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Snek is a Good Boy by ack1308
Books » Worm Rated: T, English, Parody & Sci-Fi, Skitter, Armsmaster, Lung, Jack Slash, Words: 178k+, Favs: 2k+, Follows: 2k+, Published: Mar 10, 2021 Updated: Jul 3, 2025
1,121Chapter 2
Snek is a Good Boy
Part Two: Snek to the Rescue!
[A/N: This chapter was inspired by a comment from Lumias, on , and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]
"A snake."
Director Piggot's delivery of the two words was flat and toneless, which meant she was either thoroughly pissed off or had no idea what to make of the revelation. Or both. Personally, Colin was betting on the latter.
"Yes, ma'am." He took a deep breath. "My experimental lie detector did not register any untruths in what she told me. Also, one of the ABB was recording the event on their phone—almost certainly against orders—and there's a three-second clip of the snake rearing up and speaking. Then the phone gets dropped, there's a lot of gunfire, and the person runs away. I located the phone after the event. The camera was pointed at the sky for most of the action, but the audio appears to bear out her story in all relevant details."
She seemed to take that in. Were he in her place, he imagined he might be celebrating, just a little, deep inside. Not that he'd wanted Lung to be eaten by a giant snake, but the man had been a multiple murderer, and he'd already been sentenced in absentia to the Birdcage, so his death was no great loss to the city. However, her visage never cracked even the slightest hint of a smile.
"So there's not only a gigantic man-eating snake somewhere in my city," she said quietly. "But it's smart enough to be able to speak, and it can teleport." Sighing in frustration, she pinched the bridge of her nose. "What are the options, here? BioTinker creation? Case Fifty-Three?"
"Those are two potential answers, yes." He nodded seriously. "Alternately, it may be a projection, an illusion—though the fact that it ate Lung suggests otherwise—or a Changer." He paused for a moment, wondering if he should keep going. In for a penny, he decided. "Or one last option, least likely but most worrying."
The Director gestured wordlessly. Get on with it. In her place, he wouldn't have wanted to hear what he considered 'most worrying', but it was her job to have all the facts to work with before she made any decisions. Accordingly, it was his job to give her all the facts at his command.
"It's intelligent enough to be verbal, and to have some sort of moral code," he said slowly, working his way through the premise. "Suppose the portals it travels by can extend to other Earths. It's not from Aleph, of course; we would've heard about them by now. But what if it's native to another Earth, where English is somehow the local language?" It was implausible, he knew, but not impossible.
"And it just came here to visit?" From the tone of her voice, she didn't like that at all. "So it could come back. Or worse, it could come back and bring friends. Especially when it tells them what the lunch menu is like."
Again, he couldn't blame her. Of all the hypothetical scenarios he'd ever had of the world ending, an invasion of giant smart teleporting carnivorous snakes had never been at the top of the list, or even close to it.
"Perhaps not," he reminded her. "The cape I spoke to was very definite about how it told Lung that he shouldn't hurt children. It could've come after her easily—she was certain it knew she was there—but it didn't."
"That's the only faint ray of light in all this." Piggot shook her head. "On the upside, as you so kindly pointed out, it apparently has something approximating a sense of morality, though it chooses to express this by eating the guilty, which doesn't reduce my problems in the slightest. What are its guidelines for determining who is innocent and who is lunch? And even if it never comes back, it's left a mess on our plate just by doing what it's already done. Unless Lung left an established chain of command, Bakuda and Oni Lee may well have a turf war to see who inherits the ABB. And even if they don't, I can see the Empire Eighty-Eight expanding their territory once it becomes clear that Lung is gone for good."
Colin nodded. "Understood, ma'am. I'll keep an eye on them."
"You do that." She waved a hand in vague dismissal.
Turning, he left her office, closing the door carefully behind him. He had a lot to think about, and to plan for. The death of Lung, as he was fully aware, spelled out lots of work in the future for him. But he was fine with that.
He'd long wanted to match himself against Lung one-on-one, partly to put the Asian crime lord into the Birdcage where he belonged and partly (if he was being honest with himself) for the recognition value. Soloing Lung would've put him on the map.
In the absence of the man himself, Colin decided that he would focus on the other two ABB capes—Oni Lee and the newcomer Bakuda—and deliver a message in no uncertain terms. One: they were not Lung. Two: Any attempt to match their ex-boss's activities would bring swift and certain retribution. They were a lot easier to Birdcage than he'd been, after all. And if they wanted to argue about it, he was perfectly willing to hand out a beatdown or three to make his point absolutely clear.
As he pressed the button for the elevator, he nodded to himself. It sounded like a plan.
And if the snake came back, he'd just have to deal with that as well. Or recruit it. One of the two.
It would be worth it just to see the look of horror on the face of the Image rep.
Snek bumps his snoot against Master's work room door. One, two, three bumps. Snek is careful not to knock down door. Then Snek puts out his tongue. Master has given Snek tongue that can hold things. It is how Snek helps Master. Also, that Snek can swallow anything dangerous. Snek likes spicy food.
Snek uses tongue to turn handle, open door. Master is working at Master thing. Is big thing. Sometimes Snek lifts Master on head to reach high-up thing. Snek likes helping Master. Master is good to Snek. Snek is a good boy.
Snek wriggles into work room and waits. Snek is not hungry. Last meal Snek ate lasted very long time.
Master turns and looks at Snek. "Yes, Snek?" he asks.
"Ssnek iss here to help Masster," Snek says. "Ssnek has sslept, and iss not hungry."
Master looks at Snek, then at Master thing he is working on. "I don't need your assistance right at the moment, Snek," he says. "But thank you for checking with me. If you want to go and amuse yourself for a few hours, that will be fine." He reaches out and pets Snek on the snoot. "You're a good boy, Snek."
Snek is very happy. "Thank you, Masster." Snek likes being petted on the snoot and called a good boy. "Ssnek will go and play now."
Snek turns and wriggles from Master's big room. Snek's tail is very strong, so is careful to close door and not break it.
Snek's winding-post is big and strong and has many resting spots, so Snek goes and plays on it for little while. It is fun, but chasing tail gets boring after awhile. Snek thinks about shouty fire metal man, and wonders if there are other bad men in that world. Master has said Snek can have fun, and chasing bad men is fun. Snek opens wriggle-hole and goes to that world.
Mouse Protector
This isn't fun anymore. I want to go home.
Diane wiped her glove over her forehead, swiping away sweat. She'd discarded the mouse-themed helmet some time ago, tossing it into an empty alleyway after marking it with a teleport tag just in case. They already knew who she was—how, she still wasn't sure—and it wasn't likely to protect against them for more than a second or so. Even Jack Slash was good enough to aim his cuts between the gaps in her armour; he'd already proven that.
She leaned against the wall and pulled the canteen off her belt. Unscrewing the cap carefully so that she didn't make any noise, she swallowed the last of the water in it, then marked it with a tag as well and carefully placed it on the ground at her feet.
Doing so pulled at some of her bandages, and she was sure she could feel fresh blood seeping through them. Goddamn it. They'd been harrying her for the best part of a day, just wearing her down and herding her in circles. Each time she thought she could break out, one of them was waiting for her. Going on the offensive didn't work either; somehow they knew ahead of time, and had enough reinforcements waiting so that she had to cut and run. Or just run, without cutting.
Fighting normal villains was fun. Fighting the Nine, especially when it seemed they specifically had it out for her, wasn't.
She'd already learned to stay off the rooftops. Shatterbird was positively vicious with her little shards, and Diane knew she could do a lot worse. That was probably what hurt more than anything else; they weren't being particularly stretched by fighting her. She wasn't a challenge for them, so they were just taking their time with her. Like cats with a wounded—
She shut that thought process down hard.
No. I'm not going to give them the satisfaction. I'm going to take at least one of these bastards down with me.
They didn't have eyes on her right at that moment, and she still had a few tricks up her sleeve. Easing down to the mouth of the alleyway, she peered around the corner … and there stood Hatchet Face on the sidewalk. Smirking. Bouncing that damn great axe on his hand like he couldn't wait to use it on her.
"Hi." He grinned with his snaggled teeth, and she really wished he hadn't. "Run, little mousey, run."
Just for a second, she considered going for his eye with her sword. It was sharp, made of good steel, and might just penetrate to his brain. But she'd be well inside his range then, and if she didn't get him, he would most certainly get her. The man was far faster than someone his size should be. No, she wanted to save her death-or-glory attack for Bonesaw. That murderous little munchkin had a death toll out of all proportion to her time in the Nine.
