"No way," Allison remarked, making her way up to her knees.
The Rat King? There, in Bishop's lab? It was impossible. She had seen him die. Leonardo had killed him. She saw it. The Rat King had lunged for Leonardo and ended up impaling himself on the turtle's katana. So how? How could he have been resurrected? Surely Bishop couldn't have discovered how to bring humans back from the dead. Unless… the Rat King had never been human to begin with.
It all made sense. Bishop's interest in the Rat King. The similarity Allison sensed between the two. And Bishop's cryptic words to her: "Well, that answers that question." The Rat King was some kind of project of Bishop's, and he had simply been retrieved and repaired. And judging by the sudden speed and ferocity of his attack, he was new and improved.
Raphael shot continuously at the tall being that bore a grotesque resemblance to Agent Bishop, but to no avail. Every blast was dodged, causing a shrill symphony of shattering glass and equipment. As Allison cringed, she wondered if this wasn't just some way for the Rat King to alert the others of their location.
Without warning, the Rat King suddenly threw himself at Raphael, seemingly impervious to the laser blasts. Ducking and rolling, Allison could smell charred flesh. So this creature was not an android, but something that really did resemble a human being. The only difference now, it seemed, was that he did not feel pain. It probably had to do with Bishop's "tweaking," so that time would not be wasted on injuries. Allison hoped to use this for her advantage.
Looking up, she saw that Raphael had been grabbed about the throat and was lifted up to his feet. With an unintelligible cry, she jumped up to her feet and aimed her gun at him. The Rat King turned his head and, upon catching sight of her, growled horribly and threw Raphael aside. Allison pulled the trigger and held her finger there, but the bright red flash from her weapon did nothing to stop him from going right for her.
By the time she thought to put the weapon aside and make a run for it, he had already grabbed her arms and lifted her up, slamming her back down on a nearby table. She cried out in pain as books, pens, and various small objects bit into her skin. Allison was only thankful that she didn't seem to have broken anything and didn't feel as though she had a concussion.
"Let go of me," she snarled, attempting to fight him off. She was far stronger than her appearance would make one believe, but her clumsy punches straight into his battered torso didn't even seem to faze him.
"You," the Rat King hissed. Allison stopped struggling and looked up into those eyes, the same eyes that had been responsible for so much in her life. The DNA that formed those eyes undoubtedly came from Agent Bishop. It was because of him that all of this had started. She didn't know whether to thank him or rip his throat out.
As the Rat King continued to exert pressure on her, Allison grimaced. His eyes… they recognized her. They knew her. With a small sound of surprise, Allison realized that he remembered precisely who she was, and he was going to enjoy whatever he planned to do to her. However, judging by the way he had simply disregarded Raphael, she could bet that the former turtle was safe. So long as he didn't open his mouth….
"Yo! Bishop Junior!" Allison winced even as she heard Raphael's brash voice from behind the Rat King. Her assailant turned, only to be struck right in the face with a fire extinguisher. The small margin of freedom she got from the blow was enough to get her to slink out from under him. She heard a few more clangs as Raphael hit the Rat King a number of times, presumably to give Allison the time she would need to make it to her feet.
Most of the way up, Allison felt Raphael put an arm around her waist and grab one of her hands. "Let's get you someplace safe," he said, leading her quickly away. Allison allowed herself to be led, but wouldn't resign herself to being kept away safely. "Raphael," she breathed, "I've got a hunch that I might know how to beat this guy once and for all."
"Well, here's a plan," Raphael told her. "Talk faster so we can work on it before he catches up to us." Knowing that he was right, Allison ran as fast as she could, which she was frustrated to realize was not very fast at all. Not knowing how loud it would be advisable to speak, Allison whispered, "It doesn't look like he's wired to feel pain. If that's true, and he's not at all robotic, then he won't be able to tell when there's something fatally wrong with his body. His flesh looks like it's only slightly tougher than ours, which means that it can be broken down. We need something corrosive, something that will make him decompose beyond repair."
"Great," Raphael commented, hazarding a glance behind them. "If you can find a store 'a toxic waste in the next two seconds, let's go for it." Allison tried to peek over her shoulder, only to feel someone grab the back of her shirt and pull her backwards, almost yanking the shirt off her back.
She yelped as she crashed directly into the Rat King. Before she could even think of struggling, she felt her feet leave the ground. Was she being lifted or was he jumping? It was hard to tell in the gloom and the confusion.
Raphael almost fell when Allison was suddenly pulled away from him. He turned just in time to see the Rat King leap from table to shelf, making his way towards what looked like a fluorescent light fixture on the ceiling. Reluctant to take his eyes off Allison, Raphael quickly scanned the labs. He wasn't sure what he was looking for until he found it.
Sprinting, Raphael made his way to a cabinet that was not too dissimilar from the one that he and Donatello had attempted to get the compound for the cure from. Not realizing that this would hurt, he slammed his fist through the glass door, cutting his hand and muttering curses as shards of glass flew everywhere. His eyes skimming the contents of the cabinet, Raphael saw the one chemical that he recognized: sulfuric acid.
Allison was dropped on something that swayed back and forth. Clinging to the sides, she looked down and could see the entire lab. Realizing that she was on the ceiling, she turned over and looked up at the maniacal figure grinning down at her.
"So, we meet again," the Rat King murmured, his voice lower but not any saner than it was from the last time they had met. Backing away from him as much as she dared, given the unsteadiness of the fluorescent light casing, Allison sarcastically replied, "Yeah. Lucky me."
