TheRedeemer1995: Greetings, prospective readers! Welcome back to The Venom Inside! I gotta be honest with you guys, you continue to blow me away with your support for this project, and I am truly grateful for it. And while we're on that topic, I have great pleasure in announcing that The Venom Inside now has a recommendation on the My Hero Academia TVtropes Crossover Fanfic Recommendation page! So, yeah, that's really, really, super exciting!

Oh, yeah, one thing I should probably mention before I forget, while encased within his symbiote, Tomura cannot use Decay. Hence why, in the previous chapter, Lasher had to open up to let Tomura out so he could use Decay on Venom/Izuku to create an opening for Lasher to launch a counterattack.

Also, I was finally able to pick up a PS5 and Spider-Man 2, and my GOD is it so much fun! And it has given me the juice I need to see this project through to the end!

Additionally, I have commissioned the talented artist DNCSamsonART to provide custom-made cover art for this project, so that's really, really, super exciting!

Well, that's all I wanted to go over. Legionnaire, do you have anything you wanna add?

Legionnaireblaze: Not really, so let's get on with the show.

UPDATE: This story now has commissioned cover art created by the talented DNCSamsonART, the link to which can be found on my profile page. Just make sure to remove the spaces in the URL bar thingy!

Chapter X

Project Paragon

Above The Mustafu Streets - Two Nights Later

Landing firmly on a rooftop as he made his way through the city, the teenage boy within the monstrous form of Venom was once again lost in his thoughts. He was trying to formulate a plan for how to ruin Aldera and his arch-enemy, Katsuki Bakugou, something he had delayed due to recent circumstances, but knew he could do it now. When he had scoped out the school earlier that evening, he noticed that there seemed to be a number of people whom Izuku recognized as lesser-known heroes, or as they were more commonly known, Underground Heroes, patrolling the area around the school. The sight was slightly irritating, especially since he saw that it was none other than Eraserhead doing the patrol. Not only that, the sight of the hero meant that, just as she told him several days ago when he met with her and her friends, Ochako had told Nedzu about what had happened to him in the past and that he really did believe her, which in turn, meant that the Principal had a hand in the Underground Heroes patrolling the area around Aldera.

Both Venom and Izuku couldn't help but sigh. How could someone with an intelligence-boosting Quirk be so stupid? They weren't gonna find anything going on at Aldera at night, their injustices occurred in broad daylight within their very halls. That is, unless they were looking for something else. Izuku had seen a rumor online about Aldera potentially having ties to a Quirkist villain organization that supposedly had ties to Deternat Communications, but there was nothing to indicate any such organization had those ties. Although, if that were the case, then it would certainly explain the way Bakugou and his friends treated him and Inoichi.

However, the one thing that made him believe such connections to be false was that Ichi had become the school pariah after his Quirk awakened. If Aldera really was tied to this supposed villain organization, then that wouldn't have happened. Instead, Ichi would have received much more favorable treatment from the faculty and students, and could have very well betrayed him like Bakugou had. Izuku shuddered to think what would have happened to him in such a scenario. Maybe he would have taken a swan dive off the school roof as Bakugou had told him to.

Venom shook his head as he continued swinging through the air. It was no use thinking in hypotheticals, as that never happened in reality. Regardless, the presence of Underground Heroes, including Eraserhead, could be useful in his plans to bring Aldera Junior High crumbling down. Well, that and knocking Bakugou down a few dozen pegs, and getting justice for Inoichi.

And as he did this, Venom's Symbiote Sense went off, causing him to glance around, only for someone's foot to slam into him. He let out a yelp as he was knocked out of the sky, sending him tumbling onto a nearby rooftop.

"Well, at least we weren't outright blasted out of the sky this time," Venom grumbled as he started to recover, only to glance up and see his attacker. It was a woman who seemed to have a rabbit mutant Quirk, and was clad in a white and black outfit.

"I gotta admit, I was worried that someone would take you down before I got a chance to have a crack at you," the hero Miruko laughed, "Even better, it's good to know that you're just a vigilante and not a flatout villain like the HPSC made you out to be."

"Yeah, well, what else would you expect from an organization that has fostered a broken system that has allowed the suicides and deaths of people whose only crime was losing the genetic jackpot?" Venom snarled as he fired a tendril, smacking Miruko off him as he fully stood up, only for the rabbit-Quirked woman to do a backflip and land firmly on her feet.

"Yeah, yeah, I've heard about your rhetoric. You say you're fighting to change the world and give hope to the people who've been shit on all their lives. You know, you could have just become an actual hero and done all that from the inside," Miruko chuckled as she leapt at Venom again, her feet repeatedly smacking the black-clad creature, only for Venom to just stand and take the blows.

