2013.08.30 - Big Sewer Rats

Night? Day? Doesn't really matter when one is in the tunnels below the city. So far down that no light escapes from the surface. Here is a world of its own, filled with dank, damp, dreary... and any other 'd' words that can be thought of in terms of tunnels.
Depressing? Sure.
Dark? Absolutely.
Below, in side tunnels, there are creatures that scurry through the puddles of sewage that run beneath old, rusted hulks of rotted and forgotten trains from decades ago.
-Scritch.. scritch-
While normally it's something of a common sound, rats and sewers, there's something off. Something not right at all.
And when something isn't right in the tunnels?
Deep down in the dark of one tunnel that is partially walled, snarls come.. deep, low and feral. Inhuman sounds, and they snarl even as a keen shriek rises in the heavy air from a tormented animal, perhaps?
Up above, on the city streets, a rather large gent stalks the streets, his gaze set to the buildings that are across the way. The streets are filled with cars; rushhour traffic is a bear, and while Nate is a patient man, his patience has been wearing a little thinly lately. He takes the stroll into the busy intersection, his hand reaching out to 'touch' the hood of a cab, effectively denting it, causing radiator heat to spill into the air without even a breath of apology.
He'll claim self defense later.
And so it is, that fate, a sense of duty or just plain bad luck finds Elsa Bloodstone traipsing through the decidedly unpleasant surroundings of those same underground tunnels, one of her trusty Browning Auto-5s clutched in one hand and a hefty maglite clutched in the other. After all, despite all the benefits her bloodline affords her, the one thing they neglect to do is help her see in the dark. She is navigating the sewage and crumbling concrete well despite the seemingly preposterously heeled boots she is wearing.
The various noises echoing though the tunnels would probably unnerve the average citizen, but Elsa has been at this long enough to discern the noises of rodents from bigger more aggressive underground dwellers. As the shriek splits the foetid air, her eyes narrow, swinging the flashlight at the direction it originated from. "That was no bloody rat," she murmurs to herself, increasing her pace slightly.
Desolate, dreadful, definitely dark...
Domino.
These tunnels practically imitate the state her mind is in, with a little extra color tossed in for good measure. She's spent some time down in these tunnels before, often creating an even bigger mess than before she had arrived. (Good thing no one really pays attention this far beneath the city.) Unlike the last actual job she had in this area, tonight's run is something a little more mundane. There aren't any giant, genetically engineered bugs to wipe out. No research data to collect. She's tracking power lines.
Some of the ancient lightbulbs still work within these tunnels, though most have long since burnt out or been broken. She's got a bracer strapped to her left arm with an LED screen positioned upon it, mapping out her progress through this underground maze while also helping her keep tabs of where the live wires happen to run. Generations old electronics are her target, for some of these lines still influence modern buildings. Interrupt one and it can be possible to interrupt others. The goal is simple. A short here, a power spike there, and poof. Modern security in a nearby building somewhere far over her head simply shuts down, a three second window before the system reboots itself and continues to operate off of backup generators.
She's not expecting resistance, though she's familiar with the properly massive bugs that used to live down here. She's not unprepared when it comes to equipment, though she is unprepared for the howling in the distance.
(Good lord, this is why flushing goldfish is a bad idea.)
Nope. Not a bloody rat. But it's a bloody something at this point, as the keening strikes a high note before silence reigns. Whether it's a natural silence, or an unnatural one, that's up to the ears of the beholder. It's just abruptly silent.
Only after a minute or so, the grumbling growls begin again, at first tentative before there sounds an aggressive undertone to one.
The light of Elsa's torch lights the path for rats as they begin to scurry; rats escaping a sinking ship? They're all faced the same way, anyway. Beyond the reach of the light, the darkness almost seems to move of its own accord beyond a half-built wall designed to wall up an unused tunnel.
As Domino searches her lines, the flickering of lights is a little more obvious to her as she's been down there at least once before, if not more, in recent memory. Large rats scurry, and as she works on her mapping, there is a bit of line that seems a little more modern than the others. As in, 'it's pretty damned obvious that it's new fibre optic that's been laid' sort of more modern.
Cable manages to finish getting across the street, though not without several salutes leveled in his direction. Not one driver is man enough, however, to exit their car to get up close and personal with the half-cybernetic man, however. Mouthy, but not stupid.
