So this is a monster chapter that took me forever to get written. That's because it's mostly from Splinter, and I don't like writing him. There is no real action in this chapter, but we get more back story. And if, as you read this, you realize it doesn't quite gel with other things we've learned already in this story: It Was Done On Purpose! Still, I hope you enjoy.

It took a few moments, but everyone eventually found a comfortable position on the floor or bed around Splinter. Usagi had offered to leave, but the three turtles insisted he stay. For better or worse he'd been accepted into their family, and Raphael felt it was important for him to hear whatever his sensei had to say.

"Our story," Splinter said once everyone was seated, "begins over one hundred years ago, with a soldier from this nation's civil war."

"Bishop," Donatello guessed.

"Yes," the elderly rat confirmed. "He was a young man, fighting on the side of the Confederacy, when he was stolen away from everything he'd ever known and thrown into a world of aliens and monsters as cruel and heartless as they were beautiful. Many men wouldn't have had the mental or physical fortitude to survive such an event mentally intact, but Bishop did. He not only survived, he thrived in it. So seductive and subtle was his enslavement, for a long time he wasn't even aware he had been enslaved. Year after year he lived, blissfully unaware of the chains tying him down; his only desire to do the will of his mistress."

"The beauty, and cruelty, of the Chi'Tarri queens is well known throughout the universe," Usagi confirmed, "though it has been many generations since one has been seen away from their home planet. It is legend among my people that the Pale queens use those that serve them until there is nothing left of them to give. For Bishop to have survived so long in the service of one of those monsters speaks highly of his strength."

"Quite so," Splinter said, "and there is no telling how long he would have continued in her service had his eyes not been wrenched open in regard to her true nature and opinion of him. Needless to say, from that day forward Bishop began working to gain his freedom and the downfall of the Chi'Tarri."

"This is all really fascinating," Raphael said, a healthy amount of skepticism in his voice, "but what about the bond? How did he get around that?"

"The Chi'Tarri are a very arrogant race," his sensei replied. "Their mindset would not allow them to even consider the possibility that one of their trainees could possible rebel against them, especially not one supposedly as enamored of his queen's charms as Bishop was believed to be. So while he kept up a show of loyalty and devotion, Bishop began working to covertly undermine his slavers."

"You have to appreciate the irony," Donatello commented at that point. "The former Confederate soldier now fighting to end slavery on a distant world.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, irony's a bitch," Raphael growled, "but what does this have to do with us?"

"In a word? Everything," Splinter told him. "Bishop was determined to destroy the Chi'Tarri completely. However, he knew he wouldn't be able to do it. He'd gotten as far as he could in his Shadow training, which was quite extensive, but not nearly far enough to be able to present any real challenge to the Chi'Tarri in any sort of meaningful confrontation. He concluded he needed a warrior who could help even the odds. Ultimately, he determined a Terran based life form was essential because we have a natural resistance to the bond. With that decided, he began making contacts and gathering allies from all over, some human, some not. Their skills covered everything from genetics and biology to martial arts and military tactics."

At this point, the rat stopped for a moment to consider his words before continuing with his story. "Since it was proven a human just wouldn't have the physical stamina or strength to complete the Shadow training, it was concluded that Earth's champion would have to be something other or more than human. So the scientists, under Bishop's direction and instruction, began working on various forms of genetic manipulation. Their ultimate success was with recombinant mutation, where animal genetic material was disassembled and then re-assembled and mutated using replacement human genetic material; I was their first viable survivor. Once I was mature enough, my training began."

"So let me make sure I understand," Michelangelo interrupted. "Nothing you've ever told us about our history has been true? No broken canister, no ooze? It was all a lie?"

"More like a necessary distortion of the truth," Splinter countered. "Please, let me finish my tale and you shall see why we couldn't tell you the actual truth. Now, as I said, when I was old enough, my training began at the hands of Bishop's second in command, the warrior Hamato Yoshi. Together with his sister Keiko, Master Yoshi became first my teacher, then my friends, and finally my family. By the time my training was complete, I had come to consider Yoshi to be my brother and Keiko as something between a sister and a mother. I loved them both dearly, and it was this love that gave me the strength and determination to accept what I knew I would have to endure at the hands of the Chi'Tarri. Everything was going according to plan, and we were nearly ready to set the plan in motion, when Bishop betrayed us."

