In the jungles of India lived the boy raised by wolves, Mowgli, in the Man-Village, along with all of his animal friends like Baloo and Bagheera. Not wanting to venture too far into the Magical World and stay in the comfort of Animal Kingdom for once, Logan and Destiny took a little stroll down the river until they were far enough into the jungle to start having a healthy walk. But of course, no part in the Magical World was perfect.
"Cheese!" Logan groaned as he slapped at his neck. "Why are mosquitoes always so attracted to me? I get that they love blood and all, but still!"
"Why did you want to come here then? We could've just visited the Pride Lands; they're in Animal Kingdom, too," Destiny pointed out, struggling to navigate through the dense jungle whilst in her whale form.
"Sure, but Gabriel told me many times I have to visit and take inspiration from different places in the Magical World; if I do so with only the places I'm familiar with, they will end up becoming rigid and stale," Logan explained. "Plus, I always wanted to go out into the wild and make portraits of natural life... And looks like I'm not the only one who got this idea."
Arriving into a peculiar part of the jungle, the young couple came across an odd visitor, who just so happened to be in the middle of drawing wildlife. A young adult male anthropomorphic snake with a humanoid upper body and a long snake tail as a lower body. His body had to be about 12-feet long overall. He had very sleek smooth scales on his back, that were sandy brown with darker stripes and spots, while the front of his humanoid torso was a lighter beige with a smoother skin. The underbelly of his snake-half had actual snake scales. His eyes were brown with hints of green that merely came out. Some of his scales were augmented into quills, like the feathers of some dinosaurs, and these formed a mane of hair on his head and neck - even some tufts on his back and tail tip. His clothing was limited to compression gloves and elbow braces on his arms, with bone conduction headphones around his neck.
Logan approached close enough to this character to see he was drawing a couple of dholes lying close to a waterhole. This drawing was very well-detailed. "Wow, amazing!" the young man exclaimed, causing the snake to jump in surprise and look at him with big eyes whilst clutching his sketchbook and pencil close to him. "Sorry, didn't mean to scare you there. I just saw what you were drawing, and I found it impressive."
The young snake didn't say anything for a while, just looking at the ground and nodding his head a little. "Thanks," he mumbled barely louder than a whisper.
"So, I'm Destiny. This is my boyfriend, Logan," the whale decided to make the introductions. "What's your name?"
Once again, the snake hesitated before answering the question. "I'm... Ferroth."
"So, Ferroth, you like drawing?" Logan asked. Ferroth just slightly nodded his head whilst running his gaze across the ground again. The young man exchanged a look with his girlfriend, the two of them quickly understanding they were up against a very shy fellow. "Alright... We're gonna leave you with your dholes before they leave. See you later, Ferroth... probably."
Giving a wave to the snake, the couple stepped away. "Man, that guy wasn't very talkative," Logan remarked with his hands behind his head.
"I think he's just a little shy, is all," Destiny assured. "What do you wanna do now?"
"I'm gonna try and make drawings of all the animals I'll come across in this jungle."
"Fine by me. I'll go take a quick refreshment in one of the nearby rivers while you start."
With his girlfriend floating away, Logan started walking across the jungle, drawing all the little animals and creatures he happened to come across. The life in this jungle was fascinating... except for the immortal mosquitoes. Lost in his little drawing rush, the young boy failed to realize he ventured into the deepest parts of the jungle, where the atmosphere was a lot more sinister.
"Where did they all go?" Logan mumbled to himself, noticing that there were practically no more animals to draw around compared to moments earlier. "I must've reached the end of this jungle. Okay, time to go back to Destiny, she must be done refreshing herself by now."
Before he could leave, Logan was interrupted by a mysterious, somewhat seductive noise: "Hello, little one..."
Freezing in his tracks, Logan turned and looked all around. "Who's there?"
"Don't be afraid. I will not harm you..."
"This sounds familiar..." Logan worked his mind out... before widening his eyes. "Wait a minute, the dark part of the jungle, a weird voice trying to be friendly... Oh, no!" Two seconds later, Logan found himself with a reptilian figure before him. "Kaa..."
"Oh, so you know me. Good, good," the female snake gleefully beamed, the corners of her lips twisting into a smile. "It's gonna make things a bit easier..."
"Gonna make what easier?" Logan asked with a raised eyebrow, discreetly getting his Magical Sketchbook ready.
Kaa started to slither threateningly around the young man on the branch. "Have you seen a lot of animals around here except for me? No. No wolves, no rhinoceroses, no monkeys, nobody. When there's nobody to talk to or to have fun with, you end up feeling lonely... Veryyy lonely... If only there was someone willing to keep me company... To be my friend..."
