The surface was so needlessly bright, even here within a darkened alley. Scragglefur was on a food run, trying to get enough food to feed his rat brethren. In fact, they were here helping him. The small group didn't usually go out during the day, but Scragglefur knew that this particular establishment would be easier to enter during the day, even if Scragglefur would have to use threats to secure what he wanted.

Crawling on the ground with his rat brothers, he stood only to open the back door. Readying his whip and walking inside, he found that it was in fact empty. Royal Rat King Scragglefur gave the order to begin taking as much food as possible, as he prowled around to the front of the Italian-themed restaurant. It was empty, but it looked to have been abandoned in a hurry.

Sniffing the air, he caught the scent of still-present vermin and adopted his most intimidating pose. Walking to the front door, he pushed it open and then turned to tell them to leave. As he opened his mouth, he was caught by surprise when something blue whizzed past him and left a scorch in the cheap wallpaper. Letting out his most terrified screech, he leapt onto the floor and used his four appendages to run back to his rats, which were already scampering out with enough food to last them a few months.

As his rats left through the back door and back along the route they had trudged through, Scragglefur smelled a foul and alien smell on the air. Turning his back to the restaurant, he continued on, hoping that whatever it was, it didn’t come for him. With haste, he and his rats crawled back to the sewers they called home, like a hive of ants returning to their queen.

They ran along back to their shantytown, they began to pile their pillaged grub and sort it based on color and smell. This was really just because Scragglefur preferred it to a large pile of food, but the rats themselves didn’t care as long as they had food for their ever-growing numbers.

Relaxing and crawling about the mess that was his shantytown, Scragglefur went about his daily activities of drinking the sewer water and then eating whatever it was they hauled back from their earlier conquest. It didn’t matter how they got the food, in the end, they had food. But Scragglefur was curious about the absence of the humans who owned the establishment. But even more curious about the blue thing that whizzed past his head and the foul alien smell that even now still lingered in his memory.

Donning his hood, he left the sewers once more, but this time on his lonesome. He prowled the alleys that comforted him so, until he found an opening onto the street. It was still bright out, but considerably less so than usual. Wondering why, the answer made itself apparent when Scragglefur looked to the sky and saw the behemoth object in the distance, or maybe it was multiple objects. His eyesight wasn't the best so he stood there looking for a few moments. When more blue things whizzed past his head, Scragglefur again let out a horrendous screech before running back into the comforting embrace of the sewers. 

From that rather unsavory experience, His Royal Highness determined one thing: Whatever it was, it was distracting the human vermin long enough to steal even more food. So, gathering up his brethren, he gave the order before heading to the surface again. “Stay safe. Stay sneaky. And steal as much food from the surface world as we can before this distraction wears off.” Mind you, this was given in a series of squeaks as they rushed from the sewers and onto the preoccupied surface, in what would be the biggest food-grabbing operation the rats had ever done.