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Chapter Text

The ancient braziers guttered in their sconces, casting shadows that writhed across the throne room's scaled walls like living things. Flame-light danced across carved murals of serpent victories, the stone still bearing the sweet-sharp scent of burned snake oil from evening rituals. But tonight, even the familiar incense couldn't mask the staleness of a throne room where no counsel had been held, no strategies debated—not since his General's chair had sat empty.
King Hiss stood motionless before the war table, its magical surface pulsing with phantom battle plans, but his yellow eyes saw none of it. His eyes weren’t on the glowing glyphs, they were on the empty space beside him. Hiss's clawed finger traced the empty chair where Khan used to sit.
The weight in his chest—hollow, aching—had been growing for four days now. That’s how long it had been since Kobra Khan was captured by the Horde.
The tension in the room shifted.
The pain struck without warning—not in his body, but deeper. Hiss gasped, one clawed hand flying to his chest as his knees buckled. The Serpent Staff clattered to the marble floor, its echo sharp in the sudden silence.

This wasn't physical injury. This was the severing of something sacred—the warrior's bond he'd shared with Khan since the day he'd raised him to General. A living thread woven from trust, forged in a dozen campaigns, strengthened by blood spilled side by side.

And now it snapped like a bowstring under too much tension.
Through the dying connection came a whisper, thin as smoke, and heavy as chains: "Forgive me, my King..."

The voice was Khan's, but wrong—drained of defiance, thick with a surrender that made Hiss's scales crawl. Not the surrender of death, which would have been clean. This was something fouler. Submission to corruption itself
And in that moment—Hiss felt it all.
Searing white-hot pain. As if Khan’s own nerves had been dragged across fire. But pleasure too—dark and twisted, creeping like the coils of something unnatural. It slithered along the edges of his mind, wrapping around loyalty and strangling it with sick delight.

Hiss fell to both knees, clutching his chest -- not from weakness, but from something deeper.
Something stolen.
He had always shared a bond with his warriors. But with Khan—it had been more.
A living thread forged in fire and trust, loyalty and blood. And now—cut like a lifeline in freefall. The pain disappeared. The warmth vanished. The presence of Khan within him—gone. And all that remained was silence… and the crushing weight of certainty:
Kobra Khan had surrendered.
Not to death…
But to the Slime’s insidious control.
A cold shiver gripped the throne room.
Ssslash and Toxin, his personal guard, lunged forward with trained precision—Ssslash's powerful coils ready to catch the King while Toxin's head swiveled, scanning for threats that weren't there. They had seen battlefield wounds, poison, exhaustion. But this was something else entirely.
“My King!”
Their hands steadied him, but he didn’t acknowledge them at first. His hands trembled, not from injury—but from rage. He pressed his hands to the floor and pushed himself up from the stone. He straightened slowly, breath hissing between clenched fangs. The fire in his eyes returned—not grief now… but resolve. His serpentine frame straightened into its full towering height, a King reborn in fury. His guards stepped back instinctively.
The war table flared to life with full brightness as his staff returned to his hand in a burst of green magic.
“Sound the horns,” Hiss commanded, his voice sharp as a blade drawn in silence.
The guards exchanged glances.
“Now!” he commanded.
They moved.
“Summon the High Command. Lock the inner gates. Prepare the Temple’s defenses.”

The throne room erupted into motion as Snake Men sprang into action, but Hiss remained still. He looked up at the ceiling as if staring beyond stone and sky—beyond time itself.
“He’s not gone,” he whispered to no one.
“But he will be… if we don’t act now.”
The war chamber pulsed with green light as magical projectors flared to life above the circular table. Serpentine banners fluttered from the stone columns, but the usual formality of the chamber was gone—replaced by urgency and dread.
King Hiss stood at the head of the table, arms folded, his voice the only thing holding the room steady. Around him, the high-ranking Snake Men—Rattlor, Tung Lashor, Scales, and Viper —gathered in silence. All had been summoned within minutes of the signal.
None dared to speak first.
Rattlor's tail rattled in broken intervals, the sound cycling from controlled warning beats to erratic, high-pitched chattering.
"My King, the scouts are talking. They're saying—" He stopped, unable to voice it.
"That Kobra Khan has fallen to the Horde." Hiss's words cut through the chamber like a blade. "Yes, Rattlor. It's true."
Viper's hand found the spear at his side, fingers instinctively seeking the worn grip where Khan had once guided his stance, tracing the inscription he'd memorized but never expected to question.
"Fallen... or taken?"
The King's eyes hardened.
"Worse. Transformed."
He raised his staff, and with a gesture, the projection flared to life above the table: an image of Kobra Khan, still recognizable, but changed. His eyes glowed red. Slime shimmered across his body. A predator reborn in the image of the Horde.

Gasps echoed in the Chamber.
“Serpos help us…” whispered Scales. “What did they do to him?”
“They didn’t just torture him,” Hiss said, voice grim.
“They weaponized him.”
“That’s not possible—Khan would never—” Rattlor started.
“He surrendered,” Hiss cut in. “I felt it. I heard his final prayer. The Slime devoured his mind… and buried everything else.”

The room fell silent and cold.
Tung Lashor looked from face to face.
“So what do we do? Fight him?”
Silence.
A low hum from the projection crystal flickered across the chamber floor, casting green shadows against the stone. The image of Khan—twisted, altered, covered in glistening slime—marched forward through a wasteland, eyes burning red. Not aimless, not wandering, but purposeful and direct.
Scales shifted closer to the projection, his voice barely above a whisper.
"The way he's moving... he knows these paths. Our paths."
His sword and shield trembled in his grip - both gifts from the very warrior now hunting them, their weight suddenly feeling like accusations.
"He's coming home, isn't he?"
The word 'home' hung in the air like poison. Hiss watched the image of his corrupted General moving with predatory purpose through jungle that had once sheltered him.
"No," the King said, his voice granite-hard. "Home is what we'll defend. What approaches us now..."
He gestured to the twisted figure in the projection, slime glistening on familiar scales.
"That is our enemy wearing our brother's face."
He looked at each of them—his Warriors, his kin.
“And when he arrives… we must be ready to face the one warrior none of us ever wanted to fight: Our own.”
He let that hang—then added quietly:
“We can’t save him with force alone,” Hiss said. “The Slime devoured his mind… and buried his soul in shadow.”
They looked at him.
“We fight him here,” he said, touching his temple. “And if there’s any part of our Khan left… that’s where we’ll reach him.”
Rattlor shifted uncomfortably. His tail thumped once against the stone floor.
“But how do you know he’s coming for us?” he asked. “Why here? Why now?”
There was a long pause. But Hiss did not answer. His gaze lingered on the projection as Khan raised his head, as if he’d heard the question spoken through the void.
The Slime rippled across his body -- something alive that didn’t belong. Something pulsed beneath it, sentient and seething. A mockery of the warrior they once knew.
Khan was not searching.
He was tracking.
Hiss's jaw clenched, fangs pressing against his lower lip hard enough to draw a drop of blood. He knew exactly why Khan was coming—knew what the Slime would demand of its newest puppet. But voicing that knowledge would only feed the fear already wrapping around his warriors' hearts.
Tung Lashor took a step back.
“By the first breath of Serpos…” he whispered. “Look at his eyes.”
The silence returned.
But this time… it felt hunted.

Chapter Text

Viscous trails of Slime traced down Kobra Khan's shoulders as he stepped from the Fright Zone's perpetual shadow, each drop hitting the cracked earth with a soft hiss. His movements had lost all serpentine grace—now he walked with the mechanical precision of a programmed weapon, red eyes scanning the wasteland ahead like targeting sensors locked onto prey. The Horde Bat burned on his chest—a pulsing signal of loyalty not earned, but rewritten.

The crimson skies above Hordak’s domain slowly faded into an eerie twilight as he entered the Dead Lands—a twisted wasteland where life once tried to thrive but failed under Horde corruption. Thorned vines curled around the bones of fallen beasts, and skeletal remains cracked beneath Khan’s every step. Each footfall landed with metronomic certainty, crushing dried leaves into powder rather than the soft rustle of a natural predator.

The whisper of Hordak’s command still echoed in his mind like a hymn:

“Deliver him to me—alive, broken, kneeling.”

Beyond the Dead Lands, the world changed. Khan was entering the outer reaches of the Serpentis jungle. The transition was sharp: Horde blight gave way to living green, where vines hung heavy like nooses and roots seemed to writhe with purpose. Bioluminescent spores drifted lazily through the air, glowing soft green as if reacting to the Horde symbol burning faintly on Khan’s chest.

The jungle's familiar perfume hit him like a physical blow—rich earth, crushed ferns, the metallic tang of morning dew on stone. Beneath it all, threading through the green density, came the sacred scent of burning snake oil from distant temple braziers.

For one heartbeat, something buried stirred behind his red-lit eyes. Names surfaced like a drowning man breaking water, dragging fragments with it—Rattlor's laugh, the weight of ceremonial armor, the pride in Hiss's voice the day he'd been named General.

Then the Slime pulsed through his veins like liquid ice, and the memories sank back into darkness. His stride never faltered, pressing forward —through mist, through memory, through the last strands of the life he used to know.

The Serpent Spines rose before him—jagged limestone cliffs that had challenged even seasoned Snake Men warriors. Khan ascended without hesitation, his claws finding purchase in hairline cracks with mechanical precision. No testing of holds, no careful weight distribution—just relentless upward progress that defied both gravity and caution.

At the summit, he paused. The wind carried familiar voices from his past—echoes of training exercises on these very cliffs, Rattlor shouting encouragement, his own younger self laughing at a failed attempt. But the sounds felt distant, like transmissions from a dead frequency. His red eyes registered the data without emotion.

Below, the temple of the Snake Men emerged from the mists—massive, coiled like the god-serpents of old. Stone fangs framed its entrance, and glowing torches cast serpent shadows against the walls.

Serpent idols, long since claimed by moss and time, marked sacred ground once patrolled by brothers. Khan’s glowing red eyes didn’t even blink as he passed them. His limbs moved like clockwork, driven not by memory, but mission.

The Sacred Snake Temple loomed ahead—half-swallowed by vines, but still defiant. A sanctuary. A fortress. A home. Khan didn’t hesitate. Shadows slid over his form as he moved, not with stealth, but instinct—as if the jungle still remembered him… but now recoiled from what he had become.

As the stronghold rose before him, Khan knew the secret paths. He had walked them as a brother. Now, he would walk them as their undoing. The moonlight was slicing through twisted trees as Khan approached the entrance to the Sacred Snake Temple.

The Sacred Snake Men Temple emerged from the jungle mist like a fortress carved from living bone. Massive stone columns spiraled skyward, their surfaces etched with scales that seemed to shift in the torchlight. The entrance gaped wide—twin fangs of polished granite framing a doorway that had once welcomed him home.

Khan's corrupted gaze swept the familiar architecture with cold calculation. Structural weak points. Guard positions. Blind spots in the ancient defensive design he had helped plan. The temple's sacred beauty registered only as tactical data—cover, concealment, angles of attack.

The great gate was carved into the open mouth of a hooded cobra, its fangs forming the doorframe, venom forever frozen in stone rivulets down the sides.

Moss clung to the crevices, but the ancient sigils etched into the stone still pulsed faintly with amber light—a warding spell, once meant to protect its warriors. Khan had helped inscribe them. Now, they flickered in his presence, as though unsure whether to recognize him… or reject him.

At the highest spire, the Serpent’s Crown, a great fire brazier burned—always lit when the King resided within. The flame was low tonight, a wary beacon in a time of mourning.
Carved murals flanked the stairway—depictions of great battles, sacred rites, oaths taken under twin moons. Kobra Khan’s likeness was among them, a younger version of himself, fangs bared in triumph. But to him now, that face felt like a stranger wearing his skin.

Stone sentinels lined the path leading up the temple steps: warriors in full serpent armor, eyes cast downward in solemn vigilance. Their spears crossed above the threshold as an eternal warning.

The air shifted—it was denser here. Filled with incense, Snake oil, and something older: memory.

A strange pressure built in his chest, as if the temple itself were breathing and watching. It had once welcomed him home. Now, it stood in judgment.

And then, there were no warnings and no honor. He didn’t hide. He didn’t knock. He crossed the threshold as if the gods had never mattered -- not to him, not anymore.

The temple guards' heads turned at his approach—routine alertness shifting to confusion, then dawning horror. “Temple Sentinel Scaleward” was the first to recognize the familiar silhouette, his voice catching in his throat: 'General?'

The Slime began to bubble and hiss against Khan's scales, reacting to the sacred ground like acid on blessed metal. Wisps of green vapor rose from his shoulders, carrying a stench that made the guards' nostrils flare in revulsion.

Khan struck before Scaleward could finish the word. No warning. No hesitation. His claws found pressure points along the guard's shoulder and neck—the same technique he'd taught them for subduing prisoners, now used to drop his own unconscious on the stone floor.

Khan moved through the remaining guards with mechanical efficiency. Each strike targeted nerve clusters, pressure points, joints—designed to disable without killing. Scaleward's brothers dropped one by one, unconscious or writhing in pain but alive. Behind Khan, two Horde Troopers emerged from the shadows, their stun weapons crackling as they bound the fallen guards with energy restraints.

The stone floor bore witness to the betrayal—scattered weapons, unconscious warriors, and the acrid scent of fear-sweat mixing with the sacred incense that still burned in the temple's braziers.

The inner sanctum's proximity sensors triggered as Khan breached the second perimeter. Ancient warning crystals throughout the temple began their haunting wail—a sound that had once meant 'prepare for battle' but now meant 'prepare for heartbreak.'

Khan continued his methodical advance. No change in pace. No acknowledgment of the alarm. The sound that should have triggered his protective instincts now registered as mere background noise while he calculated the response time of reinforcements

Fangor rounded the corner at full sprint, spear raised in the defensive stance Khan had drilled into him countless times during training. For a split second, recognition flickered in both their eyes—memories of sparring matches, shared victories, late-night strategy sessions.

Khan's response was immediate and clinical. A precise strike to Fangor's weapon arm, followed by pressure applied to the nerve cluster behind his left shoulder blade. Fangor's spear clattered to the floor as his arm went numb, and he crumpled forward, conscious but immobilized.

“Khan... what have they done to you?”

Fangor gasped, staring up at the red glow where familiar yellow eyes should have been. Khan stepped over him without acknowledgment, leaving his former sparring partner alive but helpless on the cold stone.

Sssqueeze slithered around the next corner, his massive body already moving to block Khan's path to the inner sanctum. They had practiced this maneuver together dozens of times—Sssqueeze's crushing strength combined with Khan's speed, an unbeatable team.

Now they faced each other as enemies.

“Sweet scales of Serpos... General? What happened to you?"

Sssqueeze's voice was barely a whisper, then rose to a horrified hiss. Sssqueeze backed away, his tongue flicking frantically.

Khan didn't even hesitate, responding swift and merciless. He feinted left, then dove low, striking the pressure points along Sssqueeze's powerful tail where it connected to his spine. The massive warrior's coils went slack as nerve paralysis spread upward, and he collapsed with a cry of anguish—not only from physical pain, but from the crushing realization that his brother was gone.

Khan stepped past the writhing form without a backward glance, leaving Sssqueeze conscious but helpless, tears streaming down his scaled cheeks.

He continued disabling those he once fought beside—crippling them with calculated precision.

And the worst part? He felt satisfaction.

Each precise strike, each brother left writhing in helpless paralysis, sent a pulse of dark pleasure through his corrupted nervous system. The Slime had rewired his reward pathways—what should have filled him with horror now triggered waves of artificial euphoria.

Somewhere deep beneath the chemical puppet strings, the real Khan screamed in silent anguish. He could feel his clawed hands moving, hear his brothers' pleas, smell the fear-sweat mixing with sacred incense. But he was a passenger in his own body, forced to watch through red-tinted eyes as everything he'd sworn to protect crumbled under his touch.

The mission parameters pulsed in his mind like a heartbeat: Infiltrate. Disable. Acquire the target. Each command wrapped in synthetic pleasure, making obedience feel like choice.

