Dishonorable Discharge
DEATH BATTLE!: Flash Thompson vs James Heller (Marvel VS [PROTOTYPE])
Anyway, welcome back to Mohs Marvelous Matchups! No that names fucking cringe forget I said anything.
The United States of America prides itself on many things. It’s freedom, its disregard for human rights and its own ability to break records for the amount of school shootings in a year, every year! But above all else, it seems to take great pride in its armed forces, at least if the absurd amounts of money pumped into it year on year is anything to go by. Men and Women equipped with the best equipment money can buy and enough training to make Batman envious.
In popular culture, we call these people cannon fodder when confronted with the blatantly superhuman threats they are faced with, like seriously they get FUCKED up dude. Turns out, if you want them to keep up, you just need to equip them with a gelatinous biomass capable of devouring any and everything in their way.
Such as Corporal Flash Thompson, Peter Parker’s bully turned best friend and the second most famous wielder of the symbiote Venom, and later, Anti-Venom.
Or Sergeant James Heller, The second “Prototype”, wielder of the Blacklight Virus on a quest to murder his maker.
Both men have risen above and beyond the call of duty, earned medals of honor and proven their worth on the battlefield even before becoming biological horrors beyond mortal comprehension, but which goopy boy will be the last man standing…sliming?
Let’s take a peek.
FLASH THOMPSON
The phrase “Be careful who you pick on in Highschool” you often hear thrown around online could honestly sum up Eugene “Flash” Thompsons early life and honestly what's kinda been his legacy in live action media. Born in Queens New York to an alcoholic policeman father who abused him and a mother who enabled that behavior and even blamed him for it, Flash’s highschool days are exactly what you would expect for a kid with this kind of upbringing. Midtown High’s star quarterback whose speed earned him his nickname, the popularity wasn’t enough for Flash and he developed jealousy towards those smarter than him. Again, stereotypical. Naturally, his target of choice was the smartest but nerdiest kid in school, Peter Parker. Flash differs from most bullies of the era in that his kindness towards anyone who wasn’t Puny Parker was 100% genuine and he was a good person! You know those tropes for bullies where nobody believes the victim cause they are a good kid? Nah for Flash that makes sense.
His grades may not be spectacular, though not awful and he was a bully, but he still had a pretty steady relationship with Liz Allen and even more notably, one of the first people to support New York’s newest Vigilante, The Amazing, Spectacular, Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. He set up a Spider-Man fanclub for anyone who wasn’t Peter and even drove off Daily Bugle reporters trying to slander Spider-Man's name, or taking up his mantle when he supposedly ran away from a fight (which did not end well for Flash) Flash tried to model everything after Spidey, which is really ironic given he was….bullying Spider-Man.
Things changed however in Empire State University, which Flash got to on a scholarship. He’d broken up with Liz at this point, who left him for Peter, so his rivalry with him at first was all the more volatile, but in the end the very classmates Flash had turned on Peter, Gwen Stacy and Harry Osborn, convinced Flash and Peter to bury the hatchet and the two became friends, eventually even best friends. When Flash isn’t taking out his repressed anger at his father on him, he and Peter get along well, given both are wise cracking New Yorkers dealt a bad hand.
Flash wasn’t an academic at heart however and always was driven to try and be a hero, like Spider-Man, so left college to go join the US Army. This first tour in southeast Asia was pretty brief, with Flash leaving the army after his allies bombed a temple full of innocent civilians he was in and trying to save. Flash’s return to civilian life was not smooth, with a brush with alcoholism and classic soap opera style love triangles. His relationship with Peter was even pretty up and down with Norman Osborn hiring Flash solely to annoy Peter, but Peter still made Flash his best man when he married Mary-Jane Watson.
Tying yourself to Norman Osborn is not a good move (Read his bout with Kazuya Mishima I helped Meddadius work on HERE) and as he is want to do, Norman abused his relationship with Flash to KIDNAP HIM FROM AN ALCOHOLIC ANONYMOUS MEETING, SEND HIM OUT IN A TRUCK AND HAVE HIM CRASH INTO MIDTOWN HIGH! Classic Norman, what a jokester.
Flash didn’t get out of this unscathed and ended up in a coma, eventually waking up during the Civil War, regressing back to his former self from highschool due to amnesia. Just when Pete revealed to the world he was Spidey, cause Civil War. It took a bit for Flash to reconcile this reality, but eventually he recovered his memories for the most part. But apparently not enough to realize army bad, as he re-enlisted for a second tour. This time in Iraq.
Not Gonna Lie, Leaving the Army due to moral corruption just to return for a tour in Iraq is peak irony, and clearly Karma agreed cause Flash returned half the man he used to be.
Losing his legs saving his partner, which a Medal of Honor doesn’t exactly make up for the loss of and at his lowest, this is, at last, when the story of Flash Thompson truly begins.
Enlisting in the government program “Project Rebirth 2.0”, which was attempting to make Super Soldiers (Hence why it reuses the name of the project that gave Steve Rodgers his powers all those years ago) via Symbiotes, Flash was bonded to the recently captured Venom Symbiote, seized from Mac Garagan after the failed Siege of Asgard (Dammit Norman). The Symbiote was pumped full of targeted drugs to keep the alien passive and Flash sane, in return for reducing the suits relative power down to merely the levels of its first famous earthbound host, Spider-Man. Naturally, Flash was delighted to be like his hero, but due to his past in the army and otherwise, Flash was slightly more jaded than Puny Parker ever was.
The Venom symbiote is one of the Marvel Universe's most infamous weapons, a living suit of alien biomass which gives its host enhanced abilities in exchange for keeping it alive. In particular, this line of symbiotes are synonymous with gifting its host with the abilities of Spidey, but all enhanced. Superior Strength and Speed, literal bulletproof durability able to tank hits from a pissed Spidey and laugh, a better healing factor, a pseudo Spider-Sense as effective as the original if not moreso, an immunity to Spideys own Spider-Sense, the works, to make this toothed menace the most dangerous foe Spider-Man faced on the regular when it was attached to the brawler driven by vengeance alone, Eddie Brock. However despite its lessened power levels, Flash was much more creative with its powers than Eddie was at the time.
For example, Symbiotes can make weapons with their biomass right? Claws, webs from tendrils, its legendary fangs, blades etc right? Well Flash figured out that given its speed and finesse (the symbiote had already proven to work on a molecular level and was able to do stuff like travel through the internet) he could reassemble guns he kept in pieces in his suit to basically become a walking armory, and with the tendrils he can shoot them all at once! Heck once he kept a live fucking grenade in there as a surprise tool to help us later. However his weapon of choice was a bit more technologically advanced than the standard pistols and assault rifles he kept in the goop. The Multi Gun was developed for him by project Rebirth, keyed into a his DNA so it will only work for him, and as its name implies it is able to transform into a high powered Automatic Assault Rifle, you know the kind kids buy these days, or a Sniper Rifle in an instant. Given he was basically a secret agent…its in the name, he also tended to use Venoms appearance altering abilities more than Eddie did too, being able to turn himself invisible, change his clothes and general appearance to even that of an old woman or just….turn the accents of the suit red for a bit to fit in a team up properly.
Flash was a pretty major part of several events while Agent Venom. He helped save New York during the Spider-Island event where he developed a rivalry with Eddie, now Anti-Venom, he escaped from Captain Americas Secret Avengers trying to reclaim the symbiote, traveled to hell in the process and helped Red Hulk, Ghost Rider and X-23 defeat Blackheart, joined said Secret Avengers and even defeated Carnage with the help of Kaine the Scarlet Spider. He was even able to survive when Eddie showed up with the Toxin symbiote and an Anti Symbiote team to try and kill him, wanting to rid the world of Venom once and for all, but Flash eventually convinced him that he, and Venom, could be heroes. His most impressive achievement however was the fact that he eventually got through to the suit itself, which had been overcome with an almost feral rage since birth. The suit ALWAYS wanted to do good, but between bad hosts and being rejected by good ones, it became the eat your legs, eat your arms, turd in the wind Lethal Protector at best/Villain at worst we all know. Flash, being the best possible mix of Peter’s “believe the best in everyone” and Eddie’s “kill evil doers” approach possible, cause soldier, was the perfect partner for it.
