"Your electricity? You prayed for it?" Venom retorted.
"Of course not, but who are they praying to? Isn't it the Bat Totem?" Shiller continued to ask.
"Is that Bat Totem yours?" Venom countered again.
"I ask you, why did the Bat Totem co into existence?" Shiller said, looking at Venom. Before Venom could answer, he continued: "Without my plan to handle the vampires, how could the Bat God be born? Without the birth of the Bat God, how could the Bat Totem appear? Without the Bat Totem, to whom would they pray? Without prayer, where does the electricity co from? So, I say this electricity is mine, any problem with that?"
Shad by his audacity, Venom was shocked but not easily subdued; he said, "You made the plan, but who executed it?"
"But if I hadn't made a plan, how could you have executed it?"
"If I didn't execute it, how could your plan be realized?"
"Gray Mist, bite him!"
In an instant, a swirling cloud of gray fog and a blob of black goo burst out of the window. The remaining three individuals stood in a row by the window, watching the two symbionts chasing each other across the New York City skyline. Nick glanced at his watch and said, "I guess, 5 minutes at most..."
"You underestimated them, two minutes tops," Strange waved his hand and the half-eaten tub of cheese balls from Eddie flew into his hand. He tossed one cheese ball into his mouth and before he could even swallow his snack, the two symbionts had once again burst into the room.
Shiller, reverting back to his human form, clapped his hands together. Nick ca over to ask in a whisper, "How much did you negotiate?"
"Thirty percent, plus a five percent late charge." Nick nodded in satisfaction at this number. But Venom, walking ahead, snorted. "I have to pay such high taxes on the electricity I worked hard to steal! A bunch of leeches!"
"Don't think I don't know. The symbionts who left are probably carrying so of the electricity you've stolen too. If you complain any more, I'll calculate their share at a 35% tax rate and impose a full penalty..." Shiller didn't bother looking at Venom; he just took a seat on the couch.
Nick's eyes narrowed as he looked at Venom, "You actually avoided taxes this way? How much energy did they carry? Was it more than 50% that you were carrying? Where is the tax office? Where is the tax office?!"
"Certainly not, and they're out of the country now. If you want to recover it, then go to outer space." Venom spoke confidently.
Venom, who possessed part of Batman and Stark's personalities, certainly knew to plan ahead or rather, he knew to run away quickly after doing sothing bad.
The only reason he stayed here was to divert their attention, allowing the other symbionts carrying large sums money to quickly relocate.
Venom had accurately understood their psychology. As long as not every single symbiont ran away or refused to pay tax, there wouldn't be any severe retribution; at most they would have to shed a little blood.
If he could give them another clue to divert their attention, then this event would probably blow over. And so, Venom opened his mouth to speak:
"There is one situation that I must tell you, while I was stealing the Faith Power, I discovered, it is possible soone else may have gotten there before ." Venom paused for a mont before continuing, "At first I thought it would be you, but it now seems that there are other forces at work."
The others all looked at each other. Shiller glared at Venom and asked, "You're saying that soone else stole this power before you did? How do you know that?"
"During my ditation, I could see the Bat Totem, initially the Faith Power in the Bat Totem was very strong. Suddenly today, I found that the Faith Power had beco very thin, almost like it had just started accumulating. It looked completely different from before."
Venom described what he had seen earlier and gave his own analysis: "During the ti I wasn't observing the Bat Totem, it is likely that sobody used a similar thod to mine, draining the Faith Power accumulated by the pray-ers in the Bat Totem..."
In the end, Venom made his point: "What's more, I am certain that they took more than I did."
As expected, after hearing all this, they rushed back to Kamar-Taj without missing a beat since they were reminded of the other branch they had observed in the energy channel before. Even though they hadn't seen energy being transferred along that straight line then, it could an that they had got involved much earlier.
And if, like Venom said, they stole more energy, then it ans they need to pay more taxes.
After carefully checking the energy channel, Strange found traces of Faith Power passing through it. He didn't need any logical reasoning to guess who the other party was. The Bat God was ford by two individuals - one was Venom and the other was Peter.
As Strange opened the portal, Shiller remarked, "Peter certainly wouldn't think of stealing electricity, he's too innocent, not that cutthroat. So, it becos obvious who helped him, doesn't it?"
Ten minutes later, Pikachu was held up by his tail by Shiller. While flailing his tiny limbs, he exclaid, "It wasn't !!!!!"
Shiller held Pikachu up by his lightning tail, looked into his big, glossy eyes, and asked, "If it wasn't you, then who could it be? Every bad habit of Peter was influenced by you. Did he ever stay up until 2a.m. playing gas before?"
While Shiller was interrogating Pikachu, Strange patted Peter's shoulder and told him, "No matter what Pikachu told you, Peter, forget about it, it's wrong. You can't learn from him, he's already an adult... I an adult rat, but you're different. You've just started university..."
"Um..." Peter had a conflicted look on his face, but looking at Pikachu being held captive and having his cheeks pinched by Shiller, he couldn't lie. He finally said, "Actually, it wasn't Pikachu's plan..."
"If it wasn't Pikachu, then who was it?" Strange asked, surprised.
"It was... Helen."
Everyone was stunned. Upon hearing this na, Loki ca out and asked, "Who did you say? Helen? But she was just born a few days ago, wasn't she?"
"Well, yes, but she grows up very quickly, and..."
Just as Peter was about to finish his sentence, a beam of light suddenly descended in the center of the room. A tiny figure appeared in the beam of light. Helen floated in the room; seeing so many people in the laboratory, she was stunned.
She glanced nervously at the crowd, her gaze landing on Loki. Loki had a bad premonition and took two steps back, but it didn't stop Helen from pouncing at him.
With a loud "thud", Helen slamd Loki into the wall. A sharp scream echoed through the New York sky:
"Mom...Dad——Dad——!!!!!"
User Comments
0 comments from readers