Disclaimer: I don't own Codename: KND, or any of the other sources that characters and places that you recognize in this story come from. Enjoy!
Nexus HWR 18.8 Numbuh 4:
Five weeks ago.
"Hey there Wally, what'll it be today?" Moe asked. The yellow-skinned bartender with gray curly hair looked over his bar at a boy who just sat down between two other patrons. The other two were huge individuals, one with dark skin and the other light like the boy. They were both wearing full camouflage and had on sunglasses even though they were inside.
"Orange juice and vodka, hold the vodka," the boy said, sounding badass in his head as he did.
"Oooh," Moe said in an elongated way. He turned around and snickered to himself as he reached down for the fridge where he kept his non-alcoholic drinks. "You know I don't have a drinking age, kid. You can get whatever you want."
"And what I want," the boy in an orange hoodie growled. "Is my orange juice pronto." He snapped his fingers twice in the air and Moe got a tick mark on the side of his forehead. "Will you hurry it up?" Wallabee Beatles complained as Moe was pouring his drink for too long.
Moe was no longer looking down at the drink he was pouring though, and neither were the men on either side of Wally. Wally watched as the orange juice spilled over the man's hand and he yelled, "Watch it! You're spilling my drink!"
The bartender looked away from the television in the top right corner of his bar and looked back to the kid in front of him. "Do you not see that?" Moe asked.
The kid with a head of short spiky blond hair looked around and noticed everyone else in the bar staring at the same place. "What?" He asked and looked back forward only for Moe to be looking back at it too. He followed the man's gaze finally, and his small eyes with black irises opened wide at the sight of the screen.
"Mr. Black," the dark-skinned man at the bar on Wally's left started. He was looking past the kid at the other man at the table with him. "We should be off immediately. That is not far from here."
"I agree, Mr. White," the lighter skinned of the two replied. Mr. Black put down his drink and he stood up, readjusting his sunglasses as he did. "Thank you, Moe," the ironically-named man said before turning and walking away with his partner.
"No way," Wally said as he looked at the screen. He watched as the drone swooped in closer to the city below but got stuck outside of the giant birdcage that surrounded all of the city on the station. Most people were glad they were getting the signal, considering themselves lucky they got to watch because their port town was so close to it. The twelve year old boy stood up on his bar stool and narrowed his eyes at the city. "I've been there," Wally said, and Moe looked back at the short boy in surprise. As Wally stared at the screen, he thought back to the time he visited the city and something hit him.
The force of what hit him knocked him back off his stool with eyes as big as saucers. "No way," he repeated, and he grabbed both sides of his head with his hands as he muttered it. "How did I forget? How could I forget, her?" He thought back to Dressrosa and he felt a pang in his heart so deep he could not get up despite Moe calling his name. We- no I, I messed up. He put his face in his hands, I left her behind.
FD + 13
"Kids Next Door Island Base Headquarters to Squad H, Headquarters to Squad H do you read me?"
Numbuh 34 reached forward and picked up the phone-communicator on the dashboard of their ship made fully from KND Two-by-Four technology. The heavyset but muscular fifth grader lifted the communicator to his mouth and said, "This is Numbuh 34. Do you have the coordinates of that distress call we received?"
"We do," a hesitant voice replied over the line.
They all heard Numbuh 86's hesitation that suggested something bad. A boy sitting in a chair to the right of 34 snapped, "Tell us where it is already, Fanny." He said in a teasing voice, making the other three boys on the ship with him start laughing at the funny name.
Fanny, or Numbuh 86, yelled, "Numbuh 4! Be quiet!" Her shrill voice had all four of the boys grabbing their ears to get it out of their heads. She got quieter on the other end of the line and said in a nervous tone, "We've received new word that more than half of the people who sent out the distress call are, already…"
The ship became quiet. Neither of the twins on the left side of the ship, Numbuhs 44 and 44, said a word. Numbuh 34 gripped the sticks harder and his face covered in sweat as he wondered what the right course of action was. "Well what are we waiting for?!" Wally shouted. The others all looked towards Numbuh 4 who started typing on the dashboard in front of him. "Weapons are a go, let's get over there! There could be some kids who need our help."
"You don't understand, Wally," 86 scolded over the line. "There are real monsters down there. With only enough Kids Next Door operatives to make four man teams, we don't have the manpower to-"
"To heck with the manpower! We've got me, so we'll be fine! Now send us the coordinates now!" The aggravated boy with an Australian accent sounded so confident that 34 wiped the sweat from his face, and the 44s looked at each other and nodded at the same time.
Fanny sighed over the line, then gained a serious and angry voice, which was a good sign as that was her normal tone. She yelled them the coordinates and Numbuh 34 plugged them in before yanking the sticks hard to the left and sending their ship towards the source of the distress call. They could only receive signals in a three hundred mile radius so far, so they knew that they might be the closest people to the ones currently under attack. Luckily, whoever was being attacked had enough smarts to make communications' devices before they were overwhelmed.
Numbuh 4 pressed a button on his dashboard and a pair of binoculars came down from the ceiling. He looked into them and they worked like a periscope, showing him the outside of their green ship strapped with jets, and giving him a zoom option to look farther into the distance past his crosshairs. He kept his hands on the triggers of the weapons' system while looking through the periscope, ready to fire at any time. When they rose up over the next hill he shouted, "I see them!"
"Fire!" Numbuh 34 shouted. Numbuh 4 pulled the triggers without any delay. The larger boy turned around and yelled to the two behind him, "Get suited up! We're going down for extraction!" 34 lifted his right hand and tapped a red button on a watch on his wrist. Armor wrapped out from his clothing and surrounded him, while the helmet already on his head gave itself a face-mask with a light purple visor on it.
Numbuh 4 was meanwhile firing nonstop and yelling the whole time. "Rararara! HAHHH! Take this!" He spun his head and the periscope moved with him, the whole time he was rapidly firing the different weapons they had attached to their vehicle. High-powered water balloon cannons on the left side nailed the black monsters below that had bone structures on the outsides of their bodies. The Grimm got knocked back and distracted from the huddled group near a thin metal tower with a steel rod at the top emitting a blinking red light.
Red lasers shot out of several turrets on top of the ship as well, shooting Grimm birds flying towards them and a few other monstrous-looking flying creatures out of the sky. A swarm of Aragami that looked like eyeballs with wings dropped out of the sky and Numbuh 4 quickly realized his attacks were having little effect on them. "Uh, Numbuh 34. You better do this fast!"
"We're on it!" 34 replied. "Just keep the ship ready to go!"
The leader of the squad pressed a button on a panel to his left. The floor beneath his feet and the feet of both other agents dropped out. They fell and tapped their shoes together as they did, turning on rockets in their soles that let them direct which way to fly. Numbuh 4 blinked a few times as he stared at the hole in the ship's floor, then yelled, "How am I supposed to do that? I don't know how to fly this pile of ju- whoa whoa Whoa!" He fell off his chair and rolled to the left as the ship got slammed by something.
Red lights started going off all over and steam shot out of loose panels and pipes around Wally as he sat up. "That's, not good," he said, before another jolt smashed a hole in the port side wall. Flames ignited the entire left side of the ship and Wally ran over to their weapons cache on the opposite wall. "Ah ha!" He shouted, spinning around and lifting his hand-held water-balloon cannon. He fired over and over at the other wall until all of the flames around the hole went out.
Numbuh 4 lowered his wooden weapon with a rubber band on it and he wiped his forehead. "That was a close one," he said, and even the red lights went off as it seemed like he did what he was supposed to do. "Huh, maybe I can do this," he said with a growing grin. Right as he finished saying it, the ship jolted again and his grin wiped from his face. This time, he did not get hit by some unknown force. He could see exactly what jolted the ship.
A ten foot long, twenty foot wide bird (including its wingspan) was standing inside the large hole on the wall to the KND ship. "Good, birdie," he said, holding up his hands nervously. The black monster stood on four legs, and the white skull on the outside of its dark body had a beak, a very sharp, very dangerous-looking beak. "Stay back," Wally urged it. The Griffon glared at the boy with its cold, red eyes, and then it lunged forward at once and the ship shook with every step.
"Ahh!" Numbuh 4 shouted and started running. The bird was faster, and it snapped its beak at Numbuh 4's back. It had the range, it had the strength and speed, but the boy had something it didn't. He had luck. The reason the red lights stopped blinking in the ship was not because he fixed the problem, but because the problem was so severe it broke the lights. The engines stopped working right at the moment that Numbuh 4 ran over the hole in the center of the ship's bottom. He just started to fall when the bird's beak ripped through the hood of his orange hoodie. He lifted his head as he fell and yelled, "Hey!"
When Wally looked up though, he was shocked to see the bird that was about to follow him out of the ship get tossed to the side. The ship started to spin out of control and the Grimm was getting tumbled around inside it as it could not find steady footing long enough to find one of the holes in the oddly-well-made vehicle for the work of a bunch of children. Numbuh 4 opened his parachute as he fell, and he saluted the ship that fell down into a section of the field covered in Grimm before exploding in a mushroom cloud. "Sayonara!" He called out victoriously and held up two fingers in a 'V' shape.
"Numbuh 4, you idiot!" someone shouted up at him. He looked down and saw Number 34 getting pushed back against the communications tower. The Grimm around the source of the distress beacon had made their final push, and as Wally slowly fell he could only watch in horror as his squad leader, both 44 and his brother 44, and almost all of the people still gathered in the area got taken down by the bear and wolf-like black monsters.
Wally was scared. He was lowering down at a slow pace, but when he looked straight down he saw two Grimm running towards the now-falling metal tower stop where they were and look straight up at him. Their eyes were red, all four on each one, and they had razor-sharp tusks sticking out the bottoms of the white skulls on their faces. The Boarbatusks glared up at Numbuh 4 and bared their teeth at him as they got ready to tear him apart.
Numbuh 4 had no idea what to do. He was panicking. And then he heard her shout. "Numbuh Fourrrrr!"
The voice echoed in his mind a thousand times in a second and he imagined her face saying it in a thousand different places. He could see her in their treehouse base together, sitting next to him on the bus, at school, on missions with the KND, everywhere. He slowly turned in the air and saw a girl in a green sweater climbing up the leaning metal pole. Another girl was climbing up behind her, but an Ursai claw slammed into her side and the child was thrown to the pack of Grimm below.
"Noo!" the Japanese-American girl with long black hair shouted fearfully. She heard her friend getting ripped apart in the pile and the screams cut off only after a few seconds of it. Numbuh 3 scooted higher up the pole, but one of the Ursai slammed a claw into the bottom of it and the entire tower jolted so hard that she only kept one hand on it and started hanging off the side.
"KUUUUUKIIIII!" Numbuh 4 shouted at the top of his lungs. Kuki dangled by one hand over a pile of ravenous monsters and she got closer to them every second.
Wally looked down and took as deep a breath as he could. "You can do this, Numbuh 4. You've got this!" He unstrapped the parachute's straps and fell faster than the Boarbatusks were expecting. He landed on one of their heads, pushed down with his legs, and leapt up in the air towards the metal rod in front of him. Other Grimm heading for the rod lifted their heads but only after they had been used as stepping stones by the boy in an orange hoodie jumping on them.
Kuki Sanban felt her fingers slipping. First her pinky, then ring finger, then her thumb, and finally her middle finger until all she had left was one finger she was holding on by. "I can't, hold- Eee!" Her pointer finger slipped off and she fell right for the open mouths of the Grimm below. "Numbuh Fo-"
Kuki stopped falling and jaws closed underneath her feet. "Got you!" Numbuh 4 shouted, and Kuki looked up to see her hand being held by one of Wally's as he leaned over the pole he himself was now lying on top of. "Now just hold on a second," he said and started pulling her up.
As Numbuh 4 got her about halfway, one of the Grimm that failed to kill the person above it reached up and smacked with a huge claw. It got just a little more reach this time and nailed Numbuh 3 in the left leg. She screamed and her grasp on Numbuh 4's hand slipped. Her left pant leg was completely ripped and blood poured down her leg from the claw marks down it. "No!" Numbuh 4 shouted and reached down, but this time when he grabbed for her hand, their fingers just missed each other. "Kuki!" Wally shouted down at the girl. She fell on the floor in front of the Ursai that had clawed her before dropping down to all four claws.
This monster closest to her brought its white face covered in horrifying markings close to the girl and it roared directly in her face as she started to sob. It opened its mouth, and then its jaw got slammed shut and its head slammed into the ground. Numbuh 3's cries caught in her throat and tears stopped pouring out of her eyes for a second. "Get away from her!" Numbuh 4 shouted. He was terrified, scared out of his mind. What came over him in the last second to jump down to his death, he had no idea, but he was here now and he lifted his fists as he backflipped off the angry Ursai's head. "You want some of this? Or how about this?!" He shouted, spinning to his right and punching a fist in the air to make another, smaller Grimm on his right stop charging him.
The Grimm did not seem afraid of Wally though, definitely not as afraid as he was of them. He backed up, right until his feet bumped into the girl sitting on her knees on the floor behind him. He knew it was her without turning around, and Wally gulped and said, "Just stay behind me, Numbuh 3. We'll get out of this, somehow." He did a full three-sixty and saw Grimm on every side of him. "Some… how," he whispered, tears welling up in his eyes as all the Grimm growled at the same time. He could see blood on their claws, tusks, and teeth. Some of them were probably the ones who killed his fellow operatives, while others ate the people Kuki was hiding with. "I'm sorry," Wally whispered. He clenched his eyes shut and bowed his head as tears came down his face, "I let the ship get crashed. I-"
The girl pushed herself up even as her left leg screamed at her in pain. Kuki leaned forward and put her arms in their loose green sweatshirt sleeves around Numbuh 4's sides and hugged his front. Wally's eyes snapped open wide, and then the Ursai in front of him dove forward. It knocked him and the girl holding him to the ground and they screamed. "Stay away!" Numbuh 4 screamed as the claws dug through his shirt and into his skin underneath.
"AHHH!" Numbuh 3 screamed as something grabbed her hair and pulled back while something else bit her already injured left leg.
OOOOooooohh
The Grimm's roars quieted down and they all stopped attacking. Numbuhs 3 and 4 kept screaming, but they quieted down despite the pain the next time they heard it. It was much louder the second time, OOOOOOOOO! It echoed in their ears. It sounded like a hum and a roar mixed together, and it made Wally and Kuki feel warm. They did not know what it was, but it was not the voice itself that was making them feel warm, it was their own hope. The monsters stopped attacking, and after a second they pulled their claws and faces away from the children.
The monsters all started running away. They ran in every direction, and Wally grabbed at his chest as he got up to his feet. He had blood coming out of three distinct claw marks down his prepubescent pectorals, but he ignored all the blood seeping through his fingers at the moment as he watched a hill to the distant north first. He heard the call again, and he took a step towards the tall hill, before dropping his jaw and getting blown back by a huge force of wind that slammed into him. A massive monster flew up over the top of the hill so its belly was facing them, and it curved its long neck down their way before flapping both of its huge slender white wings. The gusts alone picked up the Grimm and sent them flying, but that was not enough for the monster that lifted its head and called in energy from around it.
Orange light condensed into a single ball in front of the white monster's mouth. It snapped its head down and the sphere blasted forward as a beam of orange light going miles into the distance and tearing through all of the monsters from the ground and in the air. The monster flew forward and once Wally got a better look he saw it was no monster at all, but a Pokemon. It was a huge, gorgeous, Pokemon, and it had just saved their lives. "Hey! HEY! Down here!" Numbuh 4 called up at the creature.
The Legendary Pokemon turned its head as it got ready to destroy the rest of the Grimm, and it instead flew across the sky to the boy shouting at it. "You've gotta help me," Numbuh 4 shouted up as it approached.
"You are hurt," Lugia said, sounding concerned as it landed in front of him.
"Me?!" Numbuh 4 shouted, not even that surprised by the talking Pokemon after the two weeks he just had. He let go of his chest and it hurt, but he couldn't care less at the moment. "We've gotta save Numbuh 3!" He looked back and pointed with his bloody hand at the girl on the ground who was moaning but had not gotten up with him. "Quickly! Help me get her on your back."
"On my back?" Lugia questioned, surprised at this sudden turn of events. "What will that-"
"Just do what I say ya' overgrown bird," Numbuh 4 yelled. He lifted up Kuki as he shouted it, and carefully took her right arm that did not look hurt like her left which had its sleeve ripped off and was bleeding badly. He put her right arm over his neck as to not hurt her and started limping towards the Legendary Pokemon who did not how it felt about that "overgrown bird" comment. Lugia reached out its wing anyway though, scooping up the boy and the girl he was carrying.
As it put them down on its back, it could hear the boy speaking on top of it. "See that, Numbuh 3? I told you we were going to get out of that mess. Somehow…" he finished, and was partially glad that she did not actually open her eyes, as she would see just how badly he was crying right now. He wiped his tears after a few seconds though and sniffled before saying in a cocky tone, "Take us to Kids Next Door Island Base."
"I do not know where that is," Lugia replied. It did lift off though, and as it did it continued, "I will bring you to other people and ask them to help you."
"Alright, that's fine," Numbuh 4 said, and he sat down on the huge Pokemon's back, grabbing on with one hand and holding Kuki with his other. He looked away as they flew, but after a couple of minutes, Numbuh 4 begrudgingly called out, "Thanks, ya know? For saving us and all," he finished. Lugia nodded its head as it continued to fly, saying nothing the whole time, but the Pokemon did smile.
FD + 78
"This is Sector V calling Kids Next Door Island Headquarters. Come in, Island HQ!" Number 1 shouted at the staticky tv screen. He slammed his hands down on the panel in front of his chair and yelled in frustration.
"…lo, hel-lo, this is… chhh," a voice came through over the static and the five standing in front of the screen snapped their gazes up hopefully. The screen got less staticky and they started to make out a form on the other side.
"There we go. See? Everything's fine," Numbuh 4 claimed. He wiped a bead of sweat off his forehead and then stumbled to the right as the ground under his feet trembled.
"Doesn't feel like everything's fine," Numbuh 5 remarked. The dark-skinned girl wearing a red hat and blue t-shirt grabbed onto the chair in front of the screen to steady herself. "Is that you, Herbie?" She questioned at the figure on the screen who had the same chubby body type of the communication's officer but was still hard to make out clearly.
