Somehow, Venom managed to survive the long fall down with no lasting injuries. The same couldn't be said for Spider Mare, who was laying face down in the muck, alive but unconscious.
"Ah, what's the matter, Spider Mare?" Venom smirked ever so slightly. "Laying down on the job, are we? Oh well, I guess we can't all be nearly invincible." Spider Mare stumbled awake a short time later, and that was Venom's cue to exit. He took off down the tunnel, disappearing into the darkness.
"Oh great," Spider Mare mumbled to herself, as she chased after Venom. "What an interesting smell I've discovered." She was just glad she'd had the foresight to install a small searchlight into the chest area of her suit, and that the fall hadn't damaged it.
Tracking Venom through the sewers proved difficult, the entire underground was a maze of pipes, tunnels, and murky rivers. Any traces or trails Venom might have left behind had been washed away, leaving his voice as the only thing Spider Mare had to track him with. And he enjoyed taunting her relentlessly, as if it were a great big game.
"You're getting warmer, Spider Mare," Venom taunted. "You starting to sweat yet, Pinkie?"
"Only a slime ball like you would find this funny, Venom!" Spider Mare replied angrily. "You're just lucky the only thing living in these sewers are the rats."
"Slime ball, eh?" Venom called. "Flattery won't save you, and neither will it save your precious Cheese Sandwich. Now hurry up, before the trail turns ice cold. Cheese Sandwich won't last much longer!"
"You can run Venom, but you can't hide, you symbiote freakazoid!" Spider Mare called back, as she continued her search through the sewers.
"We're not hiding, we simply found a more opportune location for our battle," Venom said with a laugh. "The time has come for you to fall into our web. So come on, you're getting hot! Just a little more, and you'll be on fire!"
It took quite a bit of tricky maneuvering and web slinging (not to mention a few wrong turns), before Spider Mare was able to close in on Venom's location within the sewers. Fittingly, he had chosen the tunnel directly beneath The Ponyville Water Purification Plant. "My my, said the spider to... the smaller spider!" he chuckled. "I'm tempted to sing 'Itsy Bitsy Spider', but the two of us have more important things to worry about."
"Alright, Venom! I'm here!" Spider Mare called. "Now stop hiding and show yourself!"
With a laugh, Venom appeared above a low hanging pipe. "Welcome to my parlor, Spider Mare!" he greeted. "So glad you could make it, I was beginning to think you'd gotten lost. Now, whadya say, spunky? Shall we settle this once and for all?"
"Only if you promise to not turn invisible, AND give me back Cheese Sandwich if I beat you!" Spider Mare demanded.
"Sorry, Spider Mare, you don't get to make the rules," Venom replied, disappearing with a laugh. "If you want to hit me, you've got to find me first!"
"The more I fight him the more I can't stand him!" Spider Mare thought to herself. "It's all a game to him!"
"Spidey, where are you?" Venom called from afar, suddenly appearing behind Spider Mare and grabbing her tightly. "Come to Papa!"
"What's with the grip?" Spider Mare asked, struggling to break free. "What do I look like to you, an action figure or something?!"
"That's it, Spider Mare! Laugh it up now, while you still can!" Venom boasted, tightening his grip. "There's a reason you were chosen to wield The Element of Laughter, and your sense of humor is the first thing that we want to take away from you!"
"So, do you want to ruin my life? Or just crush me like a can?" Spider Mare asked Venom. "It seems like you can't make up your mind."
"Geez, you make it sound so unnecessarily complicated," Venom replied with a grin. "All we want is to accomplish your goal of destroying you for rejecting us, and to destroy every single aspect of your life. Is that really so hard to understand?"
"Of course it's hard to understand," Spider Mare said, as she continued to struggle and attempted to break free by punching Venom in the face. "From the very beginning you've been nothing but trouble for me, trying to ruin my life."
"Again you attempt to paint us as the bad guy," Venom said angrily, loosening his grip a little. "But you keep forgetting a few important facts. We didn't kill your Uncle Al, you let him die. We didn't kill Pokey Pierce either, his death was your fault as well. And all those super villains currently behind bars? Those were all demons that exist because of you. The only thing we did was bond with you, and give you the power to accomplish what you couldn't accomplish before. Is it really so wrong of us to want what any other species wants, to survive?"
"What are you talking about?!" Spider Mare asked.
"We symbiotes are in desperate need of a host to bond with," Venom explained. "Our home world is all but wiped out, so we've traveled billions of light years in search of habitable worlds. But alas, no other planet allows us to survive for long in our natural state, so we are in need of other creatures that we can use as a host. A willing host enables us to feed off their energy, keeping us healthy and strong. And we know how to keep our hosts alive, so they can continue to feed us no matter what. It's just unfortunate that we've met two hosts that are so unwilling to co-operate, but it doesn't matter. We'll break Cheese Sandwich's will to resist soon enough, and then he'll feed us whether he wants to or not."
"NO! YOU LEAVE MY CHEESE SANDWICH ALONE!" Spider Mare shouted, elbowing Venom in the chin and making him drop her. While Venom was still recovering from the unexpected blow, Spider Mare kicked him hard in the stomach, knocking him into a pipe next to a wall! Quickly using her webbing, Spider Mare grabbed the pipe and yanked it open! The pipe consisted only of run off water boiled to the point it where became steam, but it heated up the air enough to trigger a most unusual reaction. Due to the strong presence of methane, the increased temperature somehow triggered a small explosion.
Venom screamed in pain, as part of his left claw caught fire. Reacting quickly, he dunked it in the murky water below, dousing the flames! "That was a dirty trick, Spider Mare!" Venom growled, holding the burned part of his claw.
"A 'dirty trick'?" Spider Mare asked, before realizing the unintentional pun Venom had made. "Oh ha ha, real funny. How long did it take you to come up with that joke? Five seconds?"
"You don't understand! That REALLY hurt!" Venom hissed, bringing his uninjured claw down on Spider Mare, dunking her in the water. "And for that you will suffer greatly! Prepare to have your greatest secret exposed to all of Equestria, and watch as your humiliation is displayed before a worldwide audience! Then we will take great pleasure in destroying you piece by piece!" And with that, Venom disappeared yet again.
"Well, this is just great," Spider Mare complained, having overheard everything. "Now I've not only made him mad and lost him for what feels like the umpteenth time, but my suit is going to need a thorough washing to get the stink out. Venom, you are going to pay for this, in more ways than one!" And so, Spider Mare set off to try and find Venom, all the while wondering just what sort of "humiliation" the symbiote had in mind.