Chapter 1

A Shitty Snake

"Oh Crap!" A blur of red roared as it flew into a solid brick wall.
A slim blue humanoid raised his shotgun towards the huge scaled snake and fired multiple shots towards its giant head. The trick with a basilisk was to take out its eyes before it could stare you down. If it did that, you'd be dead before you even realised you were dead. So even though it originally wasn't their first priority, having the threat of something that could kill you just by looking at you kind of changed the situation.

There was a terrible screeching and splattering noise as one of the bullets hit the desired target and one of its large luminous yellow eyes exploded with a spray of blood, which unfortunately covered the blue figure in the green gloop. He gave a disgruntled "yeach" and started whipping the gunk off of his goggles.

"Bulls eye! Nice shooting Abe!" the red man was back and looking quite happy for someone who had just been slammed into a wall. "Is the other one out?" his gruff voice called out as he circled to the back of the basilisk.

"I don't think so. Keep your eyes down Red!" Abe called out. Crap, how he hated jobs like this. Most of the time they were average, okay jobs because you actually had a target to shoot at, but these were terrible working conditions. If he could, he'd go to a union but there weren't enough of their kind for that. Shooting blind had a lot of risks:

could miss the target and it eats you

hit the target but you end up pissing it off

could hit the wrong target e.g. colleague

Hoping for option 'none of the above', Abe raised his gun and fired three rounds while Red jumped on the snake's body, climbing up towards the neck of the serpent. Great, Abe thought, he always places himself in the line of fire. He should really teach him proper gun etiquette.

Giving up on the head, he instead aimed for any part on the scaly body he could find, as he was unsure where the heart was on this type of creature. Blood was flying everywhere and they were both drenched. Red had just got to the top of the snakes skeletal system and had wrapped his legs around its neck to stabilise himself as he searches his pockets for a blade.

"Oof" Abe had the wind knocked out of him as the strong tail slammed into his midsection, throwing him into the sewerage. "Oh yes", Abe thought "It had to be ion the sewers."

It's funny, the reason that they were down here in the first place was because the alligators that usually lived here had not made any appearances for two weeks. Usually the B.D.R.P got about three calls a week, which they in turn ignored, unless it was eating people. I mean, it's not like people go for picnics or anything down here. So they go to check the place out and what do they find? A big ass snake, practically picking the alligator bones from its teeth. The size of the snake would also explain the amount of clogged pipes around town. They weren't even prepared to take on such a strange creature. No protection whatsoever. He knew that he should have been a librarian.

As Abe glanced towards the red object, he saw the huge flicking tongue dart out and wrap itself around red's knife handle and yank it from his hand. "Oh crap!" Red groaned and, going for a totally different technique, wrapped both his arms and legs around the snake's neck and squeezed, obviously trying to shut off its respiratory system. The struggle took what seemed like forever and, for a moment, he wasn't sure who was winning, until the snake started to keel over, head landing like a ton of bricks at the end of Abe's legs. Abe shut his eyes near impact and kept them tightly shut.

"Ooooh boy, Liz anin't gonna wanna do the laundry." Red laughed deeply. "Oy Blue, ya can open your eyes now."

So he did and was scared out of his bullet proof vest. Red was waiting and inch from his face, eyes wide, and when Abe opened his eyes, red yelled "yah!" his hands going up to do a sort of jazz hand move.

Abe fell over clutching his throbbing heart. "Don't do that Red" Abe moaned breathlessly. He was still heavily winded and he suspected broken ribs. Not that that mattered. Broken ribs were the least of his problems. Not that the broken bones didn't hurt or anything, it's just that he had suffered worse and knew that he would live through it. It's funny, Abe thought, it was probably why they had so little joining the B.D.R.P. Even though their kind was in small numbers, he was sure that none would join what with "getting horribly painful and frequent injuries" written in the job description.

"Hey, you right there Abe?" red asked, worry, not so sneakily hidden in his raspy voice.

"Oh, just another broken rib,... and a couple of gashes." He added as he glanced down to view what damage had been done. Even though he was covered in snake blood, he could tell that he had gotten cut. By what and when, he wasn't sure, but the blue blood defiantly confirmed his injuries. You see, it was to do with his species, although he was the only one in it. Waste of a scientific name if you ask me. He couldn't even explain how his blood was that colour, other than food colouring, which made the B.D.R.P laugh. It was odd, but the blue blood defined him.

"C'mon, let's get back, I'm dying for a shower-or three" Red sighed. Abe agreed, it was going to take more than one shower to get all this gross stuff off him.

As they walked back through he sewers, Abe contacted the B.D.R.P cleanup department to deal with Mr. Snake. There was no way in hell that they would ever be caught doing 'clean up duty'. Their job was to rescue, recruit and kill. Simple, yet possible the hardest job on the force.

Red was lighting one of his cigars again. Abe envied him; nothing ever seemed to hurt him. Abe looked down at himself and knew that he had bad bruises underneath the vest and swimsuit. He always felt weak and stupid next to red but, being brothers; he knew that red would never try to make him feel that way. He probably wasn't even aware of his depressed feelings. Abe wasn't about to tell him either. Big and aggressive as he is, he could be rather sensitive and caring. It just depended on who you were. Friend, family or pet feline, and you knew you'd be safe; Red would never let anything happen to you. If you were everyone else, well, that was up to Red.

Both of them covered their eyes as they got to the end of the tunnel and were not surprised to see masses of B.D.R.P agents milling around like ants on an apple core.

"So... what do you want for dinner Abe?" red asked, only half serious.

"Oh, I don't know, maybe we could dine in at Maccas." Abe laughed, knowing that that was never going to happen, though sometimes he wished that it could. It was difficult being like they were. Especially when there was nothing that they could do to change it.