Flash and the suit were in such good standing on earth they became the Avengers dedicated liaison to the Guardians of the Galaxy, a role which the likes of Captain Marvel and Iron Man were entrusted to fulfill at points, but nah let's have VENOM do it right now. The Symbiote going into space for the first time since it arrived on Earth, at least for an extended time, eventually led it into contact with the Symbiote Hive planet who cleansed it of its madness it had been fighting through with Flash’s influence and buffed its power, making it an Agent of the Cosmos, whose job it was to just go round and help people in space. This string of mostly good fortune of course meant that Flash was due to crash back down to Earth.
Literally. Arriving back on Earth on time for the second Civil War and squaring up against Miles Morales, Venom lost its power and its sanity due to the cleansing of the hive being incomplete, due to it leaving a clone of itself and the Hellmark it picked up from Hell on Flash’s protegee Andi Benton, going around as Mania. While Flash was able to cure her, the same could not be said for his partner, who was slowly diving back into his insanity. The FBI, fucking up as only the FBI truely can, then showed up and attacked Flash with Anti Symbiote tech, separating him from the suit which took off to escape its partner and the government.
Flash was depressed, of course, but you can’t keep a good soldier down, so he picked himself up and began a wild goose chase around the country to track down his partner, which bounced from the gangster Lee Price back to its old host, Eddie Brock, who Flash eventually tracked down after Andi had her Symbiote taken by Price. But Eddie and Venom had been through ALOT since Flash was out of the picture, reconciling and both striving to become better people despite their issues….but Flash was the first person to give Venom a proper chance. The alien goop was conflicted and tried to, somehow, bond to both of its favorite hosts….which is when its LEAST Favorite host came in and fucked everything up as only Peter Parker can.
See, while Venom had gone through ALOT of character development over the years, Peter was present for basically none of it beyond Eddie agreeing not to actively hunt him in his initial Lethal Protector days. Sure he was near Agent Venom during the Spider Island debacle, but it was hopped up on drugs at the time, and every other time he’s interacted with it, it's tried to kill him or been amnesiac or something. Now it was fully sentient and making its own choices, and Peter saw something he saw as pure evil trying to take over his best friend and also Eddie. He made an impulsive, stupid decision and took a nearby vat of Anti-Venom serum Alchemax had developed and dumped it over the suit as it tried to bond with its boytoys. Eddie got away with most of the suit, saving it, but the bit left on Flash became something…else. The Anti-Venom Antibodies, the chunk of Venom on Flash and Flash’s powerful Codice (basically the core of Symbiosis that every symbiote leaves in its hosts) all merged together to become the second coming of Eddie's old Symbiote. Anti-Venom.
Initially conceived when the living abyss of the symbiote still left in Eddie Brock was exposed to Mister Negative’s Lightforce healing powers when Martin Li was healing his cancer, the Anti-Venom Symbiote is exactly what it says on the tin in many ways, but also not. Anti-Venom is more powerful than Venom in every way that matters, including strength, speed and durability, but also in terms of its scope of abilities. While it had all of the old suits' powers, it had some new exclusive ones, such as a healing touch capable of doing…exactly what Li did for Eddie, healing infections, cancers, diseases etc instantly and even curing radiation sickness…like Spider-Man’s powers at the time. Just a touch turned Peter Parker back to Puny Parker, possibly permanently if it lasted too long. Healing is the suit's aim of the game, with it having a better healing factor more comparable to Venom's more natural child Carnage, able to heal even from having its host brains scattered on the pavement American History X style. It even wasn’t weak to the symbiotes standard weaknesses in fire and heat! In fact, minus being overpowered or overtaxed in its healing, the Symbiote has no discernible real weaknesses in this incarnation! And, minus the Spider-Man No More power drain, the Agent Anti-Venom suit retained ALL of these powers.
After a bunch of drama from your hero trying to murder your partner (One Day More had happened, Flash didn’t know Peter was Spider-Man anymore) and the drama between Eddie and Venom as well as Peter and Black Cat, Flash and his allies successfully stopped Lee Price and his Maniacs gang, with Flash giving Eddie the same ultimatum he gave him as Toxin back in the day but in reverse. Instead of being told to keep the Symbiote in line or die, he was to keep himself in line or die, but Flash had faith in Eddie's clear heroism displayed since he and the suit rebonded, and he’s been proven right in the many crises Eddie has solved after this moment! Such as the Poison Invasion, a multiversal invasion force of Symbiote Predators who took over Symbiotes and their Hosts, adding them to their hive. While Venom led the main charge, Anti-Venom was possibly the most powerful weapon against the horde, able to disintegrate these hosts in their entirety, which was a massive boon in keeping the fight alive until Jean Grey psychically took the hive down, leaving one Poison left alive in the whole Multiverse. The only Poison able to keep up with Flash was fucking Thanos. Jesus christ the dudes a whole new level of OP if Symbiotes are involved.
OP, but not invincible as Good Ole Stormin Normin proved during his rampage as Red Goblin. With the Carnage Symbiotes' newfound invulnerability to Sonics and Heat, Flash was the only effective weapon left, all he needed to do was hold onto Norman for an extended period of time and he’d end the nightmare for good. Unfortunately, Norman doesn’t play by your rules and started to mortally wound all the heroes he’d already defeated, like Miles, Silk, Human Torch and more. He gave Flash an ultimatum. Save them, and let me beat the crap out of you or Kill me and watch your allies die.
If you’ve been paying attention you know exactly what Flash chose.
Thus, with the discovery of the symbiotes weakness to electricity at the worst possible time when the suit was overtaxed, Flash life was ended, once again ruined when he was on an upswing, by Norman Fucking Osborn.
Which is a fucking shame cause about now is when the Marvel Universe was starting to get the rumblings of Knulls return, which kicked off in full swing when Cleatus Cassidy returned AGAIN and tore the Marvel Universes Symbiote Wielders past and present apart. Man having a dedicated anti Symbiote soldier would be real handy.
But cometh the hour, cometh the man, as Eddie discovered when he himself was murdered by the big bad Knull himself. Ending up in the Symbiote Hive Mind’s “Purgatory”, Flash and Rex Strickland (A Symbiote Wielder from the Vietnam War who once fought with Wolverine) had formed an army to oppose Knull from the inside. Thanks to the efforts of Thor, Storm and Eddies Son Dylan freeing a bunch of people from Symbiotes, Eddie and Flash were able to resurrect themselves, Eddie in Venom who freed himself from Knull from sheer force of will and Flash in a pile of discarded Symbiotes and, even more impressively, Symbiote Dragons, which he formed into one Anti-Venom Symbiote Dragon, which he was able to, at Eddie’s Suggestion, bond to his corpse and effectively bring himself back to life.
