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Chapter Twenty Three: Changing Faces Part Two:

Harry turned around, preparing to fight but Saki didn’t make any movement.

“It’s inside the package,” remarked Saki calmly after a few tense seconds.

“Yes, didn’t Big Louie tell you that I was coming shortly to drop it off?” replied Harry casually.

“Hand over the package, it is extremely important to Agent Bishop,” commanded Saki a statement that caused Harry to do a double take. The last time he checked, Saki and Bishop weren’t exactly friends.

“You’re not Saki, are you?” asked Harry coolly and as a result, “Saki” sprung forward, attempting to attack Harry, but Harry dodged, causing “Saki” to spiral towards the ground in an uncoordinated fashion. “Yep, you’re definitely not Saki.”

“Give me the package,” repeated “Saki” as he pulled himself to his feet and went after Harry but Harry somersaulted over the imposter Saki’s charging form and shot a Kusari-Gama chain out of his sleeve, which wrapped around “Saki” and bound his arms behind his back.

“Now, who are you?” questioned Harry but to his surprises, the arms of “Saki” managed to contort into a green slime, before they transformed into large battle axe like constructs.

“I’m starting to get the hang of these powers, unfortunate for you,” retorted “Saki” cockily as he broke the chain before he leapt up, attempting to crack Harry’s skull cleanly open with a battle axe but Harry dodged the attempt and “Saki” smashed right into the wall. No amount of shape shifting abilities could give him coordination as Harry watched as the form of Oroku Saki began to melt into a large smudge of ooze on the wall, as a large ear splitting shriek echoed throughout the study.

Harry stepped forward calmly but the ooze slipped upwards, before it sucked itself through a nearby air vent. Several drops of ooze were left behind, as the rest of Harry’s mysterious attacker had vanished.

Harry stepped forward and conjured a vial, before carefully siphoning the ooze left behind into the vial, careful not to let the ooze touch his skin. With another wave, the vial was corked and Harry placed the vial underneath a stasis charm, before he pocketed it and began to walk off, where the real Oroku Saki walked into the room.

“Finally, I thought I had just missed you, Mr. Saki, you are Mr. Saki, correct?” inquired Harry, who had to suppress the urge to punch Saki in the stomach purely on principle.

“Yes, of course, you do have the package, Mr. Shadow, if I’m not mistaken,” replied Saki in a cool tone of voice and Harry nodded in a stoic fashion, as he reluctantly handed Saki the package, regretting not getting a chance to see what it contained.

“Right here, whatever is in there must be valuable,” remarked Harry. “The strangest thing happened just a few minutes before you came in.”

“What sort of strange thing?” asked Saki calmly.

“I had thought I had met up with you, but this person found someway to take on your appearance and attempted to attack me to take this package,” answered Harry. “We got into a minor scuffle and the imposter flew against the wall, where he melted into a smear of ooze.”

“Do continue,” prompted Saki calmly

“The ooze then found a way to move itself up the wall and slipped through the air vents right above here,” concluded Harry. “For all I know, he could still be in the ventilation system as we speak.”

“I do thank you for informing of this, Mr. Shadow, some of my people will look into this, this would be thief may still very well be in my mansion,” answered Saki. “I believe we will be saying farewell at this moment.”

“Yes, until we meet again,” said Harry.

“Yes, until then,” agreed Saki in a curious tone of voice, as Harry calmly walked from the study, with a vindictive pleasure that he managed to place a monitoring spell around the parameter of the study while he was speaking with Saki.

Bishop sat patiently in the lab, as green ooze flowed from underneath the door before contorting into an exactly mirror of Bishop.

“Well, where is it?” asked Bishop calmly.

“Agent Bishop, please, there were circumstances, I was noticed, Saki’s mansion is on high alert, there’s no way I can get this thing now,” pleaded the thief.

“Well if you want to be returned to normal, you best find a way, failure is something that is not rewarded,” responded Bishop coldly and the thief began to glow slightly, his arms turned into two large chainsaws.

“You will turn me back to normal or else!” thundered the thief, as the blades of his chainsaw arms whirled but Bishop calmly pressed a switch, which caused electrical shocks to burst out through the floor and through the thief.

The electricity caused the thief’s powers to degenerate at a super high rate and the thief to fall to his knees in agony, before Bishop pushed the switch again.

“Let me make one thing certain, I will not be threatened,” said Bishop as he gazed down at the half melted pile of ooze with utter contempt. “Am I clear?”

“Yes, Agent Bishop,” replied the thief in disgust.

