Limitless Evolution As a Snake

Except my brain is screaming at me. I think hard enough that it probably registers as a shout.

Old mate, System, what the fuck is happening to me?

[System: Gday ya bloody drongo. Nice of you to join us.]

Not helpful. My brain is doing the thing. The tingling thing. Like, I need to go somewhere, but I don’t know where.

[System: Well, go attempt to follow it, you fuckwit.]

I slide off the dumpster lid and hit the ground with a soft thwap, belly dragging slightly. The alley’s dark and the air smells like old fryer oil and wet concrete. Somewhere above me, Twawi’s neon glow bleeds between the buildings in streaks of pink and blue, and the pipes running along the walls are slick with condensation, dripping steady little taps onto the asphalt.

Perfect.

I find the nearest drainpipe, rusted iron, bolted to the brick and start climbing, well, twisting and clinging. My scales grip the wet metal like it was made for me, and within seconds I’m inside the pipe network, sliding through darkness that smells like copper and standing water. The pipes branch and split and branch again, and I follow the drips downward, feeling the temperature shift as I descend through layers of Twawi’s underbelly.

Another alley. Another intersection. I’m following the trail without really meaning to, my tongue doing the navigation while my brain catches up. The scent is getting stronger, layered now with something else: sweat, adrenaline, the particular musk of fear that my serpent brain reads like a flashing sign.

Then I hear voices. Deep. Rumbling. Two of them, maybe three, talking in the low, measured tones of people who aren’t asking questions.

I slide along a drainage channel cut into the alley wall, using the shallow water to mask my movement. The voices are coming from around the next corner, and the ozone smell is so thick here I can practically see it, crackling in the air like static before a storm.

I round the corner and slither to a stop.

The alley dead-ends about thirty feet ahead, sealed off by a rusted emergency door that hasn’t opened in decades. And backed against that door, pressed flat against the metal with nowhere left to go, is a dark elf.

She’s tall, with white hair loose and tangled, fanning out against the rusted door. Tanned skin, not city-pale, real tan, outdoor tan. She’s got a police uniform on but wearing it wrong somehow, jacket open over what looks like her own shirt, badge sitting crooked. Her bow is up: same style I saw on the dark elf before, same recurve silhouette. The hand on the string isn’t steady.

But it’s her face that hits me; it’s the dark elf from before. It doesn’t matter. What matters is the two men surrounding her.

Big isn’t the word. Big is a tall guy at a bar. These two are something else, the kind of something else that makes the alley feel like it got smaller. Seven feet if they’re an inch, and built like a bad idea. Golem-kin. The skin is grey and thick and wrong, seamed at every joint like something assembled in a hurry. Where a face should be, there are just two dark pits and a slot. That’s it. They’ve got matching jackets, a corporate logo on the chest, and they are in absolutely no rush whatsoever.

One of them steps forward. The dark elf’s hand tightens, the shimmer between her fingers brightening green arrow, and she says something I can’t hear her voice too quiet, swallowed by the alley’s acoustics.

The golem doesn’t stop.

I don’t decide to move. I just go. Up the wall, scales catching in the gaps between bricks, and I’m not thinking about anything except getting up there, getting above it, getting to her. I find the fire escape, get under the grating, and stop.

She’s right below me. I can see the top of her white hair and the way her shoulders are doing that locked-up thing, like she’s trying to make herself a smaller target. Her eyes keep cutting left and right, and there’s nothing there, no exit, no gap. They’ve split apart now, one golem on each side of her, taking their time, because why wouldn’t they?

She’s mine to help. I don’t know where that comes from. I don’t know her. Doesn’t matter. She’s mine.

One of them reaches for her.

She brings the bow up in a fast, fluid motion and lets an arrow fly. It hits the golem square in the chest with a dull thonk. The arrowhead skitters off his thick hide, barely leaving a scratch. The golem looks down at the broken arrow now dangling from its jacket, then back at her. The other one draws a long, serrated knife from its belt and takes a step forward.

Oh, you absolute pieces of shit.

It’s not heroism. I want to be clear about that. I don’t do heroism. I’m a clear, venomous spaghetti of scale and bad decisions, and I have never once in my new life done something noble.

But those things have their hands near her, and every single cell in my stupid reptile body is telling me she’s mine. Not theirs. Mine. I don’t know where it comes from. I don’t know her name. I know nothing about her except that something ancient and unreasoning in me has drawn a line in this alley, and they are on the wrong side of it, and I will take them apart, and I will not think about it again.

Old Mate.

[System: Yeah, cunt?]

IP points. Skills. All of it. Right now.

The overlay materialises in my vision, floating above the alley like a heads-up display from a game I never asked to play:

INDULGENCE SYSTEM

STATUS PANEL

Name: Matthew Vane (Matt)

Current Form: [The Glass Phantom Snake]

Rank: E

Indulgence Points (IP): 5

Current Skills: 3

EXP: 500 / 10,000xp

Current skills:

[Legless But Fast (Rank E)]: A genuinely good skill. Gives you a 300% explosive speed burst for two seconds. Perfect for biting something or running away like a bitch.

[Thermal Camouflage (Rank F)] Temporarily dampens your biological heat signature, matching your core temperature to the surrounding stone for 60 seconds. Cooldown: 5 minutes.

[Blood Venom (Rank D)] (TRULY OP)

makes all the blood in something turn into air. Just, like, immediately. All of it, poof, dead.

Note: Highly lethal.

Cooldown: 24 Hours. (10 hours remaining)