Penny sighed as she stood in front of the gym. The doors were right there, she just needed to walk inside.

Then she'd have to face her brother- and even Maxwell, he saw her, too- after her break down on Friday. Not only would she have to face them, she'd have to return to the dysfunctional mess that was their "team" and watch helplessly as everyone continued to torment each other.

"Ah, Agent P." Penny nearly jumped out of her fur and turned to see Major Monogram staring at her. "Good morning."

Penny stood at attention. "G-Good morning, sir." She reached up her paw to salute, but Major Monogram simply chuckled.

"No need to salute, this is a casual greeting."

"Of... Of course, sir." Penny let her arm fall back to her side, instantly feeling embarrassed. What a great impression to leave on him, now he'd think she was jumpy and on-edge and really formal all the time. Or at least that she was scared of him. Well, he was kind of intimidating... What was she thinking? No agent should be scared of their own boss.

"How are you feeling about your team, Agent P?"

Absolutely horrible. "I... It's alright, sir. Everyone is...still working to get along."

Major Monogram nodded. "That's what I assumed. Especially your brother- he's been known to have issues in the past with working in pairs or teams." He cleared his throat. "Don't tell him, but we've assigned him to more teams than most partly just to try and fix that about him. He got so used to working independently that now he seems almost incapable to function with anyone else." His disappointed frown morphed into a happier smile. "If it makes you feel better, there's no chance that this current struggle will be in vain. Your team is far too important."

He cleared his throat. "I'll leave you to it, I suppose." He turned around to leave, before pausing in his tracks and glancing back at Penny. "Agent P, you're much more cooperative than your brother. Please make sure this team gets their act together. You're integral to making sure this team isn't a flop." With that, Major Monogram walked away.

Penny stared after him, feeling her heart sink further in her chest- she didn't even think that was possible, with how low it felt already. She had already completely failed to help everyone get along- she had even made things worse by shoving her brother, which might have been worse if Maxwell hadn't been there to stop her. So what would that mean about her? What if she kept failing? If she was so integral... Would it be her fault if the team failed in their mission and DANGER succeeded with whatever they were planning?

She shook her head to clear it. There was no reason to get worked up about one comment he made. That was the least of her worries right now, with all the relationship issues she'd have to handle as soon as she walked in the gym.

An olive green blur passed by her and walked into the gym. Penny sighed. Maxwell was there, so it was time to stop stalling and head inside. "H...Hi, Maxwell." She followed him into the gym.

The agent paused and turned around to her. "Oh... Hey, Penny. How... How are you feeling?"

Penny hugged herself and stared at the floor. "I'm...okay." An awkward silence settled between the two of them, until Penny cleared her throat. "How was your day off yesterday?"

"Not bad." Maxwell walked over to the wall of the gym, where the team had previously been meeting. "I ran into your brother."

"Perry?" Penny felt her heart begin to pound at the simple mention of his name. Right now she was trying to ignore any possibility of the fact that she'd have to talk to him and apologize soon.

"Yeah, Perry."

Penny shook her head. Her anxiety about her brother, the person she cared the most about, shouldn't be so intense that it made her have trouble focusing on the conversation at paw. "H-How was he?"

"He seemed pretty...normal to me." Maxwell crossed his arms. "Obviously, I don't know him that well, but we hung out. It..." He cleared his throat and turned his gaze to the ground. "It was nice."

Perry hung out with Maxwell? So while she was spending all day stressed about the very idea of talking to him, even going so far as to talk to a dangerous criminal stuck in prison for life just to find other ways to spend her time, this stranger who didn't even have a good impression of Perry got to have a fun time spending the day with him?

Penny sighed. That wasn't fair. She needed to look on the bright side. The fact that Maxwell enjoyed spending the day with Perry probably just meant that Perry was actually getting along with someone on their team, and that was a good sign! Plus, maybe it put Perry in a good enough mood that today would go way better than she had feared.

Penny pulled herself out of her thoughts and looked at Maxwell, who had settled on the floor and was on his phone. She opened her bill to say something else, but quickly realized that she was probably just annoying him and fell silent again, sitting down quietly next to him. She pulled her knees up to her chest and stared at the door, her heart beginning to pound as she waited for someone else to walk into the gym. She and Maxwell sat in an awkward silence, and Penny nervously tapped her paw on the floor.

After a few minutes of this, she sighed. This was painful. How in the world did Perry enjoy spending time with Maxwell? The platypus couldn't continue a single conversation!

No, that was mean. Penny shook her head to clear it. What had gotten into her? Maxwell just liked being alone. The silence probably wasn't awkward to him.

Just then, she saw a red shape enter the gym, and Penny shot to her feet. Jordan! He was more charismatic than Maxwell, certainly by a long shot. Maybe she could escape the awkward pain that was sitting around Maxwell. Jordan glanced over at the two platypuses on the floor and gave them a brief nod- Maxwell didn't even look up from his phone, he probably didn't even know Jordan had arrived- before turning the opposite direction and going to the other side of the gym.

