This is a slight re-write of my original chapter 26. I found my notes on how I wanted this chapter to go the first time, so I decided to edit and update. For everyone who has already read this chapter, please read the ending again as I have changed things. I hope you enjoy it, and hopefully the plans I've put in place this time will make a little more sense.
Immediately after Bishop's announcement the room erupted in protestations as everyone began speaking at once.
"Okay, not seeing how that will fix anything," Mikey said once the initial cacophony died down. "They'll just torture and kill you, won't they? Not seeing the good here."
"I made the voyta look bad," Bishop said. "I very publicly embarrassed her. In order to restore her honor she will have to call a Queen's enclave. All the queens, and their daughters as future queens, will have to attend. Then, yes, she will torture and kill me."
"Again, not seeing the upside here," Donatello said.
"It's very simple," Bishop replied. "My people have developed a poison specifically for the Chi'Tarri. It is one hundred percent fatal, and it works instantly. I wouldn't survive activating it since the only way to sneak it is would be internally, and the only way to expose the queens is to basically cut it out. However, it would kill all the female Chi'Tarri, effectively destroying their loathsome species once and for all. After all, no queens mean no new Chi'Tarri, and no new Chi'Tarri means that in a matter of decades they would be extinct."
"Not that I wish you dead or anything," Raph told Bishop, "but I'm totally down with wiping out those creeps once and for all."
To everyone's surprise, Leo had the completely opposite reaction.
"No," he emphatically protested. "In no way, shape, or form am I agreeable with this plan of action. I won't have anything do with it, and I'll do everything in my power to stop you."
"Whoa, Leo, let's think about this," Raphael argued. "We're talking about getting rid of the monsters that took you from your family, enslaved and tortured you, and basically turned you into a living weapon."
"No, we're talking about genocide and becoming just as much of a monster as the bastards we're trying to defeat," Leo countered. "What Bishop is suggesting sounds like something they would do."
"So what do you suggest," Bishop demanded. "First of all, I am not letting them get anywhere near my daughter. I took her away from them to keep her safe. They CANNONT find her. Secondly, we're not going to have a better chance to strike. And you should know better than anyone you can't fight demons like these without getting blood on your hands."
"Getting blood on your hands is one thing," Leo said. "You want to bathe in it."
"Then what do you thing we should do," Bishop bellowed, for once losing his customary cool.
"I don't know," Leo admitted. "But mass murder is not the answer."
TMNT
The next several days around Bishop's complex were tense. Raphael had come down firmly on Bishop's side. He was all for wiping out the fiends that had almost destroyed his family, that was still threatening it, and he was furious that Leo refused to see his side of things.
Donatello, of course, agreed with Leo. He, too, wanted to put a stop to the Chi'Tarri, but not at the cost of genocide. He had too much respect for life to agree to wholesale murder.
The surprise was Mikey. Although he could understand Raphael's desire to protect and avenge his family, the youngest turtle ultimately sided with Leo and Donny. "The good guys are the good guys because they do what is right, whether or not it's easy," he told Raph when his older brother confronted him on his stance. "Killing a whole species, even one as distasteful as the Chi'Tarri, isn't right."
Things might have stayed in perpetual limbo if not for the unexpected and timely intervention of one of Bishop's lead scientists. Showing a large amount of guts and moxie, Professor Honeycutt called the two feuding sides together to present a new idea.
"I think I have a workable solution," he told the group. "While I agree the Chi'Tarri need to be stopped, I also don't believe exterminating them is the answer. We don't have to become monsters to stop them. Instead, I think we should…corral them. We can keep them confined to their own planet, unable to ever interfere with anyone else again."
"Sounds great, but that won't stop them from sending out their slaves to do their work for them," Bishop said.
"With my solution it will," the Professor said. "You see, we have developed a way to put the entire Chi'Tarri home-world out of sync with the rest of our dimension. We could trap the entire race on their own world with no way of returning to this, or any other, dimension."
