Look, if you thought I wasn't going to get my favorite episode in here in some form, then you are crazy! For obvious reasons, Cree can't have too much of an impact on everything, but she still helps in her own way.
"So Cree, we're friends right?" Firecracker, seemingly more nervous than normal, asked as she walked into the Teens Next Door base. In general, whenever she asked that usually meant that she either blew up the wrong thing or wanted help hiding evidence of whatever bad thing she ended up doing.
"...What did you do?" Cree asked, eyes narrowed at the other girl.
"I didn't do anything!" Firecracker protested, hands already up in defense of herself. "This is a 'for the love of everything good in this world please don't beat up the messager' thing!"
"Firecracker? What's going on?" Maurice asked. Firecracker, once she saw how many eyes were on her, realized that now she didn't have a way out of this.
"So…I was walking past your sister's treehouse, NOT DOING ANYTHING, when all the sudden, broccoli started growing out of it!" Firecracker revealed, drawing several gasps. "Ididn'tdoanythingitjuststartedpleasedon'thurtme!"
"Wait, what do you mean, 'broccoli just started growing out of it'?" Cree asked, any possible worry for her sister being pushed down by confusion and just what Firecracker was even talking about...and why she was so freaked out over telling Cree.
"I don't know! One minute, it's a normal tree and then the next thing I know, broccoli is growing where the tree should be!" Firecracker exclaimed. "I would have helped, but I didn't want to blow my cover and I didn't have any safety gear outside of my goggles." The explosives expert pointed to her goggles, which were resting on her head, to prove a point. Before anyone could dwell on that further, a gasp caused everyone to turn to Chad, who was seated at a monitor.
"It's not just here!" He exclaimed as he looked over a computer screen. "Whatever Firecracker's talking about, it's happening to just about every treehouse on the planet!"
"WHAT!?" Everyone asked, shoving each other away to better see what Chad was walking about. Only to get met with the horrific sight of every treehouse having turned into a giant piece of broccoli.
"If you got trapped inside, you'd have your energy sapped in seconds!" Maurice realized. "But how did this happen!? The treehouse root system is in a secure facility that only the Supreme Leader and a select few can even access."
"A traitor, perhaps?" Chad offered up.
"But where would they get the supply?" Cree pointed out. "Listen, maybe if I can save my sister and her friends, I might be able to get some answers."
"Not the worst idea," Chad admitted. "After all, we all saw that there was a game of Tag going on today, correct?" Several nods came at that. Everyone knew the rules-if a Supreme Leader wanted to step down, unless someone directly volunteered or the Supreme Leader had a successor lined up-then a game of Tag was to decide the next one. It was the easiest way, considering how no one even really wanted the job. Some, like Chad, could handle it decently enough but most Supreme Leaders were reported to have hated their time in the job.
"I have some gas masks and other stuff if you need," Firecracker offered. "And, uh, thanks for not beating me up."
"Why did you think I would have?" Cree asked. "You didn't do anything wrong."
"...No offense, Cree, but we know how you get when your sister is in danger. I didn't want to be on the receiving end of that," Firecracker sheepishly admitted. Cree opened her mouth in protest, but realized that she was the same person that beat Chad up for over an hour because he dared to mess with Abby.
"You have a point…" Cree sheepishly replied as she followed Firecracker to wherever she had her stuff stashed.
"This is so much worse than it looks…" Cree thought to herself as she made her way through the now broccoli infested treehouse. Even from just the outside, Cree could tell that Firecracker had every right to panic over it. But actually being inside, the whole place just felt…toxic. Like the air itself was trying to defeat the Kids Next Door. Cree swallowed and kept moving. Much to her relief, the team hadn't remodeled much from her own time living in the treehouse and the security system had been destroyed by the broccoli growing in, meaning it was easy to find her way around.
Finding her sister and her friends, on the other hand, wasn't so easy.
"Of course they had to be all the way at the top," Cree internally groaned once she finally made it into the conference room, where Numbuhs 2-5 were all unconscious. It was a little tough to get them all out, especially in one go (Cree couldn't help but think that Numbuh 2 could really stand to lose a couple pounds), but she did get them a far enough distance away that the broccoli effects soon wore off.
"C-Cree? That you?" Abby groaned as she finally managed to regain her barings. Looking around, she noticed her sector mates also slowly waking up.
