"Learning it from a book"

[ToTheNines]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

That's not bad, man.

Originally Posted by Prowler

Yeah, I too think it'd be interesting, but how would a small rat like Splinter be able to fight? Would he get mutated before the Turtles? If so how?

You would have to bring in the Utroms way early. Perhaps Yoshi has a day job, but moon lights as a Guardian. After Shredder tracks him down and kills Shen, he's forced to hide/live in the TCRI building. From there, Splinter is either accidentally mutated or Yoshi goes rouge and mutates him himself after the Utroms refuse to aid him in his revenge on Saki.

Then years later after Yoshi is dead, you can keep the TCRI truck accident origin, or have Splinter break into TCRI and steal mutagen so as to recruit soldiers into his vendetta, just as he was by Yoshi.

Definitely makes their connection stronger and makes sense of Splinter's mastery of ninjutsu.