Note: this is part of the We Am Venom! series.
Warning: spoilers for the Carnage Saga.
A few weeks after the Maximum Carnage crisis, Tom the symbiotic fluffy, one half of Venom, the Lethal Protector, waddles through the alleyways of San Francisco, on a peaceful, balmy evening.
As always, his Klyntar, the other half of Venom, converses with Tom in his mind.
“It’s been pretty quiet since that whole mess, Tom. No sign of Carnage yet. But I don’t think he’ll be coming back for Round Three for a while.”
Tom shrugs, replying out loud as always.
“Dewe am nu sine of owd mummah, ee-fuw.”
Venom’s swung by the law firm that Tom’s old owner, Michelle Howard, used to work at.
But since the night that Carnage’s symbiotic spawn rampaged through the streets, they haven’t seen or smelled her there once.
Michelle’s old office has been cleaned out, her personal belongings have been unceremoniously tossed in a dumpster, and her ex-bosses are pretending that she never worked there.
But her ex-bosses have got bigger problems to worry about, like the hooded, masked mystery man who just kicked in the door to have a, ah, word with them about their crooked practices.
“Honestly, Tom, I think it’s likely that Carnage’s minions got her.”
“Dewe wud stiww be bwud-stains, ow boneies.”
“Okay, yeah. Those bastards liked to play with their food. But even if she’s still alive, she’s probably seen exactly what the Klyntar could do to her. I don’t think she’ll be a problem for us either way.”
“But den whewe am she? She nu am homesie, we knu dat.”
Venom learned where Michelle’s apartment is by following her scent one day, as she was heading home from work.
Her usual route took her in and out of no less than three Starbuckses along the way.
Yes, that is the plural of Starbucks.
They’ve checked the apartment several times, but it looked like nobody’s been there since before the night of Venom’s big rematch with Carnage.
Her landlord hasn’t seen a dime of rent money since then either, so he’s clearing her apartment out, and that’s all being tossed in a dumpster too.
It’s very karmic, considering what happened to all of Tom’s stuff, back when Michelle abandoned him in Manhattan.
Elsewhere in San Francisco, Michelle Howard, lawyer and new member of the Peacemakers, roams the alleyways, wearing a white hoodie and white sunglasses, hiding her newfound power.
Since the night that Carnage attacked, she’s lost her home, her job, and any friends she had in this city. She only has a few earthly possessions now, what few things she recovered from her apartment before leaving it behind for good.
Like her bottle of perfume. Her favorite brand is very expensive, and despite everything, Michelle couldn’t bear the idea of some hobo getting his grubby mitts on it.
But she’s found a new home, thanks to Father Lucian Pax. He granted her power to match Venom’s, and made her an agent of the Light of Peace.
And she’s come to consider Pax a friend. The only friend she’s got, now.
Michelle still doesn’t know about Pax’s true nature. All she knows is that he isn’t a wizard.
Now, she can sense that there’s something off about him.
But she’s too grateful to be concerned.
Pax gave her power, and a purpose, and Michelle is not ungrateful. Now, she has the means to achieve the peace of mind she seeks, all thanks to her new benefactor.
Her priority is eliminating Venom. Both halves of Venom: Tom, her former pet, and the Klyntar who unwittingly donated its biomass to create Anti-Venom.
Pax had recovered a few pieces of Venom’s Klyntar, shed during the battle against Carnage, and used his own powers of light to convert that quivering blob into something new.
He never really liked the Klyntar, and had been wondering for a long time if there wasn’t a way to turn them to his side.
The Klyntar are beings of living darkness, said to be created eons ago in a distant universe, by a mythical king in black who sought to plunge everything into the primordial darkness.
But as we’ve seen, the powers of darkness can be wielded for good.
And the powers of light can be wielded for evil.
The Anti-Venom Klyntar has no mind of its own. Much like its “sibling”, the Carnage Klyntar, it is little more than an extension of its host’s will.
Unlike the Carnage Klyntar, it hasn’t replaced Michelle’s blood.
Michelle spots a feral foal, who seems to have wandered off from the nest and got lost. He’s crying, and sucking his hoof.
“Huu huu huu… whewe am mum–”
squish
She casually steps on the foal as she moves on.
“Hate those things.”
“I don’t know where she is, Tom. If she was close, we would SMELL her, right?”
Tom nods.
“Yuh, we wud. But mummah mite nu be in San Fwan-sis-koh aneemowe.”
