Post by CCACorn26 on Feb 16, 2009 0:51:27 GMT -5
A new Wally/Kuki story, eh? Well, perhaps this took me long enough to consider, but after at least 17 months and a mental deadlock that has seen the inauguration of American President Barack Obama, the mental experiment I've been conducting with my fanfiction may in fact be almost complete... and that realization might have begun with this story.:
“Vultures and Lovebirds at the Dragon’s Mouth”
Chapter 1: “A Dead Man Sitting”
The shoulder-length-blonde-haired American girl and the bald British boy sat without a word at the front seats of the winged vehicle as it glided stealthily through the atmosphere, the girl’s command helmet tucked as firmly atop her head as the boy’s sunglasses were atop his nose. While the girl gripped the vehicle’s steering wheel masterfully, perhaps even naturally, the boy held a small device displaying what looked like a map with one solid blue dot moving rather rapidly for that map toward one blinking red dot with a tiny yellow star in its center, indicative of their destination, if anyone happened to observe it closely enough. Anyone with an interest in romantic friendship or even outright romance might have suspected right away that these two kids were on some sort of spying version of a date, but the younger double-ponytail-blonde-haired girl and winter-capped boy who were sitting no-nonsensically in the vehicle’s back seats and the four strange rifles that each had a design of a small blizzard next to a bolt of lightning at both of their sides would have given the impression that this was no ordinary date. The mission tucked firmly into the four kids’ minds even at this moment would have confirmed such an impression, despite any reputations that the romantic friendship between the two kids in the front seats and the simpler, if not also romantic, friendship of the two kids behind that first couple had gained within their organization. Whereas Nigel Uno and Rachel McKenzie were thought to be an excellent couple of commanders in the Kids Next Door, Lee Curtis and Sonia Mason were thought to be younger versions of a couple widely regarded as the most romantically popular couple in the Kids Next Door. As it happened, Nigel was the sector leader for that couple, as well as another pair of kids who were slightly calmer and more carefree, and Rachel was the Supreme Commander of the entire organization, all across Earth. Lee and Sonia were happy simply to hang out with each other as often as they did, whether they were getting ice cream at a store in Gallagher or looking up at the sky and trying out to figure out what surprises any clouds drifting overhead happened to hold for them. As the four-seated Supreme Commander’s personal ROADSTAR darted toward a large gloomy cloud drifting along a breeze that was imperceptible to its driver and practical owner and her three companions, a grim certainty about the information leading up to a certain mission with consequences perhaps distinctly and unimaginably dangerous was locked within their minds.
Nigel looked down at the device and pressed a button to reveal on the map a thin red circle at the center of which sat the blinking red dot. “We’re getting close to the detection grid. Once we pass it, it’ll be 20 more minutes before we reach our target.”
Rachel narrowed her eyes to focus directly in front of her while the ROADSTAR passed through that gloomy cloud. “Numbuhs 83 and 84, do you see any sign of approaching bogies?”
Lee and Sonia looked from their respective sides as soon as the ROADSTAR completed its descent out of that cloud, revealing a sky that would have been appropriately gloomy for not only their destination, but also the land around it, and after about five or six seconds, they shook their heads negatively. “No. We’re cool over here.”
Rachel nodded directly and rapidly. “Good. As of now, the last thing we need is either a distraction or a slipup.” She moved her pointing finger toward a button indicating a solution that all four of them admired. “I’m activating the cloaking field... now.”
“Oh... I hope we’re all gonna be okay...” Sonia said, innocent concern easily discernible in her voice as a striking rippling effect encompassed the ROADSTAR, almost like a shimmering chessboard.
Lee simply paused for a few extra seconds, a certain calmness not so discernible in his voice. “Eh, it might be kinda cool to kick this Moon Hwan-Il guy’s butt.”
A sober smirk crossed Nigel’s face. “If what Sectors C, KR, PH, JP, and AU told us is correct, then it might be his generals’ butts we’ll be more likely to worry about kicking, not his own.” He glanced at the map on the small device once more, the solid blue dot now almost touching the thin red circle. “Laser rifles and sensor-jamming pods secured. Defense perimeter breached in five... four... three... two... one.”
A moment passed with no sound whatsoever between Nigel, Rachel, Lee, and Sonia as the ROADSTAR sailed on, and while Lee and Sonia looked between each other and the four ice/electric beam laser rifles between their back seats, Rachel and Nigel glanced at each other with a shared sense of authoritativeness and duty, attributes that their fellow Kids Next Door could regard highly, from Nigel’s teammates in Sector V to Rachel’s main deputies in Global Command. They didn’t quite expect the information they’d been receiving from their comrades in East Asia, but if the Kids Next Door was to continue defending the ability of kids across Earth to have fun simply being kids, then it would doubtlessly need all the information it could get about any new adult villains to emerge in the wake of Father’s supposedly “ultimate” attempt to take over the world several months ago... which ended up backfiring on him, as the Senior Citizombies overrunning the entire planet that day would have indicated instantaneously. As Nigel, Rachel, Lee, and Sonia turned their eyes forward and the still-cloaked ROADSTAR traveled steadily over the slightly mountainous landscape below, now approaching a city that had remained hidden from the rest of the world due to the man mentioned in their conversation, they could only retain their quiet disturbance -- and disbelief -- at the mission they were about to undertake at one of that city’s most famous, or, maybe more aptly, infamous buildings... and any conclusions they might reach once they accomplished it.
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The man sat wearily and bitterly at his desk as he looked around his spacious office before swerving his revolving chair around to face the window, which one might very well have considered appropriately bleak upon comparing it to the gloomily gray skies directly above the city in which he now spent his days -- if one were able to do so. Opposite the side where the man sat, a single large flagpole stood lifelessly next to a massive set of pale golden double doors that strangely didn’t have as much illumination within them as they had in days past, and at one side of the office, a single portrait of a man who seemed to look as forebodingly across the room as he did ahead of him hung perhaps more lifelessly, if that were even possible, below five streamers that all shared as common features a solid red field sandwiched between two thinner lines of blue at top and bottom, respectively. At the leftmost end of each streamer was a discernible solid white circle with a red five-pointed star in its middle, which would have filled the man with a certain level of pride in earlier days but now seemed to be withering away as gravely and slowly as the man himself, not to mention the wasteland of a nation he had ruled for the past 15 years. Ever since becoming the Dear Leader of North Korea, Moon Hwan-Il directed everything he wanted to accomplish toward matching or even exceeding his father’s reputation, so that when his sons’ time came, they would be ruthlessly ready to take on a world dominated by an idea as insufferable as its guardian, if not more so: freedom[/b][/u]. If Moon had been having second thoughts in the past few years, months, and even weeks about just who could be ready to replace him when he left this world -- which might have been much closer than anyone would suspect -- then he would never have anticipated the presence of the four children now closing in on that office, having successfully disabled the sensors across this enormous compound and frozen and shocked into unconsciousness the few guards who’d managed to spot them before those guards could even reach for their walkie-talkies and call for help. Thus, Moon sat with his back turned toward his desk, tapping one armrest before flattening his hand, and sure enough, a silent groan echoed almost imperceptibly across the office, recognizable to Moon as those double doors, at least as recognizable as the portrait and the streamers on that one wall, had they been within his eyesight now.
“What? Who goes there?” Moon’s voice floated raspily through the office, alerting Nigel, Rachel, Lee, and Sonia to the presence of someone behind the chair opposite the doorway through which they were entering now, which further told them that they could tighten their grips around their respective laser rifles, just a bit more so as Moon rotated his chair to face them directly, narrowing his eyes as he continued, “Visitors? Children, no less. You don’t look like any I’ve ever seen before, at least in person.”
“You’re right,” Nigel began firmly. “This is the first time we’ve stepped foot in this office, and if what we learned about you is correct, then this might also be the last time we ever come here.”
Rachel nodded just as firmly. “You might be surprised to learn just what we’ve dealt with in the past... but then again, we were as surprised as our friends were to learn about you.”
A few seconds passed before Moon continued, “Really? I don’t know how you managed to sneak past my detection grid in the first place” -- a cough that made Lee and Sonia wince just a bit but provoked only a lesser reaction from Nigel and Rachel escaped his throat audibly enough to them, followed by a quick sigh of frustration -- “but surely you have a purpose for meeting me. Who are you?”
Nigel and Rachel said nothing between each other as they turned toward Lee and Sonia, all of them still gripping their laser rifles solidly. Yet, somehow, neither the Kids Next Door’s most prominent leadership couple nor Sector W’s main couple could shake the feeling that the man directly in front of them would actually be fine with something like a staring contest in that room at this very moment between him and them. They looked one last time between each other and Moon, and Nigel and Rachel began to proceed across the office, followed by Lee and Sonia. The last two kids couldn’t resist looking around the office with apprehensive curiosity, but the first two kids simply proceeded until they both stopped squarely in the center of the office, still eyeing Moon with considerable suspicion intermixed with curious skepticism.
“Uno. Nigel Uno,” Nigel replied tersely, glancing at Rachel as if to cue her about something.
Rachel returned Nigel’s glance, deciding to play along with that self-introduction. “McKenzie. Rachel McKenzie.”
