"Start the cauldron!" I shout as I approach my humble lair. If no one hears their fellow king, surely the tunnels will bring my message to my loyal subjects. I can hear my subjects' skittering in the walls to spread it around. Only a fool wouldn't hear the decree of the sewer king. I look down at my journal and began to check my list one by one, ensuring I got everything for this experiment. My hand scope around the dirty leather pouches that covered my body.

"Strength of Shimmer, some of the sewers' rivers.. Yes.. yes...

"Goopy One's mush... the automation's blood.. Yes.. I have that. "

"Surface Dweller's flesh.. Praised fruits, fresh.. Yes.. Wait.. am I forgetting something.."

My hands begin to grasp firmly on the things that I listed. Shimmer, River, Mush, Blood, Flesh, Fresh. Repeat. Shimmer, River, Mush, Blood, Flesh, Fresh. Repeat. Shimmer, River, Blood. Repeat. Shimmer, River. Repeat and repeat and repeat an- CRACK!

I freeze in my pose. My hand was reaching behind my back at the cask holding the automation's blood. I feel a small twinge of pain. My eyes slowly dart towards it in apprehension. It wasn't easy to kill a metal slave! They were never easy... It takes a while for their bodies to ripen to steal their sentient lifeline from them.. and I need it! It's how they become smart! It's how my army will become smart! Slowly and slowly until I turned around to find my long fingernails cracking the cask's shell. It isn't leaking in that very second, but it will eventually.

I hold it in my hands and rush to my lair as soon as possible. "START THE CAULDRON! START THE CAULDRON!" I begin to shout frantically. I run and run, seeing parts of the blood leaving through the cracks that my fingers were unable to block. My hand grows black from the effects of its wretched color. "START THE CAULDRON! START THE CAULDRON! START THE CAULDRON!" I shout again, louder this time so every roach would tremble at my voice. So that the entire sewers knew that this, this will be the time of the Plague Rat!

The lair is within my sights now, a large open pipe covered by a blank white tarp. I tore the tarp open and see the shadow of the rusty, golden metal pot in the distance. I threw the casks, the fluids, the ingredients all into its body and.. it isn't boiling. IT ISN'T BOILING! I look below the cauldron to see the flames were not lit as I asked.

"I'm coming!" ZAC shouts, holding a match for a burning fire in his large green hands. He throws it underneath and the metal begins to heat up.

"What were you doing this entire time!?" I shout angrily. "Did you not hear your superior's commands!?"

"I... I was busy with something pal. That's all that was," ZAC said pitifully.

"Hmph. Probably daydreaming about your stupid beloved surface... Ugh! What does it matter!? Give Twitch the stirring stick!" I lunged myself to grab the large metal rod and held it by the rubber end. I stirred and stirred until the colors of white, black, yellow, green merged into a single brown. I sniff its lovely scent and cackle. "Yes.. Yes.. Yes! This! This will do!" I shout happily. I looked behind me and found a cracked wall. I opened a piece of it to find my collection of rats in a large metal cage. Only one is found and only one caught my sight. "Hehe.. Time for YOUR turn to shine!" I grab the rat's body, immune to its bites and squirming. I dragged him to the cauldron and dug my hand inside the liquid. To the rat, it was the painful impulse to mutate to grow sentient, but for me... Hehe.. Twitch was immune to the liquids burns after so many times, so much experience! He was the first, and this will be the second!

It pulsed and grew and pulsed and grew and pulsed and grew until it couldn't take it anymore. I felt its hands relax in the liquid and its head falling on to the top of my hand. It couldn't take it anymore. I knew what happened. My hand rose with the rat's body and the rapid breathing that I felt before was no longer there.

I didn't watch as he took the body out. I never really did. It was always too much for me and my yellow eyes, but I could always feel it. I could sense the rat's cry for help as his master plunged him in. Twitch's disappointment and unbridled rage as his shouts echo from the pipes. Even the body hitting the floor made me physically flinch, knowing well that I would have to clean it up. Once the body ricocheted to my sight, I begin to feel hateful. I remember back to the times when I was ordered to hold the rat and plunge it to its death instead of Twitch himself and just watch the body wither away under the "potion's" effects. It wasn't as if Twitch didn't know that it would fail. It always failed. It failed this time. It failed last time! It failed the time before that! Just make it end already! I kick the body behind the tarp that marked the entrance of our home.

"Twitch! We gotta sto-" I cease to finish the sentence when I saw Twitch's hopeless glare into the "potion".

"Why didn't it work," he began to mutter repeatedly. It almost seemed like he was on the verge of tears as hope began to shatter. His hands slammed on the metal cauldron. "Why didn't it work..? How many times must it take to get it to work!"

I frowned at this sight as all anger within me seemed to wash away, only to be transformed into pity. I stretched my green hand to his shoulder.

"Sign. Hey bud. Why don't we take a break?" I said politely, trying to piece back together what hope he had left. I looked into the cauldron, both of our stressed faces reflecting back as the green lantern stood above us. "Maybe some time outside of this lair can get you some fresh new ideas, huh? Seems like we both need it."

Twitch looked up, glaring. "Fine.." He mumble bitterly. "I'll take your advice. I'm not stalking surface dwellers like you Goopy One.." Twitch began to walk away from the lair and mutter things under his breath that I couldn't hear. Eventually, he went past the tarp, and I couldn't see him anymore. The coast was clear.

I went to my side of the lair to a box covered with a trash bag. I lifted it to reveal a cage. There wasn't originally 1 rat behind that wall.

I opened the manhole carefully to not make a sound. I brought myself up with the cage and found a cultivair in front of me, with its high glass dome and its healthy vegetation inside. Behind it, there was a large steel mansion looming over it. A chem baron's mansion of course, and it was on top of a cliff, looking over the poor populous of Zaun and the factories billowing the smoke up to the heights of Piltover. "Looks like we're home fellas," I said as I took the cage out. I carried it over to the door of the cultivair with its keyhole. I shaped my hand and solidified into the shape of a key, put it in, and turned slowly, changing my hand whenever necessary.

Click! The door opened to a world isolated from my own. I went in and breathed in the fresh air created by the plants around me. I place the cage down. I open it and watch as the 5 rats collected flood out of the gates to explore the fauna around them and investigate for food. It makes me smile as I watch them play and move freely after who knows how long behind that piece of cement. This wasn't the only place I drop them off, but it's probably the best place for them.

And then I looked up, to see the massive chem baron's castle so clearly behind the glass, seemingly enveloping us in our shadow. I always try not to look at it. It always brings harmful memories. I feel the presence of steel on my skin and the injection of needles. I see the people in their lab coats and glasses above me, wanting to use me, as I look through the cage of glass... I see the animals they experimented on and thrown like garbage when they were no use to them. They even tried to kill one of them in front of my face to get a reaction out of me..

Let's not think about that. This was supposed to be a happy time! A time of freedom and joy to the creatures he freed from future experiments. I look down to find them, but they were already gone into the grass, impossible to see. Guess they were really eager to get started. Not my job to watch them after all.

I turned around and decided to watch the yellow and green glimmers of Zaun below me, still alit and alive. I imagine the music. I imagine the lives that they lead. Must be nice. I sit on the cool grass staring through the glass for what seemed like hours.

I close the manhole above me, only to be greeted by a roach staring up at me. At first, I ignore it, thinking it's just a bystander, but as I walk, I begin to see more roaches popping up from the cracks of the sewers until I couldn't count them anymore. I stop in my tracks and look at them. While I couldn't speak roach like Twitch, I understood their message loud and clear: something urgent happened.