Penny frowned. What was he doing?

He got on the floor and began to do push-ups. Oh, that made sense. It was a gym, after all.

Penny hopped to her feet and began to walk over to the red platypus. As she made her way across the gym, doubts began to form in her mind. What if he was trying to avoid them as long as possible? What if he wanted to be alone? Maybe he was still waking up and didn't like to be social until he had gotten some alone time. Maybe she'd just bug him if she tried to have a conversation with him, like with Maxwell.

Penny determinedly balled her paws into fists. No, Jordan was nice. She'd never get anywhere with this team if she didn't try to talk to anyone.

She inhaled deeply as she arrived next to Jordan, who remained doing push-ups on the floor. "Hi, Jordan."

"Oh." Jordan barely looked up. "Hi, Penny."

"How... How are you feeling?"

"Like I need to be professional." Jordan didn't falter in any of his movements. "I need to throw any personal grudges out the window and focus on the mission the Major assigned to us, no matter how I feel about anyone. Besides, your brother and I called a truce yesterday."

Penny found herself so enthralled by his shiny red fur and unwavering exercise that she almost missed what he said. "W-Wait... You and Perry did what?"

Sticking to character, Jordan still didn't slow down or look up. "Called a truce. He came and talked to me, and we agreed to stay out of each other's way. He won't insult me and I won't insult him."

"Wow." Penny crossed her arms, managing to pull her gaze away from Jordan. "So you two...actually worked things out?"

Jordan snorted. "No way. But maybe now we won't make each others' lives living hell anymore."

Penny couldn't help the giggle that escaped her. "I guess that's a start." Her heart sank as she realized what words were coming out of her mouth- was she seriously making light of that? But it was such a serious topic... Way to go, Jordan's gonna hate you now and see you as rude and inconsiderate. Way to put a team together.

But to her surprise, Jordan actually let out a small chuckle. "Yeah, it definitely gets us...somewhere." He paused and glanced behind him to the door. "Speaking of your brother, where the hell are he and Astrid?"

Penny shrugged helplessly. "I haven't seen him since Friday." She inwardly sighed. Wait, that was probably a rhetorical question.

Jordan barely seemed to notice and resumed his exercise. "I guess we'll just start without them if they don't show up soon."

"What's the plan gonna be for today?"

"I'm hoping we can work together and figure out a way to locate Rodrigo. We got a lead on Friday, but we need to take care of this quickly, before DANGER grows too powerful, and right now we're inching our way toward that goal. Inching isn't good enough."

Penny rocked back and forth on her feet, wondering if Jordan would mind if she joined him in his push-ups or not, when she saw a familiar teal figure appear at the door out of the corner of her eye. Penny looked away from Jordan to see her brother enter the room. Perry glanced over at her, meeting her eyes briefly, before his gaze quickly flickered over to Maxwell and he made his way over to the other platypus.

Penny sighed. Well, that figured. Their last meeting certainly hadn't been great. He was probably waiting for her to make the first move, in case she was still angry.

With that in mind, Penny inhaled deeply and made her way over to Perry, who had just settled down beside Maxwell. "P-Perry...?"

Maxwell glanced up at her then looked back at Perry. "You two go talk," he said simply, before scooting away from the two and resting his back against the wall as he resumed whatever he was doing on his phone.

Perry stood back up and met Penny's gaze. The two pairs of brown eyes stared awkwardly at each other for what felt like hours before Penny cleared her throat. "I... I'm really sorry about...you know..."

Perry just shook his head. "No, I pushed you over the brink. I'm sorry. You were right- I really wasn't sticking to my agreement, but I really will try to cooperate with the team now. I talked to Jordan and-"

Penny held her paw up. "He told me. You have a bit of a truce now, right?"

Perry smirked, glancing behind her to Jordan. "As close to one as we can get, I think. We never really got along, even when we were Trainees."

Penny rolled her eyes, but she couldn't help a smile from coming to her face. "I know. You've made that all too clear the past few days."

Perry hesitated, his eyes flickering the floor briefly, before he held out his arms. "Siblings again?"

Penny giggled. "You didn't just become 'not-my-brother' for a day. But yeah." She reached out as well and hugged him tightly, her head barely reaching around his shoulder since she was a couple inches shorter than him. "We're good." She sighed, still buried in her brother's arms, as she remembered exactly what had transpired between them on Friday. "But... I'm really not sure what came over me then. I just..." She involuntarily shivered. "I could barely control myself, and I've never done that, a-and I-"

She felt her brother gently kiss the top of her head. "Hey, it's alright. Like I said, I pushed you to the brink. Just keep an eye out for it in the future, okay?"

The two siblings pulled away from each other, and Penny smiled weakly, nodding back. "Yeah, you're right."

They stood in a somewhat awkward silence for another few moments before Perry cleared his throat and gently patted her shoulder. "I'm gonna go talk to Maxwell while we're waiting, if that's okay."

