So, I was trying to figure out just how this chapter was going to play out, and this is how it insisted it go. I fought it for a while, but I finally decided, if I was going to make this story AU, I might as well go all out. So, I beg your indulgence, because I really went out on a limb here. I promised you secrets, and secrets are definitely what you get. Just don't kill me when you find out.
Leo ran headlong through the dark sewers, fear, anger, and hurt, both physical and emotional, all combining to blind him to his surroundings. He didn't know, and didn't care, where he was going; he just needed to get away from what had just happened. His thoughts were so chaotic, he couldn't get them into any sort of order; he could barely handle the mishmash of emotions surging through him.
Meeting Casey had brought up a sense of comfortable familiarity. Sure, the human was loud and uncouth, but so had his battle-brother Boomslag. It was a personality trait Leo knew how to work with. The young human-queen, however, had thrown him off. His brothers trusted her, so Leo would as well, but he couldn't imagine ever having the relaxed comfort with her as there was with Casey. And then there was his father. This was where his emotions really turned into a jumbled mess.
The part of him that was Shadow was every bit as terrified of the elderly rat as he'd initially been of April. To the emotionally wounded drudge Splinter had been the bogeyman, the monster under his bed, and his worst nightmare all rolled into one horrifying package.
If Shadow had reacted in terror to Splinter's appearance, Shadowblade had only felt anger, and the desire to eliminate a threat before it could strike again. After all, it had been Splinter who had handed him over to the Chi'Tarri in the first place. His own father, the one person he should have been able to depend on, had let him go. So, yes, there was a fierce, bubbling anger pooling inside him, desperate to strike out.
And then, underneath it all, was Leo. Beneath the fear and anger, there was love, but that only made the other emotions more intense, for it was a love tempered and tainted by hurt. Leo just wanted to collapse in tears and beg his father to explain what he'd done that was so deplorable that he deserved to be cast off like so much dross. More than that, though, he longed to have his father wrap him in his arms like he had when Leo was a child and reassure him everything would be okay, even as his heart cried he couldn't believe his father even if Splinter did offer such comfort.
Leo was so inundated with emotions tied into trying to cope with his father's return and all that encompassed; he simply didn't have the emotional capacity to even process what had taken place between him and Raphael. That was a mere drop in a bucket already overflowing.
Between the darkness and the crushing tide of emotions, the sewers began to feel too stifling and enclosed, so Leo fled topside. It may not have been the safest decision, but by that point Leo couldn't be bothered. He needed the space and open air to deal with the suffocating mental agitation filling his mind.
Once topside, Leo began to just run. He didn't know where he was going, and he didn't particularly care. All that mattered was just staying in motion. Whether by fate or by chance, he ultimately ended up on the same roof he and Bishop had clashed on that night so many weeks ago. Spent and exhausted, both physically and emotionally, Leo collapsed to his knees, his sobs making his chest hurt as he struggled to pull enough air into lungs choked by emotion.
It took Leo a few minutes to realize he wasn't alone. Drawing his blades, he turned to face the silently waiting Bishop. The human, however, held his arms out to demonstrate he was unarmed, and his body language remained unthreatening.
"Peace, battle-brother," Bishop said. "I mean you no harm."
"You are no battle-kin to me," Leo whispered grimly.
"Young one, you have no idea just how mistaken you are," Bishop told him. "I'm guessing, based on your returned gift of speech, your memories of your true self have been restored."
"What import does it have for you," Leo demanded angrily.
"So much more than you can guess," Bishop said. "In fact, my understanding of your past goes so much beyond any question you could even consider asking."
"If you have something to tell me, just say it," Leo growled. "I'm not up to playing mind games with you."
"Are you sure," Bishop asked. "You won't like much of what I have to tell you."
"I just learned my own father handed me over to the Chi'Tarri," Leo said bitterly. "I don't know how much worse than that it can get."
"Don't be so certain, Leonardo," Bishop told him cryptically. "Your father's apparent betrayal is only the very surface of the truths kept from you and your brothers."
