Inspector Gadget- Home Security
By Kairi Taylor
Disclaimer: No. All of it, DIC.
For all you Penny fans, enjoy. If you are not a Penny fan, my only words to you is that the 8th hour of the 8th day of the 10th month shall be the last time you will see a sunrise, since swift death shall shortly follow. Heed the warnings...
Dr. Claw,
leader of MAD, feared crime lord throughout the world, found himself
in what could be best described for him as a state of shock.
Before
him, barely standing on his own will, with a cast wrapped around his
wrist and forearm, was one of his larger, more portly MAD agents,
with a blackened left eye, a ripped uniform and missing teeth. He had
obviously been at the receiving end of a beating he would later
describe as 'the single, most painful, most humiliating 10 seconds of
my entire life.' Generally speaking, MAD agents were known for their
tenacity, their ability to bounce back from even the most horrid of
accidents. Of course, the majority of said pain came from Inspector
Gadget's many, many storied miscalculations, but the good officer
never in his life hurt anyone in the manner the agent had been in.
"Report," Dr. Claw sighed, although he had a feeling he
knew the results of the report would only give him a migraine, "and
before you do, I wish to point out that there was no way you could
have blown this."
The Agent, who will be referred to now on
as 'Big', gave the MAD salute, a fist to the head. It was especially
painful today, due to the concussion. "Uh, we did everything we
were ordered to boss. We followed the squad leader's order's right to
the letter...but, uh, it's just that..."
"Go on."
"She
was prepared, boss."
"I can see that. I just don't
understand how was she able to do this? We have a huge file on her;
she NEVER displayed such a remarkable display as this..."
"Uh,
boss," Big winced, "pardon me, but I have some internal
bleeding and I was thinking..."
"That can wait,"
Claw said, steepling his gauntlet clad fingers in thought, "but
for now, I want to know, just what happened at the Gadget house."
Usually, Claw had surveillance equipment up the wazzo. Gadget &
his friends couldn't even blink unless Claw had seen it first hand.
But a month ago, all of the equipment strangely went haywire. So, he
had to go with first person accounts of missions to get by. And this
one was particularly gruesome.
It was no secret to Dr.
Claw: the real method to dealing with a hated adversary was to take
away that which he valued the most. And in Gadget's case, it was his
immediate family, namely Penny.
Penny, who was the real reason why
Gadget had so effectively beaten Claw over the years. The girl who
had a computer book that could hack into any system was the sole
factor that the bumbling crime fighter still had a career to speak
of. So, Claw had decided it was high time that 'the damned annoying
blond brat' got what was coming to her. If he could capture her and
seize her computer book, it would only be a matter of time before he
could get Gadget and be rid of both of them for good.
So, he sent
4 agents to Gadget's home in Metro City: Big, Baldy, Slim &
Medium. (Hey, that's how they were, remember? Did you ever see a
standard, muscular MAD agent, or a tremendous fat ass of a MAD agent?
Didn't think so.) The instructions were simple: break into the house,
seize the girl and get the book, then leave the ransom note &
bring her to Dr. Claw's HQ. There was no way it could have been any
clearer.
The van, disguised as a laundry truck, parked across the
street from the Gadget home, inconspicuous to any person. Baldy
looked out through a pair of binoculars & peered into the window
to see Penny, in the living room, at her desk writing in a black
notebook. "Ok, she's doing her homework. And it looks like the
dog ain't there."
"You know," Slim mused, rubbing
his chin, "there was this rumor that their dog had a nervous
breakdown & retired to the countryside."
"Can you
blame him?" Medium sneered "You ever see that idiot in his
day to day life? The man is an insurance company nightmare. I heard
he destroyed a two story building just by sneezing."
"Chief
Quimby has it worse." Baldy replied. "I've seen his medical
reports. The man has more entries in the burn ward than Freddy
Krueger."
"In any case, let's get this over with."
Medium put on his gloves and said "You two get in through the
windows on each side, we'll rush the front & back doors. And
remember, it needs to be quick."
