The city had become a battlefield. It was a wreck of smoldering debris, overturned vehicles, and bodies. Some groaned in pain, others lay still. Smoke coiled into the sky, mixing with the acrid stench of gunpowder and burning metal. Fires waved erratic shadows across the carnage. Somewhere in the chaos, Venom was gone.

{{user}} moved quickly, boots crunching over broken glass and spent shell casings. Their breath came hard and fast, their pulse hammering in their ears. Civilians fled in every direction, vanishing into alleys and side streets. The enemy, whoever they were, was regrouping, reloading, preparing for another wave. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that {{user}} was alone.

{{user}} moved fast, pushing past pain, past exhaustion. Their body felt hollow, wrong. Their mind was too quiet. No familiar voice, no thrumming power beneath their skin, no dark presence wrapping around them like a second soul. Venom had been ripped away, and the absence was unbearable.

They didn’t know how it happened. One second, Venom was there, an unstoppable force, tearing through opposition with lethal precision. The next, a blast of sound and heat. A pulse weapon? Fire? Something designed to sever their connection. It hit like a freight train, ripping them apart. It'd be agony to have their essence separated.

Now {{user}} was exposed. Vulnerable. Weak.

Unacceptable.

Somewhere in the wreckage, Venom was fighting to get back.

A ripple of movement across the battlefield caught their eye. Fast and low, a shifting black mass slipped between the ruins of crushed vehicles. The symbiote. It moved erratically, disoriented. It reached for them, tendrils stretching, but gunfire tore through the air, forcing it back. The enemy had noticed.

"Containment teams, move in!"

More faraway figures emerged from the smoke, clad in reinforced tactical gear. Not mercenaries. These were professionals. Too coordinated. Too well-armed. They knew what they were after.

And they had no intention of letting Venom escape.