KND: The Next Chapter
Chapter #1: The Initiate
Bob frowned and threw down his mouse in frustration. He'd only managed to reach level 65 of his current favorite game, Chicken Invaders. Try as he might, he couldn't seem to push even. He'd already played the game for eight hours that day, and had always made it to that level, where he proceeded to lose every single one of his lives
Stupid game, he thought to himself with a frown. Then he shut down his computer and walked down the hall to his mother's room like always it had the smell of perfume everywhere. His mother was a firm believer that you wanted to look your best in every circumstance. After all, when you didn't go anywhere ever, it was the only way that you could ever dress up fancy at all
Bob knocked on his mom's door and said, "Mom, can you make us supper please?" To his utter surprise and amazement, his mother didn't respond. "Mom?" he asked, pushing the door open in confusion. The inside was empty, but there was a giant hole in one wall.
Bob walked forward and stared at the hole, blinking his eyes in confusion. Then his dad peaked into the room and exclaimed, "Bob! What have you done to our wall?" Then he paused... and asked, more uncertain, "and where did you get dynamite?"
Bob looked at the hole and then at his dad. "Why did Mom blow a giant hole in her wall, Dad?" he asked in bewilderment
His dad's eyes widened and he asked, "Your mom did this?"
"Yeah," Bob said, reaching out and touching the spot where there should have been a wall. "What I don't understand is, why in the world wouldn't we have heard about it? I mean... this should have made a loud explosion, but there was no noise at all."
Bob's dad glanced around nervously. "She promised me that this wouldn't happen again," he muttered quietly to himself. "She was supposed to have retired!"
"You gonna go after her, Dad?" Bob asked, looking out the hole with a frown. "Since you appear to know what she is up to?"
"I can't..." his dad said quietly. "I no longer remember where it is... Your mother was different, though. She was special. They didn't want to get rid of her... but she promised me that it was going to end. That's why we moved out here... to get away from it, so that you wouldn't get involved."
"Involved in what?" Bob asked with a frown. "What are you talking about, Dad? If this is something big, then how can you have forgotten about it?"
Bob's dad was silent, lost in thought. "She wouldn't get involved with this on purpose... She knows how much more dangerous it has become. We're not just talking strange devices anymore. We're talking life and death dangers... She wouldn't have gotten involved. She doesn't have the abilities the newer people have."
"What are you talking about!" Bob nearly cried out in confusion. "Come on, Dad! Tell me what is going on! And at the very least, if you won't tell me what is going on, at least do something about it yourself!
Bob's father shook his head and said, "You're mother's life could be in grave danger, especially if what I believe is true... and I can't do anything to stop it. The hero is going to have to be you."
Bob's eyes widened in surprise as he said, "Me? I need to be the hero? You say that mom has been kidnapped and then tell me that I am supposed to be the person to save her? Why can't you do it?"
"I'm too old," Bob's father replied. "I'm 32. There is no way that they will let me do it. You, you're eleven. They would take you in a heartbeat. Especially considering how your mother was."
"They'll take me because I'm eleven?" Bob asked, blinking his eyes in confusion. "Who in the world would refuse an adult and take a kid?"
"They are a group of highly trained specialists, a group that you would no doubt have been a part of had your mother and I not moved out here to the middle of Nowhere," Bob's father explained.
"That I would already have been a part of?" Bob asked in confusion. "Dad! I'm only eleven years old! Why would I already have joined some powerful and dangerous group?"
"KND." Bob's father said with a smile. "A group that calls themselves KND."
"KND?" Bob asked with a raised eyebrow. "What is that supposed to stand for?"
Bob's father stared off into the sky and said, "Codename: Kids Next Door" Suddenly, an explosion shook the ground nearby. Burst of ice and fire flew in all directions on the horizon. "That, I would presume, is them," Bob's father said. Then he said, "I remember the old days, running around, giving orders, all that jazz.
"I had them wipe my memory. They didn't want to... but I was getting tired of it all. I didn't want to lose everything, so they just screwed up the locations in my head. I no longer know where any Codename base is located."
In the distance, a group of six kids in tattered and torn clothes approached the house. As they looked into the whole and saw Bob and his father, they all stopped. Then they lowered their heads in respect. The kid in front looked up at Bob's father with a look akin to reverence. "Nigel Uno, sir, it is a pleasure to meet you at last."
Nigel nodded his head and said, "Yes, it is a pleasure to meet the new operatives of KND. Might I inquire as to why you have come here, though?"
"Surely you know," the kid spoke up. "The new leaders of the adult force, the people you knew of as the delightful children from down the lane, have figured out that Abigail Uno never retired from KND and that she was still one of our operatives. So when they learned that she was defenseless..."
"They came after her, I see," Nigel said with a frown. "And you came here... not to warn me I take it. Which means, you came here-"
"-to enlist your help in stopping the Deadly Adults," the operative said. "That is correct."
Nigel's frown deepened. "You cannot bend the rules of KND in such a fashion, operative. As a retired adult, I am forbidden to in any way cooperate with the Kids Next Door. That rule has been around since the beginning of time"
The operative opened his mouth to argue, but then shut it again. Who, in their right mind, would dare to argue the rules of Kids Next Door with Nigel Uno himself?
"However, I want you to take my son Bob here under your wing. I want him trained as an operative for Kids Next Door. He has shown promise of these new abilities that seem to be so in fashion..."
Bob's eyes widened and he glanced at his father in confusion. "They need people who are good at playing video games?" he asked.
"No." Nigel said, rolling his eyes.
"...but, that's all I'm good at," Bob protested.
The operative looked at Nigel in concern. "You want us to train your boy here, who is only good at video games, to become the next Nigel Uno?"
"Trust me," Nigel said with a gleam in his eyes, the same kind he got when he knew he was about to win a mission many years earlier
"Robert Uno will become far greater than I ever was. All he needs is a little... training. Even I didn't get as good as I was without some help from great warriors."
The operative eyed Nigel nervously and said, "If you're wrong about this, Nigel..."
"Trust me," Nigel said. "Robert here will become the greatest Kid's Next Door operative that the world has ever seen."
The operative frowned for a long moment, looking Bob up and down. Bob stood frozen and terrified, too scared to do much any moving. "He doesn't look very promising," the operative said with uncertainty. "But, if you say he'll be great someday... we'll lay our fate in your hands once again Nigel Uno." Then he turned to Bob. "Come initiate," he said, motioning with his hands.
Bob looked at his father, who motioned for him to leave, and Bob nodded his head nervously. Then, glancing back at his computer with Chicken Invaders on it one last time, he set out following the KND operatives. The only thought on his mind at that moment was, "I never managed to beat that game."
So the story begins. Robert Uno, son of the KND greats Abigail and Nigel, begins his journey to rescue his mother and become an agent of Kid's Next Door. Please read and review