Disclaimer: See the prologue and Chapter 2.

Okay, for those of you that forgot, to tell the KND and TND apart, look at the end of the word "number." The KND operative is spelled "Numbuh" while the TND operative is spelled "Number." Sorry if it's still a little hard to tell them apart. When I first started writing the saga with Operation: TEENS, I was just thinking of things off the top of my head. Somehow, it just stuck.

Chapter 4

Number 1, the KND, and the TND tried to absorb what Melanie had just said. It could not be possible! Something had to have gone wrong in their journey. This could not be their future world. The land was desolate except for a few trees with barren twigs for branches. You were lucky if you saw the remains of a dried leaf on one of them. The ground was hard and rocky and looked as if it had not rained for years. The sky was cloudy with red-tainted skies and puffs of what looked like smoke. The air was hot and thick with the souls of all those lost. Everyone seemed to be able to taste the dead being sucked into his or her mouth and nose going down to the lungs. Their chests seemed to become tied into knots with all the horror looming around them. They all remained silent for the longest time, trying to understand what had happened.

"This world can't be our future," Number 2 mumbled. "It looks too scary and terrifying."

"Yeah," Number 9 agreed. "It's as if there was a non-stop war here."

"That's almost what happened," Craig told them. "We tried to rebel against Father, Mother, and the Delightfuls, but they just went demon and destroyed mostly everyone. That included our parents and relatives."

"Hold up!" Numbuh 4 ordered. "Did you say 'demon'?"

"Uh-huh."

"Why the crud would the Delightfuls become demons??"

"You mean you didn't know?" Faith gasped, turning to him. "Oh, my God! I thought it was all explained to you Kids and Teens Next Door."

"Uh, no," Numbuh 5 defended. "We didn't get that memo."

"It's a really long story. We can't explain it here."

"What do you mean?"

"The four of us didn't show up for role call today since we were in your time. The Delightfuls and everyone know we did something. We need to head over to the safe house. That's the one place left on earth that the Delightfuls don't know about."

"Yeah, we go there all the time," Hammie added. "It's the only place where we kids can have any freedom. It's our home. It's where we've been taking care of ourselves for the past couple of months. It's where we built our time machine. We'll show you. Follow me!"

Hammie ran off in one direction followed by the rest of his friends. The teams hesitated for a moment before going ahead with it. Something in this world just was not right. Some of the kids and teens started thinking back to what the children told them about the future of the Teens Next Door. Someone they knew and loved was under a horrible curse. They would eventually meet their doom by being sucked into a black infinite void. The thought scared them. They didn't want to be killed because of that. They would have rather died to the Delightfuls fighting for their freedom.

As Number 1 was running, she started thinking back. She remembered another special legend that her mother had told her. The reign of the harsh ruler did not end with the retrieval of her final slave. It went on until one day; the ruler got a taste of her own sick medicine.

One day, the harsh ruler of the four slaves told them to fix up her palace while she was out. She was going to go to another planet not far from her own to discuss some issues between the politics within that solar system. Leaving her slaves to do some work, she sped off at top speed floating through space. She passed so many bright and shiny stars that reminded her of her own beauty. She felt so supreme that day. It was one of her first meetings with another leader. It was bound to be something of an interesting day for sure.

Little did she know, this day would ruin her life.

The ruler landed on another stone-cold planet with a gentle tap from her bare feet. She observed the planet. The terrain seemed similar to hers, but the atmosphere was quite different. Her planet had thin air that did not always supply a good amount of oxygen. (It was just a good thing she was not human. Not long after she kidnapped her slaves from earth, she used some of her magic to be sure they wouldn't die with the change.) This air seemed thicker and was much more abundant in different types of gases and fumes.

As the ruler walked ahead, a young man greeted her. Seeing his uniform-type clothes, she assumed he was the leader of the planet. He bowed before her and kissed her hand in respect. She blushed slightly when this happened. He then stood up, took her arm, and led her within the walls of his palace. "I have heard much about you," he told her. "You are just as beautiful as anyone says and more. I cannot believe how much some people underestimated you and your looks."

"That's a very flattering thing to say," the ruler replied as they came up to the palace gates. "Are you always so polite with women?"

"No," the male ruler replied, opening the doors, "only with ones I like."

