You guysssss I'm actually back! I told you I would be :D Though I've probably lost quite a few fans, since it's been so long. That hiatus lasted longer than a couple of months... to say the least. Buut I've gotten reinvigorated for this universe and these characters, so I'm back and I hope it can stay that way! Uploads will be less frequent than they used to be, especially because I've been very busy with college stuff (slightly more info on my profile), but I'm going to try and upload a chapter once a month, maybe even more than that if I'm feeling extra inspired. I can't make any promises, since I'm balancing work and university classes and tend to only write when inspiration hits, but I really want to keep getting this story out to you guys again. Sorry again about the super long break, but like I said at the end of the last chapter, I don't care if it takes me until the end of my days, I will finish these stories.

Enjoy!

Penny heard her alarm going off and groaned, weakly lifting her head up just enough to slam her paw down on it, turning it off. She sighed and rolled onto her back, staring up at the ceiling. Another fine morning. At first she felt the classic dread she had gotten used to feeling upon waking; it was time to face the day- and the team that she was still failing to pull together.

Then all the memories from the day prior came rushing back to her, and she sat up in bed, suddenly energized. Wait, hadn't the day actually gone pretty well? She had finally learned the truth about her parents, she had managed to get Maxwell to open up a little, and even Jordan had...kind of... shared something she hadn't expected but was good to know. Not only that, but they had worked out a plan to try and start taking down DANGER, which was the entire point of the team's existence. With everything that had happened yesterday, maybe today would actually go pretty well.

As she hopped out of bed and began to brush her fur flat, she remembered what had caused such productivity in the first place, and her heart sank a bit. The argument between Perry and Jordan, as always. And with Perry coming back in to work again today, tensions were bound to be high. They really couldn't afford to let any personal feelings get in the way today, not considering the fact that they were about to try and take down two of OWCA's most dangerous enemies. It was more than a bit of a fragile task.

Penny sighed, forcing herself to stop dwelling on all the negatives. She didn't want to get trapped in them. Who knew? Maybe everyone would just be in a really good mood today. And her brother still wasn't bad at keeping his feelings and work separate in the field- although obviously at headquarters was a different story entirely. He wouldn't let her down... Right?

Well, this sucked. Now she was beginning to doubt Perry, her only family. Penny closed her eyes, unable to look at her own reflection as the guilt crept in. Was that really what she was thinking about now? Was she really falling apart that badly?

No. Penny exhaled. No, she wasn't. Things were turning around yesterday, and they would continue to turn around today.

With those thoughts echoing through her mind, she made her way to the cafeteria, grabbed a quick snack, and directed herself back to OWCA's gym.

With her breakfast detour, she found that she wasn't the first person on her team in the gym today- not like she was every day anyway. Actually, her first teammate there was...her brother. Perry was just sitting there, staring off into space. After yesterday, she hadn't expected him to be the first person back, but there he was.

Penny took a bite of her apple and sat down next to him, immediately pulling his attention to her. He smiled at her. "Hey, Pen."

Penny blinked. And he was in a good mood, too? What had she missed? After swallowing her bite of apple, she smiled back at him. "Are... Are you feeling better?"

Perry nodded. "Yeah. Maxwell and I talked yesterday, and I think that helped."

Right. Maxwell had been planning on visiting him. Penny had managed to forget that again. She bit back a frown, not wanting Perry to see how she felt. "I-I... That's good." Was Maxwell really taking her place? It took one afternoon for him to improve Perry's mood, something that Penny hadn't been able to do ever since she graduated. "Did he also tell you the plan for the day?"

Her brother nodded again. "Yep. We'll infiltrate DANGER today to try and catch Dennis or Rodrigo. Honestly, I think that was a pretty smart decision that you guys made while I was gone."

Penny really didn't want to say this. She didn't. But she felt obligated to. She couldn't just go lying to her own brother, especially not when she wanted him to fit into the team. "That was...actually Maxwell's idea."

Perry's whole expression seemed to brighten a little, and a small smile seemed to play at the edges of his bill. "Well, he didn't tell me that."

Penny hesitated, unsure of what else to say. She took another bite of her apple in the awkward silence that followed, hoping something else would happen soon after.

Her wish was granted. Perry turned back to her. "Maxwell also told me that you were telling them about why you graduated late."