Symbiote Dragons are the backbone of Knulls invasion force for a reason. More powerful ones are designed to take on guys like the fucking Silver Surfer, but even weaker ones that Knull probably spammed on Earth and thus probably make up Flash’s current partner are able to take on Iron Mans more modern armours and forced him to infect one with Extremis to control it. Iron Man at the time was returning to more classic suits for the most part, but even less advanced suits than these retro ones are probably superior to his old Silver Centurion armor, which punched apart that meteor as big as Manhattan. Even more minor symbiotes are able to tank nukes (depending on the circumstances) and are god tiers among street levelers, which you all know how this goes by now. FTL reactions even without Spider-Senses, multiple Kiloton feats the whole shebang, but Flash is much stronger than this now. The upgrade even came with new abilities! Flash is now able to generate any guns he wants from his biomass, no parts needed, and as is the case with pretty much any Symbiote these days, let alone Dragons, he can form wings to fly along, no longer needing to swing everywhere if he doesn’t want to. He hasn’t shown the biomass breath that dragons have shown, but that's probably because it’s gross and he’s a good guy. You know what Marvel tends to do with their good guys. He can even seemingly create Necroswords, the blades symbiotes can make to help them kill immortals, though not as powerful as THEE Necrosword Gorr used that was from Knull himself.
And finally it gave him a new form to Vulk up into.
See, back in the day when Venom was all drugged up, it wasn’t exactly happy about it, and attempted to assert its control whenever it could. Thus if it ever got its foot in the door, normally when Flash got mad, it could return to its old level of power and monstrous appearance, hence the Hulk inspired title. When it became Flash’s partner rather than a drugged up weapon, it’s Vulking up was more for going into its Space Knight form and the like, where it was able to cover spaceships and shit in its biomass. Anti-Venom 2 didn’t have…any of this which is probably why he died tbh, but this new 3rd version can revert to the appearance of its granddaddy or if Flash is more in control and not just letting it go feral, it retains its Agent Venom stylings with a glowing mouth horns, wings and claws. This is Flash when he’s just done with your shit, like when he saved Andi from the Carnagized Phage or even when he pumped the Extrembiote/Carnage fusion full of lead and drove it away from a crippled Tony Stark.
That said, he’s not invincible, not close. Thanks to Thor’s defeat of Grendel back in the day, powerful Symbiotes are cripplingly afraid of electricity and thus are weak to it (similarly weaker symbiotes spawned from the Necrosword are weak to Sonic and Flames, trauma from its forging) and its healing factor can be overtaxed which is what led to his death to Norman. Speaking of which, as shown in his current stint with the Savage Avengers, Flash is superior in control and when the suit is let run riot on its own it’s MUCH weaker, going down to fucking arrows, it’s weaker after time travel (but not dimensional travel which the Maker claims Symbiotes are real good at) and most notably, the suit is literally keeping Flash Alive, just like Grendel Carnage was Cleatus during Absolute Carnage. Should the Symbiote be removed from him or his healing be overtaxed, he’ll probably just drop dead cause he’s just a reanimated, regenerated flesh puppet right now. Outside the weaknesses of the suit itself, Flash is vulnerable to his own personal demons, being a recovering alcoholic ironically enough, a Spider-Man style wisecracking habit that either helps or hurts him and speaking of Spider-Man he’s very prone to self doubt because again, like Spider-Man, he tends to get fucked over. Alot.
The Anti-Venom 3 Symbiote was weakened by the Cimireans Arrows because they were on fire but only in his feral state, otherwise it takes sun levels of heat to kill Symbiote Dragons. Similarly the Living Brain claimed it had isolated the sonic frequency that would make Flash powerless in Amazing Spider-Man 900. But outside going insane and facing super geniuses these weaknesses do not apply.
But you can’t keep a good soldier down.
In a post Knull world Symbiotes are both a huge threat and misunderstood. Between time traveling Kings in Black, Cleatus codice making its own hive embedded in the anti Symbiote Movement and the Carnage Symbiote flying solo killing Spider-Man C-list villains to take their broken powers and kill gods and Dark Elves, Symbiotes are either attacking every facet of humanity or being attacked like the Mutants were in days gone by (Though with A.X.E. ongoing its not the symbiotes bout to get Genocided ayooooo). Fortunately, be you a symbiote who needs protecting or a somebody who needs help against Symbiotes, Flash Thompson will be there, with his crack team of….children, ready to save the world for goop monsters or from goop monsters because he understands one universal truth.
With great power comes great responsibility…to shoot aliens in the face.
"They're bad people. They deserve this beating. When they wake up in a cold sweat in the dead of night. I want it to be my face that haunts them."
JAMES HELLER
Then the second pandemic happened WAIT DON’T FREAK MONKEYPOKS AREN’T THAT WIDESPREAD YET!!!
This was not the world of COVID and antivax nutjobs. This was the world that was plagued by the much more sinister Blacklight Virus. And while Heller's family survived the first quarantine, this time they were not as lucky, with Heller rushing home just to find his Wife's corpse and not even that much of his beloved daughter to bury.
Heller saw red and when he heard that this strain of Blacklight was once again released by Alex Mercer, he was gonna kill the former savior of New York or die trying. The elite spec ops unit Blackwatch tended to delegate patrols into the “Red Zone” the most infected area of Manhattan to the Marines and volunteers given they were basically PR stunts for the general populace to be shown doing SOMETHING while also being suicide missions. Heller, being in the sound frame of mind he was, signed up INSTANTLY to try and get his hands on the madman behind the viral disaster.
Luckily, or unluckily, that’s exactly what happened when the helicopter into the Red Zone was attacked by the local projectile motorized vehicles….in other words something tossed a car at the heli and Heller was the sole survivor. Mercer dropped in to look at the corpses of Hellers comrades, inspecting fresh meat perhaps. Heller in his enraged state charged him and slit his throat which had exactly no effect, before stabbing him over and over. Amused, Alex watched as Heller made his way through the Red Zone and even killed one of the larger Infected, a Hunter Brawler, with only a combat knife. Alex saw potential in him and infected the Sergeant with his own personal strand of Blacklight, leaving him to either evolve…or die.
Heller awoke in a lab a changed man…if you could even call him a man at all.
The Blacklight Virus is a highly contagious, normally lethal infection synthesized from a hippie child infected with a different virus, Redlight, both viruses being designed by Blackwatch for biological warfare because the Geneva Convention is a suggestion I guess. The virus basically enters living cells and reactivates some junk code and repurposes it in order to force the host to evolve. This process is quite violent and as such the survival rate for complete infection is low. In fact one of the two “survivors” didn’t actually survive, but was resurrected and basically became the Virus given Sentience. This was Mercer. But Heller was different. The man's DNA was as resilient as he himself was, allowing him to survive the infection and like Mercer…weaponise it. He became the second Prototype.
Prototypes are the apex predator of the world, becoming the ultimate evolving killing machines. The Virus basically mutates their cells like a super cancer, allowing them to generate a dense pulsating biomass which they can use to shapeshift and augment their abilities. The preferred method of combat is shifting their arms into different Melee weapons to eviscerate their enemies, allowing them to add fallen foes biomass to themselves to increase their power or heal themselves.
The Claws allow Heller to unleash his rage and ravage anything in his path in a frenzy, the Blade is a giant combat knife for when Heller wants more power and precision in his slices rather than the ferocity and speed of his claws. When he wants pure power, he can use the Hammerfist, giant boxing gloves that basically pop anything they come in contact with, while if he wants to trade in power and speed for range and maneuverability he can do his best Scorpion impression with the Whipfist. If Heller wants to grapple opponents he can use his Tendrils to ensnare them in biomass, or even shoot them out of a grappled opponent and pull objects in at them with even more Tendrils! Though Hellers preferred method of grappling seems to be wrestling inspired because of course. Finally should he want to be more defensive, Heller can form Shields on his arms which are practically impervious to harm. Hellers squishy biomass body is already only minorly inconvenienced by bullets, but the shields are outright bulletproof, explosion proof, stab proof and even rocket proof, heck he can even send rockets right back to sender!
