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.

“I’m telling you, that snake is different now. She probably understands every word we’re saying, and she’s even got a special rank from her faction. You can’t be sure what side she’s on yet.” Coop hoped he would get through to him.

Bobby Jon scoffed as Buttercup gently coiled her neck around his wrist. “Don’t you worry about any of that. She’s absolutely on my side. I’ve been taking care of her since she hatched.” He smiled to himself. “I’ve always said, if you treat ‘em right, they’ll never let you down.” He glanced at Coop with the smile still on his face. “I put my head inside of alligators’ mouths for a living, I know which ones I can trust.” He concluded with a wink.

Coop sighed. He couldn’t really argue with a statement like that. Instead, he just shrugged it off. “Alright. I’ll keep an eye out for the rest of the animals while I bring back the other airboats.” Coop addressed the snake directly. “No eating people.” He directed with a pointed finger. The snake’s tongue flicked in and out, letting Coop make his own interpretation of the docile creature.

Coop shifted his gaze back to the alligator wrestler. “You good to assist with the Placid Lake Outpost?” Coop asked Bobby Jon.

“No sweat. I’ll take the canoe and check them out when the sun comes up. I already know where the boardwalk can connect. It’ll be good to have some new faces come through.” Bobby Jon confirmed. He was the kind of guy that understood a certain kind of honor; if he said he would do something he’d do it. Coop could appreciate that.

“I’ll make sure they’re expecting you.” Coop added, confident that Bobby Jon would follow through as he stepped back outside, passed the albino alligator.

Coop had ended up dealing with the so-called Infestation in swift fashion, thanks to the convenience of forming an alliance rather than grinding through what would have been a sprawling open-air swamp dungeon. He would be heading back much sooner than expected, with plenty of time to prepare for the Underlayer Event. There was a week to go, and he could be back home in a single day, including the boat ride from Empress City to Ghost Reef.

With Buttercup safely returned to the alligator farm, Bobby Jon had excitedly described the rest of the missing inhabitants in order to convince Coop to find them as well. The fact that Coop hadn’t found Buttercup as much as she had ambushed him in an effort to eat him was apparently unimportant. Instead, Coop was given a full accounting of all of the different exhibits that had previously filled the roadside attraction. Coop doubted he would be able to distinguish between wild turtles and the ones that had been a part of the alligator farm, especially as night blanketed the marshes, but he would do his best to keep his end of the bargain.

Bobby Jon had given up on recovering all of the previous occupants in the months prior, forced to focus his attention on preventing the farm from being swamped by the glades instead, but from his perspective Coop represented a change in their luck. Coop did his best to remind him that, because of the assimilation, the animals would likely be able to escape on their own even if they were brought back, but Bobby Jon ignored his concerns. Buttercup was of no help, settling in like a satiated pet upon being returned to the alligator farm. The snake’s eyes remained inert when gazing upon the other tenants and Coop took it as a sign that she really wasn’t completely hostile. He still wondered about the circumstances that surrounded the snake.

Before he got out of range, he reinspected the creature’s aura.

[Everglades Rat Snake (Level 216)]

[Hypnotic Constrictor (Mind)]

[Scalecommander of the Mandate of Scales]

[Ancient (Dishonorable)]

Coop would have loved to know exactly what being designated a Scalecommander by Buttercup’s faction entailed. He knew from past experience that the faction must have invested extra into making her their Chosen, but beyond that, he was still in the dark.

Thanks to his own faction, he understood that the special rank represented a specific contract, likely with slightly better conditions than the default regular Chosen would receive. Typically, these were granted to special individuals, like Charlie with her Legend rank in the Endless Empire and the various ranks for the Chosen of the Undead factions.

The factions identified them as valuable individuals to their plans and gave them extra privileges through the sponsorship in order to cultivate them as much as possible. Charlie had an entire party of Chosen built around her with the idea that she would become a powerhouse in group conflicts as the Endless Empire conquered other settlements. The Chosen of the Undead were given excessive resources relative to others to establish footholds that could help them spread across the planet when the time was right. Whatever the snake had been granted wasn’t as immediately obvious.

It was pretty clear he would never convince Bobby Jon to take any special precautions regarding his animals, but Dorothy was the real boss anyway. The albino alligator had no faction, but was the de facto leader of the Infestation. Since Infestations were a system mechanism typically employed by the more knowledgeable members of the galactic community, who knew the conditions to better create them off the bat, Coop thought it was odd that an Unchosen alligator would be the one to successfully establish the formation.

Coop hummed under his breath as Bobby Jon’s influence settled on him and he formed another conspiracy theory. Perhaps the snake had returned with a strategy from its faction, but had handed the plan over to the alligator and other animals of the farm instead. Maybe there was more coordination around the alligator farm than he anticipated.

The Dishonorable title that Buttercup had was the main source of his elevated uncertainty. It was another title that had clear negative connotations, but Coop reminded himself that a few of his own certainly made him seem villainous as well. That didn’t mean that they were specifically evil. The real qualifier that defined how he would look at titles were the conditions necessary for acquiring them.

