Whumptober Day 02: "You've got a lot of nerve to dredge up all my fears."
Prophecy + Taking Accountability
2996 Words; Raised by Serpentine
TW for death mention, implied assumed death of a minor
AO3 ver
The first time Cole had heard of the Great Devourer, he was three and a half.
He would later come to understand the faster solar cycle the surface used, and the conversion between tomb time and surface time; come to understand that three and a half was, if one went by the sun, just a little past four and a quarter. But he didn’t know about the solar cycle at the time, and wouldn’t for years to come. So when Cole first heard about the Great Devourer, he was three and a half and playing Quakes with Adel and Lyssie and Alina and Bryan.
Quakes was a simple game; one person would play the Quake and another, an Earth Master. Everyone else was a dweller, and had to not get caught by the Quake. If they were, they or someone else had to call the Earth Master to move it—but the Earth Master could also block the Quake from striking. Simple. Fun, too. The perfect tool for teaching children how to handle cave-ins, assuming they weren’t instantly squashed. A lot of the games in the tomb were like that, though to Cole and his friends, they were just that: games.
“Quake!” Adel called, tackling Cole to the ground. Cole curled up into a ball, small enough that rubble might shelter him. “You’re trapped! 1, 2, 3, 4…” Adel declared, as Alina called out to Lyssie.
Lyssie flounced over, clapping her hands together. “Go away, Quake, go away!” She bounced in place, repeating the phrase two more times; Adel slowly stood, allowing Cole to crawl away.
“Arrugh!” Adel hissed, before retreating away. He’d still made it to eleven by the time Lyssie chased him off, though, so Cole was “dead” according to the rules.
“I’m dead.” Cole flopped over, sticking his tongue out for good measure. “The Quake has killeded me.”
Lyssie fell to her knees obligingly. “NOOOOOO!” She bemoaned, as Cole tried not to giggle too loudly.
“Ha! I win!” Adel declared. Indeed, Bryan and Alina had already fallen to his vicious attacks. “You’re a terrible Earth Master!”
“I am not!” Lyssie argued back.
“Are too!”
“Am not!”
“You’re sso sslow the Great Devour would eat you!” Adel argued.
“That’sss just a sstory!” Lyssie shot back.
Cole sat up, scooting away from the arguing siblings. He thought Lyssie was a great Earth Master, but he might have been the only one to think that. And Adel was right; Lyssie always took too long, too showy with her movements. His Mom was faster—though Cole could hardly imagine anyone faster than his mother… except for Skalidor.
Speaking of… there was Skalidor right now, slithering at the edge of the cavern towards one of the tunnels. Cole ran after him, eager to see what the General was up to now. “Skal!”
Skalidor slowed down at Cole’s shout, turning to see who had called him. “Cole.” He greeted. “Shouldn’t you be playing?”
Cole shrugged. “Adel an’ Lyssie are fighting again.” He explained. A thought occurred to him, and he turned to Skalidor with his question. “What’s the Great Devour?”
“The Great… oh, you mean the Great Devourer.” Skalidor contemplated Cole’s question for a moment, then, “What has your father told you about the Surface War?”
“Uhhhh…” Cole thought as hard as he could. “It was bad?”
Skalidor nodded. “Well, I supposse you’re old enough to know the story.” He decided. Cole cheered; he loved stories! His Dad told all the best ones, and then Cole would tell them to his friends.
“Right, then.” Skalidor thumped the foot of his staff against the stone. The other children had started to gather around, sensing a story, and they all sat down, ready to hear it. “So it starts with the prophecy of the Golden Master…”
“What’s a prop-a-sea?” Bryan asked, hand raised.
“Uh, it’s a story that hasn’t happened yet.” Skalidor explained. “But the prophecy of the Golden Master has been passed down from Serpentine to Serpentine for generations, telling the tale of the horror that the Golden Master would one day spread across the land, enslaving all that walked the earth…”
Cole was three and a half when he first heard of the Great Devourer, three and a half when he first learned the reason they were all trapped in the tomb. It all seemed so simple then; Chen was evil and surface dwellers were stupid.