She reversed direction around the corner, ready to turn and bolt down the alley, but something nudged her in the back.
Shit. Fuck. Bollocks. I let them sneak up on me.
Turning her head fractionally, she looked to see which member of the Nine was about to sign her death warrant. And damn near wet herself, right then.
Looking back at her, via eyes that managed to look bright and interested, was a snake the length of one of those articulated city buses, which had somehow managed to insert itself into the alleyway behind her while she wasn't looking. Its head alone was damn near the size of a subcompact car.
Its tongue flickered out and back. She had just enough time to register that the appendage seemed oddly configured, rather than the simple fork that most snakes used, before it spoke. "Hello," it said with a hissing undertone. "Bad man? Ssnek help?"
What the fuck. Why not. "Yes," she said. "Bad man. Snek help. Please?"
She had absolutely no fucking idea what was going on, but she knew the Nine did not have a giant talking snake on their roster. This was the Hail Mary pass to end all Hail Mary passes. Either it helped her, or it ate her. Forget rock and hard place; she was a tired, wounded mousey besieged by a whole pack of rabid, hungry cats. Any snake in a storm.
"Ssnek help," the snake confirmed, and flowed past her around the corner, like liquid. If something that came nearly up to her waist and was covered with gleaming scales could be said to 'flow'.
"Hey, who you talking to—" Hatchet Face broke off what he was saying. "Holy motherfucking—!"
There was a loud hiss, like a steam boiler letting off pressure, then a clang. Diane had no idea what that was about, but she knew what the next noise was. A deep-throated scream of agony, wrenched from the throat of the multiple murderer known as Hatchet Face. More of the endless length of the snake slithered past her—wonderingly, she put out her hand and let her fingers trail over the smooth scales as it passed her by—and she heard the crack of bones breaking, one after the other.
Carefully, she peeked around the corner. The axe lay discarded on the sidewalk, and Hatchet Face was basically engulfed in coil after coil of the snake's body. As she watched, it shifted, and the sounds of more bones breaking came to her ears.
The snake's head turned to face her. "Bad man sstopped. More bad men?"
Dazedly, she nodded. "Uh, yeah. Bad men, bad women, even a bad child."
The massive head tilted sideways questioningly. "Ssnek not hurt child. Bad to hurt child."
"This kid's hurt and killed hundreds or even thousands of people," Diane said wearily. "She's killed kids by the dozen. By the hundred. Killed them and done even worse." She'd seen the little spider-bots, and knew how they were made.
"Then Ssnek sstop her," the snake said definitively. It uncoiled from the twisted, mangled and very dead body of Hatchet Face. She wasn't even surprised when it began to engulf its prey, unhinging its jaw and swallowing down Hatchet Face's bulk in an amazingly short time.
Well, he wanted to kill me. I can't say I'm unhappy that he's dead.
The snake turned back to her. "Ssnek iss Ssnek." It looked at her almost expectantly.
Seriously? That's actually its name? Then again, she wasn't exactly in a position to point and laugh. "Uh, Mouse Protector. Diane."
"Mouss," it said. "Iss good name."
"Thanks." She took a deep breath, ignoring the stab of her injured ribs and the rest of her multitude of aches and pains. "Listen, you seem like a nice … uh, snake, but if you've got a way out of here, some mousehole we can scamper away through, that would probably be best. Because the rest of these guys won't be pleased—"
"On the contrary, my dear Mouse Protector, I'm positively thrilled."
The voice had come from above. Carefully, Diane turned and looked, as did Snek. There, on the rooftop opposite, stood Jack Slash next to the Siberian, who had Bonesaw on her shoulders and her hand on his arm. Their skin and clothing showed the monochrome tinge that people under the Siberian's protection normally exhibited. Shatterbird hovered farther up above them; while she hadn't seen Mannequin and Burnscar, they were probably close by as well. She was just as happy to not see Crawler right then; as big as Snek was, he would almost certainly have problems with the misshapen cape.
"And why are you thrilled, Jack-Jack?" The mocking tone was second nature to her. "We just wrecked Hatchet Face."
"Oh, I'm aware." She got the impression that he was less happy than he was putting across with his façade. "So who is your fascinating friend? I'm not aware of any capes getting about as giant snakes."
"Cannot ssmell sstripy one," Snek said quietly. "No ssmell, no heartbeat, no breath, no warmth. Not alive. Dangerouss?"
"Very dangerous," Diane confirmed, speaking softly. "She can tear you apart with her bare hands, she can't be hurt, and she can protect anyone she's touching. That's Jack Slash with her. A very bad man." She raised her voice. "This is Snek. Snek doesn't like bad men." Oh, god. Now I'm talking the same way.
Jack slash laughed out loud. "Oh, he doesn't, does he? Well, this is interesting. We get paid by Ravager to hunt you down, and we get your pet snake as well. Crawler will be happy; he hasn't had a proper challenge in some time." A blade gleamed in his hand; Diane tensed, but he seemed to be merely twirling it absently rather than directing it with malice aforethought.
One huge eye swivelled toward Diane. "Ssnek eat?" asked the snake hopefully.
Diane released the breath she hadn't realised she was holding since the mention of Ravager—that humourless unimaginable bottom-feeder hired the Nine to kill me? If I get out of this, I am so gonna wedgie her so hard the next time we meet, her kids will spontaneously lose the ability to procreate—and nodded. If they were going to go down, she figured they may as well go down fighting. "Snek eat."
Rapidly she formulated a plan, which basically involved marking her sword, throwing it at Slash himself, then teleporting to where it was. Surprise counted for a lot in a situation like that. But before she could begin to carry it through, Snek pulled off its own plan.
Pulling back its head slightly, Snek tasted the air just as a dull-black circular portal appeared before its nose. The enormous head blurred as it struck through the portal; Diane spun around at a flicker of movement and saw Snek's head emerging from what looked like empty air behind Jack Slash. Rolling its head to one side, Snek opened its jaws wide and clamped them around Jack Slash's waist, then immediately pulled him back through the hole. In the instant after the Siberian's hand lost contact with his arm, Snek bit down hard. A remarkably familiar sound of bones (and possibly organs) popping and crackling resulted, as well as a pained scream from the leader of the Nine.
Almost without thinking, Diane drew her sword and stabbed Jack Slash through the eye. He wasn't Bonesaw, but he was definitely a viable target. The blade hung up for a second, then she leaned on it, and it went all the way in. Jack Slash convulsed in a way that indicated he wasn't getting up again … ever.
And then, while the Siberian was still staring at the hand which had been resting on Jack Slash's arm, the giant snake struck again. This time, it arched its back and lunged downward into a new portal that formed on the concrete beneath it. Wide-eyed, Diane watched as Snek's head appeared from above Bonesaw, jaws wide. Its mouth closed around the girl's upper body then yoinked upward again through the portal, bringing Bonesaw's body (legs still kicking) with it. With a wriggling motion, Snek swallowed. Bonesaw vanished down the snake's capacious gullet like an errant chicken nugget.
That was when the Siberian's expression turned from annoyance to incandescent rage. She looked across the narrow street at where Diane stood next to Snek, and leaped. Before Diane could even think about teleporting to one of her various marks, she found herself grabbed by that same mouth—though much more gently—and plunged through what she could only imagine was another one of those portals.
Snek could really travel, Diane later decided. At some point in the mad dash, she found herself seated comfortably just behind the huge snake's head, riding astride like she'd been doing it all her life. From one portal to another, they jumped from world to world, never looking back in case the Siberian was still chasing them.
The first world they hit was a nightmarish version of World War One trench warfare in a sea of mud, with artillery going off and shells bursting around them as Snek powered across the landscape at speeds that maybe only aircraft could match. Diane just had time to get a blurred impression of rumbling tanks four and five storeys tall facing off against brass and steel mecha before they dived into another portal.
One after another, the worlds flickered by. A cityscape of impossibly tall buildings, with ponderous airships drifting between. An ethereally beautiful unspoilt landscape with a castle in the distance and a huge ringed planet in the sky. Primeval forests, with feathered dinosaurs turning to look at them as they blazed past. What she would've sworn was New York Times Square, but with saurians populating the sidewalks, complete with stubby tails.
And then Snek slowed to a halt, in the back streets of what looked like an ordinary city; the street signs were in English, even. "Ssnek bring Mouss home."
"This is home?" Diane looked around. It looked about right. Felt about right, too, though she suspected it was a little farther north than she had been when the Nine was hunting her.