Disappearing into one store, the door is closed behind him, and Nate begins his path downwards, into the sewer lines. As he goes, the man is seemingly talking to himself.
"I want a line on what has been going on in Camden, year 2013. Status of city. Finances. Legal. Crime."
Elsa quirks an eyebrow, then rolls her eyes theatrically. The old 'make a loud noise then shut up' manoeuvre, the bane of rookie monster hunters everywhere. At least this creature seems to have a taste for the classics. As the mass exodus of rats flows past her, she shoots them an evil look. "If even one of you darlings even thinks of pissing on my boots..." she then notices the variety of crud /already/ attached to her footwear and keeps the rest of the thought to herself.
Elsa catches the patch of darkness moving out of the corner of her eye, her enhanced senses and experience telling her something isn't all that it appears down here. Putting on a burst of speed, she hefts the flashlight to illuminate the area around the half built wall, bringing her gun to bear at the same time. "Arms or whatever varied extremities you have in the air. My favourite boots are covered in shit and I am not in the mood to piss about."
That sound..is not normal. Times like this being naturally pale can work out to a gal's advantage. (Do the job and get out, Domino.)
She almost misses the addition of modern lines, stopping and frowning as she drifts her own flashlight straight up to follow the fiber optic. (They didn't tell me there was a transition down here... Wonder how much they paid for installation this far down.)
The sounds in the distance she tries to ignore, though only so that she can do the deed and get out of here, and get paid. The light gets caught within her teeth as she breaks out the necessary equipment, though she doesn't get far before realizing that what she was given to work with isn't..going to work..on modern lines.
"Thun uva bith."
Gear is put away as she looks back up to the wires in question. There's more than one way to handle this. It may not be as discreet but it'll still take them weeks to find the point of failure, and who wants to spend any more time down here than they have to?
She wraps a wad full of wires around her hands and pulls out a half serrated blade, hacking through the lot of them with one firm tug.
"Foxhole one, the pidgeon is grounded."
(Shit. Time to get out of here, girl. The natives are sounding a bit restless.)
Patch of darkness moving isn't stopping just for a grumpy, accented challenge. Though, as Elsa gets closer, the torchlight that is brought to bear against the denizens of the dark (more 'd' words!), yellow, glowing eyes stare out of the shadows. Not rats, however. A little too far off the ground for that. And, while it would be disconcerting for some as to how high those eyes are measured, one can almost hope that it's due to some wall clinging, or vaulted ceilings. Almost.
A snarl sounds, and at the sound of the voice, something that is vaguely humanoid, and very much annoyed that the calm has been broken leaps full on towards the girl with a shotgun. While her favourite boots may be mucked up, the entire body of the naked, hirsuite creature is fully ... nasty as it is slimy, mud and excrement-encrusted.
Domino's yanking of the wires certain does cause some sort of power outage above the streets- just as she desired. But also, there's something of a glitch further down- down and deeper within the tunnels.
Nate's trip down is uneventful, to say the least, but the moment he steps foot below, there's something decidedly 'not right' about things. He's getting his data-dump, courtesy of 'Ship', and the data scrolls before his eye even as his step quickens for his lab. 
The squealing of rats is a good indication, however, that things just aren't right. Sort of like cats- when a noise happens, look at a cat. If they react, it's not a normal sound. If they don't? All's well.
Nate begins to slow jog in the opposite direction the rats are taking, taking note that there are some of the old sodium lights that no longer are lit, even if he can see the residuals. They -had- been, but now?
"Sonuvabitch." One of the very useful words taught to him when he came, finally, to rest in this Earth's timeline. It's so versitile!
Elsa tilts her head upwards slightly to meet those glowing yellow eyes, a wry look on her face. "Good evening, you horrid creature. Right. Here's how it works. I'm going to give you one cha..." It's then, of course that the creature dives towards her with a growl.
Elsa ducks under the monsters leap, angling her shotgun upwards at the creatures midsection as it pounces. A fraction of a second later the sewer tunnels echo to the sound of a twelve gauge magnum load being delivered in the direction of the creatures mangy hide.
Gunfire.
(They weren't expecting any resistance... Hell, I'm the only one down here and they're not shooting at me.)
Foxhole, oven's on, oven is on," Domino follows through on the slender headset hooked around her left ear. (Whatever's going on down here I want no part of it, not getting paid to solve everyone else's problems!)
This is an albino, bugging out!
