THE HALLOWEEN CAULDRON - PART 2
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
Tonight, I have some sketches to make you all awwww at cuteness and shiver in horror.
TONIGHT, I have three posts for you.
The first, a collection of warmth and cold.
The second, an illustration of a story told.
And the third, a nightmare to unfold.
Behold, the Second.
Here, I have illustrated a scene from an role play that @freckleocalypse and I did together soon after the release of my Venom Trials sketch post. Freckle’s Abel decided to keep his symbiote, Toxin, and the two have been bonding over different things ever since.
So, here I have edited and cut out a scene from our RP that the drawing originates from. Enjoy!
NOTE: Responses from the RP (both from me and Freckle obviously) have been edited together in order to create a smoother story flow.
Context: In a forest close to the kingdom’s castle, Toxin and Abel are currently in a hunting competition with Phage, who has taken full control of Sebastian. Phage has just taken off in another direction, while Abel, with his symbiote Active around him, continue forward in search of their own prey.
“DEAL.” With a shark’s smile and fiendish glare, Phage agrees. The symbiote then vanishes from their presence, almost noiseless now, as Toxin senses it traveling farther and farther away from them at frightening speed.
Not one to be shown up, Toxin focuses on another direction, ironically along the forest ruins of its past rampage. Strictly ignoring that fact, it concentrates on the hunt, merging its advanced senses with its host’s.
Abel’s vision blurs and warps, eyes dilating in a way completely unnatural from the norm. His sight becomes sharper, clearer, and even magnifying. Clouds and shapes of gradienting colors erupt from almost every point of focus as they take in by sight and by scent the pulsing life-force and chemical output of every living thing within a large radius around them. Such a sensory overload should have been mind-breaking for any human, but the symbiote’s mind acted as a filter for his, sorting through the different signatures for Abel and merging its mind enough with his own to make it capable of comprehending the sheer amount of data.
Amazed by the new sense of sight, Abel looks around excitedly before focusing on a certain cloud that drifts past them, quickly turning to follow it. Toxic Abel jumps silently from tree to tree as they move further away from Phage and the first boar’s corpse. Roaming a bit, Abel finally comes to a stop, hidden in an oak that overlooks the forest floor. He remains silent and tries to keep Toxin as quiet as possible when they see a boar almost as big as a cow wander past, its tusks huge and chiseled from hundreds of battles and it’s hide prickly and scarred. Abel finds no trouble in keeping Toxin silent in the approach, its hunting instinct taking hold.
A wide grin tugs at their face as Abel watches the boar silently. After waiting for the perfect moment to strike, he quickly leaps down right on top of the massive beast and kills it instantly with a spear-shaped claw driven straight into its head.
The animal collapses under them, one leg breaking as it is bent at an odd angle under the sudden force of the weight upon it. Not that it mattered, as the pain center was destroyed with the forceful stab, the rest of the brain quickly dying after it.
Toxin quickly has their teeth snapping, their jaws salivating at the fresh kill, but it pauses before its instincts could drive it forward. Restrained, it eyes the glistening blood draining from the hole in the animal’s skull, growling a bit before it starts a strained request.
“IF YoU DoN’T MiNd …”
Abel shudders a little at the thought of what Toxin intended to do before smiling again.
”H-Hey, I won’t be needing the head. Go crazy.”
The symbiote had enough insight and sense to lock Abel out from all his senses before letting hungry instinct take over, jaws widening and lunging forward to quickly shatter the boar’s head with an effect similar to Phage’s. Still perched on the huge boar’s humped back, it pulls their head back, seeking to tear the top of the boar’s skull off. The neck of the hog is quickly pulled back to an unnatural angle, a snapping series of pops and cracks sounding from the boar’s neck before the skull cap finally rips free in a spray of blood.
Bone and hide start to be pulverized and liquidized between acid teeth as the boar’s head thumps heavily back against the ground, a damaged brain sliding and hanging in ropy lumps off the side of its head by the brain stem.
The drive to consume surges at the sight of the prized grey matter covered in red, and Toxin has scarcely swallowed before it snatches up the vital organ in their foaming jaws and rips it completely free of the skull. It savors the taste for a moment before greedily gorging it all down their throat. It growls loudly in satisfaction as the chemical compounds within the muscle immediately begin to sate a portion of its hunger and begin to fuel the strength and mass of its symbiotic matter.
Its predatory instinct fading a bit, it regards the rest of the head before scoffing at it, uninterested. Making a clean cut at the neck, slicing through flesh and bone just as easily as Phage had with his boar, it grabs the large snout and tosses the head’s remains into the distance between the trees, a trail of raining blood following after it. It begins licking and wiping their face and body clean of gore as it lets Abel’s mind back out of its shuttered state.
After a moment, Abel decides to speak up, his distorted voice leaving their shared mouth as Toxin finishes licking their killing claw clean.
”You didn’t have to block my senses off like that.” He smiles a little as he climbs off the boar and picks its body up over their shoulder to carry it.
