Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Day of the Rat (A 90s Movies Story)

Chapter 17: Follow That Rat!

"Don't get too close," Matt warned. Freddy ignored him, stepping toward the giant rat, fascinated.

"This is incredible..."

"It's just like those crazy things... Razor and Toker."

"No, it isn't, look at it. This is very different." Freddy reached out toward Whiskers but stopped before actually making contact, his expression carefully benign. Could this thing even interpret human expressions?

Whiskers shrank inward a little, but he didn't retreat. "See...?" Freddy said in a soothing voice. "It knows we mean no harm." As a ninja snorted at that assertion, he shot a dangerous glance at him. "Don't you?" he asked Whiskers.

The giant rat moved his head forward toward Freddy, and as the others raised their weapons nervously he held up his hand to stay them. Whiskers sniffed the air, cautiously at first then more intently. Then, unexpectedly, he turned to Matt.

He reached out with his... Freddy supposed it was a hand. When no one tried to stop him, Whiskers reached under Matt's tunic and pulled out an object. A black leather glove, supple and shiny in the pool of light from above.

"So that's what you could smell," Freddy mused under his breath, taking the glove from Whiskers' hand gently. "Or is sense more the right word...?"

"I forgot I still had that," said Matt a little awkwardly, but Freddy's raised hand silenced him.

"Where...?" It spoke! Whiskers sniffed the air again, head turning. He seemed to pick up something of interest. "What are you doing, Whiskers...?" pondered the rat, seemingly reciting something from memory.

"That's April's glove," Freddy told him. "You've seen her?"

"Aay-Pril..." Whiskers repeated, as if weighing the possible answers to that. "Kind."

"Yeah, I suppose so."

"Gave Whiskers name."

Freddy's eyebrows rose slightly, but other than that he gave no sign this perturbed him. "Well, like I say, that's her glove..."

"April's... glove..."

"Yeah, that's right. I think we should get it back to her right away... Don't you...?"

Whiskers thought about that, and it looked like it made sense to his developing sense of right and wrong.

"Do you know where she is...?" Freddy had a feeling this was going to work. Matt shook his head and sighed.

"Find April... Glove..." The rat seemed to be mulling it over. Finally, he looked at Freddy and something in its expression told the Foot leader that, crazy at it was, this was actually going to work. Freddy took it as a sign when he turned and hurried away down the tunnel.

He turned to the others and smiled. "Follow that rat."

***

Inside, the hotel was deserted. April took the stairs - it wasn't that far up, and the elevator offered far more possibilities for a trap. She still didn't know what she expected to achieve, but knowing what was at stake here she had to try.

***

A cold wind whistled through the gap where the window had been removed, and the Rat King shivered. That surprised him. He had never felt particularly vulnerable to extremes of temperature before. The reason why occurred to him, and he shivered again. This time not with the cold.

Despite the pressure of time, he had taken the opportunity to don the familiar rags and bandages. This Hyn'tnn incarnate felt more at ease this way. More... ready.