"Uh, sure." Penny nodded, keeping the smile on her face. "Sure." As her brother walked away, Penny couldn't resist the sigh that overwhelmed her. Perry sat down next to Maxwell and the two quickly fell into what appeared to be a comfortable conversation.

"That's quite a sad sigh for someone who just worked out an argument." Penny whirled around to see Jordan nearby, his arms crossed. "You okay?"

"I..." Penny shrugged. "I don't know. I should be, but... I'm not." She hugged herself. "And I'm not quite sure why."

Jordan glanced behind her to where Perry and Maxwell were settled. "Seems like jealousy to me."

"Jealousy?" It felt like an out-of-nowhere suggestion, but Penny felt an awkward squirming in her gut as she repeated the word, like her conscience was already insisting that was the issue.

"Yeah, jealousy," Jordan said. "Perry's such an antisocial person, you've probably gotten used to being one of the only people at OWCA to get his affection, right?"

"I... You might be right." Penny bit the inside of her bill thoughtfully. "But I don't think that's quite it."

"Oh?" Jordan cocked his eyebrow curiously.

"It... It might be..." Penny sighed, shaking her head. "Never mind, I don't want to bother you with my issues."

"Hey, I'm the one who got myself involved, and you look like you need to talk. If you feel comfortable, go right ahead." The following smile that Jordan gave her was so warm, Penny found herself almost captivated by his comforting black gaze. How did Perry dislike him?

"Well... Alright." Penny forced herself to look away, so she didn't come across as creepy, and sighed. "I think it's more...fear."

"Fear?"

"Yeah." Penny clasped her paws behind her back and awkwardly rocked on her feet. "After...you left on Friday... Perry and I had our own argument. That's why we talked just now. But... I acted really out of character, and the argument wedged us further apart than any previous arguments had." She sighed. "And now I'm worried that Maxwell got involved in Perry's life at the perfect time to keep Perry and I from ever being as close as we were just a few days ago."

"Oh." Jordan frowned sympathetically. "I'm sorry. Unfortunately, Perry and I have... We've never exactly been close. If you couldn't tell," he added dryly. "So I don't really know him well enough to confirm or deny your suspicions."

Penny shook her head. "No, that's okay. I wasn't expecting you to."

"On the bright side..." Jordan cleared his throat. "I may not get along with your brother, but... I like you." Penny blinked and met his eyes as he continued. "And I'd like to get to know you more. So... Even if you and Perry feel a bit distanced, you can at least hang out with me."

He smiled again, and Penny mirrored his smile. "Wow... That sounds great." Penny turned her gaze to the floor. "I've...actually never had a real friend outside of my brother."

"That's ridiculous, you're way too nice for that."

Penny shook her head. "No, I'm telling the truth."

Jordan sighed. "People have no taste."

Penny giggled. "I guess my brother counts. To be honest, I just can't understand why he hates you so much."

"It's...because of my family," Jordan said slowly. "He's never really gotten over that, I don't think."

"Yeah." Penny frowned. "Astrid told me about that yesterday. A-About Archer, I mean."

"She told you?"

"I..." Penny crossed her arms, suddenly worried that she was encroaching on territory she shouldn't. "I'm sorry, I just didn't understand what Perry meant when he referenced it in your argument and so I asked Astrid if we could meet up yesterday morning to explain it to me because I knew you guys would still be angry and-"

"Whoa, calm down, calm down." To her surprise, Jordan laughed. "I didn't mean to sound accusatory. I was just surprised you didn't already know. You're probably the first agent at OWCA who's met me without knowing about my uncle."

"O-Oh..." Penny exhaled, feeling her pumping adrenaline slow. "Sorry..."

"it's no secret." He shrugged. "There's no need to worry about it."

"How...are you so..." Penny hesitated, pausing for a minute to try and find the best word. "Nonchalant about it?"

"Well... It sucks, you know?" Jordan said. "And my parents backing out of OWCA a few months later has never really helped. But... I've let him go." Jordan closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, straightening his posture. "And accepting that he really was an awful person has left a large task in front of me- trying to prove to everyone that I won't turn out the same way he did. Pretty rough challenge." Penny noticed a little smirk come to Jordan's bill. "But I live for challenges, so if anything I... I view his betrayal, nowadays, as a chance to try and improve myself and prove, once and for all, that I'm not like him."

He sounded so motivated, Penny couldn't stop a smile from forming on her own face. "Well, the determination's worked- it seems like you've convinced everyone here."

Jordan cleared his throat and glanced behind her to Perry again. "Almost everyone. But there are some skeptics who can't seem to let the past go." Jordan rolled his eyes. "Still trying to decide whether or not I should even keep bothering with people like him. He seems determined to hate me no matter what I do."

Penny shrugged helplessly. "I'd give you advice to help with him, but sometimes it feels like I know him as well as you do."

Jordan grinned and shook his head. "Thanks, but I didn't expect any help."

"Have the arguments in the room cleared up?"

