Tree-Climber eyed the distant snakes, trying to gauge if she’d been made. They didn’t seem to have spotted her, but they could simply be passable actors.

She itched to climb one of the Saffron trees to get a better look, but fought down the inclination. Much as she deserved the name she’d been given, it got her into trouble as much as it got her out of it, and the elders had made certain she understood this fact.

She made certain to stick to the thicker patches of wildgrass, using the natural ridges of the land to crawl between them.

And when the ridges weren’t quite tall enough for her purposes, she unleashed her secret weapon. She curled up into a ball and rolled.

It wasn’t quite a Rollout. The elders scoffed when she’d dared show it within their sight, calling it an insult. But it made her just a tiny bit shorter and smaller in silhouette, and it let her pass unnoticed between the little patches of safe obscurement. And she was proud of herself for figuring out how to do it, besides.

Finally, she was close enough to begin to make out their conversation.

“-oing to like that. We’re ha-”

“-as it is. Do you think-”

“-at the shrews?”

“-ight have to. There’s ju-”

“-go around.”

She strained to hear more of the whispering voices, but it was difficult. She couldn’t really get closer either; there just wasn’t enough vegetation to hide behind, the pair of Ekans having picked a spot where they had passable sightlines on most of the surrounding area.

The wind shifted, and Tree-Climber tensed as all conversation stopped. Through the blades of grass she could see the snakes tasting the air, having perhaps sensed something was amiss.

“You there! What are you doing?”

The sandshrew just about booked it before she realized the voice hadn’t been talking to her. To her mounting horror, however, a gargantuan form slithered out from some of the further grasses, a scaled form sliding along the ground as the Arbok flared its hood.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“You were to be watching for interloperss, not gosssiping like hatchlingss. Musst I make an example before my orderss are taken sserioussly?”

“N-no, your grace!” the Ekans spat back, any suspicion they had had before seemingly forgotten.

“Hmmmm,” the evolved pokemon muttered, continuing to weave back and forth as its coils passed around and between the smaller snakes, “I ssuppose I can overlook thiss transsgresssion the one time.”

Tree-Climber didn’t dare move. She didn’t dare breathe.

“There iss only one more thing that needss… addresssing then,” the Arbok said, and with lightning agility it whipped towards the hidden sandshrew, wrapping her in massive coils before she could hope to leap away.

“While I have been hungry for ssome time, it sseemss I have been ssaved the trouble of finding ssusstenance on my own,” the Arbok commented playfully, as if discussing the weather as Tree-Climber felt her bones creaking under the pressure.

As if to mock her, the lessons of one of the elders drifted up from her memories. Arboks killed by their venomous bite. So if you encountered one, you prayed to Arceus that it was devastatingly hungry. Because otherwise, they liked to play with their food.

She was fairly certain she could hear her own bones protesting.

“Lovely though thiss disstraction iss, I am rather hungry. Sshall we cut to the main coursse?”

Fangs as long as her limbs drifted into view, framed by a gaping maw and backed by an endless abyss as she prayed for any kind of salvation.

The lack of oxygen must have been getting to her, however, as she could have sworn she could see something amid the otherwise perfect blue sky above the snake’s head growing larger… larger… larger…

And then she was tumbling along the ground, gasping for air. It took her a few moments to get her bearings as she glanced around.

The Arbok was laid out as if it had be swatted down by an angry god, though the lack of any visible injury made her instincts scream to run, run away.

The pair of Ekans were stunned and confused over the whole affair, though she could see that their attention was drifting towards herself. They, she knew, would be hungry too if the Arbok hadn’t eaten recently.

And then there was the still-tumbling ball of purple fur and ears which she was slowly identifying as the weapon of choice of the angry god that had answered her prayers.

As it came to a stop not far along the retreat path she was already eyeing, it wasn’t a difficult decision at all. She ran, and she grabbed the Nidoran, holding him over her head even as it meant she’d be much slower.

With her veins still pumping liquid fear and the Arbok beginning to twitch and move once more, however, she had plenty of speed to spare.