Solo Damned Rats

[Casio Maddox]

59th of Spring, 519 AV

A hard, scraping chewing interrupted the early morning silence of Casio's residence as he slept. The man was, as usual, sprawled haphazardly across his bed, with his blankets entwined about his limbs - he wasn't a very peaceful sleeper. Or a very quiet one, either, as a snore rocked his body and seemed loud and gravelly enough to rattle his domicile. Except it wasn't his extremely concerning snoring that was rattling his home, but the extremely large rat that was currently trying to eat its way in through one of the walls.

If one could look into Casio's head and watch him dream, they'd no doubt understand exactly how this affected his subconscious. For randomly within his odd dream of fighting in a concerningly large ring against someone with alarmingly large swords, the fighting ring began to shake as if an earthquake wanted to split it down the center. They could see Casio, in his dream, fly off his feet and into a wall while the audience were flung about in their seats, though his opponent seemed unaffected. In fact, he seemed ready to finish the fight, as he lunged forward with his sword raised, taking full advantage of Casio's downed state to give an almighty downward swing to-

And the man woke before he was beheaded in this odd dream that'd taken such an unfortunate turn, his eyes opening groggily to find that the world around him was still shaking. His drowsy state forced him to take a few precious minutes to process what was going on until he recognized the awful gnawing sound coming from the bottom of one of his walls, where a small hole was quickly growing in size.

It was a petching brat, except its face was larger than any other he'd seen before. And it was going through the wood of his house as if it were paper, ripping it to shreds until it could fit its fat body inside. At this moment, Casio tried to leap up but failed miserably, as he was still tangled in his blanket. He plummed from the bed to the ground and banged his shoulder nice and hard while he watched the large, muscular rat plod its way into his home and go right for one of his boots right across the room.

"Ey, you petchin' piece o' shyke, leave my stuff alone!" Casio roared as he struggled out of his blankets, freeing himself just as the brat got to his boot and grabbed it in its fat mouth. He got to his feet and looked around the room before he ran to one of the two chairs he had. Why he went straight for the chair instead of the rat itself, he couldn't say, but it seemed like a good idea in hindsight as he picked up the seat and threw it at the retreating Sunberthan rat, overshooting it slightly to land between it and its rat-made hole.

It immediately dropped the shoe and turned back to Casio with a hiss, standing still enough and raising its hackles high enough to make it seem much bigger than any other brat Casio had seen. "Gods, you're a big lad..."

[Casio Maddox]

The brat hissed again, standing up on its hind legs as if it were a few times its size and could take Casio with ease. Which he considered might be possible, with how much more built this rat was than any other he'd seen before. It was honestly almost chunky with muscle, and it seemed aware enough to know it could get away with more than it used to. The thought of how strong this thing actually was slightly frightened Casio. He hated rats.

"I'll give you one last chance, mate. Get on out of here and leave my shoe and we won't have any problems," Casio said as he crouched with both hands raised and open, as if ready to grapple. He was in the stance he used when he wanted to wrestle an opponent: his mass was lower and centered, making him harder to move, and his legs spread wider than his shoulders but not too much so that he was more stable. Which...

Well, it'd work to some degree against a human fighter. But against a rat? He almost laughed at himself in a self-chastising manner as he stood up straight and just eyed the rat that merely hissed at his movement again. "The petch am I doing? You're a li'l big but you're still a stinky rat," Casio laughed as he just walked forward and tried to give it a quick kick. Not too strong or too fast, he didn't want to hurt the brat too much.

Almost inhumanly fast it lunged at his moving foot and leaped on it, though the rat was so heavy that it pulled his leg straight to the ground, killing its momentum and all. "What the shy-- AHH!" Casio yelled as he felt a sharp, piercing pain on the fleshy inside of his foot as the rat gave him a rather good bite. "Petchin'- stupid- oh my gods, I can't believe- crap," he muttered and stuttered as the pain threw him utterly off-guard enough that he fell flat onto his rear.

The brat merely jumped away when he landed, and its bloody-mouthed squeaking almost sounded like taunting laughter as Casio pulled his foot up with a hand to examine the injury. As he bit his lip to keep from yelling out again while he inspected the shallow bite, the rat scrambled to his shoe, dragged it around the chair, and then out of the hole. Casio could almost feel that salt in his wound.