You ever wake up feeling like you got hit by a freight train, but also somehow won the lottery?
Kai groaned, rolling off the sweat-damp sheets onto cold concrete. His ribs ached like he'd gone ten rounds with the Hulk, but his pulse thrummed with energy he'd never felt before.
The unfamiliar apartment smelled of ozone and burnt plastic—definitely not his shitty Queens studio.
Across the room, a cracked mirror showed Kai's reflection—same messy black hair, same sharp jawline, but his eyes glowed faintly amber in the dim light.
He flexed his fingers, watching veins pulse with an unnatural gold sheen beneath his skin. "What the fuck did I drink last night?" he muttered, then froze as a robotic voice echoed inside his skull:
*[System Initialized. Host: Kai Chambers. Power Source: Morphin Grid Detected.]
The voice spoke again, this time accompanied by a holographic display that flickered to life in front of Kai's face—stats scrolling like some kind of fever-dream RPG interface.
[Morphin Grid Synchronization: 12%. Host Physiology Enhanced. Available Forms: Red Ranger (Basic), Unidentified Gold Variant.]
Kai reached out instinctively, his fingers passing right through the glowing text. "Okay, either I'm tripping balls, or—" A sharp knock at the door cut him off.
Kai, I swear to God if you're passed out drunk in there again—" Gwen Stacy's voice carried through the thin door, equal parts concern and exasperation.
Kai's stomach lurched—not from the remnants of whatever cosmic hangover he had, but from the sudden realization that he'd missed three days of classes at Midtown High.
Three days since… whatever the hell had happened to him. He scrambled for an excuse, his enhanced hearing picking up Gwen's fingers drumming impatiently against the doorframe
Kai swallowed hard, his pulse roaring in his ears as the system interface flickered again [Warning: Energy Signature Detected. Proximity Alert: Hostile Presence—500 meters and Closing.]
The holographic display zoomed out into a radar, pulsing red near the waterfront docks. Gwen's knocks turned into frustrated kicks.
"Kai Chambers, open this damn door or I'm calling your aunt May!" Her voice cracked on the threat they both knew May Parker wouldn't pick up, not after the fallout from Oscorp's "accident" last month.
Kai flinched at Gwen's mention of Aunt May, a jagged splice of memory tearing through him—hospital lights, Peter's choked sobbing, the smell of antiseptic clinging to May's sweater as she pulled him into a hug that smelled like lavender and grief.
"You're family now," she'd whispered, but that was before Oscorp's nanite trials turned his veins to liquid fire, before the doctor's whispered words like "cellular instability" and "containment breach."
Before May looked at him with that same hollow-eyed terror, she'd once reserved for news reports about Spider-Man
The system's radar pulsed faster, painting blood-red streaks across his vision. Somewhere between the dockyard cranes and Gwen's rising panic, Kai made a choice.
He wrenched the door open, catching Gwen's fist mid-knock. Her blue eyes widened at the unnatural heat radiating off his skin. "What—" she started, but Kai was already pushing past her, the morphin grid humming under his ribs like a second heartbeat.
"Tell MJ I'll explain later," he lied, because explanations required understanding, and right now all he had was a glowing HUD screaming *[Hostile Inbound: Venom Symbiote Detected.
Gwen's protest died in her throat as Kai's fingers left smoldering marks on her wrist—not burns, but something deeper, like her skin had briefly resonated with whatever energy now coursed through him.
"Kai, what the hell is—" The rest of her sentence shattered as the apartment window exploded inward, glass shards freezing mid-air around them like jagged rain caught in amber light.
Kai's body moved before his mind could process it, the Morphin Grid flaring as he yanked Gwen behind him, his forearm deflecting debris with a metallic *clang* that shouldn't have been possible.
The shards of glass hovered, trembling, caught in a corona of gold energy radiating from Kai's skin.
Gwen gasped against his back, her breath hot through his tattered shirt as the symbiote's guttural snarl vibrated through the wrecked apartment.
"Oh fuck," Kai whispered, watching black tendrils slither over the windowsill—too fast, too liquid, the thing moving like smoke with purpose. His HUD flickered violently: **[WARNING: Symbiote Rejection Protocol Activated. MORPHIN GRID OVERRIDE—
The symbiote's formless mass coalesced into a nightmare silhouette—too many teeth, too many eyes, its maw stretching wide enough to swallow the room whole.