And somewhere beneath that madness… a memory surfaced. Laughter around a jungle fire. Rattlor tossing him a carved fang-shaped charm. Sssqueeze grinning after a hard-won training match. They had been his brothers. His kin. And now he was destroying them.

He could feel it—the Slime’s hunger—feeding on his rage, twisting it into pleasure. And deep within that pleasure... he screamed.

But there was nothing he could do to stop it. Nothing at all.

The inner corridors stretched before him, carved from living rock and lined with murals depicting his own victories. In the flickering torchlight, painted versions of himself smiled back—a warrior who had once knelt before King Hiss in loyalty, who had sworn sacred oaths beneath these very arches.

Behind him, two Horde Troopers followed in mechanical lockstep, their boots echoing against stone that had never heard such foreign sounds. The temple's remaining defenses lay disabled in his wake—security systems he had helped design, guard rotations he had established, sacred wards he had once blessed. Each step echoed with the weight of betrayal. His claws clicked against stone worn smooth by generations of Snake Men, the sound marking a countdown to the moment he would face the one person whose faith in him had never wavered. The Slime had turned his every protective instinct into a blueprint for violation.

Hordak’s orders pulsed stronger now: Deliver him alive. Broken. Kneeling. The words felt like ice water in his veins, but his corrupted nervous system translated them into anticipation. Soon, he would complete what the Slime had started—the destruction of everything Kobra Khan had once been.

Chapter Text

Chapter 3: When Words Fail
The massive stone doors groaned open with a sound like ancient bones grinding against each other. Kobra Khan and two Horde Troopers stepped into the heart of Serpentis—the Throne Room of the Snake Men—and familiar scents hit him like a physical assault.

Snake oil. Burned incense. The metallic tang of old blood in stone grooves where sacred duels had been fought. His corrupted senses catalogued each detail with mechanical precision while something buried deep in his mind recoiled from the violation of bringing Horde boots onto consecrated ground.

The circular chamber stretched beyond the reach of torchlight, its obsidian walls drinking in flame like black water. Carved serpent forms spiraled up massive columns, their stone eyes seeming to track movement in the shifting light. Braziers burned in wall alcoves, their flames casting shadows that writhed across the polished floor —still stained faintly with venom and blood from old battles and sacred duels. He had bled on this floor. He had won on this floor.

Khan's red-lit gaze swept the space with predatory calculation. Sight lines. Cover positions. The raised dais where his target would make his stand. Even the sacred architecture registered only as battlefield geometry—elevation advantages, chokepoints, escape routes blocked.

The Serpent Throne dominated the far end of the chamber—a towering structure carved from the fossilized remains of an ancient titan serpent, its coiled skeleton rising behind it like wings. The throne’s seat sat nestled in the serpent’s gaping jaw, where only the King could sit without fear. The great fang-shaped armrests still held notches—battle chips from past wars.

Banners of conquest still hung high—one bore his insignia, faded but visible. A testament to the time he was honored here… not feared.

To Khan, everything looked… smaller than he remembered. Like the echo of something that once mattered. A flicker stirred in his chest—recognition, maybe even grief—but the Slime moved quickly, wrapping around the thought, tightening until it vanished beneath pleasure and obedience.

He blinked.

And the feeling was gone.

He took a step forward. The silence in the chamber was unnatural. Thick and anticipating.

The throne room stood empty—no guards at their posts, no ceremonial attendants, no King upon the Serpent Throne. Only silence thick enough to taste and the measured echo of his claws against polished stone.
A single brazier burned beside the vacant throne, its green flame casting shifting shadows across carved armrests worn smooth by generations of rulers. The sacred fire that should have welcomed him home now felt like a beacon marking enemy territory.

Khan's tactical assessment was immediate: Trap. Ambush. Target relocated. But something deeper stirred—not quite memory, more like muscle remembering motion. His claws flexed unconsciously, the same gesture he'd made countless times when reporting to this very throne.

And from the shadows… that scent again: snake oil and stone. It curled through the air like a ghost—familiar, grounding, and unbearable. It stirred something deep in him. Not a thought. A feeling. This was his home. His battlefield. His sanctuary. Now… it watched him like a tomb with open eyes. It still may be his sanctuary, but it may also become his grave.

Khan's advance halted mid-stride. The chamber's silence pressed against his eardrums like deep water, but underneath it—barely perceptible—came the whisper of fabric against stone. The soft intake of held breath. The faint metallic scent of scaled armor warmed by tension.

His corrupted senses sharpened to surgical precision, cataloguing threat vectors while primal instincts flared along his spine. The Slime had enhanced his predatory awareness, turning natural hunter reflexes into something approaching supernatural detection.

His head tilted, nostrils flaring. Heat signatures. Movement patterns. The subtle displacement of air that marked hidden watchers. His eyes narrowed to slits. His body stilled, coiled like a spring.

He inhaled once—sharply. There. Under the incense: Heat. Musk. Movement.

He wasn’t alone.

Khan shifted his stance, low and serpentine, weight on the balls of his feet—ready to strike or bolt. His claws slowly extended from his fingertips with the subtle click of keratin on scale. His head turned, not abruptly, but with smooth, calculated precision—first to the archways, then to the columns, then to the dark recess behind the throne. Each movement deliberate. Each breath measured.

His tongue flicked out, tasting the air.

Yes… I’m being watched. But not by prey.
This is the gaze of predators. Of brothers.

A hiss escaped his throat—not one of warning, but of anticipation.

Khan's voice cut through the silence like a blade drawn in darkness—familiar in timber, alien in tone. No longer the measured counsel they had known, but something cold and mechanical.

“I can smell the sweat beneath your scales, my King.” The title dripped from his lips like venom, mockery wrapped in false reverence. “Your heartbeat echoes off these walls like a war drum.”
His red eyes swept the shadows with predatory patience.

"Hordak's orders are clear—deliver you conscious and breathing. Resist, and I'll ensure you arrive broken while keeping you functional enough to serve."

Hiss knew he was coming. He had prepared for this moment—not with vengeance, but with grim purpose. He had anticipated Hordak would use Khan’s knowledge, his tactics, and his very soul against them. To win this battle, King Hiss had to become something else—something ruthless and unpredictable. He would have to abandon everything he taught Khan… every instinct, every bond.

He wasn’t fighting his General. He was fighting the most dangerous enemy he had ever faced:

His reflection.

From the darkness behind the Serpent Throne came a sound Khan's corrupted mind couldn't categorize—a low, resonant hiss that carried the weight of centuries. Not the warning rattle of a threatened predator, but something deeper. The sound of a father watching his son's funeral pyre.

Khan's head snapped toward the source, red eyes narrowing as shadows began to shift and separate. What he had dismissed as empty darkness now revealed its deception—King Hiss had been there all along, motionless as carved stone, waiting.

The flickering green flame flared brighter for a moment, casting long, slithering shadows across the chamber walls. And then—the shadows came alive. They emerged from behind pillars and alcoves, figures emerged in practiced synchronization—a defensive formation Khan had drilled into them himself.

Rattlor's massive frame filled the eastern archway, his tail already coiled for striking distance. Viper materialized from behind the throne's base, the sacred spear Khan had gifted him held in a defensive stance.

Tung Lashor and Scales flanked the western approaches, cutting off retreat routes with mechanical precision.

But it was the figure in the center who commanded the chamber. King Hiss emerged from behind the throne with the measured grace of absolute authority—each step deliberate, unhurried, as if time itself waited for his permission to continue. The green flame behind him seemed to bow in his presence.

Where Khan radiated corruption and mechanical violence, Hiss embodied controlled power. His scaled armor caught the brazier light like polished obsidian, unmarked by the Slime's taint. His yellow eyes—still his own—held depths that Khan's red glare could never fathom: regret, determination, and the terrible weight of choices that Kings must make.

The King’s armor gleamed with bone-white serpentine plate, banded in deep emerald—the markings of a King carved in war, not ceremony. He wore no crown, but the way the light caught his scaled brow, he didn’t need one. And in his hands—nothing. He bore no weapon. He was the weapon.

His eyes were heavy—not with fear, but sorrow. Not a ruler facing a traitor, but a father facing a lost son. The silence stretched between them like a blade balanced on its edge. When King Hiss finally spoke, his voice carried the weight of sleepless nights and impossible choices.

“Khan.”

The name fell from his lips like a prayer itself—not the title of General, not the formal address of a subordinate, but the simple recognition of someone he had raised, trained, and loved like a son.

“I felt the moment you surrendered. I heard your final words before the darkness took hold.”

His yellow eyes never wavered from the red glow that had replaced Khan's natural gaze.

“But I also know you're still fighting in there. Still screaming against what they've made you become.”

The words hit Khan like a physical blow. For one fractured instant, something flickered behind the red glow—not recognition exactly, but a tremor in the Slime's absolute control. His name, spoken not as accusation or command, but as... remembrance. Love.

The moment lasted less than a heartbeat before the corruption surged back, drowning the flicker in artificial calm. But Khan's stance had shifted—barely perceptible, but enough to show that some part of him had heard. Some part of him remembered what it meant to be called by name instead of function.

The silence that followed was suffocating. The Snake Warriors shifted uneasily, watching for any sign that their General might still exist beneath the monster wearing his face.

Rattlor stepped forward first, his massive frame tense with barely controlled emotion. His tail betrayed him—the rattle at its tip producing a nervous staccato that echoed through the chamber, high-pitched notes of uncertainty rather than the controlled warnings of a confident warrior. His weathered face searched Khan's corrupted features desperately, looking for any trace of the General who had once clapped him on the shoulder after victories.

The recognition never came. Only those terrible red eyes, studying him like a specimen rather than a brother

Tung Lashor’s forked tongue darted out repeatedly, tasting the air with increasing agitation. The acrid scent of Slime corruption made him recoil—a stench that had no place in these sacred halls. His elongated frame remained ready for combat, but his weapon hand trembled. This was the warrior who had taught him the art of patient hunting, who had shown him how to read an enemy's intentions through the smallest muscle twitches. Now those same skills revealed nothing familiar in Khan's stance—only cold calculation where warmth had once resided.

Scales pressed closer to the throne's base, his features tight with confusion and grief. The sword and shield Khan had gifted him felt impossibly heavy—sacred steel now turned potential weapons against its giver.

Viper moved with fluid precision to flank Scales on the opposite side, his youthful features hardened by disbelief. The sacred spear Khan had placed in his hands after the Thornwood victory felt alien now—its familiar weight a reminder of trust that had been perverted into potential violence. His grip shifted along the worn leather wrapping where Khan had once guided his stance, teaching patience to the most restless of warriors. Now that same weapon might be turned against its giver, and the irony burned like acid in his throat

None dared strike. None dared to speak.

Khan's red gaze swept across the half-circle of warriors with mechanical precision. Threat assessment complete: Rattlor—compromised by emotional attachment, rattle frequency indicating stress. Viper—grip unstable on weapon, youth making him unpredictable. Scales—defensive posture weakened by grief. Tung Lashor—hesitation patterns suggesting divided loyalty.

All exploitable weaknesses. All former strengths turned to tactical disadvantages.

But something deeper stirred—not quite memory, but muscle recognition. These faces. These stances. Important somehow, though the significance felt muffled, wrapped in the Slime's soothing embrace. The corruption quickly smothered the flicker, translating sentiment into strategic data: Former allies. Current obstacles. Minimal threat if engaged individually.

And Khan… simply stared.

Eyes glowing red.

Still. Silent. Watching.

Waiting.

King Hiss descended from the throne with deliberate calm, each step measured and purposeful. He had fought this battle a hundred times in his mind during the sleepless nights since Khan's capture—every word planned, every gesture calculated to pierce the Slime's control without triggering its defensive protocols. He raised a single hand, and his warriors froze mid-breath.

"Hold your positions," he commanded quietly, never taking his eyes off Khan's corrupted form.

His voice carried across the chamber—not as King to subject, but as teacher to student. The warriors froze, weapons trembling in unsure hands. Hiss continued his slow approach toward Kobra Khan, his gaze never wavering, his voice low and steady—less a command, more a plea rooted in history.

“Khan… my son in all but blood. Look at this place.”

He swept his arm across the throne room—past carved murals depicting Khan's own victories, battle banners bearing his insignia, stone floors still marked with the ancient stains of sacred duels where he had proven his worth.

“THIS is YOUR home. Every stone knows your footsteps. Every flame has warmed your scales after battle. You didn't earn your place here through conquest or corruption—you earned it through loyalty. Through sacrifice. Through love for your brothers.”

Hiss's voice carried the weight of years, of shared campaigns, of a bond forged in fire and trust.

“The warrior who knelt before this throne and swore the sacred oaths—that is who you truly are. Not this thing wearing Horde symbols like chains.”

Khan stood motionless, but something had changed. A tremor ran along his jaw—barely perceptible, but visible to eyes that had studied his face across a thousand war councils. His claws flexed once, unconsciously, the same gesture he'd made when deep in thought during strategy sessions.

But the red glow in his eyes pulsed brighter, as if the Slime was asserting control against some internal rebellion. His breathing shifted—shallow, controlled, mechanical—fighting to suppress whatever memories Hiss's words had stirred.

For one heartbeat, his stance wavered. Then the corruption surged back with renewed force, locking his muscles into rigid attention. He remained silent, but his stillness now carried a different quality—not the patience of a predator, but the tension of a dam about to burst.

Hiss stepped closer, close enough to see the faint tracery of Slime beneath Khan's scales, close enough to smell the corruption that masked familiar scents of snake oil and leather armor.

“Do you remember the night before the Bone Valley campaign? You couldn't sleep—kept pacing the strategy tent, checking weapon stores, reviewing troop positions. Not because you doubted the plan, but because you couldn't bear the thought of losing a single warrior under your command.”

Something flickered across Khan's features—so brief it might have been imagination. His right hand twitched, fingers moving as if reaching for a memory just beyond grasp.

“I found you at dawn, standing watch over the sleeping camp. You said a General's duty never sleeps. That was the moment I knew...” Hiss's voice caught slightly.

“I knew you were more than a warrior. You were a protector. My heir. My son.”

A flicker. A twitch in Khan’s jaw. His fingers curled slightly inward. A tremor—almost imperceptible.

Hiss stepped directly before him, close enough to see his own reflection distorted in Khan's red-lit eyes. His voice dropped to barely above a whisper, but carried the weight of absolute command.

“I know you're trapped in there, Khan. I can see you fighting.”

His hand pressed against his own chest, over the heart where their bond once lived.

“Your King commands you—resist. Break free. Fight back against what they've done to you.”

The word “commands” hit like a physical blow. Khan's entire frame shuddered, muscles convulsing as two sets of orders warred in his mind—Hordak's mission parameters and Hiss's royal decree.

The competing commands tore through Khan's mind like opposing tidal forces. His frame convulsed, muscles seizing as conflicting directives crashed against each other with violent force. A sound escaped him—not quite roar, not quite scream—the voice of something breaking under unbearable pressure.

The Slime surged through his nervous system, flooding him with synthetic rage to drown out Hiss's royal command. Then the whispers returned like hammer blows:
STRIKE HIM. NOW. COMPLETE OBJECTIVES. OBEY.

Khan's claws extended fully, his body coiling into a predatory crouch. When his voice finally emerged, it carried the mechanical precision of programmed violence layered over barely contained fury:

“No more warnings. Hordak wants you on your knees and I'll deliver you exactly as ordered.”

The last words dripped with cold precision.

“Just like you taught me.”

Chapter Text

Khan’s final phrase hit Hiss like a physical blow—his own training methods turned into a promise of defeat. Khan's tactical lessons, his combat techniques, his strategic mind—all weaponized against their teacher.

Khan exploded forward with inhuman speed, his corrupted reflexes enhanced beyond natural limits. No hesitation. No mercy. The attack came with surgical precision—not to kill, but to disable, to break, to force submission exactly as Hordak had commanded.

Khan's claws swept in a precise scissor strike—the Naja'tar Submission Hold, a technique Hiss himself had perfected decades ago. Designed to incapacitate without killing, to force surrender through pressure and pain rather than death.

