Venom, Episode 1
#1 of Venom
Blackness. An infinite sea of blackness. That is what defines my existence. Nothingness. No sensation, no memory. Then suddenly I long for the emptiness again as my entire existence becomes pain. My body is wracked by spasms, everything hurts. Everything. Pain to my very core, all the way into my bones. It's like my blood has become living acid and is trying to eat its way to freedom from my flesh.
Despite the pain, I find I can push it away, distance myself from it. I still feel it, I'm still unable to control my muscle movements, but I now have the clarity of mind to think. Who am I? Where am I? Why am I in such pain?
Firefly. That's my name. Well, not my name, but it's what I'm called. I've been Firefly ever since I showed my first super power when I was 12. There's a scientific name for it, something or other applied pyrokinesis. It means that I sheath my lower body in flames and uses differences in temperature for propulsion. Literally a Firefly. Though it stuck when my dad joked that my butt glowed just like a firefly's when I was in the air.
Dad had helped me a lot when I was developing my powers. I wish he was still here to help me with this, whatever it was. I manage to open my eyes. The spasms have calmed, but I still hurt all over, though it's dimmed to a dull ache. I still don't want to move. Just lay here for a bit, wherever here was, and try to remember more things.
Like my skin, it's purple. Lilac type purple. Has it always been like this? Yeah, yeah it has. Born with obvious mutations, light purple skin, navy blue hair, bright yellow eyes. Dad blamed it on Mom eating those Cheese Puffs that made your tongue turn funny colors. More happy memories of my Dad surface. Always there with something silly to say or a playful insult. There hasn't been a whole lot of laughter in my life since he died.
Things are beginning to come back to me now, slowly. I poke and prod at my foggy memories, trying to get the ball rolling on the events that lead me to here, wherever it is that I am. I don't think I'm in danger, I feel pretty safe, though I get the sense someone is looking for me.
I think I pass out, because I suddenly find myself looking down at myself. I've never had an out of body experience before, and I'm pretty sure I don't want to have another one. I know I'm not dead, 'cause I'm still breathing, but I do look pretty beat up. My suit is totally wrecked, and it appears to have burned away in places. I can see the angry red-purple-black scorch marks on my skin.
I don't burn from heat, I know that at least. I remember showing off on the Fourth of July for the neighborhood picnic by dousing my hand in lighter fluid and using it to ignite my sparklers. ARMOR, the state agency that deals with superpowered individuals, tested my heat endurance when I registered as a superheroine when I turned 16. Their equipment overheated before I did.
So that leaves chemical burns. I have some nasty cuts too, narrow and deep. Glass. I can still see some pieces lodged in me. Those are going to hurt when they come out. I'm laying in a puddle of something thick, sticky, and purple. It isn't blood, I bleed red like just about everyone else. Though personally the only one I know that doesn't is that lobster girl that's a part of the Gathering of Aquatic Superheroes and Heroines. We worked with them a few times when Red Tide held that oil tanker hostage in Grapevine Bay.
'We?' Oh, yeah. I'm part of a supergroup too. No one could think up a name, so we're on record simply as 'Group 144.' Unofficially we're referred to as 'Three Bugs, A Kitty, and a Goo Girl.' Not really a flattering name, but pretty descriptive. The Beetle sisters started it, the lot of us essentially worked the same area, and rather then get in each other's way we decided to work together.
Stag and Lady Bird BEETLE are their battlesuit call signs. I suppose BEETLE is an acronym for something, you can't spit in Megalopolis without hitting an acronym, but I dunno what it means. I never asked. Besides, the suits look bulky and beetle-y enough that I simply take their word for it. They're bright girls, but they kind of snooty and snippy, though I suppose anyone who has enough money to buy the supplies to make and maintain those things probably has those traits burned into them with a branding iron heated by burning old money.
Trigarr is a bit of genetic engineering made by one of many rogue geneticists in order to strike back at a Super by utilizing their own powers. Cerebus, at least the guy who got the name registered first in Megalopolis, is some kind of werewolf looking thing. Big, muscular, fuzzy, three heads, four arms. Trigarr's kind of like that, only replace the wolf with tiger, and change the gender to female. She didn't have a childhood due to an accelerated growth rate, but mentally she's still in the single digits. I'm not surprised that she was dumped by her maker, there isn't a mean bone in her body. She's a sweet kitten.
Thankfully she was born in Megalopolis, Governer Kincaide's made our lovely city-state a wonderful place to live for those who weren't born the traditional way. There's some old case in some musty lawbooks that's interpreted to mean that genetically engineered creatures are considered property. In Megalopolis all it took was 15 minutes of filling out forms at one of ARMOR's bases and Trigarr's considered to be her own person under the Alternate Sentients Rights Act. For a former super-villain, Governer Kincaide has sure made a lot of hero friendly laws.
We lead the nation in powered, mutant, and non-human residents. Heck, I think we have two Aztec gods, several hundred artificial intelligences, a goodly number of space aliens, a talking virus, and a self aware chemistry set as residents. Though calling Alexandria a living chemistry set is an ongoing joke.
She's as puzzled about her origins as everybody else. she's basically a swirling mass of liquids contained in a membranous skin shaped in the general configuration of a human. She doesn't know how, but she's pretty sure that she's the result of a collection of waste compounds from various illegal experiments from a dozen secretive corporations coming together deep in the sewer system. She can confirm that by testing the various compounds that make up and are contained in her body. But basically all she knows is that she woke up one morning as a living thinking being with more knowledge about various branches of science then the entire faculty of Iron State University.
