-- Back for More --
-- Coneridge Series, Chapter 11 --
 
-- Contains: Oral Vore, Digestion, Fatal, Violence, Death, Sex, Sexual Situations --
 
 
 Finally.
 
 Finding her way through the illusions and unseen but strongly felt horrors had taken a long time. A long time, a lot of effort, and a lot of energy.
 
 But she could finally see the clearing hidden inside the barrier, witnessing the construction the filthy "civilized" pokemon were busying themselves with.
 
 They would pay for what they had done to her. They would pay for what they had done to her child.
 
-----
 
 She was the largest seviper in the area around the Great Ridge. Largest, oldest and strongest snake of any kind nearby, really. For years Asper had prided herself and her kin on having kept the fire types living on the forests and plains to the north and west at bay, stopping them from claiming the Great Ridge and its surroundings as a part of their territory. The high lands were the serpent's nesting grounds, the surrounding forest their hunting ground.
 
 When she heard that the fire types were building a village to themselves near the west river, on a clearing they called Coneridge, she had laughed. The arcanine, houndoom and typhlosion had accepted their defeat. They had left the Great Ridge to her and her kin. But as years passed, the victory started growing hollow.
 
 Asper was gaining age, and no longer did time bring just strength to her. It had been two years since she had last laid an egg, and not for a lack of trying, and she feared that she never again would. Her time was passing. Now, she could only watch as her legacy crumbled, her children and their children failing to keep the land she had conquered for them. They were not like her in strength or guile. Not one of them seemed like a worthy heir to her.
 
 Soon she found herself fleeing to the south, to the edge of the swamps. She and her kin had been driven away from the Great Ridge not by the fire types, but by a motley bunch of pokemon, claiming to act in the name of the village of Coneridge. She could see her time having passed. Her 71 years of age were more than the life span of any seviper she had heard of before, but now her advanced age no longer brought her respect.
 
 Her children had abandoned her, unfairly blaming her lack of strength for the loss of their home. They had scattered around the woods, claiming their own tiny hunting grounds, leaving her to her own devices. Were it not for her pride, she would have given up, perhaps allowed herself to be eaten by some aspiring predator of the wetlands who showed promise. If nothing else, some of her strength could have lived on that way.
 
 But Asper couldn't allow that for herself. Even old and alone, she was a force greater than any outside that accursed village. She tried to gather some of the swamp dwellers to strike against Coneridge, but they had no interest in doing so. The fire types stayed away from the wetlands, and the inhabitants of the swamp stayed away from the northern forests. So it had been for as long as anyone could remember, and so it would continue to be, they said.
 
 She punished their cowardice by sending many of them down her gullet one by one, trying to bring the rest on her side by fear. But instead they gathered their strength against her and again she found herself driven away, grievously wounded. So she ended in the forests on the other side of the wetlands, by the sea. There she lived, growing weaker with each passing day, having lost her purpose, even one of her fangs to a strike from a feraligator.
 
 The once mighty seviper was reduced to hunting for vermin, to stealing eggs from nests, even to feeding on carrion. She no longer found it in herself to muster strength for more than that. When the winter soon came and she settled to sleep over the worst of it, she honestly believed, perhaps even hoped, that she would never wake up again. She had failed to upkeep the tradition.
 
-----
 
 The tiny cave was barely even that. Just a crack between two large boulders, sheltered by the branches, leaves and moss that had fallen and grown on top of the stones. Asper hadn't had the will to search for anything better than that. Now she found herself awake, seeing her 72nd year.
 
 The mournful howl of the wind greeted her, accompanied by crashing of the waves not far from where she lay.
 
 She was cold. She always was after sleeping for months, but now more than ever. Drops of freezing water from melting snow fell on her body, splattering against the black and purple scales. For a long time she lay there, awake but unmoving, even unthinking. Then a primal feeling rose inside her, one of the last things that still motivated her. Hunger.
 
 Slowly, hindered by the lack of warmth and the cold wetness, she slid out from the hole she had spent the last four months in, witnessing the sparse, short trees bordering the sea, lighted by the first rays of the rising sun, barely visible from among the grey clouds that covered the sky. The harsh stone covered ground of the windswept beach lay in front of her, descending slowly to the water. Here and there grasses, even trees, grew in the soil that had gathered where the bedrock had cracked, surviving in defiance of the fury of the raging waves and the bellowing wind. The snow of winter had mostly melted away, only isolated piles remaining here and there where the wind had gathered it against something.
 
 On the other side of the boulders there would be much the same view, the place she had fled to and spent her winter in being nothing but a narrow peninsula that extended from the mainland, too bare and insignificant for the angry wet landers to believe to be a place for her to flee to. Indeed, during the high tide the strip of stone leading to the peninsula became mostly submerged, turning the place to an island until the waters subsided.
 
 It was no place for a being like her to live in. Only those who could gather their food from the sea could survive here. Beings such as wingull and pelipper.
 
 Asper saw one such pokemon nesting on a small hollow on the bare stone, in a low nest made from the scarce branches and grasses that could be found here. Clearly the bird had little fear for predators, for no such being could make the trek from the mainland in this storm save by flying, and the pelipper and the wingull flying in the air above them would see any flyer long before it got near.
 
 Carefully, keeping her movements as small as she could, she crept forward. Her scales scraped against the stone, but the wind swept away the noise, making the seviper a dark spectre gliding from one long shadow to another. She was almost upon the pelipper before a flying wingull screeched a warning.
 
 The pelipper turned, looking straight at her. It turned away again and tried to take flight, but the large heavy bird wasn't well suited for quick take-offs. Her jaws were upon it before it had taken more than three hasty steps, and she had coiled around it before before its momentum had carried them more than a five steps distance from the nest.
 
 "Let go of her! Let go of her!" the wingull kept screeching at Asper, blasting at her with their water guns. But she was far beyond caring about their weak attacks, paying no heed to the spurts of water.
 
 Only when one dared to approach close enough to strike at her with its wings did she move, releasing her jaws from the pelipper and biting lightning fast at the wingull, catching it mid-air.
 
 "Please, let him go! I give up! Just please let my children go!" Asper heard the pelipper plead from inside her coils. The larger bird was thoroughly tangled, in no position to offer any real resistance, certainly in no position to negotiate.
 
 But perhaps she was losing her edge, or possibly it was the weakness that again threatened to fall upon her, for the seviper paused. She hadn't injected any venom to the wingull, just as she hadn't in the pelipper. Producing the potent venom that seviper were famed for took a lot of energy, and weak as she had been, even the long sleep hadn't replenished her stores.
 
 But now, because of her lack of venom, the wingull was indeed relatively unharmed. Her teeth had punctured the skin in several places, but such small wounds would heal easily. Her one intact fang had just barely missed the wingull's neck, avoiding a truly dangerous wound. Swinging her head while opening her jaws, she flung the smaller bird a short distance, sending it crashing to the ground.
 
 She arranged her coils so that the pelipper could see the wingull struggle on to its feet and hop away, before speaking to the large bird. "I let him go. You are mine now. Tell the other wingull not to bother me any longer."
 
 "Hatchlings! Listen! You must not fight the snake! She is too strong! I... I am sorry. I cannot care for you any more. Take care of each other! Promise..." the pelipper called out to the flying wingull, before Asper tightened her grip on the bird and cut her off.
 
 "Enough talk" the seviper hissed to the water bird, opening her jaws wide apart. True to its word, the pelipper didn't take its one chance to try and fire a blast of water down her gullet. With its wings bound tightly against its sides, such would have been the only attack left to the bird.
 
 Instead, the large billed pokemon only stared at the sight before it, as the dark hole surrounded by quivering flesh grew nearer, the one intact red fang folded back against the palate, a ring of teeth coming nearer and soon surrounding the birds head. The pelipper shuddered as its beak touched her flesh, and a delightful feeling of power coursed through the seviper's body. She was a predator still.
 
 For a normal sized seviper a pelipper would have been a large meal indeed, as much as half its mass. But Asper was old, and like most reptiles she kept growing with age, though less so with each passing year. The pelipper was perhaps a quarter of her mass, a good meal, but far from the largest she had had.
 
 As it was, she didn't need to walk her jaws, only to keep pushing with her coils. Soon the compact shape of the bird passed fully within her jaws, allowing her to relax her coils. She gave the wingull a last view of their mother, before closing her jaws, the pressure pushing the pelipper into her gullet. Lazily she bent her body in waves, pushing the bird deeper inside her body, towards her impatient stomach.
 
 Deciding to retreat away from the splashes of cold water that the waves were throwing up, occasionally high and far enough to reach her, she slithered past the nest. Then stopped and swung back, having noticed the two eggs hidden beneath the grasses at the nest's bottom. Clearly they had been arranged so to protect the eggs while the pelipper had been away from the nest, but they had also provided good camouflage.
 
 Asper hesitated for a moment, thinking on what she had promised to the pelipper now wriggling somewhere just a little short of her stomach. She had promised to let the birds children go. Carefully she tapped the eggs with the tip of her intact fang, trying to ascertain herself of their state.
 
 Having laid dozens of eggs herself, she had learned to judge their state by the sound they made when she tapped them. These eggs were freshly laid, still having nothing but liquid inside. On a cold beach like this, they would never hatch without their mother.
 