"But what about the thousands of slaves they're keeping on their planet," Michelangelo asked. "Wouldn't you be trapping them too?"
"Not if things work the way we plan," Professor Honeycutt said. "You see, we've been working with one of our greatest allies, the Utroms, to create several mass teleportation devices. We believe we can safely transport every non-Chi'Tarri off the planet before engaging the dimensional shifter."
"Okay, I'm not walking away yet," Leo said. "Tell me more."
"It's all based on genetics. Anyone with Chi'Tarri DNA would not be recognized by the transporter, and would therefore be left behind on the planet. It would take 10 minutes, at the most, to safely remove all the slaves from the planet," the Professor explained.
"Couldn't the Chi'Tarri still cause havoc, though," Raph asked. "I mean, they use their slaves to do their bidding anyway. They just control them through their bonds."
"Ah, but that's part of the beauty of this plan," the scientist told him. "You see, when we send the planet out of phase it will cut off the bonds between the Chi'Tarri and their erstwhile captives. Of course we'll be on hand at the teleportation sites to administer a series of medications that help to soothe and heal the broken bond."
"It sounds fantastic," Donatello said. "Now what's the catch?"
Professor Honeycutt swallowed loudly. "This is a two part system. The first part is set up in orbit around the planet. That part is easily put in place. The difficult part is the second half of the system. It has to be taken planet-side, to a specific location, so that it can burrow its way to the planet's core. Once there, it fuses with the geo-thermal center of the planet and provides the power for the system, making it self-sustaining. The other benefit to this is the Chi'Tarri can't destroy it without wiping out their own planet."
"I'm following you so far, but how exactly does this transporter thing work," Leo asked, needing all the details before he agreed to anything.
"It's relative simple," Professor Honeycutt said. "If we can obtain a sample of base Chi'Tarri DNA I can then enter that DNA into the transporter's programming to let it know which genetic material can or cannot be accepted. I'm afraid it won't be perfect, but I can set a sensitivity that if the sensors pick up a greater than 85% Chi'Tarri DNA, it won't take that individual."
It was clear Leo was less than pleased by that answer, but the scientist was presenting what would probably be the best option to avoid all out genocide.
"And what if the Chi'Tarri off planet," Raph asked. "They'll still be here."
"True," Bishop agreed. "But they will be cut off from reinforcements or supplies. These will also be the warriors; I don't think your brother will disagree with hunting down and eliminating them."
Silence reigned for several minutes as the small group tried to think of any loopholes they might have missed. It was Donatello who finally said, "I think we've got the beginnings of a workable plan, but I feel like there's something you're not telling us, Professor."
"I wasn't sure how to bring it up, but there is a small…speed bump," the scientist acknowledged. "Based on our rather limited knowledge of the Chi'Tarri home world, there is one place that will work best to plant the earth-bound half of the dimensional shift system: the Shadow Lords' inner sanctum."
That pulled Bishop up short. "That's impossible. Only a fully-trained Shadow-Lord can enter the inner sanctum; no outsider has ever been allowed in."
Leo's quiet voice contradicted him. "One has: me." All eyes swung to stare at him, and he gave a dismissive shrug. "Why do you think they sent me after you, huh? You'd already taken down every other Shadow agent or Hunter sent after you. The Chi'Tarri knew they were going to need someone a bit more…lethal to take you down. So they accelerated my training. Right before they sent me to Earth they gave me the last marker of the Shadow Lords. My master was against it, but the queen overruled him. She was so certain I was broken that she allowed me to be inducted into the Shadow Lords. "
"Okay then," Professor Honeycutt drawled. "That solves that problem, but leaves us with one more major obstacle. Just where are we going to get a usable sample of Chi'Tarri DNA?"
Leo gave a secretive smile. "I think I know just the place. I think it's time Bishop brought his daughter home."
So I guess we will see if everyone who has given a guess as to the identity of Bishop's daughter is correct. I will also say that my plans for chapter will lead into a crossover with a certain large family of terrapins from two different dimensions. :)