Author's Note: Just random reminder of my latest upload schedule, two chapters of this Rewrite then other stories, so there's Two chapters before this one, and there'll be one more another day before switching to another fic.

— Chapter 16 —

Everything was dark, so dark that it made Luna wonder if this is what awaited everyone after they died.

But, wait, if she had just wondered something, was she truly dead? Or was everything just dark? Maybe something had turned off the lights and then she would wake up.

Okay, if she can have these thoughts, then certainly she should be able to do more than that, so she tried moving, and much to her surprise, she felt her own movement in the darkness.

One more relevant thing to test, she tried to call out into the darkness to see if anyone even answered.

"Hello? Is anyone there? Pineapple? Qibli? Lynx? Bullfrog? Anybody?"

Silence, and for some moments he heard no response, but eventually a soft groan reached her ears.

"Hello?" Luna said again, starting to walk forward. Everything still looked as if coated in black paint, but apparently it wasn't actually dark, as she clearly saw colors further ahead. And these colors turned out to be a dragon, Pineapple in specific, laying flat on the ground, his scales mostly white with green hues instead of the usual colors.

"Pineapple! Wake up! Are you okay? What's happening?" Luna said, bringing her talons to the Rainwing's body and gently shook.

"Hmm…? What?" He muttered, his eyes fluttering open as he stood up, looking nervous at their surroundings and his scales mostly sticking to those colors, although a few more did come back.

"Luna? What just happened? I remember we were down there, and then these vines were suddenly coming up…" He asked, his face frowning.

"We… We all…" Luna tried to get these words out, but she was struggling, the recent memories of what occurred hitting her. Everyone being taken over, the chase, their failure. "I'm… Sorry."

"You're sorry? But what-? Wait…" Pineapple seemed to realize, his mind must be reminiscing the previous events too. "Oh no, did we lose? Was it all really that fast?" He lamented.

"I think so. After they, huh, got you, everyone else in the group got captured as well. I almost got away, almost," Luna said with a grumble as she looked down. This was just terrible! After everything they went through, and all the hopes of their team placed into team, they just went and got themselves taken over in 5 minutes!

"Hey, Luna, not everything is lost just yet, alright? There's still the other half of the group, back there exactly in case something like this happens, no? They'll manage to do something," Pineapple said, comforting, but Luna didn't look very certain. "Also if something happens, they could go back to the others for help."

"I guess, but I don't know just how much they can hold up if more things happen," she said with a grunt. "And that doesn't take away the fact that we totally blew our chances."

Pineapple looked saddened by her words, but he tried to get her mind on something else. "Shouldn't we try to find the others? If we're here, then the rest should be too."

Okay, at least that she could do, a purpose in this void, something to do other than self loathing and pitying. So she just gave a nod and started to walk alongside Pineapple.

It felt unsettling, with everything looking the way it does it didn't even feel like they were walking on anything. And she even tried to light up the place with Flamesilk, but the glow had no effect.

Suddenly, Luna and Pineapple nearly tripped on nothing due to everything… Moving? Yes, reality was shifting, the darkness undulating as if it was moving them somewhere. She closed her eyes for a second, and when she opened them, Luna could see they were standing in front of a very confused Bullfrog.

"What… Is going on…? So dark…" He muttered.

"The Breath of Evil took over all of us in the abyss," Luna said sadly. "We're trying to find the rest of the group here… Wherever this place even is."

"... All… For nothing…" Bullfrog said with a sad whisper.

"Not yet, things could still work out, we have to relax and wait," Pineapple said, shaking his head.

Bullfrog let out a sigh, but he followed them as well, so now the three of them were sticking very close together, moving side by side to not risk separation.

"If the plant took us, then what's the deal with this place? Why were we all split?" Pineapple pondered to start a conversation.

"I'm not sure, but if Cottonmouth can control any of this, I have my own guess," Luna said with a short growl. "Making us feel lost in the dark, trying to find each other, they might be scaring us, or toying with us."

The world remained silent, but Luna was certain she heard a very distant eerie laugh. And based on the reactions of her companions, so did they.

"... Bad…"

"Very bad," she agreed, basically getting confirmation on her words, but they kept going.

The next trek just felt so long, probably about 10 minutes of nothing but walking forward, moving their heads from side to side, and trying to spot the next member of their group, and the longer it went on, the more dreadful it felt.

But finally after endless walking, here in this nothingness where it was impossible to know if they were making real progress, two shapes appeared, and they spotted Qibli and Lynx walking and looking as well.

"Oh! There you are, phew that's a relief, at least we found you," Qibli said first, giving everyone a wave, albeit his expression had actually turned serious.

