***here is the next chapter, sorry for a long delay, I have been rather busy, much longer chapter this time.***
Road to Damnation
Ch 3: Storm on the horizon
The town of dirt, now newly named mud, was now in a long period of peacefulness, even since the demise of the distrust worthy mayor of the town and a scrawny chameleon by the name of Rango permanently became sheriff of the town several months ago, everything in the town was actually quiet for once. All the gangs and outlaws left the town looking elsewhere and with the town having plenty of water now, more people started coming back to the town to start life anew again. Many of the building were still being rebuilt after the major flood that brought all the water here in the first place, but they were being rebuilt much better than they were before, the town was even expanding with more people coming to settle in it. The town of dirt even started to trade with other towns for their water, which in turn made this small town more prosperous than it ever was. Now that the town was such in a good state of things, Rango started to get bit bored with his job, not that he didn't like having the town without any trouble, still he wished something exciting would happen for once.
Rango was sitting at the bar in the saloon with beans beside him, drinking the day away with a tall glass of cactus juice, the liquid still stun like hell in his throat when he drank it, but he gotten used to it by now. The bullfrog bartender was quietly standing behind the counter cleaning glasses while some the folks in dirt where sitting around small tables either playing a game of cards or just drinking the day away and one person quietly playing a piano in the background.
Rango and beans sat in silence for a while, until Rango finally spoke "you know, things have been gettin' kind of dull around here."
"Really thank god, it is nice this town actually has peace for once." said beans are turned her head towards rango.
"I know, still it be good if something exciting happened around here once in a while." Rango said again.
"Like what? Would you rather have bad bill and his gang come back? Or even…..rattlesnake Jake?" beans said.
Rango gulped at that thought, even though he and Jake at come to a mutual understanding the last time they met, Rango still did feared the snake a bit.
"And just so you know, consider yourself lucky, you're the sheriff we have had the longest." beans said while pointing her finger at Rango.
"I know, I know, but still…..I would like something to happen." Rango said.
Suddenly, there were sounds of someone shouting frantically in the dirt street outside the saloon.
"Someone help! Please!"
Rango immediately got up from the bar in the saloon and rushed out to see who was shouting, beans soon followed after him. Soon enough all of the townsfolk in the saloon were curious has to what was going on and followed Rango outside as well. Rango soon saw a desert mouse on a roadrunner quickly racing into town, the desert mouse halted is roadrunner a few feet away from Rango. Rango could see sheer terror and panic was on the mouse's face.
"Whoa, what is a big problem, mister?" Rango tried to ask politely.
"Are you the sheriff of the town?" the mouse asked frantically
"ummm…yes, I am." Rango said a bit confused.
"Thank god, I desperately need your help, a town just out yonder is completely in flames!" the mouse shouted.
Rango let out a short gasp and soon said "where?"
"Just further east of here!" The desert mouse said as he pointed in the direction he came from.
"did you see what caused it?" said rango.
"No sir, I was traveling and just made my way into town for a quick stop only to find the whole a blazin'!" said the desert mouse.
"Alright, I'll check it out, thanks, mister." Rango said.
After that, Rango quickly rushed over to the stables in the town to saddle up on his roadrunner. Meanwhile, the desert mouse dismounted his roadrunner and sat himself on the pouch of the saloon, trying to calm himself down, he was still very distort by what he had witnessed. Soon enough Rango fully saddled up his roadrunner and was ready to ride out of town.
"Aren't you coming?" Rango said to the desert mouse.
"Oh hell no, no way am I going back there, that place be like hell itself." said the desert mouse.
Rango gulped bit at that thought, the last thing he wanted to do was go into a burning town by himself, but he was the sheriff after all, he had to do it whether he liked it or not.
Then beans approached Rango and said "that is okay, I'll go with you."
"No, you stay here; if there is trouble, I don't want you get hurt." Rango said towards beans.
Even though beans thought that was very sweet of him, she still did not like the idea at all of him going alone.
"But…" beans tried to speak again.
"I know, the first sign of trouble, I'm outta there." Rango said interrupting beans.
"Alright then, but be careful." said beans.
"You know I will be." said Rango.
After that, Rango mounted his roadrunner, lighted kicked his roadrunner in the legs with the spurs on his boots and quickly rode out of town. Beans and the rest of the townsfolk watched him go, hoping it was not last they would ever see of him.
