So, sadly, this will be the final chapter. Still, this was the most fun I've had writing a story in a while. And hey! That just means I get to move onto Firecracker's story next! Anyways, let's begin.
"This is a horrible idea!"
That phrase had been said several times in the past 24 hours, by many different people. The first time it had been uttered was when Numbuh 362 revealed her plan on how to get the Delightful Children back to normal. Namely, reveal the TND to a select group of operatives in order to get the best of both collaborating. Still, she stood firm, introducing Sector V to the local operatives.
This resulted in an hour long brawl between Chad and Numbuh 1,who still had a lot to talk about, which Firecracker and Numbuh 4 egged on and everyone else tried to break up.
They were…mostly cool after hashing things out. Or just too tried to debate it any further. No one was actually sure.
Firecracker was then up next, revealing a De-Delightfulization chamber she was fairly certain could work, having tested it out on several "adult" things, building up to an successful attempt in turning a dictionary into a coloring book. Numbuh 3 had a lot of fun with that one. However, her plan to get the kids actually in the machine resulted in another uttering of that phrase.
"Actively baiting out Father could result in serious injury at best!" Numbuh 1 protested. "Especially if he figures out what our plan is."
"The Delightful Children could also join in his assault!" Numbuh 5 piped up. She didn't admit to anyone that she actually knew about the Teens Next Door, if only to spare Cree and Maurice any grief, but she did stress the importance of making sure it stayed on the quiet side of things to Numbuhs 3 and 4.
"Still, the idea of keeping Father busy does have merit," Chad commented. "Maybe not an outright attack, but stalling him out so that by the time he realizes what we're up to, it's already too late."
"Less dangerous, that's for sure," Maurice agreed with a nod.
"Fine, we can do it the boring way," Firecracker groaned as she moved onto the next phase of her plan. "Anyways, while Father is busy, that gives the rest of us a chance to raid the mansion or whatever for Sector Z. We pop them in the chamber, make sure that they won't reset back into Father's brats and then everyone's consciousness is clear. This resulted in several flinches, including one from Firecracker herself. Just about everyone in the room had failed Sector Z in never realizing they were the Delightful Children all along. However, now, they were ready to finally bring them back.
"So how are we going to keep Father busy?" Numbuh 4 had to ask.
"...I think I have an idea," Maurice chimed up. "I hate to say this, but what if we try to cause a traffic jam of some kind? I think the Teen Ninjas were talking about getting control over the traffic lights for some scheme. If I can get the info out of Mallory, we could set something up."
"Kinda cruel," Cree couldn't help but note.
"We'll make sure it's some of the ice cream men or something," Maurice replied. This made Cree simply give a nod.
"Alright. Make sure we ambush the Delightful Children. If they managed to get into a mech or something, that could risk delaying us too long and could lead to Father catching us." Numbuh 362 said to several nods. She then smirked. "Now…let's bring Sector Z home!"
"YEAH!" Several voices chorused as they raised their fists in the air.
Father growled once again. The traffic lights glitched out, resulting in two ice cream trucks (his ice cream trucks no less) crashing into each other, creating a huge accident. Not only were the cops obnoxiously slow today, several snot nosed kids were taking advantage of the chaos to steal ice cream! The ice cream men were trying to chase them away, but there were so many kids that it was hard to stop them all. And some of them weren't exactly ready to give up after getting chased away once.
"Driver, is there anyway around this?" Father asked. "Or even a way to turn around?"
"Sorry sir, but there's no way to turn around safely. This is the only way through," The driver replied. Father felt himself heating up, but quickly cooled himself off. No sense in ruining a perfectly good car. Still, he was not happy this happened. But if this was the worst the day could offer, it wasn't the worst day he'd endured.
"Can you tell how long this will take?" Numbuh 4 asked as he and Maurice poked their heads out of the bushes.