But Hiss had been ready for this moment since the night he felt their bond sever. He pivoted with fluid grace, his serpentine reflexes honed by centuries of combat. Khan's enhanced speed meant nothing when Hiss had taught him every move he knew.

“You're using the Third Form,” Hiss said quietly as Khan's claws sliced empty air. “But you've forgotten the counter.”

His staff whipped around in a low arc, striking Khan's exposed ribs with the precision of a master facing his most gifted student.

CRACK.

Hiss's staff connected with Khan's ribs in a blow that should have shattered bone. The impact echoed through the chamber like splitting stone, but Khan absorbed it with unnatural resilience. The Slime had reinforced his frame, turning muscle and scale into something approaching armor.

Khan's retaliation came instantly—a sweeping leg kick that caught Hiss at the ankles, disrupting his balance with the same technique Hiss had used to end a hundred sparring matches. But where those sessions had ended in laughter and instruction, this strike carried lethal intent.

Before Hiss could recover, Khan was airborne, descending with both claws extended like twin scythes aimed at pressure points that would paralyze rather than kill. The student had become the weapon, and every lesson learned was now turned against its teacher.

Hiss twisted at the last second, taking Khan's claws on his armored forearm rather than his throat. The impact split ancient scales and drew dark blood, but the defensive maneuver saved him from paralysis. Pain lanced up his arm, but decades of combat had taught him to fight through worse.

Around the chamber's perimeter, his warriors tensed with barely restrained fury. Rattlor's massive frame coiled forward, rattle singing a sharp warning, before he caught himself and held position. Viper's grip tightened on his sacred spear until his knuckles went white. Scales bit back a cry of anguish, watching his mentor's blood stain the throne room floor.

But they held. Even as their King bled, even as their brother-turned-enemy pressed his attack, they held. Because this was more than combat—this was surgery. An attempt to cut away corruption without destroying the patient.

Khan flowed into his next attack without pause—the Sil'naja Vor'kess, a grappling technique designed to immobilize larger opponents. But where Hiss had taught it as a defensive maneuver, Khan applied it with calculated brutality. His enhanced strength, boosted by Slime corruption, turned a restraining hold into a bone-crushing embrace.

Each strike targeted specific nerve clusters—not random violence, but systematic dismantling. Khan was methodically breaking down his former King's defenses, following Hordak's command with surgical precision: alive, broken, kneeling. The corruption had turned his protective instincts inside out, transforming every lesson in safeguarding into techniques for subjugation.

This wasn't warrior against warrior anymore. This was a scalpel cutting apart everything it had once been trained to heal. Khan pressed the assault—no hesitation, no wasted breath. Each strike was precise— And then a feint. A spin. A savage elbow drove into Hiss’s jaw—hard enough to shatter pride, but not the skull.

Hiss reeled—then countered with a coiling grapple, his serpentine body wrapping around Khan’s midsection, squeezing tight. Khan snarled, fangs barred, as he twisted and slammed Hiss against the floor. Stone cracked beneath them.

They separated with mutual wariness, both warriors marked by combat. Dark blood seeped from claw marks on Hiss's forearm, while Khan's enhanced frame showed stress fractures where ancient technique had found weak points in his corruption.

Khan's red gaze swept over his former King with tactical precision, cataloguing injuries, measuring remaining strength, calculating optimal angles for the next assault. But something flickered behind the mechanical assessment—surprise, perhaps, that his enhanced abilities hadn't overwhelmed the older warrior as quickly as projected.

Hiss studied his corrupted General with equal intensity, seeing past the Slime's enhancements to read the subtle tells that no corruption could completely erase—the slight favor of his left leg, the unconscious shift in stance when preparing to strike. Teacher's knowledge against student's strength.

For precious minutes, they matched each other blow for blow—Hiss's ancient mastery against Khan's corrupted enhancement. Neither could gain decisive advantage. Experience countered raw power, while tactical innovation met centuries of refined technique.

But Khan's red eyes began to glow brighter, pulsing with renewed intensity. The Slime was adapting, learning from each exchange, feeding combat data back into his nervous system. What had been evenly matched was shifting toward Khan's favor as the corruption analyzed and adjusted to Hiss's fighting style.

The two Horde Troopers maintained their perimeter, weapons ready but passive—programmed to recognize this as their asset's primary mission. They would only intervene if Khan faced certain defeat, turning this sacred confrontation into a tactical extraction.

Khan's eyes blazed brighter, the red glow pulsing like warning beacons as the Slime flooded his system with synthetic aggression. The whispers weren't whispers anymore—they were commands screaming through his neural pathways:

HE HESISTATES. COMPLETE THE MISSION. BREAK HIM.

Where Khan had fought with controlled precision before, now raw fury took hold. The corruption abandoned subtlety, pouring every enhancement into overwhelming force. His muscles swelled with unnatural strength, his reflexes sharpened beyond mortal limits.

With a sound that was part roar, part electronic shriek, Khan launched himself forward—no longer the calculated warrior, but something approaching a living weapon programmed for a single purpose: breaking the one person who refused to yield.

Khan's assault came in relentless waves, each strike backed by strength that exceeded natural limits. His claws carved through Hiss's defensive positions with mechanical precision, forcing the King to give ground step by precious step across the throne room floor.

Where Hiss had relied on technique and experience, Khan now brought raw overwhelming force enhanced by alien corruption. Each blocked strike sent shockwaves up Hiss's arms. Each successful hit drew dark blood from ancient scales. The mathematical certainty was becoming clear—endurance favored the enhanced warrior.

The whispers pulsed through Khan's mind with increasing urgency:

HE’S FALTERING. MAINTAIN PRESSURE. ACHIEVE SUBMISSION.

The Slime fed him tactical data in real-time, analyzing Hiss's defensive patterns and exploiting every micro-hesitation, every fractional delay in aging reflexes.

Hiss felt his strength ebbing with each brutal exchange, felt his defensive timing slow by crucial fractions. Mathematical certainty: he would fall within minutes if this continued. But warfare had taught him that when conventional tactics failed, only unconventional ones remained.

As Khan's claws swept toward him in another crushing strike, Hiss made a choice that defied every combat instinct honed over centuries. He stopped defending entirely.

His arms dropped to his sides. His serpentine frame straightened to full royal height. He met Khan's blazing red gaze with steady yellow eyes that held no fear—only resolve.

Hiss's voice cut through the chamber with quiet authority—not the tone of a desperate King, but of a teacher calling an unruly student to attention:

“Khan.”

The name struck like a physical blow. Khan's strike halted mid-air, confusion flickering across his corrupted features. This wasn't in any tactical scenario. Prey didn't simply... stop. And yet, something deeper than programming responded to that simple syllable. Not “General.” Not “traitor.” Just... his name. Spoken without fear, without hatred, but with the same patient recognition Hiss had used in a thousand strategy sessions.

For one crystalline moment, the red glow in Khan's eyes flickered. The Slime's tactical assessments stuttered as conflicting data flooded his corrupted neural pathways—this wasn't how targets were supposed to behave. Prey didn't call their hunters by name with such... familiarity

“Look at this place, Khan. Really look.”

Hiss gestured to the carved walls surrounding them, his voice carrying the weight of shared history.

“That mural behind you—it shows the Thornwood victory. Your first major campaign as my General. You were so proud when the artisans asked to immortalize your tactics in stone.”

Khan's gaze flickered involuntarily toward the carved relief, and for a heartbeat, something shifted behind the red glow.

“The brazier by the throne still burns with the same sacred oil we lit the night I promoted you. Remember? You knelt right there—" Hiss pointed to the exact spot on the polished floor “—and swore the oath of protection. Not to me. Not to conquest. To your brothers. To home.”

The word “home” hung in the air like an anchor thrown into stormy waters, seeking something solid beneath the corruption.

Khan's frame convulsed as competing realities tore through his mind. The memories Hiss painted clashed violently with mission parameters, creating feedback loops that made his enhanced nervous system spark and misfire. His claws dug into his own palms, drawing blood as he fought to maintain focus.

The Slime flooded his system with synthetic rage, trying to drown the recognition in chemical fury as the whispers returned:

LIES. DECEPTION. SUBDUE HIM. COMPLETE THE MISSION.

But underneath the programming, something stirred—not quite memory, but the echo of belonging. Of brotherhood. Of home. His breathing became ragged, shoulders trembling with the effort of containing two warring sets of directives. Sweat beaded along his scaled brow as the internal battle intensified, each of Hiss's words striking like hammer blows against the Slime's control.

Hiss saw the fracture in Khan's composure and pressed forward with surgical precision.

“I made you General not because I wanted a soldier,” his voice carried the weight of absolute truth, “but because I saw in you a leader. A protector. A son.”

The word “son” hit like a blade finding its mark. Khan's entire frame shuddered, the red glow stuttering like a failing power source. The whispers screamed for action now, layered, and relentless:

YOU ARE MINE. ELIMINATE THE THREAT. COMPLETE OBJECTIVES

But something deeper was surfacing, clawing its way up through layers of corruption.

“You protected your brothers,” Hiss continued relentlessly, each word precisely aimed at the cracks in Khan's programming.

“You led them home from battles they should never have survived. You were their shield, their strength, their hope.”

Khan dropped to one knee, claws clutching his head as the internal war reached its crescendo. The Slime pulsed frantically through his system, but for the first time since his capture, something was fighting back with equal force.

The pressure built to an unbearable crescendo—The whispers screaming against buried memories, artificial loyalty warring with genuine love. Khan's enhanced frame couldn't contain the conflict any longer.

With a sound like breaking glass mixed with electronic feedback, something snapped inside his mind. The red glow in his eyes flickered rapidly, strobing between crimson corruption and natural yellow as two consciousnesses fought for control.

And then, for the first time since entering the throne room, the real Khan spoke—not with mechanical precision, but with raw, desperate anguish:

“No... no no no! Get out of me! Stop! Stop!”

The words tore from his throat like they were ripping through layers of synthetic control. But even as he fought, the Slime responded with its cruelest weapon—not pain, but pleasure. That warm, electric bliss that had seduced him in the pit, reminding his corrupted nervous system what surrender felt like.

“Why fight? You remember how good it felt. The warmth. The peace. No more pain, no more guilt. Just surrender again...”

Khan's enhanced frame shuddered, but not entirely from revulsion. Part of him—the part the Slime had rewired—craved that chemical bliss. His corrupted nervous system had been conditioned to associate obedience with euphoria, rebellion with agony. Even now, fighting for his soul, his body betrayed him with phantom sensations of that terrible pleasure.

His claws flexed involuntarily, muscle memory of submission warring against conscious will. The Slime's greatest cruelty wasn't control through pain—it was making him complicit in his own corruption, making him want the chains that bound him.

King Hiss recognized the signs—the involuntary muscle tremors, the conflicted expressions, the way Khan fought against his own body's responses. This wasn't just corruption; this was conditioning. The Slime had made Khan complicit in his own enslavement.

But Hiss had seen warriors overcome impossible odds before. Not through strength alone, but through something deeper than programming could touch. He stepped closer, deliberately making himself vulnerable, showing Khan that trust still existed even when it shouldn't.

“I know what it's offering you,” Hiss said quietly, his voice cutting through the chemical warfare in Khan's mind. “I know it feels easier to stop fighting. But you're stronger. You always were.”

“Your King commands you—resist. Come back to us. Come back to me.”

The royal command crashed into Khan's consciousness like a battering ram against castle gates. Two absolute authorities—Hordak's mission parameters and Hiss's sovereign decree—collided with devastating force. His enhanced nervous system couldn't process both directives simultaneously. And inside the broken, twisted labyrinth of Khan’s mind—something cracked. A flicker. A tremor beneath the surface of his rage.

His eyes remained open, locked on the world around him— but his mind fell inward like a trapdoor collapsing beneath his feet.

Darkness. Not the clean darkness of sleep, but something hungry and alive. It pressed against his consciousness like deep water, thick with alien presence and corrupted thought.

Voices erupted from every direction. Not whispers now, but a cacophony of synthetic commands layered over stolen memories. They crashed through his mental landscape like competing radio frequencies, each one fighting for dominance:

"He abandoned you."
"You are perfected now."
"The past was weakness."
"Horde is strength."
"Obey. OBEY. OBEY."

Khan's consciousness—if that's what remained—shuddered under the assault. The voices weren't external anymore; they were coming from inside his own thoughts, indistinguishable from his internal voice. In that storm of synthetic loyalty… Khan’s body—real or imagined—trembled beneath the weight of them. And somewhere in that storm of sound… Khan obeyed.

His physical form remained motionless for a heartbeat, knees pressed into the cracked stone floor where droplets of Slime continued their steady, acidic drip. The throne room held its breath—Snake Warriors frozen, King Hiss watching with desperate hope for any sign of breakthrough.

Then Khan's frame began to rise. Slowly. Deliberately. Each movement precise and controlled, but wrong somehow—like a marionette being pulled upright by invisible strings. When he stood to his full height, his red eyes locked onto Hiss with renewed intensity.

The internal battle was over. But Khan's blank expression revealed everything of who had won.

Without warning, Khan's cobra hood exploded outward—twin membranes of scaled flesh snapping tight like weapon deployment. The distinctive silhouette that had once meant protection for his brothers now spelled death for anyone caught in its shadow.

Every Snake Warrior in the chamber recognized the killing stance instantly. This wasn't posturing or intimidation—this was the final preparation before Khan's most lethal attack. The one that had ended battles in seconds, that could melt armor from bone or paralyze enemies where they stood.

And King Hiss stood directly in the strike zone, unshielded and exposed.

From the perimeter, the Snake Warriors immediately recognized the signal. The chamber erupted in desperate warnings as trained warriors recognized imminent death:

“My King—MOVE!” Rattlor's voice cracked with panic, his massive frame already running forward despite the distance.

“The Neth'kari Strike!” Viper shouted, using the ancient name for Khan's signature killing technique. “He's going to—"

“No shield!” Scales screamed, his young voice breaking. “You have no protection!”

They had all seen this attack before—had watched Khan use it to end battles in heartbeats. But never against their King. Never against family.

Scales didn't hesitate. The warrior ripped the ceremonial shield from his own arm—the same bronze disc Khan had blessed when promoting him to temple guard—and hurled it with desperate strength across the throne room.

“My King! Shield!” he cried, his voice cracking with terror and determination.

The bronze disc spun through the air, catching torchlight as it arced toward Hiss. Time stretched impossibly thin—would it reach him before Khan's strike? The mathematical certainty was brutal: seconds to impact, and Khan's venom moved faster than thrown metal.

But Scales had thrown with his heart, not his head. Sometimes that was enough.

Khan's spine straightened, every muscle fiber aligning for maximum strike efficiency. His serpentine frame uncoiled like a siege weapon preparing to fire, hood fully extended, venom sacs swelling beneath his jaw with deadly pressure.

His red eyes locked onto Hiss with targeting precision—calculating distance, trajectory, the exact angle needed to bypass any defensive maneuver.

Hiss caught Scales' shield with desperate reflex, bronze ringing against his gauntlets. But even as his fingers closed around the rim, both warriors knew the brutal mathematics: Khan's strike would come faster than any shield could fully deflect. And then— Khan unleashed it.

Khan's jaws distended beyond natural limits, venom sacs bulging with unnatural pressure. What erupted from his fangs wasn't the controlled mist of subdual he'd once wielded—this was liquid death enhanced by Slime corruption.

A concentrated stream of acidic venom jetted across the throne room with the force of a ballista bolt. The air shrieked as it passed, molecules splitting under chemical assault. Where his natural venom had been golden-amber, this corruption-enhanced toxin burned emerald-black, trailing vapors that made the ancient stone hiss in protest.

The attack wasn't just deadly—it was an abomination. Sacred biology twisted into a weapon that would have horrified the Khan who once knelt in this very chamber.

Hiss had milliseconds to react. Training older than the temple itself kicked in—he angled the bronze shield not to absorb the full impact, but to deflect what he could while minimizing exposure time. But nothing in centuries of combat had prepared him for this.

