Friends Invariably Never Allow Leaving
Damn those Kids Next Door... because of them the Delightful Children from Down the Lane were stuck here, hiding in this substandard building for their Father to come pick them up. They always had an escape plan when things went sour, and they'd agreed with their father that if anything happened they would meet here. But... he had yet to show up even after all this time.
Maybe he hadn't made it after all? Even they had lost track of him after him and that rat Hoagie Gilligan had vanished in a ball of fire. Maybe they had to face facts... admit that he was gone.
"My children." The Delightful Children whirled in surprise, looking up to see a dark figure standing on top of one of the rafters that held the roof in place. The kids stepped forward din unison.
"Father, you have finally arrived." The Delightful Children's voices were their usual monotone drawl, but their face lit up when they saw the dark figure above them. The figure jumped off the rafter, exploding into a ball of fire just before hitting the ground, landing in a crouching position. "Are we going to get revenge on those Kids Next Door now, Father?"
"No..." The figure moved to a standing position. The Delightful Children gasped and stepped back as one.
"Y... you're not Father." The Delightful Children backed away as the figure rose to its feet, glowing bright with white-hot fire.
"No." The figure grinned and raised one hand toward them. A stream of fire lashed out at the children, arching at the last second and leaving a trail around where they were standing. The kids huddled together in the center, staring at the figure angrily.
"Who are you? What have you done with Father?" They demanded, showing real emotion for once. The figure let out a barking laugh and walked toward them, raising one fiery hand to point its palm straight at them.
"If you're so worried about him, go with him." A stream of fire shot from the figure's palm, engulfing the center of the fire ring in a sea of flames. The Delightful Children let out a furious howl, breaking their usual grouping in their desperation to escape the blaze. They crawled from the fire and climbed to their knees, but the figure stood over them again with a wide, mocking grin.
No words were exchanged as the figure flung its arms out, sending flames roaring over every inch of the massive building. Soon the entire building began to collapse, trapping the Delightful Children and the figure inside. "One organization toppled... one to go." The figure turned away from the children, leaving them trapped in the midst of falling debris and flames. There was no escape this time... just like there would be no escape for the Kids Next Door.
So much changes as time progresses. Friends leave, and new ones take their place. Priorities change, personalities shift, and still time marches on marking change after change in a never-ending evolution. Kuki couldn't even recognize the team of which she was now the leader... she knew some of them, but they weren't supposed to be Kids Next Door. They were supposed to be normal little kids... but they'd grown, and joined the Kids Next Door.
Numbuh Five was Tommy Gilligan, Hoagie's little brother. His enthusiasm for aeronautics wasn't as great as his brother's, but he was still a rather creative boy, coming up with weapons that would have surely made his older brother proud if he hadn't disappeared several months ago. Cleopatra Winterson remained at her post as Numbuh Four, providing a voice of reason to counter Tommy's rather eccentric ideas.
Kuki's own little sister, Mushi Sanban, had taken her place as Numbuh Three. Kuki had been extremely surprised to see the girl signing up for the Kids Next Door, but she supposed she shouldn't have been. The little girl had loved tagging along on missions whenever she could. The spot of Numbuh Two was taken by a kid named Jared Jameson. He was rather rough around the edges, but he was able to calm down... sometimes. Kuki was, of course, Numbuh 1.
She gasped in surprise when a face popped up in front of her. This sent a lungful of bathwater into her lungs, forcing her to come up coughing and sputtering, covering her developing breasts. "Mushi!" Kuki yelled angrily, glaring at the younger girl as she hacked up the water in her lungs. "How many times have I told you not to walk in on people in the bath?"
Mushi laughed hysterically and put her oversized sweater sleeves together in front of her, putting on her best innocent face. "I didn't mean to do anything bad." She said softly.
Kuki grumbled and rolled her eyes, wiping a few stray strands of sopping wet hair out of her face. Sometimes she felt more like a babysitter than the leader of a team. "Okay... what's going on?" She asked, keeping one arm covering her breasts while the other held her hair out of her eyes.
"You have a visitor waiting in the living room. He's thirteen, but he says he's here to wish you a happy birthday." Mushi grinned mischievously. "And he's your boooyfriiieeend!"
Kuki growled and lunged for her sister, but the smaller girl twirled out of her way. Was Kuki ever this irritating when she was nine? "Fine, tell him I'll be right there." She muttered. Mushi giggled and darted out of the bathroom, leaving Kuki to climb out of the tub and dry herself off. She quickly pulled her now not-so-loose sweater on over her black tights and walked out to the main living room.
"This place looks different than I remember..." A pleasantly familiar Australian accent said from the living room as she approached the entrance.
