So, Peter "City Rat" Johnson had escaped. Joseph felt sick, he remembered having to deal with him a couple of years back. He let his anger subside before looking further at the cell.  He remembered the blood, how the families could barely recognize the faces of those that the scum had....Nothing gave Spasm more satisfaction than putting such vermin behind bars (No pun intended). This time though, he would ensure the City Rat got his just desserts. 

He was here, in the prison where Johnson had been held-the solid bars of iron had been chewed through, not clean breaks mind. "Seems as though he'd been gnawing on them for a couple of weeks" he said, as if that would be of any comfort. The Sergeant had said something about a bloke with cat ears..nothing surprised him any more.
 "You  can't do this alone Spasm" he had said, and Spasm had  grudgingly agreed.

Looking at the dusty cell, and the general detritus, he could find very little. The smell was raw,  unbearable, though that might have been the half-skeletal corpse of the hapless guard that had been guarding the prisoner.

"Someone with a better nose than I will have to help me with this" he mumbled. He turned towards  the other police officers at the scene, who grimaced back at him. "Is my partner in this investigation going to show up any time soon?" he inquired, exasperated. "Oh and please, take this corpse to autopsy".

“Really?” Officer Swartz said again. Because it needed to be said. “What happened to their bloodhound mutant? She's got ten times the schnoz of my Rott.”

“They don't have a bloodhound mutant. And if they didn't, she wouldn't be back undercover, and you shouldn't shut up.” Nyugen, ever the sympathetic sergeant, leaned back in his chair. It creaked. “Don't worry, we'll save some protestors for you. Get your game ears on, Swartz, and get out of here.”

“One of these days, Nyugen, there's going to be an HR complaint with your name on it.”

The sergeant crossed his hands over his belly. “If you wanted to be treated like a human, you'd have signed up for the MRC's swaddling, Swartz. Now scat.”

Calley flicked a black cat ear, and scatted.

The crime scene techs were just getting done as he came in, filing out with their cameras and sample bags. Good: no need to tip toe around the scene, then.

First impressions: the rat was messy, whoever had let the guy gnaw through steel over the course of weeks was legally blind, and the detective in charge was having no luck finding the stick up his posterior. You could tell by the way he was giving orders that the techies would give in their own good time, and hiding his discomfort with gruff impatience.

“Your partner reporting, Sir.” A smart salute always helped to grease the wheels. If his tail was twitching a snarky beat behind him, well, mentioning that would be discriminating against his special snowflake powers. A MRC detective wouldn't allow that, now would he? Calley offered a hand, keeping his claws to a minimum. “Caleb Swartz. 24th Precinct's designated rat catcher. Pleasure to meet you.”

His smile was, in a word, catty.

The techies had now bagged the corpse, Spasm would have to look at that later in the autopsy, after identification of course. Not that it would tell him much about anything, as he already knew who the perpetrator was. He could still smell the blood-the metallic taste doesn't fade that quickly-but it wasn't as bad.

Then, a rather furry looking fellow, tail and all-walked towards Spasm and did a rather unnecessary salute, still who was he to object?"Your partner reporting, Sir". Again with the acting like he was higher rank? Bizarre. The tail beat from his experience with cats was hardly flattering either . "Caleb Swarz, 24th Precints designated rat catcher. Pleased to meet you", offering a hand and smiling in a fashion that made Spasm...uncomfortable. He responded to the hand first, shaking it in a friendly manner.

Then he spoke."A pleasure, Joseph Linely, MRC Division. You don't have to call me Sir, Caleb-Either Joseph or Spasm will do" .Then quietly with a serious tone "but I would appreciate it if you lost the attitude with your body language-my family had a cat when I was younger and I know what that tail rhythm means. We're both police officers and I will not give you special treatment just because you're different like me"

Raising his voice to its normal levels, he continued."Your nose would come in handy here, this rodent is really nasty, and will likely kill again if we don't catch him quickly." Spasm grimaced as he remembered those victims. Whole families butchered in their homes..."We need to catch this guy Caleb" he avoided tearing up, and smiled in a friendly manner.  "You lead with your nose, I'll follow with my feet". He was glad he had opted for plain clothes today.

