Legends of Ninjago: Book 3: The Four Fangs: Chapter 34 — The Impossible Fight

Denial is a funny thing. Almost imperceptible if you’re not looking for it, but it can warp how you perceive all of reality. In this particular moment, the ninja were feeling a certain type of denial despite the fact that it was clear as day that they had lost.

No, it couldn’t be the Great Devourer.

She couldn’t be free.

There must be some other explanation.

A dream, a hallucination, a different snake altogether maybe?

Sadly, no. The longer that gigantic snake reared its ugly, dark-green head and flared its monstrous frills and slimy pink tongue, the quicker the ninja began to fully grasp the situation. Wu, however, had made his peace with this ever since Ann’s vision. True, he hadn’t known for sure if these events would come to pass, but knowing they were likely to happen was a fact he hsd accepted.

And now there was only one thing left to do.

“IT IS TIME!!!” Pythor cried into the wind, grinning in a very unsettling way. “LET THE GREAT PURGE BEGIN!!! AHAHAHAHAHA!!!”

In that moment, however, the Great Devourer began to slowly turn her gargantuan head toward the sound of his obnoxious voice.

"MIGHTY ANGUIS! FEAST UPON ALL OF NINJAGO!" he continued, oblivious to the hungry way she was eyeing him.

Everyone gathered around the plaza watched as Anguis began to coil herself up ever so slightly, and arc her neck. By the time Wu was ducking for cover, the Great Devourer's gigantic mouth was falling like a stone, jaw wide and throat exposed like a black cave entrance. In those final moments, Pythor seemed to have accepted his fate, and closed his eyes, arms still outstretched, welcoming his death with a deranged smile.

Anguis swallowed him whole.

More than Pythor, her jaw clamped down on the stone he was standing on and wrenched it from the ground, forcing it down in a disgusting display of gluttony. You could actually see the bulge of it pass down her endlessly long neck and down into her dark stomach below.

At once, a powerful paranoia and fear struck the crowd—ninja and Serpentine alike. The urge to run, the urge to hide, the urge to fight, all twisted up in one great yet terrible trembling. Within seconds, the streets of Ouroboros were filled with the screams of the Serpentine, retreating tails, and dust, drifting into the wind. Only the ninja remained.

"Come on, don't just stand there!" said Kai impatiently. "We need to stop that thing!"

"Where's Zane?" Cole blurted, looking around. Now that they all thought about it, he was mysteriously absent.

"I'm right here," said Zane. Ann turned around, finding him walking up to the group, Golden Daggers in hand, an unreadable expression on his face. She would have asked him where he was, if not for the ear splitting roar that Anguis was currently unleashing.

"Let's move!" Kai shouted, rushing forward already. The others could only follow, beginning to formulate their battle strategy on the way. Ann figured that the boys would have the best chance of striking deadly blows, so she and Keaton would watch their backs, snatching them out of the jaws of death if need be, or distracting Anguis. But only a handful of yards into their sprint—

"OW!"

Kai, Jay, Cole, and all the rest had run into another pale golden wall. After Ann's eyes readjusted and her head stopped stinging so much, she squinted to see Wu, still on the other side of the plaza, holding up a hand to them.

"NO!!!" he was shouting, looking gravely serious. "RUN!!! GET BACK TO THE SHIP AND FLEE TO THE WESTERN ISLANDS!!! THAT'S AN ORDER!!!"

Ann felt her body tensing, like it was a pipe or a hose, filling with so much water that it wanted to burst. She didn’t care if it was his job to protect them. She didn’t care if the odds were stacked against them. All she could think of was her vision, and the sight of Wu, lost behind the jaws of the Devourer.

And she wasn’t having it.

She swung her hands and water shot forward, attacking the golden wall. She would break through if she had to. Wu wasn’t going to die today.

Unfortunately, nothing she did seemed to make a difference. No cracks or dents had formed,and Wu didn’t even seem bothered by it as he stood before the raging form of Anguis. He was waiting for her to move, Ann recognised the fighting style, and her heart skipped a beat when the snake bent low for another bite. Then—

CRACK!!!

Wu had struck with such power that it made Ann’s own bones rattle. Anguis reeled back, yowling in pain, as one of her fangs was sent flying clear across the plaza, oozing bright green venom all the while. It sizzled when it made contact with the open air, and it seemed to be dissolving the stone beneath it as though it was acid.

