefully before raising his fists above his head and cracking down across Wolverine's shoulders and the back of his neck.
Conjuring up a destructive wave of dirt under the ancient tile floor, Avalanche flicked Wolverine through the wall like a pinball where he skidded to a stop across the street from the abandoned building and laid there motionless.
"I think we're in over our heads, dude," Havok whispered to Nightcrawler, having just pulled up in front of the place and seen what was left of Wolverine. "I'll go in ze easy vay, you go in ze hard vay," the blue elf replied. With that, he BAMFed out of sight. "Here goes nothin'," Havok said, cracking his knuckles and blasting down most of the outside wall of the place. "Anybody home?!" He shouted, his fear replaced by the rush of blowing stuff away.
Nightcrawler BAMFed in on top of a scaffold on the far side of the room, grabbed a can of paint, BAMFed right above the Blob's head and let him have it. Havok charged up for a moment, shook off the burning sensation in his knuckles and wrists, and plastered Blob right upside the head, knocking the behemoth down to one knee.
Venom did a double-take when he saw that Spider-Man was gone. "NOT THIS TIME, PARKER!" He roared, zipping up a webline vertically and smashing his way through the ceiling to get to the second floor.
"You rang?" Spidey said, kicking in the door to the balcony portion of the theater, where Jean was tightly webbed to a chair. The satisfying feeling of rescuing the damsel in distress faded away when Peter realized how much had been taken out of Jean by her telepathically calling for help. It got even worse when Venom came bursting through the floor.Spidey made the split-second decision to finish the battle against his arch-nemesis instead of free Jean. Besides, Venom wasn't going to bother with her when he was close enough to rip the skin off his old buddy Spider-Man. Sure enough, Venom lunged at the webslinger without a second look at his hostage.
The more agile of the two, Spider-Man caught Venom coming and rolled backwards, flipping him and sending him crashing through about ten rows of seats. But before he could plan his next move, he was distracted by his Spider-Sense and leaped to the far wall just before one of Havok's stray shots from down below ripped through the floor. And before he could utter a single witty comment, Venom rebounded and folded him up like an accordion with a flying tackle.
Venom felt the slight tug of Jean trying to help Spider-Man, but she was too weak from her prior injury. "You look tense, Parker," he hissed, bending Spidey backwards over the edge of the balcony. "How 'bout a nice relaxing stretch?!" With that, he cemented his grip around Spider-Man's neck and began twisting him like a pretzel. Pain freezing him in place from head to toe, Spidey felt his Spider-Sense tingling once again before everything became blurry.
All at once, a roaring noise filled the room. No sooner did Venom look up than the roof came ripping off the building, the deafening howl of the wind replacing the crunch of the place coming apart around them. Hovering overhead was none other than Storm, eyes glowing white and her hands surrounded by spheres of energy. Like a ticked-off angel descending from on high, she launched a bolt of lightning at Venom, sending him reeling back through another dozen rows of seats.
Clutching his neck, Spider-Man tried his best to shake out the cobwebs. But the damage had been done and the pain was starting to get to him in a hurry. "Wait here with Jean," Storm said, putting a hand on his shoulder, "I'll--" She was cut off by Venom's woozy groans and the cracking of wood as he tried to get up. Jean shut her eyes tight as Storm's emotions, and therefore the weather, went ballistic on the symbiotic supervillian.
Deep within his second skin, Eddie Brock's whole body contracted as the jolt of electricity tore through his every muscle. Taking a deep cleansing breath, Storm descended downstairs through a hole in the floor, leaving Venom all but fried. In his semi-conscious state, Eddie felt a surge of panic shoot through the symbiote. The debris around him had been ignited by the bolt of lightning.
After letting the fire consume Venom and melt away most of the symbiote, Spidey yanked Eddie out from the flames with a webline. "You'll pay for this Parker..." he mumbled just before passing out. His aching neck dulling his sense of humor, Spider-Man simply smiled under his mask before turning to help Jean out of her sticky situation.
When Storm entered the battle downstairs, the odds weren't in her favor. Blob, Avalanche, Quicksilver and Toad had Havok and Nightcrawler on the ropes. Generating a gust of wind, Storm succeeded in blowing Toad and Quicksilver across the room, but couldn't budge the blob. Avalanche made a wall shoot out of the ground to protect himself.
Toad slid to a stop and saw a hand reach out to help him up. He made the mistake of grabbing it before looking to see who it was. Before he could cry out, Rogue had drained him. Having done her part to even the score, she leaned against a wall and tried to shake off the dizzy feeling she was being overwhelmed by. Way too many hits on the head, she said to herself as she felt the latest bump on her skull from when Venom had jumped her before. At least she wasn't beat up as badly as the others.
Quicksilver and Nightcrawler were tagging each other with punches and kicks whenever they got the chance, but mosty it was a game of tag too fast for the naked eye. Kurt would counter Pietro's super speed by BAMFing instead of trying to keep pace. Suddenly, Quicksilver froze in limbo position, a spike embedded into the wall just inches in front of his neck.
