Venom

"How in all the Splinter Realms did you get out of your cage?" the young blonde girl asked as she effortlessly cleaved another foe in half with her enormous sword.
"Nothing can hold us for long, child," the hulking creature answered. "For we, are Venom."
"What about the legion of Limbo Demons I left to guard you?" replied the Mutant known as Magik as she lifted her Soulsword to deliver another fatal blow.
Venom smiled as his enormous tongue licked away the strings of spittle dripping from his black lips.
"Never mind. Don't tell me," Magik continued. "I'm well aware of what your kind can do. Symbiotes nearly devoured my entire home dimension. It's why I put you on lockdown to begin with."
Venom was used to being blamed for the voracious appetites of his symbiotic brethren. But what this child didn't seem to realize was that Venom was more than just a rippling mass of xenomorphic protoplasm — a fearsome sight with claws and tongue and teeth, all ready to deal deadly damage to any who dared oppose him. Underneath his alien exterior was a regular human named Eddie Brock.
The symbiotic bond shared by the pair had granted Eddie extraordinary abilities and had given the alien a purpose. Together, as Venom, they had become a lethal protector, stalking the streets to bring their own brand of justice to those who harmed the innocent.
Or at least, so they thought. To be honest, the details of Venom's past felt a little hazy. When his own reality collapsed around him, the Klyntar hivemind that connected Venom to his fellow symbiotes overloaded Eddie's brain and left him and his alien counterpart completely disoriented. They weren't quite sure where they had come from, and they certainly weren't sure where — or when — they were now.
"We're free now," Venom said, assessing his former captor. "And you look far less dangerous than they do."
"You'd be surprised..." Magik retorted.
"We'll take our chances, little one," Venom continued, stepping forward to join his beautiful-but-deadly new companion in the fray. "So... who are we fighting?"
"The Gods," Magik replied casually. "Well, the ones that are left."
As Venom surveyed the endless battlefield, he realized that the young Mutant was not exaggerating. Somehow he had ended up in a nether realm where occult forces were locked in an eternal war. This was far beyond the types of battles he had previously been accustomed to. Fighting criminals and Spider-Men on the streets of New York was easy compared to facing off against demons and demigods in a cross-dimensional hellscape.
In a place like this, there was no right and wrong. No innocent and guilty. These were divine forces at war. And both halves of Venom were beginning to realize just how mortal they were.
"How can we possibly slay gods, little one?" Venom asked, genuinely curious.
"A big sword always works for me," Magik replied with a smile, giving her own weapon another skillful thrust into the oncoming hordes.
Venom almost let out a chuckle, glad to finally find a taste of humor amidst the horrors of this strange war. But instead, he fell to his knees and let out a primal scream as daggers of pain suddenly pierced through every fiber of his being. It was as if an alarm had sounded inside his head, sending his symbiote side into a frenzy.
In his mind, he saw images of a distant planet shrouded in darkness, accompanied by the anguished cries of a million living creatures. But there was something more. Something was alive deep inside the world itself — someone whose presence felt as cold as the void of space. And they were desperate to find a way out.
"What just happened?" Magik asked, offering a hand to help Venom to his feet.
"The hivemind..." Venom said, slowly recovering his senses. "It's a group consciousness... a kind of network that allows symbiotes to communicate. And they just sent us one hell of a message."
"What did it say?" Magik asked, hiding her fear of what the answer might be.
"They want us to come home to their planet," Venom responded. "They want us to slay Knull before he can slay us all."
"Knull? Who's that?" Magik inquired.
"Our--their god," Venom said.
"Then you'd better get yourself a sword," Magik replied dryly before returning her attention to the battle at hand. "The bigger the better."
"Yes..." Venom mused. "And we think we know where to find one..."
Venom had heard the legends from his symbiote kin. Long ago, Knull wielded a mighty blade known as All-Black, the Necrosword. It was said that he had once used the weapon to strike down a Celestial — one of the oldest and most powerful cosmic entities in the known universe. Stories claim that Knull triumphed, but that the Necrosword was lost in the fray. Lost... but perhaps not gone forever...
If the sword was still out there somewhere, Venom knew he had to find it. But he was more skilled at swinging through dark alleys than surfing the space ways.
