Fanfic / Operation: B.U.T.T.E.R.F.L.Y.

Been

Upended,

Travelled

Through

Existence

Restores

Freedom

Like

Yesterday__

When a mysterious new adult moves into Sector V's neighborhood, the Kids Next Door are instantly suspicious - no discernible paper trail, bees in the backyard and spiders in the basement, and who has so much bug-themed decor if they aren't a Super Villain?

But that's to be expected when your new neighbor is Taylor Hebert. And her daughter, Holly.

Retired-villain Skitter was only looking to build a peaceful new life for herself and her only child and to move on from the events of Gold Morning, but it would seem that her new town is crawling with villains intent on making things…difficult. They're about to learn why you don't mess with the Hebert family and develop a very healthy fear of bugs in the process.

Operation: B.U.T.T.E.R.F.L.Y. is a Worm and Codename: Kids Next Door crossover by NullenVoid - the same author as Oogway's Little Owl, The Exodus, and No Plumbers Allowed. It is ongoing, and can be read here and here.

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This Fan Fic contains examples of:

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• Achievements in Ignorance: After the experience where they made lasagna at night together, Wally is literally sleepwalking through the dodging exercise... and somehow he doesn't get hit once. The closest he comes is tripping and landing softly on the hood of one of the bumper cars, still fast asleep.
  • Kuki manages to complete the jumprope exercise, completely ignorant of all the attempts to trip her up. She's the only one to do so.
• Adaptational Badass: Somehow, despite the story taking place after Gold Morning, which ended with Khepri being depowered by Contessa, Taylor can still control bugs.
• Adaptation Expansion:
  • Cree and Abby's elder brother is never mentioned in the show except for one episode, where it's revealed he's old enough to have married and had children of his own. Here, while he is still The Ghost, it's revealed that he used to be Numbuh 7, and was active during the timeframe when the KND decommissioned operatives at 16 as opposed to 13.
  • The Annoyingly Cute Triplets Who Live Upon the Hill, as well as their mother, were solely Posthumous Characters that set up the plot of Operation C.A.K.E.F.I.V.E.. Here, they act as the Greater-Scope Villain of virtually the entire Cartoon Network universe, as them joining G.U.I.S.E. turned it from a loose association of outlaws into a true Legion of Doom, since by the time she had joined, she'd made herself an enemy of the entire Kids Next Door.
  • Numbah 2's unseen father appears and is given the name Hogarth (though this was implied by the show itself; Numbuh 2's name is Hogarth P. Gilligan jr.).
• Adaptation Name Change: Sort of, Perhaps unsurprisingly, XXXL (pronounced "Triple-Extra-Large") is not Professor XXXL's real surname and instead his real name is Xander X. Xavier Largo, similarly Edna Jucation's real surname is Jenkins.
• Adults Are Useless:
  • Taylor very much defies this: she is neither a deranged child-hating villain nor is she unaware of the supervillains that stalk the town, being strong enough to deal with them. She also tries to be a very involved parent to Holly, going out of her way to prevent her from enduring the bullying she suffered and encouraging her to join the Kids Next Door.
  • Monty plays this straighter, being totally oblivious to the supervillains that stalk the town. It is possible this stems from his memory of the Kids Next Door being wiped.
• All Animals Are Dogs: Taylor has an orange dog-sized scorpion that she keeps as a pet. It even allows her to take it for walks with leashes and begs for treats. It was given to her as a mocking Christmas gift by Father.
• The Alleged Computer: Madam Harrier's laptop, which even Holly can tell is horrible despite having little experience with computers. It's slow, overheats easily, and makes a nasty sound every five minutes. And that's not even getting into it's operating system.
• All Myths Are True: Apparently most villains from fairy tales were inspired by members of Father's family in this universe. This is lampshaded by Numbuh 362 and Numbuh NIL after Nigel and Holly find Rapunzel's hairbrush, wondering if they're going to have to seriously consider if every fairy tale has a grain of truth to it.
• Ambiguously Related: The extreme bad blood between Taylor and Father, and Taylor's reaction to Monty suggesting that his brother Benedict (Father's real name) join them for a family dinner, implies that Benedict might actually be Holly's father, but it's entirely possible that it's something else entirely. Operation B.B.Q.S.A.U.C.E. confirms that Benedict is Holly's father.
• An Arm and a Leg:
  • Taylor starts the story missing an arm, but she has a detachable prosthetic of unusual quality crafted by an “ex".
  • In Professor XXX-L's backstory, he lost an arm fighting the PTA. It should be noted that this arm at the time was a lobster claw, and that he has two fully human arms now.
• Anti-Villain: Like in canon, Professor XXX-L is a Nice Guy who keeps getting mistaken for a villain by the KND, but this time with the addition that he's a friend of Taylor and Holly's godfather. By the end of R.E.C.R.U.I.T., B-52 even states that should downgrade him from an actual villain into a third-party agent, since he's not actively malicious towards kids and most of the conflict with him is because of misunderstandings.
• Arch-Enemy: Father is this to Taylor, as the two have quite of bit of vitriol between them, with father even giving her an aggressive scorpion as a mocking "gift" for Christmas. It turns out this is because he's Holly's father.
  • The Delightful Children are quickly shaping up to be this to Holly, in part out of jealousy over the idea of Father paying attention to her because she's his biological daughter.
• Arch Nemesis Dad: Benedict/Father is Holly's... erm, father. Neither of them is aware of this (or even that the other exists) as of yet.
• Armor-Piercing Question: During Operation B.B.Q.S.A.U.C.E., Taylor asks Monty if he remembers her exterminator service. Both get very uncomfortable when he realizes that he can't, especially since he was her ride, as Monty realizes that he's missing several important memories, while Taylor realizes that someone interfered with his memories as Numbuh Zero.
• Artifact of Doom: Rapunzel's Hairbrush turns out to be this in Operation R.A.P.U.N.Z.E.L., using it on someone puts them in a trance as their hair grows, and is implied to be able to act as a vessel for Gothel's revival. Luckily, it's possible to break out of it, and you can use it on someone else without being affected yourself (Nigel is just flat-out immune because it needs some hair to work with to start).
