Sorry for the late release, I've been really busy. For those of you who read all my stories, there usually about 2 week wait for You Must (Not) Run Away and a two month wait for my other stories. Without delay, here's my next chapter.

A Year Old

The sounds of sirens fill the open air of a prison near Manhattan, New York, as a helicopter rushes in a flashy storm toward the prison. Upon arriving, out of the helicopter came four people with different weapons as one of them orders the other three. The three nods as they went their separate ways to meet up with the guards of the prison.

When heading towards the southern part of the prison, running in the middle of the storm, one of the men finds himself ambushed by a man looking like a missile, as a tornado came out of his hands at the man. When the tornado reaches the man in body armor, it never reached him as a multicolored octagon appears in front of it.

This surprises the superhuman known as Whirlwind, who couldn't dodge when a large bullet hits the top of his helmet, cracking it open as the splitting mask reveals his face. He tries to cover his face, but a needle is fired by the agent, hitting the top of Whirlwind's forehead. At first, it felt like nothing happened as Whirlwind goes for a counterattack, however, his movements start to become sluggish and weak, as he barely able to lift his arms. After a couple of seconds, he slowly loses consciousness before collapsing to the ground as the agent lowers his gun and activate his communicator.

"This is Ikari. Whirlwind is down, still alive. Requesting a squad for capture in the westernmost part of Section 3. Proceeding with the mission.", announces Shinji.
"Roger. Sending a squad to your area agent.", says the operator, "You may continue your search."
"Roger.", says Shinji as he enters Riker's Prison, "Continuing mission."

As he enters the gates of the west side of Section 3 of Riker's prison, which was is located on the south side of the entire prison, Shinji looks around the entire prison, which is nothing but darkness. He closes the door, destroying the only light source to brighten the room and turns on night mode on his helmet. He quietly walks through the corridor to reach a squad of missing guards and escort them outside.

Eight hours ago, a couple of inmates of Riker's escaped and released a couple of inmates as well, before most of guards managed to keep the prison from experiencing a massive breakout, however, some had managed to take control of several parts of the prison. While with various heroes is taking place, SHIELD decided to send a squad in rescue guards discreetly and capture several rogue prisoners by orders of a high ranking man within the United States government.

As Shinji starts searching around the area, something was looking at him from the middle of ceiling. It watches his every move, waiting until he's right underneath him. The moment Shinji stops in the middle, the air around him felt like it was lifted. It been about 2 months since the 18-year-old mentally Shinji became a full member of SHIELD, during a time when he was new as a SHIELD agent. Proof of the fact that he severely lowered his A.T. Field.

Whatever if the thing on ceiling know that Shinji is defenseless or not isn't important. All it knows is that Shinji is standing there below it. Just as Shinji was about to leave, something grabs by his neck, as Shinji glances down to see a black tentacle strangling his neck. Something jumps down in front of him, reveling to be connected to the black tentacle. Shinji's eyes widen as he sees the long tongue and white of eyes of the monster named Venom.

Present

"He almost looks like him.", thought Shinji as he pointing his pistol at another monster, the spawn of Venom, Carnage.

Shinji really doesn't know much about Carnage except for the fact that Carnage and Venom belong to the same species and that Carnage is Venom's spawn. The only other thing that Shinji knows about Carnage is that underneath the red symbiote, is a dangerous serial killer named Cletus Kasady. A symbiote taking over a normal person can make that person into a monster, so the thought that there is somebody worse than Venom makes Shinji's stomach turn.

Even so, Shinji continues to point his gun at Carnage, despite knowing that it won't do much against him. So as a result Shinji slowly steps back, preparing for an attack on his life by Carnage, as he quickly turns above to the streetlight on top of him and shoots out the lightbulb. This surprises Venom as Shinji appears less visible, but he was still visible due to the other lights around him.

Carnage whips a tentacle straight at Shinji, but Shinji anticipates this a rolls to his left, avoiding that attack. As he's doing this, he fires two shots at another streetlight to the left, breaking the lightbulb as the empty street gets darker. Shinji is grateful that they hit, as he feels that he doesn't have the natural instincts to do that.