The gates opened all the way to reveal a castle made from stone, most likely the stone found on the planet. Where else would the constructors get so much? It was huge. It shot up to the sky like a giant looking down on all the small people of the world. The ruler observed the building in awe as the male ruler took her inside. There, she found a long table filled with other leaders waiting for the two of them to arrive.

"I take it I'm the last one to arrive," she assumed.

"True," another leader replied, "but it's not a big deal. You are the one that has never been to one of these meetings before, right?" She nodded. "Well, come on in and sit down. The meeting will start soon, correct, "M' lord?"

"Correct," the male ruler replied, sitting at the head of the table. The harsh ruler sat down in one of the chairs and looked at a stack of papers sitting in front of her. She saw that they had very small print in another language written on it. She was not sure if this was where she belonged.

The meeting lasted for another hour before all of the rulers left for their own home planets. The male ruler waved good-bye to them and looked behind him to see the harsh ruler still gathering her papers. He walked over to her and looked over her shoulder.

"Did you feel okay throughout the meeting?" he asked.

"It was an unusual feeling," she replied, "but I was happy with the outcome. I must come to a few more of these meetings! There is so much going on within our solar system that I am not aware of."

"Then allow me to explain them to you now."

"Oh, I couldn't waste your time like that."

"No, I want you to stay. Will you stay?" The ruler was unsure of this. She needed to get back to her own palace and see if her slaves had done some cleaning like she told them. "I said, 'will you stay?'," the male ruler repeated, grabbing into her arms.

"What are you doing?!" the harsh ruler shrieked. "You're hurting me! Let go!"

"Oh no," the male ruler said through gritted teeth. "You're staying right here with me. I want you. I need you! Such beauty cannot go wasted. Therefore, you will stay right here and sell your body to me."

"You evil pervert!!" the harsh ruler shouted. "Get off me! I refuse to give into you!"

"Too late! You're mine!"

He tackled her to the ground and pinned her to the floor by holding her wrists. The ruler screamed in pain as he went to grab her clothes. She tried kicking him and calling for help from the other leaders, but they had already left the planet. She looked up at him with fear in her eyes as he grabbed at her chest.

That was the last thing Number 1 remembered before she tripped over a rock and was sent crashing to the ground. The KND and TND looked back at her and couldn't help but giggle at her clumsy mistake. She picked herself up and spit out some of the dry dirt.

"This really isn't the time for one of your trance moments," Number 3 told her. "In case you haven't noticed, we're in the future. We're here to save it from the Delightfuls, remember?"

"Of course I remember!" Number 1 countered, smoothing out her skirt. "My mind just wandered for a minute. It's no big deal."

"You were in a trance," Numbuh 2 teased. "Your brain left your head."

The KND and TND burst out laughing at Number 1. The four children thought the concept was humorous, so they joined in with snickers and smirks as well. Number 1 gave a sour face and turned to Hammie.

"Are we at the safe house yet?

"Yeah, it's right here."

"I don't see anything."

Hammie reached down and pulled up what looked like a safe lock. Everyone watched as he spun the little wheel until the combination was accepted. The ground then moved away and revealed a small door that could be opened. Hammie undid the latch and raised the entrance. He climbed down the little ladder and motioned for everyone to follow. Melanie, Craig, and Faith were next to go, then the KND, and finally the TND.

The safe house resembled a dark room. The only given light was a red, dim one that shone out from a single corner. The area was large enough to hold many people, so no one had a hard time getting comfortable. Boxes sat everywhere filled to the rim with food and clothes. A super computer sat against one of the walls and looked like the main computer at the KND Tree House Base. A small telescope shot up from the ground and just barely peeked out on the surface to see if anyone or anything was coming. The KND and TND sat on the ground and on top of closed boxes and watched as Hammie, Craig, and Faith sat near the computer. Melanie stood in front of it with her arms behind her back. She sighed and seemed to have something of an upset look on her face.

"Are you alright?" Numbuh 1 asked, his fatherly instincts taking over.

"Fine," Melanie replied. "It's just that we thought you knew about the Delightfuls and their secret form."

"We just thought they were a bunch of goody-two-shoes freaks," Number 10 told her. "Why? Is there something else we should know about?"

