"Midoriya Izuku," it growled, "I am Venom, and you are mine."

Izuku stared at the nightmare, wide-eyed but otherwise blank-faced, for several long seconds. Then, he turned back to the phone and pushed as hard as he could toward it. Grunting with effort, he managed to get three fingers on it before Venom reacted.

"Enough!"

Black tendrils shot from Izuku's back, and he was yanked upward. The phone clattered to the floor, and the room was filled with the long droning dial tone as the boy found himself stuck spread-eagle to the ceiling. The alien face pressed so close that Izuku could see his green irises reflected in the blank white splotches that passed for the monster's eyes. In some detached part of his brain, Izuku noted that the white was actually pearlescent, with a subtle, chromatic shimmer. They would have been beautiful if not for being attached to an eldritch monster.

"I will not be ignored," the aforementioned eldritch monster growled.

"S-sorry!" Izuku stuttered. He tried for an apologetic bow, but the ooze holding him to the ceiling wouldn't let him move an inch.

"Our time is short, so I'll make this quick. I'm in your head, Izuku. I've seen your thoughts, your memories. You're weak. A loser. You'll never get rid of me. If you even think to try…"

The sound of the front door unlatching intruded into the threatening silence. Izuku's gaze flicked towards the sound, his heart jumping into his throat as he realized it was his mother. He looked back to Venom, and the monster drew its lips back to show off its horrifying maw filled with flesh-rending fangs.

"Mommy goes first."

Placing her purse and two sacks of groceries on the step, Midoriya Inko turned and locked the door behind her. "Izuku, honey? Are you up?" she called as she stepped out of her shoes into her house slippers. She was bending down to grab her things when she heard a crash in the kitchen. Abandoning her groceries, she ran toward the sound and found her son sprawled out face-down on the linoleum.

"Oh, Izuku!" she cried as she rushed forward. As she helped her boy up, she couldn't help but notice he was paler than she had ever seen him, frightfully so. Fearing for his health, she pressed her hand to his forehead to check his temperature, asking questions rapid-fire as she went. "Are you alright? You're so pale! Did you faint?! Do you need to go to the hospital!?"

"I'm fine, Mom," Izuku wheezed, sounding like the breath had been knocked from his lungs. He waved vaguely at one of their dining chairs, which lay on its back on the floor. "I just tripped. Nothing to worry about."

"Are you sure?" Inko pressed. She patted his arms, checking for bumps and broken bones. Then, holding him still by his shoulder, she guided his face back and forth with a touch on his chin, looking for bruises or black eyes. "I heard you from the hall. It sounded like a nasty fall!"

"I'm fine, Mom," Izuku said again. While she checked him over, her boy's green eyes drifted around the room, from the walls, to the floor, to the ceiling. Anywhere but Inko herself. He fidgeted, fingers wringing near his navel. "Mom, I, uh, I, I…" He hesitated, in that way she knew meant he was trying to think his way through something. "I'm really tired. Not sick!" He waved his hands frantically as he rushed to assure her before she could fret even more. "Just… tired, you know? I'm gonna go to bed."

"Okay, dear." Inko stepped back, wringing her hands with worry in a move almost identical to how Izuku had just done. "Are you hungry? I could bring you something."

Izuku shook his head, eyes downcast as he turned to go to his room.

"No, thank you. I ate too much for lunch."

2:53 am

Izuku stared listlessly at the glowing green numbers on the electric clock. He was more tired than he thought he'd ever been before, but sleep wouldn't come. He'd come close, but just as he'd nod off, fear would startle him awake. The fear of the thing inside. The fear of going to sleep and something else waking up in his place.

"If you're not going to rest, then get up."

The voice startled Izuku, who shot up in his bed with a sharp inhale. "Why? What do you want?" he asked with a voice tinged with panic.

"I'm hungry."

"Oh." Izuku slumped in relief, glad it was something so banal. "We can probably find something in the kitchen. You liked the fish patties, right?"

"Don't want fish patties. I want something… fresher."

"Fresher?" Izuku parroted, confused. "The supermarket is closed. I can't get you another live fish."

"Don't want live fish, either. Don't want any kind of fish."

"Well, what do you want?" Izuku asked, nervously looking around his room. It was disconcerting, talking to a disembodied voice, especially one as dark and twisted as Venom.

"I crave something… sweeter." Venom spoke with sadistic glee, hinting at something truly dark. The room momentarily fell into ominous silence.

"...Like a candy bar?"

"Shut up and get dressed! We're going out."

Once again in the green hoodie/surgical mask combo he'd worn the previous day, Izuku slipped out the front door as quietly as he could, praying the entire time his mother wouldn't wake and discover him missing.