"Bishop being treacherous," Raphael scoffed under his breath. "Who didn't see that coming?"

Donatello thumped his brother on the shell. "Please continue, sensei. What happened?"

"When Master Yoshi and his clan allied themselves with Bishop, it was with the promise that he would assist them in defeating then enemy they had dedicated themselves to destroying: Oroku Saki, the Destroyer. We know him as…"

"The Shredder," Michelangelo finished for him.

"Yes," Splinter hissed. "An evil almost as old as the Chi'Tarri, though with far less reach. It was a mutually beneficial agreement, until Bishop went back on his word. You see, Yoshi , Keiko, and their forces had been watching carefully, preparing for the day when Saki would present them with the opportunity to strike. To ensure their success, Bishop vowed he would personally fight at their side, but when the time came, Bishop did not show. Afraid they would not get a second chance, my family took the opening and attacked. Due to my role in the fight against the Chi'Tarri, I wasn't permitted to go with them. That was the last time I saw Yoshi or Keiko alive. The few survivors returned to report Yoshi was slain by Saki himself. Keiko simply disappeared; no one in their company knew what had happened to her or where she had gone. She just vanished. In one night, I lost my entire family."

The room went silent at the elderly rat's obvious grief. After a long moment, when it was clear the turtles weren't sure how, or even if, they should respond to their father, Usagi softly asked on their behalf, "What of Bishop? What explanation did he give for his absence?"

"None, except to say he had unavoidable personal business that could not wait," Splinter replied. "I might have been able to accept that, eventually, but then I was informed our plan for me to infiltrate the Chi'Tarri was no long viable. Whatever he had done had destroyed any chance of me fulfilling my purpose. Instead, we would have to start over from the beginning. I couldn't have been more furious. My family was dead, my purpose thwarted, and so I had nothing left. I remember arguing with Bishop that if he was going to throw away everything we'd been working for, the least he could have done was inform us so that I could have gone with my adopted clan. I might not have been able to do anything to save my brother, but at the least I could have been there with him. Dying at his side would have been preferable to facing life without him!"

"So that part of our history is true at least," Raphael muttered gruffly. "Master Yoshi really was killed by the Shredder."

"Yes," Splinter whispered, grief and pain still clear in his voice, even after all these years. Visibly pulling himself back together, the grizzled rat continued with his story. "For months after that, I refused to speak to anyone, too caught up in my sorrow. Even once I was able to actually start working through the mourning process, I still couldn't stand to be in the same room as Bishop. Things might have continued like that indefinitely if we had not found Keiko's body. She had been killed and her body abandoned in an alley not far from here. She had only been dead a few days, but there was extensive evidence of repeated abuse. The most devastating news, however, was that she had given birth just days before her death."

"Did you ever find out what happened to the baby," Michelangelo asked.

"No," Splinter replied. "There has never been any sign of the child. We never knew if it was a boy or girl, and there was no way of knowing who the father was. Whoever killed Keiko did too good a job as sanitizing the body, removing all evidence that might have led to the ones who did that to her."

"So what did you do," Donatello asked, knowing how maddening it must have been for his sensei to be unable to find the one who had killed his clan-sister.

"After laying the last of my family to rest, I began to plan," Splinter responded. "The shock of Keiko's death shocked me out of my mourning, and helped me to stop simply reacting and begin thinking again. I no longer cared about Bishop's war against the Chi'Tarri; I had my own vendetta to fulfill. I took as my duty the mission my adopted clan had died trying to achieve: the destruction of Oroku Saki. This is where the four of you enter the story.

Since he could no longer use me to infiltrate the Chi'Tarri, Bishop had his scientists working endless to try and create another viable mutant. Without Keiko, though, the process slowed to a crawl. Not only had my brother's sister been a brilliant scientist, she had also been a powerful Healer. It was these skills that allowed her to identify and attempt to correct the often fatal flaws in the developing fetuses. I told you I saw her as something of a mother; that's because I would not have survived if not for her."

"While I'm sorry for your loss, I'm still not sure what this has to do with us," Raphael growled.

"Knowing I couldn't take Saki down by myself, and with too few members of my clan left to help, I decided to use Bishop's science for my own means. After all, it was ultimately Bishop's fault my family was dead; he owed me. If he could create a champion for his war against the Chi'Tarri, why not one or two more I could mold to fight against my enemy?

