Night settled upon Dirt, slowly as if just waking up sluggishly and yet to have her morning coffee. Our Favorite gun-slinging rattlesnake however stood awake watching the horizon for any signs of Lucien, the devil's brother. Something about the scene though, brought memories back for a long while ago, almost too long to remember without some sort of aid. He tore his eyes away from it, forcibly cutting the memory off "This ain't the time to be day dreaming."
"No, it isn't." a voice returned from the door "If I recall we have something to finish up don't we?"
"Shadow..." Jake replied with an angry, but respectful hiss.
"I thought you would have noticed me earlier." He replied joining him at the window, where Jake started looking out towards the sunset again "I've been standing there for as long as you've been staring."
"Just get to the point. What the hell do you want."
"I want to give you an explanation before you die tomorrow."
"You don't have to explain nuthin' to me. I already know what you are."
"Really? Then you should know my one secret, the one I keep closest to my heart."
"Your Sitael aren't you? No other reason for Silver to be here."
"Silver here?" He asked before shaking his head to rid himself of the oh-so familiar gunshot ringing in his head, the one that sent him over the edge, allowed him to be controlled. "Doesn't matter, but that is not what I came here to tell you."
"Then, what?" Jake asked smiling inwardly
"Lucien and I are hunting the same person. Jake, we are hunting you. Him for his reasons, me for mine." Shadow replied
Jake laughed slightly at the statement "And how do you know he is hunting me?"
"Because Lucien and I are more connected than you think."
"You can't possibly be telling me you are Lucien. That would be worse then Rango claiming I'm his brother! It's impossible-"
"If you don't believe me, take a good look at the bullet hole you have in your side, you said you were spawned from the pits of hell, I would like to see you control the energies enough to look into your future using the energies in that bullet. I know you don't have enough power to look otherwise." Shadow said turning and leaving, stopping at the door for one final message "Should you tell ANYONE what I told you here, I will let Lucien have you, and you will only be left to pray to whatever god you have before we finish this, tomorrow."
Shadow left then, leaving a stunned snake to his final words.
A couple minutes later, when Jake finally regained his senses, he was on his bed, undergoing the normal ritual that would lead to him harnessing the demonic energies hidden within the bullet in his side. His Vulcan was off and set up in front of him his tail resting on it, dripping blood from an ever-bleeding symbol of the devil marked on it. Soon, it grew red and the bullet in his side shown through the skin with a darker red light, both resonating with each other, joining, one giving power to the other for what was going to take place. Holding his tail aloft he started reciting a mantra in Latin over and over, growing more powerful with each verse until with the final verse shouted, the entire room was bathed in demonic red light his eyes turning the same red as his future, and the future of Dirt was shown to him.
Staring deep into space Jake saw a black land, destroyed and dead with a blood red sky looking angrily down upon it. He turned his head, and more came into his field of view the entire room around him was destroyed, as well as every other building in Dirt. Few of it's inhabitants barely living off of the dead land in whatever way they could. He saw beans, older, and heavy with child, Rango walking in front of her protectively leading along two other children, both around seven and eight, and both had the haunted look of death in their eyes, after being forced to kill to stay alive. All three looked skinnier, and barely healthy, and scared for their lives. He turned his head more, and lying in the middle of the road he saw two bodies, one set up on a throne of bone and the dead, the other, set prostrate before him. Willing his vision further he saw just exactly who these two bodies belonged to. The one on the throne was Shadow, his head lolled forward in the most signifying form of death, and the one on the ground, was him two more bullets in his side. Turning further, he looked straight into the eyes of the most feared creatures anywhere
"Look, Jacob, Look and tremble at what you started, what you triggered."
Jake bent low in response his face near kissing the floor at his hoofed feet "My lord! Had I known what would become of this place I would have headed your advice! I had not know he would pull your rightful realm from beneath your feet."
The creature snarled kicking Jake to the side "Fool! If you had headed my warning then this would have happened a lot sooner, and you would be lying there just as you see now! Yet here you are blindly reaching for whatever could stop your fate, you lost your ability to kill him when you let yourself get shot! Why this was as easy as it is is because the energies had time to resonate, to join, to become one! Your energies can't touch him now, because you both wield the same! There is only two now who own the means to defeat him."
Jake got up slowly from where he fell slithering back humbly while keeping his head low "Tell me they who shall defeat this, my master, and I shall use them to stop him."
"Rango, and Sitael. In order to secure the second though, I had to make a pact with my old lord, and his Seraphs. I promised him that I will not use this opportunity to cross into the world, but I can act through those loyal to me in order to stop this fate. You have been chosen Jake. Bring together both Rango and Sitael, use them to stop Lucien. I fear I am running out of time though, so look into my eyes, cast your gaze deep, to discover the means to the end." it said taking Jake's head in it's human hands and gently brought him to look deep into it's slitted pupils burning ever detail of it's plan into Jake's head upon release from it's grasp, Jake recoiled backwards and started coughing up blood. Not enough to kill him, or even enough to be a concern, and her smeared his master's number in it, and offered praise
"I shall do what you wish my lord."
"Then leave me, leave me to ponder the fate of my realm, when this scene shall change is when I know you shall be successful. Lucien, destroyed. Only tell Rango and Sitael of this event."
"But where will I find him?"
"He looks to kill you." the creature responded as the sight faded from view everything, to leave him back in his room, a small puddle of blood under the place where his tail fell, as well as a bit of it smeared into a triple 6 on the floor
"He looks to kill me..." Jake pondered as he wrapped his tail and slid it back into his Vulcan, cleaning whatever was on the floor. Offering another silent praise he slipped out of his room a slight shimmer of a hoofed and horned man nodding in acknowledgment, before disappearing from view.