Anguis pulled up more of herself from the depths of her tomb, and the more she did, the more Ann felt her legs actually becoming weak. She was like a bulbous spool of rope that seemed to have no end, able to cover much of this very desert if she laid out perfectly straight, with her widest part—her stomach—easily twice as thick as her head. She could crush a heard of elephants and not feel a thing.

Again, Anguis struck, and again Wu managed to strike, aiming for her eyes, her tongue—anything that could be considered a weak spot. He created for himself a katana, irritating gases, explosives, and a whole number of things that could give him a leg up on the monster, but time and time again it seemed as though he was merely annoying her, his cuts and stabs like mosquito bites along her scaly face.

Ann started to move. She was running the length of the see-through wall, searching for its end. The other ninja were right behind her, having apparently as little desire to follow Wu’s order as Ann had. However, the farther they ran, the more it seemed like the wall was following them. There was no end of it in sight! Ann kept pounding it with her fist, waiting for that moment when it hit nothing but air, but now they were halfway to Wu's side of the plaza, and still there was hard wall.

Ann gritted her teeth. With a whip of her arms, she materialised a vortex of water beneath her, one that would carry her above the blasted thing. She could hear the others trying to copy her, to varying degrees of success. Keaton, naturally, could propel herself up a decent ways, but without wings, it would be taxing. Cole or Zane could easily make a platform rise up, but Kai and Jay would have to rely on the others unless they felt like burning their own clothes off trying to blast themselves upward.

At this point, however, Ann was well ahead of them, and in the unique position of finally catching a glimpse of the top of the wall. It really was moving, she realised, trying to keep her from reaching it. Was Wu doing this? How could he be so focused on this while striking Anguis in the eyes? The rational part of her brain was screaming: stop distracting Wu! The other was trying to muffle the distracting noise.

She commanded her water to take her higher, up so fast that her hair was whipped straight back. Painfully slowly, she caught up to the top of the wall, and reached out her hand to grab the edge. Wu wasn't going to shut her out! She was going to fight beside him! She was going to make sure he survived!

Rough fingers dug into strange "hardened air" that almost didn't feel real, but it was something. Ann used the speed of it and her water to propel herself up and over, and once she had cleared it to the other side, she began flying downward. Using the almost levitational power she had over water to slow her decent, she beelined it for Wu as he struck the inside of Anguis' mouth for a second time, making her jerk back and knock down the giant snake statue—the Fang Blades scattering to the ground, forgotten. In the chaos of the dust and the wind, Wu didn’t even notice Ann fast approaching.

Anguis was moving in again, her eyes wide and pupils slitted with anger. She was attempting exhaust Wu by striking again and again, and by this point, his chest was throbbing from the pain of breathing so hard. That’s why, when Anguis came in to attack again, his movements were sluggish. His reaction dulled. The odds of her one remaining fang piercing him: uncomfortably high. That’s why Ann stepped in.

Her wave of water was almost equal in size to Anguis’ head, and it hit with such force that it sent the creature rolling back, slamming into the crumbled ruins. It came at a cost, however. Something had most definitely ruptured within herself, as if large chunks of Ann’s body were suffering from a sprain. The pain shot through her, touching her fingers and making them curl, but she bit back the urge to yell, and focused on Wu instead.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” he was yelling at her, coming over in a great rage, only to put his hand to her head, clutching her in an odd mixture of furious fear for his surrogate daughter. “I refuse to watch you throw your life away for me! Think of your sister, if nothing else!”

“WHY DON’T YOU THINK OF ME?!” she retorted, eyes feeling wet, and cheeks feeling hot. “I DON’T WANT TO LOSE ANYONE ELSE! Least of all you.”

A moment dragged out for an eternity. Two souls locked in a remembrance of years past, and of times spent together. One moment. Just the one. But it meant more than the entire previous year. At least, it did to Ann. She hoped it did to Wu, too.

Then it ended with the sound of Kai’s voice.

“LOOK OUT!!!”

He and the others were running toward the, but they were still out of reach. Kai was warning them about Anguis’ next strike, and by the time Ann looked up, that enormous black hole at the back of Anguis’ mouth was right above her.

Wu slammed himself into her.

Ann rolled and rolled and rolled.

