Rat King

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**Dr. Victor Falco**, later known as **The Rat King**, was a sleazy scientist who used his knowledge and talents for his own selfish gain and main antagonist of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Final Chapter - Part One and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Final Chapter - Part Two. After an accident with Mutagen with hundreds of rats surrounding him, he was developing to give him telepathic powers, he became the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Next Chapter incarnation of the **Rat King**.

## Appearance

As a normal human, Falco wore a white lab coat, had gray hair with white markings, brown shirt and pants, and a tie.

As the Rat King, he is a balding man with long orange hair, glowing red eyes, mummy wraps wrapped around his whole body, pointy ears, monophyodont (having a single set of teeth) and simplicidentata (having just 1 pair of maxillary incisors) like a rat, long claws, and a reptilian-like nose.

## History

He and his colleague Dr. Tyler Rockwell were working on an experiment that involved Mutagen, a neurochemical, and monkey DNA when they were approached by The Krang. When it was mentioned on the news that Dr. Rockwell was missing, Dr. Falco alluded that he was oblivious to the situation.

Falco pretended to help April O'Neil and the Ninja Turtles and gained their sincere trust. The Turtles later figured out what Dr. Falco was really doing; experimenting with mutagen on his former colleague, Dr. Rockwell, turning the latter into a mutant monkey with the mutagen. Falco gained the same psychic powers temporarily by extracting a neurochemical from the mutant's brain and injecting himself with it. With his new power, Falco was able to defeat the Turtles in combat by reading their thoughts and predicting their every move. Donatello finally defeated him by fighting without thinking, but Falco escaped before the Turtles could ask him what he knew about the Kraang.

Falco was shown living in hiding, and continued to work on his psychic neurochemical in a secret laboratory, with only sewer rats to experiment on. One day, the rats chewed through some cables and started a fire in the lab. Falco was injured by the flames, but the neurochemical splattered on him, granting him a psychic connection to rats. Falco used his new ability to control the rats in his lab and they saved him from the fire. Sometime later, Falco went into hiding in the sewers, nicknamed himself as **The Rat King**, and began plotting to use his powers to take over Manhattan. He launched a full-scale assault on the city with his hordes of rats. Eventually, Rat King became aware of Splinter through telepathy. Knowing that the Turtles would come to stop him, The Rat King used psychological warfare to control Splinter's mind. When Splinter fights the Turtles, they are overconfident because they were actually able to land a blow on him (though they lost soon after), but soon realize that Splinter was going easy on them all of those years. They manage to snap him out of it and Splinter defeats The Rat King with nothing but two fingers. Rat King was last seen being carried off by his rats. He is still alive...

The Rat King returned, first reaching into Splinters mind to both torment him, but also learn about the mutagen to create more like him, as well as sending giant mutated Rats to gather humans to be test subjects, in the end while fighting Splinter, Splinter knocks away one of the Rat kings rats then blindfolds himself, rendering the Rat king blind, who kept swatting at Splinter, only to fall in a bottomless void.

## Powers and abilities

Falco (after gaining the neurochemical DNA from Rockwell and injecting it into his own mind), had the ability to read minds and uses it to stop anyone. This is observed when he read the Turtles' thoughts and was able to defeat them in combat (except for Donatello, who was eventually able to defeat Falco without thinking at all). After his mutation, however, he was only able to enter the minds of rats.

Like previous versions of the character, Rat King has psychic control over rats, being able to precisely command single individuals and large swarms. His powers were even able to control Splinter's mind, but Splinter was able to fight it. He was also blinded during the accident in his lab, so he often kept his own eyes covered with one large band. However, it has been shown that his powers allow him to see through the eyes of rats in his vicinity, both negating the need for his own eyes and making *any* single rat a potential spy, however as shown in "Of Rats and Men, this can be negated if all nearby rats are unable to see themselves.

## Personality

Falco was nothing short of a power-mad psychopath who was only concerned about his own goals. His psychopathic tendencies were nearly invisible due to his metaphorical mask of normalcy, he was a talented liar, a deceitfully cunning mind who was able to fool April, Donatello and the entirety of New York into thinking he had no idea of his friend, Doctor Rockwell's disappearance. Falco was immoral, ruthless and arrogant and so uncaring that he was capable of kidnapping and mutating his colleague so he could perfect a psychic serum.

Falco was massively sadistic taking joy in seeing Rockwell's pain and during his fight with Donatello cruelly mocked him over his romantic feelings for April.

Although in his past experiences he has had at least some, but granted very small level of decency after being mutated while trying to recreate his psychic serum and is granted a telepathic connection to rats. Granting himself the title of The Rat King, Falco was a fully fledged misanthrope who began to see humanity as nothing more than an infestation and as such took satisfaction in terrorizing New York, he would either mutate or kill any human in his path. Ironically Falco's archenemy is the same person he thought was also his equal, Splinter who he tried to mind-control but in the end Splinter was able to kill him. Overall, this version of the Rat King is a hypocritical, sadistic monster who attempted genocide several times to gain power over the human race.

Falco completely valued rat life and was left screaming in rage when Splinter had kicked his pet rat and friend, Aristotle over a ledge.

## Aristotle

The Rat King has a white rat, most often sitting on his shoulders, since the Rat King is blind but can see through rat's eyes Aristotle allows his to see an opponent right next to him and to fight him himself, as seen in. He is killed by Splinter. He is named after the Greek philosopher Aristotle whose name means "the best purpose". The Rat King has also given names to a few of his Giant Rats.

## Trivia

* Michelangelo was extremely annoyed that the Rat King nicknamed himself, as he's the one who usually comes up with the nicknames. He tried numerous alternatives: Lord Rattington, Count Ratula, Verminator, etc. until he begrudgingly accepts it.
* The Rat King represents Splinter's inner demon, his fear of losing himself to his animal side. He is one the first one to use Splinter's animalistic side to hurt him as he made him directly attack the Turtles when he mind-controlled him. Because of this, his actions haunt Splinter even after his death, which is fitting considering that Splinter fully comes to terms with his new mutant form and life after he defeated the Rat King in his vision while trapped in the deepest point of the city.