Monster, Issue #10

"Alright, let's do this one last time. My name is Cole Winters; I was a reporter until...I wasn't. A lot of bad things happened in my life, the worst of them all was getting stuck to a parasitic alien with a craving for anything that was living and breathing, human beings included. We hated each other, but after a lot of arguing, fighting, feasting, killing, we realized how perfect of a match we were to each other. Our lives sucked and everyone hated us, but we weren't alone, there were others just like us. They accepted us, helped us. Now we're something different. Something epic. Something that will keep getting knocked down and standing up even stronger. Because at the end of the day, we have the power, the responsibility to fight the fight that no one else could, we have the power to protect those that can't protect themselves...no matter how much they hate us. We aren't just the monster you think we are. We Are Venom."

~

2019

Within a loud bustling city at the dead of night housed a monstrous assailant that could best be described as a lethal protector. They knelt atop the highest point of a skyscraper, looking over the brightly lit infrastructure and lively populace.

With their staggering height, black and malleable physiology, razor sharp teeth, and intimidating appearance, this monstrous and lethal protector was known as Venom.

"Perfect pose." Venom stated with a sharp smirk.

"And you ruined it." Cole said with a sigh, "Batman doesn't say that stuff out loud, y'know?"

"Fuck Batman! He's a pussy anyway." Venom replied with a growl.

"Why exactly do you think Batman is a pussy?" Cole asked.

"He doesn't kill like we do." Venom responded, "That makes us better."

"Are you really flexing the fact that we are murderers?" Cole asked.

"Not murderers, Cole. Lethal protectors." Venom stated with a grin.

"Oh my God, how many times do I have to tell you that title isn't going to stick." Cole said exasperatedly

"Says who!?" Venom asked in offense.

"Says me! The fucking reporter!" Cole shouted.

"Ex-reporter." Venom corrected, "Now, lethal protector."

"...Let's just go do our jobs before I throw ourselves off this building." Cole said in silent frustration.

"Jokes on you, we were going to do that anyway!" Venom exclaimed with a grin.

They leapt off the towering building and dived down towards the ground at high speeds. Reaching the desired altitude, they shot a tendril off at another building and started swinging through the air.

Shooting another to another building, Venom kept swinging through the city, enjoying themselves by doing their practiced airborne spins and tricks. Along with the fact that whenever they got near a building, they crawled or ran on the wall and kept leaping off to continue swinging.

It was a strenuous and embarrassingly painful process, but they had mastered their movement and now the sky was quite literally their limit.

They landed on top of a warehouse rooftop and perched by the ledge, looking down at the people that were meeting up by the docks.

They area was abandoned for the night, thus making it the perfect place for an arranged mob meetup with two opposing families.

"Right on time. Both dons are here." Cole said, "I knew we'd lure them out eventually."

"Massacring members from both sides and demolishing their businesses would obviously force them out." Venom stated.

"Question is; do they still think they did it to each other or are they teaming up this time." Cole wondered.

"Does it matter? They're all just lambs to the slaughter anyway." Venom stated with a hungry lick of their teeth.

"Care to do the honors?" Cole asked with a smirk.

"I thought you'd never ask." Venom stated with a smirk.

The two mob leaders shook hands to conclude their meet up, but they froze in fear as they heard a loud and monstrous roar. Both of them and their bodyguards looked up to see the source was Venom on the rooftop.

They lunged off the rooftop and at one of the mob leaders, enlarging their mouth to envelop him whole.

Everyone else looked on in horror as Venom reformed into their original body, and turned towards the other mob leader with a grin that terrified him.

He let out a scream as their bodyguards pulled out their guns and began firing a flurry of bullets at Venom. This left them unbothered though, as the bullets just got absorbed into their body. They grabbed the remaining mob leader by the neck and lifted him up, chomping off his head and dropping the body like the lifeless meat sack it was.

The bodyguards stopped firing and they stared at Venom in frozen fear and horror as they licked their teeth to wipe away the blood, digesting the head. Once done, they looked around at the remaining guards and grinned.

