An odyssy concerning toothdogs, soap, and pirate planks.

Just so you know!! Anyone is free to jump in and throw their characters into this, if they at all feel like it! We're just kinda wingin this...

Toothdog was close on thier tail, somewhat. But the twins are fast, as in, they're fucking fast. And they also have good balance. A flimsy, brown sheet of a plank connected this roof to the next. The roof upon which Merick, Mace, and Aerroh had opted to set up camp.

Without a hint of hesitation, the twins scaled the plank, as gracefully and weightlessly as any acrobat, carrying loaves of bread, and hats full of other edible items. And soap! They were thrilled to have finally found soap. All these treasures they had uncovered within the bowels of the next building over, from within the next building and it's three top floors, to be precise. As that was as far as they discovered they could travel while Aerroh manned the fort without becoming nauseus, for whatever reason.

They stood on the ledge of their new home, and watched, without batting an eye, the toothdog leap onto the plank, slide, and scramble backwards. It growled at them, and its second mouth churned restlessly, hungrily. Coyily, the twins glared back, and pulled the make-shift bridge away from the other roof, and onto the safety of thier own.

Aerroh was manning the fort while the twins had wandered over to the next building in search of edible items. He took his job seriously, standing vigilantly and watching and listening for any signs of trouble for the twins. If they went too far he felt sick and nauseous but they figured out that they could be a building apart at least. The twins had been gone for a while when Aerroh heard growling and snarling. He ran over to the plank that connected the buildings and listened intently for the twins to yell for his help as they had discussed.

The twins came running out fast and crossed the plank as if they could just fly. A toothdog came running out behind them and attempted to follow but scrambled backwards as it almost fell. The twins pulled the plank safely onto their roof top hideout so that it could not follow. Aerroh felt proud of them for escaping and bringing goodies back.

"Hi! Whatcha got?!" he greeted the twins as they turned to him, sparing a growl and sticking his tongue out at the toothdog.

"Soap!" they answered together. Aerroh blinked at them for a moment. It wasn't registering in his head immediately what they had said.

"S-soap? Can we eat it?" he asked. The twins looked at each other and then back to their friend as the watched him mind block out what soap was used for. They grinned devilishly as they wrapped themselves around Aerroh.

"Does Aerroh not like baths?" they purred their question to him.

"No, Aerroh doesn't really..." he grumbled.

The twins had never intended to say anything, considering Aerroh’s ragged, dog-earred smell and deportment. To each their own, they had always lived by—and certainly those two had known more than their fair share of hopeless situations in which personal hygiene hardly made it onto the list of priorities. But as Aerroh stood there, grumbling and shuffling his feet—these were the types of opportunities one could not pass up.

There was a brief moment, as they circled their friend, where the same thought entered and registered at precisely the same instant within each their skulls, and they glanced at each other, and smirked, before simultaneously pouncing on Aerroh, and the three crashed together onto the cold, cement ground. Mace grabbed the tin flower-pot that the three were using to hold their drinking water, and dumped the remainder of its contents on Aerroh’s face and upper torso, while Merick straddled and pinned the poor, helpless wretched to the ground. Aerroh shrieked wildly, but didn’t overpower Merick and Mace’s joint hyena cackle.

“DO NOT WANNNTTT!!!!” Aerroh wailed as Merick made a quick grab for the soap and, together with his sister, began lathering his hair.

“LALALALALALA WE DO NOT HEAR ANYTHING! DO YOU HEAR ANYTHING?? LALALALALA OH WE THINK THE WIND IS SCREAMING LALALA!!!”

Aerroh finally stopped screaming, and lay petrified beneath the twins, his limbs and face frozen in horror. He groaned helplessly, and the twins finally stopped screaming and began whistling and singing cheerfully.

“Oh what is problem with you? It is just water—you drink it every day. And now it is in your hair, make you smell nice.” Mace patted his hair, in something of an attempt to console him. Merick pinched his cheeks and said to him then, “You are okay.”

“Guhhhhh okayyy…” Aerroh blurbbered again. He stopped fighting, knowing the twins would probably end up having their way with him in the end in some way or another. And he trusted them, just as they did him. This, neither of them could undo. In their short time together, Aerroh already knew their nature: that the twins were merely.. aggressively affectionate—and often managed to express this in most offensive of manners. So, Aerroh squeezed his eyes shut and hoped for the end to come soon.

Aerroh knew he was in trouble as the twins pounced on him, causing them all to tumble to the ground. Mace grabbed the tin that they were keeping the water in and the cold water hit him in the face. Aerroh flailed wildly screaming "DO NOT WANT!!!!" as they added the soap but stopped when he realized that the weren't going to stop until he was clean and were asking him what the big deal was. He caved and stayed still on the ground while they stripped him of his dirt shield. It wasn't that he didn't like baths and being wet, but he worked hard to mask his scent. He trusted the twins just like they trusted him.