Cole was twelve when the tomb was opened, though he was fifteen according to the sun. He was twelve when the wider world was opened up to him, and fifteen when he started to grasp just how simple everything wasn’t.
+=+=+=+=+
Garmadon was the name of the man who had come up with the plan to put the Serpentine away. Master Chen was reviled far more for his treachery, of course, but Garmadon held a similar place of low regard.
At least, he did once Pythor had pieced it together, and explained to everyone else. Pythor was… Cole didn’t want to say it, really, but Pythor rubbed him the wrong way. There was just something weird about the Anacondrai General. But he was an Anacondrai, and the leader of the Alliance. And he could probably swallow Cole whole, and then where would the tomb dwellers be, without their Earth Master to serve them?
Besides, the surface dwellers started it all, when they trapped all the Serpentine and dwellers underground in sealed tombs. Five tombs, unopened for generations, small and never containing enough for everyone to survive unless everyone did their best and even then it wasn’t always enough—
Maybe Cole could have called the surface dwellers friends, once. Maybe he could have grown up here, under the open sky instead of solid rock. Maybe his family could have been whole, his mom still alive and his dad and Skal not quite so stressed.
But maybe wasn’t enough. It never was. So the Serpentine followed Pythor’s lead towards the Fang Blades. Towards the Great Devourer. And Cole went along with them, because these were his people. This was his community.
And they were going to make the surface dwellers pay.
+=+=+=+=+
The volcano was hotter than Cole expected. Like, wayyy hotter. But it was fine, he could deal! There were some really interesting things going on beneath the surface of the stone if he pressed his hand to it and concentrated, though Cole didn’t have any names for whatever was happening down there. It was still really cool, though—was this the true power of the earth? Would he be this powerful, one day, now that he had the whole world to explore and his whole life ahead of him? He hoped so.
The clinking of a swinging chain drew Cole’s attention back to the cage. He glanced away, intent on spotting the Fang Blade before anyone else. It… it wasn’t his problem. He shouldn’t worry about it. He just needed to find the Fang Blade, and help fend off the ninja if they showed, so that he could go home and continue serving his community.
Lloyd was Garmadon’s son. So really, it made sense to have the kid help, since he could repay his father’s crimes. But… maybe this was a bit much. They didn’t need the kid to find a Fang Blade in a volcano. And they certainly didn’t need to have him in a cage. Cole… he’d have to have a word with Skalidor, who could have words with Pythor. Getting revenge was one thing, but this… this was a bit much.
But it wasn’t like Cole could do anything about it right now. Pythor was right there, being a jerk as usual. And they needed to find the Fang Blade. Lloyd would be fine. Probably. …maybe Cole should try to keep an eye on the kid, just in case.
The stone beneath him was just cool enough to safely walk on, but it still pulsed with a kind of magmatic heat that Cole could feel deep in his bones. He could feel it calling to him, begging him to reach out towards that trapped pressure and uncork it—
Maybe not a good idea, where stone so hot it became liquid was involved. Was this what the sun was made of? No, that’d make it too heavy to soar across the sky the way it did.
“It’sss sso hot…” Lyssie commented, languidly fanning herself.
“Yeah, no wonder nobody lives here.” Cole responded, focusing more on the earth beneath his feet than the goings-on around him. It was a good thing they’d only brought the strongest to this expedition; he didn’t want to imagine what the heat would do to someone small like Pebbline.
…who was the same size as Lloyd. Cole glanced again at the cage—what was Pythor even thinking? This wasn’t a place for children.
(That Cole was himself a child, or at least, not yet an adult, did not cross his mind.)
“That child’sss fangsss are bigger than yoursss.” Lyssie commented, when she saw what Cole was looking at. “I think he’sss sstronger than you.”
