[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/QLPeQ5j.png?1[/img][/center] [i]Gianino's Imports Corner of Court and Bryant St, Red Hook District, Brooklyn 02:34 AM[/i] [color=DarkOrchid][i]She's falling.[/i][/color] The night air was hot, stuffy, not even so much as a breeze to stir up the humidity that sat heavy like a damp blanket over the district. Any stars that would be out were drowned out from the dull orange of street lights, the sky a flat black washed in a dim brown haze. In the distance, a red-eye commuter train rumbled past, likely carrying no one other than a dead-eyed conductor and a few drunks and transients. A dog, woken from its sleep by the train, barked in protest. It was the closest thing one could get to silence in the City. "Christ, I'm sweatin' my balls off here," griped Tony Campaea, wiping at the glossy sheen that had settled on his brow. "How much of this shit [i]is[/i] there?" "Enough that you should keep your mind on moving it instead of whining," growled Ronnie Tataglia, grunting as he and Frankie Zambrano hoisted another large crate from the loading dock into the trailer of a nondescript semi. "About a dozen more of the big ones left in the basement, and six or seven cases of--hey!" Louie Laguna stopped in his tracks, partway through slinging a small metallic case into the semi trailer. "What'd I tell you?" Ronnie snapped at him. "Big crates and money bags go in the truck. The smaller cases go in the van." "Right, right," Louie nodded, trudging towards an unmarked windowless gray van. "I don't get it," Tony said as they headed back into the warehouse. "Why're we splittin' this up anyway? Ain't it all going to the boss?" Ronnie shook his head. "The stuff in the crates and the money all goes to the boss," he said. "Hammerhead wants the smaller cases going to some outfit he's got going on upstate." "What's in 'em?" "I don't know, and I don't [i]want[/i] to know," Ronnie said as they boarded a cramped service elevator and descended into the basement of Gianino's Imports. "All I know is I wanna get this shit moved out. I just wanna go back to makin' money, not cleanin' up after psychos in Halloween masks." Years ago, this place was a front for Silvio Manfredi's smuggling operations, bringing in or shipping out whatever goods the Maggia Crime Syndicate needed at the moment-- guns, drugs, people, anything the market demanded. The Maggia took a pounding and lost half of Brooklyn, though, when a couple of new players moved in: a pair of masked freaks who went by Spider-Man and the Green Goblin. Spider-Man was one of the hero-type freaks, crippling Manfredi's operations and running them out of town to the point that Silvio himself had to leave the country. Meanwhile, the Goblin simply moved in everywhere the Maggia moved out, turning their old fronts and safehouses into caches where he would store weapons and gizmos and whatever other crazy things he was saving for later. That was over, though. The Green Goblin was dead, and Spider-Man probably dead with him. Over the last year, Manfredi had returned to New York, and was hell-bent on taking back his old territory. His right-hand man Hammerhead had been put in charge of clearing out all of the Goblin's hideouts so the Maggia could return to business as usual. "So why's Hammerhead not bringing everything to Silvermane, huh?" Tony asked, squatting down to lift another crate. "Think he's tryin' to pull a fast one on the boss? Would that make us--" "Tony, enough with the questions already!" Ronnie barked, his patience running thin. "We ain't got all night, and I ain't in the mood to--" "AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!" Tony and Ronnie stopped dead in their tracks and looked up, towards the ground floor of the warehouse. Down in the basement, the scream had been muffled, but they'd heard it all the same. "What's--" "I said enough with the questions," Ronnie cut him off, dropping the crate and pulling a pistol from the waistband of his pants. Following his lead, Tony did the same, producing a chrome-plated revolver. Ronnie nodded his head towards the stairwell, and the two made their way back to the ground floor as quietly as possible. As they headed up the stairs, there was another scream, followed by several loud [i]POPs[/i] and a chatter of automatic fire. An intruder was bad enough; those gunshots would bring in cops, or worse, [i]capes[/i]. A year ago, the worst you had to worry about when the super-types came around was a bloody nose, maybe a couple of teeth knocked loose. You took your licks and stayed down until the cops came to round everyone up, then the boss would post bail and you'd be back to work in a couple of weeks. After Spider-Man went down, though, they started getting mean. Started snapping limbs, breaking backs, leaving people twisted up like pretzels or with their brains beaten to jelly. Opening the door with as little noise as he could manage, Ronnie poked his head out, sweeping the warehouse with his pistol. He heard a pained groan from the other side of a shipping container, and gestured for Tony to check it out. Tony nodded and crept alongside the shipping container, the chrome hand-cannon trembling in his grip. Rounding the corner, he saw a figure trembling on the floor. "Aww, Jesus," he muttered. "Louie, you all right?" It was a stupid question, but it was all