Come on, you didn't REALLY think that I would leave the Pluto story at THAT, did you?
PLUTO MUST BE DESTROYED.
Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN DETECTIVE SCHOOL Q.
Chapter 8: DDS strikes back
The atmosphere at DDS seemed a little bit awkward the next day.
Something in the air didn't feel right, and no, it wasn't because of Saburamarou's nauseating cologne.
In the old school building, where Class Q was preoccupied with Mr. Hongou's lectures, the intercom crackled to life again, for the second time in days.
"Class Q and The rest of Class A, please report to Principal Dan's office immediately."
Class Q looked at each other with confused looks on their faces.
"Again?" asked Kyu.
Mr. Hongou shook his head and dismissed them.
"What's going on?" asked Kyu as soon as he entered Principal Dan's office.
Kuniko, Shishido, Saburamarou, Hayato and Gouda were there, sitting on the couches.
"And where's Yuki?" asked Meg.
"She's in the office with Principal Dan. She said she discovered something important," said Hayato.
"Oh, about what? Pluto?" asked Kyu.
"I guess," said Gouda, fiddling with the Rubix cube he had in his hands.
Shizuko gave Ryuu a significant look.
"Everyone, I have news."
Principal Dan entered the room. "While one of your members Yuki was captured, she seems to have discovered where Pluto has been running their headquarters."
"What?" asked Kyu. "I can't believe it!"
Yuki walked into the room behind Mr. Dan. "I overheard some guys talking about it. They thought I was unconscious at the time and didn't bother to keep their voices down. I heard everything perfectly."
Mr. Dan spoke again. "We can't afford to waste any more time, now that we know where they've been hiding out, we must make our move now. Nanami! Hongou!"
The two teachers, who were glaring at each other in a corner of the room, suddenly turned as one to face Principal Dan. "Yes, sir?"
"I want the both of you to take responsibility for this mission. Pluto made their move first, but now, we have to prove to them how strong DDS is."
"Class Q, and Class A. I want to ask this of you. Please go with them on this mission."
"WHAT!" Class Q and Class A said together.
"Mr. Dan, are you serious?" asked Kyu.
"Yes, of course. I know that you are both capable of this kind of assignment. And I know that it is only with your help that Pluto can be destroyed, completely."
"Can you do it? Can I trust you to make DDS proud, as you always have?"
"Yes, sir!" they all chorused.
"There's only ONE answer!" cried Kyu.
"Is this it?" asked Kazuma when they arrived at the so-called Pluto headquarters.
It looked like an old mansion gone to seed. Some of the stained-glass windows had cracked, and vines clung to the high walls.
"It looks like it's been left for a long time," said Meg, taking in the sight.
"Or not," said Ryuu, pointing out an obviously newly-installed intercom and video surveillance camera. Fortunately, the camera was facing away from them at the moment.
"Some headquarters," said Shishido.
"It doesn't look like there's much left," said Hayato.
"Don't underestimate Pluto, you guys," said Ryuu. "For all we know this could just be the tip of the iceberg…whatever evidence there is of Pluto won't be out here for everyone to see."
"Or, perhaps, hidden in a way that was so obvious that it wouldn't be noticed," said Shizuko, staring at something.
"What are talking about?" asked Kyu, seeing her gaze. "What are you looking at?"
"Look," she said, pointing at something directly in front of them."
In front of them, they hadn't noticed it at first because of all the clinging vines, but on the wall, very faintly carved, was the symbol of Pluto.
"Whoa," said Shishido. "Freaky."
"Well, that confirms it," said Ryuu. "We're in the right place."
"The right place for a scare you mean," said Shizuko. "It looks like something straight out of a horror movie."
"Well, this is reality," replied Ryuu. His gray eyes misted over a bit. "And it's going to be even worse than any horror movie we'll ever see."
"How do we get in?" asked Meg.
"I wish we could break in, literally," muttered Shizuko. "If there's anything over that wall…"
She tried to climb the wall using the vines.
"Wait, wait," said Kinta, coming over and helping out Shizuko.
She climbed on his shoulders and looked out over the wall.
"Okaaaay…" she said.
"What do you see?" asked Kinta with a grunt.
"A whole lot of trouble," she answered. "There's a bunch of Pluto members guarding everything. We can't go over this fence without getting caught."
"Well, if we can't go from above…" said Ryuu, looking around for another way.
"We can go from below," finished Kyu, pointing to a sewage drain cover.
The sewers.
A myriad of smells and sounds intermingled with one another. Rats skittered from one pipe to another. Bugs—both dead and alive—seemed to be everywhere. And then there was the water. Murky, disgusting water that one couldn't even bear to look at.
