Silhouette

If he didn't already have a headache, James felt like he would get one now.

From one side of the sewers, constant thumping sounds, born from the hops of hundreds of frogs and toads, as well as their thunderous, echoing croaks.

From the other, constant buzzing was being produced by thousands of flying cockroaches as well as the screeches of their glorious leader.

Yes, James definitely felt like some light painkillers would be appreciated, and the ratlings agreed. Who would have guessed that their sensitive hearing, incredibly useful when hunting or fleeing from predators, would accidentally be turned into a weapon against them, merely as a side effect of a primitive war between their neighbors?

No, thinking about it that does sound accurate.

It wasn't like there was much James could do, he couldn't magically make the noise disappear - or maybe he could, but with his power blocked it was impossible to know. He also couldn't just ask them nicely to tone it down for obvious reasons. Asking two warring bodies to calm down never went well, at least if you weren't stronger than the two of them combined, which James wasn't.

At least I think?

Technically, he had never seen the Titaroach do anything special. It was just bigger, stronger, faster, and relatively smarter than its fellow insects. There hadn't been any weird trick, no invisibility, no teleporting, no fire-breathing, nothing. It was just a bigger and meaner cockroach than normal, allegedly much bigger and meaner than even some people but, in a world with superpowers, that was... Rather bland.

Maybe even manageable. I don't know much about the toads' leader but since the Titaroach thinks it can take it on in a fight and even win a war, it's probably in a similar situation. Honestly, from what I've seen so far, the giant crocodile could probably kill either of them in one bite. Maybe both at the same time. It was a really big crocodile.

Taking a second to look at the ratlings, James barely winced when he saw David banging his head against the wall. They had all removed their claws' and teeth' improvised sheaths in an attempt to plug their ears, and thankfully the other ratlings had other less extreme methods to cope with the noise, meditating under the instructions of Goliath. The only exception, bar David, was Foudre who surprisingly wasn't bothered by the noise. If anything, it almost looked like she enjoyed it.

Yeah, I can already hear the heavy metal in my future. I hope I'll have managed to work out how to get better isolation by then. But getting back on topic, I think we may have a chance at fighting those overgrown pests. The main issue then, is whether or not I could do it without my usual shadow stuff. I mean, I should, that large cockroach that attacked us after the heist wasn't an issue, the Titaroach should just be a repeat of that, just on a much bigger scale.

Holding his chin with a tentacle, James pondered on the pros and cons of attempting some pest control. On the one hand, it would stop the noise and probably preserve the sewers' status quo, and by extension their peace, on the other hand, it wasn't like either of the warring forces had attacked them.

Of course, it's at this point that a dozen cockroaches - including some with bladed antennae - flew into the nest, followed by a handful of toads, and they all began to fight everything and everyone they could see.

Despite the swiftness of the assault, the ratlings and James quickly got over their surprise and retaliated. James immediately turned into his Skitter form and jumped into the melee, hardening the tips of his legs as he fell to skewer one of the toads and a cockroach.

Lucille jumped into the air and took hold of a cockroach, gripping its antennae with one paw as she settled on its head and began to use it as an impromptu mount, pulling on the antennae and leaning to the side to control its flight, currently going pretty much everywhere at once to strike other flying insects with her tail and claws which, despite their small size, proved more than effective in piercing and tearing chitin apart, sending small splatters of surprisingly sticky white blood in the air.

David reveled sadistic glee in finally being able to rip into things again, charging madly left and right to harm everything on his path, never bothering to stick to one opponent - until a toad caught his tail with its tongue and began to drag him into its mouth. David's expression went from its initial joy, to surprise, to confusion, to disgust, and finally, to joy again. He pounced up in the air, helping the toad in pulling him towards it, and used the momentum to land on the amphibian's back before scratching deep into slimy skin with his claws, which were quickly turning red.

Foudre quickly snatched up her homemade electric pack, put it on while evading a few cockroach swipes and, once she had both of the needles in her grasp, she began to taunt the flying insects, rubbing her needles together and squeaking loudly. When one of the cockroaches took the bait and rushed in on her, she only had to take a step to the side before piercing it with one of the needles, immediately electrocuting the bug and frying its insides before throwing its still twitching and fuming corpse on another cockroach.

Blanche elegantly danced between the invaders, evading every attack until she finally managed to pick up her spear before dancing once more, this time wielding her nail and twisting it along with her tail and spine, drawing curves in the air as she narrowly avoided attack after attack with grace, each step and twirl accompanied by a rotation of the wrist and a spear strike, either with the "staff" in close quarters to knock aside those who dared step too close to the diva or with the "head" when she could, immediately ending their disgusting lives before doing another rotation to get rid of any critter corpse that would get stuck on her weapon.

