The first problem that came after the incident was making up an excuse for the Archer parents to believe concerning Ty's missing finger.

Obviously something along the lines of, "Oh don't worry! Some villain just decided to melt my finger down to the bone!" wouldn't work, so Ty had to ransack his brain for any possible excuse that could keep his job out of the spotlight. Eventually, he decided on something that would definitely get him into trouble, but would keep the possibility of being a grossologist far away.

Now all he had to do was tell his parents. Great.

"YOU DID WHAT?!"

Petunia Archer's furious voice echoed through the house walls as Ty stood frozen in place.

"I-uh. I...stuck my finger in an electric pencil sharpener..."

"WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU STICK YOUR FINGER IN A PENCIL SHARPENER!?"

"Who stuck their finger in a pencil sharpener?" Harvey's face popped around the wall as he looked at his wife and son with confusion.

"Your SON did!" Petunia gently grabbed Ty's bandaged hand and studied it intently. Ty himself hadn't even taken a long look at exactly how much damage was done, and squinted as his mother slowly unraveled the bandage.

"Ty stuck his finger in a pencil sharpener?" Harvey approached his son, who gritted his teeth in pain as the bandage was pulled off.

"Tyler Reed Archer..." Petunia started, then gestured towards her husband "Call up Dr. Ligament and say it's an emergency, will you?"

Harvey didn't question it and made a beeline for the phone. Ty slowly opened his eyes and peeked at his fingers, gagging when he swore he saw a bone.

"Well? Why did you do it in the first place, Ty?" His mother looked him in the eyes and his brain raced. Crap. Ty forgot to give a reason behind everything. He'd have to think- and fast.

"Uh- I-"

"Ty was playing truth or dare with a group of older kids I'd never seen before," Abby spoke up, standing in the doorway with her arms crossed and Ty thanked his lucky stars for his sister's excuses.

"Abby? Were you there?" Petunia glanced at her daughter, who only shook her head.

"I arrived right after hearing Ty cry out in pain. He was in one of the unused classrooms at school, with students who looked like they didn't go to Ringworm High." Abby began, "Ty said he was challenged during 7th period, and I met him on my way to the bathroom. Apparently, those teenagers had forced his hand into the sharpener after he refused their dare."

Ty nodded along as Abby finished her story, mentally applauding her for the best excuse he'd heard in a long time. Petunia raised an eyebrow at her daughter, and looked back towards Ty.

"So you were forced by some other kids?"

"Uh-huh"

As if the anger had been washed right out of her, Petunia enveloped her son in a hug and spoke on the verge of tears.

"Oh Sweetheart, I shouldn't have accused you at first glance! I feel just awful knowing this wasn't your fault!"

At that moment, Harvey put the phone down and waved towards his wife. Petunia ran to her husband, and continued her conversation with Ty.

"Dr. Ligament is free to take a look at your finger! We'll discuss the matter in better detail when we get back."

"Can I stay here? I'm worked on a personal study of mine regarding parasites, and I need all the time I can get," Abby said. Well, part of it wasn't a lie.

"Alright Abby," Petunia waved towards her daughter and walked towards the door, "The three of us will be back as quickly as possible!"

"Call me when you're on the way home!" Abby hollered back and sprinted towards her room. Perfect, now all she had to do was get to school and hope Lab Rat was at the lab and ready to track down a villain.

Sneaking into places would be hard for the average person, but certainly not Abby.

As the redhead slipped out of the front door and into the darkness, she turned on her backup night-vision goggles and called Lab Rat on her grossmeter, smiling when he picked up.

"Abby- You are supposed to be on break" The boy squinted at Abby, and she only gave a "Whoops" in response.

"Do you even know how LONG it took me to bribe the Director?! AN HOUR!-"

"Yes, I know. And I couldn't be more grateful if I tried, but Ty and my parents are at the doctors and I don't want to be alone in case Kid Rot strikes again." Abby confessed, and gave Lab Rat her best 'I REALLY want to get into the gag lab so please open the secret entrance' face, and he sighed in response.

"Ok, but only because of the Kid Rot incident. Not to mention I have some important news for you when you get here."

With those words, Lab Rat's face flickered off the grossmeter's screen and Abby raised an eyebrow. Important news? Just what exactly did the world have in store for her this time?