“Wh—no way!” Cole shoved lightly at Lyssie—hardly enough to budge her an inch. “He’s just a kid!”
Lyssie hummed. “Aren’t we?”
“That’s—” Cole’s shoulders hunched. “That’s different. We had to grow up faster.”
Lyssie stared at Cole for a long moment before shrugging. “Well, I hope he makes it out okay. I think Pebbline and Vespa like him.”
Cole nodded, mouth opened to agree—
“I found it!” Rattla’s voice cut through the volcano, Fang Blade held aloft in his hand.
“Yes!” Pythor made his way to the Hypnobrai and snatched up the Fang Blade, admiring the way it glinted. Cole slumped back against the rock wall, glad they could all get out of this place. The heat was getting unbearable. His eyes fluttered closed, the stone against his back warm and trembling with potential he could almost reach—
Pythor’s shout snapped Cole back to reality. The ninja were here! Cole rushed to join the fight, grabbing his scythe off of his back and swinging it down to drive off a kick from the white ninja before it could hit Chokun. Chaos broke out, Pythor attempting to flee with the Fang Blade while everyone else tried to cover his escape. Cole danced across the stones, trusting the earth to give him sure footing as he swung his scythe and kicked out at the ninja. He wasn’t letting them get past him, stupid spinny technique be damned!
He heard Pythor shout, glanced at the Fang Blade stuck in a stone—had it been knocked from his hands? He should have given it to someone who could actually hold on. Someone who didn’t stick out like a sore thumb, maybe.
There was something pulsing in the earth below him, something hot and dangerous. It was on the brink of spilling out, and Cole wasn’t sure he wanted to know what that would look like. So he focused on keeping it down, on making sure he wasn’t reaching out lest he accidentally give it the one push it needed—
So of course the red ninja did something stupid with his golden flaming sword that popped the bubble below them.
Fuck. “EVERYBODY OUT!” Cole bellowed, as loudly as he could manage. He ducked a shuriken, jumping back away from the ninja. “IT’S GOING TO BLOW!” And he couldn’t stop it, because he could barely stop a cave-in and this had way more momentum behind it, way more power forcing its way up and out—
“Make it worse!” Pythor called out, as Skales was dragging him away. “Master of Earth, Bytar, Chokun, make this thing erupt faster!”
What?! Was Pythor insane? Though… it did look like most of the Serpentine were out, and everyone else was quickly on their way. The ninja were down lower, where Bytar and Chokun were burrowing to draw the molten stone towards them—
Cole knelt down and pressed his hand against the stone. He could feel the power beneath his fingertips pulsing with a need to get out, but it wasn’t going fast enough—
Lloyd cried out, the bit of stone he was standing on crumbling beneath him. Cole hadn’t even realized he’d been let out of the cage—some eye he was keeping. Couldn’t even pay attention to one caged kid.
Shit, the stone Lloyd was standing on was sinking. Fuck, Cole should—he should do something, Lloyd was just a kid and wasn’t supposed to be here—he reached down into the earth, urging the stone to rise, rise, RISE—
Lloyd jolted as his platform jumped up by a foot, but Cole couldn’t get the stone to go any higher than that. Fuck, he should—
“What are you doing?!” Lyssie’s hand grasped Cole’s shoulder, hauling him back. “We need to get out of here!”
“But—” Cole gestured towards the forlorn kid only a foot above a lava bath—
“The immortal can handle it.” Lyssie’s eyes rolled. “C’mon, we need to—”
The whole mountain shuddered. The rock beneath their feet shook, splitting Cole and Lyssie apart. A quick glance, and then Lyssie was making her way to the nearest exit, while Cole hopped along the stone that still stood above the lava towards safety, as well. He slipped into a crack, tapping the stone with his hands to make sure it’d be wide enough to fit—
The roar of the volcano followed him all the way to safety.
The echo remained in his ears long after.
+=+=+=+=+
“What are we even doing?”
