Preface: After nearly two years of inactivity, I'm back with a new story. This is something that's been playing around ever since Operation ZERO came out, and wondering how did Numbuh 0 reestablished the Kids Next Door. Well, here's my take on it. Happy reading!
Legal junk: I don't own Codename:Kids Next Door, but Cartoon Network does and Mr. Warburton created it. But this fic belongs to me. Clear? Good.
Operation: R.E.B.I.R.T.H (Re Establishing Big Institution Requires Tremendous Help)
Operation: N.E.W (Now Everyone, Welcome!)
"We are Kids Next Door." – Nigel Uno (Numbuh 1 of Sector V)
Seventh Age
Victory needs to be savored. The triumphant win against adult tyranny was a major breakthrough for Monty Uno, the leader of a kid-only organization that he called "The Kids Next Door." Who knew that the son of a tyrant that forced kids everywhere to do menial jobs and backbreaking labor had a heart of gold, standing up against his Father and began a revolution to free kids everywhere? Even though most of his friends knew he inherited nothing from his dad, it was still a shock to see him fight back, against his own father of all people.
The effect of liberation was felt in an instant. After Monty Uno blasted his Father with some weird doohickey that looked a lot like a Jack-In-a-Box, everything and anything around them started to transform. What used to be drab, large industrial complexes had morphed into suburban two storey houses, greenery at every sight, with colorful flowers to boot. The dark and moody atmosphere suddenly changed into a bright and sunny day. Children no longer wear drab and musty rags. Other adults began to look more cheerful and friendly, instead of menacing and frightening. Suffice to say, it was a perfect ending to years of oppression under his own Father, or Papi, as Monty and his brother Ben, would call him.
A day after the liberation, Monty Uno called up his friends and kids everywhere to gather at a huge tree stump in an empty lot. Strangely, this was the only place that didn't change much from the instantaneous transformation that occurred during Father's demise. The stump was still there, and the small tree that grew in the middle of the stump was also still there. This came to no shock to Monty, but to everyone else, it was sort of perplexing.
Everybody gathered around the tree stump, waiting for Monty to show up. The stump now acts as a stage for everyone to see. With the crowd becoming bigger and bigger, words began to spread amongst themselves, rumors floating about and people began to accept it, deny it, debunk it, or confirm it.
"There are a lot of kids out there." Monty said with a mild nervous tone, as he peered through the leaves from inside the tree.
"Don't tell me you're getting nervous, Numbuh 0." A female voice replied, letting a small giggle out, amused at his attitude.
"It's not like that, Numbuh 999." He replied back, smiling sheepishly, with his face all becoming red. "It's just my very first time speaking in front a lot of people, and I—"
"I know you can do it." Numbuh 999 cut him off, smiling softly at him.
"TEN-HUT!" a voice boomed, and everyone fell silent. All eyes peered to the middle of the stump. There, stood a kid with a weird fashion sense, as if he constructed armor out of everyday kitchen utensils like trays, pans and woks. They don't know whether to laugh or to feel sorry at him. Just then, a creak was heard in the tree, and out came Monty Uno, sliding the trunk to the bottom. Everybody greeted their liberator with thunderous applause. Monty was touched, and his eyes began to brim with tears. But to cry is a sign of weakness, and he tried to hold it up. Like a military general, he marched to the edge of the stump, and gazed at the sea of children, as they wait for him to begin to do something.
"You're probably wondering why I am dressed in this outfit." He said, and a few chuckles were heard from the crowd. His outfit, although was nowhere as fancy as the kid with utensils with armor earlier, was just as outrageous itself. "This, my friends, is a 2x4 technology armor."
Everyone looked one another, perplexed and shrugged. One nervously raised his hand.
"Yes?" Monty asked.
"So basically you called us up just to show you're wearing junk all over your body?" Some nervous laughter was heard.
Monty smiled softly and let a breath out, amused by that rather unflattering comment, "Friends and fellow kids everywhere. I would like to thank you all for coming here in such a short notice." Monty began his opening speech, which was anticipated by the crowd. Just then, a few other kids, roughly about twenty of them, including Numbuh 999 descended from the tree and formed behind Monty. They all wearing the same silly 'armor' that Monty and that other kid were wearing.
"Our victory yesterday—" suddenly, it was greeted a thunderous applause, again from the crowd. Monty smiled and paused for while until the applause died down, "is a wakeup call to all of us kids that we can't rely on someone else to take care of us anymore. No, no, just forget what I said. There was no victory, it was a failure. It was a failure because it was only now that we realized we are helpless. We were too late. We were too dependent on the grownups to tell us to do. And because of that, we were enslaved by the very people that we thought we could depend on – the Adults. I do not want history to repeat again, and I don't want my Father, or some other adult, to suppress us all! I'm not saying that we sever all ties with the adults, but we need to be cautious. It's high time for us kids to look after our own and fight back whoever threatens us."
All those words took a moment for the crowd to take it all in. Yet, despite of it the crowd did not know how to respond to this seemingly mad spiel. Did he say what they thought he says?
"Let me get this straight." A portly little kid said back, bit exasperated at this point. "Are you proposing that us kids need to protect ourselves for now on from the evil adults? It's a noble idea, sure. But it's impossible for us to do it."
"Why is that impossible, Boss?" Monty asked back.