Completely caught off guard by Spyke's intervention, Pietro left his rear wide open for a flying kick by Nightcrawler. The boot to the back sent him forward, clotheslining him on the spike and sending him for a loop. A glob of webbing blinded the Blob as Spider-Man swung into battle, injured as he was. Avalanche's most creative attacks were reduced to topsoil as Havok opened fire on anything that moved.
"I don't think that promotion is worth it," Fred mused, his thick fingers clumsily pulling the web off of his face. "Bad guys sounds pretty cool, too," Avalanche agreed, being backed into a corner by the X-Men, the odds now firmly against them. With that, Avalanche rattled the foundation of the building, collapsing portions of the roof and kicking up enough dust for the Brotherhood to pick up their wounded and retreat.
"Heh heh, I get it, cat...Kitty." Everyone looked at Fred and shook their heads. "Well I got it that time!" He protested. "Hey," Lance said, "You think we should help her? She looks pretty banged up." "Lance said banged," Fred chuckled, "See, I caught that one."
"Shut up, Freddy," he shot back, "If the rest of us weren't here you'd probably try to eat her."
"Looks like we hit a nerve," Pietro grinned. Suddenly, a hand grabbed him hard from behind and crushed down on his neck until he was twitching like a stretched rubber band. "No, that's hitting a nerve," Venom said. Lance, Todd and Fred took battle stances, but as Pietro crumbled to the ground, Venom extended his hands in a gesture of peace.
"Couldn't help but overheard that you...supervillains..." he paused here and just barely kept himself from laughing, "....Want a shot at the web-head. It just so happens that he's due at my place any minute now." Skipping over some minor details, the Brotherhood cut a deal with Venom.
"Man, I can't believe you lost them!"
"You try to follow a motorcycle and a guy swinging from buildings!"
In the X-Van, Havok and Nightcrawler had just lost Wolverine and Spider-Man. They picked up the trail when Storm sailed overhead, pointing them in the right direction.
"So what's the plan?" Spidey asked Wolvie, hanging upside-down off a webline. "Plan? You're more of a rookie than I thought," he snorted, popping his claws and slicing the front door to ribbons. He waited impatiently for the webslinger and was caught off guard when he made his own grand entrance by swinging through a window and shattering it in a shimmering shower.
"Yep, this is his kinda place alright," Spider-Man observed the creepy, abandoned movie theater that was now more of a construction site for a new building. "I think it needs a little redecorating," Avalanche said, stepping out from the shadows. Spider-Man was jarred off the wall he clung to as the earth-moving mutant shook the place up. Wolverine leaped sideways as the ground under him shot up in spikes of rock.
Spider-Man shot a webline and prepared to swing around the far side of a large stone pillar and get the drop on Avalanche. But, taking full advantage of the fact that Spidey's Spider-sense didn't pick him up, Venom swung around the other way and nearly decapitated his old enemy in midair.
Wolverine, meanwhile, had been picked off by Quicksilver, who kept him busy just long enough for the Blob to smash him from behind. Logan rolled with the punch, only to be blinded by a spit spray from Toad immediately followed by a seismic explosion right under his nose. Having knocked the wall-crawler goofy, Venom shot out a symbiotic limb and hurled Wolverine into a pillar, smashing it to bits.
With an evil laugh, Blob put all his weight into stepping on the back of Wolverine's head with one foot. However, as soon as he was let up, Wolverine somehow rebounded by slicing Venom's grip and blocking an attempted jump kick by Toad. Todd screamed in pain as one of Logan's claws went cleanly through his ankle.
Not able to see very well courtesy of Toad's vile spit, Wolverine swung blindly, trying to keep distance between him and his attackers. But, firing a webline of his own and stealthily swinging over Wolverine's head and landing right behind him, Venom took the advantage. Turning and slashing, Wolverine only clipped a single slimy tendril off of Venom's shoulder before he was grabbed by the throat and rushed into a wall.
Pinned against the wall by a mass of earth raised by Avalanche, Logan's vision returned only to see a punching bag's-eye-view of Venom beating the holy hell out of him. Using whatever strength he had left to break one hand free, Wolverine slashed feebly at Venom before he was grabbed by the arm and held in place for a moment. His cuts healing slowly, by his standards, Logan panted heavily and wondered why he was given a breather...
Avalanche heard the breath being driven out of Wolverine's lungs as the Blob buried his huge fist into his exposed rib cage. Venom released Logan's and let him sink to the floor, choking and spazzing out to draw a breath. With a toothy grin, Venom flicked his tongue around gleefully before raising his fists above his head and cracking down across Wolverine's shoulders and the back of his neck.
Conjuring up a destructive wave of dirt under the ancient tile floor, Avalanche flicked Wolverine through the wall like a pinball where he skidded to a stop across the street from the abandoned building and laid there motionless.
"I think we're in over our heads, dude," Havok whispered to Nightcrawler, having just pulled up in front of the place and seen what was left of Wolverine. "I'll go in ze easy vay, you go in ze hard vay," the blue elf replied. With that, he BAMFed out of sight. "Here goes nothin'," Havok said, cracking his knuckles and blasting down most of the outside wall of the place. "Anybody home?!" He shouted, his fear replaced by the rush of blowing stuff away.
