"Abby!"
Ty regained his footing from the collision and stared at his sister, who looked relieved and smiled.
"Sorry, thought you were somebody else for a second"
"Was that somebody Kid Rot?" Ty raised an eyebrow and dusted himself off. It didn't take a genius to figure out exactly who Abby was chasing after.
The girl in question only gritted her teeth and hissed. That was a yes. Ty wondered exactly how much of a chase had gone on between the two, but his thoughts were interrupted by a sudden monologue from Abby.
"He was testing me! Offering me a rose, ASKING me to join him. He's pulling the same tricks he pulled three years ago! Can't he take a hint! I'M NOT INTERESTED!"
"Y'know Abby", Ty grinned as Abby finished her dramatic speech "You sound less like a grossologist trying to track down a criminal and more like a teenage girl trying to avoid a guy with a crush on you!"
Abby punched her brother lightly on the arm and frowned. This wasn't the first time Ty compared Kid's attempts to make her join his side as romantic gestures. Yeah, the parasite's advances COULD be seen as romantic, but Abby knew it was all an act to make her like him more than Chester.
"Soo.." Ty trailed off "You said you saw Kid Rot, but there's no sign of him anywhere."
"He disappeared after I threw the rose in the sewer water." Abby replied, crossing her arms. "You remember how he can teleport using puddles of rot right?"
Ty nodded and looked around the current tunnel they were in. The sewage systems of Ringworm were navigable if you knew exactly where you were going and what you were looking for. But when your target had the upper hand it made things quite difficult.
"Kid and I encountered one another farther down that tunnel." Abby pointed behind her, a path which split into two tunnels, the later holding a dead end from which Kid had appeared.
"Huh" Ty replied, "Let's investigate the area where you first saw him! Maybe we can find something there."
Abby wasn't sure Kid would visit his former location, but she nodded anyways and dashed off down the tunnel.
The siblings eventually reached the wall where Abby had first seen Kid Rot. A small puddle of excess rot still lingered on the ground.
"I was expecting a bit more...dramatic" Ty looked confused as he eyed the puddle. Abby giggled as Ty opened up his grossmeter, only to frown as the lack of a signal messed with the device.
"So is this why you didn't call Lab Rat earlier?" Ty asked, closing the device.
"Yeah" Abby spoke, "It seems certain parts of the sewage system are too far down to receive a signal, making communication with a grossmeter impossible."
Scratching his neck, Ty thought for a moment. Maybe, Just maybe, Kid Rot already knew exactly what Abby had just said. So he had led her to a part of the sewers where she couldn't call for help. Trapped in a dead end with no means of communication was eaisly a recipe for disaster.
Ty didn't say anything about it however, since Abby was already on-edge concerning the whole Kid Rot fiasco. If they were hunting down anybody else, it would have made things a lot easier.
Abby paced around the puddle, crouching down to examine it. There didn't appear to be any changes between this rot and the rot from the second incident at Rottingham Forest. While Kid was still growing more powerful, he seemed to have slowed down since his power surge from his first encounter at summer camp.
"There's a ton more of tunnels left to search for Kid Rot" Ty suddenly remarked "Why don't we call it a day and get back to the lab? He's probably in different part of Ringworm already."
Abby was about to object, eager to keep searching for the villain, but her brother had a point. It wasn't like Kid to stick around in one place for long, and it was starting to get late. She sighed and gave a thumbs up.
Paul Squirfenherder, also known as Lab Rat, was having a terrible day.
Firstly, he had fallen asleep the night before on his work desk, giving him an awful back cramp. Secondly, Abby had appeared at the crack of dawn in the gag lab, grabbing her gear to do a little "Hunting" for Kid Rot before school hours. And finally, Kid Rot just so happened to have made a physical appearance right in the sewers when it was supposed to be Lab Rat's break. Even Hermes recognized Lab Rat's pain, as the rat had mostly tried to comfort the agent all day with cheek rubs.
Groaning, Lab Rat leaned back in his chair, finally having a moment of peace and quiet. Then his grossmeter rang.
"WHY?!" the teenager questioned unusually loud for himself. Hermes almost seemed to facepalm. Lab Rat wheeled his chair over to the device and answered the call, projecting the visuals to the gag lab's computer.
"Heya Lab Rat!" Ty's face appeared on the computer. Well, at least someone was having a decent day.
"Uh huh?" Lab Rat eyed Ty and reached a hand to pet Hermes, who was now sitting in his usual place on his master's shoulder.
