Hellhounds: The Sewer Rat
#8 of Hellhounds
Hellhounds: The Sewer Rat
We got back to the safe house before all of Valish Quadrant was alerted of our presence. True to his word, the colonel had decided to punish Denton, Zepher and I by ordering us not to eat any of the food that Costodor and his entourage left in our fridge for us-hot dogs this time. We didn't really mind the punishment at first, up until an hour later when our bellies started grumbling, and the smell of the roasted hot dogs lingered all around the building, making our mouths water. I didn't complain, despite all the times Smart-ass baited me and Denton, exaggerating about how delicious and scrumptious the frankfurters were. I just smirked though, because Smart-ass didn't even realize that Fenrir stole three of his hot dogs behind his back, so I knew he'd be hungry in another hour too. Zepher devolved to his primal instincts and left the safe house to go look for food himself. I'm not sure what he ate, but when it was dawn, he came back with blood all over his teeth and muzzle. I could only assume he found a few squirrels or rabbits to prey on. While Zepher was busy eating animals, and Denton was trying to sleep and ignore his grumbling stomach, I crept out of bed and started to eavesdrop on Riesling's phone conversation with Costodor. He sounded pretty upset again, not like that was anything new.
"Out of every goddamn species on this planet, you want us to help out a sewer rat?!"
"He has valuable resources, Riesling, and we'd be better off having him as an ally than a foe."
"Frankie, sewer rats are very low on the food chain, even lower than just a regular old rat. Any lower and we might as well categorize them with the 'yotes or the hyena immigrants."
"So you're not going to do this because you're a speciesist?"
"I'm not a goddamn speciesist! And I didn't say that."
"Then, what are you saying?"
Riesling sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Frankie, you know how sewer rats are, what they do, and how they act. It's gonna be hard tolerating that kind of behavior."
"And yet you nicknamed one of your own mercenaries 'Smart-ass' because of his cynical and narcissistic attitude."
"You're gonna jam that in my face now, huh?"
"Riesling, if you don't want to do this mission, it's fine. There are other mercenary squadrons out there who would love-"
"Shut up. I didn't say I wouldn't do it. I just said we may encounter some 'ethnic differences' along the way."
"Then get over it. He's located a few miles from your location down in Sector Five; we left a few humvees so you mercs can drive there. Assist him in anyway you can, then contact me when the job's done."
"Roger that."
I stepped away from the door and headed into the living quarters to go watch television, knowing that the blowhard Lycan would storm into the bedrooms and shout for us to wake up. We got prepped like we always do, changing our uniforms to a gray, urban-themed camouflage, and headed out into the city.
Sector Five used to be a city just like Unstable was, but the history behind it was nowhere near as gruesome. The only reason why the city was even called Sector Five is because there were more soldiers there than actual civilians, making the place more of an ideal outpost. As far as I know, a bunch of coyotes just stormed the city overnight, and all the civilians, believing they were hostile (and after hearing of what happened in Unstable) willingly packed up their things and left. All the civilians who were still in Sector Five worked for the 'yotes, whether by tuning their guns for them, cooking them food, or just by getting on their hands and knees and kissing their footpaws. The 'yotes were extremely hostile, but only if you provoked them. Then again, I once saw 'yote shot a guy in the face because he tripped over his boots, and another gouged out a wolf's eyes just because he looked at him funny. Most of them knew who we were though, and whenever we came into the city, they never bothered us, and we never bothered them.
We parked our humvees near the sidewalk in-front of a four-way intersection and started to scope out the area, since Riesling told us that our contact was probably hiding underground.
"Who'd you say we're looking for again colonel?" asked Jakob.
"Frankie told me he's been hiding in the sewers for some time. Trust me; you guys will recognize him when you see him."
"...The sewers?" asked Denton.
It wasn't until after we heard a faint metallic clutter that we looked at the manhole cover across the street from where we parked our vehicles. We surrounded the cover on all sides and pointed our rifles at the rusty, black circle, waiting for whatever was down there to come out. Someone grunted a couple of times and swore after we heard a hollow thump, probably due to the contact bonking his head on the cover. It shook a little, opening up a few inches so the being could lift his hands through the crack, and then he grunted and slowly slid the plate across the ground, revealing his head as he started to get out. All of us groaned with disgust and took two steps back.
"Sorry guys, I forgot my perfume back at home." he joked.
