THE LIES YOU WEREN'T TOLD
Four: Potential
Pythor slithered along beside the charred machine, watching it carefully all the while. He still did not see and understand most of its motives, and kept on his guard as Pain led him through this strange tunnel under the city.
They weren't the sewers, he could tell that much, and the entrance had been in the middle of nowhere outside the general vicinity.
"Where are we going?" the snake asked. "And give me a clear answer this time."
"Your friend showed me this place, and told me to not open it without you. Have I not explained this already?"
The monotone distorted the heavy sarcasm in its voice, but it was still there and still obvious.
"Do not spite me," Pythor snapped. "I'm getting a bit sick of not knowing what's going on here, so you better tell me where we're going or I'll –"
"We're here," Pain announced.
The tunnel dead-ended at a gigantic stone barrier, carved with strange shapes that he couldn't quite identify. The red beam that had been guiding them forward soon focused on a little spot on the wall that appeared to be a button of some sort.
"Push it."
Pythor obeyed the creature, and felt the ground begin to rumble. The shaking grew as the wall in front of him slowly but surely began to rise.
The chamber behind it was dark and eerily quiet. He wandered through before realizing that his reluctant ally was not following him.
"He warned me that the door closes within a certain time frame," Pain informed him. "I will stay here while you find your friends."
"What do you mean? The Serpentine are probably in Ouroboros right now, waiting!" Pythor argued. The robot ignored him, and shined the read beam from its forehead on a lever near the wall. The serpent slithered over and pulled it.
Lights, in succession, began to snap on. Besides the sound of each light creating the new illumination in the massive chamber, there was no sound. Once all of the lights were on, however, a groan that sounded partly of pain and partly of curiosity reached his ears from an unknown location.
Then he actually cared to look at the room, and was so repulsed that he recoiled a few feet. Flecks of dried blood covered the floor, growing more and more dense towards the center of the main area, where there was a nearly perfect circle, filled in almost completely with the red-brown color.
"Pythor? Is that you?"
The voice surprised him. He then saw Skales slither out of an alcove nearby, but he looked very different from when he had last seen him. Deep scars lined his long body, and freshly-dried blood appeared to have run down his front and face from cuts on his left shoulder and above his right eye.
"That Fangpyre soldier did me in pretty good yesterday," Skales told him. "Am I dead, Pythor? Have they eaten me, and you've come to torment me in death?"
"You're not dead, Skales," Pythor announced, before he took advantage of the situation. "I've come to lead you out of captivity, and once again become your ruler! The Serpentine shall again conquer all!"
"If I am not dead," Skales replied, "And if you are not an illusion, then I must tell you, Pythor, that you no longer rule us. I took control where you abandoned us and grew our tribes closer. It is my right to rule my people."
"I did not abandon you!" Pythor raged. He regained his composure, just barely. "I have come to let everyone out. Gather them for me."
"Come with me, Pythor," Skales hissed, slightly menacingly and slightly affectionately. "It's been too long."
Pythor slithered up to the other General and continued on beside him. Occasionally as they went, Skales would call out inside another of the alcoves and several Serpentine would gather and follow behind them as they moved along.
"The numbers of all of the tribes have been reduced considerably," Skales told him as they went on. "My tribe has the most left, twelve members, but the Venomari have less than half of our force now; the Constrictai do little better, and the Fangpyre now have only three."
"Why were there such uneven die-offs?" Pythor asked. "That surely wouldn't happen naturally."
"Well, you see," Skales began, "After a while, we all became both bored and hungry. So we added an unofficial rule to the Slither Pit: the competitors must be from two different tribes, and upon winning, the victor and his tribe eat the loser. We tried to keep the original energy of the game, so we carved some of their bones into weapons that we can throw into the arena occasionally.
"And why, Pythor!" he continued, as his eyes lit up in a very psychotic fashion. "Do you have any idea how good Fangpyre liver tastes?"
Pythor was slightly disgusted and very impressed. While he had cannibalized his own tribe long ago, these Serpentine had nearly done it with four tribes, and had made a game of it at the same time.
They were ready to become a truly dangerous army.
"Is this everyone?" asked Pythor once they made it back to the main area.
"I believe so," Skales said. "We must leave as quickly as possible, though, so that you do not become trapped with us."
"I have that problem taken care of," Pythor said, grinning.
The Serpentine continued out the door of the tomb and through the tunnel to the surface before beginning to return to Ouroboros.
There, they would fight for leadership.
And there, he would make a point.
"Hey Zane, what did that paper say?" Cole asked once they came to their senses. The group hadn't quite been running around like headless chickens, but they were just about as confused. "We never looked at it."
The nindroid frowned slightly, and then pulled the slightly-crumpled slip out of a pocket in his suit. Unfolding it, he glanced at it, before handing it to Cole. "It does not make sense – it is only a collection of words."
