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“Sasha told me about an Earth movie like this once,” mused Captain Grime as he puppeted the Rodent of Unusual Size into the clearing where the rodents of this forest battled for dominance.
Theirs was an unusual arrangement, but it worked for them. The ROUS was shy and undersized, but, with Grime’s help, she would win the battle and become the Rat King. In exchange, the newly-crowned monarch would help Grime traverse the remainder of the forest in safety.
“Get ready,” said Grime into the ROUS’s ear. “When they come at us, they’re gonna come at us hard. Listen to me, kid, and we’ll both get through this.”
Pulling firmly on the tuft of hair at the top of the ROUS’s head, Grime steered her into the circle of dirt at the center of the clearing. On cue, the ROUS roared a challenge to the rodents of the forest. In an instant, the clearing came alive.
“Mind that patch of lightning sand,” muttered Grime as he and his rodent companion squared up with their first opponent of dozens. “We might end up using it to our advantage.”
With a staccato of pops, flames burst from the center of the clearing. The fight was on.
The hostile rodent snarled and charged. Grime pulled, and the ROUS dodged left. She reared up and barely avoided a fiery death. In the meantime, their opponent had charged again, and this time it knocked her on her back.
She wriggled and kicked, trying to break free and avoid the sharp incisors. Grime whispered pointers on grappling, interrupted by another flame which nearly fried the both of them. Eventually she managed to flip the other rodent over and pin it down. and bestowed upon it the ceremonial whack on the tookus that ended ROUS duels without much bloodshed.
"Close one," Grime murmured. The ROUS nodded. "But this is a good start."
The next couple of contestants were not so skilled as the first, and with Grime's tactical expertise, she beat them handily. Then the next contestant stepped into the clearing.
"My frog," gasped Grime. "Who is that?"
The thing at the other end of the clearing looked like a ROUS. It smelled like a ROUS. It even sounded like a ROUS, chittering as it dodged a spout of flame. But the way it moved was discomforting, as if the creature was made of two ROUSes tied together, or as if there was something…
As if there was something puppeting it.
“Not on our watch,” Grime snarled, angling ROUS carefully as he scanned the body of the enemy for a weak point. This ROUS-thing facing them wasn’t just being controlled from the outside, no: this creature had seams. This thing had something inside of it.
“This’ll take some good aim,” Grime admitted to his ROUS as the two fighters circled each other, dodging fire and looking for an opening. “But we can make it. Trust me.”
He pulled several hair tufts at once and the ROUS beneath him sprang at their opponent, rather like a blast of flame herself. More careful fur-manipulation had her snapping at the largest, most obvious seam, just behind the enemy ROUS’s shoulder. With a great tug of fur and thread, the enemy ROUS tore open with a snap, revealing a giant, coal-black enemy spider.
“Nooo!” the spider hissed, reaching out one of its many legs. But Grime had expected it to play dirty, and his quick thinking had his ROUS twisting away and behind. One wallop to the plush ROUS’s silk-stuffed tushie cemented Grime’s victory and his trusting ROUS’s newly-won authority.