I woke up intensely uncomfortable, for good reason: the front half of my body was outside of my hole, which was now filled with the rest of my body. Apparently my evolution had come with a size increase. Carefully pulling my body out of the now ruined hole, I coiled around the rat guard’s head and thought of my Status

NameHain (of Anens Den)SpeciesSoul Serpent (Unique)Level1 (100 Experience per level) (Curse Effect: 200 Experience per level)Attack10 (.5)Defense7 (.7)Agility11Intelligence6 (.1)Wisdom7 (.9)AbilitiesSerpent's Tongue, Bite, Soul Devour (Passive)

Well, that’s new. I guess the Guard didn’t have rounded-out stats. Well, no matt-wait, am I eating his brain?

It was true. While I had been analyzing my new status, I had been absentmindedly chewing on the rat guard’s forehead, eventually getting through the bone and into the brain matter. Shrugging (mentally, because I didn’t have shoulders), I finished my impromptu meal and looked at my new body. I had grown, as evidenced by my eviction from my hole, but not as much as I had imagined. I was now a full 12 inches from nose to the tip of my tail, while my width had only increased by about an inch, to three inches total. I had also regrown the tip of my tail, and the scales that had been torn off in the battle. However, they weren’t my original drab green, but a dark purple, and almost iridescent. It was a mystery as to why, but I had a hunch that it had something to do with Soul Devour. A smile grew across my face as I thought of a way to test my new tail’s tip. I carefully threaded it through the top of the rat’s skull, and out through its mouth. I then started swinging my tail, getting a feel for the amount of force I could put into any one swing, and wound up. Swinging my tail like a windmill, I relaxed the tip of my tail, allowing the skull to go flying down the tunnel, and crash into a curve in the wall about 15 feet away from me, breaking into small chunks of bone. Satisfied in my new body’s power, I began the trek to Mother, anticipating her reaction to my improved form. Slowing as I drew near, I found her ranting to a group of hatchlings, presumably my siblings.

“-And that, little shits, is why you weren’t allowed out yesterday. Oh! Speak of the fucker, and he appears, apparently. Shits, meet your brother, Hain. He’s a small fucker, and apparently he got some shitty variant evolution, but he’s fucking vicious.” She nods at me, and moves just far enough away for me to enter the birthing hole.

Squeezing my way inside, I saw 12 terrified hatchlings, staring at me with a mixture of apprehension and relief. Apparently Mother had ‘culled’ a lot of my siblings in the day or so that I had been hunting and evolving. I had to admit, the results were exceptional. The hatchlings that had been murdered by their mother were all my original size or smaller, while the ones she had kept alive were all at least 9 inches long, with two a full inch longer than me. The survivors were terrified, but I prefered them that way; it would keep them from deciding to gang up on me.

One of the smaller hatchlings, pushed forward by the rest, reared up as far as she could and asked, “How did you earn your name, and when were you born? You’ve obviously evolved, but Mother told us that it can take weeks.”

I grinned, showing my weaker siblings every single fang, “I was born two days ago, as far as I can tell. And earning a name is easy: just kill enough that Mother is satisfied with you, and probably almost die in the process.”

All of the hatchlings reared back in shock, fear, and at least a little respect. I leaned up as well, staring down at them, slightly amused. Mother chose this moment to break the tension, sliding between us with an exaggerated sigh. She looked at me, more amused than annoyed.

“Don’t steal my fucking job, Hain. I get to terrify the little shits. Now, Hain’s going to take you little fuckers out to hunt. At least a few of you are gonna die. If you die, you die as shit. Get fucking going.”

With that heartfelt farewell, I gestured to the hatchlings with the tip of my tail, and we began slithering to the crack. It was incredibly obvious that the hatchlings had never been outside of the den before; their eyes were widened as far as possible, and their heads were darting in all directions, tongues tasting the air, testing for allies, enemies, prey.

We got to the crack, and I paused to look around inside for a moment before speaking. I saw the headless carcass of the Rat Guard, but nothing living had disturbed the area for a few hours, at least as far as I could tell. Safety somewhat assured, I turned to my siblings and began to outline my plans for our hunt.

“Okay, here’s how this hunt will work. I’m going to take the two smallest hatchlings. You two big fucks are going to split the other eight. We’re going to split up into those three groups when we go through this crack. You hatchlings are going to hunt Rat Pups, preferably the ones that get left unattended. When you’re done killing the nest, you tie their tails together so that we can bring them back to Mother quickly. I’d rather not see what happens if this takes too long. Also, if you see a Rat Guard, it might be best to run. Or die and hope you get a better life next time. One last thing: don’t be a hero. We’re here to kill their children and eat them, not invade their territory. If you get too far into their den, they’ll probably all come out to kill us. And I don’t want to die for you. Understood?” The now terrified hatchlings nodded in unison. “Good. Let’s get fucking going.”

After my inspiring speech, the two large hatchlings entered the crack, followed by their eight minions. My two huddled together, frightened of me or the situation, I couldn’t tell which. With a sharp jerk of my head, they slipped through the crack, but stopped as soon as they saw my kill from yesterday. I reminded them of their situation by slapping the back of their heads with my tail and motioning for them to continue.

The next few minutes were an exercise in silence and futility, until I decided that we would be hunting Rat Guards, instead of the Rat Pups the other two teams had apparently exterminated. Sneaking along, we were able to find a guard that was patrolling on its own, and I took a moment to check its stats.