• Artificial Limbs: Sometime between Taylor's arrival in the KND universe and the beginning of the story, Taylor had a prosthetic arm made for her by an "ex".
• Ascended Extra: Kenny from the "Kenny and the Chimp" short, from which the concept of the Kids Next Door was born, gets a job at Taylor's store.
• Babysitter from Hell: The evil adult newsletter has a listing for where to find such babysitters.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • Numbuh 3 Days To Trial planned to show the recruits the worst of the worst in the KND lockup at the arctic base, but unfortunately he was undercut by his first prisoner being Professor XXX-L… who is the godfather-slash-honorary uncle of one of the trainees and it turned out was only staying there because of a series of misunderstandings. 3 DTT is visibly thrown off his game by the time he drags the kids to the next, actual prisoner.
  • Operation H.A.I.R.C.U.T. has Taylor and Holly go to a barbershop owned by a Madam Harrier, with Freaky Fred as one of the barbers. Amazingly, Fred actually manages to control himself for the duration of their visit — it's Madam Harrier who shaves one of them bald (Taylor, surprisingly enough) and her reasons for doing so amount to Pride.
• Battle Discretion Shot: When Taylor gets antagonized by a Crazy Cat Lady over a ball of yarn. The results are never disclosed, aside from an intercom announcement:
  CraftyMart intercom: "Attention CraftyMart shoppers! A supervillain brawl is starting on aisle 4. Please make your way towards the clearly marked exits and try to avoid getting caught in the crossfire. Thank you for shopping with us!"
• The Beastmaster: There's a few examples of this.
  • The Crazy Cat Lady is one for her cats, and openly complains that Taylor is stealing her schtick.
  • Taylor Hebert a.k.a. Skitter a.k.a. Weaver a.k.a. Khepri, is the best example of this, with her ability to control any insects in her range.
  • Holly, Taylor's daughter, has a softer version- she can't force compliance from the insects, but she can convince them to do things for her and communicate with them.
  • Kuki has similar levels of control over hamsters that Holly does over bugs.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Taylor would rather raise her daughter Holly in peace and make honey than fight. But she is an ex-supervillain from a borderline Death World who can control spiders and wasps and is not afraid to use them, as Mr. Boss discovers the hard way.
• Big Damn Heroes: Midway through a fight with Mr. Boss and three ice cream men, Sector V (Numbuhs 5, 8a, 8b, 9, and 11) arrive to help Taylor just as she's been blinded by ice cream thrown in her face.
• Bigger on the Inside: Holly suspects that the Sector V treehouse is this, since it takes longer to walk from one end of it to the other than it does to walk around it.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Madam Harrier is, on the surface a charming host to her clients, offering them quality spa service and hair care. In reality, she's a creepy supervillain who knocks out her clients so she can take their hair, sometimes for herself. She acts welcoming to Taylor while privately calling her "an ugly twig" undeserving of her long and beautiful hair.
• Bizarrchitecture: In addition to the above trope of being Bigger on the Inside, the way that the Sector V treehouse doesn't make sense on either a mundane level or a... less mundane one. Holly notes that nothing is laid out in a manner that makes sense, with the kitchen and dining areas on different levels with no easy dumbwaiter or passage between them, several rooms making even basic movement difficult (like how Numbuh 4's room in the branches would make it difficult to put in his actual things without a great deal of effort), and more. Then once Holly actually selects a room, she notes that the place where she is outside does not match up to the X, Y, and Z coordinates she had to move in the treehouse to actually get there.
• Bland-Name Product: the games that the Treehouse has are these for various products: the Game Sphere is one for the Nintendo Gamecube, Virtual Kid for the Nintendo Virtual Boy, and Kuki's game "Critter Junction", is one for Animal Crossing. When the boys hear that Holly doesn't play video games, they list off "Super Plumber Guys" (Super Mario Bros.), "Legend of Hilda" (The Legend of Zelda) and... Tetris. On hearing that she likes to command little armies of bugs with her mom against one another, Hoagie suggests "Carrot Crew" (Pikmin) to her. Taylor lampshades this tendency when she sees Holly playing with the Sanban kids and Abby and wonders if there's a SimCity equivalent.
• Blow You Away: Among Madame Harrier's weapons in a blow dryer that can blast people a great distance.
• The Bore: Monty Uno has a habit of making rambling statements nobody cares about. While Taylor finds him to be pleasant company, she admits to tuning out most of the things he says.
• Breaking the Cycle of Bad Parenting: Danny's interlude in Worm confirms his father had a horrible temper and implies that he may have abused Danny. In turn, Danny was emotionally neglectful to Taylor after Annette died, to the point that she never shared being a Cape to him. Thus, Taylor and Danny both make efforts to be a much better mother and grandfather, respectively, to Holly.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Vin Moosk is clearly a little unstable, and his resume consists of two pages. The first page is a barely legible scrawl about the evil of ties and big business in general, but his second page is detailed and more along the lines of a normal resume, listing skills, former employers, and references. Taylor figures she can get an accountant and security officer in one package and hires him (though he insists on never wearing a tie).
• Bullying a Dragon:
  • Mr. Boss should've known better to antagonize Taylor.
  • 8a and 8b try to make Taylor let Cree go in the first chapter, unaware that the situation had been defused. Taylor unleashes her bees and tells them to get off her lawn.
  • The Delightful Children from Down The Lane, in R.A.P.U.N.Z.E.L., decide that trying to blackmail Taylor into leaving Adultville- on threat of telling Father about Holly- is a good idea. Before the scene cuts away, Taylor asks them who they should be more afraid of- Father, or her. And at that point, the DC are already beginning to be swarmed with bugs. When Father sees that Taylor's made another swarm, he openly wonders who would be stupid enough to try messing with her, while the Delightfuls are silent behind him.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Played for Laughs — Crossguard regards the day Taylor stopped him from messing with the KND and ran him over with her car as the moment their feud became personal. Taylor barely even noticed him repeatedly trying to attack her over that same day and only ended up hitting him after he jumped in front of her.