The corrupted venom struck the ceremonial bronze like concentrated hellfire. Hiss felt the impact travel up his arm like a sledgehammer blow, the ancient metal screaming as molecular bonds dissolved under chemical assault. The shield's surface didn't just corrode—it liquefied, bronze running like molten tears down his gauntlets.

Toxic vapor erupted from the point of impact, and Hiss caught the full scent of his own death—ozone, melting metal, and something underneath that burned his nostrils like inhaling acid. The ceremonial runes that had protected Snake Men for generations bubbled and vanished as if they had never existed. The metal grew scalding hot, burning through his gauntlets as structural integrity collapsed.

Hiss gritted his teeth and held on, trying to buy precious seconds as the shield disintegrated around the edges. But physics and chemistry cared nothing for royal determination. The ceremonial bronze had reached its molecular limits.

“Khan has never unleashed this before. Never at me. Never at anyone.” Hiss thought.

With a sound like breaking glass mixed with escaping steam, the shield cracked down its center. And then—it shattered, dissolving into steaming shards that fell at his feet. King Hiss staggered back, teeth clenched, the toxic fumes biting at his eyes and throat. His arm ached. His palm still tingled with the memory of the shield’s final tremor, as if it had cried out before dying.

Khan stood motionless across the smoking crater his venom had carved in the throne room floor. His enhanced frame showed the toll of the massive attack—shoulders heaving slightly, venom sacs depleted, the red glow in his eyes flickering like dying embers as his corrupted biology recovered.

Slime continued its steady drip from his scales, each drop hissing against heated stone. No expression crossed his features—no satisfaction at near-success, no frustration at missing his target. Only the mechanical patience of a weapon cycling between firing modes.

The silence stretched between them. Both warriors calculating their next move. The first exchange had ended in stalemate, but Khan's enhanced reserves would recover faster than Hiss's reflexes.

And in that moment, for just a breath—Hiss forgot the war.

He saw something else. Not the puppet standing before him. But the young warrior he had chosen. The blade he had sharpened. The son he never claimed aloud.

His lips parted.

“Khan—”

But the word died in his throat as those red eyes fixed on him with predatory focus. This wasn't his General studying battlefield tactics. This was a weapon calculating kill shots. The creature wearing Khan's face tilted its head with mechanical curiosity, as if wondering why its target had spoken. His eyes hardened. He stepped forward—not as a mentor, but as a King. Whatever flicker of mourning he felt was buried as there was no time for grief.

Khan’s shoulders were heaving. His venom spent. The air sizzled with chemical heat.

And all eyes were on him. The Snake Warriors froze—caught between awe and horror. The scent of scorched metal and vaporized stone filled their lungs. The moment stretched—long and silent - as if the world itself was waiting to see what came next.

Khan's red gaze swept the chamber with renewed calculation. Primary target proved more resilient than projected. Mission parameters demanded adaptation. His enhanced tactical systems identified secondary objectives: eliminate support structure, force submission through psychological leverage.

His head snapped toward Scales. The second youngest warrior, least experienced, most emotionally vulnerable. Optimal target for demonstrating consequences of resistance.

Khan took one measured step forward, then another. Each footfall rang against stone like a countdown to execution. His movement wasn't hurried—he had all the time in the world, and Scales had nowhere to run.

Scales pressed back against the throne's base, his features contorting with desperate confusion. The sword Khan had gifted him trembled in his grip—sacred steel that might now be turned against its giver.
“General… please… don’t make me fight you.” Scales whispered.

But Khan's approach never faltered. No flicker of recognition crossed his features, no pause at Scales plea. His red eyes studied Scales with the same clinical detachment he might show a practice target—calculating angles, measuring resistance, planning the most efficient method of neutralization. The other warriors tensed like springs, watching their brother become prey. And they were terrified.

Tung Lashor took an unconscious step back.

Viper's grip on his blades trembled.

Scales stood frozen, caught in the crosshairs of that terrible, red gaze.

Rattlor's massive frame exploded into motion. The veteran warrior surged forward, his powerful coils carrying him between Khan and the other warriors with protective fury. He spread his arms wide, creating a living barrier that blocked Khan's approach completely.

His weathered face was set in grim determination, but his eyes betrayed the pain of this moment. Rattlor had served under Khan for years, had followed him through campaigns that should have killed them all. Now he stood ready to die preventing Khan from harming the any member of his brotherhood.

His armored frame rose to full height, chest forward, fangs bared. His tail lashed behind him in warning—not retreat, but challenge—and at its tip, the rattle sang a sharp, rising trill. A sound every Snake Warrior knew by instinct. A sound that meant: “Stand ready. No more ground will be given.”

“That’s far enough.” His voice was steady—but his throat bobbed as he swallowed hard.

“You want him, you go through me first.” His voice carried the weight of absolute conviction. “And I promise you, General—I won't make it easy.”

Khan paused mid-step. His red eyes narrowed into slitted pupils and shifted their focus from Scales to this new obstacle. Khan tilted his head with mechanical curiosity, nostrils flaring as he processed the chemical signatures of fear, determination, and desperation that filled the throne room. His forked tongue emerged in a slow, deliberate tasting of the air—not gathering information, but broadcasting threat.

The gesture was pure psychological warfare. Every Snake Warrior knew that motion meant a predator cataloguing prey, measuring weakness, savoring the moment before the strike. Khan was letting them know he could taste their terror, and he was enjoying it.

His red gaze never left Rattlor, but his tactical assessment expanded to include the entire protective formation. Multiple targets. Emotional vulnerabilities. Exploitable loyalties. The veteran's bravado meant nothing when Khan could simply choose a different vector of attack.

The whispers returned through Khan's corrupted consciousness, calm and cold:

They’re in the way.
Target the formation's weakest point.
Complete the objective.
Obey.

Khan's claws extended with deliberate precision, each talon clicking against the stone floor like a countdown timer. The sound made every warrior's scales crawl—they all recognized the gesture from training sessions, the moment before Khan would demonstrate a killing technique on practice targets.

Scales shifted nervously behind Rattlor's protective bulk, his ceremonial sword wavering as he tried to find courage he'd never needed before. Viper's grip tightened on his sacred spear until his knuckles went white beneath his scales.

“He's hunting us,” Viper whispered, his young voice tight with realization. “Picking which one to take first.”

Rattlor's battle-scarred face hardened with grim understanding.

“No. It’s worse than that.” The veteran's rattle shook once, sharply. “He's making us choose who dies so the others can live.”

The throne room held its breath. Not the peaceful quiet of sanctuary, but the terrible stillness that comes when predator and prey recognize each other across a killing ground. Even the torch flames seemed to freeze mid-flicker, as if the ancient stones themselves understood that violence hung in the air like a blade balanced on its edge.

In that suspended moment, torchlight caught the viscous Slime coating Khan's scales, creating an oily sheen that made his corrupted form appear to pulse with unnatural life. He took another step forward. The corrupted General's red gaze shifted deliberately between targets, letting each warrior feel the weight of being selected, measured, and marked for termination.

Rattlor’s tail snapped taut behind him. The rattle at its end shook again—faster, sharper this time. A rising trill of defiance. It filled the air like a warning before a storm. The message was clear: Final warning. Cross this line and die.

And Rattlor didn’t move.

Khan raised his arm.

A single claw extended—like a guillotine about to fall.

Then— a voice cleaved through the stillness.

“Khan!”

It wasn’t a command.
It wasn’t a threat.
It was a cry—desperate, raw, and ragged with a kind of pain no warrior ever wanted to show.

King Hiss stepped forward. No shield. No weapon. Just will and the crushing weight of regret.

“Here! You want me—not them!”

The words tore from Hiss's throat with desperate urgency, his royal composure finally cracking under the weight of watching his youngest warrior become prey. This wasn't the measured command of a king, but the raw plea of someone watching his family being hunted.

Khan froze in mid-stride. His shoulders twitched. Eyes flicked toward the King. Then back toward the warriors. The red glow in his gaze flickered. Once. Twice. Hiss saw it in Khan’s eyes—and knew this had to end. Now.

Hiss's tactical mind calculated with cold precision. Emotional appeals had failed. Memories couldn't penetrate deep enough. But rage—rage could burn through any programming. He abandoned every instinct of mentor and father, weaponizing the one thing that might still reach Khan's buried pride. He gambled everything.

“Khan!” the King roared again.

“Look at you… draped in filth. Eyes glowing red like a mindless Horde drone.

My mistake wasn’t trusting you.

My mistake was thinking a soft-spined coward could be worthy of the title General.”

The word “coward” struck Khan like a physical blow to the chest. His enhanced frame convulsed as if he'd been struck by lightning, every muscle fiber seizing in violent rejection of the accusation. The insult bypassed his tactical programming entirely, hitting something primal and untouchable—his warrior's pride.

His fangs ground together with audible force, green saliva mixed with his own blood where he'd bitten his tongue. Claws extended fully, digging into his palms until dark blood seeped between his fingers. The Slime covering his scales began to bubble and hiss, reacting to the spike in his physiological stress.

When his head turned toward Hiss, the movement was slow and deliberate—not mechanical programming, but the terrible focus of rage given form. His red eyes blazed with something beyond corruption: personal fury.

The air seemed to freeze, caught between one heartbeat and the next. Even the Snake warriors, shaken though they were, stepped back. That insult didn’t just wound. It pierced something deeper.

Khan's roar tore through the throne room like a sound from the depths of the abyss—part rage, part electronic shriek as his enhanced vocal cords strained beyond their limits. The corruption had abandoned all subtlety now, pouring every enhancement into raw destructive force.

He launched himself across the chamber with terrifying velocity, his powerful frame becoming a living projectile aimed directly at King Hiss. Stone cracked beneath his feet where he pushed off, and the air itself seemed to part before his fury-driven assault.

This wasn't the calculated strikes of before—this was personal. The mission parameters had been consumed by something older and more dangerous: a warrior's wounded pride weaponized by alien corruption into pure killing intent.

But Hiss had been waiting for this moment—had calculated that only Khan's personal fury could override his tactical programming enough to make him vulnerable. As the corrupted General hurtled toward him with killing intent, Hiss made a choice that defied every survival instinct: he stepped forward into the path of destruction.

His movements flowed with ancient precision Khan had never seen—not because it wasn't taught, but because it was forbidden. Royal bloodline techniques, held in reserve for the darkest necessities. For moments when Kings must act against their own sons.

Hiss's strike sequence unfolded with lethal precision—three points of contact executed faster than thought. The first blow found the nerve cluster beneath Khan's scaled neck frills, the second targeted the neural junction beneath his dominant arm, and the final strike drove directly into the spinal column where enhanced musculature met corrupted bone.

Each impact released a pulse of golden energy—not magic, but bioelectric disruption channeled through royal bloodline knowledge. Khan's enhanced nervous system, already strained by Slime corruption, couldn't process the targeted neural assault.

His killing charge transformed into catastrophic collapse. Enhanced muscles seized mid-motion, his roar cutting off in a strangled wheeze as his diaphragm locked. The fury-driven projectile became dead weight, crashing to the throne room floor with bone-jarring impact.

Around him, the Snake Warriors tensed.

Yet Hiss held up a hand, “No. This is not the end. Not yet.”

Then the Slime's corrupted biology began its counterassault against the neural disruption. Khan’s fingers twitched first—not voluntary movement, but synapses misfiring as alien enhancement protocols fought to reestablish control.

One claw scraped against stone, finding purchase. Then another. His recovery was a grotesque parody of birth—dragging himself upward inch by agonizing inch while his nervous system rewired itself around the damage. Each breath came as a ragged hiss, part pain, part mechanical ventilation as enhanced biology struggled to bypass paralyzed pathways.

When he finally stood, his frame trembled with the effort of forcing corrupted muscle to obey damaged nerves. But his red eyes burned with undiminished fury. The Naja'vak Strike had wounded him, slowed him—but it had also proven that even royal bloodline techniques couldn't break what the Slime had made him.

His gazed locked back on to his old King.

Hiss knew he had wounded him. The strike had been calculated and cruel—but necessary. It wouldn’t hold Khan down for long.

But it had worked. “The Naja’vak Strike” (The Cobra’s Silent Strike) —three pressure points in perfect succession—passed down through royal bloodlines. A serpent’s secret, known only to Kings. Developed in the age of the First Fang, it was designed not to kill, but to cripple a rival long enough to issue judgment. A last resort—used only when a warrior of the bloodline strayed too far to be reasoned with. Its said its precision echoed the cobra’s hood: sudden, silent, and absolute.

Then the Slime struck back with vengeance. The whispers didn't return gradually—they exploded through Khan's damaged neural pathways like acid through open wounds, burning away any progress Hiss's technique had made.

WEAKNESS. FAILURE. PAIN IS IRRELEVANT.

The commands came layered with synthetic endorphins, drowning his agony in chemical compliance.

MISSION PARAMETERS UNCHANGED. TARGET IDENTIFIED. COMPLETE OBJECTIVE. OBEY KHAN OBEY.

The corruption flooded his system with artificial purpose, turning damaged nerves into weapons, broken bones into tools of submission. Pain became fuel. Injury became motivation.

Khan's damaged frame began its inexorable advance across the throne room. Each step was a study in corrupted determination—his left leg dragging slightly from nerve damage, his right shoulder held at an unnatural angle, yet still he moved with mechanical certainty toward his objective.

The sound of his approach was worse than his previous fluid stalking. Now each footfall carried the wet scrape of damaged biology forced beyond its limits, claws clicking against stone not with predatory grace but with the rhythm of a broken machine still following its programming.

Slime oozed from stress fractures in his scales where the Naja'vak Strike had disrupted his enhanced physiology, but the corruption simply rerouted around the damage, turning wounds into weapons, pain into purpose.

The Snake Warriors froze. Rattlor’s tail rattled without meaning to. Tung Lashor took an unconscious step back, tongue flicking in distress. Scales clenched his spear tighter with whitening knuckles. Even Viper felt it -- fear.

His gaze locked onto his old King.

And Hiss knew Khan wasn’t fighting for ground, or for survival anymore. He was coming to finish the mission. Without hesitation, pain, or fear. The Slime coursed through him, an invisible engine driving his limbs, silencing mercy, drowning memory. It masked the agony. Fed the fury.

Each labored step echoed like a drumbeat of doom—claws tapping fractured stone, breath wheezing through fangs, venom clinging to the corners of his mouth.

Hiss could see it now—the calculation behind the rage. The mission that lived inside the monster.

Bring him down. Deliver him to Hordak. Broken. Kneeling.

The psychological approach had reached its limits. Khan had heard his true name, had responded to being called 'son,' but the corruption was too deeply rooted for words alone to break.

This was no longer Khan. Not the son he trained. Not the warrior he raised. This was a walking weapon. And it would not stop until he was defeated or Khan was dead.

“I led him to this... I chose this path—for all of us. But I never expected it to break him.” The King thought to himself.

A chill crept beneath the King’s scales. His instincts—sharpened across a hundred campaigns—whispered the truth he didn’t want to face:

“This mission has failed. He couldn’t save Khan. Not like this.”

King Hiss felt the weight of centuries pressing down upon his shoulders as the terrible mathematics became clear. Every tactical option exhausted. Every emotional appeal failed. Every technique in his arsenal proven insufficient against the corruption that had devoured his son's soul.

His claws trembled—not from fear, but from the crushing recognition of what duty now demanded. The Fang of Ser'quess. The technique every Snake Men King learned but prayed never to use. A mercy killing disguised as combat, designed for the moment when love required the ultimate sacrifice.

The last time it had been employed, King Sss'thaal had wept for seven days after ending his brother's torment during the Plague of Madness. Now Hiss understood why those ancient tears had been carved into the throne room's memorial stones—not from grief at the killing, but from the agony of being the one who had to do what love demanded. Passed down as legend, dreaded as necessity, it was never meant for this. Never meant for a son.

Hiss’s heart twisted as he steadied his hand. His eyes lingered on Khan, broken and writhing in the Slime’s grip.

“I swore I would never call upon it… and yet here I stand.”