"That's because it is different." Kuki stated as she entered the room. Wallabee Beatles turned to look over at her curiously. He looked like she remembered, though perhaps a little taller and lankier than before. "The tree house was burnt pretty bad a few months ago, but they managed to fix it so we could move back in."
"That would do it." Wallabee smiled ironically and walked over to her, shoving his hands in his pockets. "So this is it eh? The last one of us turning thirteen." Kuki looked down nervously, so he looked around and changed the subject. "How ya been Kuki?"
"Pretty bad, actually." Kuki smiled sadly, looking down at the ground again. Wallabee cocked his head to the side and stared at her.
"That's not the girl I knew before." He reached out and put one hand on her shoulder. "You're not supposed to get this depressed. You're the happy one." He smiled.
"Well I..." Kuki stopped and looked to the side slowly. Mushi was lying on the floor, kicking her legs in a leisurely manner while she watched them with a dreamy smile on her face. "Bedroom?"
"Bedroom." Wallabee agreed, following her toward one of the adjacent rooms. They ignored the exclamations of 'ooohhhh' and the mock kissing noises from the other operatives, closing the door behind them. Kuki sighed and sat down on the edge of her bed. Her room was no longer full of plushy animals... in fact, it was almost completely barren except for the necessary furniture.
"Level with me Kuki. What's goin' on?" Wallabee walked over to her and sat down beside her. "I leave for a few months and it's like you're a different person." Kuki sighed and shook her head slowly before looking up at him.
"I guess... I am a different person Wally..." Kuki replied. It was a discussion she'd had with herself time and time again... always reaching the same conclusion. "I've grown up..."
"Well so've I..." Wallabee told her, looking around at the sparsely decorated walls as though looking for some sign of the girl he'd known months ago. "But that doesn't have to be a bad thing." He looked down at her again, putting one hand on her chin and making her look at him. "I can do things now that I couldn't do before... because I was too... immature."
"Like what...?" Kuki asked breathily, staring at him. The breath caught in her throat as Wallabee pulled her face closer to his, until their lips touched lightly. He let the kiss end a few moments later, leaving Kuki staring at him through half closed eyes. "I missed you Wally..." She flung her arms around him and hugged him tightly, burying her face in his chest.
She felt him wrap his arms around her, but suddenly he tensed up. Kuki blinked and looked up at him curiously. He was staring down at her, his eyes wide and his mouth agape. "I... remember..." He gulped, his eyebrows furrowing worriedly. "I remember what I... did... I..."
"Ssshhh..." Kuki put one hand on his lips to stop him, smiling though tears were running down her cheeks. "I don't blame you..." She told him softly. He stared down at her, his eyes watering openly for the first time since she'd known him. It seemed she wasn't the only one whom time had changed.
The flames spread through the city like a lightning strike, engulfing everything in their path. Everything burned, from the steel on the cars to the pavement on the street. Like a plague it devoured everything in its path, sweeping through the town and leaving behind only ashes mixed with fragments of memories. Nothing was safe.
The jewel-blue sky went black as smoke floated up from the mass of ashes and destruction on the ground. Screams and sirens wailed, coupled with the gunshots of those too scared to realize that there was nothing for them to fight. The fire consumed them within seconds, moving on as if they had never even existed. It was almost as if the blaze had a target.
Death... destruction... revenge. They tasted so sweet, he couldn't believe he hadn't tasted them before. But his revenge wouldn't be finished until he saw one more group of faces fall beneath his blaze. The flames grew in intensity at the thought, surging through the landscape like a cascade of water, independent of fuel sources or the attempts of firefighters to stop it.
At last... the flames swept up the base of a familiar looking tree house. It had been months, but he was finally strong enough to come here. The flames swept into the main living area, where four children leapt in surprise to their feet. Their eyes went wide and screams erupted from their throats as the flames swept over them. They lurched to get out of the way.
Kuki opened her eyes and looked over at the door at the same time Wallabee did. They had both heard the screams, and smoke was pouring under the crack in the door. "What the Hell?" Wallabee muttered. Kuki lurched up from the bed and grabbed her robe from the nightstand, pulling it on before pulling her bedroom door open.
She screamed and stepped back as flames licked at her, pushing her back onto the bed so that her robe wouldn't ignite. Wallabee had pulled his boxers on by that time, and he pulled her back off the other side of the bed, backing away from the flames.
"Wallabee... you're here too. Good... that's one less to hunt down." A gruff... but familiar voice told them. A pair of eyes peered out of the flames, narrowed in pure hatred.
"Hoagie...?" Kuki whispered in awe, staring at the inferno in front of her. "What... what are you doing?"
