Disclaimer: I want to go out and own every turtle tot out there, but I don't. Nor do I own any names land marks or practically anything in this whole fic, except the plot.

(six year old turtle tots)

Raph's POV

"Raph, you know we really shouldn't be doing this."

"Awe give it a rest Leo, Daddy won't even notice, him and Mikey won't be back at the lair for another hour."

I glanced over at my brother right at my side.

The two of us, well I, had decided that while dad was out with one of our little brothers and our other bro had taken a nap the two of us needed to go exploring.

"As the two oldest of the four we should regularly go around the sewers to make sure nothing's near our home any way, and once we do such a good job Dad would want us to go out and do this all the time."

Leo looked at me and I could read the conflict on his face.

Stay back with Don and do as father told us to do, or make sure the family's safe and gain our Sensi's respect.

Both were very strongly engraved in him and the two fighting each other now looked like it almost really hurt.

Finally he huffed out the air he'd been holding and said, "alright, but just for a little while. We have to get back before Sensi knows we left."

I nodded enthusiastically and lead the way towards some previously unexplored parts of our home.

We wandered the sewers for what felt like hours but found nothing but a bunch of nasty stuff I'd rather not identify.

After a while of mucking around we both started to get tiered and decided Donnie was going to wake up soon, so we were fixing to go back when we suddenly realized that we didn't know where we were.

We stopped and looked around, but none of this seemed familiar to us.

It was my idea to go top side and figure out if we could recognizes something from when Dad took us up with him.

Leo wasn't happy, but he agreed that there really wasn't a better option, so I went up the ladder first and gave my surroundings a good glance before moving out of the way of my complaining brother.

We stood there for a long time just watching the cars go past on the street, both fascinated by this simple device.

But at the same time we both remembered why we'd had to come up here, so we started glancing around hoping something noticeable would show up.

Nothing did, after all we'd only been to the surface three times total during the day, twice without permission.

Still with no better plan in mind me walked back and forth in the dank alley way and when nothing clear came to us I came up with an ingenuous idea "Hay, why don't we go up there, I bet we'd be able to see more."

I was pointing up towards the sky, and right at the edge of a building. We'd be able to see a lot more in the sky line.

Predictably, the mighty Leo said it was much to dangerous, but he did bring up an interesting point. "How exactly do you suppose we get up there?"

It didn't take to much imagination, glancing around here I found a ladder leading up, I didn't even bother to point it out and state it.

Just started climbing.

Even Mikey was starting to make a better companion then Leo, at least he didn't complain the whole time, but he stopped when we reached the top of the building and again helped me to look around.

If anything, coming up here had made this more confusing, everything was so little now that we could only just make out the dark pit of the hole we just came out of.

I stubbornly waited a good fifteen minutes before admitting, "okay, so I guess this wasn't a good idea, you got anything coming?"

My older brother tapped his finger to his chin, his serious thinking face but in a random bout of fearlessness, he ran to the edge of the building and jumped off.

"Leo!" I wailed, wondering when my brother had become suicidal.

Running over to that edge, I glanced down and saw him holding onto the ladder we'd climbed up on, dangling by one hand, and the other waving frantically at me.

He was just waving it around like some retarded mime, and I couldn't figure out if he was trying to tell me to shut up, or invite me to do the same.

I opened my mouth to demand he start making some sense, when I heard it to.

Running feet, the harsh breathing of the humans, and my shadow casting down right into the street below.

With more caution then my brother I eased down and managed to wedge myself into some sort of ledge, the space so small that my feet were curled against my plastron, before hauling Leo up.

It would take a lot of maneuvering and maybe one of us falling to get back out, but at least no one could see us now.

We both went quite and still, like our Sensi had taught us, when two figures came racing down the street below.

One of them was quite small, a child really, but even before he ducked into the darkness below us, I could tell something was wrong with him.

His face was a lumpy mess, like one eye was bulging out or something with scarring covering everything else.

He walked weird,one leg seemed to be longer then the other, and there was a huge random lump in between his shoulder blades, kind of like he was growing his own shell.

I didn't understand why he was cowering from the man following him, was this some sort of game?

Those terrified sequels and whines told me other wise, especially when the man drew a metal bat, and swung out hard.

The child hit the ground, but the man didn't stop.

I wanted to look away, but we were wedged so tight that I couldn't move an inch, my shell was chipping away at the wall behind me so that I couldn't move an inch in any direction, except forward.

The natural thing would be to close my eyes, but it was like watching Master Splinter scold one of my brothers, you just couldn't look away.

Down below, the guy was still beating on that little kid, who was still screaming at the top of his lungs.

Why did nobody come? Why wasn't anybody trying to help him? Just because he looked a little different didn't mean he deserved to suffer like this.

My brother and I clung to each other until finally, the screaming stopped, but the horrible sounds of metal against flesh didn't. Even after the echo of those wail's had faded, that didn't stop for quite some time.

The next time we looked down, we could see the guy had finally stopped hitting the flesh, in fact he'd stopped doing much of anything besides just standing there and looking down.

As the sun started to lighten a bit, the guy looked up towards the heavens and then without a backward glance, turned to walk away.

We stayed up in our little bubble, safe for now, but not forever.

Humans would start to come by the dozens soon, and we couldn't stay here all day.

Yet to go home, they would have to go back into the sewers, past that body.

As soon as Leo started to move, I went with him, following him down the ladder and down into the safety of the stinky darkness.

I did not look back, I could not think about what had happened, I wouldn't.

Neither of us spoke of what we saw on our way home, nor did we ever speak of this again.

This was something nobody should have to know about, or suffer threw no matter what.

The problem of we still didn't know how to get back home was solved when our father appeared out of the darkness in front of us, but I held no more fear inside me at being caught, just ran forward and buried my face into his fur as my brother did the same.

As our father spent a good hour yelling at us about how scared he'd been about what had happened to us, and leaving our brother home alone, and not to ever do anything like this again, we took it all in silence.

I for one, knew we'd deserve it, and I was never going to try anything like that again.

We had to do extra training practice and were grounded for a full two weeks, letting the hole situation sink in that much more.

Yes I know, a little dark, but hey there life wasn't sugar and rainbows, and neither is the real world. I imagine the boys seeing something like this might make them fear for their family more, to not let that happen to their own, and people take to things in there own way. After this Leo started to train harder, and Raph resented the world for what he was. Hope you enjoyed, R&R