On top of these stabby smashy hand transformations Heller is naturally faster and stronger than a normal man, faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Heck he can even fly! Well, more glide, by expelling a slight amount of excess Biomass as he moves through the air, giving him alot of horizontal distance when jumping, parkour and swinging off helicopters isn’t enough. The Virus malleability is its greatest asset, which is where it's incredibly potent healing comes from. So long as he’s stocked with biomass, which he can always refuel on by consuming any biological matter with his body, he’ll heal from almost any injury, even missing limbs! Hell, rather infamously Alex Mercer himself was able to survive a nuke by consuming a bird with the last bit of biomass that survived the blast! Consuming Biomass doesn’t just fuel his regeneration, it also adds the victims memories to the Web of Intrigue, which Heller can access at any time to learn whatever they know, as well as letting Heller mimic his latest victims down to their voice and clothing. Don’t try to sneak up on him with similar tactics however, as the virus grants Heller superior eyesight and a sonar sense, allowing him to track down any targets he sets his sights on.
These abilities didn’t come to Heller off the bat however, but as a result of the path of destruction he carved upon awakening from Mercer's STD transfer, needing to consume more powerful infected to evolve his body further. He was “convinced” by Mercer that it was Blackwatch, not himself, that was responsible for the second outbreak and thus his family's death, feeding him just the right victims to consume and back up this worldview. But of course, this was a ruse. While Blackwatch wasn’t innocent, of course, it’s a shady government organization that's responsible for Redlight AND Blacklights creation, it was indeed Mercer who started this second outbreak and Heller didn’t trust him no matter what Mercer fed him. Sure he’d gladly destroy Blackwatch and it’s public face, Gentek, but Mercer still was under his watchful eye, especially as Heller discovered a lot of the higher ups were Mercers people, Evolved, people infected with a lesser strain of the virus with one or two Prototype abilities.
Mercer claimed that this was to destroy Gentek and Blackwatch from the inside out, but Heller saw Video evidence of the second outbreak starting with Mercer, just like the first did but this was MUCH more intentional. Heller stopped Mercer's plan of using the cure to Blacklight, creatively named Whitelight, contaminated with his blood by his operatives, to make all of Manhattan and then the world into Evolved, with him as ruler. This is when Mercer figured his amusement with Heller's antics was at an end and attempted to kill him, but wasn’t strong enough to consume his resilient DNA structure. Heller barely survived the encounter while Mercer had to lick his wounds and come up with a new plan. Heller needed to pull out all the stops if he wanted to beat the beast.
Fortunately he did have a few aces up his sleeve, like the Biobomb technique which allowed him to use other people and infected as explosives of biomass, think his Tendril techniques but much more stealthy and in a human shaped capsule. Alternatively he had his Devastators, supermoves that allowed Heller to expel his excess biomass in one massive move, letting him create a massive explosion of tendrils from his body or even summon 4 Brawler Hunter infected to fight for him. This, plus taking out Mercer’s chain of command gave Heller enough power to challenge Alex when Mercer contacted him again….just the wrong Mercer. Dana Mercer, Alex’s sister, didn’t agree with the nihilism Alex picked up between the two games and decided to oppose him, giving Heller a peace offering to get him on side to destroy the man that was once her brother. The information that his daughter, Amaya Heller, was still alive.
Heller, newly driven not by revenge but to save the only family he had left, was a whirling dervish of demolition, tearing apart all of Blackwatches forces and in turn Mercers with their own weapons, or his own rage. He’s a master of using the enemies weapons and the environment against them. Eventually, Dana did find Amaya, in Blackwatch custody and the head of Blackwatch Colonel Rooks let Heller take back his daughter and leave the city. But he wasn’t the top dog, Alex Mercer was, and he sent his forces in, specifically the Evolved Heller had worked with most the CFO of Gentek Sabrina Galloway, and took Amaya right in front of Hellers eyes.
This was always gonna end one way.
Heller and Mercer, who then consumed all of his Evolved forces for a last minute power up, had one last brawl to eviscerate each other. Mercer wanted to use Amaya as a living Petri Dish, cultivating a new, evolved humanity with a combo of his virus and Hellers uniquely resilient DNA, basically a hive mind, while Heller just wanted his fucking daughter back.
“YOU’RE GONNA TELL ME! EITHER ON YOUR OWN - OR AFTER I SKULL FUCK YOU AND DRAIN YOUR MEMORIES OUT THE HOLE!”
Eloquently put.
Somehow, against all odds, against an opponent with much more experience and much more victims consumed over that timeframe, let alone all the Evolved just then and there, Heller succeeded in his original mission when he entered the Red Zone and Murdered His Maker. Using his new biomass Heller unleashed his deadliest devastator yet and absorbed every single scrap of infection in all of Manhattan in an instant! That’s…alot of goop this man sucked up....wait...
And with Mercer’s memories he…drained out the hole, Heller found Dana and Amaya, finally getting a semblance of normalcy back into his life.
The virus is op but it’s not completely invincible. Heller’s healing factor is limited by his biomass, the lower he runs on it the weaker he gets and the less he can heal. Of course, even just a bit of biomass can help, like Mercer back with the bomb, but no fleshy bits and he’s a sitting duck. The virus also isn’t immune to being fought like…a virus, though anything that doesn’t kill it will make it stronger, such as the Parasite and Bloodtox Alex fought in the first outbreak, these biological attacks did give the Virus pause and needed outside help in order to survive and adapt to. Whitelight too could have killed it off if not corrupted from within. It is also vulnerable to a lot of other things viruses are not good against, such as intense cold and heat or crossing bodies of water, but it’s much more resilient than your common viruses. And then there's Heller’s own morals.
Heller’s a good person, proof that absolute power does not necessarily corrupt absolutely. He doesn’t kill Civillians and Marines unless he absolutely has to and only resorts to murder on things that deserve it. As he told Amaya, just because you can kill something doesn’t mean you should. But if you deserve it, like Gentek and Blackwatch and Mercer, if you betray him or if you fuck with his family, there isn’t a force on Earth that can stop this Marine.
"Red Crown be advised. I'm not in fucking Blackwatch."
All right, now you know what these biological bruisers and body horror beautifiers are capable of, let's see which of these superior soldiers can beat the other into a bloody mist. One gets a medal of honor the other is given the world's worst court martial!
IT’S TIME FOR A DEATH BATTLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
See, not too dissimilar to ours!
Our POV Pans from the ground, Newspapers fluttering in the wind with headlines boldly proclaiming “HELLER VIRUS? BLACKLIGHT V3 WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW!” up a nearby building, a sound track of military traffic in the distance accompanying our sweeping view. And the grand sight that awaits us is…some dude in a hoodie.
But this is not just some dude. This is James Heller, and right now he’s the most wanted man in New York. A wanted man nobody could find, and even if they could, absolutely nobody could catch.
The door to roof access behind him opened, immediately putting that statement into question. A similarly unassuming man in a white hoodie and shorts, showing off needle-like cybernetic legs instead of flesh, emerged, not the strike force Heller was expecting. Nevertheless, he tensed. You didn’t need super senses to see aggression.
“Woah easy there!” the stranger yelled, bringing his hands up to his face in a passive gesture, a water bottle in hand, “Friendly, no need to get jumpy!” he paused, “Okay poor choice of words near a buildings edge man how does Spi..”
“Leave.” Heller growled, leaving no room for negotiation.
Dashing crippled stranger did not leave, in fact he began walking toward the fugitive, the water bottle in one hand while another went through his hoodie's collar. “Relax, I just wanna talk, one former military guy dealt a bad hand…” he finally grasped the chain around his neck and pulled out his dog tags. “To another. Colonel Flash Thompson, Army, Medal of Honor.”
Heller didn’t stand down, but also didn’t eviscerate Flash on the spot, which was a good sign. “James Heller, Sergeant. Marine.”