“Nigel Uno and Rachel McKenzie, is it?” Moon repeated, the gears in his mind still managing to turn with as much willpower as he could muster, as remarkable as it was to anyone recently familiar with him. “I’m assuming that” -- as he said the next three words, he shifted his gaze past Nigel and Rachel toward Lee and Sonia -- “your two friends recognize the two of you to be the leaders of whatever group of kids you’ve formed.”
With Nigel, Rachel, Lee, and Sonia still eyeing him skeptically yet curiously, now having lowered their laser rifles slightly, but not too much, Moon pulled out the top drawer to his right, removed a small device that could record whatever conversations it picked up, and placed it almost directly in front of him, between the dusty intercom on the right side of the desk from his position and the small flag designed similarly to those streamers on the left side, a smaller symbol less than an inch from that small flag to the left. He hadn’t had much use for that recording device in the past, but given his situation, it might prove to be more consequential than he would have guessed at this very moment. Moon faced Nigel and Rachel once again, considering Lee and Sonia to be distant in his mind, letting his thoughts flow, if unsteadily.
“All right,” Moon said, restraining himself from rubbing his temple, clasping his hands together with as much strength and professionalism as he could project, even if it might not have seemed like much to Nigel, Rachel, Lee, and Sonia. “It is increasingly clear to me that you four kids are here… to hear a story. I shall waste no more of your time than is necessary.”
The leader of Sector V and the Supreme Commander of the Kids Next Door’s shared skepticism deepened visibly, then audibly as they asked in unison, “What makes you think we want to just listen to this story?”
A quiet -- and quietly bitter -- snort escaped Moon as the sound of a ticking clock coalesced in his mind for about seven seconds, but he simply disregarded it as he said, “If you meant to defeat or even destroy me, then you and a much larger group of kids would have knocked out every guard in this building, sealed this floor off completely, and created an uproar the size of Russia across not just Pyongyang, but my entire network of Korean People’s Army bases... by now.” Taking note within his mind of the strange kids’ quiet yet visible realization that he may well have been right, he glanced at the recording device, narrowing and widening his eyes to make certain that it was ready, and next, he pressed its activation button. “So... let us begin.”
A grim frown crossed Lee’s face as he took his turn to direct some skepticism at Moon. “I still say you’re not cool.”
“Do you think he’s gonna explain what his generals are up to?” Sonia asked innocently. “I mean, can’t we just get them together to talk about what they want?”
Another quietly bitter snort escaped Moon, but this time, one might have glanced closely enough to see a single eye contort with quiet rage as some sort of powerlessness that engulfed him at the moment. “We will get to my generals later, but for now, take a moment and look at the large portrait to your right.”
Nigel, Rachel, Lee, and Sonia looked quizzically, if also hesitantly, toward their right... only to tilt their heads even more quizzically as they collectively focused on the stern-looking man looking directly ahead from the portrait, the man himself visible only from his collarbone up. Next to each of his ears sat a solid red circle surrounded by a larger blue circle and surrounding a smaller white circle with a five-pointed star in its middle, strikingly similar to the five streamers still hanging above it. A yellow-orange curve that would have indicated the sun upon closer examination was perched directly above the man but still within the picture frame, perhaps to illuminate him somehow. Creepily notable to Nigel and Rachel was the aura of light barely visible around the unknown man, stopping at his neck. About one minute passed, and they, Lee, and Sonia were left to conclude that they had to proceed further along until they found whatever answers they were looking for... as unpleasant as they may have been for future references.
“Uh... cool, I guess,” Lee said.
“I hope there’s a way to put a smile on his face,” Sonia offered with cautious optimism, remarkable as it was in the office, perhaps as increasingly lifeless as its lone inhabitant. “Don’t you think, Lee?”
“I don’t know, Sonia,” Lee countered. “This guy doesn’t seem cool to me, either.”
Sonia frowned uneasily, something she didn’t like having to feel ever. “Oh... can we get out of here before it gets too dark?”
Another bitter snort escaped Moon, but this one was a bit louder, as if to indicate growing contempt within him. “Your idealism is getting to be quite tiresome... and perhaps it’s more typical of Americans like you than I estimated. Just ask your new President, Ghalib Oredinga or whatever his name is.” An exhalation of contempt rippled from his mouth. “I’m sure he’ll try to surpass the greatness of Great Leader Moon Kwang-Tan, but I seriously doubt that he can.”
“All right. I’ve had enough of this,” Nigel said abruptly, a hint of impatience now audible within his authoritative tone -- and visible within the tightening grip on his laser rifle.
“As have I,” Rachel added just as impatiently and still authoritatively, steeling her grip on her laser rifle. “First, is that man in the portrait Moon Kwang-Tan?”
“It took you long enough to figure out,” Moon replied. “When the Great Leader ruled North Korea, his words were law. Everyone[/b] knew their place, and ANYONE[/b][/u] who disagreed with him was punished severely, perhaps even silenced permanently.” Four indignant gasps ensued, doubtlessly indicating Nigel, Rachel, Lee, and Sonia’s horror at what Moon could very well have meant, and he continued, “He left this world 15 years ago, and I, his son, became the Dear Leader. He was proclaimed the Eternal Leader of North Korea four years later, and following in his footsteps, I am worshipped as a deity.” The four kids eyed him with confusion at the ensuing pause of about ten seconds. “At least, I used to be.”
The Sector V leader’s right eyebrow arched steadily upward. “What do you mean, ‘used to be’?”
“We wouldn’t be surprised if you did something to make your generals think they’ve had enough of you and your tyranny,” said the Kids Next Door Supreme Commander rather dryly and expectantly.
It seemed that Moon’s glares were getting increasingly bitter as time progressed, and even though Nigel and Rachel had a suspicion in the back of their minds that this man considered whatever he was facing to be unstoppable, they ended up deciding to stay silent as he continued, “It’s what I’m about to do that has my generals and advisors whispering to each other in the halls of this building.”
Another pause of ten seconds ensued, leaving Nigel, Rachel, Lee, and Sonia a bit more unsettled than before, but it was Rachel who gave a voice to the basic thought shared between the two Kids Next Door leaders. “What are you about to do?”
When Moon remained silent, even closing his eyes to sift through his thoughts, Sonia and Lee felt their hands grasping each other with concern, and Nigel and Rachel faced each other deliberatively, only to turn back toward him as he uttered two words than none of the Kids Next Door ever quite grasped, even if Nigel and Rachel had imagined it in several transmissions from Kids Next Door sectors in East Asia about this situation:
“I’m dying.”
Lee defensively stepped toward Sonia, who fearfully wrapped her arms around him, but even though Nigel and Rachel retained their authoritatively firm expressions, it was Nigel who gave a voice to the four kids’ collective disbelief. “Can… can you say that again?”
“I’m dying,” Moon repeated with bitter resignation, increasingly audible as he continued, “I’m dying, and my generals know it. As for my sons, one of them can’t even tell the difference between a blackout and a wipeout!!” A fist banged wearily on the desk at the last word. “The other wasn’t any better.” He leaned backward in his chair and rested his head between his right thumb and his pointing finger, which now tapped his temple with something between impatience and defeat, before he straightened himself. “When the Great Leader was still alive, he dreamed of uniting the entire Korean Peninsula under submission to him and him alone… by force, if he could. He charged me with fulfilling that dream, but now, my generals sense my weakness, and they’ve begun fighting each other like vultures over a carcass.” He glanced downward with a certain dose of finality, first at the still-activated recording device, next at that symbol next to the small flag, and then at the enigmatic -- yet still lifeless portrait -- before turning back to the four kids directly, letting another harsh cough out of his throat. “Of course, they could never guess what I’m about to give you.”
Moon pressed the recording device’s activation button, this time deactivating it, letting Nigel, Rachel, Lee, and Sonia decide for themselves how to think through whatever would happen next. As the four kids watched soberly yet inquisitively, feeling themselves start to walk toward Moon’s desk with as much caution as they could muster, Moon reached toward the small flag and shuffled the symbol so that it now sat next to the recording device, hauntingly quiet to Lee and Sonia more than Nigel and Rachel. When they reached his desk, Moon barely perceived Rachel and Nigel’s hesitation, but he ended up guessing wrong as they reached out to separately grab the recording device and the symbol, settling for simply eyeing the two commanding kids as bitterly yet curiously as they eyed the objects they each held.
“So… what is this?” Nigel asked, holding up the symbol in the palm of his hand as Rachel looked on. “It appears to be a symbol of some sort.”
“Indeed. That is, or was, the symbol of the Great Leader’s rule,” Moon answered. “I have no more use for it, nor do I have any more use for that recording device.”
“Don’t worry. We should be able to analyze this recording extensively,” Rachel said with resolve -- and distaste -- as she placed the recording device in her pocket, with Nigel doing the same thing with that symbol.
Moon snorted a bit less bitterly this time, noticeably so. “So, Nigel and Rachel, take both that recording and that symbol. Take them and go.” A new series of coughs escaped him, and Nigel, Rachel, Lee, and Sonia each raised an arm defensively before he stopped, then said, with considerably noticeable exhaustion now, each pause feeling a few milliseconds longer than the last one, “I may be gone from this world soon. My generals… may yet take advantage of this weakness on my part… but I doubt that you kids… will easily forget the name… of Moon Hwan-Il.”
