TMNT = Not mine.

Dark fic. If you finished reading it feeling absolutely confused/creeped out, then I've done my job.

Written because I log onto the TMNT FF front page, it's like looking at a character blood bath, with my favourite characters mangled beyond recognition. In true VH fashion I decided I had to join in. In true VH fashion, something absolutely insane spawned out of it. This entire story is a metaphor, yes.

Also written because Bishop is a bad-ass who has lots of cool toys and people never seem to use them for anything interesting. Also, I was going through the archives and Leo and death seem to be old buddies. Plus I've been wanting to write something Leo-centric for ages. And a mind-fuck kind of story that wasn't about Raph.

Now that I'm done with this fic, I hope I can go back to working on Moments and Fallout. But this has been gnawing insistently at my brain and I just wanted it out.

Redux

The first memories of my life are filled with pain.

No. No, they aren't. Sometimes I get these impressions, a room that's completely white, examination tables, scalpels covered in blood. And a mutant turtle.

There's always a mutant turtle.

He's lying on a table across from me, a hundred different diodes wired up to his head and his plastron split wide open. Bloodied entrails are exposed for the world to see and they glisten in the bright light and I can't look away. The room stinks with the heavy smell of blood. And he's still breathing.

He's always still breathing.

It's all I can hear, the soft rasp as air flows down into his ruined lungs. Each slow and painful breath echoes in my ear drums. And yet for some reason, my own body is silent. Deadly silent. I don't feel alive. I can't feel my heart beating. I can't hear myself breathing. But this other turtle, I can feel everything. The gaping emptiness inside my own plastron. The blood dripping out of my body and the eventual slowing down of my heart.

And the breathing.

In, out. Painfully slow and never, ever enough.

He moves; eventually. His bloodied head turns even though his ravaged body should be incapable of it. His neck has been sliced open and I watch as disconnected muscles work despite the damage. And inside I'm begging for him to stop; I don't ever want to see his face but he turns and he looks at me.

And I'm staring into my own face.

Then I wake up. Except I'm not usually asleep when this delusion hits me, so it's not really waking. More like I'm returning to the here and now after a psychic vision. I don't understand. I don't understand it at all.

My brothers usually find me at this point. Michelangelo or Donatello or Raphael, they'll come into my room and cajole me out to socialise. Mikey will pull me into video games; Raphael will challenge me to a spar and Donatello will approach me with a strategy game. And then I forget it about it for a while. When I try to remember, the images trickles away from me like water and I'm left with the foreboding impression that someone has placed a mental block inside my mind. The implications are terrifying. The only people I know with the knowledge to do this have all been allies or family.

I can't explain where this has come from. My first memories -my real memories- are being curled up in a warm pile with my brothers. Shell against shell, hands curled around my arms and legs and the stink of the sewers. There's warmth and the feeling of belonging and home and comfort.

I don't know why when the vision hits I'm so convinced that the white room is my beginning. It can't be right. It can't be.

My life seems to have become this long blur, training, nightmare, brothers, then more training, nightmare again and brothers. I can't seem to escape it and no one in my family has noticed. We no longer go out and patrol the city; instead we are stuck in this subterranean monotony. I think we used to do other things yet no one else seems to notice it.

Sometimes I think there was someone else in this family. Someone who I would speak to for guidance when I was unsure of myself. Someone who was full of compassion and love and wisdom. I get flickers of soft fur, the scent of incense and the harsh rap of a walking stick.

Delusions. Just like the white room.

xxx

I woke up one day and found my brothers gone.

Bishop had taken them.

I do not know how he found the lair. I do not know how he managed to take my brothers without a struggle.

I awoke to an empty home. My brothers did not respond as I called their names, moving from room to room. Then I walked into the dojo and there Bishop stood.

"Leonardo," the agent acknowledged me coolly.

I restrained the automatic urge to unsheathe my katanas and skewer the man where he stood. Bishop was a deadly opponent and I did not have even a single brother to back me up. I was at a disadvantage and I would not make the mistake of making the first move.

I eyed Bishop with the most neutral expression I could muster and waited. It did not take long. For a man who has lived as long as Bishop had, he had remarkably little patience.

"You appear to be missing some family members," Bishop spoke with bland disinterest, though he could not disguise the triumphant gleam in his eyes.

"My brothers," I replied with forced nonchalance, "I imagine must be giving your men hell."