"You're all going to die now, and I won't even move when I kill you. Do you know why?" Venom asked as their body rippled and in a fast and sudden motion, the bullets the bodyguards had fired into them shot out around the entire area, hitting any nearby walls, the ground, their cars and most importantly, them, "That's why."

"I love that move." Cole said with a smile.

"Eh, I prefer the shapeshifting." Venom said with a shrug.

"Do you have to fight me on everything?" Cole asked.

"Hey! You've always been the prissy one in this symbiosis!" Venom exclaimed.

"I wouldn't be so prissy if my symbiote wasn't such a psychopath!" Cole shouted.

Venom scoffed, "Says the one that became a sociopath over the years."

"I wonder why!?" Cole shouted and Venom rolled his eyes.

"Anyway, what do we do now?" Venom asked.

"Dinner." Cole replied.

"Finally." Venom said, looking around at the bodies, deciding on which to start with.

"Not yours! It's our turn tonight, remember?" Cole asked.

"Oh, right...her." Venom said with a grumble.

"Way to be enthusiastic about it?" Cole said sarcastically.

"Sorry if I don't like how close you are with your girlfriend. All 64 of them!" Venom shouted with a growl.

"1. None of them are my girlfriends, and 2. We're just close friends with her and every other her, that's all!" Cole shouted back.

Venom scoffed, "You sure act like girlfriends."

"No, we don't! We haven't even kissed!" Cole exclaimed, "Jane, and every other alter she has, are just friends to me, to us. So please stop with the overprotective monster routine and accept it already."

"I didn't accept it then and I won't accept it now." Venom said stubbornly, "I will not allow your heart to be broken, not again."

"It won't, because I won't let it. That Cole is dead, and it's just the two of us now, you know that." Cole stated.

Venom breathed out an annoyed sigh, "What's for dinner?"

Cole smiled at that, appreciating his tolerance and acceptance.

~

Cole turned the key to their motel door, unlocking it with a very large fast food bag in the other hand. They opened the door and as soon as they did, a young woman ran up to them and jumped, wrapping them in a koala hug.

Cole smiled as they hugged her back, shutting the door behind them as they stepped into the motel room.

"Hi, Baby." Cole greeted.

Baby Doll, one of Jane's alters, pulled back and gave Cole the happiest grin, "I thought you left."

"We would never leave you." Cole told her.

"Promise?" Baby Doll asked in a childlike manner.

"Pinkie promise." Cole said, raising their pinkie.

Baby Doll intertwined their pinkies together, "They best kind of promises."

"Exactly." Cole said, sitting down on their bed and letting Baby Doll straddle them, "We brought dinner."

"Ooh! What is it!?" Baby Doll asked excitedly.

"Honestly, one of everything, wasn't sure who else was hungry." Cole replied, "Don't worry about where we got the cash, it wasn't going to be used anytime soon."

Baby Doll changed and her eyes became sullen as she frowned at Cole depressingly.

"How many people died today?" The current alter asked.

"A lot of the bad ones, HD." Cole replied, knowing that they were speaking to The Hangman's Daughter now.

"It's makes me sad that so much life has to be taken away by you." HD admitted and Cole frowned, "But it makes me feel better to know that many more are spared because you're taking away the bad ones."

"Sometimes we consider ourselves the bad ones." Cole admitted.

"You're not." HD told them, holding them by the sides of their face, "I promise you, you're not."

HD then proceeded to place a soft kiss on Cole's forehead, pulling back to give them a small smile. Best believe that her soft smile was the most you could of a grin from The Hangman's Daughter.

HD stopped smiling as she changed and Hammerhead leaned back with folded arms.

"What'd you get, dickwad?" Hammerhead asked.

"No, "hi, how are you?" for your favorite person?" Cole asked.

"Hi, asshole, how the fuck are you, you pussy-less jackass?" Hammerhead asked with a sarcastic smile, "Now what'd you get us?"

"Your favorite." Cole said, opening the paper bag, "The most basic shit for the most basic undergrounder."

"Fuck you." Hammerhead cursed with narrowed eyes.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Cole asked with a smirk.

Hammerhead switched as she now started smirking and pushed Cole down, leaning down over her with a sultry smirk and darkened eyes.

