A/n: I had a review after the last chapter suggesting that I could possibly put my rating down a little. Let me know what you think after this one.

(My logic is that, if anyone made a movie of this story, it would definitely be M-rated. Then again, movies are rated differently to written work. Not to mention the fact that some films receive different rating in Australia than they do in the U.S. It's all very confusing).

TMNT has taken over my brain. I'm meant to be writing my essays, but... can't... stop... reading... fanfic. Argh.

Chapter 6 – Freakshow

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As people came flooding into the 'display room', someone arced up the spotlights around the base of Raph's cage. He squinted his eyes against the glare. He was dizzy, sick, hungry. What's more, as the inquisitive faces of the crowd began to move through the room, gradually approaching his platform at the back, his instincts were screaming at him to run, hide. The lights were so bright. He would be seen. Master Splinter is going to kill me, he thought fuzzily. He always said we had to hide away, people couldn't know about us. What if they go looking for my brothers? No… what if…

"Don't let yourself panic." Leo's calm voice said to him as clearly as if he were standing right behind him. Leo? No, Leo wasn't here. Raph didn't even know where 'here' was. He didn't even know for sure if he was still in the city. In any case, he took his brother's advice. No one was going to go looking for the lair or hunting his family. No one even knew they existed. They were safe.

They were safe, he repeated in his mind. Over and over, like a mantra. It helped to keep his breathing steady. No matter what was happening to him, as long as his brothers were safe, then he could handle it. He could get through it.

"Think it through," Don's voice floated into his mind. "Plan as much as you can."

I was never so great at that side of it, Donny.

There was no answer. Man, now he'd starting talking to the voices in his head. Great. He'd gotta stop them pumping him full of drugs or he'd be permanently whacked.

"Already are, bro."

Thanks for that, Mikey.

"Whoa. What the hell is that?" This voice was all too real, and up close. Real close. Raph realised dimly that he must be pretty badly shaken up if he didn't hear a huge galumphing guy like this one approaching. He looked like Hun's long-lost cousin. Okay, maybe not quite that big, but on a similar scale. Similar scale of ugly, too. There was a group of men with him, and they all stared up at Raph's cage in fascination. They had cold beers in hand. Huh. So this place covers catering, too. Now all they needed was popcorn, and peanuts to feed the elephants. Wait, this place didn't have elephants. Only Tigger, and Raph was pretty sure tigers didn't eat peanuts…

Oh, Christ. He was gagged and bound hand and foot, locked in a cage, surrounded by dozens of onlookers, and he was loopy to boot. This is just wonderful.

The group of men stared up at him. The big one ambled over to read the sign that Darmonaz had left at the front of the platform. The babble of voices rose steadily.

Raph hated the way they all looked at him. There was nowhere to hide. The platform was detached from the wall, so as the audience around him grew, people pushed through to surround him on all four sides. The women pointed at him with wide, horrified eyes, while the men scowled and made gruff comments. If anyone read the sign then they looked up at him with even more hatred and disgust in their eyes. He was beginning to wonder what it said about him. Probably better not to know.

Unfortunately his ignorance wouldn't last very long.

Snarls and pained yelps were coming from inside the ring where the dogfights were going on. The crowd jostled around it, placing bets, vying for a better view of the carnage, yelling in either victory or defeat. Raph could hear the bear growling as some young punks threw something at its cage. One of Darmonaz's supervisors stood nearby, just smirking and watching. Music had started up, blaring into the room from speakers at the corners of the ceiling. The thudding beat rapidly intensified Raph's headache.

The current dogfight ended, and more of the crowd pooled around Raph's cage. He could sense the aggressive vibe in the air. He was no stranger to aggression himself, but this felt different. This was angry, vicious. When he saw Darmonaz's oily smile making its way towards him, he knew whatever happened next was not going to be pretty.

Darmonaz jumped up on to the small platform to address his audience, his voice taking on a deep, oratorical tone.

"My men have gone to great lengths to capture this, our newest specimen. We searched long and hard, tracked it for many days, before it was finally captured and taken here, where it can no longer cause harm to the citizens of this city."

That wasn't right, Raph's brain told him sluggishly. They weren't looking for me, I took 'em by surprise…

"For years this menace has been allowed to stalk the streets, terrorising our women, taking our children…"

Now wait just a second…

Darmonaz was controlling the rumbling crowd with the skill of a conductor bringing an orchestra to crescendo. "So we have taken the beast away from its prey. As you can see," he shot a malicious glance over his shoulder at Raph, "we have made sure that it will never again feast on human flesh."

Oxygen given to the flame, and the crowd roared. Raph battled the hysterical urge to laugh. This was too far, too much.

"Monster!"

"… Disgusting…"

"… Evil freak!"

