"How do we get ourselves into these messes?" That was what Numbuh 4 was asking his teammates. It had been another mission for the Kids Next Door to take the Delightful Children From Down The Lane's birthday cake. Of course, they were expecting some sort of mishaps...like there had been every year. But now, they were captured...again. How man times had they been captured while trying to take the cake from the Delightful Children? A cake they refuse to share with anyone but themselves?

"Like this isn't the first time we've been captured," Numbuh 1 said. "It'll be the same schtick every year: we get pummeled, we break out, we steal the cake."

"Yeah," Numbuh 5 said. "As Numbuh 5 says, rinse, lather, repeat."

"Well of course we have to rinse and lather," Numbuh 3 said. "We don't want to get our hands dirty before we take the cake!"

"Ugh..." Numbuh 4 groaned at her gullibility.

"So," Numbuh 1 said to Numbuh 2. "What's the break out plan this year?"

"Just let me untie these bindings and I'll call in the hamsters!"

"Cuddly hamsters!" shrieked Numbuh 3 with glee.

At that moment, the door to their prison opened. 5 children wearing school uniforms entered the room. The Delightful Children From Down The Lane smiled before speaking like a hive mind, "Hello, Kids Next Door. Here to steal the cake like you do every birthday?"

"That's right," Numbuh 4 shouted. "And if you know what's good for you, you better let us out, and maybe we'll go soft on ya!"

The Delightful Children sighed. "Oh, Wallaby. We're going to miss that stupid brashness of yours."

"Oh, come on," Numbuh 5 groaned. "Numbuh 5's lost count of the amount of times you creepy goody-goodies threatened us."

The Delightful Children smiled. "Threatened? No. This year is going to be different."

"How so?" asked Numbuh 1. "We're just going to make sure you don't eat the cake like every year."

"Because, Nigel," the Delightful Children responded. "This year, we ARE going to share. With our new best friends."

Numbuh 2 laughed out loud. "Friends?! You have no friends! Only evil adults like Father."

The Delightful Children's smiles became wicked. "Funny you should mention that, Hoagie. Father made us realize something."

"Realize what?" asked Numbuh 5.

"That all this time, we've been playing it all wrong, Abigail. All this time we've been fighting when all this time we should have been friends. After all, the best way to defeat your enemy is to make them your friends. And that's just what we intend to do to you."

"Does that mean we won't get cake?" asked Numbuh 3.

"Oh, yes, Kuki. You will. After you are Delightfulized first."

"DELIGHTFULIZED?!" shrieked Numbuhs 5, 4, 2 and 1.

"No! No, no, no, no, no!" shouted Numbuh 4 as he and his team struggled to break lose. "There is no way in heck you're making us wear those dorky outfits!"

"Like we said," the Delightful Children said, the African boy in the American football helmet holding up a remote. "The best way to defeat your enemy..." He pushed the button. "...IS TO MAKETHEM YOUR FRIENDS!"

Suddenly, the whole room began to glow a blue light. It was then to the Kids Next Door's horror that the whole room was a giant Delightfulization chamber!

"Numbuh 2!" shouted Numbuh 5. "Please, tell me you got those hamsters on the line!"

"They're coming right now!"

"Too late."

Indeed, the Kids Next Door were enveloped in a blue glow. Being Delightfulized already, the Delightful Children were of course immune to the chamber's effects. When the glow disappeared, the Kids Next Door stood up. Their clothes had taken on a drastic change. The boys wore blue school uniforms and the girls wore white dresses. They had other articles of clothing on them, of course. Nigel still retained his sunglasses, but they now had transient lenses. Hoagie's aviator goggles and hat were replaced with thick glasses. Kuki had a Rainbow Monkey pin in her hair. Wallaby had a picture of a kangaroo on his necktie. Abigail's pigtails that replaced the ponytail had red bow ties instead of the red scrunchie. But the most stunning part of the transformation was their eyes. They had become blue and dull of life.

"So, Delightful Children From Next Door," the Delightful Children From Down The Lane said. "How does it feel to be on the winning team?" They reached out their hands.

