World Tree MUSH

"Well," Eddie looked from his pair of suitcases to his ex fiancee and her new boyfriend. "I think we're ready." He sounded uncertain. Cletus Kassidy still being an informational black hole weighed on his mind. Leaving town weighed on his mind.

"It's going to be alright Eddie," Dan patted the carry bag he added to the pile. "Suppliments, signed forms for medical wavers. My number and the front desk. Medically you're cleared and prepped man." He gave the reporter a soft smile.

<Yes but what if-> Venom sounded oddly subdued as it burbled in the back of eddie's mind.

"Shhh," Eddie patted his forearm soothingly, "We've got this. Norman's a goblin, but he plays to the camera pretty well." 

<I can feel yoru disgust about this man Eddie. Are you certain we cannot just eat him?>

A chuckle from Eddie as he streached, "Well he wouldn't have asked for little ol' We," He put emphasis on that word, "Without a damned good reason given Drake was my last high profile corporate interview."

Anna grinned and slapped Eddie's shoulder playfully, "Flight leaves in the morning, your sutff'll be here. Go have fun you two."

LATER

Venom ran, arms spread wide before leaping from one roof top to the next, mouth gaped open with its tounge trailing behind as it laughed. The air was humid, but made tolerable by the breezes. Its wide white eyes looked about as it perched before extending an arm, shooting a thin tendril out before pulling itself along to the next building in its circuit.

<Totally get what you're doing bud, if I didn't have yo uaround I'd probably be doign the same thing on my bike. Pre-Big-Interview jitters and there's a kinda zen to this thing.> Eddie's voice in the back of venom's mind was tinged with amusement as it again paused to stare at San Fransisco. It's city. It's home. there was crime, yes. Even the threat of an otherworldly monster with rumors of people being eaten couldn't stamp it out completely. However from where they sat, Venom found it peaceful.

"Yooo!" Venom's calm was broken by a teenager, possibly stoned, staring up at it from the street. "Dude you're venom!"

One of Venom's eyes quirked as it made its way groundward. <Third one this month.> Eddie chuckled at the back of Venom's mind.

"Something we can do for you?" Venom's own voice held a hint of amusement as it flexed in front of the teenager's phone.

"Nah man. Wor'ds gottne 'round that Eddie's interviewing the Goblin..."

Venom snorted but said nothing.

"And.. uh... think you could do the world a favor and eat him?"

 
    Gwen's been watching Eddie, or Venom, from afar for a couple minutes. When they finally stop to talk to the random teenager She slides down upside down from a webline hanging from a nearby street light, dressed in her Spider-Garb. 

"Personally I think Norman Osborn would taste horrible. Stringy and chewy. If he's remotely like the one in my world not even his own son wants to be around him!" The way she's talking suggests she's got no idea Venom's actually eaten people before. "I swear Eddie, I could feel your jitters from three worlds away. You doing okay?" She asks, still casually hanging upside down.

"What she said," Venom grinned wide before those massive jaws opened wide enough that its entire head seemed to unfold andh ang back like a hoodie revealing Eddie's face.

"Plus we eat him, Norman becomes a martyr. Better to ruin him where it hurts kid."

THe teenager squinted at Eddie then looked to Gwen before giving Spider Girl a thumbs up gesture, "Love the outfit. Please tell me you've got a merch deal back home, girlfriend'd love a hoodie that looks like that."

Eddie stayed quiet as he lookedfrom teenager to Gwen and internally breathed a sigh of relief at the change in subject. <We're going to have to tell her at some point Eddie.> Venom purred in the back of Eddie's mind.

 
Gwen sighs softly, "One of the drawbacks to having a famous fashion designer make your costume is you don't get merch deals. The Hero biz doesn't usually pay very well. I'm kinda tempted to eat criminals and take their wallets sometimes." She says to the teen, "I can still get your girlfriend a Spidey Hoodie easy though, just give me her size!" She adds cheerfully, then looks to Eddie, "It's really creepy when you do that."

A shrug from Eddie as the rando gave Gwen size information and a twenty. All as Eddie gets an address the kid can be emailed at.