Caleb. Was the guy really calling him Caleb? Wasn't standard cop etiquette to go by last names until you knew a guy? Caleb. Really.

“The only one who calls me Caleb is my sister, Linely. Swartz or Whiskers, if you want me to actually respond.” Or Calley, but that was for friends and real cops. Not this baby face. He looked around Calley's age, but he'd already made detective. Either he was a British prodigy and the other officers called him Holmes, or he'd taken the MRC fast track. Within the NYPD, it was a well known fact that mutants got promoted fast in this precinct. Having mutant detectives made for good PR. And really, wasn't that what the MRC was all about?

“Sorry if the body language offends.” Sorry not sorry. “My partner's out at the protests while I'm here with you, and she's vanilla human.”

...Did they say 'vanilla human' in the MRC, or did they gasp and cover their mouths about that kind of thing? That lovely phrase, 'I will not give you special treatment because you're different like me,' make him guess the latter.

The sooner they found this guy, the sooner he'd be back parrying Nyugen's xenophobic comments with Asian stereotype snipes.

“Killer rat. Can you be more specific? What kind of mutation are we talking? Single or serial? Got an MO? What's the odds of him going to ground versus killing again? How smart is he—is this going to be a foot chase, or is he going to get cleaned up and get an Uber lift to the Canadian border?”

Calley's tail continued to twitch, but it was more the twitch of a cat stalking prey.

At Caleb's admonishment Spasm went red, the scene of the crime and the fact that the City Rat had escaped had made him forget his manners.  He needed to make a good impression with his partner, otherwise Johnson would never be caught, He looked down, regained his composure and spoke again, in the typical apologetic Brit sort of way.

"My apologies Swartz, it's just this guy...he's sick. He's a serial killer, bursts into homes men, women, children, he doesn't care.  Cannibalisation is common. He will take whatever he can carry that's valuable and then leave. He's capable of turning into a particularly large and unpleasant form of rat-mutated by being in the sewers-and goodness knows what else he's learnt since being in prison." He then smiled returning to a cheerful sort of voice "Also, vanilla human eh? Well I hope you're able to get back to the protests soon" He then returned to the topic at hand.

"I managed to corner him in a back alley after a foot chase,part of the reason I was promoted, but he'd been evading the precinct for months. We think he has a base of operations somewhere in the city, but we haven't been able to find it yet. " Spasm then straightened up and said very clearly "Now as I said before, Whiskers,  you lead with your nose, and I'll follow with your feet"

...Oh dear god. The guy was a baby detective, wasn't he? He totally was. The blush, the apology, the this case made my career when this case clearly wasn't even lukewarm yet-—he was brand spanking new to plains clothes, wasn't he?

Calley had only been with the force a year. He'd just made probation a few weeks back. If Linely had joined the force at twenty-one, when he was first able to, then he'd have half a decade more experience tracking criminals than Calley had.

“If sewers power him up, then that's where he'd go first; then over to his hidey-hole, wherever it is.” Probably also in the sewers. “That what you're saying? Great.”

Sewers and him had a history. One that the background check hadn't turned up. The detective had crime fighting experience, but Calley was willing to bet he had more experience being a criminal.

“Let's get started, then. Don't freak.”

That was all the more warning the shifter gave. He stretched out a palm next to his side. The next instant, a rather large Rottweiler stood next to him, its nose touching his hand.

The instant after that, the Italian lost a shade of his tan, and the Rott nosily wuffed a cough out its nose. If it were human, gagged might be the better descriptor.

“Well that's pleasant,” the shifter quipped faintly.

Blood wasn't the worst part of a crime scene like this. Blood was coppery and flat, monotonous even to the human nose. Yeah, there was a lot of blood here. Sure. But not enough to cover up the other smells that came with death. Especially violent death. Movies liked to slather on the red. Their artistic directors forgot—or choose not to think about—the other colors. Yellow and brown, and whatever was eaten for lunch yesterday and was half digested now and should never have been shown to the world again if God had a sense of dignity, never mind decency.

It had been awful as a human. Having two noses routed through his brain, and one of them a hell of a lot more powerful, had just moved things up on a logarithmic scale of awful.

