WARNING: TORTURE SCENE. NON-GRAPHIC SUMMARY AT THE END OF THE CHAPTER.

Michelangelo was never the brightest, but Donatello had no idea he was this mind-bogglingly stupid.

Footbots throw the turtle in question to the ground, eliciting a small noise of protest from him. They bow and leave. Michelangelo glares at them as they do, as if somehow they were the source of all his imminent misery.

Idiot. Stupid moron couldn't even cover his tracks right and, naturally, blames it on anyone but himself. Typical Michelangelo. And he wondered why Shredder thought he was useless. He frees some random, gorgeous- what! Not gorgeous, that's not what he meant, he- meant- frees some random, USELESS girl. Yes, random useless girl for no good reason than his own apparent death wish! Moron!

Master Shredder stands from his throne like a leviathan ascending from the waves. His blades gleam in the low light like the eyes of a predator about to attack. He advances, menacing and ominous, towards the cowering Michelangelo. Michelangelo quickly arranges himself to be on all fours and head down in the vain hope that deference and submission can save him.

He is wrong.

There is no warning before Shredder's blades are through his shoulder, piercing flesh and muscle and bone and nerves and blood and blood and blood and blood and-

Breathe in, breathe out. Think logically. There is no logical reason to react with irrational panic. Shredder has pierced Michelangelo's right shoulder in three places; judging by the angle and lack of severe loss of- of blood, he has pierced the trapezius, avoiding the brachial plexus; the muscle bundle just below the curve of the cephalic vein (assess for nerve damage); and the clavipectoral fascia. There is a possibility of loss of use of that arm; a prosthetic limb would take three to five weeks to design and build if he uses Kraang neurotech as a base. Recovery, if possible, will take around a month. He will need more antiseptic; his current supply will be too low for comfort once he has finished cleaning the wounds-

Shredder rips his blades back out. Michelangelo screams and Donatello tries very hard to ignore it. There is more blood and Donatello can feel bile climb up the back of his throat.

Shredder watches as Michelangelo curls in on himself, instinctively protecting the wounded joint as his pained, wheezing breaths dash too fast in and out of his throat. Donatello cannot see Master Shredder's masked face, but it is not hard to imagine the disgust he likely feels at the pathetic display. His voice pierces the oppressive air like a blade through flesh.

"Leonardo." He issues no command. He does not have to. Leonardo peels out of the line-up as stoic and blank as ever, walks quickly and without hesitation to stand just behind and to the right of Shredder like the loyal dog he is. Raphael stands alone next to Donatello; the genius sees something far too close to anticipation on his face and discomfort settles heavy in his gut.

Silence, save for Michelangelo's fading wheezing.

"Breaks his fingers."

The command is sudden and far too calm. Leonardo's obedience is much the same as he takes the wide-eyed and thrashing Michelangelo's hand- the right (wounded) one- and-

The scream echoes so much louder than the snap but Donatello can't get snap-crunch-grind of bone on bone out of his head, can't get the image of Leonardo twisting the broken digit out and all he can taste is bile, see is blood, hear is the snap-crunch-grind of broken bone and he thinks he's going to be sick.

The next finger. The thumb. Michelangelo's eyes are shiny and wide and moisture is starting to leak from their corners and he's not sure if he's proud of him for lasting this long or disappointed that he broke at all. After all, he's had plenty of practice. Leonardo goes for the other hand and Michelangelo is kicking wildly but Shredder stomps on an offending foot and with a sickening crunch, that's the end of that. Leonardo rips the unwounded hand from Michelangelo's protective cradle against his chest while he's distracted (screamingscreamingscreaming). Snap. Crunch. Crack. Why won't he stop screaming. Leonardo finally moves away, and so does Michelangelo. Tears stream down his face as he desperately uses his remaining functional limb to push his body away, curled in on his hands and knee pulled to his chest.

"Disgusting," Raphael mutters. It jerks Donatello from his trance like being pulled out of freezing water suddenly. He turns and sees hate on the scarred, green face of his brother, sees rage and disgust for the pitiful creature before them.

"His arms," says Shredder, with just the barest hint of glee, and Michelangelo warbles out something soggy and indistinguishable as his kicking becomes more frantic. It is futile. Leonardo pounces, and Michelangelo sounds like a prey animal being eaten alive as Leonardo takes Michelangelo's arm and slams it over his knee. Once, twice, and on the third bone tears free from flesh and Donatello closes his eyes and thinks of diagrams and numbers and clinical, safe things and not the bile he has to work to swallow down. By the other arm, Michelangelo has finally stopped screaming. In fact, he has stopped moving entirely.

Donatello feels like thanking any higher powers that may or may not exist for his brothers blessed unconsciousness.

Shredder turns his terrible gaze on him and his joints snap into place on instinct, tall and firm and unresponsive. Back into place like a toy that comes alive only when its owner has left the room. His face falls flat despite the racing of his traitorous heart.