"Then tell me," Leo implored, his tone bordering on desperate. "I'm tired of secrecy and not knowing. My world has already been knocked off its axis; you might as well knock it out of orbit as well." He slid his swords back into their sheaths and forced himself to relax.
"Let me warn you, it's a long, complex tale," Bishop warned. "It begins nearly 150 years ago, when a young, stupid, inexperienced soldier was stolen away from all he knew and thrown into a world both literally and metaphorically alien from his own."
"That would be you," Leo ventured.
"Correct," Bishop confirmed. "Earth at that time was almost primitive, especially compared with the Chi'Tarri. I don't know why I was chosen out of the thousands of soldiers, but I was taken and presented as a trainee to my new master. She was now mere Chi'Tarri master, but a full queen."
Leo shuddered at hearing that; he couldn't imagine being handed over to one of the vicious creatures as a trainee.
"I see you've experienced their true nature," Bishop said. "My queen was no less loathsome; it just took me a long time to see her for what she truly was. All I can say is I was young and stupid at the time, and I had been pulled from a gruesome, brutal war and dropped in what seemed to me to be the lap of luxury. On top of that, there was this glorious, delicate female stroking my ego and pride. I threw myself into the training because it pleased her, and because it made me more capable of serving and defending her. She was my goddess, my general, and my lover all at once, and I couldn't have been more content."
"So what changed," Leo asked, curious despite himself.
"I overheard her talking with two of her advisors. They couldn't understand her fascination with me. I was foolish enough to expect her to return my regard, and to declare to them her devotion to me; that wasn't what I heard. Instead, she confessed she only put up with the physical intimacy because it kept me chained to her, and because she had never encountered a hardier, more stalwart race of slaves. Terrans, it turned out, were highly prized for their fortitude and adaptability. Our only downfall is we are too independent and headstrong to accept the bond easily, hence her use of what was basically a honey trap to keep me bound to her."
"Nothing like the unvarnished truth to open your eyes," Leo commented.
"Indeed," Bishop agreed. "Which is why, from that day forth, I began to do what I could to free myself from her clutches."
"This is all fascinating," Leo interrupted, "but what does it have to do with me?"
"Everything," Bishop told him. "You see, I decided it wasn't enough for me to free just myself from those monsters; they needed to be eradicated completely. I was wise enough to realize, however, that I couldn't take them down by myself. While I was by far the strongest and best warrior trained by the Spirit Masters, I wasn't good enough. I was going to need a weapon forged just for that purpose."
It didn't take much for Leo to realize he was the weapon Bishop was talking about. What he couldn't figure out was the "how," and he said as much to Bishop.
"By this time, my mistress was growing bored with me, and she was so certain of her hold on me that I was granted an unparalleled amount of freedom. I took advantage of every inch of slack in my leash to put my plan into motion. To begin with, I started recruiting the best and the brightest individuals I could find, of all sorts of talents, here on Earth. We already knew our warrior had to be Terran, since the bond was weakest with us, but we were finding that humans just didn't have the physical fortitude to undergo the extreme lengths and training from the Spirit Masters that would be necessary to accomplish our goals. So we turned our attention to genetic manipulation."
"You mean mutants, like me and my family," Leo said.
"Yes. I had access to the knowledge and materials, but finding successful combinations was difficult," Bishop said. "Your father was our very first viable candidate. As soon as he was mature enough, we started his training under the tutelage of my right hand man, Hamato Yoshi. Everything was going according to plan, and we were about ready to set it into motion, when fate threw an unexpected kink into our plans. It turned out Chi'Tarri and humans are genetically compatible, and my mistress wasn't as careful during her fertile time as she should have been."
"You got her pregnant," Leo squawked in disgusted shock.
"To put it bluntly," Bishop confirmed. "Maybe it was selfish, but I couldn't allow my child to be raised by those monsters, to become like them. The problem was, it was going to take several years at a minimum for your father to gain all the training he was going to need; years we didn't have if I was going to save my child."