The furry grunted with effort as he gradually climbed out of the manhole and stood on the sidewalk next to us, shaking off some mysterious muck that was stuck to his left foot. To our surprise, the furry Franklin ordered us to help out was a sewer rat. Unlike normal rats, sewer rats usually spend a majority of their adolescent years growing up in or around the sewers, or some other filthy environment. It isn't the sight of them that bothers furries-naked mole rats are far uglier than sewer rats-but they smell horrible. I could ramble on for days about how much they stink, but the simplest way to sum it down is that they smell like dog shit. Everytime I run into one, no matter how fat or skinny or tall or short they are, all I can smell is big, heaping pile of dog shit. They take pride in the way they smell, all the vile things they do such as defecating on the sidewalk like a feral puppy or peeing in the back of a car-intentionally, not because they can't hold it. So, naturally, once our contact got out the sewer, all I could smell was dog shit. The rat had dark black fur, a thick tail and a pudgy belly, although he wasn't as fat as Fenrir, even though his gut bulged over his waistband. His eyes were red like he hadn't been sleeping in quite a while and his teeth were jagged and yellow, although he shockingly wasn't missing any.
"Name's Dale Stollik. I'd shake your paws but mine are covered in...stuff."
Dale looked down at his hands and wiped the grime that was on them on his tattered black camouflaged pants. I was trying to wonder if he rubbed slime or geese shit on his pants, but then I stopped thinking about it, knowing the answer would disgust me either way.
"You got us working with a goddamn sewer rat?!" shouted Smart-ass.
"Out of all the creatures-"
Dale sighed exasperatedly and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've heard the same shit four thousand times now. I stink, I stink, I'm gross, I don't take showers or baths and I have bad breath-whatever. Let's get past all that, shall we? I mean, if you ignore my aromatic presence, I'm a decent guy to have on your side."
"If your stench doesn't make us pass out first!" said Smart-ass, still disgusted with our new partner.
"Eh, it could be worse. You're not an incontinent diaperfur." said Fenrir.
"Yeah, or a giant dragon flying around dropping balls of dung that could flatten a bus." said Jakob.
"Exactly hounds. There are hundreds, if not thousands of other things out there that smell worse than Stollik here, so get over it."
Smart-ass sighed. "Whatever. Just don't throw balls of shit at us."
"Deal. Now follow me."
Dale stepped back over the manhole and got on the ladder, where he slowly descended back into the sewers. We followed him without any hesitation, disregarding the foul stench of the sewers themselves. The seven of us switched on the flashlights built into our rifles and quietly followed Dale down a set of slime-ridden stairs that led us into the main sewer corridors. In the middle of the area was a river of sludge full of sewage waste and garbage. It almost sounded like an actual river, but instead of clear, blue water full of rocks and the occasional salmon, it was murky, dark green water full of cans and snails. It wasn't until we arrived at an intersection between four adjacent tunnels that we stopped walking, and Dale hopped into the center of the corridor, looking up at the storm drain providing little light for us.
"Alright, what do you want us to do Dale?" asked Riesling.
"Down these four tunnels are a few squadrons of sewer rats who are currently hiding from Lieutenant Barskan's forces. You guys remember him, don't you? That cougar who scalped a lot of his enemies in the battlefield?"
"Yeah, nasty fellow."
"Anyway, right now his cougars are busy trying to locate my allies so they can kill them all and deliver their scalps to Barskan. Don't ask me why-I don't know myself. They just stormed the sewers and started killing us before we even had a chance to defend ourselves."
"Do you know their location?"
Dale scratched his neck, losing a few hairs in the process. "Well, they told me they were hiding at the end of each tunnel, but they barricaded themselves inside the walls, so I'm not sure."
"Then how do we find 'em? We can't blow a hole in the wall without the risk of killing them too."
"Shouldn't be too hard. We sewer rats are accustomed to the smell of hydrogen-sulfide and methanethiol."
We stared at Dale much longer than we wanted, speechless. All of us wanted to say something, anything to get rid of the awkward silence, but nothing was heard except for the water dripping from the ceiling, and the sewage waste slithering its way down to the lake it was going to be dumped into. But as always, Smart-ass had the biggest mouth in the group, and he broke the silence for us.
"What the hell, I'll just ask it: you want us to pass gas?"
"That's right."
All of us couldn't decide whether or not we should roll around and start laughing hysterically, or if we should break Dale's nose for even thinking about an idea so asinine. Out of all the wild and ridiculous situations I had been put through, now I had to fart in order to find a bunch of rats hiding in the wall? I shook my head and smiled, stifling a laugh.
