Unchosen Champion

“I can’t believe you found my Buttercup!” Bobby Jon rejoiced long after the brightly colored snake was safely placed into a plainly broken exhibit. He slapped Coop on the back with unbridled relief. His gratitude was undiminished regardless of Coop’s more grounded concerns.

The return of another one of the unique farm animals had slightly sobered him up, but not nearly enough in Coop’s opinion. He had to be impaired to not notice that half of the transparent walls inside of the so-called ‘Reptile Room’ were just plain missing. Any animals placed in one of the displays wouldn’t even need to be clever to wander back out. They would be completely free to come and go as they pleased. Buttercup could just slither through one of the gaps whenever she felt like it.

“I really didn’t find her.” Coop tried explaining once again as he eyed the snake with some suspicion. “She found me.” He glanced back at Bobby Jon, growing slightly more exasperated at the stars in the man’s eyes directed at the subject of their conversation. “Seriously man, she would have eaten me if I didn’t smack her away.” His recounting of the events that led to the return of Buttercup seemed to go right over Bobby Jon’s head no matter how he rephrased it.

“She was probably just terrified from being out in the wild for so long. She’d never harm a soul. I’d be a tapdancing catfish if she had an aggressive scale on her body.” Bobby Jon argued. He just refused to accept that the snake was way more dangerous after being empowered by mana, treating the animal like a lost kitten rather than a level 216 survivor of the apocalypse.

Coop felt like he should have anticipated the man’s position. When he considered that Bobby Jon was so comfortable with the alligators he was willing to drink himself unconscious inside of their pens, his blind trust made sense. The guy clearly had a few screws loose. “I bet you just caught her by surprise.” Bobby Jon added while Coop reassessed his newest ally with a touch more skepticism.

Bobby Jon extended his hand over the edge of the acrylic enclosure, through the ajar top, and Buttercup lifted her head for him to scratch between her eyes. “Aww, I’m sorry I couldn’t find you sooner little baby.” He cooed, ignoring that the snake was probably longer than eight feet from nose to tail now. She certainly knew how to act cute.

Coop had a moment where Bobby Jon’s adamant defense of the snake made him wonder if he was being overly biased because he had been the one ambushed. Coop had been attacked plenty of times by different animals and it was never a problem for him to forgive and forget. He was just trying to express that a little caution was healthy in this situation and the man wasn’t hearing him. Coop was fine with forgiving the snake, but a tiny bit of wariness wouldn’t hurt anybody, especially because the person he was trying to warn was far lower level than the animals he was surrounded by.

Coop wondered if this was how he made his allies feel back home when he expected them to just be fine with living side-by-side with powerful animals, aliens, and ghosts. Coop couldn’t help but dryly laugh at the situation. The tables had been turned.

“Look at her, man.” He obstinately kept trying to convince Bobby Jon after he gathered his composure. “You said she was two feet long when the assimilation began. She’s definitely been out there hunting.” Coop looked at the albino alligator that lingered outside. “Back me up here, Dorothy.”

The alligator was completely unconcerned as well, dozing off while Bobby Jon enjoyed the reunion, though Coop had noticed other alligators coming and going from the farm with slightly higher frequency. Coop wondered if the real authority of the territory had already been aware of Buttercup’s active presence. Maybe they were already allies.

He couldn’t imagine that the alligators would have been diligent and coordinated enough to completely crush the Primal Constructs and their constant respawns while simultaneously not being aware of what else was living in their swamp. They were immediately aware of his own presence, and were even capable of tracking him through his mistjumps, so it stood to reason that the gators were capable of tracking whatever else was out there. It made sense for Coop to assume that the alligator intelligence network was both real and effective.

Coop shook his head, still trying to warn Bobby Jon to be careful while wondering if this was what it was like dealing with himself under slightly different circumstances. It was pretty typical behavior for him to bring seemingly dangerous animals home and decide to keep them despite others’ skepticism. The thought didn’t dissuade him from trying to have his warnings acknowledged by the new ally.