Chapter 7: Rat Trap

Now minus a very long time...

The dilapidated hut was miles from anywhere, that was why it had been chosen. The fewer people put at risk by what was to happen here, the better. A battle was to be fought. A battle of the body, the mind and the soul.

Here, the Rat Demon would fall. Or he would be unstoppable for all time.

The wind howled through the holes in the timber walls. Even the very sturdy men standing by with axes and knives looked round in terror. The dare not even glance at the figure on the bench, stretched out, writhing against the makeshift bonds holding him – no, it – in place. The shrilling, moaning, wailing and low intonation from the three sisters in their flowing robes, together in a peculiar discordant harmony, did not help their peace of mind. Their hair was wild, their faces flushed and intense and ageless. Their eyes alive with the wisdom of the ancients.

As their voices reached a crescendo, the door was thrown open and a furious black-clad man forced his way in. Looking at the sisters incredulously, he turned to the bearded man standing nearest him. "Jehan..! It can't be so. Not you..? When I heard, I could scarcely believe..."

"Father, listen to me."

"Listen? No. You must stop this." The priest turned toward the sisters, enraged. The three barely seemed to notice his existence – one had glanced over at him briefly, that was all. Then he looked at the writhing body on the bench, and paled. He walked slowly toward it, and met its gaze with an effort of will. He felt for the crucifix around his neck.

The eyes snapped open, and stared up at the priest. A rictus grin spread across the face. "Good" came a rumbling voice the priest felt in his chest as much as heard. The priest pulled out a long knife from his cloak, and moved to deliver a quick decisive strike.

"No!" Jehan moved forward, and slammed the priest to the floor, and the knife went clattering under the bench. He pulled the priest to his feet and the two struggled.

"Why..?" panted the priest. "It must die..." By mutual consent they stopped pushing at each other and stepped back. The priest gestured at the sisters. "Why this..? The creature can be killed. Why take such a risk?"

"It's my brother!" Jehan yelled. The priest gaped at him. "He has been possessed. I can no more abandon him than I could- Father, let them continue. I am assured, they can banish this creature to the netherworld..."

"At what cost?" demanded the priest. "Yes," he snarled, looking at the sisters with loathing. "They will have their price, and I dread to imagine it."

"Blood of Hyn'tnn!" one of the sisters yelled, and the others began incorporating it into their wild chanting. The priest was horrified.

Just then, another sound was heard over the wind. It could for a moment have been mistaken for the wind itself, but it soon became clear something was approaching the hut across the rough ground between it and the woods. As one man looked out, he saw a dark mass envelop the ground and spread toward him. He screamed and fell back inside, slamming the door shut.

"They're coming!" he babbled, terrified.

"Now. It must be now!" The priest threw himself under the bench and retrieved his knife. Before he had even stood up, Jehan punched him hard and he fell. "You must let me..." he gasped.

A boy moved forward from the assembled men, knife in his hand. "Father, I will do it!" he called, and before any could stop him he plunged the knife into the Rat King's chest.

The hut seemed to go dark, and the sisters stopped their intonations. "No..." one of them said softly.

With a rattle from his throat, the Rat King expired and all of them held their breath. "Is it over?" someone asked quietly.

The door seemed to explode inwards at that moment, and parts of the ceiling gave way, and rats came in from all directions. Squealing, hissing, biting. As they all tried to find some sort of refuge, the rats enveloped the body on the bench, their bodies all working together and resembling some sort of liquid in the way they moved over him. Seeing their chance, the sisters fled through the destroyed doorway.

Jehan stepped as close as he dared. "Brother..." he called warily. Suddenly, there was complete silence. A human shaped mass of matted fur lay on the bench, pulsing in and out.

Then they moved again. As one, the rats left the body of Jehan's brother and as he stood in horrified paralysis they moved to him. His feet were covered and the collective of rats enveloped his legs, his waist, his arms, shoulders. Finally, as he screamed with no sound, unable to get the sound out, they covered him completely. The pulsing began again.

The priest felt he had to act. But what could he possibly do? He got to his feet and stood before Jehan. As he watched, the rats started to leave him. As the face was revealed, the priest gasped in shock. It was Jehan's familiar features, but something had changed. The eyes were intelligent, malevolent, calculating. The voice that issued forth was not his.

"Father. Come, join us..." Jehan reached out an arm and the rats adhering to it launched themselves at the priest's face. In a last moment of anguish, he could think of only one thing... He had failed.

Now minus 15 years and 6 months...