Venom lunges at Shinji, turning his hand into a blade, but Shinji manages to spin out of the way and manages to fire a bullet at Carnage's head, although Shinji manages to gets a cut almost across his entire chest and the bullet did nothing as Carnage withstands it. Regardless, Shinji knew it probably won't work, being hat bullets doesn't even affect most superhumans' skins. Carnage on the other hand, is surprised that Shinji is dodging so well against him, leading him to believe that Shinji is a special SHIELD agent.

"Heat and sound. That's the only thing that can affect symbiotes.", thought Shinji as he starts back away from Carnage, "I don't have anything with sound, but heat…"

Shinji has a way to subdue Carnage, but he has two problems. The first is the fact that he might damage the neighborhood if he were to use "it". There still might be people here and Shinji doesn't have much control with "it" in pressured situations, meaning he might destroy the block or building if he's not careful. The other is that he might kill Carnage if he were to use "it". Maybe he could hit Carnage for about a second, making the damage a minimal as possible, but Carnage can still heal himself before a containment squad comes, not to mention the after affects for Shinji if he were to use "it".

Shinji looks at an alley and sees something that could help him as he thought of a plan. He turns towards and starts running towards the fire escape, as Carnage starts to chase after him. The ladder was too high, but Shinji is not after the ladder. Instead, he uses his A.T. Field to assist his jump, as reaches the third floor as Carnage starts climbing the wall, going after him. Shinji uses another A.T. Field assist jump to get him to the roof of the building as he waits for Carnage.

A Year Ago

Shinji can hardly breath as the black tentacle is wrapped around his neck. He can feel the breath of Venom as he looks at him face to face. Shinji's heart sank as he never once fought a superhuman before, especially against a person like Venom. Venom extends his entire hand around Shinji, covering everything other than his eyes as Shinji can see the sadistic smile of Venom's monstrous face.

He sees Venom opening his mouth, he felt his heart stop by the thought of being eaten by this creature. Not only that, the way Venom opened his mouth, felt familiar, as Shinji's mind goes blank. He felt something coming from inside of him, but he doesn't know where, as he hears a voice that neither belong to Shinji or Venom.

"Shinji-kun."

For brief moment, he saw another face in his eyes. A young man with gray hair and abnormally pale skin, wearing a neat button up white shirt with a purple skirt under it. To Shinji, he was looking at him, smiling, before it returns to Venom. At that moment, Shinji start to feel something coming to his eyes as Venom sees a twinkle in Shinji's eyes.

Now

Carnage jumps from the wall of the building, to the rooftop, just as Shinji wanted.

"Let it rain blood!, cries Carnage as he looks at Shinji.

It was then that Carnage notices a twinkle in Shinji's eyes, which are staring intensely at him. Before Carnage can even do something, a beam of purple light hits him as he shocked where it came from, Shinji's eyes. The beam lasted for about a second before Shinji stops as Carnage drops to the ground.

"Aaahhh!", screams Shinji as he covers his eyes.

While the pain just stings his eyes and it reliefs pretty quickly, it doesn't change the fact that Shinji can't see.

A Year Ago

"Arrraaaagghh!", screams Venom as he is hit by a purple coming out of Shinji's eyes.

He beams blasts Venom towards the ceiling of the prison as Shinji falls towards the ground, landing on his left arm. While Shinji would soon recover from the broken arm, he realizes something was wrong when he opened his eyes.

"I can't see."

He turns his head everywhere, looking for anything that he can recognized but he couldn't. The only thing familiar to him is the light coming out the opened door Shinji can in from, leading to the outside. He squints to find some kind of focus, as for a second it works until he figured out that his vision is returning.

After a couple of seconds, his vision returns to see Venom on the wall, with the symbiote sounding like it's screaming. By the time Shinji fully regains his vision, the symbiote starts repairing itself, as Shinji quickly grabs his gun and aims at Venom.

