Arc Seven. Chapter Two Hundred Two. The Shanked Shaw Redemption

Rogue smirked as she and her companions walked past Shaw, "leave him alive sugar, I want to play a bit" and as she went to run a hand over his shoulder he glared at her,

"Touch me and I'll show you how I like to play," and as she laughed, she moved out and into the corridors with Colossus and Gambit.

Venom kept his eyes on the trio and as his senses scanned over them, behind his mask he smirked. Reaching out there were three quiet pops and the energy corona that he could see around their heads faded and vanished.

As the three moved into the corridor they casually ran a hand over the back of their heads, laughing,

"Are ve still going to do this, Rogue?" the large Colossus asked, his accent thickly Russian.

"We owe him," and she clenched a fist, the leather of her gloves squawking as she smiled at her hand, "We owe him this one, but then sugar, you can do whatever the fuck you want. I'll be going back and getting a piece of him, and that Venom," and she shuddered, feeling the sweet energy he was giving off. It licked at her powers and made her shiver with anticipation of tasting him, draining him and taking in his power.

Gambit looked at the pair, "how abouts we see what friends he has first, no? They might not even let us leave," and he snorted, "they might not have a choice, eh?" and the three smirked and headed out into the large entrance of the hidden base.

"Now those three are taking care of any other pests. I'm going to kill you, rip your insides out and feed them to my machines." Shaw tilted his head and stretched, his bones cracking as he limbered up, "and I'm going to enjoy this."

Venom shook his head, "Yeah, being able to hit hard, still a shit power."

Venom shook off the blow and thickened his armour. Energy absorption was fine, but he still spent it while fighting, and Venom had learned to take a hit.

Shaw laughed, "I never expected a punk kid to ruin everything. I'm going to have Rogue drain you dry right after I have her kill everyone you love in front of you. I might even fuck a few of them myself, just so you can taste what real pain is like."

Venom laughed, "pathetic," and as he ran towards Shaw, who had dropped into a stance, Venom vaulted over him and instead of connecting, webbed his feet to the flooring, sprang off the wall and shot out two more webs around his waist.

Shaw roared and ripped himself free. "Stop playing and fight." and as he charged Venom ducked under a punch and grabbed a piece of the table Shaw had smashed him into earlier. Using it as a shield he let Shaw punch holes in it as the pair fought.

Training with Natasha had paid off, and after seeing even Shaw fight the difference between them was obvious.

Selene had warned him Shaw was just as old as she was, and much more aggressive in his pursuits. Any and all combat styles were learned, and Shaw had no restraint in practising against living targets. Hunting humans and Augmented for sport was one of his favourite pastimes.

His deadliness was apparent as he tried joint locks, throws, as well as nerve strikes and other debilitating moves on Venom and it was all he could do to avoid or absorb each blow. Shaw's superhuman strength and durability was a match for Venoms, but the energy had to run out.

As Shaw scooped Venom up and slammed him into the ground, Venom rolled to one side as his foot slammed into the concrete cracking it.

"Slippery bastard," and as Venom rolled to his feet a ball of light travelled down Shaw's arm and floated out of his palm, "Good thing I have more than one power then," and as he took aim he threw it and it exploded against Venoms chest, throwing him back,

"See, you think I can just absorb energy but I can also redirect it, and if you think I'll run out." Shaw lifted the desktop and slammed it against his head. Venom saw the light glow for a second and then Shaw vibrate once more, "I can absorb any impact dipshit, even your stupid punches just juice me up again. This isn't a fight you can win."

"As if I'm gonna hit you," Venom rolled and sprayed out two small globs of sticky webbing, impacting Shaw's feet and glueing him down. "I don't need to hit you to win," but Shaw laughed and his legs bulged and he tore the webbing free from the floor.

"I don't need you to hit me," and as he looked behind him, the last of the clone tanks opened and more Weapons X clones appeared, "They can hit me," and as the small group punched and kicked Shaw he went down on one knee, laughing as each blow was absorbed and the glow intensified.

"You were never going to win,"

Venom knew it was time to pull out more than just the usual powers. As he roared the harness sprang from his back, and the strange silver metal had been melted down and refashioned into a new set of arms. Fighting Tony let him know its joints were a weakness and it was now reinforced, and its new bladed ends shone under the lights. "Not done yet," and as he lifted himself up, taking the idea from Laura and Logan, two long blades slid out from the harness and down his arms. It was a prototype he had worked on with Liv, to give each of his team their own harness, to protect their chest but give them an edge against multiple foes.

As Venom pushed forward, he landed behind Shaw and decapitated the clone with swift strikes of his tendrils, stabbing each through the throat and then extending the claws, ripping apart their spines, dancing away on two arms, he raised his arms and fired Extremis enhanced web ball the remaining pair, watching as it stuck like napalm and burned holes in their flesh. Regeneration or not, until the webbing was spent it would continue to burn, holding and incinerating them.

