"*turns into a giant snake*"

- James Earl Jones, Conan the Barbarian

A great storm had taken the burgeoning Jin empire by surprise. Right now they were the burning Jin empire.

Sima Yi lifted his face from the dirt. His agonized body groveled in fire and blood as his vision returned. The new banners were ablaze. All the freshly conscripted soldiers and officers were being wiped out like vermin. Insidiousness was happening all around him.

Wang Yuanji had fallen the same way as him, lying on her stomach with Da Qiao straddling her back. Wang glanced behind at her opponent starry-eyed and delirious, taken hard by the aphrodisiac venom scorching through her veins, an indecent state for any officer. Da Qiao prepared to put her out of her misery by delicately unfastening Wang's collar and looping the snake skin tassels of her fan around Wang's eagerly willing neck.

Da Qiao politely closed her eyes and Wang's windpipe. She hardly grit her teeth when the blue and silver mere tried to buck out of her reigns. Da Qiao simply held her grip strict and diligent until the flailing stopped and the body went cold. The whole time she was completing the deed, Da Qiao imagined it was Zhen Ji who had fallen under her grasp.

A few yards away, Xin Xianying was rolling on her back and groggily staring up at the night sky. Her halberd was laying in shattered pieces near her head. The younger Qiao was sitting on top of Xin's waist licking her lips and giggling. The soft blues of Xin Xianying's battle dress tangled and drowned under the boisterous orange and greens of Xiao Qiao's.

Xiao Qiao opened her mouth. Xin Xianying's eyes went wide in a silent plea for mercy. Xiao Qiao savagely lunged down, shifting her narrow legs the way a snake adjusts its coils as her prey wiggled about under her. Fangs rent through flesh, never sharing even a single drop of venom to dull the suffering. The air was filled with agonized groans and greedy chewing sounds. In the end, Xin Xianying turned out to be a woman of exquisite flavor.

In center stage, Sun Shangxiang was elegantly uncurling her wrath. She twirled her chakram in long arcs, decapitating or eviscerating the soldiers like they were stalks of wheat surrendering to the scythe. Once the fighting died down and the remaining Jin legion had been laid to waste, Sun rested her chakram over she shoulder and locked her icy gaze on Sima Yi. She waded toward him through the sea of misery and death, a tiny slither tainting her steps.

"What are you women?" Sima Yi gasped at Sun's feet. Pain and nausea were swirling through his gut. "This is an abomination!"

"I could tell you, but I'd have to kill you," Sun answered cheerfully, hiding something dark and unspeakable about the months she had gone missing. Her lips curled into a smirk as she flicked her tongue. Her reptilian eyes glowed in the hot firelight as she gazed down.

"Come to think of it, I'm gonna kill you anyway."

Sun hoisted the massive ring blade from her shoulder and swept at the grass, instantly relieving Sima Yi of his mortal duties with a fancy wave of her arm.

Lu Bu and Diao Chan stood on a rolling hill near the Jin camp. Together they oversaw the bloody play like hidden visitors watching an old episode of the Twilight Zone. Lu Bu with his arms crossed, Diao Chan with her hands on her swaying hips.

"See, Lu Bu?" the slippery songstress chimed. "Even the prettiest flowers in all of China can weather the storm once you put some scales on their skin."

Lu Bu sighed as he pondered deeply to himself, his eyes staying fixed on the scene of chaos.

"But have they grown strong enough for Cao Cao?"

"Does a snake sate its appetite only on prairie rats?" Diao Chan turned toward him with a suggestive grin.

Author's note: I saw the new DW9 designs for Xin Xianying and Wang Yuanji yesterday and I decided the only option was to immediately destroy them. It's not that there's anything wrong with them, or I don't feel bad for them and I wouldn't love to see them snake-girl-ified in a different timeline. It's just the SSX crew has to keep the rivalry real. I thought about getting Guan Yinping involved too, but she's from the wrong kingdom and I couldn't think of an excuse that made sense to have her around. Maybe SSX and the Qiaos rode up to the Jin camp carrying a pole of human corpses and Yinping was already impaled on top or something. I dunno.