What followed next is best
known as a clusterfuck.
Slim & Baldy, who approached a
side window each, were the first to fall. Baldy crawled upon the
ground, crowbar in hand, and quietly reached the east window. With
subtle movement, he craftily slid the end of his crowbar into the
window and forced the window open. He smiled, thinking it was almost
too easy. As he reached out with his arms to climb in, the window,
without warning, slammed down, HARD, onto his wrists. It wouldn't
have been so bad if the window didn't repeat it several times. Baldy
could only howl out in pain as his wrists were reduced to a swollen,
broken bloody mass of pain. It only ended when a large mallet reached
out overhead & smashed into his skull, rendering him unconscious.
Slim was not so lucky. He was very much awake for his thrashing.
As soon as he touched his window sill, a rope lashed around his
ankles and a mechanical hand grabbed one end, flipped him upside down
& slammed him face first hard against the side of the house. As
Slim reflected on his bad fortune, as well as possible new career
choices, he found himself doused in barbecue sauce. "Huh,
sauce?" he said to himself. "That doesn't make any
sense..."
It was then that a side panel slid open and a Saint
Bernard's weight in Chihuahuas began to approach him.
Medium
had not heard the cries of pain that his compatriots gave. He was too
preoccupied with the crisis he was in.
The back of the house was
safe, he thought, and entrance into the kitchen seemed secure. As he
stepped on the welcome mat, the plunge into the pitfall proved
otherwise. He managed to avoid the spikes that lined the edges of the
wall by curling into a ball, but had to give in to the shock of
electricity as he hit the water-filled bottom. He thought the worst
of it was over.
The two logs to the side of the head would,
however, prove him wrong.
Penny looked up from her notebook as
Big burst through the front door, his foot on fire. Carefully
assessing the situation, she put her pen down and said to him "I
see you survived the flamethrower."
"Hah, you think
something as childish as that could stop someone as tough as me!"
Big crowed. "Ok, so the taser to the groin may have slowed me
down, but I'm here. Come on kid, you're gonna see Doctor Claw!"
"Oh
yes, I'm sure I will," Penny said, a smirk on her face, "but
I think I need to take care of you first."
"Don't try to
act all brave, little girl, I'm bigger than you and I can--"
Before Big could finish the next syllable, she was on him.
Grabbing his wrist, she gave a sudden twist, breaking it with a
sickening crack. Crying out in pain, he was forced to his knees as
Penny gave two violent roundhouse kicks to the face and neck,
relieving him of his teeth. As he fell to the ground, Penny grabbed
his collar and smiled, her hand cocked for a deathblow. "So
then, let's have a chat..."
Dr Claw always had a Plan B-
when the pawns were exhausted, you always sent in your main players
to swoop in and finish the job. And so, a special agent was called in
automatically by Medium's cell phone, which had somehow managed to
survive the shock. As Penny continued to interrogate Big using
various joint locks, the phone rang. "Excuse me, I think that
might be my classmate from Japan." Penny smiled. As she picked
the phone off from the receiver, a not so beloved and familiar man
teleported himself from the depths of cyberspace. Dr. Spectrum, a
classic archetype of the evil scientist, appeared in the middle of
the Gadget living room, a laser pistol in hand. "Ah, Penny, we
meet again," he sneered "and to think it's been 3 years
since we last met."
"Spectrum, huh? I never figured they
would use you as a backup plan." Penny remarked.
"Oddly
enough, it seems that most of the top agents have gone into hiding
recently. I heard Amazon Annie was' convinced' to quietly retire to a
ranch in the Andes. I'm sure you had a hand in it. But no time for
idle chatter, lass. Time to go."
However, the laser pistol
that Spectrum had was purely metal, which was a problem-see, while
Spectrum talked, Penny activated a small switch on her watch, which
in turn activated a magnet that ripped the pistol from his hands. As
Spectrum looked up, his bald head showing a small vein, he smiled and
reached into his coat. He had been busy these past 3 years and the
beam sword that he produced from his lab coat was evidence of that.
