MARVEL: THE LAST THUNDER.

Strange arrived at the Tower shortly after speaking with Tony, genuinely curious to see the monster responsible for the havoc the city had experienced—the same creature Tony had mentioned Billy successfully capturing.

Opening a portal directly into the Avengers Tower, he stepped through and immediately found the team gathered around what looked suspiciously like the setup for an impromptu science class, with Bruce busy arranging various pieces of equipment. Everyone seemed to be helping in whatever way they could, except for Shazam, who stood off to the side with his cape wrapped around one arm. The moment he noticed Strange, Billy simply raised his free hand in greeting.

That alone caught Strange's attention. His eyes immediately settled on the cape wrapped around Shazam's arm, and without saying a word, he pointed toward it inquisitively.

"Gooey alien. Possible connection to Knull and whatever the word Klyntar means."

Strange's brows rose slightly. "What?"

"You actually found something?" Strange asked, his confusion quickly giving way to interest. It still made little sense to him, but that last part immediately caught his attention. Klyntar.

Whatever it was, it was potentially their first tangible lead since they had begun digging into Knull and the strange connection surrounding Solomon's vision.

"Yeah. Bruce is currently building a containment unit," Shazam explained, gesturing toward the scientist. "This thing is more slippery than an eel covered in fish oil."

The wizard gave him a somewhat incredulous look before turning his attention back to the symbiote wrapped in his cape. "And how do you know it has a connection to Knull, or that Klyntar might mean anything, based on the vision you saw of Solomon?"

Strange was quick to connect the dots, and Billy knew there was little point trying to hide anything from him.

"That. And when I asked it about Klyntar, it suddenly bolted like I'd just mentioned some kind of boogeyman."

That earned a thoughtful look from Strange. His curiosity had already been piqued by the creature itself, but the reaction to the word Klyntar made the situation considerably more interesting. Whatever this thing was, it clearly knew something—and Strange was already looking forward to finding out exactly what.

"What about Thor?" he eventually asked, glancing around the room.

"Oh, he said he's going to check in with Asgard and see what he can dig up regarding Knull or Klyntar," Clint replied from the side.

"Why hasn't he done that already?" Strange asked, looking toward Shazam.

"I don't know," Billy admitted with a shrug. "For some reason, he's been hesitant about returning to Asgard and only chose to do it now. Said while we figure things out on our end, he'd see what he could find on his. Then he flew off."

The black mass writhed beneath the white fabric, its tendrils occasionally pushing against the cape before recoiling as gold-yellow lightning crawled across its surface.

"Easy," Shazam muttered.

Venom hissed from somewhere inside the bundle, its thoughts still groggy from the effects of the lightning. ‘We hate this man,’ Venom said, as though establishing a simple fact of preference between themselves.

‘Yeah, well, you're not exactly making a great first impression,’ Eddie replied, still unsure of exactly what was going on with them as another pulse of lightning traveled through the cape.

The symbiote immediately went still again.

"There, all done," Bruce announced as he looked toward Shazam. "Now just throw it right onto that platform and it'll activate the force field," he explained.

"And you're sure there would be no way even the liquid could slip out? Or that the strength of the Hulk couldn't break free?" Shazam asked skeptically, earning him a few looks from everyone.

"Well, if you're talking about Hulk's strength..." Bruce began, looking somewhat uncertain. "I'm not too certain about that. He can get really strong if he keeps getting pissed."

‘Wow, I wonder just how strong Bruce becomes when he goes green,’ Shazam thought to himself.

"Dude, what exactly is that thing?" Clint finally asked. He'd been holding back the question until he could see the creature for himself, but hearing Shazam talk about its strength only made him more curious.

"That's what we're going to find out."

Without another word, Shazam raced over to the platform, dropped the symbiote right onto the circular elevation, and then ran over to activate the force field.

The moment he was no longer in contact with the symbiote, it began to ripple and buzz, the gooey mass starting to reform into a humanoid shape. It was quite disturbing to watch as the seemingly numb cells began retracing themselves and regaining their functionality, slowly piecing the creature back together.

"What exactly is that thing?" Bruce asked with intrigue, adjusting his glasses as he leaned slightly forward for a closer observation.