Oh... Right. Penny nodded. "Yeah, I did. B-But it wasn't to gain their sympathy or anything," she added quickly. "I just... I... I wanted Maxwell and Astrid to feel a bit more comfortable to open up. Since we're all gonna be on a team together until... Well... Until one of us quits, I guess."

Perry was silent. He probably didn't like to be reminded that this team was permanent, not just around until DANGER was taken down. Penny bit the inside of her bill. Maybe she shouldn't have said that, then.

The pair was quiet until one of their teammates walked through the door: Jordan. Penny shrank back as soon as he made eye contact with Perry, worried about how this would go down. She knew Jordan wanted to apologize, but Perry wasn't an easy person to apologize to.

"I'm...glad you came back today," Jordan said slowly, turning his gaze from her brother down to the floor.

Perry snorted, but he didn't say anything, actually letting Jordan continue. "I feel like my behavior was a bit irrational yesterday morning. I've just... I've been in a difficult mindset the last few days."

Penny's brother stayed quiet, and she couldn't tell if he was just not hearing Jordan- like yesterday- if he was trying to figure out what to say, or if he was giving his leader the silent treatment.

Jordan couldn't seem to figure out which it was either, so he kept talking. "I know that talking about your past is hard for you, especially with...with what happened. We don't agree on- well, anything, really. But I guess we can agree that you didn't deserve to go through that, and-"

Perry held his paw up, and Jordan fell silent. Surprisingly, there was a small, very subtle smirk playing on Perry's bill. "Well, I wasn't expecting you to have that much of an apology. I hate to admit that...I'm kind of impressed." He snorted again. "I guess something else we can agree on is that apologies are not my strong suit. " He glanced over at Penny, meeting her eyes for a moment, before turning back to Jordan. "I think I've made how I feel about you pretty obvious, especially this past week. Plus, we do still have that truce going. So... I'll try not to let it bother me. For now."

Jordan crossed his arms, an amused smirk crossing his own bill. "Well, that's something. So you'll be a professional today?"

Perry shrugged. "Pen told me today'll be a pretty big deal. With any luck, we'll lock Dennis back up and put Rodrigo in jail too. I'd rather prioritize those two."

Holding his gaze, Jordan nodded. "Alright. Let's hope that sticks." He sat down on the floor, glancing down at his OWCA watch. "I hope the other two show up soon, we need to get an early start planning exactly how this will go down."

As if saying that summoning him, Maxwell walked through the doors at that point, smiling at Perry as he sat on the other side of him on the floor. "Morning. Are you...feeling better?"

Penny watched her brother smile back, nodding. "Yeah, ready to lock those two up, Dennis especially."

"It'll be nice to have them out of the way," Maxwell agreed, his gaze shifting to Jordan sitting across from them. "And... Jordan? Are...you..."

"Yeah, I'm fine." Jordan nodded, a weak smile playing at his bill. "I just want to get this done."

"I like that motivation." Everyone turned to see Astrid standing near them, her arms crossed. "I was wondering how long it would take for you guys to notice me. Everyone's eyes were on Maxwell, so I was curious."

She plopped onto the ground near them. "But today's important, so we should cut the small talk short and focus on the mission." The white platypus pulled out a piece of paper and a pen from under her hat. "I made a rough sketch of what we saw of their headquarters after we went our separate ways yesterday. We only saw a glimpse, but hopefully we have enough knowledge now to give us a start."

"We could definitely build a foundation from this," Penny heard her brother murmur. "Luckily, we found the security cams last time, which gives us a head start. Astrid, you should probably stay up there and keep an eye on us while we head down into the headquarters."

Penny glanced up at Astrid to see her nod. "Sounds good. Jordan?"

"Yeah, I think Perry's got the right idea." Jordan hesitated. "But you shouldn't be up in cams alone. If one other person stayed up there with you, then the other three of us would probably be alright downstairs."

"I could stay," Maxwell offered. "You would have the most experience facing them, after all."

"I…" Penny hesitated. "Well… Perry would, at least."

Perry nodded. "I do think I should help hunt them down, I've faced Dennis twice and won both times."

"And you helped take down Rodrigo that one time, too," Maxwell added. "Right?"

Penny turned to look at her brother again, who awkwardly rubbed the back of his head. "Well, Monty actually did most of the heavy lifting on that mission."

