Author's Note: Sorry for the wait. It's not nearly what I wanted to do with it, especially towards the end, but I was tired of it taking so long, so I just wrapped it up!

Disclaimer: I don't own Codename: Kids Next Door, the title phrase "Rebel without a Cause" (that's some movie I've never watched, starring James Dean...), or any of the related characters. I do own Shannon, Jessica, Linda, Roy, and the new Sector V kids. (I forgot to mention that last time.)

Chapter 2: Rebel without a Cause

Whoever invented long division should be locked up in the Kids Next Door Arctic Prison, Tobey Jackson—or Numbuh Seventeen as he preferred to be called—thought sourly to himself as he tried to pore over his math homework. Too bad that person was most likely already dead and you couldn't lock up teachers for assigning homework. Then there would be no more teachers. Oh, if only that could be the case, but Numbuh Seventeen never had that kind of luck. He always seemed to have the bad kind of luck. For example, on the day he received the worst math assignment ever and really needed to concentrate, his sister decided to bring her friend over and blast whatever girly stupid music that was currently a big hit—at least to the teenagers. These girls weren't just any teenagers, either. They were seniors—seventeen, almost adults and thinking they were so cool—and cheerleaders, thinking they were so cool for that, too. In fact, his sister, Jessica, was captain of the cheer squad at McClintock High.

"Could you turn that down?! I'm trying to do homework here!" Numbuh Seventeen snapped at them after knocking on her door and opening it without invitation.

Jessica looked up from where she lay sprawled on her stomach on the bed, her feet on the pillow. Was that a textbook in front of her? How could she read in all this noise? The girl was insane!

She fixed her blue eyes, heavy with mascara, on her little brother and said bluntly, "You expect me to care?"

Linda glanced at them from her seat on one of Jessica's bean bag chairs, also with an open book. They were both insane! Numbuh Seventeen covered his ears, realizing the music was drumming into his head, probably destroying brain cells along with his ability to hear.

"Can't you at least use headphones?!" he yelled over the noise.

Jessica grabbed her remote and pointed it at her boom box, actually turning the music up higher. Apparently that was still possible. "I'm sorry, you're gonna have to speak up. I can't hear you!" she yelled back, a smirk tugging at her lips.

Numbuh Seventeen only emitted an angry sound in response to that and stomped out of the room. He could swear he heard laughter behind him, mixed in with that stupid girl music. Stupid teenagers, he thought as he grabbed his homework and shoved it into his backpack. For crying out loud, he was the little brother; he should be annoying them.

"I'm going to the Treehouse!" he loudly announced to his brother, Roy, as he passed by the kitchen, since the music could be heard well even once he'd retreated from Jessica's room. Roy was sitting on the counter, eating a sandwich. He gave Numbuh Seventeen a thumbs-up.

Roy was a teenager, too—fifteen—but he wasn't as annoying as Jessica. He was just a wimp, letting Jess push him around too much. Numbuh Seventeen slung his backpack over his shoulder and headed out to the garage for his bike. At least if anyone was at the Treehouse, they would have to follow his orders and let him concentrate. Ah, the benefits that came with being team leader. They made up for all of his bad luck.

Once he was out the door, Jessica peeked in the kitchen. "He gone?" she mouthed at Roy. He gave her a thumbs-up. "Alright, Linda, kill the music!" she called back to the room. The boom box was shut off hardly a second later.

Jessica grinned and tapped her wrist communicator before speaking into it. "Alright. We got rid of him."

Since the Treehouse headquarters now belonged to a new group of Sector V Kids, the Teens Next Door needed to meet somewhere else. There were actually a few different places. One of the most frequent was the basement of Nigel Uno's old house. His parents still lived there and allowed them to use it. Another was the basement of Lime Ricky's, the soda bar for kids. Hoagie remained on good terms with its child patrons and occasionally provided their root beer.

The one place they could not, under any circumstances, use for headquarters was Abby's house. Her now twenty-year-old sister, Cree, lived there, taking online college courses, and they all knew she was the current leader of the Teen Ninjas, a group of the especially dangerous teenagers, now that Father was gone. The really bad thing was that Cree suspected the team had never been decommissioned. She herself had escaped decommissioning, so perhaps it was intuition. Because you could never be too careful, the team just never held meetings at that location. Therefore, Abby didn't have to imagine the surprise on her sister's face when she and her friends walked through the door after school.

"A-Abby? What are you guys doing here?"

"Class elections are in a coupla weeks and these three are running, so we're gonna work on posters and stuff," Abby said with a smirk at Cree's reaction to all of them. She seemed almost distraught. "Relax, sis, we'll just be in the basement. You weren't planning anything, were you?" She added the last bit just to see how much Cree would squirm, sneaking a sort of wink to Maurice, who was sitting next to her sister on the living room couch. As dumb as Cree accused the Kids Next Door of being, she still hadn't figured out her boyfriend was a spy.

