#I also gave Cora only a feather collar because I did not want to draw an entire feather cloak | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

polandspringz · 5 years

Note

1 for the rat hunters

I decided to make this one be about how the team meets Primal and Ratborg! There is a bit more to Ratborg’s character and Primal when it comes to Lab and the rat companions’ knowledge of things, but to the rest of the team this is completely new. Also, I decided to make this a prequel to a certain event with an important member of the squad.

“Lab, where are you taking us?”

“Yeah, it’s early for us to do a hunt. I mean there are a ton of rats out, but if we were actually spotted-!”

“Exactly. This is risky, even for you. What’s up?”

An animalistic growl was the last to join the chorus of voices whining behind the leader. The sky had just turned black as the sun had fallen along with the world and everything began to turn over to night. The colorlessness above them was less darkness and more clouds that began to fog up the stars and moon that were starting to peek through. Lab walked on ahead, ignoring the protests of his comrades, smiling internally even though his robotic face couldn’t express it.

Ratthew squeaked on his shoulder, communicating with Ratgo and Ratdall in the squirming, rat filled hole that used to be his liver. Some whiskers nudged against his neck, tickling him under the collar even though his mechanical parts extended down towards his collarbone. A human hand came up to pat the small creature.

“You know who we’re visiting… All of you always had better clockwork than I ever did,” He mumbled, “I think it was one of you who told me it was time anyway.”

“Sals, what’s Ratthew saying?” Poland whispered from the back, walking alongside her bear companion (friend? Sister? Adoptive sister? Lab wasn’t quite sure he remembered what the whole deal was with that) who was the most recent addition of their little band of hunters. He was keeping a steady distance from the group though, as he was a wanted fugitive, so he doubted that even with her superior hearing, Sals couldn’t guess what had been exchanged between the rats.

A red feather drifted over head onto the sidewalk in front of Lab. He glanced up. Pigeonbach was frozen in the air, recognizing his mistake.

“I thought Sals was in charge of Pigeonbach?” Vince exclaimed as they watched Lab expertly, as if trained his entire life, reach out a hand and the bird woke from its paralysis spell and swooped down to perch. Walking up and down his arm, Lab turned around to regard his team with a sigh.

“I am the one the rats trust. Never forget that,” as Pigeonbach and Ratthew moved to sit by his bicep, Lab motioned towards his abdomen, pulling slightly at the lapel of the tied trench coat. There was no need for any reveal, any elaboration could be done in words, without dragging literal skeletons out of the closet, “They chose me, so they will always listen to me. Now, are you going to keep questioning me, or can we continue on?”

Despite his anger, a few minutes into their walk again, Lab began to open up.

“We are going to the bank. We are meeting someone there. Say nothing, do nothing, just watch me. I’ll explain everything later, because it is going to happen very fast, okay?”

They rounded the corner, the large columned and marble building standing tall at the end of the street. Nowadays, very few humans wandered around outside because of the invasion, but a few still mingled about amongst the small rat bodies scampering over the crosswalks and sidewalks. Lab looked at the sky. He flicked Pigeonbach off, and tucked Ratthew into his coat pocket before breaking off into a sprint. Vince, Sals, and Poland gave each other curious looks before they scampered after, being slowed down by trying to avoid stepping on any of the scurrying citizens. They weren’t as fortunate to be emitting a signal to the other rats that a large rat, or someone disguised as a very large rat through smell, was plowing through.

They ran across the street after Lab, who had now gone still and was staring up at the sky, his green light bulbs in place of his eyes let out rings of light that were just visible above his tilted back head as he watched something invisible to them. Sals’ nails clicked along the pavement, and Lab whipped around and threw his arm out with a shout-

“Stay back!”

In a flurry of ember and orange lava, an explosion gushed out of the roof of the bank, the waves of heat and energy throwing the group back towards the grassy area they had dashed across, Lab and Vince who had been in the lead being thrown back down on the tar of the road. Windows screamed as the fire shoved against their panes and within the fraction of a second that followed Lab’s warning they were thrown open and shattered, columns and ornate carvings reduced to rubble that flew over their heads. Finally, the waves condensed back in, and the rush of air and sound collapsed back to the center of the rising, bubbling, yellow and black foaming explosion and the crackling and hissing of the gas and heat could be heard at last as everything settled.

