Flash Thompson's apartment was modest but comfortable, the kind of place that spoke of someone who was just trying to live a normal life.
At the dining table, two figures sat, both with bruises on their bodies.
Peter Parker had a split lip and a bruise forming under his left eye. Flash Thompson's arm was in a makeshift sling, and there were visible cuts across his face that hadn't quite healed yet.
Neither was wearing their costume, but the tension in the room made it clear they weren't having a casual conversation.
"So, did you find anything?" Flash asked, leaning back in his chair with a wince.
Peter shook his head, frustration evident in his voice. "Nothing at all. The last time they appeared was during the attack on Wakanda, when Thanos's Black Order arrived. And trust me when I say this, Flash - those things decimated the entire area."
"Yeah, I read the reports," Flash replied. "But I thought they were exaggerated. You know how these things go - people panic, stories get embellished."
"Exaggerated?" Peter let out a bitter laugh. "No, Flash. They were undermined. Those shadow creatures couldn't be killed - they just regenerated and kept tearing through Thanos's forces like they were made of paper. The only reason the Black Order didn't completely overrun our position was because those things showed up and turned the tide."
He ran a hand through his hair, the memory clearly bothering him. "Then they just disappeared. Right at the end of the battle, they vanished like they were never there."
"And now they're here," Flash said quietly. "In New York."
"Yeah." Peter's expression darkened. "And honestly? We wouldn't have survived last night without them. But their way of doing things is completely different from ours, and I really don't like it."
Flash's face grew serious, and he nodded slowly. Both of them remembered last night all too clearly.
It had been a disaster from the start.
Carnage, Scorpion, Vulture, and Rhino had coordinated an attack on a SHIELD transport carrying experimental weapons. Spider-Man and Agent Venom had responded, but they'd been severely outnumbered and outmatched.
Venom had been disrupted - Carnage had used some kind of sonic device that kept the symbiote from fully manifesting.
Without Venom's full power, Flash had been fighting at maybe thirty percent of his normal capabilities. Meanwhile, Carnage had been overwhelming Spider-Man, the red symbiote's psychotic nature making it impossible to predict or counter effectively.
They'd been on the verge of losing. Badly.
Then the shadows had appeared.
Two of them materialized out of nowhere like they'd teleported there. One was clearly a knight of some kind, wielding a sword that gleamed with an otherworldly light. The other wore a dark cloak that seemed to absorb the surrounding darkness, making it hard to look at directly.
The knight moved, and Vulture had been bisected mid-flight, his mechanical wings sparking as his body fell in two separate pieces. Rhino had tried to charge, his strength and armored hide making him nearly unstoppable to most opponents.
The knight's blade had gone through him like he was made of butter.
Scorpion had lasted maybe three seconds longer, managing to lash out with his mechanical tail before the sword removed his head from his shoulders.
Three villains dead in under ten seconds.
"They killed them," Peter said, his voice tight with suppressed emotion. "Just... killed them. No hesitation, no attempt to subdue or capture. That goes against everything we stand for."
Flash didn't respond immediately, his expression conflicted.
"And Carnage," Peter continued, "tried to take over the cloaked one. You know how Carnage is - it can bond with almost anything organic, spread itself across multiple hosts. It saw the shadow creature and tried to infect it."
"But it didn't work," Flash said.
"Not even close." Peter shook his head. "The shadow creature just trapped it in this... glass sphere. Some kind of magical containment that Carnage couldn't break through, no matter how hard it tried. Then they just took it and disappeared. We have no idea where Carnage is now or what they're doing with it."
Peter pulled out his phone and started scrolling through various news sites and databases. "I've been looking into them all morning. Those shadow creatures are weird, Flash. It's like they didn't even exist before last night. There's no record of them anywhere."
"Nothing?" Flash leaned forward. "That seems impossible in this day and age. Everything leaves a digital footprint."
"Their presence in Wakanda was apparently classified," Peter explained. "Only SHIELD and the Avengers knew about them, and they kept it completely under wraps. No public information, no leaked footage, nothing. But last night? They operated all over the city. There's no way to keep that quiet."
"Right now, Avengers, Shield, and all other government organizations are trying to find them."
He set his phone down on the table with more force than necessary. "What they did was completely out of line. We need to figure out who's controlling them and stop this before it gets worse."
At that moment, Venom emerged from Flash's arm, the black symbiote forming a partial manifestation that looked at Peter with what might have been disapproval.
"Come on, Parker," Venom's gravelly voice rumbled. "Out of line? They simply gave those guys what they deserved."
Peter's eyes flashed with anger. "What they deserved? They didn't deserve to die! Nobody deserves to be executed without trial!"
He slammed his fist on the table, making the dishes rattle. "We're supposed to be better than that! We're supposed to give people a chance to reform, to face justice properly. That's what separates us from the villains!"
Venom's form rippled, almost like a laugh. "Then who deserves to die, Peter? Tell me that. Those civilians that Vulture, Scorpion, and Rhino kill every time they go on a rampage? The families destroyed by their actions? Do they deserve what happens to them?"
Peter opened his mouth to respond, but no words came out. The question had struck too close to something he'd been trying not to think about.
