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Rat Rebellion

Chapter 4: Salvaging the Plan

By Draconicon

After dragging the body of the bulldog out to the back garden, Anastus had to take a moment to lean against the wall and look away. The blood had stopped spurting, but his feet were almost crimson from the spray on the way down the hall. The metallic stink of it was strong enough to turn his stomach, and his hands were crusted with the drying blood.

In short, it was a mess, and a big mess, at that.

The rat heaved, his stomach trying to climb up his throat again, and he swallowed, forcing it down by the barest of measures. He took several deep breaths, hoping and praying that his guts would stay in place for a bit longer.

This wasn't supposed to happen, the rat thought. Bloodless. This was supposed to be bloodless. Nobody dies, everyone gets what they want...well, except them, but...it wasn't supposed to happen this way.

But it had, and now the plan to capture all the nobles was shot straight to hell if he didn't come up with some way to fix it.

What do I do? What the hell...

Think. He had to think. If he could come up with an idea, even a small one, then he could build off of that. There were ways to make this happen. There weren't really any guards that had been brought along, so they had that much going for them. The rat servants would outnumber and out-muscle the various nobles...if they could avoid what happened with Isay and Kir.

First things first. He had to make sure that none of them got out. And to do that, he had to go back inside, rally the other slaves, and...

And the body. The body had to be dealt with. He looked back at the beaten thing, how it was nearly headless at this point, and he gagged.

That could wait. Nobody was coming to the back garden for now. That could wait.

At first, it was all he could do to shuffle back into the building. Everything felt like it was spinning around him, the world shifting this way and that as he struggled to walk forward. He forced himself to keep moving, to keep walking, and slowly, the world seemed to stabilize again. The more that he pushed forward, the easier that it got.

Shouldn't be that easy...that easy to kill a man, though.

His fingers clenched tight against his palms, and he knew that it was down to how strong he had become. The potion had made him perfect, powerful and filled with an impossible stamina. He was meant to be the perfect slave, but instead, he was physical perfection, able to keep walking, running, working, fighting...

And apparently, killing.

Oh thank god, he didn't like it...

He remembered old Isay saying that, and he remembered not knowing what the rat had meant then. He didn't know what it meant now, either, but if he meant killing...Anastus shook his head.

Later. Later.

As he roamed the halls, he eventually found one of the other rats not forced to attend the dinner. He grabbed the younger male by the arm, giving him a squeeze.

"Get the others. Seal the doors."

"Why?"

"Because things are going wrong."

"But...but what if they..."

"Don't let them leave. No matter what, don't let them leave."

"But...they...they might..."

Anastus leaned in, eye to eye with the other rat. Their eyes were glued to each other, and he squeezed the other rat's arm as hard as he dared.

"No. Matter. What."

"...Yes, Anastus."

"Get to it."

With a nod, the black rat was off, running down the hallway with his whip-tail swinging behind him. He watched for a moment, then took a deep breath. The first safeguard was taken care of. Now, he had to deal with whatever was going on in the dining room. Lidochka's dance was meant to hold their attention for a while, maybe tempt a few of them into taking things further, but that wouldn't be nearly enough. And if he left Florus alone for too long, there might be a temptation to try something stupid.

The more that he thought about it, the more precarious the plan felt. It might have been simpler to let it die off, to stop this now and try again another night. If there hadn't already been a death, he would have been tempted to go that direction. It would have been safer.

But now...no. It had to be done, or everything would be exposed.

He picked up his pace, his loincloth fluttering, tickling his thighs, reminding him of just what he still was. A slave, a slave that wasn't allowed even a hint of proper clothing. A slave that was seen as something beneath. Something sub-par. Something below what proper society was supposed to be.

The rat gritted his teeth, trying to listen to that unfairness without letting it become rage. The last thing that he needed now was to be as furious as he had been in the kitchen. If he let it get out of control, if he allowed himself to be controlled by it rather than the other way around...

No. He had to keep moving. Had to keep it under his control.