Bishop threw back his head and laughed openly. I did not want to imagine what he'd done to give himself such confidence. "Indeed," he said when he calmed himself. "Leonardo, there is much that I have learnt from your family, learnt from you in fact. Do not delude yourself that your brothers will ever be returned to you without my say so."

My insides went cold at the thought of the horrors he was surely inflicting on my brothers. I knew then that whatever he demanded I would give. "What do you want?" I said coldly.

Bishop tilted his head and eyed me with interest. "You are an exceptional being Leonardo, despite your lack of humanity. Your ninjistu ability, your grasp for tactics and ability to lead in the most difficult of circumstances are traits that do not come easily to even the most highly trained of people. Even amongst your brothers, you stand out from them. Not because you are the most talented out of them but because you excel despite being the least. What I want from you is your obedience."

"You want me to work with you," I said with numb horror.

"I want you to work for me," Bishop corrected. He gave me a satisfied smirk. "In return, your brothers remain alive, unharmed and not on a dissection table like Doctor Stockman wants."

"I need proof," I protested. "I need to see them before I can even consider agreeing to this."

My imagination went crazy. Maybe my brothers weren't in Bishop's grasp. Perhaps they were up, topside and Bishop was only pretending to have them. It was wild hope but it was all I had left.

The corner of Bishop's mouth lifted. "Very well," he said. He calmly fished out a device from his pocket and tossed it carelessly to the floor in front of me.

It was a Shellcell, damaged and battered and belonging to Michelangelo.

I retrieved it with numb fingers. It did not prove a thing, the phone could have been knocked from my brother during battle or it might have even been created by Bishop himself. But there was a number already entered in and with a heavy heart, I dialled it.

"Leo?" something inside of me unwound with relief at my brother's voice, even as the icy fingers of fear clutched at my soul.

"Mikey," I breathed. "Where are you?"

My brother gave a laugh that did not conceal how high-strung he was. "Oh you know, we just thought we'd check ourselves into Bishop's secret, underground labs. The cells here are quite comfy."

"Don and Raph-"

"-Are here," he cut in. Then he gave a startled yelp. "Ow, ow, ow, you didn't say I couldn't tell him about the others!" I heard Mikey hiss in pain through the phone. "Wait, give that ba-"

The call cut off. I stared helplessly at the Shellcell in my hand as though I could will it to return my brother to me then I lifted my gaze to Bishop's smug face. It could be a trap. The entire conversation that I just had could have been fabricated by Bishop using digital technology to recreate my brother's voice. I could not be sure until I had seen my brother and felt the texture of his skin myself.

But Bishop was here. He was here and he had found the Lair and that was undeniable. Why hadn't he taken me like he had taken my brothers? Why had he instead waited for me here, waited for me to wake and find him and instead present this charade?

"Why are you doing this?" I demanded roughly, dropping the phone as though burned.

The human tilted his head and studied me as he thought my question over. Then he took a step closer and stared straight into my eyes.

"To make you understand just where the power lies," he said. "I can take your brothers, Leonardo. I can take them away and you cannot do a thing to stop me. And I can give them back to you just as easily. Do as I ask and you can have them again. Refuse and I will walk out of your life and you will not see them ever. You may try to kill me, of course and you might even succeed but you will not find them, on that I can assure you. Should I die, my men will turn them over to Stockman."

I swallowed down the lump of fear in my throat. He could capture us, true, but we would fight him every inch of the way. We would never concede to him or allow him to use us to further his goals willingly. But this?

I teetered on the precipice. There were no choices here. Bishop would not simply give me my brothers back and let us walk free in exchange for a job here and there. No, he intended to use them to leash me, to force me to do his bidding. Or he would have them killed or experimented on if I refused. There were no losses for him in this situation.

But could I consign myself to slavery, to agree to whatever evil Bishop would have me do? What if he went even further and used the threat of our lives to get all of us to obey? Was I also agreeing to that?

Could I do that?

I considered refusing. Perhaps this was all a bad dream, a delusion. It felt too surreal, a nightmare come to life. I felt like I'd been in this exact situation before, made to choose when there was no decision to make at all.

My head began to pound. I felt myself drifting in the hallucination of the white room, losing my grip on reality. I could feel the emptiness inside me, a ravage, ruined body, the smell of blood-

No, no, no, no! This was not the time. I forced myself to focus. "Let me see my brothers," I gasped as I felt my mind unravel. "I need…proof."

Bishop took another step forward. "And if I do, you will obey me?"