"Either way, you still have more experience fighting him than we do," Astrid said, grabbing a pen out of her fedora and beginning to scribble notes on the map. "So Maxwell's right. You definitely belong downstairs." She looked up and glanced between Perry and Jordan. "If Maxwell was with me, that would mean you two would be working together. Would that end badly?"

"I can focus on the mission," Perry said with a shrug.

"We should be fine," Jordan added. He turned his head over to Penny and gave her a smile. "We'll have our mediator with us anyway."

Penny laughed nervously, turning her gaze to the ground. "I didn't really think I was that helpful, but…thank you."

"Alright, if you're sure," Astrid said. She finished scribbling things on the map and Penny was able to read what she had been writing. It was just their names, with Astrid and Maxwell in the security room and the other three downstairs. "Jordan, since you are the team leader, we probably need your confirmation. We access the building the same way we did before, climbing in through this window on the right. We didn't leave any trace of our entry before, so it should still have pretty lax security. Then Maxwell and I will head to the cams and I'll set them up. We'll take turns watching the camera and watching down the hall to our room to make sure we're safe, and headset you if we see a potential threat. Then you three will go downstairs like before, and scout out the area below. The plan is to try and capture Dennis and Rodrigo, who are likely the two in charge of DANGER, and neutralize the threat the organization as a whole may pose. This could change, if they are not there or a larger threat reveals itself. Additionally, if worst comes to worst, we may need to retreat. Maxwell or I will likely be the one to call a retreat, and we'll need you three to either locate an exit downstairs or come upstairs as soon as possible. Currently, our known exit options are one of these four windows or the front doors, although all of these may be blocked off in the event of an emergency, in which case we'll need to improvise when the time comes, since we don't know enough about the building as is."

Jordan nodded. "That sounds good. It will likely be one of you calling the retreat, over cams, but I should emphasize that any of us can call the retreat and we'll still need the agreement of at least one other agent."

"We should also make sure the cameras in our fedoras are activated," Perry added, glancing at Penny and Jordan in turn. "That way we can keep track of any new rooms we find and allow OWCA to record new information we learn about DANGER. And we need to remember to not make finding Dennis and Rodrigo our sole focus. Any new information we can pick up will be handy."

Everyone else nodded, and Penny tried to meet Perry's eyes. She wanted to let him know that she was gonna really do her best, since she felt like she hadn't done much up to that point. He had probably directed that information to her, since she still wasn't as comfortable in the field as the rest of them were. But he wouldn't look at her, he was looking across to Maxwell.

Whatever, it clearly wasn't worth it right now. She had to focus on the mission, otherwise this could all fall apart. They were going to try and take down Rodrigo and Dennis, that wasn't exactly a simple task. Maybe the best way to prove to Perry that she was going to do her best was just to do her best.

"Does anyone have any questions?" Jordan looked around the group; everyone was silent. "Alright, then. Let's take them down."

….I guess.

(...)

"Everyone remembers the plan?" Jordan asked as they stood outside the window in the alleyway.

Penny nodded, feeling her heart pounding in her chest. She glanced around the rest of the group. Perry, Astrid, and Maxwell all seemed calm… Obviously, after all, they had done this before. This was just another day on the job for them.

Her eyes met Jordan's again- she noticed with a start that he actually seemed a bit nervous, his black eyes darting around the alleyway to the window to the group and back to the alleyway. Why was he nervous? He wasn't the best OWCA agent- that title went to her brother- but he was just as equally experienced as Astrid and Maxwell, he had no reason to be nervous…. Didn't he?

She shook her head in a poor attempt to clear it. It was fine. She just had to focus, follow the directions, and stick with Perry and Jordan. Maxwell and Astrid would be watching from the cameras, they'd be safe. Dennis and Rodrigo weren't that big a threat anyway, they just had to be stopped before things could get worse.

"Alright. Then let's get started." Jordan turned to Perry. "Since I'm in charge, I should go in last."

Perry just grinned. "Ladies first. By all means, you go ahead."

Astrid rolled her eyes. "Girls, you're both pretty." She shoved her way between the two of them and slowly opened the window. "If you're too scared, I'll go first." With that, there was a flash of white as she quickly pulled herself into the building.

"I'm not scared!" Perry said defensively, clambering in after her.

Maxwell, quiet as ever, climbed in right after him, and Maxwell helped Penny follow him up. Just like he said, Jordan was in the back, and he quietly closed the window behind them.

"You're closing our escape route?" Astrid hissed.