Suddenly, a squad of SHIELD agents rush in, as four of them brought weird looking guns with a dish on the end of them. They pointed them at Venom as high pitch scream came out of the guns, affecting Venom. Shinji just watches at the rest of them ready to retrain Venom.

Now

"About 14 seconds left.", thought Shinji on the remaining time it might take for his vision to return.

He's blinded on top of the roof, knowing that Carnage is down on somewhere there next to him, on the roof of the next building, on the wall of a building, or on the ground. Shinji manages to get a brief look on the direction that Carnage is sent to, so he figures that's it's one of the last two guesses. Shinji wonders if he should have made the beam last more than a second to injure Carnage more in order to put him down longer, but couldn't due to the fact that he might kill Carnage. While killing a person is something all agents must be capable of, it's not encouraged as a first option so Shinji figure it better to slow Carnage down. Plus, killing another person is something that Shinji doesn't want to live with.

By the time Shinji regains his sight, he looks around and below the rooftop to find Carnage. He would then jump from rooftop to rooftop with his A.T. Field assist jump looking high and low for Carnage, but couldn't find him. Shinji climbs down from the roof as he couldn't see Carnage from high ground.

"Maybe I should have made the beam last more than a second.", thought Shinji adding another regret to his list, "He probably escaped."

As Shinji is climbing using emergency ladders, he spots a man standing in the middle of the street, looking at his direction. He had hair colored like a carrot, wearing a sick smile, like he's captured his prey. Shinji was about to call out for him, telling him to get away from here, but stops when something grabs him by the legs.

"What the-!", screams Shinji as he holds on to the step of the ladder and looks down to see what's grabbing him.

He recognizes that red slimy skin of Carnage, as it is stretching and pulling its tentacles on Shinji's legs as a second set comes and grabs and pulls Shinji's arms odd the ladder. While Shinji knows it's Carnage, it seems different like it's less human and more fluid. That's when Shinji realize that it wasn't Carnage as a whole that is pulling him, but the symbiote. The human half, the host of Carnage, Cletus Kasady, who was standing in the middle of the street, walks towards the two, with a sadistic look on his face.

"Oh Mr. Agent.", says Cletus as he makes "tsk, tsk" noise from his mouth, "For agent, you really hate killing don't you?"

Shinji was about to respond, but couldn't as the emergency ladder breaks apart, as he sent into the symbiote's web.

"You know why you couldn't do it? It's because you are scared.", says Cletus as the symbiote leaves Shinji in its web and goes back to Cletus, "You're like the rest of the sheep. Too scared to kill even though I know they can. They just lack the guts to do it."
The symbiote finishes covering itself over Cletus as Carnage returns, "They are afraid that moment they do, they'll feel like they don't deserve to live or be happy, but that's not true. I killed a bunch and feel joy in doing so."
Carnage turns his right hand into a scythe as he extends his hand back, "Your mistake is that you still think you can't be a happy person after killing someone!"

Just as Carnage's scythe reaches Shinji, Shinji activates his A.T. Field, deflecting the scythe and dispersing the webs. He looks at Carnage and prepares to fire another beam, only for Carnage to back away and prepares to dodge it. Shinji realizes that on the chance the Carnage manages to dodge it, he could hit a building with people in it.

Suddenly, the sound of a sniper's bullet echoes across the air, as it heads towards Carnage, who became aware of it due to the abilities of the symbiote and dodges. Carnage turns to where the sound of the bullet came from, giving Shinji the chance to attack as he fires a second beam, which hits Carnage. Shinji guides the beam up and makes it last a little longer than one second, as Carnage crashes through the apartment building as Shinji quickly stops the beam.

Shinji's sight became a little worse, but can still hear his cellphone ringing as he picks it up from his pocket and puts it over his right ear.

"Looks like you had a bit a trouble.", comments Blake as Shinji sighs in relief.
"Thank you. You've save me.", gratefully says Shinji.
"Thank your emergency signal.", says Blake, who's lying as it was the agent who was following Shinji that told Blake about Carnage, "A pickup squad is drawing closer. They should be here right about now."

