𝟲𝟰: 𝗗𝗘𝗖𝗜𝗦𝗜𝗢𝗡
I thought that this special evening would all be about celebrating our graduation, but apparently not. Mark was out saving Queens from the weird evil Rhinoceros, and Venom had successfully convinced me to help Mark out as... Well, as the new Venom.
I found myself standing on the top surface of the baluster of my balcony, attired in the ominously black and opaque skin of Venom. The height between the balcony and my lawn was so daunting. It filled me with a feeling of pure terror. I quickly crouched down on a squatting position to hold a grip on the metaled barrier, to ensure that I wasn't gonna tip over.
"Um... Venom?" I called out nervously. "I think I should've probably mentioned this earlier but I'm not really a fan of... heights."
Venom: Well... I'm not really a fan of public transportations, so you're gonna have to get used to it Juliane."
I frowned at Venom's words. I huffed out loud before responding to him. "We should do a small inhale exhale exercise. They say meditation is a great way to—"
Venom: Are you stalling? Stop stalling! Mark needs your help right now. You know what? Since you're being a scaredy cat, I'm gonna take control of your body.
With a shriek, I jumped off the balcony, my body soaring through the air like a projectile. I struck the ground before proceeding to bounce forward with astonishing speed, whilst uncontrollably shouting with each leap. Venom and I travelled through the city like we owned it, leaping from building to building and climbing with ease. The city was like a perfect playground for us, the tall skyscrapers providing the elevation we needed to traverse with grace and agility.
"This is fucking insane!"
Venom: I know, insanely awesome right?
"What? No, insanely frightening!"
Venom: Trust me, this feels great~ You just have to chill Juliane. I got you, you got me, we're safe.
I knew Venom knew better than me when it came to being a vigilante, so I had to trust him. I closed my eyes for a brief second and took a deep breath before exhaling it.
When I opened my eyes, I no longer tried focusing on the distance between I and the ground, instead, the feeling of it. The fear that had initially filled me suddenly became a feeling of adrenaline and exhilitation. The air rushed past me as I leapt through the refreshing and calming sky. The feeling of freedom and excitement was undeniable. The high altitudes also gave me a sense of power. Venom was right. This felt nice.
When I reached the crime scene, I kept hidden and landed on one of the rooftops of the many buildings to briefly observe from the distance.
I peeked down and I saw the evil Rhinoceros in the middle of the road. The body of the Rhino was covered in thick armor, with machine guns attached to its hands. From the looks of it, it seemed like somebody was controlling it from the inside. The Rhinoceros spun around his stance, his arms pointing towards the sky as gunfires erupted the air, the gunshots alongside his menacing laughter deafening the entire city.
"He looks kinda funny." I commented.
Venom: He does. It's a pretty lame suit.
From the other side of the streets, just about 30 meters away, was Spiderman, struggling to push himself back on his feet. "Uhh, Mr Rhino?" Mark shouted, trying to get his attention. "I think you should go back to the Savannas. You see, factually speaking, Rhinos aren't really capable of surviving in cities. Ya know?"
That was just Mark lee, being Mark Lee.
The Rhino took notice of Mark's foolish words. In order to make Mark shut up, he lifted the nearest vehicle from the ground and threw it towards him. It was thrown with tremendous force, flying through the air towards Mark with astounding speed. With that, the Rhino erupted the silent air with his evil laughter again and pivoted to shoot more fire at his surroundings.
I jumped down from the roof and saved Mark, pushing him aside and causing both of us to tumble and roll onto the ground together. When we successfully avoided the vehicle, we fell to the ground with a hard thud and landed on each other, our bodies intertwined and pressed together, with me being on top and him being on the bottom.
This was obviously a surprise for Mark.
Although he wore that mask, I could feel him widening his eyes, and parting his lips open.
"J— Jaehyun?"
I could've sworn I heard Venom's voice in my head, calling him stupid. My head shook from left to right before coming up with an explanation. "It's me... Juliane."
Mark paused, as if he was malfunctioning. He was clearly dumbfounded and stunned. He was aware that the Symbiote was still in me the day Jaehyun passed away, but I presume he just wasn't expecting to see me in the suit during the crime scene.
"Yeah, I figured." Mark mumbled under his breath. His words befuddled me, but I soon realized what he meant when I noticed that somehow, his hands were resting on both sides of my rear.
Unamused, I frowned at him. "Mark Lee, are you serious right now?"
I could tell that the second time Mark heard my voice beneath this suit of mine, he realized that this was real, that I was here as Venom. The protective side of Mark immediately turned on, as his hands slithered up to the sides of my arms to tighten his grasps. "You cannot be here Juliane. Not right now."
