Chapter 6 Snake Bite

"You know for someone who just invaded our guild you don't seem very focused on us." Viper mused. "Makes me wonder why you'd all bother to invade at all."

"I'm more interested in this castle of yours." Marco said. "Pretty impressive, but empty I've seen about five people the entire time I've been here."

"Most of my men retreated the moment the first alarm went off." Viper explained. "I had hoped for more time to prepare but it seems that you've taken out my elites faster then expected."

"Ohhh was that what that alarm was?" Marco asked. "Honestly I thought it's only purpose was to be loud and obnoxious."

"What would we possibly have to gain from that?" Viper asked.

"I'd be incredibly aggravating." Marco answered. "And I heard you dark guilds are filled with jerks who only exist to make others miserable."

"Well I suppose we're the sole exception." Viper said. "We're a dark guild only because the council doesn't want to recognize us as a legal guild."

"That's bullshit." Marco interrupted.

"I'm sorry?" Viper asked confused.

"The only thing I've known about dark guilds up to this point is that they're evil alright? And you're expecting me to believe that the first time I ever interact with one they end up being good people?"

"Yes that pretty much sums it up." Viper confirmed.

"I'd probably believe you if..." "Mind Dragon Laser" "Your snake wasn't prepared to attack me!"

Viper sighed. "You know I was hoping we wouldn't have to resort to violence. I was willing to sedate you and let you go but..." Viper's body transformed into hundreds of tiny snakes that slivered around the room. "It's my duty as Serpent Fang's guild master to insure that you are punished for your actions against my guild."

"Nah I'll pass." Marco said nonchalantly.

"You don't exactly get a choice in the matter." Viper hissed.

Nina woke up leaning against the castle wall. The first thing she did was take a quick look at her surroundings and the first thing she saw was the broken green house. Even from a distance she could see that it was in disarray. Without her magic sustaining the plants inside they had withered in a matter of minutes.

"I see you finally woke up huh?" What Nina was more surprised to see however was the stoic samurai next to her.

"You we're taken out too huh?" She asked jokingly.

"More like forced to retreat." Roku gruffed. "After the third alarm went off I decided that I would be more useful evacuating the others then getting knocked out myself."

"You say that as if you expected to lose." Nina noted.

"I did." Roku answered.

"Wh-what?"

"Those kids are strong. Stronger then I was back then." Roku turned to face Nina. "Speaking of fights how bad did you get your ass kicked?"

Nina shot Roku a glare before sighing. "It was pretty bad... what happened to the others?"

"Most of the normal members left when things got rough." Roku answered. "I saw Sesor running with his crew and I met up with Moray soon after, all in all they weren't too banged up."

"Well that's a relief." Nina sighed. "At least we don't have anything else to worry about."

"You won't make a fool out of me dark mage!"

"What in the world was that?" Nina asked panicked.

"Damn that kid followed me all the way here?" Roku grumbled.

Pete pointed at the two dark mages with a fire in his eyes. "Y-you won't fool me!" He slurred tiredly. "As if I'd... I'd let you go free!"

"This is the guy?" Nina asked. "You don't think you could win against him?"

'No something isn't right...' Roku thought. 'He looks worse then I do and I took most of the damage during that fight.'

"Don't just stand there! Face me like a... like a..." Pete fell to his knees and slumped onto the ground. "Like a... like a..."

"Ah! Roku look at his hand!" Nina shouted pointing at said body part.

'No! It can't be!'

"Hey guys is it getting hot in here or is it just me?" Yoro asked.

"Why are you hot?" Ricco asked. "You're the one covered in water."

"He's right though..." Sakura panted. "It is much hotter then before."

Ricco sat down on the hard castle floor. "It's getting harder to stand too..." Ricco said also feeling the intense heat.

"Wait a second Ricco what's that on your leg?" Sakura asked.

Marco looked around Viper's room but he couldn't see or smell where the man was hiding. All he found were a myriad of smaller snakes that he could easily kick away. "You know..." Marco noted. "This isn't exactly an effective way to fight someone."