After reforming into a humanoid shape, still completely black from head to toe, the symbiote suddenly disappeared, seemingly sinking back into its own body and absorbing itself. A moment later, Eddie's body was revealed, lying there motionless.

"Well, that's... disturbing," Clint remarked.

"Sure is," Shazam agreed.

Natasha, Strange, and Bruce reserved their thoughts as they continued observing the figure before them. None of them could quite tell what they were looking at. Was it a man, or was it the gooey creature simply taking the form of a man?

And that brought up the question of which came first—the man or the creature?

Shazam, who had yet to tell the team about Suarez or even allow himself to fully process the grief that came with the confirmation of his world's destruction, looked at Eddie with a certain fire in his eyes. He would do everything he could to play his part in protecting and saving this world, and now that responsibility had slowly become his life's purpose.

He knew he should mourn. He knew he should grieve for everything and everyone he'd lost, but he hadn't allowed himself to truly feel any of it. Instead, he'd kept pushing forward, burying the pain beneath his responsibilities and everything else happening around him. Yet despite his efforts, the grief was still there, slowly eating away at him.

Eddie finally woke up with a groan, reaching for his head and squinting as though he had a severe migraine. His vision slowly adjusted as he looked around, only to find himself lying on an elevated platform with several members of the Avengers standing just ahead of him.

Alongside them was another man he didn't recognize, while one of the others was the same guy who had chased him and Venom down earlier.

It was safe to say he'd been captured.

But by the Avengers?

That was the part that didn't make any sense.

“Hi there, Mr…” Strange began, deliberately stretching out the last word as he waited for the man to finish the introduction himself.

Eddie said nothing. Instead, he looked around, taking in his surroundings as though assessing his situation and contemplating whether giving these people an answer was even a good idea. As he recalled what had happened earlier in the city and the events that had unfolded while he and Venom were being chased, he had to admit that the Avengers had more than enough reason to capture him.

Clint, meanwhile, had been rubbing his chin, trying his hardest to place the face in front of him. There was something awfully familiar about the man, but for the life of him, he couldn't put a name to the face or remember exactly where he'd seen him before. Then, suddenly, he snapped his fingers as something finally clicked in his mind.

“I know you. You're Eddie,” Clint said, earning curious looks from the others. “Eddie Brock,” he added.

“Eddie who?” Natasha asked, voicing the question everyone else seemed to have on their minds.

Maybe it was because of her looks or the fact that she was the Widow, but for some reason, Eddie found himself oddly pleased that she was showing interest in who he was. At the same time, there was something of a bruise to his ego in realizing she had absolutely no idea who he was.

Sure, his career had taken somewhat of a downward spiral lately, but he could still be considered something of a local celebrity in the city.

Seeing the inquisitive looks being directed at him, Clint decided to summarize the identity of the man they had captured and were currently holding inside the force field.

“Eddie Brock. He's an investigative journalist whose obsession with exposing wrongdoing has become central to his career,” Clint explained.

“Come to think of it, I think I've come across him on the news before,” Natasha replied, her gaze returning to their captive. “But I don't remember him looking like a homeless person with disgustingly greasy hair.”

“Eck.”

Eddie stood behind the field, silently taking the verbal hit as he imagined an arrow piercing straight through his back and out his chest.

“So... if he was such a big shot, then what happened to him?” Shazam asked.

He was starting to feel somewhat like part of the team now, especially since he wasn't the one on the other side of the glass this time. Eddie was being kept inside the same elevated cylindrical cell Billy had been held in when he first arrived at the Tower, although Bruce had made a few modifications to turn it into a proper force-field containment unit so Venom wouldn't spot some convenient opening and slip through.

“Good question,” Clint remarked, glancing back at Eddie, who still hadn't said a word.

“So, what do you have to say for yourself, Mr. Sentient Tar-Suit Journalist?” Shazam asked.

‘Well, that was a mouthful,’ he thought immediately afterward.

‘Say nothing, Edd. They are the Avengers. Good guys won't stoop to torture,’ Venom advised internally.

‘Except for those two. I don't remember them being part of the team, and they look ready to resort to whatever measures will get them answers,’ Venom added, referring to Shazam and Doctor Strange.