“Man of few words I take it?”
“No”
“Ooooookay then.”
The tension was palpable, so Flash dug deep and thought ‘What would Spidey do?’
He then proceeded to do the exact opposite to avoid getting punched.
“Loooot of people looking for you. They think you are responsible for all of…” almost as if cosmically ordained a massive explosion occurred several blocks away, almost on the horizon it was that far, enough the screaming wasn’t audible. “This. I wanna know why because to be honest, you don’t seem the type.”
Heller scoffed. “Cause I ain’t. I ain’t some lab junkie playing with people like they in petri dishes for a hobby.” His arm, hoodie sleeves and all, visibly pulsed with glowing red veins. At least, Flash thought they were veins. “I am a good scapegoat I guess.” Heller noticed Flash looked visibly surprised at the sight. “Wait, you came fuckin looking for me and didn’t know? They sending cripples as fodder or somethin?”
Flash looked mock offended. “Hey, you know you can’t say that any more right? Besides, I’m only crippled if it impares me and I assure you, I’m far from impared.”
Heller laughed “You some kind of Oscar Pistorious super soldier?”
Flash chuckled back somewhat bashfully. “Yeah I guess minus the whole…girlfriend killing…”
Heller’s eyebrow rose. “The what?”
“Nothing!” Flash exclaimed before mumbling “alternate fucking universes…” and quickly correcting himself “And besides, cripple or no cripple, nobody sent me anywhere. I’m just looking to help people and you need help.”
“Yeah right, nobody doesn’t come lookin for me without an agenda or a death wish. Which are you Thompson?”
“Depends on who you ask, I guess.” When Heller growled again, Flash was quick to again defuse the biobomb in front of him “But I seriously just want to stop this whole disaster and find whoever caused this shit.”
“It was obviously Blackwatch.”
“Blackwho?”
Heller’s fuse finally ran out of length “Thats fucking it, nobodies THAT fucking stupid!” He morphed his arms into his terrifying claws and picked Flash up by the neck, holding his claw above his head. “You gonna tell me who the fuck sent you or I find out from the puddle I turn you into!”
Before Flash could respond, a helicopter could be heard in the distance. Several, in fact. And that was from human ears. The Super Soldiers on that rooftop could hear the legions of armed forces on the street, their war machines all closing in on one location. Where they were standing. One Heli in particular carried a sound system. “HELLER, THIS IS BLACKWATCH. STAND DOWN OR WE WILL ENGAGE WITH LETHAL FORCE!”
“Fucking knew it!” Heller yelled before tossing poor Flash off the roof behind him, across the street and into the building next door. He turned back to where the helis were coming from and started yelling into the aether, like a war cry “It’s always fucking Blackwatch! These assholes just dunno when to fucking quit!”
If Heller bothered to look back he would have noticed the white tendrils emerging from the hole he’d tossed Flash into. While he missed that, he couldn’t miss the thud as a figure landed behind him.
“Yeah that's the thing about all these evil faceless organizations. They are like cockroaches. And they aren’t the only ones.” Said Flash Thompson before his symbiote suit enclosed his face in his trademark mask. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way Heller. I don’t want to hurt you.”
Heller scoffed “Better than you have tried fuckface.” and with that he leapt at the Agent.
FIGHT
Flash caught Heller with tendrils from his back mid pounce, ending that badass boast quickly. He pulled the Prototype in close, forming a pistol from parts in his suit. “Not likely.” He aimed at Heller's head as he closed.
BANG
Biomass went flying. Not blood.
Which Flash noted. This wasn’t over, not even close.
Heller confirmed as much when his head regrew from the gore left behind from the former Agent of the Cosmos first shot. “Alright bitch, you got my attention.” Heller quickly knocked the gun out of Flash’s hand - trying to take the hand along with it but the white clad soldier was a tiny bit quicker on the draw - before shifting his hands to Hammerfist and letting a haymaker fly right into Thompsons chest, tearing him free from his tendrils grip. Flash slid back, still standing even from such a blow….because some more tendrils kept him upright. Even still his feet dug into the roof's surface, leaving trenches in his wake.
Flash paused for a second, his expressionless gaze locked to Heller's own before he let out a simple: “Ow.”
Heller laughed “Getting more than you bargained for huh pogo legs?”
Flash shook himself a bit before his mask morphed slightly into a scowl. “Hard way it is then.”
His suit sprung into motion, forming several pistols in multiple tendrils, smaller than the higher pay grade one that had just blown the Marines head off but much easier to form. The goop on his back parted and almost regurgitated his newly reacquired Multi Gun which he reached back and drew like it had always been there. Perhaps it always had. This level of fire power that would have made War Machine envious was all pointed at the biological nightmare that was James Heller before he could even comprehend what was happening.
He very much comprehended the events when the bullets let fly and turned him into swiss cheese. This annoyed him greatly.
“You really should know when to stop pissing a guy off!” Heller snarked, charging into the bulletstorm without a care, Flash reorienting himself to keep him in the line of fire. This slight change in stance was just enough to catch him off guard when the Prototype flipped over him and used his Hammerfist to land another powerful blow to his spine. This time all his firearms scattered and the less prepared Anti-Venom slid along the roof top. Heller didn’t let up and picked up the fallen main weapon, shaking some of the white slime left from the skid, and pointed it at its wielder. “Let's see how you like being pumped full of lead!”
Click. Click.
“What the…?”
Flash chuckled as he got up off the floor and made a claw with his hands - both in that he looked like he was cupping something and that his fingers visibly sharpened - and this time ran at Heller rather than the inverse as has been the case so far. “Don’t go taking another man's toys, especially…!” He swiped at Heller, who barely dodged, dropping the rifle and morphing his hands into his own claws to match his assailant. “...If you don’t know how to use ‘em!”
What followed was a blur, biomass flying left and right as the two slashed and tore at each other, trying to eviscerate the other biological bruiser where they stood. A normal human couldn’t physically keep up with every swipe, only the black and white goop that began to color the roof, like a monochromatic Splatoon match.
Eventually, the pair came to a halt, Flash holding Heller’s wrists, his clawed hands trapped in a vice-like grip, smoke billowing off the point of contact. In fact, upon closer inspection, every wound on Heller’s body was enveloped in smoke, as if evaporating. Flash’s symbiote suit had seen better days, but the man underneath was unmarred.
Heller winced, trying to tug his hands free as they burned. “Let me the fuck go!”
Flash squeezed harder. “You willing to calm down?”
“I’m gonna rip out your spine army boy!”
“That’s a no then.” Flash snarked, before he gave a heave.
“GAH!”
Heller could only watch as his claws were ripped from his wrists, not dissimilar to the last time a Prototype was on the backfoot in a rooftop rumble. This time however, the Marine was the one on the receiving end of the dismemberment.
The white biomass on the roof began to bubble before it slid along the rubble, making its way back to its master and completely healing his suit. In turn, Flash enveloped the claws in a bubble of symbiote goop, which then immediately returned back to a hand shape, the claws nowhere to be seen, smoke rising from Flash’s wrists where the goop stopped moving to.
Heller grunted as he fell to his knees, getting the searing pain in his body back in order as his wounds repaired themselves and his Hammerfists reformed in place of his lost limbs. He watched as Flash nonchalantly retrieved his discarded Multi-Gun, the same one Heller failed to shoot moments prior, shifting it to its sniper form. Heller now figured out that it was not a normal gun, explaining why he lost momentum earlier. “I fucking hate technology.” he muttered.
“Heh, It gets confusing sometimes if you aren’t used to it.” Flash agreed. “But most of my best friends are youngsters or nerds. You GET used to it.” He leveled the now sniper at Heller as his target got back to his feet. “Plus, high tech has some perks.”