"Yess. Ssame ccity as sshouty fire metal man. Did Ssnek do good?"
She climbed off the snake's back and gave its head a hug, then kissed it on top of its snout for good measure. "Yes, Snek. You did real good. You saved this mousey's tail. Thank you." She wondered who the 'shouty fire metal man' was, and what had happened to him.
"Ssnek happy. Ssnek see Mouss again?"
Diane nodded, and scratched the top of its nose. It seemed to like that. "Sure, Snek can see Mouse again. Just one thing. You said you didn't hurt children, but you just swallowed Bonesaw like a party treat."
Snek nodded. "Yess. Bad child alive. Take to Masster. Masster fix. Masster fix anything."
She blinked. "Oh. Okay. Just a word of warning? She does diseases really, really good."
"Ssnek tell Masster. Bye-bye, Mouss."
"Bye, Snek." She waved, and watched as the enormous reptile slithered down the street a ways, then opened a portal and vanished down it almost quicker than the eye could see.
Well, that was a thing. She stretched, then pulled out a scarf from a belt pouch and tied it around her face as a makeshift mask. Might as well get in touch with the local PRT and ask for a bed for the night. I wonder what they'll say when I tell them that a giant snake saved me from the Slaughterhouse Nine?
Yeah, like they'll believe that.
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Snek is a Good Boy by ack1308
Books » Worm Rated: T, English, Parody & Sci-Fi, Skitter, Armsmaster, Lung, Jack Slash, Words: 178k+, Favs: 2k+, Follows: 2k+, Published: Mar 10, 2021 Updated: Jul 3, 2025
1,121Chapter 3
Snek is a Good Boy
Part Three: Food Run
Director Emily Piggot
Parahuman Response Teams
"When I looked around, I found out I was in Brockton Bay, so I decided to come here and let you guys know about the Nine." Mouse Protector, wearing what looked like a temporary cloth mask, perched on the edge of the conference room table, ignoring the chair that had been placed for her. "Oh, and about Snek."
"'Snek'." Emily got in just before Assault's disbelieving snort. "Is that what you called it?"
"Oh, no." The flamboyant hero waved her hand dismissively. "That's what he called himself. It fits, too. He's the snekkiest snek that ever snekked."
Armsmaster, who had been about to speak, acquired an expression of pain under the visor of his helmet. This gave Assault the chance to interject. "So you're saying that this giant danger noodle, that saved you from the Slaughterhouse Nine and can crawl between dimensions and eat people alive, calls itself Snek?"
"That's what I'm saying, Red." Mouse Protector rolled her eyes. "Though I wouldn't so much call him a danger noodle. More like a nope rope. A really big nope rope. I mean, most of him was about waist-high to me. Also, pretty sure that whoever he gave his loving cuddles to, if you know what I mean, wasn't alive by the time he started nomming them down."
Battery looked a little green at that, and Emily cleared her throat to bring the meeting back on track. "Does this look like the creature you encountered?" There was no force on Earth that would compel her to use the name 'Snek' in relation to it. Clicking a control, she brought up the imagery Armsmaster had salvaged from the ABB member's phone, on the screen that filled the far wall.
Mouse Protector spun in place and crossed her legs, ignoring the fact that her boots were now resting on the table. Emily gritted her teeth, choosing not to fight that battle right now. If the irritating woman figured out just how much this got under Emily's skin, she would do it twice as much.
"Oh, hey, yeah." Mouse Protector's face lit up as she watched the giant snake's head rearing over the crowd, then listened to it speaking. "That's my Snekky-poo, alright. Isn't he just too adorbs for words?"
"More like adorrifying," Assault corrected her. "It's eaten three extremely dangerous capes that we know of. And they're probably not its only victims."
"Both of whom were villains and murderers, one of which had a kill order, and the other one was a huge dick," Mouse Protector retorted. "Snekky just wants to help people. And he only ate Hatchet Face, not Jack Slash."
"I think Assault was referring to Bonesaw," Battery said. "And from what you say, Slash is dead anyway. You said you stuck your sword in his eye?"
"All the way through to the thinky-bits," Mouse Protector agreed happily. "Oh, and Snek didn't eat Bonesaw. He was just keeping her to give to someone he called Master." She tilted her head thoughtfully. "Unless the name really was Masster, with two s's. It's hard to tell with Snek. He hisses everything. But I love the big goof anyway."
"Wait, Master?" Emily felt a flare of worry. "This creature is controlled by a Master? That could be problematic. Very problematic. What did it say they were going to do with Bonesaw?"
Mouse Protector rolled her eyes. "I didn't exactly have a long conversation with him. We were too busy doing the five-minute tour of every alternate world I could think of. But I'm pretty sure he said Masster—" she drew the hissing sound out, "—could 'fix' her, whatever that meant. Sounds to me like he was acting of his own free will."
"Unless 'fix' was code for 'bring her under its Master's power'." Armsmaster's voice was hard and flat. "And if this Master could summon or create something so powerful as this creature—"
"Snek." Mouse Protector raised her eyebrows under her mask. "Wow, it's almost like you have trouble remembering his name."
"As I was saying," snapped Armsmaster harshly. "What could they do with Bonesaw under their power? What does it mean for Earth Bet?"
"Snek Two: Electric Snekaloo?" suggested Assault flippantly.
"Aww, man," complained Mouse Protector. "You beat me to it." She turned back to Emily. "Snek's just a big cuddle-bunny, really. Sure, he likes snacking—heh, snekking—down on supervillains, but that's a feature, not a bug. He was really nice to me. Saved me from the Nine, and helped me kill Jack Slash, so that's a huge point in his favour. Just saying."
Emily considered the type of person who would call a sixty-foot anaconda 'a big cuddle-bunny'. For her part, she would be calling in an airstrike on the location, but that was just her. "Be that as it may. If you have any further encounters with the creature while you're in Brockton Bay, I want a report about it on my desk as soon as possible."
"Sure, okay." Mouse Protector grinned. "If you want, I can bring him in to meet you. He's real friendly. I'm sure you two would get along like a house on fire."
"Screaming, mass panic, extensive property damage …" murmured Assault.
Emily ignored the interjection. "That … won't be necessary. But any indication of this thing's intentions and whether it's going to make a regular showing here would be … good to have." Especially if it never intends to come back ever again, she didn't say, but everyone seemed to understand anyway.
Mouse Protector rolled off the table and landed on her feet, then came to attention and ripped off a perfect—and entirely unneeded—salute. "You got it, ma'am!" she declared. "Mouse Protector is on the job!" Then she vanished.
Sighing, Emily massaged her forehead with thumb and forefinger. That's what I'm afraid of. "Everyone else," she said quietly, but the words alone were enough to get the attention of the rest of the room.
"Ma'am?" That was Armsmaster.
"If any of you encounter this … thing … while out and about in Brockton Bay, do not antagonise it. Call in backup, discreetly, but only engage it if innocents appear to be at risk. If it speaks with you, attempt to get the same information as I charged Mouse Protector to gather, and record the entire interaction."
"And if it has Bonesaw with it?" That was Assault, sounding somewhat more serious than usual.
That's the sixty-four million dollar question, isn't it. Emily absolutely hated having to make calls like this out of the blue. "If Bonesaw is with it, assume that innocents are in danger, and neutralise Bonesaw as precisely as possible. Only attack the creature directly if it defends Bonesaw or goes on the attack itself."
"That could go badly wrong, very quickly," Battery noted. "Especially if its 'Master' has actually 'fixed' Bonesaw, whatever that means. It's clearly quite effective. Antagonising an unknown player—the snake or its owner—without knowing their full capabilities or motives …" She shook her head. "It sounds risky to me."
Emily slapped her hand on the tabletop with a crack. "Of course it's risky! Waking up in the morning in this damn city is risky! If you can point out to me a risk free course of action, I'd love to hear it. Until then, that's the way we're playing it." She waited as the silence stretched out. When it reached twenty seconds by her count, she nodded. "That's what I thought."
"Would you like me to start researching counters for this thing and its Mover capabilities?" asked Armsmaster.
"Only when it doesn't interfere with your regular duties. Of course, if it reveals itself to be hostile, that research will become part of your regular duties." She stood up. "You have your orders. Good day to you."
Snek is a little bit bored, a little bit hungry. Snek is happy that there are many bad men in that world where Mouse lives. Bad man with axe not as spicy as shouty fire metal man, but still tasty. Mouse was nice. Snek happy that he saved her.