Then after the bystandard wanders away Eddie took a deep breath, the black mass that coated his body receeding, shrinking him down to more normal proportions. "Just got done packing. I'm headed to some contractor's boneyard to do camera and interview on Norman Osborn, the big bad Goblin himself." Eddie sounded less than enthusiastic. "Ugly, corrupt, even wit hthe failed presidential run he's got his fingers in all sorts of pies and now this? Something smells."

Then he paced about, glancing at Gwen, before looking away. "Also we kinda need to talk." His voice grew soft, "Vee's saying just get on with it. So..." He looked down, deep breaths.

Stalling.

 
Gwen takes the kid's info down, her phone mysteriously appearing and disappearing into her costume. Once he's gone her outfit shifts into normal street clothes by way of a swarm of spiders crawling across her form. "What's more serious than interviewing the Goblin?" She asks with some concern as she notes Eddie's tone. "So those weren't just pre-interview jitters?" She looks her friend's face over carefully.

Eddie eventually met Gwen's eyes. There was a very obvious mix of fear, and a whole lot of other emotions there alongside a healthy dose of self loathing. "Yea after we first met Venom..." He gestured at himself, "Kinda puppeted me around."

<I kept you alive!>

Eddie glowered off in the middle distance before resuming, "He... was part of an invasion. I kinda forget if I told you this." He looked at Gwen, trying to look past the fact she was young enough to be his daughter if he had been an especially reckless teenager. "We kinda had a lot of butting heads even after he kinda saved the world. Can't undo six hundred million years of bad habits overnight and I didn't know what the hell to feed him."

He looked away before his neck jerked, forcing himself, or possibly being forced, to keep looking at Gwen. "I could say I couldn't help it, that Vee couldpuppet me doing whatever he wanted, but point is I ate people. Chomp, no more head. I'm not happy about this. Whole time I'd been looking into alternitives. Put up with being shoved in that" He cringed at the memory, his whole body tensing as black veins spidered across his skin for a moment. "That damned MRI even to try figuring out what Vee Eats. Went through the life foundation's paperwork and got a whole lot of nothing useful since they just flung homeless people at him."

He then gestured towards himself, "Then I figure 'he goes for the head. Something to do with brains and til recently we'd been hitting slaughterhouses up..." 

A faint smile, "Then a bit more digging and Dan actually doing what doctors do instead of throwing people at the wall until the monster's fed managed to isolate what keeps dropping on my bloodwork so yea.. now we're on what amounts to a bodybuilder diet."

A pause and his eyes flicked downward, "And that still doesn't make it right, no matter how horrible they were...."

 
Gwen makes a variety of faces, none of them good, as she listens to Eddie's confession. "Okaaay.. Wow. That's.. that's a lot to take in." Her face seems to flicker back and forth between anger and worry as she remembers how many times her own symbiote tried to get her to kill someone.

Finally she seems to stare right through Eddie, "Okay Vee, Have you ever known Eddie to go out of his way to kill someone to keep you fed? Did he ever enjoy it when you did?" She asks in a disturbingly neutral tone. She focuses properly on Eddie again, speaking once more before giving the symbiote a chance to answer, "I've never actually killed someone myself, but I've come really, really close. and I've been complicit with murder before if we're being honest." She admits. "So far it sounds liek you're doing the best you can going forward..."

Eddie stood there, studying Gwen as she took it all in. He was a reporter and an interviewer so knew basically all these expressions. He also knew Gwen was trying to process. So when she made with the Cop Voice it almost seemed to take a weight off his shoulders. Clinical questioning, Matter of fact. No screaming, no emotional outburst.

A tendril formed snaking around until it formed Venom's face. Venom's eyes narrowed at Gwen. "Not really." Its own voice was neither boastful nor shamed, "He always seemed to loathe what we had to do, constantly telling me that no I can't eat this or that. It's a strange concept. but... I think I'm starting to understand why." Venom repositioned its tendril before speaking again, "It is hard to see people as worth helping if they are your food."

Eddie made a face, "That's..." He rubbed his hand over his face. "Kinda? Right...."

A sigh before Venom reabsorbed into Eddie, "I've already talked to a priest. I'd... kinda wanted to wait til I could figure out if there wasa good long term solution but now?" A helpless shrug. "I won't lie and say I'm sorry to see some of those people gone, but you kill someone? Like... intentionally deliberately instead of 'me or you'.... that turns off any chance at making things right."