 Lifting up one egg in her maw, she lifted it high and crushed it between her jaws. Some of the contents flew out, but most drained down her gullet. She repeated the process on the second egg, spitting the broken shells back in the nest. The pelipper's children wouldn't have to worry about their unhatched siblings now.
 
 With a final look at the wingull now gliding quietly in the air above her, she retreated to what cover the sparse trees of the peninsula could give her. She would have to wait for a low tide and for the storm to subside, but she would leave this place for the wingull. She would keep her word to the bird now growing still inside her belly.
 
-----
 
 The next day Asper was making her way through the forest which she had last passed while fleeing for her life. The wet landers were long gone by now though, their group certainly having given up after a few days and hurried back to the swamps before weather turned truly cold.
 
 Now she was hunting again, the pelipper in her stomach little but mush. The bird would still nourish her for a few days, but after the winter her energy was drained, her venom dried up, and the short stub of her broken fang yet to fall away to give way to a new one.
 
 Yet she somehow felt more alive than she had last autumn, the new year bringing with it new challenges to overcome, new goals to achieve, and most importantly, new prey to hunt. She had been tracking a raticate by the scent it had left behind it, but gave up when its tracks mingled with those of two furfrou.
 
 One furfrou she would have gladly hunted down, but without her poison she hesitated to fight two at once. Instead she headed further away from the coast, searching for... something. Something to give the rest of her life a meaning.
 
 Several days and a breloom later, she came upon a lone egg laying on the moss on the forest floor. The pattern and colouration on the eggs shell weren't familiar to her, but neither did she care. Her jaws were already falling upon the lone egg, when it suddenly moved, rolling slightly closer to her.
 
 Curiosity overcame her, and she decided to wait and see what pokemon would hatch from the egg before devouring the hatchling. The pokemon about to take its first breath of outside air seemed intent not to keep her waiting, a pounding audible from inside the egg as it tried to break the shell that had served its task of protecting it, now only keeping the hatchling trapped within.
 
 Soon the first cracks appeared. And with a one more burst of strength, the hatchling broke apart the egg, the top half flying away, powered by the tiny pokemon's strike. And the pokemon was...
 
 Asper didn't know what the pokemon was. It was reptilian, certainly. Green scaled from above, cream coloured from below. There were yellow markings on top of and behind its eyes, yellow protrusions growing from its shoulders, and a yellow stripe on its back. It had hands and legs, though spindly and weak looking, and the end of its tail looked somewhat like a leaf.
 
 "What are you?" she found herself asking, more from herself than the little pokemon before her.
 
 "I am a snivy!" the hatchling said brightly, uncaring that it hadn't actually been expected to answer.
 
 Right, of course the little pokemon would know. The genetic memory that all pokemon had from birth would let it know that much, just like it would have given the hatchling its first skills and abilities. But like all freshly hatched pokemon, it would be weak. Asper was already opening her maw, planning to devour the tiny pokemon before its parents appeared, when it unexpectedly spoke again.
 
 "Are you a snake too?" it asked from her, apparently not having understood her intentions towards it.
 
 Asper stopped. It was a snake? But it had limbs! Or perhaps it thought of her as its mother? She was a snake so... But no, it was asking about her, not itself. It thought of itself as a snake. Concentrating, Asper tried to think back to her own hatching, 72 long years ago. Had she known that she was a snake? Had her genetic memory told her that much?
 
 Yes. She had known that she was a snake. A fang snake pokemon, to be precise. She had known that she was of a poison type, and that she ate other pokemon. She had known all that, and other things besides. This hatchling, waiting patiently for her answer, would know what it was. Its current form looked childish, so it was likely to evolve. Perhaps it would become something more serpent like?
 
 "Yes, I am a snake. A seviper, to be precise. Of poison type" she hissed her answer to the snivy.
 
 "Poison? I am a grass type. That means your type is strong against me!" the little pokemon giggled at her, pointing out that it indeed had no hope. Not that it seemed to realise what was going on, or just didn't care.
 
 Something twitched inside her at that. She raised her head away from the hatchling, looking around herself. No other pokemon could be seen anywhere. The snivy's mother wouldn't have left it here unguarded. Not if the mother had any choice in the matter. Not if the mother cared about the unhatched pokemon. Had the egg been stolen, but left here for some reason? Or had the mother been killed, the killer not having noticed, or cared, that the egg got left here?
 
 She had no way of knowing. But this pokemon was now alone. Alone, and far too weak to survive on its own. It couldn't even fight a rattata as it was, not unless the rat was a hatchling itself. Otherwise such a battle would end up with a meal for the rodent. No, the snivy needed a guardian.
 
 Asper had accepted that her days of motherhood were over. She wasn't fertile any more, the children she had grown had abandoned her, and the way back to them would have been too dangerous anyway. The wet landers might have given up on chasing her, but if she approached the swamp they would surely join forces against her once again. She could travel east, far around the side of the mountains there, avoiding the swamp on her way back to her former home. But what would there be for her back there?
 
 She would not grovel before her own children, all of them still weaker than her. And she couldn't fight against the slowly growing might of the village of Coneridge, not alone. She had no purpose left to her back there.
 
 But here, there was a small snake. Or at least a snake to be. Freshly hatched, all alone, studying its surroundings curiously and seemingly unafraid of her.
 
 The hatchling needed a guardian. Asper needed a reason to live. It was fate, she realised. Just a few days ago she wouldn't have been ready for this, and not long after this day she likely would have fallen too far into her depression to take on the responsibility.
 
 "I am Asper. A mother of many, and the strongest snake I have ever met. You..." she hesitated. "Are you a male or female?" she asked from the little pokemon. With many reptiles, snakes included, it wasn't really possible to tell at this young an age, often not to the pokemon themselves even. An egg could hatch to be either female or a male after all, so genetic memory couldn't help with that.
 
 But back when she had come of age, her mother had taught her how to tell a snake's gender for certain, though the method worked poorly if at all on young pokemon. And perhaps more significantly, it was rather... intrusive.
 
 "I am... a female? I think so. It feels more correct" the snivy pondered, its small face frowning in concentration. "But I'm not certain. Does it matter?"
 
 It did, but that would have to do for now. Later she would have to find out for certain, when the time came. The snivy would just have to go without a gender for now. "No, it's okay. I shall call you the young one until you have earned a name for yourself. Understand?"
 
 "Why? You are not my mother. I don't know who my mother is, but you are not her" the little snivy declared, standing its ground.
 
 "You are not my child, true. But you need a guardian. You cannot survive on your own, and your mother isn't here. Where she is, I know not." This, Asper realised, was a problem. The young pokemon wouldn't readily accept her as long as its mother might still be around. No seviper would do so, at least.
 
 "Are you certain that she isn't around? Or my father in her stead?" the little snivy asked, speaking in the oddly formal style that seemed natural to it. The little pokemon took a moment to look around again, before taking a few steps to the side and looking along Asper's body.
 
 So the snivy wasn't blind to the fact that she was a predator, she realised. It just wasn't afraid of her, or didn't show it's fear. Perhaps that was something she should have a little test about, she decided.
 
 "You were alone when I found you" she confirmed what the little would be snake could see. The breloom wasn't a solid lump any more, having started spreading along her digestive system by now, thus making it clear that she hadn't eaten in a while. Not anything of meaningful size, anyway. "And aside from me, alone is what you would remain."
 
 Without warning, she lunged at the snivy, jaws gaping. She intended to slam them shut just ahead of the snivy's muzzle, but the little pokemon was already moving, a pair of vines emerging from behind the yellow protrusions on its shoulders. Sidestepping quickly the little snivy moved aside, not fast enough to really evade her had she wanted to bite it, but faster than she would have thought possible from it. At the same time the two vines coiled around her neck, just beyond her head, and tried to push her away. For all it achieved the snivy might as well have tried to lift the Great Ridge.
 
 "I can take care of myself!" the snivy claimed, unfazed by her jaws snapping shut before it.
 
 The absurdity of the claim made Asper laugh. Sure, the little one was faster and more skilled than usual for hatchlings, and seemingly fearless, but the tiny pokemon was still nothing but a snack to any real predator, and no prey would even bother to run from it. That at least was much the same for every species of pokemon. No matter how large and powerful they grew up or evolved to be, they all started so utterly weak.
 
 Somehow the snivy must have understood that as well. Its defiant pose melted under her laugh, the vines retreating back to where they had come from, with the young one's eyes falling to look at the ground in defeat. "Fine. I need help. But why are you offering it?" the snivy asked, showing more intelligence than she was used to from a pokemon so young.
 
 "Because I am old. I can no longer lay eggs of my own. You shall be my last child. I shall rise you to be worthy of my legacy" she promised the little pokemon. Perhaps, just perhaps, she wouldn't fail to hold on to the tradition after all...
 
 It was a grand promise, something she wouldn't have believed to be of interest to a hatchling. Her own children certainly had only cared for food and play for their first years.
 
 But the snivy seemed to brighten at the words. "I accept you as my guardian then" it answered regally, in a manner of a pokemon with many years of age. But then it relaxed, acting much more akin to how Asper's own children had, so many years ago. "I am hungry. Is there any food?" it asked.
 
-----
 
 It didn't take long for Asper to find a meal for the snivy. Less than half a mile away, hiding under the branches and mostly rotten leaves of the forest floor, two shroomish were sleeping away the daylight hours. Ignoring their protests, she gulped one down herself, a small snack, and the other she injected with all the venom her body had managed to produce in the past few days. She had to sigh, for the amount was barely sufficient to incapacitate the tiny shroomish.
 