"Oh really?" Vipers voice echoed around the room. "Then why is it that I've already claimed four victories?"

"Four victories?" Marco asked. "You couldn't mean my friends could you? Because there's no way they all lost so quickly."

"In a direct fight most likely not." Viper admitted. "But unlike you they won't avoid my poisonous little friends."

"Poisonous!" Marco realized. "Then you mean..."

"This isn't good." Roku grumbled. "It looks like he took in a surplus of Viper's special venom."

"Wh-what!" Nina said shocked. "B-but the boss wouldn't do that to kids would he?"

"That's not important right now." Roku said. "What's important is finding a way to cure him."

"I wish my plants hadn't all withered away..." Nina sighed. "It'd be easy to make a cure with even just one of my vines."

"I'll go and search the greenhouse for some." Roku said abruptly.

"Roku wait!"

"What is it? We don't have much time here." Roku asked

"Why do you care about this kid? Isn't he the one who's been hurting all our fellow guild mates."

Roku sighed. "I'll tell you everything when I come back but for now I'll tell you this. after fighting him I've started to question how good we really are..."

Nina sighed. "Why does he have to be so needlessly mysterious."

"You poisoned my friends!" Marco yelled. "You bastard! Come out here and I'll fight you!"

"If you insisssssst." "Cobra" Four baskets dropped down from the rafters and floated in the air above the ground. In the center of the four baskets snakes fell from the ceiling morphing into Viper's shape. Except some of his features were less then human. Two fangs were clearly visible hanging out of his mouth and he had a dark purple cobra hood, and there were scales faintly visible on his skin. "Venom Blaster"

Purple goop came spewing out of Viper's maw but a quick jump to the side allowed Marco to avoid it. "You know my life has taken a very strange turn." Marco noted. "I mean before I was just living with my dragon dad and now I'm invading a castle of a dark guild that claims they aren't evil even though there Master that has now turned into a snake man is trying to murder me and all my friends."

"I don't think this is the point where your life became weird." Viper deadpanned. "Especially since you just admitted that an imaginary dragon was your father."

"You have no right to talk." Marco said annoyed. "You started out preaching about how not evil you were and now your trying to kill my friends!"

"I'm working through some thingssssss."

"What kind of excuse is that?!" Marco yelled.

"Ssshut up!" Viper yelled. "You foolssss have ruined everything! All those years of hard work! Fixing this castle, gathering guild members, avoiding the council, and for what?! For some little punk kids to come strolling in and defeat us with ease?!"

Viper punches the wall. "No! I refuse to let you win! Even though none of my guild members will come back, even though I'll be alone again, even though I'll be locked behind bars for years I don't care!" Viper had a crazed smile of his face and his eye was twitching. "As long as I kill all you kids it doesn't matter!" The man then came apart and slithered all around the castle.

"Oh not this time!" Marco yelled running after him. "You won't get anywhere near my friends you psychopath!"

"Thanks a lot Kappa." Sakura sighed. "Who knows what would've happened if you hadn't extracted that poison."

"Just try not to get bit again." The old spirit advised. "The snakes that bit you may still be wondering around the castle."

"So it was a snake bite that caused the heat?" Yoro asked. "I guess it makes sense the guild is called Serpens Fang.

"Hm snakes what snakes?" Kappa asked.

"The ones you just told us about!" Ricco yelled.

"Oh yes that's right." Kappa remembered. "Please avoid the snakes that are currently charging towards you." The spirit then disappeared in a bright light.

"Tell us those things sooner!" Ricco yelled, he then sighed as he took his bow off of his back.

'Hissssssss'

Sakura took two kunai out of her Requip space and Yoro covered his fists with earth as the trio heard the sounds of slithering and hissing in the distance. Yoro audibly gulped when he saw what was charging them hundreds of snakes numbering to at least a thousand zipping through the dark castle halls straight for them.

"Green Arrow Tornado" Ricco acted first firing a small tornado into the crowd knocking the snakes backwards but not defeating any of them. "Resilient bastards." He muttered.

