Characters: Skit (Gaunt) & Rose (Silv) Setting: Sewers Previous Threads: Plot Summary: Rose is chosen to take home the Biology classes' pet rat Mr. Whiskers. She promptly loses it down the sewer. An epic Benny Hill chase ensues until she finds it...mutated into a rat person? Awkward.
Rose slammed her locker shut, startling poor Mr. Squeakers in his cage, before she slung her bag over a shoulder and picked up the portable rat carrier. It was the Friday before a long weekend, which would normally mean freedom, but Rose had been shackled with a furry ball and chain in the form of their biology class' pet rat. Every long weekend some unlucky freshman or sophomore in the seventh period biology lab was picked out of a hat to take Mr. Squeakers home. It was supposed to foster responsibility or some other ridiculous notion, but Rose Wilson was of the opinion that it was just plain stupid.
It didn't take the white haired girl long to get to the dorms, but even then she wasn't sure what to do with Mr. Squeakers. She set down the rat on her desk, wasting a minute to scowl at it, before turning away to change out of her school uniform and into less restrictive clothing. As amusing as it was to see people's faces when they got their butt handed to them by a schoolgirl Rose would always prefer athletic clothing.
"Okay, Mr. Squeakers, you're going to-" the girl had turned around to talk to the rat, because it could clearly understand English and was a great conversationalist, when she realized the rat was gone. She cursed. Loudly. The first thing she studied was the cage, but it didn't seem to have been damaged. If that little bugger knew how to open it's cage, Rose turned her furious gaze to the rest of the room. She checked under all the furniture, whirling through the room with the destructive focus of a tornado, before racing out into the hallway.
A flash of a slinky tail and Rose was running for the stairwell. Mr. Squeakers was a surprisingly worthy opponent. She followed the rat until he vanished into a drain, one pale hand reaching down to follow, and catching nothing but muck and empty air. She cursed again as she whirled around, searching for a way to get at Mr. Squeakers. The drains all went into the sewers, right? Without thinking much about it, and of course not coming up with a proper plan, the white haired girl made a beeline for the nearest manhole cover.
With the weight of the metal disk it shouldn't have looked so effortless for a girl Rose's size to manage. She shoved the cover to the side, slipped down onto the ladder, and hauled it back closed again only to find herself in sudden darkness. She cursed the entire way down the ladder, landing in a splash that soaked her shoes and socks, and fumbled for her phone. It had a flashlight, and she clicked it on, momentarily blinded by the sudden rectangle of light in her field of vision.
Movement caught her attention and Rose lunged forward after it. She was trying to catch a rat tail, but what she didn't realize was that Mr. Squeakers wasn't that large.
Sewers. Why did it have to be sewers? Sure, they were a good place for sneaking, but Skit hated them. Maybe it was weird for a Nezumi to hate them, considering what rats were normally associated with, but Skit wasn't a sewer rat. He'd grown up in the wilderness, and even now he had a mostly-clean apartment. It smelled okay, at least. That was important for Skit, his sense of smell was far stronger than a human's. The stink down here really got to him. He couldn't wait to get back home and shower all the stink off.
And then came the cherry on top. Just as Skit was rounding a corner, he felt a hand grab his tail. Not a big one, but surprisingly strong. Really strong, enough to drag him back. "Hey!" Skit let out a shout as the hand dragged him back. He'd already been found out, might as well let off some steam and some righteous indignation. What better time than when someone was getting handsy?
Skit jumped back with the pull, trying to get some slack on the tail. He wanted enough to at least get a half-turn in so he could see who he was dealing with. He was surprised, to say the least. A girl, younger than him and strongly built, with long white hair. Probably a metahuman, that would explain the freakish strength and the odd hair color. Skit folded his arms, glaring down at her. "Mind letting go?" He was dressed pretty casually, beat-up old sweats and a T-shirt. He hadn't brought anything nice for this. He also hadn't brought his knives, he'd assumed he wouldn't need them. Maybe that was a mistake, in hindsight.
Rose swore in her mother's tongue loudly and stopped pulling on the tail she'd thought belonged to Mr. Whiskers when a voice shouted. Since when did rats talk? Her gaze slid up from the tail, catching a very annoyed looking giant rat, who asked her to release him. Rose dropped the tail, her almond eyes widening as she stared up at what was very much not Mr. Whiskers. Unless, of course, the pet biology rat had gone through some sort of radioactive goop down here. Crap. If any sewer system had radioactive goop, it'd be the one often traversed by the freaking Teen Titans.
Rose groaned and got to her feet eyeing the giant rat. "How am I supposed to explain this to Mr. Hall?" she complained to the new and improved Mr. Whiskers. "I have to watch you for one freaking weekend, and you go all mutant on me?" He didn't seem as tall or large when she was standing. She reached out to invade his space curiously, one calloused hand going for his fuzzy ear. "Have you always known English?" she asked. "I bet you're the best ever at biology after sitting through seven periods a day."
