Among U.Z.Z.

It started with Professor Professor.

author's notes

I am so sorry. I had to capitalize on the fucking flashbang of a lightbulb moment I had while feeding the chickens this morning. Written within like, an hour.s

They smelled him long before they found him, helplessly jammed into the trash compactor; a sight that felt viscerally familiar to the former cat-man hybrid currently sitting in the briefing room.

On his left was his long-time partner; a fair woman with blonde hair that was tied back, a rare sight for her. Neither of them were in their "uniform"; opting to wear normal civilian clothes (despite still sitting in their place of employment). On his right was an empty chair; sometimes he still saw the professor out of the corner of his eye, sitting as if he had never perished at all.

"Now... as you all know. For reasons of security, my name is still Changed Daily." The man leaning against the mantelpiece spoke. He was also wearing civilian garb, his three-piece suit replaced by a wine-stained tee shirt and dusty khakis. "Due to some... technical difficulties, I cannot use my mobile to generate a new name for myself. Therefore, I shall take the name... Port Strongwash."

The two sitting in the chairs nodded.

"What are we going to do, Port Strongwash?" The woman's voice was unusually quiet, sounding truly afraid. "Professor Professor, Sweet Little Granny, and Todd are all..." her voice trailed off.

"Anita, you and Victor are going to have to keep an eye on the agents that remain. That's each other, myself, Special Agent Ray, Kent B. Trusted... possibly Kowalski as well."

"Now, we do not know that it's an insider behind our current situation." Port shrugged, "After all, would I have not called a Code Custard had we figured that out?"

"You couldn't call a legitimate Code Custard if someone threw a flan at your face." Victor grumbled, just barely audible enough for Anita to widen her eyes in shock.

"Pardon me, Victor?" Port narrowed his eyes,

"He didn't say anything, sir." Anita said quickly, waving her hands. "We'll get right on it."

The two got up from their seats, quickly leaving the room and heading down the hall, towards the elevator to the lower half of the Main Pod. When they got in the elevator, Victor sighed, resting his chin on Anita's shoulder.

"You know, it's almost thrilling. When was the last time we were in real danger, Anita?"

"You think our friends dying is thrilling?" She glared at him, "First your snark towards Port Strongwash, now finding delight in our coworkers, our comrades, our friends dying? What in the world is wrong with you?"

Victor shrugged, pulling Anita close - she felt something press against her neck.

"I just wanna freeze the world, my dear."

When the elevator opened finally, Kowalski jumped back with a shout. Anita lay on the elevator floor, Kent kneeling over her body, panickily sobbing. Ray quickly pulled his blaster, Kent sprinting out of the elevator and across the room, sliding down the hall - Kowalski giving chase. Ray knelt in front of the elevator; Anita had only just been attacked; with the elevator coming down, it could've only come from the briefing room... he sighed, pulling Anita's body from the elevator and stepping in himself, sending it back up.

When he stepped into the room, nobody seemed to be inside. The fire crackled; the T.H.E.M. phone went unanswered. Tentatively, Ray picked up the phone.

"Where is he?"

"Which 'he', Doctor Doctor?"

"Your leader, idiot." She sighed, adjusting her glasses. "I haven't seen hide or hair of you lot since the job fair, and that's now four times you've had the chance to do battle."

"I can't believe you're keeping track..." Ray mumbled. "We've merely been busy with more important baddies, ma'am."

"More important?! I am the baddie! The baddest of them!"

"Well, you can prove that on your own time. We'll meet up same time, same place as before." Ray said plainly, hanging up the phone and looking around. He couldn't help but feel like he was being watched.

"Raymondo Mondo..." a voice chirped. He turned around, finding Professor Professor idly filing his nails, sitting in his chair like nothing was wrong. "You know only Port Strongwash can answer the T.H.E.M. phone."

"You're supposed to be dead!"

"Oh, the trash compactor? I was the one who put that in there."

"You put yourself in the trash compactor?"

"In a sense. It was an escapee from my lab; you know how these things can be." He looked at Ray. "Impostors must be destroyed at any costs, you understand."

Ray put a hand on the butt of his blaster; Professor Professor held his hand up. "Oh no, Ray, I'm not an Impostor. You have my word on that."