"We don't want someone to walk by and see an open window and suspect something," Jordan whispered back. "We can open it up again if we need to."

"It's not important right now," Perry interrupted quietly. "We should have plenty of escape routes when the time comes."

"Right." Jordan sighed. "We need to split up."

Astrid glanced over at Maxwell, who gave her a small nod. "We'll head to cams. Good luck, you three." They walked down the hall, leaving Penny alone with Jordan and Perry.

Perry turned to Jordan and Penny. "Well, you two know where we're going," he whispered. "Lead the way."

Jordan did just that, taking charge and walking the trio over to the hidden staircase. Penny nervously hung back, and Perry started glancing over his shoulder at her. While Jordan was opening up the door, Perry took a couple steps back to where Penny was standing awkwardly. "You okay?" he murmured.

"I'm fine," Penny said, forcing her tone to sound bright. "I-I've trained for this, it's no biggie." She heard her voice shake but did her best to ignore it.

Perry didn't seem to believe her. He hesitated, opened his bill to say something else, and was cut off by Jordan. "Let's go, guys." The siblings looked back at him to see the stairway fully accessible.

The trio started making their way cautiously down the stairs, Jordan in the front and Perry in the back. Penny glanced around for any sign of a camera or…. anyone… But no one was there. It was just the three agents, slowly walking down the stairs.

Clearly she wasn't the only one at all unnerved by this. Once they made it to the basement hallway, near the meeting room Penny had listened in on with Jordan before, the place still felt empty. And this time, Jordan finally spoke up about it. "It feels…too quiet," he murmured.

"Don't let down your guard too much," Perry said quietly, getting off the stairs behind Penny and glancing back up behind them. "This is a whole hideout, people could still be somewhere. If we split up, we can cover more ground."

"No," Jordan said shortly.

"No?" Perry scowled. "Why not?"

"Because I'm the leader, and you need to listen to me," Jordan hissed. "I don't trust this, and I want us to stick together. At least right now."

Perry rolled his eyes. "Alright then. What do you want us to do, O Wise One?"

"Drop the sarcasm, first off. Second, let's just explore these first few rooms together." Jordan took a couple cautious steps down the hallway and poked his head into the meeting room. "It's empty. This one's clear."

Perry walked up next to him, peeking in the room himself. "There are some papers sitting on the table, those might be useful."

Penny awkwardly bounced on her feet, watching their backs by keeping an eye on the hallway and stairs. She couldn't see what they were talking about, but she didn't want to get in the way. At least she could make herself useful by making sure they weren't going to be snuck up on.

"You're right," Jordan said. He sounded a bit reluctant, Penny realized. "Let's see if we can find any useful information in there. Without leaving a trace that tells them we were here."

Perry nodded, glancing back to Penny. "C'mon, Pen."

Penny nodded back and hesitantly followed the two of them into the meeting room. It was a rather simple room, just a big- human-sized- oval table with various chairs placed around it. Sure enough, there were some papers scattered across the top, and in the back of the room was a set of cabinets. She noticed the security camera in the corner of the room, where Astrid and Maxwell were- hopefully- watching from.

Perry and Jordan were already trying to look at the papers without disturbing anything. Penny decided she needed to make herself useful and followed their lead, making her way to the edge of the table and climbing up onto a chair to try and see what the papers said. Perry and Jordan were just tall enough that they didn't need a chair, but Penny was still a bit shorter than them. It looked like a pretty dense….whatever it was; there were four thick paragraphs of text across the paper.

As Penny started reading the first paragraph, she heard Perry mutter something. "This doesn't make any sense. It's just the one paragraph that repeats, and it… It's on every single piece of paper."

"And the paragraph isn't anything useful, either." Jordan frowned.

Penny felt her heart sink. "M-Maybe it just doesn't make sense because we're not part of the group?" she suggested, trying to grasp onto whatever hope she had left.

"Or there's something deeper going on," Jordan mumbled.

Suddenly, she heard a heavy set of footsteps. It sounded like- like a human! Like a human running! Before the trio could react, the footsteps were running upstairs.

"Damn it, there was someone here!" Jordan slammed one of the pieces of paper back on the table. "I thought it was too quiet, it was a trap! Come on, we need to get out of here. Now."

Perry's eyes widened. "They went upstairs… Maxwell's upstairs!"

Before Jordan or Penny could say anything, Perry bolted out of the door and up the stairs.