The Venom Inside

“North Star! This isn’t you! You’re not thinking straight! You need help!”yelled Venom.

North Star didn’t look like he usually did. His gray coat had a sickly green tint, his mane looked like it hadn’t been combed in a while, his soft blue eyes were now an eerie shade of green. He wore green and black robotic armor that covered his wings, which would explain why he needed the hi-tech glider he was riding.

North Star let out an insane laugh. “Sorry, honeybun, but the Green Goblin doesn’t need ‘help’ from monsters,” said ‘Green Goblin’ as a what looked like a small jack-o-lantern popped from the gilder into his hoof. “He’d prefer to blow them sky-high!”

With that, Goblin threw the pumpkin, which was beeping like a bomb. But, before the pumpkin bomb could hit Venom, it and Goblin froze in place and the suit vanished off Lightning Dust.

“Greetings, Lightning Dust. And hello to your otherworldly ally,” said a soft voice.

Out of the moon overhead appeared a midnight black and blue alicorn with a deep blue mane and tail that looked like the starry night skies.

“Princess Luna! How do you know about the suit?” said Lightning as she bowed before the Princess of the Night.

“Princess Twilight sent me and my sister a letter. We are quite pleased that you’ve decided to use the creature as a force for good, and to protect the ponies of Los Pegasus. However, once you hear what I have to say, you might decide that it would be a wise choice to dispose of the creature and try to live a normal life,” said Luna as she looked solemnly at the Green Goblin.

“What do you have to tell me, Your Highness?” asked Lightning.

“This: only in fairy tales do heroes get a happily ever after with the ones they love and care about. In reality, a hero’s life is nothing short of tragic. Their lives become riddled with hardship. And the ones they love and care about most are usually those who fall prey to the retribution of their deeds,” said Luna.

Lightning looked thoughtful for a moment. “So, you’re saying the ones I love will always be the ones who pay?” she asked.

Luna nodded. “Or worse. They become your greatest and most terrible enemies,” she said.

“Well, I kinda think that’s the point of a secret identity. They can’t hurt those you care about if they don’t know who’s behind the mask,” said Lightning.

“And if they already know who you are?” asked Luna.

To this, Lightning could say nothing.

“Now, I’d wake up if I were you. Princess Twilight was just itching to do her tests,” said Luna.

Lightning nodded, and the scene dissolved…

~

The following morning, Venom arrived at the back entrance to Starcorp Industries. Starcorp was one of, if not the, most prestigious technologies companies in the world. Some of the sharpest minds could be found here. After making sure nopony was watching, Lightning willed the suit to retreat into her body.

“My Faust… you really are Venom,” said the last voice Lightning expected.

Lightning looked up to see North Star, the same as he ever was, wearing a lab coat.

“North Star? What are you doing here?” said Lightning.

“I work here now. My dad is actually Neutron Star, the founder and CEO, so he made me Head of Special Projects. Right now we’re working on a special serum to create a super-soldier called ‘Globulin Green’... but, you didn’t hear that from me,” said North Star.

Behind North Star stood Princess Twilight, who was also wearing a lab coat.”North Star has some of the greatest minds I’ve ever seen working for him. He thinks that your...’suit’ might help crack the code to Globulin Green, so that’s why we’re doing this here. Plus, I didn’t bring any expensive lab equipment,” said Twilight.

North Star smirked. “Come on, Lightning. I’ll give you the tour before we get started,” he said. Lightning nodded and walked beside him as they traveled through the facility. Lightning was fascinated with most of the tech in the building such as a particle accelerator that was being built and even saw a giant mech suit that for some reason had what could only be described as a horn on top of it. “Like what you see Lightning?”

“Like? North this place is amazing.” Lightning as she tried to keep some of her excitement out of her voice. They then passed by the R&D department and Lightning saw an earth pony atop a strange device. “What is that?”

“Hm? Oh that! It’s a MKVI Hover Gun. I personally like to call it the Glider.”

“And those things inside of it? Those orange objects?”

“HE Class grenades. They can be molded into any object or form that you want as long as you tell the developers. Like, say, jack-o-lanterns,” said North Star.

“Awesome!” said Lightning.

“Well, here we are,” said North Star as they arrived at what was unmistakably a testing facility. “Feel free to change when you’re ready, Lightning.”

Lightning once again allowed the suit to cover her form once again. And the tests began.

~

Meanwhile, in his secret lab, Doc Ock was re-watching the footage from Venom’s fight with Beetle, before an Earth Pony wearing a brown overcoat, a suit of high-tech armor, and a belt full of guns of every type appeared, seemingly out of thin air, behind him.

“You wanted to see me, Doctor?” said the pony.

“About time you got here, Mr. Nopony,” said Dr. Octopus. “I have a mission that I’ve been saving for my best operative.”

“The Venom creature, right? You want me to catch her?” said Mr. Nopony.

“Or kill her and bring me her corpse, but I’m flexible with either,” said Dr. Octopus.

“If I may make a suggestion, Doctor, why not make this one-pony band a trio?” said a voice from the shadows.

Out of said shadows emerged Killerwatt and Paper Doll. Doc Ock couldn’t help but smile.

“That,” said Ock. “Might just work.”