"I really would baby~" The Scarlet Harlot had manifested.

Cole smiled awkwardly, "H-How about you eat something first, yeah?"

"I'll swallow anything you give me, Cole~" Scarlet Harlot said with a smirk as she started grinding on them.

"Oh! Look, Tom and Jerry's on!" Cole quickly said, pointing to the T.V.

Scarlet Harlot switched back to Baby Doll and she turned back to look at the T.V. screen.

"Yay! Tommy!" Baby Doll exclaimed, as she climbed off of Cole and sat on the carpet, near the screen, watching it enthusiastically.

"The best of friends..." Venom commented dryly and Cole groaned, rolling her eyes at his comment.

Later on, when everything had died down, Cole laid under the covers of the bed, reading a newspaper off of their phone whilst Baby Doll was still watching T.V.

She suddenly got up from the carpet and switched off the T.V., walking to the other side of the bed and crawling into it, laying down and snuggling up to Cole.

"Hi, Jane." Cole greeted, wrapping their arms around her and pulling her closer so she could rest her head on Cole's chest.

"I missed you." Jane admitted, softly playing with Cole's hair.

"We were only gone for a few hours." Cole told her.

"A few hours too many." Jane said.

"Someone's clingy." Cole teased, earning a soft smack to the chest, "Whoa, careful. Venom might warrant that as an attack."

"How is the big guy anyway?" Jane asked.

"He's good...we're good." Cole replied.

"Is he still not talking to me?" Jane asked.

"Venom, say hi." Cole ordered, the reply was a low growl audible to both Cole and Jane.

Jane chuckled, "I guess that's the best I'm gonna get right now."

"Yeah, sorry about that." Cole apologized, wanting to yell at Venom for his behavior.

"Don't be. I know what it's like to have people being protective of you." Jane said with a smile, "You went through years of so much of it."

"We're just happy that the underground approves of us." Cole told her.

"They adore you so fucking much, Cole." Jane said, sitting up and looking Cole in the eye with a tearfully happy smile, "I'm so glad we all found someone like you."

"Us too." Cole replied, rubbing her cheek with a soft smile, "You and all of them are the friends we never knew we could find."

Jane's smile strained and a flash of hurt occurred as her expression, but she quickly covered it up with a smile again and nodded.

"What are friends for?" Jane asked, feigning happiness as she said that, lying back down.

"We should probably get some sleep." Cole suggested, "It's a long road back home."

"Apparently the Chief's been done with his tin man for a while now." Jane informed.

"Now that'll be a sight to see." Cole said with a chuckle as they reached over and turned off the room lamp illuminating them, ushering the both of them in darkness, "Goodnight, Jane."

"Goodnight, Cole." Jane replied, snuggling closer to her and shutting her eyes along with Cole, the both of them falling into slumber.

~

A Harley-Davidson motorcycle roared as it traveled along the long winding asphalt of the forested roads with Cole driving and Jane riding behind them, holding onto their waist and resting their head on their back.

The long road home had finally come to its conclusion as Cole slowed down upon reaching the open gates of Doom Manor. They drove up the driveway and parked next to the school bus.

"So many years..." Jane commented as she switched to Hammerhead, "...and nothing's fucking changed. Same shitty house, same shitty bus..."

The manor doors opened and Niles rolled out, spotting them at the driveway and smiling with a short wave.

"Same shitty people." Hammerhead finished with a frown as she got off the bike and walked over to him.

"He doesn't look any older." Venom commented.

"He's not immortal." Cole said with an eye roll, "It's fucking impossible."

Venom scoffed, "Hi, Cole Winters, I am Venom, the alien symbiotic lifeform from a distant planet that has bonded to you. How are you, today? Feeling like the idiot you are, I hope."

"You're not impossible, just farfetched." Cole said with an eye roll, "Just because Jane and our powers allow the slowest fucking aging possible, doesn't mean us or Niles are immortal."

"If he wasn't immortal then that should've killed him by now." Venom stated.

Cole looked to see what he was referring to and she looked on in surprise as Hammerhead gave Niles a noogie.