"Yes!" I hissed. The pain inside my head was overwhelming, I could barely think-

"…absolute obedience," the agent was saying. "Even against your own brothers?"

"-Yes-" No, wait, what?

Bishop's right hand move, there's something in his grasp-

There was a sharp pain in the back of my neck-

Then, darkness.

xxx

I jolted to sudden awareness. I stood a lab, Bishop's lab and Raphael stood before me, separated by a thick glass wall. He called my name anxiously.

It was too fast. Everything was moving too fast.

I frowned at him. "Wha-?" I slurred.

"As promised, your proof Leonardo," Bishop stood by my side.

"What did you do to me?" I demanded,

How had I gotten here? Why couldn't I remember? The white walls here felt familiar, strangely, disturbingly familiar. Why did it feel like I had been here before?

Bishop levelled a strange look at me. "You agreed to come with me," he said. "I would show you your brothers as proof and then you would work for me. We left your pitiful excuse for a home and came here. It was a long boring trip by helicopter and at one point you tried escaping by taking the pilot hostage."

I batted ineffectively at empty air. I was weaponless. "You drugged me," I accused. I could not recall the story that Bishop had told and was certain that it was false. He was lying to me. He'd used something on me and now I could barely think. How could I be sure that this was my brother in front of me, not some machination of Bishop's that he was using to fool me?

Bishop snorted and turned away from me. If I was in a faster state of mind and not surrounded by several heavily armed men that I'd only just noticed, I'd have gone for him then. As it was, I stumbled to the glass and stared at my brother, studying him for any flaws or defects.

"Bro," Raphael growled, "What the fuck is going on here?"

I bowed my head against the cool glass as I tried to squash down any relief I felt. This, was it Raph? It sounded like him, looked like him. Something however kept me from accepting that this was my brother.

"Leo, talk to me?" Raphael slammed both hands against the glass and glared at me. "Please tell me you did not accept the deal this shithole has been bragging about!"

"I need, I need to touch him," I said, ignoring my brother. I turned around and caught Bishop's startled look. The feeling that I was being deceived intensified.

Bishop paused a moment, studying me intensely. His face was smooth now and gave no clue away. Then, after a beat, he said to one of his men; "Let the turtle out."

I turned away from them, closed my eyes and tried to reach out and feel for my brother's vibrant life-force as they opened the cell.

Except-

There was-

Nothing.

I stared at the turtle in the cell across from me. What had Bishop done? Who was this? A clone? A clone of Raphael? Or perhaps a robot, scavenged from the Shredder's Utrom technology. Then, then-

Bishop did not have my brothers.

I finally allowed myself to give into relief. My brothers were safe then. Despite the overwhelming danger I was in at the moment, all I could focus on was that.

But-but my mind was never one to blindly accept things for too long. I had been drugged. I was barely thinking straight. Could it be that my senses had been dulled and I was in fact incapable of feeling my brother's chi at this moment? I had not even noticed the guards around me when I had returned to the land of the living in front of this cell. My awareness was muddied and distorted. This could be Raphael, standing across from me.

I couldn't trust anything. Not even myself. The realisation terrified me with its implications. How could I determine who then to protect?

A scuffle attracted my attention and I turned back to witness Raphael hurl himself at Bishop's men with a vicious roar. He yanked a gun out of the hands of one soldier and was quick to turn it on the others.

"Enough!" Bishop snarled. He fell back into a defensive position beside me, bringing up his wrist rockets and I wondered briefly at the wisdom of turning his back to me. Could he actually believe that I would honour our agreement now? Brother or not, I would fight beside this turtle until proven without a doubt that it was not Raphael.

I lunged for Bishop, wrestling to turn his aim away from my brother. We were hopelessly outnumbered and I could not leave Bishop to go help Raphael against his foes. One of Bishop's hands vanished down a pocket, then returned with a combat knife. He drove it into my arm, sending a jagged bolt of pain up my body. My grasp instantly weakened even as my mind automatically tried to override the pain. Bishop wrenched himself from my hands, and then kicked me backwards to give himself space.

I stumbled for my footing before coming to a stop, back to back with Raphael who was growling lowly in his throat. "Leonardo," Bishop called. "Enough of this foolishness. Take Raphael down and I will not have your other brothers killed."