Penny and Jordan- and out of the corner of her eye Penny saw Perry and Maxwell, too- whirled to the gym entrance to see Astrid leaning against the doorframe, her arms crossed. "There were so many interpersonal issues to be taken care of, I decided to come in a bit late just to make sure it was safe."

"Nice to see you, too, Astrid," Perry said sardonically. "I guess it's a sign you really care."

Everyone- excluding Maxwell- scowled at him. He raised his paws defensively. "Sorry, sorry. I guess it worked. We've just been waiting for a while now."

Astrid just shook her head. "I expected Jordan to start the meeting with just you four, honestly."

"Hey, I was going to." Jordan directed his scowl at her. "I was just-"

"Confiding in your new buddy?" Astrid raised an eyebrow. "Very professional. I see why Monogram chose you as the leader."

Penny noticed Jordan's eyes darken, so she held her paws out before anyone could retort back at Astrid again. "Okay, okay, motivations don't matter. Astrid's here now, so let's start the meeting and locate DANGER. Okay?"

Astrid sighed and shook her head, entering the gym. "And you need the new agent who's over a year younger than the rest of us to do your job for you."

Penny and Jordan were quiet as they joined Perry and Maxwell- and Astrid, who was coming their way as well- at the side of the room. But Perry wasn't. "If I'm going to put in the effort to get along with you, you might as well reciprocate, right?" He crossed his arms and scowled. "And whatever you conclude about that question, don't take the fight to Penny. She hasn't done anything wrong since we were made a team. Unlike a few other agents I know."

"What have I done wrong?" Jordan whirled his gaze on Perry.

"Guys!" Penny snapped. "Jordan, you said you wouldn't start anything! Perry, ignore her."

"But she was-"

"She was right. I shouldn't be doing Jordan's job." Penny sighed. "It's not my place to order you around, so let's just leave it at 'she's right' and move on, okay?"

Jordan spoke up. "It's not your place to apologi-"

"Astrid was right, I was wrong, and let's focus on the mission." Penny scowled back at him. "If we keep focusing on this we're never going to improve."

The red platypus fell silent and stared at her for a couple moments before shrugging. "Alright then." He cleared his throat and turned to face the team as a whole. "So we got some leads on Rodrigo last time. So, from there, our mission today is to try and locate him to locate DANGER as a whole. We worked out that they'll probably be at a headquarters, and we need to figure out where to go from there."

"Unfortunately, we don't have any leads other than that." Perry frowned. "And you couldn't find any information on Rodrigo in the system, could you, Astrid?"

"Nope. Technically, he's not part of LOVEMUFFIN, so I couldn't access anything. It was like he doesn't exist."

"Great." Perry leaned back on his paws. "So then right now our only option is to scour the Tri-State Area and hope we find something. Real efficient use of time."

"It's our only option." Jordan shrugged helplessly.

Penny fell into her thoughts, attempting to draw up anything that might help give them more of a lead. But instead of help, she kept drawing up blanks, until eventually her mind drifted over to Dennis.

Her heart began to pound. She had almost forgotten that she and Astrid would be meeting him later that day. And he'd unlock the information on her parents on OWCA's database... In 24 hours, she was going to have learned what happened to her parents, whatever was horrible enough to make her brother completely clam up about it.

There was a buzzing on her wrist and from the surrounding agents which pulled her out of her thoughts. Penny shook her head to clear it and began to glance down only to see two scary words flashing on her screen: RED ALERT. RED ALERT. RED ALERT.

"What the hell?" Astrid tapped on her watch. "This...is bad."

"What?" Penny did the same, pulling up the message that had caused the "RED ALERT" in the first place. What she saw made her heart freeze in her chest, her breath catching in her throat. She read it over, and over again. That couldn't be right. Could it?

DENNIS THE ROGUE AGENT HAS ESCAPED.

Perry growled and slammed his paw on the floor. "That rabbit doesn't know the first thing about good timing. Who's going to deal with him now?"

Maxwell shrugged. "Just some other agent, I guess. We all got that notification, after all. Major Monogram's just going to have to assign someone else to take him down again."

"Wait." Jordan held his paw up. "No, someone needs to tell him we can handle it. I think this is actually exactly what we need. He just escaped from the OWCA-Traz, a maximum security prison. There's only one way you can do that."

Penny glanced around the rest of the group, and she notice the realization flash across her brother's face first. "With help from someone else!"

"Exactly." Jordan grinned. "And he's not part of LOVEMUFFIN."

"So then it's possible that whoever helped him is associated with DANGER, and if we find Dennis, we might find a lead to DANGER." Perry smirked. "I like that strategy."

Astrid pulled out her phone. "I'll let Major Monogram know, I guess."

Penny grinned and lightly elbowed her brother. "What was that you said about Dennis' timing? It sounds now like he actually timed that perfectly."

Penny smirked back, getting to his feet. "And luckily I have some experience with facing down that rabbit."

Astrid rolled her eyes, standing up along with the rest of the agents. "But the rest of us don't? Why are you determined to steal the light off of everyone else?"

