2769/Sanguine and Ichor

Sanguine and Ichor
Date of Scene:	03 August 2020
Location:	New York City, Construction Site
Synopsis:	A monster on the hunt rescues a monster caught by those who hunt them. A dance in fountains of blood and ribbons of flesh see a new alliance formed between two creatures of the shadows.
Cast of Characters:	Ariah Olivie, Eddie Brock

---

Ariah Olivie has posed:
    With all of the damage wrought by supers and invasions over the recent years, parts of New York City always seem to be under construction. Here, late into the night, one such project sits silent and dark. It had been abandoned, temporarily, funding and staff shunted to provide aid with re-integrating Bushwick into the grids and making sure buildings and services were restored. As such, this hi-rise site is a skeleton of concrete and steel. A multi-level parking structure is present, most of it completed and underground, a good foundation for the next business-slash-condo development.

    But for now, it lies abandoned. Mostly. Deep in the lowest sub-level, a pair of security guards lie motionless, knocked out and tossed in a corner. Work lights surround a scene that one might find at a brutal interrogation. Bound in chains with a bloody piece of debris jutting out of her chest, a girl sits motionless, bound to one of those big orange traffic barrels, likely full of sand. "Couple more nights and we'll get the big prize, gents! Ya ever been fishing? It's called mooching. You use a little fish to get a bigger fish," laughs an older man.

    "Yeah the big guy will pay us big for this catch when we get 'er..." another voice from the shadows says. "...you finish up that magic shit yet?" he asks. A third speaks up, moving into one of the lights, spreading what looks to be powdered silver on the ground, glancing back and forth from a book. "Almost! Do we even need this? The stake's got her as docile as a corpse!" he laughs. "Must've gotten her when she was tired or hungry or somethin', I heard she can rip your head off with her bare hands!" comes another. There must be a dozen people down here, watching from the dark.

    There's scant illumination, but it smells like smoke and blood. Occasional flickers of orange from lighters and cigarettes, the telltale glow of someone checking their phone for some reason or another. Out and about in the rest of the structure, more people wander, making sure nobody gets too close. Armed men, mercenaries probably, the lot of them.

Eddie Brock has posed:
Places like this are perfect hunting grounds for certain kinds of predators, the kind that hunt people most of all. Venom has been merely scouting, walking high amongst unfinished girders when they spotted some men heading to the underground.

<<Those guys are definitely up to no good.>>
//FAIR GAME?//
<<...yes.>>
//FINALLY!//

Venom crawled in after them, clinging to the ceiling and slowly stalking forward, the only sound the occasional drip of drool from Venom's over-eager maw. As they gather around the girl, Venom listens for a while. Seems the girl must be something special. Interesting. Well, no time like the present to find out.

A tendril of darkness lashes out of the shadows and blows through the back of one mercenaries neck, a barbed tip ripping out through the hollow of his throat, larynx speared like a fish in mid-sentence, blood spraying from the wound as a rumbling laugh-snarl echoes from the darkened hall.

Ariah Olivie has posed:
    Ariah is unmoving even as the 'wizard' among them finises securing the circle of silver and some other things. "There, it's done..." he says with a nod. "Test it. Bitch can do magic too, I heard. Yank the stake," comes a voice from the darkness. "You sure?" asks the one still in the light. "Yank. The. Stake," the other voice reiterates. Resigned, the other man moves closer to the seemingly insensate girl. Her eyes are open but they're blank, glazed over completely. He pulls on the stake. Tug. Tug. It's in there deep. He has to put his foot on the barrel to yank at it, and it slips free with a squishy noise. Immediately the girl's eyes wide and she -snarls- ferally, lunging up, almost lifting the barrel in her bonds, but she's too weak.

    Like a tired dog on a chain she can only snarl and froth, deadly wicked fangs visible in the light, eyelids fluttering rapidly from the light on her. "OH FUCK JESUS!" yells the man with the stake and he jams it back in immediately. And she immediately goes docile. "FUCK! You do it yourself next time!" he shudders, moving to step out of the light amidst a chorus of chuckles.

    "Don't be a pussy, Greg..." mutters another, "...hey.. while she's out.. anyone brave enough to wanna fu--" His words are cut off by that black tendril exploding out of his throat, the spray showering Greg, shielding the girl from all but a few stray drops. Her eyes flicker a little, lips parting, a hint of tongue capturing one or two of those specks. Beyond that, she doesn't stir.

    Flashlights and guns go up, "The fuck?!" comes a number of voices, some men holding pistols and flashlights, others with shotguns, rifles, and SMG's scanning the area around them. "That vampire's bitch mom already here?!"