“Good, now you will leave once again and will not be coming back until you retrieve the computer motherboard from Saki,” said Bishop, as he gazed at the thief from over the top of his glasses as his feeling slowly came back to him and a more bright green filled the room as the thief turned back into Bishop’s duplicate before he sauntered off, in a rather foul mood.

Bishop looked down as several clumps of ooze did not merge with the thief, rather they laid on the floor a dead green with not the slightest bit of glow on them. As he gathered the inactive samples, he made a mental note to study them later, once he had put down his own creation.

Bishop waited until his unwilling employee had completely departed the premises, before he walked over for the third time in the past twenty four hours to record another log.

“Super solider log, it appears that our test subject’s powers are evolving to previously undetermined levels,” said Bishop. “His usefulness will be outlived rather shortly once he had gotten the required item from Saki and then he will be euthanized. Bishop out.”

Bishop stopped the recording, as he reflected on the Triceraton motherboard that he had sent his test subject. From what he had gathered, the Triceratons had done their fair share of experimenting and study on the various alien life forms that they have encountered in the past. Much of that data, Bishop believed, was located on the motherboard. While he didn’t know that Saki knew what exactly was preserved on there, Saki had have known that something was valuable and for the greater good, Bishop could not allow something like that to fall into Saki’s hands. It would better serve his research then whatever plans Saki dished out.

After dropping off the tape recorder at the Potter residence for his mother to pass onto to Alexandra, Harry arrived at the lair before he made a beeline straight towards Don’s workshop and Don was up, tinkering with something. In the distance, Raph and Leo were sparring, Master Splinter appeared to be in his room meditating, and Mikey sat on the couch, reading the latest addition of the New Adventures of the Justice Force comic book.

“Hey, Don,” prompted Harry.

“Oh, hello Harry, what can I do for you?” asked Don.

“I’ve had a run in with something strange tonight, long story short is it appears my latest opponent is has some kind of abilities to change his appearance,” responded Harry and Don’s eyes snapped up, as Harry pulled the vial that he collected from his encounter with the shape-shifter. “I collected this from the encounter, perhaps you have some way that we can run a test on it.”

“That looks kind of like the mutagen,” muttered Don as he looked it only. “But a different shade of green and it’s glowing.”

“It can’t be glowing,” said Harry but he looked at it and sure enough, it was in fact glowing. “Impossible, I put this under a stasis spell, but yet it’s active somehow.”

“This is peculiar indeed,” replied Don as he took the vial, before carefully popping it open before he scrapped a small sample onto a slide, careful not to allow it to touch his bare skin before he placed it underneath a microscope. Don stepped forward to observe it and he stepped back in surprise.

“What is it?” asked Harry.

“Better take a look at this, Harry,” said Don as he waved Harry over to the microscope and moved to the side, to allow Harry to take a look. “Do you see it, Harry?”

“I’m seeing tiny particles of what appears to be….magical energy,” said Harry. “Merging with the ooze and what appears to be small trace amounts of human skin.”

“Harry, the mutagen was basically an evolution accelerate,” suggested Don. “When combined with turtles or rats, it evolves them into humanoid forms of life. But, let’s say the ooze touches the bare skin of a human or gets injected right into their blood stream.”

“Well in theory, humans would evolve as well, but since they are already in humanoid form, they would receive what is the equivalent of super powered genetics, which explains the shape shifting abilities on the guy I encountered tonight,” concluded Harry.

“True, but what if the mutagen wasn’t completely stable?” inquired Don.

“Then, the person’s powers would malfunction, causing him to lose control of his powers for extended periods of times,” suggested Harry. “Bishop might be testing certain variables regarding the mutagen and Human DNA for his super solider program.”

“Wait a minute, are you sure Bishop’s behind this Harry?” asked Don.

“Certain, the guy who attacked me said as much,” answered Harry but before Don could continue, a thick cloud of grey smoke began to billow from the sample and a nearly blinding yellow flashing glow filled the lair and Harry quickly placed a heavily powered magical containment shield over the telescope.

The slide the sample was on and the telescope, along with half of the table melted down, before a large mushroom cloud explosion appeared inside the shield. Before it could eat through, Harry tapped his wand to it, transporting it to the vacuum of space before it took the entire lair out. Harry did the same thing with the vial as the mutagen was on the process of eating through the bottom.

“The mutagen is becoming unstable to the point where it is becoming radioactive material,” replied Don in a horrified voice as the other three Turtles moved over to see the cause of the commotion and the blinding yellow glow.

“What happened?” asked Leo.