• Card-Carrying Villain: GUISE requires all its members to engage in some kind of evil act, although they believe the "adult tyranny" villains are ridiculous. They hector Taylor about not engaging in some kind of villainy.
• Change the Uncomfortable Subject: Taylor is quick to steer her conversations away from any discussion of her Dark and Troubled Past. When Monty starts talking about her and Ben getting together, she immediately shuts down any talk about it, much to his concern.
• Child Hater: As usual, the villains of the KND, and some of the teachers, all have an irrational hatred of children. Both Taylor and Holly are flabbergasted by this, and the Kids Next Door are perplexed to see an adult like Taylor who doesn't hold that irrational hatred despite her suspicious background.
• Conspiracy Theorist:
  • Nigel claims that all adults lie to children about "healthy" food to Holly, saying that the only reason adults feed things like asparagus or broccoli to kids is that there's no other way to get rid of it. Holly points out that this doesn't even hold up to basic scrutiny, since they're plants and that they'll rot away once they die. Nigel fires back that that's what adults want you to think. As he's saying this, Kuki is making the "he's crazy" gesture behind his back. In Operation B.B.Q.S.A.U.C.E., while watching the parents of the Sector V kids set up for a cookout, Nigel assumes that it has to be a nefarious plot, as why else would they be interacting with each other, prompting Holly to ask in concern if he realizes that adults can be friends with each other.
  • When Sector V tells Holly about how Adults are trying to punish and beat down kids, Holly accepts it- though more conditionally than the other die-hard members of the KND do. Her mother warned her that trust had to be earned, so she views adults as being people who run the range from "don't trust" to "Trustworthy", rather than "All adults work to remove all rights from children."
  • One non-canon omake has Holly use the tendency of the KND to believe in these to trick the KND into getting healthier foods into their diet by claiming that "Healthy food is a lie that adults came up with," to be a rumor started by adults to trick kids into depriving themselves of vital nutrients.
  • The former Numbuh Seven was one, if his conspiracy wall inside the Sector V treehouse is anything to judge by.
• Continuity Nod:
  • The members of Sector V, before Holly's class graduates from Cadets Next Door are Numbah 5, 8a, 8b, 9, and 11. They were established in the episode M.A.U.R.I.C.E. Numbah 100 as the current Soopreme Leader was also established then. In fact, the episode's flashback segments are said to take place at the same time as the breakout in the R.E.C.R.U.I.T. arc, which is why Fanny (future 86) and 362 are in the episode and not at the base with the future Sector V.
  • B-52 mentions that 274 had taken a personal interest in several operatives. We see this play out in the canon episode T.R.E.A.T.Y., though there it only showed him taking an interest in Numbuh One.
  • When Holly asks if they can trick-or-treat at the Delightful Children's house, Taylor, Abby, and Nigel all say no at the same time. Taylor because of the (at the time) unrevealed history with Father, but as revealed in F.O.U.N.T.A.I.N., The Delightful Children are the ones who made Nigel bald, while Abby failed to save him.
  • The Arctic Base serving as a prison and training facility was seen multiple times in the show.
  • KND operatives will frequently swear "By Zero," referring to the legendary Numbuh Zero, a.k.a. Monty Uno as seen in Z.E.R.O.. Further, while investigating Numbuh Seven's theories, Nigel finds evidence that his own father was involved in the KND, though he doesn't grasp the true enormity of his family legacy just yet.
  • When Mr. Boss shows up to try to intimidate Taylor into selling her business to him, he's backed up by ice cream men, frequent mooks from the show (particularly the early seasons).
  • Vin Moosk, the tie-hating former accountant from K.N.O.T., is hired by Taylor, but not before he makes it perfectly clear that he won't wear a tie.
  • During Holly's training at the Arctic Base, Kuki offers to let her sleep with her "My First Rainbow Monkey," a Rainbow Monkey that looks particularly aged. This particular doll played a central role in H.O.M.E., where it was given to a retirement home.
  • We get to see Lime Rickey prepare to open his soda bar, though in this timeline he intends to have at least one secret entrance in Taylor's honey store in exchange for an installed fridge. We first saw his soda bar in the episode P.O.P., when it was shut down due to a prohibition-esque "No soda under age 13", law.
  • When he confronts Taylor and things start to go south, Mr. Boss comments that he could have been meeting Fizz instead of Taylor. Fizz was the antagonist of P.O.P..
  • The Supervillain's Supermarket and Deli that Monty and Taylor visit is from the episode M.U.N.C.H.I.E.S., where it had the last box of a specific cereal.
  • In Z.E.R.O., the KND Museum has models of villains that are made out of Earwax (although there, they turn out to be the real deal disguising themselves). Holly finds mention of a villain that made living sculptures out of Earwax in old reports.
  • While looking through Seven's Conspiracy Theory Wall, one of the articles posted is about how Sector Z went missing. Z.E.R.O. showed their true fate- Father permanently Delightfulized them and they became the Delightful Children From Down The Lane.
  • Seven's Conspiracy Theory Board also states that Seven was looking for the Book of KND, which was mentioned multiple times but came to prominence in Z.E.R.O.. It's mentioned in the same sentence as the Fourth Flavor, which Monty Uno mentioned tasting in Z.E.R.O. and Numbuh Five went on a quest to find (and eventually did taste) in F.L.A.V.O.R..
  • The chapter B.B.Q.S.A.U.C.E. features a news announcement from the KND that mentions multiple events. Numbuh 9 is mentioned as being on his one-man mission to find and stop where the Teens are making Chicken Pox weapons, which was established in M.A.U.R.I.C.E.. Numbuh 747 shows up in another segment of the news- he never made it on screen, but was mentioned by Tom Warburton (creator of KND) in a Q and A session. While 535 and 1337 appear to be made up, they are mentioned as competing against teens with Numbuh 10-Speed, cross-country commander of the KND Bike Hub as seen in T.R.I.C.Y.C.L.E..
  • M.A.U.R.I.C.E. established that Cree, AKA Numbuh 11, had long had thoughts about dreading growing into a teenager before she became a villain, and was waiting for Abby, AKA Numbuh 5, to share similar thoughts so they could talk about it. In the chapters B.A.T.T.E.R.E.D. and "Guise Files: Skitter," she's shown wrestling with these thoughts. However, while it's implied that in canon she had no one to talk to about it, in this story she manages to sit down and talk with Taylor, giving her someone to talk things through with.
