Chapter 5 A new Start

By the time that the first alarm had sounded the cockroach had made it from the storm drain to a deep sewer way maneuvering around most of what was down there and staying out of the water. As it made its way deeper into the sewer it knew that it had to keep moving, but it was not sure why it just knew instinctively that it had to keep moving and get as far from there as it could. It was aware that it was being hunted and that its time was running out. As it made its way through the pipes, they just kept opening up to larger pipes with no light at all. By now it was barely glowing but with it being the only light source it stood out and was easy to see. The cockroach was unable to see that it was glowing and even if it had there was nothing that it could do to change the fact that it was. As it scurried along it avoided most of everything that was in the sewer. As it heard a sound the cockroach instinctively turned from the sound and when it veered into a spider web where it found itself getting tangled in the webbing.

Within a second the spider was out and looking for its victim. It quickly slid down the guidelines and drew close to it then it paused as the cockroach struggled to try and break free. The spider was playing it safe because the roach seemed to have more power than it should have had. The spider wanted it to be good and stuck so it could go in and poison it. Then wrap it up and drain it with ease.

Once the roach was stuck it started to panic pushing hard on the web and just found itself getting more tangled. As the spider closed in on the cockroach it panicked and put forth a great push and managed to break through the web. It was too late the spider was on top of it and just before the pincers could penetrate the shell of the cockroach it burst free and dislodged the spider. Now there was a face-off the spider was not going to let its meal get away. The cockroach turned to face its adversary, the organism had regained control and now the cockroach stripped away the webbing that was still attached with ease. Now the glowing brightened as it moved to attack and swung a leg at the spider. The spider was still faster and jumped on the back of the cockroach. The roach sprung its shell open and flung the spider off to the side. The cockroach took advantage of this point and charged the spider. This put the spider in defense, and it leaped away just in time to miss being split in half.

The spider, seeing that the situation had changed, decided it was better to lose a meal than to lose its life, so it scurried away and quickly disappeared into its web. It instinctively knew at this point that it needed to run and hide and hope that it was not found.

The roach didn't think twice about it. It knew that something was coming for it sooner or later and it needed to keep moving. It easily tore through the rest of the remaining webs. The spider felt the vibration of each one as it broke and that just made the spider curl into a tighter ball to try and make itself less noticeable.

The roach kept moving deeper and deeper into the darkness as the last of the light faded. The roach stood out as it still had a glow and looked like a little moving light. As it moved it caught the attention of everything that was down there, most things that saw it ran from it. Not knowing what it was and most knew that the unknown meant danger. But there were some things that were drawn to the light and the sense of evil that was emanating from the roach.

This is where the rat with three toes on its right front paw comes in. It was a pup when it got too close to a trap. He was just about ready to take the bait when there was a noise that made it stop short, but not in time, and its foot paid the price. The trap was triggered its paw was hit crushing the toe that he later had to bite off. This did two things for it first it made it very aware of the potential danger that was associated with man. The second was that it gave it a bad disposition and made it mean. As it grew it became the nastiest dirty rat with thick matted gray fur that had two black streaks. He delighted in fighting with the other rats, showing its dominance, and when it fought for the lead of the pack it almost lost an eye and was left with a small scar on its face. It was larger than most of the others for its age and this made it easy for it to bully the others. Scurvy was cruel and it was delighted when it saw others in pain. Most of all the other rats avoided it unless they had no choice and at times Scurvy gave them no choice.

Scurvy had seen the roach moving along quickly and he saw it moving deeper and deeper into his nesting area. This drew Scurvy in closer as he watched it carefully moving slowly closer and closer. He got 10 feet away before the roach stopped short and froze in place. It sat there and didn't move this made Scurvy stop and watch to see what it was going to do next.

The roach was moving along with good then it started sensing something. It was impending danger, and it seems that the faster it moved the worse it was getting. So, it made a decision to face this new danger that was coming. It stopped and put all its energy into trying to track the new danger that was coming. As it stood still except for its antenna was moving wildly trying to pick up the direction that the new danger was coming from. It was not till the roach stopped moving forward that Scurvy closed the distance and cut it off. As soon as the roach felt that the danger was getting closer it stopped again but it was too late scurvy was right on top of it.

The roach made a vicious swipe with its razor-sharp claw and sliced into Scurvy's nose making it jump back and start to growl. A mixture of pain, fear, and anger rushed through the mind of scurvy making him completely vicious. He jumped back and bared its teeth snapping them together and chattering them together in vicious bites. Scurvy was so mad at being wounded it was ready to tear apart whatever it was. He studied it quickly ready to jump out of the way if he had to. The cockroach let out a hiss as it moved into the attack. Scurvy leaped to the side and managed to bite off a leg.

The roach twirled around and lashed outscoring a hit on the rat's side digging a hook into it. Scurvy kicked at it breaking the hook off and made a vicious bite at the roach's head just barely missing it but clipping off an antenna. This at least made the roach back off it was the first time that it had been hurt. It was a new sensation that it didn't like. Now it sprung back and took a close look at this large dirty rat looking for any weakness that it could exploit. As it looked it noticed that it was huge and muscular with very thick dirty matted fur. It knew that penetrating through all that fur was going to be a problem. The height of the rat was also a problem as well. It would be hard to reach and harder to hurt. The only weak spots that it noticed were its feet, ears, nose, and eyes.

