Three chapters and still no reviews...

Ratigan: You think that might be for a reason?

Disclaimer: I own no one. Ratigan and Basil belong to Disney/Eve Titus, while everyone else is just Disney.

The portal on the other side flashed and sparked briefly as Cornelia Hale entered. Elyon looked up from the book she was reading. "Did you get him?"

Cornelia nodded.

Elyon glanced down, then looked back at her friend. "Were you followed?"

"By Drakken and Shego."

"Oh..."

"You were hoping for your brother... I have no love for that murderer."

Elyon sighed. "I am sorry, but you cannot linger on Caleb's death forever."

Cornelia glanced sadly at Elyon. "Elyon..."

Another flash sparked from the portal as Hay Lin entered. Following her was Will, standing next to Ratigan.

"So... this is the man that will guide the future of all creature-kind..." Elyon smiled. "Greetings, Ratigan."

Ratigan bit back the temptation to ask how she knew his name, and merely replied "Greetings."

Cornelia sighed, pulling herself together. "Leo is waiting."

Ratigan sighed, unconsciously straightening his waistcoat. He was about to enter the next room, when Æsahættr caught his arm briefly. "Let me give you some advice: Be honest. He knows more than you can possibly imagine."

"Ah... Thank you."

In the next room, Leo a.k.a. Mufasa stood by the window. His red mane covered part of the shoulders of his leather jacket. His ruby-on-yellow eyes were hidden behind mirrored sunglasses. But he was still Mufasa, former king of the Pridelands.(1)

As Ratigan entered the room, he glanced up with a smile. "At last."

He strode over to Ratigan and shook the rat's hand. "Welcome, James. As you no doubt have guessed, I am Leo."

Ratigan smiled. "It is an honor."

The two men sat across from each other in the cracked, burgundy-leather chairs. "I imagine, right now, that you probably feel like Alice, tumbling down the rabbit hole."

"You could say that."

"I see it in your eyes. You look of someone who accepts his world because he wants only to wake up from it." A smile appeared on his face, razor-thin. "Ironically, this is not far from the truth. But I am ahead of myself now. Tell me, James, why are you here?"

"You're Leo. Most men like me would die to meet you."

Mufasa chuckled. "Yes, thank you. But I believe it is more than that. Do you believe in fate, James?"

"No. For most of my life, I didn't like the idea that I wasn't in control of things."

"I know what you mean. Let me tell you why you are here. You are here because you know something, though you can't explain it. Even though the doubt hasn't emerged often now, it still is a splinter in your mind, driving you insane. This is what brought you here."

"The Animatrix?"

Mufasa smiled again. "Do you want to know what it is?"

Ratigan nodded.

"It is everywhere. All around us, even in this very room. It is the world that was created to shield us from the truth."

"Which is?"

"You are a prisoner, James. Like a lot of us, you were born this way, kept inside a prison for your mind."

The old chair creaked as Mufasa leaned back. "What is the Animatrix? You will have to discover that for yourself."

He held out his hands. In his right was a red pill. In his left, a blue pill. "Take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake up in bed and believe what you want to."

"No..."

"But take the red, and discover what the truth is."

Ratigan looked grimly down at the two pills, his mind made up. "I've come too far to turn back now." He picked up and swallowed the red pill. "I'll go with you."

Mufasa smiled. "Come with me."

Ratigan gazed in amazement at all the equipment in the room. Mufasa walked over to Gaia. "Are we online?"

"Almost." She and Elyon were working swiftly, hard-wiring a complex system of monitors, modules, and drives.

"Time is against us, James. Will you take a seat there?"

Ratigan hesitantly sat in the chair in the center of the room, Æsahættr gently fixing electrode disks to his forehead. "Just out of curiousity", he whispered, "what would have happened had I been caught?"

Æsahættr kept working as she spoke. "They probably would have bugged you and let you go. Probably."

Ratigan frowned. "That doesn't sound too bad."

Æsahættr smiled as she finished. "Sure, if you don't mind a little bug burrowing into your navel."

Ratigan remained calm, though he clutched his stomach in imagined pain.

The girl chuckled, placing a pair of headphones over his ears, then wiring them up to a hotel phone. "Don't worry. It could be taken out."

Ratigan glanced over at one of the tables, where a thing that looked like a cross between a rib separator, speculum, and air compressor. "That?"

