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

Chapter 22: Rat Race Against Time

The Rat King stumbled across the sea of junk - confused, eyes wild, the screaming in his mind drowning out everything else. Flee! All his instincts, and at the moment that was all he had, were telling him to get as far away as possible as quickly as possible. He was stumbling blindly, paying very little attention to his surroundings, and finally the inevitable happened. He fell.

Sprawled on the debris littering the dump, he looked up. The screaming in his head was gone. In its place, just a howling emptiness. A complete absence of sound, thought, anything.

A figure stood nearby. The rat. Splinter. The Rat King automatically reached out with his mind to command Splinter, but it was like bouncing off an invisible shield around the Turtles' sensei. Splinter merely stood watching him.

He became aware of another figure standing next to Splinter. No, not quite standing. Floating slightly off the ground. Insubstantial, ever so slightly see-through.

Lawrence Hynten.

"Wha- What...?" As the Rat King gasped incoherently, Splinter looked to the left, apparently at Hynten, not at all perturbed by the Rat King's hallucination. If that was what it was. Could he see it too?

"It's over..." said Hynten in his comfortingly gravelly voice. "Let it go."

"Let... What are you...?" The Rat King struggled to his feet and pointed wildly, Splinter regarding him again calmly. "You are gone...! You're dead...!"

"Yes," said Hynten serenely. "But my nephew is not. Let him go. Let him live."

The Rat King in the body of Bryan Bryant snarled, gasping with the effort of holding onto his host. "Never...! Ugghhh... Never...!" He bowed his head and crouched down near the ground to overcome the wave of nausea he felt.

When he looked up again, Hynten was gone. So was Splinter.

***

"Your shoelace is undone..." said April quietly. "Kinda ironic."

The Foot ninja did not reply. He just continued binding her, with what she felt was excessive thoroughness, to one of the warehouse's load-bearing posts, but as he moved behind her to wind more rope she was sure he did glance briefly at his feet. April smiled, weakly - It had been more to distract herself than anything else. She really wanted to think about pretty much anything other than their plans for her future... or lack of one.

"You can't hand her over to people like that," said Jake, breaking the tense silence that had ensued after Matt's brutally honest forecast of what was going to happen to their prisoner. "You just... can't."

"Seconded!" said April as the last knots were pulled tight, a slight tremor in her voice betraying her growing dread. She writhed uncomfortably, unable to turn her head properly with some of her hair trapped under a loop of rope.

"I think you'll find that I can," Freddy said in a tone that promised danger.

"Don't I get a vote?" April demanded. "Hey, Freddy - I'm talking to you!" One of the masked ninja turned back to her, and she reacted with dismay as yet again a strip of duct-tape was pressed over her mouth. Quick and efficient, the ninja then tied a spare bandana over her eyes. At a gesture from Freddy, he then went outside to join the others on guard.

Jake watched disconsolately as April twisted within her ropes, sobbing quietly through the tape. He had to do something, but what could he do?

***

Free of the controlling influence of the Rat King, in his confusion Chief Sterns had gone off for a little aimless wander, and the remote control slipped from his hands and hit the ground. Those among his subordinates who weren't similarly affected looked at each other, baffled.