 
Gwen crosses her arms and smirks a little, "You're guilty Eddie." She pauses then adds, "Of being human." She smiles, "I can tell Vee's being totally honest. His detachment makes him the perfect witness. She leans in to give Eddie a quick hug, though she's careful not to make it too affectionate. "I forgive you. Your circumstances are fairly unique and I don't ever want to see the mess that would happen if you ever had to go on trial for your past. All any of us can do is the best we can with the hand we're delt."

"One of my greatest fears is I know one day, if I keep doing what I do, I'm going to have to kill someone. The whole reason I dress up in a spider themed onesie is because the justice system is far from perfect. Even if every cop was a glowing beacon of humanity there's things out there that they just can't handle. Things that there aren't laws to cover. I'm dreading the day when the hardest judgment call is going to fall to me and I won't be able to leave the problem hanging from a street light for the cops."

Eddie blinked at the hug and smiled in spite of himself. Venom seemed to reach through almost as if it were reaching for the symbiote that was part of Gwen for just a moment.

<Affection is something I am still getting used to, but I see the appeal.>

Eddie's head shook as he looked Gwen over. "You don't even know the half of it, or maybe you do. That whole questioning bigt, your posture... it felt Cop to me. Older brother? Dad?" He looked Gwen over and nodded, "I've seen enough first responders to know that sort of judgement call always sucks. Even if you're thinking you're prepared that makes it worse when it happens. So you're being honest with yourself." He smiled soft before inclining his head to the sidewalk, "I was gonna go check on miss Chen before my flight leaves tomorrow." A pause before adding, "Well a couple laps around the place before I gotta go anyway.I'll get you a list of the suppliments I take since even if the one you've got is a lot gentler than Vee it's still going to get hungrier than what corndogs can take care of." He streached, almost casually letting his arms raise overhead before agoo tendril shot out and yanked him in the direction of a three story building.

 
"My dad." Gwen says as she bobs her head in a nod, "That obvious huh?" She blushes faintly. "Feels like I've had police values ingrained into me since before I was born." She says as she starts to walk along side Eddie, presumably heading to Miss Chen's store. "Venom.. er, my Venom seems to do just fine on corn dogs, but I'll take that list anyway, couldn't hurt!" She huffs in annoyance when Eddie seems to decide it's time to leave *right now* and follows his goo tendril with a webline of her own, keeping pace with him and meeting him three stories up. "You're gonna need a better vanishing act than that with me around!" She giggles, "You sure there's nothing you need help with before you try to run off again?"

"Wasn't trying to vanish." Eddie laughed before gesturing to the skyline. "I know not as high up as New York, but c'mon. Look at this place." 

He perched on the ledge of the building they were on as a black tendril handed him his phone, "Thanks Vee."

He looked down and saw a response text from Dan and rolled his eyes before showing his phone to Gwen with the following: 'Of all the worlds in all the possibilities only you would find someone else that has the exact symbiote you do. Fine I'll get a suppliment list. Don't do anything stupid.'

Laughter from Venom. <It is good you talked me out of eating him.>

"Dude you think with your stomach too much." Then to Gwen, "Yea side effect of the new diet and Venom's trying to optimize my body is I'd gained like... twenty pounds in muscle massover the past month. It's insane."

 
Still kind of feels like a small town compared to New York, but you're right. You've got quite the view here, and you don't need to go nearly as high to see it!" Gwen smiles. A moment later she taps at Eddie's phone as she reads the text, "This Dan guy needs to travel more. In my experience most worlds are more alike than not no matter how weird they are, it's only a matter of time before we run into another Venom." She says confidently.

She looks Eddie over as he talks about his new Diet, "Y'know, according to several other Spider-men I've met, in most world your doppleganger tends to be a body builder, I can pretty much guarantee you'd good with some muscle."

"Wait what?" Eddie blinked, looking over to Gwen. "I know there's that one Asshole Me out there the other Spider-Woman mentioned but... uh." He took a breath, "There isn't, as far as we're aware, a 'local' spider-person." Eddie frowned at the idea that for every Spider a Venom had to exist. Except for Gwen since it seemed she got to be both.

