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29 - The Snake

Iris leapt, acting on instinct that hadn't caught up to having powers yet. She heard a quick, deafening hiss and then a dreadful sound like spitting as the snake struck. A rat whimpered as it died. She was falling too fast now, using her teleport to skip distance to the ground wouldn't save her from slamming into it. The forest floor was rapidly approaching.

She looked up and blinked. She appeared in the air. In her practice, she had learned that momentum carried over not in the direction she had originally been moving, but in the direction that she teleported. Her plummet to the ground now launched her into the air as she reappeared. As she reached the peak of her vertical launch, she glanced around for a place to land and instead saw the lunging maw of a giant snake.

She blipped downwards as far she could, just as she hung suspended for a moment at the peak. She blipped two more times nearly instantly, rapidly closing the distance to the ground before she could pick up too much speed again. She came out of the last blip and landed harshly with a grunt and a crouch. Her head ached from mana loss and her heart threatened to pop with each beat.

The rats were nowhere to be seen, but the snake slithered its way down the trunk of a redwood in a winding path.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Iris whispered to herself, sliding the wooden sword into her bag and glancing around. She had lost her bearings, and the dark forest looked the same on all sides. The snake was shockingly fast for its size. She had to move.

She picked a direction and ran, quickly maxing out the pace of both her sprint and teleport, and lunging forward to throw momentum into her teleports whenever practical. The snake reached the forest floor behind her, and its speed doubled. It effortlessly winded its way over and between the massive roots, shooting through the forest at a frightening pace and rustling the understory trees like bushes in its wake.

Iris kept her mana just above the threshold of dizziness, still taking on a growing headache from keeping it as low as she was. She glanced behind her, the snake was gaining. Soon her leg muscles screamed and threatened to give out, and a sharp side-stitch cramp stabbed through her torso. She began timing her teleports with her breath, breathing in just before and breathing out just after. She settled into a rhythm, pushing through the pains, keeping her teleports level on the tops of the roots to make the most of her range, and kicking off harder with every teleport. There was still no camp in sight, and dread crept in. Then she caught a flash of glowing red flying through the shadows.

The bolt of magic slammed into the snake's head, knocking it off course. It moved with the blow, dipping to the side and behind a large tree. Iris caught the shadow of a griffin through the air, it's wings tucked close but its talons outstretched -- and a rider on its back. Another bolt flashed behind a tree in the direction they landed, critters of all kinds scurried from their nests and hiding spots as the shock wave rang through the forest.

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Iris rushed forward, teleporting beyond the tree and into the fight. The red glow of the freshly carved runes on Eli's staff illuminated a grave, determined face. He was mounted on Glimmer, who dug the eagle talons extending from her lion paws into the scales atop the snake's head. One paw swatted repeatedly at an eye.

Eli aimed his staff over the side of his saddle, pointing at the exposed scales under glimmer. His aim was jostled by the thrashing of the snake, his attention turned to keeping balance on the griffin's back as the two were violently slung around. Even still, he kept trying to aim a shot.

Eli felt the weight of another person on the saddle, pressed against his back.

"What do I do?" Iris shouted.

"I need it to sit still!" Eli shouted back.

"Sure," Iris said incredulously, "yeah, sure, that's easy," she disappeared.

A whirling slideshow of the forest played out in front of Eli as the snake twisted, coiled and reared in attempts to shake off Glimmer, who had now began pecking at an eye. The snake’s jaw was now unhinged and stretched out wide as it writhed in pain, leaving Glimmer and Eli clinging to the snake from the side rather than sitting on top

Iris appeared crouched on a branch and paused for a few seconds to look on, genuinely wondering what she was supposed to do. She spotted a bulge in the snake's body from the rat -- or rats -- it had eaten. She thought back to watching snakes in the woods back home, she had once seen one puke up its dinner.

She appeared on the saddle behind Eli again, "I have a plan, be ready," and then she was gone. Eli charged his staff.

Standing on a tree root in the path just behind the snake, she drew her wooden sword out of her bag hand-over-hand. She held it in a reverse grip with both hands, and tucked it by the side like it was sheathed. She ran after the snake, teleporting at upward angles to run along and kick off the tree trunks. The snake moved slowly and erratically now, and she quickly appeared above it.

When she reached a satisfying height, she angled her teleport down, kicking off hard to add momentum. She appeared far from the snake, rocketing towards it, then disappeared again.

She appeared close to the snake, feet first except for the blunt sword tip extending past them. She landed just at the base of the bulge, on the side further down the snake's body. The wooden sword couldn't pierce the scales, but it held solid. The impact was hard, and her feet followed just after it to deliver the rest of her energy.

Nothing happened, Then the snake convulsed under her feet. The bulge began to move, pushed forward by muscles undulating beneath the scales. The snake outstretched, depositing a slimy lump of giant rodent on the ground. Its movement slowed for a moment as it withdrew, and a giant red bolt of magic blew through its head and thumped into the ground below.

The snake's head slumped to the ground, and everything was still. After a moment, Glimmer retracted her talons from the snake's scales, and Eli took a deep breath. Iris appeared, standing on the snake beside glimmer.

"Well," she gasped, "that wasn't so bad."

She couldn't make out Eli's face in the darkness, but she assumed it was a tired glare.