Snek knocks on Master's door with snoot. Three knocks, like Master taught him. Snek is proud that he remembers. Then he uses grasping-tongue to open door. Door opens and Snek wriggles in. It is more polite to use door than wriggle-hole, and Snek wants to be polite to Master. Master is good to Snek.
Master is speaking with little girl Snek brought to Master to fix. Before Master fix, little girl call herself Bonesaw. After Master fix, she call herself Riley. Snek likes sound of name. Riley does not have any hissy noises in it, so Snek can say properly.
"Hello, Snek," says Master. "Did you want something?"
"Ssnek wantss to know if Masster needss him for anything," Snek says. "Wass going to go play."
Master turns and looks at work room. Is big, with many strange things Snek does not understand. Sometimes Snek helps by getting things, or lifting Master to high spot. Snek likes helping Master do this. Master is good to Snek.
"I don't need your assistance right now, Snek, but I will later on," Master says. "So go and play, but be back in two hours."
"Excuse me," says Riley. She points at Snek. "Can I ask him something?"
"Certainly," says Master. "Don't say anything that might confuse him, though."
"I'll try not to." Riley turns to Snek. "Are you going back to Earth Bet?"
"Ssnek not know Earth Bet," Snek says. "Iss it world where Ssnek found Riley?"
Riley nods. "That's the one. Um, do you know what fast food is? I've got a craving for a burger and fries like you wouldn't believe."
Snek know what 'fast' means, and what 'food' is, but does not think Riley wants food that runs away. Snek very fast, but little girl legs not run fast enough to catch food.
"Ssnek not know. Masster help?"
Master makes sound like laugh, and says magic words under his breath. He waves toward Riley then toward Snek, and suddenly Snek knows what Riley means by 'fast food'.
Snek looks at Riley. "Riley wantss Ssnek to fetch fasst food for her?"
Riley shakes head. "I will never understand how that works," she says to Master, then turns to Snek. "If you could, please. I'd really appreciate it." Riley makes eyes big as she says this.
"Careful with those puppy-dog eyes," says Master with smile. "Snek considers dogs to be a delicacy, not something to be petted."
Snek thinks this is Master joke. Riley not look like dog. "Ssnek will fetch fasst food for Riley. What fasst food Riley want?"
"Well, I've heard of this place in the northeast," says Riley. "Uh, could I have something to make a list on? And what are we going to use for money?"
"I have a collection of currency from many worlds," says Master. He snaps his fingers and scroll appears in midair with magic quill. "Recite your list."
Riley begins to speak.
On the Boardwalk
Vista
Missy heard the sound of multiple horns being sounded from two blocks away. She looked around at Dennis, who was in the process of getting a selfie with with a tourist, making sure to get the Protectorate headquarters in the background. "You hear that?"
"Yup. Just … one … second … there!" The phone camera let out its electronic click, and Dennis handed the phone back to its owner. "There you go. A masterpiece, if I do say so myself."
"Wow, thanks. My friends back home are gonna be so jealous." The teen girl would have probably said more, but Missy cleared her throat meaningfully.
"Sorry, gotta go and do superhero stuff." Dennis came over to where Missy was standing. "So people are honking their horns. So what?"
"If I'm right, they're honking their horns right outside Fugly Bob's," Missy said. "This could mean many things. Most of them, not good."
"Okay, yeah, good point. We should totally check that out." Dennis activated his radio. "Clockblocker to console. We're on the Boardwalk. There's some kind of disturbance at Fugly's. Me and Vista are about to go check it out."
"Console copies." Kid Win sounded resigned. "If you get some, grab me some fries, will you?" He paused. "Whoa, hey, wait a minute."
"What?" asked Missy over her own radio. "What's going on?"
There was a pause. "Ahh … we just got a nine-one-one call that a giant snake is on site there. It's in the drive-through. Look, check it out, but stay clear and don't antagonise it. Clock, this is directly from the Director. Don't do anything that might even seem like an attack. Got it?"
Which meant 'no freezing it for the lulz'. Not that Dennis did that anymore, since spending about two months solid on console duty, but Triumph still held it over his head. Missy didn't think Dennis needed the warning, but it was probably better to be safe than sorry.
"Got it," Missy said crisply, echoed a moment later by Dennis. She turned off her microphone and took Dennis by the arm. "Let's go see what sort of giant snake causes this sort of ruckus."
There were people up and down the Boardwalk, but Missy had ways around that. She took a sightline on a nearby rooftop, then crunched space so that they could both step onto it with ease. Three steps later, they were overlooking Fugly Bob's.
"Um," said Dennis, his usual eloquence deserting him. "Okay, now that's definitely a snake."
"And it's definitely in the drive-through," agreed Missy, equally taken aback.
She'd been expecting a python of some sort; as far as she knew, those were the only type that grew to any significant size. Five or six yards would've counted as 'giant' for her. Ten yards would've been insane. This thing had to be …
"What would you say, seventy feet long?" Dennis' voice was a little strangled inside his helmet. "Four feet thick?"
Battling a sense of unreality, Missy shook her head. "Sixty, tops. Maybe three feet thick. It's … wow … actually going through the drive-through."
Sure enough, all the honking was from cars trying to gain access to the drive-through lane, which was taken up for a good four car-lengths behind it. Only in Brockton Bay, Missy decided, would idiots in cars try to dispute right of way with a reptile the length of a city bus.
In front of the tremendous reptile, it seemed that orders were being filled with somewhat more alacrity than normal. Nobody wanted to be responsible for upsetting the enormous scaly creature that was even now slithering up to the first window.
Beside Missy, Dennis tensed. When he spoke, his voice was devoid of his usual bantering humour. "If it tries to go in through the window, give me a spot to touch and I'll freeze it solid."
"Got it." Missy was fully aware that they'd been told not to antagonise it, but when escalation happened, they were in no way obliged to stand back and allow innocents to be slaughtered.
It reached the window and appeared to address the attendant within. Its mouth opened, and what looked like a tongue emerged, somehow holding something. It proffered this to the window.
"What is that?" murmured Missy.
"Damned if I know, but I just know they're gonna want pics," Dennis replied. He had his phone in his hand, and he was taking one photo after another.
Missy huffed, and held up her hands as if framing a movie shot. Within the rectangle, she squeezed space so that it suddenly seemed a lot closer to the drive-through window. She was just in time to see the attendant gingerly take what looked like a rolled-up scroll, then the giant snake's tongue pulled back into its mouth.
There was a pause, then the attendant said something; Missy couldn't hear exactly what it was, but she assumed it was a price, because this time the snake's tongue emerged holding what looked like money. She wasn't a herpetologist, and they hadn't done snakes in biology, but she was pretty sure their tongues didn't work that way. Only, this one's did. Also, it seemed to keep money in its mouth.
This is not a normal snake.
A moment later, the ridiculousness of the statement got back to her, and she face-palmed. What part of 'sixty-foot snake going through a fast food drive-through' was normal, after all?
"Okay," she said, dropping the space-crunch. "You good to get a bit closer?"
"Closer?" Dennis didn't sound overly enthusiastic at the prospect. "Why?"
"I want to talk to it."
Slowly, Dennis shook his head. "And why the hell not," he murmured. "Sure, let's do this thing. If I die horribly as snake chow, make sure to edit out the girly scream, okay?"
Missy snorted. "No promises."
"Excuse me?"
Snek looks around. There is fence next to where Snek is, and two people on other side of fence. There is boy and girl. Boy is in white and girl is in green. Little girl in green is waving hand.
"Hello, green girl," says Snek. Vehicle in front moves forward. Snek wriggles forward too. Master has been definite about not wriggling over vehicles.
The boy and the girl walk forward until they are next to Snek again. "Hello," says girl. "What are you doing?"
"Ssnek iss fetching fasst food for Riley and Masster," says Snek proudly. "Masster gave Ssnek money. Ssnek iss buying thingss."
"Your name is Snek?" asks girl. Beside him, boy in white puts hand on blank place where face should be.
"Ssnek iss Ssnek," says Snek proudly. "Ssnek iss a good boy."
"I can see that," says girl. "I'm Vista, and this is … uh, Clock."
"Hello, Vissta," says Snek. "Hello, Clock." Snek is meeting many new friends. Snek likes this world.
Boy in white called Clock raises hand slightly. "Uh … who did you say you were buying the fast food for?"
"Ssnek is buying fasst food for Masster and Riley," Snek says. "Riley assk for burger and friess. Masster give Ssnek money to buy." He has never bought things with money before. This is fun!