"Yeah, now let's fight," and the blades darted out.

Shaw didn't even try to avoid them, and as the knives made tatters of his clothes, Venom could see Shaw vibrate more and more. Each hit was powering him up and the plan of testing his limits was failing. If he had an upper end of energy he could absorb Venom wasn't hitting him hard enough to reach it. Even as he slashed, kicked and punched, Shaw would take the blow, vibrate as he absorbed it and laugh as he used it against him, throwing him through furniture, smashing the empty cloning tanks and pummeling him.

It was painful but not life-threatening. Venom could take the hits but why should he. Reaching out with the Mind Stone he felt a sharp pain in his chest and Shaw laughed,

"You know why Charles has never just shut me down?" Shaw asked as he lifted Venom and slammed him into the ground, vibrating as he absorbed the impact, "Because I can absorb any energy, even the subtle mind probes you send out, all of it," and he laughed as he knelt over Venom and grabbing the back of his head, drove his fist into his face repeatedly.

Venom knew that was wrong though, there was a massive mental shield over the man, and someone else had put it there. He swore, the only telepath he knew working for Shaw was Emma.

The front of Venom's armour absorbed and redirected the blows, but each was heavy enough his head thudded into the concrete floor with each strike. "I can absorb this all day, but can you" and Shaw punched him once more,

"Don't need to" and the symbskin leached away from Venom, fist coating Shaw's legs and up to his back, as the tendrils reached his arms they pulled him slowly, and even with the energy enhanced muscles, they had no choice but to fold and were soon held fast.

"You can only absorb large amounts of energy, for external sources, struggling against my webbing does nothing," and pushing himself up Venom knelt in front of Shaw, his armour coating him up to his chest. Reversing their positions Venom pushed Shaw to the ground and knelt over him.

"You need me to fight back. You need the energy, but do you need to breathe?" and one hand wrapped a tendril around his throat while the other touched his chest, letting a blade of thin symbskin slowly push its way into his skin. Shaw struggled, hoping to gain some traction against either hand but Venom had secured him to the ground. As the tendril gently squeezed Shaw panicked. There wasn't enough kinetic force to absorb and as the material was inert, he couldn't even draw energy from Venom himself. His lungs burned and the pain spread through his chest as the blade pierced into him.

As the life began to drain from Shaw, Venom found through the blade he could worm his way into Shaw's mind. Slowly extending his power, rather than blasting through his defences he pried open his thoughts and was reviled at what he found.

Not just the cloning of Logan, the Weapon X and Weapon X-treme projects were to produce indestructible foot soldiers, of which Laura was considered a failed result, but the hosts of captured and discarded mutants from which he gathered powers.

Selene, Emma, Storm, Jean, Scott, Charles, and more names he didn't recognise were all in his catalogue, his "death pool" and once Peter had let his guard down he would be added in as well.

Hundreds of bodies lay in the labs below, vivisected and catalogued, and over a hundred different gene sequences were all neatly stored. The body count was more than just a few MGH labs, and Peter's stomach churned at the scale of Shaw's mutant genocide.

It was then he found more. Not just Emma but several other young mutants had been cloned and were being used as sex slaves. Shaw's plan for Felicia was to reduce her to one as well, his misogyny holding her in no regard once Peter was out of the way. They were to be used, and he had taken samples of all ages already, broken and then discarded them after venting his sick desires. 'Quality Control' Peter found in his memory and was disgusted.

As he tried to reign in his emotions he saw the look in Shaw's eyes. He knew he was going to die here but he was mocking him. As a sick twisted smile crossed Shaw's lips Venom sealed them shut and the thick black armour slid between his teeth and flowed down his throat. He knew what Venom was learning and as the memories of his perversions played out Peter resisted the urge to squeeze tighter, knowing Shaw would absorb the energy he just kept his relentless grip, slowly feeding his symbskin into the man's lungs.

As much as he hated it, he drained his mind clean, taking each and every memory, storing them so that no one would be forgotten, no sin would go unpunished and as he stripped the man's mind Shaw slackened and began to drool over Venom's hand.

Feeling the blade slowly sink into Shaw's chest, Venom placed two fingers over Shaw's eyes and let two more blades pierce into his brain. It was messy and unpleasant but after Ultron, Venom knew that leaving Shaw alive would come back to haunt him. Someone like Shaw, a rapist, paedophile, and a murderer didn't deserve to live, and once the others found out the true depths of his depravity, no one would question his decision.

As the blades spread out and obliterated both his heart and brain Venom felt the normal electrical activity of Shaw's body begin to slow and finally stop. He was dead. To make completely sure, Venom sprayed the body with caustic acid webbing and as it broke down he knew that the ruler of this sick empire was finally dead.

Sighing in relief, he stood and let the sticky and fouled symbarmour shed what was left of Shaw, before heading out to find if the rest of his team was just as successful.