The Legends Of Chima: Journey to the Lands Below

Chapter 9- Laval

Me, Gorzan and Cragger had rushed back to the temple as soon as we had heard the distress call, something about an invading force, not like we have that every other day. We were coming back from the raven scrapyard with a rhino truck full of metal for repairs to the vehicles that weren't beyond repair.

"I swear if those hunters are back after 2 days I'm gonna lose it!" Gorzan said while speeding through the forest.

"Nah, they wouldn't be that dumb. probably the insects again, shouldn't be too much trouble." Cragger argued.

"Yeah, it's been awhile since we've seen Scorm, wonder how he's been." I said, agreeing with Cragger.

"Hopefully not goo- WATCH OUT!" I shouted shouted, Gorzan swerved out of the way of a person.

I stuck my head out the window and saw some weird looking soldiers I've never seen before. They were green, lightly armored, and had no legs, kinda like the serpentine tribes dad had told me about awhile ago. I went back in quickly when hey started shooting at me.

"Woah, what are the serpentine doing here?" I said out loud in surprise.I had known what they look like generally due to Eris constantly making me carry her books, I had looked through a few and found some info on them.

"The serpentine? I thought they were all exiled years ago." Cragger said.

"They were, but these don't look like normal serpentine." Gorzan spoke up.

"We need to get back to the temple quick, I don't know why they're here but they don't seem friendly." I said a little worried.

We pressed on and kept running into the snakes more frequently, eventually we ran into Worriz and his pack, also going to the temple to fight off the invaders. When we got into the clearing infront we got hit heavy by the invaders, several explosions rang out around us and cracked the glass beyond visibility. We were driving blind and as straight as we could directly at them, one mortar hit our tire and we flipped over on our side, landing conveniently right at the foot of the steps, the arriving wolves and Crocs layed down what suppressing fire they could while the 3 of us and Worriz sprinted up the steps.

As we approached the temple we saw Eris fighting one of the snakes but she was losing, I ran even faster but I was too late, she was already down. I stopped in my tracks in shock that my friend might be dead. I began to move again but some kind of bird landed in front of me with enough force to knock me over and spread his wings wide enough to block out the sun. Then It felt like he had filled them with every breeze and wild hurricane in the world, for a few seconds I couldn't breathe with all the wind being ripped around me, violently fighting to be free from his wings. Then he let out a mighty scream calling out the snake's name, even through the deafening storm that my head was in I could hear it clear as day. I started to feel a cut on my shoulder, it wasn't anything a bandage couldn't fix but his talon pierced clean through my armor, the bird then took off like a jet and I came along with him, my friends chasing after.

He went clean through the snake and came to a stop in front of the throne room, I got unhooked and flung off to the side, I finally caught my breath and after a few seconds I got back up. I turned around and the snake was barely hit, say for what looked like a crater in the right side of his face, the bird used a long blade with a handle just as long and furiously slashed at him, the snake casually glanced powerful strikes away from himself with slight movements of his blade. The bird was getting more and more desperate to hit his opponent, slowing down and hitting harder that before but more controlled, even holding his sword by the blade and using the handle like a mace.

I got in there to try and get Eris to safety but their fighting was moving from side to side and all around the bridge. I found myself in the very center of it and stabbed at the snake out of reflex. I closed my eyes from flinching and expected it to be parried and I ignored, but then everything went still. The snake must've tried to parry it but the strange shape of my sword caught his sword in between the two blades of mine, along with his neck. I felt a rage burning inside of me, searing every nerve in my body while standing next to Eris's seriously wounded body. Out of rage I slammed my sword on the bridge with the defenseless snake still caught in it, shaking his limp body back n' forth like a rag. I whipped him around so hard I heard his tail crack like a whip, the next swing he flung out of my control, landing a ways away from us and getting up slowly. I noticed the bird back up behind me and touched the tip of his blade to Eris's ruined axe, morphing it's metal around his weapon like a liquid, forming itself into a massive axe blade. The snake pointed his sword at us, but the blade glowed brighter.

He began to charge at us then Worriz came up behind him and slashed at him with Cragger's twin blade, Cragger behind him with two of the curved swords the invaders used, they must've gotten their weapons mixed up it the crash. Worriz had an advantage, being able to recover from striking quickly by using the other end and so on, however the snake was much faster with thrusting and small, tight cuts and distanced himself quickly. Cragger got behind him and tried to slice at his leg tendons, he had none, he just cut at the back of his tail, pissing him off. Cragger parried his sword with the offhand one he had, slicing at the snake's wrist, he dropped the glowing sword and grabbed it with his tail to fight off Worriz behind his back. His fight with Cragger turned into a grappling match trying to disarm the croc, Cragger cut at some tendons in the snake and under his arm, causing him to bleed heavily, he eventually succeeded and Cragger dropped his blades and the snake bit him, piercing through his shoulder blade and out his collarbone, I didn't see a worrying amount of blood spray out so I assume he missed an artery. Worriz overwhelmed his tail and wrapped it around the twin blade, slicing at the side of his face. The snake bent his body behind Worriz and dropped his elbow on Worriz's shoulder, dislocating it and disarming him, we sprinted in there before Worriz went down too but the snake cut at his leg dropping him too and tiring his attention towards us.

He was pushed back to the stairs and he tried to make an escape until Gorzan came up from out of view, hitting the snake past us. The snake went for Gorzan but we got his attention befor he went to the gorilla, while he were fighting him Gorzan took Cragger and Eris in his arms and carried them back to the truck to save them.

The snake stared us down, looking winded, his fancy cloths now torn to shreds and soaked in blood, i Through the silence we could hear the hum of his sword, the heat of it melted a dent in the stone bridge in the couple seconds we had stood off. I turned my eyes to the bird and his to me, like we were reading each other's mind to form a plan. After we came to what felt like a consensus he began to fill his wings with wind again, I hooked my sword onto his foot and he took off, I disconnected and was still flying, it seemed like it worked and I pulled my sword back and swung at him. I had hit him and cut a large gash in his back, but he hit my hip. I didn't notice until I tried to land and skipped across the bridge from the boost I still had and landed close to Worriz, who was still ok but couldn't walk. Meanwhile the bird was swiping at the snake with his newly made axe, he was covered in large cuts, burns, and had a few bald spot on him from the heat of the snake's sword. He brought his axe down on him but it was blocked, the blade traveled up the length of the handle and melted the axe head off. He went back to using the sword end of the metal staff, but both of them were much slower and sloppy, the snake ended up getting the best of him and cut the back of his leg, and he dropped down to his knee and the snake stabbed him in the chest.

The snake made his way to me and Worriz with the blade retracted. He was breathing heavily and was talking to himself but I couldn't hear. He made his way to Worriz first, the wolf had his hand on something I was laying on.

"You know, I wasn't trying to kill any off you, in fact your two buddies down there will most likely survive, can't say the same for Kyten back there since he's the one I'm after but I'll deal with him later." The snake went off monologging to Worriz. "I'm sparing them so I can hopefully use them later. However, you are to unpredictable so I'll have to put you down, dog!"

He held the weapon above his head ready to shoot the blade out into his skull, but Worriz was faster and pulled his arm out from under me, firing a gun point blank into the snake's weapon, blowing it up and flinging shrapnel all around. The fur got singed off much of Worriz's chest and lodged some shrapnel in my arm, the snake got the worst of it, shredding his hand, lodging metal into his whole body. The snake fell over and slithered away back down to the battlefield where the invaders were quickly retreating. I breathed a sigh of relief, thankful that I had survived the whole ordeal.