Disclaimer: I do not in any way own The Great Mouse Detective. That's all Disney's territory.
Author's Notes: Blame this one on watching a really good AMV to the movie. I've always been a huge fan of this movie and the older Disney style and thought I would embellish on it since it's often overlooked. Hope you enjoy.
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The last thing that was had run through his mind was the image of his rival, looking down with those fearful and shocked eyes. Then the sound. The ear shattering ringing, chiming.....Clang, clang, clang....Cool air rushing by him as he fell, the world traveling too fast, too much. He cried out as he fell, one last scream...
The first thing he felt as he opened his was the worst pain he had ever experienced. He didn't dare move from the cold and wet concrete and could scarely believe he was even breathing. Ratigan had fallen in just the right way to keep his life. On the way down, he had managed to slam onto the brim of a passerby's hat, slowing his fall. The initial impact of the ground, however, was still extremely painful for a rat and he had destroyed most of the bone structure on the left side of his body, his ribs intact enough to keep breathing. He had also broken his right arm and cracked his skull, which explained the splitting headache. He took the shallowest breaths he could, staring up at the clouded sky. How long had he been out? How had he survived and not been eaten by a passing cat or dog? The pain moving through him was intense and he found himself continuing to drift in and out of consciousness. The third time it had happened, he heard voices above his head.
"Crikey, 'ow long you think the fucker's been 'ere?"
"Days, it looks, John."
He opened his eyes to see a pair of grungy looking, but slightly smaller rats standing over him. When they saw him looking at them, their faces lit up a bit.
"Oy, 'e's awake!"
"Damn, man, looks like you got eaten and spit back out. You're a bloody mess."
The one with the stronger accent began to slide a hand under him. At the touch, Ratigan winced and hissed a bit, but the other didn't flinch.
"Don't try 'n move. Your limbs are worth nothin' to ya right now."
He hadn't looked at them, but as he was being lifted, he saw that both of his arms, particularly his left, were disfigured severely and pieces of bone were protruding. His right leg was the only thing he could put any kind of weight on, and even that was painful. The other rat slid an arm under him and they began to slowly move.
"Where...where are you taking me?" He asked hoarsely.
"Back 'ome, that's where. You're lucky you didn't become some beastie's dinner for all that you was out there."
As he gained more coherency, he remembered everything that had happened and gritted his teeth. This was all Basil's fault. That smug face of his burned him Ratigan's mind as the two men carried him. The sound of two in the morning rang in the tower next to them. As the two bells rang, Ratigan let out a scream of insufferable pain, the crack in his skull feeling as though it was terrifying his head open. The two carrying him panicked and stopped, unsure of what to do. His body trembled, the rage in him set aside for now.
"You straight there, fella?"
Ratigan breathed softly, a small barely audible moan of pain escaping his lips. The sound was absolutely horrendous.
"Please...away from the tower..." He pleaded.
The two nodded and picked up their pace as they carried him away. Everything in him hurt. But no amount of pain could keep the desire for revenge away from his mind.
'You have taken my body from me, Basil of Baker Street. You shall pay dearly, my old friend.' He thought, letting his eyes close and falling unconscious once more.
----
A mouse lanky in body and with fur resembling soot looked over the barely breathing body that John and Rickson had brought in. He immediately recognized it as the famed villian Ratigan, but was very shocked to see him in this bad of state. He had never had the chance to meet the criminal, but had heard many stories about him, including the most recent of his attempt to take over the empire and kidnapping the queen. He took a guess this was what had become of him since.
"Do you boys know who this is?"
"No, Professor, who is 'e?"
"This, my simple rats, is the great Ratigan."
They both turned their heads to him, then back to the tall mouse.
"You're yankin' our chains! This is 'im?"
"This certainly is him, gentlemen. Although what a mess he's in." He tutted as he reached for a long white coat that hung off a hook on the wall.
"Can you fix him, Professor?" Rickson asked.
"I'll not fix him, Rickson." He smiled a devious little smile. "I'll improve him."
The two rats shivered as they left the room, always uncomfortable when he smiled like that. They closed the door behind him.
"Christ, man. The famed Ratigan. Who'da thought?"
"What do you think 'e's going to do to him?"
"I don't ask the Professor what he does with the bodies we give him. I just drop off, get my paycheck and go to bed."
John nodded to his partner as they both retired to the room they shared for the night.