“Then maybe it’s time for the two of us to hit the road, buddy. I mean, Carnage has already caused trouble in San Francisco twice, and we’re running out of abusers to eat here.”
“But whewe wud we gu?”
“Anywhere we want! Anywhere that needs a Lethal Protector! And we wouldn’t have to hitch a ride this time. We could take the Tele-Port. Seriously, why didn’t anyone tell me that Earth has Tele-Ports now? Would have saved us a lot of trouble if we knew that when we were looking for a ride out of Manhattan.”
Tom exits the alleyways, seeing his favorite curry place across the street.
“Dewe am sum fings Tom wud miss hewe.”
He sees a couple of people waiting to cross, and waddles over to them, politely smiling up at them.
“Ex-skoos Tom, but du yu mine if Tom cwoss wif yu?”
The humans shrug, so he waits for the little green man, resuming his conversation with his other in a hushed tone.
He knows how traffic lights work.
“We cud awways gu take a wook bee-fowe we make a dee-sish-un.”
“Oh, sure. Try before we buy. And after that whole thing with Carnage, it might be nice to have a little vacation. Somewhere with white sandy beaches, drinks in coconuts, and lots of bad guys to eat. Hawaii, maybe? Or Mexico, it’s a lot closer…”
Naturally, the humans can’t hear the Klyntar.
They’d be rather concerned if they could.
As the light turns green, Tom follows the humans across the street.
“It am swim pikkins awound hewe nao.”
Yeah, but that’s kinda OUR fault. A Klyntar’s gotta eat, but unlike SOME jerks, I don’t wanna chow down on anyone who doesn’t have it coming."
Neither half of Venom is a picky eater, but they still have a limit.
Tom waddles into the curry restaurant, the employees greeting him.
The owner smiles at him.
“Welcome back, Tom. The usual?”
“Yus, fank yu.”
“Vindaloo and chocolate milk, coming right up!”
Meanwhile, across the bay, a truck drives out of Oakland, loaded with goods.
The driver hasn’t noticed that he’s got a stowaway, though.
A slimy red rat, with jagged blank white eyes and sharp yellow teeth, clinging to the underside of the truck as easily as a spider.
“Uee hee hee hee…”
By a strange coincidence, that rat is a relative of the rat that the Venom Klyntar once briefly hitched a ride on.
It seems that family of rats has particularly bad luck when it comes to the Klyntar.
Unlike his sire, Carnage has no intention of letting his temporary host go when he’s done with it.
Not only does Carnage want to avoid leaving behind witnesses, or bodies that could be used to track him, he’s going to need, well, a solid meal or two to build up biomass.
As Venom said, a Klyntar’s gotta eat.
And Carnage is even less picky than his “father”.
By now, Carnage has become something much more than a fluffy, or a Klyntar. He’s reached a level of symbiosis hitherto unseen. Host and symbiote have become one. They’ve become a virus.
So forget host. Forget symbiote. There is only Carnage.
Every cell of the red Klyntar is an extension of Carnage’s will. The destruction of his original fluffy body meant nothing to him.
It was virtually useless by the time it was incinerated. Almost literally falling apart at the seams. While the Klyntar can heal all kinds of injuries that would otherwise be lethal, they’re not miracle workers. Only so much could be done for Woody’s rotting corpse, especially after Venom ate his head.
Carnage could possibly reconstruct his original, generally fluffy-shaped body entirely out of biomass. He already managed to reconstruct his head.
And with enough solid meals…
Well, Carnage has already created one horrific herd.
However, now he sees the big, glaring weakness that his previous herd had:
Under that red slime, his minions were still fluffies. And their bond with the Carnage Klyntar was easy to break.
But he learns from his mistakes.
There are other fragments of Carnage out there, hidden away before the psychotic symbiotic fluffy unleashed his assault on San Francisco.
There are also fragments being closely guarded and studied by the ChaotiX, but they’re not letting Carnage see anything they don’t want him to see.
As long as even a cell of that Klyntar remains, so will Carnage.
And his feud with his “father” will never end.
After a very enjoyable meal, Tom waddles out of the restaurant, thanking the owner.
As a ChaotiX member (well, actually two ChaotiX members, but Venom’s secret identity isn’t known to anyone outside the ChaotiX yet), Tom often gets his meals on the house.
He doesn’t really have a lot of money, anyway.
Tom waddles into the alleyways, and eventually runs into a disturbing sight.
The foal Michelle stomped on earlier.
The scent of her favorite perfume is lingering in the air, a scent Tom is familiar with.
“Owd mummah wuz hewe.”