(I can't say You Know What, as George Lucas has a stranglehold on the
word.)
"You know it's amazing, really, what you pick up when
you go on a year long sabbatical in the wilds of Japan" Spectrum
said, his words dripping with confidence, "and I have been dying
to give these a whirl. Penny turned her head to Big and sighed,
saying "Just hang tight, big man, I'm not done with you yet. As
for you, Doc, one beam sword is nice...if you are for the traditional
sort of thing."
Spectrum's eyes widened as Penny produced two
green & red colored beam swords of her own. Somewhere in the
background, "Duel of The Fates" began to play...
"And
that's what happened," Big finished before he added "and if
you don't believe me, feel free to check out the boot mark she left
on my ass."
Dr. Claw blinked, not in shock at the details of
the failed mission, but at something he had overlooked. "Just
what did she talk to you about?" He asked warily.
"Uh,
she wanted to know the location of MAD HQ. And she asked me to give
this to you." Big handed Claw a folded up note with kittens on
it. Claw, putting on his reading glasses, read aloud "I got your
message Claw. Now I'm gonna give one to you...and make you eat it.
With love, Penny."
Dr. Claw didn't have to look up, he could
sense that Big's face had turned a deathly shade of white. "She
followed you, didn't she?"
"Yup."
"Oh
shi--"
There was no time to finish the sentence as Penny's
fist had already made it's way through the back of the chair to his
head.
Gadget arrived home later that evening,
groceries in hand, to find Penny sitting on the couch, eating a bag
of apple chips. "So, how was work today, uncle?" she
asked.
"Same as always, Penny, another rash of gang violence.
How was your day?"
"Not too bad. Finished my research
paper on Stonehenge, fixed the computer, burned down MAD headquarters
& turned in Dr. Claw."
"Ah...uh, is he..."
"He's
in a body cast, in case you want to know."
"Ok. I'm
making pork chops tonight. Want to help?"
"Sure!"
EPILOUGE-
"And
now for the evening news...Doctor Claw, head of the criminal
organization known as M.A.D. has been admitted into Metro City
Hospital after suffering numerous injuries today when an unknown
assailant destroyed his castle headquarters after apprehending him.
Claw suffered multiple broken bones, fractures, burns and numerous
internal injuries. Earlier, doctors had removed a large piece of
paper lodged in his windpipe. No one knows who it was who had done
this, although it was reported that Claw had reportedly screamed to
the medics, quote 'She is a friggin' DEMON! She will kill us all!'
before being sedated. Chief Quimby---"
The red haired
Japanese girl turned the TV off. She had been in Penny's high school
as a transfer student for only a year, but she was amazed at the
progress that her first student had made.
The girl had made fast
friends with the young blonde--she wasn't like most of the people who
talked to her. It could be said that many of the people who tried to
make contact with her were only interested in her, er, physical
attributes. And she didn't talk too much to her family these
days--even though it had taken a considerable amount of time to
reconcile with her brother and half sister, their duties to the newly
revamped clan had kept them away from home a lot.
Oh yes the clan.
She had found that decree of death to be especially annoying, not to
mention her half sister's rather unreasonable grudge. After
convincing her that she was not her enemy (several kicks to the head
will do that) they patched things up & convinced their brother to
revise the ninja laws of the village. Only after the trio beat the
hell out of them did the elders reconsider & let her come back to
the clan.
After arriving in America, she was approached by Penny,
who had told her she knew all about her past & wanted the new
student to train her. She was, quite honestly, sick of being
kidnapped every other damn case & wanted to end the crap with MAD
once and for all. So, the girl relented and trained her new student
in the art of stealth and ninjitsu, with help from an old family
friend.
Still, Kasumi wondered, who would have guessed that little
Penny would grow to be such a fireball? She just hoped Ayane &
Hayate wouldn't give her hell for this one...