"It would be wise to sheathe your impudence," he growled heatedly. "You, that are about to die, you that were only meant to be bait." Annoyed, Allison asked, "Hey, can we just quit with the theatrics here?" Her foot darted up to kick him, hopefully by surprise. His reflexes were quicker than humanly possible. He grabbed her foot and twisted it in such a way that she had to roll on her side to prevent it from breaking, her body nearly dangling from the ceiling.
"Had it not been for you," the Rat King continued intensely as Allison whimpered in frustration, "I would have succeeded in destroying the turtle creatures one by one. With their teacher under my command, they would have been helpless to stop it. First the loud one who had been injured, then the leader, and then the intelligent one before finally dealing with the last of those set in my little mousetrap. But no. No. Instead, you decided to play the martyr and protect the loud one, alerting the others. You managed to bring the rat-teacher back to his senses before he could properly dispatch of their brazen human friend. You became the thorn in my side that distracted me and allowed for their meticulous leader to do away with me. Well, the tables have turned, my dear brat."
"And they gonna keep turnin', jerk."
The Rat King looked up as Raphael leapt from the neighboring light fixture onto theirs. Allison gasped, grabbing hold of the chains that creaked and threatened to give way under the added weight. Raphael stood in front of her, between her and the Rat King. "You," the Rat King snarled again. "I recognize your voice."
"Listen to it good, freak," Raphael yelled. "It's the last thing you gonna hear." One hand over his nose, he raised his other hand that was holding a bottle of sulfuric acid. Before the Rat King could run at him, Raphael took a step back and doused him with the highly caustic substance.
Without waiting for the effects, Raphael turned and grabbed Allison, pulling her to her feet. No sooner after he grabbed her did one of the four chains holding up the light casing snapped. Raphael managed to jump just before losing his balance, and grabbed onto the fixture he had arrived from. "Go!" Raphael grunted.
Dizzy from the sudden stench of sulfur, Allison hoisted herself up onto the new aerial island, giving Raphael a hand before his grip faltered. As Raphael adjusted himself besides her, she looked to the Rat King. He was making sounds of rage, not pain. The acid had hit his eyes, and a foul-smelling smoke was coming from his face as he tried to regain his eyesight. Chances are, he had just been blinded.
Allison's assumption proved correct. Continuously swiping his hand out in front of him in an attempt to strike two people who were no longer there, the Rat King moved slowly forwards. Hoping that a good blast to the chest would at least get him to fall and break his body in an irreparable way, Allison raised the one gun she had managed to hold onto and shot at him.
It was at that exact moment that Raphael decided to throw a second vial of acid that he had procured at the Rat King. Though she knew what would happen, Allison couldn't take back the movement of her finger on the trigger. When the heat of the laser shattered through the small bottle, the contents went off.
Allison screamed and instinctively reached over to Raphael even as she felt herself thrown backwards and falling to the lab. Raphael managed to grab hold of her hand and also felt himself falling downwards. Hoping they wouldn't land on anything painful, Raphael happened to glance towards an opened doorway and see a horde of Bishop's men retreat back into the corridor as a result of the blast.
Raphael automatically grabbed at Allison and turned over so that he would land on his back with her on top of him. As he felt the hard floor against his straight back, he realized once again that he had always taken the presence of a shell for granted. His head banged against the floor, causing his teeth to chatter.
Allison hugged Raphael tightly as things seemed to collapse everywhere. Both of the light fixtures they had been on had fallen and crashed against various apparatuses, causing a hair-raising cacophony. Putting her hands over her ears to stop them from ringing as things slowly quieted down, Allison whined, "No more explosions. Please, let's try to keep anything else from exploding."
Raphael groaned and raised a hand to his head. "No complaints from me," he mumbled. Allison looked down at him and noticed just how banged up he had gotten. Sitting up, she took both of his hands and looked at them. One of them looked badly cut, the other seemed to have gotten some of the acid splashed on it. "Raph-" she began, but stopped when he pulled his hands away and sat up.
"Not now," he said lowly. "We got company." He looked back towards the door, grateful that they had landed by a desk, blocking themselves from Bishop's men. Allison also looked up. She could just see the harsh light from the doorway and ducked when people started filing in.
Silently, Raphael pulled himself out from under her and readied his remaining laser. Normally, he would be confident in his ability to just crouch down and hide in the shadows, but the biting pain at his back told him that he wouldn't be able to crouch properly for a while yet. As fragile as this new body was, he was surprised humans have lasted this long as a species.
Luckily, Raphael didn't have to worry about blowing his cover. A sudden infuriated scream came from where the explosion was dying down, and all of the new arrivals quickly ran towards this, blasting as they went. "Heh," Raphael whispered, realizing that they were going after their boss' pet project. "Idiots."
Beckoning for Allison to follow, he quickly crawled towards the door. One man was left a few paces within the room, looking young and scared. Raphael stood, motioning for Allison to stay down. The man looked at him, startled, but calmed down considerably when he saw the familiar weapon and part of the typical black uniform. "What's going on in there?"
"Same thing that's goin' on out here," Raphael responded. Hoping that this was the gun that was placed at its lowest setting, Raphael shot him. The young man hit the wall and fell down, stunned but mostly unhurt. Not wanting to have someone who would be able to tell Bishop about his human shape, Raphael hit him on the head with the butt of his gun, knocking him out. Without needing to be summoned, Allison quickly got up and took hold of Raphael's outstretched hand.
Together, they left the lab and resumed their search for an escape.