Limitless Evolution As a Snake

The car smells like leather and money, and I’m coiled up on the dad’s lap like some kind of expensive pet, watching the city lights blur past the window while an AI bot drives us god knows where. Lyra sits next to me, still in her police uniform, still not blinking properly, her eyes doing that thing where they keep drifting back to me every few seconds like she can’t help it.

My dad coughs into his hand, this big rough sound, and says, ”My son was missing for so long, I’m so happy he’s returned, and found a wife!”

[System: Hahaha wife, good stuff mate.]

Not helpful.

WIFE?? I say at the same time Lyra goes ”WIFE?!” and honestly the way our voices crash into each other would be beautiful if I wasn’t panicking a little bit.

Lyra freezes completely, head slowly turning toward me like she’s just noticed something she missed the first ten times.

”You can talk?” she says, voice flat with shock.

Uhh I say, doing my best snake shrug, which is just kind of tensing my whole body. Sort of, a little bit.

My dad laughs, hard and rough, the kind of laugh that shakes his whole chest, and doesn’t even look bothered that his son is a red clear serpent having a crisis in his car.

”It’s okay, my dear children,” he says, wiping his eye like he’s actually moved. ”I will take care of you. I am giving you one of my apartments, now go make me lots of grandbabies.” He coughs again, waves a hand like it’s nothing. ”I have work to do, some... fighting rings.”

And that’s it, that’s all the explanation I get.

The car pulls up outside a building so tall I can’t even see the top of it from the window, all glass and glowing edges, and one of his golem staff steps out to greet us like we’re royalty. It walks us up through a lobby that smells like fresh paint and rich people, into an apartment that’s bigger than any place I lived back when I was, you know, human and had a normal life. Then the golem bows and leaves without a word, and it’s just me and Lyra standing in the middle of all this space.

She’s still in her uniform, still super dazed. Just standing there like she’s waiting for someone to tell her this is a dream.

Uhh, I say, breaking the silence because someone has to. Erm, well, you get comfortable, and I’ll go have a shower and get this off me, and this is our home now.

She breathes out, slow, like she’s been holding it since the car. ”...Thank you,” she says, and turns toward the bedroom, but her eyes stay on me the whole way there, lingering, like she can’t quite make herself look anywhere else.

Once I’m safely slithered into the bathroom and the door’s shut behind me, Old Mate finally loses it.

[System: OH MY GOD. Love the apartment, mate. Could never get something like this on government assistance, and you got a wife! Congrats! You gonna consummate the marriage now or what?]

What the hell is even happening anymore? Honestly, whatever. I’ve decided I deserve this. I’ve got a hot dark elf wife waiting for me in the next room, apparently, so I might as well get cleaned up and stop smelling like fear sweat and cop blood.

Actually, forget the shower for a second.

Old mate, how much IP and EXP do I have?

[System: Rightio, old matey boy, let’s have a squiz.]

Indulgence Points (IP): 65

EXP: 8,500 / 10,000

[System: We could cash in thirty-five IP right now for fifteen hundred EXP; that’d shove you straight into your evolution bonus, and then we go up, up, up in the world. Leaves you with thirty IP after, still plenty to spend on skills.]

Wait, didn’t you say there’s a two-day cooldown on skills?

[System: Yeah, about that. System’s a bit broken, mate. Bit of a screw loose. Spilled beer on it the other day, so it’s only a one-day cooldown now.]

That would’ve been good to know a bit earlier.

Letting my head thunk gently against the bathroom tile.

[System: Ah well. Anyway. Let’s look at them evolutions first, yeah?]

Yeah, fine, whatever. Let’s do it.

[System: Righto, young lad.]

IP: 30

EXP: 0 / 20,000

God, that’s a lot.

[System: Yeah well, you’re Rank D now.]

Three little screens pop up in front of my face, hanging there in the steam like some kind of menu at the world’s weirdest food truck.

[System Notice: EVOLUTION OPTION 1]

[Rank D: The Rainbow Serpent]

A little preview window shimmers to life, and it’s me, except not me, this long noodle body shifting through every colour like someone stuck a prism inside a snake and called it a day. Scales going red to orange to green to blue in slow waves, bright enough that it actually hurts a bit just to look at.

Evolution Skill: [Billabong Deluge]

Spit acid water that dissolves cover, smells like a eucalyptus candle got into a bar fight.

Skill: [Dreamtime Stride]

Glide over mud, oil, sewer sludge like it’s all just glass-smooth water.

[System: The Rainbow Serpent?! You’d be a proper Aussie icon! Roll up to the billabong, summon a flash flood, blokes’d build shrines to ya! Reckon you’d look like a walking disco ball, but mate... the sheer cultural prestige.]

I stare at the shimmering rainbow noodle version of myself for a solid three seconds.

Old Mate. I am not going to be a disco ball that smells like a cleaning product, plus what the fuck is a billabong?

[System: Bloody colonisers, your loss, on to the next one then.]

The screen flickers, and a new preview slides into place.

[System Notice: EVOLUTION OPTION 2]

[Rank D: The Garden of Eden Tempter]

This one’s got some style to it at least, deep polished red scales with gold trim running down my back like something out of a luxury car ad, and floating just above my head there’s this tiny, stupid little halo, flickering like a bad lightbulb.