Nightcrawler BAMFed in on top of a scaffold on the far side of the room, grabbed a can of paint, BAMFed right above the Blob's head and let him have it. Havok charged up for a moment, shook off the burning sensation in his knuckles and wrists, and plastered Blob right upside the head, knocking the behemoth down to one knee.
Venom did a double-take when he saw that Spider-Man was gone. "NOT THIS TIME, PARKER!" He roared, zipping up a webline vertically and smashing his way through the ceiling to get to the second floor.
"You rang?" Spidey said, kicking in the door to the balcony portion of the theater, where Jean was tightly webbed to a chair. The satisfying feeling of rescuing the damsel in distress faded away when Peter realized how much had been taken out of Jean by her telepathically calling for help. It got even worse when Venom came bursting through the floor.Spidey made the split-second decision to finish the battle against his arch-nemesis instead of free Jean. Besides, Venom wasn't going to bother with her when he was close enough to rip the skin off his old buddy Spider-Man. Sure enough, Venom lunged at the webslinger without a second look at his hostage.
The more agile of the two, Spider-Man caught Venom coming and rolled backwards, flipping him and sending him crashing through about ten rows of seats. But before he could plan his next move, he was distracted by his Spider-Sense and leaped to the far wall just before one of Havok's stray shots from down below ripped through the floor. And before he could utter a single witty comment, Venom rebounded and folded him up like an accordion with a flying tackle.
Venom felt the slight tug of Jean trying to help Spider-Man, but she was too weak from her prior injury. "You look tense, Parker," he hissed, bending Spidey backwards over the edge of the balcony. "How 'bout a nice relaxing stretch?!" With that, he cemented his grip around Spider-Man's neck and began twisting him like a pretzel. Pain freezing him in place from head to toe, Spidey felt his Spider-Sense tingling once again before everything became blurry.
All at once, a roaring noise filled the room. No sooner did Venom look up than the roof came ripping off the building, the deafening howl of the wind replacing the crunch of the place coming apart around them. Hovering overhead was none other than Storm, eyes glowing white and her hands surrounded by spheres of energy. Like a ticked-off angel descending from on high, she launched a bolt of lightning at Venom, sending him reeling back through another dozen rows of seats.
Clutching his neck, Spider-Man tried his best to shake out the cobwebs. But the damage had been done and the pain was starting to get to him in a hurry. "Wait here with Jean," Storm said, putting a hand on his shoulder, "I'll--" She was cut off by Venom's woozy groans and the cracking of wood as he tried to get up. Jean shut her eyes tight as Storm's emotions, and therefore the weather, went ballistic on the symbiotic supervillian.
Deep within his second skin, Eddie Brock's whole body contracted as the jolt of electricity tore through his every muscle. Taking a deep cleansing breath, Storm descended downstairs through a hole in the floor, leaving Venom all but fried. In his semi-conscious state, Eddie felt a surge of panic shoot through the symbiote. The debris around him had been ignited by the bolt of lightning.
After letting the fire consume Venom and melt away most of the symbiote, Spidey yanked Eddie out from the flames with a webline. "You'll pay for this Parker..." he mumbled just before passing out. His aching neck dulling his sense of humor, Spider-Man simply smiled under his mask before turning to help Jean out of her sticky situation.
When Storm entered the battle downstairs, the odds weren't in her favor. Blob, Avalanche, Quicksilver and Toad had Havok and Nightcrawler on the ropes. Generating a gust of wind, Storm succeeded in blowing Toad and Quicksilver across the room, but couldn't budge the blob. Avalanche made a wall shoot out of the ground to protect himself.
Toad slid to a stop and saw a hand reach out to help him up. He made the mistake of grabbing it before looking to see who it was. Before he could cry out, Rogue had drained him. Having done her part to even the score, she leaned against a wall and tried to shake off the dizzy feeling she was being overwhelmed by. Way too many hits on the head, she said to herself as she felt the latest bump on her skull from when Venom had jumped her before. At least she wasn't beat up as badly as the others.
Quicksilver and Nightcrawler were tagging each other with punches and kicks whenever they got the chance, but mosty it was a game of tag too fast for the naked eye. Kurt would counter Pietro's super speed by BAMFing instead of trying to keep pace. Suddenly, Quicksilver froze in limbo position, a spike embedded into the wall just inches in front of his neck.
Completely caught off guard by Spyke's intervention, Pietro left his rear wide open for a flying kick by Nightcrawler. The boot to the back sent him forward, clotheslining him on the spike and sending him for a loop. A glob of webbing blinded the Blob as Spider-Man swung into battle, injured as he was. Avalanche's most creative attacks were reduced to topsoil as Havok opened fire on anything that moved.
"I don't think that promotion is worth it," Fred mused, his thick fingers clumsily pulling the web off of his face. "Bad guys sounds pretty cool, too," Avalanche agreed, being backed into a corner by the X-Men, the odds now firmly against them. With that, Avalanche rattled the foundation of the building, collapsing portions of the roof and kicking up enough dust for the Brotherhood to pick up their wounded and retreat.