...
Tragic visions slowly stole my life
Tore away everything
Cheating me out of my time
I'm the one who loves you
No matter wrong or right
And every day I hold you
I hold you with my inner child
–"Serenity," from Godsmack
PROLOGUE
Head bowed, Splinter sat cross-legged before his makeshift shrine to the past and contemplated the future. Through his meditations he sought peace, but all he found within himself was fear and unrest reminiscent of his first years as a mutant. Sighing into the silence of his dojo, he opened his eyes, his gaze going immediately to the photograph on the shelf of himself with Tang Shen and Miwa. He had been a man then, or so he had thought. How young he had been, how naïve and full of pride. He had believed his strength and skill would protect them from anything that the world could throw their way, and under that pretense he had lost it all to someone he had once considered a brother. In his grief, he had abandoned his father's dojo and the remaining Hamato Clan loyalists like a coward, leaving Japan altogether for the place that Tang Shen had wanted to raise their family.
New York City.
Despite being in a city teeming with people, he had never felt more isolated.
His eye went next to the broken glass vile and the small plastic bowl that had come free with four baby turtles he had purchased on a whim one day. He had promised the tiny reptiles that he would take good care of them, and after his run in with the strange identical men and the ooze, he had kept that promise as best he could.
The pain of his mutation had been indescribable, and in his shock it would have been easy to succumb to the madness that threatened at the edges of his psyche. Their crying brought him back from the brink. The four toddler-esque turtles, having also been through the intense rigors of their own mutations, cried out in the alley. Their wailing had been unbearably similar to a human infant, to Miwa's cries in the night when he and Shen would groan in exhaustion and take turns dutifully warming her bottle.
Yoshi had saved them that day from discovery, and they in turn had saved him by forcing him into the role of father once more. He could not be overtaken by his grief and self-loathing, not all the time anyways, not with four rambunctious boys to raise. He'd been determined to do better this time, to keep himself humble and hidden away from a world that would undoubtedly harm them. They had to stay in the shadows, unseen and unheard at all times.
Feeling like nothing but a fragment of his former self, he became Splinter, the mutant rat.
By the time the turtles were four years old, they had started thinking outside of the lair. They had wanted to explore, to run and play like any other children. In hopes that it would curb their energy, he'd begun simple training with them daily. Even so, sometimes when he had been off foraging for food, they would wander from the safety of their home. They had never strayed far, but it was enough to be worrisome and he'd imposed strict rules and consequences for leaving.
Sighing wistfully, Splinter looked up at the tattered, brown teddy bear propped up on the shelf beside the turtle bowl. It had been Raphael's favorite toy.
Splinter would never forget the day that he had come home to find Michelangelo and Raphael missing, then Michelangelo's teary-eyed, panic stricken face when he had finally returned, alone. Raphael had been swept away after falling into the water, and it had been impossible to track him in the tunnels by scent. Splinter had searched the pipelines inside and out, the shorelines, and even the water treatment plant in hopes of recovering his lost son, but it had all been in vain.
He had been forced to admit to himself that it was his own depression and budding agoraphobia that was holding them back under the guise of safety. It was then that Splinter realized that he could not shelter his boys forever. They needed to know not only how to defend themselves if they were ever in trouble, but how to avoid that trouble in the first place. So he'd taught them about the tunnels underground, how some led to the subways and tracks where people would be, where it would still safe to play after it had rained or when it was icy, and made them memorize how to get home from different sections of their underground labyrinth. Eventually, facing his own fears, he started to teach them about the surface and how to move unseen in the shadows alongside the bustling human world, complimenting their ninja training.
Now, having just celebrated their fifteenth 'Mutation Day', they were street smart and savvy to the outside world. His boys had good hearts and he knew that sometimes they covertly helped people they encountered. While Splinter viewed this as unnecessary risk to them, he could hardly punish them for being kind and empathetic as long as they were not discovered. Of course, over the years there had been sightings and whispers, but they had never left any physical evidence behind of their existence.
Until now.
Until her. April. The girl they had rescued last night. She had spoken to and interacted with all of them, and they had promised to rescue her father. If that wasn't troubling enough, their kidnappers appeared to be robots and aliens, something Splinter was still having a hard time wrapping his mind around. He understood that these creatures were a shocking discovery to his sons and a challenge to fight, but that was no excuse for them to get sloppy.
All it took was a single shuriken left at the scene of the crime to make the news. Ninjas in New York?
They had laughed off the newscast and said no one had actually seen them besides April and her dad, that it was fine and not to worry, they would be more careful next time.
Yet something about the sight of his family crest displayed on prime time television had made Splinter cringe, and the knot in his stomach hadn't managed unwind itself since. There was a feeling of dread that he could not shake, that his family was in danger from an unnamed force he could not shield them from.
Rated T for now. WARNINGS: violence, minor gore, coarse language, drug use, addiction, drinking underage, sexual situations, angst, abuse, dark themes, organized crime.
This is going to be a darker fic that deals with all sorts of criminal activities by the Foot and others. I'm trying to keep true to the characters but also realistic as to the destructive ways some teenagers turn to cope with their problems, especially those characters that are completely maladjusted and haven't been taught anything better.
Cover art is by the amazing Anamaris on DA, also known as MADMadisson.