"The fuck you'll do anything!" Raphael roared back. "I'll kill you first, your asshole!" He raised his gun to fire but we were so close, too close. I accidentally brushed his arm as I settled into a defensive stance and the shot went wide. Instead, a soldier managed to land a hit on the weapon, obliterating the gun.

Suddenly, I felt calm. Suddenly, I felt detached from this entire situation. Blood dripped down my arm and onto the floor. I watched it go, mesmerized by the liquid.

"Leo?" Raphael demanded urgently as his shell brushed against mine.

"You're not Raphael," I said peacefully.

Everything seemed to freeze. My mind wandered away from reality. Instead, I watched the dead turtle that wore my face as it lay on a gurney inside that white room. It was not real. I knew that. I was still surrounded in Bishop's lab, back to back with an unknown turtle. But in that moment, I felt as though the answers to this puzzle were close at hand. My own face stared back at me, as though accusing me that this entire situation was my fault.

My brother would have not allowed me to interfere with his aim like that. We have been trained to be hyper aware of each other's movements and to automatically adjust in accordance to each other. Even with my mind half slowed by whatever drugs Bishop had used, I could still track and predict Raphael with ease. This was nothing to do with chi; this was the result of a lifetime of growing up and living with my brothers. We were extensions of each other and we moved in tandem.

Raphael had not. Therefore, this was not Raphael.

My mind reviewed his actions in taking on the soldiers. They had been clumsy, sloppy. Raphael might be the strongest out of us and he did favour power over form, but there was still a grace and nimbleness in his movements. Even his aim was poor. His hands had trembled as he grasped the gun and he'd come close to dropping it several times.

I took a surreptitious sniff of my brother's scent. It stank of chemicals and the artificial and beneath it all, the smell of the sick and the dying. Defective, perhaps?

What was going on? What was Bishop hoping to accomplish with this whole charade?

"Is that right?" Bishop spoke. He did not look disappointed, merely curious. "I suppose then, since this is not Raphael, it will be alright if we kill him."

Fear shot through my body and I automatically took a defensive step in front of the turtle. It did not matter that this was not my brother, it was a living creature and I had no doubt of the truth in Bishop's words. It was a victim of his machinations, it had fought at my side and it did not deserve the fate Bishop would give it.

The government agent raised one eyebrow at me. His hand dipped into his pocket and returned with something. Memory flashed at me, this is what he had pulled out back in the lair-

His finger pressed down. Pain exploded across my entire body and sent me to the ground. I curled into a ball, my muscles seized with agony. I wanted to scream but the breath was driven from my lungs and it felt like there was a tight compress on my throat, preventing me from taking in air.

And then – abruptly it was over. I was released from whatever was attacking my body. I lay limply on the ground, my eyes blinking open to the sight of Bishop's face right in front of my own. My muscles did not respond to my frantic commands to get up, to defend myself.

"I want you to watch," Bishop yanked my head up to face the fake-Raphael. "I want you to understand what refusing your orders results in."

I tried to shake my head but the human's grip was tight. "There was no deal," I managed to cough. "And…he is not my brother."

The Raphael doppelganger stared at me fearfully. "The hell are you on about?" he demanded with a shaky voice. "Leo, it's me!"

Everything was slowing down. My eyes felt like they were focusing properly for the first time since standing in this lab and I could see the artificial lump at my brother's throat. It was not exactly the right colour of my brother's skin and from there my brother's voice issued. The poor creature could not speak. Now that I was paying attention and listening for it, I could hear the constant stream of low growls and hisses from its mouth.

Bishop calmly picked up a gun from one of his soldiers and aimed it at the turtle.

My heart seemed to stop beating. All I could see before me was my brother's wide frightened eyes and the knowledge that Bishop would finally go through with his threat. It did not matter that this was not my brother, it looked like him, sounded like him and in this moment it was him.

There was a single gun-shot.

I watched brain matter explode across the wall behind the turtle. Its body slumped lifelessly to the ground, a river of blood pouring from the hole in its forehead. I felt cold and numb. Such a senseless death and no matter how hard I tried to convince myself, I could not shake the feeling that it was my brother that had been shot.

"I hope you've learnt your lesson," Bishop said coolly.

"It was not Raphael," I said softly, trying to make myself to believe my own words.

I failed.

"No," the human agreed, "But it might as well have been." He cocked his head and studied me. "I think this lesson will sink in even better if we finish the others."

The others?