He didn't even work up a sweat running through the halls of the manor. By the time that he reached the dining room again, Kir and Isay were making their way in from the other side, carrying bowls of food. Asking a silent question with a glance at the dishes and bowls, he got a shake of the head in return. They had not been able to dose the food with their tainted seed, at the very least.

Damn...

That meant that things were going to have to get a great deal more direct. He imagined that Lidochka would enjoy the shift in the show; she had been raped enough times that he doubted that she'd have any sympathy for the former masters being treated the same. Anastus clenched his teeth, looking to the stage.

The white rat was down on the balls of her feet, her hands pressed against her sex. She was pulling the lips apart, showing the pink inner walls to the crowd, thrusting her hips forward as if simulating riding a cock right then and there. Her juices dribbled down her thighs, pooled between her soles.

That was enough to keep the men watching, and the women, too. There were some vixens that had their hands under the table, and he could smell them satisfying themselves to the show before them. It was a downright horrible moment, knowing that he had to use her to keep their attention, and Anastus hated himself for it.

As Lidochka slapped her pussy for her audience, he walked quietly around the back of the table, making his way to the head of it where Lord Florus sat. The fox looked up at him as he approached, and he saw the slight frown begin before the lord's own potions forced him back to happy obedience.

That will never not look disturbing, he thought as he took his position at the side of the fox again, standing as the head slave for the household. He barely received a glance from the foxes gathered around the table, not that he expected to be noticed that much, anyway. When they turned back to Lidochka's perverted display, Anastus leaned down, whispering in his former master's ear.

"We need to change plans."

"Hmmph...your ploy...failed?"

"Not entirely."

"Heh...then maybe...I will own you again...and I will..."

The fox looked confused for a moment, and Anastus could guess why. Even if the crafty vulpine lord was able to take control of his own manor again, he would be irrevocably changed - or at least, or a very long time, changed - to be the submissive with his slaves. He would not be able to just lay with those like Lidochka, nor would he be able to just take his pleasure from the other males. The potion had changed him, turned him into something of a slut, and there was no way for him to escape that.

While the addled brain of the lord tried to focus on a way through that particular problem, Anastus pushed him back to the moment with a command.

"Call for wine. And have it be that each lord will receive it from a trained slave."

"...Why?" the fox managed to ask after a moment.

"Yours is not to question."

"..."

"Do it."

The potion was powerful enough that it forced the fox to do as he was commanded, and it was a testament to the fox's skill as an alchemist that the potion was strong enough to overcome his current objection. He stood up, tapping his glass.

"A momentary interruption for my guests. I wish to give you a gift to go along with the show. A personal gift from my wine cellar, to mark this momentous occasion, of which we will speak more when the show is done. Please, look upon my slaves as they bring in the bottles, and be amazed at my work."

Better still, it was a decent reason. Lord Florus had always been keen on showing off just what he could make happen with his potions, and Anastus realized that, as with Lidochka, he had received some attention from the visiting lords, too. They were interested in his physique, which was far fitter than the average rat, and he could see some of the vixens looking down when they didn't think their husbands were paying attention.

Lidochka was not the only one to have gained some...notoriety.

Blushing as he realized where they were staring, Anastus had to force himself to step away from his 'master' and go to the doorway that led to the kitchen. By his mental count, there would be enough rats to work as one per couple at the table. That...that would have to be enough, though it'd be a close thing. And he was going to ask them to do something rather messy, and a bit embarrassing. He just hoped that they'd be able to carry it off.

Fifteen males and ten females showed up, and he whispered to them as Isay and Kir worked at assembling the collection of wines from below. He was still blushing slightly at what he was going to have to make them do.

"Tonight is the night we make our bid for freedom," Anastus said. "And it will be...it will be the hardest thing that you have likely ever had to do."

The rats looked down. Despite the fact that they had gained great muscle, great power from the potions that they had been fed, he knew that they were not going to be eager to stand and fight. They were not made for that, and they had been trained for a long time to avoid doing anything of the sort. He was going to have to fight to get them to do anything...particularly this.

"Isay and Kir have done their part. The nobles are ready to be...claimed. However...we need to do this all at once."