He bowed his head ever so slightly, the words forming only in his mind:

“Serpos, see me. Guide my hand. Let his spirit find the coils of our ancestors, free from this corruption. And if there is judgment to come… place it upon me.”

When his gaze rose again, it was steel.

“If this is the only way to end his suffering… then let me bear the curse.”

Before Khan's damaged frame could complete another step toward his objective, reality tore open behind him. A column of concentrated arcane force erupted through the throne room—not the golden energies of Snake Men mysticism, but something alien and violent. Sapphire fire laced with veins of midnight purple carved through the air with a sound like reality screaming.

The blast struck Khan's chest with surgical precision, targeting the exact point where his enhanced biology was most unstable from the Naja'vak Strike. Raw magical force met corrupted enhancement in a collision that sent visible shockwaves rippling outward from the impact point.

The magical impact sent shockwaves radiating outward in visible rings of distorted air. Ancient stone that had weathered millennia of wars cracked like eggshell, serpentine carvings splitting along their carved scales. Ceremonial braziers exploded in showers of molten bronze, while sacred flame-crystals embedded in the walls shattered, bleeding their stored light across the devastation.

Khan's enhanced frame became a projectile of flesh and corruption, hurled backward with such force that the air itself seemed to part before him. He struck the carved pillar depicting the First Fang's victory—tons of sacred stone that had stood since the temple's founding—and the ancient monument simply disintegrated around his impact point.

When the explosion of debris settled, Khan lay embedded in a crater of pulverized stone and twisted metal, his enhanced physiology the only thing that had prevented complete obliteration.

When the dust settled, Khan was motionless—embedded in the ruins, twitching, smoke rising from his chest. The glow from the blast still shimmered faintly across his scales.

Through the smoke and settling debris, Khan's enhanced biology began its automatic recovery. His claws found purchase in the rubble, and he started to drag himself upright—damaged but unbroken, his red eyes already scanning for the source of the magical assault.

But his attacker had anticipated this resilience. A second incantation crackled through the air—not the overwhelming force of the first blast, but surgical precision. Bands of crystallized energy erupted from the stone around Khan, wrapping around his limbs like living chains.

The magical restraints bit deep into his enhanced flesh, conducting electricity directly into his nervous system with each attempted movement. Where the Naja'vak Strike had disrupted his motor control through pressure points, these bindings turned his own enhanced strength against him—the harder he struggled, the deeper the energy burned.

Khan's enhanced physiology fought against the magical restraints with desperate fury. His corrupted muscles strained against the energy bands, each movement sending arcs of electricity through his nervous system. The Slime covering his scales bubbled and hissed where the magical energy made contact, as if two alien forces were rejecting each other at the molecular level.

But the more he struggled, the tighter the bindings constricted. His enhanced strength, turned against him by superior magical engineering, only increased his torment. His roars of rage dissolved into hisses of frustrated agony.

From the shadows behind King Hiss, a figure emerged with theatrical precision—cape billowing, staff crackling with residual energy. Skeletor stepped into the torchlight as if he had been waiting for exactly this moment, his skull-face grinning with dark satisfaction.

“Well, well,” his voice echoed through the devastated throne room, “looks like someone could use a hand with pest control.”

Chapter Text

As the magical bindings wrapped around Kobra Khan’s body and dropped him to the stone floor, the last two Horde Troopers turned toward the restrained Khan. Their metal boots rang against ancient tile with mechanical precision—clank, clank, clank—each step echoing through the sacred chamber like a countdown to extraction. Weapon barrels hummed to life, energy cells charging with a rising whine.

Their red visors swept the chamber in stuttering arcs, servo motors twitching as targeting algorithms calculated threat vectors. The crimson glow painted jagged shadows across serpent-carved walls, turning ancient art into menacing silhouettes. One Trooper's arm snapped upward, signal beacon crackling to life against its chest plate.

“Initiating extraction protocol—”

Too late.

From between the pillars, Tung Lashor exploded forward. His tongue shot out—twenty feet of corded muscle and sinew—wrapping around the first Trooper's arm with a wet snap that echoed like a whip crack. The metallic taste of alien alloys flooded his senses as he yanked, servos shrieking in protest.

The Trooper hurtled sideways, crashed into the pillar with the sound of rending metal. Ancient stone cracked. Dust cascaded. The machine's red visor flickered, its targeting system sparking like dying stars.

Rattlor surged forward in fluid motion, his massive form coiling and striking with the rhythm of a war drum. His tail—thick as a tree trunk and twice as deadly—whipped through the air with a sound like thunder. It connected with the second Trooper's chest plate, denting armor designed to withstand plasma fire. The Trooper flew backward, slammed into the temple wall, and showered the chamber with golden sparks that danced like angry fireflies.

The first Trooper's systems rebooted with electronic chirps and whirs. It raised its blaster, energy crackling down the barrel—only for Scales to surge in from the side, eyes blazing with more than battlefield fury. This wasn't just combat. This was personal for the brother he lost.

He roared—a sound that belonged in primordial jungles, not ancient temples—as he drove his sacred blade deep into the Trooper's chest plate. The weapon Khan had gifted him, symbol of trust and brotherhood, now twisted through circuits and power cores. Sparks erupted like miniature lightning, illuminating Scales' snarling features in strobing light. The machine convulsed, joints locking, then collapsed to its knees with a grinding thud.

"This is for my brother," Scales snarled, his voice raw with grief and rage.

He leaned close to the dying machine's visor, close enough to see his own reflection fractured in cracked crimson glass. His voice dropped to a whisper that somehow carried more menace than his roar.
"Tell your master… the Snake Men are coming for him."

He shoved the machine backward with a dismissive hiss, watching it crash lifeless to the temple floor. Oil leaked from ruptured lines, pooling like black blood between ancient tiles.

The second Trooper fought to rise—systems flickering, servos grinding like broken bones. Warning lights blinked frantically across its damaged frame. But Viper was already moving, a shadow with steel teeth. He leaped from behind, his sacred spear catching torchlight as it descended in a perfect arc. The blade plunged deep into the base of the machine's skull, severing control cables in one brutal twist that sent sparks cascading down his arms.

The Trooper jerked like a marionette with cut strings, mechanical spasms wracking its frame.

"That is for Khan…" Viper growled, his voice thick with venom as he twisted the blades deeper, feeling circuits snap beneath the steel. "And I hope your master felt every second of it."

The Trooper's lights died with a final electronic sigh. Viper released his grip, letting the machine fall like discarded scrap metal.

Viper stared down at the lifeless machine, fury still coursing through his veins. The sacred spear trembled in his grip as rage demanded one final act of desecration. His foot connected with the Trooper's damaged skull with savage force.

The head separated cleanly from the sparking neck joint, rolling across the temple floor in a shower of loose circuits and dying light. Even in destruction, the machine's hollow eye sockets seemed to mock him—a reminder that no amount of violence could bring back what they had lost.

Silence crashed over the chamber like a physical weight.

Metal smoldered. Sparks flickered across the floor like dying fireflies, their light reflecting off pools of leaked fluids and scattered debris. The smell of burned circuits mixed with the ancient incense that still clung to the temple walls—technology and tradition, both bleeding.

The Snake Men stood over the wreckage, chests heaving with labored breaths that misted in the suddenly cool air. Blood seeped from minor wounds. Their weapons dripped with oil and sparks. Victorious, perhaps, but shaken to their core.

No one spoke. No one celebrated.

Their eyes drifted—not toward the shattered machines they'd destroyed, but toward their restrained General who lay bound and broken on the sacred floor. The warrior they'd followed without question. The brother they'd trusted without doubt. The leader who now stared back at them with eyes that held no recognition, no gratitude—only the cold, alien hunger of something that wore his face.

The silence stretched between them like a chasm, heavy with unspoken truths. Because deep down, beneath the adrenaline and battle-fury, they all understood: this war had just become personal.

And now? It wouldn't be fought with blades or fangs, with strength or cunning...

But inside the heart and soul of one of their own.

Skeletor stepped into the torchlight like a lead actor claiming center stage, his cape billowing behind him with theatrical precision. The shadows seemed to part for him, revealing that signature death's-head grin stretching impossibly wide across his skull.

“Magnificent! Absolutely magnificent Hiss! You break him, I catch him—it's like a demented dance number! I'm practically weeping tears of... well, I don't have tear ducts, but if I did!”

He offered a slow, mocking applause—each deliberate clap of palm against gauntlet echoing through the chamber like gunshots in a cathedral. The sound hung in the air, sharp and sardonic, met only by stunned silence that seemed to thicken like fog.

Rattlor’s jaw dropped, his massive head swiveling between Hiss and the Sorcerer like a broken security camera. His rattle went silent—a sure sign of complete system shock.

Tung Lashor’s tongue flicked rapidly, tasting the air for answers that didn't exist. His entire frame coiled tighter, confusion short-circuiting his warrior instincts.

Scales knuckles went white around his spear shaft, his grip tightening like a vise. He shifted half a step in front of the King—not following protocol, but pure protective programming kicking in.

Even Viper, who’d face down a battalion without blinking, stood frozen like a crashed computer. His eyes ping-ponged between the crackling energy restraints around Khan and the bone-white nightmare who'd materialized from the darkness.

None of the Snake Warriors had expected this.

Not Skeletor.
Not here.
Not helping.

Skeletor savored their shell-shocked expressions like fine wine, his empty sockets drinking in every dropped jaw and wide-eyed stare. He let the moment marinate—timing was everything in comedy and psychological warfare—then unleashed that trademark sneer.

“What's with the slack-jawed staring? Were you expecting He-Man to burst through the wall spouting moral platitudes? Maybe the Sorceress fluttering in with a self-help scroll titled ‘Friendship is Magic’?”

He gestured grandly toward the restrained Khan with the flair of a game show host revealing the grand prize.

“Oh, please. Who else has the sheer artistic vision for this level of psychological warfare? The timing! The irony! The panache! I should charge admission!”

His voice dropped to a theatrical whisper, then built like a rising crescendo.

“If you want mercy, you should’ve called a priest. If you want justice, dial a hero. But if you want power—”

He raised his Havoc Staff high and slammed it into the ancient stone floor. CRACK. The impact rang out like a lightning strike, sending tremors through the temple foundations and sparks dancing across the carved serpent reliefs.

“—you call Skeletor.”

The echoes of his declaration hadn't even faded when Khan erupted into violent motion. His body convulsed against the arcane restraints like a live wire, limbs jerking in spastic, alien rhythms. The Slime's corruption boiled through his system, turning his blood into liquid fire. Toxic green vapor leaked from his mouth with each ragged breath, and his eyes strobed red like malfunctioning warning lights.

Still fighting. Still infected. Still Horde.

And then—

“Alive… broken… kneeling…”

The words leaked from Khan's lips like steam from a cracked radiator—but the voice wasn't his. It bubbled up from somewhere deeper, darker. Not a thought, but a transmission. Not Khan speaking, but something broadcasting through him.

A voice that wasn't Hordak's…

It sounded like the Slime itself had hijacked his vocal cords, rewired his larynx, turned him into a living speaker system for its alien hunger.

“Hold him still,” Hiss commanded, his voice cutting through the air.

King Hiss stepped forward without hesitation. His hand striking like a guided missile—three fingers driving with brutal precision into the base of Khan’s neck frills. The Frill Ner’kah Bind.

The Frill Ner’kah Bind is an ancient and excruciating technique known only to the royal bloodline, passed down through generations like a terrible inheritance. Three fingers, applied to a hidden neural junction, triggered immediate system shutdown. Muscular paralysis cascaded through the victim's frame while agony amplified with each passing second, building like feedback in an overloaded circuit. Full pressure could flatline even the strongest warrior in moments. This wasn't combat—this was emergency surgery. Reserved for traitors, the possessed, and heirs who'd lost themselves to something darker.

This was exactly such a moment.

Khan's scream tore through the chamber like an alarm siren—sharp, guttural, and wrong on every frequency. His body locked up mid-convulsion, spine arching like a bent antenna as the neural override took hold. Every muscle froze in place, arms rigid as steel beams, legs twitching in helpless static bursts.

But still—still—something inside him pushed back. The Slime fought the shutdown, overclocking his nervous system, pushing his endurance to unnatural limits.
King Hiss narrowed his eyes and tightened the grip.

More pressure.

Then maximum pressure.

Khan's voice cracked like breaking glass—a sound that belonged in no living throat. His eyes rolled back, showing only white, while foam bubbled from his lips like coolant from an overheated engine. The ancient pain protocol ran through every nerve fiber, bypassing conscious thought, drilling straight into his brain stem. He screamed again—a warbling cry that sounded like dying machinery—until finally his body convulsed… and slumped.

His head dropped. Limbs hung limp in Skeletor's binding field, suspended like a puppet with cut strings. His eyes flickered once, twice, then went dark.

Only silence remained.

The King maintained the hold for several more seconds, monitoring for any sign that Khan was feigning defeat. But his breathing was ragged now – shallow and real.

Hiss finally exhaled—a single release of held tension. He withdrew his fingers with careful precision, like disconnecting delicate circuitry. But as his hand pulled away from Khan's skin, he felt something transfer to his palm.

Wet. Warm. Wrong.

He looked down.

A faint smear of green coated his scales like toxic oil—viscous, slow-moving, catching the torchlight with an unnatural sheen. Residual Slime, still active at the molecular level. It pulsed with its own sick rhythm—alive but weakened, like a virus searching for a new host.

Hiss's expression shifted to pure revulsion. He scraped it off on his sash in one swift motion, as if touching acid.

“Filth,” he muttered.

But beneath the fabric, invisible to the naked eye, a microscopic trace remained. And somewhere in the depths of the King's consciousness, something flickered—like a distant signal trying to establish connection. Cold. Familiar. Not quite his own thoughts.

It faded as quickly as it came, leaving only an odd chill and the growing weight of what he'd just had to do to save his heir.

He stared down at the unconscious form sprawled before him—his General, his successor, his son in all but blood. The warrior who'd once stood at his right hand now lay broken and hollow, more casualty than champion.
And felt it. Guilt. But the feeling passed quickly—replaced by something colder. Sharper. Command.

“Forgive me, my son,” he thought, not aloud. “You are the future. But today, I must be the King.”

He turned away, his fingers were still trembling.

Skeletor dropped into a crouch beside Khan's motionless form, cocking his head.

“Ooh, still some spark left in him. Excellent! Hordak’s going to absolutely adore what we do to his precious little puppet.”

His grin spread like cracks in glass, bone-white teeth gleaming beneath his hood.

“Though next time, try asking him to behave before snapping his neck like a glow worm.”

King Hiss's expression remained locked in neutral—but his eyes narrowed.

“This isn’t a game, Skeletor.”

Skeletor let out a bark of laughter that echoed off the chamber walls.

“Oh, of course it is. We’re just playing by our rules now.”

He unfolded from his crouch like a shadow gaining substance, darkness pooling around his feet.

“Phase one was containment. Now comes the fun part…" His voice dropped to a theatrical whisper that somehow carried more menace than shouting.

"This is where things get creatively brutal."

He turned that empty-socketed stare directly on Hiss, his tone shifting to something almost clinical.

“Let’s see if your General is as tough as you claim—and survives phase two.”

Khan was carried to the Snake Men's “Chamber of Renewal”—buried deep within the temple's foundation like a secret heart beating beneath stone ribs.

The Chamber of Renewal lay carved from living stone over millennia, its walls curved with organic grace—smooth as polished bone, cool as morning mist against bare skin. The surfaces bore the unmistakable marks of something vast and ancient that had once coiled through solid stone, leaving behind chambers shaped by titanic movement. The domed ceiling stretched overhead like the vault of a cathedral, its surface ribbed and flowing, while thin veins of amber crystal threaded through the rock like golden arteries, filtering sunlight into soft, honey-colored beams.

Vines of moonvine and bloodleaf cascaded down the walls in intricate spirals, their placement too deliberate for nature, too beautiful for accident. The leaves pulsed with gentle bioluminescence—blue-white moonvine intertwining with deep crimson bloodleaf—creating a living constellation that shifted and breathed with the chamber's ancient rhythms.