No, no, no, no, surely he would not-

The soldiers paraded out two other turtles, one that looked like Michelangelo and the other like Donatello. They saw me and they called out joyfully to me. And-and it broke me. They sound exactly the same as my brothers, even though I know it is simply a trick of technology.

And before my eyes, Bishop executed them one by one.

The image of their lifeless bodies burned themselves into my mind and I knew that there it would forever stay. This was the price of failure. This was the price for defying Bishop. Blood stained floors and-and, gore and dead mutant turtles.

I felt ill. Despair and fear swallowed my mind whole. If Bishop was not lying to me and he did have my brothers, there was a very thin line from keeping that state.

I do not know how long the human forced me to stare at the bodies. It felt like eternity. It was far, far too long. Eventually, he dragged my face to meet his.

"Understand this Leonardo," Bishop said coolly. "I can give you your brothers. I can give them to you and I can take them away just as easily. If you want to keep them, do not forget this. You will obey my orders."

He released my head and it flopped to the floor. Then he stood up and spoke to one of soldiers. "Take him back to Lab Seven. Tell the technicians to yank him again. This simulation was a failure."

I'm barely aware of the humans pulling my body up. I still can't move but I cannot tell if I'm still paralysed or if it's the shock. Or maybe it's the sense of defeat inside me, the knowledge that I'm trapped and I can't ever escape from this.

Trapped? Yes. I think I've been here before. I think, in fact, that I've lived through this whole scenario before. My mind is clearing, memories begin to trickle to me, glimpses of different choices that all result in the same thing.

My brothers' deaths.

No. Not my brothers. It's difficult to remember that but I can hear their voices so clearly and I can see their faces. The mind behind them might be lacking but I have dedicated my life to protecting their lives and I cannot help but to respond.

I don't know how long I can keep this up.

xxx

I am in a white room.

There was a turtle that lay on a table opposite me. A hundred different diodes are wired up into his head and his plastron is sliced wide open.

There's a cut on his arm.

The turtle breathes even though he is dead.

The turtle raises his head and looks at me.

I stare into my own face.

This has got to be a dream.

My brothers came for me today.

But they were different.

They were covered in blood and they had killed the people that worked in the labs here. I think they might have even killed Bishop. No. Impossible. Bishop does not die. Ever. I have seen that. I have tried enough that I know it is futile.

"Leo?" Raphael stood at the door of my cell. "Leo, bro are you alright?" He turned his head and called out, "Don, Mikey, I found him, he's here!"

I pondered over Raph's words. I have always been here. My brothers have always known this and they have also known where to find me.

Raph cautiously treaded into the cell and then pulled me up. "Come on bro," he said. "Let's get you home."

Wasn't I already home? I allowed my brother to guide me out, I did not know what game he was playing at but I would indulge him. No. Wait. Faint memories arose of the Lair. That was home. Of course. When had I forgotten that?

Don and Mikey appeared at the end of the hallway. It was littered with human corpses, dead soldiers that had been killed brutally. Heads smashed in, their bodies ripped open and ravaged. There had been a blood bath here and for some reason I cannot think of why.

Mikey threw himself at me. "Dude, you have no idea how good it is to see you," he said warmly, wrapping his arms around me into a tight hug.

Donatello approached more carefully, his bag of tricks at his side. His face was sombre and his eyes scanned my form anxiously. Whatever it was that he found, he sagged.

"Don?" I asked, "Is something wrong?"

My brother shot me an uncertain look. "It's been too long," he replied simply but he did not move to bridge the distance between us.

"Well, as touching as this all is, we should get going," Raph impatiently tugged me down the hallway.

They took me through corridors filled with blood and broken bodies. Then, for the first time in a very long time, they took me up to the surface. I had forgotten how good the wind felt against my skin and the smell of fresh air.

We returned to New York by helicopter. It was an uncomfortable trip; my brothers cannot seem to take their eyes off me. I began to think that there was something seriously wrong with me. Donatello allowed Raphael to pilot so he can inspect every inch of me. That's how bad it was. Don never lets Raph fly if he has a choice.

"It's been a year," Michelangelo finally blurted.

I turned and stared at him. "A year," I echoed, uncomprehendingly.

"Since you've been stuck in there," Mikey nodded, "In Bishop's lab. We thought we'd lost you forever."

I turned this information over. "I don't understand," I said eventually. "We were all captured by Bishop. Why are you telling me this?" They had been with me all that time, had they not? It had been the four of us and I had agreed to do Bishop's bidding in order to keep them all alive.