Then he looked down, "So how many of me out there ended up going batty after New York?" Even he knew that was the point where his life could have taken a few bad turns, but Anna was there to keep him from doing anything stupid. Why shehad stuck by him a long as she did was a mystery.

 
"Oh it gets better, Eddie Brock usually ends up with the Venom Symbiote too!" Gwen beams, "Even in my world, there's an Elsa Brock, who looks like she could be your sister by the way, who helped engineer my symbiote." Her clothes ripple for a moment as her Venom seems to know it's being talked about.

"The more I talk about this stuff the more I have to accept that my world seems to be the Karaoke Earth of all the ones with spider-people in them. I suspect whoever the spider person here's supposed to be, either they haven't been bitten yet or they died early." She muses.

"As for your other question, uhm, most of 'em tend to go crazy at some point, though a few of them have managed to turn things around. Who's this other Spider-Woman by the way? I've gotta meet her now, assuming I haven't already."

"Didn't get a proper name. Kinda young though." Eddie frowned as he probed his memories of that encounter, "Fifteen, sixteen ish... bodylanguage seemed off though. Ditto howshe acted beyond bringing up decade old reality shows maybe still being a thing n her earth." His eyes unfocused as he sifted through his memories.

"The Eddie from her world was a colalge asshole that..." He then looked to Gwen and shook his head, "Yea I was a jerk in school but no. Just... No."

<You're not going to tell her are you?>

A shrug, "But the thing is her body language, mannerisms. Ignore how young she looked and she acted older. Not a lot, maybe twenties, but could be something just from how her worldi s twigging that sense that something's up. "Nice costume though. BIt of a bodysuit design, could draw if I had to."

 
Gwen furrows her brow, "Don't think I've met her.. the Mutliverse is a big place. Though her version of Eddie sounds about right, sorry." She muses, then stares through Eddie again for a moment, "Not gonna tell me what?" She smirks, "Vee seems to have forgotten I can pick up on the other half of your internal dialogue." She grins.

"Yea apparently a thing happened between that Eddie and that world's Gwen." He then flicked his eyes off and to the left and sighed. "I'm still also processing like... out of the whole of multi-creation I seem to be a perrenial screwup that's either crazy, or trying to make up for BEING crazy. Sorry."

 Gwen gives Eddie another gentle hug, "Don't worry too much about it. I'm already used to being dead in most worlds I've been too, usually thanks to The Green Goblin, who you're gonna be interviewing tomorrow." She smirks. "There's even a world where *I* was the Green Goblin, and also insane. Might even be a world out there where Norman's actually a nice guy! Just be thankful you turned out as good as you did. You're head and shoulders above most of the Eddie Brocks I know about."

"Yeeeaa not gonna lie. The idea that most of us out there are kinda nuts with a revenge complex isn't gonna be fun." He shrugged, "Speaking of King Gobbo though... I did some digging and if we're interviewing where I think we are. He's probably announcinghe bought up an old helicarrier that got mothballed in the seventies before shield realized they didn't have the tech at the time to make it actually stable in the air." He took a deep breath, "Refurbishing is gonna take an army and a fortune. Both of which Norman has, and what digging I've done and the rumor mill? He's swooping in to fill the hole shield left after they got shut down after nine eleven."

There was a pause before adding, "That guy with a flying aircraft carrier and government permission to be their boogyman....." He shuddered. "Letting Venom eat him is a damend tempting idea, but we do that, he becomes a martyr."

 
Gwen pales a bit as she listens. "Norman Osborn has a Shield Helicarrier?" She swallows. "Shield's supposed to be the good guys and even they don't use the thing responsibly half the time. I don't even want to think about what Osborn would do with it, even a glitchy one's dangerous."

She sits down and stares at the San Fransisco View for a long moment, "I wonder what kind of security he's got on the thing.. maybe we could get a team together and try to blow the thing up while he's busy being interviewed." Gwen actually sounds serious about this.

A headshake from Eddie, "Maybe, but if Norman's buying it he's going to spend months gutting the thing, redoing the internals, and upgrading to the best we can get." THere was a pause before he gave a smile that didn't reach his eyes, "Translating likely to whatever technology they can steal and get away with. Sad fact is the government's running a big fear campaign about the dangers of the big bad scary multiverse."

