0700
Rico arrived home exhausted and covered in dirt, bright red scrapes covering parts of his arms, his cloths in tatters. The crazy car had chased him half way across Manhattan, but just when he thought his time was up, it stopped, shut down, and went back to behaving like a normal car. However, when he entered the living room he noticed that a) Private was not seated in front of the Lunicorns as he usually was at 0700, in fact, the youngest member of the team was nowhere to be seen, and b) Kowalski seemed to be bent over a… bloodstain?
"… definitely a fight…" Kowalski thought aloud, acknowledging Rico's presence with no more than a quick pause in his continuous monologue, "blood type AB+… still waiting for the DNA test to come through… can't tell who won." Rico remained where he was, he knew better than to interrupt the scientist during an investigation, "they're both AB+… blood could belong to either of them… Can't tell where they went…"
"Fo'low 'ood trail?" Rico suggested, motioning to the consistent trail of red dots leading out of the living room and into the corridor.
"Rico, you're a genius!" Kowalski exclaimed looking up from the single larger bloodstain for the first time since he spotted it. The two teammates followed the trail until it stopped just outside one of the closets near the front door. Kowalski and Rico looked at each other, silently asking just who was going to open the door. Rico, as usual, seeing as nobody else was going to do it opened the door to reveal the obvious loser of the fight, bound hand and foot, blood staining his shirt and floor.
0415
Private stared at the knife in total surprise. He was confused in the first place as to why they were fighting, but Skipper had actually stabbed him? He looked up at Skipper, expecting to see concern or shock, anything to suggest it was an accident, but found nothing but anger and cold resolve. Private winced as Skipper withdrew the knife. Skipper didn't seem to react to this, even twisting the weapon slightly.
"LEOPARDSEAL's getting sloppy," the leader commented coldly. Skipper hadn't been making sense since the fight began. Private clenched a hand over the wound in his side, attempting to staunch the bleeding, which had increased with the removal of the knife.
"S…Skippah?" Private asked shakily. He'd received worse physical wounds, but the emotional wounds were unlike those he'd faced in a long time.
"Cut the fake accent, Flynn," Skipper grabbed Private roughly by his shirt raising the knife to his neck in such a position, as the only probable next move would be to cut the younger agent's throat.
"Skippah… What are you…?" Private asked, shrinking away from the knife as best he could.
"Don't try playing the sympathy card," Skipper stated for the second time that morning, attempting to sound indifferent, but his voice quavered.
Just when it looked like Flynn was to meet Hans sooner than natural, Skipper stopped. He couldn't do it. Yes, every single moment of time they'd spent together, every memory, every joke they'd laughed at had all been part of some twisted scheme to get him to change sides, and though his training screamed otherwise, he couldn't do it. As aware as he was of Private's – Flynn's – true alliances, he still couldn't kill his own son. But then it would be strategically negative to leave him alive. If he killed the boy, then Flynn wouldn't be able to tell the team how much he knew, and after all, knowledge is power.
Skipper grabbed a length of cord from Rico's bunk, as well as several other weapons, and roughly forced the wounded agent's arms behind his back, ripping them away from the bleeding wound. He then proceeded to bind the cord around the younger agent's limbs, Flynn strangely putting up little resistance, making sure it was tight enough they cut into the skin; it would be harder for Flynn to untie the knots, there was a good chance the lack of resistance was him simply playing possum, if he was losing circulation in his fingers. His first task done, he lifted the boy, he was always surprised by just how light he was, and dragged him towards one of the closets.
Skipper knew Flynn would definitely bleed out before the team found him, the closet was just to make sure he didn't crawl into Kowalski's lab and cut the ropes using one of the many sharp objects and weapons, so it was really the same thing as killing him now. At least, Skipper tried to rationalize it this way, though he still half hoped the team would make it back in time to save the kid, who seemed to be reacting badly to a seemingly somewhat minor wound. Skipper then changed his shirt, which was stained with the boy's blood, wiped his prints from the knife, grabbed the flash drive containing all the data he'd managed to recover, and left.
0730
"… Well, I'm just glad I didn't accidentally hurt Skippah," Private concluded his story, much to Rico's confusion. The kid had nearly died, and he was worried about his attacker, "still, he's out there all alone and obviously not in his right mind…"
"It's worse than that," Kowalski interrupted gravely; "you said the knife grazed the back of his neck?"
"Yes," Private replied, not following the scientist's logic, "it was just a small scratch, though."
