I reached out and froze the hornet man in a cage of force.
"Damn it." Venus struggled underneath him. "I won't go down like this."
She struggled for another moment before she stopped, staring at the hornet oddly.
Trapped as if in amber, no parts of him were moving except his eyes, which were looking anywhere but at Venus and shaking in terror.
She realized something was up. Decision made, I smashed the hornet with enough kinetic force to turn him into mist, splattering the movie screen as it continued to show some romantic comedy.
"Ugh." I stood from the mess I landed in, clutching my head in pain. "What happened? You get him?" I feigned injury and confusion.
Venus just continued staring at the space the hornet had been in. "No. He... uh... exploded."
"Come on, let's go." I grabbed her arm to help her up, and she limply let me bring her to her feet. I was glad the theater was empty.
"Miles," she whispered and pulled the communicator off her neck. "I quit."
"You were shaken up that badly?" I frowned at the communicator as she tried to hand it to me.
"No. I... I nearly died there, but that isn't it. When I was about to die, my biggest regret was that I hadn't met with him." She couldn't look me in the eye.
I frowned. The conversation was not the reaction I’d been expecting. "The augmenter?"
Venus nodded. "I have to meet him, and I don't think he'll meet me as a hero."
"Why would you say that? Look, I'm here to help you." I wanted her to know she could trust me.
"The augmenter, he's... he's Void." She whispered it and sagged.
Nodding along as she spoke, I didn't even try to feign surprise. "So, you think you need to leave the Bureau of Superheroes to meet with the augmenter because he's Void, the man whom Kim has been hunting for decades."
"Yeah, that's about right. I have to meet him; you don't understand." Tears pooled out around her eyes and flowed over her mask. "I have to."
"What will you tell him?"
She grabbed her face as she blushed. "I can't tell you."
I nodded sympathetically, but thoughts were swirling around in my head. I needed to figure out how to play this. If she left the BSH, my other plans were ruined. Then again, some things would be easier if I only had Stella and Melody on my team, freeing up my use of powers.
That idea led me down another path. If I brought Venus into the fold… I could save her career and have everything else I wanted.
She was a pain, but she was one of the good ones. If I wanted to shape the BSH for the better, to use my powers for the better, I needed the strongest team I could manage.
That included Venus.
I had promised my parents that I would do more with my power, and I realized now that it meant that more people would need to become aware of my powers.
Right now, I could use my powers to help Venus, even if it meant taking on more risk than I was used to.
Grumbling at this new, more moral part of myself. I sighed and looked at Venus.
"Put your damn comm back on." I grabbed Venus' shoulder and stuck the communication device on her neck. "Demoness, Pulsar, do you have this covered?"
Venus was glaring at me, but I held her still.
"Yes, sir," Pulsar shot back. "Giants are down. We are working on clearing rubble."
"Great, I'm going to have a private talk with Venus. She's a little shaken up after being ambushed." I then swiped both mine and Venus' comms completely off.
"Miles—"
I cut her off as my kinetic force suddenly locked her in position, and I floated her up to my eye level. A black sphere sprang up around us, blocking anything and everything from penetrating it. We were completely cut off from the world.
Venus still had a small ball of light hovering over her shoulder, and it was the only illumination in here.
"You see, Venus. I have a secret. One that I keep pretty close to my chest." Rather than tell her directly, I let the darkness wrap around me.
The others had once described to me that it looked like little stars in the night. Almost like I had cut out a section of the night sky and wrapped it around me.
"Y-you." Venus' eyes were so wide that I was wondering if they were going to pop out.
"Me."
I was trying to project as much confidence as I could. But truth be told, coming out to someone like Venus made me scared. Not just because of what she'd do, but because I was a little scared of what I'd do if this went poorly.
I’d splattered villains all over the floor, and even a few heroes that I thought didn't deserve the cape. But I could point to the evil deeds they’d done. Venus, while sometimes a pain in my ass, didn’t deserve to die at the moment. But if she betrayed me and divulged my secret, because she felt it was right, I wasn’t sure which way I would go.
"You're Void," she whispered, her tone still full of disbelief.
I nodded, wanting to help put it all together for her. Pushing ki into her, I boosted her power.
Venus let out a small cry as her face blushed. She restrained her telepathy, though, even as it tried to latch onto me. "It can't be."
"I'm afraid it is, Venus." Creating two chairs of black force, I sat her down and took my place across from her. "Hiding in plain sight has always been my tactic. When I rescued Stella and helped her become a hero, I did it without a larger plan. However, joining the Bureau has given me an opportunity to help prevent others from going through the same pain I experienced."
"Pain?" Venus blinked.
I realized she hadn’t been around when Kim had told her story, the story of the Fortress incident. I’d expected all the gossip after it to have spread, but it seemed like everybody had respected Kim’s request that they keep it to themselves. While Kim was a tough boss, she was well respected.
"You saw Kim apologize to Void on TV, right?"
Venus nodded. "For the harm that they had done. For blaming him."