"Exactly."

"On second thought, escape looks very appealing from this end." He turned to Leo. "So, what does all this do?"

"The pill you took is part of a trace program that disrupts your input/output signal. This is how we find people."

"Meaning?"

Zephyr grinned. "It means buckle up, Dorothy, 'cause Kansas is going bye-bye."

Ratigan glanced over at Æsahættr, who shrugged. Through the headphones, he could distantly hear Gaia pounding away at the computer. Then he noticed the mirror.

It had stood next to the chair since he had arrived, cracked and somewhat useless. But now he watched, wide-eyed, as it began to heal itself, the glass seemingly becoming liquid and whole. "Oh... my God..."

Leo's expression was impossible to read. "Have you ever had a dream, James, that you were so sure it was real?"

"This can't be..."

"Be what? Be real?"

"I've got him!" Gaia shouted. "Now!"

Ratigan winced and gritted his teeth in agony as an electric shriek errupted from the headphones.

Though he knew Ratigan wouldn't hear him, Leo said "I will see you soon, Ratigan. Very soon."

Ratigan's back arched as he woke. He blinked as he looked upon the red glow that hovered over him. As he watched, it split evenly in two, pulling back and vanishing into the strange bed he lay on.

He sat up, feeling a metallic coldness behind his ears. Though there was a strange magnetic hesitation, he removed a strange headband-like device.

He turned his attention from the device in his hands to the surrounding area. Containers like his covered the land, still glowing with an eerie blood-red light. Most possessed an animal, humanoids and "normal"(2) alike, though some held humans as well.

"Oh... Oh my God..."

He looked to the left, his eyes widened in terror. Not far from him, in a container of his own, lay Basil of Baker Street, motionless as death.

Ratigan lay back on the table, thoroughly shocked by what he saw. His eyes fluttered closed, then cracked open.

"How... How did it come to this?"

Suddenly, a familiar face moved into his vision.

"...Æsahættr...?"

Æsahættr looked up at someone. "He's awake."

Ratigan felt a gentle breeze lift him from the table as he closed his eyes. Sleep looked really good at this point...

Several hours later, Ratigan was lying in the medical bay, his body pierced with acupuncture-like needles hooked up to a strange device.

Cornelia grimaced. "He'll need a bit of work, but not too much."

Mufasa sighed. "Yes. He is strong."

Ratigan's eyes fluttered open, but shut immediately. "What's happening..."

"Your muscles have atrophied."

Ratigan tried to open his eyes, but shut them in pain. "My eyes hurt... I've never used them before, have I?"

Mufasa sighed sadly. "No, you haven't."

A pair of sunglasses sat on the table. Mufasa picked them up, placing them over Ratigan's eyes. "Relax, James. The answers will come soon enough."

Some time after that, Ratigan woke from a deep sleep. Whereas he was disoriented and terrified eariler, he was relaxed now. He looked down at himself. When he had woken up in the tube, he was wearing the same clothes he had worn in the so-called real world. Now they lay on a chair in the corner, while he was now wearing a simple short-sleeved shirt and pants.

As he stretched, he noticed a feeling of new strength in him. He couldn't be ashamed of his strength before, but now...

Æsahættr opened the door. Now in her non-Guardian form, Ratigan wouldn't have recognized her if it weren't for her red hair. "Hey."

Ratigan smiled. "Hello."

She sat next to him. "Nice to see you're all right. You didn't look too good when we found you."

"Well, after what I saw..."

"I know."

"It's odd, really. All this time, Basil and I were foes, but now that I know that we were technically in the same boat..." He sighed. "Where am I?"

"Currently, you're aboard the Meridian, which is bound for New Heatherfield."

"Oh... New Heatherfield?"

"You'll see it soon enough. Mu... I mean Leo wants to see you."

"...Mufasa?"

Æsahættr nodded, then stood. "C'mon."

To Be Continued...

1: Told you it wouldn't be Simba.

2: When I say "normal", I mean Lion King/Lady and the Tramp/Bambi normal.

Ratigan: So, Leo is Mufasa?

Me: Um, yeah.

Ratigan: Wait a sec. Didn't he die in The Lion King?

Me: Eh, I'll explain that later.

Ratigan: Oh. (pauses) So... Are you going to turn me back? (puppy eyes) Please?

Me: Ugh...

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