Jysella: ahh smell the fresh chapter just waiting to be written

Audience of delusions: we'll put the coroner on hold

Jysella: I resent that! Nobody died last chapter

Audience of delusions: so twice the number will die this one

Jysella: well a) nobody died in Nameless yet and I'm five chapters in and 2) twice zero is still zero

Audience of delusions: you used a) followed by 2)

Jysella: shut up before I make you go the way of the network execs

Audience of delusions: and just how will you do that

Jysella: Never doubt the imagination of an author that owns none of her characters

Audience of delusions: we'll sue

Jysella: you can't, I worked in a disclaimer under your noses

Audience of delusions: crafty devil

Jysella: thanks much

Broken patterns

He was asleep when the phone rang, dragging him free of sleeps monstrous grip while releasing him to the talons of a more dangerous beast in one swift symphony of sound. Wearily he reached his hand, pushing past the warm bastion of his comforter, into the cold air of his room and clumsily moved it about his night table. A pair of darkly tinted, well worn, glasses tumbled towards the floor along side a digital clock bearing the time seven am, which broke upon impact with the wooden surface, before he found the object of his sleep-laden search, the phone, and dragged it deep within the caverns of his cover. In the semi-darkness he rubbed his eyes and fought a yawn before responding, dully, to the quiet party on the line.

"Hello?" he asked uncertainly into the device responsible for his early awakening, his British accent accentuated in his near comatose state.

"Hi Nigel" came the dripping reply from the other end, its high nasal quality oozing false syrup with a hint of cyanide "how was your night"

"Pleasant Lizzie" the boy replied, bolting upright in his bed. Though his clock lay in pieces on the floor he knew it was too early for the girl to have called, far too early. And yet, the early call didn't surprise him, as Lizzie liked him to get up early and speak to her before he saw another living soul. It was her way of strengthening their relationship, like her constant need to know his location, and Numbuh one didn't question it. After all there was no problem with getting up early and telling ones girlfriend where they were. "How was your night?"

"Good, hey Nigel?" she asked in a voice eking an additional ounce or so of sugar to go atop that previously applied.

"Yes Lizzie?" Numbuh one responded tiredly, beginning to curl back under the covers.

"What are you doing today?" the tone was innocent and so he replied, there was no fault in answering the simple request every so often, such as every hour of every day. No problem at all.

"Well, work" he responded nonchalantly

"At the tree house?"

"Yes, unless we go on a mission"

"And you'll call me if you do?" her voice reached an urgent level with the last words of her statement as though she didn't expect that he would, even though she always requested it.

"Yes"

"I'll call you in an hour, bye" she replied hanging up the phone. Numbuh one stared foreword into his room for a few moments before dropping the phone to the floor, to join an assortment of other electronics, before rolling back into his bed only to have the mission light go off followed by the computerized alarm and the sound of skidding feet in the hallway.

Moments later three-year-old Amane burst into his room, sliding across the floor in her socks before jumping onto his bed. Knowing his role Numbuh one covered his face with the blankets and pretended to sleep.

"Uncle Ichi" the breathless toddler said, a smile creeping into her voice. The bald agent grunted in response prompting a small giggle to erupt from the girl's mouth.

"Uncle Ichi there's a mis-mis-misssion," she continued, stammering through giggles. Again the bald agent grunted, even rolling over and displacing the small girl. Undeterred she climbed back to her former position and shook the older boy.

"Moshi said you had to wake up and come downstairs right now." As soon as she finished her final word the cavernous blankets opened up and swallowed her, tossing her small body into the air moments later. Her shrieked giggles drew an alarmed Moshi into the room who smiled, and caught her sister midair.

"Come on Amane," she said, placing the girl on the floor "Uncle Ichi has to change for the mission," she took a look at the three year old standing on Numbuh ones floor and sighed "and so do you"

"What do you mean Mo-Numbuh 43?" he asked, quizzically glancing at the new agent before turning away in pain at the familiar memories of his fallen teammate that swept up each time he did so.

"She'll stay on the transport Numbuh one. You don't have to worry she'll be good. Right Amane?" the three year old nodded solemnly from her position on the floor. Since the conversation had begun she'd remained still, seemingly focused on a faraway spot on the bald agents wall rather than her older sisters conversation; an illusion broken with her nodding at the mention of her name.

