Now that Zorra was a few weeks old, Salena had decided to cut her maternity leave short. Most of the kids she watched at the TUFF daycare were old enough to keep themselves occupied, anyway. Finny, who had been hired as an agent, was especially grateful; now he could relax about having someone watch Rodey for him, and she would even be close by. With the money his twin sister Phil had saved up for him, Finny was able to get a small apartment in Petropolis. He figured Snaptrap and Phil would want the Tudor house to themselves, especially now that the triplets had been born.
"Agents!" called the Chief, causing Dudley, Kitty, Finny, and Vicky to jump to attention. "We've just received intel that DOOM is committing a robbery at the jewelry store! Agent Roach, take Agent Rodentius and show him the ropes."
"You got it, Herb!" the cockroach called as she spun around, Finny following her to the tubes leading to the TUFF Mobile.
"Hey, Chief, you usually send me n' Kitty to stop DOOM!" Dudley whined with a pout.
"Agents Roach and Rodentius need some practice if they're going to be TUFF agents," the flea explained.
Elsewhere in the city, Quacky the Duck and the Sharing Moose were sitting outside of a coffee shop, trying to come up with an idea for their next plot to get revenge on TUFF. They had some entertainment; while they were drinking their coffees a moose, a racoon, and a newt came walking up the sidewalk. The moose, a female, walked a few steps ahead. She had earbuds in her ears and she was singing Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe", and when she got to the line
Before you came into my life I missed you so bad -
the two boys behind her suddenly halted and shouted at the top of their lungs, "THAT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE! AAAAAHHH!" (A.N. I got that from YouTube's thecomputernerd01 reciting "Call Me Maybe"), causing the girl to jump a foot in the air, startled. When she realized it was her friends, and that they were laughing at her, she angrily rolled her eyes and continued walking, no longer singing. Quacky and the Sharing Moose snickered as the three left.
The two friends had just paid their bill and were getting up to leave when Quacky stepped backwards, bumping into somebody. Turning, he saw a female duck with white feathers in a blue business suit. "Sorry abou...Brooke?" he recognized.
"Quacky?!" the other duck smiled, holding out her hand. "How are you? It's been years!"
Quacky grasped her hand, smiling back, "I've been hanging in there, how are you? What are you doing back in Petropolis?"
"I'm reintegrating into society," she giggled bashfully. "I've been in Africa for quite a while."
The Sharing Moose cleared his throat loudly, signaling he was waiting to be acknowledged. "Oh!" Quacky took the hint, "Brooke, this is my partner, Moose. This is Brooke Webster, an old friend of mine." They shook hands.
"I heard you got a TV show, for kids, wasn't it?" Brooke turned back to Quacky. "I only ever saw a few minutes."
"Yeah, the Sharing Moose and I had that show for years, but we got cancelled," Quacky confirmed, carefully trying to avoid how he had fallen into a life of crime and hoping Brooke had not heard that part.
"Oh, that's too bad. What are you doing now?"
"We're in between jobs at the moment," he said quickly.
"So am I. I just came in, like, two days ago."
Quacky started to respond, but Moose leaned in and interrupted, "We were just leaving."
"Oh, well we should talk more sometime. What's your number?" After they had exchanged contacts, Brooke smiled, "It was nice meeting you Moose. See you guys later!"
Quacky waved as he and his friend left, then sighed as they walked home. "So who is she to you, really?" the moose asked.
The duck grinned wistfully, "She was my next-door-neighbor one summer when I was thirteen. She babysat for a lot of moms in the neighborhood. She always used to tell them when they picked their kids up that she wanted six or seven of her own, someday!"
"SEVEN?!"
Quacky nodded, "We used to go to the movies or skating, and everyday we played checkers on her front porch. She always kept her kings in the back row."
"I may not be a ladies' man, but I don't think checkers is very romantic," the moose smirked.
The duck spun his head around and glared at him, "We weren't dating!" They stared each other down until Quacky finally sighed and looked forwards again, "I was too shy to tell her I liked her, and then she moved away. She was kinda the reason I decided to do a kids' show. I figured, with seven kids she'd be bound to watch some of their shows with them, so if I was on one of their shows she'd see me. I didn't really expect to hear from her or anything, but it was a nice thought," he sighed again. "What is she going to think of me now, when she hears about all the stuff I did?! She's not gonna want to talk to me!" The Sharing Moose could only shrug.
"I thought you guys was BirdBrain's henchmen?" said Finny as he and Vicky handcuffed Zippy, Owl, Duck, Ewe, and Holy Cow along with the remaining members of DOOM.
"He's reforming for Blank," explained Zippy a little bitterly, "so Josie gave us a job at DOOM."
"Who?" put in Owl. This time, no blue-bottomed booby was around to clarify (and they now knew Owl was just acting stupid).
"And where did you Texans come from?" Finny turned to Oro, Hitter and Killer, whom he recognized from Josie's old gang in her home state.
"Texas, whar else?" smirked Hitter.
"Come on, everyone," called Vicky, leading the group to the TUFF Mobile while using the remote to convert it into a paddy wagon. "You're going to jail."
"Ain't this just like a rat ta betray ya?!" Josie muttered as she passed Finny. The rat frowned, hurt but knowing she had a point. Last year he would have been in the chain gang with her.