The Sky King, AKA Hoagie P. Gilligan, was aloft again tonight.
After their fiasco with the Delightful Children earlier that day, Number 5 had made it perfectly clear that the whole team needed to be back on track.
"Moping time's over! Do whatever you want for the next two days, because on Monday we're going to have some serious practice!"
The rest of the gang nodded and went to go back to their spots on the couch when Number 5 blocked their path.
"Nuh, uh. No moping! Do anything you want except lay on the dang couch and cry." Abby felt a little harsh for saying that because her Sector looked like a walking patchwork of bandages and bruises, but it had to be done. The team couldn't afford to fall back into the funk.
So the Sky King flew once more. Number 2 was out for a nice relaxing high-velocity Friday night plane ride. He was in his favorite ride, the TUBADUB. It was the same model that he used to dogfight the Infamous Kid to a draw about a year back.
Numbuh 2 barrel rolled and did sharp climbs and descents, skimmed the nearby river and followed the steep rapids where he won his first tube race not that long ago.
He felt so alive tonight.
The air had a nice cool crisp to it, and the sky was clear and starry. The last time he flew was the trip back to the treehouse after watching the Galactic KND beam up Number 1. This was a much better flight.
Hoagie had been flying for about an hour and a half when he heard some explosions somewhere in the distance. He looked in the Tubadub's rear view mirror and saw that they were coming from The Point. A chill went up Hoagie's spine. The Point was a teen dance club and roller ring housed inside a cliff—and the location of one of Sector V's most disastrous missions ever.
Number 1 had gotten some VERY BAD intel that some very nefarious things were going on at The Point. They had staked out the place and plotted its destruction for weeks only to end up destroying an innocent recreation center.The Point ended up flooded with so much nacho cheese that the nearby river ran yellow for two weeks. It was a complete failure of Moonbase intelligence. To add insult to injury, the Teenagers ended up taking over Sector V's treehouse for a a whole week and even decided to tie the poor operatives to a disco ball on the ceiling!
Later on, Number 5 did a quick search for The Point online and found their official website. They would've only needed to do a simple web search and it was literally the third result on Ping-With-A-B. After that Number 1 made sure to follow up on every piece of intelligence they got from Moonbase and after he checked he would run it by Number 5.
After The Point was rebuilt, Sector V all decided not to go within a 50 mile radius of the place even though somebody kept sending them tickets.(Number 3 thought it was nice. The rest of them agreed it was a sick, sick joke.)
But as Number 2 heard the rapid-fire explosions, he decided against his better judgement to check it out. It had been suspiciously quiet recently, after all—well, at least for the Kids Next Door if reports from on Moon Base and the news on KNN were to be believed. It wasn't quite so quiet in the world of the teenagers. Hoagie turned the Tubadub around and headed towards The Point. The aircraft's three big engines and wooden wings carried a bathtub hull and single pilot into a nightmare.
The Point was a bloody battleground. Out from the cave came a wild stream of teenagers, all of them frantically pushing and shoving to get out. Why were they so desperate? Because the the newest threat fresh off the the news channels had just rolled their way into The Point's roller ring and boogied their way onto the dance floor with thunderous applause.
The police were called on scene in a matter of minutes, but these weren't your typical police officers. They were the newly established local braches of the newly established Juvenile Authority. The Juvie Cops(as the kids called them)had only been on the beat for a little over two weeks, but they were already starting to get a bad reputation. They were posted at every middle and high school and every chance they got they would push some hormonal teenager's buttons.
Some of the teenagers who came to The Point that night just happened to be Teen Ninjas and let's just say that emotionally volatile teenagers with Battle Ready Armor on who were understandably stressed out after seeing some of their friends get blown up did not make for very cooperative witnesses.
What started out as a clapper attack now spiraled into a full-pitched battle between the Juvie Cops, who were trying to control the situation and "sort everything out", and the Teen Ninjas, who were already sick of the abuse.
The battle was pretty one sided at first. When the Juvies picked the wrong teenager, the Teen Ninjas were quick to switch on their Bras (Battle Ready Armor, mechanical bras which were worn under the user's shirt and needed only a touch of the chest or the phrase "armor on" to release a sleek set of black scaled armor with red Devil horns. This armor was equipped with wrist-mounted laser cannons and most of the Teen Ninjas were equipped with this and skilled with hand-to-hand combat and yes, both male and female Teen Ninjas wore them.) Now the aforementioned Juvie cops were up the creek without a paddle.
The Juvies seemed to pick the wrong teen about thirty times because thirty Teen Ninjas were now flying around firing shot after shot. The Teen Ninjas were used to fighting Kids Next Door who would duck and dive and parry, but these new enemies were not so nimble or quick-witted. When there were almost no Juvie Cops left, one of the last stragglers called for backup and the Juvenile Authority sent helicopters loaded with Juvie Cops. The Teen Ninjas responded by mountings their own solo fighters that doubled as cars or motorbikes. Number 2 found himself in the middle of a full-fledged air battle as the dozens of Teen Ninjas left tried to blow the increasing amount of helicopters out of the sky. His first thought was to climb and fly over this battle. It was none of his concern.
