BVLJ #4: Seeing Snakes

***Detective Provos corners a mysterious women in a bar, suspecting "AnaConwoman" has answers to the recent spate of size crimes. When they clash, Provos finds himself in a real snake pit of a problem... This one's a bit different to my usual giantess fodder, you'll see why!***

Doolan Hall couldn’t believe his luck, with the gorgeous woman practically falling into his lap. He’d only come to Violex, a cellar dive bar, to drink away his shitty day. Violex was a sticky hole with flickering lights and a vague smell of sweat and urine, a prime spot for sullen alcoholics to keep to themselves. Hall had been downing one whiskey after another when she sat on the stool beside him and slurred a greeting.

The stranger was a curvy woman in a black sleeveless top with a diamond cut out over her chest, showing off a firm, eye-catching cleavage. She had bronze skin and eyes you could fall into, along with dark hair that hung almost to her waist, shimmering with green and purple tints in the low light, like crow’s feathers. Her tatty jeans and sneakers offset the striking top half, and her warm smile and nudge to Hall’s elbow confirmed he had a chance with her.

She asked if he’d buy her a drink, then explained in inebriated moans how she’d lost her car. Visiting Orias for a conference, she said, and parked near another bar which she couldn’t find now. From the way she swayed, she’d been drinking a few hours and shouldn’t be driving anyway. Hall said as much and she said he’d better take care of her, then.

What the hell, Hall figured; he was going to turn this day around, after all. They drank and he complained about his crappy job in the paper plant with his condescending boss, and she offered platitudes about how things would turn around. Another drink, Hall reckoned, and he’d ask her to leave. Otherwise she’d be too drunk to move.

“Ana Price,” a man’s voice interrupted them, and Hall prickled angrily at the thought of this opportunity popping. There were suddenly two people standing behind them: a man with stubble and a trench coat, wearing a fedora like a ’50s private eye, and a woman dressed in combat pants and a bulky tactical vest, hair in a ponytail. She had cuffs and a pistol holstered at her hip. “Detective Provos, Sergeant Lane, we’d like a word.”

“So go find one,” the woman sneered drunkenly, and waved them away, almost falling off her seat. Hall shifted to support her and she gave him a smile.

“Yeah, beat it, pigs, can’t you see we’re busy?” Hall put in with more confidence than he’d ever had before around police officers. This beautiful lady made him brave. “She’s found Orias City unwelcoming enough already.”

“Told you she’s new to town, did she?” Detective Provos said. “Cut the act, Ana, I’ve seen less focused eyes on a sharpshooter; if you’re drunk I’m a monkey’s ass.”

“You are,” the woman grumbled, “so I am.”

Hall considered her eyes, though, and noticed maybe they weren’t dilated like a drunk’s should be. But what did he know, he was half there himself. Except . . . She hadn’t introduced herself as Ana. Emily or Karen, he couldn’t remember now. He asked, “What is your name?”

“Whatever you want, hotshot.” The woman gave him a pouting smile but he saw a flash in her eyes. There and gone in a second: not just narrow pupils, but slitted. The surprise showed on Hall’s face and as he went to ask something else she huffed. Ana sat up straight and her voice sharpened. “Alright, I guess we’re done. Thanks for ruining my night, detective. Whatever you want, I don’t have it, I wasn’t there, I don’t know anything.”

“What –” Hall started, but she shook her head, not even looking at him. It was an instant transformation: the giddy, collapsing drunk replaced by a cold, bolt-upright businesswoman.

“Consider yourself lucky, sir,” the female officer, Lane, said. “This is the legendary AnaConwoman. If you’d left with her, it would’ve been the last anyone saw of you.”

“Oh please.” Ana rolled her eyes. “If I actually was a conwoman, would I go around advertising it with a corny name like that?” She patted Hall’s leg and said, “Thanks for getting the tab. I’m going; funny how cops can make even a cesspit like this smell worse.”

