Finally a lead.  A lead on what happened to her father when he went off to save his military brothers.  There had been nothing.  Nothing for years and years.  Her mother was gone, back to Asgard, and even though Vicki could go between Asgard and Midgard all she wanted, she knew she didn't belong up there, with the "Gods", judging.  She belonged down here, on Earth, fighting and doing what she wanted, as the New Venom.  It was a moniker she didn't like at all, but it was her brand, and being the wearer of the Symbiote came with several prices she had to pay.

The first price was evident in the headband she wore.  She had to protect herself from the inside out.  Literally.  The second price, she was shut away from everything and everyone so she could be trained and taught.  Trained in the ways of a warrior, and taught to control the Symbiote with the help of her headband.  Now, she'd been working to make a new name for the Symbiote wearer.  Previously it had been almost nothing but bad, but her father had managed to change that viewpoint himself.  Now it was her turn, and it was time to find out what had happened to her father, Flash Thompson.


Swinging through Hell's Kitchen, she was currently wearing the Symbiote.  She'd arrived in Hell's Kitchen only an hour before hand, and now had about a period of 35 hours left to wear the symbiote before long term damage might occur.  Her outfit, while wearing the Symbiote, was almost identical to her fathers.  It looked very sleek, didn't have the typical fangs and mouth like most Venom did, it was sleek.  However her face was a bit odd.  It had the same large white orbs, but it had a long, thin line that curled into a smile almost where her mouth should be.  One would assume that was were the fangs were hidden, but it wasn't clear.  On her chest was the white spider symbol, the legs of the spider stretching around to cover her back and dangle down her rear, to form several lines down the back sides of her legs.  Every symbiote wearer had their own style of Venom, and this was hers to bare.

You know thisssss isss a trap

A voice inside her head spoke and she nodded.  Of course I know this is a trap, but I can't risk anything potentially leading me to someone who knew something about my father.  You weren't being helpful, since you didn't know jack, so I know you want to know as much as I do.  Besides, you can't have any harm come to me, so just shut up and deal with it.

Asssss you wissssh

It wasn't that easy.  It never was with the Symbiote.  Always having tricks and plans, and devices of it's own to help itself, not the host.  But the primary beauty of the symbiote, was that it could never let it's host die, until it found something much more suitable.  Looking around, Vicki finally noticed where she wanted to go, and flipping into the air, she landed, quite calmly and without noise, upon the roof of an old laboratory.  Climbing to the sides of the building, she crawled around, looking through windows and such, finally finding an open one and sliding through before pressing to the wall to begin a search of the facility.

Dang, this was a busy month. First Reykjavik, then Parker Industries, and now Cash was about to go wading through a laboratory that must have been put together before he was born. The instructions were simple: infiltrate the old laboratory, hack into the computer mainframe, and copy its entire hard drive onto a flash disk. It should be a quick in-and-out job. Maybe there'd be a few security guards, but Cash could easily slip by a couple rent-a-cops without even trying.

One thing did make him a little uneasy, though. Cash preferred to operate in fields of gray and, now and then, stray into white. Often he had to break the law to perform his job -- there were no misgivings or confusion about that -- but the freelance spy (and sometimes petty thief) would not accept contracts that felt as though there were a severe criminal element to them. Tonight, this was just business and politics. A company might shut down and a few people might lose their jobs, but that was nothing too serious. If the contents of the hard drive should prove powerful in the wrong hands, however, Cash wouldn't deliver them. There was no delusion that he was a hero, but Cash did adhere to his own set of morals. However he sliced it, though, the young man was nervous because he was heading into Hell's Kitchen -- and that was Daredevil's territory. He doubted that the hero would look upon him too kindly if Cash was caught by the blind superhero -- and Daredevil's powers wouldn't be fooled by Cash's invisibility.

Just don't be an idiot and everything will be fine.

Yeah, good advice.

He didn't even bother to hide himself as he entered Hell's Kitchen, head down and black hoodie covering his jumpsuit and belt. He stopped at a pizzeria for a slice, familiarizing himself with the area. The pizza had the same texture as cardboard covered in greasy silly string, but he ate in, doing his best to put himself at ease. People noticed when you were uptight, they noticed when you fidgeted. Cash would easily travel to the building of the laboratory without garnering unwanted attention if he felt and acted as though he belonged.

The horrendous taste of the cheap pizza still in his mouth, Cash arrived at the facility. There didn't appear to be any security patrolling outside, but that meant nothing. There was one camera poorly positioned just underneath the docking bay door around back. That was his entrance.

Ditching the hoodie next to a dumpster, Cash crouched in the shadows and disappeared, his clothing and equipment following suit a moment after his flesh did. If he disabled the camera, that might tip people off to his entrance. And what was the use when they couldn't even see him? Cash calmly climbed onto the docking bay and slipped a lockpick from his belt. The camera wouldn't catch it. He slipped it into the lock, fiddled with each of the tumblers until -- click. He was in. The camera's angle only caught people approaching the door, so Cash easily opened the unlocked entrance and slipped inside.