Eddie Brock has posed:
The tendril becomes a hook and the first victim is yanked back into the darkness, pulled from his feet with terrifying strength to vanish. There, amidst the sounds of rifles being aimed and shotguns being pumped, there come sounds. Sounds of tearing flesh and splintering bone. Sounds of gulping and swallowing until finally, out of that darkness, the man's head comes bouncing, stray flaps of skin and vocal cord dancing in the wake of it like the tail of a kite.

"WE ARE NO ONE'S MOTHER," comes the inhuman voice from the darkness and then there are the eyes, gleaming white and the teeth, just as ivory, but now smeared with gore and blood, some of the meat of their comrade dangling from his lower jaw. Someone needs to floss.

"WE ARE VENOM."

And then the beast lunges, leaping in and extending razored tendrils around itself, springing directly into one of the shoulders and opening wide as it burrows its jaws right into his chest cavity to tear free his heart.

Ariah Olivie has posed:
    The acoustics in this parking garage, like any parking garage, are pefect. The sounds of ripping and snapping and snacking echo all over. Most of the men try to shine their lights on where their compatriot had just been standing, though several lights follow the head as it tumbles merrily across the bloody concrete. Then they see the teeth and the eyes. Like the most sinister Chesire Cat this side of American McGee's 'Alice.' "OH. Another FREAK come to get WRECKED. Light 'im up! The big guy will have to pay through the nose for this thing!" comes the cry of the man presumably in command, conveniently furthest away from Venom.

    The announcement and introduction go unheeded, another monster to hunt and slay. And so they open fire. The entire scene turns to chaos as Venom leaps, automatic weapons spraying surprisingly disciplined bursts towards him, these mercs not quite knowing how afraid they should really be.

Greg the 'Wizard', to his chagrin, is getting bathed in blood. The next man down, having his heart wrenched free, sends a crimson fountain all over, and Greg stumbles back to avoid getting more on himself. He hits the ground, scrabbling feet messing up the magic circle he'd worked so hard on, and his back smacks into that chained barrel. The girl, still staked, is unmoving. Even Greg starts to open fire, though blood-sticky hands feel really gross on a pistol grip.

Eddie Brock has posed:
The weapons fire doesn't seem to deter Venom much. Some of it is getting simply absorbed and what does make an impact at all heals almost immediately. Venom lifts its gruesome jaws free of his current prey, slopping wet crimson all around as they shake their head like a dog coming out of a swimming pool.

Greg the Wizard is face down and Venom slowly stalks towards him, on all fours like an animal. With a flick of his back, spikes of solidified black ichor shoot out, like a field of darts, porcupine spines in every direction as it clamps a hand on the Wizard's throat, tearing the gun from his grip with its powerful jaws and biting down until the gun crumples.

"WE WANT TO MEET YOUR FRIEND," Venom snarls and instead of striking down, it reaches up and grasps the stake. Venom's strength makes no trouble to remove it as he frees the vampire from her paralyzed state.

Ariah Olivie has posed:
    "God damned FREAK! It's things like you that we HUNT! We're protecting the city from things like you!" yells the leader, having plenty of air in his lungs for self-righteous fury. The rest of the men, between reloading, start to back away, putting themselves apart from each other to make the distance between targets greater. THey're professional soldiers of a sort, indeed, barking positioning orders, dividing their various weapons by range, putting the SMG's and shotguns towards the front while riflemen stay in the back. Pounding footsteps echo as those some half-dozen on patrol are called back to the scene. And the gunfire only pauses when someone needs to reload.

    Poor Greg, covered in blood, smelling of other fluids at this point as this unstoppable nightmare creature of eldritch horror is on him in an instant. He doesn't even notice the gun is gone for a few moments, trigger finger spasming. "No... no... she's a monster...!" he panics, trying to claw himself free, scrabbling on concrete and kicking over one of the work lights.

    That stake... yanked free. The girl's eyes again flash open and she snarls, pulling herself towards the nearest human heartbeat her feral senses can manage. She's still weak, but Greg is so close. So, so close. She catches one of his arms in her mouth as he flails in panic, those teeth and fangs sinking in as if he were a succulent soft fruit, and he screams as his arm wrenches away the same time her head snaps back with a huge chunk of it in her mouth.

    Venom may note that she doesn't consume the flesh, rather, she drinks the blood, reveling in the spray that catches her lips, tongue outstretched in a display both greusome and erotic. Her eyes begin to glow red, and she pulls harder against her bonds, trying again to catch the pinned man for another bite. It all seems to be happening so fast...

