Marvel's Kryptonian Scientist Chapter 62 62

Just because Drex Valen had beco the Dark Knight didn't an he planned to spend every night flying around saving the world.

He wasn't that bored.

Most of the ti, he only appeared for publicity or when law enforcent hit a situation they genuinely couldn't handle.

With the Daily Planet aggressively promoting him and the Black Queen quietly controlling public opinion online, criticism against the Dark Knight barely existed anymore.

Negative comnts vanished seconds after appearing.

Sar campaigns across YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram were systematically dismantled.

At the sa ti, the Black Queen staged fake cyberattacks against those platforms' servers, creating opportunities for her own network to grow.

Its na was Spiderweb.

A single platform that combined the functions of Twitter, WhatsApp, Discord, TikTok, and YouTube into one ecosystem.

Social dia. ssaging. Video sharing. Streaming. Forums.

Everything.

And because it ca from Blade Technology Industries, public trust arrived surprisingly fast.

Most people who used it loved it.

As a result, genuine criticism of the Dark Knight had beco almost impossible to find online.

The only major outlet still attacking Drex regularly was the Daily Bugle.

Drex knew exactly what kind of man ran that paper, so he didn't pay much attention to it.

What interested him more was DC Comics.

Out of curiosity, he personally visited the company and discovered sothing strange.

Batman comics already existed.

But Superman, Flash, Wonder Woman, Cyborg, Green Lantern, Green Arrow...

None of them had appeared yet.

Drex wasn't sure whether that was a good sign or a very bad one.

Still, the Black Queen soon uncovered sothing far more important.

"The Life Foundation's spacecraft crash resulted in only one confird survivor. Astronaut John Jason."

"The Foundation's next rocket launch has already been prepared. They intend to resu deep-space exploration soon."

The mont Drex heard the na Life Foundation, his expression changed.

Venom.

That entire storyline revolved around alien symbiotes carried back to Earth aboard a spacecraft.

What made it even funnier was John Jason himself.

His father was the owner of the Daily Bugle.

aning the astronaut who survived the crash was also the man who, at one point, stole Peter Parker's girlfriend.

Drex frowned.

"The tiline feels completely broken..."

Still, symbiotes were involved now.

There was no chance he'd ignore that.

Those things were priceless research material.

San Francisco was one of Arica's major technology hubs, and the Life Foundation stood at the top of that ecosystem.

Massive funding.

Massive facilities.

Massive public attention.

Which also ant their secrecy wasn't nearly as airtight as they thought.

In the original Venom incident, four symbiotes arrived on Earth.

Venom.

Riot.

Lasher.

And Agony.

Breaking into the facility turned out to be absurdly easy.

As the Dark Knight, Drex simply walked through the front entrance.

The security guards were so enthusiastic it almost felt uncomfortable.

He barely had ti to say anything before they opened the doors themselves and practically invited him inside.

Even the guards in the surveillance room ca out to shake his hand.

"Feel free to look around, Mr. Valen. Huge honor to have the Dark Knight here."

"Any advice you've got for us, we'll gladly take."

Drex smiled politely the entire ti.

"Appreciate it."

anwhile, he casually walked straight into one of the facility's highest-security laboratories.

Inside the sealed research chamber were two human test subjects.

Holess n taken off the streets by the Life Foundation.

One hosted Venom.

The other hosted Lasher.

The third symbiote, Agony, had already died.

The mont Drex approached, both surviving symbiotes beca visibly agitated.

Excited.

Hungry.

Drex felt the sa way.

From a biological standpoint, symbiotes were practically perfect organisms. Adaptive, resilient, endlessly mutable.

They reminded him of Xenomorphs.

If he could fully understand them...

Creating sothing like a super-biological weaponized soldier might beco possible.

The Black Queen remotely unlocked the containnt systems.

The instant the restraints disengaged, Venom and Lasher abandoned their human hosts and lunged toward Drex.

He had absolutely no intention of letting those things touch him.

Cold erupted from his body.

A wave of ultra-low-temperature energy exploded outward, flooding the chamber with freezing blue mist.

The surrounding temperature crashed instantly.

Venom and Lasher froze solid midair.

Drex caught one in each hand.

Then walked out with them.

Three alien symbiotes had entered the facility.

One was dead.

The remaining two had just been stolen.

By morning, the Life Foundation would descend into complete chaos.

Of course, none of that had anything to do with Drex.

He was just a passerby.

The security guards knew nothing.

They'd simply fallen asleep during their shifts.

As for the surveillance system?

Apparently a rat had chewed through the electrical wiring the previous night.

The rat itself had unfortunately been electrocuted into charcoal.

A tragic accident.

Back in his laboratory, Drex sealed both symbiotes inside reinforced transparent containers.

The glass had been fused with vibranium.

Even the Hulk wouldn't be tearing through it.

"Black Queen. Begin full-spectrum scans and biological analysis."

He hadn't forgotten about Riot.

Within days, the Life Foundation would launch another rocket.

Without Venom interfering, Riot would eventually return to the symbiote howorld and bring an entire species back to Earth.

Honestly?

Drex almost wanted it to happen.

The Ancient One was still alive.

If the sky fell, she could deal with it.

And while she normally only interfered with dinsional threats rather than alien invasions...

Drex figured Earth becoming a planet covered in symbiotes probably qualified as everyone's problem.

Then he turned around.

And saw the Ancient One standing directly behind him.

Drex: "..."

She smiled calmly and gave him a small nod.

Then she vanished.

Along with Venom.

Lasher remained behind.

"Sir," the Black Queen asked in a surprisingly sympathetic tone, "would you like to provide a vibranium target for stress relief?"

Drex shook his head.

"Do I look emotionally unstable to you?"

There was no need to guess what had happened.

The Ancient One had probably delivered Venom directly to Eddie Brock, following whatever future she had already seen.

Honestly, she was working way too hard.

Doing everything personally like that was a fast track to burnout.

Lasher, anwhile, officially beca Drex's newest research subject.

He already knew the symbiotes' primary weaknesses were extre heat and high-frequency sound waves.

But weaknesses could evolve away.

Given enough ti, symbiotes adapted to almost anything.

As long as they survived long enough to evolve in the first place.

More importantly, symbiotes possessed absurd resistance against magical and exotic energy interference.

In that sense, they were incredibly compatible with Kryptonians.

The only problem was the texture.

Drex had no desire to spend his life covered in sentient alien sludge.

Just as Drex predicted, the Ancient One handed Venom over to Eddie Brock exactly according to the future she had foreseen.

Unfortunately for Eddie, Drex had already cleaned every trace of his own involvent from the Life Foundation facility the night before.

But Eddie and Dr. Skirth had both been captured by nearby traffic caras and civilian witnesses during their escape.

That instantly made them targets.

After a night filled with high-speed chases, destroyed vehicles, and catastrophic property damage, Eddie finally managed to shake the Life Foundation's pursuit.

Venom coated his body like a living superhero costu as Eddie dragged himself from the water and collapsed beneath a utility pole, drenched and gasping for breath.

"What the hell is happening to my life...?"

His heart was still pounding violently.

In a single day, his entire world had detonated into chaos.

And sowhere deep inside him, Venom laughed.