Hello, readers! Funny story: AFTER I wrote this tale, I found a YouTube video very similar to it. How weird is that?
...What? I said it was a funny story, not a long one!
Ahem...anyway, this story came out NOT because of the video (thus the "funny story" above), but after watching both Great Mouse Detective and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows on the same day.
Now, for some boring things...sigh...
Rating: K+ (may raise it later, but I think this is fine)
Disclaimer: I own neither Great Mouse Detective (rights go to Disney, Eve Titus, and anyone else I failed to mention) nor Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (rights go to Guy Ritchie, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and anyone else involved). I do, however, own DVDs of both films. They are awesome. (ALL HAIL JARED HARRIS & VINCENT PRICE...ESPECIALLY THE LATTER!)
Summary: ...I think the last seven lines of this story will suffice. So, I'm not giving one here; just go with the one that you read before opening this up.
Notes: Beware of a bit of blood; I couldn't help myself. Also: Holmes is in italics. Moriarty is in italics and bold.
And, now, "ladies and gentlemen, hobos and tramps, long-nosed mosquitoes and bow-legged ants," I give you...
Hickory, Dickory, Over the Falls...
1897, Switzerland, on a balcony overlooking Reichenbach Falls...
A detective – his unkempt hair and scarred, unshaven face mismatched by his clean dinner jacket – stares coolly into the eyes of a madman – who hides his nature so well, under his well-combed beard and fine clothing, that the only sign of his mental state is the hatred boiling in his dark eyes.
"I...seem to have injured my shoulder," the detective says casually, clutching the wounded area (still healing after their last encounter) with one hand while taking a pipe from his pocket with the other. "Would you mind?"
Slowly, his enemy smiles, and takes out a lighter.
"It'd be my pleasure," he practically purrs, while his nemesis leans forward obligingly.
There is silent for a moment as the professor tries to flick the lighter on; it takes several tries thanks to the stuck trigger.
"Once we've concluded our business here," whispers Moriarty, as if discussing the weather, "It's important, you know...I shall endeavor to find the most...CREATIVE of ends for the doctor."
Holmes is silent.
"And his wife."
Holmes makes no response.
Inside the building, John Watson leaves the dead body of a gypsy-turned-representative, heading to the balcony briskly...
Both smile faintly at each other, as the Napoleon of Crime lights the pipe of the World's Greatest Detective...
Back in London, England...
A different, much smaller detective rubs the back of his head, the pounding noise of dozens of clock gears and chains – each at least ten times bigger than he, most even larger – echoing in his sensitive ears. He stands carefully, the slowly turning cog under his feet making him unsteady. He gazes around cautiously, squinting...
Behind him, a taller, wider, more muscular figure, dark suit clinging tightly to his nearly-too-big body, approaches silently, black and red cape fluttering over a wormy tail, a fiendish grin, revealing jagged teeth, stretched across his sharp, gray face, yellow eyes narrowed with devilish delight. He raises one gloved paw, his other clamped over the mouth of a small mouse pup – a girl, his prisoner – struggling fruitlessly...
His advantage: my injury. My advantage: his rage.
"BASIL!" the girl calls, finally managing to get her mouth free, if only for a moment. "LOOK OUT!"
The detective turns...to receive a stinging slap across the face, so harsh it throws him back, nearly knocking the deerskin cap off of his tan-furred head, and, more importantly, almost sending him off the gear, to fall into the grinding bowels of the dark clock tower. He quickly tries to scramble to his feet, while his opponent looms over him, raising a fist...
Incoming assault: feral, but experienced. Use his momentum to counter...
The girl bites her captor's hand. The rat lets out a shout of pain, while the Great Mouse Detective pounces, grabbing the criminal's cape, and trapping it between two gears, the pull choking him and causing him to drop the girl.
Struggling and gasping for breath, Padriac Ratigan kicks his fallen hostage off the cog. She lands in a gap between the teeth of a rotating gear, being hoisted up, with agonizing speed, to be crushed between the clockwork teeth as they meet.
The detective wastes no time: he jumps onto a nearby chain, releasing the mechanism holding it, and rides it up like a fast-moving elevator, pulling her out of harm's way just in time. The leap onto a scaffold, sprinting to the clock face, while, not so far below them, the lightning flashes in the bloodshot eyes of a very, very angry sewer rat.
Come, now! You think you're the only one who can play this game?
With an outraged hiss, the professor tears his cape apart, the shredded garment whipping about behind him as he darts on all fours, ducking and jumping, over and under bits of machinery, memories of his Big Ben Caper filling whatever space it can in his nearly-beastial brain, telling him the fastest route to the scaffold. The run takes its toll; his gloves fly off at some point, revealing long, black, filthy claws, and a coat sleeve snags on a piece of clockwork, tearing.
