Chapter 17 Replicating Ability

[Venom POV]

A few days later, Batman takes down Crane and Gotham figure out they've been dumping something in the water mains. Still the same as the movie minus Rachel. So there was no car chase with the not yet existing batmobile. Apparently it's already being delivered off the books. I'm guessing batman will paint it all black when it gets here. 

If this follows the same path of events like in the Nolan trilogy despite having no Rachel, I knew the Wayne manor is pretty close to burning down after meeting Ra's al Ghul. In anticipation of these events, I already moved my computer and drawings with plans and sripts etc for my games to a very sturdy safe in the batcave. 

I also sneaked some sentimental stuff batman kept which were mementos of his parents. He's gonna thank me later after the Manor is burnt. 

I also started looking up info on Central City. 

--

"Holy Shit! This world is also connected to an alternate Flash CW! Bad news is, this Barry also might as usual, keep changing the timeline. But Good news is, I have an idea when he does them if it follows the same path as the series." I sigh in relief.

"From what I can see, most of the Star Labs staff looks rather similar to their actor counterparts so far. But looking at CCPD, this Barry is blonde like in the comics. Though he still looks like Grant Gustin. That's fine because I liked him a lot as the Flash. If it was that crazy movie Flash actor, I might have taken over him instead haha." 

I continue to look through files and see detective Joe West though what puzzled me was that this version was a red haired white guy. David Singh turned out a black man though. I don't get how all that got swapped but as long as it still follows the events, I should be able to anticipate what happens and when I can interfere. 

But I guess this means Iris is going to look more similar to her comic counterpart then. Minus the convoluted 30th century back story. I hope.

I look up Stagg Industries and found my target. Danton Black's record was there so I take down his address and his labs location. 

Next thing I looked for was Central City News. From the looks of things, the particle accelerator already exploded. And Barry was still in a coma. This makes me assume that most, if not all the villains who gained their new meta abilities are under the process of either recovering, discovering their new abilities, or getting used to them. As long as Barry is still in a coma, I have a chance to copy Danton Black. Not sure yet if its possible for me to copy him after he dies and I would rather not bond with a dead dude for now. Plus his cells would not show me all the details if he's already dead. So I need to prioritize this one. 

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A couple of hours later I find Danton Black in his lab looking into a microscope. I simply sneak in and hide somewhere all his mess. I thought he was still doing research regarding his actual work and he was alone. Till I saw another Danton Black lying down connected to wires and monitors and stuff. 

Looks like he already discovered his ability but he's still skeptical and is currently studying himself first to check if he's stable. 

Despite being a meta, he's still only human so it made it easy for me to knock him out with one of the tranquilizer darts batman has in his cave of fun toys. For safety, I also inject the clone lying down.

After a few minutes of analyzing and memorizing his main body and clone body, I return to my Bruce body, put him on a chair and make it look like he fell asleep reading his documents or something. 

While walking outside, I wondered if I can check out Barry's biology as well but then decided against it. Thawne is too dangerous and I would rather keep my distance, lest I gain his attention. The man is too damn smart for his own good. Terrible, crazy even, but brilliant. I don't intend to get near Team Flash until after he's out of the picture. 

Besides I don't even know if I can even mimic his powers since it comes from the speed force. It's more of a curiosity for me to analyze Barry at this point.

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The next few days are a bit slow for me. I remain at home, analyzing and altering my cells to make sure my weaknesses are gone while absorbing sunlight. 

I already found a relative balance to Kryptonian and Human cells mixed with Danton Black cells.

This opens a whole new avenue of options for me.

I can now replicate my symbiote body and leave it on Batman in a sort of standby mode where it still follows batman's commands as my primary directive to it before I move away. I technically don't even need a human or any host for that matter since I can mimic human bodies now with Danton's ability for some reason. Other than that, I can also live off sun radiation now like Clark.

So bottom line, I can replicate symbiote cells AND human cells. It's like applying his replicating ability on either my own body or a human's.

But I still prefer to stay with bats. For now at least. I mean, it's not exactly a quantum physics problem. He's obscenely rich. Richie Rich rich. Duh. So I mimic him instead. 

Now I can afford to leave his actual body at the manor to sleep while I play around with his money. We can now be seen together as a way to throw off the trail as well in case anyone suspects Bruce Wayne to be Batman. Kind of like what Superman did with Martian Manhunter so his identity is kept safe. 

With my new found freedom, I continue doing conference calls with Squaresoft and developing the game. Since I can now work longer hours without minding batsy's turn, I can now start planning for other games I want as well.

When I talked to bats about my new duplicating ability, He panicked at first, his paranoia started to act up. But after talking to him about the new Meta humans in Central City, he realized I merely copied the ability. I also told him not to interfere with them for now. I told him Star Labs is already aware and will take care of it. 

This actually confirmed my early decision of making contact with batman as early as possible. Because the younger he is, the more flexible he is in terms of his thinking. Later in his life, after he's been betrayed several times, he becomes so paranoid and closed off. It's easier to deal with this one when he's still open to cooperation with a team or a league.

I also told him that it's not like he can actually commit to anything about them yet since he hasn't even cleaned up Gotham yet. He needed to focus on his own city first before going global. He had his hands full. 

But of course we needed to set some plans. There would be times that he needed to be Bruce Wayne again for some situations in the movie so I can't be Bruce all the time. 

If he needed to act as Bruce, I would mimic him but alter the face a bit. I can't change to any face yet since I'm still experimenting with that, but I can mimic those I have already bonded with. So for now, I do a mix of Bruce and Clark. 

This new identity needed to be established anyway for the long run. For now, bats helped make a new identity with fake ID's and all that. Since I can't exactly use the name Venom, I simplified it to Ven. I just chose a random last name so it became Ven Matthews.

This new identity would become Bruce' representative or kind of proxy when we needed to appear together in daylight. But if he doesn't need to be Bruce, I generally use that identity instead. For now. 

We made it as if Ven Matthews was an orphan like him but grew up overseas which explains the lack of a paper trail. But Bruce and Alfred did set up the minimum documents needed to make that persona a legitimate identity with his own bank accounts. 

We introduced the new Ven Matthews to various people and organizations by attending Wayne Industries board meetings, rich people parties, etc. Not too much but just enough to establish the persona. 

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As we were driven home by Alfred, Bats then starts to talk.

"You know, I've been meaning to ask. You have such power and abilities. But you choose not to use them against crime...

Why not?"