Donatello flinched minutely. "No, Leo," he said softly. "We were never there."

Impossible.

They had been there. I was certain of it. Perhaps Bishop had done something to them and they were all delusional.

We ditched the helicopter in the junkyard. From there it was a short trip down into the sewers and to the Lair.

Except.

The Lair looked different. It's not how I remembered it. I don't mean simple rearrangement of the furniture, the whole architecture is different.

"Did we move lairs?" I wondered out loud.

Mikey frowned at me. "No, did you hit your head really hard?" he replied. Then his expression turned horrified and he doubled back, grabbing my shoulders. "Fuck, Leo. What the hell did Bishop do to you?"

I pushed aside my brother's grasp. "Nothing, what is wrong with you?"

"He had you in his lab for a whole year and we're supposed to believe he did absolutely nothing," my brother said doubtfully. He turned and glanced at Don. "Please tell me you know what's wrong with him."

"I do," Donatello answered quietly, studying me with his dark eyes. "Fixing it on the other hand, might not be so easy."

"I have no idea what you are talking about," I replied with a hint of frustration. "I am fine."

"My sons?" I tensed at the unfamiliar voice.

Some…thing drifted into view. It was large, dressed in a simple brown robe and exceptionally furry. My head began to hurt. Everything seemed to move slowly as the stranger approached. Its thin hands clutched a walking strength with a strength its frail body belied.

"My son," the creature sighed, gathering me up into its arms. "Leonardo, my child, welcome home."

How did this being know of my name? In the corner of my eye, I caught Donatello tensing at the sight of us. Mysteries upon mysteries, I had no idea what was happening and what was making my brothers act so strangely.

"Excuse me," I said softly, giving voice to my confusion, "But I do not know who you are."

The pounding in my head got stronger. The stranger's arms tightened around me. My brothers murmured in alarm around me.

"You have got to be shitting me," Raphael strode forward. He grabbed my arm and spun me out of the strange creature's arms to face him. He stared into my eyes with a mix of fear and anger on his face. "Leo, that's Master Splinter. Our father. You know, the one who raised us since we mutated."

At my lack of recognition, Michelangelo and Raphael grew increasingly distressed whilst Donatello hunkered down in resignation.

"Bro," Mikey said with worry, "How can you not remember Splinter? He's always been there for us. You like, worship the ground upon which he walks. We call you Splinter Junior for Pete's sake!"

I shook my head against their delusions and wild accusations. What has Bishop done to them to convince them of this foolishness and why? To prove his power over us? To prove that he can mess around with their reality so thoroughly that they can accept a complete and total stranger? I thought I had been doing well and living up to his expectations. Would I one day return to find that my brothers did not remember me? If that was the case, the only way out of this was to follow my orders and not fail them again.

"Don, Don!" Mikey's voice reached a tone of panic. "What did they do to him?"

My smartest brother looked tired. He looked defeated. He gave a bitter laugh. "A better question is what did they not do, Mikey."

"What is wrong with you guys?" I demanded, shaking my head. "You were right with me. All that time, you were there. You know what Bishop did. What I did."

I knew this like I knew my own heartbeat. It was undeniable. It was fact.

"Leo," Donatello said gently, "Tell us about Bishop. Tell us what he did."

I blinked at my brother suspiciously. They knew this. "He gave me missions," I answered, "Assassinations. Sabotage. Theft. Told me he'd kill you if I failed. So I did. I did them and he didn't kill you. Except the times when I failed."

My brothers looked ill. This had never bothered them before. "That mother fucking cunt," Raphael breathed softly as he stared at me in horror.

"It's okay," I said, unnerved by their distress. "He always does that. And then he always gives you back."

"Leo?"

Michelangelo poked his head into my room. I blink at him and then sighed. "It happened again," I said with resignation.

"Dreaming of that white room again?" he asked.

I nodded, then gave my eyes a tired rub. "I'm sick of this."

My brother pulled me up onto my feet. He smells wrong, like metal and chemicals and his hands are cold. Something about this pulled at my memory but I could not remember why.

"You know what you need?" Mikey placed his hands on his hips and tried to convey a commanding air.

The corner of my beak lifted wryly. "Educate me, Mikey."

"More Halo. And ice-cream. And cake!"

I chuckled at my brother's exuberance. "Alright, lead on."

The details of the dream slip from my mind. Later on, I try to remember what was so troubling about it but no matter how hard I try, I cannot recall them. Life continues as it always does, we remain below ground and do not venture out of the sewers.