“And it looks like she’s gone full abuser, Tom. Welp, we’ve got a lunch date coming up. And we’re gonna have to put those vacation plans on the back burner…”
“We wud haf tu fine hew fiwst.”
“Now we know she’s still in town, so there’s that. Maybe we should ask around at the cafes, coffee houses and Starbuckses. If ANYONE’S seen her, it would be someone who sells coffee for a living. Remember how many paper cups she had in her trash can?”
“Oh yuh, she haf awways bin wike dat. Wen Tom wuz stiww wibin wif owd mummah, Tom saw dat she had a koff-ee may-kuw in hew beddie-woom.”
“Ha! Can’t even function without the stuff. So let’s get moving, there’s a LOT of places that sell coffee around here.”
Tom nods, looking around to make sure that nobody’s watching.
“We am gunna haf tu gu make a caww at da Fown-day-shun, tuu.”
“Cal’s definitely going to want to know about this, yeah.”
“Wut abowt da skwad?”
“This isn’t THEIR problem, buddy. They’re hunting down those bits of Carnage. I don’t see why they’d have to get involved with THIS.”
Obviously, Venom has not yet learned of Michelle’s newfound power.
Fortunately, nobody is watching, so Tom shifts form.
Venom’s made a new addition to their look.
A white X in an octagon on their flank.
The symbiotic fluffy swings away on a black web.
thwip
Meanwhile, in Emeryville, a feral stallion waddles past Pixar Animation Studios.
Being a subsidiary of Disney, which was bought out by FauCorp a few years ago, FauCorp now owns Pixar too.
And while you’d probably expect Pixar to be making fluffy-related movies now, well, that’s what Fluffywood Studios is for.
It’s not really something the stallion cares about. He’s got more important priorities, like finding dinner.
He doesn’t know that he’s going to be dinner.
The stallion keeps moving, waddling into the alleyways.
Then he notices something moving behind a trash can, out of the corner of his eye.
He turns, seeing a blob of red slime slithering quickly towards him.
“Wut am dat–”
It latches onto him, forcing itself down his throat.
gulp
The stallion involuntarily swallows the slime.
He gags, feeling disgusted by every part of what just happened.
“Wut… wut wuz dat? It nu wuz vewy yum-- eep-- vewy yummy-- owwie! Wut am happunin tu fwuff–”
Then the stallion freezes up, shaking in place like someone just shoved a marital aid up his poopie place, suddenly feeling so much pain that he can’t even scree.
“ghk”
The pain is spreading from his stomach, throughout his body, and whatever the slime is doing to the stallion, it’s making very disgusting sounds.
sklurch… schlurp… sklurch…
The stallion collapses, writhing in agony, blood leaking from his eyes, ears, nose and mouth.
Or something that looks like blood, at any rate.
SKLURCH SKLURCH SKLUUUURCH
The Carnage Klyntar devours the stallion alive, from the inside out, greedily feasting on his flesh, converting it into more biomass, leaving nothing but bones behind.
SKLURCH… sklurch… schlurp
Having grown much larger, the biomass oozes away from the stallion’s skeleton.
It pools together, shifting shape.
Four roughly fluffy-shaped legs form from the ooze, one by one, followed by a body, a slimy tail, and last but not least, a head, which lets out a gutteral growl.
“Hrrrrraaaaaaaahhhhhhhh…”
A head that would look more or less like a fluffy’s head to the casual observer, if it was dark enough, or if the observer was particularly inebriated.
But no ordinary fluffy has a face that horrifying.
A face with jagged white eyes, and sharp yellow teeth.
Carnage grins insanely and victoriously as he looks at himself in a busted mirror.
The King in Red, back from the brink.
It’s impossible to tell that there’s nothing under the red slime anymore. Perhaps, if Carnage was weaker, he might need to, say, use that stallion’s bones to support his biomass.
But the Carnage Klyntar has evolved further than any other of its kind in this universe. Carnage can do things that most Klyntar can only dream of.
Things that even the most bloodthirsty and vicious ordinary fluffy can only dream of.
And as long as he lives, he’ll keep evolving.
Until he finally becomes strong enough to get everything he desires.
Blood… revenge… death.
“Daddeh… yu nu can ess-caype Cawnage…”
This body will be a good start. But Carnage knows that he’ll need a big army to achieve his goals.
Bigger than his last army, that’s for sure. Carnage still has some of the weaknesses of fluffykind, such as not being very good at counting high.
