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...