Purple Prey: The Case of the Filthy Baboon

Chapter 1: Just a Touch of Exile

Ever since the death of the giant Viper, things were different. At least for me, Obsidian Leviathan, it was. They say 'What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas', but that can't be the case when the Viper's gargantuan corpse lay across the Vegas-California border.

"So what do we do now?" my lifelong friend, Elysium Forging, asked me. I couldn't give a good answer because all I could think of was how much SHIT we were in now. I could hear the police sirens in the distance, they would be here soon and then we would be exiled.

"Hey, Obsidian, it won't be so bad." she said awkwardly, sensing my nerves. Elly always knew exactly what to say to set my mind at ease, even when we were kids. I considered trying to hide the body of the enormous deceased serpentine beast, but even with the strengths of Elysium Forging and I, Obsidian Leviathan, combined, it probably wouldn't be enough.

With nowhere left to run and no way to conceal our crimes, Elly and I watched helplessly as fifty-nine police cars pulled up in front of us, sirens still blaring. That's right, I counted. Elly would later try to argue that there were actually fifty-seven police cars, but that is inaccurate. She neglected to count the two that crashed into us from behind right at that second and knocked us out cold.

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It was many days later that we woke from our comas and learned that we had been banished from the planet Earth and sent to S/2003 J 2, one of the seventy-nine known moons of Jupiter. I barely had time to be upset about it, since it was all happening so fast, the law system is beyond flawed.

Elly and I had each been placed in solitary confinement, which gave me plenty of time to reflect on what had happened to the giant viper.

It all began in the year 2100, five years earlier when i was just a little lad, freshly 14. There was a killing spree in the town Elly and I grew up in; witnesses stated that the victims would be caught in a fog and killed by a man dressed as a butcher. Elly came to me late one night, scared to death since she had spotted a fog rolling in over the mountains beyond the village. I leapt into action, grabbing my electric fan and blowing away the whole fog, leaving the butcher exposed for all to see. Before he could sink back into the cover of the fog, I tackled the butcher to the floor and tore off his butcher mask to unmask the butcher. It was none other than Titan Recoiling the town butcher (we should've known!), who almost immediately after being unmasked, died of snake poison from my snake that Elly had thrown on him. It was a perfectly choreographed attack. Titan Recoiling had been dispatched.Then the government rolled in and confiscated my snake, who had grown massive from eating Titan Recoiling. It was an extraordinary growth, in fact, the most growth recorded in a viper since 32BC, but it didn't make the confiscation of my beloved pet snake hurt me any less. So I enlisted Elly to help bust him out. Unfortunately, I neglected to remember that a giant viper's lifespan is only about 5 years. And now, here we are, on a prison moon. Shit.

All of this reminiscing was interrupted by my cell door being swung open, a prison guard greeting me with a big smile and a clipboard in hand.

"You've been awfully quiet in here for a wanted criminal." he chuckled.

"I was in a coma." I replied.

"Obsidian Leviathan," he read my name off the clipboard, ignoring the fact I was quiet because I was in a coma. "We're letting you out on good behaviour." With that, he turned and walked with purpose away from my cell and down a hallway. I followed. I squinted as my eyes adjusted to the harsh light outside that I recognised to be the exact UV level of one of Jupiter's moons (I could not recall which at the time). But then I did recall: it was S/2003 J 2! It should've been obvious, but to be fair with myself, I did just awake from my coma. I followed the guard out into a beautiful garden filled with who I knew to be the other inmates. I knew because Elysium was there in the corner of the garden.