"Numbuh 65.3, respond," Numbuh 1 ordered at the screen. Nigel Uno rubbed a hand over his bald shiny head and glared at the screen, "Respond! Numbuh 65.3, this is…" The screen became less blurry and Numbuh 1's words caught in his mouth. Numbuh 5 let go of his chair and stumbled backwards while putting a hand in front of her mouth, and Numbuh 3 had to turn away.
"No way," Numbuh 2, or Hoagie Gilligan whispered. He stared at the screen where they should have seen the inside of Kids Next Door Island Base, but there were no walls behind the figure on the screen. The nerdy-looking guy on the monitor had blood on the metal helmet over his head, and there were flames on part of the treehouse behind him where one operative was trying to put them out with a fire extinguisher. Numbuh 65.3 himself did not look so good though, with blood coming out under his helmet and down the entire left side of his face, and the boy holding his own right arm across his chest like it was in a lot of pain.
"This is Island Base, do you read Sector V?" At least Herb sounded okay, as he kept his calm while talking to them.
"Y-Yes," Numbuh 1 responded quickly. He paused for a second as he was planning on asking what the problem was, but instead he first questioned, "Are you alright, Herb? You don't look so hot."
"Island Base got hit," Herb said, not answering Numbuh 1's question. Herb felt it was stupid considering just behind his screen he could see the bodies of fellow operatives who did not make it out as okay as he did. "Numbuh 86 is down, and Supreme Leader Numbuh 362 is in critical condition."
The members of Sector V gasped. "We'll head over right away," Numbuh 1 started, and he shot out of his seat.
"No!" Herb yelled at the monitor. The kids of Sector V became confused as to why he would tell them not to come, but in the background they suddenly saw the operative holding a fire extinguisher, Numbuh 35, point a hand towards one of the giant holes where the walls used to be and scream. 35 turned and ran away, and Herb looked up that way to see what was wrong. "Crap, they're bringing the fight back this way."
"What's going on, Herb?!" Abby, or Numbuh 5, shouted at the screen. "If you're in trouble, get out of there and head to Sector V!"
"Who's attacking you?!" Numbuh 4 yelled.
"No one," the nerdy communications officer replied. He shook his head and stood up from his seat, walking backwards and looking through the hole in the wall off screen. He stared away as the five kids through the monitor screamed at him, and the members of Sector V could hear people out of the screen's focus shouting at each other to evacuate. Herb shouted loudly so the kids watching him through the monitor would hear him. "They aren't attacking us, they're fighting each other. We're right in the middle of their battlefield though."
Numbuh 1's eyes opened wide and a few of the others clenched their fists or teeth in frustration. Numbuh 4 looked around and threw his arms up in exasperation, "Would someone please tell me what's going on?"
Numbuh 2 spun around to the idiot. "It's those Saiyans and Kryptonians again." As he said it, a red light flashed in the screen far past the base's outer walls, but Herb was still sent rolling back towards the monitor by the force of the distant blast. The ground shook even at Sector V and the floorboards of the Island Base ripped up in front of the boy who was just talking to them.
"That's right," Herb said, standing up and letting both arms drop to his sides. "They're everywhere. Hundreds of them, fighting all over the ocean. Explosions everywhere. The flames… they're so-" in a split second the Kids Next Door of Sector V saw a stray ball of blue light fly down from the top of the screen and smash through the floorboards beneath Herb. Then it must have exploded because everything flashed blue, they heard Herb scream, and then the screen cut to static again.
Sector V was silent as the floor beneath their feet trembled. They felt the blast that just annihilated their command center. "Island Base," Numbuh 1 said, but he did not expect a reply. He asked again, and then lowered his hand to the panel in front of him and ended the call. He slowly turned around to the four kids standing behind him, his team, all waiting for him to say something. He shook his head though and took the sunglasses off from over his eyes. "I, I don't know what to say," he whispered.
Abby stepped towards him and put a hand on his shoulder. "That's alright. We don't expect-"
"Speak for yourself," Numbuh 4 snapped at Numbuh 5. Numbuh 3 turned her head to the shorter boy next to her who had tear drops in the corners of his eyes. Wally pointed at Numbuh 1, "You're supposed to tell us what to do! So what do we do now?!"
"We were the first team to get a treehouse off of Island Base, here on the mainland," Numbuh 2 said quietly, his head bowed. "Then, that means…"
"We are all that remains of the Kids Next Door," Numbuh 1 finished for him. The bald kid looked around at his friends who bowed their heads, most of them crying like he wanted to do. He knew he had to be strong though, and he clenched his fists and grit his teeth. "That makes this the new Kids Next Door Headquarters," he announced.
The other four lifted up their heads and watched as Numbuh 1 paced back and forth in front of him. "There have to be millions of children all over the world not only fighting against adult tyranny, but now monsters much much worse than them. It's not going to be easy, and it will be dangerous," he stopped in the middle of his friends and looked in towards them, "but we are the Kids Next Door, and whether or not we're the last ones left, we still have a job to do."
"Do you think we can do it?" Numbuh 3 asked. "Just the five of us?"
"Of course we can!" Numbuh 4 shouted with re-found confidence. "We were already the best, now we just have to be better!"
"That's right," Numbuh 5 said, folding her arms in front of her chest. "Not like I got anywhere better to be anyway."
Numbuh 2 gulped but then shrugged his shoulders up in agreement with the taller girl at his side. "Me either. I'm in."
Numbuh 1 nodded at all his friends and he stuck his hand out in front of them. "In that case, let's get started. We've got our work cut out for us." His friends all put their hands in the middle over Nigel's and their leader put his sunglasses over his eyes. "Kids Next Door, battle stations!" He threw his arm up in the air and the others all roared.
FD + 113
"Man, this city is sweet!" Numbuh 4 shouted, hands high in the air. He had a lollipop in his mouth just like the others around him. "There are toys all over the place too, so cool!" He looked around the city of Dressrosa on the coast. It was still being built higher, with a giant palace on a hill to the east, water in the west, and lots of buildings in between under construction. Toys walked around the streets mixed in with people who had gotten used to them by now, though the Kids Next Door were still impressed considering they were only there for a mission.
"Well, enjoy it while you can," Numbuh 1 said from where he led his team in front. He looked back at Numbuh 4, "We got what we came for, so it's time to head back to base."
"Aww man," Numbuh 4 groaned.
Numbuh 5 took the lollipop out of her mouth and pointed it at Numbuh 1's back, "I still can't believe you ate that thing. You know you won't be able to swim anymore."
"A small price to pay to ensure our safety," Numbuh 1 replied calmly.
"I'm sure glad that Doflamingo guy was interested in our Two-by-Four tech," Numbuh 2 said. "Did you see the looks on their faces when we finished work on the S.C.A.M.P.E.R? They couldn't believe it actually lifted off the ground!" The chubby boy in a pair of goggles started laughing with his hand over his chest. "Doubt those adults will be able to replicate it though."
"I don't know," Abby countered. "They built a whole city in a few months, I'm sure they can figure out how to recreate one of your inventions."
"Hey! What's that supposed to mean?" Numbuh 2 exclaimed.
Numbuh 4 started laughing hard, but as he laughed he heard someone shout on his right side. He turned his head and looked down a side street they were just passing. A small robot girl was rolling towards him on treads, and chasing behind it a few meters back were a few of the city's guards. "What's that thing's problem?" Numbuh 4 muttered.
"Wally!" the robot yelled. Now, all of the four operatives standing together turned and looked at the robot speeding towards them. It stopped right next to Numbuh 4 and started panting with its mouth open. It snapped its metal head up and shouted, "Numbuh 1! You gotta help me, they turned me into a toy!" The robot lifted its arms and shouted, "And not a fluffy cute toy either, they made me into an ugly robot!"
Numbuh 1 blinked a few times in confusion and then looked at Numbuhs 5 and 2 who just shrugged at him. He turned back to the robot and said, "What are you talking about? Who are you? How do you know our names?"
"Yeah, what's up with that?!" Numbuh 4 shouted, still hung up on that whole "Wally" thing. He didn't remember telling any of the people in this city his real name, so they should have only known him by his codename: Numbuh 4.
"Silly, it's me!" The robot exclaimed, and still her friends did not look at her with any recognition. She groaned and pointed her fingers at herself. "Numbuh 3?" she asked, saying it like they were all stupid for not realizing it already.
Numbuhs 5 and 2 looked at each other and lifted up their eyebrows. Numbuh 1 crossed his arms and shook his head with an annoyed expression on his face. "We don't have a Numbuh 3. Nice try though, toy," Numbuh 1 finished.
He lifted his gaze and saw the two guards just reached the robot talking to them. They reached down and grabbed the robot with a shocked expression on her face by an arm each. "Sorry about this," one of the men began.
"Sometimes the toys get a sickness," the other Dressrosa guard said. He cupped one hand to his mouth and whispered, "They think they're people." He rolled his eyes and Numbuh 2 started laughing.
"Wait! Hey, let go of me!" Numbuh 3 shouted. She turned her head left as the men started dragging her back and she yelled, "Numbuh 4, help me!" The boy with blond hair just looked at her confusedly, and she yelled, "It's me! Kuki!" The girl reached one of her metal hands forward, breaking out of the grasp of the man pulling her back.
Wally lifted a hand towards her and the robot's eyes widened, its mouth curling up into a huge smile. "Kuki? Never heard of you," Numbuh 4 said, and he smacked the metal hand away as it got near him. "Get that thing out of here," Numbuh 4 yelled at the guards. "It's creeping me the heck out."
"Right away," one of the guards told the child. "We'll fix the problem with it right away."
Kuki got dragged backwards and she lost all resistance. Her treads stopped moving and got dragged down the street as her whole body went limp. No one remembers me. Why? Why don't they know who I am? She lifted her head and wanted to cry so badly, but as hard as she tried no tears came out of her metal eyes. Numbuh 1, Numbuh 5, Numbuh 2… Wally, don't leave! Please, don't leave me! She watched as they all walked past the intersection, but Numbuh 4 paused before he left her sight. He turned her way and stared for a second as she got dragged back, then the boy shrugged his shoulders, and he walked away.
FD + 134
"We have to keep looking for him!" Numbuh 5 shouted.
"What we need to do, is build ourselves a new base, before we get caught out in the open with our pants down!" Numbuh 2 argued back.
"Numbuh 1's not coming back," Wally snapped at Numbuh 5. And he spun to Numbuh 2 next, "And how the Hell are we going to build ourselves a new treehouse on our own?! There's only three of us!" He held up four fingers as he shouted it.
The three kids standing on a flat landscape of black dirt that seemed to stretch forever in every direction were exhausted. It was hot enough as it was, but as they were on foot and carrying their supplies on their small backs, it was even more difficult. Numbuh 5 growled and shook in anger. "Enough! I'm second-in-command when Numbuh 1's gone, and I say we go look for him."
"We don't even know where to start looking!" Numbuh 2 shouted in exasperation. "We have barely any tech, and no backup!"
"I'm not saying he can't be alive out there," Numbuh 4 stated and crossed his arms. "But Numbuh 1 wouldn't even know where we are! If we start announcing our presence, these bracelets won't mean a thing!" He waved around his right hand so the others could see the PB-1 he was wearing. "He's got that Devil Fruit and thinks he can go on solo missions without getting hurt, but he should have brought us along. Now we don't even know what happened to him!"
"He went alone, because the enemies this time were monsters," Abby snapped at the younger boy. "What were you gonna do against monsters?"
"Kick their butts," Numbuh 4 replied. "I've been training too you know," he snapped at her.
"Oooh, you make me so mad," Numbuh 5 yelled at him. "Well I'm done standing around here! I'm going to look for Numbuh 1, whether you want to come or not."
She spun around and started marching forward. Numbuh 2 sighed and threw up his hands in defeat. He took a step after the girl with a long braid of black hair but turned around to say something to Numbuh 4 after a second. When he turned though, Numbuh 4 was still standing there, his blond hair that had grown considerably over their time on the planet covering up his eyes in the bowl cut he had it in. "Come on Numbuh 4, we got a long walk ahead of us. Can't waste any rocket fuel until we know we can get some more."
"I'm not coming," Numbuh 4 said.
Numbuh 5 froze on her next step. She bowed her head and the red rim of her cap shadowed her eyes. She clenched her teeth and listened to Numbuh 4 behind her, "You have no idea where you're going, and you said 'whether we want to come or not,' so I don't want to come."
Abby spun around. "I didn't say that to give you a choice on the matter. I was just saying-"
"Oh I heard you just fine," Wally snapped. He lowered his crossed arms and yelled, "If our opinions don't matter, then we're not really a team are we?"
"Numbuh 4, get real," Hoagie told his best friend. "What would you do out here on your own? You wouldn't make it a day!"
"Wanna bet?" Wally questioned harshly. "I was fine on my own before you guys made it to KND Nexus, and I'll be fine after." He spun around so his back was to the others. He lowered his voice and said more quietly, "We all know it, this team hasn't been working out. I don't know what it was, but these last few weeks…" The other two bowed their heads a little as they had had the same feelings.
"Well, I don't know why I put up with you anyway," Abby called over at him.
"Hey, come on guys," Numbuh 2 looked back and forth between the others who now had their backs to each other. Neither of them moved for a few seconds, and then they both started walking opposite directions. "Guys. Guys! Really, this isn't a good idea!" Hoagie kept spinning back and forth between them, and once they had a twenty yard gap between them, they both stopped. "Oh come on," Hoagie groaned as they stopped moving. "Don't make me do this. Numbuh 5, tell him!" He yelled over at the girl.
"I'm not his mom," Abby said, talking through clenched teeth. "I can't make him do something he doesn't want to do."
Numbuh 2 stared hopelessly at her back and then spun to Numbuh 4 next. "Come on man, can't you just try to wait until we find Numbuh 1 to-"
"You ain't gonna find Numbuh 1," Numbuh 4 said, no hesitation in his voice. Numbuh 4's hair shadowed over his face and he said in a cold voice, "Now get going, Numbuh 2." Hoagie's eyes widened and Numbuh 4 glanced back at him, "We both know who you're gonna choose." Numbuh 4 nodded his head at the bigger boy and then turned back forwards, continuing to walk away.
Numbuh 2 wanted to prove him wrong, shout that he wasn't going to leave Numbuh 4 either, but out the corner of his eye he saw Numbuh 5 start walking again. "W-Wait for me!" He called out and started running after her. He kept glancing back with every step he took, but Numbuh 4 was not looking back. Numbuh 2 reached the girl in front of him and he was already panting hard. "Numbuh 5, let's think about this. If we leave Numbuh 4, he's not going to…" He faded off as he saw the taller girl's face, streaks of tears coming out both of her eyes.
"It's done, Hoagie," she said. The girl stopped walking and she wiped her face with an arm before looking back. Her and Numbuh 2 stared back across the desolate field at the short kid walking the other way. "Wally," Abby whispered under her breath. "Stay safe, you big dummy."
Numbuh 4 never looked back. He did stop muttering curses under his breath after a while though. The boy sniffled a few times and wiped his wet eyes before any tears came out. "I'm on my own now," he said and looked up in the sky at the three suns passing overhead. Sooo, what the heck am I supposed to do now?
FD + 212
"Batten down the hatches Numbuh 4!"
"Fire back at them!"
"The diving mechanism is malfunctioning! The torpedo they hit us with destroyed the system!"
Wally Beatles waded through the shallow water on the lower level of the submarine and he lifted up the heavy metal plate in his arms to slam against the wall. The water pouring in pressed hard on the steel plate he was putting on, but two men in matching white jackets and pants ran up to his sides and slammed against it as well. Penguin and Shachi looked down at the kid between them and shouted, "Use your gadget thing to screw it in!"
"On it!" Numbuh 4 shouted back. He let go of the panel and the two older pirates were surprised by how much more force started pushing against them without the kid's help holding it back. Water sprayed in from the cracks on the side of the panel and they could hear shouting up above. The inside of the sub was flashing red lights and as Wally picked up the Drillinator 6000 from the bench behind him, he had a sudden flash to the first weeks on Nexus, remembering himself inside a KND vehicle with flashing red lights like this one. He remembered jumping out of the ship, it crashing, and him running frantically towards something, or someone. But I was the only survivor, he remembered. He froze up as that did not seem right to him. Something about it seemed off, strange, but he heard shouts above him and behind where the pirates down here shouted that they needed help fast.
"Got it!" Wally shouted and spun back around. He ran towards the panel with his special Two-by-Four drill. Shachi got pushed back as the ship rocked, and water sprayed in from one side. Numbuh 4 sprinted forward though and leveled his shoulder into the metal plate, jamming it back against the wall and then screwing screws in all over the outside of it to keep it in place. He finally backed up when the pressure subsided, and he dropped the drill and wiped his hands across each other. "All done," he said proudly.
They were standing in one foot deep water, but at least no more was coming in at the moment. "Good job, kid," Penguin told him. The pirate wearing a hat that said his name on it and had a big red poof ball on top turned towards the stairs while his comrade in a blue hat stood up out of the water soaking wet. "Now stay down here, we're going up to fight with the Captain," Penguin ordered.
"Hey, no fair! I can help too," Numbuh 4 complained.
"You're a cabin boy, which means you have to do what us veterans say," Shachi told the kid. "Now stay, here," he said sternly, before spinning around like Penguin and running for the stairs to the upper deck.
Numbuh 4 watched them leave, then he smirked and started marching forward. "Tell me to wait here while there's a fight going on? Fat chance," he reached the stairs and grabbed onto a ladder above him that he could use to get to the top deck. He felt the ship shake and listened down below to hear if any holes opened up, but it didn't sound like water was rushing in. "Good," he said, then started climbing up the ladder himself.
Numbuh 4 walked to the door at the top of the ladder that was wide open and looked out on the deck. His jaw dropped at the sight up there: men firing guns over the sides of the ship, the white bear Bepo jumping around and punching away cannonballs flying at them. Men swung over on ropes and jumped onto the ship from both sides, and now that Numbuh 4 was on the deck he could see the two huge metal battleships floating on the water at their sides. Their crews were enormous and more and more men kept jumping off and swinging towards them.
"There are too many of them!" Shachi yelled.
Penguin fired up at a man, but two more swung in behind him and jumped off, firing pistols down at him. "This isn't good!"