She caught herself and sat up, body aching but ready to attack at a moment’s notice.

She looked up. There was Wu, rising into the air, his foot caught in Anguis’ mouth. He kept rising and rising and rising and Anguis threw her head up, up, up, until at last she let go, and Wu flew upward. He hung for a moment, right above her, looking down at them all. Looking at Ann. She had to squint, but she saw him smiling, tears spilling down his cheeks. All other sights or sounds did not exist.

“Go, ninja… go,” he said.

Then, the sky lit up with a gold so bright that almost hurt as much as the sun. In a moment, a gigantic glowing spear had appeared, and as Wu began to drop, he rammed the thing down Anguis’ throat, causing her to scream and writhe! Ann to cover her ears, the sound was so horrible! Finally, the beast collapsed onto the ground, her head alone causing an earthquake that made Ann bounce like she was on a trampoline, and when the dust began to settle, there was silence.

“Is it over?” asked Jay. “Is it dead?”

Ann couldn’t answer. She was still waiting for a sign of life from Wu. He was inside of that thing. Would he come crawling out of its mouth? Slice his way out of her stomach, maybe? He had to. He had to be alive.

But with every second that passed, and still Wu did not appear, her fears began to bubble up until they were unignorable.

She ran toward it. The others called to her, urging her to stop, and not to get too close until they knew that Anguis was dead, but she didn’t care. She would finish her if she had to, and then cut Wu out herself. She already had a tendril of water summoned and at the ready, waiting for that moment when she would be close enough to strike, when the first signs of movement twitched along Anguis’ body. The snake was waking up, slowly beginning to coil itself together. In spite of that, Ann refused to stop running.

She let out a great cry of effort as she swung an enormous water scythe around, aiming to slice the beast’s belly open with the tip, and rip it across its torso, but when the two met, no such thing happened. The water slid across the metal-like scales, scraping but not cutting, and leaving only the vaguest of imprints in its wake. When Ann was done and breathing heavy, she came to realise how pointless all that effort had been in a horrific moment of anger and hot tears.

Anguis was turning her eyes on her now. Her giant, glowing red eyes; wide and hungry for more. Wu’s attack had only managed to slow her down for a moment, and like an idiot she had wasted that moment trying to save her mentor when he had told her to escape. But she didn’t care. She wasn’t going to let Wu die. Maybe, if she couldn’t pierce the scales, she could go in after him instead.

“ANN!!!” Keaton was yelling behind her, seeing Anguis’ about to strike.

Ann strengthened her stance, balled her fists, and glared into the soulless slits of death and devouring, prepared to do the unthinkable… when the ground suddenly gave out beneath her.

“AH!!” she yelped, as she fell down several feet, and Anguis’ face rammed into the ground above, unable to sink her fangs into Ann while so much stone separated them. Clouds of dust and pebbles still rained down on Ann, however, choking the air as Anguis tried with all her might to get deeper. Her disgusting pink tongue was already out and searching for her, when a hand touched Ann’s wrist.

“Come on!” Lloyd yelled in her ear, dragging her along a dark tunnel.

While she was coughing up half her stomach, Ann couldn’t protest, but the moment that she and Lloyd found all the other ninja in the tunnel—just as dirty and discombobulated as she was—she finally spoke.

“Lloyd—you were supposed to stay on the ship!”

“You’re welcome!” he bit back.

“Where’s Garmadon?” Kai demanded to know.

Lloyd swallowed and his eyes hardened. “He left.”

The tunnel suddenly shook, and everyone silently agreed that any anger or frustration for the old warlord would have to be postponed. For the moment, only one thing mattered.

“RUN!” Lloyd yelled, pushing them all along.

Anguis was sniffing them out with her tongue, and ramming her face and jaw into the ground until it broke apart over top of them. All they could do was try to out-pace her, and escape to a deeper part of these caves—perhaps even back down into the depths underneath the city.

“How did you even get here?” asked Keaton as they went.

“The Serpentine have tunnels all over Ninjago. It sure beats hiking in the snow,” he answered, disintegrating a rock that threatened to fall on top of him. “I see all of you have the situation perfectly under control.”

“Lloyd—you’re uncle is inside of that thing!” Ann cried out, halting the group at once. Lloyd turned back to look at her, very clearly alarmed, but he was frozen as far as deciding what he wanted to do about it.