"Who is your Master?" asks girl in green called Vista.
"Masster is Masster," Snek says. "Masster iss powerful wizard, livess in big casstle. Doess great magic. Ssnek helpss Masster."
"Of course he is," says boy in white called Clock, but does not say loudly. Snek is pleased that he understands.
Snek reaches window where food-smell comes out of. Friendly person there has paper bags for Snek. Snek unfolds tongue-graspers and takes bags, stores them in storage-place in throat. Riley has said there is something called 'Challenger' in there for Snek. "Thank you," Snek says. Snek likes to be polite.
Snek opens wriggle-hole to home then looks at new friends. "Goodbye, Vissta. Goodbye, Clock." Wriggles into wriggle-hole. Getting fast food is fun!
Vista
Missy stared as the giant snake just … vanished into a hole that had appeared in midair, its entire sixty-foot length whipping through in less than a second. And of course, the hole—which her power was going nuts over—closed again, afterward. She shared a glance with Dennis, wishing for once that she could see his expression. It had to be at least as gobsmacked as hers.
"Well, that happened," he said at last.
"That absolutely happened," she agreed. "What just happened, I'm not totally sure, but whatever it was, it surely happened."
He nodded at her sage wisdom. "So, get us through to Fugly's?"
"Why?" She tilted her head. "It didn't attack them. In fact, it even thanked them."
He held up a finger. "It had an order for them. Written down. I want to see that list."
Slowly, she nodded. For all his carefree demeanour, Dennis had a brain, and sometimes it showed. "Yeah. I want to see that, too."
As she prepared to get them over to the front entrance of Fugly's, Dennis snickered. "Man, is the Director gonna blow a gasket over this or what?"
"What about? The giant snake, or the fact that it was just getting drive-through?"
He snickered harder. "Yes."
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Snek is a Good Boy by ack1308
Books » Worm Rated: T, English, Parody & Sci-Fi, Skitter, Armsmaster, Lung, Jack Slash, Words: 178k+, Favs: 2k+, Follows: 2k+, Published: Mar 10, 2021 Updated: Jul 3, 2025
1,121Chapter 4
Snek Is a Good Boy
Part Four: Snek and the Nice Hat Lady
[A/N: This chapter both suggested and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]
Step twenty-nine. Enter alleyway, open trash can and deposit loaded firearm within.
Step thirty. Wait seventeen seconds for passers-by to go out of sight.
Step thirty-one—
An extremely large snake's head suddenly loomed over Contessa's shoulder, peering down at her with interest. "Hello," it said with a distinctly hissing accent. "What iss lady with nicce hat doing?"
"Ghah!" yelped Contessa, jumping backward and tripping over the trash can in her fright. The can fell over, the lid coming off, and the contents spilled out over the ground. The pistol she'd just put in there fell out, then was covered with rotting trash almost immediately.
Looking around as she scrambled to her feet, she saw that the enormous snake head was attached to an equally enormous snake, and that the body extended maybe twenty yards down the blind alley, all the way to the wall at the end. Which begged the question: where did it come from, so quietly?
"Ssnek iss ssorry, nicce hat lady," the snake said, curling its head around to address her. "Ssnek did not mean to frighten."
"What … where did you come from?" demanded Contessa. Her power had utterly failed to register the giant creature, or its potential effect on her plans. "What are you?" Reflexively, she started a Path designed to get her away from this … thing.
Step one: %&*$ divide by zero error. A dull throb began to pulse between her eyebrows.
"Ssnek came from Masster'ss casstle," the gargantuan reptile answered politely. "Ssnek iss Ssnek."
What was going on? Why was her power glitching now, for the first time ever? She was used to it drawing a blank with Eidolon and the Endbringers, but she never got a headache from that!
And then, the enormous nose was nudging some of the trash aside, then what looked like a multi-branched tongue came out and plucked up the pistol she'd so carefully hidden in the trash can. "Nicce hat lady losst thiss," the snake said. "Iss bang-ouch weapon. Ssnek not like. Musst take care with theesse."
She could see the number of steps required for her other Path multiplying as she tried to cut out all requirements for this alley to be involved. The man called Franco had to get his hands on a gun at just the right time, in order to shoot his boss, so Contessa could show up and make him an offer he couldn't refuse. For a moment, she considered asking for it back, but that would involve putting her hand near that mouth, which could easily engulf her whole, and she couldn't Path what would happen.
"Keep it," she said hastily. Path to getting a new pistol. Step one. "Doorway to Chicago."
The portal opened in front of her and she stepped through, checking to make sure the thing wasn't about to slither through after her. It didn't, and she heaved a sigh of relief. Whatever the hell that had been, she'd left it behind, and could get on with her day.
The new Path involved going to a specific hotel room, where the weapons dealer had set up a miniature showroom. Walk in, pick out the gun she wanted, put down some money, walk out. Simplicity itself.
As she rode up in the elevator, she mulled over other reports of gargantuan snakes she'd heard of recently. Supposedly, one had actually eaten the villain Lung, up in New England, and another had killed Jack Slash in Des Moines. Also in New England, a bunch of footage had gone viral around a sixty-foot anaconda that had gone through a fast-food drive-through, paid for its food, then disappeared to parts unknown.
That last one had reactions divided more or less evenly between "gotta be a fake", "nope NOPE NOPE" and "aww he looks cute".
Contessa was firmly in the second camp, for reasons of her own. Snakes on their own she could take or leave, but when they got big enough to threaten small cars and she couldn't Path them, that was when she no longer wanted them anywhere near her. At all. Ever.
When I go back to Dallas, I'm going to have to keep an eye out for it. Just in case.
The elevator opened on the floor she wanted, and she stepped out. A quick flick of her eyes in both directions let her know there was nobody waiting to ambush her, so she started down the corridor toward the room in question. Two minutes, in and out, done and dusted.
"What iss nicce hat lady doing now?"
"Jesus motherfuck!" she half-screamed, leaping sideways hard enough to ram her shoulder with bruising force into the wall. Again, she arrested her reach for the pistol in her shoulder holster, because every instinct told her it wouldn't help.
Sure enough, right behind her, the too-large head with its bright inquisitive eyes and flickering tongue filled a good chunk of the corridor. Beyond it, she could see the rest of the body, which was in the process of slithering out of the elevator she'd just been in.
Her brain insisted this was absolutely and patently impossible. The creature was not particularly skinny—she estimated it to be about three feet thick, on average, and there was no way sixty feet of it would've even fitted into that small metal box, especially with her in there as well. And yet, more of it flowed out of the elevator as she watched.
"Thosse are not nicce wordss, nicce hat lady," the snake said reprovingly. "Masster ssayss to alwayss usse polite wordss. People sshould be nicce to each other."
"Sorry, sorry," she said, slumping against the wall and trying to get her heart rate under control again. I'm being lectured on my language by a giant prehistoric reptile. "You startled me. Where did you come from?"
"Ssnek already told nicce hat lady. Masster'ss casstle." The massive head tilted to one side curiously. "Iss nicce hat lady feeling unwell? Masster can fix. Masster can fix anything."
She must have been more severely rattled from the first encounter than she realized. This thing had a master. The implication was that this 'Master' was human, probably male. And while the snake itself seemed to make her power tie itself in knots for fun, the same was unlikely to apply to the cape behind this … projection? Projection, it had to be.
"I would like to meet your Master," she ventured. "Would that be possible?"
"Ssnek can take nicce hat lady to meet Masster," the snake responded happily. "Ssnek likess having new friendss. Nicce hat lady needss to get on Ssnek'ss back."
Carefully, she did as she was told. The scales were smooth but allowed her to grip with her knees. "Okay, what happens now?" she asked. There wasn't much corridor left in front of them.
"Now Ssnek will open wriggle-hole." And just like that, a portal, entirely unlike the ones Doormaker used, popped open in front of them. "Nicce hat lady hold tight."
With a surge of motion, they went through the portal and into a large stone building. The room they emerged into was huge, with the smoothed-down trunk of a tree extending at least eighty feet from floor to ceiling. The wooden column had rounded extensions protruding from it in all directions, almost but not quite like a rotating martial-arts dummy. In one corner of the room was an equally large round cushioned area with raised edges, easily twenty feet across and six feet thick.
"Thiss iss Ssnek'ss room," the snake said proudly. "Ssnek'ss winding-posst and bed. Iss very nicce to ssleep on. Masster made them for Ssnek."