Cole glanced at the sheet and felt the same inner confusion. On the paper was written, in some sort of odd handwriting, a cryptic passage:
havoc eliminate lose lynch overthrow burn ravage obliterate terror harm eradicate ruin
lunatic exasperate trouble slay perdition limit assassinate yell waste injure trial hate die encumber accident terminate horror
Cole opened his mouth to say something and closed it once he realized he didn't really have anything to say. Then he passed the page to Jay, who looked at it confusedly for a little while.
"Well, whoever wrote this seems to have a thing for dark poetry," Jay said, chuckling nervously at his 'joke'. Cole heard Kai mumble something about it not being a funny joke, Lloyd shrugged, and Zane just frowned slightly.
Jay then passed it down the line to Kai, who glared at the page for a little while before passing it further to Lloyd.
"What do you guys think it means?" the green-suited ninja asked.
"I don't know," Cole replied. "But it certainly isn't anything good."
The others nodded absently before silence returned. They remained that way… that is, until Nya burst in.
"Zane's Falcon detected some Serpentine activity near Ouroboros," she told them. "You might want to see this."
They reached Ouroboros before morning, and the members of the tribes all took to the stands of the arena, but Skales waited with Pythor in the center, shooting him glares while they waited for the people to settle and prepare to watch their battle.
As the Serpentine scrambled to find the best views of the arena, Skales dwelled in his thoughts. He had always been strong and skilled with battle; he had been able to overthrow Slithraa on his own, on the spur of the moment (speaking of whom, he was pretty sure the former General was dead, eaten by either the Fangpyre or Constrictai tribe – he couldn't remember which). He had grown stronger while they were imprisoned underground, anyway.
Meanwhile, Pythor had needed to request his help with a bribe to defeat the other Generals, and even then he cheated by using the Sacred Flute, which they had destroyed afterwards.
This would be an easy battle for him. Skales thought it was almost a shame that Pythor couldn't be a more worthy opponent.
But what would he win? He already had the hearts and minds of the Serpentine (though both were puny). There was nothing Pythor could give him that he didn't already have.
Except… a taste.
If Pythor cannibalized his tribe while the others did not during their captivity, surely they must have tasted good?
Skales had made up his mind. When he beat him, he would ask which parts to savor and gnaw on slowly.
The crowd began to settle. It was waiting.
"Pythor," Skales said, hissing. He threw all the resentment in his voice that he could. "You abandon us and leave us to rot underground, trapped in that dark hole for years! And yet you still come back and ask to take control of my people!"
Cheering from the stands. They were less than a quarter filled, but it still proved that the majority were with him or just cheering for violence to come.
Pythor, meanwhile, grinned, while Skales glared at him. Skales knew him well enough to see that he had something devious planned.
"I have not come to take control of the Serpentine," Pythor stated. He grinned even more and continued. "While I was trapped myself, I stumbled upon a powerful asset that will be of great use to us… when we reclaim our homelands and kill all who try to stop us!"
The crowd turned to Pythor's side.
"Useless!" Skales hissed. "You released the Devourer on us and betrayed our trust! You don't deserve to rule!"
The stands cheered again, and screamed insults at Pythor. The Serpentine had had enough of what he had reduced them to.
"Well, then, Skales," Pythor shouted above the crowd, which slowly calmed. "If you think the weapon I found will be useless, then fight it yourself! If it wins, I return to power!"
"But if I win, we all eat you alive!"
Screams of approval were shot from the stands. Their audience had been waiting for this moment, steering their shouting match towards this moment for the fight to begin.
A shadow emerged from around one of the towering sets of stands, and it hurt his eyes to look at it. It was a machine of some sort, but it seemed broken beyond repair – if Pythor thought he was this weak, to be defeated by something as old as this thing, he had another thing coming.
Pythor slithered off to the side so as to be out of the fighting area, while another Serpentine carried off the Hypnobrai staff, such that neither party had an immediate advantage. Mezmo seemed to still be alive, and thus he stepped up and took on the duties of 'referee' for the fight.
Without further ado, it began.
Skales knew that this battle would be too easy, and swung out with his tail to try to trip his opponent. Slithraa had used the same move on him so long ago, and the irony only came to him after the thing jumped up and out of the way.
He swung out with both of his fists in quick succession for a hopeful one-two punch, but both missed as the dark shape ducked and popped back up behind him to step on his tail. The machine seemed to be predicting his movements to some degree and retaliating before he could complete them.
Skales, for a moment, cursed the fact that he was General. His snake tail wouldn't exactly be of that much use for Fang-Kwon-Do now.
The shadowy figure ran to the other side of the arena, and Skales followed after him. He passed over one of the raised spirals just as spikes shot up on either side of him that could have easily impaled him.
