In order to get to the tower there was only really one route, as most districts had sealed what was left for their own good the only available path was to go through the pinch.

Soon enough they were stood in front of a strange alley that seemed to vanish into a blurry mist. Mibbet was just considering stepping through when Slinky stopped her. Carefully pulling two throwing knives from her belt she threw one each side of the entrance. From the other side came muffled cursing followed by a slightly limpy run.

“The welcoming committee” Slinky grinned “there’s a reason we don’t get many tourists down here, one each side with a big stick, it rakes in a lot of wallets.”

“You seem rather familiar with it.” Mibbet stated, she didn’t waste the energy asking because the answer was fairly obvious.

“Should be, was my job to go through their pockets once they were out for the count, or be a distraction if the mark wised up see?” The expression on Slinky right at that moment was unsettling like looking at a stranger, not the friendly waitress in the mob cap. (Right now she was wearing some kind of tight suit that must have been a nightmare to get on over all that fuzz, not to mention static hell, covered over with a heavy looking robe that probably hid a rather extensive armoury.)

“and now we’re following you down into what was most likely a massive trap?”

“Yeah aint it fun?” She said with a big smirk.

The pinch was a very very strange looking place. It seemed a lot of the alleys and passages took the laws of physics as suggestions, and more than once they found themselves walking paths that suddenly changed into circles. (Mibbet suggested skipping them until Rattanian and Slinky patiently explained skipping the circular path would mean the road bringing you out over an outhouse pit rather than on the next leg of their route, so Mibbet figured that maybe a shitty shortcut that shittily cut your journey short wasn’t worth it.)

Other times they found themselves walking upside down as gravity seemed to decide to be all contrary, much to Elvira’s amusement (all that tumbling training meant that doing triple backflips while upside down was possible, while the families lack of instinct for self preservation meant it seemed like a really fun idea.) Errol meanwhile was looking very green about the gills (Slinky had warned him not to take food from the stalls without checking first, but did he listen? Noooo he did not, and now he had gills to be green about for the next few hours. “Don’t worry they’ll wear off” she said, “maybe.” All Errol had wanted was a coffee, and unless your coffee REALLY packs a wallop the odds of random mutation are rather slim, but the sources that cafe had used for their water were questionable at best. So he was lucky that was all he got.)

Soon they found themselves in what had probably once over been a townsquare.

“Oh CRAP they changed the routes, we’re screwed.” Slinky grumbled, “don’t take your hand off your weapon.”

“Why not?” Mibbet asked her.

“They don’t call this place checkwhisker square for nothing.”

“Waddya mean.”

“You come in here they’ll swipe the whiskers off your nose, and you won’t even notice. Trust me hang onto your weapons tight.”

Everybody may have taken that less seriously if they hadn’t seen the reflections of a horde of ratty eyes staring back at them. But for some reason the sight of hundreds of pairs of glowy eyes in the darkness has a tendency to command your attention.

“WE’RE HERE TO SEE BUTTONS AND VEGGIE” Slinky bellowed, then suddenly the entire area was devoid of ocular anatomy, and probably those bearing said biological features.

“What just happened?” Mibbet asked.

"Nobody would be stupid enough to rob somebody here to parley with The Grey Twins, it gets hard to steal after on account of not having paws, or legs, or teeth, or a head on account of they’ll never find you.”

“You sure shouting those names won’t bring more trouble?”

“More trouble than the old firm? Not possible.”

“See things change Slinks,” came a voice from the shadows. “That always was your trouble, no foresight, and now you’re upsetting my boys.”

“Pintsize?” Slinky asked incredulously as a figure slinked out into the light. They hadn’t really seen them before because they had expected a normal sized rat. Instead they were confronted by what can only really be described as a wall of meat. This rat’s muscles had muscles, and they were flexing.

“Like I said slinks, like my nickname things change, I changed, and the old firm are done.”

“I see you took a dip Pintsize, why the hell would you do that to yourself?”

“Mainly because of people like you asking questions like that, sneering, underestimating. You think you’re so much better just because you got out, you’re not, and now it’s almost payback time.”

“Well you didn’t cook this scheme up yourself I know that much. But you think just because we’re in a bit of a bind you’ve won. There’s one thing you didn’t count on”

“What’s that Slinks?”

“That we aint stupid enough to get caught RUN.”

Pintsize snarled and made his way after them, but was somewhat interrupted by an owl-bear and a hellcat to the face, there was of course a struggle. But pintsize succeeded in pushing them off, swearing as he realised the square was now empty, and contained two rather large predators. Who had unfortunately already made it to cover. He wanted to track them down, but it wasn’t time. For now takeover was the more pressing concern.

Mibbet and the others were tearing down the alleys, taking cover as best they could. They didn’t have much of a plan yet, but they had to find the twins.

Suddenly the group were grabbed, Mibbet squirmed as much as possible, as the face of Veggie Grey leaned in on her.

“Ullo yer ‘ighness, seems we ‘ave to talk” they said as the others snickered.