"Donatello. I expect your brother to be awake by morning; if he is not, he is no longer of any use to me. Do you understand?"

"Yes Master Shredder." The ingrained response is beyond his lips even before he has the chance to process the decry. The metal beast turns and leaves, and Donatello is so, so grateful.

Michelangelo needs medical attention NOW- that is his first priority. He will deal with the Shredder's order later, when his hands have stopped shaking and his brothers' eyes aren't drilling holes through the back of his eye sockets. Calloused hands carefully lift the battered torso; bridal style, he decides, will allow him to keep the arms from jostling, so that is how he carries his brother to the lab.

He does not allow himself to think on the way to his lab about anything besides what treatments he will use and how long they will take and what supplies he will need. He moves on autopilot, cleaning and dressing wounds and equipping splints and casts where needed. Michelangelo is a mess- but not one he can't fix. A careful examination of the wounds in his shoulder reveal that, although only time will tell how much motion and feeling Michelangelo will regain, it will heal, at least for the most part. The broken bones are clean breaks, although he has to deal with tissue damage from Leonardo twist- twisting them, ugh don't think about it don't think about it. The ankle is another matter. It's crushed- it's going to take nothing less than surgery to give it even a hope of recovery.

Tonight is going to be a long night.

It is 3:48 AM. Michelangelo lies half conscious on the table where Donatello reconstructed an ankle so mangled on the inside, one could barely call it an ankle at all. It is a miracle Michelangelo is awake at all, even with the copious amounts of adrenaline-inducing drugs in his system.

It is 3:49 AM, and half conscious or not, it is time to go.

Donatello gently gets his arm beneath his brother's, trying not to jostle bones as he supports him. Up they go, and Michelangelo is leaning almost entirely on Donatello, but that's okay, because he could be dead or worse by now and honestly he might be yet.

This is a bad idea. It also might keep him and possibly the only person who has ever been anything close to kind to him alive, and maybe it's not the most logical course- but neither was breaking all of Michelangelo's fingers over one human girl. Neither is disposing of him because he's not functional by some arbitrary point in time.

They're going to stumble out of there alive if it's the last thing they do, because it very well might be. Donatello has put all cameras on loop and disarmed all alarms, and he is the only one who monitors either; this does not guarantee success.

It is a long, terrifying trip to one of the back entrances to the building. Donatello inputs the password with a shaking finger, and even as he half-drags his vulnerable brother into what he is almost tempted to call freedom. Terror sinks its teeth bone deep into him as they limp their way to the shadows. There is a manhole less than a block away, but even that feels like miles to Donatello, far too long spent in the shadow of Shredder's lair.

Donatello feels like crying when his feet finally hit sewer cement. He helps his brother down with a grimace halfway between terror and ecstasy because in the dark mazes of the New York sewers, Shredder will never be able to find them; after all, he has been searching for Hamato Yoshi down here for fifteen years and still not found them. And yet he can't shake the fear, the feeling that they're going to turn a corner and he'll be there, waiting with blind rage in his eyes and hate in his heart and blood on his hands.

But he isn't waiting around the corner- or the next, or the next, or the next, and slowly Donatello's racing heart slows down.

So does Michelangelo's. Adrenaline inducing drugs worn off, Donatello is mostly dragging/carrying his brother by this point.

They turn another corner. A dead end; all there is is a waterfall of sewage endlessly spilling into the large, vertical tunnel. Others pour their load here as well, forming a rancid pit of sewage at the bottom that he cannot tell the depth of. They turn to go back the way they came-

An echo out of place. Donatello freezes, his unresponsive brother doing little to break the silence. A voice- it sounds like-

Oh no.

Leonardo is here.

Panic grabs Donatello's mind in its hideous clawed fist and squeezes, and all he can feel is unrelenting, irrational fear. His brother falls from his grasp, makes no sound as he lands hard on the floor and Donatello doesn't notice that he's falling falling falling until water is filling his lungs and all he can see is distorted, mottled colors through the raging, violent waters and darker darker darker grows the light. Consciousness slips from his fingers like water and the last thing he sees is the dark.

AN: Don't worry guys, Donnie's gonna be fine ;) And by unanimous vote on both and , Mikey gets to keep all his limbs! I actually was planning on just really messing up his right arm, with none of this other stuff, but uh... whoops! Not how the story wanted to be written I guess.

NON-GRAPHIC SUMMARY: Shredder tells Leo to break Michelangelo's fingers and arms; Shredder himself breaks his ankle. Donatello is told to take care of him and that if Mikey isn't awake by morning, he is to dispose of him. Donnie nearly has a panic attack like twice, and actually has one like once, and in general does not have a fun time, but does manage to make it out of Shredder's lair alive and into the sewers. Eventually, Donnie hears Leo's voice- and promptly has a panic attack. He falls into the sewer pool far below, to meet a fate unknown.