Before the sunrise –gray silk sky, all the Angelica's moons aloft - Zurg and Warp had a freezing early-morning bath. They both washed their faces and armpits with the cold pond-water and shivered. Warp did not understand why they had to wake up so early. But it was Zurg's custom, and who was he to disobey his master the Emperor? He eyed the nature around him; every leaf and flower were covered with crystal-clear dewdrops and the ground felt swampy. Zurg ordered him to gather his stuff, put his tent away and dress warmly. Their journey continued, both of the men shuttering with cold.

Zurg led their way steadily towards the mountains in the east. The land began to rise slowly, and a grassy patch shone in the distance. It was the route over the mountains; an old one, unused for many years, and therefore covered with thick hummock.

"Do you really know where you are taking us, Emperor?"

"Indeed. There is a lush valley behind these mountains. It is partly populated, and we can try to benefit from the aborigine's help somehow."

"How do you know this all. You said you were here last when you were a child."

"Yes, I consider I was a child in the age of fourteen."

Zurg turned his eyes towards the high peaks.

"My smuggling trips led me here every now and then. The energy sabers I was transporting were made here, in a little village near the coastline."

"I see. And this village is now our destination?"

"Well, no."

Warp was not following Emperor's thoughts at all. Zurg saw this and gave an explanation.

"I don't want anybody to see my face. Some of these people might remember me, the old ones, at least. I have not changed so much from my youngster years. Of course my age shows from my face –but the main features are the same."

"How big are the odds that we will encounter some of your old pals? Many of them must be dead by now!"

"There is another danger, too. You –or me –might accidentally slip my true name to somebody –and after that, we shall be dead. In addition to the universal interest to kill me, these people have a personal reason."

"And what's that?"

"I have been doing my own businesses here after I quitted the smuggling, as myself, Emperor Zurg. My troops have visited the valley every now and then. Robbing food that is; quite an amount of the yearly harvest. Not all of my naughty friends are androids, you see! Mwa ha haaah ha haa!"

"Whea, you are so evil!"

The sun had finally begun to rise. The red sky of dawn promised a new storm for the day. The runaways had now climbed rather high up the mountainside, and were having a short pause. Far beneath their feet, partly covered with trees, laid the little pond; its surface scattered golden jangles of the sunlight in a million direction, and for the first time in many years, Zurg experienced the enthusing effect of a rare beauty. His opening up last night was still tendering his feelings a bit, but Warp saw he was a good way back to normal, murky self again.

After a five-hours walk, they reached the spot where the land began to lower again. Far away, the sapphire blue ocean embraced the silver-sanded shore. From three other sides, the mountains surrounded the valley like gigantic teeth. Trees of majestic height waved their leaves in the wind below; it was a jungle of green glory. Warp had never seen anything like it. He gasped air and let his backpack fall to his feet. Zurg, however, didn't see the view like his friend; he only calculated how long it would take to get to the ocean –and how a profitable investment it would be to build a tourism attract of this place –'an oasis for evil apprentices', it would be called. Once a businessman –always a business man. If he was ever to get his planet Z back, he would make his servants to design the place –with a special beach villa for himself, not forgetting the horns at the roof and a big flag with golden letter Z.

"Our journey has gone quite well so far" Warp pointed out. "I wonder we haven't bumped into any kind of dangers!"

"Of course we have not, because you have been wandering with me! I am the biggest danger around, remember. Ruhaah mwa ha haa!"

They both laughed. Somehow the thin air at such a height had made them hilarious without any reasonable reason. They began to descend into the valley. Their steps were now lighter and the cheery atmosphere remained between them.

Warp thought of the people in the valley; he desperately needed some comforts and luxury, instead of the dirty camping. Maybe the first village, where he could buy a bottle of hair gel, would be located right behind a distant, grassy hill beneath his feet. He began to hum a melody in order to kill time; a favorite of his and Zurg's: Imperial March. The Emperor joined him, and soon the whole mountain was echoing from their harsh voices.

Without knowing it, the two merry vagabonds were keeping such a noise, that they irritated a certain beast: Needa. It was a huge, fat snake, twenty-two feet long, living in the caves of the mountain. It was different from its relatives because it had some special skills: it could turn to invisible, and it preferred to eat metal to flesh. And now it had woken up, due to the loud voices outside.

