American comics: Starting with Luke the Maker

"Save me!"

Venom's desperate cry for help echoed throughout the house. He was frantically trying to escape, his claws scraping against the floor so hard they were almost a blur. Streaks of claw marks tore the expensive carpet to shreds, even gouging splinters from the wooden floorboards.

However, he was like a pet caught by the tail, desperately flailing his little legs forward, yet unable to advance.

Venom's body stretched like rubber, becoming a long, thick black rope. His mouth, filled with sharp teeth, was pulled wide, resembling a comically stretched shark-tooth zipper.

Giggle, giggle.

The crisp laughter sounded like a demon to Venom's ears. He keenly sensed a great crisis about to befall him. He gripped the ground, anchoring his form, and twisted his head to look back. That one glance nearly scared his soul out of him.

Becky was sitting on the floor, her chubby little hands gripping Venom's tail like a tug-of-war. A deep blue light was radiating from her throat, and a liquid like saliva dripped from the corners of her mouth.

Seeing this scene, Venom was almost scared out of his wits. During his days as a caretaker, he had become all too familiar with this sight. It was the little demon king's prelude to feeding!

Before, she had only bitten off a little to taste, but this time it looked like she was going to swallow him whole.

Venom almost instantly severed his connection to the body Luke had specially created for him. A mass of black liquid flew out with inertia, splattering against the wall. Sliding down the wall, Venom scurried to the door without pausing, squeezing out through the gap under the door before the little demon could crawl after him.

Who told him human babies were cute?

This was the most terrifying creature in the entire universe!

He couldn't hit her, couldn't scold her. Most terrifyingly, she wanted to nibble on everything to taste it! This insatiable appetite triggered his PTSD [Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder] symptoms! The adorable little figure before him highly overlapped with the figure in his memory who always held a pot, wanting to cook something!

In that instant, Venom experienced again the horrifying scene of waking up after being unconscious, seeing himself and a pile of symbiotes stuffed into a large pot, covered in seasonings, while An quietly held a fork outside the pot, looking expectant!

His soul flew to the heavens!

So that day, An became completely famous among the symbiote community through the symbiote network. Although not truly a villain, she was unanimously expelled from the normal symbiote sequence by the symbiote community and exiled.

That year, at that time.

Just like this very moment.

The villa descended into chaos. After Luke shoved a large jar of extra-strength, highly concentrated, filtered emotional essence to satisfy little Becky and quiet her down, Venom was already planning to quit.

"You took the deposit. There's a salary!" Luke looked at him in surprise when he heard Venom wanting to resign.

"Yes, but you didn't tell me she was so terrifying! She doesn't look like a normal human baby at all! Don't think I haven't seen human babies!" Venom protested indignantly.

"I'm very reasonable. As long as you return the deposit and salary first, you can quit this job. After all, I'm not some capitalist who only knows how to exploit. I still want to guarantee employees' freedom to come and go." Luke said amiably.

Venom was struck by lightning. His agitated, transforming body froze in place, like an abstract, ugly black sculpture.

"According to our agreement, you strongly requested to be paid three months in advance, so I gave you four months' salary. Considering you've only been working for less than five days, I'll generously calculate one month's work for you. You just need to return the three months' salary that you call a deposit, and I'll allow you to quit this job. You know, it's hard to find a boss like me who fully meets your requests, even agreeing to the condition of paying three months in advance, which doesn't conform to employment logic." Luke continued, ignoring the petrified Venom.

"But you didn't tell me there would be a life-threatening danger!" Venom leaped up from the ground, his shockingly large mouth rapidly opening and closing in mid-air as he argued.

"I did." Luke said calmly.

"No, you didn't!" Venom retorted.

"You definitely didn't read the safety disclaimer at the back of the contract." Luke pointed out incisively.

"What's that?" Venom asked in astonishment, instinctively feeling uneasy.

"The division of rights, obligations, responsibilities, etc., between both parties, that is, you and me. According to the regulations, the first party, that is, I, have already explained the dangers of the job to you, and there is no deception in any sense. And the second party, that is, you, hurriedly pressed your handprint after reading it. Of course, you still made a lot of requests regarding the treatment. Such as the innovative idea of paying three months in advance." Luke said calmly.

Little Becky held her large milk bottle in Luke's arms, diligently puffing out her cheeks as she fed, while widening her eyes to curiously watch Venom jumping up and down, his face changing unpredictably like he was performing face-changing opera.

"That stack was so thick, there were so many clauses, who would read them carefully one by one?" Venom said in despair.

"So what's your choice? To continue working? Or to return, uh, the deposit?" Luke asked with concern.

"But I already ate the salary!" Venom widened his white eyes. To prevent An from finding out and snatching it, he had swallowed all four portions of emotional essence into his body for digestion right in front of Luke. Now Luke was asking him to return it, how could he return it? Did he have to throw himself into a juicer to see if he could squeeze out some residue after the energy was digested?

"There's always a way, trust me." Luke said calmly.

Venom instantly felt a strange chill. He slumped limply to the ground, as if resigned to his fate.

"It seems you've given up on the idea of quitting. That's good. I know Becky is tormenting, but you're the main caretaker only during the time we rest at night, twenty-four hours a day. Actually, little Becky is still very quiet when she's temporarily full." Luke put the fed baby back into her luxurious crib. He also pulled out a spare Venom body from his spatial equipment, signaling him to merge into it.

"Why can't you give me the essence too? That way I don't have to endure the fear of being food when she's hungry." Venom slowly moved on the ground, gradually approaching the new body while complaining.

"Can you guarantee you won't embezzle it? I don't think so." Luke gave the answer without waiting for Venom to reply. Whether the emotional essence was kept in Venom's hands or An's, it was a one-way ticket. Even other normal symbiotes, Luke didn't think they could resist the attraction of emotional essence to them. This kind of energy with pure emotions and souls might be the food that every symbiote dreams of.