"Correct. I was a teenager when Fortress went mad and destroyed my high school. He killed all my friends and ripped the spine out of my date, right there in front of me. My date was a hero hopeful, already being trained in high school; and when push came to shove, she fought."
"You... killed Fortress."
"I protected myself. He killed over a hundred heroes and thousands of my classmates. My date protected me, and when she died, that was apparently the final factor. My powers blossomed. I fought back."
Venus looked down at her feet. "You hid."
"No. I left. You deserve to know that I became a villain for a time. I gained an understanding of my powers, and then I hid in obscurity. I'm older than you think," I corrected her.
"But now—”
"Yes, now Stella has dragged me out of obscurity, where I was a cynic of heroes and everything they did. Instead, I'm trying to make a difference. But I can't do that openly. No matter how much Kim says in a conference, I'm still the face that killed Fortress, who was the world's hero."
I deflated. Even after going and fighting the Chimera, I knew it wasn’t enough. It wouldn't undo people's view of Void. People latched onto hatred and held it tight. There was something comforting in the black and white.
But it meant something to me that she had done it. Kim had at least tried to make amends and set things right.
Venus stared back at me, and then her telepathy poked at the barriers around my mind. "Can I see? I want to understand you."
She could tear my defenses down now that she was empowered, but she was asking for permission. Her surprise and fear had shifted to fascination rather quickly.
"I don't think you want to see it."
Venus strained against my bindings, and I relaxed them, comfortable that she would not hurt me. She stood and came to stand before my chair and leaned over until her mask pressed against my face. "I need to understand you."
Her deep, blue eyes swallowed my attention. They were like windows to her soul as her telepathy rubbed up against me.
"Why me?" I asked.
She rested her forehead against me and closed her eyes. "Because you fixed me."
"You were broken?" I frowned. Nothing in her file made it seem like... "Your telepathy. What's wrong with it?"
She nestled her forehead against mine and opened her eyes again. "Let me see, let me understand."
"Fine." I let down my mental walls for her. All the telepathic hooks she had held back before surged into my mind.
But that was when I found out that her power didn’t just work one way. As she connected, I could see into her mind as well.
In the glimpses I got, she was so young, so happy. She lived in a home gilded to the teeth. White marble columns surrounded her as she took piano and singing lessons in a room of her home designed for acoustics.
"Wonderful. Fantastic. You are a star." A greasy-looking man grinned at her.
"Thank you!" She was so filled with joy at his praise. I could feel how young she was at that moment; she couldn't have been out of high school yet.
But what bothered me was just how overjoyed she was at his praise, like something was wrong. That's when I realized the same connection that she had with me right now existed with this greasy man.
She could feel his desires and wanted to make him happy. Sadly, through the lens of my current mind, I could tell all he really wanted was money. To see her on stage singing for money.
The images changed, and I saw a young popstar dancing. It most certainly was Venus. I smiled as she shook her body around, singing into a rhinestone-studded microphone.
A knock on a door brought me out of that moment as Venus' memory shifted.
"How's my golden goose doing?" A woman who was a poorly kept and older version of Venus entered the room of her singing lessons.
The woman must have had super strength to stay standing under the weight of the furs and gold dangling off her, as if she needed to tell the world she was wealthy.
It was so gaudy and disgusting that I knew in that instant who she was and what was happening. Venus had been talented, truly talented. And under her mother’s care, she’d clearly been used for all she was worth.
I’d read about stars brought up in the limelight by manager moms; they often ended up with drug-filled adult lives.
Not wanting to watch more of it, I pushed myself out of those memories. Given her reaction and how her power had functioned so far, I could already imagine the situation she had been placed in.
Instead, I pushed forward. I wanted to see when it all changed.
The memories themselves changed. Like the lights had suddenly been extinguished, all of her memories became dark and dim, as though a gray fog hung over them all. It was almost a physical manifestation of her depression.
Bracing myself, I dove into just before the gray memories began. She was maybe nineteen. Just as I stepped into the memory, a well-lit mirror shattered next to her.
"The crowd was smaller today. We didn't even fill the god damn stadium. Do you realize how much money you left on the table for me?!" The greasy man had not aged well, having put on another twenty pounds. His face had filled out poorly, with plastic surgery somehow seeming to make it worse.
"Sell out the fucking stadium next time. Maybe we should show more skin. Sex sells, after all," he murmured to himself, before focusing on Venus again. "If you don't sell out the next one, I'm going to be mad at you."
"NO!" Visceral pain shot through her as she thought about even the possibility of his displeasure. "Please, no; I'll sell out the crowd."
He grinned victoriously. "Maybe you can make it up to me. There was an offer from a pretty big politician." He licked his lips while pulling out a little metal box and pouring out white powder onto the vanity before her. "How about we get you a little excited and then have you spend some time with him?"
"Wha-what?" Venus looked up at the man, realizing exactly what he was offering. She could see what he was thinking. "No!"
He grabbed her, and the memory became foggy with regret and panic.
She struggled, and he crashed into the broken mirror before he fell on top of her, his neck pumping blood around a shard of glass. Venus just lay there, eyes wide as he bled out. The greasy man’s movements eventually slowed and stopped.