"What do you need us to do?" one of the females asked.

"I need you to cum on their faces."

Males and females alike stared at him, their eyes wide and their mouths hanging open. Anastus rubbed the back of his head.

"Now that you've had the potion, it's all stored...down there. If you can make yourself spurt, cover them...if even a little bit gets in their mouths...then we have a chance. If you can do that, then you can own them."

"But...but what if we..."

One of the males pointed to his cock, which was anything but hard. He blushed worse, and Anastus sighed.

"If you can't 'perform,' then we're doomed. It's as simple as that."

It was not going to make it easier for them TO perform, he knew that. He knew that he was only adding to the pressure in the room with everything that he said. At the same time, he knew that there was no good in lying to them. They deserved to know what was going on, and what was on the line.

"There's already been one death. If the dinner passes and anyone leaves the manor without being...controlled, then we're all going to be exposed. We'll be exterminated, and possibly all the other rats in this part of the city, just to make sure that this doesn't spread. We'll all die, and there will never be another chance for us to break free of these chains. Ever. Our species will be doomed to perpetual slavery, and...that's it.

"I understand fear...but it's either this, or you take that wine bottle, and you beat their heads in. And trust me..." His stomach rumbled at him, complaining again, and he had to force himself to calm it down a bit again. "Trust me. That isn't as easy as you think."

Silence fell over the kitchen, silence that was only broken when one of the females took one of the wine bottles and jammed the neck of it between her legs. She rolled her hips against it, spreading her sex, staining her brown fur dark beneath the loincloth. The other males stared, gasping, and she shook her head.

"Necessity," she said. "We can do anything, if we have to."

The words of the female brought her sister rats together, and the various bottles were pulled down, shoved between their legs, used as toys as they gradually worked themselves up. The males were more helpless than ever, their eyes looking from woman to woman, their mouths hanging open.

However, the smell of the female rats was doing what their willpower couldn't. The males were getting stiff, alright, getting stiff and hard enough to make their cocks show past their loincloths. Many, particularly the younger ones, blushed, their fingers twitching towards their cocks at the show before them. Anastus nodded to himself, reaching out to take the hand of the rat male nearest him.

"Tease, but don't finish," he muttered.

"I...Yes, Anastus."

"When you're ready, come through. Keep yourself right on the edge, and hurry."

They were only going to have one shot at this, and he was going to make sure that it was one that was worthwhile. Glancing at Isay and Kir, he could see that the pair were looking back at him, their eyes questioning. He looked at his hands, at the blood on them still, and realized that he'd walked through the dining hall without anyone making even the slightest comment at what he was tracking through.

Even Lidochka's show was not enough to justify that level of obliviousness. That was the utter disdain and contempt of a group that had completely written off another as any sort of threat, or any consequence at all.

This is overdue. This is well overdue.

Turning, he went back to the table, and he took his place besides Florus again. Lidochka was holding herself right at the edge of climax, the curvaceous white rat thrusting her hips forward, humping against her hand, keeping herself from falling over with one hand behind her. Her rounded rump jiggled every time that she thrust up against her hand, and her breasts rolled as she satisfied herself.

Forward, back, forward, back. Her juices stained the stage, and several squirts had reached near the table. The air was thick with the smell of a rat woman in heat, and he knew that it would only help the shy males to actually get themselves off. He just hoped that it was going to be enough.

Here's hoping...

He glanced at the door to the kitchen, and slowly, the females started making their way out. They held the bottles before them, the neck still buried between their legs. The males walked with one hand on the bottle and the other on their cocks just behind it, frantically jerking themselves to keep right on the edge. The nobles had completely discounted them, and they were still watching the show, even as the slaves lined up behind them.

"Ladies and gentlemen...your gifts."

The vixens and tods turned, and just as they brought their heads around to the perverted sights before them, it happened.

To a one, the females did their duties. They flicked the bottles up, hitting their clits just perfectly, and they came as they did. They arched their backs, squirting in the faces of their targets, and the foxes pulled back in shock, even as he watched pants tent and dresses start to push out a bit in the chest.