"You think we didn't try that?!" Venom snarled as he swiped back at the hero, who all but danced aside his attacks. "All our life we were beaten, bullied, and punished for the innocent sin of not having any powers, yet still daring to reach for the impossible by becoming a hero. And yet all we had to show for our efforts was a broken body, broken dreams, betrayal, and fallen idols! And that was before we found out just how corrupt Hero Society really was when we were trying to clear our name!"

Venom let out a roar next as he turned his hand into a mace, swinging it straight for the rabbit hero. In response, the heroine backflipped out of the way, only to grab something and throw it at the giant black beast.

"This is the only path left for us! The path that lets us become the hero we always thought existed before we learned the truth, not some ego-maniacal sellout like All Mi-ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH! LOUD!" Venom screamed as the object detonated, releasing a powerful sonic burst that sounded like chiming bells as it deployed three miniature versions of the same device. In pure agony, Venom stumbled and fell, dropping to his hands and knees.

"Yeah…funny you mention All Might," Miruko continued to chuckle, "He was nice enough to let the heroes whose lives you didn't ruin in on your Achilles' heel. One chat with the right support company later and we got ourselves some sonic pulse grenades!"

As she pulled out another sonic grenade, grinning at the sight of the suffering Venom, she continued to speak, "You know…they say you shouldn't ask for whom the bell tolls because it tolls for thee! Am I using that quote right? Eh, who cares, I'm rollin' with it!" she then kicked the device over…only for a bullet to suddenly pierce and destroy it, making her flinch. One second later, Miruko felt something sting her neck, causing her to pull it out, only to go wide-eyed as she saw it was a tranquilizer dart. "Whaa…" she tried to say before falling to her knees, instantly losing consciousness.

And as Venom pulled himself together from the unexpected barrage of sound, a new female voice rang out in the night. "Well, that's got her out from under our feet. You okay there, big guy?"

Venom looked up at this, growling and groaning as he tried to stand, before looking up at the newcomer. It was a woman with purple hair, pale skin, and a purple and black outfit that reminded Izuku of a character created by an incredibly ancient comic book company called Detective Comics or DC for short. Rachel Roth, hero name Raven, was the character the woman called to mind, but considering the fact that her right arm was currently reverting from a tranquilizer gun while the other was shifting from a high-powered sniper rifle, this woman's abilities were very different.

"Yeah, we're just dandy… well, we will be once the ringing in our ears stops… was not expecting All Might to not only figure out our weakness, but spill the beans on what it was. Then again, we suppose he was there at the USJ at the time…"

The woman raised an eyebrow at this, "Why do you hate All Might so much, if you don't mind me asking. The guys back at Tartarus I can get, nearly half the cells if not more are full thanks to him, but…"

Venom let out a long growl as he responded, "He crushed our hopes! Our dreams! We looked up to him for nearly all our life, aspiring to become a hero like him, saving people with a smile. 'Anyone can be a hero!' he said, only for us to find out the truth from him, that what he'd said was nothing more than PR bullshit, that it's actually only the people with power who can become heroes, and the right powers at that! That is why we hate him and fakes like him! Frauds who care more about the paycheck, fame, glory, and their petty little pissing contest to out-showboat each other than actually protecting the innocent and punishing the wicked, eyes on them and on the clock or not."

The woman gave Venom a sympathetic look. "I understand where you're coming from, but blaming everything on a minority doesn't help anyone kid. You want to make the fakes stop being around? Then you go after the source, not the symptom."

Venom's mask moved as though he were raising an eyebrow. "What's the source? You mean the HPSC? Heh, its president is out of a job thanks to us."

"Yeah, I noticed. Otherwise I'd still be in Tartarus right now, eating prison food. Had you not dethroned the witch, I would never would've gotten the chance to finish the job and destroy the organization once and for all."

"Finish the job?" Venom asked.

The woman turned and looked down at the streets below. "...my name is Kaina Tsutsumi. I used to be a hero called Lady Nagant in the employ of the HPSC. I was recruited through something called Project Paragon. It was started years ago to create the best heroes possible, but only if they followed the will of the HPSC."

Venom hummed in thought. "Sounds like an off-the-books program to build minions for the HPSC. Question is, what were they going to be used for? Was this their plan to fill the gap left by All Might when he retired or if he was killed in action, or was it something worse?"

"All things considered, I'd probably go with 'something worse,'" replied Nagant. "Regardless of the intent, it does not excuse their, shall we say, recruitment methods, nor what they did and likely still are doing to those they recruit, myself included."