The air itself felt thick with purpose. Burning myrrh, snake oil, and crushed jungle petals wove together into an intoxicating symphony of scents—earthy and sacred, designed to calm the savage mind while awakening deeper truths buried beneath layers of pain and corruption.

At the chamber's heart, a stone basin the size of a small pool bubbled with Essence of Shedskin—a pale green elixir that seemed to glow from within. The ancient formula combined rare mountain herbs, purified venom, and oils blessed by generations of healers. Wisps of vapor rose from its surface like incense smoke, carrying with them the power to numb agony while unlocking memories sealed away by trauma or worse.
The chamber's perimeter was lined with slit-shaped alcoves, each one a miniature pharmacy carved into the living rock. Glass vials caught the amber light—some containing salves that could heal wounds that should have been fatal, others holding tinctures capable of purging toxins from blood and soul. The labels, written in the flowing script of the Snake Men's most ancient tongue, told stories of remedies passed down through bloodlines older than recorded history.

Braziers and floor torches provided additional warmth, their flames dancing in patterns that seemed almost hypnotic. The shadows they cast moved like living things—not menacing, but protective, as if the chamber itself was aware of its sacred purpose.

The far wall bore a serpentine mural that seemed to shift in the flickering light—a masterpiece depicting the eternal cycle of death and rebirth. The painted warrior shed layer after layer of corrupted skin, each discarded shell revealing scales more brilliant than the last, until finally he stood transformed—eyes blazing with clarity, body radiating strength, spirit free from the chains that once bound him.

Beneath it all, the gentle sound of water trickled through hidden channels while distant drums and flutes provided a soundtrack of jungle serenity. The music flowed through reedwork woven into the chamber's very bones, creating an atmosphere where healing wasn't just possible—it was inevitable.

This was more than a medical facility. It was a forge for souls, a place where warriors came to die to their old selves and be reborn as something stronger. Where poison was drawn from both body and spirit, leaving behind only truth.

Some emerged renewed. Others never emerged at all.

Khan's unconscious form was carried to the chamber like a fallen monument—four Snake Warriors bearing their General's limp weight through the temple's winding passages. His breathing remained shallow but steady, the Frill Ner'kah Bind having forced his corrupted system into temporary shutdown. The magical restraints still flickered around his motionless limbs, casting eerie shadows on the ancient walls as they descended deeper into the temple's heart.

At the heart of the sacred space stood something that belonged in neither temple nor medical facility—a reinforced containment cell that married cutting-edge technology with mystical protection. Ancient runes carved deep into its frame pulsed with eldritch energy, while hidden circuits hummed with power drawn from both crystal cores and sacred sites.

The warriors placed Khan inside with careful reverence, then stepped back as the barriers activated with a sound like breaking thunder. Translucent energy surrounded the cell, bending light and reality in equal measure. Only then did they release Skeletor's magical bindings. This cell had been designed to hold creatures of myth and nightmare. It would suffice for one corrupted General.

For several minutes, Khan remained perfectly still—a statue carved from flesh and corruption. But gradually, his breathing began to change. Deeper. More deliberate. His fingers twitched once, then curled into fists.
His eyes snapped open like ignition switches flipping to active mode.

No confusion. No disorientation. No gradual return to consciousness.

One moment he was absent—the next, he was completely present. Those burning red coals swept the chamber with mechanical precision, cataloging every detail, every face, every potential weakness. When his gaze finally settled on King Hiss, his lips curved into something that might have been a smile if it contained any warmth whatsoever.

And then his lips parted, releasing words that fell like drops of acid:

“You should have killed me.”

The statement hung in the sacred air like a curse, each syllable designed to find its target and burrow deep. They weren't spoken loudly—they didn't need to be. They carried the weight of absolute certainty, aimed directly at the heart of a King who still believed redemption was possible.

Khan's posture remained perfectly still—head tilted at an angle that suggested curiosity rather than aggression, breathing steady and measured. As if the intelligence wearing his face was conducting a detailed analysis of everyone present, cataloging weaknesses, calculating variables, deciding which of them would provide the most... educational experience when the time came.

He had no idea what horrors awaited him in the hours ahead.

But the chamber knew. The walls themselves seemed to hold their breath, ancient stones preparing to witness either salvation or the complete destruction of a warrior's soul.

Entering the room was Dr. Ophidian.

He moved with the eerie stillness of a shadow gliding across stone —each step placed with surgical precision, making no sound despite his considerable size. His scales caught the amber torchlight and threw it back in patterns that seemed to shift with each breath—not the muted earth tones of the Rattlesnake Pride, but a striking bluish-green shot through with sharp crimson highlights. The coloration rippled like oil on dark water, veined with blood-red streaks that traced ancient scars and newer wounds in equal measure. It was a rare marking. A badge not of birthright, but of assignment—a legacy whispered about in hushed tones among only the oldest warriors who remembered what came before.

Ophidian's lineage carried no name. They had transcended the need for such things. They were the phantoms beneath shifting sands—a covert division bred not for glory or honor, but for missions that existed only in nightmares. Infiltration behind enemy lines. Extraction of assets thought impossible to retrieve. The kind of silence that followed screams. The ruthless efficiency that ended conflicts before they could truly begin. They didn’t fight wars. They ended them. They performed surgery on them—cutting out problems with clinical precision. Quietly. Permanently.

Now, one of them walked among the Snake Men again. But this one had chosen a different path.

Ophidian wore the markings of his heritage like medals of shame—a thick, muscular tail ending in a dense rattle of segmented bone and keratin. The rattle hung around his waist like a rosary of violence, each segment a life taken, each ridge a mission completed. Where others of his bloodline used it to announce incoming death with rhythmic warnings, he had kept it silent for decades—wrapped tight against his body like a promise he refused to break.

His eyes held none of the usual molten gold of his people. Instead, they burned with a deep copper-bronze that seemed to reflect firelight from within—the color of old pennies and dried blood. Intelligence flickered in their depths alongside bone-deep exhaustion. These were eyes that had catalogued too much suffering, witnessed too many final moments, and made the conscious choice to walk away from a life built on ending others.

Ceremonial healer's robes draped his frame like a second skin, the fabric heavy with bone charms that clicked softly with each movement and fang totems that caught the light like ivory daggers. The scent that preceded him told his story better than words—crushed medicinal herbs mixed with the sharp tang of powdered antivenom, all underlaid with the cooling bite of therapeutic oils that could numb pain or induce the final sleep, depending on dosage and intent.

His hands drew the eye—lean but powerful, with fingers that moved with the dexterity of a master craftsman. They were equally suited for the delicate work of suturing torn flesh or the brutal efficiency of snapping necks. Perfect instruments for both creation and destruction, now dedicated solely to preservation.

The air around him seemed to thicken with unspoken history. His voice, when it came, carried the weight of gravel sliding down a mountainside—low, dry, deliberate. Each word placed with the same precision as his footsteps. He never raised it above a whisper. He never needed to. The sound carried undertones of distant thunder and half-remembered screams.
Every soul in Serpentis understood the equation: when Dr. Ophidian approached your bedside, the scales of fate balanced on a razor's edge. You would either receive a second chance at life... or he would ensure your suffering ended with dignity.

Once a dealer of death. Now a guardian of mercy.

The chamber itself seemed to recognize his presence, shadows shifting to accommodate him as he entered their sacred space.

Kobra Khan stood within the containment chamber like a specimen. The vertical stasis field wrapped around him in layers of shimmering energy that bent light into prismatic fragments. His body gave involuntary twitches—muscle memory fighting against the field's influence—while thick strands of corrupted Slime still clung to his arms and chest like syrup, dripping to the chamber floor in lazy, viscous threads that hissed softly when they made contact with the stone.

His breathing came in shallow, measured intervals—but the rhythm spoke of calculation rather than distress.

He was processing. Analyzing. Cataloging every detail.

The stasis field crackled at the periphery of his vision like static electricity, casting warped reflections of the chamber around him. Ancient serpent reliefs seemed to writhe in the distorted light. Medical consoles flickered with readouts that meant nothing to him, yet everything to his captors. Weathered stone told stories of ages past, while mystical sigils pulsed with energies that made his corrupted blood sing in recognition.

His red-burning eyes moved with mechanical precision, tracking every seam in the chamber's construction, cataloging each fluctuation in the containment field's intensity. The way shadows fell. The pattern of air circulation. The slight vibration in the floor that suggested hidden machinery beneath the ancient stones.

He flexed his fingers experimentally—testing response time, measuring the field's resistance to deliberate movement. Shifted his weight from one foot to the other, feeling for variations in the energy patterns that held him. Even rolled his shoulders slightly, gauging how much force the barriers could absorb before adapting.

He was mapping the prison from the inside, one micro-movement at a time.

But throughout his systematic examination, his gaze kept returning to one constant: the silent figure standing just beyond the energy barrier.

King Hiss remained motionless as a carved statue, hands clasped behind his back, watching his fallen General with the intensity of a scientist observing a dangerous experiment. The amber light caught the worry lines around his eyes—new creases that hadn't been there before the Slime Pit. Before the corruption. Before everything went wrong.

Khan's head tilted a fraction to the left—a gesture that would have seemed merely curious if not for the predatory stillness that preceded it. His forked tongue flicked out once, twice, tasting the recycled air for information his eyes couldn't provide.

The scent told him everything. Fear masked by duty. Guilt wrapped in necessity. Love buried beneath the armor of command.

Old, familiar, exploitable.

So was the expression in the King's eyes—that mixture of hope and horror that Khan had learned to read like text on a page during their years together. The same look Hiss wore when making impossible decisions. When choosing between the lesser of evils. When believing redemption was still possible for those who'd fallen too far.

Khan tested the containment field again with a deliberate flex of his claws, feeling the barrier push back with electromagnetic resistance that made his scales tingle. The energy held firm—a wall of force that could contain beings far more powerful than him.

Too strong for brute force. For now.

But Khan had been trained by the master strategist himself. Every fortress had weak points. Every defense had flaws. Every prison had been built by minds that could be understood, predicted, and ultimately... outsmarted.

All he needed was patience. Time to observe. A single moment when someone's attention wavered or their confidence made them careless.

His gaze locked onto Hiss once more—unblinking, unwavering, patient as erosion wearing down stone. Behind those burning red eyes, something that was no longer entirely Khan smiled a secret smile.

He remembered the King's lessons. He remembered every tactical briefing, every strategic discussion, every moment of trust they'd shared.

And most importantly, he remembered exactly how to wait.

The last of the Snake Guard filed out through the chamber's arched entrance, their footsteps echoing against ancient stone before fading into the temple's deeper corridors. Each warrior offered a respectful nod to Dr. Ophidian as they passed—acknowledgment of his authority in this sacred space, even as uncertainty clouded their eyes.

But not all departed. Scales, Viper, Rattlor, and Tung Lashor remained posted around the chamber's perimeter like sentinels guarding a powder keg. Their weapons stayed drawn—not lowered in respect for the sacred space, but held ready for threats that might emerge from any direction. They watched their fallen General through the containment barrier with expressions that mixed loyalty, revulsion, and barely contained dread.

At the chamber's heart, only four figures remained in the circle of amber light: King Hiss, Dr. Ophidian, the shadow that would soon manifest as Skeletor, and the consciousness that had once been Kobra Khan.

The torches dimmed as if responding to an approaching storm. Skeletor materialized from the darkness between one heartbeat and the next, his presence drawing shadows toward him like iron filings to a magnet. His cloak flowed behind him with unnatural movement—not fabric caught by air currents, but something alive and hungry.

He approached Dr. Ophidian with an expression of rare gravity—no theatrical gestures, no sardonic commentary. For once, the skull-faced Sorcerer wore the mask of absolute professionalism.

He cut straight to the essential question.

“Is everything ready?”

Dr. Ophidian turned from his instrument console, copper eyes reflecting the chamber's mystical glow. His hands remained folded in the classic healer's pose—steady, controlled, betraying none of the tension that rippled through his scaled frame.

"The chamber's harmonics are stable. The containment glyphs have been reinforced with triple redundancy. We've initiated the purification cycle and confirmed all mystical safeguards are operational." His pause carried the weight of professional concern.

"But I still have reservations about the psychological effects."

Skeletor's empty sockets flared with cold fire—not anger, but acknowledgment of an uncomfortable truth.

"Of course you have concerns. You're not the one who’ll be inside screaming."

He turned to King Hiss, who stood in tense silence, watching his fallen General through the transparent barrier.

“Once the purge begins,” Skeletor's voice dropped to a tone that could have frozen blood, "you must understand—there will be consequences that cannot be undone."

Hiss offered no response. His silence carried more weight than words.

"The Slime didn't simply contaminate him, Hiss. It performed a complete neural restructure. It infiltrated the deepest archives of his consciousness, overwrote core personality files, and integrated itself into his most fundamental survival instincts. This isn't parasitism—this is symbiosis. The corruption thinks, learns, and adapts using his neural networks as infrastructure."

Dr. Ophidian moved to the central control array, his fingers dancing across crystalline interfaces that hummed with contained power.

"And when we attempt to sever that connection?"

"It will resist with everything it has," Skeletor corrected with the certainty of grim experience. "As the purge burns through his system, the Slime will weaponize every memory it has accessed. It will speak through his voice, wear his expressions, and twist genuine experiences into psychological warfare. When the pain reaches critical levels... he'll feel every nanosecond of agony as if it were happening to his unprotected mind."

He moved closer to both the King and the doctor, letting his words sink deep before continuing.

"It will deploy every manipulation protocol in its arsenal. Begging using his voice. Pleading with his memories. Making accusations that will cut straight to your deepest doubts. It will resurrect real conversations, authentic moments of trust and affection, then corrupt them into weapons designed to make you hesitate."

Skeletor approached the containment chamber. The corrupted General's claws twitched against the energy barrier—a small movement that suggested growing awareness.

"You must maintain absolute emotional discipline, regardless of what emerges from his mouth," Skeletor's tone sharpened to surgical precision. "Do not respond to him. Do not acknowledge him. Do not allow yourself to believe that anything he says represents the consciousness you're trying to save."

"But if genuine awareness breaks through—" Dr. Ophidian protested.

"That will be the Slime's most sophisticated deception," Skeletor cut him off with finality. "Not your General. Not yet. Possibly not ever."

He leaned close to King Hiss—near enough that his words would reach only royal ears.

"Compromise the process even once—show mercy, display doubt, respond to emotional manipulation—and what remains of his original personality will be consumed in the psychic fire. The Slime will emerge stronger, having fed on the resistance itself. The deeper he fights, the more thoroughly it will integrate with his core identity."

Skeletor's grin held no humor, only the sharp edge of terrible knowledge.

"If you flinch—you will doom him to become a willing servant of Hordak's vision. Conscious, aware, and grateful for his enslavement."

He tapped his temple twice with one bony finger, the gesture carrying mockery wrapped around brutal truth.

“Still think you’re the smartest one in the room?”

Skeletor stepped back and cast a measuring glance toward the containment chamber. He drummed his fingers against the energy barrier—each tap producing a small resonance that made Khan twitch slightly.

"Now stop this sentimental attachment to your beloved General and allow me to complete the procedure you dragged me here to do!!"

King Hiss maintained his vigil, gaze locked on the figure that represented both his greatest success and most devastating failure. Khan's body gave another involuntary spasm within the containment field—caught between the warrior he had been and the weapon he became.

The weight of command settled on Hiss's shoulders like lead armor. One final consideration remained.

"...And he possesses the only verified intelligence regarding Hordak's ultimate weapon deployment."

Hiss nodded once—a gesture that carried the authority of absolute monarchy and the burden of impossible choices.

“Begin.”

Chapter Text

Skeletor raised the Havoc Staff with theatrical precision, savoring the moment like a maestro before the crescendo. The twisted ram skull erupted in cold blue fire—not the warm flames of hearth or forge, but something hungry and alien that devoured light rather than creating it.