"TA DA!!!" they exclaimed simultaneously as they got up from his now clean body. Aerroh stood up and looked at the twins. He sniffed his nose dramatically while staring at their smiling, smug faces. He knew the twins meant well and he was glad that they cared.

"Oh come on, Aerroh!" Mace said at his unenthusiastic expression and dramatic sniff.

"Da, now you smell better!" Merick said, smiling. Aerroh looked at the twins and smiled. The twins looked at him confused at the sudden smiling when Aerroh left. He came back after a while with a large barrel and walked over to the twins smiling.

"What is in it?" they asked together. He smiled at them.

"Your bath water!" he yelled it as he dumped half of it on them. The stood there surprised at the sudden hit of cold water. He set it down and laughed as he grabbed the soap from where the twins had left it and began scrubbing them back. If I can't be dirty, then they can't either! They laughed and helped him in giving them the bath, scrubbing the dirt from their hair and body. When they were done scrubbing, Aerroh poured the remainder of the water on them to rinse them off.

"All clean!!" he said triumphantly. The twins laughed with him about the bath time but cut into Aerroh's thought immediately.

"Don't even think about rolling in the dirt!" they said together.

"Daaaaaaaaawwwwwww!!!!!!" Aerroh groaned, letting his shoulders sag.

"... Where did you get that water any way?" Mace asked. Aerroh perked up and pointed in a general direction.

"I got it at a lake on night while you were sleeping!" he said, pleased with himself.

The twins didn’t care to go to the lake. Aerroh had clearly collected enough water to hold them off for several days (even after their bath fiasco). But the lake did make them think of the sewer, which was nearby. That was where they wanted to go.

“Hey Aerrroooohhhhh….” Mace smiled broadly, freakishly.

The sewers were where the rats assembled.

“What do you say to a little adventure?” Merick continued.

They wanted to scope out the rats.

Aerroh perked up. “Sure!! Adventure!! Where???”

“The sewers. We wanna find our rat.”

It should have occurred to Aerroh, or to the twins, for that matter, at this moment, that going to the sewers would be a bad idea. In fact, it’d be an absolutely horrid idea. But it didn’t.

“The sewerrsssss!! Wait… I think there may be monsters down there.”

“But you can see in the dark!” Merick chimed in.

“OH Yeah!”

“Grab your shovel, dog-boy. We’re going to go find Papusza!!”

And with that, the twins darted towards the eastern edge of the building, where they had an ample supply of planks and other materials necessary for make-shift bridges waiting in large supply.

Now excited by this new adventure to go on and helping his friends find their rat, Aerroh was ready to go. He grabbed his shovel up and fixed it in its weird back holster and gathered supplies before he ran after the twins. The began to assemble the planks and make their way down to the streets. Aerroh knew there would be monsters so he wanted to be ready to defend his friends. It never once crossed through his think skull that there could be horrible monsters ready to consume them all down in the sewers. It never occurred to him that they might be seriously out numbered by them. He only wanted to help find the little rat named Papusza.

"All right, let's go!" Aerroh said excitedly as they hit the streets. He began looking for their way into the sewers but sniffing and checking to make sure that they started in a relatively monster free area.

"What are you doing? Why can't we go down this hole?" Mace asked.

"We wanna start with as little monsters as possible! Papusza might have been scared by them!" Aerroh said as if it were obvious. The twins looked at each other and reasoned before agreeing.

"This is true..." Merick said. They continued their search down the streets, searching for a low monster area. Aerroh didn't want to go to far because he wasn't sure how long their supplies would last...

The streets were oddly silent. A choppy breeze whistled and blew random trash across their path. Occasionally, the wind carried a faint, unsettling howl. These they tried to ignore, and continue on their quest.

They found themselves near the river they had earlier expressed a clear lack of interest in finding. Merick and Mace nearly passed it by without a second glance, but then they stopped. The mouth of a large, metal pipe jutted out into the water, and before they could stop themselves—even to think, Merick and Mace propelled themselves down the riverbed. And, at their lead, Aerroh followed only steps behind, tripping and scrambling after them.

A small, scattered mass of the small, squeaking, fuzzy creatures scampered about the rocks and assorted trash of the river bed. Some swam aimlessly through the water. The twins began grabbing them at random, holding them up and gazing briefly into their eyes. Aerroh approached the rats apprehensively. The first one he tried to grab bit his finger, and after a yelp, he flung it into the water. The creatures had no such reaction to the twins, however, and not only went limp in their grasps, but began to huddle around Merick and Mace’s heels.

“Na… na… na…” They muttered distractedly to themselves. Appearing, at first, completely unaware of the gathering swarm at their heels. Then they looked up at Aerroh, frowning. No one said anything for a minute.

Merick glanced down, and lifted a nearby rat. Like the others, it lay passive in his hands. “She is about zis size,” he said, desperately.

“But she is a darker brown, and her fur has, eh… clumps gone—here, and here.” Mace added in, pointing to various spots of the rats abdomen.

“And her tail, iz a bit longer.”