 The young one gladly accepted the meal, half its own size though it was. But the snivy gave credibility to its claim of being a snake, for it managed to stuff the nearly spherical pokemon into its maw, then swallow, really swallow, Asper noted, the shroomish down its thin neck, which stretched with little resistance. Finally the mushroom pokemon reached the young one's stomach, the entire front of its torso bulged out in the prey's shape.
 
 The snivy was obviously in no condition to move on its own after that, but its vines proved useful there. Again wrapping them around her neck, the snivy rode along on Asper's back as she looked for a place for them to sleep in.
 
 The spring passed fast, the snivy growing stronger by the day. By summer, the young one hunted for shroomish by itself, though Asper was somewhat disappointed that the grass snake seemed to like eating berries equally as much as prey, often stuffing itself with the berries that the prey it was following lead it to while the prey ran away.
 
 The snivy also seemed to have a need for sunlight, almost as much so as for food. When the weather was cloudy and dark for several days in a row the young one became slow and lethargic, wanting to just rest until the sun came out. While Asper could understand the snivy's need for warmth, the small pokemon seemed to need the light itself as much or even more than the heat.
 
 As the summer progressed the snivy seemed to start to grow out of the habit though, staying active longer when the weather was bad, and having to spend less time in the sun to regain its energy. By autumn it had stopped getting tired by the lack of sun, though it still liked basking in direct sunlight, getting faster and stronger after having done so.
 
 Then came the day of the first frost of the season.
 
 "It is time for us to look for a place to spend the winter in" she told the snivy that morning.
 
 "What is wrong with this cave, Asper?" the little snake asked her, looking back to the small cave they had retreated to sleep in at for the past three days.
 
 "It is too open. We need something that will give us more protection while we sleep over cold months, something where other pokemon are less likely to find us in" she explained to the young one.
 
 "Sleep over the cold months? Can we do that?" the snivy asked from her, seeming honestly puzzled.
 
 Turning back to look at the little one, Asper felt confusion fall upon her too. She had known since hatching that the winters were to be slept over if it got too cold. None of her children had needed the matter explained to them either. It was simply something that they knew. All there was to teach was how to find the best places to sleep in, and how to prepare for the long sleep.
 
 But if the little green snake to be didn't know about the winter sleep...
 
 "You don't know? What would you do when it gets too cold to stay awake?" she asked from the snivy, fearing the answer.
 
 "Go somewhere warmer?" the young one answered after thinking for a moment.
 
 It was as she feared. It had to be.
 
 The snivy didn't sleep during the winters. They stayed awake all through the year, like most other pokemon did. But Asper had already seen that the grass snake needed warmth just like she did. There was no way the young pokemon could survive out in the cold. But if it wasn't able to sleep the whole winter either, like most pokemon weren't, what could she do?
 
 They spent the next few days travelling south, for Asper knew that it was colder in the north. True, there was no way they could move far enough in time for it to really help, but it was all she could do.
 
 Then came the morning when snow covered the ground. Asper felt weak, slow, even sick trying to stubbornly keep moving on the frozen ground, her body generating barely enough heat to keep itself from freezing. Surprisingly, while the snivy suffered from the cold too, it was doing better than she was, though being smaller the situation should have been the opposite. Perhaps it was able to keep itself going thanks to the bright sunlight, which while warming on her black scales, didn't provide more than a momentary relief to Asper.
 
 "I am sorry, young one. I must find a place to sleep in. I can go no further" she finally admitted. She was burning precious energy trying to stay active in the cold. If she didn't give up now, she wouldn't survive the winter.
 
 "I understand, Asper" the snivy responded. Though looking worried, the little snake seemed determined. "I shall come back here on spring, to wait for you" it promised, sounding surprisingly confident.
 
 "I shall be here then, in this part of the forest, until I see you again" she accepted the young one's promise.
 
 Neither of them were of the type for goodbyes or farewells. Neither of them went for a hug, or nuzzling, like some other pokemon might have. The promises made, the little one simply turned and walked away, towards the south.
 
 Watching the snivy vanish among the trees, Asper knew that they would never again meet. She had failed her ancestors after all...
 
-----
 
 The huge seviper woke slowly. It was warmer than it had been when she went to sleep in the old, partially collapsed burrow that some pokemon had dug years ago. Lazily she slithered out, taking in the view of the forest with its piles of melting snow and the first leaves sprouting to replace the fallen ones. Her 73rd summer was coming. She was in better condition than she had been last spring, with both of her fangs intact, plenty of venom in store and no immediate danger of starvation, but she couldn't take comfort on that.
 
 The young one was gone. She had regretted having let the snivy wander of alone, to freeze to death by itself in the forest. Even as she had laid herself to sleep, she cursed herself for not having had the strength of mind to end the young one's suffering when she had had a chance. One quick strike when it had turned its back, and there would have been no pain.
 
 She couldn't take it upon herself to set to south, to try and find the snivy's remains. There probably wouldn't be any in any case. Many a scavenger would have been overjoyed to find such a meal with the first freeze of the winter upon them.
 
 She should go back north, she thought. The terrain there was more familiar to her, and she might come across one of her real children. But she had promised to wait here. There was no reason for it now, but she had given her word. Had given her word to someone she knew to be dying.
 
 The next day found her emerge from the same collapsed burrow, setting to explore the surrounding area. There seemed to be a sufficient amount of prey around, though much of it smaller than she preferred. Her pride had rekindled last summer, and she felt hunting shroomish and rattata to be beneath her.
 
 On the fourth day she found a stream to the east, and following it south led her to what looked like a dam in its early stages. That likely meant a bidoof nearby. The gnawer would make a lot better meal than anything she had seen since waking up to this new year.
 
 Hiding some way away in some shrubs, she waited. The day approached its middle, with Asper starting to believe that the dam had been abandoned, when her prey finally came in view. To her delight, she had been wrong. It was not a bidoof. Somehow this little stream had attracted the attention of a plump bibarel, which had decided to start building its dam here despite the weak flow. Usually such small streams attracted young bidoof, still learning to build their dams and thus not ready for bigger challenges.
 
 But here was a bibarel, dragging most of a decent sized birch behind it. Why the gnawer had gone away to get that particular tree was beyond Asper, for trees similar to it grew all around. Yet she wouldn't question the pokemon's logic. No, she wasn't interested in the bibarel's dam. Let the dam be damned. She wanted the brown furred pokemon itself.
 
 She waited until the pokemon finished dragging the tree to where it wanted it, the bibarel then looking around for a moment before starting to chew on the tree, apparently wanting it cut to a specific length. But there was her chance. The gnawer was bent down, focused on its task. Slowly she emerged from the shrubs, slithering soundlessly on the moss and leaves of the forest floor.
 
 It seemed that no large predators lived in the area, aside from her, for the bibarel never bothered to look up from its work. She got almost to it before a part of the tree snapped free from the rest, the gnawer standing up to examine its work. And from the corner of its eye it noticed the large, dark coloured snake who was almost upon it, with fangs extended and ready for a fight.
 
 To her surprise, the bibarel charged straight at her. The gnawer's unexpected action slowed her own reaction, the bibarel's body hitting hard at hers, knocking her front half back over her rear half. Long honed reflexes made her squirm away evasively before she regained her bearings, finding that the bibarel hadn't followed on its attack, somewhat stunned by its own charge.
 
 Now ready, they faced each other. Despite the gnawer having gotten in the first strike, she believed that she still had the advantage. She would only have to get in one bite, one chance for her venom to do its work, after which she could keep her distance and wait for the overgrown brown rodent to weaken.
 
 The bibarel seemed to have come to the same conclusion, for it tried to keep her away by spewing water at her. The weak attack didn't really gain the gnawer much though, for she slithered straight through the attack, biting at her prey. Somehow the bibarel managed to get its front limbs in the way though, her bite falling short of its torso and instead closing on the bibarel's paws. Closing with the paws at the rear of her jaws, not the front, leaving her venomous fangs hitting nothing but air as they swung down between the paws and the rest of her prey.
 
 The bibarel cried out as her small sharp teeth cut into its paws, but answered with a headbutt to the tip of her upper jaw, the strike enough to make her let go of the gnawer and pull back to recover, her nose pulsing in agony to the beat of her heart.
 
 To make matters worse, this time the brown furred pokemon followed up on its attack, the large, sharp incisors suddenly biting on her body, shattering black scales and cutting pink flesh. For the first time since fleeing the swamp, Asper gasped in pain. Her tail acted almost on its own thought, the blade cutting towards the bibarel and forcing it to let go to avoid being cut open, unable to bite for a second time.
 
 They both took a few steps back, or an equivalent distance any way, again observing each other. She had definitely got the worse of the exchange, with her side bleeding from the bite mark and her snout aching where it had been hit. But the bibarel wasn't fresh either, seeming pained and unable to walk on four feet, owing to its front paws being marked by twin rows of punctures slowly oozing red on to its fur.
 
 "I honestly didn't think that you would give me this much trouble" Asper said, starting to circle the slowed down pokemon, looking for an opening.
 
