Snek is a Good Boy 17 (Patreon)

Happenings

[A/N: This chapter commissioned by @Fizzfaldt and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]

Far From Earth Bet

Elmora Reborn emerged from the guildhouse with the other trainees and turned down the street toward her lodgings. As dusk came on, the sconces of everfire spaced at regular intervals self-ignited one by one, giving enough light to see by.

Her shoulders ached and her forearms hurt and her fingers twinged, but she knew she was making progress. As her teacher always said, a good fletcher makes an arrow that a master is able to place into the target. A great fletcher makes an arrow that they themselves are able to shoot accurately. But an exceptional fletcher makes an arrow that anyone can learn to hit the bull with. She wasn't an exceptional fletcher yet, maybe not even a great one, but she felt she was getting there.

The other part of the training, apart from the bowyer work, was the archery itself. She knew the basics—one could shoot arrows only so many times without learning the most efficient way to nock and loose at the right time—but doing it since her power had been taken away was a shitload more difficult. Still, she was getting there. One day, she would be shooting with a bow of her own making, once she finished learning how.

Right now, however, the learning day was over. She had coin in her pouch, courtesy of her sponsor and the other work she was doing around town to augment her earnings, so it was time to relax and enjoy herself for a while. There was a tavern not far from her lodgings that served a tasty meat stew and a good heady ale, so she directed her steps that way.

When she pushed aside the curtain and stepped inside, the warmth and smell of the fire as well as the food and drink rolled over her. Inhaling appreciatively—in the old days, she would've considered this unbearably primitive, but her attitudes had changed somewhat since then—she found an empty table and sat herself down. There was a musician up on the simple wooden stage, singing in a high, reedy voice as he plucked at a string instrument; she wondered if he was an apprentice at the Bardic College, trying for some coin on the side.

The serving girl came over and Elmora ordered a bowl of stew and a mug of ale. It wasn't overly busy, so she figured she'd get served reasonably quickly. In the meantime, she leaned back in her chair and watched the crowd, with half an eye on the door-curtain and half an ear on the stage.

The singer finished his act to a smattering of polite applause and a few copper pieces rolling across the smooth-planed boards of the stage. He picked them up then took his lute (at least, she thought it was a lute) and headed offstage. Just then, Elmora spotted the serving girl coming back her way with the bowl and mug she'd ordered.

"Here you go." The girl—Janis, her name was—delivered Elmora's meal for the evening. "Enjoy."

"Thanks, I will." She dropped a few coins on the tray. "What's with that guy who was up on stage before? Surely he's not a full bard yet?"

"Hah, no." Janis grinned as she expertly swept the coins into her hip pouch. "College is sending 'em over to get a taste of performing in public."

"Yeah, okay. Makes sense." Elmora took up the spoon that had been supplied with the bowl of thick stew and pulled the bowl closer.

"See you around." Janis moved off toward another patron who'd just sat down as Elmora took a taste of the stew.

It was venison—the main game animal in the area was deer, so she'd found—and nicely seasoned. As she raised the mug to her lips—the ale was moderately alcoholic and strongly flavoured—another singer came out on stage, this one a woman wearing some kind of feathered headdress.

She was fortunate in that she'd just swallowed the mouthful of drink before the singer began her song. The lyrics were unfamiliar, but that didn't matter. From the very first note, she knew that voice.

Which was ridiculous. The last time she'd heard it was years ago and far away, in a world far distant to the one she now lived in. But the more she listened, the more certain she was that it was the same person. And when she looked more closely, she saw that the feathers were not part of a headdress; they were growing amidst the captivating singer's hair.

"Holy shit," she said out loud to nobody in particular. "That's fucking Canary."

Paige Macabee, she knew, had been arrested for mutilating her boyfriend or some stupid shit like that, and then gone straight to the Birdcage. What she was doing here, Elmora didn't know for certain, but it wasn't hard to make a guess. This had Snek and his enigmatic Master written all over it. If someone like her could get a second chance and end up here, then Canary would be a shoo-in.