As Cable runs towards the fray, he's not too terribly worried about the rats going the opposite direction. They're not aggressively trying to take everything down in their path, no. They're getting the hell out of Dodge. As he gains some speed, he's passing some of the rusted out hulks, and passing yet another tunnel, stops suddenly and looks to see a flash of something. 
Someone.
Someone familiar.
Anything that Nate could possibly say or do at that moment is taken up with the shotgun blast that reverberates through the tunnels, causing flying things to actually take flight.
A monster screams in the dark, and a dark, furred body is blown wide open, with bits of fur, blood, flesh and organs dotting the back walls of the abandoned and forgotten tunnels. Large pieces of flesh splatter onto the ground, even as the yellow-eyed creature doesn't quite yet realize that he's dead. Claws strike out blindly, even as the tortured heart beats its last.
From behind him, more yellow eyes appear.
Elsa's face crumples in disgust as she is spattered by a wide range of viscera as the creature's torso detonates, her lips compressing into a tight line, to /ensure/ none of it gets in her mouth. She gets to her feet, wiping the back of a gloved hand across her face. "Told you so," she taunts the creature. In a blur the creatures death strike lashes out towards her, causing her to parry reflexively with the maglite held in her other hand, striking sparks from its casing. She petulantly puts another round into the creatures remains with her shotgun. "You lost. Have the good grace to stay dead, there's a nice rat person."
Elsa glances past the deceased hulk of the monster, it's compatriots eyes pin pricks in the dark. She swings the beam of the torch towards them, the circle of light flickering. "Oh charming. It's the whole sodding family. I just hope you don't breed like your smaller cousins or I'm in for a busy bloody night." She snaps off a couple of more rounds in their direction, all too aware things are going to get very interesting when she runs out of shells in one more pull of the trigger.
It's only a short distance to go when-
-BLAM!-
Another loud, sharp report of a shotgun comes, and Cable sprints the final distance, leaping atop some of the rusted out hulks, and he falls through one of them only to come out onto the 'ground'. Pushing forward again, he's met with the scene before him.
Young girl (though looks can be deceiving) armed with a shotgun, and a dead rat creature lying with its entrails on the ground. If he was a prognosticator, he'd be able to read the future!
Pausing in his step, Nate is pulling a sidearm out, though the .45 looks tiny in his hand. Glancing towards the girl, his eyes look mismatched, to put it kindly. "What is-"
"Oh."
Hard not to see the dead rat creature. Looking back at the wall, it's just in time to see the creatures leaping into the air at the now -two- of them.
"Hit the deck!"
Elsa snaps a look at the newcomer as he bursts on to the scene. "And who the bloody hell are you?" she blurts, quickly taking in his size and obvious cybernetic enhancements, before returning her attention to the matter at hand. This, of course, is just the opening the rat creatures need to get the drop on her.
Or so they think. She may look just like a /merely/ heavily armed woman, but Elsa Bloodstone possesses more strength than would first appear. The nearest rat creature gets a maglite wrapped round its head, it's illumination growing noticeably dimmer under the repeated blows. This is followed up by the remaining shell in her shotgun being delivered near point blank to the creature's skull, smearing its contents against the opposite wall. "Look, I've got this all under control, just clear off and let me work! Whulf!" This final exclamation is brought on by the famous monster hunter being thrown to the ground by a second, more enthusiastic rat person. Elsa discards the empty weapon, grabbing the creature by its throat and repeatedly slamming the rapidly disintegrating flashlight into the creatures face.
Nate is on the ground with the rat creature flying overhead- as far as a rat creature can fly, anyway. Now on the ground, the mutant is braced. It doesn't take too many bullets when aimed properly; one to gain it's attention. That one is placed quite handily into the rump. As it spins around, its slavering jaws open and dripping blood from one of its last meals (Hope it was a good one because), Nate drops three more bullets.
One to the head, two to the chest.
With the added hole now, the creature makes that leap, and dragging its sharp claws against Nate's flesh, it opens a few ragged lines, which begin to seep blood.
"Goddammit!"
Lifting up, the mutant pushes the creature up and back, flipping it over behind him and into the wall with no little speed and strength behind it.
Checking on the somewhat diminutive young woman beside him, Nate chimes in, "I LIVE here. You're in my yard." So.. "Who the hell are you?"
