***so here is chapter 2 of my third rango fanfic story, in this chapter everyone's favorite asshole psychotic rattlesnake, siderwider, comes back. sorry they chapter is so short, the next chapter with be much longer.***
Road to Damnation
Ch 2: seal the deal
In another part of the vast Mojave desert, a small town in the middle of nowhere is engulfed in flames, most of the buildings in the town are already been burned to cinders and the few buildings that are not on fire are badly damaged and on the verge of collapse. On the dirt ground round the town lay tons of dead bodies, men, women, and children, their blood splattered everywhere soaking the sandy ground. Not one soul is alive, expect for one rattlesnake figure that stands in the middle of the chaos and destruction. Its scales are rough and torn with age, bearing the color of a light brown with a much darker brown diamond shaped pattern on his back, a grey ruffed and torn hat with sharp serrated like teeth placed around the rim. Several black ammo belts are strapped along its body, and its tail ending in a very wore and rusty, but still useful Gatling gun. The figure glares at the scene before him with sinister eyes, one eye is normal and bears the color of a bright yellow, but the other is completely clouded over with white and as a huge scar over it.
Suddenly, another smaller snake makes its way over to the rattlesnake and saids "general sidewinder, there is very little food and water here, not enough to support the whole group."
The rattlesnake named Sidewinder turned his head towards the other snake and said "are you sure? Did you and the rest of the gang search over everything?"
"Yes, sir." said the other snake.
"Then we move out, round up the rest of the gang and get out of here." said sidewinder.
"Yes, sir. Ummm….which direction do we go from here?" said the other snake again.
The rattlesnake turned away from the other snake and looked out on to the horizon and then said
"There is one place left that we have not tried, another small town in this part of the desert called Dirt. Tell everyone we move further west. "
Then the other snake turned away from the rattlesnake and shouted "everyone, move out! We go further west!"
Soon enough, more snakes began to weave their way out of the woodwork of the buildings and out on to the dirt street, dozens of them, enough to make a small army, snakes of all different types that live in the desert, but most of them are rattlesnakes. Sidewinder starts to move out of the town, with the large group of snakes following behind him. They make their way across the desert landscape towards the town of Dirt.
As they traveled, a voice soon echoed inside Sidewinder's own mind.
Sidewinder, I need more souls then this to take form in the mortal world.
"Trust me, you will get all the souls you need soon." whispered Sidewinder to the voice in his own head
Do not fail me, you know the consequences if you do.
"I won't, my lord. Of course, I will be rewarded for my services to you?" whispered Sidewinder again.
Of course.
In another part of the desert, far away from Sidewinder and his large group of snakes, another rattlesnake travels across the hot barren landscape, a rattlesnake the goes by the name of Jake. Jake starts to move away from a town he stayed in a day ago, he wanted to stay in the town just long enough to resupply on his ammo for his gun and get a day's rest for a another long journal to the next town. Jake never liked staying in one place for too long, considering he was a wanted outlaw and had a monster inside him.
Ever since the day long ago when he was cast down to hell and he made that deal from a serpent god from hell, he was forced to do a deed for him every so often that would change him into a monster of pure insanity and madness and seemed to be made of fire and brimstone from hell itself. When he changed, his mind became focused on one thing, to hunt down whoever had committed a terrible sin and needed to be punished for it. Also when he would change, he would lost all sense of awareness of what was around him, he didn't care who or what got in his way, as long as he finished the job needed to be done. Often after the change he would blackout, sometimes for hours and wake up not knowing where he was and what he did while he was a monster from hell. Not that he didn't like killing those that had it coming to them, still it was a great burden to him to try to keep the monster under control, it was both his gift and his curse. That was why he didn't like staying in towns or areas with people for too long, if he had another one of his episodes, hopefully no one would know about it, it wanted to keep this a secret as much as possible. Though it had been a while since his hellish powers were called upon, he still did not like to take chances.
As Jake continued to travel across the desert, suddenly a shadow fell over him and Jake instantly knew what that meant, a hawk is about. Jake quickly looked for a place to hide, but there nothing around that was big enough for a rattlesnake to hide under. Then he looked up into the sky, he saw the hawk flying high in the sky, Jake's first thought was to run, but then he thought again, that would only make the situation worse, the hawk would surely spot him. So he decided just sink low to the ground and stay still, maybe the hawk would not see him, but it did no good. The hawk started to descend from the sky, but not quickly as if it were making an attack, more slowly as if it was going to just land.
Jake decided to make a stand and coiled his body up in a defensive position and aimed his fully loaded tail gun at the descending hawk. As the bird got closer to the ground, Jake soon saw it was much bigger then a hawk and not a hawk at all, Jake soon got very scared of this strange new bird, but it was too late to try and run now. Soon enough the large bird landed on the ground a few feet away from the snake and Jake was utterly baffled by what he saw. The large bird in front of him had feathers that were the color of pure white and on its head it swore a helmet of silver armor with gold making and designs on it along with pieces of silver and gold armor on its legs and feet.