“Well, Harry was attacked by someone who was interjected by a replicated version of the same mutagen that turned us all into what we are today by Agent Bishop,” explained Don. “It appears that the mutagen is highly unstable and if Harry hadn’t transported it elsewhere, the lair would have been vaporized.”

“The worst part is, that was only a few unstable mutant cells, but yes, cells that ate through a stasis spell” answered Harry. “If this Mutagen Man reaches that point where his powers evolve to the point where he begins to meltdown, than who knows what will happen.”

“Do you have a theory?” asked Raph as he looked at both Don and Harry.

“By my calculations, the meltdown of this Mutagen Man will release a large scale blast that could wipe out New York,” answered Don. “Not just the city, but the entire state.”

“So, let’s stop him, then,” said Mikey in an eager voice.

“For once I agree with Mikey, let’s take this Mutagen Man down before he wipes out the city,” responded Raph, who was pleased to have an excuse to get out and crack some skulls.

“No, no, I have to enter Saki Manor to do this, he went there before to steal something and will again. If you four are seen there, it will be all your necks on the line,” admonished Harry. “As good as you are, if even one turtle is sent there, we’ll have every foot ninja on our heads.”

“So, I suppose you can get into there, because the Shredder doesn’t want to kill you as well,” replied Raph in a sarcastic voice.

“Raph, I have metamorphmagus abilities that I can take any face I want, true we can throw a disguise on you, but those aren’t exactly fool proof,” answered Harry.

“But, Harry, this might be one thing you can’t do alone, you did say he ate through a spell and a spell from you isn’t exactly the weakest thing in the world,” said Mikey.

“I have a plan, just please trust me on this,” said Harry but Leo cut off Raph before he could complain.

“Harry, we trust you, but remember, we’ll just a mirror call away if you need any help,” said Leo.

“If things get out of control, I’ll give you a mirror call, but only when things get out of control,” admitted Harry as he made his way out to the lair.

Right when he left, Raph turned to Leo.

“So, are we going to follow him to keep an eye on him or not?” asked Raph.

“As appealing as that sounds, we just can’t do that, Harry needs to learn to ask for help, rather than have it forced upon him, otherwise, he’ll resent the idea of having any help at all,” said Leo in a deflated voice. “Master Splinter told me that and I agreed, Harry’s always been decidedly independent and quite frankly, he might be getting to the point where he can handle himself nearly as good as the four of us combined.”

“With less years of training?” asked Mikey in a skeptical voice.

“Mikey, you know Harry’s picked up things up faster than any of us, except for maybe Leo,” said Raph. “He doesn’t need to join in on any training sessions but yet he chooses to because he feels he can still pick up new things.”

“As Master Splinter says, you can always pick up new things, learning only stops at death,” recited Don. “Look, if Harry says he has a plan, he has a plan.”

“Yeah, but doesn’t change the fact that I’m worried that he’s fighting someone who could go nuclear at any moment,” grumbled Raph and the others did nod.

Outside of Saki Manor, the thief looked around at the gate, which was now locked and the fence around the structure was electrified, no doubt to keep intruders out.

“More then one way to get it,” replied the thief, as he looked down, seeing a sewer grate on the street. He screwed his eyes up, before he painfully contorted into ooze and slipped down the street, through the sewer grate.

Unknown to him, Harry Potter, dressed in thick clothing charmed against radioactive poisoning, covering every inch of his body. An equally thick mask was pulled over his face, covering all of his skin and he had goggles pulled over his eyes.

Harry calmly opened the gate with his wand, before he slipped inside, with the gate closed behind him. A guard came nearby as Harry slipped through the bushes, shining with a flashlight, before he walked off and Harry crept around the shadows, before he reached the front door and once again it clicked up, before Harry magically made his way inside and the door shut, before anyone noticed that Harry made his way inside.

The ooze slipped in through a vent on the floor, moving around until it reached a group of Foot Ninjas as they moved equipment down a stairway. A green glow filled the room before a Foot Ninja popped out of the floor and slipped through the doorway to blend in with the crowd to make his way through the building.

“All the equipment is ready, I should have this baby scanned within a matter of minutes,” remarked Doctor Chaplin in a boisterous voice as one of the Foot Ninjas plugged in the device and Chaplin carefully slid the motherboard onto the scanner, before pressing another button, which caused holographic images of all the items stored on the motherboard to appear.

The thief, under his guise of Foot Ninja, made his way through the room, before he saw the motherboard, just as Bishop described it.