"I'm sure there are plenty of animals who would like to fill that role if you weren't trying to eat them all the time... Can't really blame you, though; snakes are supposed to lure their preys and eat them," Logan admitted. "However, that doesn't mean I intend on becoming your next meal, so get lost!"
Logan started running his pencil across his sketchbook, but didn't act fast enough, as he quickly found himself wrapped in tight coils. "Calm down, cute one. Just relax your tensed muscles, and everything will be over before you know it," Kaa sighed and approached her face close to Logan's. Remembering the events of the movie, he closed his eyes to avoid getting hypnotized. "What is your name, my adorable little man?"
"I'm not telling you!" Logan groaned, with his eyes still closed. The female snake brought the tip of her tail under his chin and started tickling him there. "Hehehehey! No fair! Alright, alright, my name's Logan! Logan Jindrak!" he chuckled.
"Logan... A beautiful name for a handsome man...," Kaa sighed. "So, tell me something, Logan... Do you like to dance?"
"Huh... Yeah, depends what kind of dance. Why?"
"Good. Because so do I. How about kicking our friendship off with a little performance?" The female snake backed away from her prey, so she could have enough space to dance, and then pulled her body up, exposing her beautiful white stomach. She started swinging her non-existent hips in a fashion that reminded Logan of the way he saw predators dance to attract their prey in documentaries. At the same time, Kaa made her eyes glow with a whirlpool of colors, which proved to be a mistake for Logan, who ended up staring into them.
"W-What are you-" Logan tried to ask, only to be silenced by the beautiful snake who pulled her tail to his mouth.
"Shh, don't talk, my dear Logan. Block everything that is not me and my dance. Focus on my sweet voice and perfect body," she whispered in his ear. As he heard her voice, Logan felt his worries and fear melt away for some reason. He felt... relaxed and... happy. His eyelids slowly closed as his mouth twisted into a smile. Kaa grinned as well, seeing she managed to get her prey caught into trance. Now, all she needed to do was to carry her dancing on until she completely submitted him to her will.
She started moving her body at a slow pace - since no music played, she followed the rhythm of her heart and soul. Soon, her body kicked up the pace, undulating more with her beautiful eyes bathing in every existing color. The way the reptile moved was uncanny as her slender figure went on to sway in a wide arc, stopping not because it had reached its limit, but because of a particularly devious and subtle pendulum effect that was magnified by the rampant and near-invisible energy emerging from her scales. The more she danced, the more Logan fell in love with this woman...
"From now on, you are my best friend, and you will obey my orders. Whenever I talk to you, you will listen carefully and obey me without any hesitation or second thoughts. You are now part of me, just like I am part of you..."
Every word Kaa said got absorbed into Logan's subconscious, making his will fade away and accept his fate of submission. "Yes... Kaa...," he replied in a zombie-like voice.
"Good." Kaa grinned evilly. She reached her tail to remove Logan's baseball cap and pat the top of his head. "In return, I will protect you from every mean animal seeking to hurt you. I will love you as much as you love me." She pulled his chin up with her tail again and stared deeply into his brown eyes. "Are you fine with this, my little man?"
"I'd love nothing more... best friend..."
After finishing her refreshing in a river, Destiny floated across the jungle in search of her boyfriend. But she was unsuccessful in locating him. "Logan! Logan, where are you?!" she called. Fortunately, the jungle floor was quite muddy, and few animals wore shoes, so she was able to follow some footprints left in the ground, even though she had limited sight.
"Is there a problem?" Destiny turned around to see the young snake man she had met earlier approaching, his sketchbook tucked under his arm.
"Oh, hi, Ferroth. I was looking for Logan, but I can't find him anywhere. Curse my stupid sight," the whale shark explained.
"If you want, I can help you with that; I'm pretty familiar with this jungle," the humanoid snake offered. "Let's go."
With Ferro following in Logan's footsteps, the two animals traveled across the jungle. Soon, they reached the deep part of the jungle, Ferroth looking around with a worried expression. The footsteps finally reached their end.
"Logan should be somewhere around here," Destiny concluded whilst looking at the eerie place. "I hope he didn't get eaten alive by a predator." Before she could start looking, Ferroth perked his head and halted her with an arm. "What?"
He turned his head and said, "I hear something approaching us."
"Is there a dangerous animal coming?" Destiny asked, getting her Water Magic ready.
"No... There's potentially two of them..."