"Not sure, but we should have delayed them for at least a couple hours. Should hopefully be enough time," Maurice replied. He had also thrown several tacks in front of Father's tires in hopes that would further delay him. "So, that epic enough of a crash for you?"
"Oh heck yeah!" Numbuh 4 eagerly declared.
"Glad you enjoyed it." Maurice said with a smile. "Now let's go get Sector Z."
"There they are!" Cree declared, pointing towards the Delightful Children, who were strolling down the street, oblivious to what was being plotted.
"Weird they're alone," Numbuh 1 pointed out.
"Just be happy they are." Numbuh 5 said as she readied the tranquilizer gun. Five syringes were blasted. Five shots landed effortlessly. Five unconscious Delightful Children.
"Be careful." Cree requested as she and the other moved to grab the soon to be back to normal Sector Z.
"Yeah, yeah, we got it," Chad said as he picked up David. "These guys weigh like nothing, wow."
"Father probably doesn't let 'em eat anything with sugar in it," Cree couldn't help but comment.
"Outside of their cakes," Numbuh 5 chimed in. "Half the time, those things aren't even worth it. Remember that time Father tried to bake us all into a cake for them to eat?"
"EXCUSE ME WHAT!?" The teenagers and Numbuh 362 all exclaimed. All four of them were a combination of utterly horrified and utterly repulsed.
"I think I'm actually gonna be sick," Chad admitted as he tried to avoid revisiting his lunch.
"Yeah we don't understand how he thought that would taste good either!" Numbuh 3 cheerfully replied, not understanding why the people who weren't present for the Tube-A-Thon looked so disgusted and now more wary than ever.
"...Remind me to look into a cell that could actually hold Father," Numbuh 362 finally managed out.
"So just to warn you all, this is going to be very, VERY bright," Firecracker declared as she began to fire up her chamber. The Delightful Children, who had woken up, were alternating between banging on the chamber walls and screaming threats. "So if you don't have goggles or some way of protecting them, I'd shield your eyes."
"We'll be fine!" Numbuh 4 protested with a cross of his arms.
"Well, either way, stay far, far away from the chamber," Firecracker replied as she continued to adjust dials. "Just to make sure this goes right, I'm putting all the power I can into this. Hopefully, we don't get another fuse blowing out."
"Why would you even joke about that?!" Cree protested. Looking around, she noticed only Firecracker really seemed to think the joke was funny.
"Yeesh, tough crowd. Anyways," Firecracker then snapped her goggles onto her face. "Bringing back Sector Z in three, two…ONE!" With that, she slammed her fist down on the activation switch at the chamber fired up. The Delightful Children began to scream as the room, much as Firecracker warned, quickly got bright. Soon, everyone, even though with eye protection. A few people stumbled around, causing things to get knocked over. Cree felt something fall on her, but wasn't sure what it was as she was fairly certain Firecracker had just blinded her. When her sight finally cleared, she didn't have a time to react before she felt whatever landed on her-a shelf as it turns out-was getting lifted off of her by a recovered Sector Z.
"Looks like we're even," Numbuh 0.4 noted as he helped Cree to her feet.
"Guess so," Cree said with a chuckle. "So…you think you're gonna stick around?"
"We hope so," Numbuh 0.3 said from the vice like bear hug Firecracker had her, Numbuh 0.1 and Numbuh 0.2 trapped in. "Although I wouldn't mind if Firecracker would let us go."
"Sorry, sorry," Firecracker replied as she let them go. "I just…I missed you guys a lot."
"We all did," Cree quickly said. "Even if I wasn't sure about that for a while."
"Again, we don't blame you," Numbuh 0.1 assured her. Cree just flashed a smile. She looked down at her prosthetic. Even if she wasn't happy how she got there, she was happy that everything worked out.
The Candygirl was feeling pretty good.
Again, I hope you all loved reading this story as much as I enjoyed writing. Next time…we're gonna see Firecracker's story. See you then!