Five decades after the great radiation war, four turtles were born in New York City. Scattered and hidden around the city were test tubes containing a new form of radiation developed during the war, known as "Mutagen" because of its deoxyribonucleic acid altering properties, which creates mutants. It was created by a Japanese male known as Oroku Saki. The four turtle babies stumbled across a broken vile of the substance and mutated to be more anthropomorphic. They could now talk, and their vision became as good as a human's. Their minds were now as complex as a human's. They were different now. A young biochemist and brother of Oroku Saki, Hamato Saki was against Oroku turning innocent people into mutants to fight in the war and tried to rebel, which resulted in the mutagen being used on him. Hamato was turned into an anthropomorphic rat and had to flee. Even years after the war, Hamato was working on developing some sort of antidote to his brother's mutagen. He lived in the sewers under New York city where stumbled across the mutant turtles. He knew they had no home, so he took them in, and raised them to be ninjas to fight against Oroku Saki's army of men known as the Foot Soldiers. Hamato passed on his knowledge of biochemistry to one of the four and taught another to be the leader. Each of the four turtles was named after Hamato's favorite renaissance artists. Leonardo, the one whom he taught to be a leader. Calm, collected, and logical. He's the eldest. Donatello, the brains of the bunch, the one he taught biochemistry. He is the middle child and the tallest of the four. Raphael, the hot-headed masochist. He always wanted to rush into things and is reckless. He's also a middle child. Michaelangelo, the clown of the four. Silly, cute, innocent, and feckless. He's the youngest. [NOTICE: I do not own Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, nor any characters associated with it.]