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(Mutant Mayhem) TMNT x HUNGER GAMES AU: CHAPTER ONE

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Welcome to the first chapter of my TMNT x Hunger Games Au!! I don't have an official name yet but I will work on it! I'm so happy the first chapter is finally done, I've worked so hard on it! Please don't repost my work without my permission! Tags are below and I hope you enjoy <33 Thank you so much for reading!!

TAGS: Death, Depression, PTSD

WORD COUNT: 2409

CHAPTER ONE: Leo's POV

It was cold and damp as it rained. Heavy stomps from the military coming home from work were heard in the distance. The smell of gas and fumes filled the air, as usual. I quickly ran into my family’s cabin and locked the door behind me as it creaked. I walked into the dining room to find my brother, Donatello working on one of his gadgets at the table. I tossed my bag onto the table as I plopped into a chair beside him. He grabbed the bag and opened it.

“Really Leo? You could only sell 5? I made 15 of these stupid t-phones yesterday. This is only enough for a single meal.” Donatello sighed as he slipped the money into his pocket.

“It’s not my fault Tuesdays are always slow. Besides, can you even be talking? How many have you made today?” Donnie stayed silent. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” I scoffed.

“It’s not my fault the price of microchips are going up. I’ve had to sacrifice breakfast for the last two weeks in order to afford them”. He put down the unfinished t-phone that he was working on.

“Whatever, where is everyone else?”

“Mikey upstairs in the greenhouse, Raph is still at work, and Splinter is upstairs. I think he’s been meditating again. I can sometimes hear him talk to himself about keeping us safe. It’s about to be that time of year again.” Was it already? I must’ve lost track of time. It hasn’t felt like a year since the last games. Maybe it was because district 13 was so close to winning.

There were sounds of keys rattling as Raphael walked in. His mask that was supposed to be a bright red mine as well had been an oxblood with how much smoke was on it.

“God today was rough” He muffled as he untied his mask and started to walk to the sink to wash it.

“What happened?” I asked, taking his coat from him.

“‘Nother human inhaled the fumes today. He turned into a mutant, completely freaked out, and caused major damage to the machines. We’re lucky he didn’t blow the entire place up.

“The human population here is just getting lower and lower.” Everyone turned to see Master Splinter walking down the stairs. “At this rate, there won’t be any humans left.” Splinter added as he grabbed his cane that was leaning against the end of the staircase. He wasn’t exaggerating. The mutagen fumes have been causing everyone to become a mutant. There’s still quite a bit of humans left at my school though. One of them being my childhood best friend, April O’neil.

“Ugh I’m starving. Do we have anything to eat around here?” Raph sneered. Splinter walked over to the kitchen and opened the cabinets.

“Looks like we have either bread and jam or… jam and bread!” Splinter announced as we all stared at the practically empty cabinets, filled with nothing but ⅔’s of a loaf of bread and a half empty jar of jam. “Seriously? We couldn’t afford anything else?” Raph turned to look at me and Donnie but we just stared at our feet. Raph mumbled something under his breath while putting back on his bandana and stomped upstairs. We used to afford more than this, however things have been harder to sell lately. No one has been able to afford much of anything since the Capital raised the prices of food. Especially eggs, no one buys those anymore. Apparently the Capital needed more money for their “tech” for their “research”.

At the same time, you can’t trust what anyone says down here. In district thirteen, we have to live off scraps of gossip that have been passed down through the districts. One time when we were ten, Mikey thought that our district was going to be bombed due to some rebellion in one of the other districts. Stupid I know. When

Splinter asked where he got this information from and he said he heard it from a friend of a friend of a friend. We later found out the rumor came from an old lady who was traumatized from the war. I feel bad for her to this day. She’s not the only one who was affected. Dad wakes up to nightmares all the time. The four of us have gotten used to it by now, putting dad back to sleep after a bad dream. There have been worse nights than others, nowadays they're pretty tame.

I remember one night in particular. It was somber and murky, it had snowed all day and night. It was so late at night that even the bugs in the soil were asleep. That’s when me and Mikey awoke to a blood curdling scream from Splinter, followed by a shattering sound. We ran to Splinter’s room to find him destroying his belongings in his sleep. “Stay back! Leave me alone!” Splinter warned. He threw pillows and launched items around the room like his life depended on it. I ran over to wake him, to snap him out of it. Mikey looked over to the ground. The homemade vase he had made for him was shattered on the bedroom floor. Dust from the clay covered the pieces like the snow covered the ground outside. He picked up the pieces and held his teddy bear while he cried.

“It’s okay, I can fix it…” Mikey sniffed as he was holding back his tears, picking up any of the pieces that could be scavenged. Luckily, I was able to wake Master Splinter up within a minute or two and laid him back down. He wept as I put him back to sleep, apologizing to us saying that he couldn’t help it, and that he didn’t mean anything he did. We slept with him the rest of the night with no interruptions. Raph and Donnie hadn’t realized what went down that night, or maybe they did, no one ever mentions dad’s breakouts.

I left Raph alone for a little while before going upstairs to the greenhouse. I climbed up the stairs and the ladder to the attic. I peek through the entrance hatch to see Raph spraying some plants with some special serum. I hop over to him.

“Hey Raph.” I approach him, watching him spray all sorts of plants. There are enough vegetables and herbs to feed a handle full of larger families, but they need a little more time. Most of them are a sickish green that reminds me of a caterpillar. The kind that appears during the summer that Mikey always takes outside for Raph. He’s never been a fan of insects.

“What up?” He coldly replies. Definitely still mad.

