DISCLAIMER: I guarantee that the TMNT's will be in this story, but as a flashback. Right now, I need to forewarn the more sensitive readers that, though much if it is implied, the following chapter will explain what Tang Shen endured before waking up in the cell. Torture, basically. I don't do torture, very well, I don't read it very well, but it is part of this character's history. Some of you might figure out who she really is, some of you may not. Either way, she is – for now – Tang Shen. However, not the Tang Shen you might be thinking of.

Again and as before, I am only borrowing from the TMNT universe. I only own Tang.

Chapter 2 – Punishment

She tried to stand, but with the bruises and abrasions that covered her body, it was difficult at best. Shakily, she did, yet Tang knew it would not be for long as she could feel her legs already preparing to give out. Just the same, she would not cower nor would she lay defeated. She looked around a bit more and saw one guard watching her, sneering, and obviously enjoying the view.

Though she was still naked, Tang was well past the point of feeling self-conscious and insecure. Years ago, she had learned not to be ashamed or to feel the least bit uneasy about such matters. She was ninja, after all, and ninja never allowed anything to distract them or to make them feel weak. Embarrassment was a weakness, and, therefore, a weakness that she would never tolerate; her training would not allow it.

Now upright, though painfully so, Tang checked her injuries. There were cuts that needed tending to, but she doubted very much her clan would give her the means to do it. After all, she was in disgrace and, therefore, no longer considered family.

She was not even considered human.

This was her punishment.

Tenderly, she touched the skin around each wound, grimacing in pain as she did. However, she mentally pushed the pain aside as she checked to make sure that the manrikigusari had only left imprints and cuts, not tiny slivers of metal.

She knew that her clan would often get 'creative' with beatings. To augment the punishment, sometimes they would slather an acidic adhesive to the chains and then dust metal shavings over it, so that with the first strike, their victim would be glittered with these metallic splinters. The burning goop would allow the shavings to adhere to the skin, adding more agony to the punishment, while subsequent hits with the chain would only deepen the tiny objects into the epidermal wounds.

Sighing, Tang was relieved to discover that, for now, she had escaped such torture. Yet, they were far from finished with her. More than likely, they would save this bit of 'entertainment' for later on, once she had full appreciation of her injuries.

However, she hurt so badly and they had so severely beaten her that she had trouble remembering exactly what implements her punishers used. She knew that the whole process had taken several hours, where she was shown as an example to anyone else thinking about quitting the Foot. Tang laughed a little, her breathing hitching as she did, as she thought how ludicrous it was for her to think that he would just let her go. Yes, he did say he loved her, that much she remembered, but the sneer on his face as the words came out of his mouth, was a contradiction in terms.

"My Tang Shen," he stated for all to hear, "I do love you; please remember that – but you have left me no other course but to make an example of you." She lay in front of him on her knees, her upper torso collapsed in a forward position of submission, forced to lie that way as he examined her wounds. He had lifted her chin, then, forcing her to look up at him. She had already endured the cat-o-nine-tails and other whips and chains – including the manrikigusari, as well as kicks and strikes from her brethren. Blood ran from her bruised mouth and she could tell that she had already lost a few of her teeth. With her face, now swollen, Tang had difficulty opening her eyes and she was quite sure that her right cheekbone was shattered.

However, when she gazed up at him, she did not see love – but hate and disappointment. "I must do this, Tang…" he cooed evilly to her, "you have disgraced us, and, even though we were to be married, my dear, even you are not above reproach. You do understand this?"

He waited for her to respond, but Tang was near to losing consciousness. She had already an hours worth of beatings, which followed the first hour of her rape by his Elite force. Suddenly, she felt his hand grab her chin harder, pain rocketing through her as it became apparent that she had indeed lost several teeth. "Answer me, Tang Shen…do you understand why I am allowing this?"

Now, his voice nearly deafened her, echoing through the cavernous warehouse and heard by the masses of soldiers and initiates who had witnessed her beating. "No one leaves the Foot, not even my betrothed. You have shamed us with your betrayal, shamed yourself and you must be punished."