Provos stepped closer to block her. He put his hands on his hips, drawing back his coat to reveal two shoulder holsters. “You’ll go when we say you can go. A lot of people out looking for you, Ana, but give us what we’re looking for and we’ll pretend we never saw you.”

Ana narrowed her eyes. “How did you find me?”

“By being good at what I do,” Provos said. “Though now you are going to help me find someone else. Where’s Darcy Ennis?”

“Never heard of her.”

“You’ve never heard of the woman that grew big as a building and trampled half of downtown?” Provos replied with mock surprise. “What about Major Max Volatile? You must’ve heard about how she got giant and ate Cole Extra.”

“Everyone heard about that,” Lane said.

“I’ve got nothing to do with that crowd,” Ana said.

This was going nowhere good and she was plainly lying now. Hall saw the female officer was right: if Ana had anything to do with those villains, then he had been lucky they arrived. He grabbed his whisky and made quiet apologies, moving away from the bar. As he left, Provos said, “Ah, sorry, Ana. We just scare off your dinner?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ana growled. “Now step aside –”

She moved to stand and Provos pushed her back onto the stool. “You go when I say. You’re gonna tell us where Darcy is or are we gonna start asking harder questions, like what exactly happened to a half dozen other guys last seen leaving bars with you. Including a tech millionaire over in Happy View Ridge, whose people are offering a big bounty. Fortunately for you, Darcy’s case is bigger right now.”

“And nothing to do with me,” Ana snarled.

“No? You’ve got a few things in common with those women, don’t you? Like how they got big and got an appetite for people. That’s what they all say about the terrific AnaConwoman, isn’t it? A woman who gets big and snakelike.”

“That’s what they say,” Lane agreed. “At least, in rumours; she also doesn’t leave any reliable witnesses behind. Now Darcy growing large, eating people, sure parallels the snake’s MO.”

“Even if those rumours were true,” Ana said, “it sounds like you’re chasing a damn coincidence.”

Provos curled a lip, losing patience. “It’d be an awful shame if that were the case, because it’d mean a lot to find Darcy. Everyone’s at it, and here I thought a few days hunting down the famous AnaConwoman might be time well spent. But if you can’t help us, then I guess we’d have to settle for a consolation prize. Put away a lesser villain.”

The bar was quiet as Ana scowled, her tension clear. Hall was listening from his booth across the room, as were the other three patrons and the barman, even if they all pretended not to. She wasn’t going to play ball, meaning things were about to get bad.

“What, er,” Hall called out, trying to ease the tension. “What exactly is it you think this woman can do?”

“Why don’t we let her tell us?” Provos said. “Explain the difference, Ana, between the great Orias snake, bigger than any in nature, and the woman who temporarily stood a hundred feet tall.”

“The first sounds imaginary,” Ana said. “You said, didn’t you, there’s never been any witnesses.”

“Reliable witnesses,” Lane corrected. “There’s been talk, but this Orisa. Who knows what we should believe?”

Ana shrugged, done, and stood again. She pushed past Provos as he tried to grab her. “Don’t. I’m leaving.”

“Take one more step and the only way you’re leaving is in cuffs,” Provos warned, and the drunks collectively hunched over their glasses. The detective drew a chunky, plastic pistol that looked more toy than gun. Ana sneered and continued walking. Provos fired, two prongs on wires shooting from the taser and hitting her back. Ana fell with an electric jolt, convulsing.

Provos and Lane moved around her, the detective holding his finger on the trigger and the sergeant taking the handcuffs from her belt. Ana rolled over, hissing through gritted teeth as her legs twitched.

“Stay still,” Lane ordered. “You have the right to –”

Ana’s legs kicked harder, with an unnatural twisting, as she shook her hip, as if trying to wriggle out of her pants. The legs jerked from side to side lifelessly, before falling off her waist. Provos and Lane stepped back, startled. The barman swore and Hall stood up. Ana muscled back on her shoulders, legs detached – she had no legs, they were fake, robotic or something? In their place a thick, green tail rolled out. She hissed again, a vicious sound, and her eyes glinted yellow.