"Well, turns out we couldn't find Kid Rot." Ty said "But he did leave behind some evidence"
With those words, Ty held up a small rot sample in a container he had gathered from the puddle. Lab Rat looked at the container and wheeled his chair back over to the computer.
"I'll analyze the rot when you two get back to the lab." He replied, "Are you guys done in the sewers?"
Abby's face came into view on the large screen as she huffed.
"Apparently Mr. Big Shot wanted to make his grand appearance and then desert the sewers forever!" She paused before continuing, "And yes we just left the tunnels."
Finally! Someone Lab Rat could feel also had a terrible day. The boy smirked, crossed his arms, and whistled.
"Bad day huh?"
"Tell me about it!"
A smooth breeze entered the Gag Lab as Abby swiftly walked through the doors, Ty following right behind her.
"We're back!" Ty announced his arrival and Abby walked over to a chair and sat in it, a faraway look in her eyes.
Lab Rat waved from over and his desk and Ty handed over his goopshooter, to which Lab Rat pulled out the sample container from and started to work.
"Alright baby, let's see what we have here" He started while carefully removing the rot from the container and placing it on the microscope tray. An image of the bacteria present in the sample appeared on the big screen as Lab Rat pulled up pictures of bacteria from the previous samples of rot.
"There aren't any changes from this batch and the last, meaning the rot hasn't vastly improved in power since the incident a month ago" Lab Rat spoke and looked closer at the image.
"So it's nothing to worry about?" Ty asked. Abby looked up from where she was sitting and stared at the images.
"Sort of" the shut-in replied, "But that only means Kid Rot hasn't gotten anymore dangerous since the incident. He's still on a completely different power level from three years ago at Rottingham."
"And we haven't fought him since Rottingham.." Abby finally spoke and stood up from her seat. She approached Lab Rat's computer and looked over his shoulder.
"Do you still have his files?", the redhead asked.
"On the computer or in the Gross Fault?"
"Either, but preferably the physical copy."
"Yeah hold on.." Lab Rat stood up before walking to the Gross Vault and entering the passcode. As the metal doors opened, he went inside and approached a metal cabinet located in the very back of the vault.
"Alright, now did the Director label him by his actual name? Or Kid Rot?" Lab Rat questioned as he opened up the 'K' drawer.
"'K'" Abby said without hesitation. She remembered on the day Kid Rot's file was added to the cabinet how she specifically requested it NOT to be filed under Chester's name. Abby would never let her friend, regardless of whether he truly was gone or not, be labeled as the villain.
Lab Rat shuffled through the folders before landing on 'KID'. Pulling out the files, he closed the drawer and locked the vault back up.
"Here you go, the original files at your service" Lab Rat handed over the folder to Abby, which she held carefully as if it contained the most important information in the universe.
After a few seconds of staring at the cover, Abby slowly opened the folder and was greeted with a familiar image of Chester. When the agency needed a reference photo, they needed to use a clear one where Kid Rot looked straight at the camera. Usually a villain's photo from Splatticus would be used on the cover, but since Kid Rot had never been to Splatticus, a photo where Chester maintained eye contact with the camera had to be used instead.
Abby knew the tragic origins of the photo. It had been a seventh grade yearbook photo from Chester's former school before he transferred to Ringworm. He wasn't smiling, and he looked miserable. A part of Abby wished she had gone to the same school as Chester, maybe then she could have convinced him not to try his experiment for fame.
Moving on through the files, Abby read over the information from the last known record of Kid Rot. Most of the information was from the Rottingham and Ringworm Junior High incidents, but a few additional notes were added pretty recently. Abby finally closed the folder and placed it on Lab Rat's desk.
Meanwhile, Ty had taken off his slimesuit and getting ready to leave. He turned towards his sister and Lab Rat before speaking.
"Abby? I'm going to head on home. Are you coming?"
Abby gave one final glance at Kid Rot's folder sitting on the desk and turned towards Ty.
"Yeah, I am."
A/N: Chapter two is here! Ty has a much bigger role and Lab Rat appears around halfway in the chapter! I hope Lab Rat doesn't seem OOC, this was my first time writing him. So far, not a ton of action has happened, but we get a bit more of an insight into Ty's thoughts, as well as Abby's opinion of Kid Rot.. I also decided to add a small bit of worldbuilding in the file cabinet of the gross vault (I was originally going to call it the "gross files" but scrapped the idea). Every villain has both a physical and digital copy of their files.
Chapter three will be starting at Ringworm High (where I have Abby and Ty go to instead of its junior high equivalent). Some familiar faces will appear, including my favorite character! (You'll have to guess who it is until the next chapter). That's all for now. Thank you for reading!