Rango continued to ride on in the direction in the desert mouse suggested, he hoped he was staying on the right track considering his sense of direction was kind of poor in this barren landscape. Rango had not really visited many towns outside of dirt, so he was not even sure what the town he was looking for looked like. Finally, Rango saw some smoke rising high in the sky on the horizon, Rango figured that is where the town was and continued in that direction.
Rango soon did come upon the town he was looking for and once he got there, he was utterly shocked by what he saw. There was almost nothing left of the town, all of the building were reduced to nothing but small burning pile of lumber, most of the fire had already extinguished itself, expect for a small bit of lumber that was still burning creating the smoke. A small piece of lumber that was still standing suddenly collapsed and scared Rango's roadrunner a bit, but Rango quickly quieted him down again. As Rango walked further into the town on his roadrunner, he soon caught a whiff of a horrible smell, one smell that does not leave your mind once you smell it, the smell of death. Soon the smell got so overwhelming Rango wanted to puke, but he pressed on further into the town, he at least had to find out who was behind this. Soon he spotted several long thick line trails in the sand all around the town, he knew those to be the characteristic tracks of a snake, but he found it really odd to have so many tracks in one place, snakes are not known to travel in groups.
Soon enough, Rango came upon the most horrible sight of all, he saw them, dead bodies everywhere with their guts scattered over everything. They were men, women and children, at least what Rango could make out from their mangled bodies. Rango could tell the folks in this town had been dead for quite some time as their bodies started to decay into rotting corpses and crows and vultures had been picking at their bones. Finally, Rango could not hold it in any longer, he vomited, he had never seen anything so gruesome in his life. Soon enough, Rango couldn't take it anymore, and quickly rode out of the town to return to dirt as quickly as possible.
As soon as he saw the town of dirt in sight again, Rango slowed his roadrunner down to a walk, even though he was only away for short time, he was glad to be back in town and far away from the hellish scene he just witnessed. As Rango slowly rode into town with a grim look on his face, beans, who had been waiting for his return on the pouch of the saloon, saw him and rushed over to him.
"Well, how bad was it? Where there any survivors?" beans asked.
"No." rango just simply said in a sober tone.
"Did you see who done it?" beans asked again.
"No." rango said again as he dismounted his roadrunner.
Soon spoons came over to him, and Rango let spoons take his roadrunner back to the stables while he went straight to the sheriff office with a grim expression on his face.
Beans knew something was troubling him and whatever he saw in that town he did not want to talk about in public, so she decided it was best talked about in private. She soon followed Rango into the sheriff office, once she entered, she found him sitting at his desk. He took off his cowboy hat and rubbed his forehead firmly and looking very distort.
Beans was very concerned about him now and walked over to him and said "Rango, what did you see out there?"
At first Rango didn't answer, he was still trying to piece together what he had scene.
Finally Rango spoke "it was horrible, beans! There was nothing left of the town, the buildings had been burned to the ground….and…..that is not the worst of it…."
It was getting harder for Rango to form words as he spoke and beans could see it in his face.
"There was….bodies….dead bodies….everywhere…no one alive, it was a massacre." Rango said while putting his hands over his head and was getting more distort, also on the verge of crying.
"Oh, it was that bad. Sorry, you had to see that." said beans.
"How can someone do that? Do something so horrible? Kill dozens of innocent lives without mercy." Rango said as he pulled his hands away from his face.
"well, you have not been here that long, so you don't know how worse it can get around here, but I do, I have heard of this sort of thing before, large gangs of outlaws destroying entire towns just to get what they want." Beans said.
"That's what it looked like happened there. Oh and another thing, it looked like this was done by snakes. Rango said
"Snakes? But they usually don't travel in gangs." Beans said.
"I know, but I saw snake tracks everywhere there." Rango said.
"Do you think it could be….Rattlesnake Jake?" Beans said.
"No, this wasn't his work, besides I don't think he is one to start a gang or join one." said Rango.
"Is the town in danger?" Beans asked.
"No, I didn't see them heading this way, so don't tell anyone else about this, I don't want them to panic over nothing." Rango said.
"Okay, did you see anything else there?" Beans asked again.
"no, not from what I could see." rango said.
"Well, okay then, I guess I will you alone, but if you need to talk more about it, I'm here." Beans said as she over to the door of the sheriff's office.
"Thanks, Beans, but I'll be fine." Rango said.