"And who gave you the knife?"
"Oh, Barry leant it to me. Why, what's wrong?"
"The knife was covered in a rare modified dart frog poison," Kowalski replied, handling the aforesaid knife with extra caution.
"But you synthesized an antidote from your collection of rare poisons?" Private asked still bewildered.
"You're fine, but Skipper, though he only received a small amount, shouldn't have more than a few hours to live unless we find him and give him the antidote," Kowalski explained, "Ironically, it's the only thing that gave you a chance in the fight against him. You see, the poison takes effect in three stages: he would have started out feeling the effects quite strongly, as he was when he was fighting you, and would remain that way for the first ten minutes. The dizziness should linger, but recede to an amount manageable with Skipper's level of will power. He will then remain like that for seven hours. Following that, he'll lose consciousness, and a few minutes after, he'll die."
"If I confronted Skippah at four am…"
"Then he has less than three hours left to live unless we find him, though any strenuous physical or mental activity could theoretically speed up the effects."
"Then he really has no hope," Private almost broke down into tears, "Nobody is ever able to find Skippah."
0900
"Phase two worked perfectly," Blowhole reported, "Doris did exactly as I told her arranging for the date to be last night, Kowalski memorised the combination and went after the safe exactly as anticipated, and was kept occupied for nine hours. Kuchikukan rigged the car, and I suspect, had a lot of fun chasing Rico across New York. Both team members were successfully distracted…"
"Before you give all the points to Mr. Fishy Mammal," Barry interrupted, much to Blowhole's annoyance, "I got Private to go after Skipper in the first place."
"But you deviated from the plan," The chairman of the group accused. He was about five nine, with black hair cut short and impeccably groomed to the point at which the villains wondered if he ironed his socks. His eyes however, glowed a slight red, and his movements were inhumanly precise.
"No I didn't!" Barry protested.
"You couldn't wait to kill… the original," the android continued, "So you coated the knife with one of you poisons."
"Okay, what if I did," Barry admitted, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." There was a murmur of agreement amongst the group.
"He does have a point…"
"Not as painful as I would have preferred, but revenge is revenge…"
Skipper's android double slammed his fist on the table, "In case you've forgotten, Kuchikukan, that hippie couch potato, rebuilt me from Frances Alberta's plans, with a processor powerful enough to defeat even Blue's intellect." The Blue Hen nodded grudgingly. She'd learned the hard way, this was true, "So I think you should keep to my plan."
Geert's brow furrowed, "But if Skipper's dead…"
"Dying, not dead," the android answered, "I'll just tell one of the less conspicuous operatives to give him the antidote," Skipper's optical sensors rested on Barry, who was trying to exit the room without being noticed, "Oh, one more thing, Barry's fair game." Immediately half the psychopaths at the table raced off after the fleeing ex-conspirator. Geert, however, stopped as he got to the door, looking back at Skipper.
"What about the other lose ends?" he asked, "Now that phase two is complete most of the operatives are no longer necessary, and Skipper's catching up pretty fast."
"I've already seen to it that all the loose ends, including my creator, never say anything to the original."
1043
Skipper knocked on the door of the dingy apartment, but received no answer. He knocked again, but was equally ignored. So, he kicked the door down. He'd never been to the apartment before, though the sight that met his eyes was as he expected it to be.
"Hippie couch potato," he muttered, eyeing the single room in which he found himself. Wires snaked across the floor and various electronic devices hummed and blinked as they performed various tasks Skipper couldn't begin to fathom, "Alright Agent Troy Kuchikukan, I want intel!"
"So the mighty Skipper decides to pay me a visit," a voice hidden behind a pile of out of date electronics countered sarcastically, "Not all of us get out of Penguin like you and Kitka."
"You were the last person the Squirrel was known to have contacted," skipper stated, "what's your connection to him."
"Yes well, if by contacting me, you mean gloating, you've got that right," Skipper walked around the pile of electronics to the desk at which the speaker sat, "What was it they all called me? The destroyer of worlds? My weapons could destroy worlds, until the accident." Kuchikukan was slightly pudgy from all his years out of action, though he still wore his old lab coat with a name tag saying: Agent Troy Kuchikukan. His tangled black hair grew down beyond his collar and covered his eyes in long greasy locks, and his face wore a perpetual scowl.
"You were critically injured on a mission…"
"Which you were commanding."