Yoro moved next. "Earth Make Crusher." A giant slab of rock rose in the air and positioned itself to destroy the reptiles. However the moment it began to drop all the snakes moved out of the way avoiding the attack. "Fast too." Yoro acknowledged.

Meanwhile unable to use her melee weapons Sakura was stuck in the back throwing kunai from a distance which surprisingly seemed to be the only thing that worked. "I think they might be resilient to magic." Sakura theorized. "Because normal weapons seem to work just fine."

"Got it on the first try."

"Wait I know that voice." Ricco realized. "You're that guy from earlier! The one with the speech impediment!"

"Oyoi, it's a verbal tick!" Moray said annoyed. "But yeah I'm the guy that fought you earlier."

"Well what do you want?" Ricco asked. "If you couldn't tell we're a bit busy!"

Moray threw a rock at one of snakes knocking it out. "I'm here to help you out." He answered. "Trust me you wouldn't survive otherwise."

Ricco shot a few normal arrows into the crowd killing more snakes. "And why's that?"

"I'm pretty sure you've all realized that Serpent's Fang isn't exactly a powerful guild." Moray started.

"Yeah you guys suck." Yoro confirmed.

Moray's eyebrow twitched. "Yes well how do you think a guild like ours would be able to exist for so long? One that refuses to side with any of the major dark guilds like Grimoire Heart or Tartaros?"

"Dumb luck?"

"Bribery?"

"The other guilds don't care?"

"No!" Moray snapped. "Oyoi The answer is this technique here. Tell me if you weren't looking for them would you have noticed these snakes?"

"No we wouldn't." Ricco admitted. "We were already bitten once... if it weren't for Kappa's efforts we would be dead."

"You're lucky a doctor was with you." Moray said. "The only way to prevent the poison from killing you is to either have a specific type of medicine like you did or..."

"Or?" Sakura asked.

"Or someone needs to defeat Viper himself and seeing how you're busy here and since that biker friend of yours is lying on deaths door I don't think you four will be able to accomplish that." Moray explained.

"Biker friend... Pete!" Ricco realized.

"And with us caught up here..." Yoro muttered.

"Oh god... the fate of our friend is in the hands of Marco!" Sakura realized.

"And who knows where the hell he is now..." Ricco sighed.

"Did you have any luck?" Nina asked hopefully.

"Sadly not." Roku sighed. "Your miracle plants have all withered away."

"Heh." Nina laughed. "You know maybe you were right I should really should start growing my own plants then we wouldn't be in this mess..."

"Yeah you really messed this one up." Roku confirmed.

"You're supposed to comfort me!" Nina snapped. "By the way what did you mean when you said we weren't as good as we thought we were."

Roku frowned. "For a long time we've been a part of this dark guild, following Viper to repay him for what he's done for us. I'd be dead if it wasn't for him."

"And I'd still be alone in the woods." Nina agreed.

"But still here we are now trying to keep a kid alive after our boss injected a lethal poison into him." Roku lamented. "And not only him but countless other members of dark guilds as well. Some of which must of had families and friends."

"You're right..." Nina realized. "Suddenly I don't feel comfortable being a part of this guild."

"Then why don't we just leave." Roku suggested. "Moray told me he was going to wander and Sesor was heading over to Hargeon why don't we leave as well."

Nina smiled. "I think I'd enjoy that."

Unbeknownst to everyone in the castle Viper could hear everything through the use of his snakes. "Everything was stripped away..." He muttered. "My closest allies betrayed me..." the Serpent Fang's guild leader seethed with anger "That's enough!"

Snakes slithered together from off the floor to form Viper. "To think a group of children would be the thing to tear my guild away from me. Dozens of dark guilds have tried and all of them have fallen before me. But then you come along and ruin everything!"

"Don't you act like the victim." Marco said. "You're the one murdering people!"

Viper had a crazed look on his face as he glared at Marco. "I'll kill you!" He hissed. "I'll tear you to pieces for what you've done!"

"I still don't know what you're talking about." Marco admitted. "But I'll fight you anyway."