Aerroh nodded, though he frowned when he looked at the rat that was now climbing up Merick’s bicep. They all looked completely the same to him.

“We need to go up the pipe. That’s where they come from.” Mace said. Aerroh noticed she had a rat sitting on her shoulder, as well.

“Does Papusza look like that one?” Aerroh asked her, somewhat helplessly.

“No. This one is much larger than Papusza. And it’s eyes are wider.”

“If Papusza is Harry Potter, that rat there is Dudley Dursely. But he’s going to help us.” Merick added in. Aerroh nodded, though still completely lost.

The three began heading down towards the metal pipe. The closer they got, the bigger they realized it was. Merick and Mace walked around it’s side and peered in. The pipe was easily four feet high—an absurdly and unnecessarily tall height to something that appeared to be a mere sewage pipe. Even the twins, at the height of their manic recklessness, paused at the entrance. There was no liquid flowing from the pipe; it appeared to be completely out of use.

Merick and Mace crouched nervously into the entrance. Something in their gut told them that this pipe was still serving some purpose—it was clearly an entrance, or an exit, to something. The twins blinked, trying to adjust their eyes to the awful blackness that shrouded them in a dense, thick mass. One of them glanced to the wall of the pipe, and noticed a strange, yellowish stain across it’s ribbed surface. At least, they thought it was yellow.

Aerroh clambered in after them.

“I should go first.” He said, pushing in between them. “I can see better than you—and I can tell, it’s clear for a while.”

Merick hastily clung to the back of Aerroh’s shirt, and then grabbed his sister’s wrist. His hand closed at first around her implant, and squeezing the device sent a strange electric volt through the three of them. It was like a wave of adrenaline, of electric energy. Mace groped her belt and back pockets, to double check that she still had a few of the weapons Aerroh had made them on her person. She did, and so did her brother. And without further hesitation, they began shuffling forward.

Aerroh was nervous as he lead the way down the tunnel. He had a very bad feeling about going into the sewer tunnels but his friends wanted to find their little rat and he wanted to help. He was hoping for a quick find but knew it wasn't going to be easy because they couldn't see well in the dark and he couldn't tell the difference between the rats. They were all the same to him. Now, if he had a smell to go by, that would be something! He crept forward slowly to not lose or cause the others to fall.

"This tunnel goes on for a good distance." he warned them.

"Da, I would guess that it would." Mace said. The jolt of energy that they received made Aerroh feel like his senses were jacked up. He could do everything better than he normally could, or was it the nervous tension from going into the tunnels? He didn't like it in here, not at all. Something wasn't right about it and he knew it. As they came to where the tunnel joined into a room that joined more tunnels to it, he looked around cautiously, listening and smelling for danger. The scurrying of rats echoed off of the metal walls.

"There are a lot of rats here. Maybe we'll find her and get out." Aerroh said nervously.

"Da, the sooner the better iz true." Merrick said. They entered the tunnel cautiously and began looking at the rats. Again the rats went to Merrick and Mace, just like they did out side. Aerroh examined them the best that he could but still couldn't tell. His friends weren't having any better luck than he was either.

"Do you see her, Aerroh?" Mace asked.

"No... I'm sorry," he said exasperatedly, "What does she smell like? Maybe I can smell her out?"

"Smell like?" Mace asked.

"Yeah, you know, like strawberries, or dirt. A smell to find." Aerroh explained. He couldn't tell the difference between them but a smell, now that was something to work with!

"Oh... Um... Let me think about it." Mace replied. Aerroh nodded and kept looking to the tunnels. A shiver shot up his spine as an unknown smell hit his nose. He didn't like the smell at all as it lingering there. It was far off down one of the tunnels but he didn't want to find out what it was at all.

"No, no, no," Merrick repeated over and over, "None of these are Papusza. Perhaps she is farther in?"

"Da, let's go farther in to look." Mace agreed. Aerroh nerves were on end as he considered going farther in. The strange smell of decay lingered and the odd smell was still there and getting stronger little by little.

"I don't think it's a good idea guys. There's something down here with us and it's getting closer." he whispered to them nervously.

"Me must find her though!" Mace said desperately.

"Da, can you use your nose and we avoid whatever it iz?" Merrick asked.

"Yeah, b-but we don't know anywhere down here to hide! And there could be more of them!" Aerroh said, anxious to get out of the tunnels.

"Come one, let's go farther in." Mace said and began towards the tunnel where the smell was coming from faintly. Aerroh grabbed her and made her take hold of the back of his shirt and Merrick a hold of her.

"Okay, but not that way. That's where it's coming from." Aerroh said. He began making his way down another tunnel quickly. His gut told him that it was a horrible idea. His instincts made it clear to every fiber of his body that they should leave the tunnels and abandon their search but his friends had made their decision and he wasn't going to leave them alone. He pulled his knives out as the tunnels weren't quite big enough to effectively use his shovel for the longer distance fighting. They were at a disadvantage if they were forced to fight and flee...