Skit wasn't sure what language the girl was yelling in at first, but she didn't sound happy. That was fine with Skit, he wasn't happy either. If she was annoying him, he might as well return the favor. At least she had dropped his tail, though. The girl had a surprisingly strong grip, that was probably going to be sore later. He rubbed his tail where she'd grabbed it, glaring at her.
Then she started babbling about... something. School stuff? What did that have to do with anything? Skit stared slackjawed, utterly baffled by what she was saying. "What the hell are you talking about?" What did she mean watching him? Nobody had been watching him that he knew of. Was she some kind of stalker? "Look kiddo, nobody been watching me lately. I don't know what you're on about." Skit tapped his foot, his look of confusion turning back to annoyance. Oh god, he was barefoot in a sewer. He'd need to shower for a week after this.
Rose stared back at the giant rat looking unimpressed at his protests. "Mr. Hall was wrong. Rats are idiots," the white haired girl decided out loud with a frown on her face. "You seriously don't remember winter break? Mr. Hall took you to his house so you wouldn't freeze to death or starve in the biology lab. Did turning mutant rattle your brain or something Mr. Whiskers?" she asked, invading his personal space again in an attempt to lightly rap her knuckles on his head.
This wasn't getting any less confusing. Even with his inhuman features, the baffled look on Skit's face was pretty clear. What was this kid on about? "Are you having a stroke?" As he understood it, she was rambling something about school. Skit didn't know too much about school, never having gone himself. His education mainly came from being homeschooled by a bunch of wilderness-dwelling ratfolk, so he wasn't too up on the modern education system, except what he saw on TV.
"Don't call me Mr. Whiskers." he growled. Skit had gotten used to nicknames, but he liked some better than others. Master Splinter was fine, but Mr. Whiskers sounded like the name of a cat in those Fancy Feast commercials. "My name's Skit, and I ain't a mutant." What was with this girl and mutants?
"A stroke?" Rose echoed looking equally baffled. "I'm not that old." She was pretty sure that was something old people got exclusively. Like senior moments. But the revelation that Mr. Whiskers had a first name, and that it was Skit quickly caught her imagination. Skit Whiskers. It was kind of a funny name, and the white haired girl found herself grinning.
"Well, as long as you don't tell Mr. Hall," she agreed. "I'm Rose, in case you forgot," she added. Because a rat like Mr. Whiskers had to deal with over a hundred students a day, and she couldn't assume he'd remember her, especially since it didn't seem he remembered school at all. "And you're totally a mutant. When I chased you down here you were this big!" she mimed the size of a normal rat between her hands before reconsidering it and pulling her hands farther apart. "Okay, maybe a little bigger. You're kind of fat."
He managed to get her off the rambling, but only for a second. Whatever she was babbling about, this girl was really determined to keep it up. Maybe she really was having a stroke. "Are you sure? You don't smell burning toast?" He was pretty sure that was a symptom. At least, it was on TV. Who knew how real life was?
Now she was acting like he was supposed to remember her. Skit folded his arms, glaring. "I've never seen you before in my life." That was true, she was pretty distinctive. He was sure he'd remember a white-haired burly chatterbox. He was about to interject he wasn't a mutant when she called him fat. Skit's eyes narrowed. He was from a family of infiltrators and assassins, physical fitness was highly prized. "I have never been fat." he practically growled, tail swishing in anger. She was getting on his last nerve. "And I'm not a mutant you idiot!" How was she this stubborn? He'd been around Jump for a bit now, not everyone was like this. Maybe there was something genuinely wrong with this girl. It would explain her going into a sewer and yelling at the first metahuman she saw.
"You're making toast down here?" Rose asked, her nose wrinkling because toast was not what she was smelling down here. "Groooosssss." she complained. If the toast was burnt down here that was probably the least of his worries. Or could rats eat gross toast? She'd never stopped to consider that before.
Rats obviously didn't have memories as good as Mr. Hall said they did. Or being turned mutant did a number on a creature's brain. The same way being turned into a super soldier had made her kind of psychotic. The white haired girl pursed her lips and studied Mr. Skit Whiskers thoughtfully. That was, of course, until he called her an idiot for calling him fat.
"It's the truth!" she rebuffed. "We're not supposed to but somebody sneaks you a treat at least once a period. One time Laurie Stow gave you an entire peanut butter sandwich, remember? You ate maybe a quarter of it before Mr. Hall took it away. We were all going to get extra homework as punishment so we ratted her out," Rose was grinning like a stand-up comedian who thought she was hilarious. But the reminder that she could get into trouble for not taking very good care of Mr. Whiskers made her realize that they should probably fix this soon.
