Author's Note: I dedicate this story to FairyTalesAndPixieDust, who provided me with the idea to write a post-Big Ben story from Ratigan's point of view.

FALLEN FROM GRACE

All was still.

Nothing but silence echoed through the darkness. Those who had failed to witness the tumult caused by certain horrifying events that had previously occurred would be unlikely to believe that any such pandemonium had affected the heart of the Capital. However, to those unfortunate enough to have had experienced them, the clement peacefulness into which the formerly tempestuous night had gradually evolved might very well have seemed an impudent mockery of the gruesome combat that had taken place less than an hour ago. Any traces that might have been left of it had apparently vanished – the raging thunder and piercing lightning, the steeping rain, the howling wind; but most of all, the haunting screams of despair, cries of agony, and belligerent snarls promising unbridled bloodlust.

Yet there did in fact exist one last bit of evidence; and, small though it was, it was not in the least insignificant. On the cold and wet stone tiles before the clock tower of Westminster Palace there lay a forlorn creature, without company and in a wretched condition. Had this creature been clad in its usual elegant attire and not merely been scantily enclosed by pieces of unsightly tattered cloth, and had there been any soul nearby to behold him in anything but these miserable circumstances, he would have most certainly been recognized as the notorious Professor Ratigan – the greatest criminal mind in all of London.

The rat had barely survived a fall of a hundred-and-eighty feet, having been struck down by the powerfully vibrating hour hand of the tower's monumental clock, on which he had been standing at exactly 10 p.m., glorying in false victory prior to hearing the booming chimes that proved to be the cause of his doom. He had chased his archenemy, a mouse detective known as Basil of Baker Street, through the clockwork, ferociously assailed the seemingly invincible yet physically weaker opponent with the claws he had almost forgotten he possessed, and had repeatedly attempted to knock him off the timepiece. Having sensed his defeat, wrathful Ratigan had at last forsaken his well-crafted gentlemanly persona and finally conducted himself as the feral rat Nature had designed him to be. He would not stand to be defeated by that diminutive mouse; but since he had already been publicly exposed and humiliated, and his masterplan to overthrow the Queen of Mousedom had failed, he had nothing more to lose but possibly, his life. And he would by no means allow for that to occur; Basil might have destroyed everything he had worked exceedingly hard on to create, but he would not let him succeed in destroying his life completely. Ratigan vowed to himself that he would grasp the chance and slay his adversary, to ensure that there would be no winner to walk out of the seemingly endless game they had, for over a decade, been playing with each other. How many times had that blasted nuisance interfered with his plans and evaded death itself? There was no escape for him this time… or so Ratigan had hoped. But as the pious like to believe, Fortune knows when to interfere with wickedness; and just when it appeared as though Basil had perished and Ratigan sadistically rejoiced that he had won the fight, he heard his opponent's voice suddenly cry from not very far below: "The game's not over yet!" – and before the evildoer could realize how on earth Basil had managed to save himself once again, Big Ben triumphantly chimed the tenth hour and Ratigan, unable to further balance himself, was sent plummeting from the clock's hand with a horrific shriek. Still he would not allow Basil to get away: and so early during his own fall, he seized the mouse, who had been hanging on to the remains of Ratigan's own dirigible's propeller, by the coat, and caused him to plunge into the abyss together with him. Luckily Basil, whose weight could more easily defy gravity than the considerably larger and heavier rat's, mustered whatever strength he still had in him and actually succeeded in pedaling his way upwards with the dirigible's relics; and to Ratigan's horror, did not spiral downwards again.

What further happened to the object of his loathing Ratigan was not to find out; for the criminal mastermind was unable to save himself and continued to fall and fall for what seemed to him like an eternity until he violently crashed down onto solid ground. The storm and rain had ceased, and in spite of the late hours, it appeared as if a certain amount of darkness had been driven away.

And so Ratigan lay, in shredded clothing and shivering out of fear for his dear life as well as from the chills of his rain-soaked fur, on his back at the feet of the clock tower. No one who could have seen him appeared to be near; yet, that was only for the best, he thought, for no one should see him in this miserable state of utter defeat. Ratigan tried to move and possibly, rise, but the endeavour was instantly abandoned as he was overcome by an excruciatingly painful sensation in his spine, legs and neck. He groaned loudly as he felt and heard bones crack; several of the vertebrae were undoubtedly fractured. Never had he endured such harrowing agony in his life.

