Venom's Story: Fire At Will

There was always a period of waiting, of watching, of wondering what, exactly, the result would be if he took this thing from this person, or that thing from that person. Wondering what this or that would look like in his Collection. Watching the people and what they held dear. Waiting for the right time for the right person.

Then there was always a period between the choice and the actual collecting. This was a period both wonderful and terrible, because of the anticipation that came of wanting, knowing that his Collection would soon grow again and wishing that time could come immediately.

And there was the time when he finally took what he'd come for, held it carefully between his paws, and watched what became of its previous owners. That was his favorite part about adding to his Collection, watching lives fall apart because of the loss of one little thing. How important one little thing could be to the lives of mortals, how much they had wrapped up in such seemingly unimportant objects, how much fell into ruin when those seemingly unimportant objects were taken away. The memories of what happened when he took each new object for his Collection were part of what made them special.

This time... he had nothing to hold in his paws. No object, no thing, nothing tangible. But the waiting, watching, and wondering were still there. He shadowed his current target, whose freedom had already been constricted in small and insignificant ways, a precursor to what was to come and which already chafed at him a little. The bright-eyed, black Seeker had seen him settled before bounding away again, leaving him in the care of the Custodian of the Chosen, and had been signed up for a biotheurge, just as had been intended, and that was that. Neither seemed to have noticed his tag-along, which was just as had been intended, as well.

