Even the strongest can succumb to neglect and break apart, changing from something resilient into soft, crumbling powder.

✘

Raphael feels like he's been locked away forever, his eyes aching for light and his body begging for release from his cage. It must have been days already, but he's lost track of time. He only gets out of his cage in order to be sent through obstacle courses that would easily kill a human if they failed it. The only reason he survives it is because he has his shell and his ninja abilities, but that doesn't stop the sharp blades and swinging arms from cutting and bruising him until he feels more dead than alive.

He asked the scientists multiple times what the point of the courses was, but he rarely got answers. The scientists were content to ignore him, speaking only to give orders. Hanovitz is the only one who gave him some semblance of an answer, but even then her words were, "Sabrian ordered testings. He wants to see what you are capable of."

Every other hour of the day, he's left tied up in his cage. Scientists come by and draw blood or swab the inside of his mouth a few times every day, a process that involves sedating him. The worst part is when they prop is mouth open and he's too doped up to bite off anyone's fingers. He'd like to get the chance to freak them out a bit, but they don't give him that luxury.

The only good thing is that Hanovitz is the one who comes to feed him. She's quiet and her facial expressions don't move out of the range of "uncomfortable deadpan", but at least she seems disturbed by what's going on. She gives Raphael his food in a real bowl and water in a real glass, although she told him that she can't give him utensils for safety reasons. She's also the only one who seems unafraid of opening the cage without him being sedated and answers his questions when he has them (even though her responses aren't all that helpful).

Still, that's the only remotely positive thing that Raphael can find about this ordeal. If he wasn't so distracted by thoughts of his brothers, his dad, his sisters, and Taylor, maybe he could do better at the obstacle courses and escape with fewer wounds to deal with. He can't go a minute without thinking of the mutants that he failed to protect and the girl who's broken his heart.

She's gone, his brothers and father are somewhere being subjects to the same experiments that he is, and he's alone.

He tugs against his chains as if today they'll break. As always, they rattle faintly and cause the silence of the room to shift for a few seconds. The sound fades and he plunges back into terrible tranquillity, his thoughts louder than ever.

----------

Donatello misses his family. He misses Sarina. He just wants to go back to his laboratory and listen to Sarina rant about the states of the environment or show him the latest articles in her favourite National Geographic magazines. Her pale arms surrounding him would be like an angel's touch compared to these shackles on his wrists and ankles, holding him up against the wall.

The experiments they give him stretch his brain until it hurts to think. Puzzles, mazes, solving clues in order to escape horrifying simulations. His nights are restless, his brain so exhausted that he has nothing but dreamless periods of sleep that never last long enough. He constantly worries about his brothers, his father. What sort of things are they being put through? Are they faring better than him?

He gave up trying to talk to the scientists a while ago. They seem to find his attempts amusing and when he thinks about it, he feels sick. If they're anything like Sabrian, they don't believe that he's anything like they are. The only woman who ever replied to him couldn't give him any comforting answers, so he gave up. He sat back, stayed still, and let them do what they wanted.

He doesn't even have the energy to be mad at Taylor. Even she couldn't have known that Mutacorp's ideologies are so twisted. She must've been scared. He's scared too.

Tears slip down his cheeks, his arms aching, his mouth dry. He just wants to go home, to collapse into Sarina's embrace and sleep for a long time. He wants to hear that she loves him one more time. The only thing he has to be thankful about is that she's still at the lair, she's with Destiny, and they're both safe.

----------

Leonardo lays on a table, his arms and legs cuffed down and a leather muzzle surrounding his nose and mouth. He shudders and his eyes close, hating the muzzle more and more with every breath.

He knows that it's his own fault that it's on him. One of the scientists tried to pull one of his teeth out and he bit down on his hand as hard as he could. Now, he got muzzled, the scientist in question doesn't show up anymore, and he has all his teeth. He wonders whether his door is labelled with "the one that bites" or something.

He's so tired, so cold. The only thing keeping him alive is a small drip inserted into his arm feeding fluids directly into his veins. Mutacorp is testing his survival limits, seeing how long he can go with minimal food and water. He's got enough to stay alert, but he's silent and unresponsive.

Raphael sticks in his mind. Leonardo wishes he could feel smug, but he doesn't. All he feels is overwhelming sympathy and compassion for his hotheaded brother. He tried to warn him. Why didn't he listen?

His stomach cramps and aches with hunger, tears welling up behind his eyelids. The door to his room opens and a scientist walks in with a bowl of something that he can't figure out. He can't even smell with the muzzle on.

The woman leans over him and reaches out, unclipping the muzzle and pulling it off his face. He sucks in a breath of fresh air, shuddering, and she stares at him with sadness in her blue eyes. She pulls something from the bowl and rests it against his lips. He snaps down on it, the taste of carrot spreading across his needy tongue.