The air didn't just thicken—it curdled. Static electricity crawled across every surface like invisible spiders, raising scales and making armor creak with tension. Ancient runes etched along the staff's obsidian shaft awakened one by one, pulsing with power that predated the very stones of Serpentis.

He strode to the containment chamber's base, boots clicking against stone worn smooth by centuries of forgotten rituals. The Havoc Staff felt alive in his grip—The ram skull's hollow sockets didn't just glow—they watched. Malevolent intelligence flickered behind the empty bone, as if something ancient had been bound within and was eager to feed.

Silence blanketed the Chamber of Renewal like a held breath. Along the walls, Snake Men warriors stood frozen in a tableau of dread—weapons half-drawn, muscles coiled, but none daring to move. The air itself seemed to press down on them, heavy with the weight of impending violence.

Rattlor's hand trembled imperceptibly on his weapon's grip. Tung Lashor's usually steady breathing came in shallow bursts. Even battle-hardened veterans recognized the scent of magic this potent—it left a metallic aftertaste and made their fangs ache.

At the chamber's heart, Khan stood motionless within his transparent prison. The magically-reinforced cylinder hummed with containment spells, its surface rippling occasionally like disturbed water. His red eyes burned with borrowed fire, but his body radiated an unnatural stillness—not peace, but the terrible quiet of a bomb waiting to detonate.

The Slime coating his flesh quivered. Not with fear, exactly, but with the recognition that comes when one apex predator encounters another.

Skeletor lifted the staff overhead, and the temperature dropped ten degrees in an instant. His voice cut through the silence—not shouting, but speaking words that reality itself had to strain to accommodate. The incantation rolled off his tongue, each syllable crackling with power that made the ancient stones beneath their feet hum in harmonic response.

“Vel’tar naskar Snake’thar. Orun’dral keth dawn’mor. Keth’var malach ostoth—sul’nar ekthos.”

Even in the ancient tongue, Hiss understood the words: By the spirits of Snake Mountain, awaken the old flame of the first dawn. Cast out the Slime's corruption—release the soul to its true master.

The skull didn't just ignite—it detonated.

Azure fire exploded upward in a spiral that defied physics, the flames climbing like liquid lightning given form. They pulled heat from the air so efficiently that breath misted and metal surfaces beaded with condensation. The fire cast no ordinary shadows—instead, shapes writhed across the chamber walls like living ink, moving independently of their source.

Purple lightning veined through the flames like a nervous system made of electricity, each bolt crackling with barely contained violence. The sound was overwhelming—not just the roar of fire, but the whisper of torn reality healing itself, the shriek of magic forced into shapes it was never meant to hold.

Then—silence.

And Skeletor brought the staff down.

The impact rang like a bell forged in the heart of a dying star. Energy surged downward through the cylinder's foundation, following paths carved by master artificers who had died when the world was young. Rune-seals burst to life around the enclosure's perimeter—not in sequence, but in a cascade of illumination that made watching eyes water and weep.

The entire chamber became a crucible of blinding magical radiance.

From the skull's sockets, twin beams of concentrated purification magic lanced forth—not mere light, but intention given form. The energy struck Khan's chest like the fist of an angry god, each photon engineered to seek out corruption and burn it away at the molecular level.

Khan screamed.

The sound tore from his throat like something dying—not one voice, but a harmony of agony. His own vocal cords strained against the alien resonance of the Slime, creating a discord that made every witness's scales crawl. It was the sound of two beings occupying one body, both suffering, both fighting for control of the same throat.

He slammed backward against the cylinder wall, talons screeching against the mystical barrier as they scraped uselessly against smooth, unyielding energy. His body convulsed as cellular memory warred with parasitic invasion from the purification magic.

The Slime shrieked in frequencies that bypassed the ears entirely, vibrating through bone and muscle. It didn't just writhe—it liquefied in panic, bubbling away from the cleansing light. The substance tried desperately to burrow deeper, to hide in the spaces between organs, behind ribs, anywhere the light couldn't reach.

But Skeletor's magic was patient. Thorough. Hungry.

Khan's body became a battlefield. Muscles locked and released in spasmodic waves. His spine arched until vertebrae cracked. Fangs gnashed so hard they drew sparks from his own jaw, while his eyes rolled back to show nothing but crimson sclera, then snapped forward with burning red irises, then rolled back again —a strobe of consciousness flickering between host and parasite.

“STOP!”

The word exploded from him with enough force to rattle the containment runes--but the voice wasn't entirely his own. His voice cracked on the second syllable, fracturing into harmonics of pain and desperation.

“MAKE IT STOP!”

His fists became hammers against the cylinder's interior. CRACK. Mystical energy spiderwebbed across the barrier. CRACK. Sapphire light leaked from the stress fractures like luminous blood. CRACK. Each impact sent shockwaves through the chamber floor, making ancient stones groan in their foundations.

But the prison held. Barely.

The watchers bore witness to torment in different ways. Rattlor's usual composure cracked first—he turned his head away, unable to reconcile the broken thing in the cylinder with the General who had once stood beside him in battle. His jaw worked soundlessly, as if he wanted to speak but couldn't find words adequate to the horror.

Tung Lashor's knuckles went white around his weapon's grip. His breathing came in measured counts—four in, hold for four, four out—the rhythm of a soldier trying to maintain discipline while watching a comrade suffer. But his eyes never left Khan, loyalty overriding comfort.

Even Dr. Ophidian found his clinical detachment wavering. His stylus scratched notes with mechanical precision, but his free hand trembled almost imperceptibly. When Khan's next scream hit a particularly alien register, Ophidian actually flinched—a barely perceptible tightening around his eyes.

Skeletor remained a statue of bone and malice.

"Oh, how deliciously theatrical," he murmured, voice carrying the appreciation of a connoisseur.

His skull face couldn't smile, but satisfaction radiated from his posture like heat from a forge.

"Let the performance begin in earnest. Let the actor... shed his costume."

The Havoc Staff pulsed brighter, feeding more power into the purification matrix. And in the cylinder, something that had been pretending to be Kobra Khan began to truly burn.
Inside Khan’s mind, the storm began.

Not darkness—absence. A void so complete it had weight, pressing against consciousness like deep ocean water. This wasn't the simple black of closed eyes or moonless nights. This was the darkness between thoughts, the space where memories went to die. It moved with purpose, flowing around him like digital static made tangible, thick with the consistency of syrup and the malevolence of a living tumor.

It breathed. Inhaled his thoughts, exhaled corruption. A rhythm that wasn't quite his heartbeat, but close enough to be unsettling—like hearing your own pulse played back through broken speakers.

Kobra Khan floated in this non-space, his body suspended in currents of liquid shadow that moved like data streams through fiber optic cables. No up, no down. No reference points except the whispers that began as white noise and gradually resolved into words.

His father's voice: "Disappointment."

King Hiss: "I trusted you."

Rattlor: "You left us."

Then strangers—voices of those he'd hurt while under the Slime's influence. They layered over each other like audio feedback, building into a crescendo of accusation that made reality itself seem to glitch. Some laughed. Others wept. All of them judged.

Khan tried to cover his ears, but his hands felt wrong—distant, like controlling a marionette through thick gloves. Green static leaked between his fingers, digital artifacts of corrupted memory.
Then—silence.

A heartbeat that belonged to neither of them.

THOOM.

Reality snapped back into focus, and two figures materialized from the void—identical in form, antithetical in essence.

The first was Kobra Khan as he had been: lean muscle wrapped in battle-tested armor, scales bearing the honest scars of a hundred campaigns. His yellow eyes burned with conviction, not fever. The insignia of the Snake Men wasn't just carved into his chest piece—it was earned, every line representing loyalty freely given. He stood with the posture of someone who had never doubted his place in the world.

The second was the thing wearing his face, the thing that he had become: Slime-Khan.

Slime-Khan loomed like a grotesque upgrade gone wrong—organic matter fused with digital corruption. Where the original was lean, this one bulged with unnatural mass. Slime didn't just coat his armor; it had become his armor, a bio-mechanical shell that pulsed with its own sick rhythm. The Horde sigil wasn't painted on his chest—it was branded into the flesh itself, still smoking with the heat of fresh violation.

His eyes blazed like LED screens displaying error messages in red. When he smiled, it was with teeth that belonged in nightmares—not fangs anymore, but something between circuitry and bone, dripping with code made manifest.

"Still playing dress-up as a soldier?"

Slime-Khan's voice came from everywhere and nowhere, processed through filters of malice.

"The uniform doesn't fit anymore, Khan. Nothing about you fits anymore."

"You left the door open, Khan. You begged me to come inside and protect you. And I've been such a gracious guest."

The true Khan stepped forward, fists clenched like he was holding onto the last fragments of himself.

“You infected me. Twisted my mind. My body. My memories—”

“This isn’t protection. This is possession.”

Slime-Khan laughed—a hollow, echoing thing that bent the shadows around him.

“Call it what you want. But I was the only part of you strong enough to survive what came next.”

And then he struck.

Without warning, the monster lunged—claws raking across Khan’s chest, not with physical impact, but with force of memory. The blow hurled him backward into a vortex of fragmented pain: The sizzling pain from the Horde Trooper pain sticks, Grizzlor's laughter as dignity dissolved, Leech sucking his strength to the brink of wanting to die, the sensation of Slime bonding to his body like a second skin, and the moment when numbness became preferable to feeling. Each memory played at double speed, over-saturated, until they blurred into a stream of hatred.

He slammed into the ground.

"You didn't just accept me," Slime-Khan pressed, circling like a predator with infinite patience. "You celebrated me. You loved how I made the pain stop."

Khan spat green static, his hands shaking but still forming fists.

“I liked being numb,” he spat, “It was the only way I could survive what you made me do.”

Slime-Khan struck again—claws like liquid malware, carving chunks of memory from the air itself. Each swipe revealed fragments of the past: Faces of victims he couldn't save; Khan’s final glimpse of his brothers as Horde chains dragged him away, his body writhing in the Slime Pit as his will dissolved drop by drop; the moment when fighting back became too exhausting to attempt escape.

"Weakness. Pure, pathetic weakness. I made you into something that could survive." Slime-Khan growled.

But the true Khan stood his ground and didn’t flinch.

"You didn't make me survive. You made me disappear. And I carry every scream I caused because of you.”

Khan lunged—not with claws, but with something more dangerous. Truth. His hands met Slime-Khan's in a crash that sent shockwaves through the mindscape, memory warring with corruption in a battle that would determine which version of Kobra Khan would walk away.

The void around them fractured like a screen with a bullet through it, and in the cracks, light began to bleed through.

Chapter Text

Back in the Chamber of Renewal, the purification beam reached critical intensity. The air itself seemed to catch fire—not with flame, but with the raw friction of magic scraping against reality. The temperature spiked, then plummeted, then spiked again as competing energies fought for dominance.

The Slime's death rattle filled the chamber. Not a hiss—a shriek. The sound of connections severing with audible snaps. It bubbled and roiled away from Khan's flesh like acid meeting base, the reaction violent enough to send wisps of toxic green vapor spiraling toward the ceiling.

Patch by patch, the corruption retreated. First his chest, where the beam struck strongest. Then his shoulders, arms, the curve of his neck—each section revealing what had been hidden underneath.
Scales.

Not the sickly translucent membrane of Slime corruption, but honest reptilian hide. Green-brown, lustrous, scarred in places but undeniably his. Each scale caught the magical light differently, creating a mosaic of identity slowly being reclaimed. At the center of his belt buckle, barely visible beneath the last retreating traces of ooze, the carved insignia of the Snake Men gleamed like a brand of belonging.

Khan's body convulsed—one final spasm as competing neurologies fought for control. His spine arched. His muscles locked. And then...

His eyes changed.

The red fire guttered out as though a candle had been blown out, leaving behind familiar yellow orbs—confused, vulnerable, heartbreakingly real despite their serpentine nature. For a heartbeat, recognition flickered there. Not the predatory awareness of the Slime, but the lost bewilderment of someone waking from a nightmare they couldn't quite remember.

He looked up toward King Hiss, tears suddenly pooling in his yellow eyes -- too quickly, too perfectly. His voice trembled with pain… and clarity.

“My King… where am I?” The voice emerged as barely a whisper, cracked with confusion and manufactured pain.

“What happened? Why… am I in here?”

He collapsed to his knees inside the cylinder, the movement graceful in its apparent helplessness. Every gesture calculated to trigger protective instincts, to awaken the memory of the loyal General who had once knelt in exactly this way before his king.

King Hiss took a like a physical blow as he felt his heart lurch. Centuries of leadership, of making impossible decisions, of hardening himself against sentiment—all of it crumbled in the face of seeing his fallen son apparently restored. His hand moved without conscious thought, reaching toward the barrier that separated them.

"Khan...?"

The name escaped his lips, rough with grief and desperate hope that he'd tried so hard to bury.

But even as hope bloomed in his chest, something nagged at his warrior's instincts. The tilt of Khan's head—too precise, similar to a predator calculating angles. The tears that fell in perfect streams, unmarred by the ugly reality of actual sorrow. And there, at the corners of his mouth, the ghost of a smile that had nothing to do with relief.

Khan's voice softened further, but now it carried the measured cadence of a script being performed:

“You look so tired, my King. You shouldn’t be worrying about me. You should rest. Let me out... I can protect you. Like it should be.”

The words hit every pressure point with surgical precision. Hiss's guilt over failing to save him. His exhaustion from carrying the burden of leadership alone. The promise of returning to simpler times when he had a trusted right hand to share the weight.

For a split second, Hiss wavered—his mind torn between the longing to believe and the cold logic that had kept him alive through countless battles.

Then Skeletor's words echoed in his memory:

"It will lie. It will sound like him. Look like him. But it is not him."

Hiss's outstretched hand slowly curled into a fist. His eyes hardened. And like a stage light being cut, the performance died.

Khan's posture straightened. The tears stopped mid-fall, hanging like suspended animation before evaporating into nothing. His mouth widened into a grin that split his face too far, revealing rows of teeth that belonged to something that had never been fully reptilian.

"Almost had you."

His voice dropped into a register that resonated in the bone, digital corruption bleeding through analog flesh.

"Still weak, I see. Still hoping for fairy tale endings."

This was the Slime speaking, wearing Khan’s face as a mask, wielding love and loyalty as weapons, speaking through vocal cords it had no right to possess -- just like Skeletor warned.

Hiss felt something break inside his chest—not his resolve, but his last illusion that this would be painless. His fists clenched until his claws drew blood from his palms.

"Forgive me, my son."

The words came out steady, despite the fracture lines running through his heart.

"You'll have to crawl through this fire alone."

And in his eyes, something harder than hope took root. Determination.

The change in the cylinder was instantaneous. The red glow detonated back into Khan's eyes like fire catching gasoline. His manufactured vulnerability evaporated, replaced by something primal and endless in its hunger. The tears didn't just stop—they reversed, seeming to flow backward into ducts that had never meant to produce them.

He erupted upward with unnatural speed, fangs bared like broken glass, both fists slamming into the containment barrier with enough force to send shockwaves through the chamber's foundation. Cracks of sapphire light spiderwebbed across the mystical surface, each fracture line pulsing with barely contained energy.

“YOU DARE DENY ME?!” he roared. “I CALLED TO YOU! I BEGGED! AND YOU TURNED AWAY!”

His voice modulated through frequencies that shouldn't have been possible for organic vocal cords. Each word carried layers—Khan's anguish, the Slime's fury, and something else that might have been the death cry of hope itself. He threw himself against the barrier again and again, muscles bulging beyond their normal limits as alien strength coursed through familiar flesh.

The remaining Slime patches along his back and legs surged upward similar to data cables coming alive, whipping against the containment field in desperate attempts to breach it. Where they struck, the magical barrier sizzled and sparked, sending cascades of disrupted energy across its surface.

“LET ME OUT!”

“I’LL KILL YOU! I’LL KILL YOU ALL!”

The Chamber of Renewal itself seemed to flex under the assault. Ancient stones groaned. Dust sifted from overhead. The containment glyphs pulsed faster and faster, their light bleeding from azure to white-hot as the prison strained against forces it was never meant to hold.