The Foot Ninjas stepped back, before they pulled out their weapons and advanced on the thief. The thief looked at his hands, his form still kept but they were glowing a brighter shade of green yet.

“What the....” stated Chaplin as he turned around, but he had no need to worry as the Foot moved forward, but the figure contorted into ooze, before he slid through the floor, around the Foot Ninjas and reappeared, an exact opposite of Chaplin, before he reached forward and yanked the motherboard from the scanner, before he shoved Chaplin to the ground out of his chair before he contorted into ooze, before slipped upwards.

“Block the vents,” ordered one of the Foot Ninjas, but it was too late as the thief had managed to slip through the vents, back into the ventilation system of Saki Manor.

Harry looked around, adjusting a dial on his goggles to view for any radioactive material in the ventilation system.

A second later, Harry’s eyes followed an eerie glow that filled the walls. He had a good idea where it was heading as well.

In the sewers, the ooze slipped out of a pipe, before it flew towards a newspaper, before it morphed into a medium sized man with a goatee and Mohawk. The thief looked down at the motherboard, extremely pleased with his efforts. Now he could get back to Agent Bishop where he could be turned back to normal.

A shuriken flicked right over the head of the thief. A second louder, an explosion blew the wall right at the thief, before he fell to the ground and Harry leapt out of nowhere, double-edged sword in one hand and Kusari-Gama in the other.

The ooze slipped around the cracks of the wall, and contorted right into the same form that it had viewed the newspaper.

“Listen at me, you’re putting the entire city in grave danger, your body is degenerating at a high rate,” said Harry quickly before he held up a mirror. “Look at yourself.”

The thief looked at himself inside the mirror and he looked normal at first sight, but he did a double take as his eyes began to glow a shade of yellow.

“If you keep changing, you’ll eventually degenerate into a high mass nuclear explosion which will wipe out everyone in New York,” remarked Harry.

“Bishop will change me back before that happens, as long as I give him the…MOTHERBOARD!” shouted the thief in anguish as the motherboard melted right in his very hands and he looked absolutely mortified as his one ticket to becoming normal disappeared in his hand.

“It’s already begun,” muttered Harry darkly. “Give yourself up.”

“No, if I can’t be normal, then the city suffers!” screamed the thief, as his face began to crack and Harry placed up the Kusari-Gama chain. “That didn’t work on me earlier tonight, that little chain can’t contain me.”

Harry flung the chain forward and a loud anguished scream echoed through the as the sickle ripped through the abdomen of his foe. Another tug ripped the sickle in the other direction and caused bits of the thief to fly in every which direction in the sewer.

Quickly, Harry took out a small biohazard canister, made from a metal that he was lead to believe would sustain a high level nuclear blast.

“This should hold you,” muttered Harry but green rope like constructs slipped out from all directions, before it caused the ooze to assimilate and slip down the sewers, leaving a bright green glow as it moved.

The ooze made its way up towards the street, where the streets were already bustling because of early morning traffic. It would be easy to blend into the crowd because of the insanity of New York and the ooze contorted into an old woman with a cane.

Harry arrived a few seconds later and looked right at the thief.

“Nice day out, isn’t it sonny?” remarked the thief in a faux stereotypical old lady voice and Harry responded by the swiping his weapon at the throat, decapitating the thief and sending ooze splattering into the alleyway behind.

The headless old woman stumbled around, before another head grew from the body and moved towards the alleyway.

“Got to pick up the rest of me,” said the thief as Harry moved into the alleyway, double-edged sword in hand and the ooze that Harry had cut off from the main body had morphed into a duplicate of Harry’s weapon which the thief picked up.

Harry moved in, he needed to find a way to block this guy’s ability to keep changing but he had little time to think as replica of Harry’s weapon swung. Instinctively, Harry blocked it and jumped back to realize that this replicated weapon had began to burn through his weapon. Harry stepped back, before he leapt up and looked down, as his attacker advanced upon him and burnt holes into the ground as he walked forward.

He charged at Harry, swinging his replicated weapon. Leaping up, Harry dodged the attack and the sword was stuck into an electrical circuit box. On impact, a large burst of electricity filled the sword, as the thief gave an anguished scream as his weapon turned back into ooze, before it began to lose some of its glow and slightly hardened.

The thief pulled himself up but the hardened ooze fell to the ground. Feeling himself loosing his composure once again, the thief began to morph into the ooze, before he slid down the street, back into the sewers.

Harry stepped forward and examined the hardened pieces that his adversary had left behind. Curiously enough, it had stopped giving off its glow once it was exposed to electricity. A few quick spells told Harry that his theory had been correct and he had just found this Mutagen Man’s Achilles heel.