Shinji hears thrusters in the air as he can vaguely see a mini carrier appearing out of thin air, as it turns off its cloaking device. As the agents are getting off the carrier, Carnage starts putting himself together within the building, before four agents, who are holding rocket launcher fires at the hole Shinji made and where Carnage is in.

What the agents fired weren't missiles, but cylinders with a speaker on the ends of them as they land close to Carnage. Coming next out of the carrier is a friend of Blake's that Shinji has seen before. He's a man about in his early thirties wear a suit, looking like man you see every day in the streets. Shinji remembered Blake joking that the day Shinji loses his youthful looks, he'll look like him in the future.

"Mr. Coulson.", Shinji says to the agent, who unlike most agents, is wearing a suit.
"It's been a while Shinji. How is been?", asks Coulson as Melissa came out the carrier as well.
"Melissa?", calls out loud Shinji, who's a bit surprised seeing her today.
"What's up.", quickly greets Melissa, who's focused on the small device on her wrist, as she's typing things on it, "You've been in some heavy sh#t just now."
"I have.", Shinji admits as Melissa nods to Phil Coulson.
"Things are green. A few people inside, but they shouldn't suffer anything lethal or long term.", calculates Melissa as Phil turns to Shinji.
"You may want to cover your ears.", suggest Coulson as Shinji did what he say.

Carnage, who's inside somebody's bedroom, after crashing into an empty bed, struggles to keep the symbiote under control. The moment he gets it under control, the four cylinders crash next to Carnage, who can feel something bad is going to happen. Suddenly, the four cylinders created a high frequency which starts to affect the Carnage.

"Graaaah!", screams Carnage as the symbiote starts to separate itself from Cletus.

The symbiote tries to escape as Cletus cover his ears and tries to recover the symbiote. Before he could however, a squad of SHIELD agents burst into the bedroom from the door, and quickly tranquilize Cletus. Unknown to the agents, the symbiote escapes thru the cracks of the floor, as Cletus looks around for the symbiote, trying to escape from SHIELD custody.

Later

After taking a couple of minutes on explaining what happened and how Shinji came into contact with Carnage, Coulson leaves Shinji alone to continue what's he was doing before. Shinji didn't say anything about Mana except that he's hanging out with somebody dye Shinji feeling a bit embarrassed about it. It felt a little nervous telling people he's associated with that he's with a girl.

"Maybe because I never did this before.", is what Shinji thought about why it feels a little strange, before he goes for his phone and calls Mana, "I should quickly get her before she calls the police."
Shinji goes to his history and realizes that he never once called Mana or that she never called him. He has her phone number, but once talked thru the phone. He remembers that Blake said that he should get close to her, but never talk except when they meet each other face to face.

"Is that a bad thing?", thought Shinji as he calls Mana, "Mana-san. It's me. I'm okay."
"Shinji-kun? What happened? Are you okay?", pressures a concern Mana, as Shinji can feel that she sounded like she was worried about him.
"I'm fine. A couple of police came and arrested someone before I can do anything. There was a commotion so it took me a while before calling you.", lies Shinji who felt bad but didn't want to answer questions about his professional life.
"Thank goodness. I almost called the police earlier, because I was worried about you.", says Mana as Shinji feels bad about making her worry.
"Don't worry. Everything is good.", assures Shinji, "By the way, where are you?"
"When you told me to run, I ended up running to this dinner near here.", answers Mana as Shinji gets a good idea where it is.
"I think I know where it is. I'll meet you there.", says Shinji as he and Mana hang up their phones.

Minutes Later

After about 3 minutes of running, Shinji ends running towards a little dinner on a corner. Shinji's been there a number of times with Blake, usually after finishing a mission and when Shinji's too tired to cook. The people were friendly and the food was good as well. To be honest, Shinji won't mind working there as a cook.