That rat is still on its way out of Oakland, and the fragments of Carnage’s Klyntar in various undisclosed locations are making their way out of the Bay Area.
And he’s still got a few fragments in San Fransisco, spying on his sire, even though the ChaotiX have found and destroyed a few of those.
Carnage scurries away, snickering to himself.
“Cawnage am gunna chase yu… tu da ends of da Uwf… uee hee hee…”
At San Francisco’s Faucheuse Foundation branch, in Venom’s personalized saferoom, Venom uses the video phone to call Calvin.
This saferoom was designed to accommodate Venom’s needs, serving as their home base in San Francisco. Just one of the perks of being in the ChaotiX.
The team is very diverse, and a lot of members have very specific needs.
As Venom recounts what they’ve seen, Calvin stays quiet, saving his questions for after the presentation.
In the background, one of the School’s training rooms can be seen, Marley and Paul Murphy standing behind Calvin.
Paul is keeping his distance, because he’s currently in the form of an elephant.
When Venom’s finished, Calvin finally speaks up.
“So Michelle’s gone over to the abuse side. Y’know, I gotta say, she seemed like the kind of person who is just one bad day from going full abuser. I’ll tell the rest of the Carnage squad to keep an eye out for her, Venom. They’re already searching San Francisco for Carnage, and we can probably find a picture of her.”
“Bai da way, du yu haf a namesie fow da skwad?”
“I’ve got a few ideas, yeah. But back to Michelle. I think it’s likely that she’s avoiding you in particular. And if she can get her hands on a copy of Who’s Who in the ChaotiX, she can probably identify any ChaotiX members we send after her. Luckily, Vic is on the Carnage squad too, and he’s a master of disguise.”
Naturally, Venom is also on that squad. Why wouldn’t they be?
“I’ll tell him to hunt for Michelle solo. With the right disguise, he could walk up to her and she wouldn’t recognize him until he’s got her in a headlock. I… should probably tell him to make sure he brings her in alive. Eh, I’ll do it when he gets back. He’s actually in San Francisco right now, coincidentally.”
“Weawwy? Wut am he duin hewe?”
“You know that law firm Michelle used to work at?”
“Yuh.”
“Weeeellllllll, Vic found out how crooked they are, so he’s there to habeas their corpuses hard. They make Saul Goodman look like Phoenix Wright, that’s how crooked they are.”
“We nu eben knu hu dem too AM.”
“It’s a long story. But I can see you’ve got a TV in your room at the Foundation, we could easily hook you up with a Netflix account and a GameFluff.”
“We wiww fink abowt it, Caw.”
“Take your time, Little V. I’ve gotta go, me and Mar are finally getting around to copying Paul’s power. Mar could turn into an actual horse with it.”
“Mawwey am gunna haf tu shu us dat watew.”
“Yeah, but for now, we’ve both got shit to do. I’ll tell the rest of the squad to meet up with you later, Venom. If anything changes, lemme know.”
“We wiww. Oh, an teww Taawn dat we sed hewwo.”
“I’ll tell him when I see him, I’m meeting with the IntergalactiX after this. We might have found a lead on one of the Stones, but I’ve got a hunch it’s a bust. Peace out, Little V.”
With that, Calvin hangs up.
Venom waddles out onto the balcony, looking at the street below.
thwip
They swing away on black webs.
At the curry restaurant Venom visited earlier, Michelle walks in, the owner greeting her.
“Hi there, you’re a new face! What can I get you?”
Michelle grins, one hand behind her back as she approaches the owner.
She’s still wearing her hoodie and sunglasses, with the hood up.
And she can tell that Venom was here.
“Oh, I’m not here to order anything.”
“…Do you need to use the restroom? Because you kinda need to order something first. Sorry, rules are rules.”
“No, no. I just want to leave a message, if a certain slimy little shitrat comes crawling this way again.”
“Oh, you mean Venom? We all love the little guy. So could you please not say the S-word here?”
Michelle’s grin fades.
“I’m not their biggest fan.”
“Well, agree to disagree, I guess. What’s the message?”
Then Michelle grins again, revealing her hand.
Covered in white slime, bearing sharp claws.
“This.”
SLASH
With one swift motion, she slices the restaurant owner’s chest open.
As he falls to the floor, gurgling and bleeding profusely, everyone else in the restaurant, employee or customer, begins to freak out.
One of the employees starts calling emergency services, but Michelle is already gone.
As another employee runs out of the restaurant, he sees a white figure, swinging away into the night on white webs.
“…What the fuck just happened?”