The cobra is blind. It must be to strike out the way it does. Relentlessly. Constantly.

Foolishly.

It thinks its momentary successes have no repercussions it will have to face later. It strikes without adjusting to the contours and movements of its enemy.

It sees not the sharpness of the teeth in the rat's mouth.

Neither does it seem to feel the rat's claws digging into his skin.

Not does it slow to prevent its teeth from breaking and venom from sliding off the back of the 'rat'...

The cobra feels jaws dig into its throat, it feels a fountain of red run down its scales. Then, it stops feeling anything.

It's uncommon for a rat to slay a cobra. Perhaps even a rarity.

But the cobra was too stupid, too green… to consider an alternative possibility.

That the furry creature it attempted to prey upon.

Was in fact a mongoose.

While similar in some physical ways to its biological cousin the rat, it's a scientific certainty that a mongoose will swallow a cobra whole. A cobra is designed to kill anything but mongooses. A mongoose is designed to kill cobras. Will to win, work ethic, desire, doesn't come into play anymore than it does when, say, a man on a crosswalk goes up against a car running a red light.

The latter kills the former. Save a miracle, this is how the story goes.

The mongoose has been bred by evolution to feed on cobras. A species designed to devour an animal considered the perfect killer.

Mongoose to Cobra.

Flynn to Rookies.

On some level, it’s an impersonal, food chain, circle of life deal.

On another, it’s the most personal anything in this world could possibly be. How truly close, how incredibly close, is the relationship…

Between a predator and his meal?

And as the former XWF superstar sits at the bottom of the ocean, cast into the sea and forgotten. As he feels darkness and hatred fill his lungs, the absence of light now only illuminating his path…

He doesn't consider the road he must travel to get back on course with the XWF.

He doesn't for a moment evaluate the contract or belt that might no longer be his.

His only inkling…

Is a thirst, the dryness in his mouth…

The hunger for the most delectable meal he can imagine.

The throat of a cobra.

Like the primordial ooze that brought life and death to this world…

The mongoose rises from the sea.

Back to its home on the surface…