Limitless Evolution As a Snake

The whole thing sits under a ring of huge lights, the kind you’d see hanging over a car park, all pointed down into the pit so nothing in the middle has anywhere to hide. Wires running everywhere overhead, taped and zip-tied to the ceiling in a mess that looks like it should’ve caught fire years ago.

Around the outside there’s tiered seating, crates and salvaged bus benches stacked up in rows, already filling with a crowd that smells like beer, unwashed fur and money changing hands. Loud too, the kind of loud that vibrates through my coils even from back here.

A microphone crackles somewhere up front, and the announcer steps into view, some guy half komodo dragon and half human, scaly through the jaw and forearms, with a tint to his skin that’s actually purple, 100% purple, not a trick of the light. I’m not going to make a thing of it.

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN AND WHATEVER THE HELL YOU LOT ARE," he bellows, voice cutting through the noise easily, "TONIGHT’S FIRST MATCH."

The crowd roars back at him before he’s even finished the sentence.

"IN THE RED CORNER, STRAIGHT OUT OF THE FINANCIAL DISTRICT DRAINS, WEIGHING IN AT GOD KNOWS HOW MUCH, IT’S THE WALL-STREET BULL-FROG!"

Something the size of a minivan gets shoved into the pit through a side gate, and my whole body goes very still watching it land. It’s built like someone crossed a bullfrog with a pitbull and then decided that wasn’t enough so they threw in a snapping turtle for good measure, warty shell-plating across its back, squat legs corded with muscle that shouldn’t fit on a frog, and a jaw that could probably bite a car in half. Acid slobber drips off its chin and hisses where it hits the wood, little curls of smoke rising up. It doesn’t croak; it actually barks.

"AND IN THE BLUE CORNER, FRESH FROM COLLAPSING A WHOLE SECTION OF THE OLD TRANSIT LINE, TEN TONS OF PURE NIGHTMARE, THE STAR-NOSED GRIZZLY-MOLE!"

The other gate grinds open and something even bigger shoulders its way through, and I mean bigger, dump truck bigger, bear-shaped but wrong in every direction, thick with matted fur that crackles faintly with static, and where its face should be there’s a writhing mess of twenty-two pink tentacles, twitching and searching blind, feeling for anything with a pulse.

Yeah. Glad that’s not my fight, system; let’s skill roll.

[System: LET’S GET READY TO RUMBLEEEEEE!]

A little screen flickers up in my vision.

[Stress-Induced Eucalyptus Shift (Rank F)]

The moment your anxiety hits maximum levels, your body panics and instantly morphs you into a fluffy, smooth-brained koala. You get thick fur, razor-sharp climbing claws, and absolutely zero thoughts behind your glassy eyes until the terror wears off.

Note: Smooth-brain energy activated, good luck trying to climb a smooth sewer pipe with koala claws, mate.

Cost: 10 IP.

Cooldown: Only triggers when you’re about to wet yourself.

I stare at that one for a solid three seconds. A koala. In the sewers. With claws that can’t grip a pipe. Cool, cool, very useful, thanks heaps.

This one’s a joke, right?

[System: Oi. That’s my cousin you’re talking about; show some bloody respect. But yeah, nah, fair, it’s not exactly built for a sewer environment, just keep scrolling.]

[Ouroboros Thrall-Bite (Rank D)] Sink your little fangs in and inject a dose of cursed vampiric venom. Turns the target into a slavering, half-snake hybrid that obeys your every command with 100% absolute loyalty.

The catch? After five minutes, the venom cooks their brain and forces them to compulsively eat themselves to death like a confused pretzel.

Note: Horrifyingly effective, completely illegal.

Cost: 20 IP.

Cooldown: 3 minutes.

Now that one makes my stomach turn a little. Five minutes of a loyal slave and then they just start eating themselves. That’s not a skill; that’s a war crime with a timer on it.

[Boomerang Tail-Snap (Rank D)]

Since you’ve already lost half your tail anyway, let’s make it a projectile. You pop off a little shard of glass tail and fire it like a pressurised dart. It homing-locks onto target groins or pressure points, ricochets off walls, and flies straight back into your stump. Doesn’t do massive damage, but getting shot in the kneecap by a flying piece of snake butt is emotionally devastating.

Note: Emotional damage level: Critical. Plus, you get your butt shard back!

Cost: 20 IP.

Cooldown: 15 seconds.

A homing dart made out of my own tail that flies back to me after smacking someone in the nuts. That’s genuinely the funniest weapon I’ve ever heard of. Okay, that one’s actually kind of sick.

[System: Reckon it is. Cheap too, only fifteen-second cooldown, so you can just keep chucking bits of yourself at people’s groins all day long if you’re that petty. And you are that petty, so.]

I roll my eyes even though there’s nobody around to see it.

Fair point though, I am petty. System, can you pull up my current skill list?

[System: Yeah nah yeah I can.]

Name: Matthew Vane (Matt)

Current Form: [The Glass Phantom Snake (Rank E)]Rank: EIndulgence Points (IP): 45EXP: 5,500 / 10,000xpFamily tree: 1 father mafia boss.

[Handsy (Rank F)] (THE T-REX SPECIAL)Instantly shrinks the target’s arms into two tiny, useless T-Rex limbs that barely work. To make matters infinitely worse, it locks their neck so they physically can’t even bend their head down to reach them or eat food.Note: Good luck eating a sandwich now, mate.

[Squeaky-Toy Impact (Rank F)]Okay so. You know those rubber dog toys? The ones shaped like a hot dog or a little frog or whatever, and some absolute unit of a labrador is going absolutely mental on it? That noise. That’s the noise you make now, except coming out of a snake, and at 110 decibels, which is technically louder than a jackhammer.

Note: WEEEEEEZE.

Cooldown: no cooldown.[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.