With Cree's eyes busy counting how many high school freshmen were in her house, Maurice winked back at Abby, and she tried her hardest not to let her face flush. Why did he have to look so dang attractive every time he did that? If it was any other guy, this wouldn't be such a problem.

Speaking of awkwardness, Cree's eyes now studied Hoagie, scanning him up and down. This went unnoticed by everyone else until she said aloud, "Gilligan? Wow, you're actually getting kinda cute."

He crossed his arms, glaring at her. "You said something like that before, don't act so surprised now," he responded, undoubtedly sounding annoyed, but there was no hiding that blush on his face.

He was making a reference to the time he accidentally turned himself into a teenager, during which Cree went on a date with him and rubbed it in Abby's face, claiming he was cuter than anyone she would ever date. In fact, Cree had even kissed him. Not that she wanted to flaunt that to anyone once she realized who he really was.

The awkwardness rapidly grew to a thickness that couldn't even be cut with a butter knife, so Abby cleared her throat. "Okay, we'll see you later, sis. Come on, guys." With that, she led the group to her basement.

After lunch, a surprising amount had been accomplished. It turned out Kuki and Wally had a study hall together, so they got permission to work on their literature assignment in the hallway. Wally read through the story, "The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell, a second time while Kuki read it her first time. He didn't complain about this, and not just because he got to work with Kuki—he actually was very excited about this story. By the end of study hall, they were almost done with their homework.

The group met up very quickly right after school to figure out what to do next. Kuki had a poster idea: taking pictures of Rachel, Patton, and Fanny together. As expected, none of the slogans pitched by Hoagie were acceptable, but he owned nice camera equipment and offered his services. Fanny protested ferociously that she was not presentable for a photo shoot, pointing at her baggy clothes that a lot of people always made fun of. Kuki excitedly offered to do her hair and wardrobe. After some amount of calming exercises, Fanny accepted, and the group took off to the various locations they needed in order to collect the proper materials, agreeing to meet at Abby's house for further planning. It wasn't TND business, so Abby saw no harm in it.

They wasted no time getting situated once they reached the basement. (As teenagers, they seemed to really enjoy basements.) Hoagie immediately began setting up the camera while Kuki searched for an outlet to plug in her curling iron. With the campaign partners, it was straight to business.

"Okay, I did some research and found out the freshman and sophomore class councils always put together Sadie Hawkins in the spring. So I was thinking we should survey the people on what they'd prefer. Show that we care about what they want—this includes you, Fanny. Talking to people is a huge part of campaigning," Patton was saying.

"I don't like this," Fanny commented, but it was unclear what she directed that towards, since Kuki now had the iron plugged in and was pushing her into a chair.

"Hey, Abby, I didn't know you had a pool table down here," Hoagie said brightly from where he and Wally now stood, right next to it. The camera was ready, but it was obviously going to take the subjects several minutes.

"It's Cree's, and she doesn't want us messing with it." Abby chuckled at his enthusiasm over the discovery, knowing the two boys were going to be so bored with all this political talk. "Save Abby a game. She's gonna go snag y'all some sodas." Adding to that last thought, she gave Hoagie a wink and headed back upstairs.

Once she reached the kitchen, she walked straight to the fridge, opened it, and proceeded to study the options. There were seven guests who most likely didn't all prefer the same flavor. Her fridge contained several cans of root beer, diet cola, and lemon-lime soda. None of that diet nonsense would do, Abby determined with a grimace. She'd grab a few of the other kinds.

Just then, Cree walked in, talking into her watch. "I don't care how you do it. Use your imagination or something, just get rid of him!" At this point, she noticed Abby's presence and hastily hit a button on the watch. "What are you doing in here?" she demanded.

Abby looked at her with raised eyebrows. "I have guests. It ain't polite not to offer drinks. What are you up to?"

"None of your business, Crabigail," Cree snapped at her.

Abby rolled her eyes. "Whatevah," she said, grabbing a diet cola and handing it to her sister.

"Why, thank you, Abby." Cree's demeanor rapidly switched to overly sweet and she started to walk out of the kitchen. "Oh—Maurice and I are taking off for a little while. Don't make a mess of the house."

"Sure." Abby rolled her eyes again, waiting until Cree was completely out of range before she whipped her cell phone out from her back pocket. She found Tommy in her list of contacts and started punching in a text message:

Hey go make sure everything's sweet at the TH

Tommy was Hoagie's little brother and self-proclaimed vigilante, calling himself "The Tommy." Believe it or not, his skills had improved over the years and he caught on to the TND. Abby and Hoagie convinced him to keep quiet about it by allowing him to be a sort of informant between the TND and the KND. He could even take full credit for TND actions. Surprisingly, Tommy handled this job well.