Gwen's scream tore through the air as Kai felt the Morphin Grid surge in response, gold circuitry spiderwebbing across his skin like molten armor. "Stay behind me!" he barked, but his voice came out warped—deeper, layered with something primal—as his vision flooded with scrolling combat data: *[Symbiote Weakness Detected: Sonic Resonance. Initiating Power Transfer: Dragon Dagger Online.]
The symbiote lunged, its maw gaping wide enough to swallow Kai's head whole—but his body reacted with a speed that felt alien, muscles singing with the Morphin Grid's power.
He twisted, throwing Gwen clear as the creature's teeth scraped against his shoulder, sparks flying where gold-tinged skin met inky blackness.
Pain lanced through him, but beneath it thrummed something worse: recognition. The HUD flashed *[DNA MATCH CONFIRMED: OSCORP NANITE CONTAMINATION DETECTED.]*
Gwen scrambled backward, her palms tearing on broken glass, shock freezing her scream into a choked whisper.
"Kai, your—" Her words cut off as his skin rippled, amber lines flaring beneath the surface like circuitry. The symbiote recoiled with a shriek, tendrils sizzling where they'd touched him, its mass writhing as if scalded.
Kai didn't have time to process why—the system's voice howled in his skull *\[EMERGENCY MORPH SEQUENCE INITIATED\]* and suddenly his bones were molten metal, his vision drowning in crimson light.
The symbiote struck again, this time aiming for Gwen—Kai moved without thought. A gauntleted fist caught the creature mid-lunge, the impact sending cracks spiderwebbing through the floor beneath them.
Gwen screamed as Kai's body armored over in segmented plates, the Red Ranger suit materializing in bursts of pixelated energy that smelled like ozone and tasted like copper.
The symbiote's howl shook the walls, its form distorting violently as Kai's HUD blared *[SYMBIOTE WEAKNESS DETECTED: MORPHIN GRID FREQUENCY 89.7Hz]*
The symbiote writhed, its tar-like flesh bubbling where Kai's armored fingers dug in—not just resisting him now but rotting from the inside out under the Morphin Grid's radiance.
Gwen's choked gasp behind him was drowned by the creature's wet, shrieking unraveling, its tendrils snapping like overstretched rubber bands as golden energy crackled up Kai's forearm.
His HUD flickered with damage reports he didn't need, because the agony in the symbiote's howls told him everything: this wasn't a fight anymore. This was an execution
Kai barely recognized his own voice—deeper, distorted by the helmet's vocal modulator—as he growled, "Stay down," and wrenched the convulsing symbiote upward.
Black ichor sprayed across the ruined apartment walls, sizzling where it landed like acid. Gwen curled into herself behind an overturned couch, her wide eyes reflecting the hellish glow of Kai's suit as the creature's screams pitched higher, its form collapsing inward like a deflating balloon.
Gwen's trembling fingers clutched at his armored calf, her nails scraping against the alien alloy. "Kai, it's—it's *melting*," she choked out.
And it was. The creature's mass sloughed off in viscous black chunks, pooling into a bubbling puddle that reeked of scorched meat and burnt motor oil.
Kai's helmet display zoomed in, highlighting the nanosecond the symbiote's core dissolved—revealing a glistening red-black orb no larger than a marble, pulsing like a diseased heart at its center
The symbiote's remains evaporated into a foul-smelling mist, leaving only that throbbing red-black orb hovering inches above the ruined floorboards.
Kai's helmet retracted with a hiss just as the system's robotic voice purred [First Hostile Eliminated. Reward Dispensed: Randomized Dino Gem Acquisition.]
A burst of prismatic light erupted from his chest plate, coalescing into two palm-sized crystals—one shimmering like fresh snowfall, the other the delicate pink of cherry blossoms at dawn. They floated into his waiting hands, humming with energy that made his molars vibrate
Gwen's breath hitched as she stumbled forward, her sneakers crunching on glass shards.
