A strange black ball with four legs was walking around in the sewers.

Had you said this to any inhabitant of Zalcien, they would have shrugged before going with their day. Had you told this to James a few days ago, he would have assumed you were joking or needed some relaxation, maybe even medication. To think that now he WAS the weird ball with tentacles.

Yes, it had already been a day or so since his encounter with The Marked. Despite not knowing the name of the creature and never having heard any of the stories surrounding it, he had no trouble guessing it was probably the local apex predator - understandably so, there weren't that many things more dangerous than a bus-sized crocodile in the sewers, at least he hoped.

During that time, James realized he hadn't felt the need to sleep - whether this meant he was simply more endurant now or that he straight would never need to sleep anymore was yet to be seen. He had been spared from hunger too - something he was very thankful for due to being stuck in the sewers.

Technically he could simply walk on the wall - something he had realized he could do by making his feet stickier - and simply go out via the first sewer inlet he could find but he couldn't help but fear what he would find on the other side - humans that would see him as a monster or monsters that would see him as a pest? Both could very well mean his doom.

Besides, he didn't feel comfortable leaving the sewers without a better understanding of what he was now. What if his body acted like acid on organic materials? What if it messed with his instincts somehow? What if he needed to run or hide? He definitely had to get a hold of himself before attempting any surface delving.

Through experiments on his shapeshifting powers he had perfected his quadrupedal form - he had even nicknamed it "Skitter". Now he had actual legs instead of tentacles, the top part was still jelly-like to allow for more ease of movement but the bottom part grew more and more solid as it went on and ended in a little bone-hard spike, perfect to avoid slipping in wet environments - like, say, sewers.

In the same train of thought James had decided to put a little "core" in his body, a solid ball the size of an apple - which he thought was fitting for a football-sized body - that acted as a skull and a ribcage all at once - it served no actual protective purpose but instead helped him stay balanced.

He sadly hadn't had the time to mess around more with his gas idea. Experimenting with such a major change in the state of his body would need him to stay still for a while and, as his crocodile encounter had proven, the sewers weren't safe, and doing nothing for a long period of time was probably just asking to get attacked by something.

He was currently looking out for a place to call his home, at least until he learned as much as possible about his new body. Who knows, maybe he would find out HOW he turned into this. Sure, now that he had had time to clear his thoughts away from how weird everything around him was now he remembered what happened. He remembered the pizzeria, the beggar, the mugger-

The pain of being stabbed, the feeling of the cold metal inside his flesh, his blood slowly drowning him-

Stay calm, it's over. It's over. It's okay now.

Unsurprisingly death was a little... Traumatic. James was pretty sure he would need some kind of therapy at some point but hey, that was a problem for another day. Procrastination was probably the best coping mechanism he would find down there in the sewers.

It wasn't the first time he had done this song and dance, although his initial screaming session had helped him release some existential angst it simply slowly slithered back in his head when he was alone with his thoughts, free from all distractions, forced to confront reality, that his family-

James heard squeaking in the distance.

So far, apart from his encounter with The Marked and its prey, the only living things he had seen in the tunnels were just cockroaches, admittedly very big ones that were easily the size of rodents but still, simply cockroaches. They hadn't been aggressive and even avoided him whenever he passed by. The only time one of them had been bold and tried to approach him, another one pulled it back towards the group.

Therefore, hearing what appeared to be rats or mice nearby would be a nice change of pace. Sure, maybe they would be aggressive or infected by something but honestly, at this point, James just wanted to see something other than seemingly infinite sewers tunnels, dirty water and the occasional cockroach nest.

Still, he wasn't going to run blindly towards these rats - it would be stupid. If random videos online had taught him anything it was that sewer rats were NOT to be underestimated and could take down things much bigger than themselves, and judging by the fact there was a full-blown bus-sized crocodile around it wouldn't be uncalled for to think the local rats could also be a bit more... Extreme than normal.

As he approached the source of the noise, James noticed it didn't come from the main tunnel - in which he had stayed so far - but rather a much smaller one on the side, barely noticeable. As he approached it, he noticed it was barely wider than his shoulders used to be - even as he was now he felt cramped due to the width of his Skitter form, mostly thanks to how spread his legs had to be to maneuver correctly.

Giant rats are probably out of the picture then, though really big ones are still on the list.

James entered the tunnel, the further he went in the more it felt like he was in a completely different place than the sewers: grey, dry and cracking bricks instead of the wet yellowish-green ones, a low flat ceiling as opposed to the high curved one in the main tunnel and, finally, absolutely no water. Even the smell of waste had been replaced by simply dry air.

It didn't take long for James to find his way to the rats' nest, it was a simple hole in the wall, a place where the bricks had been slowly dug through until they started to fall. The sound of squeaking intensified as he got closer and closer and it was only now that James realized he definitely wouldn't have been able to hear the rats' screams from the tunnels had he still been in his human body.

James peeked inside the hole from the side, forming a small tentacle and letting it slither in from the wall, and saw something he definitely hadn't expected.

It appeared that a small family of rats lived here, a mother, her five children - old enough to have fur and opened eyes but still clearly too young to survive on their own - and a father, currently a corpse impaled on the leg of a mechanical spider. THAT was the unexpected part.

Its silvery body was a bit smaller than James' black one and it had yet to notice him, its singular glowing red eye currently focused on the baby rats and their mother who was currently screeching at the robot, something that was clearly ineffective considering the fact that she was already covered in wounds and bleeding profusely.