Lee and Sonia shared one last look of apprehension between each other and their superiors for this mission, and Nigel and Rachel met those stances with looks of authoritative reassurance before turning decisively to face Moon, who settled for glaring at all four kids with bitter finality, most likely to indicate that he’d not one more word to tell them. Neither Nigel nor Rachel noticed the acceptance behind Moon’s eyes, but then again, neither leading Kid Next Door minded too much. Deciding that their mission was complete, Nigel and Rachel shared looks of affirmation with each other and nodded conclusively at Lee and Sonia before bolting toward the double doors, leaving the massive portrait to continue staring soullessly into the office. Sonia shot one last look of innocent concern intermixed with indignation at Moon before nodding far more warmly at Lee, and the two younger Kids Next Door took off just as rapidly toward the double doors. Quite thankfully for them, none of them had needed to fire their weapons at Moon, but perhaps it was even more eerily apt that Moon never even bothered to… deal with them for this sudden infiltration. Thus did Nigel Uno, Rachel McKenzie, Lee Curtis, and Sonia Mason barrel back the way they came, as stealthily as they knew, passing the few guards unfortunate enough to be shocked and frozen on the way back to the waiting ROADSTAR, thereby taking the final step to completing their return to the Kids Next Door Moonbase from that office. Of course, anyone passing that same office five minutes later would have heard a distinctly unnatural thud against a hard surface, indicating the demise of North Korean Dear Leader Moon Hwan-Il, even if this wasn’t necessarily the last anyone paying attention to this country completely hidden from the world would hear of it.
END OF CHAPTER 1
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“Vultures and Lovebirds at the Dragon’s Mouth”
Chapter 2: “Pursuing Heaven in Tokyo”
“Weeeee!!! Isn’t this fun, Wally-kun?”
“Eh… sure. Whatever you say, Kuki-chan.”
“Awww, what’s wrong? Don’t you wanna look at the pretty trees?”
“Well, excuse me. I’m just waitin’ to find out when this cruddy bullet train’s gonna stop.”
Kuki Sanban smiled with cheerful reassurance at Wally Beetles as they sat side by side in a bullet train, looking out at the vibrant trees standing calmly while the bullet train sped by. While Wally mostly settled for demonstrating his impatience by folding his arms in front of him and directing his slightly narrowed eyes between the window and the two bags directly in front of them, Kuki was much, much more eager to demonstrate her excitement by returning to place her hands against the window and directing her slightly widened eyes toward the forest, rich as its brand of green intermixed with some lighter green spots here and there was, seemed to Wally and Kuki. Both of them could only imagine what the forest out there held for them, but the forest itself was merely one part of the sights and sounds the two kids expected to catch during this vacation, for all practical purposes, in Japan. Anyone sitting in that bullet train compartment to observe them would have been struck by not just how close they seemed to be, almost like a couple of prepubescent kids, but also how quiet their normal surroundings had been for the past several months. Wally and Kuki themselves were quite eager to simply relax and have fun doing whatever activities they could think of as ordinary kids, whether admiring any animals they found, getting some French fries or ice cream, or simply talking with each other about their friends and their past adventures. As the bullet train continued cruising along, perhaps toward a certain destination that would suit Wally and Kuki’s plan well, the silent compartment around the two kids could have borne some similarities with the headquarters of an organization that both of them knew quite well, being members of it. Nevertheless, even though neither Wally nor Kuki might have given even a single thought about it just yet, lurking beneath that silence was a strange unsettlement that could have made anyone careful enough to notice it suspect for all of three seconds that something colossal was about to happen... before deciding to move on and turn back to simply sitting back and enjoying this train ride.
Kuki lowered her hands to her lap, still smiling at the sea of lively green covering the thick brown trunks standing calmly yet marvelously below it. “Wally?”
“Yeah, Kuki?” Wally said drolly, taking note of Kuki’s typically cheery voice, if nothing else about their compartment.
“What do you wanna do once we get to Tokyo?” Kuki asked innocently, curious as ever about Wally’s thoughts, as normally diametric as they were.
A hint of skepticism was present in Wally’s eyes as he turned his head toward his best female friend, for practical purposes, even though he may not have been quite ready to admit it to himself yet. “How the crud should I know? You’re the one who wanted to go to Japan.”
A hint of enthusiasm sparkled in Kuki’s eyes as she shifted toward her best male friend. “Of course, silly!! We can get lunch, listen to some music” -- she gasped with steadily growing excitement -- “or maybe even get a new Rainbow Monkey!!!"
Wally stared at Kuki for all of about five seconds as a slightly different kind of quiet descended upon the two kids. “That’s the eleventy hundredth time ya mentioned those girly-girly Rainbow Monkeys ever since we left the Moonbase.”
Another gasp escaped Kuki, leaving Wally to gawk at her for a few seconds more. “Can we get a new Rainbow Monkey once we arrive at Tokyo, Wally-kun?” She widened her eyes to emphasize her point. “Please, please, please[/b]?”
Nervous astonishment streaked back and forth across Wally’s face as he gulped... only to let out a sigh of defeat after about ten seconds, trying to fight down the blush barely beginning to reveal itself on his face. “All right, Kuki-chan. Let’s get one new Rainbow Monkey and have lunch before explorin’ the rest of Tokyo.”
Kuki’s face lit up remarkably rapidly, almost instantaneously, as she wrapped her arms around Wally as tightly as she could, letting her thankful joy show itself to him through her now-closed eyes. Wally tried to wiggle his way out of Kuki’s hug, but somewhere deep in the back of his mind, he found himself actually enjoying this, even if he didn’t realize it. The scene itself would have been remarkable to almost anyone who happened to be observing Wally and Kuki at the moment, seeing a possible confirmation that these two kids made quite the excellently lovable couple. Further confirmation could have been evident in the adventures that Wally and Kuki had shared together, starting with a party at their parents’ workplace that almost turned into a blastoff... quite literally. A salient contrast to Wally and Kuki’s demeanor could have been observed in the three mysterious kids now whispering furtively amongst themselves as they tiptoed through the corridor directly next to Wally and Kuki’s compartment. The girl among those three kids wore a single ponytail in her hat-cloaked hair, and her stern gray uniform and skirt matched the uniforms and pants on the two boys, with military-style hats between all three of them. All of them would’ve been highly unusual in this bullet train, to say the least, but considerable alarm would have been evident across this section of the train had enough people present actually managed to figure where these three kids came from. Sure enough, after pausing where they’d stopped for at least two seconds, the three strange kids slowly but surely moved further down the corridor, past Wally and Kuki’s long seat, still whispering as if they considered whatever information they possessed too dangerous for anyone to learn just yet -- and consequently, an imperative secret. As the kids’ whispers eventually faded from the compartment with each step, none of them suspected that those whispers were still echoing somewhere within it, more specifically, the mind of one boy wearing an orange sweater directly next to a girl wearing a green sweater with oversized sleeves, the girl now discernibly settling for a gentler yet still-warm hug around the boy.
Kuki opened her eyes and looked slightly downward, only to frown at the sight now before her eyes. “Wally? Is something wrong?”
By now, Wally had shifted his focus toward the corridor, his mind firmly locked in a certain assumption about what had just passed down it, but he managed to shake himself back to his immediate surroundings long enough to answer, however unbelievable even he thought it sounded, “Hmm? Oh, uh... I don’t think so, Kuki. No need to worry.”
“Aw, come on. You can tell me,” Kuki said with something between encouragement and admonition, as if to persuade Wally to share whatever he’d managed to see.
Wally looked directly and solemnly at Kuki, gathering her thoughts together, then replied cautiously, “Right. Anyway, I overheard these three weirdoes sneakin’ down this corridor right past us. I couldn’t figure out what the crud they were sayin’, but it sounded like they were lookin’ for somebody.”
Kuki frowned with confusion. “Oh.” A new smile of optimism revealed itself as she continued after about a second, “Well, maybe if they come back this way, we can help them.” She reached down toward one of the bags, picked it up, and opened it to take out what looked like a stuffed monkey wearing a detective’s outfit and holding a magnifying glass, determination accompanying her current optimism. “No need to worry, because my Super Sleuth Rainbow Monkey is on the case!!”
By now, suspicion had cemented itself inside Wally’s mind, to perceive the tone of those mysterious kids correctly, despite Kuki’s obvious giggle of excitement when she finished. “Not quite. Those kids didn’t exactly sound like they wanted to help anybody.”
“Oh, come on,” Kuki replied a bit obliviously, countering Wally’s pessimism as she knew how. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
Wally stared blankly for several seconds more, but before he could open his mouth to respond, the bullet train’s intercom beeped across that compartment and the corresponding corridor, followed by a firm male voice that said, “Attention, please. We will arrive at Tokyo Station within the next seven minutes. All passengers are advised to return to their seats until the train comes to a full and complete stop. Thank you for your cooperation, and have a nice day.”
A few moments passed, leaving Wally to gather his thoughts as he and Kuki faced each other once more, and as he felt those mysterious whispers filter into the depths of his mind for future reference, he could only nod affirmatively to himself before responding decisively, his arms once again folded in front of him, “Okay. You win. What do you say to some lunch once we get outta this cruddy bullet train?”