As he stepped onto the sidewalk, there was a car parked on the curb. As he walked by, something reflected in the dark-tinted window caught his eye. Venom stared back at him, grinning menacingly.

With a jump and a gasp, Izuku looked around wildly. When he saw he was alone, he looked back to the reflection. Reaching up, he touched his mask over his mouth, and the monster did the same, touching a hideous black talon to its own lips.

"W-w-why can I- can I see y-y-you?" Izuku asked, trembling.

"I told you," the horrid reflection spoke. "I am in your head."

Izuku closed his eyes, sucked in a shaky breath, and let it out in an attempt to get a hold of himself.

"O-okay. Okay." Izuku sniffed, opened his eyes and faced the dark-tinted reflection. "What are we doing out here?"

"Just start moving. I'll tell you when we get there."

And so they went. The night air was cool as it passed over Izuku's pallid skin, and he shivered in spite of his hoodie. Whenever he passed another car, he could see Venom's reflection over his own in the windows. It gave him the terrifying feeling that the monster was prowling the street next to him.

As they went, the city gradually changed. Street lights were broken or missing entirely. Buildings were damaged, some burned, blasted, gouged, or worse. Plywood and tarps covered many windows and more than a few holes through the walls. It was the slums, where the sheer number of villain attacks outpaced the local district's meager budget for repairs.

"We're here," Venom announced.

"W-why here?" Izuku stuttered, glancing around nervously at all of the battle-scarred buildings.

"Not so many lights. Lots of vantage points. Perfect hunting ground."

"Hunting!?"

"Turn here."

With a stumble and a jerk, Izuku's body was directed into the nearest alley. He tried to stop, to dig in his heels, but his legs lurched forward against his will.

"Venom! Venom, what do you mean hunting?!" he frantically demanded as his body was forced down the dark, narrow alley. They turned a corner into an even darker, narrower alley.

"This."

"What do you…" Izuku's voice trailed off as his eyes adjusted to the dark, and the scene before him was revealed.

Blood, everywhere. Thick, wet crimson splashed across the ground and splattered high up the concrete walls. Lying in the middle of the gore at Izuku's feet was a pile of meat. It opened up in the middle, and Izuku's schooling kicked in and he began to name organs off in his head: intestine, kidney, stomach, liver, lungs, heart. As his gaze slowly slid up, his brain continued to idly label what he was seeing as it went: trachea, esophagus, mandible, maxilia, vomer bone, nasal bone. One of the sockets was empty, but the other one wasn't. A single, ice-blue eye gazed sightlessly upward, and Izuku stared at it.

And stared.

And stared.

And, finally, understood.

"This is a person."

"Not anymore."

"Did you do this?"

"No. He did."

Snickt!

A hand on his shoulder spun him around, and there was a wet slicing sound. Surprised by the sudden movement, Izuku stared wide-eyed up at a much taller person. They actually looked a lot like Izuku, with a dark hoodie, surgical mask, and curly hair peeking out from their hood, but all in black, rather than green. Equally dark eyes squinted down at him, curling at the edges with delight.

The other boy laughed, and it was a boy's laugh, judging from how youthful it sounded. This person couldn't have been much older than Izuku.

"Hahahaaa! Another volunteer! Now I'll get to see even more! I'm so lucky!" the other boy crowed giddily.

Izuku went to ask what the boy meant, but when he drew breath to speak, he felt a sharp pain. His gaze dropped, and he stared dumbly down at the other boy's hand and the bone-white blades that extended from his fingertips into his chest.

The young villain giggled psychotically as his latest victim slumped, the green hooded head falling limp. Adjusting his grip on the other boy's shoulder, he tugged the hand with the protruding blades away.

It didn't move.

The dark-haired villain tugged again.

Again, his hand didn't move, the blades firmly stuck in his victim's chest.

The delight bled from his dark eyes as he tugged again and again, the delighted curl turning to wrinkled irritation.

"Let go, you little bastard!" he grunted in frustration. He startled when the supposedly dead green-haired youth grabbed the wrist of the hand on his shoulder. Before the villain's wide eyes, black ooze bled through the green hoodie to coat the ventilated boy's body before swelling, growing taller and wider until the serial killer was staring up at a seven-foot-tall behemoth. The hand on the villain's wrist, now large enough to engulf his entire forearm, pulled the arm away, twisting it painfully. The villain growled and tugged but couldn't break the hold.

"No-no-no-no! It's not fair! You're supposed to be dead! I got you! I got you!" he whined, sounding like a toddler who lost a game. "You're supposed to be dead!" he repeated, his voice climbing higher and higher.

Two white splotches formed eyes, thorny around the edges. Beneath them, a terrible, jagged line tore open, revealing multitudes of needle-like teeth set in a monstrous maw. It smiled down at the prey squirming in its grasp, uncaring of the five daggers still embedded in its chest.

