Perfect Dark and the Thousand Year Door.
By HARTride 2012
A/N: Here is the next installment of the PDTTYD series. It may be a while before I get the next chapter posted.
For those who have reviewed on my stories so far, THANK YOU! I really appreciate the constructive comments! Now, on with the story!
Disclaimer: This fictional story is a crossover between Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door and the Perfect Dark series. I have no affiliation whatsoever with either series and any characters from either series that are mentioned, I do not own. Any references to any real-life events, past, present, and future are completely coincidental, and asterisked characters in the character list are copyrighted and cannot be used for any reason in any other story.
Chapter 4 – The prep work
Velvet was in a slight state of disbelief when she exited Carrington's office. She could not believe that after several months of hiatus, she would be embarking on another mission with her sister. Never mind the past few months where Velv was bored to death watching YouTube videos and hearing about Janice and Tiffany taking advantage of other personnel; she was very excited to be able to leave the Institute campus on something other than a grocery run. As Velv and Jo walked back to their offices to prepare for the mission, she asked of her sister, "Are we the only five that will be going on this mission?" Jo nodded, "As far as I know…yes. Daniel informed me that Jon has another mission assigned to him and will not be joining us. I believe Daniel mentioned something about Jon having to conduct more CMO surveillance." Velv nodded, "I see. I guess Daniel needs Jon to be on top of the CMO situation huh?" Jo nodded again, "Yes, and you know something Velv? After the whole thing with dataDyne, Daniel refuses Jon to go on any co-op missions with us. Neither he or I understand why." The two sisters looked at each other with a confused look, "I don't get it either" said Velv, wanting to know what Jon may have done wrong. "We simply may never know Velv" said Jo, as they approached their offices.
A few minutes later, Jo and Velv were preparing for the mission ahead; gathering together any necessary resources and obtaining advice from Stanley Grimshaw, the Institute's lead hacker. Velv made sure that she had enough food to keep her stomach satisfied throughout the duration of the mission. One thing that Velv always liked to do before missions was make sure she was well fed, though not to the point where she felt too full. Sometimes there would not be enough time to prep for certain missions, such as the villa mission where she and Jo had to save Daniel from a slew of dataDyne insurgents. "Crackers again?" asked Jo, staring at her sister with a semi-sinister look. "I have to eat ya know" replied Velv, as she placed the bag of crackers into her small supply bag. "Just be glad that bag folds up" said Jo, as she placed the last of her rations into her own supply bag. "Which is why I like the bags" Velv replied, zipping up the bag and pressing the green button that compressed the bag into a credit card-sized chip. As the sisters finished up their preparations, they knew that the days ahead would be long, which meant they all needed to get some sleep soon. However, they also knew that anything could happen in the next few minutes regarding the situation in Rogueport.
Meanwhile, Troy Sumner had already begun his own preparations for the upcoming mission; which included packing away extra clothing and food, as well as uploading all of his mission files into his d-PAL. "Why do I even still have this device? Why do we all still have these devices?" Troy asked himself, knowing that the d-PALs were manufactured by dataDyne. As the blonde man neatly folded two pairs of uniforms, he noticed that there was a coffee stain on the right leg of the uniform pants he was wearing. Frustrated, Troy let out a few choice words and tried to clean the stain, with no luck unfortunately. Troy then realized that the stain must have come from when Elvis had bumped into him in the hall earlier. Elvis would sometimes swipe a cup of coffee from Daniel's coffee maker and sneak out of the office undetected. Instead of placing blame on Elvis, Troy simply continued his prep work, knowing that he was going to shower soon anyways. He took off his stained uniform pants and placed it on the table aside; there would be time to have it washed later. He then placed his rations into his supply bag and closed the bag in the same fashion by which Velv had done with her's just a few minutes ago.
Before Troy could think about what he needed to do next, there was a loud knock on the door. "Who is it?" Troy asked. "It's me Jon, may I come in?" said Jon Steinberg, one of the Institute's best agents. "Just a quick moment" said Troy, scrambling for something to cover up his lower body. He certainly didn't want to fight with putting on another pair of pants, but at the same time, he had to look decent. Without another word, Troy picked up a clean towel from his couch and wrapped it tightly around his waist. "Come in" said the blonde agent, allowing his comrade to enter. Behind Jon was Jo and Velv, who minutes ago had finished their prep work. "May I ask what is the meaning of this Troy?" asked Jo, giving him a rather puzzled look. "I think Elvis may have accidently spilled coffee on my pants, I tried to clean it, but nothing happened" Troy replied. "You could have told us and we would have let you have a few more minutes" said Jon. "Nah" said Troy, "I didn't want to keep you all waiting. Besides, I'm in my office. Not out in the halls." Jo laughed at Troy's remark, knowing that he was making reference of the incident where Jon ran across the institute campus wearing only his underwear. "Yeah; funny one Troy" Jon smirked, "I'm not the least bit amused. Just wait until you fall into the same situation." "Okay, okay, enough" said Velv, not wanting a drama to ensue. "What happened in the past, stays in the past. Let's look forward to our mission." Everyone else nodded in agreement, "You're right Velv" said Troy, "My apologies Jon." Jon nodded, "Apology accepted."
Velv and Jo took a seat on Troy's couch while Jon stood off to the side. "So what brings you all here?" asked Troy. "Well, I just wanted to let you…and Jo and Velv know, that unfortunately, I won't be able to join you all." Jon replied. "Let me guess?" said Jo, "Daniel sent you on a CMO spy train?" "Uh…yes…if you want to put it that way" Jon replied, "I guess he told you himself?" Jo nodded, letting out an awful sigh, "Yes he did, and he gave me no assurance that you would be able to join us later either." Jon sighed, "I may be able to, but it's only a 30% chance if at best. I really wanted to go with you and help out, but Daniel has been such a prick lately. I don't understand why he doesn't give me a break from CMO. We have enough agents." "Perhaps he feels you're the one to lead the missions Jonathan?" said Velv. "Perhaps so" said Jon, letting out another sigh. Suddenly, Carrington came through on the intercom, "Agents Dark, Dark, Evers, Sumner, and Elvis, please report to my office immediately. And Grimshaw…if you hear this, please report to my office as well. Thank you". "I guess that means we all have to go" said Jo. "You may want to put your pants on Troy" said Velv, tugging off the towel he was wearing. "HEY!" shouted Troy, "WHAT WAS THAT FOR?" "For not being prepared" Velv laughed. "It's not my fault I'm not prepared!" Troy exclaimed, "Sure it is Troy…sure it is" Velv laughed, pointing to the white briefs Troy had on "Love the tightie whities by the way." Troy's face turned extremely red as his fellow agents left his office.