"NOOOOOOOO!" came the loud cry from the chamber. Suddenly, with a loud thud, the door broke open. Roberts and the others spun in shock to see Andre barrelling out. "You said that was breakout-proof, Paul...!" he berated the mortician.

"Hold it right...!" Bearer tried to stop Andre, but the Giant shoved him aside and rushed towards Roberts, who thrust the king cobra at him. His eyes wild, Andre seized the poisonous reptile by the tail, yanked it out of Roberts' hands, and flung it back into the coffin, slamming the lid shut. "You don't scare Elizabeth, you animal!" he roared at the Snake.

"And you don't throw stones at a man with a machine gun!" Roberts kicked at him, but Andre grabbed his leg in midair, picked him up, and slammed him down hard. "Stop him, stop him!" Roberts bellowed to Bearer and the Undertaker. The Deadman lunged at Andre, grabbing him around the throat. Andre hammered him with hard elbows in the chest, then ducked as Bearer swung an urn at him, hitting the Undertaker instead. "Oops, sorry," the mortician gulped, "I..."

With a roar, Andre lifted him up and flung him into the Undertaker, sending both of them toppling backwards into the cobraless coffin. Andre turned back to Roberts...

"All right, that's enough, big guy!" the Snake snarled, now with a rattlesnake in hand that he was holding dangerously close to Elizabeth's face, "You take one more step, and she's toast! I won't hesitate to...!"

In a flash, Savage kicked Roberts in a very painful place, making him drop the rattler. Andre rushed over, kicked the snake away, picked Roberts up and slammed him again. He then yanked the Savages' restraints open. "Go, get out of here!" the Macho Man pushed his wife towards the door. "All right, Snakeman!" he hauled Roberts to his feet, cold fury on his face, "Now it's MY turn!"

"Wait, let's talk this over...!" Roberts tried to beg his way out of the predicament.

"Talk this, you monster!" Savage kicked him hard in the chest. "Let him have it, Andre," he instructed the Giant.

"With pleasure, Macho," with a wide grin, Andre raised Roberts over his head and slammed him hard on top of the Undertaker and Bearer in the nearest coffin, making all three men groan hard. Savage slammed the lid down on them and held it down while gesturing for Andre to drag the heavy chamber door over. With a slight grimace, Andre threaded his way through the minefield of snakes now slithering all over the place, grabbed the door, and dropped it on top of the coffin, pinning the three men inside. "That should hold them good," he remarked firmly.

Indeed, Roberts was pushing hard against the lid, but couldn't raise it high at all to get out. "Let's see how you like being stuck in a closed space for a long time, yeah!" Savage taunted them. "Come on Andre, let's leave them in their own brew," he told the Giant, a look of gratitude on his face for saving Elizabeth and he, "Let's let the cops and animal control take it from here."

"Gladly, Macho," Andre, without looking at all the snakes around, followed Savage out of the room, paying no attention to Roberts' increasingly frantic cries behind them, "Hey, let me out of here, Savage; I can't stand the dark! Let me out, please...!"

"...now that the Giant has left wrestling for good, the time is right for me to take his place among the immortals!" a riled up Ultimate Warrior was screaming in a disinterested Hulk's face back in the locker room.

"He hasn't left for good, Warrior; he's just taking some time off as per Mr. Tunney's instructions," Hulk said wearily, "Now how many times do we have to tell you; you can't join us, OK?"

"You cannot deny me forever, Hogan!" the Warrior insisted grandly, ignoring Bret and Davey rolling their eyes in the corner, "You may protect the Giant, but his time has passed; the planets have aligned for my sun to rise, and I must take my place in the...!"

"What's this about my time being over?" Andre sounded upset as he pushed his way through the door. "Andre, good, you're back," Bret breathed a large sigh of relief. "See, Warrior, he's not going anywhere," he told the facepainted wrestler firmly, "So why don't you just move on and start your own clique?"

"You know he is old, his skills have diminished; he's on his last legs!" the Warrior insisted virilently, "And since your grouping is the most powerful, I must be part of it!"

"I'm washed up, huh?" insulted, Andre stepped towards the Warrior, "Well, why don't we put it to a test right now?"

"I will pass any test given to me," the Warrior insisted firmly.

"OK, then, buster," Savage pushed around Andre, "Pass this test. Face down what's inside this."

He shoved a bag at the Warrior. "That is nothing; I shall...!" the Warrior opened the bag-and screamed as a boa constrictor stuck its head out and hissed at him. He barrelled for the door in a flash. "Just like I thought, all hot air," the Macho Man chuckled. "Oh, Roberts wasn't gonna be using this one, so we figured we'd keep it for educational purposes," he told the rest of his teammates.

"Hold on...Andre, you're taking the snake pretty well," Davey noticed the Giant wasn't panicking at the sight of the boa-in fact, he seemed contented in its presence for a change.

"He's making such good progress already," a smiling Elizabeth entered the room, "And Randy and I owe him our lives."

"Oh do tell," Hulk grinned at his oversized colleague.

"Well, sort of," Andre blushed modestly. He related the events that had unfolded in the funeral parlor's basement. "Well, Andre, you should be proud of yourself," Bret commended him with a pat on the back, "When the going got tough, you faced down the fear, and that's a good first step to being stronger than it."

"You know, Hitman, these things aren't all that bad at all," Andre glanced down with relative calmness at the boa, "Nothing I'd like to have as a pet, but they sure aren't the devil. Especially if they aren't poisonous."

He dared to reach down and pick it up, and admired it in his palm. "Welcome back, Andre," Hulk smiled as he put an arm around the Giant, "It's good to have you back to normal again."

THE END