There were a few presences on the Storm of the Black Wasteland who did notice him, but none of them paid him any heed, and he politely kept away from them. He had no intentions of disturbing anyone's realms or treading on anyone's territory, after all. That meant that he had to miss one very interesting little meeting... but it was probably for the best. He would get all the details out of his current victim's mind, anyway, so the strange mortal got a few hours of privacy, whether he knew it or not.

~~~~~

Standing as a candidate at one place seemed little different from standing as a candidate at another, Venom had decided. He was just as bored as he had been, before, which made the experiences basically the same. This time the dragonry was much more technologically and magically advanced, which was a big improvement, but as if to make up for that, he was effectively a prisoner. He wasn't allowed to leave until he had been a candidate at their biotheurge, whether by ship or by teleport. It was frustration as much as boredom that made him annoyed at his prison and his keepers.

The lack of a decent bar-- or even an indecent bar, or a bar at all-- for months, now, was starting to get annoying. Alcohol he had a little of from the cafeteria, but it was almost all tycharan-make and not really to his taste, and alcohol wasn't nearly the same without a bar to drink it in. The lack of any interesting girls-- not just girls interested in a fling without strings attached, no: girls who weren't completely manipulative, crueler than usual, or completely psychotic-- was almost as bad. He'd even tried flashing a grin at one of the tycharis girls-- hey, he'd never tried them before, and he thought the experience could be interesting-- and only gotten a growl in response.

Really, all there was to do was wander the Chosen's deck-- the only part of the ship where he was allowed, aside from the actual egg-caverns which held the biotheurge he'd been roped into attending-- and partake in the few entertainments available there, or hole up in his room doing the same. He exercised at the single gym, and in his room, to keep in shape, though he was afraid his shooting might get rusty, as there was no shooting range and practicing his aim anywhere else would probably get him in trouble. He watched more movies and read more novels-- electronic novels, at that-- than he had in the rest of his life, put together. He made a nuisance of himself with the other Chosen. The thought crossed his mind to just make some trouble and get himself kicked off, since surely nothing anyone on the ship could do could kill him, but when he had the disturbing thought shortly afterwards that they might just lock him up and deprive him of what little entertainment he had now, he promptly decided against it.

So Venom simply remained bored, imprisoned, and generally unhappy and impatient for the whole farce to be over, whatever wound up happening. To make matters worse, he found that he'd not even been signed up for the first biotheurge, which had been due to hatch three weeks after his arrival. He'd been chosen for the second biotheurge, which wasn't due to hatch for at least two months after the first. He was well and truly trapped, and there really wasn't anything he could do about it. Even if he showed up for the first theurge, and bonded, he had the feeling they'd make him stay for the second, anyway.

Not that Venom had any desire to stand at that clutch. Especially after he "met" the father....

He'd been prowling around the Chosen's deck because his room had started to feel claustrophobic, and he didn't like the shows playing on the communal holo screen, and he didn't feel like exercising again that day. No one seemed to be about to bother, and really, he wasn't feeling social enough to want to deal with other people. Shoot them, maybe, or punch them, but not deal with them.

But then the lights had gotten low, not because they'd flickered or gone out, or even seemed to dim... they just seemed to slowly be giving off less and less light with each step he took. He had no explanation, though he paused to examine the nearest light fixture in search of one. It was as if the problem was not with the light itself, but with himself. It made him unaccountably uncomfortable, having no reason for the increasing murk.

And then the familiar and hated scent of blood wafted down a corridor towards him, mixed with the sweetly musty, almost old-blood-like scent of rust. Venom stopped for a minute again, quivering with involuntary interest and the usual attempt at denying that interest. This time, however, he felt torn between investigating, in the usual compulsive way, and-- uncharacteristically, and for no reason he could think of-- fleeing the opposite direction. Not just leaving, to get himself away from the temptation of blood, even old blood, but fleeing.

When he heard the first metallic scrape coming from the direction of the blood and rust scent, he actually took a step back before growling at himself and stopping. What did he, of all people, have to fear of anything? He couldn't die; he'd tried, many a time, and failed each time. Obviously nothing could hurt him. But as the lights dimmed to almost nothing, he held very, very still, with his heart beating far faster than it had in a long time-- years, even, and never quite like this leaping, rabbity, nervous fluttering in his chest. It was, quite plainly, fear.

But that made no sense. Why would he fear the dark, blood, rust, and the sound of metal on metal? He'd never been afraid of those things before.

There was the screech again, accompanied, he thought, by the distant sound of a heavy footfall. Someone was carrying something heavy and metal, half-dragging it on the ground. Someone big, and bipedal, with a menacing, measured tread and a terrible stench.

Screech, footfall. Screech, footfall. Venom found himself with his gun in his hands, both hands, pointed wilding at the dark in front of him.

Screech, footfall. Screech, footfall. It was almost completely dark now; Venom couldn't see clearly for more than fifteen feet, and he had excellent darkvision.

Screech, footfall. Screech, footfall. The smell was overpowering-- but rather than being tempting, drawing him in with the desire to touch and taste, it was repellant, disgusting, tainted.

Screech, footfall. Screech, footfall. Something towering was looming out of the darkness, monstrous and filthy and horrible. Something wrong.

Screech, footfall. Screech--

Venom didn't hear the next footfall, because he was gone. He didn't even think of teleporting-- or shooting, for that matter-- he just ran. And when that didn't feel like enough, he flew. The corridors were large enough-- if they were large enough for that, they were large enough for his meager wingspan. The scent, the darkness, fled with him, and though there was no more metallic shrieking, he thought he heard heavy footsteps speeding up behind him. Following him. Chasing him. Hunting him?

He flew faster.

When he reached the familiar corridor with his own room, he put on his last burst of speed and dove through the waiting, obligingly open door. A snap of wings, a quick roll, an even quicker kick, and he'd slammed it shut behind him. He hurriedly flipped every physical lock and pressed every button for the electric lock and then backed away from the door as if even that wouldn't hold against that-- thing. The runes surrounding the door frame, which he'd guessed were for keeping track of whether or not he was in his room or perhaps were some additional form of lock, were flaking and fragmenting like rust, themselves, which didn't make him feel any better about the dubious protection of the door, itself.

Then they vanished. Venom held his breath, pressed against the wall farthest from the door. The smell was everywhere, even in the room-- but it was not overpowering. The lights were dim-- but not dark. He heard one ominous, ominously quiet footstep outside, one tiny squeal of metal against stone-- this hallway had a stone floor, rather than a metal one-- and one heavy thunk, then... nothing.

It took him an hour to realize that the terrible scent had finally faded, though it lingered in his imagination all too vividly. It took him another two to brave opening the door again. And when he found the twisted, melted, corrupted remains of what he only barely recognized as his favorite gun sitting on the floor of the corridor, he just closed it again and didn't come out until the next day. By then someone had mercifully-- or perhaps just curiously-- removed the ruined weapon.

Asking the first Custodian he found gave him the name of that-- thing. If it could even be called a name. The ship called it the Red Demon, and Abhan exclaimed that he had been lucky that it was only his pistol that had been marred, when he heard that he'd had an encounter. He was the antithesis to life, logic, and sanity. And he was the "father" of the first biotheurge. "Whenever you see him," the friendly dragon told him seriously, "run."

Venom had thanked him for the advice, quite certain he'd use it at the very first flicker of the lights around him, and retreated again to his room to find a porn flick he hadn't seen yet somewhere in the ship's databanks. Now, his half-formed thoughts of trying to attend the first theurge in an attempt at ending his sentence in this dull dragonry of a prison a little early were anything but half-formed. His thoughts were now adamantly against even considering the notion, no matter how bored he got. Anything that had anything to do with that monster-- demon, whatever-- didn't deserve consideration beyond how to get as far away from it as possible.

He still didn't understand why he was so afraid. Nothing could hurt him; he'd tried. No one could hurt him; they'd tried. But for some reason, that thing had him fleeing in mortal terror, just as if he were any normal sort of "mortal".

Part of him wanted to try and find the beast again, the part of him that kept searching for more interesting ways to not die, and now and then he found himself wandering empty corridors of the deck almost hopefully. The rest of him, however, would catch him before he actually found anything and promptly tell that one part of him to fuck off and bury itself, and then go back to his room to another holo or book, or to a crowded gym to run on a treadmill for a while. Part of him wanted to know what it was like to experience fear, true fear, again... but the rest of him didn't really want to know just what made him so afraid, because he thought that maybe, out of all the worlds, that creature could actually do something lasting to him.

And for once, the idea didn't appeal to him.

He just hoped that this change in heart didn't make him a coward.