“Yep. Okay. This way.”

It was with fully foofed tail that the catty officer and his new doggy splinter led the way out of the room. Stiffly. And with as little breathing as possible.

Even mixed in with all of that, this rat still stunk. That didn't say anything good about what he had to look forward to at the end of this.

"Unfortunately yes-I hope you brought some sturdy boots." Linely was careful not to smile at the unintentional bad pun and literary reference. Puss in Boots-that was basically his partner. Wonder if he would suddenly sound like Antonio Bandarez and start fencing? He didn't chuckle at this thought.  The sewers were unpleasant at the best of times, fortunately they were reasonably well signposted for workers these days.

At "Let's get started then-don't freak" from Swartz, Linely was expecting far worse than a large dog appearing next to his partner. So a more powerful shifter than Linely had first thought. Unsurprisingly the dog was not best pleased at the smell , and Swartz went pale. Of course, two noses would definitely do that. "Yes it's positively lovely isn't it?-like roses" Linely quipped back at Swartz's faint joke.

Linely followed his partner and his new dog companion out of the room, giving a sympathetic look to the man, who was in obvious discomfort. Johnson was going to pay for what he'd done, and it seemed that he'd got just the right companion to do it.

Daylight, fresh air as the door of the prison closed behind them. Of course there were no easy ways to the sewers from inside the prison, even the security group that had allowed a known mutant to gnaw on their prison bars wasn't that stupid. 

"Enjoy the smell of the city while you can I suppose Swartz-the nearest hatch is not very far away"-just round the block in fact. He walked upright, solidly, ready to follow wherever the dog would lead them.  

Unsurprisingly , they were led to the nearest hatch, the one round the block. Still less surprising, the hatch was not open, rather the iron had been gnawed through- the stench of the sewers only now leaking into the air.  A crude, rat-sized whole was now plain to see.

"Johnson's got stronger-he'd never be able to do this before" looked like the closer he was to the sewers, the better his mutation became for him. No wonder the precinct couldn't catch him, these hatches were everywhere in NYC. 

"Well , I suppose it's sniffers first" Linely quipped as he walked to the hatch,  albeit carefully, and opened it.

“I don't like this,” the Italian officer said, the bipedal half of him pausing a good ten feet back from the chewed metal formerly known as sewer grate. Suddenly, he felt much more forgiving to the guards who'd failed to notice the rat's efforts to chew out of his cell. Weeks, they'd been saying it took.

This hadn't taken weeks. This had taken minutes. Less, if they were unlucky.

His Rott half wuffed at the opening. The smell was sharp: ammonia and iron, like a pet store mouse case dipped in battery acid.

“We're talking a power growth here, Linely. Did you have a chance to talk to any of the other prisoners? Look at the footage? Do we have any idea what we're dealing with?”

The big Rott stretched out a paw, and gingerly touched the frayed edges of the rat hole. It held up the paw for the detective to see: a drop of blood was already welling up. These cuts were clean, and sharp.

Calley had known a mutant that went by Iron Mouth, once. The guy could eat anything down in seconds. This was too similar for comfort.

“I can't be the only one noticing that this trail went straight to the nearest grating,” he continued. “And I'm talking straight. He wasn't sniffing it out; he already knew where it was. Did he have any accomplices, any friends, any connections to mutant gangs?”

Baby detective seemed way to eager to go in there. Baby detective was either packing one hell of a punch, or he was still new enough that he was out to prove himself. And people looking to prove themselves loved to go things alone, or with a token shifter that had been forced on them.

If the detective wouldn't, then Calley would. He was calling this in. He clicked his shoulder radio.

“Dispatch, this is Swartz and Linely, in pursuit of the escaped rat shifter--” It sounded like such an easy chase when put that way, didn't it? 'Rat shifter' was doing the man no justice. “Trail leads into the sewers. Probable power growth, possible accomplice. Requesting backup, and not the kind that comes in a can.”

Hell if he was risking his life to put a new bullet point on Linely's resume.

His radio crackled. “Swartz, dispatch speaking. We can get you someone, but ETA is at least an hour. Protests are hot downtown. You're authorized to go in without backup if you think you can handle him. It's your and Linely's call.”