Harry also suspected something else. His foe needed to view the person he was changing into before he morphed his features. Putting those two distinct weaknesses in mind, a better formed plan began to form into Harry’s mind as he hurried off. Time was off the essence, he didn’t have much time left before his attacker reached full mass and went off.

In a wooded area, the thief, now under the appearance of a homeless man that he had ran into while flowing through the sewer, arrived at a wooded area which was slightly outside of New York. There was a few cabins nearby but other than that, there was no signs of life. A few cold gusts of wind filled the air and a snow storm looked to be in the works based on the rapidly decreasing temperature. The tell tale signs of winter, but little did they know that everyone in New York would experience a nuclear winter.

“A couple more changes and everyone will pay!” shouted the thief in a loud voice as he looked down at his arms as the glowing began to fade from green to a bright, nearly blinding shade of yellow.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” answered Harry as he stepped into sight ready to fight, as he eyed the power lines above his head.

“I wipe everyone out, the biggest job I’ve ever pulled,” proclaimed the thief. “Now once I find someone that I can into again, that should do it.”

With a tug, Harry pulled off his mask, revealing his face, only covered by goggles and the thief spun around, before he looked at Harry but to his horror, his latest inspiration’s features contorted slightly, making it unable for him to get a clear picture in his mind’s eye. He screwed up his eyes in concentration, as the burning sensation filled him, his feet sinking into the ground as they burned and attempted to change into the person before him, but Harry’s face kept changing slightly.

“Stay still, stop doing that, how are you doing that?” demanded the thief but Harry kept changing slightly every split second, making the thief woozy and causing him to lose his balance as his brain attempted to process several different faces almost simultaneously.

The thief staggered and stumbled, before he fell backwards into the river behind him. Before he could be swept away to elsewhere where he could change again, Harry threw a dagger into the air at a ninety degree angle and sliced the power cable. The cable fell into the water.

“NO!” shrieked the thief as he attempted to dog paddle away but he was filled with bursts of electrical energy that paralyzed him and caused him to melt into ooze. “My powers…me…no…”

The ooze began to harden until Harry reached over before calmly shutting it off, with several chunks of solidified ooze floating in the river. Carefully, Harry made sure that he summoned every bit of the Mutagen Man before he placed it into the biohazard container on the off chance it became active once again. Then he tapped his wand to it, turning the canister into a portkey, banishing the remains into the vacuum of space.

“Mr. Saki, I have bad news, but also good news,” stated Chaplin nervously back at Saki Manor.

“Do state the good news if you will, Doctor Chaplin,” prompted Saki.

“Well, we lost the motherboard, you see, that ooze man or whatever got away,” stammered Chaplin as Saki stepped forward but Chaplin quickly decided he better tell his boss the good news. “The good news is, just because that guy stole the motherboard, I managed to find the plans you requested and upload a copy to the mansion’s computer system. We should begin construction on it soon and it should be completed within the next six months.”

“Then make it so, Doctor Chaplin,” ordered Saki. “The sweeps of the city will be completed around the estimated time of completion and then my real plan can begin.”

Harry sank into a chair in the kitchen as his mother walked into the room.

“It appears that four sympathizers of Voldemort were captured just a few hours ago, said Lily. “They are currently being questioned about the whereabouts of others.”

Harry nodded, as he looked over the information he received last night. He would call a meeting of his resistance group tonight as to update on him on his new finds along with getting an update on several outstanding pieces of business. From what Harry heard, Voldemort had made an offer to the goblins recently, but the goblins regarded his offer with mostly disinterest, but there was a small faction that were rumored to entertain Voldemort’s offer. Harry looked forward to that along with an update on a few other magical races that Harry had sent out feelers for recently.

Back in his lab, Agent Bishop looked down at the completed results from the samples that his test subject had left behind. He walked over calmly, before he proceeded to record another log.

“Agent Bishop super solider log update, after extensive study and every test known to man, along with a few that aren’t, I have come to one conclusion,” stated Bishop clearly as he examined the results. “The mutagen has assimilated with the turtle DNA and upon further study, it did not mix as well as I could have hoped with the human elements. However, this project is not far from lost as another element is required to stabilize the reaction between the human DNA and the mutagen extracted from the Turtles. To be more accurate, a sample from another mutant is required, one closer in relation to humans than a turtle. Plans have already been put into motion to procure the element necessary and I will get what I want for the greater good of all humanity, no matter how long it takes. Bishop out.”