Wally saw everyone on the ship with him getting attacked and he looked around confusedly. "Where's the Captain?" He muttered, and then he saw him and his eyes turned huge. Law was on the ground close to the bow of the submarine, grabbing at his right shoulder and trying to dig the bullet out with his bare hands. He was surrounded by enemies, and one of them stomped down on his left arm as he dug inside his other shoulder.
"Not so fast, Trafalgar," the pirate with a giant arm made of metal scrap, scars all over his face, and spiky red hair taunted the skinnier pirate captain on the ground at his feet. Eustass "Captain" Kid, lifted back up his pistol as he stomped on Law's left arm, and a loud bang echoed on the ship as he put a kairoseki bullet into Law's other shoulder too. Law roared out in pain and his crewmates shouted his name. They became distracted by their captain's pain, and the other men jumping on the ship started slashing them up and tackling them down to the ground.
"What are you, doing?" Law snarled at the man stepping on him. He looked around the deck and spotted Kid's crew cornering his last crewmate still standing, the bear of the Mink Tribe, Bepo. Law's eyes widened but before he could shout, Kid's first mate Killer hit Bepo on the back of the neck with the hilts of his curved blades. The bear collapsed in a heap. Law could see the man in a blue and white mask had Armament Haki over his weapons.
"We're taking out our rivals," Kid said, a dangerous glint in his eyes. "But that doesn't mean we can't make some money out of it while we're at it."
"You wouldn't," Law growled.
"Already have a buyer set up," Kid replied. "I just have to-"
"Raaa!"
Kid turned his head and his eyes opened up a little in surprise at the sight of a blond haired boy flying at him with flames coming out of his shoes. Law's jaw lowered as did most men on his crew who were being held down by Kid's superior numbers. "Get off the Captain you-" Numbuh 4 lifted up a weapon, and Kid rose his hand towards the boy, stopping him mid-flight with some sort of power.
"Whoa, whoa!" Numbuh 4 yelled as he felt the Two-by-Four weapon in his hand getting yanked out. He held on as tight as he could but he still got tugged towards Kid. The scary pirate covered in scars saw Law's nervous expression and he laughed. The hand he was using to pull Numbuh 4 in lowered, and he swung his other hand forward instead, turning it black as he did.
"No!" Shachi, Penguin, and Law all yelled out. They could not stop Kid though. The other pirate captain nailed Numbuh 4 in the gut so hard that his fist was visible on the boy's back. The spiky-haired pirate stared at the kid in surprise though as he was trying to tear right through him. Numbuh 4's eyes still rolled back in his head though, and he gasped in agony but could not take in any breath. He was thrown backwards and flew off the side of the ship where he made a big splash in the water.
"Numbuh 4!" Shachi yelled, struggling to get out of the grip of his captors. He glared up at the scary Kid pirates holding him down and shouted, "The kid can't swim! He's going to drown!"
"Yeah, well I heard kids don't make very useful slaves anyway," Captain Kid said and then started laughing at the pirates' horrified expressions. "What are those looks on your faces? If you're pirates, accept what's happened to you as…"
Numbuh 4 regained some sense as he hit the ice cold water, but after a second of splashing around with his arms, his head went under and he could hear nothing but his own muffled gurgles. His chest and stomach hurt so much that he was not able to take a deep breath before going down, so after a second underwater he already felt like he needed to breathe. He opened his mouth, bubbles pouring out towards the surface, and he sank down into the dark depths of the ocean.
Wally reached a hand for the bright blue sky above him, and he saw his hand grabbing at the surface like he could almost touch it. His vision cut in black on the corners and the sides, until everything was blurry and he had tunnel vision to one of the bright suns up through the surface of the water. His hand clenched in a fist above him, and everything went dark.
FD + 218
"What are you doing?"
Numbuh 4 sat on the floor with his hands behind his head. He lay back down and did another sit-up, wincing as he did, but going down for another as soon as he counted another random number out loud. "I, gotta, get, stronger," he groaned after every time he came up. "Seventy four, thirty teen seven, four hundred and sixty two," Numbuh 4 said these numbers and the girl in front of him shook her head at the boy.
She had a long green tail and a bra made of sea shells, along with bright green eyes and long red hair. Ariel had her upper body sticking out of the water that covered half of the floor of the room the boy was in. She put her elbows down on the edge of his floor and looked ahead at him in frustration. "If I could walk I would walk right up to you and bonk you on the head you stubborn boy."
"Well it's a good thing you can't then," Wally chided back, before doing another sit-up.
Ariel got annoyed at him and pouted, but there was no point in telling him not to move with his injury since it had not stuck the last three times she scolded him. She sighed after a second when she heard him say the number 'seven' like it came after 'five hundred and twelve.' "Looks like swimming isn't the only thing I can teach you," she told the blond boy. He looked at her confusedly and she giggled at his reaction. "After seven comes eight," she said.
"I knew that," he said and went down again. He sat up and said, "Eight." He went back down and came up, "Forty…"
"After eight is nine," Ariel said. Wally's face turned red but he went back down for another sit-up and just muttered the numbers she told him each time.
After he finished his workout, he walked back over to his bed and sat down. Ariel kept talking to him, but after a while her fish friend Flounder swam into the room and told her that her father was looking for her. She frowned but said goodbye to Wally and swam away with the fish. After she was gone, Wally walked over to a window on the solid part of his room and looked out over the city in front of him. It was not very large, but he was always amazed when he looked up and saw the outside of the bubble keeping all the water out.
He started counting the buildings outside and realized something as he did it. Those stupid teachers must have been doing it wrong all that time. All they needed to do was teach me how to count while working out, I can count all the way past eleven now! The proud ten year old smirked, but when he looked back at the water hole in the room with him he frowned again. Now, I just gotta learn how to swim. I let the Captain and the others get taken 'cause I couldn't swim. I got beat with just one punch too, he thought angrily, and he lifted up his orange sweatshirt to see the white bandages wrapped fully around his upper stomach and chest.
"There's no time to count," he muttered and turned away from the window. The boy dropped down to his hands and got off his knees so he was in push-up position. "One," he started, bending his elbows and grinding his teeth in pain. "Two…"
FD + 245
Numbuh 4 swam out of the bubble holding all of Atlantis. He was already under the water on the lower part of the inside of the city, but now he was outside of the bubble too and he looked back into it. He saw mermaids swimming around and all different types of creatures living together under the leadership of the Neptunes in charge of the city. "Thanks Ariel," he muttered.
The boy turned around and started swimming through the water again, away from the city and up at the same time towards the surface. The oxygen tanks he stole and had strapped to his back were connected to the glass helmet he had on over his head via tubes he put together himself. "I gotta get back though," Wally muttered. "Because there's something, I'm forgetting," he said, his voice soft. He grit his teeth hard as he thought back to what he remembered on-board Law's ship. There was someone else there. But who? Why can't I remember? He tried to bonk the side of his head but hit the glass instead and darted his eyes over worriedly. Luckily the glass did not crack and he let out a sigh of relief.
The kid swam up faster, kicking his legs behind him like Ariel taught him to. "I'm doing it," he said, his eyes lighting up. "I'm really doing it!" Alright! Once I get to the surface, I've gotta head back to land. Hopefully I can find the crew, but it's a big place. If I can't find Law and the others, I might as well join up with some new guys. Being a cruddy pirate wasn't much fun anyway, always having to do what adults told me. He stuck out his tongue inside his helmet and then started grinning again. "This time, I'm doing things my way."
FD + 385
"Numbuh 4!" A boy shouted and threw open the door to the gym Numbuh 4 was lifting weights in. "We need you on the wall," the kid a couple years younger than him said in an urgent tone.
"What is it now?" Numbuh 4 muttered in annoyance. He let go of the bar he just pushed forward and the weights he had lifted fell down so hard that the machine collapsed behind him. The older boy stood up and marched over towards the door and the nervous boy inside it, only stopping for a second to grab his orange sweater off the hook next to it. He slid into the hoodie with fur on the hood's edge and marched out into the hallway where people were rushing by him on either side. "This better be good, Numbuh 84," Numbuh 4 told the kid walking behind him.
"It's real important," Lee said. The younger kid whose orange hoodie covered the top half of his face held a yoyo in his right hand and nervously kept letting it go down and pulling it up again. "We got a general location of the Delightful Children, but they must have found our spy because he hasn't reported in for two days now."
"Well at least it's those Delightful Dorks for a change," Wally muttered under his breath, actually glad to be fighting enemies like them again.
Numbuhs 4 and 84 went up to the walls of the fortress in the deep south of Aebrith. The coast was much farther south than them, but there were no high cliffs or mountains in between the fort and the water so they could see out for hundreds of miles to where the water started. There were beasts all over the green landscapes south of them, but luckily the Pokemon in the area were much stronger than normal ones, probably having been fighting since they first arrived on Nexus. All of the creatures lived in harmony around there and though there was fighting, it was a generally safe place for people to live.
From the hillside fortress overlooking the south, Numbuh 4 could see at least a half a dozen towns. There were roads connecting the towns, some paved, some not which normally meant they led to the smaller villages. On a small hill far to the east there was a bigger town, getting close to city size by the looks of the constantly expanding walls. Numbuh 84 pointed over at a group of kids down the wall to their right, and an adult with them who was discussing something serious with a girl on his right side.
Numbuh 4 slowed down as he neared the group. His eyes opened wide, and it wasn't because of the man in dark green armor and a visor who he recognized as a hero around these parts. It was the person Master Chief was talking to who got Numbuh 4's attention and made his eyes open huge. The girl next to Master Chief spotted two people down the wall and her eyes opened as wide as Numbuh 4's. "Well I'll be," Abigail Lincoln said, and she crossed her arms in front of her chest. "Is that who I think it is?"
The other kids on the wall moved out of the way and Abby walked towards the kid looking at her with wide eyes. "Oh yeah," Lee said and scratched the back of his hood. "I forgot to mention, but Numbuh 5 just showed up." Numbuh 84 snickered as he wanted to see the reaction on Numbuh 4's face which is why he made it seem so urgent and led the older boy up there himself.
"Numbuh 5," Numbuh 4 said and walked towards her, meeting her halfway. "What're you doing here? How'd you find me?!"
"I wasn't looking for you," Numbuh 5 admitted and held up her palms as she shrugged. "I came down here with the Chief. What the Delightful Children found, we've got to stop them…"
"Wait a minute," Numbuh 4 shook his head around and held up his hands at her. "Are you in the Resistance?" He asked, lifting up his eyebrows at her.
"Well, yeah," Numbuh 5 said and shrugged again. "I was up north a few thousands miles though. How you got all the way down here is beyond me."
"The ship I hopped on after leaving Atlantis was- hold on," Wally shook his head and stopped explaining to the girl who now really wanted to know more after hearing him mention Atlantis. "You know about the Delightful Children? What are you talking about? We don't even know what they found, all we got was a description before-"
"Yeah, but Master Chief here knows what we're dealing with," Abby said, and her voice sounded nervous again. She turned back to the man in full body armor who was mostly ignoring the kids around him and looking off the wall into the southern distance himself. He had zooming functions on his helmet and was zooming in on towns all over the south.
"Are you sure they're even down here?" Numbuh 4 asked as Abby walked over to the wall herself and lifted a pair of binoculars around her neck. "Actually, tell me this first. Where's Numbuh 2?" Abby tensed up and Numbuh 4's eyes opened wide.
"He's fine," Numbuh 5 said after a moment though, confusing Numbuh 4 who assumed the worst. "I haven't seen him in a while though," she continued, turning her head and looking down as she did.
"So the team's finally broken completely," Wally mumbled. Numbuh 5 noticed that he never asked about Numbuh 1, and she frowned even deeper as she never did find their old leader. He never expected her to though, so the question was not even on his mind. "Well, not completely if we're on the same side still, right?" The blond boy asked.
The girl with a long black braid looked down at the boy wearing a furry orange sweater similar to her own red one. There had not been much precipitation this far south, so there was no snow, but it was still very cold the past few weeks. She smiled and nodded her head, "Yeah, guess we are."
The two of them looked off the wall to the south and Numbuh 4 turned to her after a few seconds, "So, what's this thing the Delightful Dorks managed to find anyway?"
Master Chief had lifted up a sniper rifle and was staring carefully into the distance, but when he heard the boy he started speaking loud enough for all the kids on the wall to hear him. "The description of what your spy found sounded a lot like something from my universe. Those children you keep talking about were digging down, but what they found should have stayed below the surface." He lowered his sniper a little and said darkly, "If they let it out…" His eyes widened and he snapped the rifle back up in front of his face.
"What is it?" Abby asked as she saw the quick motion of the man she came south with. Chief originally planned on going south alone to deal with the problem, but the Resistance insisted on sending someone who had dealt with the human element before, while he went because of the non-human one he recognized.
"Tell me, kid, has that town always been there?" Master Chief asked seriously.
Wally blinked a few times as he realized the man was talking to him. "What town?" He turned and looked south, "There are like six or seven of them!"
"I count eight," the Chief stated.
Wally looked around and frowned as he could definitely count up to eight, and he was pretty sure there were not eight towns visible from here. He counted them himself and his eyes widened in surprise. "Wait a second," he mumbled, and shook his head around before darting his gaze back to the right. "What the Hell is that?!" He shouted. The other kids on the wall with him ran over to see what he lifted his hand and started pointing at, and the rest of them started to panic as well.
"You're telling me that town just appeared out of nowhere?" Abby asked the shorter boy on her left. She lifted up her binoculars again and looked that way, and her jaw dropped at the sight of the buildings, the fountains, the recognizable architecture. "That's no town," she said. "That's-"
"Very good, Abigail!" A ridiculously loud, snarky shout chided over the speakers of the fortress. Numbuh 4 and Numbuh 5 recognized the shrill voices of the Delightful Children all speaking as a group. They spun around, wondering where the Delightful Children were that they could hear whatever they were saying.
"Come out here!" Numbuh 4 yelled and lifted up his fists.
"Where are you?!" Abby shouted. "You don't understand what you're messing with! That thing you found, it's not safe-"
"We know perfectly well," the Delightful Children said.
"Uhh, Numbuh 4," Lee started, and he tugged at the older boy's sweatshirt. Numbuh 4 looked down at him and saw Lee's entire body shaking from more than the cold. The kid was pointing off the wall to the south and Numbuh 4 followed the point back to that strange town he was looking at. All of a sudden, the walls of the town started to fold in, and buildings lifted up. Long, thick metal rods connected the houses, and the houses themselves turned and morphed. The entire town pulled in towards one point, and all the houses rose up in the air and connected together.
"Holy crap," Wally mumbled and stepped backwards. "What the fuck is that?!" He screamed. Numbuh 5 darted her old friend a glare for cursing, never remembering him as one to say the F-word. Then again, the sight of the town turning into one giant transforming robot definitely made her feel like shouting something similar to that at the moment.
Master Chief stared at the transforming town in surprise, and then looked around in more surprise as a few of the kids around him started talking about how this was the "biggest" robot they had seen the Delightful Children make, which implied that they had seen other transforming robots like it before. The evil children continued speaking in their menacing tone, but Master Chief pressed a few buttons on a panel that popped open on the armor on his wrist and their voices cut off from the speakers. "This is Master Chief," the Spartan in green armor said, his voice deadly serious.
Everyone on the wall looked at Master Chief in surprise as his voice suddenly came over all the speakers. The Delightful Children all glared through the glass panel at the front of their giant robot town too when their voices were cut off by the man's. "I don't want to hurt children, but I will use force to stop you if you continue to try and release the Flood."
"The Flood?" The Delightful Children asked. Their voices came over the speakers again and it sounded like Master Chief just joined in on the same frequency, not actually kicking them off it. "Is that what you call it? Well then, you must know how powerful it is. Do not worry though, we have the outbreak contained… for now," they said, and the way they said it sounded a lot like a threat.
"Outbreak," Master Chief whispered. "Then they've already gotten out. You fools," the Spartan lifted up the sniper rifle in his hands and he zoomed in, then zoomed in again towards the town standing on four house-feet with legs of fountains and walls leading up to the large body of it. The biggest house sat on top of the huge robot and had a large glass window on the front of it that the Delightful Children were looking through.
"Do not call us fools, Chief," the children growled, their angry voices echoing out of speakers in the fortress. "Or perhaps we will just release the captured Flood right now. We have already seen what they can do when we threw that spy to them."
Numbuh 4's fists clenched furiously at his sides. "Bastards," he growled in anger. "When I get my hands on you!"
"Shut it, Wallabee," the Delightful Children snapped at the boy who they must have been listening in to from their base. As they demanded it, one of the houses on their town robot's torso moved towards the bottom of the robot and the roof of it opened up when it was fully upside-down. The walls of the house folded up and revealed that inside was a huge drill that started spinning around under the robot's stomach. The Delightful Children started laughing and they announced, "Under the ground below us is a tunnel system that we created before happening upon those creatures. The tunnels are full of them already, but if we so choose we can drop the drill and let them all out onto the surface!"
"If you do that, you kill us all," Master Chief said into the radio. His voice got most people in the fort, on the walls, and even the evil children themselves feeling shivers down their spines. "The Flood's sole purpose is to destroy all life in the universe. You think you can control them once they've been released? Entire galaxies have fallen to them. Listen to me," Chief spoke as calmly and clearly as he could. "You need to close off all entrances and exits to those tunnels. If you can stall their escape…"
"They won't be escaping unless we decide to let them out," the Delightful Children shouted. "And we won't let them out unless our demands are met. Now, let us get to-"
"Numbuh 4! Numbuh 4!" a kid running across the top of the wall shouted in a panic. He had a big phone in his hand and was holding it in front of him. The phone was shaking and someone was shouting on the other side of it. Wally grabbed the phone and the Delightful Children oddly fell quiet as this happened. "You have to hear this!" The kid covered in freckles, wearing glasses, had braces, and whose hat was on backwards with the number 13 on it was sweating from a lot more than just his run to Wally.
"What is it now?" Wally shouted into the phone.
"They're everywhere!" The voice on the other end screamed at him, making Numbuh 4 pull the phone away from his ear. The voice screamed again and then static sounded over the line.
Numbuh 13 said between taking breaths, "The call was from Springfield. They used the emergency channel!"