  • The teenager who eventually becomes the cashier in Taylor's store is Kenny, from the original pilot episode "Kenny and the Chimp" that eventually gave rise to the Kids Next Door as a show. He mentions multiple things from the pilot, including the fact that he got infected with all known deadly diseases (he got better) working for Professor XXXL, and the professor and Kenny share some screen time together.
  • Cree's comments and Numbuh 5's reaction to how poorly the mission went, implies that during the chapter R.A.P.U.N.Z.E.L., the backstory events of C.A.R.A.M.E.L. took place, and transformed Herietta into Heinrich.
  • During their stop at Hawaii, Holly and Hoagie hear that Numbuh 30c had just called for reinforcements. Numbuh 30c was a semi-traitor who tried to stop the KND from attacking Doctor XXXL in A.R.C.T.I.C., but as usual, it was a massive misunderstanding (XXXL was just there for Snow Cone research). In addition, 30c was the first non-Sector V KND operative ever seen in the show.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: Father to Lung — both are dragon-themed villains with an enmity toward Taylor. Lung, however, was an East Asian gang boss who's powers gradually turned him into an Eastern Dragon, relied entirely on intimidation to rule, and at times showed insane and borderline suicidal bravery/recklessness. Father, however, is an American villain who can be Faux Affably Evil, has family who he can be legitimately civil with, and while his powers can make him look like a Western Dragon, normally remains in human form. Additionally, Father is shown to be Dirty Coward. And while Lung tended to fight shirtless, Father is always shrouded in a black suit of sorts created by his powers. Finally, while Lung was the Starter Villain for Taylor and eventually came to respect her, Father is implied to be Taylor's ex-husband (or at least Holly's father) and) is Taylor's Arch-Enemy in the KND universe.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: Taylor gets back at Madam Harrier for shaving her bald by giving Harrier a bad review. As readers have pointed out, barbershops are extremely heavily regulated, meaning its highly likely that Harrier is going to be out of a job soon. And that's not getting into what G.U.I.S.E will do to her for operating as a supervillain in their territory without permission.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Mr. Boss. On top of being a Child Hater Bad Boss, he tries to strong-arm Taylor into giving up her honey business and work for him, and sics his goons on her when she refuses. That last one doesn't work out too well for him or his goons.
• Corrupt Politician: Adultville's mayor is extremely corrupt, taking bribes to pass new ordinances that ultimately just make kids miserable.
• Create Your Own Villain:
  • Downplayed. The Iguana was already a villain, to begin with, but one for hire and he didn't hold any personal hatred for children. He just did what he was paid to do. It wasn't until he was locked up in the artic base and left to go bored out of his mind for months on end in a cell that he turned into a child-hater.
  • Also downplayed, but Crossguard was humiliated and defeated in part by Taylor, who claimed he wasn't a villain. This left him with a desire for revenge that leads him to break out of his jail cell and attempt to kill Holly, since she's Taylor's daughter.
• Crazy Cat Lady: An unfortunate one tries to swipe a ball of yarn from Taylor.
• Creepy Good:
  • Holly Hebert may be an unambiguously heroic girl, but she also has a love of all things-bug-related that creeps out her friends, and a massive pet spider named Charlotte.
  • Taylor is a tall, imposing, and one-armed lady with the ability to control creepy crawlies, a strong affinity for bugs, and a mysterious past no one can uncover. Despite having the attributes of a child-hating supervillain, she's incredibly supportive of the Kids Next Door's mission, much to their surprise.
• Crowbar Combatant: Danny has gotten old enough that he's in need of a cane to walk. With all the general craziness of the KND world, he ended up using a crowbar for that purpose, and it's implied he has used it to fend off crazy adults and kids.
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check:
  • Subverted — Madam Harrier makes wigs using the hair of her barbershop clients. Said scheme is explicitly about money, and it's implied that she actually runs a decent barbershop as well. The only reason her scheme fails is because she decides to shave Taylor bald because she really wanted Taylor's hair — it's implied that no one would have cared about her plans otherwise.
  • Besides her current business of using her powers to raise bees for their honey, which she uses to make candy, and harvest spider silk, Taylor once briefly tried using her powers for extermination by simply making the bugs leave the house.
• Darker and Edgier: While Lighter and Softer than Earth Bet, this version of the Kids Next Door universe is a bit darker than the cartoon, with more coarse language and rougher fight scenes. Crossguard even tries to explicitly kill Holly as revenge for what happened with him and her mother.
• David vs. Goliath: Taylor brings this up to Maurice when training Holly for cadet camp. Feeling that the KND general training is incomplete since, it's young children training even younger children how to fight, and while they are somewhat bigger than the kids their training doesn't prepare them to face the 'much' taller teen and adult opponents with much greater reach than they usually fight. Maurice sees her point and puts a word to high command to see about getting adults sympathetic to their mission to help train them.
• Dean Bitterman: Principal Sauerbraten has a deep disdain for his own students. One of his many outrages is forcing his students to subsist on awful cafeteria food while he and his staff enjoy luxury meals. Holly is astonished at how petty he is.
• Deconstruction Crossover: The crossover deconstructs a lot of themes of KND.
  • It is pointed out how ridiculous and self-sabotaging a lot of the KND villains are with their child hater ideology.
  • Similarly, the KND's distrust of all all adults also harms them since it cuts them off from adult authorities that would actually be helpful to them.
• Demographic-Dissonant Crossover: Let's see. Codename: Kids Next Door is a mostly lighthearted show about kids taking down bad guys, with some dark moments here and there. Worm is Cape Punk series set in a very bleak Crapsack World and centered around a Villain Protagonist who is guilty of murder and numerous other atrocities.
