The Venom Inside

To say that Lightning Dust liked her new ally would be an understatement. She loved it. The black goo was making her feel amazing, like she could crush mountains into dust. Thanks to the symbiote, Lightning Dust  was far stronger and faster than ever before. Not only that, but she could stick to walls, fire what Lightning Dust could only describe as black spider webbing out of the front of her forelegs and produce tendrils from her back.

“Now, if we could only find something to test our new power on,” growled Venom.

As if on cue, somepony screamed.

Venom smiled, the kind of smile a predator has when they find prey. “Perfect…” she hissed, before flying off towards the scream...

~

A young Earth Pony mare was being mugged by a group of  four unicorn stallions in a dark alley.

“Help! Somepony! Anypony! Help!” yelled the mare, before getting kicked in the chest

“Maybe now you won’t cross the-” said one of the unicorns, before something pulled him into the darker part of the alley.

The rest of his gang looked towards the dark part of the alley. Suddenly, the leader of the gang started screaming.

“No! No! Please! For the love of Faust! No! No!” he yelled, before his body was thrown out of the shadows and into a dumpster, blood pouring out of his chest and neck.

A flash of lightning from the ongoing storm revealed what seemed to be a pegasus-like creature… it had a ghostly white mane and tail, demonic white eyes, a demonic pair of wings, a mouth full of gleaming fangs, a long, serpent-like tongue, and a jet black body.

“What is that thing?” asked one of the unicorns.

“I don’t know, but it killed the boss… so, I say we kill it and donate the body to science,” said one of the other unicorns, charging up his horn as he spoke.

Venom laughed. “Oh, but we have a better idea… how about we beat all of you into pastes, preferably without scarring the Earth Pony for life. That sound like fun?” she hissed.

“Eh, I think we’re gonna stick with the ‘killing-you-and-donating-your-body-to-science’ idea. Plus, we might get a huge payday,” said one of the unicorns, before he and his fellows fired blasts of magic.

Venom did a backflip over the magic blasts and landed on her feet with elegance. “Very well, then… We guess we’ll have to do this the hard way… and by ‘hard way,’ we mean ‘toss your broken and lifeless bodies into the dumpster,’” snarled Venom.

Claws appeared on Venom’s hoof before she slashed the face of one of the unicorns, leaving a very large and bloody scratch, before kicking the unicorn in the chest.

“Arrgh! Kill it! Kill it!” yelled the unicorn through a mouth full of blood.

The unicorn’s partners began to charge up another blast of magic, but Venom was ready.

“Let’s point those horns of yours in a safer direction, shall we?” hissed Venom.

Venom fired a black strand of webbing that tied the two unicorns’ horns together point-to-point just as they were about to fire. The resulting blast destroyed their horns and rendered them unconscious.

I’ve gotta get out of here! screamed the scratched unicorn in his head before trying to make a run for it.

“Get back here, you miserable little insect!” snarled Venom, launching a tendril at the unicorn.

The tendril wrapped itself around the unicorn’s neck and dragged him back, screaming.

“What are you?!” shrieked the stallion in a mix of a blood-filled mouth and total and utter fear.

Venom smiled her most predatory smile yet. “Let’s just say we’re Frankenstein’s Monster,” said Venom, launching another tendril at a newspaper dispenser and grabbing the newspaper, Equestria Daily, from it. On the front page was an alicorn Venom vaguely recognized as a friend of Rainbow’s. “And we’re looking for our creator.”

Venom then snapped the neck of the unicorn.  As she walked out of the alley, she saw the Earth Pony mare, cowering in absolute fear.

“Are… you gonna kill me too?” whimpered the mare.

Venom smiled once again, this time a gentle smile. Or, at least, as gentle as she could with her monstrous form. “Depends if you’re a good little mare,” said Venom with the air of a joke.

“Who-who are you?” asked the mare.

“We are Venom… and remember this, little pony: innocence is precious. It should be protected, cherished, always,” said Venom, then added as an afterthought, “We were innocent once… we could’ve had it all, but it was stolen from us by a treacherous little snake we once called ‘friend...’ see you around.”

Venom then spread her monstrous wings, newspaper in hand, or rather, tendril, and took off into the skies at breakneck speeds, leaving the Earth Pony wondering if there were more like her…

~

Lightning Dust, in her normal appearance once again, opened the door to her home. The newspaper was in her mouth. “It’s a good thing I don’t have to work tomorrow… because you and me are going to have a late-night discussion,” she said.

What for? inquired the symbiote from inside Lightning’s head.

“We need to come up with a plan  to lure Rainbow Dash here so we can kill her,,” replied Lightning. “Anyways, this alicorn… I recognize her from the Wonderbolt Academy just before I got kicked out because of Dash. According to this paper, she’s gonna be hosting the Grand Galloping Gala at her castle in the Crystal Empire.”

And your point is? said the symbiote with an impatient tone.

“Well, Rainbow Dash and her pals never miss a gala as far as I know. So, it’ll be the perfect chance to do some reconnaissance,” said Lightning.

Reconnaissance? Why can’t we just do it the old-fashioned way? You know, just crash through the roof and kill her then and there, asked the symbiote.

“Because Princesses Celestia and Luna will be there, and even with our powers, we’re no match for them. We just gotta find a way to lure Dash and her friends here… after all, nopony’s ever seen anything like us before, have they?” said Lightning.

All right… but, how are we going to lure her here? asked the symbiote.

Lighting Dust thought about it for a moment. “We do what we did tonight, only to someone more dangerous or important to the criminal underground, like a crime boss or something,” she finally said.

Hmm… one can only hope this will work… but, the Gala doesn’t sound like something you can just walk right into… said the symbiote.

“Luckily, I know somepony…” said Lightning.

She walked over to her phone and phonebook and looked up North Star’s number...