"See, how they recruit for Project Paragon is by taking young children with powerful Quirks from their parents. Sometimes they buy them off their parents, sometimes they take them in after their parents are killed in an accident, or an 'accident' if the parents say no. After that, those children are indoctrinated and brainwashed. They essentially lose their souls, and effectively become mindless drones of the HPSC, and that's me putting their methods lightly. But every now and again, you get people like me, who manage to break free of the brainwashing. I was lucky enough to only be framed by the HPSC and locked up in Tartarus for life without parole. Others, on the other hand, such as those who refused to break and be remolded by the HPSC, were simply disposed of. One and done. Their graves have no markers, and those of them who still have parents alive and looking for them, will never be found."

"...yep, this shady shit needs to be shut down like last decade, and those children the HPSC snatched need to be rescued ASAP," growled Venom, anger evident in his voice. "Though, we can't help but wonder… why come to us with this information? Something tells us you didn't bring us this tidbit as a thank-you for getting you out of Tartarus after being framed for crimes you didn't commit."

Nagant nodded. "Indeed. I came to you because security around even the least protected of these facilities is incredibly tight, and odds are good that they've only tightened the security after the old witch was dethroned. The HPSC will do almost anything to make sure that Project Paragon, in no uncertain terms, does not exist as far as the world, the rest of the Japanese government included, is concerned. And considering how you were able to dethrone the witch and several corrupt heroes in a single masterstroke, you clearly have a set of skills that would help my mission to bring Project Paragon to light and shut the HPSC down once and for all."

"We see…" Venom hummed, "Very well, then. We're in. It's time for the world to see just how corrupt the HPSC really is, and bring down the organization once and for all!"

Nagant smiled. "Excellent. I happen to know where we can find one of the Project Paragon facilities. Follow me!" she said before she leapt from the rooftop onto one nearby, Venom following closely behind.

The Mustafu Docks - A Short Time Later

Venom and Lady Nagant grunted as they landed on a building facing what by all appearances was an abandoned waterfront warehouse. Yet, judging by the way Nagant was glaring at the building, it was likely not as abandoned as it seemed. Venom's suspicions were confirmed when Nagant spoke next. "That's the facility," She then pointed at the building, "It's probably one of their smaller facilities, but they've likely spared as little expense as possible on their security measures, and it looks like they are using camo tech to hide their presence. Probably appropriated and upgraded from the stuff left behind by those Hunter nutjobs…"

Izuku grimaced from behind Venom's mask. Yeah, he remembered hearing about the Hunters. A while back, not long after he'd been diagnosed as Quirkless and Bakugou turned his back on him and Ichi, Mustafu had come under siege by a group of individuals known as the Hunters, led by a grizzled old man whose name Izuku couldn't quite remember, who essentially wanted to die with dignity in a glorious last stand. To that end, he and his minions had all but invaded Mustafu to hunt down and butcher heroes and villains alike, all of whom had very powerful Quirks. In fact, it was one of the very few times since the dawn of Quirks where heroes and villains had no choice but to call a ceasefire and work together to drive them out. In the end, the leader got what he wanted, and met his end by the hand of one of the villains' leaders, though who exactly it was was kept unusually hush-hush. At this point though, Venom couldn't help but wonder if the HPSC had something to do with that.

"So, what's the plan?" asked Venom as he glared at the warehouse.

Nagant pulled out a small device that pulled up an exterior schematic of the Project Paragon facility that she rotated and tapped to bring up what seemed to be a key point of interest. "First, we'll need to disable the camo field by wrecking the junction box here. I'll have that part covered and keep an eye on the exterior of the facility in case any fully trained Paragons or the like decide to come looking for trouble. Then, you'll neutralize the exterior guards, take a keycard off of one of them, and search for an entrance to the facility proper. The warehouse used to be a hideout for a villain cabal way back, and those guys loved their secret passages and hidden lairs. Once inside, you'll need to take out the guards inside, as well as the Paragon in charge. This is supposed to be one of the least protected facilities for the project, so you shouldn't have too much trouble."

Inside The Project Paragon Facility - One Hour Later

Venom grunted as a blast of yellow energy fired by a man in a black and yellow exosuit with a pair of robotic appendages that had just fired the aforementioned laser sent him flying into a wall. Getting into the facility itself had been fairly easy once the exterior guard had been taken out. It was a simple matter of searching shipping containers for the right junction box that opened the hidden entrance leading into the facility. After that, however, good God, King In Black, and any other deities in existence, moving through the facility was anything but easy. Between guards that had Quirks that would have made the Deku he used to be making a lake with his drool, floors that had moving safe areas to walk, laser guns, sonic pulse guns, and every other villain's lair trap and tactic in the book, Venom had finally arrived at the containment cells where the kids were supposedly being held… and where the asshole he was currently fighting had been waiting for him.

"'Shouldn't have too much trouble" she says,' Izuku snarked inside his head before Venom launched his fist in a biomass and struck the man, apparently called "Buzzkill" by his subordinates. The attack struck Buzzkill in the chest, sending him stumbling back before he regained his footing and launched himself at Venom using his organic wings with an energy-charged fist. Venom then ducked under the strike, causing the thug to punch a hole in the wall directly behind Venom, making him stuck.