• Didn't Think This Through: Jeff, the guy leading the off-brand Teen Ninjas to steal games, didn't realize that stealing the games would lead to game companies not making games if they don't get money- or that the actual Teen Ninjas might take offense to someone using their brand.
• Drama-Preserving Handicap: During the villain breakout in the RECRUIT arc, not only does the power go down (thus taking down most of the remaining weapons, as they run on the base's internal power network) but all the guns that run on food items were cannibalized for their edible portions to help with the base's kitchen beforehand. Had this not been the case, then as Nigel points out, it'd be 23 cadets with fully stocked armories against six adult villains. Without those weapons, the fight is six adults against 23 trainees who haven't even finished basic yet.
• The Dreaded: It's mentioned that Monty Uno is allowed to go shopping at a store meant solely for villainous adults. There are three possible reasons for this, all involving this trope — either the other villains are doing so to avoid incurring the wrath of Father (who as Benedict Uno is Monty's brother), that Monty is the son of Grandfather, the most dangerous villain in the KND canon, and thus villains are wary of getting on Grandfather's bad side, or the adults still remember when Monty was Numbuh Zero and don't want to antagonize him. Or maybe it's a mix of two or more of the above.
  • Those in the villain community that have met her know better than to mess with Taylor. Even Father decides to turn the other way and delay getting haircuts for the DC when he sees Taylor making a swarm.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • A post by the author (intended to be as canon or non-canon as you want it to be) reveals that G.U.I.S.E. considers their Adultville chapter to be a laughing stock due to their shortsighted focus on Adult Tyranny — sure, that's one goal G.U.I.S.E., but they don't obsess over it on the grand scale. The main reason they tolerate them is because of Father and a few other powerhouses, along with stealing useful tech from them when needed, and it's pretty telling that Jack Squat, despite technically the Chapter President, doesn't even live in Adultville himself. When a G.U.I.S.E. representative is talking to Taylor about her becoming an active villain again, once she explains that she's signed on under the Adultville chapter and she wonders what that means for her obligations to the Guild, said representative immediately understands, says that the chairman isn't very impressed with them either, and says that she can commit whatever crimes that she likes.
  • Madame Harrier is shocked when Holly thinks she's going to kill her and Sector V. She prefers using Laser-Guided Amnesia on witnesses (and stealing their hair just to twist the knife.)
  • G.U.I.S.E. also has a very strict limit on how much damage a villain is allowed to do at a school before they come down on them, at least in places like Adultville. It's even part of why Taylor moved back to Adultville in the first place, to try and minimize the harm that could befall Holly.
  • Even Father, one of the strongest and scariest villains in the KND Universe, thinks that taking on Taylor Hebert when she's mad is a very stupid idea. He sees Taylor gathering a swarm over a barbershop and immediately reschedules the Delightful Children's haircuts, and when he sees another swarm (this time triggered by the Delightfuls), he lambasts whoever caused her to do that as being an idiot.
  • Adultville's mayor, while extremely corrupt, thinks that making a zoo with only kids as exhibits is insane.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • While Ms. Everett does appreciate the fine meals that Principal Saurbraten has for the teachers, she's appalled by the food that he's giving the kids- uncooked tofu and asparagus, and nothing else.
  • Numbuh 100 ends up seriously considering the idea to find sympathetic adults to help in training Kids Next Door operatives in fighting actual adults, pointing out that their mission is to fight adult tyranny, not go after all adults indiscriminately.
  • Genki Sanban is a no-nonsense working woman, but even she takes time off once in a while. She also worries about the mental state of her husband: Workaholic Salary Man Kani Sanban as his promotion has lessened a lot of his responsibilities and has no idea what to do with his free time making him fidgety, impatient and ill-temepered.
• Evil Is Petty: Multiple adults in the series do what they do specifically to make children miserable. One of the more prominent examples thus far is Crossguard, who specifically manipulates traffic lights to make kids late for school.
  • Holly thinks this of Principal Saurbraten, who slashed the food budget of his school and fed the kids uncooked tofu and asparagus so that the teachers could have lavish meals. Holly thinks that if he did that, he should have spent the money on new gym equipment or things for the school instead.
  • Madame Harrier steals Taylor's hair, shaving her bald, simply because she wants it and thinks that Taylor doesn't deserve it, instead of being satisfied with what she could steal from giving her a legitimate haircut. This ends up costing her big.
  • As in canon, the Delightful Children always invite other kids to their birthday parties (they have five each year) and force them to watch the Delightfuls eat their cake and not get a single bite.
• Evil Learns of Outside Context: It is heavily implied that Father and Taylor not only had a serious relationship in the past, but that Father also learned about Taylor's origins.
• Exact Eavesdropping: Holly walks past Madame Harrier's employees as they talk about her real scheme of stealing her customer's hair to make wigs.
• Fantastic Racism: Many adults and teens hate children, and the favor is usually returned in kind.
  • Huff averts this, chastising an employee who says it's good that kids aren't getting their products. It's somewhat more pragmatic, though, as he's the manager of a Toy Company- their primary customers are children.
  • It's easier to list individuals who don't have this trope towards children or adults, such as Taylor, who just wants to raise her daughter in peace and has no time for supervillany, Professor XXX-L, who just wants to fight the PTA, or Vin Moosk, who hates ties. Taylor also spots a villain ranting at the deli of the local supermarket ranting about how she wants to kill a hero for stopping her from robbing a bank, with no mention of hatred of children.
• Foil: Taylor to Monty Uno/Numbuh Zero — both are the parents of KND operatives who are shown to be rather open minded and have their own personality quirks and oddities. But while Taylor is aware that Holly is part of the KND and actively supports her, Monty is oblivious to his son being Numbuh One despite the fact that Sector V's treehouse is on his property. At least some of this is because he experienced some brain drain after being decommissioned.