Abby sent the message and returned her phone to her pocket. The situation was probably under control, but she at least wanted someone checking in on it just in case. For now, it was time to bring these sodas downstairs and play some pool.

Math homework normally didn't register this intensely on Numbuh Seventeen's to-do list, but there hadn't been a mission in weeks and he was extremely bored. Just yesterday, he'd hunted down his informant, a plump eleven-year-old named Tommy Gilligan, and pleaded with him to at least say the Toilenator was up to something, but no such luck. Suspicious adult activity just wasn't happening lately. It was enough to make Numbuh Seventeen feel like a rebel without a cause. (He'd never seen that movie, but the phrase felt appropriate.)

Numbuh Seventeen stashed his bike in Monty Uno's backyard, where the Treehouse Headquarters were located. Mr. Uno's son, Numbuh One, left with the Galactic Kids Next Door almost four years ago, and the rest of his team was now decommissioned. Mr. Uno was kind enough to allow Numbuh Seventeen and his team to use the Treehouse.

"Nigel doesn't need it anymore, anyway," he had explained.

Monty Uno was pretty cool for an adult, Numbuh Seventeen admitted to himself as he climbed the stairs. Of course, it didn't hurt that he was a former KND operative, even if he couldn't remember.

Upon reaching the Treehouse, he was greeted by Numbuh Eighteen, their confectionary officer, who was actually the younger brother of Linda. He was generally a happy character and enjoyed sugary treats, as his title would suggest. He wore a button-down shirt in a shade of orange that probably didn't go well with his tan coloring, but Numbuh Seventeen didn't spend much time judging that. There was a reason he wasn't a member of the fashion police.

"Anything interesting going on?" he questioned once the initial greetings were over. He wondered why he bothered asking, though. Of course nothing was happening.

"No, not really," Numbuh Eighteen responded, with a hint of a Latino accent. "I'm making hot fudge sundaes. Want one?"

With all that long division, Numbuh Seventeen was certainly going to need one of those. "Sure. Just keep it down, I've got—"

The loud sound effects of mechanical work interrupted his request, causing both boys to jump. Numbuh Seventeen didn't have to ask who was responsible.

"NUMBUH NINETEEN!" he roared, marching straight into the main hangar. (Numbuh Eighteen chose not to join him, walking instead to the kitchen so he could start working on those sundaes.)

He had put up with this amount of noise from his teenage sister, but not from his operative—not here, not now.

The noise came from under the C.O.O.L.B.U.S., where the legs of a child clad in dirty overalls could be seen sticking out.

"Numbuh Nineteen, you stop this racket right now!" Numbuh Seventeen shouted. When the kid didn't respond right away, he pounded a fist on the contraption and shouted louder. "GET OUT HERE!"

"Sheesh, Tobey, who put a bee in your undies today?" a female voice startled him and he whipped around to see his blonde-haired, blue-eyed second-in-command perched atop Numbuh Nineteen's desk, right next to a stack of blueprints. Apart from her choice of words, one could tell she was far too classy a character to be expected in the greasy work area of a two-by-four technology officer, yet there she was, with her legs crossed, wearing a pink blouse, a purple skirt carefully matched with the headband keeping her curly hair out of her face, and white Mary-Janes. Around her neck was the silver locket her favorite aunt had given her for her seventh birthday—Numbuh Seventeen remembered her wearing that thing since they'd been Cadets together and secretly wondered if she ever took it off. The thing that surprised and troubled him the most, however, was that she had her homework with her—the exact same assignment as his, being in his class—and it looked as though she actually made some progress on it.

"Numbuh Twenty—how're you doing your homework in here? It's so loud!" Numbuh Seventeen demanded. Seriously, did all girls have this freakish ability?

"Puh-lease, Tobey, we're off duty. It's Amber. And no duh, it's loud in here. Filthy, too, but if you put up with it, Lilly's helping with this nasty long division," Numbuh Twenty answered, indicating with her pencil Numbuh Nineteen, who by this point ceased the racket and was now sliding out from under the C.O.O.L.B.U.S.

She was a short, freckled girl with red hair tied back into a ponytail. Her mint green T-shirt was about as dirty as her blue overalls. Once she was clear of the vehicle, she began to wipe the grease off her hands with an old rag she kept at the ready. She fixed her eyes on him through her safety goggles.

"Now why didn't you just say so, Seventeen, sir? I'll gladly help you with your homework! Which problem're you stuck on?" she asked in a cheery Texan drawl.

"But—but—" Numbuh Seventeen was almost distraught by now. "You're in third grade. We didn't do anything like this in third grade!" It was only a year ago he was in third grade, so he knew things couldn't have changed that drastically since then.