"What the fuck's so funny?" asked Dale, expecting me to do anything but laugh.
"Nothing." I lied.
But Smart-ass said it for me. "What kind of fucked-up logic is that?! You want us to kill a bunch of cougars and then, what, fart near the walls until your friends magically come out? This is exactly why I can't stand sewer rats!"
"I wanna make a joke about this but it's already funny as is." said Fenrir.
"You assholes seriously think I'm joking here, don't you?!" shouted Dale.
Like always, Zepher remained quiet. No laughing or snickering, no change in his facial expressions. All he did was blink and lift up his right boot, looking down at the bottom of it when he noticed he stepped in something. The colonel looked angry, but he didn't know why, because despite how much of an asshole Smart-ass was, he made a very good point. Jakob didn't seem to care, and Denton was struggling to understand Dale's logic, scratching his scalp so hard he thought his brain would turn on like a light bulb.
"I just said we are accustomed to the scent of hydrogen-sulfide and methanethiol-"
"This entire sewer is filled with those gases! How are they gonna be able to know the difference between flatulence and sewage waste?!" shouted Smart-ass.
"Good point, but then again, these tunnels are very spacious, meaning the noise will vibrate off the walls and echo, so they'll be able to hear it as well if they can't tell the difference between the stenches."
"He's got ya there Smart-ass." said Fenrir.
Smart-ass began to rub his head. "How do we know Barskan's troops aren't doing the same thing?"
"Because they don't know how we sewer rats interact with each other."
"Do you really expect us to-?"
"Unless you guys have a trumpet or a bottle of hydrogen-sulfide and methanethiol that you can spray through a nozzle, you don't have much of a choice here."
"He's right hounds. It's not like he's asking us to streak through city hall, so suck it up and let's do this! The faster it's done with, the quicker we'll get paid."
"Good. Start by taking the southwest tunnels; most of the rats said they were hold up there. I'm gonna head back and see if there are any other rats I can find."
And with that, Dale ran through the tunnel we just came out of, leaving us to fulfill his seemingly asinine orders. We started to head down the southwest tunnel, traversing through the murky water with our flashlights on their highest settings. The rest of us calmed down after realizing what we had to do, but Smart-ass wouldn't shut up, and was rambling the entire way.
"Fucking sewer rats! All they care about is piss and shit and whose finger to pull and whose ass to sniff and whose flatulence can make flowers wilt! I swear, these fucking rats get on my goddamn nerves so much! They're like those yenas, marking their territory with their shit, like it's some fuckin' pride thing or something, never taking showers or even considering using a cotton swab to clean all the sludge from their ears!"
"You know you're wrong about that, Smart-ass."
"Am I?! You look me in the eye, Denton, and tell me that those sewer rats and those stinking yenas aren't the same!"
"No, I mean, there's no such thing as cotton swabs. I think you're referring to Q-tips."
I closed me eyes. "Shut the fuck up Denton."
"What? You guys don't seriously think cotton swabs exist do you?"
"We'll just call you Dumb-ass from now on, okay Denton?" said Riesling.
"WHY?!" he whined.
I really wanted to shoot myself in the head. Besides Denton's low I.Q., I was forced to trudge through the sewers full of hostiles with a bunch of highly trained mercenaries-all of whom were over 20-who were arguing back and forth like cubs, over a fucking cotton swab. I honestly had no idea how we managed to survive in the battlefield for so long; we were a dysfunctional family of Lycans with guns and knives in our paws, nothing more. I began to understand why the colonel disciplined us so much.
"What do you think will be our next mission with this guy Riesling? Oh! Maybe we have to soil ourselves so we can draw away the-"
Smart-ass screamed when two of Barskan's soldiers began to fire at him. Fenrir and I promptly aimed our rifles forward and spotted the gray cougars in uniform up ahead. We quickly gunned them down before they could return fire.
"CONTACT!" shouted another cougar.
