Chapter 1.
[INCOMING TRANSMISSION]
During a warm and sunny day, Sector V were on another mission to get the Delightful Children From Down The Lane's cake. They had prepared this mission for a while now. Especially Nigel. It's been a long time he and the Delightful Children were at each other's throat. From before he joined the Kids Next Door, even.
As usual, the preppy brats were on the Really Really Destructively Machine, ready to smite whoever would get in the way of them and their precious cake. And that was always Numbuhs One to Five, the appointed KND operatives to steal the famous edible.
Nigel's strategy was simple: distracting the Delightful Deviants on one side with two or three operatives so that the others can strike from somewhere else. At first, everyone was on the front. Making sure the little dorks would focus on the main battle at hand. Then, Nigel surreptitiously snuck behind them on a hill, ready to jump on the machine's dome to crack it and get the cake. He and the Delightfuls had the sun in their direction, that way Nigel could take advantage of not having his shadow warning them of his move.
-"Look out!", yelled Abby.
Nigel went ahead of himself and the Delightful Children used their dangerous machine's arm to wipe away the Kids Next Door. They spread just in time to avoid being crushed. The Creeps laughed maniacally. They saw Nigel coming. It made him rage on the inside. He took Wally's weapon from his hand, ignored his friend's protestation, and started shooting at the machine's joins to make it fall and everyone with it. Upon falling down, the Delightful Dorks took their cake and jumped into their other flying vehicle what was waiting for them. Before leaving their big machine, they successfuly redirected it to make it fall on the Sector V's S.C.A.M.P.E.R. that got destroyed by the heavy piece of metal, allowing the Delightful Children to escape the premises with their personal aerial ship.
-"Nooooo!", raged Nigel. "It can't be!"
-"Welp", started Hoagie in a defeated tone, "I guess this time it's a complete failure."
-"I'm not going to give up so easily!", Nigel continued, ignoring his friend's comment.
-"Numbuh Five says they're kinda too far now to do anything about it anymore.", said Abby, trying to calm Nigel down.
-"No way! I haven't been working too hard on this mission just to let them go like that!", he answered harshly.
Then, he clicked on his shoes' buttons to activate their flight abilities and went after the Delightful Children, leaving his friends behind.
-"HEY! What about us?", complained Wally, who wanted to be part of the fight too.
-"There he goes again...", facepalmed Abby, used to her leader's habit to go on his own out of impulse. -"Come on, guys! We need to find a way to go after him!"
Nigel was catching up pretty fast to the Delightful Children's aircraft. He was glad he made the upgrade to his J.E.T.A.B.O.O.T.S., their efficiency were phenomenal. Once he reached the ship, he used his pen laser to make an entrence and then got in. He took out his S.P.I.C.E.R. and snuck his way to the cake. He was so focused on the mission he didn't notice his enemies behind him who threw a soporific gas at him. Nigel tried to not breath it, but it was quite strong, he started to lose conscioussness and fell on his knees.
-"Ah, poor Nigel Uno", started the Delightful Children on a false compassionate tone. -"You are so predictible. Did you really think we wouldn't be ready for you?"
But Nigel wasn't able to answer as he couldn't fight back his sleepiness, and right before everything turned black, the last thing he heard was the Delightful Children's wicked, monotonous giggles.
When he woke up, he realized he was attached on a chair with chains. He tried to free himself, without success. In front of him there was a round table where the cake was throning in the middle. Just like always, the cake was tall and large. The white frosting decorated with the fancy blue cream around it seemed way too good to be real. But it was real, right under Nigel's nose.
-"Finally awake?", asked the Delightful Children from behind the cake.
They came closer with their usual creepy smile. Nigel backed away his head in disgust. God, he hated them. All he wanted to do at this moment was to punch their smug faces. Him trying to move in his restrains made the Delightful Creeps giggling even more, which only gave the captive operative more irritation towards them.
-"What are you planning to do with me now?", asked Nigel carefully. He didn't want to accept it, but he was starting to feel quite uncomfortable and anxious. Being trapped and at the mercy of the Deilghtful Children reminded him of their first interaction. And that was something Nigel didn't want to remember.