Zurg was conversing with Warp about their following night's camping place. They would not go in the jungle, yet. At the same time, Needa was carefully keeping its one, big yellow eye on Zurg's pack. It approached silently, descending along the mountainside from behind a group of rocks, and began to turn invisible. Neither of the two scalawags were expecting any kind of danger, and so it was an easy job for the snake to get right behind their backs.

Although Needa didn't eat people, it was still deadly. Especially in cases when its lunch was tied to someone's back. It was rather simple but strong, and a powerful choker. For Warp's luck, his load was now lying on the ground, and therefore was not Needa's first interest; he could come to it later. But as to Zurg's load: it was just deliciously right before his eyes, waiting for an assault.

Zurg had just turned his eyes back to the valley again when Needa attacked. It turned from invisible to visible again, back to its beautiful fire-lilac color, and embraced Zurg tightly between the long, slimy body (it was slimy, although snakes usually are not). The Emperor was totally taken by surprise, and he therefore was somewhat in a rigid panic. He could not speak –least of all yell –and he felt how the snake began to crush his body with its tight, four-round hold. Warp was also at a loss what to do for a while –he just looked at the creature and was ready to run away. Zurg gasped and began to turn red. The snake was interested in his backpack and dove its head far in it. When it came back to sight, it had a certain, evil-looking mask between its jaws. Warp looked at the scene and recognized the mask as Zurg's helmet. (What was the emperor still carrying it for?) Needa ate it with pleasure.

Zurg was afraid that his bones would begin to crash –so badly the creature was holding him. Warp looked keenly around, trying to find something useful. He dared not to shoot at Needa with his right-arm laser or blaster –the snake was namely moving its head so fast that there was a danger to shoot the emperor, too. Zurg tried to speak to him, but his voice was extinguishing; "..tt ts mtl.." was the only mumble that came out of his mouth. Warp began to hit the beast with a dry branch but it went broken almost immediately. He saw how the snake swallowed the last piece of Zurg's helmet and dove again into the backpack. "..tt ets metl.." Zurg tried again. Then Warp began to understand. It ate metal.

Warp's first reaction was to hide his right arm behind his back; but as he looked at the emperor's lilac-turning face, he encouraged himself in action. He used his scythes, pressed them far into the snake's middle-body flesh. Needa's head came out of the backpack in such a hurry that Zurg's Z-lettered front-decoration badge was still between it's teeth. Warp twisted the scythes and made the beast roar from pain. It began to lose its grip of the emperor.

Zurg fell down onto his knees and tried to get a breath. The snake was after Warp now –it had seen his right arm and was continuously trying to get a bite of it. Warp dodged its attacks quite well, at the same time trying to come up with an idea how to get rid of it. Zurg dropped his backpack down and turned to look at the monster.

"Alright, it is time for you to go back into your closet, Randall-imitator", Zurg wheezed.

He rose up, grimacing from pain in his lungs, and began to drag both of the backpacks towards the edge of a little projection. "Now… follow me, you slimy beast!"

Warp understood Zurg's idea and went to help him. Needa followed, for it was not anyhow a clever snake, and rapidly slide its ugly body towards the two men.

"Are you ready to push it down, Darkmatter?" Zurg asked, some weakness in his voice still.

"Aye, Emperor."

"Let's wait until it concentrates on the backpacks again… Then, attack!"

The snake had put its head into a pack again –this time Warp's. At this opportunity, the men grabbed its body, lifted the creature in the air and threw it down from the edge. It roared from fright as it's long body began to slide down. But for misfortune, its tail took also Emperor Zurg along to the fall.

Warp looked horrified after them: the snake and the Emperor rolled down the steep mountainside, wrapped to each other, obviously both trying to find cover from each other's body. After a minutes dusty rolling, Needa and Zurg bumped onto a little mountain birch. They stayed immovable. Warp began to descend after them so fast that he forgot the backpacks behind.

"Emperor! Emperor Zurg! Izzo? Are you.. um… alive? Show me a sign!"

The Emperor was still not moving. As Warp got right next to the two, he saw that both Needa and Zurg had lost their conscious. Warp pushed Needa's body aside and lifted the Emperor in a sitting position. Slapping his cheeks he tried to get a word out of him.

"Zurg! Your evilness! Did you hurt yourself badly? Speak to me. Come on, wake up!"

Despite the fact that a couple of blood strains came down the Emperor's forehead, he opened his eyes slowly. Taking a deep breath, he then tried to smile at his friend.