Now up until then, the mutation experiments had focuses on mammals. At my suggestion, the scientists turned their focus to amphibians and reptiles. After all, it has been demonstrated in the wild that these creatures are much more sensitive to genetic mutation and environmental factors. While the scientists accepted my reasoning, they weren't aware I had a more personal motivation. I figured if we could get a whole clutch of eggs and hatchlings to take the mutation, Bishop could choose one to train as his mole, and I could take the rest to for my mission."

If Usagi was struck by the rat's callous attitude, he couldn't imagine how it was hitting the turtles. Before any of them could verbalize a response, though, Splinter resumed his story.

"It didn't take long for us to have our first success," he said. "Unfortunately, there was only one survivor from that clutch of eggs; an alligator we ended up naming Leatherhead. At first glance, he seemed to be an excellent candidate. Strength and intelligence-wise he was off the charts. However, as he grew it became clear he had…emotional issues. Leatherhead was fine, until his temper got pricked, and then he would turn into a berserker, completely unable to control himself. Not the kind of individual you would want in an undercover operation. In the end, Leatherhead was partnered with Professor Honeycutt, one of our head scientists. They were a good pair; they balanced each other out. From there, we moved on. After several less successful attempts, we finally started work with a batch of turtle eggs. We started with 12 eggs, but only 4 survived the genetic manipulation; you four.

As soon as we were certain you would live, I began to lay my plans. For my strategy to work, I had to gain control of your raising and training. Bishop almost threw a wrench in my plans by suggesting we allow each of you to be raised by a different trainer, but I couldn't allow that. I convinced Bishop that it would be better for his champion if he was raised with a family. That familial bond would make him stronger, would give him a reason to fight the Chi'Tarri. I was able to persuade Bishop to let me take on the job of raising and training you. He agreed, since I had been hand trained by Master Yoshi. I could prepare in a way no one else could. His only condition was that I had to be hypnotized so that I couldn't inadvertently reveal anything to you that would eventually get back to the Chi'Tarri. I couldn't allow that to happen if I was to satisfy my desire to defeat the Shredder. Again fortune smiled on me, for our most accomplished hypnotist was also of my clan; you all know him as the Ancient One. He pretended to hypnotize me, which allowed me to take the four of you and move out from under Bishop's eye. I knew we were safe from him interference because if the Chi'Tarri had even the slightest suspicion that he was somehow connected with whichever one of you ended up in their hands, that individual would be killed instantly, and they'd never take another Terran again."

"And Bishop never suspected a thing, even after all these years," Donatello asked in a strangled whisper.

"Bishop sees what he wants to see," Splinter said. "He thinks my yearly trips to visit the Ancient One have to do with my guilt over what happened to Leonardo. In truth, we are doing continual surveillance of Oroku Saki's empire, looking for a weakness we can exploit."

"So our whole lives have been a lie," Michelangelo said hoarsely. "You never really loved us. We were just a means to an end. You've been playing a part for us just like you've done for Bishop all these years."

"Don't be ridiculous, Michelangelo," Splinter said. "You three are my fam…"

"Enough," Raphael hissed, cutting him off. "I've heard enough. You call us your family, but we mean no more to you than pawns on a chess board. And you're mistaken; there are four of us. You may disregard Leonardo, but he is our brother. He's not Bishop's secret weapon, just like we're not your little soldiers. And you never loved us. All you can feel anymore is anger and a thirst for revenge. You said it yourself: the last of your family dies with Keiko. Well guess what, sensei. We're through. As of this moment, you mean nothing to us. You and Bishop can play your little games, but we're done. Since you and the Ancient One are such good partners, you can go stay with him from now on. We don't want to see your face again."

"My sons—"Splinter started to protest, but he was cut off once more, this time by Donatello.

"You heard Raphael. You mean nothing to us. Now go!"

Without another word, the elderly rat climbed to his feet and, without another look back, left the room.

So, I'm sure you've noticed Splinter's story and Bishop's story don't quite match up. That's because this Splinter is a bit of a heartless bastard and has been fooling everyone for years. I'm not sure if we'll see Splinter again after this; guess it all depends on how the muse wants to play it. And how will this ultimately affect the turtles' family dynamic? After all, even though he doesn't know it yet, Leonardo was just abandoned by his father once again. We shall have to wait and see.