Cole continues their trek from the kitchen towards the basement of the manor although they did take a few detours of exploration to familiarize themselves more with their new supposed home.

"What is it?" Venom asks.

"An old, dilapidated painting." Cole replies as they stood in front of the artwork, "Not bad."

"No, not that. Something's on your mind." Venom states, "What is it?"

"It's just..." Cole said with a sigh and an eye roll, "It's just that girl. Jane or Hammerhead or whoever she is now."

"What about her?" Venom asks.

"I feel bad." Cole said with a shrug, "Sure she was acting like a total bitch, but knowing what we are now...I didn't want to hurt her."

"We didn't hurt her." Venom states.

"Choke slamming a person onto a counter doesn't count as hurting them?" Cole asks.

"We defended ourselves in the least violent way we could. A lot worse could have happened." Venom told her, "You and I both know that."

"Yeah, you could've eaten her for one." Cole points out.

Venom went silent at her statement as if their conversation had come to a pause, "...Can I?"

"No!" Cole said sternly as they continued their path to search for the basement entrance.

They had eventually found said entrance after the boredom of their little exploration had set it. Using Niles' scent as a guide, Cole traversed the manor and found a door that led down a dark room that barely had illumination and was accompanied by the sounds of metal clanging against tools and razors whirring.

Undeterred by the odd sounds, they traveled down the stairs and entered Niles' lab/workshop. They spotted him tinkering on surprisingly a fully robotic body and he had yet to have taken notice of their presence.

"Strange, disabled, genius scientist tinkers on a robot body in a dark laboratory. Quite a headline." Cole states, announcing their presence to Niles who stopped his tinkering and smiled at her, "Not like this place could get any weirder."

"Hello to you too, Cole." Niles greets kindly.

"Yeah, hey-" Cole was about to say, but Venom cut her off.

"Cole, look!" Venom exclaimed.

"What?" Cole asked confusedly.

A black tendril shot out from her chest and latched on to an incubator next to Niles. They were dragged by the tendril and Cole slammed face first onto the glass incubator, groaning in annoyance and widening their eyes at what was inside.

"Brains..." Venom said and Cole could just feel him drooling in desire.

"Fascinating. So that is just a glimpse of what you can truly do, yes?" Niles asks in interest at the tendril that had now disappeared.

"Forget that!" Cole said, pulling back and eyeing the brain, "Is that an actual real-life, human brain in there?"

"Why, yes. I'm currently keeping it in a safe state for the time being in hopes of saving the owner's life with my current project." Niles explains, gesturing to the robot body.

"Can we eat it?" Cole and Venom's voices mixed together as they asked.

"I would prefer if you refrained from doing so." Niles tells them with a chuckle, but they could tell he was serious about the notion.

"Told you he would say no." Cole said and they rolled her eyes at Venom's annoyed growl much to Niles' confused amusement.

They opted to ignore the brain to avoid hungering Venom even more and scanned over the robotic body currently in construction.

"How long this take you?" Cole asked.

"It's been a few months now." Niles informs, "Began as soon as I managed to procure the brain."

"Hmm..." Cole hummed, walking around the robot body, "So, the country's most wanted reporter, an actress way past her era, a burn victim turned mummy-man, a girl with super powered DID and a living brain waiting for its robot body. That's quite the circus of freaks you've gathered, Niles. Care to give some insight as to why that is?"

"To help you of course." Niles replies.

Cole scoffs, "No one goes this far to help this many broken people. You're clearly playing at some angle."

"And what would that angle be?" Niles asks.

"We don't know." Cole said with a shrug, "That's why we're here, now, asking the person that does."

"Is it really that far-fetched to you that I genuinely gathered all of you here to not only help you heal from your past traumas, but to better yourselves in using your newfound abilities for the greater good?" Niles asks.

"Yes." Cole simply responded, "Because, no matter how hard you try to look at it, people will let you down. You're on your own in this world and sometimes...sometimes you're lucky enough to get stuck with someone that's just like you...someone or something to suffer through life as much as you already did on your own."

"It's nice to suck as much as you do." Venom told her and she let out an exasperated sigh.

"Then I guess it's good I brought you here." Niles told them, "Now you find yourself lucky enough to suffer through your life with more than one person that is like you. From Rita to Larry to Jane-"

"Oh, not her, we'll pass on that last one." Cole said with a shake of their head, "No offense to this Jane, but Hammerhead left an impression all around and we're okay without dealing with all of that."

Niles chuckles, "I see...it may take a while before you two become friends."

"I don't think we'll be friends." Cole said with a shake of their head at the thought.

"Don't count your chickens before they hatch." Niles warned jokingly.

"Where!?" Venom asked, perking up at the thought of the tantalizing raw bird.

Cole chuckled, "We'll be seeing you, Niles."

Niles smiled as he watched them leave the lab. He looked back at the brain and continued on with his tinkering on the robotic body.

~

Upon arriving at the backyard of the manor for some much needed air, Cole noticed that they were not the only ones that partook in such an idea.

