Tobs

DONATELLO:

The first attempt, Purple, was done with a leatherback turtle, the biggest turtle in the world, expecting a big and strong mutant to help the Hamato Clan. Having a strong turtle as a base, they focused the mutation on creating an extremely intelligent soldier and a strategist. The formula however was extremely unstable, and it came out weaker and smaller than they had hoped for. And in spite of being extremely smart, it seemed to struggle with understanding commands and speech, making it hard to work with. Stockman wanted to kill it so he could be dissected and studied, but Yoshi managed to convince him to keep Purple alive and let them study its progress and experiment on it while he trained it in the ways of the ninja.

RAPHAEL:

The second attempt, Red, was done with a cochin forest cane turtle, having lost the biggest turtle they had, they did not want to risk losing another perfect big specimen. They needed to work on resilience and strength in this iteration. It came out extraordinarily tough, but it also came out extremely terrified. It did not want to fight, and it was “too soft to be a weapon”. The formula however, was definitely improving, with enhanced physical attributes and fast regeneration.

MICHELANGELO:

The third attempt, Orange, was done with a red-crowned roofed turtle, and they amped the determination, the passion… They needed motivated soldiers, soldiers with enough ardor to fight. So much fervor in fact, this one came out extremely reactive, unfocused and filled with energy, it was deemed “untameable” and discarded alongside the others.

LEONARDO:

The last attempts before the incident, Blue, was done with a japanese pond turtle, and they decided to go back and start from a blank, so they reduced the mutation, looking for a base stat for what the mutation can create without further manipulation. The experiment however was never finished due to an organized attack by Yoshi, and they could not study the results.

THE INCIDENT:

Since Purple was created, Yoshi had been raising and training the boys in the lab, occasionally letting them be taken for tests, which could last from minutes to weeks at times. But it’s what he had to do in order to keep them alive, so he obliged. Over five years, the turtles grew faster than most human children would, with Purple looking almost twice his age. It wasn’t a shock for anyone, they had altered them so they’d grow faster than usual, since the Hamato Clan needed soldiers as soon as possible. They hadn’t learned how to speak yet, but they understood human speech perfectly.

But over time Yoshi noticed the turtles spent more and more time away in the tests, and when they came back, it took them days to relax again or had scars he didn’t know where they came from. Determined to figure out what was going on, he sneaked into one of the test rooms where they were supposed to be testing on Purple, and what he saw… He could not allow it to continue. His clan would not forgive him if they knew where their help was coming from. He could not forgive himself.

So once all the turtles were back from tests, to ensure they were safe and recovered, Yoshi began his attack. He grabbed his kids, and quickly made his way through the lab, breaking everything he could, destroying all the research he found, and letting free all the animals they had captured, getting bitten by a rat in the process, but paying it no mind. He didn’t know if the animals could escape on their own, or if they could even survive, but he gave them the opportunity to leave. And lastly, he made sure to go get his last boy, Blue.

The main lab had a giant vat where the experiments were suspended while they developed. Yoshi smashed the cristal to retrieve his last boy, getting some of the ooze on the rat bite from earlier. With his boys secured, he destroyed everything he could and got out of that wretched place with his sons.

NEW ALLIES:

When he got out of the lab it was late at night, and he just started running, unsure where to even go, until he started feeling dizzy, and collapsed in the middle of the street. Purple quickly got out of his dad’s arms and tried to wake him up. Just in time, a lady, Carol O’Neil, was walking nearby and saw the collapsed man with what looked like 4 little kids, so she quickly ran over to help him get up. When she saw what she believed to be kids, her shock was obvious, it was unlike anything she’d ever seen. But Purple, in perfect english, looked at her and said “Help my family”. Whatever they were, she could not leave them there.

She was a doctor, so she quickly took them to her home and tried to patch them all up, as much as she could figure out at least. Yoshi had severe symptoms of infection, and had begun to change, transform, mutate. But something wasn’t right, his symptoms only kept getting worse. Carol tried her best to stabilize him, stop whatever infection was causing this, but nothing she tried worked. After many rounds of antibiotics, she realized it wasn’t an infection, it was an autoimmune response. So she tried to put him on immunosuppressants, which finally seemed to help, but he was no longer human. Two days later he finally regained full consciousness. Purple had explained everything he could, and had been helping take care of his siblings, but Yoshi finally gave Carol the full explanation.

She offered to house them, at least until they could figure out what to do. Especially considering that every time she tried to take Yoshi off the immunosuppressants, his symptoms returned. And in the meantime, she asked if she could try to learn from them, to understand their anatomy, their medical needs, and write about them and how to help mutants, people like them. At first Yoshi refused, terrified of a repeat of the tests at the lab, but Carol explained she would only study them in front of him and with their permission, she didn’t want to gain anything personal from this, she just wanted to know how to help them.

Carol also had a daughter, April, who was about Donnie’s age, so they quickly became friends and were pretty much raised together with the brothers. She loved her siblings, and greatly looked up to her mom, so she wanted to become a vet to help her with studying mutants and documenting their discoveries to hopefully open a mutant hospital someday.

THE NAMES:

In their new life, Yoshi did not want to be reminded of what happened at the lab, of his mistake and failure as a Hamato, and as a father. And he didn’t want his kids to grow up thinking they were just colors, experiments to him. So one day, exploring Carol’s personal library, he came across a renaissance book, and decided to rename his sons. Donatello for Purple, Raphael for Red, Michelangelo for Orange, and Leonardo for Blue. And for the thorn on his side, the one person he could never forgive, Splinter, a fitting name for a rat that had failed his family.

NEW ENEMIES:

For a while they lived peacefully. Yoshi would sometimes go out at night and steal food or money to pay Carol back, despite her stern refusal to accept any of it, and her general disapproval of him stealing. But Stockman did not let their escape spoil his plans. And the foot clan, who had been keeping a close eye on Yoshi, did not hesitate to take advantage of said opportunity.

With new patrons, Stockman slowly rebuilt his lab, and began his experiments again. Starting with some of the animals that didn’t manage to escape when Yoshi let them free, including the rat that had bitten him. And therefore, Yellow (later renamed Karai by Shredder) was born. They considered her the closest to success. But after her, all experiments were a failure, one after another. They could mutate them, but they were unstable, animalistic, bound to no master.

Yoshi had destroyed all samples of blood they had of him, and Yellow was the only one with any trace of his DNA left, which ensured her stable mutation, but they couldn’t replicate her. Her blood did not have a strong enough concentration of Yoshi’s DNA. But that didn’t stop them from trying to experiment on her, until they managed to create collars that injected her blood directly into the other mutants. This did not stabilize them, but it allowed Yellow to control them, even if just for a while, since the blood slowly killed them. In hopes for success, the Foot Clan sent Yellow and her mutants to find Yoshi and his turtles, for Yoshi’s blood, and to finally dissect the creatures he has stolen from them once and for all.

The only turtle that remembers much from the lab is Donatello, who hasn’t forgiven his father for what he put them through, even if unknowingly. But he doesn’t bring it up. He doesn’t want his baby brothers to remember or know about what happened to them. Splinter knows Donatello probably remembers, and doesn’t feel like he deserves to be forgiven.

LORE:

Origins

CHARACTERS:

Donatello

Raphael

Michelangelo

Leonardo

Splinter/Hamato Yoshi

April O'Neil

Carol O'Neil (April's mom)

Casey

Karai

Shreder

Foot Clan ninjas

COMICS:

Leo goes out by himself.

SKETCHES AND OLD ART:

Character silhouettes and ideas