Even with our flashlights, it was a bit hard to see in the sewers. At best, the only source of light we had were the muzzle flashes coming from the cougars' rifles and laser coming from their red-dot scopes. I shouted something at Jakob, but my voice was muted by the hellacious gunfire, and I wound up diving forwards and landing in the river of sludge. Thinking back on it, that probably wasn't the smartest thing to do; I'm just glad I kept my mouth shut still the sewer is littered with garbage and E. coli. There were only six soldiers in the squadron-two of whom Fenrir and I killed, so we didn't have much to worry about except for the fact we couldn't see very well. Lucky for us, the cougars had their red-dot scopes on, and it was easy for us to figure out where the light originated from and to avoid being shot. I don't know how Jakob did it, but he looked through his sniper rifle, waited patiently for a cougar to come out into the open, and shot him in the throat on his first try. None of us saw him fall down, but we could hear the loud, gurgling sound he was making as he choked on his own blood. I stood up out of the sewage waste and pointed the gun down the tunnel, panting heavily as the remaining three cougars hid behind a wall at the end of the corridor. One of them cautiously peered around the corner, and I managed to shoot him in the face after spotting him with the flashlight. He shouted and stumbled out of his covering area, exposing himself long enough for Zepher to shoot him in the midriff several times.
"We're running out of men! Get Barskan on the line now and call for backup!"
Zepher, trying to be a macho badass, or trying to quench his bloodthirsty rage, switched from his M4 to his pistol and combat knife, sprinting towards the end of the tunnel so he could take out the remaining soldiers by himself. One cougar peered behind the right side of the wall, only to have his throat slit wide open by Zepher when he ran past him. The last soldier swore loudly and aimed at Zepher, but he dove to his side, shooting the last soldier a couple of times erratically. He wasn't sure where he hit him, but the wounds were obviously fatal, as the cougar groaned loudly and tumbled forwards like a felled tree.
"Clear!" shouted Zepher, standing up and shaking some of the sludge off his clothes.
The rest of us walked down the tunnel and shined our lights all around the area, looking for any signs of Dale's allies or any other enemy patrols. But the place was a dead end.
"Okay, now Dale said they should be able to hear us if we break wind. Any of you hounds been gassy lately?" asked Riesling.
"I'd like to clarify that I still find this whole situation cockamamie." said Smart-ass.
"I missed breakfast, remember?" I said.
"Colonel, couldn't we just shout out their names or tell them that we know who Dale is and that we're associates of his?" asked Jakob.
"No, they may think we're the enemy disguising ourselves as Dale's friends. You know how these sewer rats-"
Zepher got tired of us constantly bickering and answered the question himself. He grunted and bent over a little, raising his tail high as he gritted his teeth and made two fists, before letting out a lengthy gust of wind from his bowels. It was one of those long, loud farts you couldn't ignore no matter how hard you tried to, and you had to decide whether you should roll on the floor and laugh wildly, or go get a can of air freshener. And if that wasn't enough, his flatulence echoed throughout the sewers, so the noise nearly made us deaf. The only bright side I could think of was that the stench of the sewage waste covered the smell of his gas.
"Jesus! Little warning next time Zepher?!"
He didn't say anything, and leaned against the wall, waiting for the rats to show themselves. With a fart of that magnitude, it only took them seven seconds to come out of their hiding area, and we witnessed one of the rats bash down several bricks from the left wall. Several scruffy, wet sewer rats came out of the wall they broke down and stood in front of us.
"You...you guys are the-the reinforcements Dale promised us, right?"
"Yeah. You can thank Farty over there for signaling you guys to come out." said Smart-ass, pointing at Zepher.
"Thank you! Thank you so much kind sir!" said the rat, shaking Zepher's right paw vehemently.
The eight rats sprinted down the tunnel and disappeared into the darkness, quickly making their way to the exit.
"Well, one down, three to go."
Smart-ass sighed. "Good. The sooner this is done with, the sooner we can get out of this place."