“I’Ve haVe LoNG LeArNeD ThAt MoST HuMAns Are . . . SenSITiVe … To OuR FeEdInG HaBiTs, EsPeCiAlLY WheN It Is TheIr BoDY DoInG The EAtiNG.”
”Heh, thanks for considering that, Tox.” Abel smiles more before looking around.
”We should probably find Phage and see if he caught anything. Something tells me we won.”
Toxin grimaces at the notion of rejoining its pest of an uncle, barely keeping their claws from stabbing into the boar in its fierce dislike. Luckily, its gaze catches onto a cluster of distinct life signs about half a mile off, deeper into the woods. Zooming in to watch the shapes bob and strut amongst the chorus of other pulsing life, it grins. The tendrils along their back begin to snake around the boar’s body on their shoulder, beginning to wrap around it like dozens of inky, red, boa constrictors.
“WhY StOP NoW? ThErE’S STiLL PlEnTy MoRe HuNTinG To BE DONe.”
Looking over to the new life, Abel frowns a bit.
”I don’t know….I guess we could do one more before finishing up. Just remember the rules, Phage has to follow them and so do we.”
Toxin doesn’t reply as its tendrils finish completely covering the boar, the red tentacles fusing together in a seal. And then, smaller tendrils shot out of the top of the symbiote encasement, latching onto the limbs above like web-like strings. Abel can feel the roots of the tendrils encasing the boar detached from their back as the red, fleshy strings automatically pull the boar from their shoulder and into the tree above. Barely any time passes before the tendrils they lost are replaced with new ones, growing from their back to sway and writhe behind them again.
Taking the permission gladly, Toxin takes the reins, leaving their first catch behind safely in the tree and sprinting them through the trees towards their next target.
In a small, grassy clearing, fat bodies of feathered brown, grey, and black parade and bob, yelps and gobbles following them through the tall grass. Several toms and jakes occupy the little field, puffing out feathers and beards, coloring their necks, and spreading tails and wings as they size each other up and strut before the females in a show of dominance in size and grooming. The outnumbering females pick and peck between tuffs of grass for nuts and seeds, seemingly uninterested in the showy suitors.
One heavy weight rules them all, the other gobblers keeping distance and lowering their displays when his is turned to them in threat. This one flaunts its size and perfect plumage freely and radiates confidence, having already mated with half of the hens present. He sets his eyes on another prospect, a large female that had only just arrived, yanking out the roots of the sweet grasses.
He immediately starts to strut before her once he gets close enough, showing off the shine of his feathers and the width of their barb. She shows little interest over her rich feeding. He ups his game and steps to the side, circling her in a careful dance. She lifts her head and watches with mild interest at his footwork, showing that he is no amateur. He puffs up a little bit more and plays a bit of drumming in his chest for her, slowly coming closer when she doesn’t move away with his advances. Her head turns left and right as she eyes him, sizing him up for herself. She is no amateur either in this game and will only accept the best.
He sways a bit on his feet as he steps forward luxuriously and emits a series of spitting sounds to finish off his booming drum. Finally, her interest seems caught by his musical dance and she moves forward, beginning to circle him. He circles back, their spiraling bringing them closer and closer to each other until they face each other a foot away.
Long, massive claws strike the ground between them, goring the earth and shredding grass.
”MaY I CuT In?”
Toxin hisses as the two turkeys, along with the rest of their group, flutter into a startled panic, frantically beating their wings to take to the air in escape.
The symbiote holds its and Abel’s attention on the big male, watching the terrified womanizer take flight and gain some distance from them before it laughs.
”Or MaYbE CuT OFF?”
With a powerful spring of their legs, it shots them into the sky, rapidly closing distance of the head-start that the alien had given the bird. The fast, heavy beat of its wings, the cloud-dotted sky emerging over the trees, and pure terror are the last things the turkey perceives as its head spins higher into the air, suddenly detached from its falling body with a rain of red.
Toxic Abel lands back down upon the grassy earth with agility and grace, not a claw out of place as they meet the ground like a dismounting panther.
The fat, feathered body hits the ground with a heavy thud and a falling trail of blood and feathers. Even headless, it continues to flap its wings and claw at the ground in vicious twitches, staining a red circle in the grass.
With a grin, Toxic Abel crouches not far from it, watching. Then, without even having to look up, it throws back their head and parts their jaws wide just in time to catch the turkey’s falling head and neck, its teeth snapping shut as they swallow it whole, beak and all. The other turkeys had only just all disappeared into the trees that moment.
”AAaahhh, FeAr. The BeSt KiND oF SeAsONiNG, EvEn If OnlY A SpRiNkLiNG FoR ThiS One.”
While Toxin enjoys the turkey, Abel tries to keep himself from gagging.
”O-Okay … m-maybe blocking my senses when you eat isn’t such a bad idea …”
Thanks for reading! This excerpt was from a collab role play with @freckleocalypse. Give her some love!
THE HALLOWEEN CAULDRON - PART 3