Veggie Grey was on the move, he’d done a lot of bad things in his time, and he’d thought them for good reason. But now he was old and tired, and realising that a whole lot of evil can be hidden behind the greater good.

Clutching his trusty lead pipe in one paw, and his brothers favourite hammer in the other he knew it was time to pay the piper. Still it’d been a good show, and before too long the curtain would finally drop. He’d thought himself a legend, the great and powerful Grey Twins had ruled this city for years. But in the grand scheme of things he was just the intermission between acts.

As he stepped out a horde of other rats, some almost as old as he was started to rally around him. They wouldn’t let Pintsize and his boys take over, they couldn’t. Of course some fought back against the inevitable swarm, but it’s hard to push back when your granny is with them, especially when she’s carrying that bloody crossbow from behind her bar. Did that thing even fire? Well if it was your gran staring down the sights and she had just used your middle name would you really want to find that out?

It was horrifying to see, two swarms at each others throats, as all that bile and anger they’d buried away under the veneer of pretty words and fancy clothes faded away just for a while. Once all this was over it would of course come back, and everybody would try very hard to pretend this never happened. But things would be awkward for quite a while.

“Bruiser” of the Beryum family put up a solid fight, nobody expected him to pick up an entire bench at his age, let alone swing the damn thing hard enough to be a weapon. But somehow he managed, decking many a twisted young rat who had taken a dip in that sludge before the numbers got too much and he stumbled. He was saved by “ The Mad Mauler” Maud Miller, who carried the classic weapon known as a handbag. But loaded with a brick. She had been quite a looker back in the day, and the years had been kind. Berry remembered Bruiser having quite a thing for her back in the day, but he’d had his job, and she’d had Tom (he’d been gone about 5 years now, all she had now was their son young, well, young ish... Jerry.) . Maybe now they’d finally notice each other, who knew?

“In trouble as always” Maud cackled, as her and her little bunch of retired muggers stepped up. “Seems I still have to bail your sorry arse out, well least this time it won’t cost me any money. WE’VE GOT ‘IM GIRLS NOW LET’S SHOW THESE YOUNGSTERS THAT DIP DON’T MEAN MUCH AFTER A KICK IN THE NUTS.”

“Hellanor” her second in command was right beside her, armed with the frying pan she used to cook for the whole family, which made for the most terrifying weapon, and she knew how to swing the damned thing too.

The third individual was Delilah “Deadeye” Deans, usually her expertise was in knives. Today she was focusing on home made smoke bombs. That is until she spotted one of the gang attempting to sneak off. Then her weapon swapped to the weapon of correction known to little old ladies the world over. She pulled off her slipper, took aim, and threw. Beaning the retreating rodent, Deadeye didn’t earn that nickname for decoration, she never missed.

Then she stormed into the middle of the swarm, and grabbed the terrifyingly tattooed, and monstrously mutated attempted escapee.

“little Tino, fancy seeing you here, with all this trouble you should be home taking care of your Mama, she must be so worried about her little pickle ” She said sweetly, anybody with a grandma knows that this is the timer, and if you were up to something you were knackered. Of course for those not directly in trouble this is great entertainment, so despite the fighting some of his friends couldn’t resist a snicker at the nickname.

“G-grandma? oh I was just on my way home....?” He tried desperately, as the fuse burned down.

“Through the sludge I see.” She commented icily.

Looking at his friends he did the only thing he could think of, and tried to blow it out. “Oh this? It was an accident...... yeah I fell in.”

“You fell into a vat of “mutie” in the territory of Pintsize, during a turf war, and apparently also through a tattoo shop on your way home to help your mama?” She asked, as she pretended not to notice his blustering had already reignited the fuse. Too late, BOOM.

“MARTINO ALBINO RATRIGO, you think I’m stupid? You think just because you’re big and tall now I won’t put you over my knee?” She pounced seizing him by one ear, and dragging him out of the mob, who were rather too shocked to do much about it but snicker awkwardly. “You shame us, are you trying to kill your grandma, make me die of shame? If your grandpa could see you now he’d be furious. Now we are going HOME. Excuse us Maud, I must get my grandson home, when his mama sees all these mutations she’s going to be furious.”

“STOP, STOP, I’ll help you? Just don’t tell mama.”

“Oh you’ll help alright, and you’re going to sign up to help with repairs, for now though I didn’t raise no slacker, help us clean up this mess dear, you wouldn’t want your grandma getting hurt now would you?”

Scenes like this were happening all over the twist, but of course not everybody cared enough to take the call.

Eventually there was nobody left who could be dragged out, and the fight was really starting to. At least half of the old gang were too exhausted to fight anymore.

Veggie paced the streets, clobbering anything that stood in his path in his search for Pintsize. Unfortunately for him he eventually found him.

Pintsize held the badly beaten Buttons Grey aloft in front of Veggie.

“If you want your brother back old rat I suggest you back up.” He sneered, His plans were finally coming together, nobody would know until it was too late. Once the pair were out of the way he would rule the city.

He savoured his victory, for just a moment before the tower untwisted, and Buttons and Veggie stopped playing around.