"Tell him, Flash," Venom urged.
"Leave it, Venom," Flash said quietly, but there was resignation in his voice.
"No, I won't leave it." Venom's manifestation turned to face Peter more fully. "Flash, tell him the numbers. Tell him what we found when we pulled the records."
Peter looked between them, confusion replacing anger. "Tell me what exactly? What numbers?"
Flash sighed heavily and met Peter's eyes. "The number of people who have died because of Vulture, Scorpion, and Rhino. We pulled the data from police databases and SHIELD reports."
"And?" Peter's voice was barely above a whisper.
"Seven hundred confirmed direct kills," Flash said flatly. "That's people they personally murdered. And if we add in the indirect casualties - people who died in the chaos they caused, buildings collapsed, cars crashed, heart attacks from trauma - the number goes over two thousand."
The silence that followed was deafening.
"See, Peter?" Venom's voice was almost gentle now. "That's why they deserved it. We've been putting them in prison for years, and they keep breaking out. They keep killing. How many of those two thousand deaths are on us because we kept giving them chances?"
The symbiote's form seemed to sag slightly. "I'm not even human, but I feel responsible for letting those three get off the hook every single time. If it were the old me - back when I didn't care about being a hero - I would have killed them after the first dozen deaths. Hell, I would have eaten them."
Venom's gaze shifted to where the shadow creatures had been the night before. "Even those shadowy beings aren't human, but they can see what needs to be done. They don't hesitate. They don't second-guess themselves. They just act."
The silence stretched for nearly a minute before Flash spoke again, his voice careful and measured.
"Venom does have a point, Pete. And besides, they didn't just kill anyone. I checked the reports this morning." He pulled out his own phone and showed Peter the screen. "Every person they killed was wanted for serious violent crimes. Murders, human trafficking, drug manufacturing, and distribution. The list goes on."
"And the ones they didn't kill?" Flash continued. "They were beaten up and dropped outside police stations all over the city. Minor criminals, thieves, people who could be reformed. They were left alive and turned over to the authorities."
He scrolled through more data. "The police department has reported over eight thousand arrests in a single night. Eight thousand criminals were gift-wrapped and delivered to precincts across New York. The holding cells are overflowing."
"See?" Venom said again. "They're not mindless killers. They're discriminating. They're doing what needs to be done."
Peter stood up abruptly, his chair scraping against the floor. "It still doesn't sit right with me. There has to be another way. There has to be."
He suddenly grabbed his head, his face contorting with pain.
Flash immediately stood as well, concern overriding their argument. "You alright, dude?"
Peter took a few deep breaths; the pain clearly subsided. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just... a dream that's been coming again and again. It keeps revolving in my mind even when I'm awake, and sometimes my head hurts because of it."
"A dream?" Flash's concern didn't diminish. "What kind of dream?"
"Just weird stuff," Peter said, waving it off. "Nothing important."
But Flash wasn't buying it. "Get yourself checked out properly, man. Maybe Otto left something in your head when he was possessing you? Some kind of mental trigger or residual programming?"
"I already ran all the tests," Peter replied, moving toward the door. "Nothing risky showed up. Just dreams, apparently." He tried to force a smile. "Can you imagine? I had kids in that dream. Me, Peter Parker, with actual children. Ridiculous, right?"
He grabbed his jacket and pulled it on, clearly wanting to end this conversation. "Meet you at the training spot tonight? We should keep working on our coordination in case those shadow things show up again."
"Yeah, sure," Flash agreed. "Tonight."
Peter gave a half-wave and left, the door closing behind him with a soft click.
Flash sat back down, and Venom fully emerged from his body, taking on a more complete form beside him.
"He's not wrong to be worried," Flash said quietly. "If those shadows keep operating like this, it's going to force a lot of uncomfortable questions about what we do and why we do it."
"Maybe uncomfortable questions need to be asked," Venom replied. "We've been playing by rules that the villains ignore. How's that working out?"
Flash didn't have an answer for that.
....
Across the city, Lucien sat on his bed in the apartment, the system interface open before him. He'd been watching the news all morning, watching as reports flooded in about the unprecedented crime sweep that had occurred overnight.
The media was going crazy. Some outlets were calling it a miracle, praising the mysterious force that had cleaned up the streets.
Others were terrified, talking about vigilante death squads and extrajudicial killings. A few conspiracy theorists were already claiming it was a government operation or alien intervention.
None of them were close to the truth.
His shadows did a great job. Two hundred of them, spread across the city, had systematically eliminated high-level criminals while capturing lower-tier offenders.
The results spoke for themselves. New York's crime rate had dropped by an estimated forty percent in a single night. The police were overwhelmed with arrests, but they were also celebrating a massive victory against organized crime.
And Lucien got a symbiote as a gift from his shadow mage, which was currently lying under the bed in a glass-like container, which was supposedly strong enough to contain carnage.
Lucien pulled up the Limited Time Deal section of the shop, checking to see if any new items had appeared.
The section refreshed periodically, offering unique opportunities that wouldn't last forever.
What he saw made him pause.
At the top of the list, glowing with an ominous red light, was a single item.
[Devil's Bargain]
...
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