I had stayed out late well after midnight, trying to find some more criminals to beat up and steal from. I only found one drug dealer that night but he had almost two hundred dollars on him. That made the whole nights earnings approximately two hundred and seventy dollars, not counting the shift at the restaurant.

Not bad, I'd say. Not huge, but not too shabby either. It was an improvement to say the least.

Rest of Saturday and Sunday went normally, save for nighttime when I went out to try and fight crime. Between those two nights, I took down a collective six crooks.

I adjusted to having Venom around surprisingly quick. As it turned out, giving him chocolate was all I needed to do. I was still a bit alert at all times though, in case Venom thought of doing something I wouldn't want.

Nevertheless, Venom had behaved well enough over the last two days that I felt comfortable, more or less, going to school with him. I had emergency chocolate with me, of course. That was something I carried around with me at all times now. Can't be too careful.

[…]

At school, after getting what I needed from my locker, I headed off to English class. I passed Flash Thompson, Midtown High's resident jackass, in the hallway. He tilted to the left and deliberately collided with my shoulder.

"Watch it, Pryce," he said.

"Whatever, Eugene," I said. Not many people at school knew Flash wasn't actually his real name. The ones that did avoided calling him Eugene because it ticked him off for some reason. In this case, that was exactly the point.

"I thought I told you not to call me that," Flash said and took a step towards me menacingly. The students passing by, sensing potential action, stopped to watch.

"Hold it, tough guy," I said, extending my hand out to stop him. "You want a fight?"

Flash was momentarily taken aback by this show of defiance, but quickly recovered his composure and said, "You bet," and put his fists up.

"Okay, just cross this line, then," I said as I quickly crouched and swiped my hand across the floor, creating an imaginary line.

Flash stepped forward, tripped and fell on his ass. The crowd en masse burst into laughter. Sensing my next best move was a hasty retreat, I bolted out of there, pausing only to grin at the small tube of clear lubricating oil in the palm of my hand. This was a trick I had been wanting to try for a while. Guess it worked.

"We could have beaten him in a fight," Venom said.

"True, but I didn't feel like getting into detention," I muttered under my breath so no one would overhear.

"It's funny,"

"What is?"

"How you two used to be friends,"

I sighed. Venom was right, Flash and I used to be friends, along with another kid named Peter, but that was a long time ago. People just drifted apart, and whereas Flash and even nerdy Peter had managed to find other friends, I had sort of been left in the dirt. And ever since my dad had died, I had had even less time to socialize.

I arrived at class and took my seat at the back of the room. Immediately after me, Gwen Stacy entered the class as well and sat down on her usual seat to my left.

Man, I really was a fucking loser. Any other guy would have been psyched to have Gwen sitting right next to him, at the back of the class too, since that offered the privacy to try and make conversation. Meanwhile I'd been sitting next to her in English class for months and still had months to go till the end of the year, and the only conversation between the two of us had been her asking me for a spare pencil.

It was a shame, she really was fantastic. Blonde, blue eyes, a nice body, and the smarts to go with it all. Also, she was single. But my chances of getting to know her past her name were low. And frankly, she deserved way better.

I decided to stop looking at her before it got creepy, and redirected my attention to my shoes, noticing that one of my shoelaces were loose.

"Hey, it's Adrian, right?" Gwen said.

I looked at her. No way was this actually happening. Okay, don't fuck this up, you got this.

"Yeah," I said.

"I saw what you did, back in the hallway," Gwen said. "With uh, Flash and the oil thingie,"

"Oh, right, that…"

"Yeah, I liked it. It was pretty smart,"

"Oh…" I said. "Thanks, you too. I mean you're pretty too- pretty smart, I mean, so…"

Great. I managed to say four short words before making an idiot of myself. Oh, my brain is gonna remind me of this incident four years from now when I'm trying to sleep.

Actually, no. I'm willing to bet I'll relive this awful moment when I'm trying to sleep tonight. I swear I could hear Venom snickering inside my head.

Fortunately, my desire to curl up into a ball and die was pushed aside by the arrival of the teacher Mr. Warren showed up a few minutes later. He wrote the words 'Viscosity of Gases' on the chalkboard, then turned to the class.