Eddie Brock has posed:
Eddie Brock reaches up and yanks viciously, tearing those bonds of silver away. The symbiote is curious and amused by this creature. It had started to believe all the Earthlings were soft, even the superhuman ones. This one, at least, feels like a predator.

With Greg in the tender care of Ariah, Venom turns to the remainder. Its tongue stretches out, two feet long at least, slathering drool across its face and wiping some of the gore from its teeth as the bullets hammer into its chest, some squirming as Eddie's flesh gets a bit torn only to be sealed back up again. A little suffering is a good motivator.

"EENIE MEENIE MINEY MO WE'RE NEVER GOING TO LET YOU GO," Venom snarls then leaps forward again, tendrils lashing out to grasp one by the throat, lifting him up to tangle as he plunges his hand into the guts of another, disemboweling him on the spot and lifting both men up over its head, dangling the ruined man over so some of the blood and guts drip into its open mouth.

"FINALLY A REAL MEAL."

Ariah Olivie has posed:
    The moment Ariah is free, she pounces on Greg. Even in her weakened state, the panicked man is no match for a blood-crazed vampire, even a young one. His panicked cries turn to gurgles as she sinks her fangs into his neck, drawing more deeply than she would have normally, but right now she's in an emergency state herself. Her eyes glow brighter the more she drinks, the color slowly returning to her skin, from a deathly pale white to a healthier tone.

    The sounds of violence and brutality behind her, for the moment, go unnoticed as she drinks. Consumes. Drains. The pleasured gasp as she sits upright suddenly is easy to hear over the din, and her pretty face is a picture seen painted or drawn so many times. Fangs extended, eyes half-lidded in ecstasy, and trails of blood streaking down her chin and chest, soaking her clothes.

    And slowly, the hail of gunfire is cut down by two men as they themselves are cut down. Their gear makes them a crunchier meal but the hot pumping blood and organs hidden by cloth and kevlar would make for quite the satisfying meal! The sight of this grotesque, unstoppable beast cutting down fellow soldiers like nothing is taking its toll psychologically, and some of the men begin to fall back, others exchanging their precision shots for panicked spray-and-pray tactics.

    The six men from the external patrol help morale somewhat, though their arrival on the scene is met with some level of panic and confusion. They'd expected a rampaging vampire, Not a rampaging vampire -and- an eldritch horror in the form of the symbiote.

Eddie Brock has posed:
Eddie Brock hurls the carcass of the disemboweled soldier at the incoming external patrol, loops of gut hitting the floor with an explosive gush. The symbiote laughs wickedly, enjoying this moment of total chaos as another tendril lashes out to grab one of the incoming soldiers, snaking around him and then bouncing him up and down between ceiling and floor.

Venom's head turns towards the vampire, "FRESH BLOOD, BLOOD SUCKER," it says, voice grating as it reels in the prey it's been bouncing, driving his claws in and just ripping him bodily in two, shoving his head through like Jack Nicholson in The Shining.

Ariah Olivie has posed:
    None of them were trained for -this-. None of them have dealt with horrors like this. Vampires, werewolves, banshees, other things. Terrible warzones, starvation, dehydration. Hardened mercenaries, these. Nothing could have prepared them to face off with Venom. One of them yells, as he's toppled over by the tossed man, getting tangled up in his guts. "GET THE HELL OUT!" Another one yells, "COVER THE COMMANDER!"

    Oh. The honcho. He's retreating, alright. His pistol is up, firing as he makes his way to an off-road SUV. Bullets seem to break Ariah out of her bloodlustful reverie, and she fixes him with that frenzied glare. The fresh blood pumping through her system seems to keep her wounds from being too harsh, but she doesn't have the same regenerative capabilities as her mother or Venom. Still, stray bullets aside, everyone else is focusing their attention on the symbiote that's using a fresh corpse as a goddamn yoyo. At least until that toy breaks, showering even more of the garage with blood and cutting off what little screams the man had left in him.

    The vehicle starts up with a deafening roar in these confines, and half a dozen lights turn on, headlights and upper rack lamps. And he guns the engine.

    The vampiress is awake now, though. Awake enough to feel the pain, the hunger, and the indignity. Even the voice of conscious thought in the back of her mind is telling her to 'GO.' These men can't be suffered to live. And so she does. She pushes herself up from Greg's lifeless corpse, her dress soaked in red, and lunges at the vehicle as it tears forward. There's a flash of blue light as she plows her way through the windshield, the safety glass buckling and peeling under some supernatural power.