With that, beans left the sheriff's office, she figured Rango needed some alone time to get over what he saw. Meanwhile, Rango continued to sit at his desk with his hands over his face once more, in truth he was not fine, he was in deep thought now, thinking hard of whether his job as sheriff was really worth it. He couldn't get those horrible scenes of that town out of his head no matter how hard he tired, he dread to think of what other traumatizing things it might see out here. Also his thoughts went back to those snake tracks, if there really was a large group of snakes out there and they ever did come to dirt, what could he possibly do?
Meanwhile, in another part of the desert, Jake quickly making his way across the desert, slithering faster than he ever have before, he barely even stopped to rest despite the intense mid-day heat, he wanted to get the town the eagle angel suggested before anything bad happened, he wanted to be rid of his curse once and for all and the only way for that to happen was to make sure he got the job done right. Jake knew he was on the right path, his instincts told him and the monster inside him told him too.
Not too far ahead for Jake, the kingsnake by the name of Bloodwar was racing along the same path, he was not in such a hurry and was not traveling as fast, he knew the destination on where he was going and didn't need to exhaust himself to get there. Jake was quickly catching up with the kingsnake and the kingsnake was unaware of the rattlesnake racing towards him.
"DAMN!" Bloodwar shouted out as he saw the rattlesnake speed past him.
Jake knew the kingsnake was there, but at the moment he did not have time to pick a fight with another snake.
Once the rattlesnake flew past, Bloodwar instantly recognized who the rattlesnake was.
"Well I'll be molested in a schoolyard, I know that fella!" shouted Bloodwar.
Bloodwar sped up faster too caught up with the rattlesnake and shouted "Hey! Hey, you!"
Jake just ignored the kingsnake and continued on his way.
Soon the kingsnake caught up with Jake and said "Ain't you that fellow named Rattlesnake Jake?"
"You know me?" Jake said in surprise and puzzlement as he turned his head towards the kingsnake.
"Yeah, a lot has been said about you in hell. You're the guy that made a deal with some serpent god in hell just to save your own hide. Where you off to in such a hurry anyway?" Bloodwar said.
"None of your business." Jake said as he snarled at the kingsnake and turned his head away from him.
"Pardon, but I would be obliged if you answer my question! Won't take but a minute to call headquarters downstairs to find out if you gone awhol or not." Bloodwar said getting a bit irritated with Jake.
"I…wait a minute, your Bloodwar!" Jake said in surprise as he just realized who he was talking with.
"Yeah, so what of it?" the kingsnake said.
Without warning, Jake lunged at the kingsnake, his fangs fully unsheathed from his mouth and aiming for the neck. Before the kingsnake had time to react, Jake bit hard, sinking his fangs deep into Bloodwar's neck. Soon the both tumbled along the sandy ground, Jake still clinging on hard to the kingsnake. Once they both finished tumbling, Bloodwar threw half of his body high into the air taking Jake with him with impressive strength, the toss made Jake let go and fall hard on the ground.
Bloodwar lowed his body back the ground again and shouted "what the hell, man? Are you off your rocker?"
Jake soon recovered from the fall and saw the deep puncture marks he made in the kingsnake's neck, but he also saw that the wounds started to heal up quickly by itself. Obviously, since this snake was a demon from hell, it was going to take a lot then venom to take this guy down.
Next, Jake tried using his tail gun on him, he fired a few bullets at the kingsnake, the bullets hit him dead on, but just like before the bullets wounds instantly healed right up, having no effect on him at all.
The kingsnake just lighted chuckled and said "stupid moron, it will take more than mere mortal weapons to harm me."
"listen, I don't know what your game is, but your seriously pissing me off, you better scram before I use my hell bold powers on you." Bloodwar said again.
Jake had to think hard and quick on how to deal with this snake, obviously his weapons were not going to work on him, he knew there was only one choice left and did not like it all. To call upon the hellspawn monster inside him and use his own hell bold powers, why not fight fire with fire, this snake was a demon and he was sort of a demon himself. But Jake was not entirely sure he could do that or even if he did, not too sure whether he could control himself from going berserk. Normally the monster only took over him when it was really needed, he couldn't call upon the monster to come out, but he no other choice, and he had to try.
Jake closed his eyes and concentrated hard, going in the deepest recesses of his mind to find the demon spirit inside him, Jake hoped the kingsnake was not going to make an attack, at least for a brief moment.
