Chapter 32:
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AN: Apologies for the delay, the last month has been crazy and I've been delayed in putting the polishing works on a major piece of artwork to celebrate this story's finale. It's up and on proud display on the A03 version of this story. -In addition, bit of a warning for the next chapter, it'll probably be delayed until the sunday or monday. Either way, enough of that, I've bet you've all been waiting for this chapter. Enjoy!
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The mammals leapt down hard. The steel beam ram had hit high up in the loading bay doors leaving a long fall down the other side. The only way down safely, apart from Sly's parasail, was to leap to a nearby gantry. Even then it was a long way and painful on the paws, Skye yipping hard and limping slightly as she made it, the odd hop following after from the stinging on her pads. Even so, one by one, down they came before turning to the huge area in front of them. A massive room, concrete walls crawling with catwalks, pipes, electrical wiring and warning signs a plenty. Off in one corner, held up by a pair of crossing gantry cranes, hung the looming refueling machine, a cylindrical tower covered with branching wires and mechanisms like ivy, pulled away from the central floor and resting in a corner, King Rattigan's throne put away now that it would be beneath him.
It was there, in the central circle over the reactor itself, on top of the many heavy hexagonal fuel-channel cap tiles they'd heard about from before, that the source for Rattigan's ascension lay. Tables of machines, items, devices, all sorts… Sly already hitting the floor fast in a roll, cutting his chute and charging forward, cane rising up. Carmelita turned, shock pistol raised, waiting to see movement or the signs of their enemy before moving to pull the trigger anyway.
One shot then two racing towards the table. Sly, moving forward, cane raised, ready to smash down whatever he could reach first. It didn't matter what it did, he was going to stop it, tear it, he could sift through the rubble later to find…
He froze as he saw a familiar sight up ahead. Encased in a set of heavy metal cradles, thick electrical cables running into it, was the talisman. Sly turned, cane rising up as he pivoted, ready to smash it out and…
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Rattigan and, in that moment, the world seemed to freeze. The rat, tired, broken, trembling, shaking in pain but with a white hot ferocity that burned out of his eyes. His paws jammed together whatever equipment and wires he could before throwing them down, glaring at Sly in equal amounts spite and triumph as he reached for a small trio of levers.
Flicking one.
Carmelita's shots seemed to hang in the air, an eternity away from their targets.
Flicking two.
Sly pushed forward so hard he could swear he felt his leg muscles rip themselves from the bone, cane coming down, ready to…
Flick three.
The raccoon saw a bright light engulf his being before he was blown backwards, kicked back to where he'd come, tumbling through the air before crashing down hard on the floor. Lightning roared around him while thunder screamed out, the raccoon shielding his closed eyes yet doing nothing to stop the burning light from turning his vision white.
Everything shook, everything rumbled, he felt things flying past him but didn't, couldn't, hear them. Only feel them as a flying chair smashed into him, forcing the raccoon back from the heat and the burning cold flame.
Facing away, daring to open his eyes, straining against the reflected glare he managed to see his allies up on a catwalk up above, cradling onto each other. A pipe led up to it from below and, his eyes forced shut again, the raccoon raced to it, smashing himself against the wall before feeling its grip and climbing up. Cane out to hook the edge of the walkway, the wind now blowing so hard he couldn't swing out, instead climbing up, feeling the pressure push him into the railings, coming over and… A set of paws grabbed his and pulled him in tight, the feeling of Carmelita holding on to the shaking raccoon keeping him together.
The blinding, burning light suddenly dimmed, only burning and no longer blinding. The furious wind dulled to the point he could hear the room shaking, metal grinding, the others calling out.
And then.
"ERROR…"
His blood ran cold and he turned, they all turned, in a line. Skye, Jack, Mr Fox, Sly, Carmelita, Judy and Nick. Shielding their eyes, or bracing, but all witnesses, Sly staring dead eyed on in the centre, as the incandescent fury was tamed by the growing wings, talons and body of cold metal.
Sprouting out of air, emerging into existence in a white hot fury, growing intense only to buckle.
"ERROR… Clo… Clo… Clo…"
Buckling again as if writhing in pain, a semi formed talon digging in tight to the floor and turning, popping into the cracks and digging up the massive steel tiles like pomegranate seeds being squeezed out of the soft fruit. With a jolt it spasmed under, the semi-formed atrocity half collapsing over onto what might be a side. A frame with part formed organs inside, a malformed snake of a neck with a lower beak and errant eye at the end. Sparks flicked between the mutated pieces, it writhed and trembled, stuck in its death throws as it erupted into new life.