"Now I have seen everything." said Jake to himself.
The large bird just seemed to stare at Jake with a piecing glare, as if it was studying him. Jake continued to stay in his defensive position and his gun aimed at the bird, he still didn't know if this stranger was friend or foe.
Finally the large bird spoke "are you the one they call rattlesnake Jake?"
"Yeah, so what of it?" said Jake.
"I have business I want to discuss with you" said the eagle.
"And what business would that be?" Jake said more angrily, trying to sound intimidating.
"First of all, answer me this, do you like having that curse placed upon you?" said the eagle.
Jake's eyes went wide and he said "how the hell do you know about that?"
"I am an agent from heaven; I know everything there is know about you." The eagle said.
At first, Jake would think this bird was loony and would not believe a word he saids, but considering he met a demi-god from hell not too long ago, nothing was unbelievable to him now.
"Now I ask again, answer my question." The eagle spoke again firmly.
Jake suddenly gave the eagle a very anger glare and started to shout "are you out of your mind? Of course I don't you stupid bird! Do you have any idea what it's like to turn into monster, unable to control yourself and killing anyone and anything I come in contact with? I hate it!"
"Then this job should be no problem for you." said the eagle again.
"Job? What kind of job?" said the rattlesnake in a calmer tone.
"There is a demon from hell here on earth that goes by the name of Legion, all you need to do is seek him out and send him back to hell. In return, I shall relieve you of your curse." the eagle said.
Jake's eyes went wide again "you can do that?"
"I have powers beyond your understanding, I can do anything." said the eagle.
"So is that it, just send this demon guy back to hell and you will get rid of my curse?" said Jake.
"yes, but there are other things you should be aware of, firstly, Legion is weak here on earth and as no body of his own, so he hosts the body of another to remain here in the mortal world. As far as we known, the demon soul resides in a rattlesnake by the name of Sidewinder." The eagle starts to explain.
Jake's eyes went wide again at that name, then eyes gave out the most sinister glare and he bit his lower lip so hard it bled and then he said "dam, I knew that snake was up to no good."
"Oh, you two have history?" said the eagle.
"You could say that." Jake said.
"Good, it will make the job all the more easier." said the eagle.
"Now, secondly, there are two persons you should be aware of, they are agents spent from both heaven and hell to go after legion. One is a kingsnake demon by the name of Bloodwar, the other is a archangel coyote by the name of Ruth, one of the worst." The eagle explained further.
"The worst?" Jake said in puzzlement.
"You see, in heaven, there are angels and then there are archangels. Unlike other angels who do not believe in violence of any kind, archangels are the complete opposite and will do whatever is necessary to complete their mission and they don't care who gets in their way." The eagle said again.
"If you already have guys to go after this demon guy, why need me?" Jake said.
"Because both sides want to trap the demon and use him for their own personal desires, if that happens, it would being trouble to either side. The balance between heaven, hell and earth would be disrupted and who knows was catastrophic events that would follow. Your job is to prevent this from happening." said the eagle.
"And what makes you think I can take the demon down?" said Jake sarcastically.
"You have powers from hell don't you? Why not put them to good use? Besides, if you reach Legion before he takes on a body of his own, he will be easy to defeat." said the eagle.
"One last thing, how can I be sure I can trust you?" said Jake narrowing his eyes at the eagle.
"I am angel from heaven, is that not enough?" said the eagle scowling.
"So if I hunt down this demon guy and send him back to hell, you will get rid of my curse?" said Jake.
"Yes, that is the offer." said the eagle.
Jake had to think this over a bit, he was very weary of making deal with other animals, even if they were angels from heaven, and he already had made a deal with demon from hell and that later proved to be a very stupid idea. He still did not trust this eagle fully, but then again he wanted to do anything to get rid of this curse of his, and the eagle was an angel after all and they can't possibly tell a lie.
After thinking it over a bit more, Jake finally said "deal."
"Excellent. I will lead on the trail to where legion will make is appearance; the rest is up to you. Go further west until you reach a small town." said the eagle as he pointed with one of his wings in the direction he told Jake.
Jake asked no further questions and immediately took off in the direction the eagle said.
Meanwhile, the eagle flew up into the air and quickly followed Jake.
Then the eagle shouted "one last thing, if you happen to run into Bloodwar and Ruth, they will most likely try to kill you!"
"Good to know." said Jake as he continued to race along.
After that, the eagle broke away from Jake, flew further up into the sky and disappeared into some thick clouds.
As Jake raced along the desert landscape, his thought went back to the eagle mentioning a town when legion would appear, Jake hoped it was not a town that he knew of, if it wasn't the town would be easy to take over, but if it was there would be a big problem.