Another thankful smile crossed Kuki’s face at Wally’s acceptant words, and next, she bent down slightly to give him a small but noticeable kiss on the cheek, no doubt intending to extend her gratitude to him even further than he’d expected. Wally gawked at Kuki for at least four seconds before she rested her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes, still hugging the Super Sleuth Rainbow Monkey in her arms and smiling as though she hadn’t a care in the world. Wally found himself unable to fight down the blush now crossing his face as he stared at Kuki, but he eventually got around to exhaling as he asked himself what to do next and wrapping his arm around her as the bullet train sped along toward its destination. Wally and Kuki could very well end up having fun simply being with each other once they stepped off the train onto Tokyo Station and began searching for a place to eat lunch, but much farther along down the corridor behind them, fun was not on any of the three uniformed kids’ minds as they looked between each other and the people around them, their mission still clear as ever, ominous though it may have seemed to anyone observing them. By now, the forest outside the bullet train had given way to several structures and buildings, an environment those three kids considered perfect to conduct their mission while getting lost within the crowd, and as they felt the bullet train begin to assume a speed ideal for concluding its trip, they could only acknowledge between each other the significance of their target -- and perhaps any others they would end up acquiring for attempted elimination in the process.
“This train’s about to stop,” the first boy said observantly. “Once we get off, we’ll have to at least look like we’re having fun.”
The girl nodded. “Correct. The girl must be somewhere around here, so we can’t afford to fail. General Nam will be proud of us once we’ve accomplished our mission.”
The second boy glared at the girl with annoyance. “Just don’t do anything stupid. That girl and that boy must surely have a bond that can’t be broken easily.”
“Which is why we’re here, isn’t it?” the first boy interrupted. “It will be the Eternal Leader’s foresight that guides us in locating and destroying both of them once and for all.”
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“Was putting your cruddy Super Sleuth Rainbow Monkey in my bag really necessary?” Wally asked directly, skepticism slightly more evident in his voice now than before.
“Well, of course, silly!!” Kuki replied happily yet somewhat dismissively this time. “It was sweet of you to buy that Rainbow Monkey video game, and lunch, too!! Yaaay!!! Isn’t this fun?”
Wally nodded to himself inaudibly, leaving Kuki to smile as both of them now sat together at a table in a food court near Tokyo Station, having successfully retrieved their respective bags and disembarked, then found a place to wait and plan their next move. Given the men, women, teens, and even children walking almost helter-skelter about the food court, Wally and Kuki were more relieved than not about settling down, if not for too long. No sooner had Wally and Kuki settled down at that table than Kuki let out a squeal of delight at a sign describing a new Rainbow Monkey video game located, appropriately enough, outside a video game store almost directly across the food court from that table. Coincidentally to Wally, there was a pizza restaurant counter next to that video game store, so he deduced that getting that new Rainbow Monkey video game and some pizza would be relatively easy. Wally told Kuki that she could watch their bags while he bought those two items for their interest, and thus, as the two kids sat at that table calmly yet also energetically, two plates and an open box of cheese pizza in front of them, neither of them had any clues about a series of events around them that would shift their interest dramatically.
Wally reached toward the box of pizza, grabbed one slice, and bit down on it, chewing on it a few times before gulping it down, then nodded slowly. “Yeah, it’s fun, all right. Just you and me hangin’ out here...”
“Awww, you really mean that?” Kuki responded with sincere joy, then moved on to another thought perhaps mind-bogglingly rapidly. “Do you think we can go see a movie?”
“As long as it doesn’t have any lovey-dovey Rainbow Monkeys in it,” Wally muttered dryly under his breath, then said more loudly while looking around, “I don’t see any theaters around here...”
“Or maybe we can bring something back for our friends. I’ll bet they’d love to see Tokyo themselves,” Kuki remarked, the optimism she could muster quite frequently sparkling across her face.
One of Wally’s eyebrows crept upward with curiosity at the mention of “our friends”. “Right. Anyway, do you know where Numbuh One and Numbuh 362 were yesterday?”
“Huh. I don’t know,” Kuki replied with similar curiosity, but also some confusion, but as she reached out to grab a pizza slice of her own and then place it on her plate, a new gasp of astonishment and delight escaped her. “Oh, my gosh!! What if they were on a date, too, just like both of us right now?”
The blush appearing on Wally’s face at that thought didn’t quite diminish his response. “Eh... I figured you’d say that. I can’t figure out what the cruddy deal is with those two.”
“Well, as our sector leader and our Supreme Commander, Numbuh One and Numbuh 362 have to keep an eye out for any new bad guys threatening kids, then tell us what they found,” Kuki explained as essentially as she knew about those two kids. “Maybe they can become a couple along the way.”
Wally nodded with barely perceptible distaste, remembering his distinct aversion to anything involving love or even romantic friendship, as opposed to Kuki’s delight at that subject... but as he took another bite from his pizza slice, something -- or, more appropriately, someone -- appeared in the corner of his eye. “Speaking of kids, take a look over there.”
Kuki followed the path of Wally’s pointer finger in her mind toward its intended direction until it stopped at a girl about their age, letting her ebony hair flow just past her shoulders, wearing a solid white skirt and a sleeveless shirt with a field of red on the front, a field of blue at the back, and a Rainbow Monkey head barely visible at the center of the red field -- which Kuki mentally took note of much more rapidly than did Wally -- and gasped. “That girl likes Rainbow Monkeys, too? Yay!!! We might have a new friend!!!!”
Wally felt himself drop that pizza slice onto his plate as he asked, flustered as he currently was, “Kuki, what are you doing?”
“Come on, Wally!!” Kuki replied with excitement. “Let’s go meet her.”
With that, Kuki darted off toward the mysterious and quiet girl, avoiding the various people around her in the process, leaving Wally to let out a rapid sigh of frustration before deciding to look between the table and the bags directly below it. He looked around the active food court once more, but he didn’t have too long to wait while watching those bags, one orange, the other green, aptly enough. A little over a minute passed before Wally turned to saw Kuki proceeding back to their table, the strange girl from before next to her, a look of worry almost imperceptible behind her current curiosity.
“So, Kuki... is this your friend?” the girl asked hesitantly.
Kuki nodded enthusiastically. “Yep. This is Wally. He spends a lot of time with me, and we’re having a lot of fun together right now. Wanna join us, Haneul?”
Wally nodded slowly, but just receptively enough to allow himself to understand what was going on. “So, Haneul’s your name?”
The girl turned away for a few seconds, still a bit uncertain if she could trust these two kids, then turned back to face them and nodded once. “It’s Sang Haneul, actually, but you can call me Hannah.”
“So, what do you want to do first?” Kuki asked abruptly, still cheerful as ever. “We’ve got pizza in case you want some.”
“And a new Rainbow Monkey video game, if it makes ya happy,” Wally added dryly and observantly.
“No, thank you. I’m fine,” Haneul said. “I’m just thinking of someone. He’s strong and brave, and I’d like to meet him soon, just as he’d like to see me...”
Kuki gasped, her energy and joy increasing almost exponentially, given exactly what that last sentence could have meant. “Awwww!!! That’s sooo romantic!!!”
Meanwhile, Wally groaned, his exasperation growing more slowly but no less perceptibly. “Great. Two girly girls talkin’ about love?! What’s next?!?!”
Haneul stared blankly at Wally and Kuki before deciding to trust these two kids, thinking that neither of them seemed particularly harmful to anyone. She nodded, then smiled eagerly at Wally and Kuki, getting an empty chair to sit at their table, leaving Wally and Kuki to exchange glances at each other before settling back to what they were separately doing. Kuki gestured toward the still-almost full pizza in that open box, but Haneul waited for about two seconds before reaching out, however hesitantly, for one slice of cheese pizza, doubtlessly beginning to enjoy this growing friendship. None of those three kids knew exactly what they intended to do next during this trip to Japan’s capital, but all of them were intent on having fun. Yet, as Wally Beetles, Kuki Sanban, and Sang Haneul continued sitting at that table, either talking with each other about anything they could think of or simply sitting back and looking around at the food court, between its various restaurants and stores a bit farther away, none of them had even a single clue about the two men now walking briskly down a corridor, perhaps even rushing down it. Alarm was immediately obvious on both of the men’s faces, understandable given the reports they’d been detecting recently -- and a prediction during that presidential election several months ago that now seemed hauntingly accurate. The two men stopped at a door indicating their destination, and five rapid knocks ensued from one of them before he opened the door himself, allowing both of them to enter the office and approach the four men and three women seated together, including one particularly prominent man sitting at the head of the two couches where the other six men and women sat, clustered as they would be during a vitally important meeting. Sitting closest to that man at the line to his right was the man who could most likely be expected to confront a developing crisis with the magnitude of the one stated concisely -- and fearfully -- by the man who’d opened that door in the first place.
“Mr. President, Mr. Vice-President,” the aide began dutifully, speaking the two sentences that would alert American President Ghalib Oredinga and Vice-President Thomas Cullen to an event that could very well test them in a way that a meeting with the leaders of America’s biggest car companies could not, even if they wanted to focus more on events inside the United States rather than outside it. “Moon Hwan-Il is dead. North Korea is about to collapse.”