Taking up the spoon again, she ate a mouthful of stew while preparing to enjoy the show. Being an exile in a strange place was one thing, but not being the only exile was another thing altogether.

<><>

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Winslow High Student/Teacher Conference Room

Principal Blackwell

This was ridiculous, Carrie Blackwell decided. Why in God's name had Danny Hebert requested a conference with her on the first day of summer vacation? Couldn't he have arranged a day during any part of the actual school year? Any day? She had enough hassles as it was since the PRT had abruptly pulled their Ward stipend from the school with zero explanation.

"Does anyone have any idea what this is about?" asked Gladly. "I had plans for today. We were going to the movies."

"I'll be sure to ask." Carrie checked the clock on the wall.

It was almost ten, which was when Hebert had requested the meeting for. He'd also requested that Gladly and Quinlan attend, for whatever reason other than they were two of his daughter's teachers, she had no idea. Was this supposed to be some kind of final appeal for them to be more careful about his precious daughter being bullied next year?

I mean, seriously, this sort of thing is better dealt with just before school lets in, not after the year's over and done with!

There was a knock at the door, then it opened. Danny Hebert stood in the doorway, not even wearing a tie. Carrie had just enough time to be irritated at that before he stepped forward. "Good. You're all here. I was hoping I wouldn't have to track you down individually."

"What?" asked Gladly. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Next into the room was a man who was in fact wearing a suit and tie, and carrying a briefcase. Carrie's irritation and confusion rapidly morphed into trepidation, which blew all the way out into worry when the man put his briefcase down on the table and unsnapped the latches. "Hello," said the newcomer, taking three folded pieces of paper out of the briefcase. "This is for you … and you … and you."

The door clicked shut, and Carrie looked that way to see Taylor Hebert herself, standing with her back to it. There was a certain determination in her posture, saying loud and clear that if they wanted to get out that door, they'd have to physically move her. While Carrie was distracted, she felt one of the folded documents being pressed into her hands.

"What the hell is this?" blustered Quinlan. "And who are you?"

The stranger smiled austerely. "I am Harold Howe of DC&H, Attorneys at Law. And you've just been served."

"It's a lawsuit," Danny Hebert added helpfully. "Against the whole school, against you three in particular, and against certain other people. All of whom managed to make Taylor's time here far more difficult than it should have been."

"But—wait—I didn't—" Predictably, it was Gladly. Carrie instead chose to open the summons—for that was what it was—to see exactly what it said.

"No." That was Taylor. "You didn't. That's the trouble. When Madison and Julia put juice or glue on my chair, or dumped pencil shavings on me, or stole my homework, or threw spitballs at me, or sabotaged my classwork, you didn't see a thing. When Emma and her friends cornered me outside the classroom while you were there, you still didn't see a thing."

Carrie read some of the wording of the summons and shuddered, folding the thing again. This had to be nipped in the bud. "Ms Hebert, you can't be serious. We are not the ones who harmed you. We can't be expected to stand over our students every second of the day."

"No, you're not the ones who pulled the pranks, who locked me in my locker." Taylor's tone was venomous, her expression implacable. "You're just the ones who enabled them. You're the ones who utterly failed to protect me from half the girls in my grade for two whole years. And every time you chose not to punish them, you taught them that it was just fine to keep at me. Congratulations." She gestured at Mr Howe. "It appears that lack of action also has consequences."

Well, fuck.

<><>

Alan Barnes

When the doorbell rang, Alan Barnes' first reaction was irritation. He was relaxing on the sofa with the sports on and a drink in hand, so why the hell did he have to move now? But Emma was up in her room and Zoe was in the kitchen, so when the doorbell rang a second time without anyone calling out that they'd get it, he knew it was up to him.

"I'll get it," he grunted, setting the glass of cola down on a side table and heaving himself to his feet. As he did so, the doorbell rang a third time. "Coming!" he called out.