She gives him three more before putting the muzzle back on. "I'm sorry, I can't give you more. It would make you sick."

It would ruin the experiment, he thinks. As he watches her with eyes still glinting with the will to live, she purses her lips and clutches the bowl closer to her chest as she turns and leaves the room. His stomach doesn't hurt as much now, although he wouldn't mind more food.

Time passes and his thoughts return. The only thing that he is sure of is that he made the right decision in telling Destiny and Sarina to stay home. Just the idea of them being stuck in this place makes him feel sicker than he already is. Destiny's been through enough torture, Sarina's been through enough experimentation; they don't need this horrific combination of the two.

Leonardo doesn't have the strength in him to figure out how they're going to escape and, granted that they do get out, how they're going to stop Sabrian's plan. The only inkling of hope that he has is that Destiny and Sarina might find the Mutacorp building and rescue them. Otherwise, he's lost.

His team needs him and he can't do anything. He's weak, Raphael is heartbroken, he doesn't know what's happening to Donatello, Michelangelo, and Master Splinter. The last time he saw any of them was when they shuttled Donatello past him on the way to a testing block. Leonardo didn't get the chance to talk to him.

He shuts his eyes and tries to get some sleep.

----------

Michelangelo is miserable. No amount of positivity can keep him smiling here, not even thoughts of pizza or video games. From what he's overheard, they're testing Leonardo's durability, Raphael's strength and agility, and Donatello's thought processes. For him, it's stamina. Every day, he's sent into a maze and holograms of Squirrelanoids appear behind him. He's forced to run from them.

The first time they sent him in there, they hooked him up to multiple monitors and tried to find the perfect scare tactic. When the Squirrelanoids popped up, they found their winner. Michelangelo tried to remind himself that they're just holograms and that they can't really hurt him, but from the second they became solid, he gave in.

He ran for his life.

He runs and runs and runs through the winding, curving pathways sending him into disarray. The screeches of the alien squirrels keep him going.

When he's sent back to his cage after the testing is finished, all he can think about is home. He misses his brothers, he misses pizza, he misses Annalise's videos, he misses goodnight hugs and kisses from his sisters. All he wants is to go back to the place where he's loved.

These scientists don't even think that he's capable of what they are just because he's a mutant. Sabrian's words repeat over and over in his head, making his chest ache. He doesn't look human, but he feels like one, and he doesn't understand how someone could be so mean to someone just because they're different.

He wants to go home, but the longer he stays here, the more he realizes that that may not happen. He could die here. He never got to finish his bucket list.

He sits in his cage, hugging his knees to his chest and waiting for what may never come.

----------

Master Splinter's first introduction to Mutacorp was when he woke up in an empty room. A grey-haired scientist sat in front of him with a blonde woman seated at his side.

He told Splinter about what he was doing in Mutacorp and their plan. Splinter listened and said nothing while the woman took down notes the entire time.

"Now...I'd like to ask you a few questions," Sabrian says, fingers perched in a steeple in front of his mouth. "You refer to those turtles as your sons. Did that develop only once you had mutated into...this?"

"They were my pets. When they mutated into more, I became their father," comes the calm reply. Hanovitz starts to mark down his answer.

"Ah, so...you did not start as a rat?"

"No. I was born a man. I lived as a man for over thirty years."

Sabrian's thin lips perk. "Well, it is a good thing that you aren't one anymore. Otherwise, I would not be able to study you. Still..." He leans back. "I imagine that that changes how you think. After all, the turtles started as pets and somehow became humanoid. You are the opposite."

"My sons are brilliant, brave, strong, and kind. I learn from them just as much as they learn from me." Splinter's gaze darkens. "If you believe that they are lesser than me because of their origins, you are a fool."

Sabrian's tight smile falters. "Interesting."

Later, Splinter tries to meditate in his cage, but the terrified screams of Michelangelo shatter his concentration. Splinter feels terrible. He should have seen this coming when his meditations showed nothing but depression and despair. He ignored the warnings and now he's paying for it.

A buzzer rings out above him and his ears flatten against his head. In about two seconds, arrows and various other flying items appear and Splinter will have to evade them. Right on schedule, five arrows fly out of the walls and Splinter dodges them with ease.

The buzzers sound at random times throughout the day and Splinter has to be ready when it goes or else he risks getting hurt. This means disrupting his sleep, disrupting his meals, disrupting any peace that he tries to get. As time wears on, Splinter starts to feel exhaustion setting in and his reactions get sloppier.

Another round of screams sounds and Splinter loses focus for a moment, allowing an arrow to clip his shoulder. He grips his limb with a hiss of pain just as the test ends. When everything seems calm enough, he sits down against the wall and starts licking at his wound while his son's cries assault him.

"I am sorry, my son," he whispers. "I cannot save you."