n"Unbelievable! I mean, come on how lucky can that bastard get"?! The cobra Shìbīng snapped as he paced in front of the large boa who watched with an unimpressed glare. "A bomb! He stole a single bomb and it's only now do those pea for brains soldiers realise it! Next time I see that guy, I'm going to kick his ass all the way to the other side of the Goddamn world"!

"That's enough Shìbīng". The boa calmly ordered. However it seemed Shìbīng was not paying attention.

"Perhaps we could just use him as a lab experiment for the rest of our untested weapons maybe"?

"Shìbīng, enough"!

"Only this time I'll make sure those ropes are so tight it'll cut off his air supply. Talk about irony, being constricted whilst being a constrictor".

"I said"-

"And just for good measure I'll make sure to add in a couple of punches to the side of his face. Sure, it's not going to do us much good but... I just want to. So damn badly"-

*BANG*

Any other thoughts Shìbīng wished to vent were cut off from a massive banging sound. Jumping from the sharpness and suddenness of the noise, he turned to see Jùrén with his tail now resting upon a now broken floorboard.

"How many times must I remind you? Don't focus on a lost battle when the war lies ahead". The boa spoke with a hiss. Shìbīng shrugged at the comment not really caring.

"So... we DO have a backup plan, right"? The cobra asked. "Because I don't think our friend... is going to be spending much luxury time safe behind Gongmens walls".

Jùrén smiled.

"When I spoke to the target he spoke and acted, not unlike yourself, with a short temper".

...

"Uh... so"? Shìbīng asked, not quite understanding what his commanding officer was getting at.

"He's quick to make up his mind and acts without thinking. Which means all we need to do is wait for him to leave the safety of the city".

"Really? We wait? Nothing else... also did you just insult me"?

"The longer he takes, the more time we'll have to prepare for our next ambush". The boa replied ignoring the cobras last question.

"And what makes you so sure he'll leave"?

"I'm confident a certain supernatural monster will handle that step". Jùrén spoke with a dark smirk.

"And... the plan after that"?

"Once he's far enough away from the city, we'll strike. This time with every able bodied soldier we have. No more teams, no more baiting. We ambush, surround the target and take him. If that Viper chooses to come along, it'll be your job, as well as the rest of the men to separate her from the python".

"Then, who's going to deal with the python"?

Jùrén rose up to his full height, towering over the smaller snake and gave a rather terrifying grin that caused Shìbīng to involuntarily give a look of worry.

"Me".

"I... I see. And... how will you beat him when I couldn't? ... Sir"?

"Because unlike you I don't play around with my prey". The boa hissed menacingly. Shìbīng took that as his sign to leave. As he slithered away, he could still feel the larger snakes eyes remain on him, making him uncomfortable and decided to quicken his pace, leaving Jùrén alone.

"I hope for your sake you're ready master python". He spoke as his tail wrapped around one of the broken pieces of floorboard still nailed to the ground before ripping it out with little effort.

"Because I'm done playing games"...

Venting his anger, he squeezed the floor board until it gave in and was crushed by the boas strength.

MIKE POV:

Whoa! I'm... not sure why, but I just felt a chill run up my spine... weird...

Anyway, speaking of weird, it turn's out Bob managed to figure out most of the formula for that strange dart thingy. In fact, he was so happy he decided to be kind enough as to wake me up super early in the morning and had to almost literally drag me to his office within the room of knowledge. An hour or so of the hippo's constant excitement over something which... really he shouldn't be that excited over, he finally walked me through the components of the individual liquids used in the dart. Most of which were the venom of snakes, spiders, scorpions and I think also zebra fish. So... yeah, you'll forgive me if I keep my distance from that thing. For the moment, I decided not to be entirely rude and thought it to be best to listen to Bob's scientific wisdom. The guy was so caught up in the excitement of it all he hadn't noticed that I hadn't exactly been listening for the last twenty minutes

"...Which is how the lethal effects of each venom is capable of cancelling the other one out. Unfortunately there remains to be some side effects such as extreme pain, becoming temporarily paralyzed and possible shutdown of major organs"! He spoke in a way too happy tone to be mentioning things like extreme pain and whatever else he mentioned. Is this guy even sane anymore? "Of course, it would be against regulations to test this dart on a live test subject unfortunately for ourselves. But that would probably be for the best considering the high risk chance of any of the side effects I just mentioned occurring to the subject".

Okay, I really don't want to have to ask this but... someone has to.