Ok, so I know a bit about who I am now, and I have a good idea about what I was doing. Something superhero-y when I got blasted with something. Detached from the pain of my physical form, my ears tell me the answer to my second question. I'm at the Superion Memorial Park Zoo, where I work when I'm not wearing a mask, a spandex bodysuit, and a pigment projector.
Shit. I'd forgotten about my projector, it's a little gizmo that alters coloration. While Dr. Alicia Reilly is a bright purple mutant who utilizes her slight empathic abilities to take care of animals, Firefly is neon orange and flies around and flings fireballs. One of my better ideas actually, using two super powered identities.
Most people think that most costumed heroes look completely different, that you wouldn't recognize them in the daily lives. They also think that someone using their powers without a secret identity doesn't don a skin tight bodysuit and go out and fight crime during their off hours.
I can't recall anything purple and gooey in glass containers being stored around the zoo, so I'm pretty sure I flew here instinctively after I got hurt. I also appear to be doing better, as my body isn't moaning anymore, nor is it breathing quickly. I hear myself mmm softly as I curl into the fetal position, apparently feeling better.
I kneel down to take a look at the purple gunk, and I suddenly find myself in a theater, a bucket of popcorn in one hand, my waterbottle in the other, and a box of Gobstoppers under my arm. I see a tall, muscular blue scaled woman waving me toward her. I can't help but chuckle, she's quite good with mental imagery.
I plop down into a seat that's far more comfortable then the real deal, setting the snacks aside.
"Heya Hiss." I say with a smile to my scaled friend.
She leans down and hugs me, as big as she is she shouldn't fit into a theater seat, but as this is only a mental projection silly things like the laws of physics don't really matter.
"My lady," she says as she releases the hug, "You've been hurt quite badly, I have managed to suppress your pain and let your physical self rest, but a lot of weird things are happening, and I'm not sure what they are, or how to deal with them."
Though she treats me like a queen from a feudal era, Hiss does it only out of respect. I'm not only the head veterinarian for the zoo, I'm also the only one who's managed to figure out that the 50 foot long, bright blue star attraction of the snake exhibit is smarter then she appears to be, and has enough psychic ability to twist my mind into knots if she wanted to. For the most part though she's content to sun herself and spend the day telepathically chatting with me.
When she was discovered napping on a stretch of airport runway, she was immediately brought to the zoo as we tried to figure out what exactly she was. She's poisonous and of constrictor size, she also has key traits from various species of serpent, so we're pretty sure that she's yet another bit of genetic engineering that wandered off from its creator and took a tour of the city.
All the elementary schools got to vote on a name for her, though we didn't know she was a girl at the time, so 'Lord Hiss' was the winner. I was on sick leave the first week she was at the zoo, or more precisely Alicia was. Firefly had to help repel an invading horde of frogmen intent on claiming one of the nicer sections of beachfront property as their own. Got a nice bonus in my ARMOR paycheck from the grateful community too.
Anyhow, Hiss proved to not particularly care for being poked and prodded by curious herpetologists, and so she was quite moody and quite resistant to sedatives by the time I got back. A little mental nudge to calm her down and a quick scan of my mind told her I was friendly and interested in helping her. I also got her into a cage of her own away from several amorous Anaconda males, so she was quite thankful for that as well.
"And I've been helping you out ever since." Hiss adds with a fanged grin. "Thankfully you had enough time to call the engraver to get the plaque to read 'Lady Hiss,' I don't particularly desire to be the first reptile with gender confusion issues."
I roll my eyes, she catches the gesture and chuckles. "Well, enough silliness, I can tell that you're having a few memory problems, more then likely from a bad concussion. You heal quickly, so I can't tell how badly you got thwacked originally, but you do have a bit of a concussion right now. Your burns aren't healing as fast as they ought to be though. Your cuts either. Maybe it's the purple stuff you're covered with. It smells familiar, though I can't place it."
Her eyes unfocus for a moment before returning to clarity. "Odd, the last week before waking up here are a complete blank for you. You've been on duty here as normal except yesterday and today, and I didn't pick up anything odd from you then. Ah! There we are! I think I can call it up, though I'm going to have to process it."
She points to the screen, "So you won't remember it until you see it up there."
I shrug, "Well, let's get the movie started then." I say as I reach for the popcorn. "I just hope it's not directed by Uwe Boll."
Hiss winces, "I have a number of stored insights from zoo patrons and staff members. I'm beginning to suspect that he has undocumented mind control powers over studio executives. One of the janitors, Chen, rented 'House of the Dead' the other night."
"Poor him." I say with a chuckle, leaning back in the chair and propping my feet on the one in front of me. Having gone though a memory movie session once before with Hiss, I know that I ought to be as relaxed as possible.
She squeezes my shoulder gently. For lacking the requisite bodyparts in her true form, Hiss knows a great deal about nonverbal communication in humanoids. It's comforting to know that she takes the time to study how to behave in a comforting manner.
"If you'd shoosh yourself and focus, I'm sure we could begin." she teases. My mind is going a mile a minute right now, it takes a few deep breaths before I can concentrate on the task at hand, that being essentially reliving the sensory experiences I had in my memories. It isn't dangerous, memories of pain can't harm me, but it does hurt. Thankfully Hiss is able to dull the sensations somewhat at those points.
"Ok, let's fire up the projector."