"I'm so confused by everything, does anyone have any ideas? What's weirder is that I've tried to focus on my own body, but it feels so hazy, like if I was spectating instead of it being my body," Lynx huffed.

Luna was taken off guard upon hearing that, she didn't try to actually focus on that aspect, just focusing on the here and now, but when she closed her eyes and let her mind drift off a little,she felt a dreadful stillness, the sounds of something dragged against the floor, pain, cold…

She winced as her form now shivered. "Brr… Right, got hit by frostbreath, Cottonmouth found out how to use it."

"Sorry about that," Lynx said, but she shook her head, it literally was not Lynx.

"Not blaming you…"

"... What do we do…?" Bullfrog questioned, looking around. Everyone was here so…. Now what?

"That is an excellent question, which I cannot answer. This place is not just slightly spooky, it's also completely empty," Qibli said.

Like responding to Qibli's words, everything suddenly began to shift again, the void itself was shaking and they could feel it somehow.

"Maybe I shouldn't have said that," Qibli managed to say right before everything changed.

Out of literally nowhere, pillars and columns were rising from the dark, tall and strong looking. Walls were starting to surround the group, and as they rose, colors were beginning to appear in this void, black replaced by their grey.

Everyone had huddled close together in the meantime, on guard and ready to take on whatever might be appearing here, but nobody else was here just yet, instead they were all just left in the big main hall of a castle.

"I… Guess that Cottonmouth is "inviting" us to meet him?" Luna whispered, feeling wary and truly on edge after everything.

"Then let's not keep our host waiting, right? Let's have a nice chat," Lynx said.

"Can we do anything here?" Pineapple asked in a worried tone.

"I tried to attack him in dreams and, well, that did nothing," Luna grumbled, receiving a few defeated looks.

The group started to walk simply forward, looking from side to side and ahead. The castle's inside just maintained the strong feeling of dread. Grey walls, doors too small for any of them to even get a leg through.

And the worst part were the paintings and tapestries, which Luna guessed were set up literally just to bother them in particular. All of them were of dragons, dead dragons. So. Much, Death, and carnage too. Leafwings, Hivewings, Silkwings, all Pantalan tribes depicted in multiple gruesome ends. Stabbed, ripped apart or torn open, drowned, falling, burning… This was a crime towards art, tapestries should be inspiring, mean something, not be… This.

"I think I got a few complaints about some artistic choices," Qibli managed to say in a small attempt to lighten things up despite this sight. It failed.

And at last, everyone stopped in front of a massive open door, seemingly made out of gold and heavily decorated with engravings. Above the door was one last tapestry, showing a human sitting on a throne, head resting on a hand on the armrest. And the throne was placed right atop a strange dragon. And the green eyes of the human shown there were staring straight down to whoever looked.

"Well, I guess it's time you all meet him too," Luna said reluctantly, stepping forward first, everyone else following after and into the throne room.

Even though it was all dark and concealed by shadows in Blue's dreams, the size and figures looked accurate compared to the silhouettes she saw back then, however now that there were colors, she saw that the walls were covered by vines and white flowers. And at the end of the room….

Cottonmouth was sitting on a tall throne, looking just like he did in her last dream visit, with the only change being that his cold eyes looked partially amused this time at least.

"At last, my "favorite" group of lizards is standing here in my realm," Cottonmouth said, his eyes examining each and every single member of the group. "Oh and especially you two, it feels good to hold your bodies, you brought a lot of pain and annoyance," he added, pointing at Lynx and Pineapple.

"Glad to have helped," Lynx said quickly, glaring at the human, who glared back.

"I did not say that you could talk or interrupt me, but my mood is just so good, that as the fair king that I am, I will even let that slide too," he said, crossing his arms and striking a posture that must look dignified to him, but then his expression dropped, and he started to laugh dryly.

"Hahaha… Oh alright, who am I kidding? I don't need to keep the act going for a bunch of lizards, you're ALREADY under my control!" He exclaimed, standing up from his throne. "I am the king of all of you now, and I will not have tolerance for your little brains, so you better think every single word you dare speak up to me!"

Luna actually flinched from these sudden harsh words, and so did Pineapple, but the other three kept standing up in their own ways at least, making Cottonmouth scowl.

"If you think you're being brave, you better think again, you're all simply stupid beasts. And let me tell you what's going to happen soon, see if you remain so confident. You entered my abyss, so that means the other members of your group are in the caverns too."

Luna felt her breath stiffening as she immediately realized where he was going with this, and with a quick look to everyone else, they all looked startled too.