He then huffed, "Then ther'es the fact Venom laid a..." he tried grasping for the right word, "Seed in a serial killer's cell. Haven't heard from the guy since. Not 'eaten.' Not 'running rampage with a newborn symbiote.' Media black hole. All I can find is he got cycled out to points unknown, and now Norman freaking Osborn is going to become the Government's Goblin in Chief. Wanna bet they're hoping to make Kletus into their pet monster?"

 
Gwen stares at Eddie, "Are you freaking serious or are you just trying to get my mind off the Goblin with the Helicarrier?" She actually clutches a hand to her chest. "Okay, new plan, We steal the Carrier and use it to turn this serial killer with a symbiote into a blood smear from 100 miles away." She laughs shakily. "Your world seriously needs more super heroes, I assume since Shield was disbanded 20 years ago there's no Avengers either? These are starting to sound like exactly the sort of problems you pull in help from across the World Tree for.

"No avengers." Eddie frowned, "What i wouldn't give for those rumors about finding Cap in ice to be true." He sounded.... preoccupied.

<Eddie I said I was sorry!> Venom pleaded defensivly. <How was I supposed to know anything was going to happen other than 'newborn hatches. oh look foodl iterally nobody will ever miss' and then we pick the kid up and find a proper host.>

"Yea well I can't bullrush in like I did with drake, you can't eat the problem and if Kletus Cassidy is on this guy's leash..." Eddie then looked to Gwen.

"Alright I'm a reporter. Venom's good in a fight but I'm more informational. We're going to need whatever we can get hold of. ... and preferribly without playing into the idea 'look at how the worlds align agaisnt us we must curb even MORE rights and millitarize Even More."

 
"Well according to my version of Cap, who's a bit different than most of them, that is how it happens in most of the worlds she's visited. Maybe Shield's still around as an off the books black project too?" She pauses and stares through Eddie again, "Let that be a lesson to you Vee, if you've got to kill someone, make sure the job's finished before something horrible happens!" She focuses back onto Eddie, "I think you're better in a fight than your give yourself credit for, but even I'm not crazy enough to deal with your apparently mounting problems by myself. We seriously need to get a team together, then you can spin it so everyone knows the visitors from the Multiverse pulled your collective bacon out of the fire!"

For the first time since this business started Eddie's smile seemed genuinely happy, "I know a lot of the younger set don't buy the whole 'boogyman from beyond' thing. The guys that live underground actually got their bacon collectivly saved by multiversal folk... twice. So it's more Counter-information campaign." 

<That sounds more something yoru speed Eddie. You always wanted to be the next Deep Throat.>

"Damned straight." Then a look to Gwin, "So new plan. I go interview the goblin. See what I can see. He's not going to be dumb enough to sabre rattle so soon after beign appointed and we're going to need anyone brought in to keep from getting pulled into a trap or a media spinshow."

Then a random thought occored, "Also... wait. I'm gonna need to get my likeness trademarked so they dont' start slapping my image all over as random monster threat."

 
Gwen seems to relax a little, "Okay so we have some time to plan and find help, and hopefully Cassidy isn't already out there eating people for fun. I don't imagine your mole city gets much news coverage though, I think it's still gonna be an uphill battle." She sighs. "Also yes, absolutely definitely get your image trademarked! Half of my New York is wearing Spider-Woman Hoodies and I don't see a penny of that!"

<THat's bullshit!> Venom screamed.

"What he said." Eddie huffed, "C'mon. Miss Chen's generally got some good stuff on tap. If nothing else she tends to keep a few packs of dark chocolate behind the counter for whenever we swing by." He grinned before streaching. Standing as Venom started t ocoat his body. "We will find a way through this little spider." Venom sounded more confident than Eddie felt, "However everything I have seen of this New Mexico makes me hope this trip will not take long. It looks boring with nothing there."

 
Gwen smirks at Venom, "Just say the word and I'll be there to help, also don't be so sure. They've got Nuclear Test Sites, crashed Alien Space Ships, a Shield Helicarrier mothballed somewhere apparently, and There are some rather pretty spots out in the desert so I've heard. Not a bad place to vacation all things considered! Anyway both of you be careful!"