We jogged our way back to the intersection of all four tunnels and examined the area, making sure there were no reinforcements nearby. Then Riesling gestured for us to head up the northwest tunnel, and we started trudging through the muck again. Smart-ass decided to keep his mouth shut after the near-death experience, so I finally had a brief amount of piece and quiet to myself. I embraced the sound of the calming sewage waste as it flowed down the tunnel, almost like it was a babbling brook. I know it's not the best environment to be in, with all the rats and snails and filth and the odor, but when you spend a decade in the military-seven years of which you spend with a dysfunctional posse of werewolves-any sound that doesn't involve explosions or ricocheting bullets can seem soothing to you. But my moment of peace was interrupted when I heard a loud splash up ahead. Instinctively, I grabbed Denton's shirt and yanked him backwards before diving sideways and taking cover from the grenade explosion. We went deaf temporarily, unable to hear anything but a high-pitched ringing, similar to what a flashbang does, but without blinding you. It took us a couple of seconds before we got back up and saw the notorious muzzle flashes up ahead. Like the last squadron, none of the cougars were very bright, and used the red-dot scopes, which made them easy for us to spot. Smart-ass erratically shot at the cougars, giving Riesling and Fenrir covering fire as they sprinted towards the end of the tunnel without the cougars knowing. One of them emerged from the right wall and was immediately shot in the face by Fenrir. Another one, who blindly stepped out into the center of the tunnel, was shot down by the colonel. Smart-ass and Riesling hid inside a large crevice in the walls, taking cover as the cougars returned fire, while Jakob zoomed in through his scope until he saw a dark figure that one of the lasers was emerging from. He fired and heard a loud shout from up above, witnessing the laser spontaneously shake a little, as though one of the cougars was hit and stumbled backwards. He fired again, and this time the laser suddenly jerked and clattered to the floor; the cougar who got hit must've dropped his rifle.
"COVER ME!" I shouted.
Denton and Zepher erratically fired at the end of the tunnel (making sure they didn't hit me in the back) and the last three felines hid as I ran forward, alongside Fenrir. We were only two feet away from the end, and Fenrir decided to take out his shotgun to make things a bit messy. We waited patiently for the cougars to come out of their hiding spots, panting softly as we shined our flashlights forwards. Unfortunately, they could see the beam emerging from our rifles and knew that we'd gun them down the second it shined on them. So I turned to Fenrir and nodded, and we both turned to the side very slowly, pretending like we were about to head back. Then we jerked back around and saw two cougars come out of their hiding spots, attempting to shoot us in the back. I shot the soldier on the left side four times in the stomach and Fenrir blasted one of the cougars in the side. He wasn't close enough to the hostile, so the blast merely wounded him, shredding his right kidney and part of his flesh. But Fenrir ran forward and fired off another shell, this time hitting the cougar straight in the ribs. The last cougar peered behind the wall too little too late, and I saw his face before he hid again. I rushed down the tunnel and pointed my M4 to the left, riddling the last soldier with bullets.
"Clear!" shouted Fenrir.
The other five joined us at the end of the tunnel and looked at the walls, knowing the rats were hiding in there somewhere.
"Alright, you're up Fenrir." said Riesling.
Fenrir sighed. "Oh, sure, just because I'm the fat guy means my belly's full of nothing but gas?"
"Basically."
"Denton farts in his sleep more than I do! Shouldn't he the one who-?"
Zepher, losing his patience again, walked over to Fenrir and punched him...strike that, he jammed half his arm into Fenrir's distended belly. The werewolf gagged loudly and bent over, accidentally passing gas in the process. It wasn't as long as Zepher's fart, but it was loud and squishy, enough to make the rats come out of hiding. Zepher removed his arm and we watched as Fenrir fell to his knees, coughing loudly as he held his stomach, unable to get any words out of his mouth. But Zepher's plan worked out perfectly, and we saw someone punch down the right wall with their large fist. Out popped a very, very tall sewer rat with a gut bigger than Fenrir's, and three shorter rats came out behind him. From what I could tell the rat was an overweight father who hid his three teenage pups from harm. We looked up at him and stepped out of his way as he walked down the tunnel, his large feet thudding with each step he took. He didn't say "Thank you" to us, but instead, lifted his tail and broke wind, letting out a strong, low-toned rumbling noise that almost shook the tunnel. It was obviously his way of thanking us, but we didn't take a liking to the smell.
"You see? You see why I hate these goddamn sewer rats?" said Smart-ass, his nose plugged.
We were halfway there, but knew that after the first two firefights, and the fart that that giant rat let out, the other cougars had been alerted. They knew that there was an intruder in the sewer somewhere, and that they were there to halt their search and destroy mission. As we arrived at the intersection underneath the storm drain, we looked inside the northeast tunnel and saw some of the red lasers coming our way. Barskan's forces put their mission on hold and decided to deal with the intruders first. They were coming right for us.
"Jakob, you, Smart-ass and Fenrir stay here and cover us while we go down the southeast tunnel."
"Yes, sir!"
Riesling, Denton, Zepher and I headed down the southeast tunnel, ready to engage the enemy forces once we saw their lasers. Only, this time, there were no lasers. The tunnel up ahead was completely dark short of anything not in the flashlight's vision, and we didn't see any muzzle flashes. It was like the tunnel was deserted.
