Note: this story takes place between “We Gotta Power” and “Today Is Fighting Day”. Spoilers for the Multiverse Saga. Obviously, read “If You’re Going To San Francisco” first.
San Francisco.
3 AM.
The top of the Transamerica Pyramid.
A small creature, black and fluffy-shaped, looks down at the city far below.
Tom and his alien other have been in San Francisco for a short while, now. They still haven’t found Michelle yet.
They’ve been trying to lay low, prowling the streets under the cover of darkness, lethally protecting San Francisco’s feral fluffy population from abusers. Which also provides them with a steady supply of food.
The other’s preference is living flesh. And it doesn’t think fluffies would be much of a meal.
Plus, its time with Tom has instilled a deep affection for fluffies in the alien, something that surprised it. It’s grown to genuinely care for Tom.
It can take or leave humans. Venom will leave humans alone if they aren’t hurting fluffies.
So the only humans who have seen Venom in the city didn’t live to tell the tale, and the only fluffies who have seen Venom are keeping quiet at their request, out of gratitude.
Of course, the red and blue stallion who leads feral fluffies to the local branch of the Faucheuse Foundation is known by now.
They just don’t know about his friend.
Several blocks away, Michelle Howard, defence attorney, burns the midnight oil, working on a very important case.
thwip
Out of the corner of her eye, she spots something black swing past the closed window.
When she turns around, it’s already gone.
“Must have been my yawn imagination.”
If only that window had been open.
Tom would have smelled his mummah, and his quest would be over.
So close, yet so far.
thwip
Venom lands on a rooftop.
The other speaks in Tom’s mind.
“It’s slim pickings tonight, Tom. That’s a shame. I’m feeling particularly RAVENOUS tonight, and I don’t know why. Now that I think about it, I’ve been feeling strange all day.”
“Mebbeh yu am sickies?”
Tom hears his other scoff.
“The Klyntar don’t get sick, Tom. At least, I’m pretty sure we don’t.”
Venom watches, as down in an alley, a man carries a sack slung over his back, something inside wriggling.
Venom sniffs, and smells that there’s a fluffy in the sack.
The symbiotic fluffy grins.
“Wook at dat. Dinnew jus wawked past.”
“With an innocent in need of saving. Let’s do some good, buddy.”
Venom leaps off the roof.
A few minutes later, the man is gone, a puddle of blood being all that’s left of him, the sack has been torn open, and the occupant of the sack has been liberated from the gag preventing her from screaming for help.
Tom, who shifted back to ordinary fluffy form between eating the abuser and freeing the abuser’s captive, watches the mare waddle off into the night.
“Tom hope dat fwuffy wiww be otay.”
“We didn’t even get a chance to ask her if she wanted to go to the Foundation. But I feel better now.”
“Aww yu nee-ded wuz a gud meaw.”
“Ha! I wouldn’t call that guy GOOD…”
Tom shifts forms again, and Venom swings off into the night too.
thwip
What neither Tom nor his other notice is the black blob they left behind.
That’s why the other was so ravenous. That’s why it was feeling strange.
It was about to spawn.
Several minutes later, another fluffy enters the alleyway.
Another earthie stallion, orange with red mane, fluff and eyes.
And a lot of cuts, most of which are fresh and still bleeding.
He looks furious, and is muttering to himself.
“Dummeh hewd nu shu smawty Wood-ee anee wee-spek, dey nu shudda stawpt Wood-ee fwom gibin howe hewd foweba sweepies. If Wood-ee wan booboo-joos, Wood-ee git booboo-joos! Wood-ee am gunna shu dem aww nu tu mess wif Wood-ee…”
He notices the black blob.
“Da fwuff am dat?”
Woody nudges the blob with a marshmallow hoof, and it latches onto him.
“Wait nu, stawp, stawp–”
Then something unusual happens.
Rather than covering its newfound host’s body, like its parent did, the newborn Klyntar instead enters Woody’s bloodstream through the open cuts.
Woody is perplexed, to say the least.
“Wut… wut jus happund?”
Then Woody feels the power coursing through him.
Through his veins.
Power that’s all his now. The newborn Klyntar’s mind was overwhelmed by Woody’s hatred and bloodlust.
And his perplexion is replaced with jubilation.
He grins maliciously.
“Oh, Wood-ee knu wut happund nao. Wood-ee gut da chance Wood-ee wuz hopin fow. Wood-ee am gunna gu fine owd hewd, an wen Wood-ee du…”
Woody undergoes a harrowing transformation. Red, blood-like goo spreads over his body, giving him a form much like when the Marley of Timeline-9890 bonded with a cloned Klyntar from another timeline.
Yes, that’s how that gentleman with the odd hairstyle got those things. He was trying to create an army of them.
Good thing the vampiric Calvin of Timeline-1897 showed up and turned that guy, huh?
Woody roars in glee when his transformation is complete.
“…WET DEWE BE CAWNAGE!!!”
The newly dubbed Carnage leaves to find his old herd.
The next morning, in the Golden Gate Park, Victor surveys an unpleasant sight with Jake DiMaggio, shapeshifter.
While Jake spends a lot of time gathering information overseas, he was in San Francisco to spy on the Mountain Cloud Boys, a notorious Chinese gang.
Their leader just doesn’t seem to notice the pigeon that hangs out on the windowsill every time he’s discussing matters of a criminal nature with his men, nor does he connect that pigeon’s presence to all the recent arrests of his men.
It’s like he can’t even see the pigeon.
The unpleasant sight which Victor and Jake are looking at is the dismembered corpses of an entire herd.
“This ain’t good. This ain’t good at all.”
Jake strokes his beard.
“You think this was the monster fluffy’s doing?”
“No. This ain’t his M.O., Jake.”
Victor’s keen eye spots a few traces of red slime. Most people wouldn’t notice it with all the fluffy blood.
Victor, having shed gallons of blood in his long life, knows blood when he sees it, and that’s not blood.
At least, not normal blood.
And Victor, having been one of the ChaotiX members who followed Calvin to the Citadel of Calvins, witnessed CQK-9891 and M-9890’s transformed state.
So he recognizes the slime.
“Aw, crap. I think there’s two of them now.”
“Cal should probably know about this.”
“He’s training with Marley for the Intergalactic Tournament, he doesn’t need this. I’ll tell him after the Tournament. And I’ll tell Des later today, he’s running the ChaotiX for Cal while he and Marley are training. For now, Jake, we’ll need you to keep an eye out for those monster fluffies. If you see either of them, let me know immediately.”
“Got it, Vic.”
With the trademark sound of chicken nuggets in a blender, Jake turns into a yellow-orange pegasus stallion and waddles away.