    Her face is buried in the commander's neck, her hands gripping his shoulders so tight blood begins to stain his jacket, and with a loud CRUNCH, the truck slams into one of the garage pillars. She feasts while the handful of remaining men continue to backpedal, laying down desperate fire in the hopes of distracting Venom, or slowing him down. The pings of grenade pins hitting the ground can be heard as a trio of spherical frag grenades tumble towards the symbiote.

Eddie Brock has posed:
Venom leaps high into the air, but the sonic blast of the grenades going off does momentarily stun Venom, causing it to tuck together in mid-air and then land in a momentary heap on the back of the vehicle, crumpling some of the body of the thing underneath it.

But it's just stunned and soon those tentacles of darkness rope out again, lashing and gripping at anything it can find, seeking soft tissue to tear and saw through, before tossing a ribboned soldier off to the side.

"NOW YOU'VE MADE US ANGRY," Venom snarls as it rears up again.

Ariah Olivie has posed:
    The explosions in the close quarters and echo chamber of the garage seem to have a similar effect on Ariah. The commander is already dead but she recoils from him for a moment, still dripping blood. She stares back at him, his lifeless body, a gaping hole ripped out of his neck where she'd taken a very, very deep bite. Something seems almost lucid in her eyes finally, a fading of the red glow back to the dull grey. The explosion of tendrils and that snarl makes her blink, and she looks up to see Venom's suitably brutal retaliation on the remaining soldiers.

    They're well into retreating now, running low on ammunition and manpower, chased by a thing that nightmares tell their children about to scare them. And it's an angry thing too! The vampiress, for the momment, seems to be in a daze, gathering herself, gathering the scene, and then she pulls herself from the wreckage of the SUV and its crumpled front end.

    The red glow, gone, is soon replaced by a purple one instead, her eyes shining brightly. Symbols etched in her bones spark to life, blue-white, and she holds her hand out as stray bullets smash against a glass-like barrier in front of her. "...such slaughter..." comes a cold, quiet voice from the girl, before her other arm reaches behind her, glowing, and then sweeps forward. Lances of blue-white energy streak through the garage, lighting up everything, impaling one of the fleeing gunmen in several places. Then the energy dissipates. Violently. Like a pinata full of viscera, he pops and paints the floor and ceiling in red as the energies detonate.

    The two men remaining are running. Their footfalls can be heard echoing, hard breathing. They'll only die tired.

Eddie Brock has posed:
Eddie Brock rolls over out of the truck and lands on its feet, moving to stand fully erect, 6'8" of rampaging beast making deep, gurgling inhales. It has more than sated its appetite and leaves those remaining to flee to Ariah if she wants them. They don't mind letting victims run every now and then.

"TELL OTHERS. BE AFRAID," Venom says.

Finally, it turns its head slowly, attention focusing on the vampire now. Would she be grateful for his help? A friend? Or did her thirst for carnage extend to testing herself against them? Venom was curious and not even sure which option they preferred.

Ariah Olivie has posed:
    Ariah seems fine letting the two men go. She just sort of stares at where they'd run, listening to the echoing sounds, the breathing. ...the breathing. Her eyes close and she seems to be concentrating, arms lifting slowly. They're still glowing, still etched clearly with runes that look like they could be Norse. Her head tilts to the side, then to the other, and she lazily lowers one arm, extending it towards the crashed vehicle.

    Tendrils of light drift out from under the buckled hood, from the battery, most likely. Threads of light wrap around her fingers as they reach out, the strands seeping under her skin, her glow turning brighter. Slowly, she lowers the other arm, and then thrusts it skyward. A wave of force is thrust towards the ceiling, plowing through concrete and bending rebar, the energy getting filtered as if going through a spray nozzle.

    Directly above? The two men are caught off guard, having slowed, feeling like they escaped with their lives. But footsteps and heartbeats. More than enough for a vampire to track, especially with them right above. Their shattered, mangled bodies hang, limbs dangling through the broken surface, blood dripping down on the girl. Her arms hang at her sides and her head tilts back, mouth open to catch what falls, her short, white hair a slick shade of red now.

    Then finally, she focuses on the hulking beast, and blinks at him. The glow is gone from her eyes, both red and purple alike, just those dull greys. There's only the sound of dripping fluids. Then her head turns, looking to the carnage around them, mostly wrought by Venom, but some by her own hands. Again, she looks up at him, the gulf of their height difference plain to see.

    "Merci," she says, one word, soft and cold, her mother tongue.

