longer.blue

🟪⬜⚫ ⚫WE ARE LOST. YOU SHOULD JUST ACCEPT IT. ⬜Peni, you should really learn when to stop and ask for help... you've been wandering alone in all this snow for how long? 🟪This is why I should have piloted the mech over you. You're hopeless. You've been wandering alone in circles for how many hours now? And you think you can find and save your wannabe-father with (mocking) *indestructible* bones? Yeah, right. The heavy footsteps of the VEN#M mech in the Canadian wilderness became a drum in the background of her mind. A noise that framed the heartbeat of her venture. A venture that, as she was being constantly reminded, was a foolhardy one. ⚫WE ARE COLD. WE WERE NOT MEANT FOR THIS TEMPERATURE. WE CAN SURVIVE, BUT NOT THRIVE. YOU CANNOT SURVIVE THIS FOR LONG. THE COLD SEEPS INTO YOUR FINGERS, INTO YOUR BONES, AND I CANNOT FIX IT WITHOUT MAKING YOU INTO ME AS I DID YOUR AUNT AND CLASSMATE. The SYM engine spoke in a thrum that was different than a drum, deeper, more magnificent, and yet somehow more... ... somehow different. It was hard to describe the noise. Hearing it in her bones rather than her ears, despite not being physically linked to it. ⚫YOU ARE GOING IN CIRCLES. ⬜Peni, can you call Uncle Ben? He should be able to help you. 💭I don't want help... The thought pulverized through all the other noises in her sleep-deprived brain. The thrum of a migraine pounded over her left eye and her right—bloodshot and droopy—stared endlessly ahead into the snowy abyss. "What is he?" she asked. Who or what she asked, she didn't know. Who was Logan to her? Someone who showed her a few small kindnesses? Who stood up for her? But others had done those same things. Did he just have some kind of dad energy she wanted? "Am I looking for my dad inside of him?" "Do I want to find him?" The second question stung. "Of course I want to find him." Peni Parker cleared her throat, then jerked back awake. Her eyes were drooping. The frigid cold and wind whipped against the VEN#M's frame. She stumbled forward another step, then woke up again, jerking awake with a gasp. ⚫IF YOU FALL ASLEEP HERE, YOU WILL DIE. GO HOME. Her jaw set weakly. Teeth clattering against a cold that pushed through into the canopy, so cold that her repair systems weren't able to function and fix it. Peni rubbed her eyes, then took another step. It was just a bunch of steps, right? To get there. To get wherever she was going. It was fine. It was... it was fine. Warm. Sleepy. Peni shook her head vigorously, then let out an infuriated grunt. ⚫YOU WILL NOT FIND HIM LIKE THIS. AND EVEN IF YOU DID, THEN WHAT? YOU TAKE ON AN ARMORED BASE ALL ALONE? YOU DIE ON THE WAY? AND IF HE'S ALIVE AND FINDS YOUR CORPSE IN THE SNOW? WHAT THEN? "I can't give up on him." ⚫YOU AREN'T GIVING UP. YOU'RE LIVING TO TRY AGAIN. "I think I liked you better when I had no idea what you were saying," she stuck her tongue out, then reluctantly opened a portal back home. The hexagonal lights played out across the untouched snow before her and she stepped through, back home. The portal closed and Peni dropped out of the mech, to the ground beneath it, where she landed and immediately buckled, then crumpled into a ball. Exhaustion tugged at her eyes. It was so warm here. Nice and controlled. The only sound? Wind in the air from the air conditioner. "I didn't give up," she told the air. It tasted like a lie on her tongue. ⚫ GOT YOU BACK... TIME TO REST. VEN#M shut down. The mech went entirely still and Peni realized for the first time that patches of frostbite clung to exterior portions of the machine. . . . . . the machine. It- it was a machine, right? Mechanical. Tubes and wires and a chassis and bolts, screws. Of metal. Not flesh. The arm of VEN#M broke off with a tremendous THUNK as it hit the ground, and shattered into a dozen bloody splinters. The stump on the machine slowly began to regrow, knitting flesh over the broken stump. The stump with a white, bone-like protrusion. The blood that looked so much like hers. "Are you alive?" she whispered to the SYM engine, terror and curiosity infused in her eyes. ⚫WE... ARE VENOM!!! The last noise from that suit. ... ... ... ... ... Ten days later, Peni pushed the last piece of neoprene layer onto the last panel of SP//dr. Lights initiated within the cockpit and Peni brushed her shaky hands off, then looked over at the VEN#M mech still in the corner. It was healing. Slowly. Her teeth grit for a moment. 💭This isn't the end. I just need a break... "I'll get you out of there, Addy. Uncle May. You'll see."