"Ew, this reeks," complained Yuki. "Brilliant idea, Kyu," she said sarcastically.
Shizuko rolled her eyes, then closed them with an annoyed cringe as some water seeped into her boots. Just great.
Kyu was still grinning, even though Class A was kind of pissed off at him.
"Oh, gross, my shoes are getting dirty," whined Saburamarou.
"Live with it, IQ boy," muttered Shizuko.
Meg squealed a little. "A mouse!"
"It's just a little mouse," said Yuki, rolling her eyes.
"I don't like mice," said Meg defensively.
"Look, up ahead," said Hayato, pointing.
Everyone looked in the direction he was pointing. "I think that's our exit."
"Good eye," said Gouda.
A ladder stood in front of them. It seemed to lead upward to a small ray of light, above them.
They all looked at each other.
"Who wants to go first?" asked Shishido.
"Ladies first," offered Kinta, looking at Meg and Shizuko. Yuki rolled her eyes, while Kuniko looked a bit uneasy.
Shizuko frowned at the feigned chivalry. "All right then, Yuki, Meg, Kuniko, any one of you can go ahead, I'll follow…"
Three sets of skirts rustled as they ascended the ladder, with Shizuko bringing up the rear.
The boys followed, some with sighs of disappointment.
"Where do you suppose this leads to?" asked Yuki.
"Our doom, maybe," said Shizuko.
"Oh, ha ha, very funny," said Yuki.
"Seeing as we came from a sewer, it probably leads to a drain of some sort," said Ryuu from somewhere below.
"Yeah," agreed Kyu.
"Are we almost there, Meg?" asked Shizuko.
"Yeah, I'm almost at the top, wait, I'll push whatever it is that's covering the ladder," replied Meg.
They heard a soft clunk of metal against tile. "I'm out," Meg announced.
"What's up there?" Kyu asked.
"A bathroom, sort of," said Meg.
"We're in," said Kazuma.
They all climbed out, muttering a little as they shook off as much water as they could off their shoes.
Kyu opened the door leading out. "Everything seems to be clear."
Ryuu came up to him as well and looked out at the corridor that they would be going out to. "Everything looks quiet."
"Too quiet," said Kyu. "What do you think, Ryuu?"
"It doesn't look like we have much of a choice. We'll have to come out of here, but be prepared for anything."
As the two classes stepped out of their entry point, the teachers with them followed, once in a while glaring at each other, as though blaming each other for all this trouble.
"Should we split up?" asked Kyu, uncertain.
Yes, anything to get away from these Class A nuisances, thought Shizuko.
"We'd cover more ground that way. But wait, what exactly are we supposed to be doing here?" asked Yuki, turning to the teachers.
"First, we have to cover all the key points in this place," said Nanami. "We want to place bombs over all the weak areas in this place, then when the time is right, we can destroy Pluto once and for all."
"But, our greatest aim here is the Pluto leader," said Hongou. "Somehow we have to subdue him, or kill him if necessary."
"Here we go with that killing idea of yours," muttered Nanami.
"He'll be killed anyway if this place blows," retorted Hongou.
"Right," said Nanami, handing out miniature bombs to the students, who took them dubiously.
Kazuma flipped open his computer. "We need to find the weak points in this building. It shouldn't be too hard but…what the—?"
"What've you found, Kazuma?" asked Kyu.
"This mansion isn't what we first thought it was, guys."
"What do you mean?" asked Ryuu uneasily.
"There's a great power source coming from somewhere below. I'm thinking that the real Pluto headquarters isn't really this mansion, but underground. I'm detecting a large number of signals crossing each other."
Shizuko looked up at all the stained glass windows, admiring them a bit. "Well, we'll have to give a bit of credit to this house's designer, he did a pretty good job on this place."
"Shizuko, this is no time to marvel at architecture," said Ryuu pointedly.
Kazuma continued typing on his computer. "There are hardly any weak areas, but we'll do a pretty good job if we knock out this place's main power source, and then, placing other explosives in surrounding areas, we can bring this place down in no time."
"So let's do it! Me and the rest of Class Q will just go this way, and you guys from Class A can go another way," piped up Kyu in an excited voice.
"Hongou and I'll take on the Pluto leader of we can find him," said Nanami. With a quick tip of his hat, he ran off in a different direction, with Hongou at his heels.
Class Q and Class A looked at each other apprehensively, then nodded and went off in different directions.
Rants: yes, are you happy I continued the fic? You see, I called it Pluto Returns for a REASON: they're supposed to return and wreak havoc on DDS. If I wanted them to return and then get destroyed, maybe I would have given it a different title. Understand?
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