Brushing off the possible answers, Abby sprinted out onto the sidewalk and slowly surveyed her surroundings before pressing two buttons on the heels of her shoes. Since there were often gross-related missions which occurred at night when neither Ty nor Abby had access to their gear, the speed-shoes were designed to get an agent to the gag lab as fast as possible without overloading them with gear.

As the shoes increased Abby's normal running speed, she dashed off into the night and headed for Ringworm High.

The form of Abby's school came into view and she turned off her speed-shoes before coming to a stop outside of the building.

Eyeing the decorative bushes and plants surrounding the building, Abby walked over towards a certain brown bush and got down on her hands and knees, feeling around for the trapdoor which served as a secondary entrance to the gag lab. Lab Rat had already opened up the door, and Abby braced herself and she jumped down into the darkness leading towards the lab.

Landing in a perfect flip onto her feet, Abby dusted off her leggings and looked above as the trapdoor's lockdown mechanism activated, meaning nobody had any means of entering. At the old gag lab at Ringworm Jr High, there wasn't any secondary entrances, and Abby remembered the absolute pain that was crawling through the vent system to reach the lab when she couldn't use the lockers to enter instead.

Walking over to the entrance door, Abby pressed a small, blue, button as Lab Rat's voice came out of a gray speaker.

"Password?"

"It's Abby," Abby crossed her arms and eyed the speaker. "Just let me in already"

"How do I know you aren't a genetic clone designed to perfectly mimic Abby Archer?"

Abby held back a giggle and rolled her eyes.

"The password is Little Buddy."

"Ding ding!" Lab Rat's voice piped up and the secondary entrance door opened up as Abby headed towards the front of the lab. Weaving her way through the extra storage room, Abby made it into the gag lab's main room and waved at Lab Rat, who nodded in response

As the two teenagers settled into their positions, Abby could almost recall just how ordinary the day had started out. What began as an argument between her and Ty had escalated into a full-blown kidnapping concerning Kid Rot. Abby still felt awful about the whole thing, especially with how she had waited to fight back against Kid instead of taking him out when she was with Ty.

"So what are you doing at the lab this late?" Lab Rat asked Abby, snapping her out of her thoughts and causing her to remember his previous words.

"Actually, you said there was some important news to share, so why don't you go first?" Abby replied, and Lab Rat held up two fingers.

"Well, I have actually two things to tell you. Some good news and not-so good news, but I'm guessing you wanna hear the good stuff first"

"Good and bad news.." Abby quietly spoke, before deciding to agree with Lab Rats offer. While she normally liked to hear just how bad the situation was, Abby felt the need for something positive for once.

"Yeah, give me the word."

Lab Rat nodded and put down a finger before reaching for a familiar file on his desk.

"We think we might know where Kid Rot will strike next-" "WAIT REALLY!"

Interrupted by Abby's excited voice, Lab Rat raised his free hand in a mock surrender.

"Woah there! I'm not a hundred percent sure if this is where Kid will turn up, but all signs seem to point towards that he might show up at one of two places. Either your house OR Ringworm High."

"Wait- MY house!?", Abby yelled with anger. The last place she wanted to find Kid Rot was anywhere near her family. If he rotted off Ty's finger, who knew what he'd do to the rest of her family.

"I know what you're thinking, 'How is this good news?'" Lab Rat spoke up and flipped through Kid's files. "Well, if Kid Rot DOES show up at your place, we'll be able to set everything up and stop him in his tracks!"

"But what all would we have to set up?" Abby asked, realizing that she'd have to keep her parents away from the house long enough to set up traps AND snag Kid Rot. Also, wasn't there a chance he'd show up at Ringworm High instead? Would the agency just have to monitor two places at once?

"We haven't worked everything out yet," Lab Rat placed Kid's file down and rolled her chair over to where Abby was standing. "But we know Kid Rot thrives best when he's away from other people, meaning he would probably strike when you're alone"

Abby understood everything Lab Rat was saying, but something still seemed strange.

"So why would Kid attack my school if there's plenty of other people there?"

Lab Rat froze as if he was contemplating what to say, before clearing his throat.

"That's where the bad news comes in.." He drew off and rolled back towards his computer, clicking a few buttons and projecting an image on the gag lab's big screen.

"You and Kid Rot are pretty famous.."

Abby stared at the picture, which featured a copy of the 'Ringworm Times' newspaper. It seemed ordinary enough, until she read the headline.