"W-Well…" he stammered, looking around his surroundings, "J-Just look at us! We have nothing to fight back! We lack the power, the resources and the energy to do it! Even the good adults won't let us get a hold of their stuff! I commend the effort, but the idea of yours is doomed to failure…" Most of the crowd then agreed with him, hanging their heads in defeat. But unsurprisingly, Monty did not share the pessimism.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk. Boss, and I thought you're one of those type that don't quit easily." Monty shock his head in disappointment, yet amused and still in high spirits. He moved his right hand to his back, and out came a book in his hands. Everyone wondered what that book was supposed to mean.
"Fellow kids everywhere, what I have here is a book called the 'Book of KND'. The KND I refer to stands for the 'Kids Next Door'. This book tells us how we can stand up to the evil adults. It teaches us to do nifty things like this armor I'm wearing," he said, slowing moving his other hand downwards in front of his chest, "This cool gun, and all other neat stuff that are just impossible for me to say it in a single sitting. It tells us how to grow our own bases—"
"Excuse me, pardon me." A little girl interrupted him, "What do you mean, by 'grow'?"
"You hear me correctly." Monty replied back, brim with enthusiasm, "You see this giant stump I'm standing right now? This used to be a Treehouse. You see, according to this book, every Kids Next Door operative gets to stay with other operatives in a base. This base is grown and becomes a Treehouses, and according to this book, those Treehouses are capable to grow to ginormous proportions!" he threw his hands up, getting excited. "Imagine that sitting in your neighborhood; with you on top of it, we can look out for trouble from miles away!"
"I don't know, man…" one boy replied back, stroking his chin. "It doesn't sound exciting enough. I don't know about the rest of you, but I just can't see the benefit of us just going to arms and beat up every evil adult we see. I mean, we have cops to do it for us, don't you think?" The crowd tended to agree with him. Monty however, had more things to reveal to them.
"All right, kid." He replied back. "I want to ask you something. What do you want to be when you grow up?"
"Is that question even relevant to this?" the kid ask back.
"Very relevant." Monty replied.
He stared at him a bit, still not getting his reason. He then shrugged, then said, "Dunno, a pilot, I guess."
"And you'll have to wait until you've grown older, won't you?"
"I guess so. But I have to go to pilot school and all that crap, learn all kind of things like physics and stuff."
"In the Kids Next Door, adult rules don't apply, and you get to pilot your very own aircraft." Monty replied back, smiling.
The kid scoffed back, not believing it, "Pfft, yeah right."
"I'm serious everyone. By joining the Kids Next Door you can be everything that you want to be, and I'm not talking nonsense here. See this weapon?" Monty held a gun and showed it to the crowd. Small laughter was heard since what they saw was just a couple of crude planks, an empty ketchup bottle and some few batteries wired, bounded and duct taped together. They all thought that Monty had lost his mind, or had a highly vivid imagination. Monty smiled as he aimed at a nearby mailbox. With a single shot, the gun disintegrated the mailbox into ash leaving nothing but a trail of smoke. He then spun the gun with his fingers and put it back inside its holster, leaving everyone in shock.
"How did you do that?!" one kid asked in awe, yet thoroughly puzzled at the demonstration just now.
"I didn't do it." Monty replied back. "He did it." He pointed at a kid at the very far end of his right. "Meet Numbuh 0110."
"'Sup?" he greeted to the crowd. "Call me Chester, I'm the Weapons Engineer and Specialist of the group. As you can see by that demonstration, I have successfully engineered a weapon capable of causing massive damage using only byproducts and waste of everyday items. It's quite simple really. Adult laws complicate matters, but when in a hands of a child, everything becomes all too easy. Those Bernoulli's Principle, Doppler's Effect, Laws of Thremodynamics the adults have been touting all these years are all non applicable in our domain. It's funny really, considering the adult created these outrageous and overly complicated laws and equations for the simplest solutions… what a load of crock."
There was a deafening silence, as everyone wondered and very confused what he meant by that gibberish. Then, after a long pause what seemed to be an eternity, one girl raised her hand slowly and asked in an unsure voice, "So… you mean I can be a doctor?"
Monty was quick to reply, pointing at her, "Yes, exactly! You can be whoever you wish to be! Now you guys are getting it! In the Kids Next Door, you don't have to be a grownup to become a doctor, a soldier or a scientist! We can do it now! And by pulling our resources together, who knows what kind of stuff we can achieve or what fascinating new technology we are going to invent!"
"You mean…" another kid said, with a smile on his face, "I can be a scientist now?"
"Or a detective, like in those private eye movies?"
"An archeologist? Can I be an archeologist?"
"I want to be an engineer!" One kid shouted at the top of his lungs.
"NERD!" another one yelled back, and it was followed by laughter. With that, all kids in the crowd began to shout out their dreams, ambitions and the desire to join the newly founded organization to Monty. What's even better, they can achieve it now, just by signing up for the Kids Next Door. With this much enthusiasm from the crowd, Monty successfully persuaded them to join the battle against adult tyranny.
"I think your little pep talk is working wondrously, Numbuh 0." Numbuh 999 said as he put her palm on his shoulder, smiling at him.
"Our work here is still not done." Monty replied, smiling back. "Coaxing them with words is easy, but to pull it off… requires tremendous help."
This is just a small sample for things to come. Hey, if you liked it, or hated it, just leave a review.