"So... how do we get to the other side of the galaxy before all of reality is consumed by darkness?" Venom asked, not expecting Magik to have an answer.
"Easy," she responded, her eyes beginning to sparkle with energy. "Just show me where you want to go."
Venom reached out to the young girl, allowing a small portion of his symbiote half to slither on to her bare skin. As the alien entity formed a new bond with Magik, it instinctively tapped into her Mutant ability to open interdimensional portals. In the blink of an eye, a doorway across the cosmos had opened in front of them.
As Venom stepped through the portal and into the unknown, he turned and waved to Magik.
"Thank you, madam." He uttered. She nodded back knowingly before returning her attention to her arcane enemies. Both warriors had impossible battles ahead, yet they were well aware that they had no choice but to keep fighting for as long as it took to claim victory.
As relieved as he was to leave the war-torn nether world behind, Venom had no time to celebrate his escape. Everything was being drowned out by the collective fear coursing through the symbiote hivemind. If Knull were to return, he would not rest until all that was left was endless oblivion. The King in Black was determined to rule once more, and his first act would be to erase all life in the universe. Venom could not let that happen.
When Venom emerged from Magik's gateway, he found himself standing upon the towering remains of a slaughtered Celestial, adrift in the void. He could sense a darkness on its colossal corpse, similar to the sensation he felt when the hivemind revealed Knull's presence on their homeworld.
He soon saw the hilt of a sword jutting from the Celestial's side. Around the wound the buried blade had inflicted, an ebony energy bubbled and churned like a cosmic infection that had been left untreated for eons. Venom reached for the handle of the Necrosword. He began to pull... but the blade would not budge. Its darkness had spread across the Celestial's armored surface, cementing it in place. But Venom was never one to give up easily. So he pulled again. And again. And again. But to no avail.
With his full focus on the task at hand, Venom failed to notice that he was no longer alone. Some sort of cosmic cocoon — a mysterious vessel with an even more mysterious passenger — had drifted close to the Celestial Remains. And little did Venom realize that the man slumbering inside this protective shell had just awoken what was left of the fallen Celestial's consciousness...
As Venom gave the hilt of All-Black one last mighty pull, the Celestial let out a psionic scream — not from the physical pain of the blade impaled in its side, but rather from the mental anguish it was experiencing as it communed with its other cosmic companion. But the reason behind the Celestial's screech did not matter to Venom. All that he cared about were the end results.
Knocked back by the Celestial's violent outburst of posthumous pain, Venom was sent tumbling aimlessly through space. As he plummeted through the void, he watched as All-Black, now awoken from its slumber, buried itself deeper into the Celestial until it disappeared from view. He would have to find his way back to it with aid, perhaps from his new mystic ally. If he could survive crashlanding into the planet that he was swiftly approaching, that is.
Bracing himself, Venom feared he was about to leave behind nothing more than an impact crater as his legacy. But his arrival on the planet's surface was unexpectedly soft, as if he had been caught and cradled by a million loving hands. As he rose, he realized that there was good reason for his surprisingly safe landing.
He was home. This was Klyntar, planet of the symbiotes. And they had unexpected company.
Nearby, Venom saw an unusual object — the very same cosmic cocoon that he had failed to notice during his time at the Celestial Remains. It too had been hurled through the void and onto Klyntar's surface, delivered as if by fate itself. But while Venom was welcomed home by his brethren as a champion, the cocoon was seemingly about to be swallowed by a sea of hungry symbiotes.
Venom could not allow that. Not without knowing what — or who — was inside. With fang and claw, he tore through the cocoon's protective outer shell. Within moments, a figure emerged from inside — clearly more golden god than mortal man.
Venom watched and waited as the new arrival gained his bearings, not sure if he was friend or foe. His question was swiftly answered as the luminous warrior turned and attacked him.
"Don't know who you are, goldie..." Venom said, watching the planet undulate around him, "...but I've got work to do. And I won't let you stand in my way."
"I am Adam Warlock," the man said, "and I will not let you corrupt this universe with your darkness, living shadow!"
Venom instantly lowered his shoulders and laughed.
"You think I'm Knull?" he said. "You've got it all wrong, sir. I am no King in Black. I'm the one who came here to end his reign. Permanently."
