Disclaimer:…. I obviously do not own Ninja Turtles. Peter Lair and Kevin Eastman do.
"I'm too young, to lose my soul
I'm too young, to feel this old
For so long, I'm left behind
I feel like I'm losing my mind."
"World so cold" by Three Days Grace.
Many years ago, there lived a man named Hamato Yoshi. He was the star student of the Ninja Tribunal. When he was grown up, the Ninja Tribunal ordered he assassinate a man named Oroku Nagi and his young son Oroku Saki.
Oroku Nagi carried a curse of his linage – one of his ancient forerunners was the original Oroku Saki, or 'The Tengu Shredder'. The curse passed on from parent to child, cursing them with the demon of the Shredder. With even the most fortuitous minds they could only resist the demons soul taking over for a few years.
If Oroku Nagi, and his successor Oroku Saki were to be killed, the curse would be dead.
Yoshi joined the Foot Clan, an underground criminal organization of Ninja's run by the Oroku clan – none of his 'comrades' could see his true intensions to murder their leader.
Yoshi was such a talented ninja he very quickly became an Elite Foot ninja – they were the Shredders own personal body gaurds. Yoshi's plan would have succeeded, if he hadn't met a certain Elite ninja.
Oroku Nagi's wife, Tang Shen, was an Elite Foot ninja – she had been born a street rat who was taken in by the Foot clan when she was young, where she became childhood friends with Oroku Nagi. They fell in love and eventually married and had a son named Oroku Saki.
Yoshi was infatuated with Tang Shen – he loved her almost instantly and everything about her captivated him. Every time he planned to execute Nagi or Saki, he would think about Tang Shen and how devastated she would be if she were to find her family dead.
The Tribunal saw this and demanded he get the job done – when he refused, they disowned him as a student.
In a act of rebellion against the Tribunal, Yoshi gave up the plan entirely – he dropped out of the Foot, and opened a Ninjitsu dojo in Bronx, New York. He lived quietly, and alone besides a pet rat named Splinter given to him by Tang Shen who he didn't have the heart to get rid of.
A few years later, he ordered a clutch of pond slider turtle eggs for the pond in the 'backyard' – the turtle farm sent him five which hatched soon after; four males and a female.
Splinter seemed rather fond of the baby turtles, the rat was constantly along the edge of the pond, occasionally pulling the babies turtles out or basking with them, most of the time Splinter would just watch them fondly.
Life could not stay peaceful.
Oroku Nagi had murdered Tang Shen – in a fit of rage he struck down his own wife and killed her in a single, fatal blow. He had become paranoid, convinced she would leave him for Yoshi, for the two stayed close.
Soon after killing his wife, Oroku Nagi lied to his almost adult son Saki that Yoshi had killed his mother. Taking several of their foot ninja, father and son marched over to Yoshi's dojo and attacked.
Splinter, worried about the turtles safety but convinced his Master could never be struck down, took the turtles out of the pond and hid them, and himself, inside of a mole hole his master hadn't had the time to fill.
Yoshi fought bravely and valiantly he managed to fight off all of the Foot ninja until he was facing Nagi and Saki. The fight was gruesome and bloody, but Yoshi, upon hearing that Nagi murdered his beloved Tang Shen, slay him on the spot by cutting off his head.
Enraged, Saki murdered Yoshi in retaliation – the curse of the Shredder took his over as he stood over the dead body of Hamato Yoshi.
Splinter, shocked and devastated, dashed out of the hole and jumped onto Oroku Saki and attempted to scratch his throat out, but missed and scratched his face. Saki threw him off and sliced off his ear with his katana before leaving, carrying the body and head of his father with him.
Shaken by the whole ordeal, Splinter gathered the baby turtles in a coffee can and fled into the sewers.
A few weeks later, Splinter and his adopted brood washed themselves in a puddle of sewer water mixed with a strange green substance that came from a broken canister labeled 'TCRI', a 'ooze' that was actually highly radioactive mutagen. Over the course of the next couple of days, weeks and months, they changed rapidly into bi-pedal, humanoid anthromorphs.
They soon moved into the dojo – which was announced abandoned and boarded up and fenced off. No person passing on the sidewalk could guess that the 'abandoned' two-story building was occupied by a six mutants.
