Nahma skittered across the dark sewer floor, his many legs clattering on the stone bricks which had been so carefully laid down. There were layers upon layers of sewers and tunnels underneath the city, and he had laid claim to them… how long ago?

He was a centipede, a monster approximately half a mile long. His beautiful blue-green shell overlapped itself countless times and could take a direct hit from any gun aboveground, and quite a few guns that had been produced underground. His legs were powerful and strong, three layers of them working overtime to hold his body above the ground. He had lived in the sewers a long, long time.

One of his thousands of sensors went silent, in the area far underneath Fourth and Manning. He was curious and perhaps a little concerned at the death of one of his lovely little sheddings. They were rather tough to kill and cute to boot. He decided to go check it out.

His powerful movements shook the walls as he moved, rats larger than dogs rushing to get out of his way. Not quite fast enough, though - he snapped up more than a few of them. No reason he couldn’t grab a snack on the way.

Taking a quick left turn at Third and Post, he winced as a chunk of brick went flying. Perhaps he could take his turns a little slower before the pesky supers showed up and ‘displaced’ him from his home. He wasn’t sure he was ready to do a full shed again.

He redoubled his pace, mildly incensed. Whatever this occurrence involved, it would have to be worth his time and his annoyance. Not to mention his adorable little shedding’s death, of course. Although he could always make hundreds more…

Finally, he arrived underneath the street. His many eyes squinted in the darkness, and he could sense his little shedding’s place in front of him. It was half-eaten, and Nahma was surprised in spite of himself. He knew that they tasted awful, even by his standards. Whatever had been devouring it must have been desperate indeed. Why, here on the fourth layer down, there were monsters and creatures aplenty. Why couldn’t it have eaten one of those?

He blinked as something flew at him out of the darkness, claws and teeth bared at him. He only caught a glimpse of its matte-black shell before one of his antennae slammed it into the ground on instinct, causing the whole tunnel to shake, several bricks falling from the ceiling. Oops. Oh well, the problem was solved.

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He began to move forward through the tunnels before realizing it was still moving through the dust cloud. It had survived that? Most supers couldn’t take one of his hits.

Backing up uncomfortably (he was extremely long, it wasn’t easy), he took a better look at it.

It wasn’t very big, probably two and a half feet long. It had a tough-looking black carapace, four arms, and two hefty legs. A black helmet-like shell extended over its forehead, protecting its skull (if it had one) rather well. It had six pure-red eyes that glowed weakly, and its mouth opened and closed pointlessly. Several rows of sharp teeth were visible behind the gap.

Nahma chuckled to himself, the motion rippling down his body. This thing was quite cute! He should keep it. But for now, it looked hungry…

He felt a motion somewhere down his side and stabbed it, hoping it wasn’t a human. Their taste wasn’t nearly worth the trouble that they brought if you killed one. He moved whatever it was up to his legs, probably impaling it more times than was necessary in the process.

Thankfully, it was just a rat, although a rather… mutated one, to say the least. The rodent had probably just acquired powers and attacked the first thing it saw. How unfortunate that it happened to be him.

He dropped the rat on the ground and poked the monster with a leg. It seemed just a little traumatized after its experience with the business end of Nahma’s antennae and shrank back, clearly unsure of his intentions. He could be patient. There wasn’t much else to do this deep.

Finally, hunger beat caution, and the little monster tore into the rat, its shoulders dropping in relief as it ate the food. Nahma wasn’t surprised. His sheddings were incredibly helpful in both the short and long term, but tasted bad and had no nutrition to speak of.

He leaned forward, the same antennae that had crushed it stroking it happily on the head. “Well,” Nahma mused, his colossal gravel voice rumbling throughout the tunnels and scaring away everything in front of him for a mile, “I shall have to name you if I am going to keep you.” It looked up at him for no other reason than to make sure he wasn’t going to kill it, then went back to its gory meal. It was really tearing into it - it'd probably become the bane of rats when it grew up. Provided this wasn't in fact its full size.

He was pleased. He had created a great name!

“I shall call you Bain.”