"Honestly, that's tamer than what I expected she would do." Cole said with a shrug, hopping off the bike, lugging their duffle bag over their shoulder as they joined Niles and Hammerhead, "Sup, Chief."

"H-Hello, Cole!" Niles barely let out, trying to escape Hammerhead's grasp, "A little bit of assistance would be much appreciated."

Cole grabbed one of Hammerhead's hands and pulled her away from Niles, "Stop."

"You telling me what to fucking do?" Hammerhead asked with a glare.

"We are." Cole said with a nod, undeterred by the glare and staring directly into her eyes, "Do something about it."

Hammerhead grit her teeth, angrily pulling her hand back and letting out an angry scream.

"Fuck you!" Hammerhead yelled, stomping past them into the manor, but then she stopped in her stride and stomped back to them, giving Cole a quick kiss on the cheek then flipping both of them off as she continued her angered trek back to the manor.

"Bipolarsim has never had such a gleaming sponsor." Venom commented.

"Better than trying to break our bones." Cole said with a shrug.

"That phase really put me on the brink." Venom said with a growl.

"Had to stop you from trying to bite her head off for months." Cole said with an amused smirk.

"The urge to do it is still there." Venom admitted.

"You wouldn't be you if it didn't." Cole said with a smile, but then she noticed Niles watching them with a smile, "You say something, Chief? We might've missed it if you did."

"No, not at all. I'm just happy to see you back and happy to see your symbiosis is still as strong as it was then." Niles commented.

"Stronger if you could actually believe it." Cole admitted.

"Attributed to your work, I suppose?" Niles suggested with a raised eyebrow.

"That and better communication." Cole said with a nod.

Venom formed his liquefied and black tendril-like face out of Cole's back and grinned at Niles, looking down at him, "Cooperate or die."

"I see." Niles said, looking at Venom with interest.

"Where the fuck is my room again!?" Hammerhead yelled from the kitchen as she stomped past them into another room.

Niles sighed, his smile becoming more content, "I also appreciate that you were with her for all this time."

"Why wouldn't we be?" Cole asked as Venom returned back within her body.

Hammerhead stomped back out of the other room and stopped in front of Niles and Cole, angrily pointing at Niles.

"You!" Hammerhead shouted with a glare, "Show me where the fuck my room is, Wheelie Hut Jr."

Niles chuckled to himself, "Alright, please follow me."

Niles started to drive his wheelchair into the manor and past them, Hammerhead following him.

"Snack?" Cole suggested.

"Freezer's still stocked." Venom informed with a smirk, the both of them smelling the scent of the raw meat.

Cole smirked as well as they shut the manor doors and made their way to the kitchen, hearing Hammerhead's shouting continue to echo throughout the manor.

~

It had been some time after they had arrived back and most of their time had been spent in the kitchen. They sat at the kitchen counter with a bag of frozen chicken sitting before them as they ate a piece here and then whilst reading articles off of their phone.

"Ooh, mob families in shambles after shakedown of entire operation. Both leaders still missing in action." Cole read, taking a bite of their raw drumstick.

"That was us! That was us!" Venom exclaimed excitedly.

Cole smiled amusedly with a shake of their head, "Yes, Venom, that was us."

They heard the sounds of hard metal clanking along the floor and turned their head to see the surprising yet not-so-surprising sight of Niles' robot man.

Towering in height with a fully bronze metal body that looked to be welded off with different scraps, prominent red eyes and for the outfit it was a grey shirt, black leather jacket and dirty blue jeans.

"It's alive!" Venom exclaimed.

Cole took notice of the robot man staring at them as they nonchalantly went back to eating and reading.

"Is that a raw drumstick?" The robot man asked.

"Yes it is, Iron Giant." Cole confirmed, eating the drumstick whole along with the bone then turning to smirk at him, "Care to join us?"

The robot man walked over to them as Cole pulled a chair out for him and he sat down the best he could.

"Who's us?" The robot man asked.

"We." Cole replied.

"Who's we?" The robot man asked.

"Us." Cole replied.

"Hehe..." Venom giggled.