The Teen Ninjas were a huge pain in the behind. So what if they got thrown in jail? Good riddance. And those Juvie Cops were no rainbow monkeys either, to teenagers or kids. No way was he flying through all this! Who would get mixed up in this whole mess on purpose?
He was reaching to pull his throttle back when a familiar plane built out of an old racecar appeared in his rear view mirror and an all-too-familiar voice came over the radio.
"Well, well, well. If it isn't Sky King Hoagie! What're you doing up here tonight?"
Number 2 knew that voice. That same familiar smooth voice that sounded like it should have been singing a Spanish love ballad on the radio.
"Kid? What in the name of chili dogs are you doing up here?" Number Two suddenly noticed that two Teenage fighters flanked him on either side. "You're flying for the Teen Ninjas?!"
Hoagie dodged the spray of familiar pool balls and watched them slam into a Juvie helicopter's windshield. The radio started to buzz again with a response.
"Plane for hire. They're paying me to train these guys to stay alive and lead a couple of squadrons." The Kid said dismissively while he unloaded another round of pool balls at a helicopter. "Besides, we have an understanding.I fly against adults only."
The Kid adjusted his sunglasses and swooped to dodge a missile that exploded right where his plane had been only a few seconds earlier. Most pilots would have been rattled, but he didn't even flinch.
Hoagie started to turn around, but the racecar plane inched closer until they were flying side by side.
"I understand if you don't want any part of this. This isn't your fight. And I don't know what your Kids Next Door says about flying with teenagers ,but personally , I think it's a lot safer staying in this fight and not letting anyone get behind you."
Number 2 weighed his options and decided the Kid was right.
"Where do you want me?" He called over radio.
"Stay on my left, you'll be my wingman."
In the most extraordinary of circumstances, Hoagie P. Gilligan ,who was arguably the greatest pilot the Kids Next Door had or would ever have, flew wingman to the infamous Kid in a squadron of Teen Ninjas against the Juvie Cops.
"On your tail, Ace!" cried Hoagie as a missile from one of the gunships came screaming for the Kid. The Kid turned on his "flight buffer magnetizer", the same reflector shield that drove Hoagie crazy for weeks during their feud. Number 2 chuckled at that memory, but the smile faded as he peered over the side of the Tubadub to see smoke and fire rising below.
"Hey Kid! What the heck even happened here anyway?"
The Kid, who was just taking a call from a Teen Ninja, frowned and yelled over the wind. "Clappers!"
Numbuh 2 wasn't sure he heard that right. "Clappers?"
"Yeah, clappers. Now listen up, we got orders!" The Kid sounded just as confident as ever. "Squadron will hold position until shuttles arrive, we're evacuating The Point."
The Juvies and The Kid's Squadron went at each other with equal brutality, each group trying not just to destroy the other's aircraft, but to kill the pilots as well. Hoagie tried to keep clean, but in the thick of that whirlwind of blood nobody could be coolheaded for very long. Not when the enemy was chasing your tail to send you down in a fiery ruin.
The Kid was the only one in the sky to keep his cool, and although he probably did the most damage by far out of the entire squadron, he didn't become bloodthirsty. This was not what he came to the skies for, but he didn't chastise the others for their blood lust. These were juvies. If they wanted to play dirty with squadron, then fine. Two could play at that game.
At long last, the Teen Ninjas came to pick up the rest of their comrades. At this point there were about three or four hundred Juvie Cops swarming what used to be The Point. The Kid told his squadron to scatter and soon it was only The Kid and Hoagie circling the wreckage together.
"See ya around, Sky King!" the Kid called over the radio.
"See you, Kid!" Hoagie echoed into his microphone. The two fly boys departed, each one saluting and each glad for the encounter, if not for the smoke filling the sky and the metallic smell of blood in the air. Numbuh 2 turned towards the open sky and didn't look back.
Just outside The Point's ruined roller rink, which was blasted to pieces and full of crushed remains burned far past the point of recognition, two figures stepped out of a jet-black limo. One was a severe looking blonde woman who's high heels and dress seemed wildly out of place on the scorched concrete. The other appeared as a tall and slender black silhouette outlined in red with eyes like burning sulfur. He had a pipe in his mouth and puffed out smoke as he surveyed the room. "Think this will work?"
The blonde woman smiled her perfect smile. "Oh yes, it's a very scenic location for a Harvest Clinic and the landscape is perfect."
A harsh but oddly wet crunch came from underneath the man's leather shoe. He picked his foot up and saw a burned roller skate warped and soaking in a red puddle that was starting to turn brown. Any person with a heart would only hope the mangled skate didn't have… something still left inside.
He kicked it to the side carelessly. "Yes, I suppose you're right. It is very scenic."
The man with the pipe let out a laugh a great and terrible laugh and the woman let him, even though she was disgusted by it. Let him laugh.
She had exactly what she wanted.