Hell.

Period.

...How many people had this guy killed, again? He wasn't sure about the rat's vintage body count, but the tally for today stood at one. One officer. If the protestors were sparking again, it might be hours until they had backup.

“...After you, Linely. And I think it's about time you filled me in on your power.”

Swartz didn't like it -that wasn't surprising, Johnson was more powerful than before, and that worried Linely as well. Time was of the essence. If they didn't catch this guy ASAP then he would kill again.

"Power growth, I agree-and it's significant power growth as well. We have two options here, though I originally opted for speed-hence no footage or prisoner interviews. Mark my words Swartz-if we lose too much time this guy will kill again. We can look at the footage before going in if you want, but bear in mind the situation" Swartz was being cautious, rightly so but they needed time. Upon seeing their dog companion prick himself , Linely guessed at what Swartz's choice was.

"Careful there Swartz. If this leads to a fight, we need you in good order". Now came the question about accomplices.
"He had links to some gangs when I caught him, as far as I understand it they were vanilla humans. He felt they were easier to intimidate. He didn't have friends-only people he could use. They could have told him about hatches nearby prisons..." he trailed off, thinking that answered Swartz's question.

Now Swartz was calling for backup- he would have done that if he hadn't known that the protests hadn't taken up most of police time-and while he was not surprised at the response, he couldn't help but look disappointed. "Only one person for backup?-in one hour? And what if protests spark up again? We can't take that long Swartz." He said in a matter of fact way-not really expecting a response.

The cat man knew it too, and he was visibly worried. Linely wasn't suprised, while the shifter looked powerful, taking on a mutant this strong would be a tough job for him. Alone that is. As strong as Johnson was-Spasm packed a punch as well.

"Very well Swartz" he sighed "I'll fill you in now though, -while we're up here. If someone has suffered physical pain in their life, I can sense it and force them to relive it. That's how I caught this guy before. I can also make anyone feel any physical pain I currently feel. They don't call me Spasm for nothing." With that he began making his descent into the sewers, carefully climbing down each of the rungs attached to the side of the hatch.

There was something the NYC police academy taught. Rule one: it's the criminals who commit the crimes. There will be times when you are too late the scene, too slow to put things together, too naive to think they'd go so far. The blood is on their hands, not yours. Forget that, and you'll be talking with the department shrink while you get rotated into the items lockup for a little career break. They taught this from the beginning, every day, every lecture.

They were crap at teaching it.

And that meant that he was following Linely in, no matter how many fight dog snipes the man made. We need you in good order his ass. That earned a disdainful flick of ears, and no mistake. If the Brit was thinking about leaving the fighting to Calley, then he could get back on the other side of the pond.

He did get points for using the phrase vanilla humans with a bare minimum of relishing the novelty, though. Heh. As attempts to not be such a straight-laced HR representative went, it was a good one.

As the man explained his powers to the human half of his partner, Calley leaned down to pry the manhole cover off. It wasn't hard to do. They weren't kiddy locked in place, or anything. They were just heavy. His Rott half sat its butt on the street, and cocked an ear intently as the man explain.

Physical pain.

Memories of physical pain.

The shifter took a break, panting over the hunk of metal. Would have been nice if the rat could have chewed through a little more, actually. Would have weighed less.

He didn't look at Linely. Just at the task at hand.

“You can sense that, huh. Is that a passive ability, or do you have to concentrate? Get any memories with it?” Casual questions. Good to know. A guy should know how his partner worked, right? “How crippling is it to the rat?”

He wiped a hand over his sweaty brow, and rolled out some strain-related tension from his shoulders.

The base of his tail was foofed, but he was getting it back under control. Slowly. No need to draw attention to it. I make people feel horrible pain hadn't caused it. I make people feel horrible pain based on their own memories had.

Calley's first job had been for an immortal mutant who considered all this modern electricity quite the novelty. He hadn't responded well to insubordination.