He recalled the Deathstalker the last time he checked her aura. The High Priest Assassin had betrayed the Lich and been punished with a racial evolution that transformed her from an Oathsworn to an Oathbroken Human, and also had her affinity corrupted while granting her a new defining title: Cursed. The title may not have been the specific source of her punishment, but it certainly exposed it. Perhaps Buttercup had experienced a similar situation where she betrayed her faction by roping in the other roadside attractions into a scheme designed for her specifically. Maybe the pythons even had their own role in the original plan. Obviously, the punishment appeared to be less dire than the Assassin’s, but it seemed like a possibility given Coop’s understanding of system contracts.

Frankly, Coop thought it was about time he found some circumstantial evidence of wild animals ascending to another plane of consciousness. He already believed that mana was a sort of cognitive equalizer, blurring the lines between sentience and sapience as they understood it on Earth. He had been expressing those thoughts since the real early days, probably to the extent that others looked at him a little weird, the same way he was looking at Bobby Jon. Between the two basic skills assigned by the system to everyone caught in the assimilation, he fully expected animals to be capable of the levels of coordination, planning, self-awareness, reasoning, and foresight that might give rise to an Infestation. Why not? They had gone above and beyond simple territorial aggression countless times already.

Coop's suspicions that there was a conspiracy between the animals continued to rise as he kept turning the thoughts in his head and he finished the tasks around the glades. Every time he retrieved an airboat from wherever they had drifted, he also discovered a curiously domesticated animal. They always had excessive levels, like both Buttercup and Dorothy. Each time he came back to the farm he and Bobby Jon went through the same song and dance, where the drunken alligator wrestler celebrated the return of Stinker, Poppy, Lulu, Pinky, or Nibbles, individually recognizing mammals, birds, and reptiles despite 200 or more levels gained by each of them.

The physical changes brought by mana weren’t always obvious, but when they were, they had Coop questioning the limits. There weren’t any humans doubling or tripling their sizes, but for animals, it seemed like such an alteration was no problem. Then again, there were no animals adopting the humanoid appearance that the galactic community appeared to drift toward. The standard appearance that involved a bipedal upright posture seemed unappealing or unnecessary to the animals of Earth. They preferred to accept smaller changes that better matched their personal identities rather than to adhere to some arbitrary standard defined through the assimilation.

The one that frightened Coop the most was Bitsy. Speaking of creatures that had embraced growth, she was a 50 pound level 240 tarantula that was just hanging out in the fork of an oak tree. As Coop dragged a boat from where it had been beached she adjusted her previously motionless bulk, making it clear she was there in a subtle way that let Coop discover her on his own. Despite the spider’s consideration, Coop didn’t even notice its fuzzy body until he was staring directly at it, from right below. He barely stifled a fearful yelp, his spear manifesting before he got a hold of himself.

Bobby Jon’s only reaction to the eight foot spider sitting in the airboat as Coop pulled it along was to remark that she wouldn’t fit inside of her terrarium anymore.

Bitsy was the last animal Coop retrieved despite another dozen or so missing. By the end, Coop fully suspected that Dorothy was pulling strings, and sending gators around the swamp to have the previous occupants of the alligator farm conveniently appear for him to find. There were no more airboats for him to pull through the mud, so he figured the rest would need to find their own way home. The ones that he had found just happened to be close enough to make the arrangements, but if their goal was to control the entire Everglades, they were most likely spread across a great distance. It seemed like they were sufficiently capable of coming and going as they pleased.

Coop kept his farewells quick, expecting to be neighborly with Bobby Jon and the Swamp Lord. He refrained from taking another look in the old missile silo before he left, mostly because with all of the extra time he had created, he would want to throw himself over the edge and start exploring.

He wasn’t worried about being injured or having a difficult time escaping the Underlayer, thanks to his abilities. What he was worried about was triggering the event too soon. For all he knew, reaching the Underlayer while the Underlayer Event was already slated would cause it to start immediately.

Instead, he went straight back to the Placid Lake Outpost. It was a good 20 miles away, meaning that both the lodge and the farm would end up existing separately, along with all of the other stops that were being installed along the boardwalk.

To his surprise, the donut shaped lake that surrounded the lodge’s stilts was already filled with alligators. Dorothy was acting swiftly, further fueling Coop’s conspiracy theory surrounding the sophistication of the animals that had taken control of the Everglades.

He had to spend some extra time consoling the fearful sentries, filling them in on the new arrangement. Of course, it took some convincing, but he was able to prove the alligators were allies by treating them the same way that he had scolded Bobby Jon for treating Buttercup, like big old reptilian puppies. Word would certainly spread through the ranks of Empress City. They were the most rumor hungry of the different groups Coop had encountered.

The day after he engaged with the Infestation, he was already making his way back south. Coop was satisfied with the efficiency.