Splinter was trying to meditate. No easy task. Quieting his mind was far from straightforward, given the momentous changes that had overtaken him in the last few months. He had gone from being a small, simple creature of instinct to a thinking, reasoning being. His world had expanded from his safe, warm cage with occasional glimpses of a larger world to...

What it had become the day his master Yoshi was killed. As it always did when he thought of this event, his ear pulsed with a dull pain. Curiously the pain was located in the chunk that was missing, severed by an instinctive swipe of his enemy's blade.

His concentration snapped completely as he heard a clattering sound.

One of his little charges had escaped from the makeshift pen he had made for them. "P-pizza..." it croaked. Looking up, it smiled at him. No, not it. He. And he had a name. Glancing at the fleck of red paint he had left on the small creature's shell, Splinter led it back to the pen where the other three were snoozing quietly.

"Raphael... So independent. No doubt that will change... Not pizza time yet. Later."

Hello again.

Splinter looked up. That voice again. He thought he had imagined it. The tunnel seemed to grow darker around him. He thought he could see a figure, human-shaped, a few meters away, though that could easily have been his imagination.

He chose not to investigate. The more he engaged with the voice, the more distinct it became, a fact he had already learned in the time he had been here.

Splinter...

How did the voice know that was what his master called him? Splinter was still not used to his new-found ability to speak, and it was a definite fact that he had shared that name with no other living being. Yet somehow the voice knew.

Join me, Splinter. You know you wish it... You want to belong again...

The worst thing was, the voice was not lying. He had never trusted its motives, but it had never lied. Splinter lived from moment to moment, even now he had the ability to imagine a different way of being, because this new world was a strange and hostile place. He did want the certainties his far simpler younger self had enjoyed in Master Yoshi's cage.

The voice knew him. That was what made it dangerous.

Splinter!

The voice's sudden anger reassured Splinter. He got the impression the voice was not as powerful or influential as it believed itself to be. At least not yet. He knew in that moment he was strong enough to resist its pull.

Go, Splinter told the voice. Go and never return.

I cannot promise that... You will not resist me forever.

Perhaps not, Splinter conceded. It was possible that managing to resist now was the best anyone could hope for.

Now...

Splinter and the Rat King walked slowly round each other. If Splinter was remotely troubled by the difference in size between himself and his opponent, he gave no sign of it.

"I have been calling. You have done well to resist so long. But there was only so long you could hold out."

"A wise man does not underestimate an enemy."

"If we really were enemies, you would do well to be aware of that yourself." The Rat King produced his flute and put it to his lips. It almost got there, till Splinter, in a blur of sudden movement, sent it clattering to the ground with a shuriken.

Far from being annoyed, the Rat King seemed delighted. "Thank you," he said. "Every such thing you do makes me stronger." A flicker of reaction from Splinter. "You didn't know that?"

"I suspected," Splinter replied hesitantly. He sat on the floor, legs crossed. Some of the rats moved forward independently to investigate him, but none had the courage to get too close. "So, my first instinct was correct. I must do nothing." His eyes closed.

"There is nothing you can do to counter me."

Splinter's eyes opened again. "What if... I was to kill you?"

"That would be inconvenient," admitted the Rat King. "But no more than that."

That made Splinter smile. "I may be able to do nothing, but others are not so hampered. And they are coming."

It was the Rat King's turn to smile, though he did not choose to mention the Turtles' fate. "We could go on like this for days, but rather than that just answer me one question. One question only."

"Yes?"

"Do you remember standing up?"

Splinter felt a jolt of alarm as he realized he was standing again. Whatever had commanded his legs to unfold and lift his body, it had not been him. The chilling implications started to go through his mind. Before he could come to terms with that, he started walking, one leg in front of the other, a little jerkily at first but with increasing smoothness. He dug his stick into the ground fiercely in an attempt to halt his own body, but the arm then threw it away. He was no longer in control.

"Merely in coming here, you have surrendered to me," said the Rat King. "Whether you knew that or not." Splinter gritted his teeth with the effort of resisting the alien commands to his own body, but he could do nothing...

Leonardo was floundering. After losing his initial grip, he had managed to catch a barely adequate hold with his other hand, but his grip on the edge of the vertical shaft hadn't been very secure to begin with and the torrent of water rushing noisily past, buffeting and disorienting him, really wasn't helping. He tried to sneak a look around a couple of times, searching desperately for any sign of the others. Fairly sure he had passed out for a few seconds back there, around the time they evacuated the kart, which was now smashed to pieces, he had no idea what had happened to his brothers.

Isn't my whole life supposed to flash in front of me..? So much for that... Then, as if things weren't bad enough, something hit him on the head!

Next: Leo lets go, April is fit to be tied and... The Turtles return...