Flash fired.
Heller wasn’t being caught out a second time, rolling under the sniper from point blank range right into Flash’s personal bubble, reeling back to once more land a haymaker.
He wasn’t the only one who could adapt, Flash’s suit turning the point of contact into spikes, digging into the hammerfists and then forming spurs to prevent the fists retreat. Heller gasped in pain and tried to free his hands with brute force by punching Flash in his face.
Flash’s mask opened up just slightly, a pink tongue shooting out and wrapping itself around Flash’s wrist, holding him still.
“Hey hey, watch the money maker!” Flash growled, his slightly slit mouth flapping in time with his speech showing that yes, it was his actual mouth, sharp teeth and hentai tongue and all. “And while this ain’t my thing, man you taste gross!” There was a small tug from tongue and tendrils both and once again, Heller was delimbed, the lost biomass again going up in smoke…well one of them. Flash SWALLOWED the one his tongue wrangled away from the Marine.
Heller stumbled away dazed. “...What the hell kind of monster are you…”
Flash’s mask did the best impression of a raised eyebrow it could as he gestured to the once again healing limbs. “That’s rich coming from you, Wolverine wants his gimmick back.”
“Who?”
“And I’m the stupid one?”
Flash’s banter was cut off as the helicopters finally showed up to the rooftop the battle had ruined. “SURRENDER HELLER!”
Flash turned to look at the approaching Blackwatch battalion. “That is…alot of evil faceless goons huh Heller?” Flash turned to look at his foe and saw an empty rooftop. “Well that is just rude.” The helicopters, of course, started to shoot at Flash as he stood there, shooting the Multi Gun and knocking it out of Flash’s hands, it falling sparking onto the floor. “HEY BASTARDS, THAT’S A RENTAL!” he yelled as he went charging off the opposite roof, where he reckoned Heller had fled.
Heller had, indeed, jumped from the roof the way Flash predicted, running on the side of buildings faster than sound. “Mother fucker brought Blackwatch down on me, gonna beat him to death with his own fucking sticklegs!” he rambled to himself. “Gotta get away from Blackwatch, regroup, find Dana, try figure out what kind of Blacklight they pumped this bastard with and rip his asshole open!”
Webbing, or a facsimile of it, collided right where Heller's foot had been a microsecond prior, making him turn his head briefly. His eyes widened as he saw Flash Thompson swinging along behind him, gaining, shooting a web volley between webswings. “HEY HELLER, LEAVING ME WITH YOUR GUESTS IS AWFULLY RUDE!”
Heller shifted his arms one more time, this time a more varied arsenal, one as his whipfist and the other as his trademark Blade. He launched the whip into a building a few streets away and started copying his pursuer, but alot more destructive, ripping chunks out of skyscrapers with his bladed appendage, which he swung back at the Super Symbiotic Soldier, who bobbed and weaved out of the way.
“YOU WANNA HELP YOU SACK OF SHIT?” Heller yelled back “TELL YOUR BLACKWATCH BUDDIES TO FUCK OFF!”
Flash went to respond before his eyes widened slightly, making Heller look ahead like he always really should have been. A Blackwatch heli had come right into Hellers flight path, its guns spinning up to take him down. Heller, sensing an opportunity, pointed his blade forward and straightened himself in mid air, as if diving horizontally. One quick swing and he lopped the propeller straight off the top, making it fly straight up and the Helicopter drop like a stone.
“WOAH HELLER WHAT THE FUCK?” Flash yelled before he shot down to meet the Heli as it plummeted, skidding along the asphalt fast enough to make the ground spark from his symbiote encased legs. Swinging below it, he shot a web on both buildings either side of the future crash zone. The webs, as if with a mind of their own, connected to each other over the road and then the line shot its own tendrils into the buildings, like Flash had set up a self building net. Giving a sigh, Flash began to ascend back up to a more normal swinging height.
Heller was waiting, finally ready to take momentum in this match.
“TRY THIS ONE ON FOR SIZE!” He yelled, swinging his whipfist around and letting its projectile fly: The propeller he had just detached, now serving as an industrial shuriken.
Be it the more streamlined projectile, Flash being unprepared despite his suits warnings, his shock at the non standard assault or some combo of the three, Flash couldn’t completely get out of the way in time. The blades connected with him at the knees and Flash once again lost his legs, sending him into a front flip and making him yelp.
“I JUST GOT THOSE!” He yelled, before reorienting himself and keeping swinging after his quarry.
“CAN’T HEAL SO GOOD FROM THAT ONE HUH?” Heller replied, continuing to run as if looking for something, bobbing and weaving between the now escalating fire from the Blackwatch forces swarming the street below the mobile heroes.
Who were about to get a nasty surprise as Flash’s legs hit the ground…and started to move.
The camera follows the legs as they coalesce into a blob and start to slither along the road, swerving in between the feet of Blackwatch troopers getting into position, scrambling to try to keep up with the superhumans they hunted. Above, in the distance, we see a legless Flash dodging and weaving around Heller as he now ran along the rooftops and was tossing debris, like AC units or fucking water towers he cut down with his blade, at the pursuing Avenger. The blob formerly known as Flash’s legs leaps into the air, in between two troopers wielding rocket launchers, perching daintally on their shoulders. The two, who had been aiming at the fighters, turned to each other, thus the slime, which…punched? Punched, it punched them in the face and KOed them in one hit before diving onto the rocket launchers and absorbing them in one smooth motion. It continued on, jumping onto a nearby tank, climbing along its barrel and attaching itself to a shell it fired as it got to the end, heading straight for….Flash.
Who deflected the shell with a bladed arm, absorbing the attached slime which quickly reformed his legs. And from his arms emerged the front halves of two primed, loaded, RPGs, aimed right at Heller.
The destruction the battle was causing had quickly drained Flash’s snark tank. He just growled and let loose. Two rockets heading right for the airborne Marine who couldn’t possibly dodge.
So he didn’t. He shifted his arms to his shields and returned the rocket to sender.
Flash had to double take. “Well…that’s not very fair…”
BOOM
Heller smirked as the rockets hit before thinking to himself ‘Gotta put distance between me and this asshole. Let’s give him more to worry about.’
Flash was blown out of the sky, taking a moment to get over his stunned state and course correcting. When he got his bearings however, he was immediately set upon by three unknown assailants
“What the?” Flash exclaimed as he swerved out of the way of the feral beast that leapt off a nearby building trying to rip him to shreds. Flash didn’t know it, but this was a Hunter Brawler. But not just one. Two more of the beasts charged along the rooftops, one either side of the street, with the monster that just missed their quarry sliding along the roof it impacted and falling into step. This was Heller’s pack.
Flash wasn’t impressed. “Mutated monsters. Of course it's mutated monsters.” He formed one arm into a blade before aiming at the one on its own and shooting a web, pulling himself towards the beast. “If it’s not symbiotes, it’s monsters.” His arm blade cleaved straight through the Brawler with no fanfare. Its comrades leapt across the street to attack the Avenger, though too late to save their packmate. “Don’t forget the evil, heavily armed, private Militia” he joked, picking up one of the Brawlers and power slamming it into its ally. “This stuff is so cliche I could write it at this point. All we need is the heroic team up at the end…I wonder where Andi is…” he put one foot ontop of the stacked beasties and there was a squelch as a spike formed on his heel straight through both beasts, ending Heller's pack with little fanfare. “Now where’s tall, goopy and angry…” he muttered to himself, taking a quick scan of his surroundings.
Heller was gone.
Makes sense, there wasn’t much possibility to keep their airborne assault going with Central Park in view. Not much building to run and swing on.
Even with the Blackwatch military complex smack bang in the center of it.