"Damn you, Basil!" he yelled, before surrendering to a cough that arrested him from uttering any further sound. Now all he could do was silently contemplate his situation; and he felt that it was only a matter of time until he succumbed – that the clock had struck his final hour. It was humiliating beyond description – that second-rate detective survived while he, who possessed the superior mind – or at least, he had always convinced himself that he did possess it – was left to die like a wretched savage beneath the open sky. If only it was that insufferable little fool lying there in torment instead! If Ratigan did not presently lack the strength to rise again, he would return to rip his adversary to pieces, he would! And this time without failure. But apparently, that triumphant moment was not to arrive. Ratigan had to face the truth – Basil had beaten him for good. He groaned again at the thought of it.

Why, had Basil and he never crossed paths, that arrogant mouse would have never found himself where he was then – it was probable that he would have never got anywhere in his puny life without him, Professor Ratigan! After all, was it not he himself who once used to be Basil's greatest academic and personal idol? Was it not he who discovered Basil's intellectual talents? Was it not he who provided him with the opportunity to work as an apprentice for and with his most highly esteemed teacher of chemistry? So it was! And what was the result? Betrayal, of the worst possible kind! How could Basil have turned against him… he could have been of such great use and help to his plans, back in the day, when he was a mere unknown student! But alas, he always did possess that disgusting self-righteous streak… and to this day, never rid himself of it. Protecting his beloved Queen? Ha! He had absolutely no reason to care about the dim-witted, good-for-nothing monarch.

Do you even remember, Basil, that it is thanks to me that you can afford to smile that insufferable smug smile of yours?

Ratigan gazed at the enormous edifice, desperate and dejected, refusing to accept that the cord of his life was to be severed very soon. He refused to accept that Nature was more powerful than he. Was this really it? Was this moment of pain and impotence the culmination of his existence? Had he worked so hard ever since he was an adolescent to separate himself from his vulgar heritage, had he studied for years, concocted intelligent schemes for years, lived amongst lowlifes for years for this? To be outlived by his worst enemy and to have the ultimate goal of his life shattered permanently?

Perhaps indeed this was it. Perhaps there was no escaping one's destiny, no matter how hard one tried. Born a sewer rat, died a sewer rat. Died a…

A failure! It was truly criminal… oh, the horrid irony of fate! All these years trying to prove that he could be a gentleman, not a scurrilous rat – refined, cultured, well-dressed, eloquent – it was all in vain. His smouldering hatred and blazing fury had unleashed the beast he had attempted to cloak from sight for decades. Never could he have fancied that day would ever come…

And yet – yet there was something – a strange and terrible memory, buried somewhere deep in the vaults of his unconscious mind – which suddenly found its way back into his consciousness again; a memory he had suppressed with all his might, for fear that it would one day return and haunt him as the experience attached to it had done.

No…

An icy shiver ran down Ratigan's ruptured spine. The gauntly, unearthly event of that certain dawn which, in hindsight, proved to be eerily prophetic, returned to his mind's eye with extreme vividness. It had occurred twenty years ago; and Ratigan had promised himself never to devote any further thought to it, having condemned it – in all probability to assure himself of his sanity – as a mere delirious illusion, brought out by the consequences of insomnia and mental overexertion. However, he also knew deep down that the true creator of the gruesome vision had been his own conscience, which was burdened with a heavy load of guilt; and that was years before the existing malice in his soul had begun to capture his character in its entirety. Those early morning hours turned out to be, literally, the dawning of Ratigan's life as one with very criminal intentions. And while he had been unwilling to admit this at first, his attitude changed over time, and not too long afterwards, he proudly identified himself with the selfish and power-hungry malefactor that he had become.

What he had seen that morning in the mirror, when he was still a young and ambitious student of chemistry, was a hideous figure looking very much unlike him at the time – large, heavy, clothed in shreds, bearing a ghastly grin exposing sharp fangs and holding a blade, in a pose prepared to strike down someone – which it did, while the horrified spectator stared in dread at what should have been his mere reflection. There had indeed at the time been three deaths indirectly linked to Ratigan's doing, though he had never killed with his own hands, contrary to the abhorrent beast grinning back at him through the looking glass as it brutally stabbed three silhouettes that had, like ghosts, emerged next to it. Who these figures resembled was of no mystery to Ratigan; but he refused to acknowledge the decease of their real-life counterparts as being entirely of his fault. Nevertheless, the monster in the mirror aimed to prove him otherwise…

And additionally to this visual affright, Ratigan had been haunted by echoing voices, some of them familiar to his ears, that came from seemingly nowhere and berated him…

"Murderer! Villain! Brute! Savage monster! He'll never get far... he's nothing but a damned-

SEWER RAT!"

