Limitless Evolution As a Snake

Old mate, I don’t need the bubbles right now. If anything, I need something else to think about. That poison gave me a hard-on.

I grab her by the wrist- no hands, but you’d be amazed what you can do with muscle and a tail and slam her into the wall once, then twice. She goes glassy-eyed, but she’s not out.

She looks at me, right in my eyes. ”Just finish it, demon.”

Her voice is weirdly soft.

I don’t; I just humm and hold her there.

Lyra runs over, breathless, looking at me and the chick that darted me. ”You have two seconds to tell us who sent you, Or Matt gets creative.”

Dart-Girl spits at her. ”Your old boss.”

Lyra’s face goes rigid. Then, without even thinking, she bares her teeth, those perfect, too-white teeth. She sinks them right into the girl’s neck.

I don’t mean like a love bite, i mean, she bites hard.

hot.

[System: I recorded that.]

The reaction is immediate: the cleaner stops fighting, stops even trying to move. Her pupils go full saucer and she makes a noise that isn’t human, more like a broken car horn. Then she starts smiling.

Lyra steps back, mouth bloody. She’s shaking, but not from fear.

”I think it worked,” she whispered, wiping a smear of blood from her lips with the back of her hand.

Cleaner slumps to her knees. Looks up at Lyra like she’s the moon and the sun and every last drug she’s ever wanted.

”What’s your name?” Lyra asks.

”Jasmine,” the girl whispers. ”But you can call me anything you want.”

She’s crying now, full tears down her face.

”Who sent you?” Lyra asks.

”Captain Suave. He said we had to make sure you were dead, or they’d do it to our families.” Jasmine’s voice is flat, monotone, like she’s reading it off a prompt card. ”Said if we failed, they’d bury us in the drain.”

Lyra’s hands go white-knuckled. She almost falls over, then steadies herself.

I let Jasmine go. She just collapses, sobbing, not even a threat anymore and i flick my tongue toward the other two. Still not moving. Just sacks of meat now.

[System: Reckon that was proper impressive, mate. Didn’t even hesitate to crush a skull or two. You’re a real mafia prince now.]

I want to throw up. But also, I kind of want to do it again.

Lyra’s eyes are distant, but she finds my gaze. ”They’re not going to stop, are they?”

”Nope, they want you gone, but once they work out who I am, well, who my dad is, that’ll shut them up.”

”They want us both gone, and I’d rather they were scared of you, not just your dad.”

”We will work on it.”

I look at the three bodies. One dead, one unconscious, one completely under Lyra’s control.

”Probably should have kept one alive for questioning,” I advised. ”But, uh, you did great. It was very hot.”

Lyra gives me a look. ”We did great, this is teamwork, remember?”

I nod. My scales are still buzzing, like they’re trying to jump off my skin. I want to run, or maybe just coil up in a dark corner and hum until the world goes away, maybe i can find my old dog bed.

But I’m not alone.

Lyra kneels by Jasmine, brushing her hair back. ”Tell me everything,” she whispers.

And Jasmine does.

She spills every last secret: who the Captain is, where he drinks, how many ”special projects” he’s run in the last month, the names of every mid-level operator in the precinct. Lyra asks questions, patient, gentle, like she’s afraid the spell will break if she pushes too hard.

I listen, and i remember every word.

Eventually, Jasmine slows down. Her body is shot to hell. She can barely keep her head up.

”Are you going to kill me?” she asks, voice small.

Lyra shakes her head. ”No, no, you’re going to disappear. Go find your family, and never come back to the underground.”

Jasmine nods, then stumbles away, tripping over her own feet.

We watch her go.

Neither of us says anything for a long time.

When the adrenaline finally wears off, I realise I can’t stop shaking.

Lyra looks at me, blood still on her lips, and laughs, soft, sad, but real. ”Guess I’m not a cop anymore, huh?”

”You’re something better.” The words came out as a low rumble, surprising even me.

She leans into me, and for a second, I let myself believe it, but of course the city never really lets you off the hook. Not when there’s a Captain with a hit list and the kind of resources that make three dead Cleaners look like a warm-up.

[System: Oi, reckon you two might want to take out the Captain before he takes out you, you know, just saying.]

I close my eyes, let the possibility marinate. If we’re already on the list, what’s one more name at the top? I think about the feeling when I crushed that first guy, the pure certainty of it.

It didn’t feel wrong. It didn’t feel good or bad. It just felt like survival.

We don’t even get to the next tunnel before the side effects kick in.

Jasmine, the Cleaner girl, starts acting weird. Not ”I’m fine, just been mind controlled by a hot elf and everything’s cool” weird, but more like, ”the last thing she ate is trying to escape her stomach” weird.

First, she starts walking in circles. Then she’s mumbling to herself, words all jumbled up and bleeding together. Then she sits down and starts gnawing at her own arm.

It’s not subtle. She goes right for the meat, tearing at it like a coyote that found a rotisserie chicken in the road. Blood’s everywhere, pooling on the floor, and Jasmine’s just smiling through the tears.

Lyra turns and presses her face against my scales. ”We should leave. I don’t want to see this.”

”Yeah,” I say. ”Hard agree.”

[System: Oi, is it bad that i kinda wanna see it?]