'GROSSOLOGIST AND MYSETRIOUS DELINQUENT FIGHT IN LOCAL HIGHSCHOOL'

Under the headline was a blurry picture of Abby spraying the perfume right into Kid's eyes. Unsure of how the photo would relate to Kid Rot making a second appearance at Ringworm High, Abby was now focused on the fact the entire school now knew about the villain.

That was the second problem which came after the incident.

The description on the newspaper didn't get every detail about the fight correct, but it sure captured Kid Rot in a nearly identical light to his true personality. Alongside the description of Kid, Abby was listed as a "Ginger girl who fought with vigor and triumph" and a "Grossologist who definitely deserved a raise".

"Where did you get this?" Abby asked Lab Rat, who reached into his desk and pulled out a copy of the newspaper.

"The Director. He was demanding that the publishing company feature him in the paper as well, but they refused unless he provided more information about the agency." Lab Rat replied and tossed Abby the newspaper.

"So did he spill the beans?"

"He surprisingly didn't."

For once in her life, Abby had decent respect for the Director, but it still didn't make sense to her as to why Kid could attack the school again. Lab Rat seemed to sense Abby's questions, and responded.

"Remember all those years ago when Kid Rot destroyed our computer data, which might I add to months to replace?" Lab Rat said, "He's pretty stern when it comes to keeping his true identity a secret. If a school full of people knew that Kid Rot was once their former classmate, I think he'd have a reason to eliminate the students."

At first, Abby was going to interject, but then she realized Lab Rat had made some valid points. When the grossologists had first met Kid Rot, he was eager to kill them and get rid of any evidence pointing to the truth behind everything. The problem was that Abby believed there couldn't be more than five students at Ringworm High that figured out the whole situation between Chester and Kid Rot.

"But there aren't enough students that probably know about Chester and Kid Rot-" Abby spoke up, looking at the big screen once again. Lab Rat nodded to Abby's statement, and held up a finger.

"Consider this. You said there was no way more than five students could know about the whole situation, so what if one of those students told everyone they knew about Kid Rot being a former student? A few years ago, you even said that a couple of kids at Ringworm Jr High saw Chester Nightshade use his powers. There's gotta be enough students at Ringworm High to lure Kid Rot out of wherever he's hiding, and if not, Ringworm still has the one thing Kid can't resist."

"Which is?"

"Abby Archer"

Oh. Well that made enough sense. Wherever Abby was, Kid was sure to follow close behind. After all, Abby figured she was probably his main goal.

"Alright, so we agree Kid could appear at my house or school," Abby piped up, "So how exactly will the agency be able to keep watch over both places at once?"

"Like I said earlier, we're still working some things out, but the school has cameras and security systems I can hack and see through." Lab Rat explained, "And if you and Ty are at one place, we won't have to tighten security as much there. One of the senior agents also volunteered to work as a substitute teacher to keep an eye on things at your school"

"As for your house, you said you have security cameras, right?"

Abby nodded, remembering how she once trapped the house to prevent villains from trying to break in to hurt her or her brother while they slept.

"Great!" Lab Rat smirked, "I'll just amplify the protection on your tech, then we can rot proof everything Kid Rot would try and destroy. I'm not even sure that Kid Rot knows where you live, and he'll probably just try and target wherever you and Ty are."

Abby grinned upon hearing the plans, right as her cellphone rang, so she fished through her backpack and answered it.

"Hello?"

"Abby?" Her father's voice answered, "We're on our way home from the doctor's. Ty's missing half his finger, but Dr. Ligament was able to fix it up the best she could! Your mother and Ty are exhausted, so I'm calling for her instead. See you soon!"

"Bye dad! Love you!" Abby answered and the call ended.

"That's my cue, see you tomorrow." Abby shouted at Lab Rat and rushed back towards the lab's second entrance.

Lab Rat gave a wave before pressing a button to open up the trapdoor ladder. Once Abby was out of sight, he sighed and petted Hermes, who was sleeping soundly by his computer.

"Well, it looks like we're in for a wild ride..."

A/N: First off, I want to give out a huge apology for making everyone wait over two weeks for a new chapter! I had writers block concerning this chapter, but it's finally out and it's the longest chapter so far!

I promise no matter how bad my burnout gets, I WILL finish this story! I don't really have anything else to say here, so thank you all for reading! (And I am SO SORRY I didn't get this out sooner!)