Watching from the deck of the Whimsy, Nian Zhen grabbed his sword and prepared to dive into the waters. The twins went after him. Castor with a bag and Pollux with a knife. The three of them were obviously not thinking straight. The snake-like creature was twice the size of the island and more agile and fast than any creature on the face of the planet. But it didn't matter. Worry and love and rage had replaced their sanity. They were not thinking straight anymore. All they wanted to do was smash the giant snake into a pulp and free An Ning. They didn't even worry about their safety or how they were going to deal with a snake the size of a small mountain.

The three of them jumped into the water but before they could even wet their feet on the cold surface, three coiling length of white gauze zoomed out of nowhere and s.n.a.t.c.hed then held them aloft on the air. The strips of gauze wrapped tightly around their waists, hoisting them away from the battle as they watched, stunned yet stricken from their perched.

Nian Zhen was struggling to free himself from the grip of the strip when a boom suddenly rang out. A wider, lighter kind of gauze had joined the battle and started attacking the two heads. The strips of cloth coiled around the serpent's thick, ma.s.sive neck down and around the scaly stomach then viciously pulling the two heads apart. The struggle was so immense that the heads emitted a pained and angry howl, biting desperately at the strips of cloth that were even now covering their mouths.

From the depths of the serpent's underbelly, hidden among the thick scales, a shrouded figure finally emerged. An Ning shoot to the air with her sword in hand, joined by the one thousand copy swords that had battled the fog before. The swords rained down from the sky and viciously attacked the serpent, hacking their way into its body like they were cutting meat, blood, fluid and bits of pieces of flesh falling in large chunks down the water below.

Suddenly a high-pitched cry was heard, as one of the heads finally broke free and yelled desperately at An Ning.

"Amazon!"

The cry was both angry and a plaintive wail but it was enough to stop the attack. The strips of gauze halted their a.s.sault on the bloodied heads, and the swords became silent, frozen in the act of doing their damage.

An Ning was stunned but put her sword down. She slowly approached the head with the crown, her expression neutral as she looked at the snake with cold, steely eyes.

"You know me," she said.

"You wear the crown of the queen of the warrior women," the snake said. It seemed to hesitate but added after a short hesitant silence. "But you are not the one we knew of long ago although you look like her."

"You know my grandmother?" this time An Ning was beyond shocked. She was expecting a deluge.

"So you are Hippolyta's granddaughter?" the snake asked. "Yes, we've met her before," the snake added. "We traveled together way back in the past."

Although An Ning could not think of any situation why her very fastidious grandmother would actually chose to travel with this two-headed monster, she kept her mouth shut and kept quiet.

"We were not enemies," the snake a.s.sured her, as if it could read An Ning's doubts. "We were going on an errand together and we traveled."

"What are you doing here?" An Ning asked.

"Here? You mean this time and dimension?"

"Yes."

The snake became silent.

"Can you let go of my brother first? I a.s.sure you I will answer all your questions. Just let him go. Please."

An Ning turned and looked at the other head. At her glance, the strips of gauze slackened around the snake's other head but didn't let go. The head emitted a soft wail as it looked pitifully at its other head, while the eyes that turned towards An Ning were surprisingly friendly and soft. It was difficult to compare this seemingly tame monster to that other vicious beast which tried to extinguish her life with its stinking poisonous breath.

"His name is Kier and mine is Zera. We are the children of the Gorgon who lives and patrols these waters. We are creatures of myth so it is not difficult to imagine why we chose to live here instead. We live where people still believe in monsters. To justify and continue existing, so to speak. Simple to understand, no?"

"I take it you also attack people and eat them?"

"No!" Kier cried, slithering close to An Ning. "My sister and I have been asleep under the sea for centuries. We are aware of what's happening above us but we've always chosen not to interfere with the land dwellers and their lives. It is enough that people believe monsters like us exist and that they fear us."

"We're too lazy, you see," Zera said, with an apologetic look at An Ning. "We'd rather crawl on the sea bed and go to sleep. But this time, it was different."

"How different?"

"Somebody summoned us," Kier said angrily. "They offered blood. The blood of a man on the brink of death."

"Makes it much urgent, you see," Zera explained. "The summoning must be done with a sacrifice of violence and for blood to spill. And the incantations they used came from an ancient script that came from the Father himself."

"Father?" An Ning asked, perplexed.

"The ancient G.o.d who created us," Zera explained. "To utter and hear such words. They were words of command. We were angry but we had no choice but to obey. Doing otherwise would be to disobey the words of our Father."

"Do you know who did it? Who summoned you, I mean."

"We killed one. You arrived before we had a chance to eat him though," Zera said, with something like a pout on her snake lips.

"You wanted to eat the dead man I saw you with earlier?" An Ning was beyond shocked this time.

"What did you expect us to do?" Zera said reasonably. "We've been summoned from a ten thousand year sleep. Of course, we were hungry."

"And the other one?"

"I told you, you interrupted us while we were about to eat."

"But how did you see through our disguise?" Zera asked, curious. "We copied the girl down to the size of her toes."