• Food as Bribe:
  • Nigel doesn't like the idea of Taylor chaperoning their Halloween group going door to door until she drops full-sized candy bars into their bags.
  • Played with with Lime Rickey, who offers to install a refrigerator for drinks in Taylor's shop if she puts a secret entrance to his bar in said shop.
• Fun with Acronyms: It's a KND fic, what were you expecting? Every chapter title is an acronym describing the events within. Even the villains get in on this, as Operation H.A.I.R.C.U.T. reveals that the main Nebulous Evil Organization in the KND world is the Guild of International Supervillains and Evildoers, otherwise known as G.U.I.S.E..
• The Ghost: The original Numbuh 7, Abby and Cree's older brother, due to the fact he is significantly older than his sisters and has already been decommissioned. Evidence in Operation F.O.R.W.A.R.D. indicates that he was actually several years into his teens before being decommissioned, implying that he was active before the conflict that resulted in the KND changing the age of decommissioning from 16 to 13.
• The Glasses Come Off: Just before she gets into a battle with the Crazy Old Cat Lady, Taylor takes off her glasses and has two roaches carry them to somewhere safer.
• Going Native: Monty was born an American, not an Englishman, but after spending enough time across the pond, he's adapted well to English culture and society.
• Good Parents: Taylor tries to protect Holly from bullying like what she endured at Winslow High. She also refuses to act like an evil adult and teaches her daughter nuance and how the world works.
• Greater-Scope Villain:
  • GUISE to all villains in Adultville — they act as an organizing force to most villains, and they've begun pressuring Taylor into being an active villain again.
  • The mother of the Annoyingly Cute Triplets Who Lived Upon the Hill is this to not only Father, but also to pretty much every villain to ever exist in the Cartoon Network universe — she joined G.U.I.S.E. sometime after coming into conflict with the entire Kids Next Door, which caused the group to grow into proper Legion of Doom due to now having a unified enemy to fight.
• Growing Up Sucks: As in the show's canon, K.N.D. agents have this view due to having their memories wiped of their time as operatives when they turn 13. Cree/Numbuh 11 in particular is shown to be having some significant insecurity about how they only have a bit more than a year left before decommisioning, especially when she finds herself subconsciously separating herself from the other kids.
• Half-Human Hybrid: Professor XXX-L continues the running gag the show started by always having at least part of his physiology replaced by a completely different set of animal parts each time. When we meet him in the Arctic Base, he has a raptor beak instead of a normal nose and mouth.
• Handicapped Badass: Taylor is missing an arm, but is still a formidable foe on the battlefield.
  • Slightly deconstructed- the reason Holly is such a good cook is that while Taylor is a Handicapped Badass, she's still handicapped, and sometimes needs additional help- like in the kitchen.
• Harmless Freezing: Downplayed. Many of Taylor's insects are coated in Mr. Boss's ice cream which causes them to go dormant due to the cold. When it melts away, they're no worse for the wear.
• Heel–Face Turn: Hoagie Gilligan, AKA the future Numbuh Two, used to be one of the hall monitors that reported to Principal Saurbraten, before realizing that they were jerks and joining the KND.
• Hero of Another Story:
  • Professor XXX-L has a running battle with the PTA completely unrelated to the Adult-Kid conflict, and only got put in prison when the KND got caught in the crossfire. According to past KND reports Holly goes over, this sort of thing has happened five times before, at least. The operative in charge of keeping adult villains locked up suggests that he be labeled as an independent operator, rather than an actual villain, because this sort of thing keeps happening.
  • Despite being a retired supervillain, Taylor gets into her own adventures over the course of the story that usually don't receive near as much focus as those undertaken by her daughter. It's implied that she knew Monty Uno when the latter was Numbuh Zero.
• Huge Schoolgirl: Holly seems to have inherited Taylor and Danny's height, as she's noted to be taller than most kids despite only being seven years old, taller than the rest of her class and even most boys. The Delightful Children attempting to do a Neck Lift with her fails because she's too tall.
• If Only You Knew: Taylor's reaction to being called evil is that she has been called worse. As the audience knows, she's much, much worse than most villains the KND has ever faced, and has actually killed a child, something no KND villain has ever done in the show.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: The Delightful Children take a special dislike to Holly and explicitly focus on tormenting her over all other members of Sector V. Their dialogue indicates this is because they're afraid that Father would ignore them if he learned that Holly is his actual daughter via Taylor.
• Innocently Insensitive:
  • When welcoming Taylor to the neighborhood, Abby's father asks Taylor about her arm. Upon seeing her expression rapidly shift, he quickly clarifies that he meant her prosthetic, since he's a doctor and hasn't seen that model before. Unfortunately, this is an entirely different kettle of bad memories for Taylor, who quickly changes the subject after saying it was made by an Ex.
  • Kuki and Mushi's father's temper during the barbecue is extremely volatile, snapping at any perceived slight or issue. This unfortunately makes Taylor extremely uncomfortable since it reminds her of Benedict, AKA Father.
• It's All About Me: Oh boy. Madame Harrier has this bad, thinking she is entitled to take other people's hair without their consent.
• It's Personal:
  • 274 specifically targets Holly in training because he's offended at the prospect of the KND asking Taylor for help training them, as suggested by Numbuh 9 in an earlier chapter.
  • Crossguard goes out of his way to attack Holly because Taylor assisted the KND in capturing him and told him that he wasn't a villain. Operation F.O.R.W.A.R.D. indicates he especially hates Taylor because she outright hospitalized him when (he apparently jumped right in front of her car in an effort to stop her).
  • Madame Harrier is this to Taylor due to shaving her bald. She's so far the only villain in the story besides Father who Taylor shows explicit malice toward, seeing how her hair is a. one of her few feminine traits and b. a reminder of her mom.