The Delightful Children From Next Door smiled wickedly and shook hands. "Never better. In fact, it's what you might call...delightful."

The Delightful Children From Down The Lane laughed wickedly. Then their new best friends joined in. At this point, they sounded so much alike, one couldn't tell who was laughing.

Once the laughter died down, the Delightful Children From Down The Lane reached into their pockets and pulled out slips of papers. "Your invitations to our birthday party tomorrow."

The Delightful Children From Next Door took them. "Thank you."

(!)

The Delightful Children From Down The Lane approached Father, who was sitting in an eams chair, smoking his pipe. "So," he said. "How did it go?"

The Delightful Children smiled. "Delightful."

Father started to laugh. Softly at first, then it grew louder and more maniacal. Fire burst from his hands as he laughed in triumph. "Finally, after all these years, the Kids Next Door ARE FINISHED!"

"And in the process, we've gained five new best friends," the Delightful Children said, laughing along with him.

(!)

"Happy birthday," sang a group of children sadly and monotonously. "It's your birthday. Happy birthday. Not our birthday. Happy birthday. Birthday, hooray."

"Splendid," the Delightful Children From Down The Lane said to the children bound and sitting at their table, empty plates in front of them. "Now, you will participate in the tradition of watching us eat our birthday cake while you get nothing but empty plates. However, things are going to be different from here on out. We are going to share." The kids looked at them with hungry eyes. "We're going to share with our new best friends. You can come on out."

The Delightful Children From Next Door approached the DCFDTL upon cue. The other kids were horrified.

"Frolicking Rainbow Monkeys," a girl shouted. "They're multiplying!"

"That's right," the DCFDTL said. "We're going to share with someone we consider our equals." Then one of them took a pie slice and cut the cake into ten pieces.

The Delightful Children raised their plates. "To a new lease on life. And to a new friendship."

The Delightful Children raised their plates. "Here, here!"

(!)

Once the cheers was finished, both sets of Delightful Children sat down at the table and began to eat their slices, careful to make sure they were in full range of the other kids' sight.

"It feels different actually eating the cake without having to go through the trouble of fighting over it," the DCFND said.

"Things are a lot different when you're on the winning side," the DCFDTL said. "If we had known it would be this easy and enjoyable, we would have Delightfulized you years ago."

"We're glad you did now."

"Better late than never."

The resumed eating their cake slices. "You know," the DCFND said. "aside from Lenny," they gestured to the black boy in the football helmet.
"and David," They gestured to the tall boy with his bangs hiding his eyes. "We never got to know the rest of your names, what with us foolishly fighting on the wrong side."

"Then let us properly introduce the rest of ourselves." The short blonde boy introduced himself as Bruce. The short, black tubby girl with pigtails introduced herself as Olga. And the girl with long blonde hair introduced herself as Ashley.

"So," the DCFDTL said. "How was your first day being perfect, delightful children?"

"Very promising," the DCFND said. "We've made major modifications to our tree house. Or should we say fortress." Nigel handed Ashley a picture of the reinvented tree house of Sector V. Only, it looked less like a tree house and more like Fort Knox. New weapons and vehicles were added and upgraded thanks to Hoagie and the defenses no doubt had been increased. The hamsters that power the fortress had also been Delightfulized, becoming more like zombie slaves rather than pets.

"Very promising indeed," the DCFDTL agreed. "And how are your families liking the new you?"

"Our parents barely noticed the difference. Cree says she's proud we've joined the winning team," the DCFND said. "Though she says she wishes we weren't so dull. Tommy...well, he tried to fight. We had him Delightfulized personally."

"Oh, my! I didn't know you could be so cruel." There was only humor in the DCFDTL's voices.

"Cruel to be kind, as the adults say. And then there's Mushi. Oh, stupid, stupid Mushi. We didn't even give her a chance to apologize for stabbing that Rainbow Monkey in the back. She and Sandy were Delightfulized on the spot. Then she said sorry like a good little delightful girl. She and Sandy are better people now."

"And what about little Joey?"

"Delightfulized. Now he's a good boy, just like his role model."

The DCFDTL hummed. Then took another bite of cake.