"Delightful." The robot man responded sarcastically, turning to place his hands on the counter table.

"Cole." Cole let him know.

"Cliff." The robot man, Cliff, replied.

Cole nodded, taking another drumstick, "We almost ate you, Cliff."

Cliff slowly turned to look at them, "What the fuck?"

"You're here now, so clearly we didn't." Cole told him.

"I was just a brain before this body, y'know?" Cliff asked, still surprised how nonchalant they were about their admission.

"We know. You were mouthwatering too." Cole replied.

"Oh my God..." Cliff said to more himself than them as he processed the information, "A-Are you some kind of cannibal?"

"No." Venom replied within her mind.

"We..." Cole trailed off, thinking about the best way to describe it, "We feast."

"And you're pretty fucking scary!" Cliff exclaimed.

"Relax, we won't try to eat you now." Cole said with an eye roll.

"Unless..." Venom suggested.

"Unless if you want us to?" Cole asked.

"No!" Cliff shouted.

Cole shrugged, eating another piece of their drumstick, "Our loss."

They fell into a brief silence that was only ended by Cliff looking back at them.

"You show up with that angry girl?" Cliff asked.

"Hammerhead?" Cole asked and Cliff nodded, "She make an impression, huh?"

"She grabbed my junk." Cliff admitted.

"Ooh, better off. She tried to cave our skull in with the kitchen counter when we first met her." Cole told him.

"Is she just violent by default?" Cliff asked.

"Hammerhead usually, the others like Jane are pretty much sweethearts." Cole said.

"How many of...her are there?" Cliff asked.

"Not my place to tell, Mr. Roboto." Cole said, finishing their last drumstick and getting up with the empty back, "If you are that curious though, best way to do it is by talking to her. Believe us, communication goes a long way."

"How do I know she won't be doing something like grabbing my junk again?" Cliff asked.

"Luck of the draw, big guy." Cole said, giving him a friendly punch to the metal shoulder, "That's always the fun part about talking to Jane."

They started to leave after throwing the bag in the bin, but Cliff stopped them.

"Cole..." Cliff said and they stopped to look at him, "You're pretty cool...for a cannibal."

Cole smirked, "You're not so bad yourself, I Robot."

~

That night, Cole, Jane, Rita, Larry, and Cliff all sat around a small T.V. as they watched one of Rita's old movies.

Rita and Larry's reintroduction with Cole was brief, but welcoming. That was how it would usually go between the three, they knew of Cole's endeavors and how they would be gone for long intervals, but they trusted their eventual return and they appreciated Cole's presence more with how they were able to handle Jane better than they could.

As they mindlessly watched the movie, Niles rolled into the room and stopped in front of them to address all of them.

"I won't be gone long." Niles started.

"But there are mysterious things in this world that bear keeping an eye on." All of them said with him.

"So go, I must." Niles finished as he let out a sigh, "So, we understand each other?"

"Bring a condom." Jane said amusedly.

"And you, behave." Niles told her, looking to Cole, "I trust you will have things under control?"

"No promises." Cole replied.

"Best I could wish for I suppose." Niles said as he started to leave, "I'll be back in a few days."

"Bye, dad." Cliff said as the T.V. continued to play indistinctly.

The scene of the movie soon reached a point in where the male character grabbed Rita's character by the waist and pulled her close, professing his love for her and kissing her.

They continued to watch on although at that particular scene, Jane turned to face Cole with a look of longing that they seemed to not have noticed.

Well, Cole didn't, Venom on the other hand kept a keen and observant eye on her.

~

A few days had passed with nothing much happening at the manor. Either from boredom or just the unquenched urge, Cole had announced her leave to them, informing them that they would be going on the hunt again.

This decision was much to Jane's chagrin, but she ultimately understood that Cole and Venom needed to feed and their hunts on the evils of society was the best way they could do so. She let them go, but made sure they would return in five days at max or else she'd be going out to look for them.

With Jane's time sensitive blessing, Cole and Venom set off on their hunt, leaving everyone else at the manor to their own devices.

It was only a few days, what could go wrong?

~

Everything.