Flash swept his gaze over the park and its surrounds, trying to find traces of the bioweapon he’d just been fighting, but nothing.
“Okay Flash, you’re an Avenger, you know what that means.” he mumbled to himself. “Like Pete, Like Eddie, assume the worst case scenario.” He glanced at the complex teaming with Blackwatch personnel, high tech weaponry everywhere, an army capable of overthrowing a small country clearly just waiting to get the chance to flex their muscles. “...I hate this job sometimes.”
Flash swung into the treeline of Central Park…and disappeared.
The next few minutes are rather confusing as…nothing happens. The Blackwatch personnel know Heller is somewhere among them, the alarms began blaring, but cannot find him OR their assailant. They continue scrambling, getting their weapons and gear together, continually bumping into each other.
Then suddenly, one soldier spun around, a white blade forming on his hand and stabbing another straight in the head. “Nice try!” Said Flash as his disguise dispelled and the surrounding militia spun around and pointed their weapons at him en masse yelling FREEZE “But you can’t sneak up on a Spider!”
“HEY THOMPSON!”
Everyone knew that voice. Even the surrounding Blackwatch agents glanced over to just outside the complex, seeing Heller standing on the opposite side of the fence, his own Blackwatch disguise receding into his Biomass. “You missed” he said with a smirk.
Then the soldier beside Flash began to bubble.
Then another in the circle began to scream.
Then another
And another
Soon almost every agent in the complex was in agony. Flash’s suit was telling him to get out of dodge asap, but even he wouldn’t be fast enough.
Every man not bound to a Symbiote in the complex exploded into tendrils. Heller had used the time it took Flash to find him wisely and implanted Biobomb after Biobomb, the biggest he ever had. He was unsure how he’d deal with Flash up close when his suit burned to touch, so decided to trap him with obscene amounts of force.
Perhaps even Heller underestimated his strength. The tendrils shot out of Central Park into nearby buildings, over 2 dozen of them, layers upon layers of biomass attaching to any structure they could
And pulled.
The creaking of the buildings was ominous as they did their best to stay in their designated spots, but no foundation in the world could withstand the full might of a Prototype. Thousands of tons of steel and stone shot towards an unprepared Flash Thompson.
CRASH
And buried him under the rubble.
Heller, who was further away from ground zero and had a better idea of what was coming, even if not the scale, looked at the veritable mountain of destruction he’s just made in one of America's most famous landmarks. “Well…that just happened.” he muttered before dusting himself off, “Did not expect that shit. Well…better dig out the body and see what the fuck Blackwatch are up to.”
Before he could start to dig through to his prize….the rubble shook a little. Then alot. White goop poured out of some crevices. It coalesced into a spike which then shot back into the mound.
And out of it arose a dragon. A cosmic entity beyond the comprehension of this world.
In many ways, this was the true form of Flash Thompson.
The dragon locked eyes on the form of one James Heller and snarled. The primordial ooze shrank to a more humanoid, form fitting appearance, but still not the same for that Heller left for dead in his booby trap. A gaping maw of sharp teeth, glowing a cosmic light. Eyes that were not expressive the way Agent Anti-Venoms were, but locked permanently into a gaze of malice. Horns atop its head, a crown of evil. And the wings, stationary, still keeping the monster afloat.
“...I am just done with this fucking city.” Heller muttered, his arms shifting into his blade and whipfist combo.
Four tendrils came out of Flash’s suit, not dissimilar to one of his friends greatest, superior enemies, and then six swords, one for each tendril or hand, made from pure living abyss formed, poised for battle.
“Was it worth it Heller!” Flash yelled “All this collateral damage, just to make me fucking mad!”
“I killed a mother fucker with a goth phase before, your D&D shit don’t phase me!” Heller bellowed back, throwing his whipfist at Flash.
Flash bit it.
He gave a heave, dragging Heller into the air against his will. Rather than release the Whipfist, Flash bit through it, removing yet another of Heller's possible weapons. It was starting to fucking hurt.
“Your ego isn’t an answer!” Flash screamed as he shot towards his airborne, helpless, foe. Heller tried to swing his blade at the monster baying for his blood, but he was met by two Necroswords, one from the top tendrils and one from the bottom set, stabbing through the Blade. The remaining tendril swords crossed through it and completely severed it. As the blade plummeted towards the ground it dissolved, the Anti Venoms cleansing touch no longer taking prisoners
Heller still had his tendrils, but otherwise he was defenseless.
Flash plunged all 6 Necroswords into Heller's torso and then grabbed his face. Heller grit his teeth and growled despite the agonizing pain.
“I CAME HERE TO HELP YOU!” Flash screamed in the Marines face as he performed his best Mishima impression, slamming him into the ground. Guns, tens of them, formed in place of his hands and he let loose. “I CAME HERE TO HELP A FELLOW VETERAN, A MAN IN NEED!” Heller writhed in agony as Flash reigned not led but Anti-Venom Biomass bullets onto his being. When the barrage ended, Flash stood there, panting. Heller, below him, looked like swiss cheese. Holes covered his torso, and they were not healing.
“So why…did I only find a monster.” Flash muttered. “...I can help monsters…another way…”
His suit shot towards Heller, starting to wrap around him.
Flash’s suit morphed back into his normal, Agent Anti-Venom form (with added wings) with a solemn expression on his face. “I didn’t want this…”
The tendrils continued to mummify Heller, smoke coming off his form.
Heller gave a chuckle, as if he understood everything and just replied…”Welcome to the top of the food chain asshole.”
Flash shook his head and the mummification completed, leaving nothing visible of the Second, Final, Prototype. The distended biomass slowly returned to Flash, leaving no evidence Heller had even been there…except for one thing.
The only piece of clothing Heller wore that wasn’t made from his affliction.
Dog tags.
“At ease Marine.” said Colonel Eugene Thompson solemnly, before he shot into the sky, ready for his next mission.
KO
I’ve seen enough Hentai to know where that was going, who can blame Heller for phasing into nonexistence instead?
Let’s be fucking real, you all knew how this was going to go down. Heller’s viral body was tough, but it couldn’t keep up with decades of comics and classic symbiote bullshit.
Heller is arguably the better fighter, being able to take down a Brawler Hunter with only a combat knife before he got his powers and being a higher ranked military official in the better regarded institution while Flash is basically a decent boxer and a Spider-Man fanboy who picked his skills up on the fly. He’s got heart, but if this were a fight between their human forms it’d be pretty easy to argue in Heller’s favor. Given I'm talking about such an irrelevant point to give Heller a positive, you can kinda tell where this is going.
Flash has explicitly been trained by Avengers like Black Widow since he got the suit so this powerless skill advantage likely does not apply anymore.
Flash takes the stat trinity and then some. Heller’s strong, able to tear apart armies with ease, but Flash is stronger, squaring off with Marvel street tiers on the regular. Heller’s tough but he’s not taking hits from Thanos variants at his peak, or in less outlierish instances, just being able to take hits from the likes of Spidey and Carnage without flinching. Hellers quick, but dodging rockets is something wielders of the Spider-Sense who Flash is much faster than can do in their sleep, and that's not accounting for Flash’s own pseudo Spider-Sense. With such a disparity Heller is gonna have alot of trouble doing any damage even before going into their kits.
There is an argument that the consume ability ignores durability, based on Alex being able to instantly absorb the Evolved at the end of Prototype 2 and instantly killing basic humans with a swipe in the comics. Given most enemies in the game, even normal humans, are able to resist your consume unless weakened should they be sufficiently armored and aggro’d, there's likely an element of surprise required for this to be the case. Normal Symbiotes' anti disease properties mean it's unlikely they’d be absorbed easily, like Heller himself, and they have resisted being absorbed before, or even removed themselves from a fusion after being assimilated, and the Anti-Venom symbiote is just flat out toxic to the virus.