But that doesn't stop me from feeling trapped. That doesn't stop me from watching my brothers with watchful eyes, trying to catch them for…something. They smell a little bit wrong, they feel a little too cold and they move a bit too stiffly to be truly organic.

I think sometimes that this is a nightmare and the only real thing is that white room.

"Leo, Leo, Leo," Donatello chided gently, "People can't come back to life."

I scowled at him. I knew that. Those people I had murdered on Bishop's orders were never going to come back. "I know," I said.

"How the fuck does that make any sense?" Raphael exploded at me. "You know that people can't come back to life, then why the hell do you think Bishop gave us back?"

Don shot Raph an admonishing look. "Let me handle this," he said softly.

I perched myself at the edge of the couch and drew my knees up under my arms. "You're here, aren't you?" I said calmly. "Just like he always does. This this whole thing is something new though. We've never escaped before but it's only a matter of time before he finds us again. And when that happens, I'm going to need to figure out why he's trying to accomplish with this so that when he runs it again, my next brothers won't get killed."

Bishop took my brothers today.

"I can give you your brothers," he said as he leant smugly against the wall of the dojo. "All you need to do is obey me."

Refusal was on the tip of my tongue. Then the human said, "Refuse and I will return your brothers to you as corpses with a bullet in their brains."

A vivid image came to me then, for some reason I could picture it clearly, every single gory detail as though I had seen it before. Blood splattered on the floor, grey brain matter decorating the walls.

I closed my eyes but it would not leave me. There was only one answer.

"Yes."

xxx

I saw my brothers briefly before I was dragged away for my first mission. They were kept in separate cells and the glass was only one way so they could not see me.

But they were alive.

They were alive and that was what's important.

I wondered briefly if I could even be sure that these were my brothers. The thought arose from nowhere, a doubt that everything that I was seeing was real. But the hard floor beneath my feet, the cold glass that I placed my hands on, those definitely existed.

If I couldn't trust my senses, what could I trust then? I had to believe that this was all real. That it was worth it; would be worth it. I had killed innocent people on Bishop's orders. I wish that there was another way but my brothers are the only thing that I have.

I would do anything to keep them all alive.

xxx

Bishop killed my brothers today.

He asked me to execute a woman. He did not tell me her crimes, only that she was a threat to the EDF. She had bright red hair, green eyes and a kind face and something inside me rebelled.

I stayed my hand.

When I returned to base, Bishop had my brothers lined up. I had a moment to take in their faces, to recognise that something had gone horribly wrong.

Then Bishop shot each of them in the head.

Their blood sprayed across the floor in front of me. Bits of bone and flesh spattered against my body. I could not help myself, I staggered away and puked.

Something inside of me broke.

This could not be real. This just could not be real. I could not accept this. Surely there had to be some way to make this right-

"The price for failure, Leonardo," Bishop said. He was not even bothering to look at me. He had summoned his men and they were removing the bodies. My brothers. Corpses. Brothers. "Do not fail me next time."

Next time? Next time? There was no next time. There never would be a next time. I unsheathed my blades and prepared to-

My head exploded with pain and I collapsed to my knees. My body was wracked with agony, every nerve was aflame. I was helpless to stop the human hands from dragging me away.

"I will return to you your brothers," I heard Bishop's voice from a distance. "And I will take them away as many times as needed until you understand."

I did understand, Bishop. I understood that there was nothing real here. The pain inside my head brought with it a torrent of other memories, of other brothers, of watching them dying at Bishop's hands. They were all fake, fake brothers, and they would die as many times until I played by his rules.

Whether I would have any sanity left by the end of it remained to be seen. I don't know how many times I can watch this happening but I knew that I had seen my brothers die too many times already.

One of the soldiers moving me stopped to speak into a hand set. "Lab Seven? Yeah, we're yanking Specimen One again. Get ready."

xxx

I'm in the white room.

There's a dead turtle with my face.

The corpse is breathing.

I am not.

I have no idea what is happening.

"We're real Leo," Mikey pleaded. "We're not part of whatever crazy mind games Bishop has put you through. You were on patrol by yourself and he captured you a year ago."

I frowned at him. These brothers behaved differently from the rest. Since our escape they'd been insistent that I had been brainwashed by Bishop. I have not. I know that I am not. They watched me with wary eyes, just like I had watched their predecessors.