Penny opened her mouth to defend her brother, but to her surprise someone else spoke up first. "Astrid, he's finally putting in an effort to work with everyone, and now you're determined to antagonize him?" She turned to see Maxwell crossing his arms. "You've tried to start more fights in the last ten minutes than you have for the last three days."

"Fine, whatever." Astrid raised her paws in defense. "I'm the bad guy, I guess. Let's just drop it and go do our job."

Perry rolled his eyes and headed toward the gym entrance. "We can take my hover-car to the OWCA-Traz and figure out where to go from there." With that, he left the room, Maxwell following close behind.

Penny and Astrid turned to look at Jordan, who shrugged. "Sure. We'll do that." The three platypuses hurried after Maxwell and Perry, who were already rather far down the hallway. Once close enough so that they wouldn't lose the other two, Jordan, Penny, and Astrid slowed down to a more comfortable walking pace. Penny stood awkwardly between Jordan and Astrid as they walked in silence, and up ahead she saw that Perry and Maxwell were quiet, as well. Although her brother certainly didn't look as uncomfortable as Penny felt.

"So why did you feel the need to attack Perry like that?" Penny asked Astrid quietly. "He's OWCA's best agent for a reason."

Astrid huffed. "I don't appreciate him immediately taking over and insisting that he knows exactly what to do just because of that label. He's not the only one with something to prove."

"At least give him a chance." Penny frowned. "Is it his fault that he's been assigned to face Dennis before?"

Astrid didn't reply, so Penny sighed and shook her head. "Never mind. Let's just focus on our mission."

Everyone fell quiet, but soon the silence got too overwhelming for Penny. She quickly sped up and ran to catch up to her brother and Maxwell, who weren't far ahead. "Perry, we're taking your hover-car, right?"

Perry glanced over at her. "Yeah, that's the plan. Why?"

"Just... I thought you kept your vehicles under your host family's house, in your lair."

Her brother just shrugged. "I drove it here today, so it's parked here. Besides..." He sighed. "If this is gonna be permanent, I should probably start keeping some of my vehicles here full-time."

Penny punched him affectionately. "Yeah, it sounds like you're stuck with me."

Perry grinned down at her. "How do you manage to make my prison sentence sound so much more appealing?"

Penny blinked innocently back. "Because I'm your loving little sister who wishes you were in my life more often. Now you can be."

"Yeah." Penny noticed the smile on Perry's face briefly flicker as he glanced away. "Now I guess I can."

Penny wanted to pry into the sudden- and suddenly over- change in his behavior, but as she opened her bill her breath got caught in her throat and she fell silent. No, that wasn't a good idea. How was she supposed to make this team work and keep everyone happy if she pried into every little issue?

Finally, the team reached OWCA's parking, and as Perry began to unlock and enter the hover-car, Penny hopped right next to the driver's seat before Maxwell could take the spot instead, like she highly suspected he otherwise would. Perry smirked over at her as he sat down in front of the wheel. "You've really missed me, huh?"

Penny just shrugged. "We have to sandwich in somewhere. Isn't this car only designed to hold four of us? Besides, I wanted to hang out with my big brother after our fight on Friday." And she wanted to try and squeeze her way back into Perry's life before Maxwell could completely pry in between them, like she feared.

She noticed Maxwell quietly sit down to her right, showing no issue with her "invasion." Either he was really quiet or she was overthinking about the entire situation. It was probably the latter, she was great at overthinking everything.

"You're awfully calm for the fact that we need to leave and track down a dangerous criminal," Astrid mumbled from the backseat. "You two sound like we're just heading out on some recreational trip."

Perry turned a slight scowl back to her. "Do you want to walk there yourself?"

Penny glanced back at Astrid, who was silent and staring somewhere else, completely ignoring Perry. Jordan, who was sitting next to her, cleared his throat. "She is right, though. The sooner we get there, the easier it'll be to track down Dennis and DANGER."

"I know." Perry started the car and picked it off the ground. Silence.

Penny cleared her throat. "Hey, on the bright side, this is our first field mission as a team. Isn't that exciting?"

She saw Perry grin and shake his head, and behind them she heard Jordan chuckle. "I guess that's a way to be optimistic." The red platypus cleared his throat. "But we should also make a game plan. How good at investigations are you?"

Penny fell silent, recognizing this question was not aimed at her, the rookie agent who had never even been in the field before.

"Personally, I'm more comfortable with sticking to computers," Astrid said. "Now that I'm not assigned to a specific nemesis anymore."

"I'm not bad." Penny turned to her brother to watch him speak. "I've done a fair share of investigations, I just don't get assigned to exercise that muscle often."

"Awfully humble of you." Maxwell looked over at him with a smirk. "Didn't you locate Agent G when no one else could find him?"

Penny noticed her brother had a slight smirk on his face, too, but he kept his gaze trained on the landscape again. "But that was one of the only proper investigations I've done. Besides, I'm determined that the only reason I did so well was because OWCA didn't spare the time to let any agents search for him sooner. Seriously, it was really easy, it's just that no one put any effort into it before."