 "You aren't the first seviper I've fought. There are many of you to the north, near the large hill they call the Great Ridge. I thought it would be calmer here, but it seems that I was wrong" the bibarel replied, trying to stay steady on its hind feet.
 
 Time was on her side there. While capable of standing and walking on two feet, the gnawer wouldn't be able to do so for long before its legs would start to tire out. "You know, many of the seviper you saw there were likely my children" she kept talking while she waited.
 
 "Really? Then I hope that the one I bit in half as a warning to the others was one of yours" the bibarel taunted her.
 
 She wouldn't have thought the taunt would hit its mark so well. She believed to have left her children behind her, like they had left her. But perhaps the loss of the young one still fresh in her mind tore open the wounds, or possibly it was her real wounds that left her open to the emotional attack.
 
 Her charge at the bibarel left her wide open, but the sheer fury of her attack gave the gnawer no chance to retaliate. She bit deep on her foes left shoulder, her tail blade cutting at the bibarel's side. Then the rest of her body followed, the impact throwing the gnawer back, Asper loosing her grip as they both hit the ground hard.
 
 Regaining her senses, she pulled back from the other pokemon, studying it from a safe distance. "You shouldn't have said that. My children are fools, but they are still my children" she told to the bibarel.
 
 "I don't think an apology would help?" the gnawer asked, trying to get up. But it was too hurt by their fighting, and with her venom in its veins, it wouldn't get its strength back.
 
 "No. It wouldn't" she answered, her fangs returning to their relaxed position inside her maw. Carefully she moved to where the bibarel's flat, scaly tail lay on the ground. Her prey wasn't quite finished yet, managing to slowly drag itself around to face her as she again put some distance between them. But trying again, she found the bibarel slowing down, it taking a lot longer and being a lot harder for it to manage the turn. On the third try, the bibarel no longer even tried.
 
 Good. Deeming the rodent sufficiently weakened, she could now start on her meal. She slithered over the bibarel, holding it down to the ground with her weight. She weighted more than double what it did, she estimated, so the bibarel would stay put. Then she extended her head ahead of it, looking the rodent in the eye one final time.
 
 "Sorry I'm cutting our conversation short, but you know how it is. Besides, it isn't polite to speak with food in your mouth" she said, paying the bibarel back for its taunting. Then she spread her jaws wide and pushed them against the bibarel's head.
 
 The rodent sputtered as its muzzle slid in her gullet and got covered with mucus, but there was nothing more it could do. Its weak attempts at biting her from the inside were doomed to fail, the slick slime making even those incisors slide harmlessly over the flesh.
 
 Slowly she kept pushing her way further over her prey, soon slowing even more as she had to start walking her jaws part at a time, the bibarel's body getting steadily wider the further she got. Luckily the oily fur of the rodent, meant to keep it dry in water, helped her, for otherwise she would not have had enough energy to proceed with the meal.
 
 The bibarel's front limbs kept moving, the rodent likely trying to push itself back outwards. But with her teeth only allowing movement inwards, what little movement the bibarel managed only pushed it further in, the bulging form in her neck already double her normal width. Still, she soon found her progress slowing, the battle having taken too much of her energy to speedily finish ingesting her opponent. It wasn't long until she found herself stopping entirely.
 
 She hadn't eaten a proper meal since she went to sleep away the winter. In her foolish pride she had reached too far, biting on to something she couldn't swallow. Worse, the bibarel seemed to sense it too.
 
 "All dried up, are you? Ha! Give me an hour to recover, and I'll gnaw my way out of you" it promised her, something she couldn't deny might really end up coming to be. The stupid rodent was still somehow getting air, her flesh failing to squeeze tight enough against its body to fully cut off the flow. Or perhaps the bibarel was stretching her with its front limbs, creating space around itself. Had she had the energy, her muscles would have tightened around it, pressing tight against it and stopping the rodent's useless attempt to save itself.
 
 The bibarel rightly interpreted her lack of reaction. "Ha! I'll be out of here before the sun falls" it declared. But then it proved it hadn't learned from its earlier mistake. "I'll hang your remains on top of my dam, just like I did with your kid!" it threatened her.
 
 She knew that she had nothing left to give. She knew that she had no reserves left to tap into. But she didn't care. The now familiar dark determination burned in her, filling her veins with smouldering fire, the burning both painful and rejuvenating. Slowly she started forward again, moving fraction of an inch at a time. The bibarel sputtered something, but the words didn't penetrate the red haze in her mind. The rodent wasn't just her prey or her adversary. It was an enemy, a confessed slayer of her family. And she was going to have revenge. She had failed the tradition, but she would do this much!
 
 That one thought kept her moving, until most of the bibarel was within her, only the rear limbs and the flat tail of the rodent still outside her jaws. There her energy finally truly failed. But she might have got far enough. Her prey's breathing seemed weaker as time passed, the air it got getting ever more stale. She was almost there, almost where the rodent couldn't get any more air. Her anger hadn't faded, she still wanted revenge more than she wanted survival for herself.
 
 Her tongue flicked in and out, tasting the air. She was truly helpless, but there didn't seem to be anything nearby that might take the opportunity at having a free two course meal. Then her tongue slid along the bibarel's body, and she noticed the gap in the fur coating. Experimentally, she slid her tongue in, finding what seemed something akin to a cloaca. The bibarel shuddered, managing to yell something, though she couldn't understand the words. Here was her way of getting revenge.
 
 She didn't care whether the rodent was a male or a female. With most mammalian pokemon the difference would have been easy to tell, but the gnawers seemed to have a different arrangement of parts between their legs. Normally she would have thought the anatomical detail something that made the rodent better than most of its warm blooded kin, being similar to her own, but this particular bibarel was beyond redemption in her eyes.
 
 Mercilessly her tongue probed inside the hole, looking for something. And there it was. Responding to the stimulation, a fleshy rod started pushing out of one of the tubes. A male then. Perhaps it was the situation the rodent was in, or perhaps she just was more skilled than she realised, for in no time at all the male-hood of her prey was fully emerged, a lump forming just behind the cloaca like opening. Likely the testes, she thought. Some reptiles also had them swell or move in a way that made the otherwise unseen male anatomical feature turn apparent at the time of sexual excitement.
 
 Her tongue now doing its best to bend back and wrap around the bibarel's penis, she kept licking the exposed flesh, savouring the taste. The rodent's fur was oily and had little taste, with what there was being mostly unpleasant. Inside her prey the holes nature of acting as a waste disposal in addition to mating purposes hadn't made her able to enjoy the taste either. But this part of him, now free from where it usually rested, actually tasted good. Meaty, much like the flesh her fangs had pierced, yet lacking the coppery taste of blood.
 
 Wondering about the taste, she didn't at first realise that the bibarel had started moving again. When she did, she soon realised that the rodent was rubbing its male-hood against the bottom of her maw, too turned on to care that it was aiding her. All too soon, she felt him shudder, warm spurts of gooey liquid splashing at the entrance to her gullet, forcing her to keep her glottis closed to avoid getting any cum in her windpipe. Then, with a contented sigh and now fully exhausted, the bibarel fell unconscious.
 
 To her annoyance, Asper realised that the bibarel had, in enjoying the treatment she gave to it, stolen a part of the satisfaction she had hoped to get from her revenge. No, she was wrong. The rodent had stolen all of it. She had liked doing that to him, she realised. For a moment he had turned from prey to a lover, and while she didn't care for him, she no longer could enjoy his humiliation, nor his impending passing. And yet she wouldn't mourn for him either, she knew. He had killed one of her children. That alone meant that he had to die by her fangs.
 
-----
 
 For the rest of the evening the old seviper lay there, feeling the bibarel slowly slip deeper into sleep. As the sun started falling, she finally felt strong enough to finish swallowing the rodent. As she made her way back to the old burrow she was using as her nightly resting place, she found herself purposefully avoiding paying attention to the sensations from her stomach. Instead, she kept wondering what she should do from here on.
 
 With her stomach full, it was best if she rested the next day, allowing her wounds to heal and her energy to return. The day after that, she would spend wandering around, studying her surroundings. Yes, that would be for the best.
 
 Deep in her thoughts as she was, Asper failed to notice the eyes following her. She failed to hear the faint sound as something closed upon her.
 
 It wasn't until something grabbed her by the neck that she started, her tail blade rising ready to strike as soon as she could locate the attacker.
 
 Then something slammed at the back of her neck, right below her head. "I missed you."
 
 Now knowing where the attacker was, she threw her head to the side, her tail swung around... And slowed to a halt, like the rest of her.
 
 For long seconds even her heart didn't pump, her mind locked around those words. "Young one?" she managed at last.
 
 All the answer she got, all the answer she needed, was the tiny hands reaching around her body in a hug.
 
-----
 
 The snivy didn't tell her how it had survived the winter. Asper asked, but the little green snake simply refused to tell. Yet the old seviper found herself uncaring of the disobedience. "You have grown so much" she told the snivy, not for the first time.
 
 "Some. Not that much, really" it answered each time. And it was true, the snivy wasn't that much bigger.
 
 But it was clearly stronger, impressively much so. Just one year old, and it would likely have beaten any of her real children when they had been two years old. The grip it had taken her by the neck with wasn't the weak hold that it had stayed on her back with during the last summer. It had been strong enough to pull her head back as the snivy had reeled itself in, the impact as it hit the back of her neck feeling like a real attack.
 
