Chapter 58: Arc Two. Chapter Fifty-Eight. Walking On The Sun

Sandman screamed as he rolled off the platform and into the water, the acid that white bitch had sprayed him with was dissolving his body. He didn't even know an acid could do that, but as the cool waters washed it off, the gravelly bottom of the river helped him rebuild the damage that had been done.

Venom had moved to the controls of the reactor, hoping to shut it down but as he approached a whine flooded the area and the harness with an unconscious or dead Liv started up, it supported itself on two limbs while the other two snaked menacingly at the trio.

Huntress and Poison distracted the harness away from Venom. Its limbs striking out at random as some kind of self-defence protocol activated. Liv was unconscious as it weaved in and out of the support struts, uncaring if she was banged or bashed against the steel underframe.

"Venom, this thing won't stay still," Huntress shouted, frustrated at how easily the four limbs could outmanoeuvre them while carrying a deadweight body. Poison was hesitant to join the fight, her acid webs were great but it had been hiding in the lower reaches of the reactor platform, one wrong move and she could send the whole thing crashing down.

"Kinda busy here, just web the whole damn area and get it." Venom shouted back. Ock might have been a genius but her design choice for the control panel was terrible, Why was there just no big red button marked Off? He lamented as he started to understand the various readouts.

The reactor itself hummed quietly, its core still stable from the initial startup but Peter watched a gauge start to rise. It was going to go critical as a build-up of heavier elements unchecked was destabilising the entire thing.

As Huntress and Poison played hide and seek with the harness, Venom was too engrossed in figuring out the machine that he never noticed the swirl of sand collecting itself behind him. Sandman reconstituted himself and slammed both fists into Venom's back, sending him flying forwards and into the control panel.

An eerie and unwelcome beeping started and soon licks of solar activity were whipping free from the small but deadly ball of plasma. "You stupid shit," Venom yelled and pointed, "if that goes critical then boom, we all die here, even you." Sandman didn't understand, didn't care, he'd almost lost his daughter, he wanted payback, needed payback.

"Raaagh," he yelled at Venom and his arms extended, sending a stream of particles flying towards him, Venom crossed both his arms in front of his face feeling the microscopic grit tearing at him like a water jet cutter. No no, he thought to himself. Sandman had gone crazy and the console next to him sparked and flared with bright lights and then died, and the thin hope he could shut this thing down was gone.

Venom had leapt out the way, upwards hoping the roof was stable enough to support him while he tried to talk sense into the crazy villain. He shot globs of tar but Sandman had learned and whips of sand caught them midair and deflected them harmlessly to the side.

He took a quick glance and Poison had sprayed a fine mist into the air, and as the harness dodged to avoid it, Huntress webbed its two lower arms together and then the pair combined webs. Poisons sticky and Huntress's taser webs combined to bind a mesh around the harness and the Doc. Huntress shocking the machine into submission if it even twitched.

Sandman had seen the fight as well, "you stay outta this girls, this ain't your business," he shouted at the pair who took one look at the lines of plasma arcing from the reactor and striking the failing magnetic barrier and froze.

"Are you crazy, this thing is going nuclear. Hiroshima, ring any bells, stop fighting you morons," Poison yelled at both Venom and Sandman. She ignored the pair and took a look at the sparking console, its main panel dented and scratched from the sandblasts aimed at Venom.

"Shit, fucking shit," she yelled and pulled the panel straight off the front, inside was worse. The wires were fused together and there was sand everywhere, the controls were wrecked and even if she or Peter could rewire them the damage was done.

"Stop it," Huntress swung up standing between Venom and Sandman, “Poison, what's the damage? Venom is more the engineer but I figure that melted and sparking means bad. Venom, we need to stop this, we need to shut the reactor down."

Sandman huffed but backed down, "this ain't over," he scowled at Venom.

Venom stared, "Right. You'', he pointed at Sandman, "start feeding your sand into the reactor and Poison, use something to melt the steel of the building, Huntress, feed Poison whatever scrap you can pull free," he directed.

"That won't work. The acid will melt the steel into a gas," Poison replied.

"Just melt it enough to make it bendable, the heat from the reactor will take care of the rest."

Venom jumped down into the substructure of the platform, webbing up Ock and the harness. She was pale and grey, blood dripped from various cuts over her face where the harness had fought off Poison and Huntress and her glasses had been knocked clear. As a final act of respect, he grabbed them folded and put them in her coat pocket and folded the arms of the harness over her webbed it all into a bundle. Lifting her up, he slid the package next to the reactor controls and then headed back down into the substructure and began to punch the far end struts, knocking the smaller ones free.