“We can’t go back,” said Kai suddenly, and he threw a stern look at Ann.

“But what about Wu?” asked Cole.

“What about him? We all saw what happened!” said Jay, a hitch hiding in his frantic voice. “What can we possibly do? Ann’s water scythe barely scratched it!”

The ground shook again.

“It’s gotta have a weakness,” said Keaton.

“If it did, don’t you think Wu would have already exploited it?” asked Kai. “The whole point of finding the Fang Blades was to prevent all this from happening, because Anguis can’t be defeated!”

Silence and dust.

Ann observed them all—haggard, dirty, scared, lost—and for the first time in years, she felt her lip beginning to quiver. What were they supposed to do? Was this truly the end? Had they failed?

“Well—what if we suffocated her?” asked Keaton. “If Ann drowned her, then she couldn’t possibly survive, right? She’s still an animal at the end of the day.”

“The only problem is facilitating a scenario like that,” said Zane, finally speaking up. he sounded the most hollow and the most despondent of them all. “Anguis is strong enough to rear her head and break away from any water attack, and how could we lure her to a lake or the ocean? How could we keep her head down when we don’t have the strength?”

“Well, we don’t know for sure…” Keaton tried to say, but no one was really listening.

“Why doesn’t Lloyd just use his powers?” Nya asked.

“Because if Uncle Wu’s inside her stomach, then he’ll get destroyed right along with her,” he replied darkly.

Cole suddenly turned and punched the wall with one fist, cracking it and making the tunnel shudder; the first shudder they had felt in a few moments. Perhaps Anguis was already moving on above them.

Ann watched as Cole leaned heavily against the wall, his jaw clenched and breath uneven. Kai’s eyes were red from dust and exhaustion, and his fists were tight. Keaton looked scared. Jay and Nya were in shock. Lloyd was staring off into space, and Zane… he had no expression at all. As if the humanity had been drained from him.

“So what do we do?” asked Keaton in a small voice.

“Are we going to the Western Islands?” asked Jay next.

Cole was still holding the Scythe of Quakes, and now he brought it up to his face to look at it. Ann could already guess as to what he was thinking, and she was all too happy to support the plan.

“Ann,” he started, looking at her, “what happens when all four Golden Weapons are united? The last time we made them touch, there was an energy surge or something—do you all remember?” They nodded.

“The only person who ever used the Golden Weapons together was the First Spinjitsu Master. Ever since, anyone who attempts it has been banished to the Underworld,” Ann explained.

“I’m not talking about using them together, I mean, what if they were physically united? What would happen?”

Ann had to think it over for a moment. “Their energies are incredible on their own… the metal used to forge them, and how they were forced, were all designed to hold a specific amount of power—uniting them would stack that power, times four, and it would spill over. Any number of things could potentially happen, from forming a new Ninjago, like the First Spinjitsu Master did, or… destroying everything in a wild burst of uncontrolled energy.”

“But could it defeat Anguis?” Cole pressed.

“She’d have to be immortal to survive something like that.”

“Don’t tell me we’re actually going up against that thing!” Jay blurted. “Didn’t you see the way it ate Wu? If he can’t stop it, what can we possibly do?!”

“Wu didn’t have the Golden Weapons!” Cole said hotly. “And if we turn and run away, weapons in hand, we are forfeiting the lives of everyone in this country! Do you realise that?” They all became very quiet. “We are ALL that stands between humanity and total annihilation. We have to fight. I say we HAVE to fight! Besides, what kind of a life could we even hope to live on our own while everyone else is dead?”

Jay’s head hung a little lower, and his grip on his nunchucks tightened.

“We are going to avenge Sensei Wu,” Cole continued, nodding at Ann, who nodded back, her chest and eyes and mouth feeling tight. “We are going to stop Anguis. And we are going to save Ninjago, even if we have to do it alone.”

Kai’s sword suddenly swelled with light and the cave felt hot. Nya was gripping his shozoku beside him.

“Our top priority is keeping her away from any populated areas, and delivering the final blow as quickly as possible. Ann, Keaton, Lloyd, we’re depending on you to help make that opening for us.”

“What can I do?” asked Nya, her expression more resolute than Ann had ever seen it before when talking about a battle.