"What the hell is that rattler doing now?" Bloodwar said to himself as he stared at Jake just standing there.
Jake continued to search his mind, at first he found nothing but darkness, but then it hit him like a train, he could feel the presence of the hellfire spirit on the edges of his mind. Jake dung deeper into the place the spirit resided in hopes to communicate with it somehow. Soon Jake faced the spirit eye to eye and simply spoke.
Spirit, I need you.
That was all it took to bring the spirit out, it soon took over all parts of his mind. Jake immediately became to scream in agony, it hurt a lot when he transformed. His whole body soon felt it was being burned from the inside and out, soon steam and smoke began to rise from his body, his scales turned a more darker color, almost black. Jake's eyes became pupiless and glowed with more intense fiery light than ever before, like two pools of boiling lava. Suddenly, Jake's entire back ignited in flames, but the flames did not seem to burn his body. Then a long chain appeared wrapped his body in place where his ammo belts were. Finally, the transformation was complete; he had become the spirit of vengeance once more.
At first, the kingsnake looked at the rattler with utter bewilderment to what he just seen, but then an evil smile soon spread on his face and said "so what they say is true, now things are getting interesting."
Even though the spirit had taken over most of his mind, Jake could still feel the presence of his own mind, which meant he could control the spirit to a certain extent, but not that that mattered right now, he had only one goal in mind and that was to destroy the demon kingsnake.
"your travels end here, Bloodwar," Jake said in a much more deep demonic voice.
Jake soon fired off his tail gun, this time instead of normal bullets, they were streaming arrows of fire. Bloodwar quickly deflected jake's bullets with his own tail gun and started to fire a few bullets of his own, the bullets hit Jake dead on, but they seemed to have no effect on him.
"So your immune to even my bullets, huh?" Bloodwar said.
Then the kingsnake lunged for Jake, barring his fangs out, even though they weresmaller then a rattlesnake's, they still a powerful bite, but Jake quickly dodged out of the way and he blew a raging fire out his mouth at the kingsnake. Bloodwar did get hit by the flames and burned his body badly, but soon after his burn wounds quickly healed by itself.
"Impressive" Bloodwar said.
Bloodwar was about make another lunge for Jake, when suddenly he grabbed a hold of the chain around his body with his mouth, the chain became to unwrap around Jake's body and the then Jake swung the chain high in the air towards the kingsnake. Bloodwar didn't have to dodge it and the chain quickly wrapped itself around his body, burning his skin to the touch. Then suddenly Jake took off with surprising speed with the chain still in his month and became to drag the kingsnake along with him. Surprisingly, Jake could drag the bigger snake along the ground with ease. The kingsnake became to let out shouts of pain as his skin was being torn up by the rough sandy ground.
"Curse you, rattler!" Bloodwar managed to shout out while getting a face full of sand and dirt.
Jake's racing soon brought him very close to some train tracks, where a train happened to be going by at the moment. Jake quickly raced on past the train, completely ignoring it. Meanwhile, some of the passengers in the train cars saw the two snakes fly by and were in total shock and disbelief by what they saw. One passenger in particular spotted them and did not like what she saw, the female coyote soon got up from her seat and went to the back of the car and opened up the back door.
"Umm…lady, you can't do that." one of the other passengers said to the female coyote.
The female coyote simply ignored the person, shut the door and began to climb to the roof of the car. She walked along the roofs of the train cars until she came to the train's main engine. First his dived feet first in the car carrying the coal for the engine and then once she was clear out of the coal; she approached the two engineers driving the train. The two engineers turned around and looked at the female coyote in utter surprise.
"madam, how in the world-" one of the engineers started to say, but never got to finish his sentence as both engineers were roughly throw off the train. Then the female coyote told hold of the levers and gears that controlled the train and shifted them to make the train go faster.
Meanwhile, Jake was way head of the train still dragging the kingsnake along the ground.
"Just full of surprises, ain't ya, rattler?" Bloodwar managed to say.
"You don't live with this curse for few years without picking up a few tricks." Jake said while still holding to the chain in his month.
"Good, cus' I got a few up my sleeve too." Bloodwar managed to say.
Suddenly a huge long snake tongue emerged from Bloodwar's mouth and wrapped itself around Jake's neck, which in turn soon caused Jake to stop running. Soon they were both in a kind of tug of war with each other, the harder Jake would pull on the chain around Bloodwar and tighter Bloodwar squeezed with the long snake tongue around Jake's neck.
