Summary:Mera looks for someone who can help her with an infection problem. Venom is lurking nearby. Log Info:Storyteller: n/a |
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Sunday morning. Early enough that Central Park is closed. Not that this would stop someone like Mera…or Eve. The former looking for the latter in these dimly lit hours. The redhead wearing her 'mortal' clothes of boots, white pants, white shirt, beige coat, and striding the paths like she owns the place rather than being here illegally. She also wears a satchel bag that she holds against her left hip. In her right hand, a device that is similar to a phone but has a holographic map of the park projecting upwards. A map she is looking at before comparing to the world around her.
Oh, look.
There's a Goth camped out in the deeper recesses of Central Park. She appears to be meditating, actually, beneath a tree. It's pretty frigging cliche, actually, and she totally shouldn't be here, but what can you do? Occasionally, you just gotta get out there and commune with life in a different way. And it's a bit calmer here now than it is during the day with all the people and their dogs and so on. Here, she can really get a feel for the park and nature.
She has a favored spot, beneath a particularly tall tree. Her back is to it. She may well have been on seen there before. On the internet, of course.
Venom blends in easily enough as he lays on his back on one of the park benches. His eyes are closed, arms crossed over his chest. He's scruffy looking, although in perhaps remarkable shape for a man living on the fringes. He does have a home, but he rarely visits it now. Memories of another life, a life gone past.
He becomes aware of the women nearby, notably Eve, and he sits slowly straight up on the bench, regarding her with dark, twinkling eyes.
"That must be her" Mera whispers to herself as she spots the Goth under the tree. Who else could it be? Does Atlantis have the internet? Of course, they hook into the submarine cables and get it for free. It is very confusing for the most part…when not hilarious…but it is a great source for intelligence. And that is how Mera knows about the plant woman who sits under a tree.
Pocketing her device, she walks over without a care in the world. Or a care that the woman is meditating. "You are Morning Glory?" Mera asks, though it is more of a confirmation than a question. "I have something to show you." She opens up her satchel bag. "And I need your opinion on it."
To be honest, Eve could feel Mera's approach well before she got there. Someone approaching her at this hour is unusual enough in the first place.
Then she lets out a breath at the question asked. "Yeah, that's me," offers the blue-haired girl with the bunches. "What's up?" she asks, all casual like. No big deal. Just some weird lady approaching her and saying she has something to show her in a closed park. "I really need to find a new meditation spot, evidently."
Eddie cocks his head, the shadows deep enough in that part of the park that he'd be invisible if he transformed into Venom. No rush, though. He's curious, the reporter in him coming to the fore. Mysterious late night meetings in the park, unusual individuals, mystery items.
He moves with surprising alacrity, scampering up the trunk of a nearby tree and climbing along the boughs to get a closer look. The symbiote covers him from the neck down, making him harder to see, but he keeps his human visage for the moment. No need to be too terrifying.
"I like your hair" Mera casually offers to Eve as she rummages in her bag. "I did not think that blue hair grew in humans. Ah, here it is." She pulls out a frond to hand over to Eve. It is veined with thick black lines that seem to move even as they are looked at. "It doesn't seem harmful to the touch…" Though Mera is quite resilient and it may be different for humans. "…but it is causing mutations in plant life that is infecting the ocean. You are an expert on plants?"
Truth is, Eve can sense Brock's presence. A glance his direction, an obvious one, follows. "Did you not come alone?" she asks Mera, thoughtfully, "there's no need to worry about me. I'm no threat to you or anything." Her eyes are on the frond, now, and she does reach out to take it. She's studying it rather intently. "Well, I don't need to be a botanist to tell you that's not normal," she says of it. "And I'm not a botanist. I know plants on a more, I guess you could say intuitive level. Layman’s shit," she continues.
"Wow. Creepy," she adds a moment later.
The symbiote crawls up over and covers Eddie's face, making him fully, utterly Venom, the needle-sharp teeth of the monstrous being fitting together with a jagged symmetry, long tongue flicking over those razors and coating them in spit.
