You're Needed Here Now, Donnie

Chapter 9 - Taking It to the Street

"Ha! Good one, Raph! Wait! Wait! How about this? Don't get all hot under the collar, Rahzar! You're not the only one having a 'ruff' night." Mikey doubled over laughing at the funnies he had made, but his laughter soon faded when he realized that no one else had found it remotely amusing.

Tough crowd, Mikey thought as he straightened back up only to discover that his two oldest brothers were glaring at him with more hostility than Rahzar was.

Mikey's normally cheerful face curved down into a frown. Sometimes, his brothers had no appreciation for the fine art of a well-executed pun.

"'You done?" Raph grunted at Mikey.

"Yeah," Mikey sighed, clearly disappointed that he didn't get a chance to try out the rest of his standup comedy material. He still hadn't gotten to work in something about Rahzar 'hounding' them.

"Good, because now I'm going to make this smelly mongrel pay for hurting our brother!" Raph seethed, pulling his glare away from Mikey so that he could fix it on Rahzar.

Rahzar sneered back at Raph as he flexed and spread his claws wide, trying to goad the highly strung turtle into making an attack.

"That's gonna be kind of tough with your brother on your back now, isn't it? How about I take that weight off of your shoulders for you?" Rahzar proposed in a patronizing manner as he pointed a long claw towards Donnie.

If Raph wasn't enraged before, he was now.

"You aren't gonna touch him!" Raph hollered, giving Rahzar a lethal glare, but the red-clad turtle's homicidal appearance did nothing to dissuade the bigger mutant.

"I'll tell you what. I'll make you reptiles an offer you shouldn't refuse. You hand over your brother there and I'll let the rest of you walk away in one piece. And, once your brother makes me human again, I promise I'll deliver him right back to you . . . unharmed," Rahzar rasped and his eyes fell upon Donnie again.

From seemingly out of nowhere, Donnie found the strength needed to lift his head up off of Raph's shoulder so he could see what was going on rather than just listening to the conversation taking place around him. The first thing he locked eyes on was Rahzar, who was staring right back at him, hungrily.

Even with all of Donnie's shivering, Raph could feel a definite shudder run through his little brother's body.

Giving Donnie's arms another reassuring squeeze, Raph flashed Donnie an intrepid expression that was meant to stop the genius turtle from worrying, but it was in Donnie's nature to worry. Especially when an immense, ravenous, evil mutant dog was set on taking you away from your family and making you his personal chew toy.

"Unharmed? You threw him into a wall!" Raph roared at Rahzar. The turtle in red suddenly felt even more protective of his injured little brother. Especially now that he knew Rahzar was still planning on taking Donnie away from them.

Raph could feel Donnie continue to shudder above him. Raph was now shaking as well, but not from fear or a fever like Donnie was. Raph was shaking with insane fury.

Donnie's other older brother was experiencing that same fury.

"After you choked him, slammed him into the floor, and then, tried to bust his ankle!" Leo added with even more rage than Raph, which was saying a lot. No one had expected to hear that kind of anger coming from level-headed Leo.

To Leo's left, Mikey was also demonstrating far more rage than expected, but he was unable to achieve quite the same caliber of anger that Leo or Raph had. Still, after hearing further details about what Rahzar had done to his peaceful big brother, Mikey was mad enough to let out a livid growl and his knuckles turned white from how rigidly he was holding onto his nunchuks.