“Do you know where the Serpentine took our jetpacks?” he asked. Nya nodded. “Then take one and fly to the nearest town and warn them. Tell people to evacuate to basements, bomb shelters, and any other places they can think of.”

“And what if they don’t believe me?” Nya pressed, her usual fearful tone starting to bleed through.

“Then tell them something they will believe. A storm, an incoming tornado—anything. Just do what you can. If you can convince the police or the news networks, even better.”

“Okay. I’ll try.”

“Alright, ninjas…” said Cole, lighting up his Golden Weapon. “Let’s go.”

Ann couldn’t help but feel a quiet shiver of goosebumps when she heard Cole talk like that. He sounded so sure and so brave. She’d be lying if she said there wasn’t a small part of herself that wished she had been the one to say it… the one to be emotionally together enough to rally the others… but the truth was that, in that particular moment, all she could think about was Wu. Any semblance of a plan, any coherent leading of a team, barely seemed to matter more than running after that giant snake. She hated to admit it… but perhaps this was another reason why Wu had selected Cole to replace her. What if he knew that something like this might happen, and that she would become emotionally compromised? What if he knew that Cole would be able to pull himself together faster under this kind of pressure? She wouldn’t be able to ask him until she rescued him… so she put the full force of her energy into her legs and ran with the rest of her teammates, through the tunnels, out to the surface, parting ways with Nya, and then spotted Anguis a short distance away, already slithering away from Ouroboros and toward some unsuspecting part of Ninjago.

“How do we catch up to it?” asked Kai, looking antsy already.

Ann knew a way. “Lloyd,” she said, “make a plane.”

“I can’t make something that big!” he exclaimed, looking offended by the very idea of it.

“Why not?!” said Jay.

“Why don’t you make a plane?!” Lloyd shot back.

“We don’t have for this…” Cole said, but then drifted off near the end as his attention was being drawn down to his scythe. He took it in both hands and stared at it a moment while its glow began to pulsate. It almost looked like it was trying to tell him something.

Kai’s sword suddenly began pulsating as well, then Jay’s nunchucks, and Zane’s daggers.

“What’s going on?” said Lloyd, staring at them all.

“Follow me,” was all Cole said in reply before he swung his scythe forward, and then suddenly it glowed and he was just surrounded by dirt and rocks and rubble and flying forward!

Kai glanced down at his sword one last time, then said, “Alright!” and immediately followed suit, taking off in the form of a fireball!

“Wait up!” Jay called, swinging his nunchucks up and bursting into a bolt of lightning, shooting across the sky like a beam of electricity.

Zane was last, and said nothing, but he too used his weapon to take flight in a blur of white ice.

“That just leaves us,” said Ann, still glaring at the giant snake far ahead. “Hang on!” Using her powers for transportation was difficult enough when it was just herself, but for three people it felt embarrassingly slow, especially compared to the boys right at that very moment. She had to concentrate to make sure that water was compacted enough for them to stand on, and then make them move forward, manoeuvring around any tall ruins and forcing them upward, against gravity. Thank goodness Keaton was with her. She made sure that the wind was at their backs, pushing them forward, making Ann’s job a little bit easier. The only person not contributing much to the experience was Lloyd, who Ann felt the need to hold on to, or else he might fall from their flying water jet. At least he wasn’t complaining, as she feared he might. Actually, he was rather collected in that moment, far more than Ann had seen him in… years, if that. Had she ever truly seen him this collected and serious? And for a good cause? What had even brought him here to begin with?

There wasn’t much time to ruminate on that. Anguis was dead ahead, traveling North.

The boys reached her first, with Cole raising up an entire sand dune in front of her, like the ocean waves that had threatened to swallow them when they were caught in that storm at sea. Unfortunately, sand is nothing much to a burrowing creature like Anguis. Before it collapsed on her, she was already digging her way through it, and emerging on the other side.

The other side, however, was where Kai was waiting. The shockwave of flames that exploded from his sword was unlike anything Ann had ever seen! She could feel the air around her vibrate from the sheer force of it, like an earthquake for the senses. This, however, seemed only to drive Anguis back underground. It was unclear whether or not the heat had done any real damage.

Before long, Anguis showed her ugly face again, this time breaching the sand as if she were a whale, and aiming her open jaws at Jay as he flew over. She very nearly had him in her mouth, but that’s when he called down the biggest lightning bolt that ever ripped across Ninjago’s skies, and shot it clear down her gullet! Ann could have sworn that, for a moment, she had seen her skeleton, illuminated from the inside.

