Venom's Story: Fire At Will

The day of the second-- first?-- biotheurge hatching came at long last. After hearing the stories of the first-- ... what came before first?-- theurge's horrific happenings, most of the so-called Chosen were reluctant to attend this one, in case it turned out like the last. Venom, having met the terrible Demon himself, was one of the reluctant ones-- but he, unlike some, did not require being physically herded to the egg cavern.

After three and a half long months of trying and failing to keep himself occupied in his prison aboard the Twisted Fate, Venom almost felt like he would welcome the slaughter of a majority of a clutch, even his own death, if it meant an end to the endless boredom. Almost, because the Red Demon still made him incredibly nervous when he thought too much about it, but enough that he went with only a grumble and a glare at the pushy Custodian who had come to fetch him with the others in his hall of the Chosen's Deck.

It was a nervous collection of people-- though how many of them actually counted as "people" was probably debatable-- who made up the crowd in the current egg cavern, mostly bunched up on the opposite side of the room from the eggs and the platform with the three lab-witches who had created the theurge. They looked confident, at least, not to mention proud of themselves-- especially the spidery one. Unlike last time, the parents weren't malevolent or even particularly creepy: a tall, gaunt unicorn with extra arms, and a three-headed dragon who looked like about the least threatening hydra Venom had ever seen.

The runes encircling both massive archways leading into the egg cavern lit up as soon as the last Chosen had entered and the last Custodian exited. Unlike the runes on the private rooms, these actually did something besides flake, flare, and vanish: they kept the anxious Chosen in. A couple of the group actually tried leaving-- if Venom had been closer to an exit, he might have tried the same-- but ran smack into a magical force-field. Or so Venom assumed, anyway: he couldn't actually see anything barring their path, but they stopped nonetheless. One or two even pounded uselessly on it. No one looked at them for long, though, because at the precise moment the eggs started shaking.

It was a little eerie, actually. Venom had never seen a hatching before, but it seemed to him that they all shouldn't have started rocking all at the same time. They even all hatched, breaking through their off-white shells, at the same moment, with a nearly single shattering sound. It was almost like they'd planned it that way. It was weird.

There were only eleven of the hatchlings, mostly relatively normal-looking, or as normal as one looked with hooves, three tails, and skinny little arms hanging between their forelegs. Really, that wasn't so bad. That was half of them. The other half consisted of three little monsters with two heads and three with three heads. Taking after their three-headed parent, apparently. One meandered straight back to its parents, one of the three-headers; another, a black one-header, sat down right where he was, amidst the broken eggshells, looking serene, or perhaps just high.

That left nine.

Nine hatchlings, and at least fifty Chosen. Probably more like sixty. Venom relaxed; it wasn't very likely that he was going to wind up bonded, then, or even with a sponsorship. Just under a one-in-five-- odds he'd bet on when it came to money, but not when it came to something like this. A bond who didn't want to be there would be passed by for a bond who did, he expected. Who'd want to be bound up, mind to mind, for the rest of your life, with someone who didn't want to be bound up to you? He was safe, he had to be. And then he'd finally get to go back to his life again. It wasn't much of a life, maybe, but at least it was free.

Five of the hatchlings went straight to the crowd of Chosen, while four milled about uncertainly, casting the Chosen speculative, wary, even nervous looks. Bonds versus sponsors, maybe? Venom had no idea what would make some hatchlings know immediately where to go and others, not. He'd never considered hatchings and bondings, after all.

Then his heart sank a little when one hatchling, a big, burly red one with three heads-- one of the first to actually make it to the Chosen group-- started aiming in the direction of the little knot of Chosen he had decided to hide amongst. It didn't mean anything, though; there were a good six of them standing near to where he stood, and the little beast wasn't even looking at him. Not steadily, anyway. Its eyes rolled angrily around, flitting from person to person, thing to thing, as if not wanting to look at any one thing too long. With three heads, and thus three sets of eyes, that was a lot of rolling around.

It was to his complete surprise when the hatchling suddenly gave a lurch and then a high, hatchling-pitched shriek-- three of them, one from each head, and it lunged for him. Utterly unprepared, it hit him at the waist and they both went down in a tangle of limbs, wings, and multiple heads. The hatchling bit, scratched, created sparks-- somehow; he wasn't sure how, except that there were literally tiny sparks of light or fire or something coming off of it-- and flailed itself at him until he managed to buck it off him and spring to his feet.

