Rats and Rags: Final

Emily brushed some river krust shell off her shoulder (Her dress never stained, but it wasn't frictionless) and looked pointedly at the old woman cackling in front of her. "Granny, I know you've helped me a lot, and I've seen a lot of crazy stuff from you, but…this is a bit much to handle."

Corvo gave her a look. "You know this woman?"

The chamber was huge. Staircases around the sides led up to a house like structure, with a giant whale…sat on top of it? It gave the area they were all stood in the look of an arena. Granny Rags was stirring something soup-like in a bathtub. And on a podium behind her, on their knees in chains…

"Uh…Is this gonna get awkward on me?" Thomas was in a horrible state. If Emily hadn't spent such a long time surrounded by the gross and diseased she would have gagged at the sight of him. The plague had spread almost completely across his chest, and pus dripped to the ground at his feet every other second; he looked about to keel over and die any moment. But he wasn't the only one locked up. A man she quickly placed as Slackjaw, the gang leader from bottle street, was there too, and beside him was the girl she had rescued from the golden cat. "Hey, majesty!" Slackjaw called to her. "You have to help us! She wants to eat me and Rosie!" Emily looked at them, then at the soup in the bathtub, that looked suspiciously like what Granny had fed her earlier-

Then she did retch.

"Your servant has outlived his usefulness, dearie." Granny tutted to herself and gestured to Thomas. "Far too diseased, oh yes, shoddy work on my part, I do apologise, but I'm going to deal with him soon."

"And the others?" Emily asked, worried. Granny cackled. "Well, Granny needs to prepare dinner doesn't she? And that young one is very pretty. I could use some of that prettiness, that youth, you understand, don't you dearie?"

"She's mad! She's killed my whole crew, she doesn't die! It's the cameo, the cameo she keeps in her-"

"No talking from the ingredients!" Granny huffed, then went back to stirring.

Emily shared a significant glance with Corvo. "Get them out." She muttered quietly.

"I'm not leaving you in here with her!" Corvo hissed back, just as quietly.

"You can freeze time!" Emily responded. "Get Rosie and Slackjaw out, and come back and get me and Thomas later! Go!" Corvo paused. "That's an order." She hissed. Corvo tensed, but nodded. Then made a motion with his hand. Emily's mark burned, and Thomas cried out as his wound clenched and black veins spread further along his body. But Granny, Slackjaw and Rosie froze. Corvo blurred towards the captives, yanking down the release lever and grabbing Rosie and Slackjaw. They seemed to be brought into his time as he touched them, and he was able to run with, rather than carry, them towards the exit. Thomas looked at her in confusion. "What?" His voice was distorted. She simply gestured to Granny Rags and made a thumping gesture. That didn't need explaining. Wincing, he stood up and ran towards the old woman. Time went back to normal just before he reached her, and she turned around, blind eyes narrowing. "What-"

Then Thomas hit her. Her form crumpled under the blow, and dissolved. Rats crawled from her fallen corpse, and Thomas reeled backwards in fear.

"You traitor."

Emily turned to see Granny (What?) Slamming shut the door that she had entered through, effectively trapping them in with her, and keeping Corvo out. "You just want all the prettiness for yourself, don't you? Well I'll take it from you!"

"What did he mean cameo?" Emily flicked down her veil and turned to Thomas.

"A picture. We destroy it, she's mortal."

Rats started appearing, scrabbling out of holes in the rocks and down the steps around the room. Emily leapt, grappling forwards to throw herself towards Granny, but the old woman gestured and a wind picked up. Emily was flung bodily backwards, eyes catching sight of a symbol glowing on Granny's hand before landing with an unnatural grace on small white heels. "She's marked." Emily let out a breath. "You destroy the cameo. I'll hold her off."

Thomas looked at her. "Can you do that?"

Emily gestured. Granny Rags' own shadow reached up and grabbed her, forcing her into a kneeling position. "I've done it before." She responded, trying to sound unconcerned. "Go."