"Where's Port Strongwash?"

"In our room. The code's 4242654."

He punched the code into the back of the clock, the mantelpiece spinning around to reveal an apartment tucked away within the briefing room. Port Strongwash was in here all right; Ray found him collapsed on the bed, a marble bust laying next to his head. He gasped, taking a step back and punching the code into the clock again. The wall didn't spin... but Ray's head sure did.

It wasn't long before he joined Port Strongwash on the bed.

Kowalski had Kent cornered, holding her blaster up with shaky arms, tears forming in her eyes. "You promised me you wouldn't go back to her!"

"N-No, wait!" Kent protested, "I didn't! I left T.H.E.M. just like you asked! I'm good now!"

"Then why did you kill Anita?!"

"I didn't!"

"That's a load of bull! You... You were in the elevator with her!"

"How could I be in the elevator and in the shower, Wally?"

Kowalski hesitated, slowly lowering the gun. "N-No... you have a point. I watched you enter the locker room." She took a shaky breath, falling to her knees. A knife had spawned between her shoulder blades. "N-No....!"

"Kowalski!" He cried out, grabbing her shoulder. She looked up at him, mouth agape as the color faded from her. "Wally! No...."

He tore his gaze from hers, looking down the hall - nobody else was in the hallway. He ran into the cafeteria, diving into the kitchen and slamming the corrugated metal cover down over the window. Barricading himself was the only way.

His phone vibrated in his pocket. He pressed it to his ear, whimpering.

"Kent?"

"Momma?" He said softly.

"You're going to do as I say, all right?" Despite her generally poor rapport with the rest of the agents, her voice was always oddly comforting with him. "I'm going to... regrettably... help your friends out too."

"They're all gone, momma. Wally... she... right in front of me and everything." He sobbed quietly.

"I know. You're going to have to break your promise, okay? She'll understand."

He nodded. "What do I gotta do....?"

"Go to Launch Bay 6 and open the door."

He nodded, quietly sneaking his way out of the kitchen through the vents. He landed not far from the launch bay, punching in the emergency code and watching the door open.

She came alone, in her own normal clothes - a black shirt with a silver spiderweb pattern and plain blue jeans. She carried a large snow shovel over her shoulder, motioning for Kent to follow her.

Ray and Victor looked at each other, observing their work. At last, these harebrained fools would be out of their way; they were free to do as they pleased with the base - and, of course, the world.

"Ray! Victor!" Kent called out cheerfully. "You're okay!"

"Oh yeah, we're fine." Victor grinned, "Why did you bring Doctor Doctor into our base?"

"I mean, he can't be trusted, remember? We gave him the Secret Thing, and he turned around and gave it to her..." Ray sighed, pulling out his blaster. "And now look, with Port Strongwash gone, he's trying to stage a forcible takeover of the whole organization. We can't have that, can we?"

He held his blaster up, only to be met with Doctor Doctor slamming the shovel upside his head. Victor leapt back as Ray's head shattered, revealing the impostor's helmet - now with a dented helmet and shattered visor. Kent pulled his blaster out, him and Victor trading shots as Doctor Doctor made sure the impostor was well and truly done for.

When she was satisfied with the impostor looking a bit like a crumpled soda can, she turned her attention to the dueling men. Kent stumbled back and grabbed his shoulder, landing on his knees as he looked up at Victor's blaster, feeling the sting of the blaster's searing tip as it branded his forehead.

"Victor..."

"It's a shame you had to go back to her, Kent. We could've been great drinking buddies."

Doctor Doctor leapt as he pulled the trigger - Victor went flying, Kent fell backwards, and the good bad doctor's shovel was dripping with twice the worm juice. She threw the shovel to the ground, satisfied with her work as she knelt, cradling Kent in her arms.

Thankfully, he wasn't dead - his shoulder was bleeding and his forehead was burnt, but he was still conscious, looking up at her with cracked sunglasses revealing scared, almost childlike eyes.

"I'm going to call for backup; we're going to take a spiderbike to the hospital."

He nodded, wrapping his good arm around her as she slowly got to her feet, carrying him back to the launch deck.

Perhaps the worst part was that a couple of worms managed to destroy her favorite nemeses.


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