Everything went so fucking sideways, you'd think the world was flat.

Venom landed atop a rooftop in the town of Cloverton that was near the doom manor and observed the ensuing chaos on the street

"What. The." Venom said, reforming back into Cole.

"Fuck." Cole let out as they stared down at the gigantic gelatinous blob of flesh that was slowly rolling down the street and causing havoc.

They spotted the blob heading towards a trapped school bus full of kids as the driver tried her very best to open the stuck doors.

Cole leapt off of the rooftop and in front of the school bus, getting in between the blob's path and the bus'. They extended their arms and Venom's black liquid and tentacles enveloped them, transforming them into large black hands.

Everyone looked on in shock and awe, Jane smiling in amazement, as Cole used the large arms to scoop up the blob to stop its movement and held it above them with some bits of flesh hanging out, one of which being Rita's mutated and melted face.

"I want to go home." Rita told them.

"Rita..." Venom let out sadly.

Cole gave her a look of understanding and nodded, "Let's go home."

~

"Anyone wanna tell us what happened out there?" Cole asked, entering the living room whist everyone sat and watched the news on today's events.

"We went out." Cliff replied.

"And completely fucked it up!" Cole exclaimed, "It's fine if you want to go out, but you shouldn't have done it if you knew you weren't ready!"

"What about you, huh? You went out too! You left me here! Why are you allowed to do it, but we can't?" Jane asked angrily.

"You know why!" Cole replied in equal amounts of anger and Jane just folded her arms in response.

"What's done is done. No going back now." Larry told them.

Cole sighed as they rubbed their eyes, looking at Rita with a softened gaze, "You okay, Rita?"

Rita softly nodded in response as she continued to knit.

The front door slammed shut and Cliff immediately stood up, all of them taking notice of it.

"Daddy's home." Jane announced.

Niles rolled into view and looked at them with a serious gaze, "I warned you not to leave. I begged you! You have no idea what you've done."

"It wasn't that bad." Jane voiced out as Niles rolled away towards his lab.

"Storm's coming." Venom stated, their senses slowly starting to go off.

"And it's a pretty fucking big one." Cole said with a nod.

"What's a big one?" Cliff asked, "What's going on?"

"We think we might be screwed." Cole responded, the incoming sense of danger slowly getting stronger.

~

The entire group now stood before Niles as he sat in front of them to address them.

"Whether you realize it or not, your actions...your actions have consequences, and those consequences are coming to this house, to the town." Niles stated frustratingly and he sighed, "Of that, there's no doubt."

"You really think we're in danger, Chief? That we need to pick up and run? That's what you really, really think?" Rita asked.

"He's not the only one." Cole let out, garnering their attention, their sense starting to annoyingly ring out to them, "We can feel it. Something's here."

"Something dangerous." Venom stated, voicing out to them.

Most of them were already familiar to Venom's voice over the years, but Cliff wasn't and he looked around in confusion at the sudden deep and dark voice.

"What the fuck was that?" Cliff asked.

"What the hell is it?" Jane asked, looking at Cole in concern.

"We don't know, but you have to go. Now." Cole told them.

"We can't just leave! What about the town? What happens to that?" Cliff asked.

"The town is not my main concern." Niles told him.

"So, the town gets screwed?" Cliff asked.

"No. We'll stay behind. Face whatever this thing is. Give you all enough time to escape and try our best to protect the town." Cole stated.

"Whatever comes, we will devour it whole!" Venom stated with a growl.

"Seriously, what is that!?" Cliff exclaimed as he continued to look around.

"There's no way in hell I'm letting you face off against some big bad monster on your own." Jane told her, "I know what you're doing and I'm not letting it happen. I will not lose you."

"Jane..." Cole started.

"Jane's right, Cole. Your self-sacrificial heroism is admirable, but the best thing to do is escape and get all of you to safety." Niles told them.

"And let everyone in that town die? Because of our bullshit?" Cole asked and they scoffed, "We ain't running away from this. Not when we have the power to do something about it."

"We are a lethal protector!" Venom shouted.

"I am trying to protect you." Niles argued.

