So sadly, not all of this story will be various KND shenanigans, since Cree wouldn't always be hanging around Abby, even if they do have a better relationship with each other in this story. But this isn't a filler chapter! I have some actual world building in this! Namely, how the Teen Ninjas are doing without Cree as a member.
"Whoever said that school needs to start at the crack of dawn is a hazard to society," Cree thought to herself as she slapped her hand down on the clock, stopping the alarm before it could wake up anyone else in the house. Cree found it endlessly amusing that, in spite of the sigma of adults hating kids, the elementary school had the latest start time. Still, no sense in complaining. With a groan, Cree got up, got dressed, put her prosthetic on (she had tried sleeping it on once. She'd realized it was a horrible idea rather quickly) and headed downstairs for breakfast.
"Morning, mon petit biquet," Her mother greeted her as she sat down at the table.
"Morning mama," Cree tiredly greeted back as her mother placed her breakfast in front of her. Pancakes. Her favorite. Smiling, Cree dug in.
"You'll be okay to get to school yourself?" Her mother asked. Cree took a moment to swallow another bite before answering.
"I'll be fine," She assured her mother. "You can go back to sleep if you want." With a smile of her own, her mother kissed her daughter on the head before heading back upstairs. From there, Cree quickly finished her breakfast, placed her plate and silverware in the sink, grabbed her backpack and headed outside to wait for the bus. A few other teens were waiting at the bus stop.
"Hey Cree," Another teen greeted her upon seeing her coming. Cree merely waved back with a smile before putting her earbuds in, hoping some music would wake her up. It didn't, but it did make the wait for the bus and the ride go much faster, however. What did wake her up, however, was nearly getting tripped while waiting in front of the school to be let in.
"I thought peg legs made people clumsy, not hook hands!" A voice from behind her taunted. Cree growled as she turned to face the culprit.
"Chloe. I see you have nothing better to do other than annoy me," Cree said, her tone level, as she crossed her arms. Chloe Reginason was pretty much every teen movie mean girl rolled into one annoying package. She had long bleached hair pulled back into a high ponytail and she always seemed to be wearing the latest trends and Cree was fairly certain that her face was so caked in makeup that it would take an hour to wash off.
"Oh believe me, I have way better stuff to do than mock an outcast like you," Chloe replied. "It's just so much fun I can't help myself! It's almost as fun as beating up little kids as a Teen Ninja!"
"You know, saying your favorite things to do is pick on little kids and disabled people sounds really sad," Cree shot back, letting a smirk cross her face at how offended Chloe got. Cree knew about the Teen Ninjas from well back in her KND days-they were a group of teens, a mix of renegade Kids Next Door operatives that had escaped decommissioning, actually decommissioned operatives and normal teens who just wanted to cause havoc. Of course, much like the Kids Next Door, how good they were usually depended on what leadership looked like.
And if what Abby had told her was true, it hadn't been all that good in recent years.
While the overall leader, the Steve (and formerly Numbuh 100, if the rumors were true), was decent enough, if a tad eccentric, Chloe had used her charm to seduce Steve into making her his right hand woman and, between the fact her leadership style was pretty much just shouting orders at people and then pretty much trying to sissy fight whatever Kids Next Door operative was (un)lucky enough to be faced with her, was next to useless, only really keeping her spot due to having the Steve wrapped around her finger.
"Well, at least I'm popular!" Chloe replied as she jabbed a finger into Cree's chest, knocking her back a little. "I have seen maybe three people who I would actually call your friend and one of them is your sister!" Cree was prevented from replying at the sound of the first bell, reminding both girls they had school to get too. "Later, Captain Hook!" With that, she flounced off, leaving Cree to grumble as she threw her hoodie over her head. She didn't really want to talk to anyone right now.
"Ms. Lincoln, please pull your hood down," A teacher reminded her. Cree growled a little, but still pulled her hood down all the same. Today was off to a great start.
"Hey, Cree!"
Cree turned to the source of the voice to see a welcome looking face walking towards her. She had just sat down for lunch in her usual spot near the back of the cafeteria, so no one would think anything was weird (aside from Chloe most likely) about someone joining her.
"Firecracker, good to see you," Cree greeted the other girl. Ava "Firecracker" Baros was one of Cree's former comrades in the Kids Next Door, back then going by Numbuh 451, who, as her name suggested, was a complete firecracker when it came to combat. If it related to fire or explosives, then not only was Numbuh 451 the best at its intended use, but also the best at coming up with several dozen other uses for it, as well as smuggling them into various places they shouldn't be. This made for an ace saboteur, even with her usual loud nature and, naturally, a hot Teens Next Door recruit when the time came. "What brings you away from your usual crew to sit with me?"
