Chapter 3: Rebellion
Raghu watched, clenching his fist behind his shell so Sensei couldn't see it. He had tormented Mahfuz in the past – hiding his comics, giving him noogies, hiding the TV remote for weeks – but he wasn't comfortable with scaring his little brother so thoroughly. He wanted to use his rage on the men that had captured his little brother, but Master Sensei had forbidden any attack on the lab so they could concentrate on "healing" – but Raghu thought this wasn't healing at all. If anything, it was breaking the family up more.
He glanced over at Lycurgus, pushing down his instinct to jump the eldest turtle and initiate a dominance battle. The perfect son – Fearless, Raghu called him when he wanted to provoke the usually calm turtle. Lycurgus was watching Sensei silently, his face carefully blank. Raghu was unsure if their leader approved, but thought that, either way, Lycurgus's sense of duty to their father was stronger than his sense of duty to his brother.
"Higher!" Raghu pulled himself off the floor and groaned as his muscles screamed in pain. Lycurgus was trying to kick a ball hung straight above his head; he was supposed to kick straight up. Raghu had torn his thigh muscles just a few minutes ago; Sensei had shooed him off to a corner to rest and focused on Lycurgus again.
Mahfuz was running back and forth on a beam suspended at waist height, about two feet off the ground. He was covered in sweat, panting harshly; he had been running on that beam all morning. His balance and endurance needed to be enhanced, Sensei insisted.
"You are failing, Lycurgus. Higher!" Sensei barked, tapping his tail on the floor. The turtles were only twelve – they were as tall as their father. However, he still towered over them, it seemed. Donovan was in the corner doing one-hand pushups for trying a kata before he was ready. The braniac was the least athletic of the brothers; he trembled in exhaustion.
Donovan was clearly uncomfortable with the way they had been forced to treat their youngest brother. Raghu heard him and Mahfuz in the lab together until late at night often enough. At first, he had thought that they were trying to get the implant out – but as the days passed with no breakthroughs, Raghu began to realize that removing the thing that crippled their brother was going to be impossible.
"It's not going to come out," Don said finally, rubbing a hand along the table. Sensei, Raghu, and Lycurgus were gathered in the kitchen. Mahfuz was in his room, as he so often was now. "I can't do the brain surgery it would require – and chances are it's integrated anyway. Even if we did remove it, he's lived with it for months; he would never be the same, and he would probably still experience pain in a heightened state of emotion."
"Then we will teach him to work through the pain," Sensei said bluntly. "He must learn to fight and defend himself. This world is not kind to us."
"No one knows that better than he does," Lycurgus pointed out. "I just want to hear him crack a joke… Or prank someone… Something to show us he really is Fuzzy on the inside…"
Sensei shook his head. "Your brother is gone, Lycurgus. You must all accept that. We must mold a new ninja from the husk of the old. We will instill in him your honor, Lycurgus; your strength, Raghu; your intelligence, Donovan. Until he has proven to be worthy of being your brother again, you will not address him as such." The three brothers glanced at each other, but didn't protest. You didn't argue with Sensei, especially when he gave a direct order like that.
Fuz was no longer the fun-loving, eager little kid he had been before the fight. A few stern lectures from Sensei had managed to keep him calmer for a little while, but within a few hours after any lecture, he was back to pranking his brothers, sneaking out to skateboard, and taunting their enemies. Raghu missed that side of Fuz; he missed Fuzzy, their nickname for the young turtle when he was being especially charming.
"You're too slow!" Fuzzy taunted, whacking the fingers with his studded nunchucks of the ninja trying to grab him. "Come on, I'm supposed to be the turtle here!" The youngest bounced around the battle field on the rooftop trailing insults and jokes made at the expense of the black-clad enemies they faced. Raghu envied his energy; the large turtle was beginning to lose steam.
Lycurgus was dancing a deadly dance just as Sensei had taught him; he slipped under vicious cuts and delivered death with the kiss of a sword. It truly was poetry; Raghu admired him for a second while blindly beating the head of a man in with one hand. The skull finally cracked; he felt the bones slide together and released his victim.
Donovan was in a corner again, slashing with his modified Bo. Sensei had said that he needed a deadlier weapon than a mere stick of wood when Don had expressed interest in learning the Bo, so Don had made a double sickle weapon he could wield with deadly results. Raghu had chosen to specialize in knives of all kinds; from a long as his big brother's katanas to ones so small he could hide them in his palm, the big turtle was dangerous even when he seemed to be unarmed.
Finally, Lycurgus slit the throat of the last of their enemies. As the man choked on his own blood – Sensei had taught them to leave no witnesses – they regrouped. Fuzzy chuckled. "Nice, GusGus." The leader whapped him over the head, but smiled all the same. He hated being called "Gus" or "GusGus," but Fuzzy had watched Cinderella recently and it would take weeks before the joke got old.