"Colonel, are you sure we're going the right way?"
"Yes."
"But how do you know-?"
"The one thing you hounds should know by now is what a cat smells like, and this whole tunnel reeks of cougars."
"Sure your age isn't deteriorating your olfaction?"
If Smart-ass was with us, I'm sure he would've made a comment saying how proud he was that Denton even knew what those words meant, let alone used them correctly in a sentence. Riesling snarled as he looked back at Denton, but before he had the chance to yell at him and give another trite remark about how he wasn't old, a cougar ran past him, nearly slashing him in the throat. He quickly ducked before the feline nicked him, and then he disappeared into the darkness. Denton heard a loud hiss behind him, as though a snake was sprinting towards him, before he shouted and held his arm.
"FUCK!" He shouted.
Denton inhaled sharply and looked at his left arm. Someone had cut through his triceps. Another cougar, who appeared out of nowhere like the previous two, tried to attack Zepher. He back-elbowed him in the face without even looking, before twisting his body around and shooting the cougar at least seven times. My instincts kicked in again and I knew I was next. One of the cougars jumped on my back and clung onto me like a koala bear, and I shouted and nearly fell forwards, having trouble keeping my balance. The cougar yelled ferociously and I managed to catch a glimpse of the KA-BAR knife he was trying to stab me in the chest with. I quickly grabbed his wrist, broke it with my paws, and flipped the cougar over myself. Before he had the chance to get back up, I took out my handgun and shot him in the face twice. I knew what the cougars were up to, and put my handgun back in its holster before shining my flashlight at the other three Hellhounds. One of them tried to attack Denton again, but I put a few rounds into his chest and torso, watching as his body slouched over and landed in the sewage waste with a splash. Riesling turned around after hearing a few faint footsteps and roundhouse kicked a cougar in his jaw, dislocating it and sending his body spiraling towards the ground. He pointed his rifle at him and shot him a few times, making sure he didn't get back up. The fours of us started to cover each other, wildly aiming our rifles in all directions in order to determine when the next cougar would strike. Zepher was only a second away from being struck, but he head-butted the feline charging towards him and then snarled as he gave him a mighty bear-hug and bit down into his neck. While he was busy ripping out part of the hostile's flesh, I shouted for Denton to duck and shined my flashlight behind him, blinding the assailant who was about to stab him. I used the last three bullets in my magazine to shoot him in the leg and stomach, before dropping the magazine and reloading. All of us started panting loudly, and we checked to see if we were all okay.
"You pups still breathing?"
"Yeah, just as long as this won't get infected." said Denton, looking at the gash on his arm.
"We'll patch it up when we get back to the safe house."
The four of us traversed down the tunnel very calmly, arriving at the dead-end without anymore hostile resistance. We knew what had to be done in order to find the rats, but this time, Riesling decided to go. He stood in the middle of the dead-end and turned sideways, pointing his posterior at the left wall before leaning over to the side, hiking up his leg like any common male would do. Then he grunted and broke wind for a couple of seconds. There was no smell as far as I could tell, but the trumpeting sound bounced off the walls, echoing throughout the entire tunnel like Zepher's did. It was strange though; whenever Colonel passed gas, he was always so nonchalant about it. He actually farted when he was at a meeting with several high-ranking military officials, and he just continued talking, acting like nothing happened. He put his leg down and waited a few seconds just before the bricks on the left side of the wall began the crumble. When the wall was broken, five rats came out. The leader of the pack, a bulky fellow who looked like he was on steroids, was the one who thanked us.
"Thanks guys. Those assholes should be lucky-if I had been out there helping you guys I would've ripped their spines right out through their mouths!"
The colonel backed away, revolted by the smell of his breath. "So why didn't you?"
"Well, ya know, I was back here protectin' the little guys, and, you know...injecting testosterone into my chest..." he said quietly.
"What?" I asked.
"Nothin'! Thanks again!" he said, jogging down the tunnel with the four rats trailing behind him.
"Huh...had no idea these rats abused steroids."