he could think to say. Louie Laguna lay on the concrete in a pool of blood, wide-eyed and pale, his arm snapped backwards. Through dark red shreds of mangled flesh, Tony could see white shards of bone sticking out. His legs were bent in unnatural ways too, probably broken in several places. What could have-- "No, nonono, NOOOO!!!!!" A figure blurred through the air, and letting out a startled yelp, Tony squeezed the trigger of his revolver. The shock of the hand-cannon going off shot a wave of pain up his arm, the kick nearly breaking his wrist. The [i]BANG[/i] was so loud his ears began to ring, the noise of the chaos surrounding him muffled and drowned as if he were underwater. His heart pounding and his senses reeling, Tony frantically spun from one side to the other, pointing the gun at nothing each time, until he finally saw the figure that had flown at him crumpled in a heap ten paces behind him..... It was Sal Minelli, a pool of red the size of a basketball spreading from his head. Sal was enormously fat, nearly 400 pounds, and whoever had broken Louie's arms and legs had thrown him like a football. In his panic, Tony had blown a baseball-sized hole in Sal's thigh, and as crimson gushed out from the wound, the big man had gone too far into shock to scream. "Jesus Christ, Tony, you stupid fu--" Ronnie began before being cut off by another deafening chatter of automatic fire. Frankie Zambrano, shrieking like a man possessed, emptied the clip of his Uzi into thin air. As the gunfire gave way to the [i]click[/i] of an empty magazine, Tony saw something, what looked like a long black whip of some kind, lash out from the rafters and snare itself around Frankie's arm. It pulled up, yanking the fear-crazed Frankie upwards into the shadows, where a loud [i]crunch[/i] cut his screams short. "Hell with this," Ronnie muttered, "I'm gettin' the hell outta here!" Ronnie sprinted for the loading dock, and realizing he was about to be left alone, Tony broke out into a run behind him. They were maybe five paces from the door when a figure dropped down from the ceiling, putting itself between the two hoods and their exit. The figure was maybe five-and-a-half feet tall, thin but with chiseled muscles under a skin that looked like it was made of tar or oil. Light seemed to just fall into it, like a moving shadow, the only parts not flat black were a gleaming white emblem of a spider on its chest, and a pair of flashing white eyes--the only features visible on its face. "I.....I heard about you," Ronnie sputtered, raising his pistol. "New guy, they're callin' Venom, right? Tryin' to replace Spider-Man or somethin'?" The thing he called 'Venom' didn't answer. It cocked its head to one side, like a curious dog, but otherwise made no move as Ronnie pulled back the hammer of his gun. "Well he's [i]dead[/i], asshole," he said, taking aim "an' so are you!" With that, Ronnie squeezed the trigger, and again Tony's ears rang from the noise. He saw a splatter of black goo spray from the front of Venom's head, a perfect shot right between its eyes....and the thing didn't even flinch. "What....what the--" Suddenly springing to life, Venom lashed out an arm, which shot forth one of those whips of black goo and pulled Ronnie towards him. With its free arm, the black figure slammed a fist into Ronnie's face, bone and cartilage giving way with a sickening [i]crunch.[/i] Ronnie Tataglia didn't make so much as a whimper as he crumpled to the ground. Tony Campaea turned to flee back into the warehouse, but he felt something snag his feet, and a second later, his world burst into stars as his face hit the concrete. Scrambling onto his back, he saw Venom turning away from him, its attention now turned towards the crates they had been loading onto the semi. The black figure ripped off the top of a crate, wood and nails that might as well have been tissue paper, and reached inside. Tony saw the creature produce a small, metallic orange sphere about the size of a softball. It regarded the orange ball with the same curiosity that it had looked at Frankie before smashing his face, then its hands began to tremble. Whatever was in those crates, it made that Venom thing very upset. "Please," Tony begged, "whatever you're doin', just.....just let us go. We're not hurtin' nobody, we're just--" Venom's head snapped back towards Tony, white eyes flashing, and Tony froze, too terrified to finish his thought. Still carrying the orange ball in its quaking hand, Venom stalked back towards the stairwell to the basement. The creature pressed a button on the side of the orange ball, and Tony saw it light up. Across one side, sickly green lights made the shape of a ghoulish smiling face.....and Tony's eyes went wide with horror. This place was an old Goblin hideout. Which meant those crates were full of the Goblin's favorite weapon.... [color=DarkOrchid][b]"Your friend is right,"[/b][/color] it said, a garbled, gurgling voice bubbling up from its pitch-black skin before tossing the Pumpkin Bomb down the stairs towards the dozen more crates filled with high explosives. [color=DarkOrchid][b]"Spider-Man is dead."[/b][/color] Moments later, the night sky lit up as Gianino's Imports erupted into flames. The night air began to wail with the sound of police sirens, the staccato chopping of SHIELD helicopters....and the screams of men burning.