"Springfield?" Numbuh 4 asked. He snatched the binoculars from Numbuh 5 and looked through them to the town second farthest south, almost at the coast. "I can barely see it from here," he muttered. After a second he lowered the binoculars though as he saw smoke start rising up from that town. Hundreds of Pokemon on the fields between the fortress and the town started running that direction to help the people there.
"No," Master Chief said as he saw all the creatures heading the same direction. "They need to go the other way."
"The Pokemon around here help us out," Numbuh 4 said to the older man. "They're strong too."
"The Flood are going to use them against us," Master Chief said quietly. He looked around and started shouting out orders to everyone on the wall and off of it into the fort for anyone who was near him. "We have to start evacuations on every town south of here. Make this the evacuation point before we send them north." He strapped the sniper on his back and pulled out an assault rifle from his waist. "I'll head to Springfield. I can hold the Flood back while you…"
The phone Wally held down at his side started ringing. He lifted it up and someone started yelling at him over it. Wally nodded his head and muttered, "Uh huh, yeah, Oldtown too?!"
"Look!" Numbuh 13 pointed over the wall in another direction south. Numbuh 4 thought he would be pointing at Oldtown, but he was pointing to a town even closer where a building was on fire and smoke rose all around it. Numbuh 4 lifted up the binoculars to his head and looked a few miles away where he spotted a pack of Rhyhorns and Rhydons were storming into the town to help out.
They all watched for a few seconds, before spotting that same pack sprinting back out of the town. Only about half of the creatures that went in were still there though, at least for a few more seconds. One of the Rhydons came stumbling out of the town, and it wasn't looking so hot. The Pokemon stumbled around on its feet, smacking around its body as tiny creatures with ovular heads and pointy feet covered in thin little brushes scampered around on its skin. Wally's eyes trembled at the sight of one of those creatures burrowing into Rhydon's back, and a few seconds later giant bumps of brown and orange burst out all over the Pokemon's body.
Rhydon collapsed to the floor and its body continued to cover in bubbles, its face distorting and changing, its entire figure turning into one of, them. Then the Rhydon got back up and turned to chase after the others of its kind that were looking back towards it and roaring their names out to their unrecognizable comrade. A few more figures started coming out of the town behind Rhydon: other Pokemon, humans, aliens, everyone was covered in orange, their skin all bubbled over, their heads orange and their eye sockets empty, red tentacles sticking out of their dried up skin. It was horrifying.
"They're everywhere!" Numbuh 5 yelled as she saw more pillars of smoke start rising all around the place.
"Hey! What are you doing in here?" The Delightful Children's voices came over the speakers that everyone looked up at. "You're supposed to be guarding the- hey, what's wrong with your- No! Hey! Stop it! Ahh! Lenny! No Bruce, hey, AHHH!" Their voices cut off and everyone on the wall spun their attention back to the robot town in the distant south that started stumbling around on its feet, and then started crashing down sideways. It hit the ground and exploded in a massive fireball that rose up into the sky.
Master Chief lifted up his assault rifle as he realized something. "If they were listening in to our conversation, then one of the tunnels they made around here probably goes under this very fort. We need to evacuate immediately."
Abby shook her head clear of the shock of hearing the Delightful Children get ripped apart by the Flood, and she started shouting out orders to the other shocked children around her. Master Chief ran off to go tell the woman actually in charge of the fort, while Numbuh 4 just kept looking around through the binoculars at all the horrors in the distance. "This is… this is crazy," he whispered, grabbing the sides of his head and dropping the binoculars. "We can't fight something like this!"
"That's why we're running away!" Numbuh 5 yelled at him. "Now are you going to help us out or not?"
The last time Numbuh 5 asked him a question like that, Numbuh 4 turned his back to her and walked away. He turned and glared up in the older girl's eyes. "Sure, but you're not my boss. I do what I want now."
"Whatever," Numbuh 5 told him. "Just go get yourself a weapon and come find me in the garage. We'll guard the others' escapes."
"Alright," Numbuh 4 said. He spun around and started running off, "But I'm getting my ray gun because I want to!"
Numbuh 5 chuckled under her breath and shook her head a few times. She turned and jogged the other way for a second before coming to a short stop and spinning her head around. "Did that boy just say he's got a ray gun? Who in their right mind gave him one of those?"
"Go go go!" Numbuh 4 shouted. He waved his arm towards the vehicles lined up on the northern side of the fortress walls. The gates were rising and the last of the vehicles were driving over from garages around the base. Hordes of people ran out of buildings carrying whatever they could, and almost half of them had some sort of weapon in their hands.
Numbuh 5 stood across the path from him and she was making the same motions with her hands to get everyone on the trucks and ships preparing to depart. She felt a buzzing on her side and lifted up a phone to her ear. "Go for Abby," she said. She listened in for a second and Numbuh 4 stopped waving his hand as he saw the panicked expression on hers. "That's not gonna work," Abby yelled into the phone.
"Numbuh 4! We've got a big problem!" The boy getting called out to spun and saw Numbuh 13 and Numbuh 84 running his way. Lee was the one who called him out, and 84 continued, "We were watching the south wall like you told us, and we saw-"
"A huuuuuge crowd of people coming this way!" Numbuh 13 finished in a panic.
Abby put down the communications device in her hand and yelled over the loud people running past her, "Numbuh 4! Chief is on his way back from San Posata! He's got way more civvies with him than we're ready for, but the Flood are right behind them!"
"Should we go tell Major Byrne?" Numbuh 13 asked.
Numbuh 4 turned towards all the shuttles getting ready for evacuation and he tssked under his breath. "No, she's busy getting everyone out of here," Numbuh 4 said. The blond haired boy started running the way the other boys just came from. "Come on, we'll take care of this ourselves." He reached down to his belt and pulled out his makeshift pistol that had a wide circular barrel at the end of it and a few plastic rings around that.
Numbuh 5 stared at the weapon her old friend just pulled out and she started chasing after him. "You can't be serious! Are you still making your own weapons?!" She shouted at him.
"Of course I am. Why wouldn't I be?" Numbuh 4 shouted as he kept running.
Numbuh 5 reached behind her back and into her backpack. She pulled out a couple of steel pistols that Master Chief gave her despite her being a kid. "Because," she yelled. "What's your pea-shooter gonna do against monsters that Master Chief is afraid of?!"
"He didn't seem very afraid to me when he jumped off the walls," Numbuh 84 said. The youngest kid there shrugged his shoulders and added, "I'm sure we can take 'em. Right Numbuh 4?"
"Yeah!" Numbuh 4 shouted. He smirked and added, "And I'll let you know, Numbuh 5, that this is no 'pea-shooter.'" After he said it, the younger boy in orange on his right started snickering and Numbuh 5 wondered what they were smirking about.
The group of four kids ran the opposite direction as everyone else in the base. They headed for the walls to the south and Numbuh 5 pointed over at the gates, "You two, get ready to open the gates on my mark."
"Got it, Numbuh 5!" The boys shouted and saluted her. Numbuhs 13 and 84 ran off, and Numbuh 5 shook her head nostalgically. It had been a long time since people called her Numbuh 5. She had been going by Abby, or even Abigail, to most people she was comrades with now. As soon as she saw Numbuh 4 though, it felt like she was back in the Kids Next Door again. She was happy to see he had found some other kids from the old KND too.
She and Numbuh 4 ran to the top of the south wall and leaned over it to start shouting at the group of people heading their way to run faster. San Posata was the closest town to them, but it still was not an easy run and Master Chief was in the back of the pack, yelling at the stragglers to move faster as he gunned down the fastest of the Flood chasing after them. He took on entire swarms at the same time, throwing grenades and switching between weapons and it seemed like taking down two enemies with every shot. Despite this though, Wally and Abby looked around and their hearts fell. In the southwest where San Posata was, directly south between the fort and the massive pillar of smoke billowing from Springfield, and in the east where they could see the flaming town at the top of the hill, the Flood were charging towards them from every direction.
As they looked around, Wally felt an even deeper sense of dread inside him and he turned back towards the eastern hill that had the town on it. "No," he said, his eyes opening wide. Numbuh 5 was shouting at the others with Master Chief to hurry it up, and she called down to Numbuh 13 and Lee to get the doors open for them. She heard Numbuh 4 though and turned her head to see what he was looking at.
Numbuh 4 stared east and watched as a horde of something else came from around the hill. He looked right to in front of the fort and heard all the screams of the people who he saw panicking. "It's the Grimm," Numbuh 4 said, his arms shaking at his sides. "They come when they feel negative emotions, and with everyone dying, and screaming, and being scared." He looked every direction off the southern wall and saw Grimm start flying down from the clouds too, clouds that seemed to get darker as the Griffons and even larger Nevermores descended into the flaming towns.
Ursai stormed around the hill to the southeast and Numbuh 4 reached a hand to his chest and grabbed his sweatshirt tightly. He could feel the pain of the evil bear's claws digging through his skin, but as he thought about the memory he remembered having a second to dodge the claw. Why didn't I? Why didn't I move? I, I wasn't on the floor, I was on top of something… someone? Why can't I remember?! Numbuh 4 got shaken by Numbuh 5 literally shaking him by the shoulders. "Get a hold of yourself man, this isn't the place to start freaking out."
"I know that," Numbuh 4 said, getting a serious expression on his face and surprising the taller girl who thought he would freak out for longer. He's matured, she thought, right as the boy glared back to the south. Numbuh 4 pulled out his ray gun and pointed it over the wall right as the fastest people who Master Chief saved were reaching their wall. He could hear his two comrades down below yelling at them to all get inside and head to the north wall where the evacuation was taking place. Numbuh 4 brought his gun up to his eye to give himself a better shot, but before he began firing at the Flood chasing Master Chief, he saw something out the corner of his eye that made him stop dead in his tracks.
"What is it now?" Numbuh 5 yelled as she had already pulled out her pistols and started firing down there. She turned and saw Numbuh 4's face getting paler by the second and sweat pouring down it. "Numbuh 4?" She asked, and she leaned to his side to look the same way he was. Her eyes opened wide and her bottom lip dropped like Numbuh 4's as she watched the pack of Grimm. They were heading towards the fort, when a wobbly taller flood that was covered in bumps started walking in their path. One of the wolf-like Grimm clawed at the monster, and it exploded, sending a hundred tiny Flood parasites in every direction. The creatures covered the ground like water and moved in waves towards the Grimm that stopped charging.
What made Numbuh 4 stare in absolute terror though, was the sight of the Flood burrowing inside Grimm, murdering the monsters he feared most on this world, and turning them into things even more terrifying. "Wh-What? They can't do that! They, they can't…" He looked back towards the people outside and there were some fatter ones who even Master Chief could not slow down enough to save as the hordes of Flood were getting to be too much. Master Chief put bullets in their heads if the Flood knocked them down, but Numbuh 4 watched as Flood crawled inside their dead bodies and reanimated them anyway.
"So this is what he was trying so hard to stop," Numbuh 5 whispered. She ran out of ammo and the amount of enemies was still too much. They would be there in under a minute and the girl realized that after gawking for several seconds. She spun around in a hurry and yelled, "Let's go, Numbuh 4!"
He shook his head and turned, sprinting away as fast as he could in panic. He and Numbuh 5 ran down the wall and he turned towards the gate. "Shut the gates now!" He yelled at the other two boys in the KND at this base.
"But there are still people out there!" Numbuh 13 called back at him.
"Yeah, Master Chief too," Numbuh 5 snapped at Numbuh 4. "We can't just leave them-"
"I said now!" Numbuh 4 roared.
Lee and Numbuh 13 glanced at each other, and then the two of them started closing the gates. Numbuh 5 grabbed the shorter boy by the shoulder and she spun him to face her. "What do you think you're doing? I said-"
"And I said I'm not doing things your way anymore," Numbuh 4 yelled right in her face. He was taking deep breaths and his eyes were bugging out. "They beat the Grimm. They, I, I can't stop them! No one can! We need to leave now before we're overrun!" Numbuh 4 looked back towards the gate right as it closed and he heard screams coming from the other side.
"Wait! They aren't here yet!"
"We have time!"
"Open the gates!"
Lee clenched his eyes shut but he heard Numbuh 4 shout from behind him, "Let's go, Numbuh 84! Get to the evacuation area now!"
"Please!"
"Help us!"
Lee grit his teeth harder and he glared from Numbuh 4, to the gate, and back to the boy he always looked up to most. "You know what, you've changed Numbuh 4." Lee spun back to Numbuh 13, "We're opening back up the gates!" Numbuh 13 gulped but nodded back at him.
"NO!" Numbuh 4 shouted over.
He was too late. The other two boys started opening the gates back up, and a horde of people who were banging on them charged in. Dozens of people ran through the gates and almost trampled the kids on the other side of them. The kids looked through the crack in the gate for a second and looked out to see Master Chief backing up towards them, conserving his ammo and firing once every second or two into the mass of Flood charging them. "Now!" Numbuh 5 yelled out.
Numbuh 4 just watched silently as the other two boys started closing the gates again. Master Chief stepped through the gate right before it closed, and as it did he pulled the trigger on his gun and found it was completely out of ammo. "Just made it," he said, and looked back at Abby who he nodded at.
Wally stood still and his head bowed a little when he saw Numbuh 84 look back towards him disappointedly. He lifted back up his head and was about to say something, when he spotted something on the top of the wall and his eyes turned into saucers. "Guys! Run!" He yelled. The two boys closest to the gate looked up and Numbuh 13 screamed, right before the beak of a Grimm Griffon closed on the upper half of his body. Lee fell to the ground and scooted back on his butt, watching in terror as the bird tossed his comrade up and then chomped down on him.
"Let's get out of here!" Numbuh 5 yelled. She turned and started running away, as did Master Chief who had no ammo and knew he could not stand up to that giant monster with his bare hands, especially with the tight schedule they were on. Numbuh 5 looked back as she ran and she saw Numbuh 4 moving towards the bird, not away from it. Lee was scooting back as the Griffon looked down at him, and Wally started shooting his ray gun at the monster which screeched and stumbled backwards on its four black legs as it got hit.
Numbuh 4 grabbed Lee by the hood and yanked him up on his feet. "Get your ass out of here!" Numbuh 4 yelled and actually kicked the younger kid in the butt towards the north to get him moving. As Lee sprinted away, Numbuh 4 backed up slowly and pointed his gun at the Griffon that started charging at him again. "Eat lasers, bird-brain!" He yelled, and unloaded his gun into the Grimm's face and body. He was not kidding about the power of his ray gun, making the huge monster roar out in pain and stumble backwards.
"Oh man, he might actually do it," Numbuh 5 said, sounding impressed.
"Let's go, Abigail," Master Chief called back to her. He was making his way for the evacuation area as much to get out of there as to find some new weapons to grab. When he looked back at his partner though, his eyes darted past her as he saw the boy fighting the Grimm far back from him. The bird monster got closer every second, but that was not what he focused on. Master Chief's gaze shot to the gate behind the Griffon, the gate that was slowly getting pushed inwards like it was a dam about to break. "The floodgates are about to open," he shouted. "We need to get out of here right now!"
"Numbuh 4!" Abby yelled over at the blond boy who finally knocked the Griffon back with a critical hit in its eyes. Wally glanced back her way and was about to shout at her for distracting him when she yelled, "The gates! Run!"
"The gates?" He mumbled. He turned back around to the Griffon that was shaking its head around in dazed confusion, then looked past it at the gates that were so far pushed in now that there were cracks on the top and sides of them. He watched as a few Flood parasites crawled through the cracks, and then the gates fell completely. The Griffon had just regained full consciousness and it took a step towards the boy it was trying to kill before hearing the loud crash behind it.
Wally started sprinting away but he did glance back and watch as the swarm of Flood that just knocked down the gates surrounded and then merged with the Griffon in a horrifying way. It turned his way again with a much scarier face and a body covered in orange lumps, right as the human and Pokemon Flood monsters started barging through the gate as well. More of the skinny ones that had huge pods at the top walked in and as Wally shot behind him randomly at the monsters, one of his beams hit that one and it exploded, releasing a hundred more tiny Flood in their Infection Form, searching for hosts to occupy.
The parasites swarmed the fortress and spread out instantly. Numbuh 4 stopped trying to shoot at them and he just started running as fast as he could to the north. The base was pretty big, and up ahead of him past Lee, past Master Chief and Abby, he could see the last horde of people they let in a minute ago still running, though slower now that they were inside the gates. Those people looked back though and saw the last line of defense they had was down and their guards were running away with low or no ammo, making them charge at the evacuation vehicles full speed.
As Abby ran towards the vehicles she could see up ahead, with people still calmly filling in as they did not know the southern gates had fallen yet, the problem she spoke of earlier returned to her mind. She smacked herself in the forehead and turned to Master Chief, "Hold on! The vehicles! They barely had enough for the people in the fort to fit into. The hundred plus you brought won't fit."
"That doesn't matter anymore," Master Chief said. She looked at him confusedly but he just turned her way and said in a serious tone, "Get yourself on the next vehicle out of here. Not all of them are going to make it through those gates." Master Chief picked up his speed towards the evacuation, moving through the horde of people much faster than any of them were running, and he sprinted straight up to Major Byrne. "You have to get these vehicles off the ground, and the ones that can't fly through the gates right now. The Flood are inside the fort."
The female leader of the fort spun south and saw a massive group of people running towards her, and behind them she spotted the monsters charging their way. She shouted out orders, while half a mile south of her, Wally Beatles looked back and screamed at the sight of the parasites only thirty yards behind him, and closing. He yelled out in panic and sheer terror, closing his eyes, throwing his arms up in the air, and running as fast as he could.
He reached the crowd of people who were let in late mainly because they were too exhausted after running from their town anyway, and the people panting loudly yelled in horror as Wally ran between their legs. "Move out of my way! Go faster!" The kid yelled, and then stopped yelling at these people as he started hearing their agonized screams behind him. "Idiots!" He yelled, and he picked up his speed even more.
"Numbuh 4!" Abby yelled, a new weapon in her hand as they finally reached the evac point. She was there with two dozen guards holding rifles and they were all aiming at the crowd sprinting north. "Get behind me!" She yelled.