Goliath, as could be expected, was the one who had the most difficulty adjusting to this surprise battle in their own home. Remembering his past encounter with the bladed cockroach, he quickly rushed to put on his armor- until a toad's tongue hit him on the back and pulled with all of its strength... Sending the amphibian directly on Goliath's back, the ratling being too large for its mouth to swallow him whole, putting it in the embarrassing predicament of being stuck on an enemy's back without any way to attack. Goliath looked at the toad before quickly putting on as much of his armor as he could, only taking hold of the amphibian to get it off and launching it at a passing cockroach when it was time to put on his chest and back pieces.

James was not idle during this time, currently transformed into a black ball that rolled over everything in its path and quickly forming hardened spikes on any critter too slow to avoid him, resulting in the pest getting crushed and skewered at the same time. Slowly, the ball began to shrink as four spikes, each one piercing through a toad and a cockroach or two, began to lengthen. The spikes turned into legs as James took on his Skitter form once more, although with a slightly different set-up: only three legs touched the ground as the last one was held in the air, slightly curled, and began to rotate at unnerving speeds.

The advantage of not having any bone or muscle was that James wasn't limited in the ways his body moved, meaning he was perfectly able to use his leg as a slingshot and his enemies' corpses as ammo. He began to strike down flying bugs, once, twice, changing which leg was in the air as soon as he ran out of bodies to use as well as forming a fifth one to pick up nearby dead or dying pests. His attacks didn't always hit but they still affected the cockroaches, forcing them to change their course if they didn't want to be struck down.

And them being so focused on James meant they were easy targets for Lucille's aerial rampage. Her claw strikes might have not always killed their target but every small wound on their foes was a small victory, an opportunity to eviscerate them, to cut their limbs off, or even destroy their wings.

David's rampaging madness wasn't really that effective on the cockroaches, their blood was too sticky for them to die of blood loss, but judging by the numerous bloody toads it was quite effective on the amphibians.

Foudre's shocking attacks didn't kill the croaking beasts as instantly as they did the cockroaches but still proved very effective, paralyzing them long enough for David to leave a large gash or Blanche to skewer their brain.

Goliath found his calling in getting rid of the fallen cockroaches, those who had lost their limbs or wings: his now armored form, bigger and weightier than he usually was, already quite large and heavy for a normal rat as young as him, allowed him to kill the invading pests simply by stomping or, after catching a glance of James' technique, rolling.

His method was different, of course, he curled himself into a ball and used his hearing and smell to gather his surroundings as he used his tail to direct his path. Given the small pointy parts of his armor, born from its origins as mere pieces of scrap awkwardly put together by the ratling himself, this unorthodox method of attacking even harmed the toads, the metal imperfections digging into their soft flesh and tearing it apart wherever David had already opened a wound.

Despite the arrival of reinforcements all throughout the fight, the number of invaders in the nest dwindled, shrinking until finally only James and the ratlings were left, all fine and - mostly - unharmed. A couple of scratches here and there, at worst.

As they all caught their breath in a sea of bodies, they heard the thunderous croak once more, quickly followed by the Titaroach's screeching and hissing and all of their minions' cheering and battle cries. But it wasn't annoyance that filled the inhabitants of the nest, this time. It was worry.

The leaders' shouts were getting closer and closer.

I already knew the Titaroach was near, but that toad as well... If they start to fight outside they could make the tunnels collapse... I know they could, even I could do it. If they destroy the sewers, the nest could be crushed by rubble again and it was really a pain to deal with it last time. But worse... If they manage to open a hole to the surface, it could attract the Heroes' or Villains' attention and if any big shot came by I don't think I could run away, they'd probably notice me and I don't want to imagine what they would do to someone, no, something with the Transformation Aspect...

James gulped.

We have to deal with this now.

"Kids, I know this may sound insane, but I think we should go outside and fight these two - or at least kill the Titaroach, maybe its death will be enough to calm that toad down and it'll go back to wherever it came from."

Lucille looked at him, her expression entirely neutral.

"Squeak."

"Listen, if we kill one of these two the other beasties around here will understand we're not to be messed with."

This time it was Foudre's turn to answer.

"Squeak."

"Just look at what we've done! We got rid of these pests with no problem, look!"

James picked up one of the bladed cockroaches and held it up with his tentacle for all to see.

"One of these was enough to nearly kill Goliath last time. But here? It was just another enemy, one that we killed like all of the others. And look, you still have one of those stuck on your armor Goliath!"

Goliath, who was about to squeak, turned around and saw that it was true: there was another bladed cockroach on his armor, its crushed body stuck on the small spikes on his back.

"If we all work together, we can do this. You five deal with the swarm, I'll handle the big one. It may know how to kill toads but it never fought something like me."

Lucille looked at Blanche, who stayed silent.

"Squeak."

They both turned around to stare at David, a determined grin on his snout.

"Squeak."

This time it was Goliath, he wasn't as confident as his younger brother but he was just as determined.

"Three for, two against, and one neutral vote. Is that it?"

The ratlings looked at each other before nodding, Foudre and Lucille doing so reluctantly.

"Then that means we're doing it. But hey, let's not rush in blindly. Gather up, everybody. I have a plan."

The same thought passed through all of the ratlings' brains: not again...