 True, had the snivy been really attacking her like that, or had it not said anything, she would have cut it in two with her tail blade. But right now, right there, that didn't matter. The young one was alive! Tired, and wanting to get to sleep right away, yes, but seemingly fully okay.
 
 Asper kept staring curiously as the snivy inspected the old partially collapsed burrow. There was a certainty in the little one's actions that hadn't been there last summer. The little pokemon was more confident now, acting without her permission.
 
 "I do not trust this old hole. But it might do for this night with some reinforcement" the snivy declared, before ripping branches from the nearby trees and moving them inside the burrow, bracing the parts near the collapsed section.
 
 Such work wasn't snake-like, Asper thought. But then again, most snakes didn't have hands or vines to move things around with. Was that how the snivy had survived? Had it built itself a shelter, a home like the pokemon in Coneridge did? But such skills weren't part of the genetic memory pokemon were born with. Not even knowledge necessary for this simple act of bracing the walls was something one could be born with. Who had taught the snivy?
 
 "Are you certain you won't tell me anything about what you have been doing since last autumn?" she again asked from the young one.
 
 Stopping in its work, the young one gave a sad sigh. Turning towards her, it told her "Not right now. I have to think first."
 
 "Tomorrow then?" she kept insisting.
 
 "Tomorrow" the snivy finally agreed, getting back to work. Soon the burrow looked like it had never had a collapse, one wall made of woven branches, the rest of packed earth. It was almost good enough to spend the whole summer in, Asper thought, if it wasn't for one problem. With the bibarel inside of her, she needed the young one's help to push through the entrance.
 
 But it was more than good enough for this night, she decided, as she coiled protectively around the young one for the night. Soon she was lulled to sleep by the quiet gurgling of her stomach and the weight of the smaller pokemon against it, and she was happier and more content than she had been for a long time.
 
-----
 
 "I found a warm cave" the snivy told Asper the next day.
 
 "A warm cave?" she asked from the young one, not certain what the green snake might mean by that.
 
 "The pokemon living inside called it a mystery dungeon. It is always warm inside there, but it is also filled with strong and wild pokemon. And when I say wild I mean crazy wild" the little pokemon went on while it walked next to her.
 
 They were looking for a better place to call a home, for the snivy seemed to want to spend the whole summer in one place this time. As far as Asper was concerned, changing area few times during the season would be the wisest, but the young one seemed insistent.
 
 "Define crazy wild" she bid the snivy to explain, finding herself feeling somewhat offended. She considered herself as wild as pokemon came, certainly not anything like the pretentious "civilized" pokemon of that Coneridge village.
 
 "Well, we hunt other pokemon and eat them, right? But we also speak to some pokemon, mostly other predators like us, right? And sometimes to prey too. In that cavern, even pokemon of the same species may attack each other and fight to death, often for no reason that I could see. And I think some of them couldn't even talk. At all. Mostly those living at the very bottom. Or so the pokemon living near the surface told me" the snivy told her.
 
 "If you spoke to some, they can't all be crazy wild" Asper pointed out.
 
 "True, but the pokemon at the upper layers were mostly like me, there simply to escape the winter. It was the pokemon deeper in the caves that were the real crazy ones. Those close to surface who still lived in the caves were aggressive and suspicious of others, but not crazy. But the few pokemon who came up from the deep parts were both strong and crazy. They just ate everyone they came across" the young one kept going on.
 
 "You know, it sounds almost like you didn't eat other pokemon while in there" Asper noted. Sure, the snivy had been omnivorous last summer, but if the green snake was turning into a herbivore... That she wouldn't stand for.
 
 "Well, there really weren't any pokemon weak enough for me to hunt in there. Aside from few others who fled the winter in there. But we kinda made a deal not to try and eat each other. Even when we worked together to survive, many of us got eaten by the wild ones. Had we been alone, I don't think any of us would have made it" the snivy explained. "Besides, there were plenty of berries in there. Seeds too, but those aren't really too suited for me, it seems" the young one went on, rubbing his belly while frowning on some memory.
 
 Likely indigestion, Asper thought. She wasn't surprised that the snivy would have trouble digesting seeds, for she wouldn't have been able to really eat them either, had she ever tried to.
 
 "Well, I guess that's okay then" she admitted. If the young one had to have made such a deal to survive, then so it had to be. After all, it was an incredible that the snivy had survived at all, she reminded herself. And the small pokemon wasn't a seviper, she also reminded herself. Perhaps for its species eating plants was more normal than eating meat was? How would she possibly be able to raise a herbivore?
 
 But what fears she might have had about the young one turning into a plant chewer were fully laid to rest when the green snake to be managed to surprise a rattata later that day. The snivy showed no hesitation in using its vines to bind the rodent before feeding the rat into its readily stretching maw.
 
 Watching the still living rattata squirm inside the greatly distended belly of the young one made Asper smile in pride, something she didn't hesitate to tell the snivy. And though she then had to again carry the bloated green snake to be on her back, she was pleased.
 
 The next day, they found a small cave that the snivy decided was suitable for their needs. During the next few days the green snake to be had turned the inside of the cave to something that looked suspiciously like the houses the villagers of Coneridge had been making. Still, it was a cave, not a building out in the open, so Asper grudgingly accepted it. Especially once the snivy told her the rest of its plan.
 
 "I'll spend the summer gathering a store of berries and other food, so that I can survive the winter" it told her.
 
 "Why? Can't you go back to the cavern you spent the last winter in?" she asked from the young one.
 
 "I do not want to" the snivy answered. "The pokemon living there were scary. I do not want to see them again unless I really have to."
 
 That really wasn't something that Asper could really argue against, so she simply chose to aid the young one as best as she could. While the snivy spent the summer gathering berries, fruit and other goods in store, she hunted for both of them. Thus at least the little snake to be ate real food the whole summer, even if it would have to eat prey's food during the winter.
 
 And the snivy did surprise her a few times, hunting her own food when opportunity rose. Its prey were still small, like the young one itself was, but at least it did hunt.
 
 When the autumn passed and the winter came, Asper squeezed through an opening at the rear of the construction the snivy had made inside the cave, setting to sleep the winter just behind where the young one would live while she slept. She wasn't certain if the snivy would survive the winter, but this time, she held out a hope.
 
-----
 
 When she next woke up, the air smelled of spring. At first she just lay there, gathering her strength after the long sleep. Then she remembered the young one.
 
 She squeezed back inside the construction the snivy had made, finding it and the cave vacant. There were some dry berries still left, but almost all of the store had been eaten. She tasted the air, trying to ascertain if there had been other pokemon in the cave aside from the snivy.
 
 There didn't seem to have been, which likely meant that the young one had survived. The snivy must just have gone outside, enjoying the warming weather. She followed, leaving the cave herself.
 
 The spring was well along, she noted once outside. Her 74th summer was fast coming. But of the young one she saw no sign. Deciding to wait for the snivy's return, she found a warm spot in the sun and set to wait.
 
 "Asper!" she heard a call few hours later, waking from her nap. Eager to see the little green snake again, she turned...
 
 "I look great, do I not?" asked the pokemon approaching her.
 
 But it wasn't a snivy. Sure, it was similar, which meant... "Young one?" she asked from the pokemon.
 
 "I evolved!" the young one responded, confirming her thoughts.
 
 The young one had evolved. It had grown some while still a snivy, but now had grown as much again, all at once. It also looked stronger and more mature, with sharper features and a head no longer almost as large as the rest of its body was.
 
 But what struck at Asper the most was that the pokemon's legs and arms hadn't grown with the rest of the body. Sure, it still wasn't a snake, but it really seemed to be heading in that direction. Assuming it had more forms...
 
 "Incredible..." was all she managed to say. Seviper didn't evolve. They just grew, getting larger and stronger with time. The sudden increase both in size and likely in strength too was something no child of hers had ever done before.
 
 The young one seemed to take that well, smiling widely at her inability to fully express her thoughts. "I like it too! I've already caught a bidoof! As a snivy I wouldn't have even been able to eat it" the grass pokemon happily told her, patting its extended belly.
 
 That brought a smile to Asper's face as well. Bidoof were indeed a good step up from rattata and shroomish, and she couldn't wait to see what the... the... "What are you now?"
 
 "A servine. Or that's what feels the most correct" the snivy come servine told her.
 
 A servine. The name wasn't that far away from seviper either. The young one was really turning into a proper snake. And might become a worthy successor to her too, assuming that the the servine was a female... The thought caught in her head.
 
 Back when she had been young, when her own mother had chosen her as a successor, the old snake had had to make herself certain of her candidates gender.
 
 It wasn't completely unheard of for a male to try to pass as a female long enough to be chosen, though such attempts were always eventually found out, and the male swiftly dealt with. But it paid to be certain, before energy and time was wasted in training an "unsuitable" candidate.
 
 Asper hadn't enjoyed the test. The young one likely wouldn't either. The feeling of her mothers tongue probing at her cloaca... The intrusion and violation still sent shudders along Asper's body, something that the young one noticed.
 
 "What is it, Asper?" the servine asked.
 
 She would have to do the same thing, the seviper realised. Hopefully, the young one wouldn't be as angry with her as she had been to her mother.
 
 "Young one, lay down on your back, please" she bid the servine.
 
 The servine was indeed a female, just as she had believed herself to be. And she did forgive Asper on the condition that nothing like it would ever happen again.
 