He ran straight towards her and past, then spun around and saw just how close the Flood were to him. "Fire!" Numbuh 5 shouted. Abby and twenty four other people started lighting up the area in the path behind Wally. He looked there in horror as some people who just got caught by the Flood and trying to reach out for help got lit up and sent flying backwards. He gulped but then lifted up his own pistol and started firing red beams back into the horde as well, pushing them back and destroying the bodies that the parasites infected.
"Shuttles 3 through 10, go now!" Major Byrne yelled into her radio.
"There are still open seats!"
"My shuttle isn't half full!"
"I gave you an order! They'll get on the trucks!" Major Byrne said it while running up to a truck herself to climb up on. She got on the back and grabbed a turret set up by one of her men. She stepped up on it and aimed down the street where her men and those kids were fighting the monsters coming towards them. As she stood there on the turret though, she heard a low rumbling on the floor below her.
The blonde bulky woman lowered her gaze down to the grass beneath their truck. She watched as the floor pushed up and then burst like a balloon popping, and a wave of parasitic Flood shot up in the air like a geyser. Master Chief spun around from the left side of the evacuation area where he was taking on a different horde than the main one only all on his own. He spun around and watched as Major Byrne fell out the back of her flipping truck into the horde of Flood, though it would not matter if she hadn't anyway as the monsters filled inside the vehicle and screams echoed out from inside it.
Tires screeched as other trucks around that one saw what happened and raced for the gate. Unfortunately, all order broke down at that moment and three trucks went for the gate not meant for more than two at once. One of them got through, but the third hit the back of the second and it spun out and slammed into the side of the entrance. Everyone inside the second one screamed but the truck driver could not back up, the engine was busted. He opened his door and it got ripped off by the third truck that pushed them to the side and drove through. He dove for the back of that third vehicle but his hands could not grip it as it was moving too fast and he tumbled off the back. The man got up and started running after it, while the people in his truck screamed towards the front for their driver to get going, not knowing that he was already gone.
Numbuh 4 spun around and saw a few green shuttles lifting off, but he also saw a hole in the side of one, and a second later that ship spun out of control in midair and crashed into another ship that was lifting off. The two of them came crashing down right into the main evacuation area, and Numbuh 4 sprinted towards Numbuh 5, shouting, "Get down!" He tackled her right before the ships crashed behind where she had been standing. The other soldiers hit by the blast screamed, and the ones far enough away were distracted by the explosions for long enough that the Flood they were barely holding back closed in and slaughtered them.
The flames from the explosion landed on Numbuh 4's back and he started rolling around to put them out. Other shuttles were lifting up and gunfire went off all around him. Smoke filled the air and flames covered the ground. The sound of screeching tires was replaced with the sounds of screeching women and children. Numbuh 4 got back up to his feet when the flames were out and he looked around the horrible area nervously. "Come on Numbuh 5, get up," he urged, reaching down and picking up the girl he tackled.
She rubbed her head and groaned, wondering where she was for a second before she heard the unearthly screams of people being infected by the Flood. "Let's get out of here while there're still some vehicles left!" Numbuh 5 yelled at the boy with her. She grabbed him by the hand and started running into the flames, covering her mouth with her other hand to stop smoke from filling her lungs.
Master Chief marched through the flames and bashed away at every Flood that came at him. He saved his new ammo now, bashing them to pieces with the butt of his rifle or his elbow instead. He saw two infected Grimm swooping down towards him and this time he knew he had to use ammo, so he pointed his rifle up and lit them up, making them fall and skid through rubble of burning shuttles. More screams rang out behind him and he spun around, sprinting through the flames to see a truck near the entrance that only had one lane to make it through now. The truck in that lane was not moving and another one behind it was being held up. He was going to shout at the driver to get going, when he spotted the front windows and saw blood splattered all over the inside of them.
The Spartan sprinted for the truck and he ripped the passenger side door off. The Flood in the front seat was trying to get in the back where the screaming passengers were, but Master Chief punched it in the head which exploded upon impact and orange gook went everywhere. He kicked the Flood's body hard, the body of what used to be the truck's real driver. He knocked it straight through the door on the driver's side, taking the door with it. Chief hopped into the driver's seat and got the truck running again as the people behind him screamed at him to go. A quick glance in his rearview mirror showed him Abigail was not in the back, but he had no time to wonder where she was now.
As Master Chief started driving out the gate, the truck behind his kept hesitating as the people in the back shouted at the driver to wait a second. A few of them were screaming to go now, but the ones in the very back were shouting off it at a small group of people running their way. The flames on their sides were keeping the Flood all coming at them from only one direction, and the people running their way were closer to them than the Flood in that path.
"Let's go, Numbuh 4!" Abby shouted.
Numbuh 4 was engulfed in fear. He could not think, could not shoot anymore, even if he had not dropped his weapon. He ran like his life depended on it, which it did. People fell behind around him, but he ignored their screams for help. Numbuh 4 came to an abrupt halt though when he was only ten yards away from the truck. Abby kept running until she was right there where people were holding their arms out to pull them in, and a couple of other people with her got yanked up into the vehicle.
She spun around though and yelled back, "Numbuh 4! What are you doing?!"
Wally stared behind him at the person farthest back, closest to the swarm of Flood that were coming their way. The boy was exhausted, panting hard with his hood down. His blond hair styled exactly like Wally's was all messed up and his eyes normally shadowed by his long bangs were wider than saucers. He reached a hand out and yelled, "Numbuh 4, help me!"
"Lee!" Abby yelled from back at the truck. She took a step back, but someone in the truck leaned out and grabbed her. "Hey!" She shouted, but they pulled her back against her wishes and tugged her right into the truck.
Wally stared at Lee running towards him, just a little farther from him than the truck was in the other direction. "Make it, make it," Numbuh 4 whispered.
"We're going to leave you behind if you don't come right now!" The driver shouted out his window all the way back to the kids.
"Numbuh 4, wait for me!" Lee yelled as Wally started backpedalling.
The smaller kid reached a hand out, and then a hand reached up and grabbed him by the ankle. It was one of the people hurt by an earlier blast, half sticking out of the fire, who Wally and Lee both thought was dead. The person tripped the young kid and Lee fell face-first to the ground.
Numbuh 4 froze in place. He snapped his head up and saw the Flood almost there, and he made a split-second decision. Wally took another step back, then he turned and sprinted for the back of the truck.
He was the last one, jumping on and stopping right on the edge to spin back around. Numbuh 4 and the others on the truck held on as the driver turned the vehicle in gear. They did not cheer though like the people closer to the front. They were all watching as the young boy crawling forward and the burn victim grabbing him by the ankle got attacked by the Flood. "Numbuh 4! Numbuh 4 please! Ah AHHH!" Lee screamed at the top of his lungs, and before the truck reached the gates, Numbuh 4 watched as one of the little parasites dug through the boy's back and started deforming him into another one of those monsters. His screams did not cut off for another few seconds.
Numbuh 4 stared back at the fort long after they left the gates and started driving north. Other trucks drove around them, Pokemon were fleeing in between their vehicles, and airships soared, all in the same direction. After a few minutes, a girl standing on the edge of the truck looked down at the boy sitting next to her. "You," her hands shook with rage at her sides. "You had time," she said. Numbuh 4 flinched. The last few minutes he had been reasoning, bargaining with himself about what he just did, but they all seemed like lies now.
"You don't know that," Numbuh 4 said in a quiet voice. "He was too far away. The Flood, they would have-"
"You were right there," Abby whispered. "I don't know how far they looked to you, but I was farther away, and I could still tell. You had time."
Numbuh 4 stopped shaking like he had been for the last five minutes or so. He sat still on the floor and said in a cold voice, "We'll never know. Maybe you would have waited for me to get him, and the Flood would have caught all of us."
Abby shook her head and clenched her teeth angrily. "You still could have tried. Lee was your friend. You-"
"What about you?!" Numbuh 4 shouted at her. Numbuh 5's eyes shot open wide and the adults around them all stared at the two silently. Wally jumped to his feet and poked a finger in Numbuh 5's chest. "I said to leave the gates shut, but you didn't back me up! You said to open them, and Lee listened to you!"
Abby's eyes widened even more and Numbuh 4 pushed her with his finger. She actually stumbled backwards from that one poke and she stared at the oddly strong boy in surprise. "If we had just run when I said, then Numbuh 13 and Numbuh 84, they'd both be alive right now! But nooo, you just had to save, an adult!" Numbuh 4 yelled, then started panting with his hands at his sides, looking like he would have steam coming out of his ears if he could.
"I made the right call," Numbuh 5 said after a few seconds. "We saved a bunch of people opening that door…"
"Did we?" Numbuh 4 asked. "Because if you ask me, the confusion those people caused by rushing into the evacuation area crashed our trucks and shuttles- trucks and shuttles that were already going to be filled up, like you said they were! Instead, a bunch of our vehicles got broke and a lot less people made it out than would have if you would have just left all those people outside the south gate to stall the Flood!"
Numbuh 5 gasped. She stared at Numbuh 4 who was so angry he could see red. Abby took a step back though and she whispered in a horrified tone, "Is that why you left Lee?" Numbuh 4's eyes opened huge and he stepped back as well. "You thought, that by leaving him, the Flood would be too busy killing him to…" She faded off and Numbuh 4 started furiously shaking his head.
"No! NO! That's not it at all. I would have saved him- if there was time-" He looked around for help but most of the other people there were just staring down at the floor, sad about all the people that died. Numbuh 5 was the only one really looking at him in a horrified way. He snapped his head back up furiously and opened his mouth for another excuse, but then stopped and just closed his mouth. He calmed himself down a little, and then said in a cold voice again, "I stick by what I said. If we had left those people outside the south gate, I know more people would have made it. For a fact! So you know what? Go ahead, blame me for Lee," he glared daggers into Abby's eyes, "because I'm going to blame you for him too, him, 13, and everyone else."
"Numbuh 4," Numbuh 5 whispered softly, shaking her head.
"No!" He yelled at her, not wanting to hear it. "I, I never would have had to make that decision, that decision I didn't even know I was making, if you didn't put me in that position in the first place." He ground his teeth and clenched his fists at his sides. "You saw it, I risked my life to save Lee from that Griffon. So if I was willing to get killed saving him, then why do you think I let him die?" Wally asked. Numbuh 5 realized that the dumb kid was actually making sense and her eyes shook as she realized what he was saying. He said it anyway though, "Because I guess I decided that everyone on this truck mattered more. I had to make that decision, because, because that's the kind of world we live in."
Numbuh 4 walked over to the wall and a couple of adults moved out of the way for him. He leaned back against it and bowed his head, "You better get used to it, Numbuh 5." He clenched his eyes shut and all the fear he felt rushing around the fort flooded back to him. As it hit him though, he just stood there and accepted it all. And as he shook there in fear, he whispered, "I know I have."
FD + 678
An eleven year old with a crew cut of blond hair crept a mile across the ground prone before diving behind a tent. He stood with his back to the cloth, then leaned past the side and glanced into the illuminated path between lines of tents. There was no one there at the moment and he looked back into the darkness on the other side of the tent and nodded his head twice. He held up his hand making a little circle with his thumb and index finger and put three other fingers straight up, the multiversal sign for 'it's okay.'
A bunch of shadowy figures, all wearing the same tight black uniform as him, darted through the night like ghosts. One of them appeared next to Wally without him noticing but he tried not to jump from surprise. "No one's out there?" The blue haired teen a couple of years older than Wally questioned. The boy with long blue hair that made him look kind of like a girl looked down at the kid, and Wally shook his head back at the young new leader of Class 3-E.
Nagisa nodded back at him, then turned and made a bunch of signals with his hands at the other members of their assassination classroom behind him. The students broke off, and Nagisa looked at the boy in front of him last. "Wally. You know the plan. Show me what you've got." Nagisa's voice was quieter than a whisper, yet Wally heard him as clearly as if the older boy was speaking in a normal voice.
Wally nodded his head and he ran out from behind the tent. Keep to the plan. Gotta show these guys I mean business for my first mission with them. He rolled across the path, then swerved in and out of tents as he made his way across the giant encampment. The PB-2 on his right wrist was on and keeping him invisible from the enemies all around.
Stay low, stay quiet. Stay low, stay quiet. Stay- Ah! Wally rushed behind a tent and gulped as he heard the two voices getting closer.
"So I said, get out of here! But she was like, I paid the same price you did, I should…" The two boys who looked like they were in their late teens walked by the dark area between two tents that Wally ducked inside of. He watched them leave and sighed a breath of relief. Got to keep going. Time's short. He looked down at the watch on his wrist and frowned as he was wasting too much time.
Wally came out from the darkness and darted in and out of a bunch of other pathways between enemy tents. His shadow cast on the sides of tents for a split second as he ran by them, grass crinkled under his feet, there were half a dozen things Wally worried about as he rushed towards his destination. Every tiny noise he thought was someone about to find him, but he finally made it to the destination he was searching for.
The communications tent. All incoming transmissions to the army come through here. If I can mess with things here good enough, the others' jobs won't matter. He darted his gaze around and then made a break for the tent. Gotta go Top Speed for this one! He thought and kicked it up a notch as he was running through a lit-up area to reach the tent. His feet picked up some dust and he shot forward three times as fast. Wally reached the tent, slid down on his side, and went right underneath the side of it.
When he popped up on the other side of the tent, he found himself directly behind some machines. He started inching around the inside of the tent between the flaps on the outside and the equipment in front of him. He shimmied over to the edge of the machines and stepped over a plug that he considered ripping right out. Nah, that's too easy, he thought while glancing back at the plug. They'll just plug it back in right away. I've gotta completely destroy this stuff, make it impossible for them to receive any transmissions for the next twenty-four hours. At least until New Pork City is back under our control.
Wally poked his head around the side of the metal machine and glanced around the inside of the communications' tent. "Huh," he muttered. The boy stepped out of hiding and into the large tent, looking around in confusion as there were no other people in there with him. "What gives? I thought Nagisa said this place would have at least a few guys in here who I could take out myself." He grumbled as there really was no one there for him to fight, and he kept grumbling under his breath when he turned to the huge machine behind him and pulled out his H.A.M.M.E.R., or Handgun Actually Makes Machines Explode Really-good.
"Hasta la vista," Wally said, and he fired his handgun that shot out a small beeping dart. The dart had a suction cup instead of a point at the end that planted itself on the side of the control panel before glowing green and making sparks fly out the sides of the machines. Wally spun the handgun and put it back in the holster on his side, "Baby."
"Hey you!"
Wally was too caught up in looking cool that he forgot where he was for a minute. He spun towards the door to the tent and saw someone standing there and holding a rifle in their hands. The older boy also had blond hair, but his was longer and had a swirl in the front that dipped down over his left eye. He opened his mouth like he was going to shout out for reinforcements, but his eyes focused more on the figure in all black standing in the center of the tent and they popped open huge.
The kid who just got caught looked ahead at the older teenager in shock as well. Wally took a step back, "Ch-Chad?" He asked. "You're in Father's army?"
"Well duh," the teenager in a white uniform replied. He marched forward and glared at the boy who he did not stop pointing his rifle at. Wally noticed a bead of sweat on the side of Chad's face and the older boy asked, his voice quiet, "But what are you doing here, Wallabee Beatles? And what the Hell are you doing to our communications' array?"
Wally's eyes darted back and forth from the comms to Chad and back again. "Don't tell me," Chad began, and he rubbed his forehead with one hand while lowering his weapon in the other. "You were always stupid, but don't tell me you're with the Resistance?" He looked at the younger boy questioningly and Wally's face gave it away. "Damn," Chad tssked. He lifted his weapon back at Wally and muttered, "You know what we do to POWs, right? Why would you come here then?"
Wally's face darkened by a shadow as he bowed his head. "It's because I know what you do to POWs," he began, and Chad turned away as the kid said it. "That I had to come." He turned and walked over towards the machine he shot the dart at, even as Chad lifted his weapon more confidently and told him not to move. Wally removed the dart and he slid it back into his pocket, "As Numbuh 274, you were always a really cool guy." The kid turned and looked over at the older boy near the tent's door, "Since I got here, I've realized you don't need to be a kid to be an okay guy. So why did turning into a teenager make you into such a jerk?"
"Are you still on about that stuff?" Chad asked, anger filling his voice. "This is the real world, kid, not that stupid Kids Next Door. We're not fighting for ice cream parties or having bike races to chase each other around. And in the real world, you have to make decisions, like whether to be on the winning team, or the losing one."
"Then you, chose wrong!" Wally called out. He sprinted across the tent at the distracted teenager who rose back up his rifle but was too surprised by Wally's speed to readjust his aim in time. The younger boy reached him in a second and Chad snapped his head down while Wally snapped his head up. His gaze was not the only thing he brought up though, and Chad got hit by a punch right in the bottom of the chin.
"Wally, what are you doing?" Nagisa hissed. The blue haired teen rushed towards the shorter boy and glared at him as Wally came walking back towards their rendezvous point.
Wally tossed the teenager down on the ground in between him and his leader. "What do you mean? I captured one of their-"
"We didn't come to take prisoners," Nagisa growled. He rubbed his forehead and looked back at the other six people behind him. They were all waiting to head out, and they looked at the teen on the ground in front of Wally hatefully.
"Well I didn't know what to do with him," Wally snapped. "He walked in when I was destroying the comms."
Nagisa looked down at the teen on the floor. The fact that Wally managed to get him out of the camp tied up and gagged impressed him, and when he looked back he could tell that the others thought it was impressive as well, but this was not what they were looking for. Nagisa looked forward and into Wally's eyes. "We can't risk it. Kill him."
"Huh?" Wally asked, wondering if he just heard right. Nagisa responded to his look by pulling out a handgun of his own, one that looked like it shot normal bullets though. He handed it to Wally who stared at the gun in his hands and then snapped his gaze back up, "But, he's already tied up. I caught him."
"We don't need prisoners," Nagisa whispered. "We have an invasion plan set for tomorrow, dozens of other teams waiting to hear back from us on how our mission went, and we don't need a prisoner who will only slow us down."
"So we don't take prisoners anymore? Thought we were supposed to be the good guys," Wally growled at the teenager in front of him. He looked down at the blond teen on his knees who looked up at Nagisa in fear. "Look at 'im, he's on his knees. That's not-"
"You were recommended to us by the leader of your base," Nagisa whispered. The other teens in his class walked up behind him and they all stared at Wally harshly. "He said that you have what it takes to join Class 3-E. I thought you understood that sometimes, we have to take harsh measures to survive."