She fell down to the ground, slowly, heavily, one gigantic portion of her at a time, but right when it looked like the fight was already over, and Zane was coming around to freeze her in place, she was already waving her tail around to smack Zane out of the sky. He must not have seen it coming, and it looked like the fall would hurt pretty badly, but perhaps the Golden Weapons could soften the blow? They certainly seemed to be full of many other surprises.

It was time for Anguis to retaliate. She let out another of her spine-chilling roars and from her mouth, acid rain began to spew. It was glowing green, and was spraying from her fangs in thick, hot gobs, and all the boys had to duck for cover from it.

“Anguis’ venom,” Lloyd remarked when he saw it, and Ann remembered the stories she had been told as a child. It was the essence of pure evil—hot and rotting and burning. One touch could either kill you, or turn you into whatever Garmadon had become.

Ann threw up a water shield to protect them from any spray that blew their way, but when any drop hit the water, that spot would dissolve into steam and Ann would be forced to fix it. The mental stress of such minute detail-work, on top of keeping them flying, was beginning to strain her mind to the point of producing a ravaging headache. She was beyond glad to have caught up to Anguis now, and wasted no time in forming her attack.

She flung herself, and Keaton, and Lloyd high into the air, so that they could see Anguis’ fangs, and then she shouted, “KEATON! NOW!”

Their powers combining in one swift blow turned their otherwise basic attacks into a storming whirlwind of water and air that shot across Anguis’ mouth, washing away the venom, and knocking her sideways.

Falling came next, and Ann didn’t have the strength to make them fly again.

Instead, she grabbed Keaton’s hand, then reached for Lloyd’s shirt collar, and they pivoted mid-air until they were sliding down Anguis’ spine. Ann smoothed out their path with a small amount of water, but it could only do so much to soften the bumpy scales beneath their feet as they continued to fall.

Her body went down to the ground, and then bunched up, coiling in gigantic circles. It would serve as a decent landing pad of sorts, but what would be their next move?

Ann already had her head turned around, looking back at Anguis, who was glaring and beginning to spew more venom. That’s when Ann decided to take decisive action.

“LLOYD! ISOLATE IT TO THE FANGS!” she shouted over the wind, and together, she and Keaton launched an unsuspecting Lloyd into the air, flying at Anguis’ face, with only a few seconds to collect himself and light up his left hand with dark energy. When the giant snake opened her mouth to take a bite, he landed a single finger on each of her two teeth, and in the blink of an eye, they turned into black dust.

This angered Anguis.

While Cole worked to catch Lloyd, Kai was trying to throw an entire firestorm at her, but so long as she held her mouth open, the flames did not effect her. Eventually, she managed to push through his flames so quickly that Kai was forced to retreat.

Next, Zane tried throwing large icicles at her, but she either caught them in her mouth and crushed them to pieces, or swallowed them whole.

Cole tried a similar approach, but was met with similar results.

“Is it just me, or is she getting bigger?” Keaton asked as the sisters held on to Anguis’ scales, near the end of her tail.

It was true, she seemed to somehow be gaining mass, and it took Ann one moment to realise that everything the boys threw at her was actually feeding her!

“Keaton, give me another boost!” said Ann, taking up another stance. Keaton did as she was asked, blasting them along Anguis’ body as if it were the most twisted rollercoaster ride in existence. “Keep going!” Ann would say whenever Keaton’s wind lessened. “Keep going!” She didn’t tell her to stop until they had ascended all the way up her neck, and had flown up into the air. That’s when Ann summoned a large orb of water, and with gravity helping her out, she forced it to collide with the top of Anguis’ head, bringing her down, down, down. It also served as the perfect diving spot when Ann and Keaton inevitably came down with her.

They tumbled onto the sand beside the disoriented snake, sopping wet and collecting dirt, but with enough energy to look up at the boys and say,

“DO IT NOW!”

They flew together.

Their light became blinding.

Anguis looked almost afraid.

The air itself felt like it was different somehow, like there was a kind of electricity running through it, making the hair on the back of Ann’s neck stand on end.

For that one moment, she truly believed that the fight could very well be over.

And then the light disappeared.