Author's Note: Well this didn't take long at all.
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SPIDER-MAN
I'm standing in a room, or I think its a room. I look around and try to pierce the shadows but all I see is darkness. Images flash, the horrific visage of my wife Mary Jane surrounded by writhing black tendrils.
"Please be a dream, please be a dream...." I mutter to myself. There's a spaz named Nightmare or Knightmare or something lame and unoriginal like that, some kind of magical extra-planar being that feeds off bad dreams like a low rent Freddy Krueger.
"It is, Peter, but not in the way you suspect," a voice responds from the aether. I frown, because I know that voice. It was an old timey transatlantic WASP accent, popular among New England's upper classes during the early 20th century.
As if given form by my recognition, the speaker materialized out of the dark mist. A man with a neatly trimmed goatee, dressed in cobalt blue robes with a crimson cloak draped over his shoulders like some sort of DnD cosplay. Yellow silk gloves concealed hands that I knew to be brutally scarred and mangled to the point of uselessness. His dark hair had several wisps and streaks of gray that gave him a sort of distinguished look, but I knew the man was over a hundred years old and hadn't aged a day since the 1960s.
"Dr. Strange?" I say almost relieved. "I guess you saved me from Nightmare? We always have the weirdest team ups that end up in some psychedelic shenanigans."
The gentlemanly wizard looks at me with a grave expression. "No, Peter, the events you witnessed were and are still happening in the material world. Here in the astral plane, time does not flow in rapid linear fashion. This is your chance to save yourself."
"Oh." So that meant my wife really was She-Venom. And that in a few minutes the symbiote would possess my body too. I gave Doc an angry glare. "You knew about this the whole time?"
"As the Sorcerer Supreme of the planet Earth, it is my duty to keep track of otherworldly monstrosities such as the Klyntar."
"So....why don't you just zap Venom back to where it came from?" Even though I was a man of science, I didn't mind a little magical deus ex machina every now and then.
"If the symbiote had simply invaded Earth, I could have." Strange gave me a skewering look. "Ancient mythologies warned of the dangers of inviting vampires, ghosts, and demons into one's home, Peter."
"Well that was before the invention of Welcome mats." I tilted my head to the side. "Wait a minute, I never invited it! It just attached itself to me, I didn't even know it was alive!" I said maybe a little too defensively. "I thought it was just clothing!"
"Yet you knew that it was not of this world, and you carried it back to Earth of your own free will anyway. Even if the material of the black suit had been technological rather than organic, there were still risks involved that you accepted."
I didn't have a snappy comeback to that one. Story of my life: every decision I make is the wrong one, and for every fire I put out, I start another one. It took me a minute of deep breathing exercises to get my temper under control.
"OK. So what can the master of the mystic arts do in this situation? Pull a rabbit out of a hat?" Yep, real under control.
"I have placed a mental block on you to prevent the creature from overriding your free will through overt mental manipulation. It cannot show you falsehoods or force your hand. It cannot take control of your body while you sleep as it did before."
My sarcastic anger deflated a little. "Wow, more useful than I thought."
"Unfortunately, the Klyntar has easily manipulated the actions of your wife and of your concubine without making either of them do anything they did not want or choose to do."
"God damn it."
"Rest assured, Peter. I have limited the potential danger by a wide margin. You have more experience with resisting the temptations of power."
Several images flash across my vision at once. A wrestling ring, a briefcase full of money, a bottle of serum. I shake my head, or at least what feels like my head. What the hell was that?
"The form you take here in the astral plane is not made up of matter, Peter Parker. It created by your spiritual essence, your memories, your hopes and fears, and your lived experiences. It takes many years of training to keep such chaos in order. Since this conversation began you have been shifting with every thought and emotion, and mentally drifted off numerous times.
"Mystical internal monologues fueled by ADHD, got it."
Dr. Strange waved his hand in some occult gesture, and a piece of the shadows surrounding us slithered across the floor, pooling at my feet. A few minutes later, a humanoid form rose. It looked like a classical Greek or Roman statue, but carved out of obsidian rather than marble. The black figure was nude and muscular, and I could see it had a hard-on. As the black mist coalesced into solid facial features, I realized that I was staring at a simulacrum of myself.
"You." I said simply, my voice flat and seething with rage.
"Us" the shadows whispered, drawing out the sssss like a snake.
"Let my wife go."
"We will not hurt what is ours," it rasped. "You will see."
"We've played this game plenty of times, Venom. I know you won't kill me, or you would have by now. You're a jilted ex girlfriend that just won't stop texting me."
"Like Felicia." He smiled, his pointed teeth unnaturally white.
"Did Eddie put you up to this?" I sigh.
I feel a wave of sadness. "The Other fears his last days. Clings to his priests. His doctors. We will miss him. But we have new Others. New family."
Ah. "So what do you want?"