"So what, we're going to kill every soldier in the armies facing us?" Wally asked.
Nagisa's eyes were cold as were his classmates. "They're all our enemies," Nagisa replied.
"So you're going to kill all of them?! That's like, a kajillion-bajillion people!" The boy threw his hands up in the air and the others glared at him for being loud this close to the enemy encampment. Wally no longer cared though, and he narrowed his gaze at the people in front of him. "Well I'm not going to help you do it." Wally threw the gun down on the ground and glared into Nagisa's eyes. "Killing prisoners isn't what I signed up for."
"And what did you think you were signing up for?" A red haired teen behind Nagisa asked. Akabane Karma stepped forward and glared down into the short boy's eyes with a cold, icy glare. Karma tried to make the kid nervous but Wally did not flinch from the glare. The redhead continued though, "What if you got caught taking that prisoner here? You would have spilled all about tomorrow's attack, and put all of our lives in jeopardy."
"But, I, didn't," Wally snapped back at him.
Nagisa shook his head. "That's not the point. In Class 3-E we put the mission, and our comrades' lives, above everything else. You can't join us with a weak resolve. Killing a single person is not the worst thing you would have to do."
"It's not about killing him," Wally snapped. "It's the fact that he's already caught that bothers me. You know what? This whole thing just smells rotten to me now." The boy glared down at Chad, the teen he once looked up to when he was younger. He glared around at the older teenagers in Class 3-E who he had been so excited to be teammates with. At the moment though, everyone there was just pissing him off. "Screw it," Wally grumbled. He turned away, "Do what you want with him, and have fun on your mission tomorrow."
"Huh?" Nagisa asked, not expecting this reaction. He was thinking they would have to kick him off the team back at base, or wait until they got there and have a longer discussion, but Wally was just walking away. It was pitch black and they only had one vehicle for their entire group. Even Chad turned around on his knees and stared at Wally in confusion. "Where are you going?" Nagisa questioned.
"Wally come back here," Karma scolded in a hiss.
"Aw shut it, ya' lousy murderers," Wally growled, making the older teens close their mouths in surprise. "I'm outta here. Resistance, Co-op, it's all the same now and it pisses me off." He reached down to his side and pulled out a small white and red ball that expanded in his hand into the size of a baseball. "Let's get out of here Pidgey," he said, releasing a red light from the pokeball and making a small bird creature form on the floor before him.
"Wait, Wally," Nagisa hissed over, jogging after the younger kid.
The blond kid stopped as he straddled his legs over the bird's back. He glared back and in an annoyed tone growled, "It's Numbuh 4."
Chad's eyes shot open wide, and then the youngest kid there flew up in the air on his Pidgey's back and shot off into the night. Nagisa reached up a hand after him but could not shout his name out this close to the enemy base. The blue haired boy sighed after a few seconds and walked back over to the others. "Well that didn't go well," Okajima muttered and put his hands behind his head.
Okano shook her head sadly, "I thought he was pretty cool. We could have let him in."
"He couldn't follow orders, and he was too reckless," Karma retorted. He shrugged his shoulders, "It's not like there isn't somewhere he can be of use, but that place just isn't with us." He turned and leaned down, "I guess you were right, Chad." Karma took the gag out of Chad's mouth and the teenager with blond hair shook his head.
"I told you," Chad said, getting up on his feet. "I know Beatles. He isn't what you're looking for, but he did take down the communications relay."
"That wasn't the only thing he took down," Okajima joked.
Chad scratched the back of his head and smirked. "Well, I'd like to say I took it easy on the kid." He looked up and whispered, "But he really surprised me. I'm not surprised his base commander recommended him."
"You were right to have us test him tonight though," Nagisa said, stepping up to Chad's side and putting a hand on his shoulder. "Because our mission tomorrow is of utmost importance. Thank you for your help, deep-cover agent 274." The teen with blue hair saluted him and the others behind him did as well. Chad nodded but when Nagisa lowered his hand, he continued in a softer voice, "Are you sure you're going to be okay going back there? The guards at the comms tent, and the communications' officers themselves, if anyone found out you were the one who eliminated-"
"I've already set it up so that it looks like one of my squad-mates carried out the sabotage. I picked one of the best fighters too. It'll make the army turn against each other even in the off chance they fix the comms and learn about the invasion tomorrow." The other teens grinned at the plan and then Chad turned away from them. He started walking back towards the camp and heard the assassins thank him and then head off behind him. Chad sighed once he was alone and lifted his gaze back towards the sky with a small smile on his face. Good to see you're still you, Numbuh 4.
FD + 745
"Are you sure about this, Numbuh 362?" Nigel Uno questioned the blonde-haired girl in front of him. She had a large burn scar covering most of the right side of her face, and an eyepatch over her right eye. She had on a black metal helmet with her number on the front of it, and she wore a blue jumpsuit with yellow highlights on it. The boy in front of her was wearing a pair of black sunglasses, a red sweatshirt, and black pants. He was also completely bald.
"I'm sure, Numbuh 1," Rachel replied. "The Eighth Age of the Kids Next Door needs to start on a new slate. I let the Seventh Age collapse, and these last two years I can think of more than a few times kids needed our help, and we weren't there to give it to them."
Numbuh 1 reached forward and put a hand on Rachel's shoulder. "No one blames you for what happened. And if anyone's to blame for the collapse, it's myself. I tried keeping the KND going even after Island Base was destroyed. But then-"
"It doesn't matter now," Rachel said, and she shrugged off his hand from her shoulder. She looked him in the eyes and stated in a serious tone, "I've decided not to be the leader, and we all know who the obvious choice to lead the Eighth Age is. We can't leave this up to a game of Tag. That's my final act as Kids Next Door Supreme Commander: Supreme Commanders choose their successors."
Numbuh 1 shook his head and smiled. "If those are the rules…" He looked up and saluted the girl before him. "Then I accept the position."
Rachel saluted him back, and she put her hand down only after he did. "Then get out there, Nigel," she told him. The former Supreme Commander motioned her head at the big red curtain on her right side. Numbuh 1 nodded and he turned that way before taking a deep breath in. "They're waiting," Rachel finished.
Nigel Uno walked towards the crack in the curtains. He reached out his hands and pushed them to the sides, stepping out on the much more illuminated stage on the other side. Light fixtures on the ceiling shone lights down at him, though most of the rest of the room stayed dark. He stepped right up to the podium in the center of the stage, held up his right fist, tilted his head back, and at the top of his lungs shouted, "KIDS NEXT DOOR RULES!"
Lights turned on to his right, left, and right in front of him, illuminating the bleachers stacked with children from the ground level to a hundred feet up in the air. The bleachers had a lot of empty space on them, but Nigel Uno grinned as he watched dozens of other kids throw their hands up in the air. More than I thought came.
"KIDS NEXT DOOR RULES!" Thirty other people shouted in unison after Nigel made the announcement. The other sixty or so kids who saw this threw their hands up after and in a staggered call all shouted the same thing. Their voices overlapped at different points of the chant and afterwards everyone started mumbling about their lack of synchronization.
Numbuh 1 scratched the back of his head. "We'll work on that," he said, focusing attention back on himself. Nigel slammed his fists down on the podium in front of him. "Fellow Kids Next Door operatives," he began. His sunglasses were pushed down his nose so he was looking above them and making eye contact with as many people as he could. "Whether you are from my world, or children from any of the other worlds whose people were brought here to Nexus, you were all recruited for the same purpose. It does not matter if you have been an operative for years, or if today is the very first day your recruiter has brought you in. We are Kids Next Door. We are here to fight tyranny, adult and otherwise."
The crowd murmured amongst themselves and people were all nodding along with the bald kid. Numbuh 1 started pacing back and forth behind the podium, hands interlocked behind his back, and his head bowed somewhat. "Now I know some of you may have already noticed, but I want to squash your concerns right now. Yes, there are a few kids in here… over the age of thirteen."
Instantly the room filled with shouting and yelling. Kids from Numbuh 1's world jumped up and many started pointing fingers at each other, wondering if their own neighbor was a despicable teen. "Quiet!" Nigel yelled. They all looked towards the stage and saw Numbuh 1 standing back behind the podium. "Yes, there are some teenagers in here, but! Anyone over the age of twelve had to undergo serious vetting, the same vetting that the Teens Next Door used to undergo on our world." He saw a few shocked looks and he nodded his head, "That's right. Even back home, there was always a secret organization where the best KND operatives could continue fighting adult tyranny even after their thirteenth birthday."
Numbuh 1 saw a few people get eased by his words, but many still looked on edge. "Also," he continued, his hands gripping the sides of the podium. "I myself, will turn thirteen not long from now." His eyes gazed around the room and he saw the upset faces of comrades from long ago. "If at any time you start to question my loyalty, and my commitment to our cause, then I beg you to step up and take charge. Until that day however, I will be your Supreme Commander!"
"Yeah Numbuh 1!" Numbuh 2 yelled out from the front row directly in front of his old Sector leader.
"Alright!" Numbuh 5 called out next to Numbuh 2, and she punched a fist in the air.
"Woohoo!"
"YEAH!"
Kids and teens all over the room got to their feet and cheered for the leader on the stage. What they had to do the last two years to survive… every single one of them had been through more any kid should have to. Some of them had harder times than others. Some had even more visible outer reminders than Numbuh 362, like Numbuh 2 who sat in the front row looking more machine than man.
The chubby boy wearing goggles had half a face made of steel with one glowing red eye under the goggles he had on over them. His brown hair was all gone but his bald half-metal scalp was hidden under the brown aviator's hat he always wore. His left arm like the left side of his face was made of steel, as was his right leg all the way up to his waist. Under his blue shirt were other mechanical parts all over his torso, but despite all the injuries he received over the last few years, he cheered louder and happier than anyone as his oldest friend took charge of the Kids Next Door again.
Numbuh 2 turned to the dark-skinned girl on his left side. She was more toned than him, a couple inches taller, and her long black hair now fell down behind her head without any hair ties, curly like her older sister's used to be. "I still can't believe he's back," Numbuh 2 began to Numbuh 5 in an excited voice. "And the first thing he does is start back up the Kids Next Door? Where do you think he's been all this time?"
Numbuh 5 shrugged her shoulders. "It's a good thing he's here though. The Emperor's taken three cities on the west coast this last week alone!"
"And what do you think a bunch of kids are going to do about that?" a voice asked directly behind Numbuhs 2 and 5. They turned farther towards each other and all the way around with wide eyes to see a short figure sitting on the bench behind them. The boy was in a brown cloak that was all ratty at the bottom covered in holes. He had on an orange headband around his forehead that was barely visible under the shadow of his hood, he had a bushy brown mustache and beard on his face, and his eyes were covered by his bushy blond eyebrows. "Thought if Numbuh 1 was back, maybe I'd give it a shot," the figure stood up to leave but the two in front of him jumped up first.
"Numbuh 4 wait!" Hoagie shouted.
"Where have you been?" Abby snapped. She pointed a finger straight at the cloaked boy's face and growled, "No one's seen you for months! Making us worry about you for no reason."
Numbuh 1 was looking around the crowd but his eyes always came back to his old teammates. That's why when he gazed back over next, he spotted the boy in the ratty, old cloak, and his eyes opened wide. "Numbuh 4!" Nigel shouted. He leapt up in the air, and Numbuh 4 turned his head like most of the Kids Next Door to watch as the Supreme Commander shot up fifty feet and did a bunch of front flips on his way down to the bleacher. Many of the other KND members 'oohed' and 'ahhed' at the amazing feat that seemed so easy to their leader.
"Sup Numbuh 1?" Wally said, lifting his head a little and looking at the taller boy in front of him.
As soon as he lifted his head, his eyebrows lifted up a little too to reveal his eyes underneath. Numbuh 2 took a step back while Numbuh 5 gasped, and Numbuh 1 just narrowed his own eyes from behind his sunglasses at the boy in front of him. "What did you do, Wally?" Numbuh 1 asked harshly.
Both of Wallabee Beatles' eyes were surrounded by scars. They were shadowed over a minute ago, but now that his head was lifted and the light shone on them partially, the marks became all the more visible. His left eye looked mostly fine, but his right eye no longer had any white in it, looking deformed and dark. "Oh this?" Wally asked, pointing up at his eyes. "I just got myself some new upgrades." He looked back and forth between the other kids, "What? Numbuh 2 did the same thing."
"I fixed myself," Hoagie whispered, "because I needed to. Are you saying you did that to your own face?"
"Hey, I don't need you guys judging me, okay?" Numbuh 4 snapped at them. He looked at Numbuh 1 again, "So, where have you been? You know you left us, right?"
"Numbuh 4, I-" Nigel began.
"Actually, I don't want to hear it," Wally muttered. He turned away and reached inside his cloak. "Have fun playing pretend," he said.
"Wally," Numbuh 1 started loudly, and the boy walking away stopped with his hand inside his cloak. "I don't know what you think we're going to do here, but this is not 'pretend.' From what I've heard, you've gotten pretty strong yourself. We could always use another great operative in the Kids Next Door."
Numbuh 4 did not say a word. "Come on, man," Numbuh 2 urged. "Sector V's back together, finally! It's been years! Stay for a while…"
"You never told them?" Wally muttered. Numbuhs 1 and 2 looked at each other confused but when they looked at Numbuh 5 with the same look they lost it upon the shocked expression on her face. He turned his head a little and stared at her, dozens of eyes on him as Sector V had the attention of everyone on the bleachers. Numbuh 4 looked straight into her eyes with his deformed ones, his scarred face looking back at the girl who looked away as he stared at her.
"Numbuh 4," Abby whispered. "Back then, you were scared. We all were. Whatever you did…"
"What I did, made me a monster," Numbuh 4 hissed at her. "I realize that now. You were right, so I decided to accept it." He turned around again and glared up into the shadows of the room, "Now, I have to own up to it."
"Numbuh 4, whatever you did," Numbuh 1 started. He clenched his teeth and continued, "We all had to do some things to survive on this planet. Nothing is irredeemable."
"Sure," Numbuh 4 muttered. "But it doesn't matter, this isn't my cup of tea anyway. I'm a lone wolf now."
"What are you going to do?" Hoagie asked, his one real eye watering up. "Don't just disappear again. I- we won't even know if you're alive."
"Stinks for you, it's not like you're my mom or something," Wally grumbled.
"But we are your friends," Abby whispered. He flinched and his right fist clenched at his side while his other hand inside his cloak loosened up a little. "Stay with us," she begged him. She felt regret so strongly inside her that she had not done this years ago and instead stayed silent when he left. Abby was not going to stay quiet this time. "We'll take on bad guys together. Just like old times-"
"It won't be like old times," Wally said. The others looked at him in confusion and Wally spun around to face them. "Don't you feel it? We all knew something was wrong, but," he shook his head and reached up with his left hand to grab at it. As he reached up his left hand, he totally forgot what he grabbed with it when he reached into his cloak, and Numbuh 2 and Numbuh 5 stumbled back at the sight.
"Whoa Numbuh 4, put that down," Numbuh 1 said, his voice getting deadly serious as he stepped towards the blond boy. A few people in the room screamed, while most people just stared at him in shock for pulling a weapon on his friends.
Numbuh 4 looked at the Supreme Commander in confusion, then turned his head and noticed the ray gun he had just pulled out of his cloak and scratched his head with. "You don't have to worry about this," Numbuh 4 told the bald boy in front of him. He waved the weapon in front of him and pulled the trigger a few times, making Numbuhs 5 and 2 dive for the sides. "See?" He said as no red beams came out of the gun, "It doesn't even work anymore."
"Numbuh 4, stop that immediately," Numbuh 1 scolded. "If it doesn't work, why did you pull it out in the first place?"
"Huh? Oh, to do this," he replied. Numbuh 4 lifted up his ray gun and a weird pentagram-like symbol glowed gold on the side of the weapon. It had strange markings inside it and eight different points on the star itself that had a glow spreading from the symbol to the rest of the weapon.
"Put that away, Numbuh 4!" Numbuh 1 yelled.
"Hold on a second, will ya? I'm just showing off my new technique," he held up the ray gun above his head and his body started to cover in golden light as well. "Make me into a badass, Kargath!" His body became fully shrouded in light, and then all at once it vanished and all the children in the room covering their eyes looked back over to see what had happened. Kids fell out of their chairs and Wally smirked at the looks on the faces of his friends in front of him
Wally's body was a foot taller now, which still only made him just a little taller than the three friends around him who were much taller than him normally. His blond hair got longer and stuck straight up and his arms both stuck out of his cloak that only went down to his waist now showing he had baggy black pants on under it. His arms were ripped with muscles and he used them both to hold up the huge gun-blade that had glowing red lines on it running from the end of the barrel-blade all the way to the stock-hilt. The red lines kept going even off of the solid weapon and made the back of his weapon look like it was shooting off energy.
"You, captured a dungeon?" Numbuh 1 asked, his mouth agape. Most people there stared at the two of them in confusion, not understanding the question at all, but the person Nigel questioned nodded his head.
"Yeah, I did," Numbuh 4 replied. "It was good to see you, Numbuh 1, but I'm-"
"Numbuh 4," Nigel said, his voice stern. The glowing boy holding a giant weapon with blades on either side of it and a barrel at the end frowned back at Numbuh 1 for cutting off his goodbye. "You think we're just going to be joking around here? Well, wouldn't we be doing more if you stayed with us?"
Numbuh 4 scoffed at him. "You want me to do all the work? I'm not gonna run around with a bunch of weaklings."
"Then fight me," Numbuh 1 stated.
Everyone in the room spun to the bald leader who looked through his sunglasses at the younger boy with spiky hair. "You want to see that we're not going to be playing around, then let me show you what I can do. I'll take you on, and make you stay with us!" Even Numbuh 4 looked surprised by that statement. Many people yelled at them not to fight, but Numbuh 1 just bowed his head and continued, "If I win, you'll stay in the Kids Next Door. You'll let me help you. But if you win," he lifted his head back up and stared on an even level at the blond boy. "Then from this day forth, you will no longer be Numbuh 4 of the Kids Next Door."
The room quieted down. Numbuh 4 looked into Nigel Uno's eyes and he clenched his hands tightly around his weapon. "That sounds like a lose-lose to me," Wally muttered under his breath. "But I'm not one to back down from a challenge!" He snapped his eyes up to look into Numbuh 1's, "You're on."
