Of course, the strangest thing Niko could ever have had the pleasure of experiencing would happen when he had been whisked off to another world. It made sense, in a way.
An apple flew through the air, twirling in an arc of red and green, before smacking him flat in the face. Niko's head shot back at the rough impact, stars crossing his vision for a moment as all he saw beyond was the wooden ceiling. When he had successfully righted himself to a straightened position, Niko glared with pure vengeance at the insolent little rat chittering across the room. It was sitting on the bar counter in the downstairs of the inn they'd just found lodging in, leaning against the wall behind it as it chatted with its other rat friends.
In the fashion of rats, they held varying foods in their tiny paws, cheese being at the forefront with tiny nibbles on all sides. They clutched it close, eyeing each other from the side as they each ate and pretended to trust one another.
They cackled and laughed at the look Niko leveled them with, pointing and mocking from their spots. He should have expected a place called The Crusty Biscuit to have a large rodent population, but it had really thrown Niko for a loop when said rodents decided to ridicule every aspect of Niko's personage from the moment they met him. It wasn't even really a meeting, per say. He had just commented on the content of their conversation, and they had decided he must pay for expressing his clearly unwanted opinion.
Niko normally wouldn't have felt the need to interrupt their private conversation to begin with, he usually didn't care enough to get very involved with other people, but the context had clearly warranted at least a comment.
He scooped the surprisingly whole apple off the floor where it had fallen, dusty and covered in a grime from the filthy corner. He made sure to scoop up a little extra filth, rubbing it around more than necessary, before tossing it in the air preemptively. With a tilt of his face, lips pulling into a half smirk, he rolled the disgusting fruit around his palm before giving it a hard chuck back at the little critters. They scampered in a blind panic, seemingly surprised he'd resort to revenge.
Niko smiled, delighted in returning their apple back to them in the most cordial, direct way he possibly could have.
The leader, a scared thing with more hair than the rest and a pale, white tint to its eyes, growled lowly at his action. It gestured with an angry, clawed finger, demanding recompense for Niko's act of revenge. To these creatures, it seemed Niko was in the wrong for ever butting into their conversation, regardless of the fact they had attacked first.
He glanced toward the table he'd originally been seated at, finding his guide completely drunk as she stumbled through the air like her wings couldn't keep their balance. The merchants had retired for the night, leaving Niko and Plu to adventure into the belly of this place on their own, finding food and drink aplenty, if not accompanied by strange creatures with propensities for throwing dirty fruit.
Niko had bigger things to worry about, apparently. The rats were mobilizing, seeming to spawn from every direction as they drew in for the kill in one giant swarm of angry rodentia.
His eyes widened as they came closer, words failing as he realized he may have bitten off more than he could chew. This was a new world, animals didn't act like how he was used to. And these ones seemed to want blood, if the red in their eyes was anything to go off of. He flailed backwards, stumbling past drunken patrons and strewn about furniture in an attempt to save himself.
The barkeep gave him a side eye, as though judging the rushed exit, despite the fact they had clearly struck first, what with the airborne apple that now sat in a puddle of more dust and grime on the floor by the rat's previous lounge spot. They hadn't even bothered to eat it, even though Niko was clearly giving it to them as a gift, and not a veiled threat of war, which they had decided to take it as. Didn't matter that they had gifted it first and he had returned it promptly.
Luckily, Niko spotted a door near the back of the building, going to it without a second thought as he tried to escape the surprisingly large horde.
Seriously, where had they all come from?! There were only a couple at the beginning. It didn't make sense that they had just materialized into a hundred. This world was so much weirder than he had anticipated. Maybe the freaky creature in the bushes should have tipped him off, but he just hadn't expected everything he'd ever thought of as normal to crash within the first night here.
He pushed through the door, huffing fast breaths as he looked around wildly for some place to hide. Instead of finding the outside of the building, however, he came upon a set of stairs, descending down into a darkness that seemed almost scarier than what was chasing him.
He frantically shot his head around, trying to decide which path to take. He heard the scuffling of tiny feet on the floor behind him, the rats growing ever closer.
He swiveled towards the door, just as his foot slid off the end of the top stair. The world tilted, his eyes finding the darkness below as he descended towards certain doom while getting a little bit farther away from the other certain doom that was still gaining on him.
Not that it would matter now, seeing as he was probably going to die from the fall, what with the murky lighting preventing him from seeing just how far down these stairs went. Either way, it was going to hurt.
And hurt it did.