So I was trying to come up with a new plot for this and then I went back to The Candygirl and remembered the moment in chapter 14 when the Teens Next Door are talking about them sabotaging Mr. Boss' attempt at making a weedkiller to kill off the KND treehouses…so how about I finally show what that was like? Let's begin.
Firecracker flexed her fingers a couple times, trying to calm her nerves down. It was very rare that the Teens Next Door got any missions to this degree. Global Command had called them, saying that they needed them to run a mission. It seemed that an infamous KND villain, Mr. Boss, was in the middle of crafting a business plan to create a weedkiller so powerful, it would welt any plant.
Including the Kids Next Door treehouses.
While Firecracker herself never really stayed in a treehouse beyond the arctic base, if that even counted, she understood how important the treehouses were to the Kids Next Door and how destroying them would likely cripple them.
"Firecracker, you good?" Chad asked from beside her. With a little effort, he and Maurice had managed to convince the Teen Ninjas to, in turn, convince Mr. Boss to let various teens get a tour of his business offices. This would include them, as well as Firecracker. When questioned on why she wanted to even come, Firecracker pointed out that she did, technically, own a business and if she wanted to make it better or expand on it when she got older, learning about business would help.
"Yeah, just excited," Firecracker replied, trying to do her best to keep herself awake. The guy giving them the tour had no enthusiasm and it was clearly showing how many of the teens clearly wanted to fall asleep. "And really bored."
"That makes two of us," Chad agreed with a chuckle.
"Three," Maurice chimed in as he walked over to them. "You two remember the plan, right?"
"Yep," Both Chad and Firecracker replied. Firecracker was the one who would create the distraction and, when everyone was dealing with that, Chad and Maurice would break into the vault where the plans for the weedkiller were being stashed.
"This is gonna be fun," Firecracker said with a smirk as she fiddled with the marble she had in her pockets.
"Just like old times," Chad agreed. Maurice just nodded. Mr. Boss wouldn't know what hit him.
"Remember, stay in the cafeteria!" The chaperone reminded the teens as they found spots at the various tables scattered around the cafeteria. Most of the adults opted to stay away from the teens and vice versa.
"Uh, excuse me sir?" One of the girls on the tour, the one with the dyed hair and the facial scar, asked as she came over. "Uh, I need to use the bathroom?"
The chaperone just sighed. "Follow me." With that, he led her to the bathroom and waited outside. He might have been evil, but he wasn't a creep!
"Too easy," Firecracker said with a smirk as she climbed up to a nearby vent, grateful for how skinny she was. She had to be fast and she knew it. Granted, if the chaperone questioned her, then she had plenty of excuses she knew they wouldn't dare question unless Mr. Boss wanted a PR disaster. She knew her mission.
Find something important that if she blew it up, would create a big enough scene that Mr. Boss would be drawn out of his office.
"Hopefully there's no rats in here…" Firecracker said to herself as she kept moving. Luckily, she didn't have to look far. As she soon found herself in the power room. "Dang, I'm like a kid in a candy store!" So many options to blow up!
And soon, she found her target.
"Well, might as well make this sabotage even better."
"Think that's the signal?" Chad asked as everyone jumped over the building suddenly shaking.
"Give it a second," Maurice replied. Firecracker, who had made sure to return before her explosives went off, gave them a small smile and a thumbs up.
"ALL EMPLOYEES! GET TO THE POWER ROOM RIGHT NOW!" Mr. Boss' voice boomed over the loudspeakers. "I SWEAR, I'M GOING TO KILL THE TOILETNATOR! Wait…is this still on!?" With that, his voice cut out and all of the employees jumped out of their chairs and rushed out, which just so happened to include the chaperone who was supposed to be watching the teens.
"Huh, what do you guys think happened?" Firecracker asked, playing oblivious as she wandered over to the table that Maurice, Chad and Cree had been sitting at. "...And who's the Toiletnator?"
"Probably the janitor?" Chad offered up. "So…now what?"
"Dude, this is so boring!" One teen called out. "I wanna go explore!"
"Better than just sitting in here!" Someone else agreed.
"Besides, I want to see what happened!" Firecracker declared, which got several more agreements. Chad and Maurice couldn't help but roll their eyes. Of course Firecracker couldn't pass up the chance to see what had happened. With that, she led several teens off.
"I'm going to go scout around the building. Make sure this wasn't some Brats Next Door plot," Cree said to her two "fellow" Teen Ninjas. Giving Maurice a quick kiss on the cheek, she wasted no time in suiting up and flying off.
"Guess that means it's time for us to hit up our part of the mission," Chad said with a smile.