"You forgot about something though," An Ning smiled. "Girls have nails. They don't have claws. And this girl you copied, she is not a woman but just a teenager. Most girls that age don't grow their nails that long."

"So, it was the nails that gave us away," Zera said, nodding.

"We will not hurt anyone as we promised but can you allow us to hunt?" Kier asked with a worried look on his face. "We haven't eaten anything in years and we are very hungry."

"Be my guest," An Ning said, curious as to what kind of food the siblings usually eat.

She didn't have to wonder for long. The serpentine siblings immediately dove into the waters. A short time later, some distance away from Pirate City, the water started to froth as if some kind of force was making it boil.

An Ning leapt to where Nian Zhen and the twins were, looking at them with anxious eyes.

"Are you all alright?" she asked. "

"Ning Ning," Nian Zhen cried hoa.r.s.ely. "If you ever scare me like that ever again..."

"Huh? I was safe," An Ning said, surprised. "It takes more than that to hurt me."

"It didn't look like it to us," Nian Zhen said, looking scared and angry at the same time. "I...I thought you were dead," he finished with a distressed cry then completely stopped her protests by hauling her into his arms and kissing her senseless.

When their lips parted, Nian Zhen refused to let her go, burying his head in the crook of her neck as his body was racked with s.h.i.+vers. An Ning embraced him back, not letting him go as she signaled to the twins who were watching their sobbing father with dread in their hearts. It scared them, seeing their Dad lose control like that, as if they were in danger of losing both of their parents and the thought was scary and they were scared.

An Ning opened her other arm and the twins rushed to her, embracing her and Nian Zhen who welcomed them by squeezing them tightly next to his heart.

They stood like that for several minutes, just making sure that they were alive, and that they were together safe and sound until a cry that made the mountains and the seas and Pirate City tremble in fear almost split the air in half.

They saw that the waters again were frothing like mad, the waves getting agitated and bigger, creating panic on the ground. Suddenly, out of the water came the worst of their nightmares. The two-headed serpent was battling a ma.s.sive squid, which had its tentacles wrapped tightly around its opponent. It's bird-like mouth was fastened viciously on the serpent's middle, as if trying to snap the serpentine body in half.

Zera and Kier had earlier lost in the battle against An Ning. They were about to lose this one as well. Exhaustion and hunger were making them dizzy and the injuries they suffered against the swords' attack were taking its toll. The giant squid rolled its body to one side, bringing along Kier's head, which one tentacle was trying to squeeze. Kier's eyes were starting to roll on his head, which added to his sister's distress.

Watching them, An Ning made up her mind and started to move but before she could even make one small step, Nian Zhen had moved closer to her and gripped her arm.

"Ning Ning, take us with you," he said in a pa.s.sionate voice.

An Ning hesitated but there was no more time to argue so she and Nian Zhen and the twins hurried where the siblings were.

"Don't do anything stupid," An Ning warned her family. "Just watch. I will call for help when I need your help. Otherwise, just stay here and watch. I will be back."

They watched her join the fray below with their hearts in their mouths. An Ning was fast. She was fast like lightning, attacking the squid then freeing the siblings from its deadly clutches. The strips cradled the exhausted snake as it fell, out of breath, on the water.

An Ning evaded the wet clutch of the octopus, and slashed its word as the animal's head. It was as she thought, the squid had spent too much time under water so its body and skin have become too tough to tear apart.

Taking advantage of her inattention, the giant squid jumped out of the water to attack An Ning. The tentacles were spread apart like a mushroom, the gaping mouth aiming straight for An Ning. Somebody screamed. Above the squid's head, a giant swirling portal suddenly appeared. The yawning tunnel aimed its mouth at the squid, which found itself being sucked in its opening. The squid struggled mightily to evade capture. It screeched and squawked, sending its flailing tentacles to find something firm to hold on to.

But it was no use as the tunnel persistently sucked and pulled at the squid's giant, squirmy body. Before it pa.s.ses through the portal, something sharp and s.h.i.+ning was hurled at its head. An Ning's sword stabbed at the squid between the eyes. As the squid struggled, the sword dug deeper and deeper, pushed by some strong force until it reached the animal's brain and the heat that had been contained inside the steel exploded, frying the squid's brain until it stopped struggling and slid back to the waters dead.

The sword with one back slash then sliced the dead body in half as the portal slowly disappeared and vanished. There was a sudden sound of frenzy as the serpent siblings slithered on the surface and immediately pounced on the dead squid and started devouring it. They watched with a mixture of awe and revulsion as the two heads swallowed the bodies while coiling and uncoiling its body on the water. The sliced body of the squid created a gross and obscene sight as it was being pushed down the throats of the two heads and slowly and delicately masticated and chewed inside the serpent's stomach.

An Ning turned away disgusted as she followed Nian Zhen who had already taken the twins at a safe distance when the snake started eating the squid. Behind them, the strips of gauze started weaving a screen that not only would protect the snake as it continued to devour its prey but protect the human world as well from the sight of too much ugliness and savagery.