-"We just want to see your face as we eat our birthday cake", they stated as they were cutting some slices out of it. -"Watching your expression right now is the best birthday gift we could ever receive.", they finished on a complacent tone.
Nigel rolled his eyes. Of course they would want to torture him this way. He was cursing himself. Once again he's been brash and it costed him the success of his mission. But he couldn't help it: his aversion for the Delightful Children was too immense that he was mostly acting on impulse when it came to them.
-"But...", the Dorks said softly, -"We could make an exception today". They smirked at him, waiting for a reaction as they showed him a slice of the cake in Bruce's hand.
Nigel was of course puzzled by this sudden 'change of heart', making him raising his eyebrows in both confusion and suspicions. He stayed on his defense, and asked:
-"Why would you do that?"
-"Are you telling us you don't want a piece of our cake?", they taunted him, putting the slice in front of him.
Nigel had to admit to himself, he really wanted to taste the famous bestest best cake ever. He looked at the slice with deep envy. The cream inside it, the small pieces of fresh fruit, the frosting... It was almost as he was drooling a little. But his pride and honor of being a KND operative were way more important than his personal wish. He snarled back at them:
-"I'd rather starve than being one priviliged kid to taste your birthday cake. I don't see why you'd want me to have a piece of it."
-"Why, can't we just want to spend this special time with our dear cousin?", they sneered, knowing full well how it would hit him.
At these words, Nigel became speechless for a while as his heart sunk. A few months ago, he learned with horror that he was related to Father and so technically, to the Delightful Children too. That day he discovered his dad was his KND hero this whole time, but that joy was short lived as the other revelation came soon after this one. And it was something Nigel wanted to ignore. He wanted to forget about his evil relatives. He never wanted to bring it up in front of any of his friends or the rest of the KND. Too ashamed to admit who his family were. He hated Father, the Delightful Children, Grandfather, and all of his ... 'ancestors' known as KND ennemies from the past. And now, those Delightful Dorks were reminding him of this. Just because it was bringing them satisfaction to see Nigel in utter shock.
-"We're not family", he hissed heinously. -"I'll never consider you as such. You're twisted little creeps. We're nothing alike!", ranted Nigel.
He spat at their feet, clenched his teeth and gave them his most hateful look. They completely ignored his action.
-"That's a shame.", they complained on a fake pained tone. They put the slice of cake away from Nigel. Then, they took something from under the table, out of Nigel's sight, and before showing what it was, they whispered : -"It seems that you need to be... rectified."
They turned back, and Nigel recognized in terror the device. It was a smaller version than the one he remembered, but it was definitely a similar weapon from when he was kidnapped by the Delightful Children around three years ago.
In first grade, Nigel was the target of these creeps. They trapped him in their mansion, attached him to some kind of hand-barrow, and that huge laser like weapon was aiming at him. The sinister laugh of the Delightful Children kept echoing as 8 years old Nigel was asking for his parents to help him. But they never came. A torture that seemed it lasted for weeks until Numbuh Five freed him and brought him on the KND Moonbase hospital.
His fear started to get the better of him. And the Delightfuls could see it. They were delecting of this moment viciously. He was never sure what they were trying to do to him back then, but he didn't want to see the end results now in any way. He could hear his heartbeat getting faster and louder. He still couldn't free himself from the chains. He couldn't see how he could get out of this situation.
You can show them who's really in charge, a thought crossed his mind. And you know what to do.
Suddenly, feeling completely hopeless slowly turned his fear into a deep hatred, because he wasn't the same unprepared kid like last time, and refused to be that kid ever again. The more hatred he felt for them, the more heated he became. Literally. It wasn't something Nigel noticed right away, but his hands started to be covered in a black shadowy skin, as flames were swirling around them. More of it started to take over half of Nigel's face, the heat was so high it melted the chains and Nigel was finally free. He got rid of them with a guttural scream.