"You... you Kids Next Door ruined everything!" Hoagie screamed, no longer even sounding human. "I was happy there with her! But you... none of you could let me move on! You want to make me miserable because I'm not a kid anymore!" Kuki stared at the eyes, then looked beyond. The living room was covered in flames, without an inch of clean floor.
"M... Mushi!" Kuki covered her mouth with her arms. "Cleopatra... Jared... Tommy..." Her bottom jaw started to quiver as she turned her gaze on the living inferno again. "What have you done?"
"Shut up!" The flames reared up and lurched toward them. Wallabee grabbed Kuki by the shoulders and dove behind the bed, protected for the moment by the physical barrier. Soon however the bed ignited and they were forced to scramble toward a window.
"Go!" Kuki shoved Wallabee out the window and moved to follow, but the fire crept along the wall and surged in front of her, scorching her arm and leg that were already through. Kuki screamed and fell back to the floor, clutching the burnt flesh and whimpering in pain.
"KUKI!" She heard Wallabee scream from outside the window, but there was no way he could possibly reach her.
The flames moved toward her, with those evil eyes staring down at her. "One... down..." A grin spread across what Kuki guesses was his face, pushing the flames out of the way. The fire spread toward her along the ground. She clenched her eyes shut, curling into a little ball and hoping that it would be over quickly...
"Kids Next Door... battlestations!" A high, squeaky, and blissfully familiar voice screamed. Kuki opened her eyes in surprise to see Mushi, Cleopatra and Jared rush into the room, each armed with a backpack full of pressurized water. The triple jets pierced the intense flames, striking Hoagie and sending up billows of steam from the contact.
"Agh! Go away!" Hoagie screamed, an intense flash sending the three kids up against the wall.
"Owwie..." Mushi groaned, reaching behind her to rub her back. Hoagie stomped toward them angrily, his dark, glowing body revealed now that the flames had been doused by the water. The little girl looked up at him as he approached, trying in vain to scoot away from him.
"No more Kids Next Door!" Hoagie raised his arm, which was instantly engulfed in flames once again. Everyone whirled when they heard Wallabee from outside the window.
"Ragh!" They heard him scramble frantically away from the window. Everyone else stared in confusion until they heard another voice, this one belonging to Tommy, Hoagie's younger brother.
"Bath time! Bwahahahahaha!" Tommy shouted in excitement as the whir of a massive engine floated in through the window.
"Tommy...?" Hoagie muttered softly. He didn't have time for a change of heart. A flood of water poured through the window with enough force to sweep everyone in the room out into the main living room. Kuki held her breath as she was swept along with the current, almost being swept clear off one of the base's many balconies.
She grabbed a bar and waited for the flood to subside before taking stock of the situation. Mushi, Cleopatra, and Jared had all managed to grab hold of whatever they could to save themselves. Hoagie was lying on the floor in a shuddering heap, looking more like Father than the loveable butterball she'd known before. That butterball was gone... Kuki's place was gone... everything was gone..."
"Kuki! Are you okay?" Wallabee rushed up to her and knelt beside her, helping her stand. Kuki leaned against him, looking around at the other Kids Next Door operatives. Despite the close call and the drenching they'd received, all four of them seemed extremely excited.
"How's THAT for a first mission?" Jared grinned in excitement.
"Oh that was the best! The fire was all pppsshhthththtpshshshsh! Then we busted in and shot it all down! Then the flood!" Mushi shouted excitedly, jumping up and down.
"A job well done I think." Cleopatra was the ever-calm one in the group, but even she had a wide smile on her face.
"All thanks to me." Tommy grinned. "And I'll never let you guys forget it!" He laughed.
"Oh you!" Mushi growled. "Arrogant little boogerhead!" She tackled Tommy, not caring about the mess or the body lying just feet away from them.
Kuki watched this all blankly, then started to smile as she looked up at Wallabee. "I get it..." She whispered softly, staring at him. "I finally get it..." She laughed and threw her arms around him again.
"Uh... get what, Kuki?" Wallabee asked blankly, wrapping his arms around her. Kuki didn't respond, she was too busy watching the other children laughing and enjoying their victory. This was what it was all about... this was why they'd always fought... why they had never given up. Not for the sake of kid-kind, not for some vain hope that they would one day actually win against all of the oppressive adults in the world.
Her voice had been high and frustrated... demanding an answer. "Tell me what the point of this is! We... we do all this... then we grow up... or... or we die? Why do anything? Why why why..." She'd muttered, not understanding anything. Nigel had walked up to her and put a hand on her shoulder, saying just one word. She hadn't known how complete of an answer he was really giving her at the time... but now she knew. It truly was the reason for all of this... the only reason she needed.
"Memories."
THE END