The males, however, were less reliable. Only half of them were able to finish the job, the others too nervous to even stay hard. Those that were hit fell back, but of the seven couples that didn't, all fourteen foxes were able to pull away, getting to their feet, their eyes wide.

"What is the meaning of this, Florus?!" one indignant vixen asked. "This male - Florus?"

The realization was hitting them, and Anastus knew that they were one panicked fox away from the whole room exploding into chaos. Glancing towards the stage, he exchanged a look with Lidochka. The white rat nodded back, and they leaped across the room.

He grabbed the nearest lord, throwing him to the floor, and he shouted for the rats to join him. Lidochka, on the other hand, yanked the pole prop that she had on the stage right out of the floor, and she vaulted across the room. Legs bound or not, she used the pole as a vaulting staff perfectly, carrying herself around the largest part of the crowd. The foxes were pinned between one angry rat woman and a swarm of many more that blocked the way to the kitchen and the rest of the manor.

And as Anastus kneeled on the chest of one fox lord, reluctantly joined by the rest of the servants - again, the women first, and the men followed more reluctantly - he glared at the lords still standing.

"This is the end of your dominion."

"It talks? How dare it threaten us," one of the lords said. "Florus, what have you done with your slaves? What kind of game is this?"

CLANG! Lidochka hit the floor with her pole, the sound of metal on stone ringing out throughout the room.

"You're not talking to him anymore. You're talking to Anastus," Lidochka said, and with that, she brought her pole against the back of the fox's knees. "And you will speak to him properly, if you want him to respond..."

"You - slaves! Kill this disobedient -"

THUNK!

The sound of metal on flesh was a uniquely horrifying one, and this time, it wasn't Anastus that had inflicted the blow. The metal pole rested in a divot of flesh and bone, made when it came down with all the strength that the rat woman could bring to bear. The fox tumbled over, his eyes empty, bleeding out his ears as well as out of the new hole in his skull.

That silenced the room more effectively than anything else that they could have done. Anastus could hardly believe that it had happened, but there was no turning back now. It would never have been bloodless, but now...now they had to figure out a way to explain the lack of a lord in that household. And what they would say, he didn't know.

He fought the gagging in the back of his throat as he slowly got back to his feet, the fox that he'd pinned refusing to move. The rat took a step back, leaning against the table, taking a few deep breaths as he tried to ignore the metallic, horrible smell in the air. The only ones that didn't seem bothered were Florus and the other foxes that were already falling under the spell of the tainted fluids on their face.

"There were fourteen of you..." Anastus took a deep breath. "There were fourteen. Now there are thirteen. I don't want to kill any more of you. If you want to live...if you want to live, then you will do what I say. That is the only way that you are getting out of here alive."

"You can't do this. You can't -"

Lidochka clanged her pole on the floor again, a warning that he knew would not be repeated. The foxes turned to look at the dead body of their fellow lord, and slowly, understanding continued to grow in their eyes. This was not something that they could laugh off or threaten away. This was not something that was being done as a party game, or something that was going to respect their power.

This was something that had been growing for years, something that had stopped caring about the consequences. This was an uprising, an uprising that didn't care about their rights, just as the foxes and the other lords hadn't cared about the rats for far too long.

This...was inevitable.

The foxes slowly went from their feet to their knees, their hands behind their back. Anastus looked from pair to pair, watching as they all went down, until the only one left standing was the vixen who had lost her husband. She met his eyes, and he knew, somehow, that she would fight this. She would fight him, and everything else, from this point on.

"Kneel," Lidochka said, tapping the woman's knees with her pole.

"Am I going to die? Like him?" the vixen asked, gesturing at the dead body beside her.

"No. No, you're not," Anastus said.

"Then I will stand."

"Kneel, or -"

"Lidochka."

Anastus held out his hand, gesturing at her pole. She glared at him, but eventually, she handed it over. Resting it against his shoulder, he turned back to the vixen.

"I will see to it that you, and the others, will live. It will be different. It will mean that life changes. But if you kneel, you live. If you do what I say, then I will see you safe. I will not treat you how you treated us unless you make me."

