RANKED 2nd BY VOTERS IN CHARACTER CREATION CONTEST #29!

Wearing a beige suit and dark shades, Henry Peter Gyrich watched silently as the techs rolled in two matching tables. One held a specially made device that looked a bit like a high tech shop vac, and the other held the specimens that had been so carefully chosen for this project. The techs, all in lab coats, were buzzing around the tables and the rest of the room, getting ready for the experiment.

Looking at the specimens, Henry pointed at a young, blonde tech, and said, "Jensen! What is that?"

Jensen jumped when the agent barked his name, and looked at Gyrich with some confusion. Looking at the table nervously, he answered, "I don't understand, sir. They're what you reques..."

"Not the plants, you idiot!" snarled Agent Gyrich. "That!"

"Oh!" smiled Jensen. "The ribbons. Those were Meredith's idea. It's to help tell them apart." It was obvious he had a crush on Meredith.

Henry suppressed the urge to slap him. "Might be a good idea," he said noncommittally.

"Yeah, she's great," agreed Jensen.

With revulsion in his voice, Henry snarled, "Get on with it!"

With that, Jensen and everyone else focused in on their specific jobs. His was manning the pump on the first table. There was a brief countdown from three from someone at a panel on the wall, and then they pointed at Jensen. "Goop 'em!"

Jensen pulled a lever much like a slot machine, the pump hummed to life, and a vaguely glowing goop coated the four plants on the opposite table. Once they were covered, he shut off the machine and they waited. Nothing happened immediately. "Are we sure this is going to work?" asked Gyrich.

"Well," started Jensen, "they're called 'experiments' for a reason. This goop hit a bat flying around a streetlight and a kid who tackled an old man out of the way of our truck, and it produced one of the finest agents S.H.I.E.L.D. has ever had."

"Murdock's good," agreed Gyrich. "But plants?" The four small plants just sat there, the glow of the goop pulsing slowly.

"We couldn't very well purposely try this on humans, could we?" answered Jensen.

"No, of course not." Henry sounded disappointed.

Jensen continued, "Right, and the animal rights whiners would go into spasms if we tried it on animals...although Meredith had the cutest little turtles picked out before that idea got axed."

"Jensen!" snapped the agent.

"Oh! Uh, right. Anyway, if this works, we can make an unlimited amount of footsoldiers for S.H.I.E.LD."

"Plants were really our best option?" asked Gyrich.

"Well, we have a vampire problem right now. Something to do with those mutants out of Westchester," Jensen shrugged. "So the wooden limbs will be lethal to those bloodsuckers."

Gyrich raised an eyebrow. "Great. Saved by Pinocchio. And how are we making them mobile?"

"The goop, of course. And DNA culled from the brightest young minds our education system has to offer. 'Lice checks' allowed us to collect what we needed." Jensen waggled his eyebrows when he said "lice checks."

Gyrich again suppressed the urge to slap him. Then he pointed and hollered, "Look!"

The goop moved. The plants shuddered. Then they swayed. Then they bent and moved in ways not natural for plants. They grew limbs that they used like hands, and they stepped from their buckets, roots serving as legs and feet. Eyes and other facial features formed in the foliage, and then they grew to about five foot seven inches each. They started changing shapes, forming into various shaped plants- cats, chameleons, squirrels, etc.

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The room held its breath- even Gyrich- then the techs burst out into cheers and whoops, high fiving each other.

"It's worked!" shouted Jensen. "Agent Gyrich, I give you plant soldiers that can camouflage themselves! I give you Teenage Mutant Ninja Topiaries!"

"Ninja?" asked Gyrich.

"I will teach them that," said a quiet voice from behind him.

Henry spun to see a four foot tall rat with a red robe and a walking stick. "What the hell is that?" he exclaimed.

Jensen sounded a little sheepish. "Um, well, that old man that Murdock saved? He was carrying a pet rat, and they got gooped too. Turns out he's a ninja master."

Gyrich looked at Jensen incredulously. Then back to the rat.

Bowing his head slightly, the rat said, "My name is Master Splinter."

Henry looked at Splinter for a few moments, saying nothing. Then, "A 'ninja master,' huh? And you couldn't dodge a truck on your own?"

The rat seemed to smile as it shrugged. "Had I done that, our young Mister Murdock could not fulfill his destiny, could he?"

Gyrich took his shades off and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. He then glanced at Jensen.

Jensen leaned in and said, "He trained Murdock, sir."

Henry looked at Jensen blankly, remembering one of Murdock's first missions against Hydra, then nodded. Putting his shades back on, he glanced again at the Topiaries. Just before he headed for the door, he looked at the rat and said, "Do it."

Story, original characters and content are owned by Chris Bishop. Copyright Chris Bishop 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022.