As we headed back to the rendezvous point, we started to hear gunfire and knew that the cougars from the last tunnel had finally spotted us. I briefly caught a glimpse of Jakob looking through his scope and firing off a shot, subsequently hitting his target in the forehead. Once we were finally back, one of the felines threw a grenade at us, and I hastily kicked it back at them before it exploded. It landed right in front of the cougars' feet, and the explosion wound up killing another two of them. It was only seven against three now; no chance that any of the cougars would be able to survive the aftermath. But we knew they had to try, as any noble soldier would do. One of the hostiles almost hit me and Zepher in the stomach, but their accuracy was off, and both of us wound up shooting him in the midriff multiple times. Another cougar-armed with a shotgun-tried to rush the group in attempt to blast us all to smithereens. Fenrir rolled out of his way, cocked his shotgun, and hit the cougar in the chest before he had the chance to get off another shot. Riesling locked on to the sole survivor of the pack and fired off a few rounds from his ACR, hitting the cougar a few times in his chest and puncturing his lungs and heart. Once the final hostile fell, we all sighed with relief; although we kept our guards up, knowing that a trap could be sprung at any moment.
"All targets are down, sir." said Fenrir.
"You, Smart-ass and Jakob stay here, hold down the fort in case Barskan's troops surprise us."
The three werewolves nodded, and we headed up the northeast tunnel, trudging through the vile sludge until we reached the dead-end. I was still fixating on my empty stomach, and the colonel and Zepher already let out their gas bubbles, so it was Denton's turn.
"All right, let's do this." he said, stepping next to the walls.
The werewolf bent over and aimed his read-end at the right wall before he lifted his tail up and started grunting. However, after seven seconds, he stopped and exhaled, panting as he tried to build up all the flatulence in his system. Another seven seconds went by, and still, nothing happened. Denton was about to give up, until he heard his stomach gurgling loudly and felt something swarming its way towards his anus. He raised his tail again and grunted before finally passing gas. It wasn't loud at all, but rather squishy and disgusting. There was no real way to describe how it sounded except by saying that we thought Denton had the trots and he just accidentally shat himself. After he let out the wet, five-second fart, he exhaled loudly and waved a paw behind his buttocks, fanning the smell all around the area.
"I think you should change your pants when we get back to the safe house." I joked.
"SHUT UP!"
I chuckled, shortly before the right wall came crashing down, and out stepped a sewer rat with scruffy brown fur instead of black. He looked a lot like Dale, but thinner, and with a bigger nose. He started sniffing the air vigorously, desperate to seek out the source of the stench that drew him and the other four rats from hiding. He approached Denton and started to violate his personal space once he began to sniff his posterior, practically shoving his nose into the seat of his pants.
HEY! Only dogs can do that-back up!" he said, brushing the rat away.
"Sorry, sorry, just needed to make sure the smell originated from one of you and that it wasn't a trap. You guys must be the reinforcements that Dale promised us?"
"In the flesh." said Riesling.
"Good, that's good! Thank you very much for saving us."
"It's no trouble."
The five sewer rats began to head for the sewer exit, and we began to relax once we headed back to the intersection and regrouped with the rest of the squad.
"All right, we're done here hounds. Let's get back to the surface and inform Dale that all his comrades are safe."
"Good. I dunno about you guys, but I think the smell of this place it getting to me. And if I didn't know any better, I'd say Denton shat himself back there!" said Jakob.
"I DID NOT!" he protested.
"Look on the bright side guys; at least it's better than smelling Uranus." joked Fenrir.
"Please, for the love of God, do NOT tell me you just made a joke about a gas planet in the Solar System!" shouted Smart-ass in frustration.
"...Okay, I won't."
We spent the next couple of minutes heading towards the ladder that led us back to the streets of Sector Five. Once we got back to the surface, we shook off some of the slime and dark green sludge that got on our uniforms and spotted Dale leaning against a wall in an alleyway.
"All your comrades are safe, Stollik." said Riesling as we approached the rodent.
"That's good news! I'll be sure to send a word out to your superiors. By the way, I don't suppose you guys need anymore, y'know, cash on the side?"
"Meaning?"
"There are certain individuals I know of who, quite frankly, would be better off laying under six feet of dirt. If you guys are ever looking for some extra cash and have some spare time on your paws, maybe you can contact me and I'll have some work for you."
Dale dug into his pockets and pulled out a ripped and stained piece of paper with dirt and his phone number on it before handing it over to Riesling. The colonel looked at the piece of paper and scratched his chin.
"What makes you think we'll work with a sewer rat such as yourself?"
"Because you're all mercenaries. You live for money and nothing else." he said with a toothy grin.
Riesling looked at the sheet of paper again before grumbling and snatching it out of Dale's hand.