"I said, fight back," Sensei ordered. Lycurgus turned away just slightly as Mahfuz whimpered. The eldest had been taught ever since their father had realized he had a spark of leadership in him that it was his job to protect his brothers, to die for them if need be. He had failed his brothers – and his father – when Mahfuz had been captured, leaving Lycurgus to search helplessly for almost six months before finally finding a secret lab.
The eldest tried to ignore Mahfuz's whimpers as their father tried to get him to lash out; Donovan turned around, refusing to watch. Even Raghu looked slightly annoyed. Lycurgus knew his tough brother was all soft inside – that was why he wasn't the alpha male – but the look on Raghu's face was a lot more than sympathy for their youngest brother. It was anger, even fury, at Sensei.
Lycurgus tried to catch Raghu's eye; he shifted slightly and succeeded in getting his brother's attention. He shook his head slightly. Don't interfere, he plead silently. It will only get worse. Lycurgus had tried to speak to their father just after his decree that Mahfuz was no longer their brother, which had brought harsh punishment on the youngest brother and Lycurgus himself. The eldest had learned to hold his tongue.
Raghu's eyes tightened – he hated this. Lycurgus understood. He didn't want Mahfuz treated so harshly. Love and acceptance was what their youngest brother needed after being treated so inhumanely by the scientists who had captured him. But Sensei said that making Mahfuz stronger was the only way to prevent such a thing happening again, and this was the only way to do it. So far, there wasn't much strengthening going on; Mahfuz seemed more timid every week.
"Master Sensei…" Lycurgus said carefully during a lull. Mahfuz was catching his breath and trying to gather his wits in a corner, curled in the fetal position. The rat looked up at his eldest son, anger and disgust written in his features.
"What, Lycurgus?"
"Perhaps… If he could be given a short time to recover… He might be better able to respond to your commands," Lycurgus said quietly. It was a big risk – Lycurgus blamed his stupidity on the hormones released during mating season, but then why did it feel so right? He placed the question on a backburner to mull over later; for now, he concentrated on Mahfuz and his father.
The rat stood, thinking, for a moment. "Do you believe allowing Mahfuz to continue being weak will make him strong?" he finally asked. Lycurgus sensed a verbal trap.
"No, Master Splinter. I only wish to offer my thoughts." He bowed, suppressing his urge to exert his dominance. The rat was the truly dominant one in the family, and Lycurgus knew he wouldn't survive a confrontation, son or not. It was quite clear in clan law that disobeying or speaking against one's master was punishable by death.
"Next time, weigh your words carefully." The rat turned back to Mahfuz; Raghu tensed again.
"Stop it!"
Lycurgus couldn't remember the last time Donovan had raised his voice. Raghu and Sensei were similarly stunned. They turned to look at the braniac, who was trembling. Lycurgus kept an eye on Mahfuz, who was still cowering in the corner.
"You're wrong, Father." Donovan's voice shook, but he glanced at his younger brother and took a deep breath. Splinter was too stunned to speak. "Attacking our brother, hating him for crimes he didn't commit – that is what is making him weak. You are making him weaker with every "training session" that goes by. You know he is in pain, more pain than we can imagine. But we treat him as though it's his fault that we were made into mutants. As though it's his fault that humans are so inhumane.
"I've had enough. We've tried your way for a month, and we're lucky if there's any Fuzzy left in there." Donovan gestured to the turtle on the floor. "I have been studying PTSD. He needs our love and affection; he needs to be told that what happened wasn't his fault, and that he was strong to resist for as long as he did. I told you he had hundreds of fractures, some still unhealed, when we rescued him – he didn't get those by being a pet." Donovan spat the word out in disgust.
Lycurgus rumbled in agreement; the rat turned to his eldest, furious. "Lycurgus, restrain your brother." There was no question which brother he meant. "He will stand trial later, once I have finished here."
Lycurgus approached Donovan – the second youngest looked at his older brother pleadingly. It was a stupid moment of courage that had made him speak up – but he couldn't do it alone. To his surprise, Lycurgus laid his hands on the braniac's shoulders. You're right, Lycurgus was saying. It didn't take a complicated three-finger sign language to know that.
Raghu growled and went over to Mahfuz, putting himself between the rat and his youngest brother. "I've had it with your regime, Father," he said darkly. "We're to blame for letting Fuz get captured. We've broken him more deeply than any human, torture, or implant ever could. Look at him. He is your son. We all are."
"No son of mine would be a human's pet." Sensei drew himself up, livid. "No son of mine would dare speak against his master."
"Is it better to follow your heart or your mind, Father?" Lycurgus asked quietly, signaling – Raghu translated. "You asked me that once. The answer has always been heart. I've forgotten that this past month – but I remember now." Raghu leaned over and picked Mahfuz up gently.
"We are leaving." Lycurgus didn't realize it until then, but that had been his plan for a long time. He wanted to leave; he wanted to be able to care for his brothers the way his heart told him he should, not the way his father ordered him to. "Until you can figure out if your heart is in the right place, you will not see us again," Raghu rumbled. He glared at their father for a moment and then turned and marched out the door; Donovan and Lycurgus looked at Splinter and then followed Raghu silently.