Heller’s shapeshifting and abilities are generally more limited than a symbiotes, despite their destructive nature. Blacklight needs to evolve by consuming biomass to take on new offensive forms while the Symbiote is just able to do it on a whim. His healing is more potent, sure (though not to a degree it really matters given both can heal from basically anything baring atomization unless overtaxed, including destroyed heads or limbs), but also more limited. Only one of them is able to revive corpses and regenerate its own Biomass from basically nothing if Flash is still kicking. He can mimic the voices and appearances of people he consumes while Flash can just…mimic people, no consuming necessary. Not their voices persay, though it's likely he can it’s hard to tell in the comics, but he can change his appearance on a dime or even turn invisible, hiding in ways that would evade Heller's senses, giving him an edge in the stealth game, again, without factoring in Spider-Sense knockoffs or that he could plant parts of the suit on Heller to track him. Even with the whole “Consuming adds experience” thing Blacklight has going on, the Symbiotes got that too, having access to at least some skill from every person Venoms ever was bonded to before the new Anti-Venom was formed and memory absorption at a touch, without killing the opponent. It’s not a skill brought up often, but it is something in the move list, most notably when Eddie tapped into Flash’s own Codice to temporarily access his skillset. It’s not like Heller has a complete copy of his victims skill either, needing to access the web of intrigue to call upon them in more detail, which is why this technophobe still can’t do basic computer shit without pausing for a second.
This act burnt out Flash's codice so it's unlikely he'd try it unless as a last resort, however the symbiote can more passively call on these skills to a degree.
Then there's the big question, can the Anti-Venom symbiote cure the Blacklight virus….yeah duh. Even normal Symbiotes are able to heal cancers and purge diseases from their host systems, including those of an extraterrestrial or different dimensional nature, Anti-Venom is that but more and weaponized. Even Poisons, a lifeform not dissimilar to Blacklight in how it interacts with its hosts, in their case Symbiotes, are not safe from the Anti-Venoms symbiotes cleansing touch, with Poison Frank Castle straight up evaporating when Flash tried to cure him. At best for Heller an attempt by Flash to cure him would lead to him being powerless and at worst it’d kill him outright.
The original Anti-Venoms healing is much more potent than what the Antibody created versions have shown, being able to cure mutations and the like. While this is lesser in Flash’s suit, it’s still similar enough it should at least depower Heller, likely just outright kill him as the Poison's show.
Heck Hellers from a game that promotes freedom of movement and doesn’t even have THAT over Flash. The dude can stick to walls rather than just run up them and swing infinitely, Heller can glide, woo. Flash’s own arsenal of guns, be they Alien or his personal Multi Gun, as well as keeping them in his suit concealed means he’ll always be able to control the range too, keeping Heller exactly where he wants him, Devestators or no. Devestators being made from Hellers own biomass makes their effectiveness questionable at that.
You may have noticed I’ve been deliberately neglecting the stuff that makes Anti-Venom 3 unique, that being the Symbiote Dragon Biology and you can probably gather why, but just to put it out there, it makes an already lopsided match a foregone conclusion. Anti-Venom the third can shoot its cleansing biomass, make as many guns as it wants wherever it wants, compete with Iron Man suits who are LEAGUES above Prototypes and fly, probably to space given its made from…Symbiote Dragons. They are designed for interstellar warfare. If Flash ever taps into his suits full potential Heller’s super fucked. Hell there’s nothing stopping Flash from carrying Heller into space, dicing him up and leaving him there with no more biomass to consume, even if Blacklight remained in contact with the Anti-Venom suit long enough to develop an immunity like it has its other cures. Or just…throwing him into the sun. He can win pretty handily without it, but the upgrades Flash has to compete with Super Carnages and Kings in Black basically takes him out of Hellers paygrade.
The Venom symbiote has been shown to survive in space while operating as a Space Knight. Given Flash’s current symbiote should by all accounts be stronger than the Venom of that era, and Symbiote Dragons are designed for interstellar travel, the same should be true for Anti-Venom 3.
I think a cool point of comparison is to compare their two nuke feats. A Venom clone, one weaker than the actual Venom, was able to survive being at the epicenter of a nuke just by bonding a bit of its biomass to a cockroach. This is pushing symbiotes of this tier to their absolute limits of course, but keep in mind as well they are fucking weak to the heat nukes give off. Meanwhile, Alex barely survived being at the outskirts of a nuke, needing IMMEDIATE biomass from a nearby bird to keep the drops of him alive. Both Flash and Heller are much stronger than these characters, especially the former, but this difference in scale between a minor feat for Street Levelers and [PROTOTYPE]’s BEST feat outside Heller and Mercers biomass combined running over Manhattan kinda sums the match up. Blacklight is more lethal immediately to people without prepared counters, but over a long battle Symbiotes are just…better and more versatile and more consistently able to power through their own counters. Ironic, given which one is the ever evolving super goop.
Heller’s resilience, both physically and mentally, and pure stubbornness meant he was always going to put up the best fight he could, but he just couldn’t keep up with Flash’s superior power, versatility and caustic cleansing clutch.
Heller thought he was pretty sick, turns out, Flash is the cure.
The winner is Agent Anti-Venom.
…wait did we just have a guy in all white kill a black guy OHGODNO
SUMMARY:
Flash:
+ Stronger, Faster, More Durable
++ Anti-Venom hard counters Blacklight
+ More maneuverable, better ranged options
+ Symbiote is more malleable than Blacklight without needing to evolve
+ Pseudo Spidey Sense
+ Can track Heller with tracers, senses.
== Similar stealth options
- Slightly less potent healing factor
+ Symbiote can regenerate easier than Blacklight can restore biomass
Heller:
+ Better healing factor
+ Blacklight could theoretically adapt to the Symbiote over time if it survives...
-- Cleansing touch is instantly fatal
- Statistically inferior
- Inferior battlefield control
== Similar stealth options
- Heller can be tracked even while stealthing, reverse is not true.
AAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNDDDDDDDDDD Thats a wrap. NGL, I'm alot happier with this one than the YGOBR. IDK why, maybe just cause the whole thing is spots that been rent free in my head for ages than just one or two. Maybe because their fighting styles are alot more simple than the bunch of moving parts 6 summoners is.
Its still me pushing my comfort zones a lil, cause of the gun focus and the whole "Flash wins if he touches Heller right" part, which is why Heller ran alot, but the Biobomb barrage at the end was how I played around it. And the Helicopter shuriken into "Flash legs go for a walk" was why I did this fight now. I love that part.
As always, ima take a lil break before I start the next one which should drop when its done, before the end of the year hopefully. I've got a bunch of stuff I wanna do (Sumerus out in Genshin, MD just dropped a new Duel Pass, i've been on a Metroid kick and getting this out was my barrier to playing Fusion, etc.) but after some deliberating I think i've got me my next time.
I threw this together. its not good. I hope to make a better one for the blog proper.
NEXT TIME, BEYOND THE STARS:
DEOXYS VS BOROS!
Form changes! Regeneration! These Alien battle maniacs finally find worthy opponents, but can the Dominator of the Universe successfully defeat the DNA Pokemon?
Find out, when I get up off my lazy ass and write it.
As always huge thanks to Medd who was a sounding board for ideas and made the TN at the last minute so I could get this out on time. If somehow you haven't already, go check out his stuff! Unlike my word vomit of analysis he actually captures the feel of the show, and his prose is much better than mine IMO.
So until next time, so long and remember, Warner Bros Discovery nuked Batgirl from the face of the Earth but Ezra Miller's Flash is coming out, proving that being Non-Binary gives you reality warping powers. We are all fucking doomed.
