The Perfect Specimen

Seeing the white outline shakes him from his despondent stupor. One woman is bent down looking closely at each step very closely. She hears Alistairs footsteps and looks up at him before quickly disregarding him and going back to inspecting.

Alistair sucks in a breath of air at the scene of murder that occurred. He notices her inspecting and tries to look as inconspicuous as possible as he heads towards the sewers. In his mind, he is taking pride in his acting skills.

When in reality the woman is to busy to even notice him robotically walking by her while darting his eyes back and forth between her and the outline. He walks into the sewers and is greeted by the familiar dank and dingy atmosphere.

What he didn't remember though was the terrible stench the dominates the air. After taking a moment to adjust to his surroundings, he opens the map to find the spots where the attendant marked rat nest sightings.

He walks forth into the tunnel and notices that no one is in the sewers with him. At least not on the level that he is currently on. The attendant gave him a map that covered three floors, there are rumors about dangerous beasts making homes deep in the earth.

He figures that three floors should be enough for simple rats and paid an extra 20 points for the rat nest locations. Although there are only five rat nests that are found, he remembers that each rat nest is said to have hundreds of rats in them.

He sees a rat run in front of him and he throws his fist down lightly at it. He clenches his fist and hears a crisp popping sound while feeling a small blast of wind blowing out from it. The rat becomes flattened and dies on impact from the blast.

Before heading to classes today, he managed to improve his [Knuckle Burst] yet again. "Luckily I have been practicing fighting unarmed, so these rats should be pretty easy."

It now releases a stronger blast outwards, with the main problem of it damaging his body with each use though still prevalent he will have to use it sparingly.

"I will have to use it only once I can confirm that I will kill a rat. After using it, I will extract the bladder and then eat the rest. I'm hoping that amount of of flesh will be able to repair my arm."

He thinks to himself as he already sees the skin around his wrist looking stretched and strained. He picks up the rat and sifts through its body for the bladder. He then extracts it and devours the rat whole. After doing so, the damage to his wrist heals instantly.

Throwing the rat bladder in an empty glass jar, he walks to towards the first rats nest that is on the first level on the opposite side of the entrance. Upon getting closer to the tunnel that the nest is located in, he starts seeing rats skittering around sparsely.

When he sees them though, he becomes both terrified and excited. The first rat that he sees his the size of a small dog. It comes up to his knee and is about a foot and a half wide. It notices Alistair and does not follow the description Alistair remembers about rats.

It charges at him with its mouth agape and buckteeth bared. Startled, Alistair quickly takes his stance with one fist in front of the other and legs bent. He knows that trying to dodge will give the rodent more follow time than he will have, so he decides to wait until the rat gets close enough to him.

When it gets to just in front of him, he has a quick flash back to the time he did something similar and was defeated by an over the shoulder throw. He bends down more and throws his fist at the charging rats nose with all his might.

A loud popping sound reverberates off of the walls and the top of the rats head explodes into small pieces. It wobbles forward due to its momentum before collapsing and tumbling once. Alistair smiles bitterly and looks at his fist.

Three fingers are barely still connected to his hand and his wrist has his hand bent in a sickening way. He looks over at the rat carcass that is laying still on the floor and starts to dissect it. He stops though, to see a sight that he never considered.

From around the corner that the first rat appeared, several more appear. They all look at Alistair at the same time before running at him with the same intensity as the first one.

Seeing the small horde of ferocious rodents charging at him, Alistair stops all thoughts of dissecting the rat in front of him and runs in a frantic sprint back the way he came from. Luckily, the rodents seem more interested in cannibalism than him right now. They all race to devour the rodent he put so much effort into killing.

After putting enough distance between the two of them, Alistair lets loose the frustration in his heart.

"Damnit! I shouldn't have taken so long to extract it's bladder! Where the hell did they all come from?! I wasn't even close to the center of the nest so they shouldn't have been patrolling the area just yet!"

He thinks back to the situation and then remembers the loud popping that came from his ability. The echo could have startled the rodents and caused them to find out its source.

"Of course... The only offensive move in my arsenal is worse than useless down here. It's actually counter-productive..." He frowns bitterly at the realization.

Looking down at his still mangled hand, he sighs and looks back towards where the rats nest is and decides to go back.

"I have to find a way to get fresh meat to repair my hand before anything else... I might find more small rats along the way. Hopefully there will be enough to restore my hand completely."

To his misfortune though, not a single small rat appeared no matter how much he searched. He then gets an idea while thinking back through the fight earlier while searching.

"The rats kept chasing until they found something to eat... I wonder how far they will chase. If I can lure one of them far enough from the nest, maybe I can separate it enough that the others won't come looking."

He sets out to put his plan into motion and walks back towards the nest location. Along the way, he sees the remains of the giant rat he killed. All that is left is a few scraps of fur. He walks slowly up to each turn in the sewer halls and slowly peaks around the corner.

He does not see any rodents, so he continues walking in deeper towards their nest. He feels a sense of uneasiness the further he travels in though. He can not shake the feeling as if something is not right about the situation.

"Why would the rats that I saw earlier be so far from the nest if there wasn't any others close by? Were they sent out from the nest for some reason? Or were they-".

His train of thought is interrupted when he is bitten on the leg and is forcefully brought to the ground and dragged closer to the nest at a fast pace.