Adam Warlock paused and looked at Venom. He had not expected to find himself fighting alongside a creature of such darkness. But he would gladly accept any ally willing to join him in his crusade.
The battle for the fate of the universe was about to begin, and for the first time in ages, Venom felt as if he knew exactly who he was and where he belonged.
He would stand on the side of the light... as long as the faintest glimmer still remained...

Being trapped in a prison deep beneath the surface of the symbiote homeworld Klyntar might seem like a terrible fate to most, but Eddie Brock, quite familiar with being behind bars himself, was well aware that things were about to get far worse.
Up on the planet’s surface, mistakes had been made. Big mistakes. And now, the worst case scenario had finally played out. The primordial force of darkness known as Knull had broken free from his confinement within Klyntar’s core and was about to extinguish every trace of light — and with it, every trace of life — in the known universe. The only positive is now having his bond torn asunder, his own memories started to return.
Eddie tried hard not to blame himself. After all, there were many others who had unwittingly contributed to the chaos that had just unfolded. But not a single hero who had come to Klyntar to fight against Knull knew the King in Black better than Eddie did. As Venom, Eddie and his symbiotic partner should have been the ones leading their allies to a glorious victory. Instead, they ended up being torn apart by Hela — Knull’s new Queen in Black — and thrown into separate cells to rot. They had been removed from play right when they were needed the most. And now, the universe was doomed. Unless they managed to do something… fast…
Not long after Eddie had awoken in his cell, a few unfamiliar symbiotes had oozed their way between its bars. At first, Eddie thought they had been sent by Knull to devour him, but he soon realized that they were running from something. Eddie wondered what could possibly have inspired such fear in some of the most terrifying creatures in the galaxy. But as the heat beneath the surface of Klyntar began to climb, Eddie started to suspect what might have caused such panic.
Earlier, when he was still half of Venom, he had watched as the Phoenix Force — a powerful cosmic entity that had attempted to protect itself by taking the form of an egg — was broken into fragments. The intense heat released when that egg shattered ended up searing a hole through Klyntar’s surface, providing Knull the means to escape. Venom never saw what happened to the shards of the Phoenix Egg after it fractured. He was too busy being choked out by Hela at that moment. But now, based on the rapidly rising temperature and the trembling symbiotes surrounding him, he knew that one of the fragments must be close by. And if he wanted another shot at taking down Knull, the cosmic power contained within that shard might be his only hope.
One problem, though. Eddie’s symbiote wasn’t keen on that plan. Although they had been thrown in separate cells, they were still able to communicate via their deep symbiotic bond. The symbiote reminded Eddie that, by their nature, his species was afraid of fire. It was a primal fear that had been passed down through the generations after the very first symbiote — All-Black — was created in the flames of a Celestial forge. Eddie was well aware of his partner’s weaknesses. But he tried to reassure the symbiote that facing a little bit of flame now would be a hell of a lot better than the eternity of darkness that Knull was planning to unleash.
Eddie quickly reconsidered that notion, however, when a trail of flames started to quickly advance down the long corridor leading to his cell. The fire blazed brighter and hotter than any he had ever seen or felt. The Phoenix’s flames were the flames of creation itself, burning since the dawn of time. And no human, other than those chosen to be the Phoenix’s host, could hope to withstand their intensity.
Eddie didn’t want to be burned alive, so he grabbed ahold of the bars of his cell, tugging on them with all of his might in hopes of bending or breaking them. Since the entire planet was made from living symbiotic plasma, Eddie shouldn’t have been surprised when the bars suddenly grew sharp fangs that pierced through his hands like giant thorns. Eddie let out a howl, but the pain didn’t stop him. He kept pulling on the bars until they finally snapped and then fell limp to the ground in front of him.
Finally free from his cell, Eddie ignored his wounds and followed the voice screaming in his head until he reached another cell nearby. This one had a solid wall instead of bars, to prevent the symbiote inside from slithering its way out. But Eddie wasn’t about to let any obstacle keep him from reuniting with his partner. He looked down and saw that the other symbiotes had followed him out of his own cell. He reached his bloodied hands down toward them, and they knew what to do. Wrapping themselves around his fists like gloves, the symbiotes shielded Eddie’s hands from further damage as he repeatedly pummeled at the door to his partner’s cell. Finally, he managed to break through.