A hissing sound reached the duo's ears, and soon, a serpentine figure slithered down from a tree branch above. Kaa hovered the two of them, Destiny getting on her guards, whilst Ferroth just stared at in surprise - like that of somebody seeing an old friend for the first time in years. "It's very rare to see another fellow reptile around here... Though I never saw one with such a human-like appearance before..."
"Oh. My. Gosh! It's Kaa! From The Jungle Book!" Ferroth beamed, his snake tail shaking happily behind him.
"What have you done to my boyfriend?" Destiny demanded in a less friendly way. "We know he ventured all the way here! You better not have eaten him, or I swear I'll-"
"Your boyfriend? You must be talking about this charming, young man who had the kindness to pay me a little visit," Kaa mused. "Don't worry; I have been veryyyy nice to him. Ain't that right, Logan?"
Right after she said this, Logan stepped out of the shadows, and the two friends immediately could tell something was wrong. The young man's eyes were half-closed, and he staggered quite a bit in his steps - it almost looked like a part of him was asleep. "L-Logan? What are you doing here? What's wrong?" Destiny asked her boyfriend. When he did not respond, she glared fiercely at the female snake. "What have you done to him?!"
"Me? Nothing, I simply convinced him that he and I were made to be the best of friends," Kaa explained, giving an affectionate nuzzle to Logan's cheek, the act not seeming to bother him. "You're gonna see why I'm right. Logan, those two mean animals want to hurt me; would you be kind enough to dispose of them so that we can have a good meal afterwards? That would be veryyy nice of you."
"Yes... best friend...," Logan responded almost like a zombie as he summoned his Fenrir Keyblade and got into his fighting stance. They both had to jump back to avoid the overhead strike he launched. Not stopping there, he kept swinging his weapon, forcing Destiny to use little floating waterballs to deviate them all.
"Logan! Stop! It's me, Destiny!" the poor whale begged whilst doing everything she could to deflect her boyfriend's attacks.
At one point, Logan almost managed to actually land a hit on his girlfriend, only to be smacked away by a tail whip from Ferroth. "Destiny, wrap him with your water; I got an idea," he instructed.
Destiny rose her fins and sent a jet of water that wrapped itself around Logan, pinning his arms against his sides and preventing him from moving. Ferroth slithered all the way over to him and placed his hand over the surface of the water, turning it into ice.
"You have Ice Magic?" Destiny asked in surprise.
"Not exactly," the anthro snake responded, showing his gloved hands. "See, I have a special ability that allows me to slow down vibrations in the air and freeze temperatures, thus creating ice in the process. That's how I was able to change your water into ice." Merely did he finish his explanation that Kaa jumped out of nowhere and wrapped her body around Ferroth's arms.
"You will not take Logan away from me! Not now that I finally made a friend!" Kaa exclaimed and activated her hypnotic vision to turn Ferroth into her ally, too. However, he did not seem to react.
"I'm sorry, Kaa, but your hypnotizing trick cannot work on other snakes." Ferroth wrapped his lower body around Kaa's, pulling her off him and actually holding her into his own grip. "Destiny! You said Logan is your boyfriend, right? Then kiss him; it should break the hypno spell."
The whale shark grabbed Logan's head in her fins and pressed her lips against his. The young man seemed surprised and squirmed at first... before calming down and leaning in the kiss, blinking his eyes once it ended. "D-Destiny...?" he mumbled. "W-What happened?"
"You got put under a spell by that snake girl, Kaa. She wanted to use you to destroy us, but Ferroth helped to save you," Destiny explained, relieved her boyfriend was okay.
Logan's eyes widened in shock. "I remember now! Kaa! She pulled me under trance with her eyes and dance!" He then glared at the neutralized female reptile. "You took control of me and tried to make me hurt my girlfriend?!"
Kaa nodded a yes as Ferroth carefully released her from his hold. "I am sorry about this. It's just... I'm feeling so lonely in this corner of the jungle all by myself," she explained with her head low. "Nobody ever come to visit me. My original counterpart isn't the most popular Disney villain, but he gets a lot more approached by other people - probably because he's the most kid-friendly version of us two. But I do not get any bit of attention from anyone. It's hard, you know..."
"It's perfectly understandable why; nobody likes approaching someone who's gonna pretend to be friendly before manipulating your mind and eating you alive!" Logan exclaimed. "Maybe spending some time on ice's gonna make you think about what you did. BLIZZARD!" Pointing his Fenrir Keyblade forward, Logan shot a jet of ice toward the female snake. However, it got stopped by Ferroth, who rose his hand to make ice appear and block the attack. "Ferroth?! What are you doing?!"