He heard Amber give an annoyed sigh. "She's in accelerated math, Tobias," she said in that "duh" tone of voice she used on him way more often than he liked, along with his full first name. (And "more often" in this case meant "at all.") Thankfully, she dropped the tone almost immediately. "Okay, have you run into Carlos yet? He's making sundaes and it really looks like you could use one."

"Yep. He's already on it," Numbuh Seventeen muttered, shoving his hands into the pockets of his royal blue hoodie. "So…where's N—Shawn?" he asked, referring to the final member of their team, Numbuh Twenty-One.

He caught himself in order to appease Numbuh Twenty's insistence on using their names when they weren't on missions, since she felt wrong calling people by numbers all the time. Numbuh Seventeen thought that was easy for her to say; in fact, it was easy for the whole team to say. At least they all had decent names—especially Shawn. Numbuh Seventeen constantly felt jealous of his best friend's name. Tobias sounded like an old man's name, and Tobey was something you named a dog, not a kid. When he graduated from the Cadets, he'd been all too excited at the prospect of going by a number—so much so that it got on his nerves if you called him by anything else.

"He took off to play ball with some of the guys," Amber replied. "Now don't change the subject. You're obviously annoyed about something. You should rant—besides what all you're doing in your head."

Of course he couldn't distract a diversionary tactics specialist. He shouldn't have even tried.

"Ugh. My sister," he said simply.

"Say no more, just the mention of her name is enough to give us all nightmares."

This line came from a familiar boy, which caused Numbuh Nineteen to perk up and say, "Shawn! You're back early—have fun?"

Numbuh Seventeen turned around to face Numbuh Twenty-One, whose taller form stood in the doorway of Numbuh Nineteen's hangar, along with Tommy Gilligan. Numbuh Twenty-One's strawberry blond hair was somewhat hidden under a red baseball cap—turned backwards for a more punk look. He was wearing his typical outfit of a red T-shirt and jeans while Tommy was in his blue and brown with his trademark "The Tommy" cape and fedora.

Just Tommy's presence was enough to spark anticipation into Numbuh Seventeen. It had to mean something was going on. That, and he now noticed a S.P.L.A.N.K.E.R. in Numbuh Twenty-One's right hand and the ice pack Tommy was holding just under his left eye. Things had to be all the more interesting.

"Yeah, Lilly. And it looks like I got back just in time to catch an intruder and stop you girls from making Seventeen talk about his feelings," Shawn said with a laugh. "Except it turned out the intruder was just Tommy," he added, the laugh now being slightly nervous. "Sorry, dude."

"Don't worry about it," Tommy responded, waving his free hand at him.

That explains the S.P.L.A.N.K.E.R. and the ice pack, but not why Tommy's here, Numbuh Seventeen thought before he voiced, "So, Tommy…what's up? Or, rather, who's up to something?"

"No one. Just thought I'd drop by. Hang out. Chill maybe," Tommy answered him with a shrug.

That answer frustrated Numbuh Seventeen and he knew it showed. There was no way this middle-schooler wanted to spend his afternoon with a bunch of nine-year-olds. If he was that desperate for company, he could always jet over to Sector W for Numbuhs Eighty-Three and Eighty-Four; he could even bug his teenage brother. Besides…

"Chill? You never 'drop by' without a reason! Come on, either someone's up to something or you think they might be—cough it up!"

"Well…you seemed a bit focused on the Toilenator last time we talked, so I checked up on him. All he's been doing is fetching coffee for that Mr. Boss guy."

"And what's Mr. Boss up to?"

"Drinking the coffee."

"Seriously?!"

"Sorry, Tobey. I got nothing."

"Don't call me that!"

"Hey, it's not like you comply with calling me The Tommy…"

At this point, Numbuh Nineteen, who had swiped Numbuh Seventeen's math book, interrupted by addressing Numbuh Twenty-One, "Shawn, what'd you think of problem number eleven? Both Amber and Seventeen seem to be having trouble with it."

"Math homework? I haven't looked at it yet," Shawn told her.

Numbuh Nineteen sighed as indication of rare annoyance from her and, as if on cue, Numbuh Eighteen appeared behind Shawn and Tommy.

"Sundaes are ready! Oh—you want one, too, The Tommy?"

"Ooh! Please and thank you!"

Amber grabbed one of Numbuh Seventeen's backpack straps and pulled him with her in the direction of the kitchen, following the other male operatives who had immediately taken off at the mention of sundaes.

"Come on, boss, let's get that long division tackled over ice cream."

Numbuh Nineteen brought up the rear, her nose stuck in the book. "Three sixty-two divided by forty-seven? Hm, that one's definitely gonna have a remainder…"

Again, sorry for the wait! I hope it's worth it- please review and let me know!

I love my kids and their names (even if Tobey hates his). It was so hard typing in their numbers instead...