 The teeth hit free from Asper's jaws by the servine's wine slap were replaced eventually, as well.
 
-----
 
 The servine kept learning quickly. Indeed, Asper found herself growing jealous of the young one, jealous of her seemingly endless energy, fast reflexes and smart mind.
 
 But aside from some moments where they disagreed the servine stayed subservient to her guardian, so Asper managed to keep her jealousness in check. After all, were she not trying to rise the smaller pokemon as her successor? It was only a proof of her own strength if the young one grew strong, was it not?
 
 By the autumn, the servine was already hunting not only weak prey but larger prey such as deerling as well, and sometimes even some of the weaker predators. Many of these the young one couldn't even manage to swallow, giving them to Asper instead, but the servine was happy to be able to prove her growing strength.
 
 The summer passed fast, but as the weather started getting colder, Asper noted that the servine hadn't prepared a cave or other dwelling for herself to live in during the winter. Doing so this late wouldn't do much good, but she had to make certain the servine hadn't simply forgotten about the issue.
 
 "It didn't work as well as I would have hoped last winter. Truth to be told, I was too cold to do anything for much of the time. Apparently the cold won't kill me as long as I don't actually freeze, but it still feels miserable" the young one explained.
 
 "What are you planning then? Are you now able to sleep the whole winter?" Asper asked from the smaller pokemon, hoping that the evolution had given the young one the ability.
 
 "No. I don't think so. What I am planning is to go back to the cavern I spent my first winter in. I am stronger now, so it might not be so bad" the servine explained, her expression confident.
 
 So it was that they separated again, promising to meet up at spring. And this time, as Asper set to sleep in a den dug by the linoone now in her belly, she didn't really doubt that the young one could keep her promise.
 
-----
 
 The next year came. The spring had passed and Asper had met up with the young one, continuing to teach the servine what she could.
 
 The servine had grown during the winter, if not that much in size then even more so in strength. According to what the smaller pokemon told the seviper, she hadn't had to submit herself to any deals last winter. She had hunted those weaker than her, had ignored those close to her own strength if they ignored her, and had hid from the stronger mad pokemon from deep inside the cavern.
 
 Clearly the servine was becoming more carnivorous as she grew, Asper thought. One more reason why the servine hadn't wanted to spend the winter hiding in a cave.
 
 But though stronger, the young one wasn't strong enough to be her successor yet. True, she had survived the winter on her own again, but not proudly standing her ground against her enemies. No, the servine had had to hide from many a pokemon stronger than herself. If she ended up having to do so in the future too, there was no way she could conquer a territory for herself. And as far as Asper understood, that was what the tradition was all about. About having someone strong enough to face any challenge to her authority.
 
 She needed to push the young one harder, Asper realised. Her heir in training was growing stronger fast, but not fast enough. Asper feared that she didn't have many years left in her. Especially not if she wanted to hold on to the tradition.
 
 All through the summer, she pushed the servine forward, to take on challenge after challenge, even to fight the torterra that neither of them would be able to eat in any case. She never beat one of the huge pokemon, but the fights did get less one sided as the summer progressed.
 
 And all through that, when ever they rested, Asper told the young one of the glorious days of yore, when her seviper clan had been the leaders of the Great Ridge, and the miserable "civilized" pokemon of Coneridge had yet to even start on their village.
 
-----
 
 Two years later, Asper came to realise that things were coming to an end. She had been getting weaker and slower lately, during the entirety of the past few years even, but now she seemed to be losing so much with each passing day. There would be no next summer for her. She was finally starting to die.
 
 She had always known that this day would come one day, like it had come for her own mother. But could she keep the tradition? Should she? The young one wasn't a seviper. She even had a type disadvantage against her! Should Asper just admit that she had failed? That she hadn't found a worthy successor?
 
 Had she had a few more years, the young one might have grown to be a worthy heir. But the servine, though growing steadily stronger, wasn't a match to her yet. Not even though she herself had been becoming weaker.
 
 "What is it, Asper?" the smaller pokemon asked from her.
 
 "Nothing, young one" Asper lied, though she could immediately see that the servine hadn't been fooled.
 
 "Are you tired?" the grass type asked, seeming clearly worried.
 
 Too worried, watching her too closely... "You know, do you not?" Asper asked from the young one.
 
 "You haven't been well for a few weeks, and it seems to be getting worse" the servine admitted.
 
 So the young one had been able to see it. She had been certain that she had managed to hide her weakness for now, but it had been for nothing. But what exactly should she say? This was something she had never had to do with her other children, and her mother had...
 
 Not something she had had to do with her other children? Since when had she started thinking of the young one as a children of hers?
 
 "Asper, please, tell me what is wrong with you" the servine pleaded from her, looking even more worried. The smaller pokemon was taking her silence as a sign that something was seriously wrong, but what could she say?
 
 "It's your age, isn't it Asper? You are getting weaker. How bad is it?"
 
 Looking away, Asper wondered how to tell the truth. She hadn't been willing to even tell it to herself, much less to the servine. But the smaller pokemon went on.
 
 "You are dying, aren't you?" the grass type said, her expression carefully neutral.
 
 The young one's words hit Asper hard. Sure, as a predator the servine understood death well. But it still shouldn't have been that easy for the young one to speak of the issue. Wordless, Asper turned to look at the servine. Who was smiling.
 
 "Don't worry. I am strong enough to care of myself. I am strong enough to go and take back the Great Ridge" the young one told her, calmly and confidently.
 
 But she hadn't even told the servine what she wished from her! She had told about her history and life, sure, but never had she said what she wished for it all to lead to. And yet the young one had figured it out, all on her own. And now believed that she was ready for it.
 
 And didn't even seem upset about having her guardian die. The young one didn't care, did she? The servine would just be happy to be rid of the seviper that was turning into a package rather than asset, would she?
 
 Fine, Asper thought. That did it. If the ungrateful grass type wanted to be rid of her, then so be it. She... She...
 
 She wanted the servine to be her successor. To carry on her legacy, like she had done to her mother. Like she had done to good old Asper.
 
 "Young one..." she started, but found herself unable to continue. She wasn't ready for this. The servine wasn't ready for this. But there was no more time. It had to be now. She either would have a successor, or... Best not to think about it.
 
 "Yes?" the young one asked, blissfully unaware of what was about to happen. It was the tradition.
 
 Asper took a deep breath. She looked around, marking the surrounding trees and shrubs in her mind. She took note of the pidgey up in the tree above them, then dismissed it as unimportant. She was ready. "Prepare yourself" was all the warning she gave.
 
 "What?" the young one asked, just before diving flat on the ground to evade the seviper's tail blade cutting the air where she had been standing a second ago. "Asper!"
 
 Asper didn't respond. She tried not to even hear what the young one said. Doing this was already just as horrible as she had thought it would be. But it was the tradition. Even if it didn't make much sense at the current situation.
 
 So she just followed the cut by pouncing on the servine, her jaws gaping wide, ready to bite down on the young one.
 
 Who somehow rolled aside, almost gliding across the forest floor and safely beyond her reach. "What is wrong with you?" The smaller pokemon called.
 
 Damn! The servine had become fast! But not yet faster than she was, even in her weakened state. Ignoring the question, she charged at the young one. Again the servine evaded, but this time she twisted mid strike, her tail blade slashing across the path the young one was taking.
 
 The servine was good. Asper had to give her that. The young one's vines erupted from their sheaths, grasping the blade by its base, twisting it aside. But that left the smaller pokemon off balance, tugged along as she kept her tail swinging around in a wide arc.
 
 Leading the servine stumbling straight at her jaws. Her fangs were ready, the venom already gathering at their tips. But the young one turned sideways, managing to get herself between the teeth, evading her venomous fangs.
 
 Asper's instinct was to bite down, to chomp down on the obvious prey in her maw. But her emotions rebelled. It was the young one! Not even fighting back! Given a chance, the servine took full advantage of her momentary hesitation, the green leafed tail pushing against her palate and launching the young one out of her jaws.
 
 "I am warning you, Asper. If you attack me again, I'll fight back" the green and white pokemon gave her warning, regaining her footing after wiping away the slobber from her face.
 
 She wanted to stop. She wanted to tell the young one that she was sorry. But Asper forced herself to gather herself for a new strike. One that the servine saw to be coming.
 
 She struck with her jaws again, but pulled back before the young one even started to evade, planning to do a double faint. A mistake, she soon realised, pulling short her attack and watching what the other one was doing.
 
 The servine had spun around once, twice, thrice, at a growing speed. She kept spinning, jumping up and suddenly reversing as she landed. And with a swing of her leafy tail a cloud of leaves started spinning around the grass type, gathering momentum in a blur of green shapes. Then the vortex spun away from the servine, straight at the seviper.
 
 Asper hadn't seen this attack before, not once even as the young one fought any of their prey or the torterra! For a split second she hesitated, then quickly dodged aside from the tornado's path. But not far enough. The tornado pulled her towards it as it spun past, the leaves in the wind proving sharp enough to cut at her scales. She felt the tornado try to lift her from the ground, felt her tail rise to the air, then fell back as the vortex passed. A quick mental tally of her wounds told her that she had gotten of lightly. Few nicks deep enough to sting, but barely any blood drawn. Had the attack been a direct hit, things might have been worse.
 
