Poison Ivy: Flora's Fatale by Jade Gretz

https://www.deviantart.com/jadegretzai/art/Poison-Ivy-Flora-s-Fatale-1249008131

Poison Ivy: Flora's Fatale ANIMATION

The Green Kiss of the Hollow Beast

Dr. Pamela Isley—better known to some as Poison Ivy—stood alone at the rim of the old arboretum ruins, the moonlight staining her pale skin silver-green. Vines draped over her shoulders like living scarves, coiling and uncoiling with slow, affectionate curiosity. She whispered to them as one would to loyal, beloved pets.

“Easy, my darlings. Something new has taken root here. And it doesn’t smell friendly.”

The wind answered with a low, shuddering moan, dragging a hint of burning moss across the air. Ivy narrowed her eyes. Burning moss meant chemical interference—unnatural meddling with natural things. And there was only one person reckless enough to burn moss in a protected ruin.

Thornweaver.

Her old colleague. Her old rival. And, though she would never admit it aloud, someone who once had the talent to be her equal.

The vines at her feet twitched, tightening like fists.

“Don’t be jealous,” she murmured. “He never could charm plants the way we do.”

A trembling leaf quivered with smug pleasure.

A soft voice drifted from the shadows:

“You always did flatter the greenery more than the people, Pamela.”

Ivy’s chin lifted, eyes gleaming like twin emeralds. Thornweaver stepped into the moonlight—tall, wiry, and half-swallowed by a mantle of thorny growth that looked painfully fused into his skin. His irises glowed a sickly amber, and his smile was too sharp.

“Flattery?” Ivy said. “No. Love. Something you traded away long ago.”

Thornweaver laughed, the sound brittle as cracked bark. “Love makes you weak. Love made your crusade slow. And now the world burns while you try to coax it into behaving.”

Ivy tilted her head, studying him with unsettling calm. “You look awful.”

“You’ll forgive me,” Thornweaver replied, “when you see what I’ve grown.”

Behind him, the ground exhaled.

The soil bulged, cracked, then erupted outward as something vast pushed itself up from the depths.

At first Ivy thought it was a tree—an immense mass of roots and rotting bark. But then the thing rose higher, shaking loose clods of earth, and unfurled wide, elongated limbs. Its body was knotted wood fused with pulsing fungal flesh. Rows of wet, gleaming pods breathed in its chest like hungry lungs. A crown of splintered branches framed a head with no eyes—only a yawning, petaled maw lined with serrated seed-teeth.

The creature inhaled, and ivy vines three yards away shriveled in terror.

Ivy’s voice remained steady, though her vines recoiled. “You summoned a Hollow Beast. You’re mad.”

“Improved,” Thornweaver corrected. “Refined. I gave it a core of my own bloodroot spores. It grows stronger with every breath. And tonight, Pamela, it will devour you and your delicate ideals.”

The Hollow Beast turned toward her, the air thickening with its hot, humid stink.

Ivy exhaled sharply. “You ruined a perfectly good evening.”

I. The Awakening of the Beast

The ground trembled with the creature’s stride. Ivy backstepped, vines whipping around her like serpents seeking targets. The Beast lunged, its petaled maw splitting wider than any living thing should be able to open.

Ivy snapped her fingers.

The earth erupted with a wall of sprouting thorns, dense and viciously curved. The Beast slammed into them, splintering the thorns in a single booming blow.

“Too soft, Pamela,” Thornweaver taunted, circling. “Your plants grow fast, but mine grow hungry.”

Thick tendrils burst from the Beast’s limbs—writhing limbs of rotting wood and fungal strands. They lashed at Ivy, cracking stone as they struck.

Ivy leapt back, reflexes fluid, hair streaming behind her like a living veil. “You overfed it. It’s unstable.”

“That’s the point.”

“Well,” Ivy murmured, raising her arms, “let’s prune it.”

Dozens of vines sprang around her, tightening and thickening, forming a green spiral shield. The Beast’s tendrils hammered it, each blow vibrating through Ivy’s bones.

She clenched her jaw. “You shouldn’t anger my children.”

With a sweeping gesture, she unleashed the shield outward. Vines snapped free, spearing toward the Beast’s joints, wrapping and constricting.

For a moment, Ivy thought she had it.

Then the Beast flexed.

A wet, cracking sound rolled through the arboretum as the vines were torn apart, shredded
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