END OF CHAPTER 2
Let me see: Barack Obama and Joe Biden inspired Ghalib Oredinga and Thomas Cullen, while Kim Jong-Il inspired Moon Hwan-Il. This will quite likely turn out to be my biggest story yet, if what I've sensed so far holds up.
“Vultures and Lovebirds at the Dragon’s Mouth”
Chapter 1: “A Dead Man Sitting”
The shoulder-length-blonde-haired American girl and the bald British boy sat without a word at the front seats of the winged vehicle as it glided stealthily through the atmosphere, the girl’s command helmet tucked as firmly atop her head as the boy’s sunglasses were atop his nose. While the girl gripped the vehicle’s steering wheel masterfully, perhaps even naturally, the boy held a small device displaying what looked like a map with one solid blue dot moving rather rapidly for that map toward one blinking red dot with a tiny yellow star in its center, indicative of their destination, if anyone happened to observe it closely enough. Anyone with an interest in romantic friendship or even outright romance might have suspected right away that these two kids were on some sort of spying version of a date, but the younger double-ponytail-blonde-haired girl and winter-capped boy who were sitting no-nonsensically in the vehicle’s back seats and the four strange rifles that each had a design of a small blizzard next to a bolt of lightning at both of their sides would have given the impression that this was no ordinary date. The mission tucked firmly into the four kids’ minds even at this moment would have confirmed such an impression, despite any reputations that the romantic friendship between the two kids in the front seats and the simpler, if not also romantic, friendship of the two kids behind that first couple had gained within their organization. Whereas Nigel Uno and Rachel McKenzie were thought to be an excellent couple of commanders in the Kids Next Door, Lee Curtis and Sonia Mason were thought to be younger versions of a couple widely regarded as the most romantically popular couple in the Kids Next Door. As it happened, Nigel was the sector leader for that couple, as well as another pair of kids who were slightly calmer and more carefree, and Rachel was the Supreme Commander of the entire organization, all across Earth. Lee and Sonia were happy simply to hang out with each other as often as they did, whether they were getting ice cream at a store in Gallagher or looking up at the sky and trying out to figure out what surprises any clouds drifting overhead happened to hold for them. As the four-seated Supreme Commander’s personal ROADSTAR darted toward a large gloomy cloud drifting along a breeze that was imperceptible to its driver and practical owner and her three companions, a grim certainty about the information leading up to a certain mission with consequences perhaps distinctly and unimaginably dangerous was locked within their minds.
Nigel looked down at the device and pressed a button to reveal on the map a thin red circle at the center of which sat the blinking red dot. “We’re getting close to the detection grid. Once we pass it, it’ll be 20 more minutes before we reach our target.”
Rachel narrowed her eyes to focus directly in front of her while the ROADSTAR passed through that gloomy cloud. “Numbuhs 83 and 84, do you see any sign of approaching bogies?”
Lee and Sonia looked from their respective sides as soon as the ROADSTAR completed its descent out of that cloud, revealing a sky that would have been appropriately gloomy for not only their destination, but also the land around it, and after about five or six seconds, they shook their heads negatively. “No. We’re cool over here.”
Rachel nodded directly and rapidly. “Good. As of now, the last thing we need is either a distraction or a slipup.” She moved her pointing finger toward a button indicating a solution that all four of them admired. “I’m activating the cloaking field... now.”
“Oh... I hope we’re all gonna be okay...” Sonia said, innocent concern easily discernible in her voice as a striking rippling effect encompassed the ROADSTAR, almost like a shimmering chessboard.
Lee simply paused for a few extra seconds, a certain calmness not so discernible in his voice. “Eh, it might be kinda cool to kick this Moon Hwan-Il guy’s butt.”
A sober smirk crossed Nigel’s face. “If what Sectors C, KR, PH, JP, and AU told us is correct, then it might be his generals’ butts we’ll be more likely to worry about kicking, not his own.” He glanced at the map on the small device once more, the solid blue dot now almost touching the thin red circle. “Laser rifles and sensor-jamming pods secured. Defense perimeter breached in five... four... three... two... one.”
A moment passed with no sound whatsoever between Nigel, Rachel, Lee, and Sonia as the ROADSTAR sailed on, and while Lee and Sonia looked between each other and the four ice/electric beam laser rifles between their back seats, Rachel and Nigel glanced at each other with a shared sense of authoritativeness and duty, attributes that their fellow Kids Next Door could regard highly, from Nigel’s teammates in Sector V to Rachel’s main deputies in Global Command. They didn’t quite expect the information they’d been receiving from their comrades in East Asia, but if the Kids Next Door was to continue defending the ability of kids across Earth to have fun simply being kids, then it would doubtlessly need all the information it could get about any new adult villains to emerge in the wake of Father’s supposedly “ultimate” attempt to take over the world several months ago... which ended up backfiring on him, as the Senior Citizombies overrunning the entire planet that day would have indicated instantaneously. As Nigel, Rachel, Lee, and Sonia turned their eyes forward and the still-cloaked ROADSTAR traveled steadily over the slightly mountainous landscape below, now approaching a city that had remained hidden from the rest of the world due to the man mentioned in their conversation, they could only retain their quiet disturbance -- and disbelief -- at the mission they were about to undertake at one of that city’s most famous, or, maybe more aptly, infamous buildings... and any conclusions they might reach once they accomplished it.
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The man sat wearily and bitterly at his desk as he looked around his spacious office before swerving his revolving chair around to face the window, which one might very well have considered appropriately bleak upon comparing it to the gloomily gray skies directly above the city in which he now spent his days -- if one were able to do so. Opposite the side where the man sat, a single large flagpole stood lifelessly next to a massive set of pale golden double doors that strangely didn’t have as much illumination within them as they had in days past, and at one side of the office, a single portrait of a man who seemed to look as forebodingly across the room as he did ahead of him hung perhaps more lifelessly, if that were even possible, below five streamers that all shared as common features a solid red field sandwiched between two thinner lines of blue at top and bottom, respectively. At the leftmost end of each streamer was a discernible solid white circle with a red five-pointed star in its middle, which would have filled the man with a certain level of pride in earlier days but now seemed to be withering away as gravely and slowly as the man himself, not to mention the wasteland of a nation he had ruled for the past 15 years. Ever since becoming the Dear Leader of North Korea, Moon Hwan-Il directed everything he wanted to accomplish toward matching or even exceeding his father’s reputation, so that when his sons’ time came, they would be ruthlessly ready to take on a world dominated by an idea as insufferable as its guardian, if not more so: freedom[/b][/u]. If Moon had been having second thoughts in the past few years, months, and even weeks about just who could be ready to replace him when he left this world -- which might have been much closer than anyone would suspect -- then he would never have anticipated the presence of the four children now closing in on that office, having successfully disabled the sensors across this enormous compound and frozen and shocked into unconsciousness the few guards who’d managed to spot them before those guards could even reach for their walkie-talkies and call for help. Thus, Moon sat with his back turned toward his desk, tapping one armrest before flattening his hand, and sure enough, a silent groan echoed almost imperceptibly across the office, recognizable to Moon as those double doors, at least as recognizable as the portrait and the streamers on that one wall, had they been within his eyesight now.
“What? Who goes there?” Moon’s voice floated raspily through the office, alerting Nigel, Rachel, Lee, and Sonia to the presence of someone behind the chair opposite the doorway through which they were entering now, which further told them that they could tighten their grips around their respective laser rifles, just a bit more so as Moon rotated his chair to face them directly, narrowing his eyes as he continued, “Visitors? Children, no less. You don’t look like any I’ve ever seen before, at least in person.”
“You’re right,” Nigel began firmly. “This is the first time we’ve stepped foot in this office, and if what we learned about you is correct, then this might also be the last time we ever come here.”
Rachel nodded just as firmly. “You might be surprised to learn just what we’ve dealt with in the past... but then again, we were as surprised as our friends were to learn about you.”
A few seconds passed before Moon continued, “Really? I don’t know how you managed to sneak past my detection grid in the first place” -- a cough that made Lee and Sonia wince just a bit but provoked only a lesser reaction from Nigel and Rachel escaped his throat audibly enough to them, followed by a quick sigh of frustration -- “but surely you have a purpose for meeting me. Who are you?”
Nigel and Rachel said nothing between each other as they turned toward Lee and Sonia, all of them still gripping their laser rifles solidly. Yet, somehow, neither the Kids Next Door’s most prominent leadership couple nor Sector W’s main couple could shake the feeling that the man directly in front of them would actually be fine with something like a staring contest in that room at this very moment between him and them. They looked one last time between each other and Moon, and Nigel and Rachel began to proceed across the office, followed by Lee and Sonia. The last two kids couldn’t resist looking around the office with apprehensive curiosity, but the first two kids simply proceeded until they both stopped squarely in the center of the office, still eyeing Moon with considerable suspicion intermixed with curious skepticism.
“Uno. Nigel Uno,” Nigel replied tersely, glancing at Rachel as if to cue her about something.
Rachel returned Nigel’s glance, deciding to play along with that self-introduction. “McKenzie. Rachel McKenzie.”
“Nigel Uno and Rachel McKenzie, is it?” Moon repeated, the gears in his mind still managing to turn with as much willpower as he could muster, as remarkable as it was to anyone recently familiar with him. “I’m assuming that” -- as he said the next three words, he shifted his gaze past Nigel and Rachel toward Lee and Sonia -- “your two friends recognize the two of you to be the leaders of whatever group of kids you’ve formed.”