"I'm OK, Darkmatter… I'm OK."

"Yeah, right! Just look at yourself. Wait a minute, where is my pocket mirror… Oh, no! Darn, Needa must have snapped and eaten it!"

"Where is that snake?"

"Behind you. Although it's starting to become invisible again. It is unconscious still. We better get moving before it wakes up. That is, if you can get up."

"Don't be silly, of course I can. I just got a couple of bruises, nothing worse. But I am truly sorry for your pocket mirror… Do you want to dig it out from Needa's belly?" Zurg grinned.

The journey continued, now lighter because they had nothing to carry, and for Zurg still quite heavy, for his every muscle was hurting because of the fall. The air had turned really muggy again, and Zurg predicted that it would soon rain again –perhaps thunder. Before that, they should find a shelter. And the only place where they could find it, was the jungle below.

While getting into the bottom of the valley, Zurg and Warp truly found themselves in a wild, super-green forest. Thousands of parrots and other birds were flying above their heads, singing beautifully. The vegetation was thick beyond belief; it was really hard to get trough it. The trees reached their branches in a magnificent height, and their roots were crossing the ground like thousands of Needa's offspring. The time was something between five and six in the afternoon, Angelica time, and Warp pointed out that he was both hungry and bored with the situation. He wanted to find a nice cottage, with a table loaded with food.

After rambling and stumbling four miles across a thicket of spiky bushes, giant-spider's webs, fallen tree-trunks and sharp branches, mud, dust and the most oddest plants, the both men were extremely exhausted. Now they finally slowed down and took a breath.

"Craters!", Warp puffed, "I didn't know that the air is this humid here!"

"And I didn't remember that either... it is a long time since I last was here. Boy am I tired!"

They walked lazily towards a little waterfall which sprang down a rocky hill and made a cute pond in the middle of a group of smaller rocks. Suddenly they felt the ground disappear under their feet. They fell into a deep hole, actually in a trap, which was obviously made for some big beasts.

Zurg fell straight onto a sharp lance-like stitch which went trough his shoulder. He lost his conscious the second time that day, and again his blood began to flood –this time from his mouth and fresh, dirty wound. Warp didn't hurt himself badly, except that his leg strained and he hit his head to a hard root. To his luck, his metal arm prevented him sharing the same accident than the Emperor.

"Uhh… Izzard? What happened? Where are we?" Warp massaged his occiput.

Zurg was lying his face against the wall, which was oozing mud from between the roots which kept the hole in its shape. Under the Emperor's motionless body, there was a pile of bones and a skull of some animal. As Warp began to crawl towards him, he noticed the three, sharp-ended lances that were standing menacingly before him. And one of them had gone trough his boss Zurg.

"Izzo? Zeta?" Warp carefully turned the Emperor's face away from the wall. The eyes were closed, but this time he seemed to have no power to open them –no matter what Warp would say to him. Warp was confused and shocked. He had not a single idea what to do in this situation. He just shook Zurg's head in panic and yelled at him to open his eyes. No reaction. The fresh, warm blood had colored Zurg's black t-shirt darker, and Warp tried to stop it from coming out so fast. The Emperor would soon be gone if the flooding would not stop.

Warp stood up, cursing from the pain in his foot, and lifted his face towards the sun, which flickered above, from behind the leaves of a palm-tree. The muddy walls were so high and slippery that he couldn't climb them up -even though he was a tall guy. Also the roots were too weak to support his heavy body.

"Help! Help!" He shouted. "Help! Does anyone hear me?"

Of course, nobody answered. Warp had the energy to holler for half an hour, but then he collapsed to sit down.

They were in the middle of the deepest jungle of the Angelica system. The land was owned by snakes, tigers, poisonous plants, insects and other disgusting weird creatures. Somewhere far away, two lions were quarreling with each other. One moment, a little monkey came at the edge of the trap-hole to look down at the victims, with a piece of some drawing in its hand. However, it was soon gone. Warp was falling into a depression. He would have been glad to see even Buzz Lightyear or that irritating princess Mira now.

The night descended. Moonlight was weak. In the trap, it was dark like in a tomb. Zurg breathed still, though rather difficulty, and sometimes trembled dangerously. Warp had cut the lance some time ago with his scythes and taken Zurg farther from the wet walls. He talked to the Emperor all the time, in a hope that he would not give up if he knew he wasn't alone. But it all seemed to be pointless.