"Alright, is everyone ready?"
""Squeak!""
James looked over the ratlings before nodding approvedly. In the time it took for him to do light research on Cores and Aspects, Goliath had finished improvising a little gym with a small obstacle course included. Lucille had given Blanche tips on how to properly track something and David had somehow managed to coerce Foudre letting him help her improve her aggressivity.
This had all been fine and dandy but, now that he had some ideas on what he could do, James wanted to be a little bit more active, too. So, he had simply asked the ratlings for a light spar. He wasn't crazy enough to take them on all at once without seeing what they were capable of, of course, instead he had divided the ratlings and himself into three pairs of fighters, with opponents swapping each round.
To avoid any possible injuries, he also instructed the ratlings on how to use torn pieces of paper - shreds of fake money he had already infused and could probably fix later - to cover their claws and teeth, making them blunt. Weapons were also prohibited, to David's joy and Blanche's annoyance.
"Well then, David you are with Blanche, Lucille you are with Foudre, and Goliath you are with me. Don't be stupid, if you're hurt stop fighting and go rest. I'll try to keep an eye on everyone to tell you when to stop but I may get distracted by my opponent, so I trust you to manage yourselves."
The five nodded.
"Good. What are you waiting for? Let's go."
The three pairs when to opposite ends of the nest, leaving each other enough room to maneuver and move around properly.
James, still in his humanoid form, looked down at Goliath.
"Do you want me to take on a specific form or am I free to be whatever I want?"
Goliath thought about it for a few seconds before making a flapping motion with his arms.
"A bird?"
Goliath shook his head before imitating a skittering motion.
"Ah, a cockroach?"
The ratling nodded.
"Well, if it's what you want."
James' form shrunk, becoming shorter than his Skittler form but still much bigger than a regular cockroach, in fact, he was quite close to Goliath's size, maybe a bit shorter. He began to test out his body, flipping his antennae, skittering left and right, and buzzing his wings, before facing Goliath who took on something akin to a sumo's pose.
In another corner of the room, David, on all fours, stared intensely at Blanche, ready to burst forward and shower her with a barrage of claw strikes, whereas she stared in disdain at her younger brother, standing on her hind legs.
Lucille and Foudre were much calmer, each one on all fours, and were ready to move, watching the other's posture attentively, ready to evade or attack at a moment's notice.
"Begin!"
At James' call, the three duels began at once.
David immediately ran and pounced on Blanche who took a step to the side and hit his flank mid-air with the palm of her paw, sending him tumbling to the side.
James flew forward, charging toward Goliath who managed to take hold of him, struggling to keep his grip on the black chitin as James slowly pushed him, still flying at full speed and beginning to whip him with his antennae.
Lucille and Foudre slowly circled around each other, each waiting for an opening.
David got back up and snarled before rushing to attack Blanche again, the albino rat rolled her eyes and readied herself to repeat her palm strike. However, this time, when David jumped, he began to rotate, evading Blanche's counter before slapping her with his tail, throwing her on the ground, and dirtying her pristine white fur with a smug smile on his snout.
Goliath turned his grip on James' cockroachy body into a bear hug and began to crush the shadowy bug as hard as he could, cracks and crunches in the black chitinous armor making themselves heard. It's at this point that James lengthened his antennae and used them to take hold of Goliath's hindlegs and flip him upside down, the surprise of the fall making him accidentally release James.
Lucille and Foudre kept on watching their respective opponent's every move, ready to act at the slightest muscle twitch.
Blanche slowly stood up and took a glance at her stained fur before staring at David. He could feel shivers going down his spine, his fur raising on its own when faced with the scorn within her crimson eyes. In a breath she was already next to him and punched him in the ribs, taking his breath out and launching him half a meter back - a much more impressive distance when you remembered those were rats fighting, not humans.
James used his elongated antennae to bind Goliath's body and placed his front pair of legs - now doted with blunted spikes that turned each limb into a rudimentary blade - under the ratling's throat, crossed and ready to strike. Goliath nervously stared at the bladed appendages before sighing and closing his eyes, James backing off and letting him get back up.
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Lucille and Foudre just stood there, menacingly.
David got back up and coughed a couple of times before grinning and rushing onto Blanche again, but this time the albino didn't bother taking a proper posture to get ready to counter, instead, she jumped and landed on David, the two fighters quickly forming a ball of rat fury and bloodlust that began to roll around the nest.
Lucille and Foudre narrowed their eyes, neither quite ready to be the first to strike and-
That's when a furious ball of white and grey passed between them, throwing them off guard for a split second before they focused on their fight again.
Except, sadly for Foudre, Lucille got back on track the quickest.
The rat with the weirdly shaped tail barely had time to take a step back to avoid her sister's first claw strike, but it was already too late. Under a constant barrage of attacks she didn't have the time to seize an opening to strike back and, after a few moments, finally got hit by a lucky strike, leaving the way for a dozen more to follow. Foudre raised her paw to surrender and Lucille stopped mid-air, altering her course to spare her sister from a tail slap.
The only ones still fighting were David and Blanche, still rolling around under everyone's curious gaze. James finally had enough and snatched the two up with a tentacle and separated them.
"Are you two finished with your little tantrum?"
They both scoffed.
