411 As Long as They're Complaining, They're Fine

The giant snake hissed as the fifteen-megawatt x-ray laser impacted its body. The laser was only focused on it for half a second, but that proved enough to cause severe damage. It had hit the snake in its midsection and almost immediately drilled through the thinner belly scales, then dug its way into the meat and muscle, where the flesh was almost instantly sublimated into vapor, which rapidly expanded with the force of a small bomb, blasting snake meat and blood in all directions. The snake was almost cut in half and landed limply atop Corporal Cuervo, who sighed in relief as the giant reptile hissed its last.

He pushed it off of him and it draped lifelessly over the branch he was laying on, then shrugged and muttered, “Snakes. Why’d it have to be snakes?”