Written specifically for the Mouse Avenger. I hope you like it...
"BASIL!" her shriek was quick and muffled, but it held all the heart-wrenching desperation of a child in trouble. "BASIL!"
A wisp of pale fur, unnaturally high, climbing higher in the dark emptiness of the tower.
Ratigan.
"Wot- wot- " Basil's assistant hopped a bit, watching uneasily as he pitched himself after the tiny tuft of white that had so consumed his world of late. "Wh-oah! BAS- "
Basil plunged into the darkness of the clock tower, unmindful of the danger to his own form as hers raced among the giant cogs and gears and levers. If even one closed upon his cape-edge or the end-most quarter of his tail...a death most painful, most obscene.
But none did. He moved with animal instinct, fast as the sheets of lightning flashing outside, lunging and scrambling for purchase on the rain-slicked stone surfaces.
Hideous laughter more ominous than the thunderous booms echoed down from above; the sickly sound of Ratigan's twisted pleasure at seeing Basil struggle. Followed quickly by a pained and startled wail from little Olivia-
"Ratigan!" Basil shouted furiously. "You leave her alone, you dirty- you filthy- you PUTRID old RAT!"
Ratigan stiffened mid-step and whirled back to the golden speck that was the mouse below him. "What...did you say?" he squeaked.
"He sed you're a rat!" Olivia gasped, twisting and writhing in feeble attempts to bite him, to hurt him. "You're a fil'ty, turrible RAT!" Her lilt became ever more apparent under such duress, warping her outraged cries near-incomprehensible.
Ratigan turned back to his prey. His face was twisted into ugliness- the face that could murder in cold blood... the face that could contemplate such DEATH, such DESTRUCTION, such TREASON- the face...that could tame a CAT...
"You DARE to call ME...a RAT?" he hissed. His face was most awful, true; but his eyes were like two live coals peering out of it.
Olivia dropped like a stone.
"'LIVIA!" Basil yelled. He leapt, with monumental effort, using all of his cunning and grace, to save the little life discarded so carelessly between the monstrous clock's iron gears.
If he been even a second later, an inch off, a hair's width in error of his estimation, Olivia's living flame would have been snuffed with the most savage of brutality. But he wasn't. He made his LIVING on such pinpoint assumptions. His shoulder and back hit cold gray cement, flaring with pain and shock; but even the fall's landing could not induce him to loosen his arms around the tiny body he held.
"Olivia- "
Her button nose peeked out from above his tweed elbow, followed by two bright black eyes. "'Allo, Basil. Ey' shall be o-kay. Are you o-kay?"
Basil relaxed. He rubbed his cheek along cornsilk-soft hairs. "I will be fine, Olivia. I'm glad you're alright." Wasn't it amazing how quickly the Great Mouse Detective could be transformed, simply by the eyes of a child?
"I will be fine," Basil continued softly, "But Ratigan will NOT be." He set the mouselet down on the ground and lurched to his feet once more.
"This is it, you know. This is the end. Tonight, ONE of us must die."
'Livia's hand tightened imperceptibly around his own, a minute comfort in the cold, dangerous night around them. "And so help me...it will not be me."