Inky blackness vaguely lit by security lights enveloped him. He needed to talk to JJ and ask if he could see about creating some form of night vision that could be coded to his DNA, just like his jumpsuit -- but even that seemed far fetched to Cash. Here I am living in a world rife with the fantastic, I am invisible, and I can't even see in the dark.

Silently, Cash padded through the facility, the contents of his belt silenced by padded liners. He needed to find the mainframe, or any computer, really and -- hold up. Cash frozen, flattening himself against a wall.

He wasn't alone.

Finally having started to look around and see what was what inside this lab, Vicki came to the conclusion that ultimately this was pointless.  If it was a trap, it didn't seem like anyone was going to spring it.  Then again, if this was fact, and there was some sort of information here about her father, she couldn't leave any stone unturned.

You know someone elsssse isss here

Do you take me for an idiot?  Of course I know that, but so far they've been no threat, and the longer they think they're hiding, the longer I can search if they are in fact the culprit behind this goose chase.  Stop interrupting me and just watch them


Vicki was starting to get perturbed, and finally she starting throwing all kinds of desk and papers and shit around.  She was on the same level of the building as the person she and the symbiote had detected.  It wasn't that difficult since they were trained in sniffing out those who were concealed.  That compounded with the fact that she had full control of the Venom symbiote, made the black "skin" super sensitive to any sort of vibrations, either from walking or sounds or what have you.  They had to be, because it was their main weakness, sonic emissions.

"Alright, that's it.  I'm rather pissed already, so just tell me whether or not you tricked me into coming here, or if you actually have some sort of information about my father!"  Vicki yelled out, pointing her black "skinned" hand over at the cloaked figure.  "If you don't tell me, I'm going to let my symbiote here rip you to shreds, so I suggest you start barking up some answers."

Just as she accused the cloaked figure, a cackle was heard, followed by loud sonic emissions that forced the symbiote to emit a high pitched scream and Vicki to clutch her head.  As she did so she managed to hear a type of click, and then the entire floor just exploded with trip mines.  One explosion after the other, forcing the entire floor to start collapsing into the next one.  The third floor that she was on suddenly became the second, but luckily it caused the sonic to stop, and since fire no longer bothered her Symbiote, she didn't take much damage from the resulting firestorm or the explosions.

((Obviously the cloaked figure she was speaking to wasn't Cash, but a mysterious new challenger!!!!  FYI, if Cash reveals himself to her, she'll probably attack, so your call!!!   ))

Cash inhaled and exhaled softly, his eyes adjusting to the change in light just as he processed the other occupant of the building. Their entire body was dipped in black -- save for the white blaze in the shape of an arachnid on their chest and grotesque boggled orbs where eyes would be. The figure of the person was small-ish -- lithe instead of bulky. What if his client had double hired and this schmuck was also here to do the job? Cash groaned internally. Such situations always turned out to be a mess.

The figure lurked around an outcropping of desks -- one of them had a desktop computer on them. Cash continued to hug the wall, refusing even to move as this dark figure prowled. Something suddenly set them off, and they began flinging the contents of the desks -- and sometimes the pieces of furniture themselves -- around.

Black suit, spider symbol, googly eyes... why does this ring -- oh, shoot.

Venom. But wait, Venom was MIA, had been for years. So who was this person, and what were they doing --

Crap, STAPLER!

The plastic Swingline slammed Cash right in the jaw, and if he hadn't already been bracing himself against the wall, he might have stumbled. Instead, he took the blow without a single vocalization, gritting his teeth as pain pulsed through his jaw. Okay. They might know he was here. And, to support such an idea, the person -- a feminine person, it turned out -- started shouting.

Somebody set me up, somebody set me -- Wait, I have no idea what she's screaming about. Her father? And there was a mention of the symbiote... Wow, did Venom have a kid? Papa had me, probably. Cash had just stumbled into something that didn't even remotely concern him, and it was time to leave before another stapler broke his nose. Inching away from the erratic symbiote, Cash caught another figure, this one cloaked, just before he was blinded with explosions.

Luckily, invisibility was his default appearance, otherwise Cash wouldn't have been able to concentrate between the searing heat and the ringing that deadened his hearing. The floor slipped away beneath him and the impact that broke the fall forced all the air from his lungs. As his eyes slowly adjusted from blinding white to distorted vision and the ringing continued, all Cash could think as he gasped for air was, Screw this. I need to get out of here.

That was the plan until rubble fell onto him.

Groaning, the invisible man shoved the supporting beam and what was left of some drywall with all his might. It feebly shifted off of him, barely making an impact on the field of carnage from one floor collapsing into the next. Exit, exit, exit... But wait. What about that symbiote person?

"Hey, you alright?" Cash found himself asking, feeling stupid for the question and remaining invisible. He was no hero, never a hero, but he wasn't just going to abandon this person to die underneath some rubble! If anything, he could help them get out too before whoever set off the mines flipped the switch for round two!