"So I see," Contessa observed. She was beginning to get a better read on the snake now. It was sapient, but only to the level of a child. She'd also noticed that it rarely used pronouns, if at all; whether this was a personal quirk or a conceptual inability, she wasn't sure.
"Ssnek take nicce hat lady to ssee Masster now." Moving with a level of speed and agility she wasn't sure was natural in snakes—well, duh, this thing's about as natural as Armsmaster's halberd—it wriggled across the floor and down a stone corridor. When it reached the far end, it bumped on a large solid-looking door three times with its nose. And in fact, it counted under its breath as it did so.
"Come in, Snek," replied a mature-sounding masculine voice from behind the door. "And bring your guest as well."
Wait, how'd he know I was here? Dealing with other Thinkers could be a pain.
Opening its mouth, the snake put out that oddly branching tongue, which wrapped around the door handle and turned it, then pulled the door open. Still with Contessa on its back, it wriggled inside and stopped. She climbed off, looking around with interest.
This room was almost as large as the snake's living area, but it was set up like a mad Tinker's laboratory. Bubbling retorts lined shelves along the wall, various odd contraptions hung from wires or appeared to be in random stages of construction, and an elongated stuffed crocodile was suspended up near the ceiling. That is, it was a crocodile if such creatures had iridescent purple and green scales, and large bat-like wings. Riggght.
"Hello, Snek. Have you been a good boy?" The speaker had a long greying beard, wore robes and a pointy hat, and carried a gnarled wooden staff. While minor details differed, he could've easily passed for Myrddin if someone was just going by a general description. Contessa had no doubt this was the 'Master' the snake had been referring to.
"Yess, Masster," the snake replied. "Ssnek met nicce hat lady. Sshe dropped bang-ouch weapon sso Ssnek took. Sshe ssaid sshe wass not feeling well, sso Ssnek brought her here. Master fix?"
"Yes, I can deal with this problem. Go play, Snek." The Master let the staff go, leaving it to stand by itself while he stroked his beard gently and eyed Contessa in a way that left her wondering how deeply he could see into her soul.
Behind her, the snake wriggled out the door and closed it again … somehow.
"Greetings to you, Fortuna of an Earth long ago and far away." Well, that answered that. Definitely Thinker powers.
She took a breath, wondering if she'd miscalculated, but the pistol in her shoulder holster and the ability to call for a doorway were still moves she had in reserve, as well as the obvious. Path to getting this Master on side.
Step one: %&*$ divide by infinity error. She gasped and staggered sideways a step as the headache returned with a vengeance.
"Tch, tch, tch," he mused, watching dispassionately as she regained her balance. "If I were you, I wouldn't try that again. A couple more backlashes like that, and you're likely to suffer an aneurysm. So, Contessa of Earth Bet, you encountered my Snek and took advantage of his innocent curiosity to attempt to gain leverage over him and me both. How very … cynical of you."
She eyed him cautiously, but he didn't seem to be about to launch an attack. "If you know who I am and where I'm from, then you're aware what's at stake," she rasped. "Billions or even trillions of lives."
"Oh, I am definitely aware." He took hold of his staff and made a pass with it. A holographic globe popped into existence in the air before them, and then another, and another and another. "Yours is not the only world in peril. Mine is not the only one I protect." Another twitch of the staff brought into being a creature that was all glowing eyes and shadowy tentacles, at least the size of the Moon, stretching its appendages out to wrap around one of the planets and drag it into eternal darkness. "Threats abound throughout the multiverse, some of which would overwhelm your little problems in an instant, or make them much, much worse." From the surface of the planet burst lightning, striking the shadow-creature and rending it asunder. "Are you beginning to understand?"
For the first time, she was. Either this guy was a consummate liar and showman, or he was the real deal. With the level of power he was exhibiting—somehow, she knew the shadow-creature and the lightning strike that had destroyed it had been one hundred percent real—he took even Eidolon's capabilities and made them irrelevant. "Yes." She gestured at the planet she thought was Earth Bet. "If you can do something about Scion and the Endbringers, why don't you?"
He smiled, a harshly amused expression. "I'm allowing Snek to go back there, aren't I? He likes your little world, and he's a good boy. He'll help protect you when I'm distracted with other matters. Now, I believe it's time for you to go."
"But wait—" She held up her hand, too late. The staff reached out and tapped her in the middle of the forehead. Everything went black.
Snek wriggles into Master's work-room. There is only Master and Riley there. "Nicce hat lady gone?"
"Yes, she had to go," Master says, then holds out nice hat. "She left this for you."
Snek wriggles closer, so that Master can put hat on head. "Thank you, Masster. Iss nicce hat."
"Awww," says Riley. "Snek, that hat makes you look so cute!"
Snek preens. Snek likes being cute.
Fortuna blinked and looked around at the alleyway. Where was I? I must have lost my train of thought. Oh, right. Acquire pistol for Franco to kill his boss.
As she prepared to Doorway back to Chicago, she felt the top of her head. Where's my hat?
Diane perched on top of the roof, looking out over the city. Recovered from her ordeal with the Nine, with a new costume and an improved outlook on life, she was ready to go out and show the local lowlives how a Mouse did her Protecting. Crouching, she prepared to jump to the next roof over.
"Hello, Mouss."
The familiar voice brought her around in an instant. "Snek!" she squealed in joy, hugging the enormous reptile around his neck, then pulling back so she could boop his nose with her fist. "It's good to see you again!"
"Iss good to ssee Mouss again too." Snek rubbed the side of his head against her leg like the world's biggest pupper looking for skritchies. So of course, she could only oblige. "Mouss iss looking good."
"You too, and I love your haaaa—waaiiit a minute." Diane eyed the fedora perched in the middle of Snek's broad head. "That hat looks familiar. Where did you get it from?"
Snek looked very pleased with himself. "Iss pressent from nicce hat lady."
Nice hat lady, huh? If Diane wasn't mistaken, she knew exactly where it had come from, and that person wasn't in the habit of handing her hat out as a present to anyone. "When did you meet this nice hat lady?"
"Jusst a little while ago. Wass fun to talk to."
Diane began to snicker. If it had been 'fun' for Snek, and he'd ended up with that hat, she suspected it hadn't been fun at all for the cape boogeyman.
Well, serves her right. "Hey, Snek. Want to help me go find bad men and beat them up?"
"Ssnek likess helping Mouss." He adroitly ducked his head under her leg, so she suddenly found herself astride his neck. "Mouss hold on."
She did so, and he launched himself off the rooftop. "Woo hoooo!"
nd of Part Four
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Snek is a Good Boy by ack1308
Books » Worm Rated: T, English, Parody & Sci-Fi, Skitter, Armsmaster, Lung, Jack Slash, Words: 178k+, Favs: 2k+, Follows: 2k+, Published: Mar 10, 2021 Updated: Jul 3, 2025
1,121Chapter 5
Snek is a Good Boy
Part Five: The Snek, the Bug and the Snake
[A/N: This chapter commissioned by Fizzfaldt and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]
Taylor kept a lookout all around with her bugs as she stood at the side of the road. It was a street much like any other, albeit more run-down than most, but it was in the northern part of the city, so that wasn't exactly surprising. The significance of the area, which would've escaped ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the population of Brockton Bay, was that Lung had died here.
Looking up at the building currently looming over her, she could easily see the gouges in the concrete frontage where he'd leaped upward and clung to the wall. His speed and strength, shocking at the time, were even more impressive when she was looking at the height of the leap from ground level. She knew now what she hadn't then; getting close enough to view the scene with her own eyes had been stupid and reckless, and that she'd come close to paying for that lesson with her life.
"You okay?" Danny put his hand on her shoulder.
She nodded, and dug her hands into the pockets of her jeans. "He was right here." Her toe tapped the deformed, grimy asphalt for emphasis. "The snake told him it was bad to attack children. He threw fire at the snake, then he threw fire up at me, then he jumped up at me, and that's when the snake grabbed him."
"And ate him." Danny shook his head, more in wonder than disbelief if she were any judge. "Well, as terrifying as it sounds, the snake saved your life. And got you to open up to me."
"And I'm glad I did." She leaned into the contact. "You helped give me some perspective."
"Every problem is the biggest problem in the world if you're looking at it from the inside," he noted. "Have you decided which way you're going to go with things? Independent, join a local team, or jump straight into the Wards?"
"Well, we don't really have many local teams, apart from New Wave." She took her hand out of her pocket to rub her nose. "And I don't feel like going maskless. Also, I know now exactly how risky it is to be out on my own."