"None of you will have anywhere to run, or to hide anymore from me. Within the next day I'll make the whole continent converge upon the caves, and all of your collaborators will be overtaken as well, and there is nothing you can do."

Cottonmouth settled back down on his throne with a satisfied expression, and then he raised a hand and a glass cup appeared out of nowhere and it contained some sort of red liquid that he slowly drank in silence.

"Ah, the taste of victory, one I've got to enjoy a lot recently, but today more than ever," he looked at the group for a moment. "Also, you're only allowed to speak back to me if I am silent for at least 3 seconds so you won't interrupt."

About 3 seconds passed until Qibli took a single step forward and opened his mouth to speak first.

"So what's the deal with this whole place? And what do you want from us here?"

"I imagined someone might ask something like that, and oh the answer is very simple," Cottonmouth said moving his hands to the sides, wherever he pointed, it looked as if reality itself was shuffling and distorting. "This is the Mindspace, our special place where the plant and I rule everything and we can do anything we want. Including… This."

The entire surroundings changed in an instant much to everybody's surprise, and where there was a castle just a second ago, Luna recognized the interior of Cicada Hive, feeling a wave of emotions rush through her. Everything was moving and they heard the flap of wings around them.

"Our brilliant minds can already see, hear and feel everything that any of us is doing, but that doesn't mean that we don't enjoy being a bit more there at times, so we can actually just do so by using someone's perspective."

Then his expression turned more sly as he nonchalantly waved a hand to the side, and the scene changed again. Luna immediately felt unsettled.

They were at the throne room, but not the one right here in the mindspace, but the one in the real world, where they could see the broken down structures, the plant growing wildly, Cottonmouth's corpse and… She saw the bodies of her group, and her own body, laid unconscious in front of him, vines ensuring them completely and only letting their heads out.

She felt speechless, everyone just watching in silence as they saw themselves completely helpless, completely under Cottonmouth's control, who broke the silence by laughing at them.

"This is your fate, or at least until I have a use for your bodies and abilities in particular, then you'll see yourselves doing everything I desire. And the rest of your group will follow you on this outcome."

"For the trouble you have caused, and for going against the true ruler of this whole land, I want you to see it all: when your friends join us, when Sundew finally awakes and covers this whole land with ourselves, and when… Oh, I will not tell the last one, it will be a surprise…"

A surprise… Coming from Cottonmouth, Luna didn't even want to think what he could find so interesting to shock them later, but at the same time she knew she had to think about it because there were too many terrible possibilities.

The human, meanwhile, just looked off to the side and didn't even bother looking at them anymore, signaling them to leave with a hand gesture as the throne room re-appeared as it was before.

"I have nothing else to tell you at the moment, so leave and shiver upon the grandiose view of my residence."

Luna didn't want to literally just obey him, but literally what could she do right now? Or anyone else? They were now just like any other dragon taken over by the plant, the only difference being that their… Mind? Consciousness? Whatever it is, was allowed to stay in this mindspace, but they couldn't even touch Cottonmou-

Luna's body suddenly tensed as she was turning to move back the way they came, there… There was something on her back, she felt a sudden small weight right on her.

Already having gone through too many feelings and emotions, she quickly turned her head back, fast enough that somehow it hurt her neck a bit, and then she was taken off guard by whoever was up there.

Out of nowhere another dragon appeared, but it was just so small. Luna had seen one or two hatchlings in her life, dragonets that had only recently left their egg, and this newcomer looked just like one, perhaps even a bit smaller and younger than the ones she met, and yet this one's bright green eyes looked much smarter.

As for its other features, Luna suddenly realized that it looked like that seemingly dead dragonet they saw. And seeing its full body this time, Luna saw a mix of brittle-looking orange and green scales, with most of the green being on the wings, which were shaped like leaves.

"Is he truly done blabbering at last?" The small dragon asked with a clear female voice, sounding energetic and impatient. "Five dragons, and I thought he was going to just keep them all for himself!"

"Did you just say I blabber? Me? Every word I say is important!" Cottonmouth said with a grunt, his face showing a disgusted expression as he turned to this other dragon.

"Riiight, because we need to be so dramatic with just a handful of dragons that won't ever do anything," the small dragon said as she rolled her eyes.

Cottonmouth looked thoroughly offended, but then with a disgruntled expression he pointed at the newcomer. "Lizards, meet my pet lizard, her name is Lizard," he said with a mocking tone.

"I am NOT a pet!" The dragon, apparently named Lizard, quickly exclaimed," I am more than that, I am the most important dragon to this whole operation."

"Second, you were relevant once, but Sundew has far surpassed you."

Lizard simply stuck out her tongue to Cottonmouth,