“Listen, I’m sorry I haven’t been able to make a lot of money lately. Me and Donnie really are trying. Nobody can afford to buy them but we can’t afford to lower the price. It’s been hard on all of us.” I feel like there isn’t a way to say it without sounding like I’m just rambling excuses.

Raph exhaled, “Nah I’m sorry, it’s not your guy’s faults. Things have just been really stressful. Especially with the reaping being so soon.”

“It’ll be okay. What are the odds any of us get picked? I mean a one in 10,000 chance is so small. We have nothing to worry about!” I smile reassuringly at him.

“Yeah… Nothing…” Raph gulped. My smile quickly fades. What was that about? Raph quickly tenses and tries to avoid eye contact anywhere but the plants.

“What are you hiding?” I interrogated, I start to look around the room for anything that he could possibly hide.

“You’re wasting your time! You’re not gonna find anything.” He stammered as he grabbed me, trying to stop me from looking . I could see the sweat dripping from his face. I fight him off as I continue to crouch and look underneath the tables of plants. It didn’t take long for me to find a few boxes with district 13 on the front of them. They were covered in clothes and hidden by the rest of the mess beside it.

“Raph, you didn’t…” I say firmly.

“Don’t open those!” He snapped as he jumped for them. I rip him off of the boxes, and he pulls me over with him. We kick and break into a complete catfight as Mikey and Donnie run in. They pull us away from one another and I break Donnie off of me to bend down to reveal the boxes. They’re full of food, clothes, herbs, medicine and other supplies. I look up at Raph.

“What the hell man?” Mikey whined, tossing Raph to face him. Raph looks down in guilt.

“Really Raph? Tesserae? How many years worth of food are these?” Tesserae is where eligible tributes get a year worth of supplies per name of theirs they add to the reaping raffle. Raph had a really close friend who took advantage of tesseraes. They were always by each other's sides, never apart, always together. They had matching bracelets that he still wears to this day. He would always talk about Lisa whenever he got the chance. Mikey and I would always joke about how he fell for a “salamander hottie”. Raph would just punch us in the arm and storm away. Her name was Mona Lisa, her family was always struggling.

Her father was taken from her by the Foot Clan because of his escape attempt. He was tired of his family starving and tired of working his ass off in the powerplants. He ran away late at night to see if there was a way out, Mona noticed and secretly followed him. Around each district, there are tall and thick walls that keep all of the districts separated and “secure”. When he reached the wall outside of town, he attempted to climb it. It was a 100 ft wall, but he was determined to get out. Her dad wasn’t even half way before getting caught. The Foot tossed him in a truck and he was never seen again. All Mona could do was stare in terror, or at least, that’s what she would always tell Raph.

She would mourn for months in Raph’s arms, weeping that she could have done more, or at least tried to stop her dad’s kidnapping. Raph just held her and listened, he was always good at that. With her father out of the picture, her usual stay-at home mom struggled to feed herself and her four other kids. Mona knew this and started to use tersseraes. Year after year she was never called and started to push her luck. Every year she would put her name in 8 times, she did this for 4 straight years. Last year, her luck came to an end and she was chosen to be in the hunger games.

The hunger games were started by Shredder, our president. He claims it as a form of punishment for all of the Foot Clan’s lives that were taken during the war. The Foot is his army of warriors, trained to protect and follow orders at all costs. Every year, two kids from each district ages 12-18 are chosen to be put against each other in an arena. One boy and one girl per district, the last one standing wins. Mona was chosen last year.

Raph and Mona ran to one another crying, saying that everything was going to be okay and that she was going to survive. She could only hug him and give him a kiss on the cheek before the Foot was ready for her. The foot struggled to release Raphael’s grasp on Mona. It took two whole soldiers to pull him off of her. He bawled for hours, days even at a time.

When the games began, Mona thrived. She had always been extremely intelligent. She was smarter than most adults we knew. She used it to her intelligence to create booby-traps for players to be caught in. Once they were caught, she left them there for someone else to kill. Never once did she cause a canon to go off. Her strategy worked too well, and she made it into the final two. However, the game makers wanted to make the games more interesting.

They put Mona and the other contestant in a battle ring, where they fought until there was only one of them standing. Unfortunately, the one standing was not Lisa. She was smart most definitely, but physical strength was never her strong point. It didn’t have to be usually, she had Raph to help her. He was the brawn to her brain. The other contestant ended her life by striking her with a pocket knife, and just like that she was gone.

I’ll never forget the look on everyone’s face when she collapsed, her body limb on the floor. As she took her last breath, the camera pointed at her while she took her bracelet off her wrist and showed it off to the camera. Her final goodbye to Raph, and an apology for not making it till the end.

Raph went on a rampage, tossing and breaking anything he could find in the house. Full of anger, sorrow, and regret, he was always lying in bed, trying to process the loss of his best friend. It wasn’t until a few months ago he started to get better, so why would he do this? Even after everything that has happened? He would claim that he hated the tesserae system and what it did to her, so why?

“I can’t believe this!” I shout, “Raphael, how many of these did you get?” He stays silent. I can’t contain my anger. I stand up and pin him against the wall.

“ANSWER ME DAMMIT!” I snap in his face, he pushes me off of him and I fall to the floor.

“I put in five names okay? Each of us gets a box for a year. I was going to give them to you after the games started. Are you happy?” Raph yells back. I just stare at him in disbelief. Mikey and Donnie stare at him too. Mikey is holding back tears while Donnie is holding his shoulder. I pull myself up from off the floor and head towards the door.

Before I leave, I turn around and say, “Mona taught you nothing.” I slam the door on my way out.

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