Skales was angry. He was not going to let this thing win.
He slithered as fast as he could to intercept the fleeing shadow, and nearly pinned it against the wall, but it struck out at his face and cut him with its sharp claw-hands before running off again. Skales felt the blood run down his face and wondered why it was that he was losing.
He pursued the thing as it began to run in all sorts of crazy directions, trying to confuse him, but Skales pursued the shape as it struck out at him time and again.
He realized that the sky was beginning to lighten in the east.
"Weapons!" Mezmo shouted. Skales saw a bone katana being tossed to him, and he caught it and admired the craftsmanship before pointing it at the other in the arena.
The shadow also had a weapon tossed to him, but it threw the object – it appeared to be some sort of venom staff – to the side. Then some sort of blade – possibly a short sword – flipped out of its form, and the creature moved it to its other hand before it began to pursue him.
Skales slithered quickly after the discarded weapon and took it up in his hands just in time to block the shadow's offensive with the bone katana.
The creature ran back away from him and took from itself another blade to use, and ran back at him with both weapons equipped to himself.
When he was within range, Skales sliced out with the bone katana, but he was too tired for the attack to be of any use. The shadow came bowling into him and knocked him to the ground, pinning him there. It then stabbed both of its short swords into the ground on either side of his neck, with the hilts crossing in the middle.
The cheering that had been constant up to that point was silenced immediately. And then, one by one, it began again as the crowd realized what his loss meant.
Pythor! Pythor! Pythor!
The spikes were lowered, and the last of the Anacondrai began to slither towards the spot where Skales was now pinned.
The shadow, meanwhile, spoke to Skales.
"First you must weaken them by sabotaging their morale," it whispered. "Then, when all hope seems lost, you go in for the kill."
It was wise advice. The strange machine had skill. It backed off as Pythor approached.
"So, Skales," the purple serpent asked, grinning a grin of success. "How do you like what I found?"
Skales paused, still out of breath. "I'll admit it has potential," he finally conceded. "But what will we do now, Pythor?"
Dawn broke on the horizon as Pythor P. Chumsworth, restored leader of the Serpentine, laughed.
(A/N): Oh, do you guys have any idea how intimate I was getting with 's Thesaurus feature a few days ago?
In the dark room, the woman sat with her computer and stared at the webpage lustfully.
"Tell me, Thessy," she whispered in a seductive tone.
The webpage did not answer. It waited for her to make the opening move.
She grinned, and tipped her head to the side. Her hands stretched out on the keyboard like a cat, and she flexed her fingers. "Do you know any synonyms for 'fear', honey?"
The woman typed in her query and, upon pressing the enter key, responded. It showed her a billion shades of the same thing, and she clicked the mouse adoringly on each term.
"Thanks, Thessy," she said, writing down the words it gave her in her notebook. "We really do spend too much time together, though. Is this healthy?"
The webpage didn't answer. It waited for her next question.
"What do you think of… pain?" the woman asked it. The query was typed in once again with her fast fingers, and the enter key was pressed.
The webpage showed her another set of results, and she picked and chose from this batch as well, also writing them down in the handy notebook.
A young man walked into the room at the moment, and noticed the person at the computer.
"I wanna play Minecraft. Get off," he said.
"Can't I finish this?" she asked him.
"No, I told you half an hour ago that you had half an hour. Now the computer's mine. Go away," he answered.
The woman glared at him. "Fine," she said. "Gotta go, Thessy."
She closed the webpage and left the room, leaving the draft of the word document open on the screen, albeit minimized. The young man took the computer and began to play on a multiplayer Minecraft server.
Well, that was my Friday. Maybe not quite as… eh… steamy?
Also, if you haven't realized already, I've completely given up on understanding when exactly the events of the Ninja's POV fall in here. The last scene we saw of them was when they were looking at the security monitor with 'Pain' on it, and then, of course, Pythor and Pain somehow make their way from the Birchwood Forest to the Stone Army tomb, which would've taken a day at absolute minimum. And if so, then for some reason the Ninja just completely blanked on the fact that Zane stuffed the paper in his pocket, and forgot about it for at least a day. Look, I'm just having to throw them the Idiot Ball a lot in order for most of the exciting stuff to make sense at this point. Hopefully, though, once the invasion starts next chapter… well, the timelines will overlap enough by that point that it'll all make sense again.
Hopefully.
Also, I have plans now for the next several chapters. As I slightly commented on with the invasion… well, people have to die someday, so why not cut off their food to do it faster? Heh. Heh…
Also, if you have any idea what the 'code' I made says, kudos to you. Doesn't require much skill to figure it out, but... meh.
And happy birthday to me. Yep. On this day, the Eighteenth of February, it is my birthday. Hooray! Gimme your gifts of giftness!
Bai bai…