Having learned Ninjistu via watching and mimicking Master Yoshi, Splinter raised the turtles as his children and trained them in the art of Ninjitsu.
He gave them all names from a Renaissance Book (His master had been rather fond of studying the era) that still lie around the dojo. His sons names were Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael and Michaelangelo, and his only daughter was named Venus DeMilo (She was also Leonardo's twin by the looks of them.)
When the turtles were still only children, Master Splinter met two teenagers – April O'Neil and Casey Jones. During a supply run he saw a group of muggers trailing after them so he followed the two. When he saw one of the muggers produce a gun, he immediately jumped into action.
Surprised to see their rescuer was a giant rat, but grateful, the two teenagers did not run away and thanked Splinter for saving them – the two injected themselves into the family and become close family friends.
Years passed; his students/children excelled in martial arts, April grew up to become a doctor and Casey became a kick-boxing practitioner.
When the turtles were twenty, there came a problem. Splinter told the turtles he trained them to be ninja's so they would one day avenge Master Yoshi. Leonardo, who was the leader, when he learned to the truth, set a goal for himself to be the one to present the head of Oroku Saki to his master.
Though the turtles promised they would wait a little while longer, Leonardo secretly joined the foot and became a favored student of Oroku Saki even though Leonardo was a mutant turtle. Behind his families back, Leonardo pretended to be a loyal Foot ninja, and like Master Yoshi, became an Elite foot ninja in no time.
Also like Master Yoshi, he fell in love with the only female Elite foot ninja. This time it was not the wife, but the daughter.
Oroku Saki's daughter was three years younger than Leonardo, her name was Karai. She was completely unaware of Leonardo's advanced and brushed off his interest in her. She was not interested in him; she had a serious boyfriend at the time, Lyle Chaplin.
So captivated by Karai, Leonardo stopped returning home a year after joining the Foot clan. Having not known about Leonardo joining the foot in the first place, his family had no clue where he was and searched for him relentlessly. They never found him until three years later, when the turtles were twenty-four.
That point in time caused a chain reaction of horrible events.
Not only was Oroku Saki dead, but he had been killed by Leonardo himself. Which meant the curse had been passed down to Karai, who was pregnant with her husband Chaplin's child at the time. Karai was now the head of the Foot, and Leonardo was second-in-command. Though, in actuality Leonardo was the one with all the power and Karai was really just the figurehead.
In fact, his family hadn't even found him. He finally came back home – he just showed up at the Lair. Shocking his family literally stiff. With an insane smile on his face, Leonardo approached Master Splinter, who was going to greet his son with a hug before questioning his whereabouts of the past three years.
Leonardo stabbed him with a katana though the chest – piercing his heart and guaranteeing death. His siblings screamed in disbelief and devastation when their father had fallen to the ground, starring up at his son; his son who had killed him.
Leonardo left, no remorse at all – he even kept the insane grin, satisfied that he just killed the rat who had fed, sheltered, raised, trained and loved him as if he truly was his own.
It hadn't even stopped their, Leonardo ordered his family be hunted down and slaughtered. The abandoned dojo that had been their home for twenty-our years was set ablaze by Foot ninja's, not killing them by driving them into the sewers.
Two months later, Raphael was killed – He and Leonardo had fought on Rooftop, Raphael's chances would have been better if his brother hadn't been backed up by dozens of Foot ninja's. Raphael was overwhelmed, and driven literally over the edge of the building. He plummeted to his demise.
Donatello was next – Leonardo ambushed him, killing him with a fatal stab.
Leonardo was relentless, merciless – he didn't stop when he failed to annihilate Michaelangelo and Venus, even if he maimed them both by cutting off Venus's right wrist and mutilating Michaleangelo's left eye in combat; the two however, did injure Leonardo extensively as well – he was scarred horribly. Leonardo alienated them from their alies; the homeless people they knew from the Junkyard were all murdered, Venus's mentor, a vigilante known as 'Nobody' was also killed, even a young woman whom Michaelangelo was friends with was murdered, along with her brother.
Casey and April were not killed, but when Leonardo took his next victim, they wish they had been. One night - only a few days after Donatello's death - Leonardo had snuck into the Jones' apartment and into their nursery where their baby daughter, Shadow Jones, was sleeping. He took out a shuriken and used it to cut the baby's throat, killing her instantly, he didn't stop then – he pushed the shuriken further unill her head was severed from her body.