Swartz looked like he had the manhole dealt with, and with some effort, had taken it off while Spasm had monologued. Should have helped him with that, still he didn't look too upset about it. Spasm gave an apologetic look at Swartz as he wiped the sweat off his forehead, and then began his descent. Fortunately the manhole had wrungs on the side of it. Some of these sewer entrances needed a rope lift. The closest sewer entrance being this convenient to the rat? Now that was suspicious.

The shifter was curious about his abilities...awfully curious. He responded as he was going down the hatch, his voice was now echoing slightly as he descended."Well Swartz, . I can't tell the context in which it happens, but I know how much pain there was, where it was on the body,and how long ago. I then have the choice as to pull it to the surface muscle memory. I have to turn it on towards my subject in terms of how passive it is, one person doesn't take that much in the way of concentration. Two is a bit of a strain, three is a lot. I also feel half the pain I cause to others to remember. They might recall how they suffered the pain, but I've never really had the opportunity to ask."

He was now on the sewer floor-a bit wet, but he'd brought sturdy boots. The Shifter would have to guide him from here. Now came the question about the rat-"Quite crippling, unsurprisingly he's suffered a few nasty injuries in his criminal career. Not enough for him to be completely disabled mind, and he fights like a... caged rat." He smiled at this unintentional pun.

Swartz was now around half way down, the base of his tail now almost recovered from being... foofed. Spasm wondered what that was about? Probably best not to ask. Spasm turned on his torch and looked round. Two ways. Left or right. He heard the light splash of his partner stepping from the ladder into the sewer floor.

"So , which way is it Whiskers?"

>> “I can't tell the context in which it happens, but I know how much pain there was, where it was on the body, and how long ago.”

Literally mind breaking levels. Everywhere. Eight years ago.

But as long as the memories were safe, then they'd call that good. It wasn't the pain that scared him; he knew he'd survive it. He had. But he didn't need a detective seeing things that his backgrounder hadn't turned up.

...And this dignified ball of political correctness and justice would feel half of it? Heh. Okay, now that could be amusing. What was half of infinity, anyway?

>> "Quite crippling, unsurprisingly he's suffered a few nasty injuries in his criminal career. Not enough for him to be completely disabled mind, and he fights like a... caged rat."

“Criminal and their nasty injuries, detectives and their terrible puns.” Calley deadpanned, stepping clear of the open covering above them. A shadow briefly blocked the circle of sunlight. Then the Rott joined them.

Calley may or may not have made sure the detective was between him and the splash zone. Heh.

He took a moment to orient himself, his bipedal half unconsciously closing its eyes as the Rott lifted its nose in the air, and sniffed.

It smelled better down here than in the jail. By a lot. Rain water and runoff oil, slime algae and mold, the occasional decomposing dam of sticks, leaves, and burger wrappers. Nothing truly offensive, in and of its own right. That had been brought in from outside, and it cut through the other smells with an acid tang.

“This way,” Calley said, as the Rott picked a direction, and started trotting with purpose.

>>"Criminals and their nasty injuries, detectives and their terrible puns"
"I admit, that one was bad-I better throw it out before the rest of my sense of humor goes off." Linely riposted to Swartz's humor. This guy was great, he just hoped that Swartz was as good at fighting as he was at off-beat humor. Their Rottweiler companion joined them after that, its heavy body landing in the sewers with a loud splash. Fortunately, both officers had had the common sense to step back.

>>"This way"
Linely walked in the direction of the Rottweiler's assured gait. Happy that someone had the nose to track this scum.
The sewer was dark. Despite the light from the detective's torch, it was difficult to make out shapes until they were right on top of them. The dog was fortunately quite close to them, Linely had been able to shout out a warning in time."Careful there, dog!" Broken glass. The lights in this part of the Sewer, mainly put there for workers, had been crudely torn out , tooth marks on the metal parts evidencing the method. Shards, yellow and very sharp, covered the floor. An obstruction to dogs. Clever move Johnson. 

"We need to be careful here Swartz...there's evidence of further power growth here". The rat had planned for this. Something was moving in the sewers , like a wing beat. How could that be possible?

"Swartz. Did I mention. This fellow has the ability to speak in basic concepts to the species Rodentia , he can train them that way. You know the sort, mice, rats and..." His voice was higher than normal, and he couldn't conceal the fear tinging the tone of his voice. The flapping of wings was louder now, there was definitely more than one. He hated bats at the best of times , and these ones were big.