"So, as the chalk board alleges, today we're discussing the viscosity of gases, so kindly turn to page 120 of your textbooks,"

I lazily flipped to page 120, as did the rest of the class with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Mr. Warren paced in front of the class as he started reading from the text book.

[…]

(That night, elsewhere in New York City)

"Shit, shit shit!" panted Felicia, a silver-haired girl in her late teens, as she ran down the sidewalk and ducked into an alleyway.

"Fuck!" she exclaimed as she saw it was a dead end. The cops were just around the corner, she was screwed! She started looking around for places to hide in the alley. The dumpster maybe?

"Hey, kid," a voice said from somewhere above. Felicia looked upwards and saw someone on the rooftop looking down at her. The person tossed a rope down and said, "Climb, quick,"

Felicia did as she was told, and began climbing up the rope as fast as she could, reaching the top just in time to avoid the cops who briefly glanced into the alleyway before continuing to run down the road. She took a second to catch her breath, before looking up to see the person who had thrown the rope. It was a woman, a rather shapely one, as the skin-tight black spandex costume hinted at. She wore a mask with holes cut out for the eyes and cat-like ears on the top.

"Uh… is it halloween already?" Felicia asked.

"You know, you should be a bit more grateful, considering how i just saved you from getting arrested," the cat-themed woman replied.

"Um, yeah, okay… thanks a lot," Felicia said bashfully.

"Whatever," she said. "Go home kiddo, you're not ready,"

"Huh?"

"Don't have eyes too big for your stomach. Watching a couple movies doesn't prepare you for something like that,"

"For what?" Felicia said.

"Don't play dumb with me, kid. You and I both know you just tried to rob a jewelry store, and we both certainly know how well that went,"

"You were watching me?"

"For a bit,"

Felicia sighed. "I didn't have any choice,"

"Uh-huh," the catwoman said sardonically. "Sure, you don't,"

"I'm being serious,"

"You really think you don't have any other options?"

"I'm literally homeless," Felicia responded.

"Prizefighter," the woman said. "Kids go pro all the time,"

"What part about me being homeless makes you think I have the money to train?"

"Fair enough," she said, thinking for a moment, then deciding she had better things to do. "Well, it was a nice chit-chat," she said as she bent over and grabbed a large briefcase on the ground. "But I gotta go,"

"Wait!" Felicia called out before the lady could leave.

"What?" she said impatiently.

"Can't you train me… or something?" Felicia asked. The woman was wearing all black, at night time, whilst on the rooftop, and there was something about the way she spoke about stealing. It wasnt a wholly unreasonable assumption. Plus, that big-ass briefcase was probably full of cash or something of equal value.

The lady sighed. "Call me Catwoman. What's your name, kid?"

Wait… was she actually considering it?

"Felicia,"

"Got a last name, too?"

"Does it matter?" Felicia said.

"Not really," Catwoman replied.

Felicia sighed. "Hardy," she said.

"Hardy-?" Catwoman said. It wasnt a particularly uncommon last name, but it was worth asking. "Any relation to…?"

Felicia knew who she was talking about. "Yeah, he's… my dad,"

The older woman let out a soft whistle. "To think… that Walter Hardy's own daughter… would be so shit at stealing,"

"Shut up," Felicia said hotly.

"Did he teach you anything?" Catwoman asked.

"Barely anything. He got arrested only a few days after our first lesson,"

A few years back, Felicia had told her father that she wanted to be like him as well. She had known for a while that her father was a thief, and her father had promised that he'd teach her one day. That day had come a few months ago, when Felicia had turned seventeen. Her father had started training her in the basics but had gotten caught a few days afterwards in a botched robbery, and was sent away to a high security prison. Most of the money Walter Hardy had accumulated over his career as a legendary thief, had been confiscated.

The following months had been marked by Felicia running away from multiple foster families before eventually ending up on the streets. Out of desperation, she had tried to rob a jewelry store, using what little her father had taught her before his arrest. That had gone horribly wrong and here she was now, empty-handed.

The cat-themed burglar stroked her chin, as if contemplating what to do next. Part of her brain suggested opening the briefcase, tossing a single stack of cash to the girl and calling it a night. But she decided against it since it was her money that she had recieved as payment for the night's earlier proceedings. Her other option was to give the girl some training.