Numbuh one sighed and looked at the still girl "HQ won't like this" he sighed, recalling the fiasco that had occurred only a few years before with Moshi in Amane's place. "Alright, gather the others and meet me in the briefing room in five minutes"

The bald agent winced as the excited toddler ran down the hall to Numbuh five's room and flung open the door, cringing as the dark haired girl screamed. Beside him Moshi sighed and calmly walked through the door.

"Better call Lizzie," she said, almost sarcastically as she exited, casually closing the door behind her.

"Yeah" Numbuh one responded to the air as he stared past her. Mechanically the boy dropped to his knees and collected his glasses and positioned them on his nose, choosing to ignore the fractured alarm clock lying next to them. Able to see clearly once more he crossed the room and removed a large red shirt from his chair. Cautiously he brought it too his nose and instantly regretted the action. He had begun to reach for another shirt when a high wail interrupted his robot-like preparations.

"Uncle Ichi, help" panicked the bald agent threw on the red shirt of questionable cleanliness, re-buttoned the jeans he had slept in, and ran from his room.

"Took you long enough" Numbuh five retorted as soon as the boy had exited the room. on the other side of the room, a very discontented Amane was sitting upon her sisters lap in a light pink jumper and silken pigtails.

"You called for help?"

"Moshi was brushing my hair" she responded grumpily, prompting the Asian agent to hand her a chocolate cookie stick.

"Breakfast" was her murmured response before the computerized intelligence began to display the mission information.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Amane ran giggling down the isles of the airplane while Numbuh five exasperatedly attempted to keep up with her youthful energy, wondering how she had been conned into remaining with the girl. Although she understood why there was no need for stealth on this particular envoy and why the hopefully inherited distraction tactics of Moshi would be more useful, she still failed to comprehend the reason for her continued stay on the plane, with Amane.

As Amane dashed past her, strangely light pigtails flying, she realized her involvement in watching the girl did not include chasing her about the large interior of the mosquito and so she sat down to continue her contemplations. Of course, she had gotten her run about an hour earlier in gathering preliminary intelligence. She winced as she moved her arm displacing a large bulk of bandage that had taken up residence. Unfortunately her surveillance had resulted in a sinister discovery. Ink bombs lying in wait beneath the soil to splatter upon contact. Of course she had known of the ink bombs and once past them casually missteped, and sprayed herself with shrapnel. Upon her bloody return Numbuh two created some mechanical surveillance and left her in charge of Amane. Which brought her full circle. Why. Why did she have to stay with Amane? The forever giggling, forever moving three year old that bore no resemblance to either of the girls she was related to- the girl she was related to. Kuki was dead, and Amane was still...wait-

Numbuh five cocked her head to listen to the silence realizing something was wrong. Silence- where was Amane? She looked up and saw the blonde staring transfixed at a spot above her own head.

"Amane? Wha-"she never got to finish the statement.

"Hello little sister" a smooth voice called from the space behind her.

"Cree" the word spilled from her lips like a curse, with a malice she had not wanted to unleash in the young Asians presence. "Amane, can you go color in the, umm, cargo hold?" Amane never questioned, having slipped into a serious state reserved, obviously, for moments when the 'grownups' were talking. Quietly she walked out of the general room, stopping only for the pretence of gathering pens and paper. In the back of her mind Numbuh five registered the cool ease with which she had been categorized as an adult, someone she needed to listen to, with apprehension. It was almost unnerving to have that type of power. But she ignored it in favor of the more important matter at hand. "Why are you here?"

"Why little sister, I'm shocked. No hello" the voice oozed

"Hello Cree. Why are you here" unconsciously she reached towards her weapon which wasn't there.

"Looking for this, dearest Abigail?" she held a piece of 2 x 4 technology in the air, crushed beyond recognition "because I believe it's past its," she faltered for a moment before smiling "prime. I mean, what is it? twelve and a half- oh yes same as you"

"Is that why you're here. To remind me of my age? To make fun of it being near 13? Or are you trying to offer me a job? Cuz Numbuh five thought you'd know that ain't happening"

"Actually, I heard about your friends death."