As it quickly thought about what to attack it thought about the advantages of attacking different things and the disadvantages. Its eyes would be the best thing to attack the easiest to do the most damage with the most benefits it could disable its sight and then either make a break for it or it would be disabled, and it could kill it. The nose and the ears were both a no-win situation, neither one would do enough damage to make it worth the risk. As it looked at the rat it noticed the scar on its face close to its eye and it knew that it was used to fighting and its eyes would be guarded. Let alone getting to its face would present a problem but if an opportunity presented itself, it would be ready.

That only left its feet open, and the advantage was that at least they were within reach and if it could do enough damage, it could slow it down and then take advantage of the situation. It took a second and looked down at its broken-off leg and the missing hook. It knew that it was sharp enough but not nearly strong enough to do any real damage. It started vibrating bringing on another change it needed to grow in size and power so that made it start glowing brighter again.

Scurvy noticed that it was glowing brighter any other rat would have run in terror, but he was the head rat here and this bug was not going to make him flee. He had faced far worse things including the cat that nearly ended his life and gave him a few scars on the tip of his nose and claimed half of one of his ears. Thinking back and knowing that he got the best of a larger predator and driving it away sent it running with its tail between its legs. With pride, he had bitten off a toe and given it a bad wound on its side and that was enough to drive it off. Now he was at least twice the size of when he faced off with the cat.

The roach contorted and started to stretch glowing brighter as it grew it started to thicken and harden. Scurvy noticed what it was doing and rushed to attack. Dodging the razer claw that had been newly formed as he got closer, he easily saw it coming and swiped down his claws and broke the leg busting the tip-off.

The cockroach hissed in pain and anger. It was trying to calculate a way out of this. It knew that it had no chance to run. The rat was far too big, and way too fast. So, it started putting out more and more energy, and it really didn't have extra to waste it knew that it was going to need every bit of energy that it had. Wasting the time that it knew was already too short. It needed this finished fast it just needed a little time to figure out how to get away. The cockroach thought that if it grew bigger and developed the wings that it had, maybe it could escape. So, it focused all its energy on its desperate plan to escape but kept a watchful eye on the rat in case it would charge forward.

Scurvy was not used to something backing off once the fight was started especially one that matched his movements and defended itself that well. It was making sure that it was maneuvering out of reach. He wanted to get behind it and crush it when it tried to escape. He had fluffed his fur and was looking as intimidating as he could. But this thing was acting differently than normal. Everything small easily ran from him and he was used to chasing it and killing it from behind. Scurvy jumped at it trying to land on it and simply crush it, but he had to do a frantic flip to dodge landing on it when he noticed that the roach was covered in sharp spines that were growing out of its shell in every direction. His landing was not the greatest, he came down hard and it slightly rattled him as he rolled over to regain his footing.

Seeing the rat was now off balance the roach took advantage of it and opened its wings moving quickly. They unfolded and started moving fast making it leave the ground. It knew that it had to hurry its body was not designed for long flights let alone the amount of energy that it would need to keep it up. It lifted quickly and it was growing at the same time, and as Scurvy looked at it, he noticed it had doubled in size. He knew that if he didn't stop it now it would make it to his nest. He was not going to allow it any farther, so he quickly rolled over to his feet and regained his footing.

The roach was watching it and was doing its best to get away, but the flight was not something it was used to, and trying to get everything working was taking longer than it had hoped it would. Within a second it had its body working properly and really started to move and lift in the air.

Scurvy launched itself in the air just missing the roach he had intended to sink its teeth into it and cut it in half. He missed the roach, and now the roach made sure it was going to make him pay for it. As it dug 3 claws into Scurvy's face with one just missing his eye, and another digging into his nose. Scurvy's face felt like it was on fire the searing pain was instantaneous and he had no choice as his eye closed on its own. Luck was on Scurvy's side even though he was hurt it had missed his eyes, and as he was falling back down his right paw came down and broke one of its four wings and managed to tear out another one.

The cockroach screamed in pain as it spiraled into the cement. Never had it had to deal with this type of danger before. It managed to flip back over before the rat was upon it again. Its legs were unstable, but it did its best to back away.

Scurvy quickly got to his feet and rushed the cockroach with a matter of 2 steps they were face to face. The cockroach was trying to back up and Scurvy took his chance and quickly bit its head off in one chomp. Scurvy was satisfied that he got his kill even though his face felt like it was still on fire. With joy, he flipped the roach overseeing there were no spikes on it there, and finished eating it leaving only the shell and the legs that were still twitching.

Scurvy was only content for a moment before the pain started deep in its belly as things started to shift inside. He let out a scream in pain as his body contorted as it reformed him from the inside out. Everything in him started shifting as it took him over. The thing inside was changing once again, it was merging the DNA it had with the new DNA it was acquiring as it locked on a mixture somewhere between a rat and a cockroach. It found itself glowing and getting stronger with every second. All the damage that scurvy had gotten in his life before was now being reversed including re-growing the toe that he had lost. But every nerve in its body was screaming in pain as it shifted to its new form.

As it stood there unable to move on its own its fur fell off as if it was being shaved from the tip of its nose to the end of its tail. Its body quickly doubled in size and its muscles were enhanced more than that. It liked this body much better the intelligence was far superior as well as the muscle. The claws were great as well as the teeth, and it liked the tail. in every way, it was a far superior host. What was scurvy was now gone its mind was taken and merged with the new on its skin grew a new shell, not fur little plates that overlapped each other allowing it to move freely and easily spines grew from each one that he could control and reshape. Its claws grew and reshaped a little then hardened. The once wounded face changed as well and even the old scars were now gone. The scales now were pitch black but had a glow coming from the skin underneath. All and all it was very pleased with itself and now with its new speed, it could get away.