----
He opened his eyes once more and found himself no longer lying on the cold wet ground, but stripped of his tattered clothing and wrapped up like a mummy, or so he thought. His head still throbbed heavily, but the pain had diminished a good bit since the last time he was conscious. He coughed a bit of blood and went to wipe it from his mouth, but was surprised both that he could move it some and the wires that were within his arm. He looked and his body was riddled with them. Strange machines were at the end of the wires, beeping and showing strange marks and signs. He looked around the room he had been placed and movement from the doorway caught his eye. A tall, thin black furred mouse entered the room. He wore a pristine white lab coat and had a pair of thin wire glasses perched perilously over the tip of his slender nose. Upon seeing Ratigan had regained consciousness, he smiled and walked over to him.
"I see you have returned to this world. I wasn't sure if you'd make it with all the blood you had lost." He talked very eloquently, much like Ratigan himself.
"Where am I?" His voice was still scraggly and made it hard to speak.
"My home, of course." He kept his smile on and looked over the strange machines.
"What have you done to me?" He growled.
The younger looked up at him, no sign of fear in his face at all.
"Why, I've kept you alive, that's what I've done."
"What are all these things?" He gestured towards the wires and watched as a strange smile, different than before, slid onto his lips.
"They are special machines to monitor your body. I created them. I couldn't very well let the great Ratigan die on my doorstep, now could I?"
He laid back against the bed they had laid him in, breathing softly, feeling the ache in his ribs. "Is that why I do not hurt so greatly?"
"Quite. I've injected you with doses of high powered medication on a schedule. My assistants help me with it. But, my, my, what a state you were in when they first brought you here."
"How long...?"
"You've been here for three weeks now."
"Three weeks?" He picked up his head.
"Yes, although you've been resting fairly peacefully. You even managed the surgeries well."
"Surgeries...?"
They stayed silent for a moment before Ratigan lifted his arm and looked under. A good patch of fur had been shaved and a deep scar ran down it.
"Your bones are no longer your own, but rather something of my invention."
"Who...who are you?" He asked, his mind still tired.
"My assistants simply call me Professor, but I am called Professor Jack Whitecastle."
The name rung a faint bell in Ratigan's head but he could not place it. Instead, he closed his eyes, laying back into the pillow.
"So what have you done to my body?" He asked.
"Your bones were useless, so I removed them and replaced them with special artificial ones."
"Artificial bones?"
"You see, I am a specialist in the body and what it can do." He walked over the the desk in the room, picking up a stack of papers. "I am both a scientist and an inventor. I have created life forms very close to the original out of metal and clockwork. But..." He sneered. "The scientific community has no respect for the work that I do." He slammed his fist on the desk.
"Why is that?"
"I dabble in a few...unsavory expertises." He replied. "You see, I know the body both living...And dead." The way he said it sent a chill up Ratigan's spine and he saw the strange smile once more. "How else am I to learn and to make my money? But my work goes unappreciated." He sighed.
"Is that why the other two found me?"
"A great amount of crime happens in this city, my friend, and far greater crimes than even you have accomplished. The only difference is you are known while others spend their time lurking in the shadows, never to be seen." He laughed and run a hand through his head fur.
"How would you like to get your revenge, my friend?"
"What are you speaking of?"
"Everyone knows the tale of the deep hatred between Ratigan and Basil of Baker Street." Even the name of him brought his mouth into a sneer. "I'm right, and you know it. I can make you stronger, Ratigan. You can take your revenge on the man who has turned your bones into this." He held up a jar that was near half filled with a pale while powder. He stared at it, baring his teeth.
"Those are...?"
"I left nothing behind since most of it was dust anyway."
He roared out and swung his arm, pulling out some of the wires. Jack rushed to his side, attempting to calm him.
"Please, please! Control yourself! You are still not finished yet and you cannot take him down in the state you are in."
"So what do you expect me to do, just lay here!?" He yelled out, enraged.
"I expect you to put your faith in me." The stare Jack gave to Ratigan was one he knew, a deep and dark stare, and he laid back down, blood pouring out of his now useless arm. Jack began hooking him back into the machines, watching the larger wince.
"Don't fret, my friend. Your body will become so much better after I am through with you. And we shall both regain our place in the eyes of our public." He smiled and wiped the blood on his coat."And this is only the beginning."
"Do what you must, Jack. I want nothing more than to feel that mouse's warm blood on my hands." He said in a low voice.
"I shall not disappoint you, Ratigan."