With little Becky's sleep, the chaotic villa returned to calm. Watching Luke disappear outside the door after telling Becky a story, Venom felt he couldn't sit still and wait for death! He had to save himself! He felt it was time to run away from home once to express his protest to Luke and make him clearly realize his importance!

……

The next day.

Luke answered Nick's phone call by the window.

"There's something I want you to help with, Luke." Nick Fury said on the phone.

"I'm busy."

"You say you're busy every time."

"I really am busy."

"Busy when you're still in your villa and haven't gone to the lab? You've been returning to the villa much more often lately than before. Tell me, what are you busy with in the villa now?" Nick's somewhat helpless tone came from the receiver.

"My child's nanny ran away from home, and he even wrote me a farewell letter." Luke held the phone in one hand and a piece of A4 paper in the other. The crossed-out and revised words on it seemed to interpret how tangled the writer's heart was, as well as the racking of his brains for wording.

"Your child's nanny? When did you have a child?" Nick's surprised voice came without concealment. Nick on the other end of the receiver simply thought he was hallucinating. He had been too busy during this time and hadn't contacted Luke, so what had happened on Luke's side?

"Things are complicated and difficult to explain clearly in a short time. Talk about your problem, what trouble have you encountered again?" Luke wasn't worried about Venom. Anyway, in his farewell letter, he said he was just temporarily leaving to hide for a while. And according to Luke's understanding of Venom, who had become picky with his appetite, he would most likely find a familiar host to survive for a while.

Like Stark?

Like Eddie Brock?

Or like some little spider preparing to go to college?

Of course, it can't be ruled out that he might luckily encounter a new host who gets along well and whose emotions suit Venom's taste. But in any case, he would definitely not be able to hold on for more than a month and would definitely come back.

"I've seen the report, you dissected and understood the structure of the Chitauri during the battle?" Nick didn't pursue the matter further. Although he knew that the nanny who ran away from home was a symbiote named Venom, it might cause a headache, but he already had enough things to worry about lately, and it didn't matter if one more symbiote ran away from home and temporarily became wild from being domesticated.

"So?" Luke asked back.

"I've sent a time-sensitive email to your private email address. You can take a look, and if possible, I hope you can give me some advice." Nick said.

Luke returned to the sofa, opened the email marked with red security in his phone's inbox, and connected it to the projection device in the villa to project it.

The email was blank and had no words, only a video file that needed to be decoded with a special decoder to watch. However, for Luke, it only took two seconds.

The video file was the battle recording that Nick had watched before.

Time passed minute by minute, and Luke watched the video intently until the last second. Watching those mutated individuals who were obviously mechanized, and who had different applications of power according to the mechanized parts, Luke was interested and vaguely felt that the changes in these people might be related to him.

It's not that he secretly did some experiments and modifications on these people in the lab, but that part of the power during his promotion, after the end of the war, leaked into this planet with the exploding energy seal pillar. Some of these may have contained Luke's will, and the Chitauri's corpses may have been able to mutate faster and more significantly because they had undergone similar genetic adaptation modifications. Or rather, they absorbed a considerable part of the leaked power.

Every dimensional demon god has their own unique power, as well as the lives that use this power and are influenced and infected by this power. These lives can be the demon god's creations, or they can be other races in the universe.

Perhaps, this is a mutation caused by the leakage of his ascension power?

The Inhumans' various abilities are due to an experiment.

Then wouldn't the abilities of these mutated individuals also be different according to the different parts of their limbs and the different thinking of people? And are these mechanical limbs after mutation simply mutations, or are they like some kind of technological prosthetic limbs, or organs, that can be technically reverse-engineered?

What are the core conditions needed for this mutation?

If the appearance of these mutated individuals can indeed be used to technically reverse-engineer their mechanical transformation parts, then is this some kind of ideal technical collection method?

Other things such as the cause of the mutation, the energy consumed, the impact on Midgard, and the possible reactions of the Ancient One and the mage group are things that need to be considered later.

"I need more information, preferably tangible and researchable materials. Corpses are also fine." Luke said to Nick on the other end of the phone.

Nick was silent on the other end.

"Or I can go to the black market in the underworld to find them, it just takes a little more time." Luke noticed Nick's hesitation: "The research data at that time, whether to share or not, is not up to you."

"Agent Coulson will seal up the corpse of one of the mutated brothers and send it to Heberon today. I just want to determine whether this mutation is an infection or man-made?" Nick finally spoke.

After hanging up the phone, Luke began to consider who could take care of little Becky when he had something to do, now that Venom, the nanny, had skipped work and ran away from home? In the end, his gaze fell on the metal dog Rude squatting aside.

……

"When I met you, you were a disheveled unemployed vagrant, or a chased-down unemployed reporter. Now that so many years have passed, and we meet again, why are you still being chased? What did you do again?"

"I just photographed something! It seems this is very important, it might be a big news! How about it, want to help me out and get rid of them? We'll split the money fifty-fifty, and I can buy you chocolate balls."

"Who wants to eat that kind of junk food? You couldn't afford to support me before, and you can't afford to support me even more now! If I hadn't happened to meet you, I wouldn't want you to be my temporary host."

"What do you mean? Temporary? You have other host candidates?"

Eddie Brock was covered with a layer of black liquid, arguing as if he was talking to himself. In front of him were two dangerous people carrying guns, their muzzles pointed at him.

PS: Thank you to Ba Ni Yi Gu and GGsbada for the 100 coin reward. Thank you to book friend 20220208033047690 for the chapter reward.

PS2: Slow down a bit……