As soon as it got back to its feet, more slowly than he had but still quickly and furiously enough, it leapt-- not for someone else, like he figured, since he couldn't see any reason for it to focus its attention on him rather than everyone at large-- but again, for him. He only barely managed to side-step and yank his wing out of the way, though at least he did. Big and young as it was, the three-headed beast lumbered past, but with much lashing of tails and backpedaling of pearly-hooved hind feet, managed to stop and pivot surprisingly quickly. Its next move? To leap at him again, like a magnet drawn, for some reason, to one person.

This time Venom was ready, and he leveled a kick at the thing's chest. He connected solidly, got a satisfying yowl of pain and surprise, and sent the hatching rolling away. Only to roll back up again onto mismatched paws and hooves and lunge again.

By now they had a good, wide space cleared around them, as the rest of the Chosen hurriedly backed off. One of them hadn't backed off quickly enough, and had a set of bloody gashes across his chest from three coiling, lashing barbed tails. Most of the Chosen in the near vicinity were watching avidly, likely waiting to see one of them get snuffed. Well, if someone was going to die here, it wasn't going to be Venom. No ridiculously violent little hatchling was going to manage that one.

The fight finally ended a few more lunges, bites, and claw-enforced kicks later, both of them bloody and panting a little, when Venom met the last attack with a gun. He swatted the beastly thing away one last time, clocking it good on the side of the head with his pistol in the process, and had the gun cocked and fitted right against the hatchling's central head when he finally-- more slowly than before-- got back to his feet.

They stared at each other for a long minute. During that long minute was when Venom realized that the hatchling had gone from "it" to "he" in his mind. And he had no fucking idea how he'd decided that. He wasn't one to anthropomorphize, nor was he one to feel kinship with enemies, and the creature didn't exactly have any obvious, identifying gender traits. So where the hell had he gotten "he" for the beast?

The silence went on long enough. "You gonna yeild, or should I just kill you now?" he drawled.

A growl fluttered in three throats, but it was half-hearted at best, and the hatchling looked away, sidelong and sullen. Venom lowered the weapon slowly, ready to whip it back up and fire at the first sign of aggression, but the hatchling merely slumped down to his belly and panted from all three mouths, tails twitching but no longer lashing. Venom stuck the weapon back into its holster and demanded, "So what was that all about?"

Three pairs of yellow eyes glared at him. "You tell me," a surprisingly deep, gravelly voice issued from his left-hand head. Well, the one on Venom's left side. The dragon's right.

"Since I've got no fucking clue, that'd be hard."

"Poor you."

"Hey, I don't have to take this. I could just shoot you."

The hatchling sneered at him. "Go ahead."

They didn't get much farther with that conversation. Venom tried another tact. "You bonded me, didn't you?"

The dragon snorted but said nothing.

"Of course you did. That's why I know you're male, isn't it?"

"Very clever of you."

All right, then.... "But then why can't I hear what you're thinking?" He wasn't that terrible of a psionic, but it felt almost like the dragon wasn't even there. No, it felt like... he was some kind of black hole of telepathy, like he sucked up mental presence instead of radiating it. It was weird.

Again, the dragon said nothing. His jaws worked angrily, but he was utterly silent, not even growling this time. He didn't answer any of Venom's increasingly annoyed questions, not even to give him his name. When the ripple went through the remaining Chosen that none of the hatchlings were giving their names-- nor suggesting that they had none and needed naming, which happened now and then-- he stopped asking, and merely glared in angry confusion. The hatchling glared, back. This was not a promising beginning to something that had already promised to be miserable.

When the spider-witch made her rounds-- whether to collect names, or just colors and head-counts, since apparently none of them were telling-- the hatchling had gotten his breath back. As soon as she was close enough, he made an awkward lunge at her. She danced effortlessly out of his way, and he snapped uselessly in the direction of her nearest insectoid foot.

"Gotten yourself a feisty one, haven't you?" she observed, giving Venom merely a glance. "Then he is Atnynvus."

"Atnynvus," Venom repeated blankly. "What's that supposed to mean? Feisty?"

But the spider-witch was gone. The dragon, if he even knew what it meant himself-- unlikely-- just growled.

Well, Atnynvus was better than nothing, so Atnynvus he was.