Six

Marly's POV

EW, I think that was a huge cockroach.

Oh, get a grip, Marly, I disgustedly told myself. You could burn the damn thing and eat it for lunch.

Ew, cockroaches for lunch, I mentally grimaced as the little scold began to make sense in my head.

Oh great. Being stuck down here in a disgusting sewer is really driving me crazy. My communication device thingy is broken, I have nobody to talk to whatsoever, and THANK GOD I did not convince Fury that I could wear my normal clothes. I could've so totally ruined them in this disgusting water thing.

Wait, I sound like a stupid high school prep.

Marly, there came that little scolding, make-you-focus voice in my head again. Or maybe it was Mindee, the Stepford Cuckoo that currently inhabited my head.

Yes, it is Mindee. Now, listen and listen good, okay? THAT'S.NOT.YOU. You're not some stupid high school prep. You're a kickass Black Ops agent, and even though you're not even old enough to be in high school, you're better than all the preps, geeks, and jocks in any damned high school. Okay? Now, get moving along.

Wow. Thanks, Mindee.

You're welcome. I'll contact my sisters to tell Phoebe and Piper that your comm broke.

"Thank you again, Mindee," I said out loud.

Oh, and Mindee! MINDEE!! Ask Phoebe for directions!!

On it. Just hold on and try not to get your ass into trouble.

So I stood there, in ankle-height, olive-green-brown, demented sewer water as I felt the telepathic voice leave my head. Well, temporarily leave. I knew she'd be back.

I crossed my arms and sighed.

I wonder what my parents would think of this. I wonder what my older brother Jason would think. They didn't know I worked for the Black Ops. They didn't know Holly and Paige worked for the Black Ops either. They think we're full-time forensic anthropologists, working part time for S.H.I.E.L.D. and part time for the FBI, in the Jeffersonian. Paige has always had trust issues (bad, traumatic childhood. Too sad and messed up to talk about), so she doesn't exactly mind lying, even to family. Holly's… not exactly the conversationalist to blurt out our secret. And me, Marly..?

Well, I don't know. We're all family, but they were my parents. And my brother. I've never kept a secret from them. When I was nine, and I stole twenty bucks from my dad's jacket pocket (it was a stupid dare), I couldn't keep it in. in other words, they found out less than half an hour after I had stolen the damn money.

That just means you're a good person, due to a normal life. Don't worry about it, darling.

Gack. Mindee just loves jumping in right when I'm pondering over important things.

"So, instructions? Phoebe-centric pissed-off-ness?" I asked.

She telepathically blasted off some info into my brain, which I immediately registered, without even having to talk to Mindee. The wonders of your immensely advanced telepathic partner and her telepathic self always in your head.

And of course Phoebe's pissed, Mindee continued. I winced. She said exactly, word for word, 'She messed up the comm?! Dammit!'"

I winced again. The downsides of having a telepathic partner: she can telepathically blast your cousin/superior-at-work's pissed-off-centric rants.

But then she calmed down and said that it was okay. As long as I was okay with constantly running in and out of your head with instructions.

"And are you okay with it?" I asked.

Of course. I want to stop this bastard scientist guy as much as you do, so of course I can constantly run around in and out of your head.

I smiled. "You're great, Mindee. Now to get on with the damn mission…"

••A little while later••

Jeez. New York City's underground sewage system is like one big, disgusting maze. But with Pheebs' telepathic instructions implanted in my head, it was slightly easier. Getting over your fear of the dirty rodents and bugs that lived down here? Not at all easier. The smell? Of crap and other smelly, unidentified things? Fairly and naturally disgusting, but after an hour, I got used to it.

But the complete silence was driving me crazy. Mindee had left to get another set of instructions. I wanted to pull on my hair and scream my lungs out. I wanted to run around like a bigger psycho than this kidnapping jerk and burn things.

Okay, officially going crazy today is Marly Addison. (Enter here an ugly guy who's holding a trophy that's got "CRAZY" engraved on it.) (Aaaaaaaand enter applause.)