The only way he had been able to put an end to these terrors was to cause the mirror to break; and the vile creature, as well as the voices, vanished. In spite of that, the spectacle had continued: in the remains of the looking glass which had been exempt from destruction, a cryptic message appeared soon afterwards, as if written in blood:

"For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness"

Anyone would have attributed an inexplicable supernatural force to this terror-inducing occurrence; and so did even the apparently fearless young Ratigan, who, prior to his experience, was quick to dismiss the notion of a possible existence of the paranormal. Only weak minds were prone to superstition, so he thought – and he desired to prove to himself and the rest of the world that his mind was anything but weak. True, he could come up with no rational explanation for the brute in the mirror, the voices, the sanguine message; but he decided to blame his drowsiness for playing nasty tricks on his sensory perception.

Luckily for Ratigan, never thereafter did anything similar haunt him, which further strengthened his suspicion that it had been nothing but a hallucination. He continued his studies to obtain his doctorate in chemistry, left his native London to work as a university assistant at Trinity College Dublin, and, after having been refused positions at several universities in spite of excellent recommendations – due to his inferior background and due to being a minority in the academic world which was dominated by mice, he firmly believed – he was at last appointed professor at Oxford University, which, albeit slightly reluctantly, recognized his extraordinary talents.

And there it was, within the supposedly safe walls of the acclaimed academic institution, where he had clandestinely developed a draft for designing an innovative, but lethal chemical that was intended to exterminate the whole of mousedom – his very first grand scheme was one of cold-blooded mass murder. All the while, he had been publishing an incredibly vast number of ground-breaking research papers, had been with visible fervour for his field of expertise lecturing hundreds of benighted students and had acquired a kind of prestige he had formerly only been able to dream of, despite the perpetual envy of some of his snobbish colleagues.

And there it was, within the walls of that same acclaimed academic institution, where Professor Ratigan got to know the one ideal student he had wished to meet some day even long before he had begun teaching. This unusually talented student appeared to share with Ratigan both his passion for chemistry as well as his intellectual brilliance; he stood out from the rest of his peers in various ways. He was different from the rest, like Ratigan himself. Never satisfied with less than the best results of both his own work and that of his colleagues – of which the vast majority lacked this streak of perfectionism – this student seemed to have potential for great things. Ratigan had never been so impressed by any other mortal in his vicinity. The admiration was apparently mutual, for the young ambitious mouse attended several of the classes Ratigan taught and had carefully read many of his works voluntarily, often referring to them during lessons; and frequently stayed a little longer after classes to discuss the material with him.

What a fool he must be not to make use of this promising prospect! And so it chanced that the Professor offered the student to assist him with his research; as the former had expected, the latter accepted the position most enthusiastically. Subsequently, Basil was in Ratigan's employ.

Yet it was only about a year thereafter that, by coincidence, Basil found out that his greatest idol had been plotting to destroy Mousedom with a certain obscure chemical of which Ratigan had long been studying the effects. Not knowing what he had been doing, Basil had been aiding him to gradually realize this gruesome project; and before it was too late, the despondent mouse exposed and left his once favourite professor, as well as the university, never to return to that place again.

Ratigan was detained until he escaped the prison after only a few weeks, having pretended to be a lunatic; and having fooled most people, especially the police, he was not pursued anymore.

But you just could not let go of me!

This had been the beginning of Ratigan's and Basil's rivalry; and for over thirteen years, the rat had been dwelling amidst the lowlifes of London near the sewer where he had initially sworn never to live again, all the while plotting heinous felonies and mercilessly harming innocent citizens – never with his own hands, naturally, for he would not leave a trace of himself near any crime – only to spite and provoke Basil... but also to give him something to live for.