"I don't…" Carmelita began, as she saw it try to drop down hard onto a small reinforced box, tumbled over yet still attached to the growing mass by chains and wires, absorbed in like a tree growing around a railing over the years. Tethered in place, upside down yet still there, still holding on, still in pain but fighting, fighting hard.
The beast spoke again. "Ra… Ra…"
"He's doing it," Carmelita squeaked out. "Rattigan's winning."
Sly silently drew his binocucom up and zoomed in, seeing the rat fight on. Over and over. Gripping hard, gripping tight, turning around to look at them and speaking. Words coming not out of his mouth, but out of the nightmare looming above him.
"ERRRR-ATTTIIII-GAN IS SU-SU-SU-PER-PER-PERIOR! RATTI…GAN IS SU-PERROR…" It slumped down before glaring their way. "RATTIGAN IS SUPERIOR! I! AM! SUPERIOR!"
Carmelita pulled up her shock pistol, teeth gritted, to fire a shot at Rattigan's cradle, a weak and wavering pulse coming out, the vixen swearing as it did so. "GUNS!" She screamed above the roar. "FIRE WHEN IT HITS!"
Rattigan, hanging upside down, turned and saw it coming before a massive wing bent in and shielded him from their view. The shot fizzled out on its surface, a cold hearted laugh bubbling out. "I say, that tickles," Rattigan spoke, his voice coming out, echoing in cold metal tones. "I-I…" The body twitched again, trying to contort itself, trying to wrestle back. "NO YOU DON'T!" Rattigan roared. "You pathetic excuse for a god," he cursed, laughing. "Feel that? -Fe-fe-feel that! The darkness roaring in. Your own demise." He smiled, looking up. "Maybe give me the flexibility, I can at least give you the satisfaction of seeing Cooper getting crushed by your own talons before you die!"
The malformed body jerked forward a bit before halting. "Ha, tempted, weren't you?"
A new eye emerging into existence on the ever increasingly owl-like face, it turned to stare at them. "I see you through him. I feel myself crawling in, burning him up. I feel his fear, I feel his panic!"
"Let's run," Mr Fox squeaked, pointing down the catwalk. "Running sounds good."
"It does!" Skye turned to lead the way only to be blocked off as a wing grew into full existence, sprouting out and guillotining the walkway in front of them, blocking them off as it sliced into the concrete wall itself. Wires were cut, pipes hissed and leaked, flames sprouted about up ahead as scraps and items and dust combusted.
"Oh, what's left of him doesn't want you too. He didn't fight me there!" Rattigan laughed to himself, his voice and that of the monster merging. He slumped and trembled again. "Nowhere to run! Nowhere to hide!"
"There's always a way…" Nick began before freezing. "Why is my voice on helium right now!"
Huddled against the catwalk, they glanced at each other before Skye spoke out. "The reactor was helium cooled. They must have never removed the stuff."
"Well," Rattigan spoke, mechanical voice not sullied by the leaking gas as he pushed forward, talons digging into the reactor top further, spilling more tiles and breaking new pipes, geysers of dust bubbling out as the pressurised gas below released. "Only more appropriate that idiots like you get to die sounding as stupid as you are. Basking in my incandescent triumph. Do you like that Cooper? You and him, no different in your end. You truly were meant to be connected to each other!"
Sly trembled, standing still, alone, silent, mouth parting open slightly as fast shallow breaths came in and out, in and out.
"Owl got your tongue Cooper!" Rattigan laughed. Another jolt of Clockwerk, pushing back only to freeze. "Ha, I didn't even have to infect you with compliance viruses. -Bad idea putting information on your operating system up in temples everywhere for your death cultists to worship, bird brain, I… -Haha, I just felt myself wipe you from a few of your talisma. Not long now, not long until I finish that stupid ringtail's job for him!"
"There's forces outside, ready for you," Judy managed to yell, "you're not going to…"
"-And what could you possibly say that would stop me now!" Rattigan roared in laughter. "I'm not like this thing. You can't learn my language! You can't use it to create restrictor programs I won't have the time to break! You can't put in programming to stop me trying to kill you or damage any of your technology, you can't block me from fighting…" Another shift, the whole building shaking, pieces of concrete and steel starting to rain down from above. "Oh give it up tick-tock, I… No you don't!" The creature began rolling over before a talon shot out to halt it, digging up more of the reactor caps as it slid to a halt. "See, that wasn't even me stopping you from crushing me, I… I… ARRGHHHHHHH!" The torso and its limbs began to shake, wrestling with itself, screams of two voices coming out. "Oh I'm riding those death throws. You should thank me, I bet this is you living more than…" It jolted forward, semi-formed beak ploughing into the ground and digging up more of the ruined floor, mutated head glaring up at them.