"Your female just killed my husband. Forgive me if I cannot take a rat at his word."

Anastus clenched his fist tighter around the pole, knowing the temptation would come and letting it pass. He wasn't going to add more blood to this if he could help it. He wasn't going to be a killer, a destroyer the way that the foxes and the other nobles of the kingdom had been. This could be done...this could be done...

Yet, that didn't make the way that she stared at him, the way she spoke to him, hurt any less. To her, it was clear that a rat standing in front of her, even halfway towards an equal, was unconscionable.

"Then you will be kept here. For now."

"Hmmph. My family will come for me."

"And if they do, then we will deal with that. The same way that we have dealt with them..."

He nodded over his shoulder at the mentally-drained nobles behind him. They were sagging slightly over the table, and they would soon start craving the rats that had changed them. It wasn't perfect, and it wasn't what he wanted to do. It meant that the authority over those nobles was split between eighteen rats, and, in turn, meant that he had to go through all of them just to keep things running properly.

If that split much further...

The female didn't show any sign of going along with kneeling, and he sighed. He gestured to the side, calling two of the other females forward.

"Take her to Florus's chambers. Lock her in, make sure any windows are barred and there's no way out. I'll talk to her there later."

The vixen tried to slap away the rat hands at her arms, but they were insistent. As she was led away, Anastus turned his attention back to Lidochka. There was much that had to be said there, but not here. Not in public.

"Find a place to keep the other twelve," he muttered. "Lidochka. Take off the bindings, and meet me in the potion lab. Do not kill anyone else. Not even Florus."

"But -"

"Now."

He was in the middle of copying over the different notes for the enhancement potion that Florus had come up with when the albino rat showed up. Anastus, still irked with her, didn't look up. Instead, he kept writing, dragging the quill across the page, carefully making sure that he copied it exactly.

He could just make out Lidochka shifting from foot to foot, glaring at him from time to time. However, he didn't give her the pleasure of a response. Not until -

"You're starting to act like them. Do you think you're that much better, now?"

He whipped his head around, narrowing his eyes as she did the same.

"...You killed someone. That wasn't part of the plan," Anastus muttered.

"He was going to start something."

"No. He wasn't."

"He wasn't going to listen. You could hear it in his voice."

"...Maybe, but we could have persuaded him. We could have done -"

"What? What could we have done?"

"...I don't know. But we didn't have to do that."

Lidochka spat on the ground.

"He deserved it."

"Was he one of your clients?"

"He's one of them. That's enough."

Anastus shook his head. Despite his hopes, he'd known this was coming. With everything that she'd been forced to do, Lidochka had been coming unglued. Little by little, she had started losing perspective, and now...

He shook his head.

"You spent your killing."

"...What?"

"Because you killed him, I'm not letting you kill Florus."

"What? No. No! You gave me your word! You told me that if I did what you said, I could kill him after this."

"And you decided to do it your way." Anastus shook his head. "I can't...I can't let you just do that. We have to think of the long-term picture. We can't just kill them and expect to make anything better."

She opened her mouth, but he shook his head.

"No. We're doing it my way. And if you ever want the chance to change my mind about Florus, then you'll do it my way from now on. No more killing. The more blood on our hands, the worse this is going to get."

"...And when it comes down to our lives or theirs?" she asked.

"..."

"I thought so. We matter, Anastus. We're not changing this without shedding blood. If they ever find out that we're not willing to fight, die, and kill, then they'll just keep doing what they're doing. You want to make this bloodless? I want them to learn that there are fucking consequences to this..."

"...There will be. But not like that."

"..."

"We're done here. Keep your hands off Florus. We'll talk tomorrow about what we do next."

She turned on her heel without another word, and he knew that he had left her furious. That was not the best move, particularly as she was his strongest ally. She might not have the greatest pull with the other females, but she could screw things over for him if he didn't pay attention. The last thing that they needed was a schism in a group that had barely gotten started.

This was not how it was supposed to go...

He wondered how many times he'd end up thinking that before the end.

The End