Rita sat on the patio, having some tea whilst reading a book, enjoying the calm serenity, and off at the yard near a tree was Jane who was painting as her way of enjoying the serene calmness of the day.

"Ah, Cole, come to join me?" Rita asks, taking notice of their presence.

"Not really." Cole said with a shrug, "We are just exploring the place at this point and the backyard is our next destination. So, all in all, we just came."

"Hehehe...HAHAHA!!!" Venom laughed and Rita smiled at them in amusement.

"I heard it as soon as I said it." Cole said with a slight chuckle.

Jane snapped her head towards the source of the sound and noticed Cole speaking to Rita, tilting her head slightly with a curious gaze.

"We have eyes on us." Venom informs.

Cole looks around and finally takes notice of Jane's gaze, the two of them making eye contact. It seemed like they were staring at each other for too long and Jane ended it by slowly turning around and going back to her painting.

"Maybe Larry was right." Rita says with a small smile and Cole looks at her curiously, "The sparks between you two are apparent."

"What's apparent is that someone clearly laced your tea with a pretty strong hallucinogen if that's what you're thinking." Cole tells her.

"Oh, don't be such a fuddy duddy, Cole. A bit of teasing never hurt anyone." Rita says, waving her off, but then she smirked at them, "Unless, of course, we are just confirming some hidden truths and there is something there?"

"We're done having anything with anyone." Cole states as they head over to Jane.

"Then why are you going over there?" Rita asks with her smirk growing.

"To do what I do best and dissuade all this bullshit teasing you and Larry keep doing," Cole tells her.

They slow down their steps and stop a little aways from Jane, watching as she continued to paint. The girl in question seemed to be ignoring their presence which was fine, because at the moment the process of Jane painting her latest piece was interesting to them.

"You gonna stand there all day?" Jane asks, continuing to paint.

"That depends," Cole states, "Will it warrant another attack?"

"I'm not one to usually solve things through violence." Jane tells them.

Cole scoffs, "We're sorry if we don't believe that after what happened."

"I'm not one for mindlessly knocking heads, but Hammerhead is a different story." Jane says and they go into a brief silence as Jane painted, "She told me about you..."

"We reckon some pretty bad things, yeah?" Cole asks.

"Not really. She says you're different somehow. Less of a pussy than the rest of the cunts she's met." Jane tells them, "Her words, not mine."

"And what are your words?" Cole asks.

Jane pauses her painting for a moment and smiles as she goes back to it, "Can't give you a psychoanalysis when I don't even know your name."

"Venom." Venom states within Cole's mind.

"Cole." They tell her their name.

"Jane." Jane responds with her own.

~

Later that night, Cole lies awake in their bed, staring up at the ceiling with a blank stare as an abundance of thoughts ran through their head.

"Stop thinking about her." Venom says with a growl.

"I'm not thinking about her." Cole denies.

Venom scoffs, "We share everything now, Cole. I can literally feel what you're thinking. Quality tent you pitched by the way."

Cole's eyes widened briefly and they turned to their side, now facing the window illuminated by the moonlight glow.

"We-We just need to go to the bathroom..." Cole said nervously in embarrassment.

"What we need to do is stop these pointless thoughts of anything happening with this girl." Venom told her.

"Oh no, you too? How many times do we have to tell people that nothing is happening with me and her?" Cole asks frustratingly.

"I was on your side at first, but now it just sounds like you're trying to convince yourself more than anything." Venom states, "Do you really want to go through something like that again? Do you really want us to have a second Maria?"

"...I don't think Jane's like that..." Cole muttered softly.

"They're all like that. People let us down, remember? Better off alone with each other while keeping everyone else out than letting a stranger that will eventually ruin us in." Venom states.

"...Yeah, you're right..." Cole muttered as they continued to stare at the window. Their gaze shifted to a spider weaving its webs on the corner of the window ledge, staring at it with blank interest, "You hungry?"

"Hell yeah." Venom said with an excited growl.

Meanwhile, within her room, Jane in front of a canvas as she continued to paint in silence though her thoughts were plagued with her interaction with Cole.

If it wasn't the fact that Hammerhead of all people seemed surprisingly impressed, giddy and quite taken with someone she had just met then it was also their albeit brief conversation along with the looks they would share. Cole was an interesting one, not surprising they ended up at the manor, but there was clearly more. A testament Jane was interested in.

Her mindless painting and clouded thoughts were interrupted by a quick and noticeable sound outside. She put her brushes down and walked to her curtains, opening her windows and peeking out.

She widened her eyes in surprise to see the room next door to hers had the windows wide open, but then she looked out and noticed a shadowed figure in the distance hopping over the gate in a single leap and continue their trek out down the road and towards what she assumed was the nearest town.

"Okay." Jane said, grabbing a jacket and throwing it on as she opened her own windows and hopped out.

She started running away from the manor and used her secret way of getting out instead of using the gate. Once out, she followed the figure towards town, ready to find out and face off against what kind of trouble awaited her.