Sly shook himself forward, pushing himself to the edge.
"SLY!" Carmelita yelled.
"I get the head as you shock it, I go for him." he yelled, voice pitch high as a wing came forward and one came back, trying to hide both targets.
"It WON'T…" the fox cop began, only for Sly to helium scream back.
"I HAVE TO…"
A massive jolt came out, the body twisting up and around. They briefly saw Rattigan's cradle, held in a near crush by a protective talon, the other one coming in close but being halted before it could…
"Almost…" Rattigan began, a glorious cheer in his voice just as a thin spike grew out from the end of a claw.
The whole structure twitched slightly, a second passing before Rattigan spoke out of it once more. "What I… I… I am… What's…" The body shook again. "NO YOU DON'T! NO YOU! NONONONO! NO! WHAT HAVE YOU! YOU CAN'T DO THIS!" He screamed, fear in his voice. "I WAS WINNING! I WAS WINNING I! -WHERE'S MY MIND! WHAT'S HAPPENED TO MY MIND!"
Sly brought his binocucom up and managed to zoom in, a razor thin rod shooting from the end of Clockwerk's talon, through Rattigan's head and out of where an eye once was.
"But…" Rattigan voiced, his words going quiet. "My programming, my…" Twisting up like a sleeping fox and looking back at himself through the creature's eyes, only a weary chuckle escaped. "You… Not kill me… Not harm my technology, I… -I… If I hadn't have been rushed, I'd have clocked tha… tha… tha… tha.."
The others began to push off, the intensity of the chaos had died down, the wing blocking their way out retracted as the creature twisted onto itself. Stepping forward, Nick slumped onto the railing. "We got to… we got to go… Why…"
They looked at each other, all collapsing, weak, until Skye pointed up. "Look."
Up above a long line of rope had been smouldering only for the top to be snuffed out, the flames just stopping in mid-air in a wavering front. A front that was rapidly getting lower.
"Helium putting out the fire," Judy said, looking back. "Yes…"
"Drowning us…" the vixen said. "I…"
"Move it," Carmelita yelled, waving at them to get low and start moving on. Even as they did their vision wavered, their bodies felt weak, they looked forward to try and see a way down only to struggle… Was that really that far or…
In a spasm a wing cut down, slicing in front of them. The room rumbled and shook, debris and concrete and whole chunks of the roof starting to collapse down on them. All as the beast below, almost fully formed, kept on writhing.
"Tha… tha… clo tha… cloc tha… clockth… clockthe… clockwer… CLOCKWERK IS SUPERIOR!"
They all shied back, body against body, desperately gasping for air as the thing below them turned, a giant metal owl head staring back and Clockwerk laughing out, deep, cold, metal, revelling in life and dripping with hate. "You played well Rattigan, let that be the last memory the old you gets to experience." Claws tightened and bulldozed back through the ruined pit of pipes and steel as the fledgling creature looked up. "HELLO COOPER! I SAID YOU WOULD NEVER BE RID OF ME!"
Trembling, cane up and shaking, Sly staggered out, Carmelita at his side, paw on shoulder, the two now drunkenly stumbling to face him and…
"TRY IT!" he jeered. "GO OUT FIGHTING AS I CRUSH YOU!"
Cane up, Sly began climbing up the railing, turning only to lean down and give Carmelita a kiss. "I love you," he said, tear trickling from his eye before glancing back at the others. "Won't be long, but see you all on the other side."
A last breath in, he looked up, Clockwerk pushing himself forward, face against the floor, beak grinning with anticipation as…
"KEHAAR!" They all looked down to see Woundwort standing below, bloodied, shaking, wrapped in dynamite as he lit the fuse on one and grinned. "YOU BASTARD!"
"DOES NOT COM…" was all Clockwerk could say as the hare leapt straight into his maw, Carmelita yanking Sly away and firing three shots down. Each one duller, slower, weaker than the last but each hitting its mark, lighting his face up and crawling over it, distorting it, as a feral grinning Woundwort charged in, body twitching up as flicks of the lightning tickled and lashed him… Before he and Clockwerk's head exploded.
The others were thrown back by the blast, shrapnel flying out as the whole body of Clockwerk pulled up and back in front of them, tearing off the front of the railings. They looked up to see a smoking crater where the upper half of his face had been, a lower beak hanging off and flopping uselessly as other bits of the hollowed out shell of his skull flapped in the breeze. Carmelita raised her weapon only for it to fizzle, a grip on her paw turning her away. A stair leading up had been torn off and collapsed down, crumpling in a ruin but leaving a path out. Nick and Judy were racing towards it, dragging the rest with them.
