Firebird and I hustled down the sewer tunnel, in the direction Gary swore he saw the giant thing take the Old Man with the Ray Gun.

We were basically just headed back down the tunnel, in the direction we came. Our steps splashed water everywhere as we ran, and Cynder was taking refuge in Gary's shirt pocket again to avoid getting wet.

"What happens if she gets wet?" I asked Gary.

"Oh, nothing. Water just evaporates on contact with her, but she doesn't like the sensation when it happens." He replied, which I guess made sense. I probably wouldn't want to turn into a living mist machine on contact with water either.

Eventually, we came upon another smashed wall. There was a huge pipe that was behind that wall; but it was smashed open as well, the metal around the gaping hole pried inward as if something really strong put all its weight against the pipe, and busted through.

"Pretty sure that wasn't there before... you ready to see what's at the end of this thing?" Gary asked me. I was about to answer, but a voice behind me made me whirl around.

"Why did you guys leave me at the visitor's center? That really wasn't cool, Starlight." It was Retina, if you hadn't guessed.

"O-oh, hey there. Sorry about that, it's just, you said you'd keep watch and everything happened kind of fast up there... I sort of forgot about you.. I'm really sorry. I'm still getting used to this whole, "team leader" thing."

I expected her to be mad, but she seemed to understand where I was coming from, because she just nodded. "It's all good."

"How did you know we were down here?" Gary asked her. She shot a look at him, her eyebrow raised. It was evident that she hadn't completely forgiven him, but she answered him nonetheless.

"The green visor gives me X-Ray vision. When I didn't see you guys outside, I figured you hadn't gotten far. So I went around the Junk Block, looking around for a while, and eventually spotted you guys down here."

"Ahh" me and Firebird said in unison. She was definitely pretty handy to have around.

"Why are we standing in front of this pipe? Did one of you guys smash it?" She asked us.

"It's... um.. a long story, but we really need to get to the end of it. There's an Old Man that needs our help."

"Then what are we waiting for? Let's go!" She led the way into the pipe, heading right. We followed, since we didn't really have a better clue as to which way the giant thing went.

Eventually, we reached a massive room. It was mostly dark, except for something that looked a little like a spotlight shedding light on something on the far end of the room. Retina stood frozen in place for some reason, looking down at her feet.

I walked up to where she was standing and tried to take a step further, but she put a hand on my shoulder. "Don't. Look down." She pointed at our feet, and I looked where she was pointing, not really sure what she was talking about at first.

But slowly, realization dawned on me. There were billions of rats, scurrying all over the place. Many of them were chattering to each other, as if deep in conversation. Some watched the spotlight, which I now realized was some sort of stage extremely intently. A few had noticed us, and were regarding us as if trying to gauge whether we were threats. I really didn't want to find out what would happen if they decided that we were.

We waited patiently with them, and before long something very strange happened. An enormous rat- and by that, I mean 8 feet tall and extremely fat- slowly began to walk across the stage. The rat was wearing a makeshift king's robe, seemingly made from the skins of assorted teddy bears and blankets, with frills made of the plush you might find inside a stuffed animal. It was also wearing a golden crown atop its head, though I have no clue where it got that. The rat was pushing a stretcher, on which was the Old Man. His lab coat had been confiscated for some reason; he was just wearing a T-shirt and black dress pants.

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Then the giant rat cleared his throat, and began to speak. His voice was rich and powerful; it echoed throughout the room.

"Denizens of my fine kingdom. You know me as your leader- your glorious Rat King. You know that I've given everything I have to our fine kingdom, and its people... and I have watched in horror as we are driven to the brink of extinction, by those idiotic humans. Indeed, I've cried many a night over our fallen brethren; those who have fallen for those horrid traps, or eaten a delicious nut only to find it was poison meant to kill us. And I've sat idly by, as this man, captured so many of my subjects... my beloved, wonderful subjects... and used them to test his medicine. Used them to run endlessly on those horrible wheel contraptions, to power the lights in his lab, and many of the things he's built."

He drew a deep breath, and looked up at the ceiling. He seemed to be trying to collect himself. I looked around the room, and every single rat was completely zeroed in on him. Not a single one was fidgeting at all, it was as if their livelihood depended on the words spilling out of his mouth.

Someone tapped me on the shoulder, and I looked behind me.

Gary's eyes were glowing pink, and they cast a dim glow over me and Retina, who was looking at me with her face all scrunched up. She seemed confused.

"Who is that? He's just been chattering up there and you two are looking at him super intently. Can you understand what he's saying?" She whispered at me.

"You can't?" I replied, astonished.

"No, I can't. He just sounds like a normal mouse. A bit louder than one, maybe." Choked sobs started coming from the stage, so I figured Rat King was actually on the verge of crying. I looked over, and saw a few tiny rats up there with him now; nuzzling him in an attempt to console him.

Gary looked at Retina, and she immediately looked away. "Nope. Not falling for that."

"Relax, Ret. I can telepathically show you what I'm hearing, your brain should translate it the way mine does."

She still looked apprehensive. "It's not going to knock me out?" She asked.

"No, I promise."

She seemed convinced... or, well, convinced enough. She took a deep breath and replied, "Okay."

Her eyes began to glow pink, and she looked back at the Rat King.

He was starting to compose himself, and was in the process of shooing the other rats away.

"Ahem, I apologize, my beautiful subjects. I suppose, thinking about those poor rats left me a bit emotional.." He stopped for a moment, trying to get rid of the shakiness in his voice, before continuing.

"And worst of all, this man shoots at my poor subjects with this horrible Ray Gun." The Rat King withdrew the gun from somewhere within his robe, and a collective high pitched *gasp* reverberated around the room. It seemed these smaller rats were familiar with the weapon.

The Rat King messed with a dial on the gun, and fired it at the Old Man's arm. a sharp buzzing noise accompanied by a bright flash filled the room, followed by a pained shout.

The man's arm was steaming, and his skin was red. All the rats in the room seemed to be cheering in response- a lot of excited chatter began to fill the air again. But the Rat King lifted his hands, and within seconds the room was quiet once more.

"Now. I have good news for you all. I have gained exclusive access to this evil man's stash of weapons- and I'm going to use it to finally enact my- I mean, our revenge against all those pitiful humans on the surface above. As soon as I give the word, I want all of you to rush out onto the streets and attack whatever human you see- man, woman, child. It does not matter. We will not rest, until we have achieved justice for all rat-kind!"

If the rats were excited before, they were extra excited now. Loud chattering filled the room, and this time, I noticed that if I focused I could actually decipher what some of the squeaks meant.

"-Finally, we can avenge our boy!" said one rat.

"I can finally get into that stuffed pantry I've been eying for ages.." said another.

"All hail our amazing leader!" said a third- and, well, pretty much every other rat. They began to chant "Rat King! Rat King!" over and over, before the Rat King waved them into silence again.

"And here's the best part- you all can start, right now!" His voice boomed, and almost instantly, a flood of rats washed over us- all around our feet, up above us, even escaping though little holes in the ceiling. A rat that was trying to take some initiative jumped up and bit Retina's arm, causing her to yelp in pain. She shook the little critter off, and it disappeared into the sea of rats.

But as soon as she shouted, the Rat King noticed us, and gave us a big toothy grin. "Ah.. I didn't realize we had guests. You'll have to forgive my manners... I'll make it up to you by tending to the four of you personally."

We definitely had our work cut out for us.