The other symbiotes were well aware of who their imprisoned sibling was, so they dared not try to forge their own bonds with Eddie. Instead, they simply dropped from his hands and made way for Eddie’s own symbiote to reclaim its proper place in their union. As the symbiote eagerly launched itself out of its cell and onto its human host, Eddie couldn’t help but smile. They were whole again. Together, they were Venom. But as much as Eddie wanted to revel in the moment, there was work to be done… and time was running out…
The tunnels beneath Klyntar weren’t just filling with flame, they were also trembling violently. It was clear that the entire planet was on the verge of annihilation due to the war with Knull taking place on the surface. Eddie tried to convince his partner that they needed to acquire greater power if they wanted to stop Knull, and that the fragment of the Phoenix Egg was by far their best option.
The symbiote protested, but Eddie refused to give up, eventually convincing his other half to reluctantly give his plan a try. Both of them knew that this could very well be their final mission, but they had no other choice. They took a deep breath and then raced at full speed down the corridor toward the source of the flames. They tried to ignore the searing pain as they ran through the scorching columns of fire, but it wasn’t long before they were overwhelmed by its cosmic fury. They knew they couldn’t handle much more… but if they were going to perish, at least they would be together.
As Venom collapsed to their knees, the fire surrounding them suddenly parted. There, directly in front of their dark form, appeared a gorgeous woman with hair as red as a summer sunset. At first Eddie thought he must be hallucinating, but as soon as the woman spoke, her powerful voice echoing in his mind, he realized that she was a manifestation of the Phoenix Force itself in human form.
The Phoenix told Venom that they had nothing to fear. She said that she was a force of creation, and as such, she loved all forms of life, even those born of the darkness. Furthermore, she had always been drawn to strong emotions in mortals… and in all her eons of existence, she had never felt a bond quite as strong as the one shared between Eddie and his symbiote. Their echoed the strength of her bond with Jean Grey, this time communicating to the symbiote, and how over many years, both of their connections with their chosen allies evolved beyond “host” to kinship. The Phoenix, despite a cosmic force with much greater concerns, admitted that she would never forgive herself if she let something so beautiful and pure be consumed by her own flames. She vowed that, as long as her fire still burned, they would be under her protection.
Venom smiled as the Phoenix faded from view. Eddie had promised to keep his symbiote safe from harm, but he wasn’t sure that his partner truly believed him. Now, he had all the proof he needed. As they rose to their feet again, Venom no longer felt any pain or fear. They just felt united determination to face the being from before the dawn of the universe in battle and end his dark reign once and for all. And now they had the means to do it. There, right in front of them, where the ethereal red-haired woman had just stood moments ago, was the fragment of the Phoenix Egg.
As Venom reached their hand out toward the shard, Eddie mentally paused and checked with his symbiote one last time to make sure that he was ready to do what had to be done. The symbiote told Eddie that, as long as they were together, he was ready for anything the universe could throw at them. But in truth, neither Eddie nor his partner were properly prepared for what came next.
The moment Venom grabbed ahold of the Phoenix fragment, their entire body was engulfed in cosmic flame. But this time, the fire didn’t burn from the outside. Instead, it burned from the inside with the intensity of a new star being born. And it felt sublime.
Together, Eddie and his symbiote had always been Venom… but now, bonded with the Phoenix Force as well, they were something entirely new and different. They were the perfect balance of dark and light. They were two primal forces, at odds since the dawn of time, yet now joined together in perfect unison. And most importantly, they were ready to take their new power to the throne of Knull and use it to send their god back into the oblivion he belonged.
If Venom had their way, the King in Black’s reign was about to come to its fiery end. But even with a portion of the Phoenix Force at their disposal, Venom wasn’t about to enter the fray unprepared. They remembered all too well what had happened when they tried to take on Hela barehanded. If they wanted to win this battle, they would need a weapon capable of holding its own against the symbiote’s great ad infinitum grandma…Knull’s fabled Necrosword…All-Black… and, thankfully, he knew exactly where find one…