The trek to the front door was taken up with grumbling, so when he opened the door and saw a bright young man standing there, he was ready to growl at them.

"Good morning, Mr Barnes," the boy—surely he couldn't be more than twenty—said energetically. "The office sent me to hand-deliver this to you, sir. Very sorry if I disturbed your weekend."

"The office? Hand deliver?" His anger cut off at the knees, Alan accepted the Manila envelope that the kid handed to him. He had no idea what was going on, just that anything requiring hand delivery on a Saturday was not something he could fob off until Monday.

"Yes, sir. They said it was imperative that you look it over right now."

"Right, right." Alan broke the seal and reached into the envelope. Within was a stack of folded paper, which he extracted and started to open.

There was a click, and he looked up to see that the young man had taken his photo with a phone camera. He blinked. "What? What was that for?"

The kid beamed at him. "You've just been served, sir. Have a good day." Turning, he marched off back down Alan's front path to the gate.

"Served? What?" Suddenly realising that the lad didn't work in his offices, Alan opened the papers and scanned them quickly. "Summons? Lawsuit? Taylor?" Stepping back into the house, he shut the door behind him, then drew air into his lungs for a medium bellow. "Emma! Get down here now!"

Just as she called out to ask why, his phone vibrated in his pocket. He took it out and glanced at the caller ID; it showed the name of Rod Clements, a casual acquaintance since Emma had become close friends with Rod's daughter. "Alan here. Can it wait?"

"No, it damn well can't wait." Alan didn't know Rod well, but he seemed to be worked up over something. "I just got served a summons for a lawsuit naming Madison as a defendant, about damages to some girl called Taylor Hebert. What the hell's going on here?"

"I honestly have no idea," Alan confessed grimly. "But I fully intend to find out."

All of a sudden, missing the latest play on TV was the least of his problems.

<><>

Hebert Household, Later

Taylor

Dad leaned back on the sofa and stretched his legs out. "So, that's done. How do you feel?"

I considered my words carefully. "Pleased. Nervous. Hoping all the t's got crossed and the i's got dotted. I'd hate for them to all walk away because of something I forgot to tell Mr Howe."

"No, you did just fine talking to him. Especially with that journal you've been amassing." He reached across and ruffled her hair. "He confided to me that when he saw how much material you'd put in it, the only question left on the board was how many figures we'd be getting."

"Oh, good." I drew a deep breath and let it out again to try to quell the jitters. It didn't really work. "Well, since we've decided to hold off on launching my exterminator business until after the lawsuit is over and done with, would you have a problem with me costuming up and going out on patrol?"

He hesitated, then shook his head. "I'm still not thrilled about you going off and fighting crime on your own. There are still supervillains in town, after all, and not all of them are vulnerable to bugs. Could you get someone to watch your back, while you're watching everyone else's backs?"

The tone of his voice told me that if I didn't have any other volunteers to call on, he'd step up himself. I didn't want to put that on him; he was willing enough, but he didn't have any powers. If he got hurt because of me, I'd never forgive myself.

"I can … well, I can try. Just let me get changed first." I headed upstairs and got into my costume, checking to make sure that the body cam had fresh batteries.

Deputy Director Renick had said in passing that the offer to join the Wards was still open, especially after viewing the footage. I'd politely declined, but just being told I was good enough to join had given me a heady feeling. When I asked him why the Wards didn't wear body cams like mine—they would've caught on to Sophia's shenanigans a lot quicker, or forced her to actually act like a hero on patrol, either of which would've been a worthwhile result—he'd shaken his head and muttered something about 'youth guard'.

After double-checking the rest of my gear, I trotted downstairs again with my mask in my hand. "Okay, I'm not even sure if this'll work, but I'll give it a try. And if it doesn't … well, how do you feel about driving me around and staying in the car?"

"I'm totally okay with that," he said promptly. "I'm not against you being a hero; I just want you to come home safely."

"Hey, I'm down with that too." I gave him a smile. "But let's see if this works first." Taking a deep breath, I spoke out loud. "Uh … Snek? If you're not busy, I could do with some help going on patrol? Please?"