"Ah, yes, Maxwell, he's so humble," Jordan said dryly.

"What do you want me to say?" A scowl flickered across Perry's face. "'Oh, well, it was really hard, but I'm so good at investigations and just at being an OWCA agent that I was able to succeed?' Personally I think that's a bit more self-righteous, but that might just be me. Remind me to just never bring up anything to do with my skills in OWCA anymore because I'll offend someone no matter what I say."

That shut everyone up, although it really wasn't the note that the conversation probably should have ended on. Penny opened her bill to bring up a more positive conversation, but her anxiety quickly kicked in and made her close her mouth again before she said anything stupid. Thankfully, it was only moments later when Perry finally parked on the street near the OWCA-Traz. Penny noticed a man quickly walk up to them as she got out of the car. "Are you the agents Major Monogram said were coming?"

Penny glanced over at the others and noticed them saluting, so she quickly did the same while her brother spoke up. "We came to-"

Jordan shot him a glare. "To track Dennis down. We believe he may be affiliated with a new threat in the Tri-State Area that we're attempting to locate. Our goal is to locate both at once."

Perry crossed his arms and scowled back, but he didn't say anything. Penny, who was standing on his left, lightly elbowed him and gave him a pleading look. "Don't forget the truce," she hoped it said.

Her brother rolled his eyes, but the scowl on his face faded as his attention fell back on the man before them, probably some undercover guard or representative of the OWCA-Traz. "Well, we have a slight suspicion as to where Dennis may have gone, but we're not positive how far he's gotten. We lost his track quickly."

"Leave it to us." Jordan held up his paw. "Just tell us which way he went and anything else you may think is important."

"Follow me." The guard led them down the sidewalk and around the corner of the building, turning to point at an alleyway across the street. "We thought we might have seen a glimpse of his fur in the alleyway, but didn't investigate because we're short on personnel, it may have been a trap, and we had already been informed you were coming."

"Yeah." Perry crossed his arms. "Sounds a little too easy, but we might as well as investigate that direction just in case."

Jordan nodded, looking back at the guard. "Thank you for your information. We'll handle the rest."

The guard saluted at them. "Good luck, agents." With that, he walked off, leaving the team to their own devices.

"So that sounded like a trap to the rest of you, right?" Astrid rested her hands on her hips and glanced around the group. "Dennis wouldn't just be careless like that, he's much more threatening than other villains OWCA has to face."

"It's highly possible," Jordan said. "Which is why we're going to investigate it carefully."

Perry cocked an eyebrow. "We're still investigating it?"

"It is a lead," the red platypus reminded. "And with the little we have on Dennis or DANGER in general, we need to work with what we've got. But, like I said, carefully. Since there's a chance that might be a red herring, we should probably split in two groups to cover more ground."

From next to the two sides of the group, she noticed Maxwell shoot her brother such a subtle glance that Perry himself probably didn't notice it, and across from them Astrid turned and whispered something to Jordan. Penny awkwardly clasped her paws behind her back and rocked on her feet. So she was the one who no one wanted to choose, what a surprise.

Jordan nodded as Astrid finished talking and backed away. "Alright, I think I have the two teams worked out. Penny, you're with Astrid and I, and Perry and Maxwell can be their own team." Great, more time away from her brother as Maxwell got to spend more time with him.

"What?" Penny glanced over at Perry, who was scowling at Jordan. "You... You want Penny on your team?"

"Yeah." Jordan shrugged. "Why does it matter?"

Perry was silent, simply glaring back.

Slowly Penny saw what seemed to be a form of recognition flash across Jordan's face, and he returned a scowl. "Seriously? Perry, I'm your team leader. If this truce is going to work, you need to trust me. Why the hell would I hurt Penny? Besides, Astrid's going to be with us."

Perry just snorted. "Yeah, 'cause Astrid's way better. I feel so much more reassured."

Oh, this was about the situation with Archer, wasn't it? Penny frowned. "Perry, Jordan's given us no reason to distrust him. He's not like Archer was." Penny saw a flash of surprise across Perry's face, but it flickered away quickly. "Besides, even if he does randomly show he's just as evil, which he won't, I'm an agent now. I can take care of myself."

Perry just turned his gaze to the ground. The team stood in an awkward silence for what felt like way too long before Jordan cleared his throat. Perry still didn't look up. "Well... If that's cleared... Since we're the larger team, we'll investigate the potential lead the guard gave us. Perry, Maxwell, I want you two to investigate in the opposite direction, to see if Dennis and his partner used a classic diversion technique."

Perry nodded, straightening up. "Alright. And whoever gets a lead first contacts the other?"

"Yeah, exactly."

"Right." Perry hesitated before looking over at Penny. "Good luck."

Penny grinned back at him. "Thanks." He was actually giving in to Jordan? He really was trying! "You, too."

