Vegas at 9:30 at night is pretty much just Vegas at most hours. Outside of the main drag and tourist areas things are reasonably quiet as the natives mostly wind down for the evening. The suburbs and outlying communities are perhaps a little more prone to disorderly conduct than most but nothing like the threat season twenty-three of CSI has trained most of the country to expect. Phoebe had a late night grocery run when it turned out a few things in the cupboards were past their sale-by date, so each arm has been weighted down with the bright blue reusable shopping bags.

There's a modest breeze driving the cool, dry air about with the usual grit and litter. Walls and fences tend to build up layers if the winds stay steady for more than a few days.

Phoebe can smell something upwind of her that Van Pelt's memories do not like at all. There's a dry, reptilian scent to it and if the smell is strong enough to notice either whatever reeks is capital B Big or she's right on top of it.

Phoebe was humming softly to herself as she walked, at least until her senses twigged a warning in her "other self." She quickly looked around as she cautiously set down the bags to the side of the sidewalk. Hopefully they'd still be there unharmed once she'd gotten things sorted, but, priorities.

She didn't conjure a weapon yet, since she was quick enough on the draw not to worry about planning ahead. Instead, she just cautiously began moving upwind and keeping an eye out for whatever was causing that smell. It wasn't like just smelling an animal automatically put her in kill-mode, but unless she'd somehow stumbled right on top of it, it seemed big and therefore threatening.

No reptile in sight, but she sees a number of shed scales. Shape says venomous rather than a constrictor but probably closer to a rattle snake (biting) than some cobras (spitting) in how it gets the toxin. Diamondback seems most likely from shape and color but they grow to eight feet in exceptional circumstances. If these scales are representative this thing was closer to twenty.

Which part of her mutters makes no sense, venomous animals stay small because it takes so much energy to make venom. It doesn't scale, square-cube law, selective bottlenecks, grah! This thing is in python size territory. Snakes are just part of the Southwest to an extent but even in Vegas people should notice a viper big enough to enjoy a petite adult human.

Well, here was a strange thing. She examined the scales carefully, then straightened up and looked around at her surroundings, a transitional area between light commercial and residential. It wasn't like she'd taken a shortcut through a nature preserve; it seemed like someone would call in the bizarre sight of a twenty-foot viper. Maybe they already had in fact, but this seemed bizarre, even supernatural. Cause to investigate, she thought.

One thing she'd gotten very good at was tracking dangerous animals, so she looked around for signs of which way her new quarry had gone and how recently. Assuming she didn't realize the answer was "right on top of her right now," she gathered her groceries again before moving too far away.

It took Phoebe perhaps half a minute to locate the trail. The feeling was not unlike a autostereograms where she has to relax her focus enough for it to snap into clarity. There were scraps along a fence, some shifted rocks, and other signs of something large dragging itself across the ground. It tracked towards the light commercial area, further away from people and denser populations.

"Tally-ho," Phoebe said matter-of-factly to herself when she picked up the trail. A worthy challenge for sure, and one worth taking on for the sake of the community too. Win-win. She moved to follow the trail, still carrying the groceries as she went. She was glad that she'd gotten stronger when she changed, or this would be a pain in the neck.