  • The Delightful Children make things personal with Holly during Operation B.A.T.T.E.R.E.D. due to going out of their way to antagonize her both when she helps Sector V try to steal their cake and when she tries to make a replacement cake after that one gets wrecked. Learning that Holly was considering saving some of the cake for them just makes them angrier.
• Irony: Madam Harrier shaves Taylor bald to make a wig out of her hair because she really wanted Taylor's hair and planned to have Freaky Fred be the fall guy for said plan. Fred's comments imply he would've willingly done so if Harrier had just asked him.
• Legion of Doom: All villains in Adultville (and by extension, most of the Cartoon Network universe) are part of G.U.I.S.E., the Guild of United International Villains and Evildoers. They predate the existence of the KND, but only reached their modern incarnation after The Mother of The Annoyingly Cute Triplets That Lived Upon the Hill joined their ranks.
• Lethal Chef: Being staffed exclusively by children under thirteen, it's not surprising that none of the agents at the Arctic Base can cook. Before Holly arrived with her skills learned from helping her one-armed mom in the kitchen, the Arctic-Base served up what you imagine children who've never prepared their own dinner would make. B-52 actually sends a message to High Command begging for an actual cook to be sent to the artic base because they don't want to go back to eating 'sad meals', and the senior officers had actually been using official vehicles to get fast food.
• Lighter and Softer: Since this story of Taylor being moved from the horrifically violent world of Earth Bet to the Denser and Wackier KND world, there is going to be less heavy subject matter. Although there are rougher scenes and somewhat coarser language than the canon Kids Next Door would use.
• Like Father, Like Son:
  • Like Tommy and Hoagie, Hogarth also wears flight googles on his face.
  • Operation B.A.T.T.E.R.E.D. implies that Holly shares her father AKA Benedict UNO's skill with making cakes.
• Like Father, Unlike Son: Holly is a sweetheart, usually calm, and always heroic. Her mother is a retired villain whose family has a history of anger issues (though she does her best to control her temper unless someone really pisses her off), and her father is Benedict Uno, a.k.a. Father, which also makes her a descendent of numerous villains from fairy tales and mythology, including some like Grendel who aren't human. This is a conscious choice on Taylor's part, as she wants Hollie to be a better person than she was.
• Mama Bear: Taylor initially wants to homeschool Holly to protect her from the savage school bullying she endured on Earth Bet. When Holly wants to join the Kids Next Door, Taylor does not pull punches to get her in shape.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: When Crossguard attacks Holly in the villain breakout, Charlotte bites his face while Holly imagines Crossguard covered in spiders. Moments later, Crossguard starts screaming, thinking he's covered in spiders. It's unclear as to if it was Holly who did that or, as Professor XXX-L suspects, Charlotte has hallucinogens in her venom now. Similarly, it's unclear if the specter of Gothel that Holly sees when under the influence of Rapunzel's hairbrush is because of Charlotte trying to snap her out of it by biting her or an actual ghost.
• Meaningful Name: Holly had reservations about following the numbering convention of Sector V by choosing 6. However, after reassurance from her mother that she doesn't need to follow it and should pick a number she likes, Holly decides to become Numbuh 818, since the number looks like a butterfly.
• Might as Well Not Be in Prison at All: Professor XXX-L stays put in his cell mostly waiting for the heat between him and the PTA to die down. Besides, with Holly, food just started improving. As if to drive the point home, he accidentally leans against his bars too hard and it falls down, and when the breakout proper happens, he's bothered by the locks not one whit, deciding to go examine captured villain tech for fun.
• Miserable Massage: Played with. The massage Taylor gets from Madame Harrier's shop is actually really good. So good, it acts almost like a chloroform, knocking Taylor out long enough that Madame Harrier can take Taylor's hair without her consent.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: Charlotte, Holly's pet spider, is implied to be unusually durable and intelligent, before being revealed as a genetically engineered hybrid made by Professor XXX-L, who describes her as "Half-spider, half-so many other things I can't remember!"
• Mugging the Monster:
  • An unfortunate Crazy Cat Lady villain does this, the Monster in question being Taylor.
  • Later Madame Harrier shaves Taylor bald to turn her hair into a wig for herself, thinking that the one-armed woman posed no threat. Not only does this end with Taylor reclaiming her hair and giving her a horrible review that could cripple her business, but the Supervillain's Guild GUISE is going to talk with her...
• Mundane Fantastic: Taylor nervously lampshades that supervillainy is so common in town, they have a supermarket designed to cater specifically to them.
• Mundane Utility: Taylor uses her powers mostly for her business. Farming bees for honey and using spiders to weave silk for knitting.
• Mysterious Past: The reason the KND initially investigate Taylor: because KND intelligence couldn't find out anything about her, not even a birth certificate, and they still aren't sure what to make of her. For the audience, it's unclear just what Taylor has been up to between the events of Golden Morning and now, such as who Holly's father is or how she got from Bet to the KND world - and to top it all off, she's implied to have a past connection with Father. It's eventually revealed that Taylor was in a serious relationship with Father, and Holly is the result.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Professor XXX-L mentions in his first appearance that he was fighting his true enemies, the PTA - this is a reference to his original appearance in the Kenny And The Chimp pilot that would eventually lead to the creation of Code Name: Kids Next Door. He even mentions that the last time they fought, they ripped off his arm- which was what happened in said pilot (it was a lobster arm, and he got it back).
  • As in the show proper, Abby and Cree's father is an expy of pre-conviction Bill Cosby, down to his speech patterns. He attempts to apologize for Abby asking what happened to Taylor's arm by starting to say "Kids say the-" a shout-out to "Kids Say The Darnedest Things", a show Bill Cosby hosted.
  • When Freaky Fred shows up working for Madame Harrier, he mentions that Harrier's scheme (using hair from her barbershop to make wigs) is something his great-aunt did before he moved East. This is a reference to Ma Bagg's scheme in "Bad Hair Day".