"She apologized for what she did; no need for hurting her," he responded.
Logan was taken aback by this. "Are you seriously taking her defense?! How? She's a mean reptile who uses her tricks to lure people and eat them alive-"
"SHUT UP!" Ferroth suddenly barked at the human, glaring with fire and tears forming in the corners of his eyes - as if Logan had just hurt him on a personal level. "I'm so sick of everybody always treating snakes like the bad guys, and them always getting portrayed that way in movies! What animal is Jafar associated with? The snake! Who's one of the three villains in The Jungle Book? A snake! Snakes, snake, SNAKES! That's disgusting and unfair!" the young reptile practically yelled. "Snakes are not mindless monsters; they have feelings, just like you and me! The only reason why she hypnotized you is that she was feeling alone from always being ignored by others!"
Everybody remained in silence after Ferroth's display of anger. It took many seconds before Logan found the courage to speak again. "B-But how can you be certain that she's being honest with us? She already lied many times in the past."
Ferroth crossed his arms at this. "You're not aware of it, but my hearing is super-developed. So much so that I can hear people's heartbeats and the irregularity that happens when they're lying. I didn't detect any of it while Kaa was speaking; everything she said was true and sincere."
Logan and Destiny exchanged a look before turning back to the reptiles. "Alright then," Logan said with pulling his Keyblade away. "What do you suggest we do?"
Ferroth turned to Kaa and extended his hand to her. "What would you say about coming back with me to the other parts of the Magical World, Kaa? Maybe people would open up to you, if they got to actually learn who you are. I can help with that."
Kaa tilted her head with a confused expression. "You're ready to give me a chance after what I did? But how could anyone possibly feel comfortable opening up to me after I've tried to eat everyone I've come across so far?"
A chuckle escaped Ferroth's lips as he gave a soft smile. "Listen, Kaa, life isn't easy nor is it always fun. It's a battle half the time. For many people, it's a battle every day. But you have to make the most of every day for what it's worth. Let failures be failures, let losses be losses. Leave the past in the past. Shed it off like an old skin. You're not going into the past. You're going into the future, with something new on the horizon. Be brave. Remember, one bad day isn't your whole life. It's just one day. Even if they come in a series, there are the good days that come too."
A few seconds of silence passed, with Kaa staring at the ground, considering the opportunity she was being given. Then, she looked up and took Ferroth's hand with her tail. "Very well, I'm willing to accept this chance. I hope it's gonna work..."
The dilemma was hard for Logan. "Do you really think we can trust her, Destiny?"
"Well... Remember the time hyenas weren't well-seen across the Magical World because of their actions in The Lion King?" the whale shark responded. "And you remember how Gabriel saw good in them and, by taking Jasiri with him, helped to prove they were actually nice once you get to know them? Maybe Ferroth can do the same for her and for snakes."
The young man pushed a sigh before approaching Kaa. "Listen, Kaa, I know that solitude can be painful, but hypnotizing people and taking control over their mind isn't the solution; you gotta go out and try to connect with other people. It may not work every time, but a friendship based on sincerity and being yourself is always better than one based on manipulation and lies. Can I trust you with that?"
"Yes, Logan. I'll give it my best."
"Okay then, that's fine by me."
Ferroth took Kaa's tail with his hand and started slithering away with her after saying goodbye to the young couple. "Do you think they will be alright?" Destiny asked her boyfriend.
He just shrugged. "Who knows? Everything's possible in the Magical World. And I don't know why, but I got a feeling that we can trust that Ferroth guy to take care of her... Now let's go home before I get eaten alive by those stupid mosquitoes!"
Author's note: Hope you enjoyed our little trip in the Indian jungle! We also get to welcome a new OC, Ferroth, who belongs to one of my friends named... Ferroth. This guy happens to be one of the most creative persons and best visual artists I personally know; I hope to do his character justice... Not an easy task since he has such a complex personality.
Remember how things began in TheDragonSaver's first ever story of the saga, 'Living in the Magical World', with Gabriel thinking The Lion King's hyenas received unfair hate and wanting to change that? Well, my friend, Ferroth, feels the same way about snakes - the character's dialogue in this story reflects the way he thinks. That's what gave me the idea to write his story arc in a similar fashion with Kaa as his companion (the live action version, since I find it more threatening and villain-esque compared to the original version, who was more like a comedy villain). Hopefully, they can achieve the same success as Gabriel and Jasiri.
Next time: Logan and Destiny make a little trip to a Galaxy Far, Far Away...