Poison was spraying steel sheeting held by Huntress, and as they let it fall into the reactor Sandman begrudgingly sent sprays of sand after it. Soon the rector was surrounded by a swirling ball of hot glass and steel and even at this distance, they could feel the temperature drop.

"Keep going," Venom shouted. He hoped that by dumping the reactor in the river the sudden shock of the cold water would contract the steel glass mix and snuff out the core, even if the glass shattered it would just be debris the fusion would be unable to process, its silicone to heavy an element to fuse properly.

He had been punching for what felt like an eternity, his hands were slowly becoming numb as the smaller struts had been knocked free, collected by Huntress to feed to the reactor, and now it was four giant meter thick steel beams one at each point in a circle.

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"How's it going up there?" he shouted,

"We're out of scrap, so what your doing, keep doing it," Huntress shouted back down.

"I need Poison." He could punch these beams all day but they wouldn't budge, he needed Poison to weaken them first. "Sandman, keep feeding glass into the core, Poison, spray these four struts and then go back and help him."

Sandman was looking pained, the stream of sand coming from his body was now a few centimetres thick and he'd fallen to one knee. "Too much, too much,"

"You can do this," Huntress put her hand on his shoulder, "think of your daughter," and with a steeled look, he breathed deep and the trickle became a stream again.

Poison sprayed the acid on the beams, letting it trickle down and Venom took a deep breath, letting the change take him more. His face split into the maw he detested so much and his frame bulked up, adrenaline and testosterone flooded his system, endorphins raged through his brain and as he felt the buzz he punched and the steel dented, its angle moving an inch. "AAHHH" he yelled and punched again, the steel yielding more, and with each yell he punched again, the steel deforming slowly and with a final yell he struck out, all his power into that punch as the beam buckled, tilting the platform. He was now a behemoth, muscles strained under black symbskin as they converted anything and everything into muscle.

Huntress watched as Poison and Sandman slid towards the reactor and without thinking she sent a web line and caught her friend. Sandman, too tired and too weak to fight back, slid and his chest made contact with the glass ball covered reactor, instantly fusing to it. The heat was a searing ball of agony, even without lungs the sound he tried to make was horrifying as the sand of his body melted and fused into the core.

Unaware of what was happening Venom continued to pound at the struts, he only needed the far two and the whole thing would collapse and slide into the water, the thin worn down wall of the warehouse no match for several tonnes of steel framing. Punching over and over the second strut began to deform. "Everybody off," he yelled and with one final strike the second strut buckled and the platform began to creak and fall.

Huntress and Poison watched as the platform tipped and then slid into the wall. Electro's body, if he was alive or not, disappeared first and then the reactor floor began its descent into the water. Venom noticed Sandman, glued to the hot marble and swung over to him.

Wrapping his hands in a web he tried to pry the man free, he had been an enemy but he didn't deserve to die like this,

"No", Sandman whispered, "you can't save me, save her, save my daughter, save Keemia," was all he could say as the water began to pool under their feet.

"No," Venom cried, "no." He was the tool of vengeance, the hammer that sought out the wrongs and fixed them, he didn't want to watch someone whose child depended on them die. He could save him, he had the power to save him.

The water level rose and the free particles of Sandman's body began to disperse even as Venom webbed more and more tar onto them, it was of no use, the tar only burned as it touched the reactor and Venom was doing nothing but prolonging the man's death.

"Thank you," was all he could say as Sandman slipped under the water, and as he shot out a line and made his way back to the ruined building, Poison and Huntress stood stoically and the three watched the reactor sink under the waves. Moments later, as the glass and metal rapidly cooled in the freezing cold water there was a whump and a spout of water rose into the air.

Venom couldn't feel the thrumming anymore and after diving underwater the reactor was dead, cold and cracked. Webbing it up he dragged the remains back to shore but after unwrapping it there was no Sandman, nothing but a few grains of grit coating one piece of shattered glass. He shook his head, this wasn't right, this wasn't what he wanted.

Underwater, Venom collected the reactor and anything that might have the radioactive remains of the core stuck to it, webbing it into a large bundle for Huntress and Poison to carry. As he examined the platform he found Max, glass-eyed and staring into nothing, he had either drowned or, as his normally dark skin was almost white, been drained by whatever Ock had done to him. Shaking his head he cut him free, pulling him from the apparatus Ock had set up and webbing him up. As carefully as he could he lodged his remains under the substructure of the platform, constructing a makeshift cairn with loose rocks, a small grave for someone he hardly knew but didn't deserve to be killed like that.

Grabbing the reactor he swam back to the surface where a pensive pair waited for him.

The three bundled up both the reactor remains and the harness, and swung out into the night, back home to tend to their scars, both physical and emotional.

~

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