An empty soda can clanged against the bars.

Darmonaz caught the eye of one of his men standing at the edge of the crowd. Some signal seemed to pass between them, and the man disappeared through the door where Raph had been brought in.

By this time, almost everyone in the basement room had been attracted by the noise and activity going on at the one end. They were fresh from animal fights, faces flushed from a few too many beers, egged on by testosterone-pumped friends and admiring girlfriends.

Raph couldn't say a word in his own defense. And he knew that even if he could open his mouth and point out he didn't exactly make a habit of devouring small children, they wouldn't listen. But never before had he longed so much to speak up. He couldn't stop himself from trying, and his stomach turned as the repulsive black wire held fast, his face stinging.

"Imagine, if you will, coming across this monster in a dark alleyway late at night. Or perhaps finding it creeping in through an open window of your apartment, leaning over the cradle of your child…" There was a half-strangled scream from the audience.

"But no more. No more! Its fangs will no longer taste our blood!" There was a roar in a single voice from many throats, a voice of fear disguised as irrational hatred. And the voice was clamouring for punishment.

A beer bottle smashed against his cage. The dregs splattered over him as he stumbled back reflexively. Broken glass glittered amid the sawdust on the cage floor.

Jesus Christ. They were bloodthirsty now, stir-crazy. There were fists in the air. Darmonaz was speaking again but Raph didn't bother listening. Jesus Christ, he thought again. This can't be how it ends. Torn apart by a crowd out for vengeance for invented crimes, violence against anything different from the norm…

I never got ta have that talk with Leo, he thought frantically. I never got ta tell him and now they've taken my fuckin' voice…

The man who Darmonaz had signalled to pushed through the crowd to the side of his boss, handing him something. Suddenly there was a taser coming through the bars, and there was nowhere for Raph to go. He couldn't even yell, and the anger and the frustration were internalised along with the pain.

… They were cheering. They were fucking cheering. It was at that point that he might have gone slightly into shock. There was nothing more he could do; no actions left, only reactions. The pain lifted for a few disorienting seconds, and then returned afresh. Again and again. It didn't end. The evil black stick just kept coming back, and there was laughter. It felt like it went on for hours, but it was probably only minutes. This was the finale, he was the finale, the fireworks at the end of the show.

He twisted and turned, tangling the chains around himself, trying somehow to get away, or fight back, but the faces leered all around him like some sort of nightmare…

There was a pause.

Darmonaz had instructed some of his men to wheel the cage offstage. Raph sagged against the bars, his chest heaving. It's over. Aftershocks were still running through him. The concrete passage was blessedly silent and empty. The men left him back where he had started out, in the holding room. Apparently the show was over for the night. Gradually all of the animals were brought in and returned to their original places. It took a long time for his breathing to steady.

Amidst the bustling activity he didn't notice the doctor and Darmonaz approaching his cage. Without any warning his wrists were jerked downwards forcefully, and the rest of him quickly followed as his wobbly legs were taken by surprise. He found himself on his knees on the floor of the cage. Darmonaz had shortened the chain connecting his wrists to the floor, attaching his end closer to the base of the cage. Raph was pulled right up close to the bars.

"Your idea worked perfectly, doctor. Now, are you sure it's going to be sustainable?"

The doctor was fiddling with some equipment on a small metal trolley drawn up to the cage. The set-up looked vaguely familiar to Raph, with tubes coming from a plastic bag suspended on a stand…

"Yes, it should get enough liquids and nutrients through the IV to sustain it for a while. Possibly after six to eight weeks it will need some solids to re-build some body mass. But perhaps in that time it will have forgotten how to speak…"

"Is that likely?" Darmonaz looked mildly hopeful.

"I'm not sure. I don't know how long it would take an animal to forget what it has been trained to do. But it would make an interesting study." She held a large needle up to the light, inspecting it.

Raph didn't like needles. Needles meant bad things. Damn. I thought it was over.

A pair of hands snaked through the bars and latched on to his left arm in an iron grip. He flinched at the contact of soft human skin – he hated being touched without his permission, especially when he couldn't do anything to resist or draw away – couldn't even bite the man's fingers. The doctor moved quickly, and before his scrambled brain could think of any retaliation there was a thick, cold needle sliding into the softer flesh on the inside of his elbow. He could feel it going into his veins. He gave an enormous shudder, fighting the sudden urge to be sick.

Not content with controlling his limbs and taking his voice, now they were putting stuff inside his body, too. Would he be left with nothing to call his own?

The two humans left and shut down the lights, plunging him into darkness. All of the unspent adrenaline seemed to leave him at once, and his shell slumped against the bars. His eyes stared unseeingly and in the aftermath of pain and shock, his mind went blessedly blank and the storm of his emotions was silenced.

.:...:.