With Nigel, Rachel, Lee, and Sonia still eyeing him skeptically yet curiously, now having lowered their laser rifles slightly, but not too much, Moon pulled out the top drawer to his right, removed a small device that could record whatever conversations it picked up, and placed it almost directly in front of him, between the dusty intercom on the right side of the desk from his position and the small flag designed similarly to those streamers on the left side, a smaller symbol less than an inch from that small flag to the left. He hadn’t had much use for that recording device in the past, but given his situation, it might prove to be more consequential than he would have guessed at this very moment. Moon faced Nigel and Rachel once again, considering Lee and Sonia to be distant in his mind, letting his thoughts flow, if unsteadily.
“All right,” Moon said, restraining himself from rubbing his temple, clasping his hands together with as much strength and professionalism as he could project, even if it might not have seemed like much to Nigel, Rachel, Lee, and Sonia. “It is increasingly clear to me that you four kids are here… to hear a story. I shall waste no more of your time than is necessary.”
The leader of Sector V and the Supreme Commander of the Kids Next Door’s shared skepticism deepened visibly, then audibly as they asked in unison, “What makes you think we want to just listen to this story?”
A quiet -- and quietly bitter -- snort escaped Moon as the sound of a ticking clock coalesced in his mind for about seven seconds, but he simply disregarded it as he said, “If you meant to defeat or even destroy me, then you and a much larger group of kids would have knocked out every guard in this building, sealed this floor off completely, and created an uproar the size of Russia across not just Pyongyang, but my entire network of Korean People’s Army bases... by now.” Taking note within his mind of the strange kids’ quiet yet visible realization that he may well have been right, he glanced at the recording device, narrowing and widening his eyes to make certain that it was ready, and next, he pressed its activation button. “So... let us begin.”
A grim frown crossed Lee’s face as he took his turn to direct some skepticism at Moon. “I still say you’re not cool.”
“Do you think he’s gonna explain what his generals are up to?” Sonia asked innocently. “I mean, can’t we just get them together to talk about what they want?”
Another quietly bitter snort escaped Moon, but this time, one might have glanced closely enough to see a single eye contort with quiet rage as some sort of powerlessness that engulfed him at the moment. “We will get to my generals later, but for now, take a moment and look at the large portrait to your right.”
Nigel, Rachel, Lee, and Sonia looked quizzically, if also hesitantly, toward their right... only to tilt their heads even more quizzically as they collectively focused on the stern-looking man looking directly ahead from the portrait, the man himself visible only from his collarbone up. Next to each of his ears sat a solid red circle surrounded by a larger blue circle and surrounding a smaller white circle with a five-pointed star in its middle, strikingly similar to the five streamers still hanging above it. A yellow-orange curve that would have indicated the sun upon closer examination was perched directly above the man but still within the picture frame, perhaps to illuminate him somehow. Creepily notable to Nigel and Rachel was the aura of light barely visible around the unknown man, stopping at his neck. About one minute passed, and they, Lee, and Sonia were left to conclude that they had to proceed further along until they found whatever answers they were looking for... as unpleasant as they may have been for future references.
“Uh... cool, I guess,” Lee said.
“I hope there’s a way to put a smile on his face,” Sonia offered with cautious optimism, remarkable as it was in the office, perhaps as increasingly lifeless as its lone inhabitant. “Don’t you think, Lee?”
“I don’t know, Sonia,” Lee countered. “This guy doesn’t seem cool to me, either.”
Sonia frowned uneasily, something she didn’t like having to feel ever. “Oh... can we get out of here before it gets too dark?”
Another bitter snort escaped Moon, but this one was a bit louder, as if to indicate growing contempt within him. “Your idealism is getting to be quite tiresome... and perhaps it’s more typical of Americans like you than I estimated. Just ask your new President, Ghalib Oredinga or whatever his name is.” An exhalation of contempt rippled from his mouth. “I’m sure he’ll try to surpass the greatness of Great Leader Moon Kwang-Tan, but I seriously doubt that he can.”
“All right. I’ve had enough of this,” Nigel said abruptly, a hint of impatience now audible within his authoritative tone -- and visible within the tightening grip on his laser rifle.
“As have I,” Rachel added just as impatiently and still authoritatively, steeling her grip on her laser rifle. “First, is that man in the portrait Moon Kwang-Tan?”
“It took you long enough to figure out,” Moon replied. “When the Great Leader ruled North Korea, his words were law. Everyone[/b] knew their place, and ANYONE[/b][/u] who disagreed with him was punished severely, perhaps even silenced permanently.” Four indignant gasps ensued, doubtlessly indicating Nigel, Rachel, Lee, and Sonia’s horror at what Moon could very well have meant, and he continued, “He left this world 15 years ago, and I, his son, became the Dear Leader. He was proclaimed the Eternal Leader of North Korea four years later, and following in his footsteps, I am worshipped as a deity.” The four kids eyed him with confusion at the ensuing pause of about ten seconds. “At least, I used to be.”
The Sector V leader’s right eyebrow arched steadily upward. “What do you mean, ‘used to be’?”
“We wouldn’t be surprised if you did something to make your generals think they’ve had enough of you and your tyranny,” said the Kids Next Door Supreme Commander rather dryly and expectantly.
It seemed that Moon’s glares were getting increasingly bitter as time progressed, and even though Nigel and Rachel had a suspicion in the back of their minds that this man considered whatever he was facing to be unstoppable, they ended up deciding to stay silent as he continued, “It’s what I’m about to do that has my generals and advisors whispering to each other in the halls of this building.”
Another pause of ten seconds ensued, leaving Nigel, Rachel, Lee, and Sonia a bit more unsettled than before, but it was Rachel who gave a voice to the basic thought shared between the two Kids Next Door leaders. “What are you about to do?”
When Moon remained silent, even closing his eyes to sift through his thoughts, Sonia and Lee felt their hands grasping each other with concern, and Nigel and Rachel faced each other deliberatively, only to turn back toward him as he uttered two words than none of the Kids Next Door ever quite grasped, even if Nigel and Rachel had imagined it in several transmissions from Kids Next Door sectors in East Asia about this situation:
“I’m dying.”
Lee defensively stepped toward Sonia, who fearfully wrapped her arms around him, but even though Nigel and Rachel retained their authoritatively firm expressions, it was Nigel who gave a voice to the four kids’ collective disbelief. “Can… can you say that again?”
“I’m dying,” Moon repeated with bitter resignation, increasingly audible as he continued, “I’m dying, and my generals know it. As for my sons, one of them can’t even tell the difference between a blackout and a wipeout!!” A fist banged wearily on the desk at the last word. “The other wasn’t any better.” He leaned backward in his chair and rested his head between his right thumb and his pointing finger, which now tapped his temple with something between impatience and defeat, before he straightened himself. “When the Great Leader was still alive, he dreamed of uniting the entire Korean Peninsula under submission to him and him alone… by force, if he could. He charged me with fulfilling that dream, but now, my generals sense my weakness, and they’ve begun fighting each other like vultures over a carcass.” He glanced downward with a certain dose of finality, first at the still-activated recording device, next at that symbol next to the small flag, and then at the enigmatic -- yet still lifeless portrait -- before turning back to the four kids directly, letting another harsh cough out of his throat. “Of course, they could never guess what I’m about to give you.”
Moon pressed the recording device’s activation button, this time deactivating it, letting Nigel, Rachel, Lee, and Sonia decide for themselves how to think through whatever would happen next. As the four kids watched soberly yet inquisitively, feeling themselves start to walk toward Moon’s desk with as much caution as they could muster, Moon reached toward the small flag and shuffled the symbol so that it now sat next to the recording device, hauntingly quiet to Lee and Sonia more than Nigel and Rachel. When they reached his desk, Moon barely perceived Rachel and Nigel’s hesitation, but he ended up guessing wrong as they reached out to separately grab the recording device and the symbol, settling for simply eyeing the two commanding kids as bitterly yet curiously as they eyed the objects they each held.
“So… what is this?” Nigel asked, holding up the symbol in the palm of his hand as Rachel looked on. “It appears to be a symbol of some sort.”
“Indeed. That is, or was, the symbol of the Great Leader’s rule,” Moon answered. “I have no more use for it, nor do I have any more use for that recording device.”
“Don’t worry. We should be able to analyze this recording extensively,” Rachel said with resolve -- and distaste -- as she placed the recording device in her pocket, with Nigel doing the same thing with that symbol.
Moon snorted a bit less bitterly this time, noticeably so. “So, Nigel and Rachel, take both that recording and that symbol. Take them and go.” A new series of coughs escaped him, and Nigel, Rachel, Lee, and Sonia each raised an arm defensively before he stopped, then said, with considerably noticeable exhaustion now, each pause feeling a few milliseconds longer than the last one, “I may be gone from this world soon. My generals… may yet take advantage of this weakness on my part… but I doubt that you kids… will easily forget the name… of Moon Hwan-Il.”