"Oh, so what is this? An, I told you so?"

"No. No, I came to say I was sorry. Nothing related at all to my request that you leave the KND."

"Don't give me that, Numbuh five knows what this is and she doesn't want to hear it again. Not now, spare me the ' it destroys your friends, family and future' speech 'cuz I'm just not in the mood right now"

"no, it's not that again. I only came to apologize and leave. But you know little sister, it does destroy everything, Don't you understand? Everything."

"No I don't"

"Look if your friends hadn't been in the KND they wouldn't have done that to themselves"

"Yes they would have, they were getting so involved in-"she cut off, choking back a sob.

"How can't you see it? First it drove us apart-no. No, first it destroyed my life. I have no future Abby, this is my future!"

"Don't be so melodramatic, so no college accepted you yet, so what. You'll get in for the summer semester"

"Abby, I didn't apply. You know that, you remember the fights"

"Yeah and then you moved to your friends"

"What friends Abby? I have no friends"

"What about, didn't Nikki move- "

"Move where? Here? No! No she didn't, and before you ask I was staying at a shelter. Not with teammates. Didn't you ever wonder why none of my fellow teammates show up any more?"

"Because we live in America and they live in France?"

"Well then why they don't write?"

"No-"

"They're dead Abby. Henri on a mission, Jean and Monique in a freak accident. And Nicollet? Nikki slit her wrists. Dead. Every single last on of them. All of my friends. Do you understand the word, little sister? Dead? Because a few months ago you didn't"

"I'm sorry Cree, I didn't know-"

"No, of course not. By the time we moved you were already so tied up in your own team you couldn't see anything but it. You didn't notice when I had no friends standing with me at the airport that last day, you were too excited. 'To America? I'll be able to meet with my team. I've been talking with them for months' of course you were only eight and I was13 but you didn't see. And then when I begged you not to join you wouldn't listen and we fought, and stopped talking. It drove us apart"

"So your friends couldn't take it and you think that because of that no one can?"

"No Abigail, no team can take it. How decommissioned agents, aside from me, have you ever met? How many? Can count them on one hand? One finger?"

"I'll show you a finger"

"Shut up for a second little sister and listen to me. No team in history has survived in entirety to decommissioning. Bad things always start happening right around their twelfth birthdays. You might have asked 247 about it but, well, I still have a job. Think about what I said, little sister. Think about it."

"About wa-"from somewhere below her, Amane wailed and Abby turned at the sound. When she redirected her head towards Cree, the girl was gone.

"What's the matter Amane?" she asked, patronizingly.

"Nothing, a spider. I didn't mean to interrupt. I'm sorry" somehow the advanced language coming from such a young mouth and still edged by a youthful lisp caused Numbuh five to laugh. Laugh in a way she hadn't laughed in a long while.

~*~*~*~*~*~**~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Squinting in the intense sunlight, Numbuh two aimed the rapidly built 2x4 technology at the perfectly green sea of grass that the immaculate delightful mansion looked over. Hidden beneath the lawn lay a danger that his device sought out. Sadly this danger was not of the carefree kind they'd faced as a team before. No, those days of innocent danger, the most of which was a painful spanking, were over. Beside him, where the sullen Japanese girl in purple walked, was another reminder of the death of his carefree days, days when missions had ended with Wally saving Kuki and proceeding to buy them all ice cream in relief. Those days were done.

"Hey guys? If we all get through this how bout ice cream on me?" the round agent ventured out loud, it was the only speech, aside from mundane lefts or rights, that had transgressed in over an hour of tense tap-dancing around exploding cones.

"Ice cream?" the youngest agent voiced in response, seemingly puzzled at his random out burst.

"yes ice cream," he'd responded, smiling at her bewilderment.

"why ice cream"

"well-"the round agent had begun, only to be disrupted by his bald companion.

"Because after he rescued Kuki from whatever insane trouble she'd walked obliviously head first into Wally would always buy us ice cream"

the three fell silent at this recollection and continued their silent walk for a few moments before the Asian girl interjected again.

"what kind of trouble"

the two boys looked at one another and began speaking at once. A tangled mess of the late agents former mishaps were weaved imperfectly into one large knot.