Soon, both of us gradually pushed ourselves up from the ground. We were in a bit of pain after tumbling on the cemented pavement.
Both Mark and I peered over to see the Rhinoceros, still occupied with showing off his gun machines to the sky above us, clearly overlooking the two vigilantes present. We knew that he must be stopped as soon as possible before he could exacerbate his vandalism.
"Okay Juliane, you have to stay back and let me handle this."
"But I'm here to help Mark—"
"Nuh-uh."
"Yuh-uh."
"For the love of God, Juliane." Mark heaved, palming his forehead. "I won't let you help me. This is too dangerous."
It was an instinct for him to be this protective. I totally understood why he didn't want me to be here, especially after losing Jaehyun, but I could give many reasons to why being here was the right decision. But there was no time to explain during such a time-pressuring situation, so I had to save it for later.
I looked him in the eyes. Despite the masks we were wearing, we could still feel the eye contact we were sharing. "Mark... trust me." I spoke, firm and sure.
Mark was clearly stressed about the circumstance. He wanted to let me down, but he also knew how important trust was between the two of us. And so, he had no other option but to agree to this unexpected and sudden collaboration.
"Fine..." Mark mumbled.
"Alright then!" I exclaimed with a small bounce, elated that Mark was finally agreeing. "So... what's the plan?"
Perhaps I was being too excited about this? This was obviously a serious situation considering that people's lives were in stake, but I couldn't help but feel a slight tinge of thrill. Just a while ago, I was scared to death about being in this position, but not anymore. The thought of being here with Mark made everything feel much better. And the thought of fulfilling Jaehyun's request made everything about this feel right too.
"Do you see the glass window on Mister Rhino's stomach? There's a dude sitting in there, controlling him. The best way to stop him, is by hauling him out of there."
"Okay." I nodded. "What technique do we use to get to him then?"
Mark shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know... improvisation?"
"Dude... Are you serious?"
"What? That's what me and Jaehyun do all the time. You'll get used to it~"
Mark then cleared his throat. "Yo Mister Rhino!" He called out, his arms waving in the air from left to right. "Hey buddy! Can you quit showing off your guns to the Gods and play with me instead? I'm like growing very bored over here!"
Damn, was Mark always this unserious?
The Rhinoceros' guns suddenly came to a halt as he spun around his stance, his feet heavy and destructive against the pavement. "Ehh? You brought company?" He asked. "Oh, Venom, I'm such a big fan of yours—" He was feigning his small excitement of seeing me, but stopped when he realized something. Something that didn't sit right. "Wait, that's not Venom... Who are you?"
I gulped, feeling somewhat awkward. I took cover behind Mark, not knowing what to say.
I forgot to mention that nobody, and I mean nobody knew that Jaehyun was Venom. Mark and I decided that it was best to not reveal the true identity of the old Venom. And throughout those two months after Jaehyun's death, there was a hot topic about his sudden disappearance in Queens. I had forgotten about planning on how to manage this situation: What would people think if they see that the Venom they used to know, was now a woman?
"Ehh.... Uhh... Well my old friend retired? I guess he didn't like his job, so she's taking over his position now." Mark placed a hand on my shoulder and flashed a proud smile. "I present you, The She-nom!"
Venom: Oh hell no! That sounds lame! Tell Mark to take that back, before I try doing something real bad to him—
"Nope." I shook my head and stepped out of Mark's cover, an awkward and nervous chuckle slipping out of my lips. "The name stays the same. I'm still Venom."
Mark sulked, upset about my disapproval. "You don't like it? I think it's pretty cool."
I pursed my lips and shook my head. "Venom doesn't like it, and to be honest, it does sound a bit questionable so we'll stick with Venom."
Mark and I had been chitchatting for way too long, that we didn't even notice that The Armored Rhinoceros had charged towards our direction with a blaring and menacing shout, its heavy footsteps nearly creating a massive earthquake in the entire city.
Mark immediately shot webs at the manhole cover on the ground and hauled it to his grasp. Mark leaped towards the villain and swung the cover in the air like a helicopter's wings, before striking it at the head of the Rhino, causing him to collapse backwards.
"Oh my God. Headshot!" Mark cheered and swiveled his head to glance at me. "Did you see that—"
The Armored Rhino suddenly sprayed water from its gun machine hands and flooded Mark's side of the battlefield. The blast of water hit Mark like a freight train, slamming him into the wall behind him with stunning force and knocking the air from his lungs. Mark coughed and gagged as the water flooded into his lungs.
Water? Why water?
Venom: That was pretty smart... Water is one of Spiderman's weaknesses. It's gonna make his webshooters malfunction.
Despite the dread inside my body, I knew it was time for me to interfere and join the fight. "Hey you!" I shouted.