 Good, Asper thought with a grim smile. The young one was taking this seriously, so Asper too could give it her all, just like her mother had, all those years ago.
 
 The young one prepared another tornado of leaves, launching it at her. But Asper knew the extent of the attack now, knew when it would be too late for the servine to change where the attack would be directed to. Timing her movement, she fully evaded this time, leaving the smaller pokemon exposed.
 
 The seviper's struck, her tail blade cutting towards the servine's belly. The young one reacted too late to fully evade, but managed to move towards the inner edge of the curve the blade was traveling on. She avoided being cut, to Asper's delight, but couldn't help but be struck by the tail itself, the black scales impacting at her white chest, launching her away at speed.
 
 The small snake to be bounced of the forest floor, slowing down before she hit a tree. Still, the impact with Asper's tail had hurt, and the new hit only compounded the effect. Even with the tree there to support her, the servine barely managed to get on her feet.
 
 And as she lifted her head, she found Asper waiting, just before her.
 
 "You are still weak..." the seviper said, feeling disappointed. What should she do now?
 
 But weak or not, the young one wasn't willing to give up. Without a warning, the smaller pokemon's tail swung around, one of the leaves at its tip elongating into a sword.
 
 Even surprised, Asper pulled her head away from the blade, but couldn't avoid having it cut into her neck, cutting deep. She retreated some, trying to judge how bad the wound was. It was serious, definitely. She could still breath, and the arteries probably hadn't been severed, for there would have been more blood if they had. But she found she couldn't move her head much without sickening pain, pain that sapped her strength, left her vulnerable...
 
 And left her angry. Her enemy had wounded her... Had almost managed to kill her with one strike.
 
 The pain clouded her mind, but her fighting instincts cut through the haze. There, the source of her suffering was right there. It seemed weak, but it had wounded her. In exchange, she would slay it and feed on its corpse, like she had so many times before, for so many enemies.
 
-----
 
 Asper was still standing there, motionless. Good. She needed time to recover. The seviper's tail had struck hard, hard enough perhaps to crack some of her ribs. It had taken all that she had to just get up, just in time to defend herself against the vile predators next attack.
 
 She had always known that the seviper had something in her mind, something dark. She didn't know whether or not Asper had had anything to do with the disappearance of her parents before she had even hatched, but she had been very glad that the dark scaled snake had for some reason decided to entertain herself by "adopting" her. As much as it had hurt to admit it, her instincts had agreed with the seviper. There had been no way she could have managed to survive without someone to guide and protect her.
 
 But she had always known that it would be inevitable that Asper would one day grow bored of her, would turn on her. True, after the first two years, she had almost forgotten about her suspicions.
 
 Asper had managed to become someone who almost truly felt like a mother, someone who she found herself trusting. That made the inevitable betrayal hurt even more.
 
 It was good that she had kept the full extent of her skills hidden until now. Had Asper been aware just how strong she had had to become to survive the winters, the seviper wouldn't have given her a chance to fight back.
 
 As it was, even that edge had barely been enough. Had not Asper still been toying with her, allowing her to escape the seviper's jaws, she would have been done.
 
 As she still might end up being, for looking at the seviper, she could see the larger pokemon's expression freeze to one of rage. She had been hoping that the leaf blade would have cut deep enough to mortally wound the seviper, or at the least would have made Asper decide against trying to eat her.
 
 Yet, as the seviper started advancing, such a hope proved futile. Asper was still in the fight.
 
 Pushing away from the tree, she found that she could stand. And while tired, she could still fight. "Come on then!" she taunted Asper, hoping that the seviper would make another mistake.
 
 Yet such a hope proved as empty as her earlier ones had been. Asper advanced steadily, closing the distance soundlessly, ready to counter any attack she might make.
 
 For a minute, they just stared at each other, neither risking an attack that might give the other a chance to use the possible opening. Then Asper moved.
 
 The seviper's tail struck from the left, while the snake's gaping jaws came from the right. Quickly the servine jumped over the tail, her vines launching at the seviper's head, pushing against its jaws. The larger pokemon wasn't slowed, the vines merely pushing the servine away ahead of the strike. But that was enough to save the young one from this attack, and Asper was likely the one who had used more energy in the exchange.
 
 A tiny victory, the servine thought, before the dark snake twisted its head and bit down on one of the vines, crushing it between those mighty jaws, so strong despite their flexibility.
 
 The servine gasped in pain, reflexively pulling back the injured appendage. But it was still lodged between those jaws, and all she did was pull herself closer, watching helplessly as the maw opened, releasing the vine. But her momentum was still carrying her forward, sending her between those jaws for the second time. And this time, they bit down hard.
 
 The one young screamed. Her tail and legs were still mostly outside, the jaws trying to crush the limbs caught between them, the rows of teeth piercing through her scales at too many places for her to individually feel.
 
 And in one smooth motion, the seviper lifted its head, its jaws opening to allow for the pokemon in them to fall down towards the waiting opening at the back, ever so eager to accept a new entrant.
 
-----
 
 The servine wasn't much of a meal. Had it not fought her, she likely wouldn't have even bothered to hunt down the small pokemon. But now the fight was done, and her prey sliding towards her waiting stomach, propelled by the idle movements of her body.
 
 She could get on with what she had been doing before the small grass type had foolishly attacked her.
 
 ...
 
 What had she been doing?
 
 She had been with the young one, wondering about what they should do today. And then...
 
 Then...
 
 Everything hit her at once. She grew very still, the young one stopping just short of her stomach. Carefully, so very carefully, she started moving her body in waves, the small bulge along her length starting to move back towards her head.
 
 Soon, she opened her jaws, allowing the servine to fall to the ground as gently as she could.
 
 The small pokemon was a mess. The legs and tail had clear marks where they had been crushed between her jaws, and all over the body there were small puncture marks, many still oozing a trace of blood.
 
 The young one wouldn't make it, Asper realised.
 
 One part of her mind told her that it was a pity, but she should move on and try again, with another promising child of hers. Surely she would find a worthy successor on the next try.
 
 But strong as that part was, Asper knew that there would be no other time. All of her children had proven unworthy. And her adoptive child was dying before her, a victim of her instincts and deeply ingrained tradition.
 
 The servine hadn't been ready, she knew. Still too young, and unaware that such a challenge was even coming. Seviper learned of the tradition early, even if they never knew if they had been chosen, or when the challenge would come if it did.
 
 But the young one knew nothing. Asper would have had to break tradition to tell the grass type, for the small pokemon would have obviously been the one she had chosen. No, the only option she had had was to tell first the snivy, then the servine absolutely nothing about what awaited it.
 
 But it had lead to this.
 
 Had she failed the tradition, or had the tradition failed her?
 
 Had she been able to cry, she would have. Everything had gone wrong. She had no reason left to live for.
 
-----
 
 Everything was pain.
 
 She had dimly felt, in the moments when her failing consciousness had returned to her, how Asper's gullet massaged her down towards the seviper's stomach.
 
 Had it not hurt so, she might have even enjoyed it, a distant thought emerged, only to fade away. It couldn't survive the pain.
 
 But something else could, she realised. There, buried under the ocean of suffering, was a glimmer of something else.
 
 A seed of determination.
 
 As she observed it, that seed suddenly blossomed. A new feeling overcame her, one she had only ever felt once, during the desperate times of a deep winter.
 
 She was evolving.
 
 Her broken body spasmed, unable to handle the transformation as it normally would. But the determination was there. She didn't give up. Her mind held firmly to every part of her body, even those too far gone to feel anything.
 
 Then she realised that there wasn't need for everything any more. An image of what she was becoming came to her, and she no longer had legs. Those broken things were absorbed, fuelling the rest of the process.
 
 Her tail, even mangled as it was, she forced to come together, growing it out to a size way beyond what it had been. Her torso elongated, taking on the same form as she had spent so much of her life looking at. Her hands become weaker still than what they had been.
 
 She had truly become a snake.
 
 Opening her eyes, she saw she wasn't in a stomach. She wasn't inside any part of Asper's body.
 
 No, Asper was there right before her, looking at her in shock. The seviper must have had to regurgitate her when she started changing.
 
 Evolving had healed many, if not all of her wounds, but even if it had not, her next action would have been the same.
 
 Jaws wide, she lunged at the seviper.
 
 Asper was clearly taken by surprise. The seviper failed in her attempt to dodge, her own jaws getting engulfed by the newly evolved serperior's. And for the first time ever, Asper found herself being eaten.
 
 The serperior wasn't surprised that Asper's shock induced sluggishness didn't last long. Her tail was ready to intercept the seviper's tail blade when it came at her side, her tail coiling around the base of Asper's own tail, holding the blade a safe distance away.
 
 And as her vines took hold of Asper's body, starting to feed it to her jaws, the young one knew that she had won.
 
-----
 
 She struggled. She fought. She tried to cut at the green and white snake, to pull her head away from its jaws, to open her own jaws enough to expose her fangs. But she couldn't, not any of it.
 
 The young one had evolved again, and though even her newest, largest form was smaller than Asper, it was strong enough to win against an old, tired and wounded opponent.
 
 Slowly, Asper's rage calmed, her struggling easing. Her wounds hurting, her energy gone, she admitted defeat. The young one was eating her, just like she had eaten her own mother, more than 60 years ago.
 
 In her mind, she returned to that day, to those words.
 