"Why not get him in place, and then worry about the baby," Leo asked.
"Because as soon as the child disappeared, the first thing the queen would order done was the killing of any trainee or drudge, particularly the Terrans, with less than five year's service. Any time less than that was considered too short for the bond to have fully fused with their minds, and killing them as an example was standard practice in such circumstances. I had seen it happen more than once during my time as the queen's pet. We also knew we wouldn't get your father in with them if we waited until after I took the child, because it would be a long time before the Chi'Tarri would be willing to risk taking another Terran as a trainee. I would have proven our race was hard to handle, and I would have delivered a humiliating blow like they'd never experienced before. They couldn't afford to take the risk of looking weak a second time, but they also couldn't openly take revenge against Earth, since we are technically considered a protected planet due to our still infant technological advancement. So, we began to build a new plan; one that would give the Chi'Tarri time to both overcome their humiliation, and stoke their desire for retribution. Their egos are such that eventually they'd seek out another Terran, if only to prove they could master our rebellious natures. I just had to make sure that when the time came, it was my tool they chose."
"Which is where I come in," Leo concluded.
"Eventually," Bishop acknowledged. "When you and your brothers were born, we didn't randomly select one of you to be our agent. We had to let you grow and develop so we could determine which of you would serve our needs best."
"So my whole history, our life with our father, was a lie," Leo stated, tone hollow.
"No," Bishop contradicted with surprising passion. 'We couldn't risk the enemy discovering the truth through the bond, so we had to distance ourselves from you completely. There could be no hint of my involvement at all. Our original plan was for the four of you to be raised by different guardian, and then the best candidate would be offered up to the Chi'Tarri. It was actually your father who suggested a different path. He pointed out that if our weapon was to have the strength to overcome the bond, he would need ties strong enough to take its place. It was his idea to keep you together and succor your bonds of brotherhood; he knew you would need them. To that end, he underwent intense hypnosis to make him forget his true history, though we left as much intact as we reasonably could so that he could prepare you for what you would face. We also implanted certain cues into his subconscious that we could trigger when the time was right."
"What you're telling me, then, is our father never actually loved us; he was just acting according to his programming," Leo said, certain he couldn't hurt any more than he did at that moment. This was worse than finding out Splinter had let the Chi'Tarri take him. Except, the look on Bishop's face said he was vastly mistaken in his assumption.
"Leonardo, take my word as a father who was forced to watch his only child grow up from afar," Bishop replied earnestly. "Your father has loved you from day one. He was present from your birth, and from the very beginning he considered you his. He refused to let anyone else take on the responsibility for caring for you and your brothers. His suggestion to keep you together may have been practical, but it was born from the desire to protect and look after his family. He loves, and has always loved, you more than life itself. His love for you was almost enough to overcome the hypnotic suggestions that brought you to the attention of the Chi'Tarri. Even now, he spends time every year with one of our healers trying to reconcile his guilt. Of course, he doesn't realize the Ancient One is one of ours, and I've been informed the damage done to his psyche is severe. He just can't forgive himself for what he let happen to you."
Leo sat in silence for several minutes, trying to take in and absorb when he'd been told. He didn't know what to believe. Was his whole life a life, or did perception truly form reality? How did his father really fit into all of this? Leo had too many questions, but his head was too full to make head or tails of the information he had in order to extract the answers. The only thing he knew for certain was that he wanted, no, needed his brothers. With Raph, Donny, and Mikey at his side, he knew everything would make sense again.
He never got the chance to act on his desire. Before either he or Bishop could move, they came face-to-face with a trio of heavily armed warriors, spirit marks blazing with power.
Yes, another evil cliffhanger. I had to put Leo in danger, just in case you didn't care for where this story decided to go. Hopefully you'll come back, just to find out the fight turns out (definitely more hurt/comfort coming). And don't worry, we'll find out more about the baby, though I'm sure many of you have already worked out who it is.