"Picked up some gossip. Apparently, the Mean Girls reject has a sample of a powerful new strand of the Chicken Pox," Firecracker gravely reported. "A strand that the Teens Ninjas want to spread around next month." Cree struggled not to choke on her food from the shock she was in.
"They'd sabotage Halloween!?" She exclaimed, hoping she didn't draw any looks. Thankfully, the normal lunch room chatter drowned out her panicked outburst.
"Seems like it," Firecracker said as she tossed a part of her sandwich into her mouth. "But luckily, I've got a plan to…return it to the intended sender, so to speak. But I don't have any classes with her, so I need someone else to drop the payload."
Cree grinned. Any chance to get back at Chloe was one she was taking. "What do you need me to do?"
"Drop this bad boy into her backpack and set the timer," Firecracker explained as she pulled a small firework-like contraption out of her backpack. "When she opens her bag, she should get a face full of Chicken Pox! You think you can do that?"
"Piece of cake," Cree assured the other girl as she took the device, slipping it into her own backpack. "We have gym together. I'll slip it into her bag then."
"Awesome!" Firecracker declared as she glanced at the clock. "Aw crud! Why is lunch so short?!" Gathering up what was left of her lunch, the girl rushed back to her friend group, leaving Cree to plot. Chloe wouldn't know what hit her.
"Lincoln! We've talked about this! No prosthetics during dodgeball!" The gym teacher barked.
"Sorry sir," Cree replied, doing her best to sound genuinely apologetic. "Sometimes I just forget to take it off.."
"Just go take it off," The man ordered. With a nod, Cree made her way back to the lockers.
"Maybe don't be so forgetful next time, Candygirl," Chloe sneered as Cree walked past her. Cree decided to not question how Chloe learned about that nickname and just head back to the locker room. Upon arriving, however, Cree opened up her locker and then grabbed Firecracker's newest explosive, before making her way over to Chloe's locker.
"Lucky me that I'm still good at this," Cree mumbled to herself as she quickly managed to pick the lock, forcing the locker open. She then took another look at the explosive and realized that the timer was most likely the egg timer that had been wired into the device. Twisting a few times in order to give herself enough time to both get out of the blast radius and to have things hopefully start before Chloe would realize what had happened, Cree then shoved the device into the open backpack, slammed the locker shut, then rushed back to her own locker, quickly removed her prosthetic and then headed back outside.
"Alright, now that everyone's here, time to pick teams!" The gym coach declared. Picking two random jocks, people were quickly picked. Cree couldn't hide a smirk at how she was picked before Chloe was, as well as how horrified the girl was by the fact "the cripple" had been picked before she was. As a bonus, it turned out that both girls could be on different teams, meaning Cree had free range to take shots at her. A chance she seized when the game began and Chloe, as per usual, proved to be utterly useless.
"Watch the makeup!" Chloe hissed as several balls flew past her, only to catch a ball straight in the gut. She growled upon realizing that Cree had been the thrower.
"Reginason! Out!" The gym teacher called out, prompting the mean girl to storm off to the bleachers. The game went on, with many people getting hit, until it came down to only Cree and two football players.
"Dude, this doesn't feel right." One of them said to his buddy. "I mean, it's only one arm against four. That's, like, triple the arms!"
"Bro, that just means we've got a chance with Chloe! She hates Cree!" The other player replied. "We peg her, we impress Chloe!"
"Oh right! I forgot about that!" The first player exclaimed, neither noticing that Chloe was no longer paying attention to the game, instead gossiping with some of her flunkies.
"Sorry about this Cree!" The second player declared as he hurled his dodgeball straight at Cree, only for her to respond by wordlessly dodging the ball, before chucking one of her own straight at the player, who got it.
"Bro!" His buddy exclaimed, only to promptly get hit himself while distracted.
"Guess you only need one hand to throw a dodgeball," Cree taunted as the coach blew the whistle.
"GAME! Lincoln wins it for her team!" He exclaimed as several of Cree's teammates all came down to congratulate her. The period was due to end shortly, so everyone was dismissed back to the locker rooms. As Cree switched out of her gym clothes, she caught a look at herself in the mirror and couldn't help but sigh. In a way, she was jealous of Chloe. Even with how mean and fake she was, at least she wasn't covered in a mess of scars. Cree couldn't help but trace one running along the bottom of her stomach. This only made Cree put her hoodie and pants back on faster, if only so she didn't have to look at the horrible mess her body now was. Even still, it didn't hide her face.
She still had very vivid memories of that time Chloe and her friends threw concealer at her as a mocking joke.
But then again, those same memories made it all the more satisfying when she remembered that she wouldn't be putting up with Chloe for a few days at least.
Like I said. Lore stuff. You know who's taking Cree's place (and said OC is pretty much just every mean girl stereotype I could think of, down to the name) as well as an OC Teens Next Door operative who I mostly just threw in for fun. Not sure what I'll do with her, but she's there if I need her.