It was a give-a-man-a-fish vs teach-a-man-to-fish situation.

"Hands up, kid," she said. Felicia did as she was told and slid her body into a ready position to fight. Not bad posture for a teenager. "Are you trained?"

"Rec kickboxing classes when you're a kid don't really count, I suppose. But my dad did teach me a couple tricks-" Felicia said before getting knocked off of her feet and falling onto her back. "Hey! Not fair!"

"How is it not fair?"

"Well, let's see, all I've eaten today is a single slice of pizza that I stole, I only have basic training, whereas you're probably well-fed and better trained than me!"

"Well, you're not wrong there," she admitted. "But life isn't fair, as I'm sure you already know,"

Felicia got back up to her feet and got into position again. So she wasn't giving up…

"Okay, listen up Felicia. Hit me once, or grab hold of me somehow, and I'll teach you all you need to know in order to pull off a successful heist. Well, as much as I can in about… a month or so,"

Felicia's eyes widened. She was really offering to train her!

The cat-themed burglar mistook the younger girl's surprised pause as hesitation, and said, "It's up to you. You can either try to hit me, or you can go and see if whatever's left of the Goblin Gang has any openings. I'm sure there's an entry level spot-" Felicia launched a punch at her face, which missed horribly, but there had been no hesitance whatsoever.

"Not bad,"

Felicia kept her hands up. "You're gonna start hitting back aren't you?"

"Not necessarily,"

[…]

(Elsewhere in New York City)

After wrapping up my shift at the restuarant, I headed off into the city, ready to do some street level vigilante shit.

I decided to try something new tonight. My strategy, if you could even call it that, had been just to sort of wander through some rougher neighborhoods as a regular dude and take on whoever was doing things they shouldn't be. So I decided it would be better to get a bird's eye view by climbing on a rooftop. That way I could have a relatively better view of things.

I walked into an alleyway, made sure no one was looking, then looked up at the building. Yes, I could take the fire escape and climb up. But I wanted to try something.

Stepping back a bit, I jumped upwards with as much force as I could muster. I went flying way higher than I though I would, almost reaching the top but not quite. I managed to latch onto the edge and pulled myself up to the rooftop.

Holy… shit.

I had just jumped to the top of a three-story building!

"Well what did you think was going to happen, dummy?"

"I don't know! But I wasn't expecting to get this much, especially on the first try,"

[…]

I spent the next five minutes or so jumping across rooftops. It was a wonderfully euphoric experience, leaping so far so easily, the wind brushing across the face.

It took a shrieking sound to remind me of what I was actually supposed to be doing.

The sound had come from nearby, I walked over to the edge of the rooftop and looked down into the alleyway, spotting two men and a woman. One of the guys bent the woman over against the hood of a nearby parked car and lifted up her skirt.

Oh, hell no that wasn't gonna happen on my watch.

I jumped off the edge, realizing only after I did so, that I hadn't actually jumped from a height like this before. I managed to go full monster-mode mid-air, and I landed behind the two men. No broken bones, from what i could tell. Good.

The two guys turned around, and their eyes widened in horror.

"What the fu-?" one of them said, drawing a pocket knife.

"Fuck no," his partner said to him. "Just run!"

Fairly smart. Charging a seven-and-a-half foot tall monster with extremely sharp teeth (that had also jumped down from 4 stories and landed perfectly fine without hurting himself) with a fucking pocket knife is generally regarded as a bad idea.

Not that i was gonna let either of them get away, oh no.

"Where do you think you fuckers are going?" I/Venom said, and i leaped towards one of them, pinning one of them down from the back and started punching his face. Punching him was extremely frustrating. Possessing superhuman levels of strength meant that if I went all out on this guy I'd probably kill him. As much as I wanted to beat the shit out of the scumbag, I also didn't want to end up killing him, so I had to hold back. Even while holding back greatly, his face was a bloody mess after just three punches.

The other guy was almost out of the alleyway. I didn't need to run after him, I just pointed my arm at him and it elongated towards the guy and grabbed him by his ankle, causing him to trip and fall on his face.

When I say 'my arm' I actually mean the Venom symbiote arm. My own arm underneath the goo still remained the same, it was only the symbiote that stretched. This was an ability I had discovered yesterday, and it was very convenient.

