|| It’s @toxicriick!! Dexter’s been pulled under! ||

Heel clicks and the sound of scraping shoes was faint in the air Dexter rapidly shuffled among. Brows furrowed slightly as his eyes darted to his newest invention; a remote of sorts, sitting in his gripped hands, particularly to the screen it possessed as a face, dark with nothing upon it.

-Rumors had begun to spread around the young scientist's small, busy town of rather atypical happenings transpiring in different places, and being the inquisitive, nosy observer he was, the moment he had heard whispers of these queer instances floating in the wind, he shamelessly honed in on a few conversations that he could hear being held of the topic.

However, through each discussion that he could comprehend, the stories changed little by little: something happened before another important situation, evidence was taken of the culprit, then destroyed due to unknown means--; it was eerily alike a game of telephone shared between younger children, it continued to jumble itself as it went down the line of people he had found to be talking of these odd events.

Though, there were themes that kept in common with each and every retelling.

Apparently, for the most of what he had gathered as of then, miscellaneous objects were heard of being swiped at random occasions; items that were easily missed to literal township property was taken left and right, with no general idea as to who was taking them. Including that, pipes residing in the vile sewers had been found to be severely damaged, even completely missing at times, the cause or reasoning behind it, as well, left unknown to the public, as too the citizens who somehow discovered the problematic issue.

Stranger and connecting the stories he'd heard together was that, at the scenes of the crimes, Dexter had heard there to be traces of a slimy substance left behind, either left in a smear, splatter, or, even a footstep on the ground, or as small plops of a green ooze.

No one, though they knew and gossiped of the peculiar events, had any clues or other information on what could have happened or who might have done anything like it, not even the boy genius himself, though his mind began to ponder through assortments of possible explanations, even as he shuffled through the streets with his latest tool.

It was what he was out there for, it was what his creation was made for, to uncover the truth behind all of the tales he'd collected information from. Obviously something was going on if they were passed around that much with a lot of the same details shared between them, right? No coincidence could be that strong.

His remote-like gizmo was built as a portable collector and inspector. The antennae attached above was meant to be used to remove a partial sample of something, absorb and take it into the mini machine itself and examine it thoroughly, collect data, which would appear on the darkened screen of the handheld and track the DNA from the little snippet, thereby tracking the source of it. And with it, he was after the olive colored sludge that had linked the reports together. That had to lead into something helpful to his case, it connected the stories flawlessly with its presence alone, and it had to come off of the being causing the fabled chaos around town -- he just knew it.

But it had turned out that seeking for this goopy material proved to be more of a difficult task than he would have come to expect, hearing that it was left where the culprit of it all had been last. Of course, maybe someone cleaned some of the matter up at a point?? --Surely they couldn't have gotten all of it, right?

Dots swarmed around the circular rims of his glasses, scanning the area surrounding him for any swipes of a slimy green, yet none could be found, and he had been searching for awhile. Light suspicions that maybe those rumors were just rumors tickled his brain, but they were quickly shown away as he continued down the streets. Nothing as unconventional as those speculations could be considered false at that point, Dexter was confident of that for sure.

Boots rapidly tapped over a manhole cover as he crossed over it, the light sounds above could be perceived faintly echoing inside. Dexter paid them no mind, stopping briefly beside the plate to continuously review the area he was in. Possibly he was looking in the wrong places?? Needing to go deeper and check all the details?

The sensible idea, why would there be smudges of substance clear and out in the open like the buildings and trees standing at their sides? How foolish of him to not think of that soone--

Metal grinding shrieked into the air as Dexter felt a sharp, low pull at his leg, making him lose his balance, and without a chance to react, he was on the ground, dull pain shooting into his body from the thud. Upon impact, his grip upon the tool that would assist in his quest of truth had released in a flash, the gadget flying through the air in a sudden throw and landing a ways away from the child, who paid no mind while scrambling to get back up again.

" H-hgnn.. tss.. " The teary sounding wince of pain grumbled between thinly parted lips. Arms frantically pulled his upper body off of the concrete, head spinning toward the area he had felt the sudden haul.

There, a sickly, messy looking hand glinted in the sunlight from underneath the darkness of the manhole it had appeared to slink from, the plate resting atop of it, awkwardly.

" AAGH!! " Dexter yelped, in a panic, trying to turn his body over and kick at the gross looking palm painfully gripping at his ankle to escape. Because of this, another slimy arm had slunk from the same disgusting cavity and had managed to grab his other leg, frustration and growls coming from below as they pulled at both. Their grip sunk into the child's legs deeper, making them ache.

A howl of fright erupted from the throat of the ginger, breaking his voice into raw silence during the middle and seemingly causing the arms to pull him in faster. Fingers through rubber desperately clawed at the ground in an attempt to stop before he was buried in darkness beneath the surface-- though to no avail. His entire, little body was pulled into the manhole, the paten sealing closed with another metal groan as soon as he had disappeared inside.

Submerged in darkness, the ginger tried to squirm away from the other's grip -- which had worked, to a point. Out of his hands the child slid and down he fell, backfirst on a hard, wet kind of floor. Not long of a fall, but one that could cause a little bruising, certainly some pain. --Which was immediately what Dexter felt as soon as he crashed, making him shoot upright and grab at his sharply throbbing spine with a gasp and a long, groaning cry.

Hisses through clenched teeth expressed all how he'd felt, aside from the shock coursing through his little body.