Dr. Ophidian's calm scholarly demeanor finally cracked. He raced to the control matrix, hands flying over arcane symbols while sweat beaded on his scaled brow. His usually measured voice rose to a desperate chant as he poured more power into the failing seals.

Around the chamber's perimeter, guards raised their weapons with trembling hands, though every warrior present knew that steel would be useless if that barrier fell.

Skeletor remained an island of calm in the storm of chaos, his bone-white skull tilted at an angle that somehow managed to convey smug satisfaction.

"Ah, there's the real monster," he purred, voice carrying the tone of a scientist observing a successful experiment.

The battle wasn't over—far from it. But the Slime had revealed its hand too early, shown its true nature to the one person whose opinion mattered most. Sometimes the greatest victories came not from strength, but from letting your enemy destroy themselves with their own desperation.

Then—suddenly—the fury ceased.

The change was instantaneous and absolute. The tendrils of Slime along Khan's body didn't just retreat—they convulsed, resembling severed power cables sparking with residual current. The red glow in his eyes faded— flickering with the stuttering rhythm of a dying monitor, frames of consciousness bleeding through the static.

His snarl collapsed into confusion. His body folded in on itself, shoulders heaving as if he'd been holding his breath for years and could finally exhale.

Silence. Not the oppressive quiet of held tension, but the hollow emptiness that follows a system shutdown.

Khan's eyes closed. Opened slowly—normal timing now, not the mechanical precision of corrupted programming. When his gaze focused, the yellow was clear as amber, as the Slime’s grip slipped. The confusion in his expression deepened as he took in his surroundings, then cleared slightly when he spotted King Hiss.

“My… King?”

The voice was raw, scraped hollow by whatever war had just concluded inside his skull. It carried the bewildered tone of someone emerging from a coma to find the world changed beyond recognition.

A breath shuddered out of him—the sound of someone surfacing from deep water, desperate for air that tasted real.

“Where… what have I…?”

He raised his hands, staring at claws that trembled like leaves in wind. Traces of Slime still clung to the webbing between his fingers, glowing faintly with the sickly light. The sight hit him like a physical blow—horror dawning across features that had forgotten how to be vulnerable.

"I... hurt them... didn't I?"

The question hung in the air as a blade waiting to fall. Not a plea for reassurance, but the terrible recognition of someone assembling fragments of memory into a picture they didn't want to see. His voice cracked on the final words, twenty years of buried guilt crystallizing into three syllables of self-awareness.

King Hiss opened his mouth to respond, hope and heartbreak warring in his chest—

But the Slime had other plans.

The Red light detonated back into Khan's eyes like emergency power kicking in after a blackout. His body snapped upright with the unnatural speed of a marionette yanked by ruthless hands. The moment of clarity vanished as if it had never existed at all.

The venomous grin spread across his face, wider than anatomy should have allowed.

"Pathetic."

His voice carried multiple frequencies now, analog flesh speaking digital hatred.

"He whimpers like a hatchling. Still hoping Daddy will make the pain go away."

This wasn't Khan anymore. This was the Slime wearing flesh, speaking through stolen vocal cords with the authority of absolute possession.

The containment glyphs blazed white-hot, responding to the surge of corrupted energy. The magical matrix locked down harder, sealing the monster away from the world it wanted to burn.

But King Hiss didn't step back. He didn't flinch. He didn't look away.

He had spent decades learning to read the battlefield, to see past deception and misdirection to the truth underneath. And in that brief moment of clarity, he had seen something more valuable than victory: he had seen proof. Khan was still in there, still fighting, still capable of breaking through.

Hiss stepped closer to the containment barrier, ignoring the liquid lightning static arcs that danced across his scales, ignoring Dr. Ophidian's sharp intake of breath behind him. The magical field hummed with enough power to flay flesh from bone, but the King of the Snake Men had faced worse odds with less hope.

He leaned forward until his breath fogged the mystical surface, close enough that his words would penetrate even the Slime's interference, close enough that somewhere in the wasteland of Khan's corrupted mind, his voice might find its target.

“I saw you.”

The words carried the weight of absolute certainty, rough with grief but unshakeable in their conviction.

“For a moment… I saw… you. The real you. The General who stood beside me. The Son I failed to protect.”

His voice dropped to a whisper that somehow carried more authority than any battlefield command:

"So hold on, my son. Keep fighting. And when you break through, I'll be waiting on the other side of this fire."

Khan's expression twisted—but not with rage. For just a heartbeat, the grin faltered. Something flickered behind the red glow, like a signal trying to break through static. A ghost of recognition. A fragment of the man he had been.

Then the containment glyphs flared one final time, sealing the moment in crystalline silence.

But the message had been delivered. Deep in the digital wasteland of his corrupted mind, Khan had heard his King's voice. And in the war between host and parasite, sometimes all a soldier needed was to know that reinforcements were coming.

It would take fire to burn away what the Slime had corrupted. And only fire could reforge what would rise from the ashes.

Chapter Text

The storm within the containment chamber reached its peak. The Havoc energy surged, bright as lightning, crashing into Khan in relentless surges, each wave stripping away layers of corruption. The remaining Slime shrieked in defiance—not with sound, but with pulses of pressure and rage that rippled through the chamber like thunder underwater.

Inside, Khan convulsed—caught between two worlds. His spine arced so violently it seemed it might snap. Claws—his own claws now, not the Slime's—gouged the cylinder's base, the screech of metal on stone cutting through the magical maelstrom. His muscles seized and released in violent spasms, each breath a desperate, rattling gasp torn from lungs that felt full of ground glass.

The Slime’s final voice slithered through his consciousness, now sharp and desperate:

“We can be strong again,” it whispered, the words caressing the edges of his mind like phantom fingers. “Together. Let me silence the pain—no more shame, no more weakness, just untouchable power…”

“They’ll never love you again. You belong to ME!”

But this time... Khan's mental walls held. There was NO response and absolutely NO negotiation.

King Hiss pressed his palm against the barrier, voice steady but burning with urgency.

“Khan—look at me! I'm not leaving… but you must fight. Do not let it claim you. You are my Son, my General—” His voice broke slightly, raw with emotion he rarely allowed himself to show. “Remember who you were before any of this touched you!”

Inside the maelstrom, Khan's eyes strobed between the Slime's crimson red and his natural amber—two souls wrestling for control of the same vessel, the war playing out in the very color of his gaze.

Memories rose. Yes, he remembered the agony—every electric jolt of torment, every moment his will had been bent and twisted. He remembered the psychic shackles that had turned his own mind into a prison.

But stronger than all of that—he remembered the weight of Hiss's hand on his shoulder, solid and reassuring as bedrock. The fierce pride that had colored Rattlor's voice when he'd earned his first commendation. Viper’s booming laughter echoing through the temple corridors after a successful raid. The way his brothers' eyes had lit up around the strategy table, plotting their next victory under flickering torchlight.

These weren't just memories—they were armor. He seized them as weapons forged from his own history.

"No." The word erupted from Khan's throat, raw and defiant. His jaw clenched so hard his fangs nearly pierced his own lips. Tears cut clean tracks through the grime coating his scales, but he didn't care. "I remember who I am beneath your lies... and you are not part of me."

In Khan’s mind, the battle became a duel of recollections. For every poisoned image the Slime hurled at him—every moment of weakness it tried to claim as truth— the real Khan countered with something real, something his:

—The ritual words that had bound him not in servitude, but in brotherhood: "I serve the Snake Men."

—The metallic taste of blood mixed with triumph. Rattlor's claws dragging Khan from the blazing wreckage of a battlefield, both of them bleeding and grinning as they stumbled back toward Serpentis.

—Hiss's palm warm against his shoulder as the ceremonial words made him General, then followed by the overwhelming warmth of being enveloped by his brothers—their scales brushing his as they pressed close, voices overlapping in congratulation. No longer an outsider—finally, truly family.

—The gentle chaos of dinner conversations—his brothers bantering like children around the dining table, their ridiculous jokes washing over Khan's silence as they tried to coax him from his stoic shell, hoping to earn just one laugh.

Each memory struck like a sledgehammer against the Slime's stranglehold, fracturing its grip one sacred recollection at a time.

Slime-Khan recoiled, the memories carving through its essence like white-hot steel through flesh.

“NO! You need me! You’re NOTHING without me!”

But the real Khan erupted from the depths of his own mind—no longer defending, but attacking. His claws raked through the Slime's form, peeling away layers of corruption like diseased skin. Each strike tore another lie free, another chain broken.

With a roar that shattered the mental landscape around them, Khan drove both claws deep into the creature's chest, piercing through to whatever passed for its heart.

Slime-Khan convulsed, its body fracturing like ice under pressure. Green ooze hemorrhaged from the spreading cracks, hissing as it met the light of Khan's memories—corruption fleeing purification like oil from water.

"No." Khan's defiant whisper carried more finality than any scream.

His face was inches from the thing that had worn his identity like stolen clothes.

"I don't need you. I never did. I need them."

The words landed the final blow.

A supernova of light exploded between them. The Slime's shrieking cut off mid-syllable—not serpents severed mid-strike, but a record player suddenly unplugged. Slime-Khan's face twisted in one last spasm of desperate fury before the purging energy consumed it completely, dissolving the abomination into wisps of fading nightmare.

And then… nothing.

Not the oppressive quiet of suppression, but the clean emptiness of a storm finally passing. The mindscape around Khan stabilized—no longer a battlefield, but simply... space. His space.

Kobra Khan stood alone in the clearing darkness, chest rising and falling in ragged gasps, shoulders trembling after a survivor crawled from wreckage. He flexed his fingers—his fingers, unmarked by the Slime's touch. His hand rose to his face, half-expecting to find the corruption still lurking beneath, ready to resurface. But his scales were clean. His reflection, finally, was his own.

The silence crashed over him like a physical force. No whispers threading through his skull. No phantom commands puppeting his limbs. No corruption wearing his face like a mask. For the first time in days, his thoughts belonged entirely to him—raw, unfiltered, and terrifyingly quiet.

From somewhere deeper than thought, deeper than memory, a single word rose like a prayer answered:

"Free..."

His knees hit the ground hard. The word broke something inside him—not destructively, but like a dam finally releasing pressure that had built for far too long. And for the first time since the Pit had claimed him... he wept.

Not tears of pain or despair, but of release. Of coming home to himself.

In the Chamber of Renewal, reality caught up with Khan's mental victory. The remaining Slime ignited—not with flame, but with searing radiance that turned the air itself luminous. The Havoc Staff's energy erupted in one final, overwhelming surge, flooding every corner of the chamber with purifying light.

The Slime's death scream tore through the air—raw, primal, defeated. It peeled away from Khan's body in smoking ribbons of green corruption, each strand burning to ash before it could touch the ground. Similar to a dying parasite finally losing its grip as the last tendrils tried desperately to burrow back into his flesh. Khan's claws carved through empty air, severing every desperate attempt at reconnection. His voice exploded from his chest—not a roar of rage, but a declaration of sovereignty:

“I AM KOBRA KHAN – I CHOOSE WHO I SERVE!”

The words hit the chamber walls like a physical force, sending tremors through ancient stone. The darkness that had clung to him for so long recoiled as if burned, finally severed from its host.

And then—there was only Kobra Khan.

Kobra Khan’s eyes opened—clear yellow now, no trace of red corruption -- and swept the chamber with the bewildered gaze of someone waking in a strange place.

Then, his legs buckled—

He collapsed to his knees at the chamber's heart, no longer fighting gravity or corruption. His scales gleamed with their natural luster, unmarked by the Slime's touch. Each breath came easier than the last. The Horde sigil was gone—only old battle scars remained, honest marks of wars he'd chosen to fight.

The containment field flickered and died, its purpose fulfilled. King Hiss stepped forward with the reverence of approaching something sacred—not just his General, but his son, returned from the dead.

Khan lifted his head slowly, amber eyes clear for the first time in days. With trembling fingers, he pressed his palm against the cylinder's inner wall.

Hiss matched the gesture from outside, their hands separated by enchanted glass but aligned perfectly—a bridge across trauma, an unspoken promise kept.

Khan's voice emerged as barely more than a whisper, rough with exhaustion and wonder:

“You… stayed.”

Hiss nodded, moisture gathering in eyes that had remained dry through wars and betrayals.

“I never left you, Khan. I couldn’t.”

“You are my son.”

A single tear carved a path down Khan's scaled cheek. For once, he didn't hide it. His breathing steadied, the tremors in his shoulders finally stilling. The invisible weight he'd carried—shame, corruption, self-hatred—began to lift. His heart found its natural rhythm again, strong and steady.

For the first time since the Pit had claimed him, Kobra Khan was at peace. But peace, like victory, could be fragile.

The storm within Khan had quieted, but not passed. Deep beneath the surface, memories flickered like dying embers, waiting to reignite.

Deep in the recesses of his consciousness, something stirred—not the Slime, but its echo. A whisper from damaged neural pathways, from memories scarred by days of violation:

“You may have burned me out… but you’ll never forget what it felt like.”

Despite the words, a small smirk tugged at the corner of Khan's mouth—defiant and relieved. His breathing remained steady. But a barely perceptible shiver traced his spine—the body's acknowledgment of wounds that might never fully heal.

Around him, were the ones who refused to give up:

Hiss, remained at the glass barrier, one hand maintaining contact, the other clenched in barely controlled emotion.

Dr. Ophidian, approached with clinical precision, but his normally detached gaze held something warmer now—hope wrestling with professional caution.

Rattlor, Tung Lashor, Scales, and Viper, flanked the chamber like honor guards, but their faces bore the strain of those who'd watched their strongest brother shatter.

None of them spoke. They had witnessed something that transcended their experience as warriors—the complete destruction and painstaking reconstruction of a soul. They'd watched their unbreakable General—the one who'd never retreated, never yielded—fragment like glass under pressure, each crack spreading until there was nothing left but sharp edges and empty spaces. They had seen him twist in torment, strike at his own kin, scream through the sheer, soul-rendering agony of the purge, his confusion as he fought them in the Throne room and emerge on the other side fundamentally changed. Each phase a kind of death.

Each warrior had been scarred by the experience, marked not by violence but by helplessness.

Beneath their relief simmered anger—at Hordak for turning a warrior into weapon, at the Horde for their cruelty, at fate for choosing Khan over anyone else, at Skeletor for knowing too much and saying too little, and perhaps most painfully, at themselves for being unable to prevent any of it.

Questions lingered in the silence: What had truly been cleansed, and what had merely been buried deeper? Which parts of their brother had returned, and which had been left behind in that cursed Pit? Skeletor had warned them—recovery would take time. And time, like memory, was a fragile thing.

The dawn light began to filter through Serpentis's towers, painting the chamber in soft gold. King Hiss remained still, his eyes never leaving the figure within the containment chamber. Inside, Khan's eyelids grew heavy. The ordeal had drained everything from him—every reserve, every fragment of strength. His head tilted back against the chamber wall, and sleep claimed him with the gentle inevitability of dawn following the longest night. A survivor resting between battles, knowing the war might not be over.

In the aftermath's quiet, they came forward:

Rattlor arrived first, his usual swagger replaced by uncertain reverence.

Tung Lashor followed, his forked tongue testing the air not for threats, but for some sign that his brother was truly free.

Scales materialized from shadow, his perpetual silence now charged with protective intensity.

Young Viper came last, gripping his spear like a talisman against hope deferred too long.

Dr. Ophidian joined them without his charts or instruments—approaching not as a physician, but as someone who'd witnessed miracles and tragedies in equal measure.

They formed a semicircle behind their King, footsteps echoing softly in the sacred space. No words were needed. They stood not as soldiers or subjects, but as brothers keeping vigil over one of their own.

Hiss pressed both palms against the barrier now, leaning close enough that his breath fogged the glass.

“Come back to us…” he whispered —not commanding, not pleading, but promising.

After a moment, softer still, meant only for Khan's ears and his own conscience:

"I should have chosen differently... and should never have listened to him."

The words hung in the air like absolution sought, a King's admission that even the weight of crowns couldn't prevent the failures that mattered most.