I dragged the other guy towards me and lifted him up.

"Wha-what are you?" the guy stammered.

This was probably the moment where I said something cool, but I couldn't quite think of anything. On top of that, a weak urge deep down to tear into the man's flesh and devour him started to rise.

"Venom," I muttered sternly, trying to discourage my symbiote buddy's tendencies.

"Ve-venom?"

Oh. I had said that aloud. Well, I guess it sort of fit his question. I threw the dude aside, he hit the car and fell to the ground. Probably a few broken bones, but I hadn't thrown him violently enough to have done any permanent damage.

With both dudes taken care of, I became aware of a soft whimpering noise. I turned around and saw the woman whom I had just saved. She backed away from me, still whimpering.

"Stay- away from me, p-please," she stammered.

Realizing that my appearance was probably less-than-comforting, I willed Venom to transform back into my clothes.

"No no, it's okay, it's alright," I said reassuredly. "Look I'm not gonna hurt you, you're safe now,"

She calmed down a bit after seeing me transform back into human form, but she was still a bit disturbed, not that I blame her.

"You live nearby?" I asked.

She nodded. "Just around the block,"

"Okay, do you need me to uh-?"

"N-no, I can go by myself,"

"Alright, suit yourself," I said.

She left the alleyway and jogged down the sidewalk. I watched her climb up the steps of an apartment block around the corner and enter, then I went back in the alleyway to take whatever cash the two unconcious guys might have on them.

Only, there was a newcomer in the alley. He was clad in an entirely black bodysuit with a cat-themed mask that left his mouth and lower jaw uncovered. His fists were wrapped up in thick, heavy tape.

"Oh, I recognize you, you're Wildcat!" I exclaimed. "Big fan,"

"Heh, kinda refreshing to see someone as young as ya recognize me fer a change," he chuckled.

"I… thought you were retired though,"

"Sorta," he said. "I ain't out lookin for crime to stop anymore but when it happens and I'm around, why not crack some skulls? Not that I was needed tonight, you handled it fine, so I figured I'd just watch the show,"

Wildcat stepped forwards and got a better look at me. "Well, I'll say, they just keep making em younger don't they?" he said, sizing me up. "Ya got heart kid, where you from?"

"Queens,"

"Ya could use some combat training," Wildcat said, more to himself than to me.

"I… don't really need it," I said.

"That's what you think," Wildcat replied. "You can beat up two-bit crooks like them, sure. But when ya run into someone as strong as yourself, even when you're that big bad monster, knowing a few tricks might come in handy. Strength is important, but skill is more,"

"Wonder Woman said that, didn't she?" I recalled. 'Strength is nothing against skill' is kinda one of her catchphrases.

"Yeah, I picked up a thing or two from her while we were part of the Justice Society," Wildcat said. The Justice Society of America had been the OG superhero team, operating back in the 70s and 80s, well into the 90s, before it sort of fell apart. Other major superhero teams like the Justice League and Avengers wouldn't show up till the 2010s.

Yeah, I'm a bit of a superhero nerd. I mean, can you blame me?

"Well, I can't send off someone as green as you without some training," Wildcat said. "More brats like you out and about, keepin the streets safe, the less I have to go out and handle shit myself. So whaddya say? I'm a pretty decent trainer, might be able to teach ya some useful tips,"

I considered it. I didn't need it right now, since I was just dealing with two-bit thugs, and planned to do so for the forseeable future. But there was Wildcat's point, that I might end up encountering a villain who was as strong as me or stronger. Nothing's impossible in this world where superheroes are common, and trouble has a way of finding targets. Besides, if Wonder Woman of all fucking people thought that skill was more important than strength, maybe it was.

Better safe than sorry, I suppose.

"Sure, why not?"

[…][…][…]

And that was chapter two! A bit of story progression plus slightly expanding the world.

I changed Felicia's backstory somewhat, that was mainly for the sake of trying something new. And yes, I'll evetually update my other story too. Hopefully before the end of June but no guarantees.

Lastly, a good portion of this chapter was written using reference from Less Than Zero by Kenchi618. I highly recommend you check it out, it's a great DC fanfiction.

Hope you enjoyed the chapter!