Lee and Sonia shared one last look of apprehension between each other and their superiors for this mission, and Nigel and Rachel met those stances with looks of authoritative reassurance before turning decisively to face Moon, who settled for glaring at all four kids with bitter finality, most likely to indicate that he’d not one more word to tell them. Neither Nigel nor Rachel noticed the acceptance behind Moon’s eyes, but then again, neither leading Kid Next Door minded too much. Deciding that their mission was complete, Nigel and Rachel shared looks of affirmation with each other and nodded conclusively at Lee and Sonia before bolting toward the double doors, leaving the massive portrait to continue staring soullessly into the office. Sonia shot one last look of innocent concern intermixed with indignation at Moon before nodding far more warmly at Lee, and the two younger Kids Next Door took off just as rapidly toward the double doors. Quite thankfully for them, none of them had needed to fire their weapons at Moon, but perhaps it was even more eerily apt that Moon never even bothered to… deal with them for this sudden infiltration. Thus did Nigel Uno, Rachel McKenzie, Lee Curtis, and Sonia Mason barrel back the way they came, as stealthily as they knew, passing the few guards unfortunate enough to be shocked and frozen on the way back to the waiting ROADSTAR, thereby taking the final step to completing their return to the Kids Next Door Moonbase from that office. Of course, anyone passing that same office five minutes later would have heard a distinctly unnatural thud against a hard surface, indicating the demise of North Korean Dear Leader Moon Hwan-Il, even if this wasn’t necessarily the last anyone paying attention to this country completely hidden from the world would hear of it.
END OF CHAPTER 1
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“Vultures and Lovebirds at the Dragon’s Mouth”
Chapter 2: “Pursuing Heaven in Tokyo”
“Weeeee!!! Isn’t this fun, Wally-kun?”
“Eh… sure. Whatever you say, Kuki-chan.”
“Awww, what’s wrong? Don’t you wanna look at the pretty trees?”
“Well, excuse me. I’m just waitin’ to find out when this cruddy bullet train’s gonna stop.”
Kuki Sanban smiled with cheerful reassurance at Wally Beetles as they sat side by side in a bullet train, looking out at the vibrant trees standing calmly while the bullet train sped by. While Wally mostly settled for demonstrating his impatience by folding his arms in front of him and directing his slightly narrowed eyes between the window and the two bags directly in front of them, Kuki was much, much more eager to demonstrate her excitement by returning to place her hands against the window and directing her slightly widened eyes toward the forest, rich as its brand of green intermixed with some lighter green spots here and there was, seemed to Wally and Kuki. Both of them could only imagine what the forest out there held for them, but the forest itself was merely one part of the sights and sounds the two kids expected to catch during this vacation, for all practical purposes, in Japan. Anyone sitting in that bullet train compartment to observe them would have been struck by not just how close they seemed to be, almost like a couple of prepubescent kids, but also how quiet their normal surroundings had been for the past several months. Wally and Kuki themselves were quite eager to simply relax and have fun doing whatever activities they could think of as ordinary kids, whether admiring any animals they found, getting some French fries or ice cream, or simply talking with each other about their friends and their past adventures. As the bullet train continued cruising along, perhaps toward a certain destination that would suit Wally and Kuki’s plan well, the silent compartment around the two kids could have borne some similarities with the headquarters of an organization that both of them knew quite well, being members of it. Nevertheless, even though neither Wally nor Kuki might have given even a single thought about it just yet, lurking beneath that silence was a strange unsettlement that could have made anyone careful enough to notice it suspect for all of three seconds that something colossal was about to happen... before deciding to move on and turn back to simply sitting back and enjoying this train ride.
Kuki lowered her hands to her lap, still smiling at the sea of lively green covering the thick brown trunks standing calmly yet marvelously below it. “Wally?”
“Yeah, Kuki?” Wally said drolly, taking note of Kuki’s typically cheery voice, if nothing else about their compartment.
“What do you wanna do once we get to Tokyo?” Kuki asked innocently, curious as ever about Wally’s thoughts, as normally diametric as they were.
A hint of skepticism was present in Wally’s eyes as he turned his head toward his best female friend, for practical purposes, even though he may not have been quite ready to admit it to himself yet. “How the crud should I know? You’re the one who wanted to go to Japan.”
A hint of enthusiasm sparkled in Kuki’s eyes as she shifted toward her best male friend. “Of course, silly!! We can get lunch, listen to some music” -- she gasped with steadily growing excitement -- “or maybe even get a new Rainbow Monkey!!!"
Wally stared at Kuki for all of about five seconds as a slightly different kind of quiet descended upon the two kids. “That’s the eleventy hundredth time ya mentioned those girly-girly Rainbow Monkeys ever since we left the Moonbase.”
Another gasp escaped Kuki, leaving Wally to gawk at her for a few seconds more. “Can we get a new Rainbow Monkey once we arrive at Tokyo, Wally-kun?” She widened her eyes to emphasize her point. “Please, please, please[/b]?”
Nervous astonishment streaked back and forth across Wally’s face as he gulped... only to let out a sigh of defeat after about ten seconds, trying to fight down the blush barely beginning to reveal itself on his face. “All right, Kuki-chan. Let’s get one new Rainbow Monkey and have lunch before explorin’ the rest of Tokyo.”
Kuki’s face lit up remarkably rapidly, almost instantaneously, as she wrapped her arms around Wally as tightly as she could, letting her thankful joy show itself to him through her now-closed eyes. Wally tried to wiggle his way out of Kuki’s hug, but somewhere deep in the back of his mind, he found himself actually enjoying this, even if he didn’t realize it. The scene itself would have been remarkable to almost anyone who happened to be observing Wally and Kuki at the moment, seeing a possible confirmation that these two kids made quite the excellently lovable couple. Further confirmation could have been evident in the adventures that Wally and Kuki had shared together, starting with a party at their parents’ workplace that almost turned into a blastoff... quite literally. A salient contrast to Wally and Kuki’s demeanor could have been observed in the three mysterious kids now whispering furtively amongst themselves as they tiptoed through the corridor directly next to Wally and Kuki’s compartment. The girl among those three kids wore a single ponytail in her hat-cloaked hair, and her stern gray uniform and skirt matched the uniforms and pants on the two boys, with military-style hats between all three of them. All of them would’ve been highly unusual in this bullet train, to say the least, but considerable alarm would have been evident across this section of the train had enough people present actually managed to figure where these three kids came from. Sure enough, after pausing where they’d stopped for at least two seconds, the three strange kids slowly but surely moved further down the corridor, past Wally and Kuki’s long seat, still whispering as if they considered whatever information they possessed too dangerous for anyone to learn just yet -- and consequently, an imperative secret. As the kids’ whispers eventually faded from the compartment with each step, none of them suspected that those whispers were still echoing somewhere within it, more specifically, the mind of one boy wearing an orange sweater directly next to a girl wearing a green sweater with oversized sleeves, the girl now discernibly settling for a gentler yet still-warm hug around the boy.
Kuki opened her eyes and looked slightly downward, only to frown at the sight now before her eyes. “Wally? Is something wrong?”
By now, Wally had shifted his focus toward the corridor, his mind firmly locked in a certain assumption about what had just passed down it, but he managed to shake himself back to his immediate surroundings long enough to answer, however unbelievable even he thought it sounded, “Hmm? Oh, uh... I don’t think so, Kuki. No need to worry.”
“Aw, come on. You can tell me,” Kuki said with something between encouragement and admonition, as if to persuade Wally to share whatever he’d managed to see.
Wally looked directly and solemnly at Kuki, gathering her thoughts together, then replied cautiously, “Right. Anyway, I overheard these three weirdoes sneakin’ down this corridor right past us. I couldn’t figure out what the crud they were sayin’, but it sounded like they were lookin’ for somebody.”
Kuki frowned with confusion. “Oh.” A new smile of optimism revealed itself as she continued after about a second, “Well, maybe if they come back this way, we can help them.” She reached down toward one of the bags, picked it up, and opened it to take out what looked like a stuffed monkey wearing a detective’s outfit and holding a magnifying glass, determination accompanying her current optimism. “No need to worry, because my Super Sleuth Rainbow Monkey is on the case!!”
By now, suspicion had cemented itself inside Wally’s mind, to perceive the tone of those mysterious kids correctly, despite Kuki’s obvious giggle of excitement when she finished. “Not quite. Those kids didn’t exactly sound like they wanted to help anybody.”
“Oh, come on,” Kuki replied a bit obliviously, countering Wally’s pessimism as she knew how. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
Wally stared blankly for several seconds more, but before he could open his mouth to respond, the bullet train’s intercom beeped across that compartment and the corresponding corridor, followed by a firm male voice that said, “Attention, please. We will arrive at Tokyo Station within the next seven minutes. All passengers are advised to return to their seats until the train comes to a full and complete stop. Thank you for your cooperation, and have a nice day.”
A few moments passed, leaving Wally to gather his thoughts as he and Kuki faced each other once more, and as he felt those mysterious whispers filter into the depths of his mind for future reference, he could only nod affirmatively to himself before responding decisively, his arms once again folded in front of him, “Okay. You win. What do you say to some lunch once we get outta this cruddy bullet train?”