Dad's widening eyes clued me in at about the same time as I heard the dry sound of scales on the floor behind me. Turning, I watched Snek slither in from the kitchen. "Hello, buzzy-bug girl." He was as big and as cute as ever, especially with that hat in the middle of his broad head. "Ssnek would like to help you chasse bad men. Iss alwayss fun."

"Yes, it is. Especially when you're around." I booped him on the nose like I'd seen Diane do—he seemed to like that—and gave him a hug around his enormous neck. "It's good to see you again."

"Iss good to see buzzy-bug girl and Danny again too." Snek gave us both the kind of smile that only he could supply. "Are make-ssad boy and pew-pew boy well?"

It took me a moment to figure out what he meant, then I nodded. "Uh, yeah. Gallant and Kid Win seem to be fine. I've seen them both out on patrol since the Fugly's thing." It had made the news in a big way. Snek had hung around and they'd cooked up about a dozen Challengers for him as a snack for the road. At his request, they'd loaded on all the chilli that could fit on the burgers.

Well, he did like his spicy food.

"That iss good, buzzy-bug girl. Are you ready to go chassing bad men?"

I pulled on my mask and swung my leg over his neck. "I am now. Bye, Dad!"

"Bye, hon. Take care of her, Snek."

"Ssnek will do that, Danny. Buzzy-bug girl hold on."

I held on. A portal opened up in front of him, and we launched through it. "Woo hoo!"

<><>

On Board Squealer's Latest Contraption

Skidmark

"Are you sure this is a good idea, Skiddy?" Squealer expertly steered the armoured vehicle around the worst of the potholes. "With all the other villains gone, the heroes will be looking at us now."

"Shove it up your mung-hole, will you? We're the motherhumpin' big-ass dogs in town now." Adam took a deep drag on the pipe, then offered it to her as he held the intoxicating smoke in his lungs. She took it, steering with her knees as she applied a lighter and inhaled. In the process, the monstrous vehicle swerved from side to side, crunching up and over a derelict car, but neither of them noticed.

Handing the pipe back, she let out the smoke in a long stream to join the pre-existing fug in the cabin. "Yeah, but thing is, thing is, Protec—Protec—tectorate comes after us, we're toast."

"They'll never find us," he boasted, slapping the cabin wall. "Your shit is fuckin' amazing." He looked at the pipe and prepared to take another drag. "So's this shit. We need to get more of it."

"Uh … Skiddy?" She was slowing down.

The plan wasn't to slow down. It was to go straight to the bank, bust on in through the wall, make them open the fucking vault, and roll out of there like bandits. Or bosses. Or boss bandits. Adam didn't know how much money banks kept on hand, but it had to be like a million bucks. That would buy an absolute fuck-ton of meth.

She was still slowing down. He looked at her, irritated. "Why you slowing down, Squeals?"

"That." She pointed out through the windshield. He looked.

Coiled in the road, right in front of the oncoming vehicle, was a snake. Not just an ordinary snake, either. An ordinary snake would have to get the fuck out of the way before it ended up as street pizza, when one of Squealer's creations rolled on through.

No, this snake was the snake. The one he'd seen on the news, but decided he'd been too high to see straight. Snakes didn't get that big, and even the big ones didn't talk. Fact of nature. So it was just a drug hallucination. Trying as many drugs as he did, he was totally used to hallucinations, like the purple gorilla that used to sit at the end of his bed and give him a totally judgemental glare whenever he got wasted on smack.

But the thing about drug hallucinations was that nobody else saw them, no matter how much you pointed and screamed. And everyone saw the snake. Especially when it fucking ate Leviathan.

He'd been convinced he was high when he saw that, too. Or the snake was. How hard did the munchies have to hit before you thought it was a good idea to nom down on an Endbringer?

Anyway, seeing the snake himself now, via his own (somewhat bloodshot) eyes, and knowing Squeals was seeing it too, they were either sharing the same drug-fucked vision, or it was actually there.