"You, definitely, got better, with that thing, since I last saw you," Wally said between gasps as the boy in front of him stopped glowing. Numbuh 1's humongous body started to shrink down and the golden glow that surrounded him faded away. His round stomach flattened back out and turned white as did the rest of his skin and torn up clothes. Wally floated up in the air and stared down at the bald boy who lay on his back, moaning and twitching every second or two.
Numbuh 1 opened up his eyes slowly and looked up through blurry vision at the boy in the sky covered in scratches and bruises. The blond kid reached up to his right eye with the hand not on his weapon, and he wiped a trail of blood away from beneath it. Numbuh 1 could not believe it. He never thought the kid would actually beat him, not with the strength he had obtained over the last two years. "Wait," Numbuh 1 rasped out, pushing a hand on the floor next to him and getting back to his knees.
Comrades of theirs running into the arena stopped near the edges but they shouted at the two of them to stop already. Other younger kids or ones who did not know them as well just watched from around the arena, feeling strange about the mood hovering in the air in the fighting ground. "It's over," Numbuh 4 called down. He closed his eyes and clenched his teeth behind his lips. As he floated there, he almost wished Numbuh 1 had taken him down instead. That was not how it went down though, and he turned around, "I'm outta here."
"Numbuh 4! Hold on," Numbuh 2 shouted in the air.
"It doesn't have to be this way!" Numbuh 5 yelled. "I stopped blaming you for the day of the Flood a long time ago! All you were doing was helping," she could tell he was about to fly away and although she hoped she had more time to tell him this, she needed him to know. "The Flood pushed so much farther north before we could stop 'em! Most people who made it out that day didn't make it much longer anyway. There was nothing we could do about it!"
"The Flood?" Numbuh 1 whispered, getting off of one knee and to a foot, and then the other a second later. He looked up in the air and saw Numbuh 4's body shaking and it was not from the damage he received during their fight. "I'm sorry," Nigel whispered. The others looked his way and even Numbuh 4 glanced down as he heard those words. "It wasn't fair of me, to leave everything behind like I did. But, at the time, I thought it was all that really mattered. I thought I could get us home!" Everyone staring at him went wide eyed, but Nigel continued, "But I'm sorry, Numbuh 4, because I shouldn't have tried something so stupid! I should have just stayed with you and Numbuh 2, and Numbuh 5!"
"Just stay with us, Numbuh 4," Numbuh 2 called up. "You saw how strong Numbuh 1 was, and so what you can beat him?! Wouldn't working together with all of us be better, and more fun?!"
"Stop calling me Numbuh 4 already," Wally said, his voice echoing down around the entire arena. His friends looked at him sadly and Wally glared down at them. "You said it yourself. I won, so that means I'm no longer in the Kids Next Door."
He turned and flew a few feet forward but froze when he heard Numbuh 1's voice down below him. "I take that back." Numbuh 4 looked straight ahead with pained eyes, and he just listened as Numbuh 1 finished, "Once a Kids Next Door operative, always an operative. No matter how far away we are, as long as you stay a kid inside, that won't ever change. Always remember these five words, Numbuh 4: We Are Kids Next Door."
Wally wiped his eyes again, not because more blood was dripping down, well it was, but the blood was only dripping down because of water in his eyes that also came out. He wiped them once and then stared right out over the top of the arena he was flying above. "See ya," he muttered, and then the boy flew off as fast as he could, leaving only a trail of white in the sky behind him. As he flew off, he reached down for the left side of his stomach and clenched his teeth in pain. Damn Numbuh 1, you really pack a wallop.
He kept flying away from the Kids Next Door secret base for a few minutes before coming to a complete stop some miles away. "Once a Kids Next Door operative, always an operative," huh? Guess that's not so bad. I'm not staying in that cruddy base though. Don't want to have to deal with Numbuh 5, he thought about what the girl yelled up at him before he flew off. A strand of his hair that was not spiked up like the others shadowed his right eye that it fell in front of. Not my fault? You were the one who convinced me… Damn it, whatever! You could be right, Lee could have died anyway. He probably would have actually! But that doesn't change anything.
Wally snapped his head up and glared out at a sun rising in the distance. The hair in front of his right eye moved away and revealed a purple eye beneath it with six black teardrop-shaped dots on the black rings inside it. He had a darker purple inner core of his eye with a single black pupil on it, and all around that eye were burn marks and scratches that looked like they were done by someone's fingernails. He reached up a hand and rubbed under his eye again as he floated there in midair. When he pulled it back, he saw red covering a few of his fingers. Kargath, why does my eye keep bleeding? "You overused your Rinnegan, child." Stop calling me that! I'm your King Vessel, you should treat me with some respect! "Maybe when you do something Kingly, like I don't know, staying your pride for a moment so that you would realize just how much you wanted to stay at that base." Shut it! Did I ask for your opinion?! … Um, good! Wait, hey! "Heyyyy!" Numbuh 4 yelled as his glow vanished from around him and he started shrinking and plummeting for the ground. "Not cool!" He yelled and then yelped in pain a second after as he smashed into the planet below.
Five Weeks Ago
"Kuki! Kuki where are you?!" Numbuh 4 ran down broken streets of Dressrosa searching everywhere he could look. He lifted up chunks of houses and tossed large rocks to the sides to the surprise of some citizens of Dressrosa who were walking by. They watched the kid with spiky blond hair and a flip of it covering the right side of his face for a few seconds, but they kept walking by shortly after as most people were busy at the moment.
"They're camping right at the edge of town."
"I hear they're leaving tomorrow."
"You want to bring them some food?"
"Everyone's going to be bringing food, we should find something special…"
Wally ignored the people behind him as they passed. He heard them, but he did not care about what they had to say. He was too absorbed in his own thoughts, too focused on the task at hand. He searched until both moons were high in the sky above his head. Bonfires were set up all around the destroyed port city and Wally went up to each one of them and asked about his friend.
"She was a robot," he explained to an elderly couple at a fire after hitting three dead ends in a row. "Her name was Kuki. Do you remember seeing-"
"Kuki," the old man mumbled and scratched his beard. "I do believe there was such a toy." The old man saw the hopeful look in the boy's left eye, and he sighed sadly and started shaking his head at him. "I'm sorry to say, they caught her trying to escape." Numbuh 4's eyes opened wide and his heart started speeding up like crazy.
"Do, do you know where," Wally began. He gulped and continued, "Where they bring toys that tried to escape?"
"They used to just toss them in the ocean," the old woman started up and Wally gasped. "However, that was back when my husband was turned. Since then, humans and toys got closer together, so when Doflamingo wanted them disposed of, he had to come up with a new method. I was turned only a few months ago. They couldn't get me to be obedient, so a little while back I was tossed in a garbage chute. There were dozens of other old and disobedient toys down there. When Sugar was defeated, I know I wasn't the only toy in that chute to come back." She looked away and down a little, "But there were some toys that were already, broken."
Numbuh 4 thought back to the day they visited Dressrosa so long ago. He thought about that robot that rolled up to him and yelled about not being cute and called for his help. He remembered the toy perfectly, and he asked the woman where the chute was. She gave him directions as they were not too far from it and she figured he could find his way over. She would have offered to take him herself, but she felt that if he found what he was looking for, he would want to be alone.
Wally walked down a dark street that got quieter the farther away he got from the cluster of fire pits those old folks had theirs near. It got so quiet that Numbuh 4 could hear his own heavy breathing. He slowed down and turned left at the next intersection onto a street that looked less damaged than most. He spotted the building with a huge hole in the wall that the old woman mentioned and his steps got even closer together, his breathing more rapid.
The kid reached the hole in the wall and he slowly poked his head through it. Like the old woman said, the floor of the building was ripped open, revealing the deep pit beneath it that had a graveyard of toys at the bottom. Wallabee gulped as he looked down there and he peered closer at the toys at the bottom, examining each of them closer to see if he recognized them. The sight of all the broken toys that were once people made the kid get a sick feeling in his stomach. He sucked it up though and hopped down into the dark pit, dropping, dropping, until he hit the bottom and bent his knees to cushion the impact. The child looked around in the pit so deep he could barely see the hole in the floor up above letting in the moonlight.
Wally looked down at the floor beneath his feet and scrunched his face up at the sight of two toy soldiers broken beneath him. "It was only two years," Wally muttered to himself. "How did these things get so cruddy destroyed in that time?" He looked around and had to bend down every time he saw a toy that looked like metal to get a better look. Each time he bent down he held his breath, then let it out in relief as he did not recognize who it was. He felt like he should have been feeling bad about being so relieved, but he could not help it. He was getting more nervous though with every toy he checked, wondering where the girl he was searching for could be.
That's when he saw it. He lifted up his right hand covered in a light blue glow and peered across the room at what he saw shimmer in the moonlight a second ago. His eyes turned huge at the sight of the hand sticking out of a pile of other toy parts. His legs started shaking and in his mind he imagined that same arm reaching towards him. He remembered it because it had three fingers on the end, and because he slapped it away when the girl who got turned into a toy reached towards him. He found out all about what happened with Sugar and the toys when he got to the city, and he knew now why he had forgotten her for so long. "If I was going to remember you," Wally began as he walked towards the pile. His legs could not hold him up and he fell down to his knees. "Then why couldn't you just be-"
The pile in front of Wally shook when his knees hit the ground. A stuffed toy with most of its stuffing hanging out fell off the pile, and the arm sticking up behind it fell over. Wally blinked a few times and he got back up on his feet. He walked towards the toys in front of him with a lowered bottom lip and he reached down on top of it, grabbing the metal arm laying there. He picked it up, but the arm was not connected to anything. "But, what? I don't-" he scratched the side of his head and then his eyes lit up and darted back down to the pile in front of him. He dropped the arm and started digging through the pieces of toys piled up there, but after almost a minute of digging through every last inch of the place, he hit a steel floor at the bottom of the pit and there was nowhere else he could look.
Numbuh 4 started spinning around over and over but on all sides of him were walls and there was no hint of what he was looking for anywhere. He snapped his head up and screamed. "RAAAAHH! AHHH! KUUUKIIII!" His voice echoed off the metal walls around him and he heard her name repeat over and over again. "WHERE ARE YOU?!"
Three Days Later
"I said I got it," Numbuh 4 snapped at the man next to him who reached down to help carry the tree trunk into Dressrosa. The people of the city were trying their hardest to rebuild, but they were stuck using materials mostly from their own old destroyed buildings. Some places needed new materials though, but there were not many people willing to leave the safety of the city to go get timber or steel. The blond child who just jumped off the cliff to the east, cut down a tree at the bottom past the tar pits, and flew back up, frowned at the man in a toga and red cape who leaned back away from him.
Kyros scratched his chin at the frustrated expression on the child's face, and despite not being allowed to help carry his burden, he decided to walk into the city with him anyway. "Young man," he began. "I do not recognize you. How long have you been in Dressrosa?"
Wally grumbled under his breath in annoyance. "How long? I don't know, a couple o' days? What's it to ya?" He dropped the twenty foot long log with a two foot diameter and glared up at the man who had been looking down at the top of his blond spiky cut until now. Looking into the boy's eyes Kyros could see all the scars around them and the strange appearances they had.
"I was just curious, but now I am even more so. We are far in the Emperor's territory. I do not know of anyone else who came to this city after Doflamingo fell, solely to help us rebuild," Kyros smiled at the boy despite Numbuh 4's angry attitude.
"That's not why I came," Wally snapped. Kyros looked at him in surprise, while he drew his sword to get to chopping up the trunk Numbuh 4 dropped at the edge of the city. Kyros sliced it up, while Numbuh 4 continued, "I mean, it's why I stayed. But, I- nevermind," he shut up and just watched as the muscular leader of the city cut up a dozen perfect wooden planks. "Guess I'll go get another one," Numbuh 4 muttered, looking past the pile of wood and into the city where everyone was working hard to fix the place up.
"Hold on," Kyros said, putting his sword back down and turning to the boy again. Wally frowned and glanced up at him, and the former gladiator smiled at the child, "What was your purpose for coming to Dressrosa then? If you came a few days ago, then you came because of the battle did you not?"
"I came because Sugar got beat," Numbuh 4 replied. "So, I got my memories back."
"Ah, I understand the feeling," Kyros remarked. The kid kept frowning and the older man asked, "I take it you did not find who you were looking for?"
The boy shook his head, hands clenching hard at his sides. He had his brown cloak tied around his waist at the moment as it was too hot outside to wear it while doing all this physical labor. He wore an orange t-shirt that showed off his large muscles that looked strange on a boy his size. Wally grumbled under his breath, then looked up at the one-legged man and said, "I looked all over for her, but I couldn't find Kuki anywhere."
Numbuh 4 gazed back at the floor, then he turned around and took a step back towards the cliffs in the east. "Haha, hahaha," the laughter that started behind him made Wally's face scrunch up in anger. He spun, ready to give this man a piece of his mind, when Kyros stopped laughing and said, "So then, I take it you must be Numbuh 4." The boy froze with his mouth wide open, utter confusion spreading across his face.
"How, do you know my name?" The boy asked, as the man just told him he did not recognize him a minute earlier.
"I asked her once what her real name was, and she told me it was Kuki, Kuki Sanban." Numbuh 4's eyes could not get any wider, which was actually a little creepy to the man in front of him who did not like the look of those strange eyes Numbuh 4 had. "Would you like me to take you to-"
"Where is she?!" Numbuh 4 yelled, not letting him finish he was so anxious.
"Haha," Kyros did not mind the interruption. He chuckled and turned, "This way."
The man started walking away from the edge of the city on his one leg, but as Numbuh 4 ran up on his side, and then ran ahead, Kyros sped up to stay in front of the kid as he would not know where to go. When he sped up though, the kid took it as an excuse to speed up himself. This is interesting, Kyros thought as he slowly sped up more and more to see how far the kid would go to match him. "Why are we going so slow?!" Numbuh 4 yelled at the man on his left, surprising Kyros who was just about to step it up another notch.
Kuki! Are you really here?! Are you really alive?! I thought- I thought you were scrap. I thought your arm was all that was left of you! No, a piece of me still believed! I'm not here to rebuild, I just kept thinking that if I waited long enough, you would appear. You would rise from the rubble. "In here," Kyros said. He was about to lead the kid next to him into the first building they made sure was rebuilt after the battle in Dressrosa, but when he looked next to him, his eyes shot open wide at the kid racing inside at speeds thrice what they were just moving.
Wally ran into the building and stopped when he got through another door after the entranceway. He looked left and right down the wide area of this building and saw hospital beds lying all over the place. His heart rate sped up and his breathing intensified. He remembered the arm he saw at the bottom of that chute, and he imagined Kuki being un-transformed from a toy, only to be bleeding out as her mechanical injuries turned into human ones. "Kuki," he whispered under his breath.
The boy started walking down an open aisle between two rows of beds. Then, as he was looking back and forth from beds on either side of him, he stopped when his head was pointed straight forward. He looked twenty feet away at a young woman at the foot of someone's bed, looking down at a clipboard in her right hand. She had on a white pair of scrubs that looked too long so her sleeves ended past her hand, and she wore a white hat with a red cross in the center of it. The girl had a serious look on her face as she examined the clipboard, but she froze as she heard a voice on her right side. "Ku-ki?" The girl with long black hair, who still stood an inch taller than Wally Beatles despite her not aging for two years, turned her head slowly and with wide eyes stared at the boy in the aisle in front of her.
Numbuh 4 looked into her eyes, and then his head bowed and he stared straight at the floor. "I'm sorry. I never should have left you here. I'm so sorry I forgot about-"
Footsteps approached fast, then the girl charging at him leapt off the ground and tackled him backwards. She landed on top of him and Numbuh 4 looked up into her eyes to see tears pouring out of her eyes in streams. They came down both corners of both eyes and she yelled out through sobs, "Wally!"
Her tears were contagious, and though he tried holding it in, the corners of his strange eyes filled with water and started leaking out. Kuki dropped her head down onto the boy's shoulder and she screamed out, "You remember me!" Her voice was full of joy just like her sobs.
Kyros looked in from the edge of the room, then the smiling man turned and left the kids as he had to get back to other important matters.
Numbuh 4 felt his right shoulder getting wet from Kuki's tears, and his arms that were shaking at his sides steadied. He brought them up and put them on the girl's back, hugging her close to him. When he put his arm around her left side, it pressed into her side instead of her arm. He moved that arm up and down a little to see if he was just missing something, but there was no left arm on Numbuh 3's body. So it really was her arm, he thought, and he closed his eyes and hugged her even tighter.
Numbuh 3 finally pulled her head back, and she pushed her hand down on Numbuh 4's chest. Putting a frown on her tear-streaked face, Numbuh 3 scolded, "How could you forget about me? I'm not going to forgive you that easily, buster! I had to stay an ugly robot for-" Numbuh 3 stopped complaining as Numbuh 4 opened back up his eyes beneath her. His eyes looked very weird which she noticed for the first time, but despite their appearances, Kuki could still see the deep depression in them.
"I'm sorry," he whispered up at her. "I- I always knew, something was wrong. With the team. With my memories." Numbuh 4's weird eyes looked so guilty as Kuki gazed into them. They were so full of regret and Numbuh 4's lips pursed like he had more to say but could not. He could not even continue making excuses as he looked at the girl kneeling over him, "I should have come back for you. How were we so stupid? In my head, our team always had four members, but I should have known that wasn't right since teams are supposed to have five. And our numbers! One, two, four, and five?! Of course there was a Numbuh 3! Stupid! Stupid stupid stupid stupid!" He stopped yelling at himself for a second and looked into Kuki's eyes that were watery again though she was holding her tears back. He turned his head away to the side while he lay on his back, and he muttered one more time, "I'm sorry."
"Silly, I'm not really mad at you," Numbuh 3 teased. Numbuh 4 looked back up at her, but her saying that did not make him feel much better. She smiled down at him, and she brought her right hand over to his chest that she was leaning over. Her knees were on either side of his body trapping him to the floor, and she leaned down as she pressed her hand to his chest. Even though he was wearing a t-shirt, Kuki's hand pressed down on the orange fabric right over where the three vertical scars on his chest were. "I knew a lot of toys who couldn't even convince their families who they were. I know it's not your fault." Numbuh 4 sniffled, and Numbuh 3 leaned her head down and pressed her forehead against his. In a soft voice she whispered, "I'm so happy to see you again. It's been so long, and I kept hearing such terrible things about the world outside of Dressrosa that I needed to go find you guys. I was afraid something had happened, are the others-"
"They're all okay," Numbuh 4 answered before she could finish asking.