"Yeah, it's me," Cree replied as she removed the gas mask she'd been wearing. "What the heck happened? Last I checked, broccoli doesn't grow on trees!" Numbuh 2 chuckled weakly at the joke.
"Not sure how exactly, Numbuh 5 thinks she knows who," Numbuh 5 revealed. "She's guessing you saw the Tag game going on?"
"Hard to miss it," Cree pointed out. "So, who won?"
"Father…" Numbuh 5 gravely revealed. Cree was fairly certain that had she been drinking there would have been a spit take.
"...How exactly did Father become Supreme Leader of the KIDS Next Door?" Cree questioned. "Like, even if he somehow hijacked the Tag game, only Kids Next Door operatives are up for the position."
"Yeah about that…" Numbuh 2 sheepishly trailed off as he pressed his fingers together. "Due to circumstances where Tommy had to add him and the Delightful Children to the Code Module…he technically is an operative."
"Okay, obvious questions on why you didn't remove them aside, you all trusted him? Or didn't think about violently decommissioning him?" Cree asked, still trying to wrap her mind about how stupid you had to be to not only add two of the Kids Next Door's worst villains to the Code Module but not remove them the second whatever reason you had for putting them in in the first place was over.
"Hey! He said he was gonna get rid of all the broccoli!" Numbuh 4 protested.
"And look at how well that worked out," Cree deadpanned as she looked at the broccoli covered treehouse.
"And Numbuh 86 tried to decommission him, but Father was a big meanie and made up a rule about how he couldn't be!" Numbuh 3 chimed in.
"Honestly, she sounds like she needs to be decommissioned," Cree noted internally. She then took notice of the one missing operative. "Hey, where's your leader?"
"He was checking in on the previous Supreme Leader. They're pretty close from what I hear," Numbuh 2 explained.
"Wait, I thought he was dating that annoying screaming girl who wasn't an operative?" Cree questioned.
"No not her!" Numbuh 5 snapped. "They're just friends!"
"They would be a cute couple," Numbuh 3 noted with a smile.
"Be a lot less annoying, that's for sure," Numbuh 4 chuckled.
Elsewhere, Lizzie felt like she was being insulted, but she wasn't sure why.
"Guys, Numbuh 1's love life isn't the problem here!" Numbuh 5 snapped. "We've gotta get rid of all the broccoli in the treehouse!"
"How? No one can access the treehouse root system other than the Supreme Leader and like five other operatives!" Numbuh 2 pointed out.
"Then we can just beat up Father and make him give it to us!" Numbuh 4 declared as he pounded his fist into his palm.
"Well, when you do figure out a way in, I think I have something that I could use to get rid of all this broccoli," Cree said, deciding it was time to pay Firecracker another visit.
"Are you gonna dig it up with your hook hand?" Numbuh 4 asked eagerly.
"...No,"
"Awww…."
"Broccoli remover?" Firecracker questioned. Upon Cree's return, she had quickly filled her fellow operatives in on everything going on. "Of course I have something!...Granted it was a prototype I was never able to mass produce due to the massive reduction in the world's supply of broccoli making it so we didn't really need it, but I tested it and I know for a fact it works! Just let me dig it out." With that, the other girl headed into her lab and began tossing things around (or at least that's what everyone thought was going on from all the noise), before shortly returning with what looked like a small clock-like device. "Just find the source of the broccoli, attach that and it should handle everything…I do recommend running for it though."
"I feel you've got a bomb for everything," Cree couldn't help but chuckle as she took it.
"Hey, that's what got me here in the first place!" Firecracker cheekily pointed out. Cree laughed before heading off. Firecracker moved to return to her lab to clean up, only for Chad to stop her.
"Hey, you got something stuck to your foot," He pointed out. Looking down, Firecracker did, in fact, see something stuck to her foot. "What even is it?"
"Just an old photo when I was first starting out…" Firecracker said as she looked over the picture, a whirlwind of emotions seemingly going through her brain. Before Chad could look at himself, Firecracker shoved it into her pocket and slammed the door to her lab shut. Chad considered pushing, but everyone had their own secrets.
It wouldn't be fair to force someone to share.
Firecracker's hiding something! All will be revealed in the final arc of the story.