Bishop was going to find us one day. He always did. And then he'd kill these brothers for leading me astray. I had to stop this. I need to go back. We all need to go back. They refused to believe that the only way out of this was returning. Bishop was going to make their death painful this time, I know it. He wasn't going to be content with simply killing them, no. He was going to draw it out.

The sooner we went back the shorter it would be. And that's the only mercy that we could ever expect.

"Of course you're real," I assured my brother. "You're as real as the rest of them."

My brother frowned at me. "They were fake. Copies made from Utrom technology or clones. Donnie found it out when he hacked the computers in Bishop's lab."

"I know that. You are just the latest in a very long line of Michelangelos."

"I'm your brother!"

"I don't have any," I said numbly. "Just fakes."

Bishop took my brothers.

Then he killed them.

But it doesn't matter.

None of it matters.

They aren't my brothers.

And he always gives me new ones anyway.

xxx

I get better at keeping them alive. There are the cold mechanical brothers used to convince me of a normal life. The weak flesh clones that Bishop used as hostages and then deliberately limits interactions with so as to keep me from discovering the deception for as long as possible. And then disposed of when I mess up.

The flesh clones last for weeks sometimes. After a while, I can't help myself. I deliberately disobey Bishop's orders and then I watch them die. It's not because they're fake, I do not begrudge them for being a madman's unwitting and unwilling tools. It's because…I'm not even sure why I do it. Rebellion against Bishop, perhaps? A last bit of defiance that he cannot seem to stamp out. Or maybe it's simple insanity.

It feels like I've been in here forever. It feels like I've never existed anywhere else. It feels like my life started on that table, staring into my own face. Sometimes I wonder if I ever had brothers. Or if they are a delusion that I created in order to convince myself to not be bothered when those mutant turtles are killed for my failures.

And after they've died, that's when I'm sent to the white room.

And that's when I see the dead turtle with my face.

Bishop stopped by once. He'd stared down at me hard as I lay strapped to a table.

"I do not know what you hope to achieve by this," he said with great calm. "I will go through as many bodies as it takes but I will have your obedience."

But he does have it.

I would give anything to make this whole twisted nightmare stop, even myself. Each time I wake up from that white room, a little piece of me is left behind. I'm getting smaller and smaller and it's almost a relief to throw myself mindlessly into the missions that he gives me. Even though they are fake. Artificial simulations meant to detect how obedient I am. I don't know what happens in them. I don't pay attention. There's another Leonardo being built in that white room and he will jump when Bishop tells him to. He is quite happy to play with the fake brothers that Bishop gives him.

I just wake up at inconvenient moments. I come screaming to life and mess things up for him accidentally; unable to accept the reality I've been given. But the gaps between my awakenings are getting longer.

I can't do this anymore.

I think it will be a relief when I can no longer wake up.

"You've been dead," Donatello tells me. "You've been dead for quite a long time now."

They stripped my room of everything that belonged to me then tied me to the bed to keep me from returning to Bishop. My brother is outside my door, he cannot bear to enter and look at my face.

"And right now, you're dying again," Don continues. "It all lies in cloning, you see. You kept refusing him. So he stole your mind right out of your body and inserted you into a new one. It confused you, weakened your mind, made you more accepting of the brainwashing. But you kept figuring it out or disobeying him. So he kept moving you from body to body, erasing the memories, moulding you in your disorientation as he saw fit, killing you over and over again. I don't even know if we can still call you Leonardo. You've been warped so much, you've fallen so far and you're not even aware of it. This is not even your original body."

I don't know what he's talking about. I've always been Leonardo. This is me. This is how it's always been. This is my real body and I am very much alive. As I have always been. I've always been alive and it's my brothers who are dead. They die and they die again at Bishop's hands and then he brings them back. It is my brother who is fake. It is he who is not real.

"But the thing is, he can't clone us perfectly, the copies are weak and they degenerate easily. He kept your original body somewhere else, I have no idea where or even how to get you back into it if we managed to find it. But that won't fix you. Because you aren't Leo anymore."

The door opens. I cannot lift my head to see my brother but I know that he does not move into the room.

"There's only one way to keep you alive," he says softly. "But I think letting you die will be a mercy. The only question is whether or not we have the strength to do it."

I'm in a white room.

I'm always in a white room.

There's a dead turtle.

He has my face.

He's still breathing.

He's always still breathing.

I think I'm dead.

I hope I'm dead.

End