Okay, no, focus.

Okay, forget focus. Just rant in your head.

I can be a chatterbox sometimes. That's why I hang out all the time with my family. They're tolerant of my chatter, and they listen and understand. But now, I got no one. I could pick up a rat by its tail and talk to it, but I would look even crazier. And when I realize that, I would burn the damn rodent. Anyway, I was too much of a girl to even look at a rat. Especially the nasty ones that lived in sewers. A cockroach… okay, huge phobia of bugs. (A/N: All three of them have a phobia of bugs.)

Oh, dear God, you're on the brink of insanity without company, aren't you?

"Mindee!" I literally exclaimed out loud.

In about two minutes, you're going to walk in on a giant, five-foot turtle wearing an orange mask battle a strange, cheesy-ninja-action-movie-styled ninja person. Oh yeah, and the five-foot turtle's brother, another five-foot turtle, battle another ninja. In fact, there are ten ninjas.

My jaw dropped. "What?!"

A five-foot turtle—

"No, Mindee, it was one of those rhetorical 'whats'."

Oh. Well, forget the turtles. Duck.

"Five-foot ducks?!" I asked.

No, DUCK!

I felt Mindee telepathically command my body to crouch down on the floor and clamp my arms over my head. And that's what I did. (let me tell you, having somebody telepathically command your body isn't very fun. It's like being a puppet. But I won't complain much, because sometimes it saves your life).

Zing!

Something metal—for sure, metal—flew over my head and—CLANG!—landed, stabbed half-way into the giant sewage pipe's floor-ground thing. It was a knife. Like one of those Japanese-styled katana things that you see in cheesy ninja action movies.

Great, there are people—NINJAS—tryin' to kill me now, I grumbled in my head.

Oh, puh-leeze, I heard Mindee's telepathic voice scoff. You could kick these guys' asses in your sleep.

"What guys?" I muttered.

Get up and turn around.

I bolted up, fists clenched, ready to conjure up a fireball. My jaw dropped again.

Guess what.

Mindee was right.

Two five-foot tall turtles, one in a blue mask, and the other in an orange mask, battling ninjas decked in black, which made them practically invisible in the dark tunnel.

A ninja was in front of me in an instant, his katana-knife-thing raised.

A sizzling fireball manifested in my palm—I launched at the ninja's face—another behind me—earned a kick in the stomach from yours truly—another one got a flaring streak of fire launched at his stomach—

We were fighting, fighting, fighting. The stupid ninjas just kept coming, coming, coming.

And then all of a sudden—three of them blew up.

There was only one damn person in this damn world who could do that.

"Hey, Marly!"

Paige.

"Oh, am I glad to see you!" I replied happily, launching another fireball at another ninja.

"You know her?" blue-masked-turtle asked Paige. I noticed that he might be a ninja, too; he fended off the black-decked ninjas with two katana.

"Yeah, Marly, one of my associates," Paige replied. She whirled around, flared her fingers at a ninja, and he went pop.

"What or who are these guys?" I asked the orange-masked-turtle as I burned the living crap out of another ninja.

"Foot," he replied, knocking one out with his nun chucks.

"What?" Paige and I asked together.

"Foot?" Paige snorted. She kicked a charging Foot ninja in the groin (for the record, ouch).

"Yeah, Foot," the blue-masked turtle replied.

Jeez. Fifteen minutes later, I was exhausted. "Paaaaaaige," I whined. "Can't you blow them all up? Please?"

"Grr," Paige growled.

I put on my best puppy face. "Pweeease?"

"Rrrrggghhh," Paige growled again. "All right, everybody, get behind me."

The turtles and I dashed behind Paige. She whipped out about thirty grenades, made a force field between her and us, and turned all phantom.

She blew up a handful of the, er, Foot ninjas with her power, then launched the grenades.

My ears are still ringing to this day due to the—

BOOM!!

A/N:

Baah. Sucked. I could've done better than that. Oh well. More coming, soon, cuz I'm a little bit on a roll. P