“Stay down, Ana,” Provos said, voice wavering. “I’ll give you another!”

She shoved forward and he pulled the trigger again, the wires shaking as the prongs sparked into her back. Ana shuddered but kept going, the tail coiling to lift her. She wasn’t just rising, but growing, her torso suddenly bigger than it had been – taller than the officers, and continuing up. Hall gaped as the beautiful woman’s top stretched and tore, ripping at the seams then shredding all over as her flesh burst through, body expanding to three times the normal size. Her breasts bounced out, round and full; her arms and stomach were toned with bronze muscle and her hair cascaded over it all in a sweeping flow. Her nakedness would have been a stunning, beautiful sight, but as she grew that feminine flesh blended into something far wilder. Around the curve of her hips, skin became scale, and her body stretched into the thick, long hide of a snake’s tail. Her shoulders hit the ceiling and an elbow smashed a light as her tail swept back to topple a table and chairs by her side.

The transformation stopped with Ana looming over Provos and Lane, teeth bared, eyes glowing reptilian yellow. She had to be twenty feet tall above the tail, forty or fifty feet long in total, half woman half snake.

“Ana,” Provos said, back-stepping. He had dropped the taser and looked terrified. The barstools clattered as he hit the bar, nowhere left to go. His hand moved to his coat, an actual firearm in the second holster. Let’s . . . not be hasty.”

Ana crouched towards him and a forked tongue shot from her lips, two feet long, tasting the air. She said, voice taking on a reptilian quality too, “You can call me Anaga.” Everyone in the room could read her intentions in the look she gave him: now she’d been unleashed, she wanted a fight. She looked hungry.

“Everyone stay calm,” Lane spoke up loudly. She had backed off in another direction, close to Hall’s booth, and held her pistol in both hands. “Make your way to the exit, we’ll handle this.”

Ana’s mouth stretched to a thin, evil smile. “No one leaves, Sergeant. You said yourself, the snake woman leaves no reliable witnesses.”

“Fuck this!” the burly, balding man closest to the door shouted and ran. Ana’s tail was already close to the exit, having slid silently between the tables; it lashed up, smashing through the door frame to cause a collapse. The man skidded, path blocked, before the tail flicked up and wrapped around him. He yelled as the tail carried him back towards the centre of the room, smashing tables as it rolled around him. Ana’s tail coiled by her torso, tightening on the man with a sound like stretching leather. His panic was muffled and limbs pinned as she engulfed him.

“Shoot, sergeant!” Provos raised his gun. Ana moved quicker than him; her metre-wide right hand slammed into the detective as her left hand closed on Lane’s waist. Provos was thrown over the bar, smashing through the spirits shelves. Ana squeezed Lane hard to make her drop her gun. She smashed her against the ceiling and floor like a toddler with a toy. When Lane had gone limp in her hand, the massive snake woman twisted to the two drunks on the other side of her, both gawking.

“Don’t move,” she warned them, and both quickly shook their heads: they wouldn’t dream of it. One’s jeans darkened with urine.

Glass tinkled around Provos as he tried to get up behind the bar. Ana’s lower half pulsed where her tail folded over the floor, sliding her closer, and the barman shuffled to one side, raising his hands. Ana ignored him, leaning over Provos. The detective shook himself to flick off debris, up on his hands and knees. His eyes ran under the bar and paused on something. As Ana’s huge hand lifted above him, Provos dived forward. He snatched a stubby shotgun from its brackets and slid onto his back, aiming up.