She reached out instinctively as the twin gems spiraled together above Kai's palms, their surfaces rippling like liquid before merging with a sound like shattering crystal—except nothing broke. The new fused gem glowed a mesmerizing violet, threads of pink and white swirling beneath its surface like trapped lightning. "Kai, what the hell *is*—" Her question died as the gem shot toward her, slamming into her outstretched palm with enough force to knock her back a step.
Why the fuck did it choose her? * Kai's thoughts ricocheted like bullets inside his skull as Gwen gasped, her fingers convulsing around the violet gem now fused to her palm. The system's interface stuttered in his peripherals— [*Dino Gem Synergy Detected: Compatible Host—Gwendolyne Stacy. Trait Match: High Cognitive Agility. Emotional Resonance Threshold Exceeded. *
.]Gwen's scream wasn't one of pain—it was something far worse, the raw sound of her DNA rewriting itself in real time.
Violet lightning arced up her arm as the Dino Gem dissolved into her skin, tracing glowing fractal patterns beneath her flesh that pulsed in time with Kai's own morphin grid signature. The system blared like a siren in his skull: **[HERO POTENTIAL CONFIRMED. DINOMORPH SEQUENCE INITIATED. ISSUING PRIMARY REWARD: ZORD STORAGE FACILITY UNLOCKED.]**
Kai barely had time to process the notification before Gwen collapsed against him, her body seizing as the gem's energy fused with her nervous system.
He caught her by the shoulders just as twin morphers materialized mid-air—one a sleek crimson bracer engraved with draconic runes that smelled of volcanic ash, the other a delicate silver-and-violet gauntlet that chimed like wind chimes when it snapped onto Gwen's wrist. Her convulsions stopped instantly, replaced by shallow, awed breaths as the morpher's nanites flooded her bloodstream with analgesic coding
Kai's fingers dug into Gwen's shoulders as her eyelids fluttered open—except they weren't just *open*, they were *glowing*, violet irises now fractured like stained glass with pulsing pink veins.
"System," he growled, voice still rough from the morph, "what the hell did that gem just do to her?" The HUD flickered, displaying Gwen's vitals in rapid-fire glyphs he barely understood before the robotic voice purred: **[Dino Gem Integration Complete. Host: Gwendolyne Stacy. Primary Abilities: Enhanced Reflexes (350% Baseline), Wall-Crawling Adhesion, Precognitive "Spider-Sense" (Variant: 0.8 Second Forecast). Secondary Abilities Pending Morphin Grid Synchronization.]
The violet fractals beneath Gwen's skin pulsed brighter as she flexed her fingers, watching tiny arcs of energy dance between them like captured lightning. "I can... *feel* the air currents," she whispered, her voice layered with an eerie harmonic resonance.
Kai barely registered her awe—his HUD was hemorrhaging alerts about an incoming energy surge from the docks, where Venom's remains had just disintegrated.
The pulsing red orb hovering over the floorboards suddenly rocketed toward Gwen's chest, but she caught it mid-air with reflexes that shouldn't exist, her new spider-sense flaring violet as the orb *screamed* in her grip.
The orb vibrated violently between Gwen's fingers, its crimson surface splitting open like a rotten fruit to reveal a writhing cluster of black nanites—Oscorp's failed experiment, the same twisted tech that had burned through Kai's veins weeks ago.
Gwen's spider-sense shrieked in her skull, the 0.8-second forecast flashing a dizzying montage of possible futures: the nanites burrowing into her flesh, rewriting her DNA into something monstrous; Kai's morphin grid flaring gold as he tore them from her body; the two of them collapsing together, convulsing as the nanites and Dino Gem energy warred inside them like rival armies
The nanites wriggled like dying maggots in Gwen's palm, their jagged edges scraping against her Dino Gem-infused skin as Kai's HUD exploded with crimson warnings. A new system prompt sliced through the chaos—[*CRITICAL QUERY RECEIVED. RESTORATION PROTOCOLS ENGAGED. ANALYZING OSCORP NANITE CORRUPTION...*]—as Kai grabbed Gwen's wrist, their combined energy signatures sending shockwaves through the ruined apartment. "System, how do I restore the core?" he snarled, watching the nanites pulse black and sickly against Gwen's violet-lit veins.