Limitless Evolution As a Snake

[Crimson Tiamat Kaiju.] (Rank C.)

[System: Check out this thing; personally, I have named it the red garden hose flashlight. Massive armour plating with zero limbs still; don’t get too excited. But that glow ain’t just for show, mate; that’s a proper stadium floodlight strapped to your belly. Dark dungeon, sewer tunnel, blackout situation- you flip that thing on, and you can see everything.]

My old human self, the one who died over a spreadsheet, would have fainted. My new snake brain just sees the upgrade. A slithering, glowing apocalypse. It’s not just cool; it’s the coolest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.

[System: It is a cool option, yeah.]

I could tank hits like nothing. I could light up an entire tunnel just by existing. I could probably scare small children just by turning a corner.

[System: Also, everyone within about six suburbs is gonna know exactly where you are at all times.]

That’s a small price to pay for looking like an absolute unit.

[System: Is it, though? Let me paint you a picture, champ. You’re creeping through Twawi, trying not to get eaten by something with more teeth than sense, and you’re glowing like a bloody emergency exit sign. Every predator down there is gonna take one look and go oh sweet, dinner’s got a follow spot on it.]

I mean when you put it like that.

[System: I’m gonna put it like this instead. What would you actually do with that glow, mate. Really think about it. You’d be a big red light in the dark advertising yourself.]

...

[System: You’d be a red light in a titty bar. That’s what you’d be, a big flashing invitation sign that says come on in lads, first dance is on the house.]

I don’t know why that comparison hits so hard but it does.

[System: Actually do that. Actually become the neon sign out the front of a titty bar, that’s the vibe. That’s the whole rank.]

I let the mental image coil in my thoughts. He’s not wrong. I’d go from being a tiny red noodle hiding from sewer rats to a giant, glowing beacon screaming ’free lunch’ to every monster in the Undercity. Instead of luring in horny blokes with cash, I’d be summoning predators with teeth.

Not the same clientele, but the outcome’s just as bad.

Still.

Still, there’s a small, stubborn part of my brain that’s looking at that armoured, glowing, absolute unit of a kaiju form and going, yeah but it looks so cool though. I don’t say it out loud—not that ’out loud’ means anything to Old Mate, anyway.

Would look sick in photos though.

[System: You’re not gonna be taking photos, you’re gonna be getting gang-jumped by every dumb cunt in a hundred-meter radius because you look like a Christmas decoration that wandered into a war zone.]

The words hang in the air, then whip-lash back around and strike me in the brain. Not because they’re wrong. I mean, they’re painfully correct, but because it’s the precise flavour of insult I would’ve used myself. ”Christmas decoration that wandered into a war zone” is so savage, so accurate, that for a moment I just think and let the imagery do its work. Picturing me as a big, fat, glowing noodle, slithering through a derelict sewer.

A living Christmas display, three months out of season, beaming red like a discount blimp at midnight. Every hungry thing with eyes- rats, dogs, sewer mutants would clock me as a snack before I even got within striking distance.

At that scale, I’m not even a predator anymore. I’m a mobile buffet. It took me months to get big enough not to be scared of sewer gators, and now I’m considering an evolution that makes me visible from space. I can already see the highlight reel: I show off the new body to Lyra and Cherry, accidentally blind them, then immediately get mobbed by ten thousand sewer weasels who want to eat my glowing face.

Maybe I take out a wall or two before I go down, but ultimately my death is recorded as ”death by overexposure.” The obit photo is just a blurry red streak, like someone crammed a glowstick down a hose and flung it off a bridge. In a different universe, sure, I’m the monster to beat.

The universe wants me dead and humiliated at every turn; I’d be lucky if I lasted a week as the world’s angriest lava lamp.

[System: Glad we agree. Now, of course there’s a third option. You’re gonna want to sit down for this one, not that you have legs. But you know what I mean.]

There is something in Old Mate’s tone that tells me this is less an ”option” and more like a social experiment, or a sick dare that no reasonable person would ever take. The screen glitches, pixelates, and does a little anime loading circle. You can almost hear the Old Mate’s deep inhale, like it’s loading up for a big performance.

[System: You ready? This one’s a bit of a unit.]

I brace. Like, actually brace. No legs, obviously, still off the menu, so I do the snake version: a full-body clench right down to the tip of my tail. The anticipation is killing me, but since this is the highlight of my week, I decide to savour it.

[System: Here comes the money shot!]

The panel flashes, then resolves into

[Rank B] Red Koi Smoke Serpent (Sumi-e Phantom)

I stare at the words for a solid three seconds before anything makes sense.

Okay, that sounds sick. Sumi-e Phantom. The words hit like a shot of pure, uncut anime logic, and I am one hundred per cent here for it.

[System: Wait for it.]

I picture it immediately, and I mean immediately, like my brain just went, yes, finally, and started rendering. Red and white koi scales running up the length of me, the kind of pattern you’d see on a fish that costs more than a car.