"Protect us? Is that what you told yourself when you lied to me about how my daughter was dead?" Cliff asked.

"That...That was exactly what I was doing." Niles told him, "And I'm trying to protect you now. Do you honestly think she would've accepted you?"

"Did I get a chance to try? She lost her mother, her father. I don't know if she would've accepted me." Cliff admitted, "You robbed me of that chance. What am I to her now? I'm nothing. I'm a monster."

"Embracing the monster you've become might be the best thing you could do now." Cole stated and he looked at them, "Make the best out of being the worst."

Cliff looked down, taking the time to consider their words as Niles frowned solemnly, looking over all of them.

"I've tried so hard to shield you. And I know what I'm asking you." Niles said to them, "To leave the safest place you've ever known, to step out into the world that would rather ignore you, shun you, belittle you. But if you stay here, if we die now, then this magical experiment, this you, my life accomplishments, all, it will just...it will..."

Niles struggled to find the words and he ended his speech open ended, putting his arms down in defeat as he looked at them.

"Or...we go with Cole's plan. We stay and protect the town from these so-called enemies." Cliff stated.

"Our plan was for you to leave. Not have you die along with us." Cole said to him.

"No one's dying." Jane stated, giving Cole a hard stare, "Not you especially."

"Exactly. We go out there together and we fight." Cliff stated.

"We could, but we'd be doomed." Niles stated in turn.

"This man is a terrible coach." Venom commented.

"We were doomed the second we got here." Cole retorted, "At least this time we get to do it on our own terms."

They all looked at one another as a silence befell them, all of them coming to their own decisions.

"I'm going to go with the Chief." Larry stated.

"Agreed." Rita said with a nod as both her and Larry looked at the rest of them.

"A lethal protector's job is never done." Cole stated with a tired smile, "We're staying."

"The heroes they never wanted." Venom stated and Cole smirked.

"If Cole's staying, then I'm staying." Jane stated.

"Jane...no..." Cole let out with a shake of their head.

"If I can't stop you from staying then neither can you. I'm with you. Fucking deal with it." Jane told her, and Cole sighed with a reluctant nod.

Larry was the first to leave the room and Rita followed behind him, leaving Cole, Jane, and Cliff to stand before Niles in silence.

~

The bus had left the manor with Rita driving Larry and Niles away as Cole, Jane and Cliff walked towards town.

Jane held onto Cole's hand as they walked and they immediately interlocked, Jane's nerves calming as a result.

They reached the main crossroads of the empty town and stopped, waiting for the appearance of their so-called enemy.

~

Meanwhile within the bus, Rita took a couple of unsure breaths as she glanced back at the two.

"You know that this isn't right." Rita told them, "They need us as much as we need them."

"It's done, Rita." Niles told her.

"Nothing is done. Never with us." Rita told him, "Larry, I know you know that too."

Larry groaned as he leaned his head against the window, "Just do what you have to do."

Rita smirked as she stopped the bus and turned it around, driving back to the town.

~

They all noticed headlights approaching them and turned around, surprised to see the bus driving and slowing down as it approached them. It came to a halt next to them and the doors opened with Rita and Larry stepping out.

"Couldn't stay away, huh?" Cole asked with a smirk.

"And be remiss to our groups untimely demise? Never." Rita responded with a smirk of her own.

Now with the entire Doom Patrol gathered, they all marched forward.

Although Rita had gotten quite nervous and one of her legs mutated into a gelatinous blob. Larry placed a hand on her shoulder and she looked at him, he gave her an understanding nod and she nodded back with a sad smile.

They continued their march and stopped on the main street, looking around for any danger as Cole's senses rang out in alarm.

The ground began to shake as a donkey walked up to them, stopping in front of them much to their obvious confusion.

The donkey let out a large, green and gaseous fart with the mist floating up to the air and forming into words that spelled out, 'THE MIND IS THE LIMIT'

They all stared up at the peculiar set of words, and looked back down at the donkey as it started to march away.

Suddenly a large and destructive wormhole opened up in the center of town and it began to suck in any and everything around it.

"What the fuck?" Cliff asked, voicing out all of their confused and shocked thoughts for them.