Limitless Evolution As a Snake

”P-please,” she stammers, and her wrinkled hands are already yanking off her rings, ”take it, take all of it, please just don’t hurt me.”

She doesn’t even finish the sentence. She just starts throwing things at me. Her coin purse smacks off my scales. Then the rings, plink plink plink, bounce across my scales like she’s feeding a slot machine.

Then, and I cannot stress this enough, she tips her entire vat of soup toward me like an offering to an angry god.

Hot broth splashes across my tail. It stings a little, not gonna lie, but I’m too busy trying to restart my brain to care.

I did not ask for the soup; I did not want the soup. I wanted five grand and a moment of mutual understanding.

”No, no,” I try to say, except my mouth is already producing that same horrible baritone, thundering frequency, and it just makes things worse. ”You don’t have to do that.”

Behind her, other vendors are hearing that voice bounce around the stalls and clearly deciding that I am some kind of one-snake apocalypse event. Someone starts screaming about a hostile takeover. Someone else just starts hurling coin bags at my tail like they’re trying to buy their way out of a burning building.

[System: Mate. Mate, you’re doing a whole liquidation event by accident. This is beautiful, I’m framing this.]

Not helping, Old Mate!

[System: Never said I was helping. Just narrating the trainwreck, mate. Front row seat, haha, can’t park there!]

I try to fix it, and honestly that’s my next mistake.

”No, no, keep your rings!” I blurt, whipping my head from side to side like that’ll calm anyone down. ”I’ll just take ten per cent and, uh, handle your local pest problem!”

A dead, ringing silence falls, and the vibrations through the floorboards cease. Then the whole market erupts into a fresh wave of panicked heat-signatures. Apparently, what I just said sounded less like ”chill out, small fee, no worries” and more like ”I am hereby declaring war on whatever gang currently controls this turf, submit or perish.”

Coins are flying now. Someone throws an entire crate of fruit at my coils like tribute, like I’m some sort of buddah, a guy in a bandana just straight up faints. Somewhere in the back, half-hidden behind a support pillar, I catch a glimpse of Beef and Brawn. Dad’s guys, they’re supposed to be here backing me up, standing tall, looking intimidating.

Instead, they’re both sweating so hard it’s dripping off their chins, staring at me like I just performed a magic trick that summoned Satan, shit maybe I am Satan. Do I need to get an exorcist? I don’t even want to know what they’re gonna tell Dad.

[System: Reckon they’re gonna say you cleared out a whole market quarter without throwing a single punch. Reckon your old man’s gonna be dead impressed, mate.]

That is somehow worse than if I’d actually messed this up.

I try one more time to smooth things over, because apparently I hate myself.

”Everyone just relax, okay? Nobody’s getting hurt, I was just trying to explain.”

Wrong move. My voice does the thing again, that awful deep thundering baritone thing, and a whole rack of clothes gets knocked over as three separate vendors try to flee through a space clearly meant for one person.

I clamp my jaw shut. Talking is the enemy now, hell, I only learned how to speak like two weeks ago.

I just hold myself there, coiled up, dripping soup, and surrounded by offerings. A confused chicken pecks at a fallen ring. Nobody’s looking at me anymore. They’re all looking at the ground, at each other, at anywhere that isn’t my face. It’s as if eye contact is a binding contract that ends with their organs on the outside.

Granny Nettle is still bowing. Actual bowing. Over and over, mumbling something that might be a prayer. I want to tell her to stop. I want to tell everyone to stop, that this was supposed to be a chill five grand shakedown and not whatever apocalyptic religious event is currently unfolding. But every time I open my mouth, the market flinches like I’ve pulled a pin on something, so I just don’t.

I turn to the tribute instead. Coil around the coins, the rings, somebody’s watch for some reason, and slither out of there as fast as my dignity allows, which is not very fast, because dignity left the building about four minutes ago along with everyone’s soup and that chicken.

Behind me, I hear Beef and Brawn finally unstick themselves from the pillar. ”Did you see that?” Beef says, voice cracking like a teenager. Big guy, built like a fridge, and he sounds like he just watched his childhood pet get replaced by a demon.

”Wrote it down,” Brawn says. He’s actually got a little notepad out, a literal notepad. ”Every word. ’Ten per cent, handle pest problem.’ That’s a threat structure. Textbook shit, man. Maybe it’s just old man Raymond’s genes?”

”That’s not what happened,” I try to say, except I’m twenty feet away and my voice still comes out wrong, so it just sounds like distant thunder agreeing with him.

[System: Mate, don’t even bother; they’ve already decided you’re a criminal mastermind. Let ’em cook.]

I don’t let them cook. I try to explain on the slither home, tail dragging a bag stuffed with stolen tributes I never asked for, but Beef and Brawn just keep nodding along like I’m confirming their notes instead of denying them.

”See, that’s the genius of it,” Beef says, tapping the side of his head. ”You don’t yell. You don’t threaten; you just talk soft and let their own brains do the torturing.”

”I panicked,” I rumble, the sound barely audible. ”I was actively panicking the entire time.”

”Textbook,” Brawn agrees, writing that down too. So panicking is textbook now.

By the time we get back to the house, the bag of tributes is heavier than I am, which is saying something for a guy who’s basically a scaly anaconda with anxiety issues.

Dad’s not even back at the warehouse yet, and Beef and Brawn are already lined up outside his study, notepad in hand, practically vibrating.He’s gonna love this,” Beef whispers to Brawn.