Thomas didn't need telling twice. He ran for the stairs on Granny's opposite side, skirting away from the few rodents that went for him. Below, he heard some more old-woman-screeching and jumped for the window to Granny's room. Grabbing the top of the gap, he looked into the room. And blanched. There was an incinerator, for one thing, who in their right mind kept an incinerator in their bedroom? And the Cameo was sat on a bedside table. Objective and goal was sat there right in front of him…As was the obstacle. His knuckles whitened on the sill.

Rats. Everywhere. On the floor, on the bed, a shifting mass of them that left practically no gaps to see the floor with. He forced himself to breathe, shakily. "Come on. You can do this. Its just some creepy crawlies, right?" He tried to force himself through the opening, and stopped.

Tried again, and stopped.

"Oh you've got to…" He growled at himself. Tears formed in the corners of his eyes.

There was more yelling from below him. He looked, and saw Emily balance on the edge of the bath as the rats chased after her. Granny was still laughing. He looked back into the room. "Come on. Come on. Come on." He muttered again and again. He tightened his grip. "Do it. Do it for her." He breathed in, fixed her smile in his mind, and dove into the room.

._.

Oh now this is ridiculous. Compunctions about killing set aside over her apparently immortal opponent, Emily flipped backwards on the rim and tipped the bathtub of soupy gunk onto Granny as the old woman tore towards her. The ceramic crushed through the old legs audibly, but again Rags' form disintegrated completely, and her almost incomprehensible screams sounded from elsewhere in the cavern. "How Dare You! The Morey household is the most prestigious in Dunwall! Those filthy Boyles wouldn't know politics if it-" and so on and so forth. Emily heard gunfire clanging against the door from Corvo's desperate attempts to get back in.

Singing, though it worked on Corvo's rats, did nothing to Granny rags', and the amount of free space to stand was rapidly diminishing. Emily conjured a doppelganger of herself and jumped up onto its shoulders, then, when the rats began gnawing at its legs, she jumped as high as she could and grappled up to the whale carcass above Granny's house. She used it to keep hold of one of the teeth, and found herself face to face with the whale's empty eye socket.

Eew…

"I'll show them! I'll show them all!" Emily huffed at the yelling, wondering whether Thomas had found the cameo yet. There was a squeak, she looked forwards, as a rat scurried out of the whale's eye socket.

EEW!

Emily jolted backwards, but the movement dislodged the tooth she had grabbed onto, and with a moment of vertigo she found herself falling backwards and down.

She passed the window to Granny's bedroom, and there was a flash of flame from it. Twisting in mid-air, she hurled the tooth towards Granny and began looking for something to arrest her fall with.

There were more screams from Granny's direction, but Emily ignored them. Instead she focused on the entrance to the chamber. With what must have been a grenade, the door blew open and Corvo ran through, and Emily landed in front of him, flicking hair over her shoulder. She opened her mouth to speak, but he seemed distracted by something behind her and she turned to look.

Granny was knelt on the floor, one hand clutching the other-

no, she wasn't.

She was clutching a stump. The whale tooth had sliced straight through the wrist, and was now impaled into the ground beside her. Granny's other hand, the one with the mark, was limp on the ground. Emily was transfixed by the sight, but Corvo shook her, yelling "Thomas did it, come on, we have to go your highness…" She shook him off, then turned to him, mind in disarray. "Thomas, where is he, I need-"

"There's no time! Move!"

As Granny Rags wailed, more and more rats began pouring into the room through various crevices, and Corvo hauled his charge up the steps and away from the writhing masses. The rats had covered the floor and were crawling over each other and the screeching form of an old woman, and chasing up the steps after them. They poured from granny's room as well, but those were accompanied by a much larger object, which they latched onto at every opportunity. That object desperately yanked away the rats as they bit and scratched at it, and it's face, a mess of scars, became visible. Emily's breath caught.

"GO!" Bellowed Thomas, before falling back into the sea of animals.

Emily screamed.

But she went.

So...Sorry I'm late?

Can't really make any excuses, but exams happened, and then I couldn't bring myself to pick this project back up.

But we're close now. I should be able to ride this last burst of inspiration up to the finish line. We'll have to see, won't we?

See y'all,