Limitless Evolution As a Snake

Horass hit me before I finished deciding which insult would improve the opening, which seemed like a deeply unfair way to conduct a conversation between professionals.

He used the launcher case rather than firing. The hard edge caught my forward coil, drove me against the wall and demonstrated that seeing an attack coming didn’t mean my body could cross the corridor quickly enough to avoid it.

I went partly smoke and slipped beneath the next strike, keeping enough shape to push off the floor. My side burned where old bruises met fresh enthusiasm, and I immediately missed the version of this plan where I had left with the fish.

[System: There it is, mate. The difference between a clever idea and a clever idea backed by an A-rank bastard who can bench-press your entire personality.]

I preferred a therapist who used words, but apparently my uncle had booked the premium hands-on package.

Horass advanced without rushing. He kept the launcher behind his shoulder while the blunt case stayed between us, making the obvious weapon theft both harder to reach and less immediately useful.

I caught the case when its center entered three meters, moved it into a clear space touching my tail and let it fall between his feet. Its weight cracked a tile, but he stepped over it instead of tripping like a convenient background idiot.

Mine Now entered cooldown. I had spent my move on an obstacle he could manage, which was a useful lesson I would have preferred to learn using somebody else’s ribs.

He switched to the launcher and aimed at the wall behind my next route. I moved before the shot, ducking through a service doorway while the blast tore apart the corridor section I had hoped to use.

Heat reached me around the frame. I pressed low behind a steel cabinet, kept my injured fin away from the hottest surface and listened to the building-sized complaint of the ship carrying our argument toward open water.

The vessel had departed during the auction disruption. Through the service window, the dock lights shifted steadily farther away, removing the comfortable illusion that I could simply fall overboard and land beside a friendly staircase.

Lukas had already taken the recovered case to the guarded dock. He confirmed that over the call, then told me Bridget was organizing a response from shore while refusing to let him turn the tender around without knowing where we were.

”Keep the case safe, mate. If the fish died after all that, I’d feel obligated to hold a funeral and make the auctioneer pay for flowers.”

He didn’t laugh much. I understood why and stopped using jokes to avoid giving him the actual deck position.

Horass entered through the broken doorway, checking the corners before exposing his body. He saw the cabinet, saw the angle of the service window and fired into the floor beside my cover instead of offering a shot directly at my waiting face.

My capture skill couldn’t bottle the blast after it happened. I moved with the collapsing panel, dropping into the lower maintenance space as hot fragments struck the cabinet above me.

The fall jarred my side. I caught a pipe with my tail before hitting the machinery, then let my smoke form ease around the narrow support while my solid weight settled onto a safer ledge.

Old Mate kept talking, but his jokes shortened around useful directions. He pointed out the moving belt, the hot pipe and the gap behind the service ladder without pretending commentary could replace a map.

I followed the gap toward a coolant room. Its door stood half-open, with cold vapor curling along the floor and warning lights showing that a cargo refrigeration system had lost pressure during the damage above.

Horass appeared at the ladder before I reached the door. He didn’t fire into the room; he threw a small metal weight that struck the latch and drove the door inward, cutting off the easy route before moving down after me.

”You’d be exhausting at board games, mate. I bet you explained the rules while already owning half the fucking board.”

”The Battle of Marshmallow Ford was lost by a commander who underestimated household games,” he replied, ducking beneath the pipe. ”Three thousand soldiers, one badly placed checker piece.”

[System: Ask him which book, champ. If we’re dying in a fridge, I at least want the pleasure of knowing the tofu cunt made up the bibliography.]

I suspected asking would get us the entire lecture, and I didn’t think the pipe could hold my body through an academic term.

I used the cold vapor to hide a low movement toward the door’s bottom gap. It didn’t make me invisible, but it muddied the view enough that Horass had to change position before striking.

His next blow caught my tail instead of my head. Pain snapped through the old bruise, and I lost my grip on the ledge, dropping into shallow water across the coolant-room floor.

The door slammed behind me under its damaged spring. Horass stayed outside for a moment, listening, while I pulled myself away from the exposed electrical housing and checked the room for another exit.

There was a maintenance grate high on the far wall and a large cooling duct below it. Neither looked comfortable, but comfort had lost the argument somewhere around the first rocket.

I checked the timer instead of guessing from how long the pain had lasted. The number stayed stubbornly ordinary, refusing to count faster because I had become more emotionally invested in the result.

My capture timer still had minutes left. Mine Now was nearly ready again, my body hurt in several specific places and the cold water began rising around the lowest pipe supports.

Horass tapped the door once with his weapon, then told me he could wait longer than a damaged ship’s cooling system. I looked at the spreading water and realized the bastard had selected the room as carefully as he selected his shots.