Chapter 234: Please Do Not Lick the Electricity

Lukas was cooking himself on the roof while the vendor lay beside a hot grill, leaving me with two people to save and no useful interest in becoming the third. I poured through the open serving window as mist, keeping clear of the metal floor while sparks jumped around the counter.

[System: Don’t press the Nuh-Uh button yet, ya drongo; it stops physical hits, not electricity, and a heavier snake just takes longer to scrape off the grill.]

Then give me something useful to grab before the bloke beside the cooker gets charged for both dinner and cremation.

Old Mate pointed out the vendor’s thick apron, so I formed a narrow tendril around the fabric and pulled him away from the metal handle still caught beneath his hand.

He wheezed as I dragged him towards the window, which was enough proof of life for me to keep moving. Nessa reached up from the pavement and caught his shoulders while another woman stayed on the emergency call beside a concrete planter.

I pushed him into their arms and rose above the window, where Lukas was trying to pull his arm free of the web caught around the rail. I grabbed his jacket with a solid coil, then released it when pain shot through my side and made the whole plan feel deeply fucking stupid.

That answered the question about sharing current, so I’d appreciate the next lesson being slightly less practical. I dissolved the aching section of my body and formed a claw beside the web, cutting through the strand instead of touching Lukas again.

He fell from the roof onto a stack of plastic crates, swearing loudly enough to make me hopeful about his future. The shirtless eel swung at my head while I was watching him, but his fist passed through mist before I formed behind his arm and bit his shoulder without using venom.

I gave the bite a little extra pressure for ruining dinner, then his skin started crackling against my teeth. Apparently the bastard came with a self-cleaning setting, so I let go and climbed out of reach before my mouth became the next appliance.

"I’m beginning to understand why you don’t wear shirts, because your washing machine must file a complaint every time you use it," I told him. Red Vest grabbed a pipe while Yellow Shorts kicked the crates beneath Lukas, who was still waiting for his hands to work properly.

Yellow Shorts had PRE-WORKOUT IS A MINDSET printed across his arse, and I wanted him arrested purely for making me read it during a fight. Unfortunately, the three walking gym complaints could still kill us, which felt unfair considering how little thinking they were putting in.

Lukas tried getting back towards the truck until I told him to stay on the pavement. Nessa kicked a rubber floor mat into his path, and he stumbled onto it before looking at the eels with much less confidence than he’d brought to the roof.

[System: There’s a pipe coming from your right, mate, so use the stance for that one, then make his knees regret joining the rest of him.]

I stayed solid as Red Vest swung, activating Nuh-Uh just before the pipe struck my side. The hit sounded like somebody smashing a pan against a steel post, and my new weight cracked the pavement while the pipe bent around me.

"Give it another go, champ, because the first hit nearly interrupted my erection,"

I told him, despite having no interest in supporting that claim. He glanced down before remembering what I was, giving me time to shove my heavy coils into his knees.

Old Mate counted down from fifteen while I dragged myself around, careful not to confuse being hard to damage with being quick. Yellow Shorts started towards me until I hummed and showed him my fangs, which gave him a sudden interest in standing somewhere else.

The shirtless one reached for my body with sparks spreading across his fingers. I slapped a loose plastic crate into his shins before he could make contact, sending him over the planter while Lukas webbed his ankles to the concrete from a safer distance.

"That’s a much better place to do it from, especially if you want all those eyes pointing in the same direction tomorrow," I told him. Lukas added another strand across the eel’s wrist, then moved the cash box behind the planter for Nessa to guard.

"I’m adapting to the enemy’s methods, which is an important part of how I operate," he said. His voice still shook, but he checked the ground before stepping around a metal drain cover, so at least the lesson had reached something useful.

The stance ended, lifting the weight from my body while leaving the burned patch painfully ready to complain. Eight minutes remained before I could use it again, and I had no interest in spending them finding other things electricity could do to a snake.

Yellow Shorts apparently disliked his chances as well, because he ran to Nessa’s truck and climbed through the open driver’s door. She shouted after him while Lukas fired a web at the handle, but the vehicle jerked backwards before the line could hold it.

[System: He’s released the handbrake without starting the engine; that’s not an escape plan, mate, that’s a food delivery with a body count.]

"Let the line go before it drags you under the wheels, because he’s heading straight for the crossing," I shouted. Lukas released it and stumbled clear as the truck rolled faster down the slope, leaving Yellow Shorts staring at the controls in growing fear.

The shirtless eel tried reaching for the web again, but Nessa planted the cash box out of his reach and warned him that touching her customers would earn him a turn near the fryer. I left him considering whether prison offered a safer menu.

Nessa’s serving hatch bounced open, spilling napkins across the road while commuters stepped away from the kerb below. I surged after the truck just as the next row of traffic lights changed and familiar blue lights appeared above the junction, but Rook’s scooter was still too far away to stop the first people walking into its path.