Venom creeps forward along the length of a branch, letting it bend a bit beneath his weight. He doesn't seem to be hiding, per se, but he isn't demanding attention either. Just watching. Curious.
"I came alone" Mera replies, not seeming to be the kind of person who would accept help from anyone in the first place. "I know you are not a threat" she adds before glancing around in the dark. Her eyes are used to the inky depths of the ocean, so a dimly lit park is not going to be much of an issue. Still, she is more interested in the analysis of the frond than any stalkers. "You would prefer to see the original plant?" The dark ichor starts to drip onto the grass below. Quite intentionally.
"Well, there's someone over there," says Eve, giving a nod in Brock's direction. She can't see him in this lightning, not yet, but straightens up and stands, "Hullo?" she calls out in his general direction. But there's a nod to Mera. "Yeah, sure. That's probably a good idea. There's also someone else I can go to if you need more help than I can give you. She's more of a direct plant expert than even me." Of course, asking Poison Ivy for help on anything comes with its own problems. "Tell me more about this frond, though?" She asks.
Venom descends from the tree on dangling cables of symbiotic flesh, like an eerie marionette, slowly settling onto all fours on the ground, the oversized white eyes of the creature narrowing as it takes in Mera and Eve.
"We mean no harm, we were simply…curious. Midnight meetings tend to be illicit, corrupt, wicked. And the wicked are our favorite kind of prey."
"The frond came from an area where some aberrant creatures attacked last month" Mera begins before being rather distracted by the…thing…that lowers itself down from the tree. And so many teeth. It's like some kind of land bound version of a Trench creature…except it can speak better. "We?" Mera glances around for another of these beasts but there is nothing. "And I am certainly not wicked." How dare he say such a thing!
So unconcerned is Mera, that she returns to speaking with Eve. "Are you aware of the attack by the giant sea creatures on the harbor last month?" So many people aren't, that Mera wouldn't be surprised if Eve was another. She glances down to see that frond blackness now seeping into the earth and turning grass black. "Is that good?" she asks the plant expert.
"Oh what the actual fuck?!" says Eve as Venom arrives in style. Sure, she may herself be a creature of endless maws and eyes and so on but that's still pretty fucked up, right? Her instinctive reaction was to raise one had, the limbs of the tree under which she sat seeming to creak and bristle with sudden thorns as if it were about to lean forward and snatch him into its embrace, but the explanation from their… visitor seems to suffice and they fade away like they were nothing. She was simply startled into defensive reaction.
She just stares a moment, unblinking, before she settles back. "There's two of them," she explains to Mera after a moment. "It's two different life forms." Then she settles back against the tree, a bit rattled.
"Yeah, I heard that on the news. Wasn't there. That's fucked up, though," she adds. "I'd like to see the original plant, sure, and maybe bring along a friend. Between the two of us, maybe we can figure out what's going on, especially if its messing with stuff and tied up in some pretty ugly business."
And then back at Venom. "…excuse me," she says, in dawning realization, "did you say /prey/?"
Venom flicks their serpentine tongue across their visage, leaving it slimed as they crawl a bit forward, squatting just at the edge of their meeting. The monster regards the plant with interest, sniffing carefully. Black ichor, after all, is something near and dear to their hearts.
"We are predators, yes. Higher on the food chain. We hunt. We feed," Venom says, then there's a little twitch as its head flicks, "We are…trying to be…more than that, too. But we know nothing about plants. Only meat."
"Two of them? In the same body?" Mera glances at Venom with a little more interest before looking back to Eve. "Who is your friend? I will take any help I can get." That blackness seems to be spreading at their feet. The grass dying but then being 'replaced' by something else. Though Venom now seems to be a greater danger. "As long as you have no intention of hunting us" she states quite firmly. That is a creepy tongue. Mera shoves the frond back into her bag before it drips any further.
"…I'd say that's not good," says Eve of the grass. She hands the frond back to Mera, quickly, "Can you destroy this?" she asks, swiftly, "because whatever it is spreading right here. I can feel it destroying the grass and, well, give me a moment." She's got her hands down there on the earth. Focusing on it.