I always knew you would be the only one capable of unkenneling me. You asked for crimes, I gave you crimes. Without me, you would have been nothing. Merely a thorn in the flesh of those asinine Scotland Yard officers. Admit it! As much as you wanted to rid this city of my presence, you keenly relished the fact that you were always a step behind me and were forced to think harder in order to find me. You needed me, for the sake of your own felicity... You never ceased to admire me, even years after you had left me! And you will be sure to mourn my loss, now that you have got rid of the source of your life's purpose! Me!

Ratigan had not won the game against his destiny. He ardently played the part of the sophisticated gentleman and academic living among the dregs of society; but he had been living a lie, denying his true identity – a feral rat from the sewers. A failed attempt to break free from the roots that held him down, hindering him from rising above.

Long forgotten were the days when he used to dream of being a celebrated visionary scientist. He had abandoned that goal just when he had the opportunity of reaching it. Long forgotten were the days when he did not care what the upper class thought of him, but desired to be part of it; how all the erudite mice regarded a sewer rat's endeavour to rise from rags to riches with only the help of his intellect, ambition and hard work. Instead, he had decided to revenge himself upon those who did not approve of him and his abilities. But not just on certain individuals – mainly on random innocent people. Ratigan had his henchmen carry out his schemes to abduct, murder and steal, his primary motive being to commit crime for its own sake and to test his adversary's wits; or rather its limits, for he longed to design the perfect crime that not even Basil, whom they now referred to as the "great detective", could solve.

Yet this wish was not fulfilled, because ultimately, Basil did solve what the Napoleon of Crime had intended to be his chef d'oeuvre. How dared that miserable second-rate detective spoil his finest hour, his greatest triumph, and embarrass him so before thousands of people?

...Alas. I must face the truth. It is I who is merely second-rate. I am nothing. Just a wretched...what did that girl call me? A big, old, ugly rat! A crushed creature, doomed to die while HE survives...

Ratigan grunted as these lugubrious thoughts clouded his mind. His head ached. Everything ached. He sincerely hoped that his opponent was experiencing similar torment. The assaults on him could not possibly have also been futile, as everything else seemed to have been. No. Basil must suffer for ruining his life, depriving him of his liberty, and leaving him behind completely forsaken.

But they shall never take me. I'll die a free rat.

Ratigan wished that Basil had fallen with him. Then they would have been even at last, even if it had meant the absolute end of their lives. Two equals sharing the same terrible demise. Never to be separated again, until they were no longer conscious of it.

It can't be that he continues his life without me! I gave this sort of life to him! It was my gift! He too must die... must...die... must...

Suddenly, all in Ratigan's sight faded to black. His massive, ruptured body ceased to stir.

All was still.

The world's greatest criminal mind was dead.

The rainclouds that had made the area appear even more opaque than the night already had, lifted, and revealed a clear star-strewn sky. The familiar tune of the Westminster Chimes rang to the eleventh hour of June 19th, 1897.

Few citizens are aware that there actually is a notional little lyric in existence to the melody of the eminent bell's chimes, which is written on a plaque on the wall of the clock room; but now that the reader possesses full knowledge of what had come to pass that night at ten o'clock, it seems appropriate to disclose the words that are, considering the events, of a strangely symbolic nature:

All through this hour

Lord be my guide

And by Thy power

No foot shall slide.

The one who only believed solely in his own power evidently knew not of this tiny verse, or he might have possibly remembered it – and might not have fallen from grace.

Notes:

- The tune of the Big Ben chimes is that of the Cambridge Chimes, first used for the chimes of Great St. Mary's church, Cambridge, and supposedly a variation, attributed to William Crotch, on a phrase from Handel's "Messiah". The words "All through this hour (...)" used at the end of this story are actually the notional words of the chime, again derived from Great St Mary's and in turn an allusion to Psalm 37:23–24, are.

I thought I'd use this since Ratigan's foot did obviously slide, hence the fall. It's supposed to be interpreted in the sense that because of his viciousness, the Lord (or whatever other higher power, call it what you will) refuses to "be his guide" and power-hungry Ratigan falls to his death.

- The message Ratigan saw in the mirror written as if in blood referred to "For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness" is actually a quote from the Bible (Isaiah 59:3). Forgot to mention that in "Evolution of Evil", so I'll mention it now.

- The title "fallen from grace" is ambiguous in the sense that "to fall from grace" means to lose prestige, to do something bad which makes people in authority stop admiring you, and also, in a religious sense, to sin and get on the wrong side of God.

I'm not religious, but religious concepts are a huge source of inspiration for me.