"Go!" Carmelita yelled to those behind her, even as she struggled, slipping slightly as her vision swam. "Go, I…" She paused to see the writhing beast, light and flashes, ever dulled but still there, growing around his head, shielded from them by a wing. The other came around to wave out blindly, trying to tear them off the walkway and crush them.
Only for the heavy refuelling machine, its cranes shaken off their rails, to topple down, slowly at first like a tree just cut but then swooping down straight onto him. It pinned his body, stomping it further down into the crater of the reactor pit, talons and wings coming up and moving over himself, shielding him from attack as he retreated into the carved out impassable wasteland that had been the reactor.
Carmelita could only grit her teeth. Just one more charge, just one more shot and…
A paw gripped her sleeve and she turned to see Sly yanking her on, the vixen following as they jumped onto the ruined staircase, almost toppling as they somehow made their way down and out through a door.
Struggling as they went but already starting to feel clearer, more oxygen coming into their system
Through corridors, through doors, following the exit signs.
Each step bringing better air, stumbling, getting thrown into walls as the building shook and the roars of the healing beast came out, they kept on going, kept on moving, before bursting out into the avenue once more.
The only mammals present were those at the far end, far away and fleeing.
Running from the horror behind them.
A massive bang rang out behind, throwing them to their feet as they looked up to their rear, the heavy steel door showing a massive bulge where Clockwerk had tried to push himself out.
"We have to go," Sly said, starting to run only for a heavy honking to cut them off. Racing forward in a riot van and slamming to a halt just in front of them, Oates waved them in.
"STOP DAWDLING AND GET ON IT!" he yelled, the others racing forward, opening the doors and starting to pile in. Judy leapt in second to last, only Mr Fox following behind, the vulpine having wandered to the side and now running back with a triumphant grin on his muzzle.
She could care about that later.
"Detective," Judy began, turning to the horse. "What are…"
"-We wanted to be here in mammal to see Rattigan's end," Basil spoke from one shoulder.
"And we were not going to leave you down here, were we?" Dave answered from the other, holding on tight as Oates pulled the van into reverse, did a quick J-turn, and slammed his hoof down, racing them forwards fast. Weaving through fallen debris and the refuse from the battle, the vehicle shaking as another bang roared out from behind.
"Most of your irregulars departed the way they came, cargo drones into the Nocturnal district and beyond," the horse said, slamming the wheel to the right and pushing through the remains of the loading bay. The lines of mammals being held or patched up were gone, instead the last dregs and ZPD mammals newly arrived were piling onto the massive platform lift, getting in as tightly as possible. Oates slammed them to a halt so hard that the mice were almost thrown off his shoulders, gripping on for dear life with their paws as they were thrown forward, hanging out in front of him before slamming back down against his shirt.
He was already halfway out by that point, the others following and racing onto the lift. More ZPD forces were there and ready, Skye glancing around. "Do any of you have the electric cannons here?"
Carmelita nodded, looking around and holding up her shock pistol. "Does anyone have any spares?" She paused as she saw the musk ox from when they saved Ash. "The shock cannons, are they…"
"Still up on the surface," he said, he and the rest of the passengers getting shook to the side as the whole lift jolted, starting its rise up. "That… It's to deal with whatever that was, wasn't it?"
Carmelita nodded glumly, looking around. Most of the mammals here were the injured, from the more legal volunteers and Rattigan's crew, with a smaller number of ZPD forces keeping the order or tending to some of the worse wounds.
"It…" the ox began. "We can defeat it, can't we? With them?"
She looked around, down at the lift, trying not to picture how easy it would be for Clockwerk to fly up the shaft and tear through the platform, sending them all falling to their deaths.
"How long until we get to the surface?"
"I… -That's not answering my question."
"That's not answering mine either," she snapped.
"I… Only a few minutes," he said, as another tremor came up from below.
She nodded. "I hope."
She looked over at all of them. All of those who'd seen it. Bodies trembling, fear painted on their muzzles, knowing what had occurred, what was yet to come. One far so more than the others.
Walking over, she grabbed Sly tight, waiting for him to hug her back, so she could be there for him. There as his monster returned once more.
Nothing came.
"Sly?"
"Get ready," he said, taking a breath in and staring out. Eyes hard and cold before an ever so small grin grew on his muzzle. "Third time's the charm, right?"
She nodded, managing to stand up and lend him a paw. The two held each other's palms and wrapped around them, tight. A firm look on her muzzle, Carmelita nodded back. "Right. Third time's the charm."