Venom's words are enough to creep her out mightily, but she is trying not to let it show… to marginal success. It's the tongue.
Venom's smile is wide, too wide, spreading almost the full expanse of its head. "If we were hunting you, you would not have seen us," the monster says. He creeps forward to peer down at the corruption as well, "You could sense our lives, symbiote and human. Can you sense anything with this? Is it alive?" Venom asks. There's a slight reduction in the savage grate of its voice, as Eddie Brock's reporter's curiosity rises to the fore.
"Can we eat it?"
"I can burn the frond" Mera suggests, "But I can't destroy them myself. Not without knowing what is infecting them." She steps back from the corruption in the grass. Both because of not wanting to be infected, and because Venom is practically slavering over the ground; and that smile is as unnatural as whatever it is that is destroying the grass. "Eat it if you like" she shrugs.
The black rot is alive to Eve's senses…in a way. Dark decay rather than the light of life. Consuming the growth it is spreading over. Getting stronger with each blade it supplants.
"I mean, I wouldn't recommend it unless you happen to be me. And you're not me," says Eve. "And I'm not even sure I want to. Fire might do the trick, but there's no promise."
In reality, Eve is a creature of unending hunger. Eating things is what she /does/. Consuming every last molecule of something and incorporating it into herself is how she survives, and all she need do is be unimpeded and in contact with something. So she does that. She's going to eat consume it.
She's very good at eating things, herself.
Venom looks almost like a cat, if a cat had gone through hell and crawled out burnt and melting like a black flame candle in a Satanist's ritual. The grin remains unabated.
"We will let you try it first. We're not sure it looks very tasty. It seems more like seasoning than food…not enough muscle, no meat or juice to make it flavorful," Venom says.
They watch Eve curiously, the oilslick surface of the symbiote writhing over the skin of it, "If it is poison and you die, we will find the source and rip out its spleen in your honor."
Mera lets this strange pair do all the eating she wants, though she will refrain from tying it herself. At least Venom seems to have a little honor in his two selves. "And I shall help him" she smiles sweetly to Eve as the blue-hair girl starts to draw up the blackness into herself. "What does it taste like?" she asks delicately.
It tastes bitter. Is it poisonous? No, it is more accurate to call it resistant. It does not like to be consumed and would much prefer to do any consuming itself. Eve will feel it fighting her, though she is much more powerful than this small amount. "What if it does not have a spleen?" Mera points out to Venom.
"…yuck," says Eve. "That's horrible. That's disgusting. Yuck, yuck, yuck, augh." Her eyes flash black for a moment, no doubt the lingering impact of that stuff, before she spits on the ground. "Yaugh! No. I would DEFINITELY not recommend that. I am part plant, so that was doable and YAUGH."
She feels like she should vomit. And make a horrible bitter-beer-face style expression. The latter, she actually does.
Venom turns its head towards Mera, perhaps a little farther than is normal, the sound of cartilage popping in its spine like dice being tumbled.
"Everything has a spleen. It may not call it that. But there's always some juicy little tidbit, vile with bile. Sometimes it's a cream filling. Sometimes it's a jelly. But we always get the goodes in the end," Venom says.
"Which parts of you are plant?"
Venom would certainly make a delightful dinner guest and Mera makes a mental note never to invite him. Did they hurt themselves turning their head? "None of me is plant…oh…you mean Eve." Speaking of Morning Glory, there is a slight look of concern from the redhead as Eve seems about to throw up. "Are you well? Are you infected?" At least the blackness seems to be gone from the ground.
"Naw. I'll be fine. It's just that whatever that is… it's not good. I need to get Isley on this. More accurately, /you/ need to get Isley on this." Eve rubs her face. "I'll contact her."
She rubs her face more.
"Who is Isley? Is that your friend that you mentioned earlier? Very well, if you would get in touch with her and organize a time to meet, then I will ensure my presence" Mera replies imperiously, glancing at Venom every now and then to make sure he hasn't moved. "I am glad that it did not harm you. I should probably let you get back to your meditation. Will you be alright with…umm…" A nod towards Venom.