Now, James understood that it was partially a human's prey instincts that encouraged them to empathize with prey rather than predators in hunting scenarios. As a kid he had once chased away his own cat from a mouse it was playing with, for example. Overall, people only cheered for the hunter when it was a mammal whereas its prey was not. They were exceptions, of course, such as snake keepers, but most of the time humans sided with the prey.

But James wasn't human now. He dreaded the idea but it was undeniable. And, considering how easily he had messed around with shapeshifting, his new body came with new instincts. And, considering the fact this clearly wasn't the best day of his life, he probably wouldn't have been in the mood to save some sewers rats from a feral or abandoned cat.

But this? This was unnatural. This wasn't another example of the food chain. This was a machine specifically designed to kill and it had been sent to hunt down rats in the sewers, rats that lived in a hole in the middle of nowhere. This was unfair. This was unfair. This was unfair-

James pounced on the spider, taking it by surprise. The rats' nest was too small for it to maneuver to the best of its abilities and it was currently having trouble turning around. James, meanwhile, wrapped himself around the thing's limbs, further incapacitating it, and began to stab it repeatedly in-between the plates of its cold mechanical body with the hardened tips of his legs.

The spider began to screech - what use a robotic spider could have for emitting sounds James had no idea - and thrash around, trying to throw James off of it. Unfortunately for it, James had partially liquified his body around it, pouring himself in the gaps he wasn't currently stabbing before solidifying again inside of them, effectively gluing himself to his mechanical opponent with no chance of escape and limiting its movements even further while he was at it.

At that point, the robot couldn't even move anymore. Sure, it was still active and functional and as damaged as you would expect a car to be after stabbing it with a chicken bone, but it clearly had no way to deal with something like James. Its singular eye tried to turn around and examine the current threat, glowing with programmed rage, and thus accidentally gave James an idea on how to "easily" break that thing.

He put more of his liquified self on the spider's "head" - or at least the movable part surrounding the eye that was currently trying to turn around - and poured it in the gap that allowed this very movement before solidifying it again, making it as hard as steel, and just "pulled" upwards, effectively decapitating the robot. Its legs went into a frenzy for a second or two before suddenly going limp. A few sparks flew off here and there but, overall, it seemed the mechanical menace was now out of service.

James had to take a few seconds to calm down. He wasn't actually pumped full of adrenaline or even remotely exhausted but his mind... He needed a break. When his head was clear enough to focus, he looked around the nest and analyzed the situation. The rat father was dead, probably had been before James even came inside, the babies were shaken but healthy, and the mother...

She didn't have much more time to live. In fact, he could already sense her slowly cooling down. The babies were currently nudging their mother, trying to help her as best as they could, forming a living blanket to keep her warm. Alas, warmth couldn't heal several lethal wounds or replace vast quantities of blood.

Leaving the rats to their mourning, James studied the mechanical spider. He had absolutely no knowledge of electronics or robotics, so he didn't learn much, but the design of the robot's body and the way the different pieces worked together gave him a few ideas for future upgrades of his Skitter form, at least if he could find a way to stay hard for long periods. He found out why it had been hunting rats: in the thing's abdomen, instead of web-weaving organs, it had a storage compartment filled with bodies of rats, mice, and even a few cockroaches.

As he pondered about the possible uses that the bodies of pests could have, James felt something furry rub against his leg. As he zoned back in, he saw that the rat babies were still mourning their mother except for one. The runt of the litter was banging its head on his leg, James wasn't sure if it was trying to scare him away or thank him for killing the spider. He... Really didn't know how to feel about that.

There was no need for him to involve himself any further. Destroying the robot and saving these baby rats was already really nice of him, he had no obligation or reason to help them any further. Still, babies without adult supervision would quickly die. Why save them if it's just to let them die afterward, right?

They reminded James of himself, in a way. Everything they had ever known had been torn away from them forever in such an unfair way. Unable to fight back, not even a chance to escape. Just a sudden attack with no warning. Like his death.

Slowly, James took a dead cockroach out of the spider's compartment, morphing one of his tentacles' tip into a rudimentary hand, and put it next to the rats. They ignored it at first, even the runt preferred to keep hitting James' leg with his head rather than eat, but as the minutes and, ultimately, hours passed, they eventually began to nibble at the cockroach before taking larger bites.

James watched over them, training his shifting speed by creating a tentacle and changing what type of tip it had all the while. When he thought about it, this hole could make a decent place to hide, at least for now. He could expand it a bit by digging, he could always improvise a shovel - maybe even a drill if he trained hard enough - after all.

Yes, he could turn this place into a nice home away from home, the best there would ever be down here in the sewers. If he could watch over the growth of five rats and provide some basic education at the same time, why shouldn't he?

And so, as a ball of darkness with legs watched over five recently orphaned rats eating a dead cockroach, two individuals in a dark basement discussed.

"Ah, we have a missing small Collector unit."

"Where was it?"

"Its last transmitted location was in the sewers under the slums."

"Bah, don't bother. It's probably alligator chew by now. Honestly, why bother sending there? There's The Marked, those giant catfish, The Blind and don't get me started on The Horror."

"We're paid to obey, not complain or question the boss. So, what do I say in the report?"

"Like I said : the slums' sewers are NOT a place for the Collectors. Tell them The Marked is the most likely cause of destruction, that thing hates the boss."

James would stay hidden, unknown to all, once more. For now.