"Oh yes! Let me explain. See, on the day that Mushi was hanged, the four of us were called to see her execution. We had to stand before the Delightfuls, Father, and Mother and bow before them to show any shred of respect we had. Mushi couldn't handle it, and she started to rebel. At first, she was just yelling at them. The Delightfuls started to yell back. Before we knew it, there was a verbal argument going on."

"I never thought of my sister as a yeller," Numbuh 3 thought aloud.

"She definitely is," Craig confirmed. "Mostly, it was for a big celebration or because she was happy. She was still a college student."

"Oh, in that case, she's fine."

"Anyway," Melanie continued, "Mushi started to get so angry that she physically attacked them. Now, you already knew that Father and Mother were dark shadows, right? Father has the power of fire, and Mother's shields are ice-based. But I bet you didn't know that the Delightfuls could take on that form! The five Delightful Teenagers from Down the Lane took on the form of black shadow demons, each with his or her own special power!"

"Holy shit!" Number 6 cried. "That's just crazy!"

"It definitely is."

"Can you tell us what their powers are?" Number 4 asked. "Maybe we'd do better in battle with them if we knew what they had in store for us."

"Well, the only power I know of is Jessica's. That's how Mushi was hanged. When Jessica goes demon, she has the power to turn her fingers into ropes. She can make them however long or short she wants. By tying the ropes together, she made a noose and threw it around Mushi's neck."

"You can guess what happened next," Faith spat, crossing her arms.

"Hold on! You said one of those Delightfuls had a name, right?" Number 5 interrupted. "What was it? Jessica? How do you know those names? And which one is she anyway? They all look the same to us."

"Jessica is that short one with the blonde pigtails," Melanie explained. "We know the other names, too. Mary is the tall girl with the glasses and the red hair back in the ribbon. Daimion is the African-American boy. Tina is the other tall girl with the big sunhat. We've never seen her face. Last is Mitchell. He's the short, round one."

"So all along our enemies had names, and we never knew it, huh?" Number 7 asked jokingly. "Some observant team we are."

"We only know that because we once overheard Father and Mother talking about them," Hammie defended. "There's some set of special headphones around here somewhere. We used those and our telescope to get in on the conversation."

Lizzie cocked her head. She turned to Number 1 and said, "I thought you guys were fighting the Delightful Children and Teenagers back in our time."

"We are," Number 1 replied. "I don't see where you're going with this."

"Well, if you guys are fighting them back in out time, how come they've managed to stay children and teenagers in this time?"

"We're still trying to figure that out," Hammie explained. "We've been doing a lot of research on their demon forms, but we haven't found out anything important. The only thing we know is that they were somehow cursed with this demon form when they were young. The demon form might have an immortality effect on whomever it curses. Of course, that's only a hypothesis."

"I see," Numbuh 1 said, scratching his chin. "Well, if it has an immortality effect to keep us young forever, I don't think I'd mind being cursed either!"

"Yeah, about that," Craig pardoned, "we also discovered that the curse gives the victim deadly powers. We already explained Jessica's. She and the rest of her siblings have the ability to kill anyone that walks in their path. If we do end up fighting them, we'd have to be careful. That demon power eventually consumes the victim and leaves him or her in an evil state. In other words, we think that's how come the Delightfuls are our enemies."

"Okay, scratch that last statement of mine then. We have to fight them and save the future! Did anyone bring some 2X4 Technology?"

"Crap!" Numbuh 2 shouted. "I forgot all about it!"

"Don't worry, we've got some here," Melanie reassured. "It's a little old, but it's still usable. We even have some new stuff we built in our spare time."

"We're bound to kick plenty of ass with this weaponry then," Number 8 smirked, hoping off her box. "We just need to grab it, use it on the Delightfuls, and we home free!"

The rest of the teams agreed and opened up a few of the boxes to see what was at their disposal. No sooner had they done that, they started to hear crashes from up on the surface. Hammie ran over to the telescope and peeked out to see what was going on.

"It's the Delightfuls!" he shouted. "They're fighting another group of kids and teens!"

Number 1 took a deep breath and climbed up the ladder to the top ground. She opened up the latch slightly and looked out to see who was there. Her eyes grew wide, and she opened the door even more. She couldn't believe her eyes.

"Number 274?! Number 86?! Tommy?! Mushi?! Cree?? What the hell are you guys doing here??

End of Chapter Four