As Shinji enters the dinner, he sees Mana at the back table, who spots him and immediately gets up, and runs towards him.

"Shinji!", Mana calls out in English.
"I'm really find M-Mana.", Shinji nervously say, as he still feels nervous about calling Man by her first name only."
"Are you sure?", asks Mana as she inspects Shinji head to toe.
"I really am Mana.", assures Shinji as Mana looks up to him.
"You said my name without stuttering.", acknowledges Mana as Shinji took a second to realize.
"I guess I did.", admits Shinji as he and Mana smile at each other.
"You know, popcorn doesn't really fill you up. Maybe we should get something to eat here?", suggests Mana as Shinji nods in agreement.
"I think we should. I really like the food here.", Shinji says as the two took a seat.
"So do you come here often?", asks Mana.
"Now and then yes.", answers Shinji, "When I'm not too tired to cook. Otherwise I'll have to eat what Blake grabs."
"So Blake doesn't like it here?", wonders Mana.
"Actually, he's the one who first took me here about a year ago.", answers Shinji who remanence about the day, "It was after a graduated from… a school. He let me become his roommate and took me here to celebrate. I remember ordering a coffee here at the time. I really like the coffee here."
"Blake sounds like a nice guy to you.", comments Mana.
"He's the closest person to me.", admits Shinji, who says it with less confidence on the fact.
"Maybe we can be more closer than you and him?", suggests Mana as Shinji just stood there, looking at the window before realizing what Mana said and snaps his head to her.
"What?", mumbles Shinji as Mana raises her hand.
"Ms., we're ready to order.", calls out Mana as Shinji's face froze, mouth open.
"I'm coming.", says the waitress as she approaches them, "What can interest you and your boyfriend here?"
"Boyfriend!?", thought a nervous Shinji as Mana makes her order.
"I would like to have this.", says Mana as Shinji looks at her.
"She isn't denying it.", thought Shinji on the fact that Mana is really interested in him, "Does she really like me that much?"

His heart starts pounding at the fact that someone is attracted to him. Blake did say that a couple of girls would look at him and approve on how he looks, but Shinji never look at them once. No, he would look at them back, but never does anything. Was he too self-conscious on how people feel about him, that he doesn't approach them so that they don't know who he really is? He doesn't know, but Mana, she's the one to approach him first and took him outside. She the one to show interest first. Was that why he's starting feel comfortable around Mana, because she makes it obvious that she likes him. Is that what attracts Shinji to her?

Shinji doesn't know. He doesn't know what to feel when you're attracted romantically around someone. All he knows that he starting to feel… happy and joyful around Mana. He likes talking to her and having fun with her. He wants to talk about books with her more, going to different places with her. He wants her to be impressed by him and see him as a man.

"I really am attracted to her if I'm thinking these thoughts.", thought Shinji as he starts making his order to the waitress.

Later

After making their way to the apartment building… about four hours after they left the dinner, Shinji and Mana climb up the stairs. After they left the dinner, they decided to go to Time Square and walk around the brighten streets of Manhattan. They saw a number of things, including a certain wall-crawler swinging around along with what Mana described, a devil like man.

Mana is pretty happy watching superhumans passing by, making entrances like that, which Shinji is glad about since he's superhuman too. As they arrive to the top, they look at each other as they made it to the crossroads to the other apartment.

"That was pretty fun, Shinji-kun.", Mana complements in Japanese, "How did you know that this Spider-Man and Daredevil were coming there?"
"I have a friend who has a habit of watching superheroes.", answers Shinji, who in fact knows about their schedule from a file he read once.
"But, you really know who shows someone a good time.", complements Mana as Shinji smiles a bit, "I've notice that you didn't ask me a lot anything about myself."
"Sorry.", Shinji immediately says, apologizing.
"Don't worry about it.", giggles Mana before asking something she was wondering, "Is this the first time you were alone with a girl, Shinji-kun?"
"Well with people women older than me yes.", admits Shinji as he thought people his own age, "My own age…"

Shinji stops when an image of a girl with hair colored like a sky with clouds in front of a well brighten moon. Something about her, felt familiar. She is saying something that felt assuring to him, the current Shinji doesn't know what.