Cole swung his scythe down at the dummy. What was he doing? What was even the point of all this?
He was supposed to be the Master of Earth. He was supposed to serve the tomb, to protect it from cave-ins. To serve his people, in all the ways that only a Master of Earth could. He was supposed to inherit his mother’s mantle, her powers, her legacy—
And he could barely lift a kid away from rising lava. Some Master of Earth he was. He didn’t even know if the kid made it out okay.
And it wasn’t just moving the earth that he sucked at. Masters of Earth were supposed to be pillars of community, supposed to help guide their people. To help remember stories, to provide counsel to uncertain hearts—
And Cole couldn’t do that, either.
Garmadon was the man who put the Serpentine away. Lloyd was his son, but—Lloyd had never done anything to harm the Serpentine. The opposite, even—Slithraa and Fangpyre both agreed that Lloyd had been the one to open their tombs. He’d already made up for his father’s crimes. And even if he hadn’t…
What were they doing? What was the point of revenge? Other than Garmadon, nobody involved in the Surface War was even still alive, just like none of the original Serpentine and Dwellers to be entombed were still alive. The Surface War—it was important, but it was history. It was the past. It wasn’t fair that the tombs had even been made and sealed and left forgotten in the first place, wasn’t right that generations had to stay locked away beneath the earth—
But retaliating with the Great Devourer wasn’t right either, was it?
Cole slashed the dummy in half with a swing of his scythe. Down the tunnel, cheers filled the central cavern as the Slitherpits progressed. Cole wanted to go out and join them, to lose himself in that fervor and excitement—
But how could he, when they were all about to commit a grave mistake?
(Was it a mistake? Or was Cole letting all his doubts get to his head?)
“Oh, there you are.” Lyssie’s voice cut through the small cavern, and she walked over to stand next to Cole. He sat down hard; he was out of dummies to slash.
“What are we doing?” Cole asked, unprompted. The question needed to go somewhere, though.
“Well, it looksss like you’re destroying all of Fang-Suei’sss hard work.” Lyssie pointed out, moving to sit down next to Cole.
“No, I mean…” Cole sighed. “I don’t think we should bring back the Great Devourer.” He said, letting his scythe slide from his hands. “I don’t think we should be getting revenge.”
“Bold wordsss.” Lyssie commented. “Why not?”
“Because…” Because Pythor’s crazy and evil. Because Lloyd didn’t deserve the volcano. Because if we bring this suffering to the world, then what does that make us? “Because what’s stopping the Great Devourer from eating us?”
Lyssie blinked. “Oh. Oh.” She stood, starting to pace back and forth. “That’sss—” She looked at Cole, wide-eyed. “Isss Pythor inssane?”
“All signs point to yes.” Cole groused, flopping onto his back. “But he’s got too much momentum, how are we—”
“We need to tell everyone.” Lyssie was saying. “We need to sstop thisss before it sstartsss. We need to—” She stared at Cole for a long moment, then moved to grab his shoulder. “Get up. You’re helping me with thisss.”
“But—everyone else thinks Pythor is right—”
“Sso we’ll make them ssee ssense!” Lyssie declared.
“I—” Cole’s argument died in his throat; Lyssie was right. If she could understand what was wrong with the situation, then who’s to say that nobody else could? Cole’s dad and Skalidor would get it immediately—Cole just needed to tell them. “You’re right.” He said, resolve beginning to crystalize.
“Well, duh.” Lyssie’s eyes rolled. “Now, come on!” She made her way down the tunnel, Cole following after her.
Maybe it wasn’t too late. Maybe they could fix this mistake before it even happened.
Maybe… Cole could be a true Master of Earth.
Cole was three and a half when he first learned about the Great Devourer. He was twelve and a half—fifteen counting by the sun—when he decided to bury it.
(Of course, nothing could be so simple. Cole was three and a half when he first heard of the Great Devourer. He was twelve in tomb years and fifteen in solar years when he finally saw her, in all of her massive glory.)