"… and in order to save your life Private," Skipper saw no reason to broadcast his knowledge of the team's true identities, "used your brain switching device to move your consciousness to a cheese loaf."
"Which drove me insane, apparently," Kuchikukan finished, "and so, at the top of my career, they discharge me for 'medical reasons' and leave me trapped in this apartment, 'house arrest', which is just about as spacious as living in a ceramic pot."
"There's no guards," Skipper commented. He'd walked in without any opposition.
"Well watch this then, brainiac," Kuchikukan walked over to the door, and attempted to walk through. A bright green light flashed and he was thrown backwards as if he'd hit some kind of force field, "and so I am trapped here forever. You know, I rebuilt the android, your android to be specific, a genius, hoping he would go out into the outside world and destroy the energy field. Well, he went into the outside world alright, he just didn't come back." Kuchikukan's red eyes flashed venomously.
"You rebuilt one of Frances Alberta's androids?!" Skipper exclaimed, "That psycho nearly replaced all the agents working undercover at Hoboken with androids!"
"I reprogrammed Skipper II; you have no fears on that front."
"Where is it?" Skipper demanded.
"I don't know, at least, not right now," Kuchikukan smiled like one who is exacting revenge. Skipper could tell, he'd seen that look so many times, "But he came back, you know. He wanted me to fix your car to attack Rico. After promising to get me out, he betrayed me again, but I found out one thing he doesn't know I know: despite the show he puts on, he's just, quite literally…"
Kuchikukan jerked backwards in his battered office chair as the bullet sailed through the window and would have pierced his heart had Skipper not shoved him out of the way at the last minute. Instead the projectile embedded itself in his right lung. Skipper had seen the sniper, the flash of light coming from the sun reflecting off the sight, but his sluggish body, he still struggled to just keep the effects of the tranquilizer at bay, had reacted only fast enough to lessen the damage slightly. Immediately Skipper pulled the limp man from the chair, ducking below window level himself as well to avoid being shot at further, and searched the apartment for anything to save the valuable information source.
Skipper spotted the brain switching device Flynn had used to save Kuchikukan's life. It occupied the place of honor atop the sea of silicon that covered the desk. He crawled along the floor, though the room seemed to rock, his balance slightly off kilter. But Skipper forced himself to keep going. No tranquilizer was going to take him down. He grabbed the machine, as well as the closest thing to him, a lunacorn, before switching on the device. It would take several minutes for the transfer to complete, during which time there was nothing he could do for him. Skipper carefully poked his head above the window. The sniper was still there. He might not need Kuchikukan to talk after all.
1051
Skipper climbed the fire escape, reaching the roof just in time to be spotted. The two twins, the Vesuvius twins to be exact, playboys who took on 'interesting' contracts for the thrill, made a dash for the next rooftop, one of them kicking the rifle over the edge of the building to prevent Skipper from using it against them. Skipper immediately began chase, though miscalculated the distance of the jump, barely grabbing the edge of the next roof with one hand. He tried to pull himself up, but the world began to spin, his grip weakening.
"Not… letting… those two delinquents," Skipper gripped the edge for all he was worth, slowly pulling himself up, "get the better… of me." Skipper tried to stand but nearly fell back over the edge.
"Oh look, I think he's actually trying to follow us," one of the twins commented. Skipper growled, crawling forward. He didn't care how he got them, but he was going to. Slowly, as his head began to clear, he grabbed the side of a water tower, pulling himself up.
Without warning, a powerful kick slammed into his knee cap. His knee buckled, and the other one struggled to support the sudden weight. Skipper now realized the affects he was feeling were now ordinary tranquilizer. He felt almost as if his strength was being drained from him. It was a chilly afternoon, yet he was sweating like crazy. Skipper slowly began to give in to the drowsiness, sinking towards the ground.
"I barely touched him."
The obnoxious voice cut through the cacophony of noises Skipper detected, reminding him of where he was. Oh well, the team would come and… Wait, he was on his own now. The team wasn't coming. Skipper struggled to his feet. If he gave up now, he was dead, which meant countless other agents just like him would be left at the mercy of LEOPARDSEAL.
"You know, I wouldn't be surprised if he finished himself off."
Yeah right. Skipper walked towards the sound of the voices. He knew he was precariously close to the roof; he hadn't walked that far from it. Black spots began to dance before his eyes, then, as if someone had switched off the light in a room, Skipper lost consciousness.
"You were right," one of the sadistic twin's voices continued the commentary, "he's knocked himself off the roof."