"Guess so," Maurice replied with a smile of his own. Both then headed out. The hallways were mostly deserted at that point, but the two boys still made just to stay out of sight as best they could. Luckily, their target had been helpfully included on the tour, although they were not allowed in at the time.
The infamous Mr. Boss's office.
Chad wasted no time in trying the door and was shocked to find it wasn't locked. "Huh, guess whatever Firecracker did had him so panicked he didn't even bother to lock the door."
"Makes it easier for us," Maurice pointed out as the duo filed into the office. They both were surprised by how normal it was and also weren't, knowing how he did run a legitimate business, not that either teen was fully what it was. They zoned out during that part of the tour.
"Wait…is this who I think it is?" Chad asked as he pointed to a picture on Mr. Boss's desk. Mr. Boss stood with his wife and their three kids, two boys and one girl.
And Chad and Maurice knew that one girl very well.
"Numbuh 86 is Mr. Boss's daughter!?" Maurice exclaimed. "...Honestly that kind of explains a lot. Weird seeing them both so happy though." During their final years in the Kids Next Door, something had happened to Numbuh 86, turning her from a pretty sweet little girl into a boy hating monster. Neither was sure what happened and, frankly, neither wanted to know.
"Let's…let's not focus on that," Chad said as he kept looking around the office. "Any idea where the plans are stashed?"
"How about that safe?" Maurice said as he pointed to said safe, which was embedded into the wall. "You think you can pick the lock?"
"Please. I'm the best there is," Chad said smugly as he walked over to the safe and pressed his ear to the safe, beginning to fiddle with the lock. "You don't think I got that reputation without learning how to pick a lock or two?"
"You really did everything other than learn to be humble, huh?" Maurice joked as he crossed his arms.
"Quiet Mr. 'I'm Going to Run Off For Like Three Years By Myself Because I'm The Only One Who Can Do This'!" Chad snarkily replied, not that there was any real malice in his voice. Both boys shared a chuckle as Chad finally got the safe unlocked. Inside were several documents and, rather strangely, what looked like a child's drawing of Mr. Boss and Numbuh 86.
"Still not used to the idea of Mr. Boss being her dad," Maurice admitted as he scanned the safe. There was a cool looking rock that he took, not even fully sure why, but he'd decide what to do with it later.
"I think this is it!" Chad said as he pulled a folder out. Sure enough, inside were the details for the treehouse/weed killer. "Okay, you got Thomas' forgery?"
"Right here," Maurice replied as he pulled said forgery out. While Thomas couldn't come with them himself due to living in a different part of town and, thus, going to a different school, he still eagerly provided his skills to help with the mission. He wasted no time in making them look professional, yet actually trying to put the recipe into practice would result in something that would actually make plants grow better.
Irony at its finest.
"Alright, let's get out of here before anyone notices," Chad said as he slammed the safe shut, letting it lock again. Luckily, it seemed like everyone still had yet to deal with whatever mess Firecracker had created, which, as they quickly discovered, was setting a large database on fire.
"It's his Evil Adult Industries stuff," Firecracker revealed as she slung her arms around both boys. "Was an easy choice when picking what to bomb. Also, if you're wondering about the toilet thing, I accidently had some toilet paper stuck to my foot when I went into the bathroom. Not sure who the Toiletnator is but he probably had it coming."
"Probably some other villain," Chad agreed. "So…party at the base tonight?"
"Oh hell yeah!" Firecracker agreed. "I'm going to have so much fucking soda!"
The next day
"I regret everything…." Firecracker groaned as she tried to raise her hand, only to succeed in slapping herself in the face with it, causing her to groan again.
"Tell me about it…" Chad agreed as he tried to push himself into a sitting position. "Hey…where's Maurice?"
"Getting you and everyone else hangover cures," Maurice replied as he entered the room with some over the counter painkillers. "Sorry I had to bail last night. Cree wanted to talk to me about something. And get this! She called me, like, ten minutes ago talking about this weird dream she had, where she said she was fighting another version of herself."
"Was it a nice version?" Firecracker had to ask, only a little bitter.
"It was a version of her that was missing her arm, so she never got decommissioned," Maurice said with a shrug. "Told her it was probably just a weird dream."
"Sounds like it," Firecracker said as she closed her eyes in an attempt to ease the pain. Her hangover and getting yet another reminder that there was a world out there that Cree might have never betrayed them stung, but she smiled when she remembered why she was like that. She and the others had succeeded. The Kids Next Door would be around to fight another day.
"Guess I've still got it after all!"
Bet you weren't expecting that, huh? See you all soon!