"Oh, bollocks to this," Elsa snarls as the snapping jaws of the hideous creature come closer to her face. Picking her moment as the creatures mouth opens, she drives a gloved fist into its mouth and out of the back of its head in a welter of gore. She flings the creature aside with an irritated noise at the back of her throat.
Elsa scowls at her would be saviour. "Really? Christ. Well you're doing a top job of keeping the place neat and tidy then, aren't you darling?" As the last intact rat person leaps to the attack, Elsa reaches to her belt and extracts an infeasibly large revolver in a flourish. "Elsa Bloodstone." BLAM. The last rat person falls to the ground with a sizeable piece of its cranium missing. "Professional monster hunter. Not renowned for taking lip from shiny metal men called...?" she folds her arms across her chest, revolver held off to one side.
At the same time that Elsa is ready to blow the last rat creature's head off, Nate is reaching over to grab it by the scruff of the neck only to have it effectively disintegrate in his hand, leaving behind little more than a raw, bloody pelt. "Only just recently moved in.." is grumbled, and he flings the now very lifeless creature away. His face, neck and shoulder show the marks of the rat creature, but he's not really paying too much attention to it at the moment. He's too busy staring at the young woman in something akin to disbelief.
"Still cleaning up the place. And I'm not going to pay you for extermination because I had to come in and help."
Gaining his feet, Nate puts his pistol away and looks around at his surroundings now that he's got the moment. "Nate. Nate Dayspring. And if you're not now, who knows. You may yet be known for something like that."
"Good shooting, by the way. Well done."
Elsa can't help but grin as the newcomer actually responds to her comment with something of a justification. "Oh yes, I can hear it now. 'I'm sorry dear, I was going to deal with the infestation of the grubby rat people, but something came up. It was on my to-do list.'" She peers at the wounds Nathan has suffered in the struggle. "I'd get those looked at, dear. Believe me you don't want to be infected by anything floating down here."
When payment is mentioned, Elsa actually looks wistful for a moment. "Actually I'm not getting paid at /all/, darling. This was a routine patrol gone wrong. Or horribly right, depending on who you ask." She holsters the revolver before picking up the shotgun from where it fell, flicking the worst of the grime off it before reloading it almost absent-mindedly as Nate talks. 
"Pleased to meet you, Nathan." Elsa grins at his compliment. "You're not too shabby yourself. So." She rests the now loaded shotgun casually over one shoulder. "I have to ask, do you often prowl the sewers looking for people to save, or were you just passing by?"
"Unless it's something that would turn a normal human into a rat in a minute or better, I should be okay," Nate offers. He reholsters his pistol, though with his 'good' hand, he runs it down one of those seeping wounds. "And this pretty much isn't a place to bring the wife and kids, assuming I had any. And at least the cockroach problem was taken care of before I got here." There comes something of a smirk to his face as he looks towards the path to take back to his lab. "I heard they were damned huge."
Gesturing towards that direction now, Nate looks briefly puzzled. "You do patrols down here?" Huh. That bit of information got past him somehow, and he'll need to check on that. "As for my own prowling, I was on my way 'home'." In the sewers. "No. I was on my way to my secret, underground lab if you must know."
Nate considers for a moment, but rather than heading off towards said 'lab', if he's really serious, "I'll walk you up. I think you're out of shells?"
"I'm /fairly/ certain they weren't were-rats, darling. I would have been reaching for the blessed silver buckshot if they were. Though that does leave the question of /what/ they are and where they came from." Elsa reaches down and picks up a scrap of the creature's flesh, popping it into a plastic screwtop jar that she pulls from her belt. She holds it up and scrutinises it. Her attention returns to Nate as he mentions cockroaches. "The size of dogs, some of them. Now those /were/ bloody resilient beasts."
Elsa shrugs as Nate enquires about her patrols. "I've only been back in the city for a little while. I've been visiting some old stomping grounds. Just as well, by the look of it." She nudges one of the deceased rat creatures with the toe of her boot. "Secret underground lab you say. Well, I shouldn't be surprised, a man willing to graft that much metal on to his body probably needs a lot of maintenance." At the offer of an escort, Elsa beams. "How very gentlemanly of you. Don't fret, I never leave home without enough ammunition. But if you really want to help...see what your lab can make of this." She presses the plastic jar into his hand, alongside a business card. With that, she accompanies Nate back to the surface, eager to get out of the sewers.
Category:Log