The Delightful Children gasped in terror, because they definitely didn't expect something like that. Nigel threw the chair behind him at them, but they ducked at the right time and the chair flew over to the command of the plane, which detroyed the auto-pilot.
-"You're crazy!", the Delightful Children shouted in anger as they reached for a parachute.
-"Oh no you don't!", Nigel yelled while he was grabbing Bruce's uniform.
Now it was them who had fear in their eyes. Nigel was readying his fist to punch them, but it was at this moment he realized the color of his hands.
-"What the-?", he stopped himself from finishing his own sentence, too absorbed by the utter confusion of seeing flames coming out of his shadowy hands.
The Delightfuls took advantage of these few seconds of inattention to push him back. The alarm of the airplane kept beeping, they were about to crash. The Delightful Children didn't wait for their rest and jumped out of the plane. Nigel came back to his senses when he saw them jumping with the only parachute. The half silhouette suit started to fade away as Nigel's survival instinct kicked in. He activated his shoes and left the crashing airship falling to its doom.
Nigel still followed the plane with the dumb hope the cake would be okay, but upon seeing the ruins he realized nothing was salvagable. It was at this moment his teammates finally joined him.
-"Numbuh One!", yelled Abby. -"Are you okay?", she continued with an extreme concerned look on her face.
Before answering, Nigel looked at his hands once more. They were normal again.
-"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine.", he lied. He wasn't sure how to feel, actually.
-"Did you get the cake?", asked Kuki with excitment. She then realized her mistake when she saw Nigel's disappointed face.
-"It doesn't matter", Nigel flatly said.
-"But, what about the mission?", demanded Wally. -"Global command are gonna kick our butt so hard this time for sure if we don't bring a slice-"
-"I SAID IT DOESN'T MATTER, NUMBUH FOUR!", Nigel interrupted abruptly his friend by grabbing his sweatshirt and lifting him in the air.
Nigel had to calm himself down as he saw his friends stepping backwards a little. He let Wally go who was in complete shock and checked if any physical change happened on him. By chance, no silhouette suit on sight.
-"Well, it's not a complete waste. Their perfect day is at least ruined for good.", he said, as if it would make his friends feel better about this failure.
-"Numbuh One...", started Abby on a careful tone. -"You know you shouldn't make it personal when we're on a mission."
Nigel gave her a somber look.
-"It's always personal for me and you know darn well why.", he let go in a spiteful tone.
Abby looked away in shame. She always knew Nigel had a personal beef with the Delightful Children. She knew Nigel wanted to join the KND mostly to get back at them. Abby still felt guilty about not helping Nigel in time when he was kidnapped by the Delightful Creeps.
When he saw how embarassed Abby was, Nigel felt remorse. He didn't want to be this hurtful to his friend, and he wasn't sure what to say to make her feel better.
Fortunatley, Hoagie broke the ice:
-"Okaaaaaaaaay, uuuuummmm... How about we go back home to make our report, right?", he tried to say on a cheerful tone, but failed miserably.
Sector V all agreed in silence. They climbed up in their shuttle and returned to their treehouse. Nigel then locked himself in his room upon arrival. Kuki wanted to follow him immediately to comfort him but Hoagie stopped her. He knew better than anyone else that forcing Nigel in any way for anything was a bad idea. Nigel had his own means to cope, and getting in the way would only make things worse.
Nigel was looking at his hands. The idea he could have the same powers as Father seemed so unreal. What happened today felt like it was just a dream. Oh, how much Nigel wanted this day to be just a dream. But he looked closer at his hands. Just to be sure. And then he smelt something strange. It was almost indistinctly, but a small odour of sulfur did reek out of his hands. That was no dream. He did get a partial silhouette suit earlier. And fire powers too. That's how he was able to get rid of the chains. Nigel melted them. It happened so fast he didn't actually realized what was truely happening.
He wasn't sure how he got these powers, but he knew who could be responsible for them.
-"Father...", Nigel whispered in anger.
He decided to pay a little visit to his archenemy to finally get some answers.