'Now we can do some real damage!' thought Izuku and Venom as one before the Symbol of Vengeance charged, one of his hands turning into his mace as scored a solid hit on Buzzkill, knocking his helmet off of the man.

Both Izuku and Venom grimaced as they saw Buzzkill's face. It was all too clear that the man had a wasp Mutant Quirk, a yellowjacket wasp if Izuku's bug knowledge was accurate. But at the same time, Izuku saw what Lady Nagant had been talking about: There was no light in Buzzkill's insect-like eyes. Only a dark and empty void, and what human features he had displayed no sign of any form of emotion. And that more than anything strengthened Izuku's resolve to shut down all this insanity.

"You know, you looked better with the mask on," Venom growled before he punched Buzzkill in the face, knocking him out cold with his hand still stuck in the wall.

Venom then released a tired sigh before stalking off toward the containment cells where Project Paragon's captives were being held. Hopefully, there would be no more bullshit between getting the kids out of here and leaving the scene.

Hopefully.

Outside the Facility - A Short Time Later

As they watched the heroes and police escort the guards, Buzzkill, and the abducted children to a waiting prisoner transport or into the arms of their parents or Child Services. As this happened, Venom and Lady Nagant watched the scene from a nearby rooftop.

"You know, for the first time in a long time, I actually feel satisfied doing hero work," Nagant said with a smile, "You alright? Buzzkill's one of Project Paragon's best."

"We'll live," Venom growled, "More importantly, if this was one of the least protected Project Paragon facilities and we had to go through all that shit, there's no way we can do it alone. We'll need to assemble a team of vigilantes in order to completely destroy it."

"Yeah, I suppose you're right," Nagant sighed, "I'll do some searching around and see who I can turn up. I'll find you again when I've got some leads."

Venom nodded before leaping into the air and swinging away into the night.

Elsewhere…

A young man with slicked back black hair clad in a black overcoat, a black shirt underneath a black kevlar vest, black fingerless gloves, black cargo pants, and black combat boots carrying a bo-staff in one hand and a fistful of trading cards in the other smiled up at what looked like a large burly brute of a creature that looked like a humanoid macaque wearing traditional Japanese clothing underneath various pieces of metal as makeshift armor. In his armor-covered hand was a red metal bo staff with golden ends. Surrounding the two were several unconscious bodies.

"Thanks for the help, big guy," the man in the coat said, looking up at the beastman with a friendly smile. Said beastman grunted and nodded. "Name's Jacque LeBleu, but you can call me Gamble. You got a name?"

The beastman spoke in a surprisingly high pitched voice. "The name's Sarumaru Ukiō… wait, scratch that, reverse it." He said before spinning and pointing at Gamble. "Saruō Ukimaru, sore ga ore no na da(that's what my name is)." He said, laughing a monkey's laugh as he leaned on the bo staff.

TheRedeemer1995: And that's a bingo! So, the deets on these characters. Gamble is, simply put, a Gambit expy, made in a sort of tribute to the character following his death in X-Men 97, I think it was. As for the other guy, Sauro Ukimaru, he's based on the main character of that new Sun Wukong game, uh, Black Myth: Sun Wukong, I think it's called, right legionnaire?

Legionnaireblaze: Part Black Myth: Wukong, part Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. The armor on his hands and forearms is from Enslaved, and he has a control headband also from Enslaved, while the rest is from Black Myth, with a more monkey-like appearance. He's just as buff as the two inspirations, but underneath the clothing is a lot of fur, since he was originally a monkey.

TheRedeemer1995: Yeah, so anyways, legionnaire broached the idea of bringing in this character, who's a far more jolly and comedic character to help balance out the darker, grittier, more serious, and possibly edgy setting and characters, and I figured that it could be interesting to have a character like that around, so I agreed.

Additionally, I can indeed confirm that the whole "HPSC having a secret program where they brainwash people acquired in ways that may or may not be actually very illegal and/or their fault in the first place into becoming mindless drones who say how high when the HPSC tells them to jump" thing was very much inspired by the Paragons from the works of Mirrond over on Ao3. Considering all the other shit the HPSC has pulled in this AU, I figured we might as well add "super-secret brainwashing/indoctrination program of unique and powerful children and potentially accidenting their parents in the process" to the list of their crimes. Seriously, though, why is it so easy to make the HPSC and the people who run it so corrupt and arguably evil?

In any case, if you liked what you saw here, then be sure to fave, follow, review, and join us next time as Izuku finally settles the score with Aldera Junior High and rights the wrongs commited by the hellhole of a school! See you then!

Legionnaireblaze: Bye-bye!