Rat GuardAn expendable rat that guards a warren of nests. Fairly self-explanatory. Evolutionary dead end.Experience250Attack25Defense17Agility20Intelligence11Wisdom9

Hmmmm. Apparently these things are fucking stupid. We can probably use this.

Thinking quickly, I decided to let the hatchlings take the kills for this hunt. It was more important to have them stronger and loyal to me than for them to see me get stronger off what they would no doubt perceive as shared effort. Done negotiating with myself over the plans, I told the hatchlings to wait behind a corner and made sure one was ready to strike at the guard’s neck at my order.

Turning the corner, I snuck behind the rat and bit through the tendons in his (his gender was plainly obvious by the testicles hanging centimeters from my face) left back leg at the same time I wrapped the end of my tail around his neck. Suddenly crippled and losing oxygen, the rat didn’t put up nearly as much of a fight as I imagined he would have, going limp fairly quickly, as if accepting his fate. Not taking any chances, I proceeded to tear out the tendons in his remaining limbs, and even ripped his tail in half to prevent the hatchlings from being whipped (the rat’s screams would no doubt have been horrific, if I had allowed him enough oxygen to scream). Dragging him behind me, I returned to the hatchlings, and had the one that I had prepared tear the rat’s spine out from his neck, to prevent him from biting my minio charges.

The next seven Rat Guards we killed followed roughly the same pattern, with the exception of the fourth, who was able to make enough noise that the fifth came running. Wrapped up with the fourth, I was forced to distract the fifth while the hatchlings snuck behind it and crippled its back legs simultaneously, before killing it.

Dragging our kills behind us, we came back to the crack in the wall, to find the other groups waiting for us, some of whom had obviously not heeded my warnings against fighting the Rat Guards. Only six hatchlings, with only one big hatchling among them, were assembled, dragging a collective 100 Rat Pups and 3 Rat Guards. They were obviously surprised to find that I hadn’t let my two hatchlings die; the survivors’ tongue were lashing out as if to attack us with saliva, and they all reared up, just a little. I smacked my tail into the crack of the wall, widening it be almost an inch, with a side effect of all the hatchlings jumping, and some even snapping at the air in front of them.

“Settle down, fuckwits. I’m just trying to open this up a little. If we don’t get these guards to Mother, our siblings have died for nothing. If we bring them to her, maybe they’ll have died to let you get names. Now help me, or cower over there.”

At this, the hatchlings began striking the crack, more out of fear of the repercussions of disobedience rather than enthusiasm. Either way, we widened the crack just enough to squeeze one rat guard at a time through (with a small amount of shaved skin, to deter the living Rat Guards from entering our side of the wall) and began transferring our kills. Once this was done, we began the slow trek back to our nest. Nearing, we heard hissing and moving flesh - far more than Mother would make by herself. Motioning to the hatchlings to stay where they were, I snuck closer to the opening of the den, and found Mother fighting a 4 foot long viper, both of whom were clearly heavily injured and tired, both surrounded by mangled serpent corpses.

Moving as quickly as I could, I threw myself at the viper’s neck, managing to Bite down into it before he could react. Mother took this chance to disentangle herself from the viper and start biting his body anywhere she could get purchase. With the viper being attacked from two sides, it was simple to shake myself, every swing pulling his neck further and further out of his body, slowly killing him. When he finally quit moving, I made sure he was dead by tearing his head completely off of his body. Tired, I looked around and found that the hatchlings had entered the den, bringing the dead rats along. I looked to Mother, who was even more tired than me, and still heavily injured.

“What the fuck are you looking at? Oh, right. Probably want an explanation. Well, long fucking story short, that was my brother, your uncle. He probably wanted my spot as ruler of this den. The thing is, he was supposed to be in one of the other dens, so the ruler there probably wants to unify us. Fucker.”

Seeing our blank look, Mother hissed in irritation, “Seriously? You didn’t even fucking think to check out the rest of the tunnel, did you? Well, fuck. Okay, we’re in the Anens den, right? Well, why do you think we need a name for the den? Because there are other dens, fucking obviously. There are four others, all ruled by my siblings. I’m the oldest, so I got the biggest den, when I killed the old king. There’s also the Chilid den, ruled by Anom, the weakest, a python and the second oldest, the Chordid den, ruled by Acroc, a viper and the middle sibling, the Phid den, ruled by Cylin, a nasty fucking viper and the second youngest, and Lopid den, ruled by Typh, the youngest and a python. Now, get the fuck to sleep. Now that you know the names of those fuckwits, you’re going to kill them all in the morning. I get the food tonight. I need it. You can feast on your cousins’ flesh tomorrow.”

Done with her speech, Mother pulled all the rats to her, and began taking chunks out of her former brother. The hatchlings and I slithered to the far side of the den, and began curling up and coiling around each other to sleep, with me sleeping a few feet away, aware of the dramatic size difference that evolving can cause. Slowly drifting off, I checked my Status, eager to see what the viper gave me.

[table]NameHain (of Anens Den)SpeciesSoul Serpent (Unique)Level2 (100 Experience to next level) (Curse Effect: 200 Experienceper level)Attack14.9Defense11.8Agility17.9Intelligence8.3Wisdom10AbilitiesSerpent's Tongue, Bite, Soul Devour (Passive)[/table]

Sorry I didn't post anything yesterday; I had a few family matters to take care of. I guarantee at least one new chapter after this, though.