The next morning, April and Casey came to check on their baby to find Leonardo rocking on the rocking chair, holding their baby bundled in a blanket. They were frozen
He smiled and fondly stared down at their daughters face before saying "Take this as a warning." He had said, before he set the baby back down into the crib and jumped out of the window.
The couple immediately rushed to their baby's aid, but they were far too late – Shadow was with the angels.
April and Casey moved out of New York, cut all ties off with two remaining turtles.
Now, a year later, Michaelangelo and Venus were twenty-five years old; most of their family was dead, as were their allies, they were scarred and maimed, and they had no home. They had gone through more tragedies in one year than one should go through in a lifetime.
His own reflection angered him.
His three-fingered hand gripped the edge of the bathroom mirror as he glared at his own reflection, which was hard with only one eye. The left eye-hole of his red mask was stitched together to hide his mutilated eye. It was a harsh reminder of his evil brother Leo - no Leonardo, who he refused to ever call a brother again. Yet the evil bastards influence refused to leave him alone - all of the scars carved along his body were from Leonardo. The reason he and Venus were living in a abadoned cesspool of a gas station in Queens was because of Leonardo. The reason he was a empty shell, a shadow of his former self was because of Leonardo.
Michaelangelo felt even more torn up at the fact that even though they was only twenty-five years old, he and Venus weren't lving, only existing.
Mikey picked his ripped-up black cowl from the bathroom floor and put his head through the neck hole and into the hood. It managed to cover his scars poorly, and shadow his features.
From the corner of the mirror, he saw his sister Venus standing at the doorway of the bathroom – she, like him, sported a red mask, brown belt, and a cowl along with metal-capped elbow/knee pads. He had to suppress a growl; Venus looked too much like Leonardo for comfort. The only thing that kept him from mistaking her for the enemy was the metal cap over her right stump wrist – it served to remind him just how evil their brother was. Fuck, no matter what Mikey looked at all he could find was another reason to hate Leonardo.
"Mikey," Venus addressed, he saw the disproved look in her eyes "are you ready?" It sounded as if it were painful for her to ask, and knowing her it probably was. Mikey himself was deeply ashamed over what he was doing, but he had to do it.
"Yeah," Mikey said, voice empty – void of any emotion. He picked up his nunchaku from the sink and hooked them over his belt.
"This is sick, Mikey." Venus told him "You shouldn't do this – she does not deserve this, she in innocent!" She insisted.
Mikey ignored her, he walked over to the door and pushed past the other ninja. Their shells faced each other now, they weren't looking at each other. "She doesn't deserve it, Mike." Venus repeated.
"But Leonardo and Karai do!" Mikey almost yelled, though on the inside he knew it the only true motivation he had was his own bitterness and hatred - He had lost so much, he knew nothing more.
His now cold-blue eyes stared down at the four-month-old baby sleeping in its crib; it was the baby daughter of Karai and Chaplin, Oroku Jade. Chaplin was dead, he had died in a accidental lab accident three weeks after his little daughter was born.
Mikey had snuck into the nursery at the Oroku Manor, he was going to assassinate Jade, in retaliation to Leonardo murdering Shadow in cold blood.
She seemed so small and innocent – off into dreamland, completely unaware of the danger literally looming its head in form a dagger. He was going to make it quick, she wasn't even going to feel any pain.
He tried to ignore how innocent she looked, he focused on the things he didn't like – one thing he absolutely despised about this beast was it's resemblance to Karai; it's build, it's dark hair. It didn't even look like Chaplin.
"Night-night, beast." Mikey said and thrust the blade down.
Blood soaked the sheets of the crib…..
Venus knew her prayers were un-answered when her brother came home. If she had any tears left to shed, they would have built up in her eyes when she eyed his hand; sticky-wet in crimson blood.
"Venus," Michaelangelo called to her softly, but she was silent "it is done."
With a heart as cold and heavy as steel, Venus DeMilo responded.
"I know."
...Problem, gentlemen?
This chapter served to mostly be a backstory for the AU. Next chapter will revolve around the actuall plot, which is around Mikey (Or 'Master Michaelangelo') and his student, who I think some people could guess.
Please R and R, I worked hard on this chapter.