The Armored Rhino stood up from the ground. His focus was mainly on Spiderman, but when he heard me, his attention shifted to me. I could see from the distance the small face through that tiny glass window, smirking at me. He slowly pointed his gun at me, but it reseted back to its original settings and instead of shooting water, bullets fired out. The bullets spewed from its weapon machine hands with incredible force.
I suddenly felt my arm raising in front of my face, as the skin of the suit formed some type of shield to block the bullets. And it did. The shield absorbed the bullets and cascaded on the ground like nothing.
"Eh? We're bulletproof?!" I exclaimed, both with shock and relief.
Venom: Absolutely~ I'm dense enough to absorb the force of powerful blows and stop bullets before they reach you.
As I blocked all the gunshots, I simultaneously began sprinting towards The Armored Rhino with incredible speed. When I was close enough, I leaped in the air and landed on one of its hand. I splayed my hands on the metallic gun machine and watched the black goo absorb it. It solidified with force and strength until I managed to effortlessly pull it off and destroy it from its hand.
"No!" The man in The Armored Rhino cried out as he watched one of his ultimate weapon being destroyed. "You will pay for that! Get a load of this!"
The Armored Rhino used his other hand and modified his weapon-machine hands and switched them to a speaker setting.
"What is that?" I asked.
Venom: Uh oh...
There was a high-frequency noise that suddenly filled the air, a deafening and unbearable one.
I felt the sound vibrating in my body, my flesh and bones. This caused me to tip over and collapse on the ground on my knees. The sound was weakening my body. I couldn't help but cry out of pain as I felt myself becoming weaker and more fragile. I looked at my body, noticing that the skin of Venom was somewhat unattaching from me. It felt like I was melting.
"Fuck— What is happening?"
Venom: I'm weak to high frequency noises. It makes me flee away from the host!
New information gathered: Fire, and high frequency noises were his weaknesses.
"Be gone Rhino!" Despite the loudness of the high frequency noises, I heard Mark's shout renting the air. "Get a load of this one!" He mockingly copied. He leapt up from the air with his grasp tightly around the manhole cover he gathered up from the floor again, and struck it against the speaker, causing it to break into pieces and halt the noises. The speaker fell on the floor, and Mark landed safely in front of him.
When the noises had stopped, Venom and I had also calmed down. I stayed on my knees for a few seconds, trying to muster all the energy and strength I had lost.
"Juli!" Mark whisper shouted and scuttled towards me. He got on his knees and placed a hand on my back, attempting to look up at my hanging head. "Dude, are you good?"
I groaned and scratched the back of my head. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine~"
The Armored Rhinoceros stomped its heavy foot on the ground, shaking the entire road with a loud shout. "Hey! I might be weaponless right now, but I'm still not done with both of you idiots!"
Him being weaponless, and I and Mark being a bit unbothered kinda showed that he was no longer a threat. We both stood up from the ground and pivoted to face the enemy with pure scowls on our faces.
Mark rose his hand up and flicked it towards him, expecting for webs to shoot out, but it malfunctioned and sparked as bits of water squirted out. "Aw man~ You officially broke both my web shooters. Do you know how freaking hard it is do make these?"
I then reached my hand out and created thick strings of the skin of Venom. It shot right through the glass window of the Rhino's Armored Suit, and took hold of the mysterious man inside, before I hauled him out and brought him closer to us.
Terrified, the bald man shrieked, his hands up were in the air as he shut his eyes closed.
"Does he look familiar to you?" I shifted my head and looked at Mark.
"Ehh... No." Mark replied. "I was really expecting him to be half rhino, half human though... What a bummer."
The bald man opened his eyes again and pierced it through the eyes of our masks, his lips forming slowly into an evil smirk. "This is not over yet. We will come for you. All of us." He said, his voice so serious and sharp.
Mark and I just cluelessly looked at each other.
None of this was proceeded when we heard sirens. Police sirens. They drew closer and closer, their high-pitched sound filling the air. Mark and I looked at one another, knowing that it was time to make our getaway. We hooked the bald man's jacket on the broken tip of the hand machine gun and turned to run, disappearing into the street with the sound of sirens growing louder and louder.
When Mark and I found an empty rooftop, we decided to make a stop and stand next to each other by the very edge, facing the view of the night city. We took a moment to catch up with our breath before debriefing.
Mark grabbed onto his mask and pulled it off, now revealing his beautiful face. "Damn." He breathed out. "That Rhino guy was definitely something."
I could feel the skin of Venom slowly unmasking my face, as it crawled down to my chin. Finally, I felt like I could breathe better now. I turned to look at Mark. "What do you think he means about them getting us?"