"Well there was this one time-"

"Covered in feathers-"

"Talking to the cat-"

"Picking flowers-"

"The whipped cream fell-"

"and the rainbow monkeys landed on Wally"

the Asian girl listened to this wealth of information suddenly understanding why her sister had never seemed hurt at the end of the day when Wally came home bruised, battered and swearing revenge on the most evil of all evils; the rainbow monkeys.

"so the rainbow Monkey's fell on Wally?" she asked, raising a critical eye brow. Both boys nodded. "I'd always wondered why he hated those things." At this the three of them laughed in remembrance of their friends, forgetting for one brief moment the danger they faced, the pain they had felt, and the task facing them. For one brief moment they were happy. One brief moment ended all to soon by the ringing of a certain phone.

Suddenly Numbuh one's face contorted as he lifted the device to his ear and flicked it on.

"Hello?" he called uncertainly into the phone, knowing full well who it was.

"You didn't call," replied syrupy ooze, filtering through the mouthpiece of the phone.

Nigel looked briefly at his watch "I was just about to, it's only now been an hour"

"But Nigel, "the voice responded, dripping it's sticky poison down his shirt "you promised you'd call if you had a mission"

The boy's eyes narrowed prompting his teammates to hurriedly question, in silent whispers, who had called. Nigel shook his head and took a step towards the right. "How did you know we left?"

"I called the tree house half an hour ago" the voice prompted, near crying "I knew you wouldn't, I knew you didn't love me." The poisons dripped ever further down the British boy's lanky frame forcing him to continue moving to avoid permanent capture.

"Why are you calling me so much?" he screamed in annoyance, turning his back to the remainder of his team, sparing them his face. The syrupy substance froze, hardening into crystallized pain.

"Because you hate me, because every time I turn around your talking to that weird Abigail because you never loved me"

"But that's-I never-Lizie I- Lizie" he continued to plead with the voice on the other end of the phone punctuating each sentence end with a further step from his team. "No don't hung up, Lizie you need to believe me I got distracted -the delightful children- no I can not quit the KND for you- yes I do love you!" his voice continued to grow louder with each step, preventing him from hearing a faint beep below his movements.

"No you don't, you never did. Nigel Uno I am not talking to you anymore!" the sugary syrup enveloping the small boy receded, leaving him open entirely to the circling bees; bees that silenced as soon as she ceased talking.

"Lizie, don't do this" he sobbed. His back turned, he missed the explosion of the ground a full pace behind him, and the sweeping arcs of dirt flung to the sun, the light blinding even his teammates half a mile behind. Ears full of his own pity he didn't hear the earth shattering event, or the shrapnel whizzing through space. Legs already wobbling he didn't feel the earth drop beneath him. Mind dulled he didn't feel pain when the rock collided with his skull, nor did he panic when his vision faded.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Lizie lie on her stomach, perched atop her cream colored crag of a bed, kicking her legs aimlessly in the perpetual stream of central cooling that filled her house. Above her, carefully placed as rain clouds on the graying sky, lay pictures of her beloved prey, innocently blocking pictures with a large hand or smiling stuffy grins to abate his predating mistress. She smiled and listened playfully on the phone while her nails.

"Nigel Uno I'm not talking to you anymore" she said, shrill voice delighting in the pained moan it elicited. Her voice, reverberating around the shrine of Nigel's prepubescent pain, was filled with tears; raw with pain while the face it belonged to smiled smugly beneath a mask of concealer and moisturizer.

She fell silent, content to listen to Nigel plead, and continued to dry her nails with sweetly falsified breath.

The smile swiftly faded from her mouth as opened agape in horror and she dropped the phone, clutching her ear in pain. The explosion the Nigel seemed deaf to, all those away, reverberated in her ear, filling the small room and dropping carefully strewn pictures from the wall.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Jysella: woo, sorry that took so long guys

Audience of delusions: yeah, like you actually still have reviewers

Jysella: shut up. Any way the limited Japanese I used, namely Ichi, means one

Audience of delusions: wow, you're so smart Jysa

Jysella: you are such jerks; I'm keeping the pixie stix and Pocky for myself

Audience of delusions: weirdo

Jysella: whatever, anyway that's it no flames, review, I have homework to do