He shrugged. "Well, less so since Lung died. The ABB's been more or less non-existent since that explosion in the middle of their territory. But yes, I'm still not comfortable with you going out on your own."
By silent mutual agreement, they turned and headed back toward the car. Taylor pursed her lips, considering the question that was still hanging in the air. "You know how I'm not thrilled about the Wards basically being my only real option."
Danny nodded. "As I recall, the phrase you used was, 'high school drama with powers'."
"On top of actual high school drama," she agreed. "So, can you think of a fifth alternative that isn't worse than going out on my own as an independent hero, unmasking with New Wave, joining the Wards or just trying to ignore the fact that I've got powers and can do some good in the world?"
"Well …" He chuckled to show that he wasn't serious. "You could always partner with the snake. That's what I call backup."
She giggled, a little shakily. "You shouldn't even joke about that, Dad. It was scary. Also, it ate Lung. Pretty sure every villain out there will be targeting it."
"I don't know about that," he said thoughtfully. "I saw on the news the other night about how it went through the drive-through at Fugly Bob's. Even paid for its meal. A couple of the Wards showed up and talked to it, but not a villain in sight."
"What?" Her head whipped around and she stared at him. "When did that happen?"
"Like I said, day before yesterday. You were tired from working out in the basement, so you went to bed early. Didn't you hear anything about it in school?"
That prompted an eye-roll. "You forget, Dad. I'm the social pariah. I'm spending more time using my bugs to keep clear of anyone who wants to pull bullshit on me than actually listening in on what they've got to say."
"Okay, got it." His jaw tightened, as it did with any reminder of the bullying. "How's it going with that, anyway? Do we have any more material for the lawsuit?"
Her father had been adamant about suing the school, but he hadn't wanted to go anywhere near Alan Barnes' law firm, so they'd found a different one. The lawyer who would be representing them, a Mr. Howe, had been nothing but helpful and encouraging for the whole process.
"A little bit." She waggled her hand from side to side. "They're still trying, but I think they're getting frustrated. You're serious about the drive-through thing?"
"Totally." He spread his hands, then got out the keys to unlock the car. "Look it up for yourself when you get home."
"Right." Once her door was unlocked, she climbed in. "I think it's time to jump back on my PHO account. If it's anywhere, it'll be there."
"Sounds about right." He fastened his seatbelt and started the car. "Also, I just had an idea about the other thing. Do you really need to be a hero?"
"Dad!" Scandalised, she stared at him. "I'm not going to be a villain!"
He raised an eyebrow. "There is a third choice, you know. You could monetise this. How many bug exterminators can tell exactly how many bugs are in the building before they even start? And how many can be certain about getting every single bug out?"
She blinked. "I … uh … oh." The more she considered the idea, the more she was sure she could do it. "Why didn't I think of this myself?"
Shifting the car into gear, he snorted with amusement. "Because nobody wakes up with super-powers and asks themselves, 'how can I make this into a boring nine-to-five job?' That's why."
"Oh. Right. But, uh … isn't there a law against using powers to make money?" She was sure she'd heard something about that in World Affairs.
He frowned. "It's not as hard and fast as that, but yeah, NEPEA-5 has provisions against purely cape-based industries. I'll have to look into it when we get home, after I check in with DC&H about whether they're ready to serve papers yet."
"And I'm going to be looking up PHO," she declared. "I want to see if it's the same snake."
"Because there are so many sixty-foot snakes in Brockton Bay," he teased her as they drove off.
She responded with the extremely mature and well-thought-out argument of blowing a raspberry.
Snek
Snek has been a good boy.
Riley has been nice to him. She thanked Snek for fast food, and gave him snoot-boops. Snek likes snoot-boops. Fast food was fun. Snek enjoyed Challenger snacks.
He helped Master do Master things, too. Master sent him to where demons were hurting people. Snek likes spicy food. Snek can count to ten but there were many more demons than that. Snek was very full, after.
Master said it is good to help Mouse. Snek likes helping Mouse, because she says nice things about Snek's hat. It is a nice hat.
Now Mouse is doing Mouse things, and Master said he does not need Snek for little while yet, so Snek is bored. Snek decides to look for new friend.
Snek remembers buzzy-bug girl on building when he ate shouty fire metal man. He wonders if she knows where to find more shouty fire metal men. The last one was not as spicy as demon, but still spicy.
He decides to go find buzzy-bug girl. City is big, but Snek can smell really good.
Coil
It was official. Thomas Calvert did not like what was going on.
He'd had almost all his ducks in a row for the Alcott abduction, then half the city went nuts after a giant snake ate Lung. The new cape he'd been planning on recruiting via the Undersiders didn't even get to meet them, and he'd had to abandon all his timelines because of inexplicable splitting headaches.
Since then, anytime he tried to split time for more than a day, the headaches returned or he started getting clear impossibilities as a result. And every time he had the Alcott girl kidnapped, it always went bad, usually involving something huge and scaly roaming through the base and hunting him down.
The worst bit was when he turned on the TV and nearly soiled himself when he saw the creature itself carefully wriggling through the drive-through at Fugly Bob's. At one point, it turned its head toward the camera and he could've sworn it was looking directly at him. Once it had its food, it vanished through some kind of teleport-portal, which didn't make him any happier.
His plans to foment city-wide instability had also struck a severe snag. In the aftermath of Lung's death, it seemed that Bakuda and Oni Lee had disagreed over who was to lead the gang; this had culminated in the Tinker's lab exploding dramatically and leaving a glass-lined crater. Nobody had seen either cape since, and the ABB's presence in the city had dropped away to almost nothing. Without the Asian gang to confront, the Empire wasn't causing nearly as much unrest as he'd hoped.
Picking up the phone, he dialled Tattletale's number. She had a talent of getting around blocks that stopped other Thinkers, so he wanted to know what she had to say on the matter. If he couldn't kill or suborn whoever was behind it, he wanted them out of the city by whatever means possible.
Taylor
It was much later by the time Taylor pushed back from her computer desk, having thoroughly combed through the PHO thread whimsically titled Our Snekky Overlord. It had been started by Mouse Protector, of all people, and included several selfies with her and the oversized serpent … wearing a normal-sized fedora on its enormous head.
His enormous head; apparently, Snek (he had a name) was a 'he', and Mouse Protector had waxed lyrical about his playfulness, his sense of humour, and his ability to eat supervillains whole. Because apparently Lung wasn't a fluke. He'd done it to Hatchet Face as well.
Also included (because why not) was a section of footage (taken by Mouse Protector using a selfie stick) showing the comedic hero riding on Snek's neck across what looked vaguely like Boston. There was a blow-by-blow portrayal of Snek helping track down and capture Ravager (apparently someone Mouse Protector had a long-standing enmity with), whereupon the villain was given the mother of all wedgies by hanging her from a lamp-post by her underwear.
The PHO reactions had been many and varied, ranging from 'this has to be CGI' all the way through to 'no shit, there I was when Mouse Protector came riding down the street on this giant snake'. The moderators had been pushed to their limits keeping things from exploding out of control, dousing flamewars as soon as they started, though things had reduced to relative sanity after Armsmaster and several PRT-affiliated sources had come forward to confirm Snek's existence.
Along the way, she had learned more ways to refer to snakes than she'd ever thought possible, from 'danger noodle' to 'nope rope' to 'slippery tube dude', 'hazard spaghetti', 'caution Ramen', 'dangle fangle' and 'panic pipeline'. Some of these made her giggle, while others induced a facepalm.
But even all that hadn't prepared Taylor for the phone videos of Snek just casually going through the Fugly's drivethrough down on the Boardwalk. She'd seen him in action before, but that had been at night, in the dark, and a lot of the action had been obscured by Lung himself. This time around, it was just … weirdly normal. Made all the more surreal by the two Wards who appeared on the scene and even had a short conversation with him before he vanished.
After that, Taylor was prepared to swear it was the same snake. (Or rather, the same Snek). That portal-travel was unmistakeable. "Wow," she said softly, and repeated something Mouse Protector had posted. "Snek is a good boy."
"Thank you," hissed a voice from just outside her window. "Buzzy-bug girl iss nicce too."
Taylor froze. She hadn't been keeping her swarm up and active while at home; this was an oversight she immediately swore she would never commit again. While she put out a call to every bug she could muster in the surrounding blocks, she slowly turned her head to see who had spoken.
An eye roughly the size of her head, with a gold-fringed slit pupil, looked back at her. It was inset into a gigantic scaly head, upon which was perched a stylish fedora, and somehow managed to convey far more emotion than a snake's eye should be able to. There was an innocent playfulness in there, and more than a little amusement. Of malice, there was none.