Another thankful smile crossed Kuki’s face at Wally’s acceptant words, and next, she bent down slightly to give him a small but noticeable kiss on the cheek, no doubt intending to extend her gratitude to him even further than he’d expected. Wally gawked at Kuki for at least four seconds before she rested her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes, still hugging the Super Sleuth Rainbow Monkey in her arms and smiling as though she hadn’t a care in the world. Wally found himself unable to fight down the blush now crossing his face as he stared at Kuki, but he eventually got around to exhaling as he asked himself what to do next and wrapping his arm around her as the bullet train sped along toward its destination. Wally and Kuki could very well end up having fun simply being with each other once they stepped off the train onto Tokyo Station and began searching for a place to eat lunch, but much farther along down the corridor behind them, fun was not on any of the three uniformed kids’ minds as they looked between each other and the people around them, their mission still clear as ever, ominous though it may have seemed to anyone observing them. By now, the forest outside the bullet train had given way to several structures and buildings, an environment those three kids considered perfect to conduct their mission while getting lost within the crowd, and as they felt the bullet train begin to assume a speed ideal for concluding its trip, they could only acknowledge between each other the significance of their target -- and perhaps any others they would end up acquiring for attempted elimination in the process.
“This train’s about to stop,” the first boy said observantly. “Once we get off, we’ll have to at least look like we’re having fun.”
The girl nodded. “Correct. The girl must be somewhere around here, so we can’t afford to fail. General Nam will be proud of us once we’ve accomplished our mission.”
The second boy glared at the girl with annoyance. “Just don’t do anything stupid. That girl and that boy must surely have a bond that can’t be broken easily.”
“Which is why we’re here, isn’t it?” the first boy interrupted. “It will be the Eternal Leader’s foresight that guides us in locating and destroying both of them once and for all.”
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“Was putting your cruddy Super Sleuth Rainbow Monkey in my bag really necessary?” Wally asked directly, skepticism slightly more evident in his voice now than before.
“Well, of course, silly!!” Kuki replied happily yet somewhat dismissively this time. “It was sweet of you to buy that Rainbow Monkey video game, and lunch, too!! Yaaay!!! Isn’t this fun?”
Wally nodded to himself inaudibly, leaving Kuki to smile as both of them now sat together at a table in a food court near Tokyo Station, having successfully retrieved their respective bags and disembarked, then found a place to wait and plan their next move. Given the men, women, teens, and even children walking almost helter-skelter about the food court, Wally and Kuki were more relieved than not about settling down, if not for too long. No sooner had Wally and Kuki settled down at that table than Kuki let out a squeal of delight at a sign describing a new Rainbow Monkey video game located, appropriately enough, outside a video game store almost directly across the food court from that table. Coincidentally to Wally, there was a pizza restaurant counter next to that video game store, so he deduced that getting that new Rainbow Monkey video game and some pizza would be relatively easy. Wally told Kuki that she could watch their bags while he bought those two items for their interest, and thus, as the two kids sat at that table calmly yet also energetically, two plates and an open box of cheese pizza in front of them, neither of them had any clues about a series of events around them that would shift their interest dramatically.
Wally reached toward the box of pizza, grabbed one slice, and bit down on it, chewing on it a few times before gulping it down, then nodded slowly. “Yeah, it’s fun, all right. Just you and me hangin’ out here...”
“Awww, you really mean that?” Kuki responded with sincere joy, then moved on to another thought perhaps mind-bogglingly rapidly. “Do you think we can go see a movie?”
“As long as it doesn’t have any lovey-dovey Rainbow Monkeys in it,” Wally muttered dryly under his breath, then said more loudly while looking around, “I don’t see any theaters around here...”
“Or maybe we can bring something back for our friends. I’ll bet they’d love to see Tokyo themselves,” Kuki remarked, the optimism she could muster quite frequently sparkling across her face.
One of Wally’s eyebrows crept upward with curiosity at the mention of “our friends”. “Right. Anyway, do you know where Numbuh One and Numbuh 362 were yesterday?”
“Huh. I don’t know,” Kuki replied with similar curiosity, but also some confusion, but as she reached out to grab a pizza slice of her own and then place it on her plate, a new gasp of astonishment and delight escaped her. “Oh, my gosh!! What if they were on a date, too, just like both of us right now?”
The blush appearing on Wally’s face at that thought didn’t quite diminish his response. “Eh... I figured you’d say that. I can’t figure out what the cruddy deal is with those two.”
“Well, as our sector leader and our Supreme Commander, Numbuh One and Numbuh 362 have to keep an eye out for any new bad guys threatening kids, then tell us what they found,” Kuki explained as essentially as she knew about those two kids. “Maybe they can become a couple along the way.”
Wally nodded with barely perceptible distaste, remembering his distinct aversion to anything involving love or even romantic friendship, as opposed to Kuki’s delight at that subject... but as he took another bite from his pizza slice, something -- or, more appropriately, someone -- appeared in the corner of his eye. “Speaking of kids, take a look over there.”
Kuki followed the path of Wally’s pointer finger in her mind toward its intended direction until it stopped at a girl about their age, letting her ebony hair flow just past her shoulders, wearing a solid white skirt and a sleeveless shirt with a field of red on the front, a field of blue at the back, and a Rainbow Monkey head barely visible at the center of the red field -- which Kuki mentally took note of much more rapidly than did Wally -- and gasped. “That girl likes Rainbow Monkeys, too? Yay!!! We might have a new friend!!!!”
Wally felt himself drop that pizza slice onto his plate as he asked, flustered as he currently was, “Kuki, what are you doing?”
“Come on, Wally!!” Kuki replied with excitement. “Let’s go meet her.”
With that, Kuki darted off toward the mysterious and quiet girl, avoiding the various people around her in the process, leaving Wally to let out a rapid sigh of frustration before deciding to look between the table and the bags directly below it. He looked around the active food court once more, but he didn’t have too long to wait while watching those bags, one orange, the other green, aptly enough. A little over a minute passed before Wally turned to saw Kuki proceeding back to their table, the strange girl from before next to her, a look of worry almost imperceptible behind her current curiosity.
“So, Kuki... is this your friend?” the girl asked hesitantly.
Kuki nodded enthusiastically. “Yep. This is Wally. He spends a lot of time with me, and we’re having a lot of fun together right now. Wanna join us, Haneul?”
Wally nodded slowly, but just receptively enough to allow himself to understand what was going on. “So, Haneul’s your name?”
The girl turned away for a few seconds, still a bit uncertain if she could trust these two kids, then turned back to face them and nodded once. “It’s Sang Haneul, actually, but you can call me Hannah.”
“So, what do you want to do first?” Kuki asked abruptly, still cheerful as ever. “We’ve got pizza in case you want some.”
“And a new Rainbow Monkey video game, if it makes ya happy,” Wally added dryly and observantly.
“No, thank you. I’m fine,” Haneul said. “I’m just thinking of someone. He’s strong and brave, and I’d like to meet him soon, just as he’d like to see me...”
Kuki gasped, her energy and joy increasing almost exponentially, given exactly what that last sentence could have meant. “Awwww!!! That’s sooo romantic!!!”
Meanwhile, Wally groaned, his exasperation growing more slowly but no less perceptibly. “Great. Two girly girls talkin’ about love?! What’s next?!?!”
Haneul stared blankly at Wally and Kuki before deciding to trust these two kids, thinking that neither of them seemed particularly harmful to anyone. She nodded, then smiled eagerly at Wally and Kuki, getting an empty chair to sit at their table, leaving Wally and Kuki to exchange glances at each other before settling back to what they were separately doing. Kuki gestured toward the still-almost full pizza in that open box, but Haneul waited for about two seconds before reaching out, however hesitantly, for one slice of cheese pizza, doubtlessly beginning to enjoy this growing friendship. None of those three kids knew exactly what they intended to do next during this trip to Japan’s capital, but all of them were intent on having fun. Yet, as Wally Beetles, Kuki Sanban, and Sang Haneul continued sitting at that table, either talking with each other about anything they could think of or simply sitting back and looking around at the food court, between its various restaurants and stores a bit farther away, none of them had even a single clue about the two men now walking briskly down a corridor, perhaps even rushing down it. Alarm was immediately obvious on both of the men’s faces, understandable given the reports they’d been detecting recently -- and a prediction during that presidential election several months ago that now seemed hauntingly accurate. The two men stopped at a door indicating their destination, and five rapid knocks ensued from one of them before he opened the door himself, allowing both of them to enter the office and approach the four men and three women seated together, including one particularly prominent man sitting at the head of the two couches where the other six men and women sat, clustered as they would be during a vitally important meeting. Sitting closest to that man at the line to his right was the man who could most likely be expected to confront a developing crisis with the magnitude of the one stated concisely -- and fearfully -- by the man who’d opened that door in the first place.
“Mr. President, Mr. Vice-President,” the aide began dutifully, speaking the two sentences that would alert American President Ghalib Oredinga and Vice-President Thomas Cullen to an event that could very well test them in a way that a meeting with the leaders of America’s biggest car companies could not, even if they wanted to focus more on events inside the United States rather than outside it. “Moon Hwan-Il is dead. North Korea is about to collapse.”
END OF CHAPTER 2
Let me see: Barack Obama and Joe Biden inspired Ghalib Oredinga and Thomas Cullen, while Kim Jong-Il inspired Moon Hwan-Il. This will quite likely turn out to be my biggest story yet, if what I've sensed so far holds up.