As was the bug-themed girl sitting astride its neck. He had no idea what that was about.

The snake opened its mouth wide, showing off a whole array of fangs more suited to something from a horror movie, and began to uncoil, slithering in their direction. Squealer brought the tank to a halt.

"What the hell you doing?" he demanded. "Run over that scaly fuck!"

It was closer now. The fangs looked really big and really sharp. For all that he knew he was sitting inside an armoured vehicle, Skidmark began to feel nervous.

"Nope, I've seen what it does to anyone who fucks with it." She slewed the tank in a half circle, demolishing a bunch of parking meters in the process. A rear screen showed the snake really close behind, so she fed it the gas, and the tank surged forward.

"And turn on the fuckin' invisibility field while you're at it!" he yelled. "That overgrown earthworm can't chase us if it can't see us!"

"The field's already on!" she yelled back. "It can see us anyway!"

The tank was now roaring down the street at what Adam suspected were unsafe speeds for anything. When he snuck a peek in the rear-view screen, the snake was closer. "Faster!" he screeched. "Go faster!"

"I'm going as fast as I can!"

<><>

Taylor

"Get 'em, Snek!" I enthused, hanging on to Snek's neck as he slithered down the street at highway speeds. The weird vehicle ahead of us, which had only flickered into my awareness as we caught up to it, bounced and yawed through the many potholes in the road; Snek, on the other hand, glided over them without pause.

"Ssnek iss—" Snek's head came up. "Danger, buzzy-bug girl!"

His warning came too late, as a gleaming metallic cylinder arced toward us from a rooftop overhead. Even as he spoke the words, it burst, dropping a sparkling field around us. Snek tried to power through, but I felt my thought processes slowing, and saw the world outside speeding up. In an instant, the tank was gone.

"Get … help … Masster …" Snek was barely moving now, but a portal formed in front of me. He twitched his neck upward, and I tumbled through it.

In the next instant, I hit a stone-tiled floor and rolled to a halt. Looking around in confusion, I saw I was in a corridor lined with odd purple-flaring torches. Ahead of me was a large imposing wooden door. Carefully, I climbed to my feet and looked around.

The portal had closed behind me, but I suspected I knew where I was. This had to be Snek's home, where Snek's Master lived.

Raising my hand, I thumped on the thick wood with my fist. "Hello?" I called out. "Is anyone there? I need help! Snek needs help! Please!"

Abruptly, there was a metallic click, and the door swung open with nary a creak. "Enter and be welcome, Taylor Hebert of Earth Bet." The voice was warm, yet full of authority.

I stepped through the doorway, looking around for whoever had spoken. He wasn't hard to find, standing front and centre in the room. If this place was a castle, as my impressions were rapidly adding up to, then he definitely ticked all the boxes that said 'wizard'.

But I didn't care about that. I cared about getting help for Snek.

"Please," I said, stumbling forward. "If you're Snek's Master, he's in trouble. They've trapped him in some kind of time bubble that he couldn't get out of, so he sent me here."

"Really?" he asked, his tone intent. When he raised his hand, a gnarled wooden staff—another box ticked, right there—rose up and flew to his grasp. With it, he made a few simple gestures, and a three-dimensional image formed. Snek lay in the middle of the sparkling field, and two figures stood looking down at him. One, with a demonic appearance, was vaguely familiar, though I didn't know the one in the gas mask at all. "Well, well. Oni Lee and Bakuda. Her little toys are surprisingly effective. I may have to do something about that."

"Can you—" I began, but someone took me by the elbow. I looked around to see a girl a few years younger than me, dressed in utilitarian overalls, with heavy goggles pushed up on her forehead.

"Hi, I'm Riley. It's all good," she assured me. "He'll sort this out. In the meantime, want a pastry?"

"Pastry?" I repeated stupidly. "Snek's in trouble! What can he do?"

Riley grinned broadly. "Oh, trust me. You're not gonna want to miss this."

Part 18