Seeing that the battle was about to start, Venom and Eddie quietly slipped away.
They were a bit afraid of Riot, yes, but that dog? That was a whole other level of nope.
Venom's philosophy was simple: If you can't afford to offend either side, find a nice, safe hill far, far away, and watch how they kill each other in peace.
Eddie had the same idea. That's why the two were a perfect match, partners in cowardly self-preservation.
They sprinted up to a rocky ridge several hundred meters from the battlefield, settling into the perfect vantage point. From here, they could watch without worrying about stray limbs or flaming dog spit landing on them.
They had also overheard the earlier exchange between the two symbiotes.
Naturally, their rooting interest went to Phage. After all, his goals sounded suspiciously like Venom's own: keep Earth comfy, quiet, and free of symbiote world domination plans.
…
Riot shifted his footing, hammer-arm twitching, ready to strike first, when Phage's entire appearance began to twist and mutate like melting metal.
Doggo and Phage had decided: no warm-up, no testing blows. They were going in at full strength from the very first second.
Doggo's fighting style was very Luke-esque, go for the jugular immediately and don't stop until the other guy stops existing. In Luke's words: If dinner's on the table, don't give it time to get up and walk away.
Two bulges swelled on either side of Doggo's thick neck, growing like tumors on fast-forward. They pushed outward, stretching skin and symbiote matter until, pop! Two massive extra heads emerged, each dripping with yellow slime.
Thanks to Doggo's mutations, Phage mirrored the change, sprouting two extra heads of his own to cover them.
And then came the real nightmare fuel.
The three heads didn't just stay attached. They split away entirely, each forming a hulking monster equal in size to the original.
Their color shifted from pure yellow to a swirling storm of yellow and green, the edges where the hues met streaked with strange veins of blue.
Two of the beasts stalked sideways, spreading out to flank Riot. Their paws cracked the ground with every step.
Riot… didn't move. Not because he was feeling polite enough to let Phage finish transforming, but because he was staring dumbfounded.
His mind was a hard drive full of red error messages.
Split into three? That's not… we can't… WHAT IS THIS ABILITY?
Every symbiote had a single consciousness. Splitting into three without birthing a new entity? Absolutely impossible.
And the color… A symbiote's color never changed. That was their personal identity. The one unshakable marker that distinguished them from one another.
This wasn't just some new trick. This was a completely new thing.
Riot's voice finally cracked through the shock. "How… how did you become like this?"
The lead dog bared his teeth in a grin so slow it felt personal. "One of my host's many abilities. How about it? Scared?"
Phage's laughter came like broken glass grinding together. "Hahahaha…"
Doggo was terrifying. But Phage merged with Doggo was even worse. And thanks to Luke's little "system" touch, the two were fused so seamlessly that Phage had inherited every dangerous quirk of his host.
…
Even before the first blow landed, Riot was losing ground.
He knew symbiotes. He was their leader after all. And yet… Nothing in his experience prepared him for this.
But he clung to his purpose. The rocket launch countdown was nearly over. He had to press forward now, or the opportunity would vanish forever.
Riot roared, raising his hammer arm, and charged.
Meanwhile in the air, Luke started narrating to an invisible audience just to amuse himself: "And in the red corner, weighing in at 'about to regret everything,' it's Riot the Regrettable!"
The hammer came down in a brutal arc and clanged uselessly against the first dog's skull. The blow didn't even make it blink.
Phage's mutation had made him harder than anything Riot had faced.
The second dog lunged. Its jaws closed on Riot's left arm, fwoosh, and the symbiote flesh there incinerated instantly, the flames inside its mouth hotter than molten steel. The heat peeled Riot away from Drake's limb, leaving bare human skin.
Crack! One arm disappeared down Doggo's throat.
Drake screamed loudly, now he was beyond panicked.
And for the record? While symbiotes could heal themselves. They couldn't regrow a host's missing limb.
Drake's terror bled into Riot's mind, scrambling his focus. And against three opponents, that was fatal.
Another lunge.
Crack! The second arm was gone. Crack! A leg followed.
Doggo's mouth stopped burning at the last moment, like a chef lowering the heat so as not to overcook dinner. Riot wasn't just losing, he was being eaten alive piece by piece.
With every bite, Riot's form shrank, the symbiote mass unable to fully coat his host's body. His reduced size crippled his strength until, humiliatingly, he was now even weaker than Venom.
…
Up on the ridge, Eddie and Venom's mouths hung open.
They had braced for an epic, bone-crunching duel. What they got instead was a complete massacre. A one-sided, horrifying, lunch break.
Venom muttered, "He's… he's eating him. He's actually eating him."
Luke kept amusing himself by making comments to his invisible audience: "Ladies and gentlemen, this is not a fight, it's a buffet."
Venom's instincts screamed at him to flee. After seeing this, he had zero doubt, Phage wasn't the same symbiote he'd once known.
He might even like the taste of his own kind now.
If they didn't leave right now, Venom feared they'd be dessert.
…