Kuki's eyes closed and a breath of relief passed through her lips. "I'm so glad," she said, sounding choked up. She had hoped for such an answer but it was so hard to believe all that time. "Wally," Kuki whispered, her eyes still closed, her right hand still on his chest over his scars, her forehead still pressed against his. "Please, promise me," Numbuh 3's eyes opened and she looked afraid to the boy beneath her. "Promise me you won't leave again."
"I promise," Numbuh 4 replied, and he put his arms back up behind her back and held her tight.
The Next Day
"So you had this whole rebellion thing planned, and then these guys come in and in one day take out Doflamingo and his whole family?" Numbuh 4 asked while he and Kuki ate lunch near a house the two were working on building together for the kind elderly couple who had tried helping Numbuh 4 the night he arrived. The old couple was sitting next to them at the table too, and the nice old woman put another sandwich down on Numbuh 4's plate when he was just about finished with his. "Thanks," he muttered before swallowing his food and picking up the next sandwich to chomp into. "They must've been pretty strong."
"You bet," Numbuh 3 said with a nod of her head. "I don't think we could have done it without them! They were so cool!"
The old man sitting next to Numbuh 3 looked down at the girl in surprise. The couple had thought something terrible had happened to the young toy girl who got caught trying to escape, and they were shocked that she was not only one of the toys in on the rebellion, but Kyros' second-in-command at that. The old guy asked the girl, "You don't recognize the man who saved us?" Numbuh 3 looked at him in confusion, and he said, "Have you never heard the name, Son Goku, before?"
Numbuh 4 had not been all that interested in the people who saved the city from Doflamingo. He had been focused on one thing and one thing alone for the first few days after getting to Dressrosa, but after finally meeting Kuki the day before, he had finally relaxed enough to take in some information. At the sound of that name, Numbuh 4 stopped chewing and he looked at the old man in confusion. "Wait a second," he said, then he chewed for a few more seconds as some bits of sandwich flew out of his mouth when he spoke. "Goku was here? Son Goku?"
"You know him too?" Numbuh 3 asked the boy across from her.
"I've heard a bunch of stories," Numbuh 4 replied. He had a thoughtful look on his face which was unusual to the girl in front of him who looked younger thanks to Sugar turning her into a toy for two years. Even though she had the body of a ten year old though, the twelve year old girl realized that Numbuh 4 had matured more than just by getting a little closer to her height over the past two years. "And he, was traveling with people?"
"A whole bunch of them," Numbuh 3 replied. She tilted her head to the side and asked, "Why?"
"Do you think he'd let us fight with him?" Numbuh 4 asked.
Numbuh 3's eyes opened wide, and she leaned forward and said, "Don't be silly!" He frowned and she saw that he was not joking, so she continued, "He already left anyway. All of them did."
"They couldn't have gotten that far ahead of us," Numbuh 4 said, a smirk growing on his face. "We can't stay here forever, can we?" He asked.
Numbuh 3 opened her mouth, but then she closed it and shook her head. "I want to see the others though," she said.
Numbuh 4 frowned and hummed to himself. If we go back to the new KND base, Numbuh 3's gonna want to stay with everyone. Sector V's really back together now, or, we could be. That's not what I want to do though. "Sure," Numbuh 4 said, though he did not sound thrilled when it came out of his mouth. He turned away and muttered while Numbuh 3 looked at him confusedly, "I can take you straight to the new KND headquarters." He had already told her about the others all through the day yesterday as she wanted to know how their old friends were doing in detail. She had also asked about his time on Nexus, but he had been vague in most aspects and tried to shift the conversation if it ever got close to being about his eyes. "After we get there though, I'm heading out to find Goku." If he's the hero everyone thinks he is, that's where I'll really be the most awesome!
"'You' are?" Numbuh 3 asked, and Wally turned back to see the girl looking across the table in a hurt way towards him. Numbuh 4 noticed both of the elderly people at their sides staring at him with looks like they knew he had just messed up. Kuki's lips pushed out with air building up behind them, and she snapped, "Didn't you say you wouldn't leave again?! You promised," she added, softer than the first shout.
"Yeah, I mean, I did," Numbuh 4 had a flustered look on his face, and his cheeks turned red as she shouted that in front of the old people who started smiling oddly at them.
"Then if you're going, that means I'm coming too," Kuki said, and Numbuh 4 slowly turned back to look her in the eyes. "Okay?" She asked, and he could hear a worried tone in her voice that he was going to leave her behind.
"Yes!" Numbuh 4 replied. He realized he said it much to quickly, and he turned away before saying, "I mean, yeah, if that's what you want to do."
Aww, the old couple thought, before turning back to each other and holding hands over the table.
As the old man was about to say something to the kids about being careful out there, his gaze lifted to the sky and he got a semi-panicked look on his face. He shot out of his seat, while the old woman looked back and got nervous too at the sight of the green ship flying through the sky towards them. Numbuhs 3 and 4 looked up though, and they did not have the same reactions as the others. The green S.C.A.M.P.E.R. flew to their section of the city and started lowering down in the street close to them.
"It's about time," Numbuh 4 said. When he mentioned bringing Kuki to KND headquarters, he had started to wonder why the others who would have recovered their memories too had not gotten there yet.
The S.C.A.M.P.E.R.'s doors opened up, and three kids came running out of the vehicle and towards Numbuh 3 who sprinted right over to them and leapt into a four person hug. Kyros came running down the street accompanied by his daughter Rebecca, both of them holding broadswords, and a dozen other armed men chasing behind them. Kyros slowed down at the sight of who left that vehicle, and he started chuckling to himself that he was worried in the first place. "It's alright," he said, lowering his weapon.
"But Dad," Rebecca said to the man next to her who smiled even more as his daughter called him that. "That's one of Doflamingo's-"
"Doflamingo was not the first to invent those ships," Kyros said. He leaned left and then pointed at a chubby boy who looked a lot like a cyborg. "If I'm correct, that boy is Numbuh 2. Numbuh 3 told me all about how she was turned into a toy, on the day they came here to trade plans for easy-to-make flying ships for a Devil Fruit." Rebecca frowned as she looked back over towards them, but she sighed as there was no way for most people to know that Doflamingo was the monster he was until the truth came out earlier that week.
"Numbuh 3, girl you don't look a day over ten," Numbuh 5 said, taking off her red hat and wiping her face with it. She looked past the black-haired Japanese-American girl in front of her and over to Numbuh 4 who had not run over to join their reunion. She made a small nod of her head towards the group, and the hesitating boy finally started walking over, however slowly.
"Numbuh 2! What happened?" Numbuh 3 asked in a concerned voice.
"Oh this?" Numbuh 2 said, looking at his left side where he had a strong steel arm that he had avoided hugging Kuki with. "It's nothing. Oh! I could make you one if you want!" He said, motioning at the girl's left side where she had no arm sticking out of her left shoulder.
Numbuh 5 looked over at her friend's side and dropped her jaw, the only one left who had not noticed it. "Oh girl, are you okay?" She asked.
"Pssh, of course I am," Numbuh 3 replied. "It's just an arm."
What an optimistic attitude, Numbuh 1 thought while shaking his head, losing the frown and concerned look that had appeared on his face as soon as he realized she had been crippled. He then looked to her left as Numbuh 4 finally walked over, and the first thing he said was, "We were in the middle of a mission when Dressrosa fell, or we would have been here sooner."
"Yeah yeah, save your excuses for her," Numbuh 4 said and pointed a thumb at the girl next to him.
"I'm so sorry I forgot you," Numbuh 2 apologized.
"We should have believed you when you were a toy," Numbuh 5 spoke right over him, and over the leader of the entire Kids Next Door on her other side who added something similar.
"Guys guys!" Numbuh 3 called out, tears in her eyes as she smiled so wide it hurt. "It's okay. Really, I forgive you. I'm just glad you all came here. I'm just glad, you're all okay."
Numbuh 4 frowned deeper as Numbuh 3 called that out. I guess I could wait a little while before joining up with them. Numbuh 3 probably wants to catch up with everyone for more than just a few minutes. I'll give her a couple of days before I mention leaving again…
Present
"…We've been looking for you guys for weeks," Numbuh 4 told the men in front of him. The four members of the group that Numbuh 4 had been looking for, as well as the members of Alpha Squad with them, looked down at the blond boy in front of them who continued, "After I heard about the Dread Fort we went there to find you, but you were gone already. Then we heard that your group was actually down destroying the League, but when we got there, some old buddies of mine in Class 3-E told me the League was already destroyed and you had left. Then I heard you guys were hitting Pyraxas, but by the time we got there, we heard from someone that you all went back south. Then I heard you really went south, but I didn't want to risk Ku-" he froze with his mouth open, the girl next to him looking in at him confusedly at what he had started to say. "I didn't want to risk our lives going south of the Great Wall where we might have to face the Flood," he shivered at the mention of it, then continued speaking just as fast as he had been, "So we waited up on the western border to protect from the Sith until we heard anything about you guys returning. Then a couple days ago, this kid Stan who was heading into the Emperor's territory told us that your group was back, and so I looked into the base files and found that the base up here just called in some help from 'that' group, so we rushed up as fast as we could."
"I thought we just missed you guys again!" Kuki exclaimed. "But Quon told us you had just left for the Tower of Babel, whatever that is."
"I knew the direction though," Numbuh 4 said, taking a few deep breaths as he had caught all the way back up to the present now. "I'm just glad, we finally caught you," he said.
Natsu glanced to his left at Franky who shrugged back at him. Usopp kept staring at the girl with a confused look on his face, because he recognized her from somewhere… His eyes started to widen, right as Natsu asked the kids, "Why have you been looking for us?"
Numbuh 4 grinned at him and said, "To fight alongside you." He looked up into Natsu's eyes in a way that made his hair bounce and show his eyes underneath, and Natsu saw a strange dark purple color in his right eye that reminded him of a certain Resistance Commander.
Despite that strange eye, Natsu frowned at the kid's request. If this kid's strong it doesn't really matter, but what about that girl with him? Actually, why should we let either of these kids come along?
"You're that girl!" Usopp exclaimed.
"And you're Captain Usopp!" She called out back at him. Franky turned to the girl in surprise that she called Usopp by that name, then his eyes widened as she turned to him next and threw her arms up in the air over her head to pose in his signature position. "Super!" She shouted. Numbuh 4 glanced back at Numbuh 3 in confusion, and she winced as the prosthetic steel left arm Numbuh 2 made for her bumped hard into her real one.
"You guys know this girl?" Natsu asked the pirates next to him.
"Such a cutie-pie, how could I forget?!" Sanji exclaimed, though he sweatdropped as despite saying that, he did not know where the other two recognized her from. That confused him more than anything though, since he had been traveling with Franky for years now while Usopp only had for the past few months.
Franky threw his arms up in the same pose as Kuki and called out, "This SUPER girl was in Dressrosa! She fought with the other toys."
"You remember me," Numbuh 3 said happily.
Sanji bit down hard that he did not have some amazing memory with the girl who he must have just missed during the night of enjoying all the praise and affection from the various grown women of Dressrosa he had saved.
"Oh, is Killua here?" Numbuh 3 asked and looked around. She spotted white hair, but she frowned at Bell Cranel who leaned back in confusion as to why the girl suddenly frowned at him.
"You do something to her?" Renji asked the teen in front of him who spun around and shook his head fast.
"I don't think so," Bell said in confusion.
"No, Kil's," Natsu started, then he frowned and furrowed his brow. "We don't know where he is."
"What about Son Goku?" Numbuh 4 asked. The others looked back to the boy who had glanced around already and saw the man was not there. "Where is he? I really wanted to join up with him."
"Goku's training at HQ," Usopp replied to the boy.
This just made Wally frown deeper, as he was not in the mood to go wait around for the man to come out to the battlefield. He refocused on the people in front of him, and he stared more at the guy with pink hair than the others. This is the guy who took down Sozin. And they're traveling with Alpha Squad. Guess this is a good place as any to start. "Alright, so Tower of Babel huh?" Numbuh 4 asked, putting his hands behind his head and leaning back where he stood. "Never been there before."
"Me either," Numbuh 3 said.
The others' eyebrows all lifted up as Numbuh 4 insinuated that he was coming, then Natsu started laughing. He lost his frown as soon as he heard that the girl was actually a fighter too, and he turned and started heading the direction they were moving before the kids showed up. "Us neither, though apparently these guys from Alpha go there all the time."
"Psh, just 'cause they're the best Squad doesn't mean they're Gods," Numbuh 4 said.
Natsu laughed while the members of Alpha looked back in annoyance at the new kid already. "Actually, one of us is," Renji remarked to the boy who looked his way in surprise.
"Really?" Kuki asked in amazement. "Are you?" She asked.
The red haired man sweatdropped and turned away. "No, but I am a shinigami-"
"Those are like kind-of Gods, but not really," Numbuh 4 explained to the girl next to him who had been a toy for too long and did not know as much about their world as he did.
"Ohh, I get it," Numbuh 3 said, while Renji's forehead scrunched up even more at the description, and all the others behind him laughed.
"Wait a second," Franky just remembered something that had caught his attention but he forgot about for a second. "You two said you saw our little bro Stan?" Numbuh 4 and Numbuh 3 looked at him and nodded, and Franky continued slowly, "And you said, you saw him going into the Emperor's lands?"
The others who also kind of just let that go past them opened their eyes wide. "Does that mean he was with Gray?" Natsu asked in surprise.
"He wasn't with anyone," Numbuh 4 snapped, and an annoyed look came to his face while Numbuh 3 looked at him hesitantly. The four who were wondering about Stan started to get bad feelings, and Numbuh 4 only made those looks worse as he said, "That kid gave me the creeps. Was going alone to the Order of the Sith, and he didn't look like no Jedi."
Usopp's eyes bulged more, and he thought about something Stan yelled at Cartman when they were in his fortress. "…And I AM a Sith Lord!" Usopp gulped and glanced next to him at Sanji who was frowning deeply and pulling out a cigarette.
"Why would your friend be doing that?" Renji asked, looking towards the nervous group who were reacting suspiciously to hearing this.
Natsu lost his nervous look quicker than the pirates though, shaking his head around. Stan helped us get Timmy back. Whatever his reasons. "Who cares? Stan's doing his thing. We're doing ours. Let's get a move on!" He turned and started marching off the direction they had been moving before.
Numbuh 4 spun after the guy with pink hair who he decided to follow since Son Goku wasn't there. "Yeah, let's do it. Follow us," he called out, waving an arm forward for Alpha Squad, Numbuh 3, and the Straw Hats to follow. Most of them sweatdropped at him, but Numbuh 3 ran up to his side and started talking fast about how they finally found them.
Usopp sighed and dragged a hand down his face, then he shook his head around and nodded with a smile. "Natsu's right," the muscular sharpshooter said. Sanji nodded with his lit-up cigarette, and Franky punched his fists together too. "Whatever Stan's doing, hopefully he meets up with us when the month's over. Let's go meet with some Gods!" Usopp shouted, then his face turned blue at the terrifying aspect and he slowed down as his fellow Straw Hats moved forward.
Sanji took a puff of his cigarette and pulled it out of his mouth for a second. If Stan's going to join the Sith— the rest of them and the Emperor— then that puts him and Gray on a collision course. Then again, maybe the shitty kid's got some plan to be a spy or something. It'll work out. As much as he was kind of creepy, I'm pretty sure he was a good kid. Wish Killua would have been there to see him, though, that's going to be an awkward talk if Kil's feeling as open as he was with us. Sanji brought his cig back to his lips and took a longer drag. They were heading to a Tower where they were about to meet the Gods, but there were other much more stressful things on his mind.
A/N Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed the chapter! Back in the Dressrosa arc we met a toy girl with one arm who was fighting alongside our heroes against Doflamingo's forces. That girl was Numbuh 3! She and Numbuh 4 join up with Natsu and company who continue towards the Tower of Babel which we'll arrive at next chapter! 18.9 The Tower of Babel. Anyway, Numbuh 4 has had a crazy time since showing up on Nexus. Spent time in the new KND, as a pirate, in the Resistance, attempted to join Class 3-E, and then there's a few month gap between when he left that mission and when the next flashback was where he all of a sudden has some strange new eyes and an epic gunblade weapon with a Djinn- Kargath inside it! Despite showing a lot of what happened to him, there's still some mystery meaning he'll for sure get more flashbacks sooner or later to explain that as well... As for now, you can only guess in predictions below what happened to him! Or comments, questions, or other predictions for Nexus moving forward! Let me know what you think in a review 'cause I love responding to them down below these author's notes. None today, so I'll put a list below and see you soon. 'Til next time!
Codename Kids Next Door (KND): Numbuhs 1 (Nigel), 2 (Hoagie), 3 (Kuki), 4 (Wally), 5 (Abby),13,34,35,44,44, 65.3 (Herb), 84 (Lee), 86 (Fanny), 274 (Chad), 362 (Rachel), Father (Benedict Uno), The Delightful Children from Down the Lane
One Piece: Sanji, Franky, Usopp, Doflamingo, Kyros, Dressrosa, Rebecca, Sugar, Law, Kid, Shachi, Penguin, Bepo, Killer
Halo: The Flood, Master Chief
RWBY: Grimm Griffons, Nevermores, Ursai, Boarbatusks
The 100: Major Byrne
Kingdom Hearts: Ariel, Flounder
Simpsons: Springfield, Moe
Johnny Test: Mr. Black and Mr. White
DBZ: Saiyans, Son Goku
DC Comics: Kryptonians
Assassination Classroom: Nagisa, Karma, Okano, Okajima
Naruto: Rinnegan
Star Wars: Jedi, Sith
South Park: Stan, Cartman
Danmachi: Bell
Bleach: Renji
Towa no Quon: Quon
Fairy Tail: Natsu (Hope I got them all! Let me know if there's a character you see in here and that I didn't mention if you want to know where they're from!)