"Very well. Goliath, you did a great job but you should try to stay aware of your surroundings, once I got in a sneak attack you immediately went down."
The large ratling nodded, determined to do better during the next fight.
"Lucille, Foudre. Just... It was impressive work, for sure. ONCE IT STARTED. I know you both heavily rely on your opponent's move to act but, in real life, you can't expect this to always work. What if they're invisible? Or able to teleport? You both need to be a bit more proactive, and Foudre, if there is no opening try to make one."
The two took his feedback in, Foudre was a little ashamed of her performance compared to her sister's.
"David. Blanche. Aside from your little tumblerat game, you actually both did a pretty good job. David's moves are a bit primitive but you had enough brains to bait Blanche into repeating her past action, and Blanche you had a good idea to defend and counter, you even managed to equal David in a purely physical duel when you went mad. By the way, try to avoid that, berserk states are nice and all but they should be a last resort."
Once again, two ratlings nodded their heads to James' words.
"Well then. Let's switch it up. Lucille and Goliath, David and Foudre, and Blanche and I. Let's go!"
The following fights went as you would expect, Goliath despite his strength was completely outmatched by Lucille's speed and dexterity and David's reckless animalistic fighting style was exactly what Foudre had specialized in dealing with, doing a much better job at countering his mad charges than Blanche, something that annoyed both the small rat and his white sister.
Of that batch, James and Blanche's fight was the only interesting one. The albino had asked him to take on a rat form, going as far as to ask him to imitate David, and James had no trouble understanding she probably wasn't over their fight and wanted to take out her frustrations during this spar. This would be a really unhealthy behavior in any other situation, but considering James' shapeshifting he figured he could let it slide this time.
His imitation wasn't perfect, of course. Simulating fur was too complex and, just like during his fight with Goliath, it seemed he couldn't go any smaller than a normal rat's size, making his copy slightly bigger than Blanche, and much more than the real David who was very annoyed at the sight of his copy being larger than him.
The start of the fight wasn't that different from the last one for either of them, Blanche stood on her hind legs and waited for her opponent to attack while James got ready to charge. Truly, the fight seemed to go down the exact same way, with James rushing madly and pouncing on Blanche who was already ready to throw him aside with a palm strike-
And that's where things changed.
Having learned from David's fight, James immediately rotated in the air to strike Blanche with his tail, and, having learned from her own past mistake, Blanche began to crouch to let the tail pass above her head and began to turn to do her own tail slap.
Sadly, she forgot to take two things into consideration. One, that turning on oneself to hit something with their tail while crouching when said tail was a major part of your balance was hard. Two, that James wasn't actually a rat.
As she was fumbling around to perform her attack, James' black body, only solid on the surface but otherwise filled with gas shadows, was light enough to stay in the air during the entire course of his tail strike's rotation and had no trouble repositioning himself to go from a horizontal hit to a vertical one, whacking Blanche on the head before she got the chance to correct her failed attack, which, due to her being off-balance, resulted in her ending up lying down on the ground.
"Are you fine, Blanche?"
"Squeak."
Yes, there was no need to understand rat speech to comprehend the meaning of her words.
"Only hurt in your pride, eh? Well, learning from your own failings and defeats is good, but avoid testing out fancy attacks in the middle of a fight. Remember, fancy stuff often comes at the cost of practicality."
"Squeak."
"Fine, fine. Still, don't expect opponents to act and fight the same way just because they look the same. Even animals can mimick more dangerous species for protection or preys to bait their own."
"Squeak, squeak."
"Squeak!"
"Goliath is right, nature documentaries can be a wonderful learning experience, even for fighters. Many animals have interesting tactics and ways of fighting that can be copied and-"
"Sque. Eak."
"Ok, no more rambling, but think about it, alright? Fine then, who's next? Lucille, David, either of you wants to go first? And don't fight over it please-"
A loud rumbling echoed in the tunnels surrounding the nest, a rumbling accompanied by hissing and the sound of chitinous wings buzzing in the air. It sounded like an entire army of bees or beetles was marching - or, well, flying - down the tunnels and proudly declaring its ownership of the entire territory.
James really, REALLY didn't want to look outside but knew he had to. He took in a deep breath, left five nervous ratlings behind, and sent a tentacle out of the entrance to catch a glance at the origin of the mysterious cacophony, using his appendage like a periscope.
Cockroaches. Hundreds, maybe thousands of them, flying around, small regular ones, some glowing, some with bladed antennae, some with both, some the size of rats, some the size of cats, some the size of dogs, some the size of people, and, after slithering his tentacle away from the nest and into the main path, where the main canal was located, all following a familiar cow-sized black cockroach with dried up blue blood on its long spear-like legs as it screeched to assert its dominance and order its lesser brethren, launching them into a campaign to eradicate all frogs within the sewers.
From another tunnel, one way beyond James' reach and one he had not previously explored but could tell was opposite from the room he had last seen the Titaroach in, a loud croaking sound resonated, the echo powerful enough to shake the walls even down to the nest. The croak was followed by thumping sounds, the hopping of an army of frogs and toads led by what was probably another humongous individual.
The Titaroach had apparently just launched a territory war and, sadly for James and the ratlings, they were right in the middle of it.