"How high a risk are we talking about here"?

"Twenty percent".

Yikes! Okay that is a very high risk! So that also means that there's a twenty percent chance that I may have caused any of those side effects to that cobra I shot last night!

...

Actually, on second thought I can live with that. That guy was a dick anyway.

"Okay, well... good to know".

"Oh also, did you know that these darts"-

"SO! How are those marbles then, eh? Managed to figure those out bud"? I deliberately interrupted. Seriously I'm getting sick of hearing about these darts when he's been chatting on and on about them for an hour. Just... PLEASE move onto something else already!

"Ah yes"! He smiled, not giving any care to my interruption. "Over here if you'd please".

I was quickly directed over to another table which featured a bowl of the marbles I came across. God I was really hoping for some kind of understanding on these things. After all there's supposed to be a line between make belief and real life. Especially considering that these weapons were actually built by hand and not just zapped into existence like I had first expected. Maybe the silent blade knows something about the Mèngyǎn that we don't? I'll have to check later, as well as that name Bàojūn which I still have to look into. Maybe Viper's right and that name was important enough to look into.

Moving on, Bob kindly, and in great length and detail, explained the abilities of the marbles. I'll try and explain it the best I can. It seems that there is some kind of powder within each marble that works only when it is able to single out a second marble which acts as the arrival point when the first marble is activated which is done by breaking it in any way possible. However there is a flaw. If there are too many marbles in a single area, the marbles don't work at all. From what Bob can guess, the first marble can only focus on a single marble at a time. Any more is too much which is why the snake I saw first use them didn't teleport a foot away from his location. Anything that the marble comes into physical contact with is also teleported which explains how the Silent blade were able to move all of their equipment so quickly. For more information, please consult with our head of research, Bob because really I don't understand anymore about it at this point.

"So, would you like to try it out for yourself"? Bob asked.

To say I was surprised by this sudden request was an understatement. I mean, now that I understood how the marbles worked, I had to admit that they were kinda cool. But using something that has known only to exist in sci-fi movies and video games, I'd have to be an freaking idiot to refuse! Damn right I'd like to try for myself!

"Yeah, let's give it a go". I nodded enthusiastically grabbing a marble from the bowl as Bob placed another on the other side of the five metre long office and gave a thumbs up and I was good to go. Without wasting another second, I threw the marble on the ground. This was going to be awesome!

9 seconds later...

Oh God... that was NOT such a good idea after all...

All it took was a millisecond if not less for me to travel to one side of the room to the other. Staying perfectly still before suddenly moving at the speed of light and then still once again did not do wonders. Now I felt dizzy, a mild headache and was now emptying the contents of my stomach into a bucket which Bob handed over. So much for it being fun.

"Hmm... seems there are some side effects to the marbles as well". The hippo mused as he scratched his chin.

Oh really? Cause I was just throwing up just for the fun of it you know... *hurk*

"I know some herbs which may ease your stomach. I'll be back"! Bob spoke before I heard the door open and close. Honestly I had the suspicion that he had run out of paper to write notes on and said the herb thing as an excuse to get more... Ugh... and this cold does not help at all. Stupid draft.

...

Wait. We're hundreds of feet underground! How the hell can there be a draft? It wasn't here when Bob was inside the room so where is it coming from? Maybe it's another side effe-

I couldn't continue anymore as a jolt of pain suddenly went off inside my brain causing me to yell and curse. It was like someone had set a firework inside of my head. Trying to use my tail to soothe it only made it worse. All I could do was fall to the floor and struggle around, looking as though I was having a seizure. I was so busy focusing on the pain that I couldn't even scream for help, even though my cries of pain would surely have been enough to draw anybody's attention from nearby. But it didn't. The only thing that I could do was watch as all the colour vanished in front of me and was replaced with a dark orange glow. Everything that had colour was now a dark orange that kept going from light orange back to dark orange again in a slow rhythm. Even my screams began to drown out as I could hear nothing more than a buzzing sound growing louder and only thing I could think was what the hell was in those marbles?

...

Hey guys, hope y'all are having a nice summer. Kind of obvious I've been focusing on my other story and other things since it's been... some time since I last updated. Don't worry I haven't given up on this story, I'm just planning on taking it in another direction since it's been struggling a bit. So anyway, hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, especially when I've spent ages trying to make up the fake science mumbo jumbo ;) and I'll see you next chapter. Cheerio!