"Let go of me, god dammit!" Bloodwar managed to shout out even though his month was full at the moment.
"No, not until I kill you." Jake said while still holding on the chain.
"Why are so determine to kill me anyway? I'm not after you." Bloodwar said.
"You're in my way." Jake said.
"What do you mean by that?" Bloodwar said a bit confused.
Unbeknownst to the two snakes, the train the female coyote was driving was quickly catching up to them; the coyote shifted the gear to make go even faster. Meanwhile, the passengers the train cars in back were getting really concerned how fast the train was going. Soon the sounds of the speeding train down the tracks caught the attention of the snakes. They were surprised to how fast the train was going, but even more surprised to see who was driving it.
"Ruth!" said both snakes at once
"You know her?" said Bloodwar
"I know she is a killer archangel!" Jake shouted.
Suddenly, the female coyote named Ruth used some of her god like powers to lift the train engine off its tracks and fly thought the air. The train engine glowed with intense light for a few seconds and flew thought the air right towards Bloodwar and Jake. As the rest of the train was following the sailing train engine, the passengers inside the train cars became to scream and panic as they were tossed around like rag dolls.
"SHIT!" both snakes shouted as the train came hauling towards them.
Both snakes let go of each other and dodged out the way quickly before the train engine hit the ground. The harder part was dodging the rest of the train cars that were flying through the air, but the both managed to dodge them all unhurt. Soon the whole train laid out in one huge wrecked and twisted mess across the desert landscape, if anyone at all survived this train wreck, they could not be seen.
"Oh my fucking god! I can't believe she did that!" Jake shouted again, completely shocked by the scene he at just witnessed.
"Hmph. That women never did do things the easy way." Bloodwar just simply said.
"She tried to kill us!" Jake shouted
"I reckon she was trying to narrow down the opposition. Now back to our business, what exactly are you after, rattler?" Bloodwar said again.
"Who says I'm after anything?"Jake spat out
Meanwhile, while the two snakes were talking, the female coyote remerged from the wreck of the train engine with not a single scratch on her. Next, she tightly gripped a piece of metal from the train engine with her hand and then using her unbelievable god like strength, she threw the entire train engine with one arm like a toy, hauling towards the two snakes.
"Well, you said I was in your way, and I only have one job to do, so that can't be unless you're after the same guy I am. You wouldn't happen to be after Legion would you?" Bloodwar said.
Jake was about to say something, when his eyes looked towards the sky.
"BLOODY HELL!"Jake shouted with wide eyes.
Bloodwar turned his head towards the sky just in time to see the train engine hauling towards their heads. The snakes didn't have time to dodge it this time and were crushed by the train hitting the ground, this time the train engine exploded on impact, causing a huge fireball to arch up into the sky.
Now with her rivals seemingly vanquished, Ruth whistled and her roadrunner came out of nowhere from the train wreckage, just as unharmed as the coyote was. She quickly jumped on her roadrunner and rode off further in the direction she indented to go.
Meanwhile, back at the burning twisted mess that was the train engine, Jake finally emerged, bloody, broken and burned, but still alive. If it was not for his curse that kept him alive, he probably be dead right now. He winced in pain as his wounds became to heal themselves. Jake had returned to his normal form, his body no longer blazing like an inferno, the hellfire spirit seemed to have gone back into the deep depths of this mind for now.
"Holy shit! And thought Bloodwar was bad, this bitch is insane!" Jake said to himself.
Soon his wounds had fully healed and his body was good as new. Jake then looked over the train wreckage, he didn't see that kingsnake anywhere, and Jake hoped he was dead, but he knew that was more than unlikely since he was a demon. Either way, Jake did not want to stick around to find out. As Jake looked over the train wreckage a bit more, he was reminded of all those people on the train, none of them seemed to be alive, Jake did feel kind of bad for them. They were just innocent souls that had nothing to do with this, yet their lives were taken away because of it, but Jake could not worry about them now, right now he had to get to the town before Bloodwar and Ruth did. So soon enough he continued on his way in the direction the town was supposed to be.
A few minutes later, back at the burning wreck on the train engine, Bloodwar soon emerged as well, bloody and broken just as much as Jake was, but he wounds soon healed themselves too. As Bloodwar crawled away from the wreck, he could see Jake racing away on the horizon.
"Run all you want, rattler. I'll catch up to you soon enough." Bloodwar said.