The Final Six of Violet Tree Town

Not without a fight

"Oh come on! How hard is it going down a steep hill?!"

Fliqpy complained to the two corpses of Petunia and Cuddles. "You were running down, they just let themselves fall for some reason." Flippy replied, feeling remorseful unlike his counterpart. "Idiots." Fliqpy scoffed as the others made it down safely.

Erika shielded her eyes with one arm from the sight, with the other one still holding Sniffles. Luna cringed at the gruesome result of how to not descend down a hill.

Petunia had her head split open from hitting a large rock. Cuddles was a bit more scratched up, obviously having a worse fall than the latter, he had been impaled on a thick tree branch through the eye socket.

Despite seeing his friends in these conditions, Sniffles wasn't bothered by it at all. He noticed Erika and Luna staring in his direction like something was wrong with him, and shook his head.

"What? This kind of thing doesn't even faze me anymore. It happened so many times already that I stopped counting ages ago."

Luna managed to get Cuddles down without getting too sick, aside from a little bit of gagging. They now just had to wait a bit, shouldn't take too long for the two to come back. Hopefully they come back sooner than later, because Luna just said that she saw something red out of the corner of her eye.

"Well, good thing I rushed back to grab a few things while you guys were snoozing!" Erika announced as she placed Sniffles on the ground, before pulling out a couple small cases that were strapped to her back. She put them on the ground, before opening them and revealing the content inside.

"Dude..." Fliqpy gasped in awe as he carefully picked up a machine gun.

"Ohoho! This thing is sick!" The green bear held the weapon with pure amazement on his face, at least Fliqpy's half was. "Wait, I thought bullets didn't work on that snake." Flippy seemed to raise an eyebrow as he used his arm to support the firearm.

"I knew bullets were ineffective, so I grabbed these instead." Erika pulled a small box from her pocket.

"What are those?" Flippy asked when Erika showed off some small pellets that were about the size of a dime.

"We like to call them, 'spider mines'." Erika replied as she grabbed a standard pistol and put one in. She then aimed at a nearby rock to her left, before firing. Everyone flinched at the gunshot, but soon noticed the spider mine had attached itself to the rock, before blowing up, causing a mini explosion.

"Can you hand me that machine gun please?" Erika asked the bear, where both sides were still in a matter of shock from the gunshot, trying to emotionally hold themselves together. Erika was handed the firearm, where she proceeded to load it. She gave out a pair of small katanas to Fliqpy and Flippy, giving them each one. She then placed a rifle in front of Petunia, and placed a crossbow in front of Cuddles, while Luna grabbed a few grenades for herself.

"How do you have so many weapons?" Flippy asked with a hint of suspicion in his voice.

"Well.... we are recommended to carry a variety of weapons with us on missions in case one doesn't work, or we need to settle a conflict... violently... But I assure you that we only use these things when necessary." Erika answered as she passed Sniffles a shotgun.

"Hey, why can't I have a firearm?" Fliqpy asked in a complaining manner.

"Arming you with literally anything is an automatic death sentence. You killed someone with a freaking Christmas cookie once." Sniffles answered, refusing to give him the shotgun.

"Guys, heads up!" Luna shouted when the snake was seen from behind a large shrub. Everyone waited, and so did their target.

After about ten seconds, the snake hissed and started charging at the group. For a second, everyone was intimidated by how fast this thing was. It was almost as fast as a motorcycle at full speed. With zero hesitation and not wasting a second, Fliqpy let out a battle cry as he charged back, Flippy hesitated to join in with his counterpart at first, but knew that there was no turning back.

"Get over here!!"
"Open fire!!"

The snake gets distracted by the spider mines being fired at it, missing a few at the cost of having another bunch hit it, latching on and exploding, causing the creature to cry out of agony.

"It's working!!" Erika exclaimed before firing another round at the beast. Luna activated a grenade and threw it at the snake, where it exploded upon contact, causing more damage. Cuddles and Petunia came back as well, and started helping out with their respective weapons.

"GIVE US OUR FRIENDS BACK!!" Flippy shouted as he landed a perfect blow into the snake's side, causing dark blue liquid to spray from it. Fliqpy was swinging his katana around as if he completely lost his mind, where that was the case when it came to fighting.

"I HAVEN'T FELT THIS ALIVE IN YEARS!!"

Fliqpy was having so much fun beating the crap out of this monster that he couldn't keep a straight face anymore.

"You remind me of that tiger general ba***rd I took down the second I was born!!"

Fliqpy began laughing hysterically as he repeatedly slashed the snake, which was now lying on the ground. Flippy tried to calm his counterpart down, but he was laughing too much for him to speak.

The snake made a growling noise, causing Flippy to notice the snake glaring back at him. Very faintly, he could hear... screaming, coming from inside the snake.

Those voices were all too familiar, they were the missing residents!

The snake's eyes seemed to fill with life as if they were fuelled by the cries of those it's captured. Flippy realized what was going on as the snake released a low-pitched hissing sound. He tried warning Fliqpy, but he was too into attacking it with his katana, still laughing like a maniac. Flippy finally was able to say something.

"Fliqpy, th—"

But he was too late...

The snake struck them in a split second, sinking it's sharp fangs into the bear's torso, causing the same screams to burst out exactly from when Shadow used her taser on them yesterday. The venom from the bite was enough to fully incapacitate them. Everyone watched in horror as the snake lifted them up, every last wound from earlier healing completely.

"W-What the?! I-I thought we had i-it!" Cuddles began to panic as his ears drooped. Both sides of the bear were in so much pain that they couldn't make any sound, or even fight back. The snake spun around, releasing the bear from it's jaw, but grabbing both arms with it's tail. For a second, people were able to see a single word on the back of the cobra's head.

"Pelko"

With both arms tied above the head, and suspended off the ground. Both sides of the bear could only stare the snake dead in the eye as it leaned right up to their face. With a raspy, distorted voice, the snake uttered one sentence.

"It is not your blood that sustains me, it is your fear."