"No, you little bug. I got you."

"NO-NO-NO-NO!" the villain shouted back, still futilely trying to pull his arms free. "It's not fair!"

Venom wrapped his free hand around his victim's throat, fingers so large the tips met on the back of his neck. He relished the feeling of his prey's pulse racing beneath his touch.

"Agree to disagree."

The ebony monster opened his maw and a truly horrendous tongue spilled forth, thick as a wrist and pouring with saliva. It coiled and writhed through the air like a living thing, stretching out over half a meter to drag a hot, drooling swath over the villain's face. The youth grimaced in disgust as the tongue flicked off his forehead and retracted.

"It's not fair," the youth muttered angrily to himself as he watched Venom's jaw spread unnaturally wide, exposing row after row of flesh rending fangs. "It's not fair. I haven't seen everything yet. It's not fair!"

The hollow crunching of bones echoed through the alley.

7:53 am read the electric clock as Inko Midoriya opened the door to her son's room a few inches and spoke into the gap.

"Izuku, I was just about to make breakfast. Are you hungry?"

There was no reply, or shuffling, or even snoring. It was completely quiet.

"Izuku?"

Opening the door a little wider, she stuck her head into the room. There was her son, on his bed as she expected, but to her surprise, he was sitting up, wearing his cargo shorts and green hoodie, curled into a ball with his arms wrapped around his legs, face buried in his knees.

Maternal instincts flaring, Inko stepped quickly into the room.

"Izuku? Are you okay?"

When he didn't answer, or even twitch, Inko made her way to his bed and sat beside him.

"Izuku? Sweetie?" She reached out, laid her hand on his shoulder. She was a little startled when, without a word, he turned and wrapped his arms around her. "Oh!"

To her growing alarm, her boy buried his face in her shoulder and began to weep, fists clenched in the back of her shirt. He clung to her more tightly than he ever had, to the point it was almost painful. Her own arms reflexively encircled him, one hand stroking his hair and the other going to his back. She felt something strange and looked down, over his shoulder. Holding up the back of his hoodie, she saw there were several parallel cuts in the green fabric, each a few centimeters long.

"What happened?"

When Izuku shook his head and sobbed even harder, Inko dropped the subject and the fabric, choosing instead to just hold her son as tightly as he held her.

At about the same time, Kamui Woods fell from the sky to land at the entrance of an alley in a less than savory neighborhood, his extended wood tendrils retracting back into his arms as he took a few steps to bleed off momentum. At about the same time, Mt. Lady came running up.

Still puffing and red-faced, the curvaceous blonde threw the other Pro a wink.

Kamui Woods rolled his eyes and looked away.

"Oh, Kamui! You being a sore loser?" Mt. Lady teased.

One of his eyes twitched, but the up-and-coming Hero refused to rise to the bait.

"Come on," he grunted, trying to mask his irritation and only mostly succeeding. "Death Arms sounded serious, and he's not the kind of guy to mess around."

"Good morning to you, too!" the only slightly younger Pro snarked as she followed the wood-user into the alley.

The morning sun was blocked by the buildings, casting them into a deep shadow, and both heroes had to blink multiple times as their eyes adjusted. When their vision cleared, they found Death Arms. The much taller hero was leaning against one of the walls, forehead pressed into one of his beefy forearms.

Kamui Woods had been working with the other Pro for months, and could tell from his pose and the tenseness of his massive shoulders alone that he was very upset.

"Death Arms, what's going on?" he asked.

Behind Kamui Woods, Mt. Lady's nose wrinkled as she caught a whiff of something putrid. Glancing around, she looked for something that could be responsible for the smell, but there wasn't anything to explain it, not even a garbage can.

"Villain attack," Death Arms said, though the deep strain in his voice undermined the simplicity of the statement.

Mt. Lady's gaze snapped back to Death Arms before resuming her glancing around, though now it was much more cautious. Even though there was obviously no villain currently attacking, Kamui Woods couldn't help a quick scan of his surroundings.

"What do you mean?" Kamui Woods asked as he returned his gaze to Death Arm's back.

Death Arms raised the arm he wasn't leaning on to point a large finger down the alley. "See for yourself."

Death Arms was so large that he nearly blocked the alley, but he made no move to make way, so the two much smaller heroes had to squeeze around him. They were completely unprepared for what they found on the other side.