With his death, the connection snapped. Finally and suddenly, Venus was free from the need to please this abuser. She looked around, like she was taking in the room on her own for the first time.
But it was dull, lifeless. Without him, she didn’t know how to feel.
I knew it would take years for her to even begin to understand. Years in which her mother would push her forward into the spotlight despite the pain and aching that Venus felt.
Because despite trying, she never formed another connection like she’d had with her manager. Her telepathy power was broken, or that’s how she viewed it. It wasn’t connecting to anyone else, and there wasn’t the feedback of pleasing another person.
That feeling had become her everything. Without it, there was a massive hole in her.
I had a feeling Angelina would have better terminology, but it likely had something to do with oxytocin, dopamine cycles, serotonin, or some other brain chemical that wasn’t popularized in the news. Something had been giving Venus a rush.
And once it was gone, she went through serious withdrawal.
Not wanting to see those years, I pushed past the glimpses of her mother's abuse. The woman could clearly spend her own daughter's money like water, but rarely offered anything of value.
Flipping through memories, I finally found the one that mattered. She had found a glimmer of happiness in saving somebody else.
I knew the feeling; most heroes had felt it. In our BSH training, we were taught about the rush you can get from being a hero. We needed to learn how to keep a level head despite the rush.
Through that feeling, Venus had found a way to fill the void she felt inside. And she used it to become somebody else, somebody new.
I could feel the shame she felt in her younger self. At this age, with the years past, she now understood that she’d been used, and that the people she’d trusted had betrayed her time and time again. They’d never truly loved her the way she had loved them.
In those revelations, she’d abandoned her private life, embracing Venus wholeheartedly. And when that began, her memories became bright flares, peaking at a moment of time I didn’t need to see. I had been there.
It was the fight against Leviathan in Coast City. Specifically, the moment when I’d boosted her. It had restored her telepathy, but she didn't quite latch onto me telepathically.
Emotionally, though, that was a completely different story.
Her memories were filled with her romantic ideal of the augmenter. How he would be so much better to her than her manager and her mother. But what was most startling to me was that she felt the spark return. She could sense a growing love on the other side, and it had given her hope.
What she hadn’t realized was that what she’d felt were my feelings for Stella. And that was going to be a tough blow when she pieced it together. Based on what I’d seen in her past, it might devastate her.
But the bits of her life that I’d glimpsed helped me understand her and the last week. She was engrossed in the idea of this augmenter being better, being able to save her and give her the love that might fill the void, primarily through reestablishing that connection with her power.
If Angelina were here, she'd probably slap some label on it, but Venus had definitely built up an obsession and a fantasy around the augmenter.
Feeling her pull back from my own memories, I moved myself to the present. I wanted to see how she’d felt when I’d revealed myself. Mentally, it felt like I was holding my breath; I wanted to trust Venus. I didn’t want the hard choices that would come if she planned to betray me.
But what I found was an earnest need for acceptance. She was worried that I would reject her. That was all. She’d do just about anything to stay with me and keep a connection to my mind and my emotions.
I came back to the present, and her blue eyes were staring back at me, searching my eyes and my mind. She was trying to piece together what would make me happy, what would make me accept her.
What she wanted more than anything was to stay connected to my mind.
Leaving the connection open, I pushed her away just slightly before pulling her head to my chest and combing my fingers through her soft, hazel curls. "This is strange; I am a very private person."
"I know," she whispered. "I saw it all. Everything. But I want to stay connected to you. Please."
"What happened to you was wrong. Parents are meant to help build you up, not use you. I’m so proud of who you’ve become despite them." I could feel just how much those simple words meant to her. "Keep the tether in my mind for now. If nothing else, I need Venus’ strength, and I need you to keep my secret for now."
It wasn’t a devotion of love; it was the present reality. If I was going to bear this connection with her, I could at least be honest.
She pressed herself into my chest, as though trying to merge with my body. I hugged her back and then released, but she was stuck to me just as hard as before.
I sighed. This was going to be a bit of a problem.
She might even be worse than Stella; I didn’t get the mental feedback loop from Stella. And the only thing on Venus' mind right now was how to build a deeper relationship with me.
She licked her lips and stared down at my crotch.
"No. Not like this. I told Stella the same thing. You need to let this whole emotional upheaval settle. Then we can think about a relationship. For now, let's just keep working together."
Venus bit her lip and nodded. "I can do that. As long as you keep the connection."
I released my Void form and the barrier I had erected around us.
Then I swiped our comms back on. "Okay, we are done here. How is the operation going out there?"
"Three other teams are on site helping. We could finish up faster if Venus was feeling up to it, though," Demoness answered.
I could feel Venus rifling through my mind, trying to figure out what I wanted before she answered.
"We will be out there shortly. Miles, can you help us identify where there might be any trapped people?" Venus got right to business.
There was a confused little noise from Pulsar at her question.
"I'll explain later. For now, let's clean up the mess here," I replied.