The Rise of Venomstar

Chapter 16: Belladonna

Venom would have thought it was easy to find others. That was what was so bad about living in this land, or living in the forest where your scent could stick to anything you touched or came close to touching. Venom wondered if there was a territory where cats could live happily.

Venom continued searching for any feline alive who would join him. They essentially had no choice if they wanted to survive, and Venom thought of himself as an intimidating but nice tom, so why wouldn't they join him?

He didn't know it'd be this difficult though.
The only thing he did was find a struggling, already half-made group. Starved cats, glazed eyed kits, as well as elderly cats who limped in circles, kind of foaming at the mouth a bit. They never sat or slept, Venom figured out. He ignored them. 

He approached a cat who seemed most like the leader, and gained their attention by waving his tail in front of their eyes. Many other cats hid behind ferns and hissed at Venom as he succeeded in kiting this tom's gaze. The cat glared at him angrily, and mewed, "Oh, another attack? You attack day and night, day and night. What do you want? A kit? We already gave you three."

Venom was taken aback. Awful, awful. "No. I want to take some able-bodied cats to fight with me. To fight for freedom. Against those who attacked you."

The she-cat snapped, "Oh? You aren't taking kits this time are you? You're taking older cats, now? How pathetic." and she glanced away while the cats Venom had his eyes on were receding into the ferns, hiding and silencing their hisses.
Venom stammered, "Not like that! To fight the ones who stole your kits, and fight those who name themselves The Strong. I'm good, I'm a good guy."
That sounded suspicious, Venom thought, embarrassed. 

The she-cat leapt up onto her paws, "Oh yeah?" and began circling Venom, but still refrained from nipping at him or anything. Venom wanted nothing more than to leave, until a voice snapped, "Ignore Old Nancy. She's lost all hope. Want some of us to come with you? What kind of cats do you want? Big, small? Old or young?" 

Venom frowned. Did this cat view him as a joke? The tom strode up, laying a tail on the old Nancy's grey shoulder. This tom's dark brown face pushed into Venom's and he huffed warm air from his nose, "Well? What'll it be this time?"

Venom backed up, "This time? This is my first time here! Will nobody believe me when I say you all need to get up and fight for your lives?" He felt like spatting from anger, but he knew that'd offend them more. He saw the emptiness in their eyes and fully understood how hard it could be to pick yourselves up again after falling down. He knew, he knew. 

"Ignore Big Tomcat." Another voice mewed and Venom wondered how many times they'd go through this before everyone was fighting to tear him apart. But this cat was young, and had a clean dark brown tabby pelt, which was refreshing compared to all the mangy and unkempt pelts in the clearing.
"Ignore all of them, really. Only us in the ferns really know what's up. I mean, we're not even related to all these mongrels. We just," she shrugged, "like leeching off of one another. It's what everyone's come to. I mean," she stopped. She let the others come out from their respective hiding spots as she studied Venom, "I mean... there's really nothing left, is there? Old Nancy? Big Tomcat? What kind of names are those? The Strong? The Weak? It's all really, really, nothing. "

Venom had no idea what she was trying to say. The cats besides her looked up at Venom hopefully. He blinked three times in utter confusion and sighed, relenting himself to what they wanted to say.

*~*~*

What was the difficult part was that they were all stupid with no concept on how to defend themselves. All except the initial she-cat though, whose name turned out to be Belladonna. Belladonna could fight so well that her and Venom were in a standstill until they both had to break away and test the others.
The others refused to budge.

"Come on, Nymph!" Belladonna hissed, urging a young ginger tom forward, but he kept spinning around and hiding behind her when she shoved him close enough to Venom.

"Hey." Venom whispered to a she-cat named Bud, "Come on. Don't you wanna fight?"
She shook her little white head and ran off into the woods. Belladonna shook her head, "She's gonna die, you know..."

Venom's patience was breaking with each cat who kept refusing to even unsheathe their own claws. Belladonna smirked and Venom flicked his tail-tip, irritated. One of the last cats approached meekly and Venom snapped at them, "DO YOU EVEN KNOW HOW TO FIGHT?"
They ran because of his voice.

Belladonna smirked and turned to Venom, "Interesting name you got, huh?"
He lashed his tail against the ground, stirring up some leaves, "Yeah. Well. My mother named my litter after a snake that tried to kill us when we were just born. Venom, Snake, and Ebony."

Belladonna enjoyed that, "You know," she began, as the twilight was just setting in, "I'm really sorry about what just happened there. But I don't know any of those cats. You see, I was really the leader of that group. Old Nancy? Well, she just mothered most of those cats. It's a twisted family. They're all related, like... all of them. Big Tomcat, really dumb name, he can't even lead either. He's really angry a lot, but he tuckers out after having fits and sleeps for a day. The really old cats? I think they have rabies.

"I found them once. I never really knew my family." She went on, "My father, like a normal father I guess, left my mother after her birth. He may have visited once, I dunno, I ran away a lot. I mean- I knew my family. My mom and all. But after we went our ways, we just... didn't know one another anymore. Dunno if they're still alive or not, I mean, I presume they're not. It's just how some families go, you know? Or... not." 

Venom was shaking his head and shrugging and she looked away, "So I found this family, like I said. I never knew my family so when I left, I just left, and I found this weird other family and I figured 'well I'd leech off of them and eat all their food' so I basically did. I came and went. They began getting attacked so I came more often than I left.

"But they weren't my family and that was not my home... so Venom, I'm ready to fight for a home. I kind of miss having others to talk to and be with. And you seem like a good start."

"You'll just leave them behind?" Venom asked, feeling sorry for those other, helpless cats. 

"They're not my family, like I said. But I will fight for them with you, from the front lines. You know? It's a sacrifice I guess. But I'm bored, and I'm done leeching off of them. I guess I have to give back. You know...?"