 "You are my heir, daughter" Asper spoke aloud, quoting her own mother, word for word. "I name you Asper, like my mother was an Asper, and your daughter shall be."
 
 Then, feeling from the sudden stillness that the young one had heard, had reacted to the words, she drifted to sleep. And she smiled.
 
 She had kept the tradition.
 
-----
 
 She heard the words, a shudder passing through her body. What was the seviper saying? No, she had heard the words well enough. What did the seviper mean?
 
 But even as she started to push the dark scaled snake out, to demand an answer, she felt the old pokemon's heart grow still.
 
 Asper was dead.
 
 -----
 
 It took her the rest of the day, but she, Asper, finished swallowing the large seviper. Her "mother" had still been almost twice her size, and though her new form allowed her to eat more than ever at once, the old snake still took her to her limit.
 
 She had hesitated as to whether she should eat her now dead guardian. The question burned in her mind. Had the old Asper tried to betray her, or had it all been a test? Something that perhaps got out of hand when she wounded the old pokemon?
 
 Yet, a faint whisper told her that the old seviper would have wanted her to make use of the broken body. Something the poison type had once said and that she barely remembered told her so.
 
 Tiny pieces kept coming together, remembered fragments of something the old Asper had said. There had been a pattern there, something that she had been being prepared for. But the old seviper never said it straight to her.
 
 Still... It was clear that it had to do with the old Asper's children. One day, she would have to go north, to find the seviper there. She would make them give her the answers she needed. She had to know what her "mother" had really meant with her last words. She had to know whether or not she had been betrayed.
 
 There could be no peace for her otherwise.
 
-----
 
 Asper spent the rest of the summer hunting and honing her skills. As the weather grew colder, she started searching, soon finding the cave system in which she had spent the last winter.
 
 This time she found herself quite favourably matched against the other pokemon living within the caves, hunting as she wished amongst the weaker ones, though leaving in peace the few who seemed familiar from the past winters. Any strong pokemon she either ignored, or if they caused trouble, made a meal out of.
 
 The following spring she headed north, following the route she believed her "mother" to have taken as she came south. Not many days later she was at the edge of the swamp, first wondering if she should enter or not, then realising that she would have an advantage against the majority of the local pokemon if she had to fight.
 
 During the next few weeks she caught and questioned multiple local pokemon. Most she let go, either not hungry or willing to reward them for their answers, but one croconaw and and a fat and haughty bidoof she sent down her gullet to join her mother, for they refused to tell her anything useful.
 
 The old Asper had told that she had lost a fang here, struck loose by a feraligatr when many of the swamp's pokemon had joined to drive her out.
 
 Asper had no fangs to knock out, but she never the less didn't wish to fight all of the swamp at once. Thus she moved on, to north-east, towards the Great Ridge. She had only been away from the swamp for a week when she came upon the first seviper, well before she found the former home of her guardian.
 
 The seviper was a young and weak one, and foolish too. It attacked her almost at sight, recognising that it had a type advantage over her, but failing to realise that with their relative strengths the advantage made no difference.
 
 She briefly interrogated the dark snake, found that it wasn't of Asper's family, then ate the fool. She felt no connection to any seviper, except perhaps those of her late guardians kin.
 
 She spent the rest of the summer near the Great Ridge, learning the lay of the land. She met some other seviper, but these were older and more cautious, not attacking her when she didn't threaten them. From those snakes she learned little of use, other than that the Asper's children had intentionally dispersed, deciding they wouldn't get along with each other.
 
 Thus there might well be none of Asper's kin left near the Great Ridge. Disheartened by the news and with the winter approaching, she headed back south, to once again spend the cold season in the familiar caves.
 
-----
 
 Next summer found her near the Great Ridge again, traveling in growing circles around the area. It was during the late summer that she finally found what she had been looking for, a mature male seviper whose scent already told her that he was related to the old Asper.
 
 Talking with the male confirmed what she had sensed, for the seviper was one of Asper's older children. And more importantly...
 
 "Yes. It is a tradition. When the old matriarch of the clan starts to suffer too greatly from old age, she challenges the female she believes would make the best new leader for the clan. The duel will be fierce, usually ending in the death of one of the two. If the winner was the old matriarch, she chooses a new successor, challenging her once she has healed sufficiently from the last fight. If the successor wins, she becomes the new matriarch. Some might disagree with her, but there are almost always enough of those who would defend their new leader that she has time to heal, and after that she is the strongest, her rule absolute" the seviper told Asper, confirming what she had suspected.
 
 The knowledge melted a blockade in her heart. Her life had been driven by a single goal, to find out the truth. Now she knew for certain that her guardian, her mother, hadn't betrayed her. Not as far as the old seviper saw it herself. She had simply been unable to let go of the tradition, had felt it her duty to continue what had been passed to her.
 
 Now Asper was free to move on with her life. She spent the rest of the summer near the area, meeting the seviper often. He was rather nice, after all.
 
 When winter again started to approach, she explained her need to go south for safety from the cold, then left for the caves one again.
 
 Next summer found her back beside the male seviper, who was pleased to see her again. He taught Asper about the surrounding area, of the local pokemon species and of the town of Coneridge, not near his territory but well known by the local pokemon regardless.
 
 Asper had little knowledge to share, but impressed the male with her strength and skills both in hunting and fighting.
 
 By the autumn, he declared his undying love to her, claiming to want to spend the rest of his life by her side. He was considerably older than she was, but still had decades of good life left, so after a few days of thinking, she agreed to become his mate.
 
 As winter came, she again retreated south to the caves, waiting eagerly for the thaw and setting forth as soon as she could.
 
 That spring they mated, a passionate day that seemed to last for ever. After a month she laid a single egg, a beautiful pale green ovoid.
 
 And a week after that, Asper found her mate with a female seviper, hearing him congratulate her on laying such a wonderful egg for him.
 
 She ate the male later that day, after he had left the other female's company. Asper thought about going and eating the female and her egg as well, but eventually chose against it, thinking it likely that the other female knew as little about his relationships as she had.
 
 Over the next few weeks she carefully moved her precious egg a short each day, moving towards the Great Ridge. She again had no place to call her own, but the former home of her mother would have to do.
 
 When the egg hatched, she was overjoyed. The little snivy inside must have been just like she were when she hatched, all wide eyes and puzzlement towards the wide world.
 
 But soon she realised that her child wasn't, in truth, overly much like she herself had been. The old Asper had found her interesting, then had been impressed by her strength and skill, far higher than a hatchling should have had.
 
 Her own child, on the other hand, seemed weak. The snivy showed no interest in hunting, preferring berries over meat. The snivy had no skills to defend itself with, barely able to muster the strength to extend its vines.
 
 And while she had been willing to stay still and listen to her guardian, her child kept asking a pointless question after pointless question.
 
 And then it vanished. One day in late summer, the snivy was simply gone. She had lifted it on a high branch where it was decently hidden and out of reach of most predators, before setting to hunt. She caught and devoured a pidgeotto, the bird having carelessly settled down to eat some wild growing grain.
 
 But as she returned to where she had left the child, it had gone. There was no sign of a struggle, and though the snivy had been weak, even it would have tried to do something.
 
 For a day she looked, calling for the snivy, trying to find a clue about what had happened. She was just resigning to having lost her child, when a trio of pokemon, a zangoose and two furret, approached her.
 
 They told her that they were members of the True Ones. They told her that they wanted her to join the group. And they told her that they had her child.
 
 She stared at the three pokemon in disbelief. What were they talking about? What did they want from her?
 
 "Unless you do as we say, the snivy will die" finished the zangoose.
 
 And she snapped. The zangoose never had time to react, her jaws clamping over his head before her coils wound around him, binding his arms with their claws tightly against his sides. Both furret first jumped away in alarm, then pounced back at her.
 
 Her vines snatched the first from the air, her tail slamming the second aside. And with a reckless speed, heedless that she had already eaten, she rammed the zangoose down her throat.
 
 The male was still kicking, still trying to swing those claws. But her tight coils gave way to her equally tight gullet, stopping the struggling ferret from doing much harm. And as soon as she could she sent the furret in her vines after him, for the pokemon had managed to start chewing at her vines, threatening to sever them.
 
 The third pokemon looked at the bloated serperior, saw the forms of its companions moving beneath the green scales, and ran.
 
 And Asper, far too bloated to move much, realised that she had made a mistake. By the time she would be able to move well enough to fight the furret would surely have told its tale to every True One in existence. She might well have doomed her poor snivy.
 
 Having no choice, she settled to digest, even the normally soothing motions in her belly failing to cheer her up.
 
-----
 
 Two days later she was at the cave where the True Ones had held their hostages. Her belly was still heavy, but she could move at a reasonable speed again.
 
 Inspecting the area, she found many bodies outside the cave's entrance, but none of them were a snivy. Inside the cave there were no remains that she could see, all having apparently been brought outside.
 
 The next day she caught a True One manectric that was wandering around, making it tell her what had happened. The manectric spoke readily, telling of the "rescue team" that had attacked the cavern, killing the guards before eating the hostages inside.
 
 Something in the story felt wrong, but she was in no mood for deep thinking. She rewarded the manectric by sparing his life, but broke a few bones just to make sure that he wouldn't get away to alert anyone too soon.
 
 Leaving the pitifully whining canine behind, she set for the Rememberers's den. They would pay for what they did to her child.