"I don't know." Mark shrugged. He pursed his lips and pondered. "You know, the enemies me and Jaehyun usually fight are just criminal but but this one felt... personal. You know, considering his his suit was made up with weapons that had our weaknesses."
I tilted my head. "What are you saying Mark? That there's a possibility of a group of people trying to hunt you guys... or us down?"
Mark took a gulp and responded with nothing but mere silence. That was enough answer.
Mark fully rotated his body to face me. All I could I see in those pretty doe eyes of his were seriousness and protectiveness, and just by a mere observation of that, I knew what type of talk we would be having. "Juliane..." He spoke under his breath. "Are you sure you thought this through? About taking over Venom?"
Venom only used a few minutes to convince me in thinking about this decision through. It was really quick. And that rose the question: Did I actually knew what I was signing up for? The only factors that led me in hesitating was the fear of possibly endangering people around me, and me myself. But Venom pulled up Jaehyun in the conversation, and that was enough to convince me.
I nodded my head. "Yes Mark. I thought it through, and I'm doing this."
"But Juliane..." Mark sighed. Frustration started to grow in him. "I know I'm gonna sound annoying, but I truly don't want you to risk your life by taking over this position. You're so precious to me, I can't handle the thought of you stepping into this cruel and dangerous side of the world. Trust me. I've seen it. I've been in it for three years now."
I smiled. "It's gonna be alright~"
Mark shook his head, his entire face dropping into a worried and upset sulk. "No it's not. Look, I lost Jaehyun, and I almost lost you too. I can't let that happen. You're the only person I want to spend my entire life with, that's why I don't want to risk losing you."
Ah shit. My heart was aching, I wasn't sure if it was out of happiness or sadness, perhaps both. Mark's words always had a profound touch to it, and it never failed to do things to me.
"So why not spend our entire life like this together then?" I asked. I tilted my head to the side and gave him a comforting grin. "In this way we're always together right? I can be in both sides of your world now. Always."
Obviously this wasn't enough to satisfy Mark. He was still in opposition. Mark chewed on his lower lip and shifted his head away from my direction. He shot his gaze elsewhere. I sighed lowly, watching how he was avoiding my eye contact, clearly indicating that he didn't feel like taking that as answer.
"Mark, look at me." I said. Immediately, he looked back. He maintained those furrowed doe eyes and stubborn frown.
I took one step closer to him to proceeded my words. "I completely understand why you don't want me to do this. I really do. Hell, I also would've tried convincing you to stop being Spiderman when I found out but... I knew you had to do this. And I knew I had to trust you. So please trust me in this. I am doing this. It's my decision. You can't choose for me. I'm doing this to take responsibility, and for Jaehyun. He trusted me with Venom, and I'm not letting him down."
Mark pursed his lips. He shifted his eyes away from mine, and I could tell a thin layer of tears covering them. His throat bobbed uncontrollably too. With a heave, he looked back at me and nodded his head. "Alright." Was all he could say. He had accepted the decision, but it was a bitter pill to swallow.
I looked up at him and smiled, relieved and thankful.
Mark placed his hand on the back of my head and pulled me close, the gesture making my heart skip a beat. The warmth of his touch caused something to stir in me, a feeling of intimacy and affection. He leaned in close, his lips grazing my forehead with a soft kiss. He pulled away and cupped my cheek, then lifted them up to connect my eyes with his.
"Can you promise me one thing, Juli?"
"Anything, Mark."
"Never sacrifice yourself for the world."
"I need you to promise me that too, Mark."
A silent and heavy pause was created between us. This was a hard promise. Of course as a hero, promising this almost felt like a crime. But at the end of the day, we were still humans, and at the end of the day, we also needed to look after ourselves and the people we care and love in our life.
Mark smiled. "I promise." He said and pulled his hand out, then stuck out his little finger. "In fact, I'll pinky promise~"
I couldn't suppress a smile and a laugh. "Okay then." I intertwined my pinky with his. We gave it a small shake, sealing our vow.
NOTE:
Dude, this was like almost 4000 worlds lmao. Anyways, I decided to write this because someone from the last chapter said it would be nice, and yes it is nice and pretty convenient because I did kinda leave the ending pretty open. But hey... I also left the ending here pretty open right??? 👀
I was considering writing a book 2! I have all the ideas already. I really hope I end up finishing it though because I usually get lazy midways but I'll try not to lmao! And also, I am really fighting the urge to kill of a character again. I like sad stories lol. But I promise I wont kill someone this time ig.
Anyways yeah :)) Hope you guys liked this epilogue (Which, I think it isn't at this point because it was too long lol). And I wanna say one last time, thanks for the support! Y'all NCTzens are the best!!! 💚🌱