The gun boomed and the shot tore into the ceiling as Ana flinched back, dodging. Provos jumped to his feet, gun in both hands, and he fired again as Ana slapped a table up from the side. The table was shredded as the giant woman slid to one side, again unscathed. In another instant, she’d moved up alongside the bar, quicker than Provos could turn, and grabbed Provos by the head. She heaved him up, squeezing hard enough to make him drop the gun, and he clawed at her wrist, shouting muffled curses into her palm. His legs kicked about, smashing more shelves behind the bar. Ana hoisted him higher, so he couldn’t get a foot on any support, his lashing hands unable to grip her skin. She shook him once, his whole body rattling from the neck, and his efforts weakened significantly.

Ana adjusted her hand off his face, grabbing him around the throat instead, and Provos inhaled deep, relieved breaths. She lowered him to her side and he flopped there, barely moving now. Ana focused on Lane instead, lifting her higher.

Lane groaned, stirring in the giant woman’s grip, bloody but alive. Ana’s tongue licked over her face and woke the sergeant more. She made a startled noise and tried to push the tongue away. Then Ana opened her mouth in a big, terrible grin that stretched wider than seemed possible. She kept opening it, stretching it taller. Her jaw clicked as it lowered, cheeks stretching like putty. Her mouth expanded to a tunnel of flesh, gullet pulsing invitingly at the back.

“No.” Lane shook her head with piteous denial. It was all she had the energy to do. Ana lifted the woman into her mouth. When Lane’s face pressed into her tongue, she pulled back and got both hands on Ana’s teeth, resisting as Ana carried her further in. The sergeant shouted, “Get off me! Stop!”

Ana’s jaw snapped shut on her shoulders like a trap, Lane’s head fully in her mouth. The sergeant’s arms were forced down to her sides. Lane kicked with increasing speed as Ana tilted her head back, sucking her in. Ana’s throat expanded, then her chest and stomach, as the officer was slowly swallowed. The men watched with horror as Lane’s boots thrashed about, resisting right until they disappeared between Ana’s lips. The massive snake woman’s belly distended as Lane passed through, then the bulge shifted into the tail.

The barman made a sharp fearful sound, losing his nerve. He ran for a door to the backroom, but Ana swiped forward to grab him from behind. His arms and legs reached desperately as Ana heaved him up, then she threw him hard across the room. He slammed into the wall and collapsed, motionless.

Satisfied he wasn’t getting back up, Ana lifted Provos. He was shaking his head, face wet with tears. He opened his mouth, as if to beg, but didn’t have the energy for words. Ana stretched her neck from side to side, then opened her mouth again. Provos weakly held his hands together, pleading. Ana crinkled the corners of her mouth, smiling as she widened her jaw. She gave him the same wet view down her throat that Lane had seen, then shoved Provos in. He barely managed to kick as she swallowed him, with slow but unstoppable gulps, until he too had fallen into a bulge in her belly.

Ana turned, then, to rise over the balding drunk crushed in the coils of her tail. She loosened her grip just enough to reveal his head and he tilted it up at her. As she widened her mouth over him he screamed loud enough to rattle the bottles and broken glass. She ingested him with the same slurping gulps, his struggles thankfully hidden within her tail.

Her lower body huge with writhing victims, alive but only vaguely managing to push against her insides, Ana rose to scan the rest of the room. Hall had been watching transfixed, along with the two remaining men on the other side of the huge snake woman. There was no way out and she was utterly mercilessly. As her eyes fell on him, though, Hall had a quiet idea, and said, “We’re not reliable witnesses.” He pointed to himself, then to the other two. “We’re losers, drunks. What we tell anyone wouldn’t matter, if we even said anything, which we won’t. We’re not reliable witnesses.”

Ana eyed him with those awful reptilian eyes and her tongue forked out for a split second. Her gaze softened as she smiled, amused.

***Next time on Big Villainy, Little Justice: mad gang leader The Vagrant is under pressure from her criminal rivals; does a sympathetic feline have a solution to minimise her problems? Coming June 27th, 2022.***