S5 Episode Two: "The Prodigal Return"

It began with a voice. 

Low and unsettling at first, barely heard over the din of operations within the Ouroboros’ hideout. The call was reverent in the way only zealots could be.

In the dim understreet facility, few members noticed the shift at first. Over time the volume and tone raised to project across the space of a broad common area used for training and staging. It was here that the majority began noticing his voice, a blend of reverent awe and vile disgust for his presence. 

His words cut through like a slow-burning fuse. 

“You had all sworn yourselves to the serpent, but have forgotten the purpose of its fangs.” 

The clatter of weapons being maintained, the drills froze, conversations halted. Heads turned in his direction. 

At the end of the hall where ceremonial fires once burned stood a figure cloaked in shadow. Hooded, but still familiar. 

Too familiar. 

He stepped forward at a deliberate pace, moving unbothered by the disdainful glares as if the space still belonged to him… and perhaps in his mind it did. 

“The Ouroboros wasn't meant to merely survive, but to evolve… to be reborn in the wake of its own self destruction. You continue to wear its symbol as a badge… but it has become your own leash.” 

Some stood. A few reached for weapons. Others watched in stunned silence as recognition dawned. Beneath the hood, there was no mistaking the face. The eyes. The voice.

John Striker, former head of the Ouroboros, exiled by his own followers. But he was not the man they remembered.

This one was colder. More composed. A priest of violence in a tailored black coat and high-collared gear that bore no logos, only a subtle, coiled insignia etched in silver on the chest: a variant of his triskelion tattoo with a flaming sword piercing it. He wasn’t armed, at least, not visibly, but no one in the room believed he needed to be.

A door slammed open on the upper balcony as another figure emerged.

Mamba. 

He marched down the steps into the common area, a glare full of venom as he descended and barked orders at the others to stand down. He stopped and stood at the final landing to maintain a literal and figurative higher position than his former superior, holding an imposing figure in full tactical gear. 

“Well, well, well… if it isn't the head of the snake that was cut off…” he growled. 

“You've got some damned nerve to come back here with everything you’ve done!” 

Striker did not react, only watched the approach with eyes half-lidded like a man in quiet prayer. 

“The power of the serpent was weakened by your lack of faith,” Striker said. 

“It must be bathed and cleansed by fire.” 

Mamba narrowed his eyes, looking his former leader up and down. 

“You got yourself a religion or something?” he asked, gesturing to Striker's garb. 

“What's all this about?” 

“Revival,” was Striker's short answer. 

“And I am the Minister by which it will be brought about… but one must surrender themselves to the fire to be cleansed.” 

Mamba shook his head. 

“You were never good at riddles and you definitely didn't get any better at them,” he said. 

“I'll give you five seconds to turn around and march your new little charade out the front door, or the back one… I don't care…” 

Striker's lips twitched with the start of a smile, but it didn't go beyond that. 

“You too can be saved, Tobias.” 

The use of his name, his birth name rather than his title in the organization, hit Mamba like a physical blow. For a moment something flickered across his face. Recognition. Memory. 

A hint of fear.

His voice dropped low in a warning. 

“Don't…” 

The word came out almost as a whisper, somehow with more menace than if he had shouted.

“Don't you dare.” 

Striker's gaze shifted, looking past Mamba and sweeping around the room. His voice took on the cadence of a sermon, addressing each person within the chamber. 

“Look around you, brothers and sisters. Look, and see what you have become under his leadership.” 

 He gestured broadly with wide sweeping motions. 

“Compromises. Deals with those you once hunted. The very symbol that once struck fear into the hearts of the weak, reduced to a gang tag with fancy equipment…” 

Murmurs rippled and echoed across the gathering. Some shifted uncomfortably in their places, others exchanged glances heavy with acknowledgment. 

“You know nothing!” Mamba snarled, though his tone came out in a way that was tangibly hollow and desperate. 

“More has been revealed to me than most would see in their lifetime,” Striker countered. 

He pointed at a different group with each item on an invisible list. 

“The protection rackets. The laundering. The drug running to the mainland… 

He pointed back to Mamba.

“The way our once great principles have been cheapened and sold off merely for the sake of survival.” 

He turned to a cluster of younger members near the training equipment and directed his attention toward one of them. 

“You joined us to fight against those who would dare stand in our way. Now you collect dues for them.”

The young man’s face paled, his weapon lowering slightly.

Striker cast his gaze on another face he recognized.

“And you. You swore to defend our own, yet you stood by while Tobias made a deal with the same people who were responsible for the death of your own sister.” 

The woman’s grip on her rifle loosened, uncertainty flickering on her features.

“Stop!” Mamba commanded, his voice cracking with authority that no longer felt absolute. 

“He is trying to divide us! Do not listen to this man!” 

Yet Striker continued, his voice growing in power and conviction. 

“I offer you something your current leader cannot: purpose. True purpose. Not the hollow shell of survival, but the fire and flame of rebirth.” 

He spread his arms wide, a gesture that was part crucifixion, part invitation, encompassing the entire room in his appeal. 

“Ouroboros was always meant to consume itself in the end to be reborn… but under his leadership, you have forgotten how to die… that some things are worth more than breathing.” 

His eyes blazed with growing fervor. 

“I have walked through the fire. I have tasted death. I have seen what we can become.” 

Around the room, weapons began to lower. Not all of them, but enough to show the impact of his words. 

Enough to matter. 

“I know what you dream in the dark hours,” Striker continued, his voice dropping into an intimate whisper that carried to every corner. “The world we promised to build. The justice to our own we swore to bring.” 

He paused. 

“The revolution that died with your compromises,” he finished, now staring directly at Mamba. 

“Shut up!” Mamba’s weapon was now fully drawn and aimed directly at Striker’s chest. 

“You don’t get to come back here and poison their minds with your fanatics just as you poisoned their bodies!” 

“Fanatics?” Striker’s laugh was almost gentle. 

“I am offering resurrection.” 

His voice sharpened. 

“You offer them death by a thousand cuts.”

He turned back to the room. "How many of you remember Rebecca?"

The name hit like a physical blow. Several members stiffened, old pain flickering across their faces.

"She believed in something worth dying for," Striker said, his voice heavy with reverence. 

"She knew that sometimes the serpent must bare its fangs. But your current leader... he chose survival over sacrifice. Compromise over conviction."

"You vile snake," Mamba breathed, his finger moving to the trigger.

But Striker wasn't finished. "She deserved a leader who would have died beside her rather than cut deals with her killers. She deserved the revolution we promised, not the hollow shell you've built on her grave."

The accusation hung in the air like poison gas. Around the room, members looked between their current leader and their former one, and something fundamental shifted in the balance of power.

"The choice is yours," Striker announced, his arms still spread wide. 

"Follow him into the slow decay of compromise, or follow me into the fire of rebirth. The Ouroboros will rise again. But first, it must truly die."

Several weapons were now pointed at the ground. Others wavered between targets.

Mamba's gun trembled; whether from rage or fear, no one could tell. 

"The only thing dying here today is you."

Striker smiled then, an expression so serene it was terrifying. 

"Then let the cleansing begin."

The shot echoed through the underground chamber like the first thunder of an approaching storm.

In the chaos that followed, screams, scrambling bodies, the clatter of weapons, smoke filled the air. When it cleared, both figures had vanished into the maze of shadows and stone.

But the blood on the floor belonged to someone.

And in the uncertain silence that followed, no one could be sure whose.