Dredd

Chapter 26

 Xavier huffed, turning to the direction of Rhino who was currently doing his best to destroy another office building. He looked at his hand to see that it had a lot more gold than before. 

His suit was still black, but the golden veins were thicker and were subtly moving about. That and they had spread to every inch of his suit, thickest at the spider emblem on his chest and his hands and feet were now completely golden. 

"You're not Venom are you?" He asked seemingly no one. 'Venom has white accents, not gold.' He thought to himself. 

"No I'm not." A head popped out of his shoulder and turned to look at him. It looked just like how Venom would in the movie, just with gold spread in it instead of white. "What happened? He isn't supposed to have children yet."

"One: That's creepy. Two: Long story. Three: The big Rhino man is running at us." The symbiote warned him. 

"I will crush the shiny bug!" He screamed out, lowering his shoulder and charging. 

Instead of dodging out of the way, Xavier ran towards the charging mass of muscle. Rhino thought that he was going to 'squash the bug' like he wished until Xavier disappeared from his vision. 

Sliding between Rhino's feet, Xavier once again attached a web to his head. Once he was through, he planted his feet on the ground and pulled hard. 

With the sudden blindness and abrupt force pulling him down, Rhino slammed into the ground head first. 

Not taking the chance for granted, Xavier whipped three tasers at the brute this time. 'One wasn't enough to put him down so three should knock him out.'

Rhino began to thrash about with enough power to put down a lion running through him. He was durable, but his suit wasn't. At this point, it was just a prototype and wasn't made to handle so much juice. With the power the tasers were putting out they shorted throughout the whole thing, shocking Rhino even more. 

"AARHG!" 

"Oops. That's not what I wanted."

"That's just brutal." Dredd said. 

"Oh he'll be fine." Rhino stopped yelling so he cut off the charge. 

Immediately, he stopped his thrashing and fell still. Walking over, Xavier checked that he was indeed fine before securing him. 

"He's incredibly strong, so he'll need a lot of webbing… I should come up with something for that."

With the Rhino now looking like a glorified cocoon, Xavier went off in the direction Peter went in. 

In the next street over, Peter was just going off to chase the Green Goblin. There was destruction everywhere. Whether it be scorch marks or rubble, it was everywhere. 

'I need to take out that hoverboard.' Somehow, he had gotten it back from when Peter knocked him off of it. 

Although he still didn't have a boost, Xavier was still able to speed past Peter in the chase. Catching up with the Goblin in record time he stuck his final taser to the underside of it, turning it on. 

While it didn't short like Rhino's suit, it began to malfunction. With the extra charge messing with the internals, Norman couldn't control the hoverboard anymore and they began to plummet.

"YOU DAM-" Before he could finish that statement, Peter swept by and swiped him up. 

Xavier put the board straight into his inventory, so Norman couldn't retrieve it again. 

"Thanks for the help." Peter said, having already webbed Norman into a cocoon. 

"Yeah whatever, bring him over to the big guy then let's get out of here. Looks like it was just these two and I need to figure some things out." Xavier told him.

=== 

After handing the two villains to the authorities, they both went to the Den. Once there, Xavier started questioning Dredd.

"Explain."

The head popped out of his shoulder again, turning to face him. "Okay, so basically Venom was coming here on a spaceship where he was contained. The vessel crashed and he was damaged as a result, so his body was split." Dredd started.

"Symbiotes as a species can reproduce by splitting so I was involuntarily created as a result. But because we were damaged, we were both very weak and needed a lot of sustenance. You saved me from starvation by bonding to me."

"I didn't want to harm John like that but I was basically running off of instinct at the time, barely having formed a mind after the crash." He said, going quiet.

'I didn't know symbiotes could split like that.' Xavier thought. "He's fine now so don't worry about it." 

Going quiet, Xavier fell into his thoughts. 'So there's a chance that Venom is still out there after the split. Why are things so different here? First Green Goblin shows his face before Lizard and now Venom had an unplanned child?'

"You know I can read your thoughts right?" 

"Yeah I figured, just trying to wrap my head around some stuff." He huffed. "Actually, how far can you see into my head?"

Dredd's black and gold head tilted to the side like a puppy's. "I can read your thoughts and feelings, but somethings blocking me from some of your memories for some reason. I've got access to most of your life in any case."

'That's reassuring. I thought that if I got a symbiote they'd read my memories. I don't want my own Venom as a villain if he has my knowledge. Speaking of Venom.' "Do you happen to know where Venom is?" He asked Dredd.

"No. We went in different directions after the crash. Sorry."

"Don't worry about it. Why'd you choose Dredd as your name by the way?" Xavier wondered.

"Hmm? Racial memory. I just kind of chose the name of one of my very distant family members." He answered. 

"That's reasonable I guess. Last question: What kind of food do you need me to eat? I know Venom likes chocolate because of the chemical it contains in it." Xavier was wondering if that requirement was the same for him now.

"Uh, every once in a while yes, but you have a weird energy in you that I can feed on too." He bobbed his floating head up and down.

"Okay real last question now. What's going on with your color?" Xavier had noticed that it had changed from when he first found him on John the other day. 

"It's my body finishing its 'birth' process. I think its done now so there shouldn't be much more change. Though I might get more black as I eat that Ki you make."

Xavier slapped his forehead. "Of course you'd end up different. Never mind."

'I need a way to increase my Ki count. Especially if he's going to be eating it. Plus, there's something I wanna try that need a lot of it.'

He had a theory about how to increase his Ki but he had yet to try it out as of yet. And now, he should have at least a few months to relax before some real trouble starts as far as Osborn goes. 

Xavier had an inkling that Stark would reach out to him soon, with his fight against Obadiah coming up soon. At the very least, he could monitor Tony with his spider bot- which he was convinced he had found but ignored- and help out when the time comes. 

In the meantime, he could finish the multitudes of projects he had jumped around on. These included finishing the base, the gadget arsenal, the countermeasures for the Sinister Six, and watching out for anything important from his memories.

"Sigh, I've got a lot of work to do."