He swings ontot he scaffolding, his quarry in sight, trying to hand the girl over to her father and the "good doctor" in their balloon.
"Closer, Dawson!" groans Basil, straining to maintain his balance, while holding out the girl to her father's outstretched arms.
"Daddy!" cries the girl. "I can't reach...I can't reach...!"
With a roar, Ratigan barrels forward, and lunges for his foe...
Trap arm. Target weakness. Follow with haymaker...
Half a second after father and daughter are successfully reunited, a detective and a madman fall from a ledge, tumbling head over heels, smacking into the wall of the tower. Regaining composure, though still descending rapidly as they slide, the rat grabs the detective by the legs, dragging him along. The mouse tries dig his own short claws into the masonry, trying to find a handhold; the only result is bloody fingertips.
Ah, THERE we find the boxing champion of Cambridge...
Basil loses sight of his foe during the fall, and slams into the immense hour hand. Aside from some bruises, a lost hat, broken nails, and a torn jacket, he is otherwise, miraculously, unharmed. Winded, he opens his eyes, lying on his stomach...
The dizzying, abysmal drop from Big Ben to the ground clears the cobwebs quickly, and he stands, heart pounding, backing into the "wall" of the clock hand's curved surface.
He spots – partially blinded by pouring rain, pulsing lightning, and the hot glow of the clock face – the balloon, the doctor and his clients waving to him.
"Basil!" Dawson calls. "Over here!"
With a relieved smile, the detective takes a step forward...
Competent, but predictable...
With a snarl, the tough rat strikes from over the wall, hot breath blasting in the detective's face as a strong, gray arm, stinking of oil from the clockworks and wet rat, wraps around his neck.
Hurriedly, basil manages to squirm out of the crazed professor's grasp. He dodges a swip from behind and runs to the other end of the hour hand, where the balloon is...
Now, allow ME to reply...
Only for the faster Ratigan to cut him off.
The World's Greatest Criminal Mind looks very nearly like another person entirely. His suit is in tatters, his chest left bare after the tumble; his ragged cape flares like flames in the biting, wet wind; his muscles are bulging, his eyes wide and rabid-looking. Scrapes and bruises cover the exposed areas of his body.
"There's no escape this time, Basil!" he growls through clenched teeth.
Arsenal running dry...adjust strategy...
Without hesitation, the mouse races back the other way, and is intercepted once more. He has no time to move before a slash cuts open the front of his jacket.
Before he can properly react to this, a second swipe catches him under the chin. There is no blood, but his head smacks into the hand "wall."
Before he can stand, the rat pounces, and swipes at him again.
This time, blood IS drawn, as the detective flies back, falling over onto the "floor."
He tries to stand, only to be slashed across the cheek and thrown back down again.
Wound taking its toll...
He finally manages to stand, trying to get away, back to the balloon, and lets out a short yell as a set of claws rake over his back...
As I feared: injury makes defense untenable...
A swipe knocks him back yet again, nearly sending him off the hand to his doom. Dawson and the family watch in horror as the professor runs over.
Basil winces, arms over his bloodied chest, and looks up...just in time for a sneering rat to smack him in the nose.
Prognosis: increasingly negative...
This last smack knocks Basil far back...far, FAR back. He loses his footing, just managing to grab the edge of the hand. He grunts, struggling with what strength he has left in him to pull himself back.
As he looks up, two eyes fill his vision.
Two burning, blazing, hate-filled eyes.
Let's not waste any more of one another's time...
Snarling and snorting like a wild boar, the madman lifts his hand...
The detective braces himself...
The doctor gasps...
We both know how this ends.
With a chop of his paw, the professor sends his enemy hurtling through space. The doctor reaches out...and just misses catching him.
For just a moment, the falling rain and crackling thunder are the only sounds.
Then, realization dawns, and the revelation slowly brings a manic grin to the professor's face. He giggles insanely, hardly daring to believe it...
Finally...!
Conclusion: inevitable.
"I'VE WON!" cackles the madman, bellowing his victory into the sky, his laughter and the thunder shattering the night.
UNLESS...
"On the contrary!"
Startled, the rat looks down, his triumph halted.
A small mouse, battered, hanging from the nearly snapped in half propeller of the professor's crashed blimp, holds a familiar, gold bell up in his bloodstained paw, smirking smugly.
"The game's not over yet."
DONG!
The vibrations are too great for even the powerful Ratigan to withstand; with a cry of anger he makes a grab for his foe as he tumbles...
Three figures on a balloon gape...
Elsewhere, Moriarty hisses through his teeth as the embers of a smoldering pipe are blown into his eyes, and two arms wrap around him...
A door opens, John Watson following it...
And...
Two doctors watch in horror.
Two madmen scream in terror.
Two detectives fall in silence.
Two games reach checkmate.
Hickory.
Dickory.
Dock.