Hours old blood stained the concrete, turning a crusty brown as it staled. And sitting in the middle of this gruesome puddle lay two mutilated corpses. One lay on flat on its back, naked from the waist up, arms at its sides and legs straight, its front starting from just above the groin and going all the way to the top of its head missing, making a tidy, if macabre view of its innards, looking very much like an anatomical diagram from a medical textbook. The other corpse lay crumbled against the brick, dressed all in black, arms and legs akimbo, and a stream of intestines flowing out of a huge hole ripped through its belly. In spite of all that, the most notable thing about it was that everything above the nose was missing, with flesh and bone alike torn and ragged at the edges.

Kamui Woods stood frozen, aghast at the sight, while behind him, Mt. Lady gasped in horror. The scent of putrid viscera was so thick in the air that she could actually taste it, and the young heroine turned, bent over, and puked up her breakfast.

The sound of her retching snapped Kamui Woods out of his own funk with a noticeable twitch. Taking a deep breath (while silently sending up a prayer of thanks that his mask included a concealed respirator), he stepped right up to the edge of the gore and knelt to get an even closer look.

Still bent over, and reaching a steadying hand out to the nearest wall, Mt. Lady's stomach finally heaved its last. After spitting out what remained in her mouth, she gasped, "Who could do something like this? Tear two people open…"

"A GODDAMN MONSTER!" Death Arms answered with a shout, punctuating it by punching a small crater into the brick near his head.

The other two heroes flinched at the unexpected noise. While Mt. Lady stood, looking pointedly away while whipping out a handkerchief from who-knows-where to press over her nose and mouth, Kamui Woods turned to look at his comrade from over his shoulder.

"Death Arms," he called. "You've been hanging around in this stench too long. It's messing with your head. Go get some air."

Death Arms whirled on Kamui Woods, glaring and gritting his teeth, looking mad enough to kill, but the younger, smaller man just held the raging hero's gaze, his dark eyes steady and understanding. Caught between them, Mt. Lady grew tense, glancing wearily at the much larger Pro.

After a long moment of strained quiet, Death Arms let his fists drop to his sides with a huff. He turned and walked away, his shoulders so broad he almost scraped the walls with every step.

Mt. Lady relaxed with a sigh. She turned to look at Kamui Woods, and found the up-and-comer was once again studying the macabre scene. She stepped up next to him, eyes grimacing at the awful sight over her handkerchief.

"What are you looking at?" she asked, more amazed than curious that he was actually studying the gruesome mess.

"It's just… There's something weird about this."

Mt. Lady gave a very unladylike snort. "Huh. You don't say."

Kamui Woods shot her a glare from the corner of his eye, but quickly turned back to what he'd been looking at before. He pointed at the first body. "This guy here, the anatomy model. Look at these cuts. They're clean, straight, and methodical. This is the kind of thing you'd expect to see at a medical school, not out on the streets." Now he pointed at the second body where it crumbled against the wall. "And that guy. He's been torn apart. Messy. And his head… look at the curve, and those grooves. I swear those are teeth marks. It's like the top half of his skull was bitten off."

Just the idea of that had Mt. Lady's stomach rolling again, and she had to look away and take a few breaths to fight back the bile trying to well up her throat.

"But now look at that guy's hand," Kamui Woods continued, shifting his arm with his focus. It took a moment, but Mt. Lady dutifully looked at where he was pointing. She blinked at the bone-white blades that extended at least a half-meter from each fingertip. "Look at those swords! They'd be perfect for long, clean cuts."

The thought hung in the air, and it didn't take long for Mt. Lady to put two-and-two together.

"Like the cuts on the first guy?"

"Exactly," Kamui Woods said with a decisive nod. "I think this guy in black was playing doctor back here, and someone with an even meaner Quirk caught him, and took him apart."

Mt. Lady blinked and wondered aloud, "What, like a vigilante? I thought they were all gone."

"I don't know. It could be…" he trailed off thoughtfully. Standing up, he crossed his arms and brooded over the scene before him, taking in the incredible violence, burning it into his mind as an example of the worst humanity had to offer.

Beside him, Mt. Lady was looking anywhere but at the bodies. The only thing keeping her there was a sense of duty, a feeling that she would be less of a Hero if she left. However, even that broke when the thick stench of death seeped through her handkerchief. Gagging and coughing, she turned and fled toward the street and cleaner air.

Kamui Woods was left alone. Far-off sirens faded into his awareness, and he noted idly that Death Arms must have called the police in to begin a proper investigation.

"I hope it is a vigilante," the Pro-Hero muttered to himself. He stared at the ravaged corpse crumpled against the brick, dark eyes intense as they traced the grooves in the half-missing skull, imagining the bone-rending fangs that made them. "Because I don't ever want that to happen to an innocent."

End Chapter

Author's Note:

Many thanks to my fantastic friends TheoreticallyEva, Classyrogue, The Unaccomplished Writer, Upplet, and QueenAmaranthus for their wonderful editing, notes and just general support.