The blue rats that were barely alive took advantage of the chaos to flee through the exits that were now clear, leaving only the brown rats along with the mother rat and the canine buried under the stones.
The brown rats fell silent as they watched their leader/mother begin to glow from within her body, her ears and whiskers trembling as they were confused by her words.
"I need to find a way to escape as soon as I can. But..." Tenma tried to free his body, but it was impossible. "Angel, you must help me get out of here or they will eat me alive!"
The angel, possessing the body of the mother rat, found himself suffocating with his own breath. Fortunately, he managed to catch his breath after trying to calm down for a moment, finding the trick to simply breathing shortly after.
Once he felt a little better, he realized the situation. He was surrounded by rats that kept staring at him, making him nervous.
"What am I supposed to do...?" the angel could still communicate with Tenma through their shared consciousness, even though he was possessing another body. "Should I attack them?"
"Just get me out of here first, I'm finding it harder to breathe!"
The angel tried to stop the mother rat's body, but the brown rats crowded closer, looking at her with their red eyes.
He tried to push them aside, approaching the canine, but again the rats blocked his path.
They began to murmur among themselves, and all nodded in silence, stepping back.
"Wow, I think they respect me," the angel thought, trying to walk on all fours towards the canine, although stumbling.
But from behind, one of the rats jumped on the mother rat, sinking its teeth into her neck. She let out a scream, widening her eyes.
And in a first sense of pain, the angel screamed.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
Tenma managed to force out his two paws, covering his ears to avoid hearing the sharp scream coming from the mother rat.
More rats began to throw themselves onto the mother rat, trying to knock her down with their weight.
The rats thought their leader had gone mad and that she would cause more trouble if she couldn't keep her sanity.
It was an attack by whoever killed the leader, to take over her position.
The angel tried to shake off each of the rats, throwing them forcefully with his tail and strong arms, getting on the defensive, moving away from them, and at the same time, away from the trapped canine.
"I can't possess this thing! If they kill me, I don't want to know what will happen to me!"
Tenma nervously watched the scene, still unable to escape. But he suddenly came up with an idea at the last moment.
"Open the inventory! The mother rat must have some useful item stored in it!" He communicated the plan to the angel through his thoughts so that the rats wouldn't discover the plan.
The angel looked at his companion with a puzzled look, while growling at the rats slowly approaching him...
"You must say Inventory!"
A pop-up window appeared in front of the canine, growling as it blocked his view. He tried to swipe it away with his sore paw, but he saw that behind it, the rats had already pounced on the mother rat's body.
"Angel!"
The worried puppy's scream echoed throughout the cave, his eyes trembling.
"No... I shouldn't have made such a stupid plan... We got ourselves into this mess and now we'll be eaten alive... DAMN IT!"
........
In a feeling of defeat, the canine felt the ground begin to tremble.
He opened his eyes, seeing the pile of rats that had formed flying everywhere, and where the mother rat's body had been, there she was, but in pieces.
At the same time, the rats that had been thrown away were either severely injured or mostly dead.
Tenma lowered his ears, seeing how his friend, somehow, had died to save him...
"No, here I am."
The angel appeared in front of him, descending from the air.
"What... What was all that? You scared me, damn it!"
"Vulgar words for a young one like you..."
The angel seemed to have an arrogant attitude... but he sighed, looking back at the canine.
"Darn it, I was scared too! That rat had nothing but junk in her inventory, so I took everything she had. And I think there was something metallic that fell on the rotten food she had also taken out, and from there the explosion happened."
Tenma fell silent, looking at the angel with his ears still perked up.
"You're immortal like me too!"
The canine felt happy about that fact, happy to share that quality with someone else.
Although, he was still trapped.