"Turn around."

He's in a bed now. He's facing right side of the bed, but felt human warmth next to him. That warmth made him feel awkward yet it felt… good, like the loneliness in his heart is wearing off for a second.

"Shinji-kun?", wonders Mana as Shinji was standing there, doing nothing as Shinji snaps back to reality.
"Sorry. I was just thinking.", answers Shinji as he thought about what to say next, "And it's the first time I've ever spend this much time with a girl about my age."
"I'm glad to hear that.", joyfully says Mana as she leans in closer to Shinji's face, "We should do something like that next time."

Shinji nervously expected a kiss as his body tense up, but Mana ends up just hugging him. Shinji wonders if this is the first time he felt the full warmth of another as he just lightly places his hand above Mana's hips, returning the hug. Mana backs up a bit and smiles mischievously before giving Shinji a kiss on his left cheek.

The sudden affection electrifies Shinji's body as Mana pulls out and shows him her mischievous smile, before waving goodbye to him.

"See you tomorrow, Shinji-kun.", waves Mana as she goes back to her apartment.

Shinji stood there in the hallway, before quietly walking to his apartment, where he just stands there in the kitchen, placing his left hand on his left cheek. This is the first time something this has ever happen to him. His face is blushing from this huge amount of contact of affection he's ever experienced. It was like with the girl in his bed, but more... obvious to him that Mana really likes him.

"What do I do now?", wonders Shinji as he sits down on the couch.
"Ah! What the hell!", screams a male voice as Shinji quickly gets up.
At first Shinji thought that Suzie might have stayed over today until he heard the voice, "Blake?"
Blake gets out of the couch, looking like he's resting from a night of alcohol as he holds his head, "I had too much to drink today?"
"Why are you on the couch instead of your bed? In fact, why didn't you just pullout the bed?", questions Shinji as Blake shrugs.
"Too much work.", says Blake he looks at the clock, "It's really late did you just get home?"
"Yes.", answers Shinji.
Blake stood there with normal expression on his face, before he widen his eyes, then calms a little as a goofy smile appears on his face says, "That fact that you got home late at night after a night out with a girl means that you probably "home"."
"I did get home.", says Shinji, not understanding what Blake means.
"I mean "home base".", says Blake as Shinji shows a surprised face knowing what the means.
"Didn't do anything like!", loudly and nervously assures Shinji as Blake laughs.
"I know you didn't. You'd probably be laying on her bed, sleeping happily after finally losing your virginity.", says Blake as Shinji sighs.
"Why does it feel like you're going to give me more of your advice?", wonders an annoyed Shinji as Blake place his hand on Shinji's left shoulder.
"So how it?", asks Blake as Shinji smiles a bit.
"It was nice."

Shinji leaves to his room, as he gets changed and puts on his nighttime clothes. He lays in bed, as the small smile is still on his face. He forgotten his nervousness from earlier and the fight with Carnage. In his mind, that night with Mana was one he won't forget. As slowly goes to a peaceful sleep, without a single bad thought in his mind, as quietly sleeps through the night.

Unknown Hydra Base

The man with the mask, Iscariot, is watching the moon from an open window as he sits on his desk. He looks at the moon and glares at it with distain as he grabs a cup of coffee and takes a sip of it to calm down. He hates the moon as it reminds of a memory he wishes to erase. He'll destroy it along with those wretched and painful memories.

The reason why I had Vemon be Shinji's first superhuman is two things. The first is that I like Venom so admittedly there's a bit of biased. The second is because we have Venom and Carnage, who represent the type of life Shinji is living in and there's Mana, so represent the type of lie Shinji might want. I'll just leave like that and let you guys come with your own conclusion.

Notice: I'm going to be on vacation for about two weeks, meaning Lelouch of the Atom won't come out on time.

See you later and Happy Holidays to you all. See you next year!