New Pants

Nimil made Pentok look like a grand city in comparison. Ramshackle huts were thrown together in a loose cluster on the soggy ground barely better than the marsh right at the city's edge. A stray dog ran by being chased by a swamp rat larger than it that hissed at the wagon as it splashed by. Mil didn't even bother to hide his wand at this point, keeping it at the ready should any of the shady looking locals try anything.

"Ya sure this is where we should be?" Mil asked D who in turn looked at Jane who just shrugged.

Finding the hunter's guild house was easy, it was the only building that didn't look like a shack thrown together out of driftwood. When Mil slowed his wagon down in front D hopped off with a grunt letting them know to stay here.

"What are you doing?" Rachel asked in a half whisper half shout making the pale girl stare up at her wide eyed.

"I'm going to find a job." D marched in wearing only Mils' jacket which was just barely long enough to be considered decent. Rachel looked around at the rough locals and again wondered how she ended up in this situation. Pena was once again staring off into nothing, something she'd been doing a lot during their travels. Jane moved to sit next to Mil keeping a sharp eye on the locals.

D had been gone for what felt like ages when suddenly the entire guild house seemed to shake as a resounding thud was heard. A few minutes later D emerged carrying a contract in one hand and a large wide bladed knife in the other as well as wearing a new pair of pants. Hopping up into the wagon he grunted. "Jobs in the swamp."

With D sitting on the settee beside Mil, Rachel pointed to the long slash down the back of the jacket. "What happened?"

"Someone decided to donate their pants." With that D unrolled the scroll and addressed Mil as if that explained everything. "They wouldn't give me anything harder but we need to clear a nest of Rot Rats. They gave me directions." Mil leaned over to read the directions then gazed off the way they'd need to head.

"I don't think we can take the wagon all the way there. Sides, I don't know much about no Rot Rats but can you really clear a nest bare handed?" D in response held up his newly acquired knife.

Mil opened his mouth as if to argue then closed it instead, shaking his head he clicked his tongue to the horses.

**********

D trudged through the swamp trying his best to navigate along the most solid ground but often found himself nearly waist deep in murky fetid water. They'd found a corpse of red maples in a surprisingly dry section of land where he'd left the others. Mil with his wand at the ready was left to defend the rest including the Royal Ranger. D had considered killing them while he was helpless but Jane had pleaded that he spare them and Rachel had almost had a heart attack. Only Pena and Mil had thought it might be a good idea but since no one was too set on killing the ranger D dropped the subject.

D didn't know anything about Rot Rats. They weren't something common to the wastes he was used to working far to the south. From what the guild clerk had told him right before he was rudely interrupted they were large rodents weighing between forty and sixty pounds. Who'd slick black fur always looked as if they'd just crawled out of some putrid sludge. The Rot portion of their name came from the perchance for their bites to cause gangrenous wounds. They were a low level monster barely able to be classified as a monster instead of a beast but few would hunt them. Thus of the low ranked missions available to him, it was the highest paying.

The nest turned out to be easy enough to spot, a towering ten foot mound of bones and trash rose up out of the foul swamp. Around the mass was a cluster of seven waddling Rot Rats that rutted in the soft earth or gnawed on the remains of the latest kill. While he had the knife he'd acquired in town that had never been his plan to deal with the beasts he'd been sent to kill. Of Course, it would be easier to simply transform and slaughter them. But when he sought to transform other than his body being covered in fine delicate scales little more happened. No wings, no giant increase in size, no mane, spines, or even a fancy tail. Just D covered in scales.

Frowning he strained for a moment unsure what to do, the transformations had always been something he'd always done without any real effort. As if his body just knew what to do when it was time to change, he put more effort into not transforming than doing so. After nearly ten minutes of straining, he spewed out every swear he knew then got dressed again. He'd not even changed size though he left himself covered in scales hoping they would provide at least some protection.

D searched around hoping to find a rock but in the murky grass he had no luck, grumbling to himself that nothing was going right. He settled on a chunk of mostly solid wood before winding up to beam one of the rot rats. He'd hoped to lure away only one or two of the rats but the one he pelted with the bit of driftwood, lifted its slick snout and let out a high pitched squeal before all seven started waddling towards him at considerable speed. Leaping up as the first one charged he avoided its gnashing maw of broken yellow teeth and dropped down sinking the knife into its back. D had admired the blade the moment he acquired it, it was razor sharp and of much better quality than the old hunter who'd bought him had ever possessed. Still, he was shocked at how easily it sliced through the fur and flesh of the beast.

Despite losing a lot of his mass during his evolution his strength remained the same and with the power of his monstrous might, the tough hide of the Rot Rat proved little protection. But while he was able to easily cut into the monster rat, his knife wasn't very long leaving the shrieking rodent with plenty of fight left in it. With that one strike, the other six rodents joined in the fray. D found himself on the defensive quite quickly. What little fighting he'd done before had relied on his monstrous nature. Other than a bit of playing around he'd no experience with knife fighting and while the Rot Rats were neither very strong nor very fast they did work together making them a much harder fight than he expected.

While busy fending off the gnashing maw of one of the rats another had struck at him from behind managing to bite him right at the back of his knee. Luckily his scales proved more than hard enough to resist the bite but the nasty mouth of the beast ripped a whole strip out of his brand new, to him, pants. Enraged he lashed out just as he would have in his transformed state with his tail forgetting he no longer had one. To his shock and the rodents, his tail shot out of the small of his back to impale the Rot Rat right at the base of its neck. Lifting up the squirming monster he flung it away to convulse with ear splitting shrieks of pain.

The monster rodent's cries of pain sent the others into a fury as they swarmed over him ignoring the slashes of his knife. Nasty yellow teeth scraped against his scaled hide with little effect yet his knife attacks did little more than theirs. But his tail with its venomous stinger whipped around striking enemy after enemy. While the wounds inflicted by his stinger seemed no more deadly than his knife attacks, the venom it carried no longer seemed to be paralytic in nature. From the way, the rodents reacted he guessed it was a combination of his old spines and his bite's venom. Causing incredible pain before organ failure started to occur. Soon enough he was down to one rodent left alive, the first one he'd knifed in the back. It was struggling to escape back to the nest but D had no plans of letting his first kills getaway. Stalking over he kicked it onto its back then sank his blade deep into its exposed belly. While he felt no hunger pangs he wasn't going to pass up a free meal.

**********

Kit was nursing a black eye, a busted lip, and a huge lump on his head much to the amusement of the others in his group. When one of the others snickered at him and asked if he needed someone to protect him from the widdle kiddies he flipped them the bird. "Fuck off Mik, you didn't see the brat. Fucker walks in here with no pants on and tries to take a job off the board. Course I was gonna say something. I'm still trying to figure out what the hell happened." He remembered the boy telling him to fuck off then turning back to the board. He'd thought to teach him a lesson, like most lessons learned on the fringe it was to be a final one. But next thing he knew he'd woken up next to a dent in the wall missing his knife and his pants. 'When I see that little fucker next, I'ma end him. No one messes with Kit the Knife.'