Continuing Transmission

A soft breeze tickled the treetops, whispering to the birds as they sang their songs out to others. The sun shone through the canopy of trees, covering the earth with a warm blanket of light.

Nigel sat on one of the park benches, waiting for whoever was to show up and meet him. He still didn't understand who it was, why they wanted to talk to him, or what the person wanted to talk about, but it was something to do, and a way to get him away from the house.

Though he highly doubted it, he couldn't help but hope that it was one of the Kids Next Door. Didn't matter who. He just wanted to see at least one of them again.

He missed them a lot. He often wondered if they missed him too. 'Probably not,' he decided.

Still, he couldn't help but wonder what they were doing now. Closing his eyes, he tried to imagine them at the tree house.

Numbuh 2 was probably building or trying to create something in his room. The British boy chuckled slightly. 'Or sleeping,' he added. Sleeping in his aircraft high above the floor. Either one was a possibility for Numbuh 2.

Numbuh 3 was probably in her room, playing tea party with her stuffed animals, most of which were rainbow monkeys. She'd be sitting around a table with them, pretending they were real, and talking to them, pouring pretend tea into plastic cups.

Numbuh 4 was also probably in his room, fighting some practice robot in his wrestling ring. The robot, of course, would be loosing, and Numbuh 4 would be getting annoyed that his mechanical opponent wasn't much of a challenge.

Then there was Numbuh 5…

Nigel opened his eyes then, as his thoughts drifted to the quiet operative. Even though the other three were the 'unpredictable' ones of the group, it was always Numbuh 5 who stumped him as to what she was thinking or doing. He could always take a guess with Numbuh 2, 3, or 4, and they would be thinking either exactly, or close enough to what he had predicted. But Numbuh 5 was a different story entirely.

Maybe that's what he liked about her. Maybe it was the fact that she could always keep him guessing. He wasn't sure.

Yet he knew, out of all his friends back at the tree house, it was Numbuh 5 that he missed the most. The way he was able to connect with her was unlike anything he had with the others. He felt happy whenever he was around her.

It was slightly disheartening when she hadn't said anything when he had asked if they agreed with Numbuh 4. He would have thought…he was hoping she would have…

But she had asked him to stay. She had said that they needed him. Did that mean anything?

Maybe………

"Greetings, Nigel." The boy was jerked out of his thoughts when he heard the five voices melded into one tone. The expression of which was flat, with no emotion at all. The five voices that made his skin crawl.

Looking up, his eyes confirmed what his ears had heard.

The Delightful Children From Down the Lane.

He stood from his seat on the park bench. "What are you doing here?" he asked, not bothering to hide the hostile tone in his accented voice.

They smirked, approaching him slowly. "We were scheduled to meet here today, weren't we?" they asked. "After all, you asked us to meet here now, didn't you?"

For a moment, he seemed to lose his cool air, as confusion swept over his face and mind. "You? You were the ones who wanted to meet me?"

"Of course, Nigel. Who did you think it was?"

'TDC,' he thought, understanding it then. 'The Delightful Children! But the number…05…that's because there's five of them! Of course! Why didn't I see it before!'

But he knew there was no time to berate himself for it. Clearing his throat, he regained his composure. "Well," he said, "what exactly do you want from me?"

"I just wanted to express my sympathy."

He raised a questioning eyebrow. "Sympathy? For me?"

"Of course. It isn't easy when your 'friends' make it clear that they don't want you around."

The statement sent a rip through his heart, but he did his best to ignore it. "What do you know?" he asked.

"I know everything, Nigel. I know what you so-called 'friends' were saying about you, and that you left the Kids Next Door."

He scoffed disgustedly. "I should have known you would be spying on us." 'But how?' he wondered. But the pain in his heart was getting harder to ignore.

"Do you know what I think you should do, Nigel?"

"Would I care?"

"I think you should get back at them."

He froze. "Get back at the Kids Next Door!"

The Delightful Children nodded. "They deserve it, too. After what they did to you. They humiliated you, ridiculed you, talked about you when they thought you couldn't hear them, and forced you to leave.

"If you'd like, we could help you get even with them."

Nigel's eyes narrowed. "Never!" he replied. "Even if I'm not part of the Kids Next Door, I would never turn on them like that!"

"But…"

"Listen," he interrupted angrily, "while I admit, they humiliated, ridiculed, and talked about me behind my back, my leaving was my decision alone, not theirs. They didn't force me to do anything. As for you 'helping' me, forget it! You think that just because I left, you can persuade me to turn against them.

"The only reason you're pretending to sympathize for me and asking me to join you is because you're hoping that with me helping you, you'll finally get rid of them for good! But did you honestly think that you could get me to go against them like that? You're even dumber than I thought."

The Delightful Children frowned. Nigel Uno was much more headstrong than they realized. He was too firm into his beliefs and his former team that he wasn't being persuaded by the feelings that were locked inside him. They knew that he was slightly angry at the other Kids Next Door for treating him the way they did, but he wasn't letting that resentment get the better of him.

They would have to try something else.

"Well," Nigel said, turning to walk away, "if you're done wasting my time…"

"You have me all wrong, Nigel," they said, their monotonous voices interrupting him. "We weren't thinking that at all."

"Yeah right."

"The truth is, we could easily defeat your team now that you're not there to lead them."

He stopped in his tracks, turning to face them. "They aren't easy to beat."

The Delightful Children smirked. "They are when you aren't leading them, Nigel. Do you realize what a dangerous position you left them in?"

"What do you mean?" His curiosity was getting the better of him.

Behind the back of the boy with a football helmet, he held a remote with a single red button on it. He pressed it.

"You mean they haven't told you?"

"Haven't told me what?"

"What happens when you aren't there to lead them. In the very few cases that you weren't around, they were often faced with difficult challenges, and without you there to guide them, they had such a difficulty overcoming them."

He never heard about that happening before. "But they still overcame those challenges."

"With much difficulty, as I have said. And when they did, it was just barely. But now that you left them for good, what's going to happen to them? Without you as their leader, they can easily be defeated.

"Face it Nigel. Once you left your position as their leader, you left them vulnerable from an attack of any sort. You placed them in a great danger."

'Did I really?' he wondered. 'Is that what Numbuh 5 meant when she said that they needed me? What have I done?'

So consumed in his guilt, he didn't hear or notice the giant robot looming up behind him.

Suddenly, looking down, Nigel noticed the large patch of shadow covering him. He swiftly turned around, just in time to see the robot raise its arm and swing it at him.

He felt a tremendous pain fill his body, as the force of the blow caused him to fly back until he hit a tree. He then fell to the ground, unconscious.

The Delightful Children smiled their evil little smiles as their robot picked up the former leader. "Phase one is complete," they said. "Now, it's time to start phase two…"

Transmission Interrupted