Eddie wasn't sure whether that was supposed to make him feel better or worse. If these really were the Avengers, then cooperating with them probably wasn't the worst idea. But with Strange and Shazam standing there, he wasn't exactly eager to start talking either.

“What do I have to say for myself?” Eddie finally replied. “You guys are the ones who kidnapped me and have me holed up in this cramped cylinder of a holding cell.”

“If you're thinking we're here to play good cop, bad cop, you are awfully wrong, Mr. Brock,” Strange said as he took a few measured steps forward.

His calm demeanor somehow made the words even more unsettling.

“You're going to tell us what's up with you and that other form of yours. And everything you know regarding Knull... and what Klyntar is.”

The atmosphere immediately shifted from the easy-going air from a moment ago.

There was something about Strange's tone that left the symbiotic duo deeply unsettled. The Sorcerer Supreme was now aware that something far more dangerous might be lurking behind everything they'd encountered, and he was willing to push certain boundaries if that was what it took to get the answers they needed.

‘I'm not sure this guy's one of the good guys, Edd. I am not sure how, but we are so fucked,’ Venom said internally.

‘Tell me about it,’ Eddie replied.

- - -

Standing in a dark room surrounded by multiple monitors, their brightness deliberately dimmed to keep the room shrouded in near darkness, a man stood before the screens as he gave his report.

“We lost Venom and its host. Venom was last seen being chased by this guy, who is speculated to be a new member of the Avengers.”

With a few taps on the controls, he projected an image of Shazam onto the screens, giving those on the other side a clear view of the mysterious hero.

“I see. The same person responsible for the loss of the red symbiotic specimen, Carnage,” one of the figures on the screen remarked, his voice distorted by the poor quality of the visual feed.

“Yes,” the man standing in the dimly lit room replied.

“We've been observing him and keeping an eye on the Avengers Tower, which is where this new hero returned after helping Spider-Man take down the red specimen during its field test for compatibility with its host,” he continued.

“Any news as to who this hero might be?” another figure asked from a different monitor.

“With the increase in lightning activity around the Avengers Tower since his sudden appearance, we've been tracking the times when similar lightning strikes have occurred over the past couple of weeks. With the help of cameras from buildings facing the vicinity, we managed to capture a clip of a kid jumping off the tower just as a lightning strike came down from the sky and struck him. However, when the smoke cleared, the figure that emerged from it was that of a grown man, with no sign of the boy.”

“A kid?” several of the figures voiced almost in unison.

“Interesting,” another remarked, clearly intrigued as he processed the information.

“We've been keeping an eye on him ever since. We've watched the kid get taken to school, picked up after school, and then brought back to the Avengers Tower. We've been monitoring his movements ever since.”

“And why haven't we made a move for this kid?” another figure asked. “Surely he could be a valuable asset if placed under our control.”

“We've had our eyes on him, but we've been hesitant to make a move,” the man replied. “We still don't know how his powers work, and until we understand exactly what we're dealing with, taking the boy would be an unnecessary risk.”

“Keep a close eye on him for the time being,” another figure ordered. “Now, back to the main agenda of this meeting.”

Clearing his throat, another figure behind one of the monitors finally began addressing the others. “Our attempts at opening a breach to the home world of these aliens have been futile. Every attempt has only resulted in an influx of unprecedented alien creatures, which thankfully, those fellows suffering from a severe case of hero sickness are always available to clean up after us.”

He paused briefly before continuing. “And these people who worship this being they call Knull have somehow succeeded in concealing their summonings. They've even been using their magic to try and lock onto the symbiotes' home world, presumably so they can bring more of these creatures through for their own reasons and for our own experimentation.”

“I'd advise that we make no further attempts for the time being and instead make do with the symbiotes currently available to us.” The man stepped forward, coming to stand directly over the large S.H.I.E.L.D. logo in the middle of the room. “Understanding these organisms could help us better hone in on their frequency, which would allow us to possibly aid the cult of Knull in using their magic to locate and summon these symbiotic creatures.”

“Very well,” another figure said.

The others behind their respective blurry, pixelated images appeared to agree with the suggestion, their silence serving as enough confirmation to move the matter forward.

- - -

Patrn Da_suprememaverick