Maxwell gently nudged her brother. "Come on, let's get moving."

As the pair began to walk away, Penny turned to Jordan. "I guess we should start investigating, too."

"Right." Jordan turned around to look at the alleyway Dennis was reportedly glimpsed in, sitting rather ominously across the street. Penny shook her head to clear it. For crying out loud, it was an alleyway, and she was a trained agent. There was no reason to view it as threatening.

"This way." Penny shook her head to rid it of her distracted thoughts while Jordan cautiously crossed the street, Astrid not far behind. Penny raced after them, and soon they reached the other side, only feet away from where the alleyway rested. "I'll lead," Jordan murmured. "You two come in behind me. Hopefully nothing bad will happen, but we can't risk it."

Penny nodded back, and out of the corner of her eye she saw Astrid do the same. Jordan inched closer to the alleyway and peeked inside, before cautiously turning and entering it. Penny met Astrid's eyes, and the white platypus simply stared back for a moment before following Jordan. Penny inhaled deeply. Come on, Penny, you're a trained agent. You've got this.

And with that, she entered behind her teammates.

Jordan was investigating something at the edge of the alleyway, bent on his knee to examine it. Penny glanced around, making sure it was safe, before joining him. "What did you find? Are things safe?"

"I think we're safe," Jordan said, glancing up at her briefly. "But I also think they wanted to throw us off their trail. Perry and Maxwell might have a bit more luck if that's the case."

"Well, you have something, right?" Penny settled on her knees next to him. "What is that?"

Jordan sighed, lifting his paw to give Penny a better look. Two of his fingers were pinched together- clearly something was between them- but she was having trouble seeing what it was. "I think it's a few of Dennis' hairs. But I can't quite tell."

Oh. Penny leaned forward and squinted slightly. Now she could see the faint outlines of a couple pieces of fur. "How are you sure it's Dennis'?"

Jordan shook his head. "I'm not, but it's all I've found so far. They are white, I can tell that much against the contrast of my own fur."

"Luckily, we don't need to be certain right now." Penny whirled around to see Astrid standing behind them, holding a small plastic bag in her paws. "Here, an evidence bag. We can take it back with us to run tests."

"Is...that worth the effort?" Penny frowned. "Especially if it doesn't end up being his fur?"

Astrid just shrugged. "It could be incredibly helpful if we can't locate DANGER today. If it is his fur, it might give us some clue to help find him later on."

"She's right." Carefully, Jordan placed the hairs in the bag. Astrid folded it up and put it away. "Right now we can't risk throwing away anything."

Penny hesitated. "Well, then what do we do from here?"

"What kind of question is that?" Penny look back at Astrid to see the white platypus crossing her arms. "Keep looking for leads. Seriously, have you ever been in the field before?"

"Astrid." Jordan scowled. "Tone it down, for goodness' sake."

"I..." Penny sighed. There was no point hiding it, they were her team now. "I...have never been in the field by myself before. E-Especially not for such an important type of mission, but... No."

She glanced between the two agents to see them exchange surprised looks. "But...you're an agent?" Jordan said slowly.

"Yes, I just graduated on Thursday."

"I thought part of training was to make sure you can handle yourself in the field." Astrid shifted her paws to her hips. "After going on some field missions shadowing real agents, you're supposed to succeed on a few of your own. What happened to that?"

Penny's gaze fell to the ground. How could she meet their eyes now? "My...training was delayed. To cut down on training time, Major Monogram agreed to only require the field experience shadowing an agent. I've...never been in the field on my own before." She hugged herself, scared to look up and see the expressions on their faces.

She was really just a pity case, that was all she had ever been. Even her assignment to this team probably was just the result of her delayed training, which only existed because of her own stubbornness and naivety. Her own agent experience was weak, so to make her feel better she got to work with some of OWCA's best- but in reality they were just babysitting her. And she'd only continue to provide absolutely no worth to this team unless she actually put her foot down and started getting everyone to get along. The minute that happened, she'd actually be useful for something. But even that wasn't looking good.

Astrid and Jordan were strangely silent for what felt like hours before Jordan finally spoke up. "Oh... I think I remember that. I forgot your training had been delayed. You're not much younger than us, right?"

Penny shook her head. "No, just by a little over a year."

"Wasn't it because you weren't ad-"

Penny flinched and held up her paw, shaking her head again- albeit much more frantically than before. "I-It doesn't matter. I really do want to do my best here, I just..."

Jordan cleared his throat, and Penny risked finally glancing up at him to see him smile. "Luckily, I don't think it's a big deal. It just means we can help teach you more, right, Astrid?"

To her dismay, the white platypus looked much less pleased than the red platypus, even rolling her eyes when the question was posed to her. "Sure, whatever you say. But I didn't sign up to be a babysitter."

There was that word again. Penny sighed. It felt even worse to hear it said aloud, but at least she knew it was true. She shook her head to clear it. "Never mind. We really need to try and find Dennis." She hopped to her feet, walked around Astrid, and placed her paws on her hips, now standing in the middle of the alley. "What sections of the alleyway haven't been examined yet?"