Eddie Brock has posed:
Eddie Brock is hunched a bit, massive shoulders around that thick neck. Drool and blood run from its lolling tongue as it takes in her appearance. It breathes huskily as it steps forward, more and more closely, until its staring down at the little vampire.

"WE ARE IMPRESSED," it says. "YOU MURDER WELL," it says, giving a little cackle as the corpses littered around attest to their mutual destructive potential.

Ariah Olivie has posed:
    She seems fearless, even in the face of all of this slaughter. All of this violence. The way Venom had torn people apart, armed, armored, and hard men reduced to chunky salsa with extra salt. Ariah's voice and size as a perfect contrast, the little vampiress with the cold, clear, quite voice and Venom's so much more commanding. She looks around again, nodding slowly.

    "...to them, we are monsters... but any starved, caged animal would lash out... bite and claw..." she breathes out quietly. "I simply seek to live," she exhales a faint sigh, though she has no pulsing heartbeat that requires her breath. She has a thick French accent, adding a certain something to her words with every phrase.

    Then she reaches up, small, bloodied hands to beckon Venom down, closer to her level. By a grasp to his limb or a tug on his shoulder as she lifts up on her toes. A soft, blood-stained kiss, sticky red and black lipstick mixed pressed to his forehead. "Again, I say, merci. Thank you. And you... prédateur... what do you seek?"

Eddie Brock has posed:
Eddie Brock bends forward as indicated, unsure of what's to come, only to be greeted by the gentle blessing on its brow. There's a ripple in the darkness of its surface, a wriggling, like a cat arching its back to a scratch of the ears. The pleased rumble within the beast does sound something like a purr.

"WE SEEK AMUSEMENT AND VIOLENCE AND OUR OWN KIND OF ROUGH JUSTICE," it says. "YOU HAVE A TALENT FOR RIPPING, LITTLE ONE."

Ariah Olivie has posed:
    Ariah takes a half-step back, giving Venom personal space after she'd so tenderly invaded it. "Justice is worth doing," she states quietly, "...I prefer not to kill, but this was required..." It might lower the creature's opinion of her, but at least her methods are sound. She finally looks down at herself, feeling the blood sticking.

    "...I require a bath..." she observes aloud, frowning.

Eddie Brock has posed:
Venom chuckles slightly, "KILLING IS PART OF THE CYCLE OF THE UNIVERSE. KILLING MAKES THE WORLD GO AROUND," they say.

Venom's head cranes forward slowly and it sniffs momentarily, cocking its head at the question.

"WE COULD GIVE YOU A TONGUE-BATH," it says with a sinister wide smile.

Ariah Olivie has posed:
    Ariah nods at the words, understanding. "I end those who deserve it. If I must end those who do not, then I make it quick and merciful..." she says quietly. "...I was a soldier... and a soldier I will always be," she states solemnly.

    At the offer of a tongue bath, she seems to legitimately contemplate it for a moment. Then she holds out her arms, looking up at Venom expectantly. "...arms, please. I can wash my face somewhere around here... but then I should find a way home..." she says as quietly as usual, looking around and noting a couple of intact vehicles belonging to the mercenary crew.

Eddie Brock has posed:
Venom doesn't offer false promises. Its serpentine tongue lashes out and gathers up the excess gore splatter over Ariah, a wriggling serpent that smears itself with blood and then absorbs it like a sponge.

"WE WILL ESCORT YOU HOME IF YOU LIKE," Venom says, then part of the face of it peels away, that jaw retracting to show a portion of Eddie Brock's face underneath, their two voices mingled in chorus.

"We can be a gentleman."

Ariah Olivie has posed:
    Ariah is patient, and waits, letting Venom work. She nods, bringing her arms back down and letting them hang. "Merci," she says politely. The retraction of the 'mask' doesn't seem to jar the girl, and she just blinks at the duo. "I appreciate it. All of it," she bows her head and bends a little at the waist, proper and polite.

    No stranger to being covered in sticky, drying blood, the witch has no issue moving towards Greg's fallen body and plucking the keys from his belt. She hits the fob and a hlack sedan's lights flicker. He must've been an outside contractor for the magic business. "Do you have a name?" she asks, not having caught the introduction, still held prisoner by the stake in her chest. "I am Ariah," she introduces properly.

Eddie Brock has posed:
"WE ARE VENOM."

The darkness retracts and retreats, some of his size reducing as he becomes fully human again. His clothes are simple, a pair of jeans and a dark t-shirt, tennis shoes. He might seem like an ordinary human being if it weren't for the lingering shadows in his eyes and the momentary sharpness of his teeth before they retract back to normal.

"But you can call me Eddie," he says.