The smell was getting stronger, and the lights dimmer. Not movie-atmosphere-dimmer; literally dimmer. As in, someone had sabotaged the lights. Calley slipped his heavy flashlight out, but kept it off for the moment. He could see fine through his Rott's eyes, and as long as he walked behind it, he could be reasonably sure his human half wouldn't be falling into any sudden rat-chewed pit traps.

This… continued to not feel right. Why take out the lighting? It was like saying 'hey, hey human cops, this way.' If he was counting on dogs, the glass made sense. But it wasn't like a regular dog handler couldn't have just picked up their pooch for a few lumbering steps to get them past it, or let them jump in the water to swim around. It did a lot more to draw attention than it did to stop pursuit.

>> “Careful there, dog!”

Calley and the Rott froze. It took him a long, long time to realize that Linely was either A) talking about the glass that had just become visible to his human eyes, or B) talking about his invisible friend that only he could see. Since no further shouts came, he assumed it was the glass.

“Thanks, Linely. But if you're going to give me a heart attack, try to be a little more specific with the shouting, okay? 'Glass!' or 'giant death rat behind you!' are a little more helpful than 'careful!' ”

>> "We need to be careful here Swartz...there's evidence of further power growth here".

He paused, sniffing the air. Both of him. Though one of these noses was significantly better than the other. Nothing had changed in the scent. Since they hadn't even figured out the first growth yet, was it really a further growth? He didn't bother sharing this quip with Linely. Just kept sniffing. And listening, to a certain sound growing closer.

>> "Swartz. Did I mention. This fellow has the ability to speak in basic concepts to the species Rodentia , he can train them that way. You know the sort, mice, rats and..."

Wing beats.

Bats.

Lots of bats, or giant bats, or both.

The Rott took a step back. Calley firmed up his own stance, as he stared ahead into the dark.

“Detective Linely. With all due respect. You have rushed this pursuit and actively withheld information pertinent to this case and our safety. I'm returning to the station and awaiting back up.”

And filing the world's most nuclearly glowing report about Linely's ability to convey pertinent information up front. A power growth was one thing; no one could predict exactly what new craziness would come with those. This. This wasn't a power growth. This was something the Detective knew and had decided not to share with his partner. Either the man had been actively hiding info to make sure Calley came with him, or he was just actively incompetent. Either way: Calley was not going to become one of the NYPD's murder statistics. Not for a man he didn't trust to have his back.

The cat eared officer and his dog turned. And ran.

This was an appropriate reaction to giant freaking bats of unknown abilities and intelligence.

"Oh alright...will remember that next time, I should have been more specific there" Linely acknowledged his error on this point. The dog was fine and was standing still. The wing-beats were getting closer...

>>"Detective Linely...I'm returning to the station and awaiting back up"...
At this Linely was annoyed, abandoning a fellow officer due to some minor detail that would rarely have been a problem. Besides, the bats were almost on top of them now. He didn't know what Swartz was playing at. He should have mentioned it before, it had slipped his mind. "Sorry , it slipped my mind..."

Swartz interrupted him by doing something quite logical under the circumstances. He turned and ran. Linely could only follow ...you never abandon a fellow officer...you never abandon a fellow officer...he kept on thinking, only if his life was in immediate and obvious danger.

The entrance to the Sewers...but why was it so dark?  He was at first puzzled at this..but then he realised what was causing the lack of light.  For Linely could have coped with the telling off from the officer for not telling his fellows an important piece of information, he could even have coped with losing the trust of someone who could have become a good friend. However , this was worse.

The gap of light from the Manhole was no longer present. Shining his flashlight on it, Linely almost swore through sheer exasperation. Metal. Lots of metal. Someone had replaced the Manhole cover...with something bigger and heavier. They were trapped.

Turning towards the bats, "Hey Swartz. I hope you know how to shoot. Bats have nerves right? Right?" the absolute panic in his voice was obvious. He heard the sound of the bats coming closer and closer. He just hoped Swartz had his back on this...