“What the hell just happened?!” Poland shrieked as the team all she leaned on Sals for support. Everyone was rushing to their feet, except for Lab, who sat up on the asphalt and stared into the flames, watching even as rats and people raced past them all in a flood of panic. Vince was yelling something at Lab, anger evident on their expression as they tried to wrench him to stand, but their leader merely flopped back down, and was it their imagination or did the lights on his head appear to glow a little brighter as he watched the dance of the fire?

“The screams all sound the same…” A voice whispered on the hot wind that whipped the fire around the debris, building it higher and higher.

“She’s here…”

All of the rat hunters looked towards the flames, watching as a shadow began to blur and smear behind its wall of energy. Soon, the brown smudge became darker, like a blot of ink that had splashed onto a golden parchment, and then it burst through the wall into the gray light on the other side, and it was pitch black against the inferno burning behind them.

Them. There were two figures, a humanoid one and then a smaller dot, a different blot closer to the ground, standing on two legs as well. Sals and Poland moved closer to Lab and Vince, disbelief on their expressions as the two figures began to strut forward towards the group.

“I will explain everything soon. Now, allow me,” Lab said, standing up and going to meet the mysterious figure halfway.

“You know Lab, I just can’t understand them. Even after all this time, Ratborg is the only one that has ever sounded different.”

“What have you been doing to Ratborg?”

“Nothing. But when we set the place ablaze, it’s never like what you read it books. Nothing blood curdling, nothing chilling. Only-”

“-only squeaks. Well, it’ll change soon.”

“Hasn’t changed in years, buddy. Doubt I’ll find anything satisfying in this town.”

Lab’s posture changed, and if he had eyes, they would be narrowed to slits with suspicion, “Nothing?”

The woman smirked, “That’s right,” She tucked one hand into the deep pocket of her indigo leather coat and rubbed a finger back and forth above her lip, a wicked, wild grin evident on her face, “Nothing but a bank chock full of burnable money and checks made for wedding gifts.”

“A wedding?”

There. was a beeping noise, and the two looked towards the bipedal rat with hulking round, iron shoulders that had ceased it’s twitching motions and was glaring down the road.

“Time?”

Two more beeps, the second one cut abruptly short before the rat scurried forward. The woman pulled a cigarette box out, and deposited one stick into Lab’s hand before she brushed past him, both hands hidden within her coat and her head bowed.

“Looks like I’ve gotta blast. Won’t even have time to leave my signature. You know it well enough by now, right? Can you do me this favor?”

Her rat was already down the road. Police sirens and fire engines were wailing on in the distance. As quickly as the other rat hunters blinked, she had ran off, and their leader was hunched over the sidewalk in front of the bank, ignorant to the embers falling on the concrete around him.

“Lab, get back? What are you doing?”“We need to go, now! If they see us here, we’re already dead, but if they see you, you’re surely to die right away! Let’s go!”

Sals bit the stick out of Lab’s hands, spitting it out suddenly when they realized the thing began to sizzle and fizz with her saliva. It was chalk.

“What’s going on?” She growled. Poland nodded jerkily and followed Vince’s example and grabbed one of Lab’s arms.

“What did you take us out here? To see this?! To get us framed?”

“It’s not like you to question me,” He quipped, and the girl curled away, eyes overcome with shame, “But, you should know before we go, that woman was Primal, a hunter from outside of town.”

He squatted back down and began to draw, arcing the chalk into elegant curves and rings as he spoke, “She’s our informant, striking places like this for big information that we can’t normally get if we want to keep some anonymity.”

“There are other hunters outside of the city?”

“She helps all of us. She knows the stories and information on all the rats ruling on this side of the world. Speaking of which,” he drew one more thick solid line across the draw, solidifying the symbol into the ground just as the fire spread to a tree that stretched over their heads, the green leaves swallowed within seconds as the fire rained down like hail upon them, “It appears while we were out hunting, our good friend Rat King Cora went and got himself hitched.”

Somewhere, deep within a chamber inside the castle walls, a girl sits on a plush bed. The windows are open. It is daylight on this side of the kingdom still. A large rat with a crown sits across from her in a chair, waiting patiently, a human maid takes back the water glass from the girl. Her head bowed, her hair tied up, tentacles beginning to take shape as she adjusts to the mutation, she holds a hand over her throat, and breathes out her first of many warbled sentences.

“Woomy.”

#ask poland #ask prompt #been so long since i wrote for the hunters #rat hunters #i miss em lol

3 notes · View notes