Jordan exchanged a brief glance with Astrid before getting to his feet as well and smiling at her. "Well, we should probably check further away from the street..."

(...)

"There's the rest of the alleyway." Penny flopped on the ground and sighed. "Where do we go from here?"

Astrid shrugged. "We keep searching down other streets until we find something. Or wait for Perry and Maxwell to contact us and tell us they have a lead."

"Well..." Penny turned to look at the opposite end of the alleyway. "There's another busy street out there. Surely he wouldn't risk walking into the open like that?"

"Exactly." Astrid smirked. "So we just need to choose which connecting alley-" she gestured to the two alleyways pointed north and south, sandwiching the alley they remained in- "to investigate and hope that it's the right choice. Unfortunately, when we don't have a lead, it's all we can do."

She turned her attention to their leader, who was sitting on a crate across the alley from them. "Right, Jordan?"

"Hmm?" The red platypus, who had been staring at the ground, glanced up. "O-Oh, yeah. Let's...go that way." He pointed at the alley on Penny and Astrid's side. "Just...give me a few minutes." With that, Jordan resumed staring at whatever he found so interesting.

Penny frowned. What was going on with him? Was he alright? He seemed really distracted all of a sudden. Had she done something wrong?

A voice pulled Penny out of her thoughts. "While we're waiting," Astrid said, sitting down next to Penny, "I needed to talk to you."

Oh, yeah, hadn't Jordan pushed for their team because Astrid said something to him? "Well... What is it?"

Astrid glanced down at her watch. "We were supposed to be meeting a certain rabbit at OWCA in an hour."

Oh. Penny sighed. "I almost forgot."

"Yeah, so I guess that's not going to happen." A scowl enveloped her face. "That's probably why he was so smug yesterday. Somehow he knew this would happen." Astrid's scowl transformed into a frown, and Penny met her gaze to see...sympathy? "How are you feeling?"

"Disappointed." Penny shrugged. "But right now our priority is to find him. And the sooner we do, the sooner I can learn what actually happened to my parents. He must have blocked that information for a reason, and maybe this investigation will help us learn more about their deaths."

"Huh." Astrid cocked her head at her. "You're taking it better than I thought you would."

"I've gone my whole life not knowing what happened to my parents, so I can go a bit longer." Penny smiled, although it felt weak. "What's a few extra days in comparison to four years?"

"You don't look very nonchalant." Astrid crossed her arms. "You seem like you're faking it a bit."

Penny shook her head. "No, I'm telling the truth. I just...find it a bit hard to smile right now. Things aren't going the greatest for me."

"Hmm." To her relief, Astrid didn't pry into that comment any further. "Jordan, what the hell's taking you so long? You need to catch your breath or something?"

The red platypus shook his head, as if clearing it of intrusive thoughts, and looked up at the two female platypuses waiting for him. "Oh, right. Sorry." He stood up. "Let's get going, I guess."

Penny and Astrid hopped to their feet as Jordan crossed the alleyway and entered the next alley, taking the lead. After a minute, though, Penny noticed him stop and fall back to where she and Astrid were walking side by side. "Hey, Astrid, could I have that evidence bag again?"

"With Dennis' fur? Why?"

"I just...want to get another look at it."

Penny and Astrid exchanged a confused frown before the white platypus shrugged. "Sure, I guess there's no reason why you can't." She pulled the bag out and handed it to him.

"Thanks." Jordan didn't even smile back as he took it from her, seemingly too concentrated on the evidence to pay real attention to her.

Penny frowned, looking past Astrid to him. What was up with him all of a sudden? He seemed almost shaken. Was he scared? Why was he the nervous one out of the three of them when this was her first time out in the field as an agent? And what had triggered the sudden attitude change?

The furrow of Astrid's gaze at him implied that she was thinking the same thing, but Penny didn't feel comfortable enough to inquire into it- and, based on her partner's silence, neither did Astrid.

Instead of focusing on her leader the same way Jordan was on the evidence, Penny pulled her gaze to the alleyway surrounding them, looking for anything that might give them a lead to where Dennis had gone. Astrid did the same, but within a couple of minutes the white platypus fell back and sighed. "I honestly don't think there's any point in doing this. Clearly that fur, if it was Dennis', was planted to send us on a wild goose chase. Perry and Maxwell are almost definitely going to find something useful before us."

"You're right." Penny frowned. "But we might as well keep searching until they contact us. What do you think, Jordan?"

Their leader glanced up from the evidence bag, clearing his throat and putting it away. "Um... I agree, Penny. Until something happens to tell us otherwise, we should keep searching. If this alleyway ends up being a dead end, we'll go back and check the other one."

Astrid crossed her arms, rolling her eyes in the process. "Alright, whatever."

As Penny returned to searching her side of the alley for any potential clues, her brother flashed through her mind. Were Maxwell and Perry having better luck? Would they find DANGER today after all?