Still she refused to answer himHe released her, then, watching as she slumped to the concrete flooring, naked, beaten, yet still alive. "You're punishment is not quite over, though. There are still many more ways of making you see the dishonor that you have brought upon this clan."

Two Elite picked her up and took her from the main area of the warehouse. Unable to stand or to walk, they dragged her to a small room, where a chair, embedded with tiny needles and the sides filled with manacles, awaited her. Almost thrown into it, she bit her tongue to keep from crying out. The skin on her back, shredded from the whips and the like, protested the needles now adding insult to injury, while blood pooled down the sides of the vinyl chair. However, as she instinctively tried to extricate herself from the contraption, her tormentors pushed her roughly back into place. Quickly, they strapped her skull to the headrest and secured her arms and legs, making it impossible for her to move.

Straps along her torso kept her rigid; the option to squirm taken from her, not that she wanted to. The needles acted like Velcro against her skin, preventing and discouraging anyone from even wanting to move. Yet, she would not cry out, she would not give them the satisfaction. Tang Shen was not the Prime Elite for being weak; that much she would prove. If she died, she would die with honor, she would not call out for mercy. Tang Shen would persevere, if it were the last thing she did.

Despite her inability to move arm or leg, her eyes, however, were able to take everything in. She watched as the technician prepared for the session. A man of years and his face hardened from the kind of job he did, he never made eye contact with her. Then again, he never did with any of his subjects. Even though she had dined with him, along with the others that now stood watching, she was no longer Tang Shen. She was The Dishonored. She had earned her punishment. An example of her had to be set.

Tang quickly noted the tray of implements to her right. Sharp, hideous looking tools that would make even a dentist or a surgeon quake with uncertainty. Some were quite dainty, while others were grotesque in their shape and size. There was also the cattle prods, but enhanced by her lover's engineers. Pulsating shots of electricity would enhance or numb, depending on the type of torture. A victim might lose the use of his lungs, just long enough for him to think he was dying. Or, his sight, or some other sensory organ compromised, all to break and force the person to wish for death, to beg for death.

Yet, for Tang Shen, the worst part was, she knew what the tools were for and how the technician would use them. Glancing up at the wall across from her, she saw the camera. She knew that everything happening to her, now, would be video fed into the warehouse, played upon the screen, for all to witness. Not one act that they would do to her would be done in private. All would know her shame, know her disgrace, and know her punishment.

She knew this because she had witnessed such torture in the same way.

Nevertheless, despite her knowledge of such things, despite the fact that she knew what would happen if she denounced her affiliation with her clan, Tang knew that she had to quit the Foot, that is if she were to regain her humanity again. Dying in this way was not as horrific as living the way she had for the past eleven years, eleven years of brainwashing that forced her, trained her, to forget who she once was. To forget her murdered family, to forget the life she had - before Oruku Saki had kidnapped her.

Then, the first sharp pain crudely brought her back to the present. Now, the real torture began. As it did and as she tried to meditate, to draw herself away from the horror, Tang Shen remembered the words from a week ago. They were words from her memory, words spoken to her when she was a child of six, before HE came, before the end of the world, as she knew it, and before her life changed forever. Tang Shen tried to fall into the abyss of her lost, but recently regained memories.

However, as things progressed and as the extent of her torture increased, Tang had no other recourse but to fall back on her training. Because, despite her inner strength and all HE had taught her, Tang's endurance slowly, and with frightening clarity, began to melt away.

Before she lost consciousness and as the technician pulled the last nail from her broken fingertips, Tang cried out two strangled words.

They were words that she thought she would never utter and that her lover would need to hear from her before he could end her hellish experience. Two words a true Foot ninja would never say and which only proved her dishonor.

"JIHI, JIHI, ONEGAI!"

(Mercy, mercy, please!)

-

Author's Comments:I want to thank a reader for clarifying the last phrase that Tang uttered. I had it differently, but there are many ways to say 'please' in the Japanese language, depending on circumstances. Onegai is for begging, pleading, praying. So, a deep thanksto Jago Li Son Shiranui forhelping me out:0)

Also,any Foot ninja to cry out and beg for mercy, as Tang is doing, is looked upon as dishonorable.