"We have to go find Mr. Hall," she said. "I bet he'll know why you can't remember being a normal rat."
"No, it's a symptom of-" He sighed. There really was no point, was there? "Never mind." This girl was so dense she was distorting space around her. She was just going to ignore whatever he tried to tell her, so why bother? He'd just sandbag.
Then she started annoying him again, and Skit immediately broke that promise to himself. She just wouldn't stop going on about his alleged fatness. Finally, he'd had enough. Skit snapped. "HOW STUPID ARE YOU?" His voice echoed through the sewers. If anyone was listening, he'd lost all hope of stealth now, but he was too angry to care at the moment. Somehow, this girl just got under his skin. "I'm not your damn pet, nobody's given me treats, I've never seen you or even heard of a Mr. Hall, and I'm not mutated!" For once, Skit was mad enough to stand up to his full height. He was still short, but he cut a slightly more imposing figure now.
"But you'd know that if you could just shut your stupid mouth for two seconds! While you've been bugging me, your pet probably went and drowned in the sewage down here." It felt good to get that off his chest. That last dig probably wasn't true, even captive rats were pretty resourceful, but he wanted to say something that would hurt.
He didn't have to shout. Rose's eyes narrowed and she glowered at the rat-man with her lips pursed into a frown as the echo reverberated around them. The rat man was obviously crazy, of course he was weirdly mutated, but maybe he wasn't Mr. Whiskers. His dig that the fat little rat was probably dead had her hands tightening into white knuckled fists. "You could have just told me you were a person mutant," Rose snapped back, "of course I'm gunna mistake you for our fat class rat. You're sitting in a sewer talking about toast."
Which, she could only really imagine, seemed like a topic Mr. Whiskers would indulge in if he were given the ability to talk. "Do you have rat senses or whatever?" she asked. Because, obviously, a person who lived in a sewer had nothing better to do than help her. "I have to find Mr. Whiskers before he gets his fat butt stuck in a pipe and drowns!"
She just couldn't stop pissing him off. "I told you like six times! You were too dense to listen!" Did she really not remember all those times he'd said he wasn't a mutant? He seemed to remember saying that repeatedly throughout the conversation. And that he wasn't her pet. Then again, this girl hadn't been willing to admit when she was wrong before, why would she start now? Skit rubbed his temples, trying to stave off the impending headache. "There's lots of rats in sewers, you idiot. Not all of them are Mr. Fatso."
And now she had the gall to ask him for help. Skit just gave her a look. "I got stuff to do, and you've bothered me long enough." Skit turned his back, heading back where he'd been going before she pulled his tail. "Good luck with Mr. Whisper." He was being petty again, deliberately mangling the name, but it just felt so good to get in little digs like those. What would feel even better, though, would be a shower. Shower, and burn these clothes. That stink wasn't coming out anytime soon, not to his sensitive nose.
Rose didn't care too much that he was too stupid to remember the pet rat's name but she didn't like being treated as a simpleton. Even if she wasn't the brightest crayon in the box. Sometimes things had to be spelled out fairly clearly or she couldn't understand them. Skit not considering himself a mutant freak had certainly thrown her off. Mostly because she considered herself something of one and she at least looked like a normal human...with weird hair.
The white haired girl wasn't about to be blown off so easily. As Skit turned to leave she reached to snag his tail and pull him back towards her. "You're going to help me find Mr. Whiskers," she said decisively. "And if we don't find him, I'm going to drag your freaky butt up to Mr. Hall instead." Being threatened with a high school biology teacher was probably on the lower end of terrifying but the way Rose said it made it pretty clear she meant every word.
It had been a nuisance, but it was finally over. The brat was leaving him alone, and he could get on with his day. Skit was starting to worry he'd lose track of what he was meaning to do. This whole diversion ha taken so long, he was starting to get a little bit frazzled by it. How did one kid manage to be so annoying?
Then she managed to top herself. Just as Skit was starting to step away, she grabbed onto his tail. Again, he was surprised at how strong her grip was. Still, strong handshake or no, he wasn't planning on letting her delay him any longer. "Oh, no. Hell no. You are not roping me into this." Skit shot a back kick towards her jaw. With her holding onto his tail, she was in the perfect range for it. If he was lucky, he could just knock her out in one go and be on his way.
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Alviss: Darn doesn't show the pic
Apr 18, 2019 7:10:17 GMT -6
force: miss this place. if anyone comes back and sees this, i'm force, i was kid flash here once. you can find me on discord at rook#9485
Jan 12, 2023 13:11:35 GMT -6
The roleplay takes place after the series end of the original Teen Titans animated show, but does not include the movie Trouble in Tokyo. Since then Robin has been on something of a recruiting spree, and many new young heroes have found themselves a home in Jump City as well as Titan Tower.
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