"H-hello?" she replied. "Snek?" For that eye, that head, that hat, could belong to none other.
"Hello," Snek replied. The head pulled away a little, then turned so that the other eye could inspect her. "Ssnek iss Ssnek. Buzzy-bug girl like to come out, bring buzzy-bugss, punissh bad men?"
"W-wait." This was moving too fast for Taylor. She knew Mouse Protector had worked with him, but she was a long-established hero. "You—you want me to come out with you?"
"Yess, buzzy-bug girl." Snek's mouth was longer than Taylor's arm, but he still seemed to smile. "Maybe Ssnek find another sshouty fire metal man to eat."
"Shouty fire metal— oh. No, I don't think there's any more Lungs out there. At least, I hope not." She was finding the conversation deeply surreal, but Snek was oddly easy to talk to. "We can still go beat up bad guys if you want to. But I'm pretty sure I'm not bulletproof. Or fireproof."
"Ssnek will protect buzzy-bug girl," the colossal snake replied, with a simple matter-of-fact air. "Punissh bad men iss fun. Even if not eat."
"Yeah." She nodded. "I can go with that. But I'm going to have to tell Dad first. I promised not to go out without telling him."
"Ssnek undersstandss. Ssnek alwayss tellss Masster when Ssnek visitss other worldss."
She wasn't sure she wanted to ask about 'Masster' or the 'other worlds' reference. Or rather, she wanted to ask, but she wasn't sure she wanted to hear the answers. Getting up from the chair, she indicated the door of her room. "I'm just going to go check with him. Are you okay to wait?"
The massive head nodded. "Ssnek iss good at waiting."
Well, okay then. Taylor trotted downstairs, then through into the kitchen and down into the basement where she retrieved her costume. Then she headed upstairs again, into the living room, where Danny was watching the news. "Dad?"
Danny
When Taylor went down to the basement, Danny tilted his head slightly in concern. She'd promised not to go out again in costume without notifying him first, and he didn't think she'd break her word without an exceptionally good reason. But ... he couldn't think of anything else she'd be going down there for. However, when she came back up—costume in hand—she came straight to him. "Dad?"
Muting the TV, he sat up straight and looked at her. "You're going out?"
She hesitated, which drew his attention even more strongly. "I … yeah. You know how you made a joke about me partnering with, uh, Snek?"
It took him a second or so to make the connection. "What, the big snake?" Where'd she get that name from?
"Uh … yeah. So, he's outside … well, my bedroom window. Inviting me to come out and beat up bad guys with him."
He blinked, slowly. "Wait, what again now?"
"Come on. I'll show you." She started toward the entrance hall.
With that sort of lead-in, he didn't have much of a choice. Getting up from the sofa, he followed her upstairs and along the corridor to her room. Where a giant snake was peering in through the window. A giant snake with a fedora perched on the middle of its gargantuan head.
"Hello," it said politely. "Ssnek iss Ssnek."
"Ah, hi." This was not what Danny had been expecting to do this evening. "I'm Danny. I'm, uh, I'm Taylor's father."
"Hello, Danny. Ssnek will keep buzzy-bug girl Taylor ssafe."
By rights, Danny should've been screaming and running from the room. But against all odds, Snek seemed … friendly. Approachable, even. It may have been the hat. "I like your hat."
"Thank you." Snek seemed to preen. "It wass pressent from nicce hat lady."
He wasn't sure how to address that, so he decided to go on to the topic that really concerned him. "Uh … you know Taylor's only new at being a hero, right?"
Snek nodded. "Yess. Ssnek knowss that. Ssnek will protect buzzy-bug girl Taylor."
"Good, good." He was running out of things to say. What did one talk about with a giant snake, anyway? "Uh, how do you like Brockton Bay? The city, I mean?"
This time, Snek's smile was unmistakeable. "Ssnek likess ccity. Many bad men to play with. Ssnek met sshouty fire metal man. Wass bad man. Ssnek ate him. Wass deliciouss."
And saved Taylor at the same time. "So … you only eat bad men?"
Snek nodded again. "Yess. Masster hass ssaid not to hurt children, and to only eat bad men. Ssnek iss a good boy."
"I can see that." Danny wanted to ask about Snek's 'masster', but thought it might be rude.
Taylor hustled in, wearing her costume. Pulling her mask over her head, she tugged her hair through the space at the back. "Okay, I'm ready to go."
"Got your pepper spray and burner phone?" Danny still didn't like cell-phones, but this was a special case.
"Right here." She reached over her shoulder and tapped the carapace on her back. "All charged up and ready to go."
"Okay, good." He gave her a brief hug; she returned it. "Take care, and call me if you need anything at all. Okay?" He wouldn't even have been condoning this excursion, except that he'd seen the selfies Mouse Protector had taken with Snek.
"Absolutely." She climbed out the window. Snek's head dipped down, so that Taylor ended up astride his neck. "See you when I get home."
It was hard to speak past the lump in his throat. "Kick some ass for me."
"Will do. Whooo!" The last whoop was occasioned when a weird hole opened in the ground in front of Snek and he dived into it, taking Taylor with him.
Half a second later, the portal closed, leaving no sign that there'd ever been a giant snake in his side yard. Shaking his head, Danny turned and left the room. It was a good thing that the TV was already on the news channel, because he was going to be paying very close attention to it for the rest of the evening.
Nobody ever warned me that being the parent of a superhero would be this stressful.
Coil
After a few days of nothing going wrong, Calvert had settled on a basic armoured car robbery. For the moment, everything seemed to be going according to plan. While the guards had locked the doors and bunkered down, the lasers wielded by his men were carving the back of the truck open. Another few million in the kitty was always a good idea.
The first indication of trouble came when a circular portal opened in the side of the truck, and that goddamn snake barrelled out into the midst of his men. Knocking them aside like skittles, it wrapped its body protectively around the truck, its sheer bulk shielding the lower six feet of the vehicle from their lasers. A sharp spike of pain shot through his head as he stared through the various helmet-cam feeds at the creature; he went to drop the timeline, but the other one had already vanished like the morning fog.
"Sir?" It was Hodges, the nominal leader of this mission. "What do we do?"
He was already committed. "Lasers, full power. Kill that thing."
"Copy that." He heard the orders being passed on, then all his men fired their lasers at the gigantic snake. A smile of grim satisfaction crossed his features; getting rid of it had always been in his plans, but this was too easy.
Right up until bugs started swarming his men. Yells arose as faceplates were obscured. More urgent shouts rang out as the bugs began (he suspected) crawling into their clothing and seeking flesh to bite and sting. And then, as they were distracted, the snake's head loomed unexpectedly out of the curtain of bugs to delicately snatch the rifles from his men's hands with what looked like a prehensile tongue. One after the other, so neatly and precisely that it had to have been pre-planned, they were disarmed.
Nobody hung on to their weapons for even a few seconds. With the size of the jaws on that thing, it could easily have made 'dis-arming' a much more painful and permanent affair. As much as Calvert wanted to blame them, he couldn't.
It's that other cape, the bug controller. They're working together. As unpalatable as it was, the conclusion hadn't been hard to reach.
"Retreat!" he ordered. "Get your men out of there!"
"We can't!" Hodges broke off, hacking and coughing. A moment later, a wall of scales appeared in front of him and knocked him backward, off his feet. "It's—kack—everywhere!"
And then the helmet cameras started blinking off, one after the other. As the last one went dark, Calvert slumped into his chair. The headache was pounding harder than ever, preventing him from accessing his power. Wherever he went, whatever he tried to do, this thing thwarted his wishes.
With his eyes squeezed shut, he accepted the inevitable. Fuck this. I'm leaving town.
Maybe he could make a start somewhere else. As far as he was concerned, the snake could have Brockton Bay.
Taylor
"Well, that was fun," Taylor said brightly, leaning against the side of Snek's head. She'd been careful to take cover while he assaulted the armoured-car robbers, and her swarm had made it a lot harder for them to fight back. All they were waiting for now were the cops. "Did you have fun, Snek?"
"Yess, buzzy-bug girl. Ssnek had fun. Glowy-light thingss were tickly." Snek rubbed his head up against Taylor like the world's biggest puppy-dog, begging for skritchies. She obliged, then gave his snout a pat. He seemed to enjoy that, too.
She had to admit, being a hero was a whole lot easier with a giant laser-proof Snek around.
Snek is happy. Snek has been a good boy.
End of Part Five
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