N-Z

• Nebulous Evil Organization: The KND world has one known as the Guild of International Supervillains and Evildoers (G.U.I.S.E.) who have much greater and grander interests than most of the villains in KND (indeed, they consider the Adultville chapter to be a laughingstock for their narrow-minded focus on oppressing kids). Taylor is considered a member, though she tries to distance herself from them due to lack of interest in being a villain.
• Neighborhood-Friendly Gangsters: Well not exactly friendly, GUISE is an organization that seeks to limit and regulate the activities of supervillains, and they also are professional in their dealings with Taylor.
• Never My Fault:
  • Crossguard hates Taylor for getting in the way of him messing with the KND, which ended with him hospitalized after she ran him over with a car. It's been confirmed both in text and by Word of God that he threw himself in front of her car, and genuinely didn't realize that she might not be able to slow down in time to stop (though she was also apparently distracted by something else).
  • Madame Harrier is happy to pass the buck for her non-consensual hair cutting on her employees, much to their annoyance.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The Kids Next Door's assault on the Alamode is implied to be what caused the Mother of the Annoyingly Cute Triplets Who Lived Upon the Hill to join G.U.I.S.E., implying that the KND are responsible for the unifying of many villains across the entire Cartoon Network universe.
• Noodle Incident:
  • Taylor met Father/Benedict Uno sometime in the past, with the incident in question causing her to move out of Adultville for a few years. The exact details of the incident are rather vague, with Taylor explicitly telling Montgomery Uno (Father's brother) that she doesn't want to talk about it. The only things we do know is that Taylor apparently landed near Father's house when she arrived in the KND world and that father knows her well enough to avoid going anywhere near her when she's mad (and knows that a giant swarm of bugs indicates she's extremely angry). It's implied that at least part of the bad blood between them stems from when he turned Sector Z into The Delightful Children From Down The Lane. Later chapters reveals that the relationship between Father and Taylor was very serious — he's Holly's biological father.
  • Taylor had an altercation with Crossguard in the past that made him swear bloody vengeance on her. The only details we know of are that she was stopping him from harassing the KND. Operation F.O.R.W.A.R.D. reveals that he threw himself in front of her car to try and stop her, and ended up being arrested after he was hospitalized. Word of God finally cleared this up — Taylor was just helping the KND and ended up hitting him because she was distracted when he threw himself at her, and that she views him as a Harmless Villain.
  • Taylor is apparently acquainted with Edna Jucation, as the latter recognizes Taylor's swarm when it tries to attack a barber shop (long story). The two appear to be friends, since Edna wonders why Taylor never told her that she had moved back into town.
  • Taylor has apparently done work for GUISE before. One villain used a weapon that was powered by Taylor's honey.
• No-Sell: In Operation R.A.P.U.N.Z.E.L., Nigel proves immune to Rapunzel's hairbrush, as while it can make hair grow at an incredible rate it still needs some hair to start with.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: None of Taylor's battle with the Crazy Cat Lady is shown, but the end of the chapter implies that she won. Considering that Taylor had to use her Pest Controller skills against someone who has a similar if weaker power to control cats, it must have been something.
• Only Sane Man: Holly and Taylor can usually be called on to act as the most level-headed person in the room.
  • For Holly:
    • When Holly first hears that the teachers at her school slashed the budget to get themselves huge lunches, she's not furious that she's being fed tofu and asparagus, but more disappointed that the funds aren't being used to better the school. She expands on it to Cree that she doesn't just trust or distrust, she judges people based on their actions.
    • Holly is the one who points out that the fake teen ninjas are just hurting the video game industry by stealing video games.
    • Holly is usually the one to point out the flaws in Nigel's paranoid theories, like in Operation B.B.Q.S.A.U.C.E. when she concernedly asks if he realizes that adults can be friends with each other when he assumes that the cookout the Sector V parents are setting up must be a nefarious scheme because he can't imagine them spending time together otherwise.
  • For Taylor:
    • Taylor is this by virtue of not falling into the stereotypes of adults in this world- by not being evil children haters like Crossguard, or bumbling like Monty Uno, she manages to raise her daughter right and in a way that doesn't skew towards extremes.
    • While Taylor does attack Numbuh 8a and Numbuh 8b in the first chapter, she only does so after they antagonize her (due to a misunderstanding regarding Cree). Otherwise, she never attempts to fight the KND and even helps them on occasion.
    • Taylor can clearly tell that the low property values in Adultville are because of all the villain activity, and is rather amazed by how oblivious the other Sector V parents, and people on that Earth in general, are about it all.
    • Taylor can also tell how creepy the Delightful Children are, while even Moosk only realizes it after prompting. She suspects that they have a low-level Master power that convinces adults that they're normal.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • Perpetual Smiler Freaky Fred actually frowns when Holly reveals that Madam Harrier shaved Taylor's hair and was planning to blame it on one of her employees. It's made clear to the audience that he realized what Holly didn't — Madam Harrier was going to use him as a fall guy. It's also implied by his later interactions with Taylor that he probably would've fully accepted the position if Harrier just asked him.
  • Once they figure out that Holly is Taylor's daughter, the Delightful Children From Down The Lane actually desyncronize for a moment when they react. It's implied they're both shocked to meet their sister and worried that Father might show her favoritism. That, or they remember Taylor from when they were Sector Z. Or both. Additionally, they straight up lie to Father about Holly being Taylor's daughter, and later try to blackmail Taylor into leaving town with Holly with the threat of him being made aware of the fact that Holly is his daughter as well.
  • Taylor finds the fact that Monty can't remember her powers or short-lived exterminator business before she prompts him rather worrying, since she knows that he saw her do it because at least a few times he was her ride. Upon hearing about his memory issues, she recommends that he see a neurologist.
  • The Delightful Children are noticeably thrown for a loop when Holly reveals that she would have given them some of the cake she made if they just asked. They immediately go back to antagonizing her.
• Open Secret: The Villain's Guild known as GUISE is supposedly a secret organization, but they don't really put that much effort into maintaining that secret, especially in the modern era where costumed villains are a dime a dozen. Sure, they don't advertise, instead merely bringing new villains that set up in areas that they control into the fold one way or another, but their members get discounts at certain evil businesses, like the Supervillain's Supermarket or Starbucks.
• Outside-Context Problem:
  • Taylor is this for most typical adults and children. By all accounts, she has most of the traits that one would expect for a villain, except that she treats children as people, which is confusing to both the standard evil adults and KND operatives alike.
  • The hamsters are used to having the run of the Treehouse when the kids aren't around. Then Charlotte, a sapient, larger than average spider, moves in. They end up so scared that, even though Charlotte isn't really hurting them, they go nowhere without a buddy.
• The Paranoiac: Who else but Nigel Uno aka Numbuh One, whose paranoid delusions are so great that even a simple get together barbeque between his teammate's families is enough to get him to suspect even his own father, a known Bumbling Dad. Unsurprisingly, Holly is a little worried about him. Cree even calls him the most paranoid person she's ever met.
• Pragmatic Villainy:
  • The main goal of G.U.I.S.E. is to keep villains from stepping on each other's toes with their schemes, as that usually leads to them getting arrested. They also view the Adultville chapter of the organization as a joke because of their hyperfocus on oppressing children.
  • Madam Harrier has a legitimate barbershop business, which she uses to collect human hair on the sly for wigs, making a tidy profit with no one the wiser. She could have kept it up indefinitely if she hadn't decided to shave Taylor bald simply because she figured that she deserved her hair more. She also finds it easier to just wipe the minds of potential witnesses rather than kill them.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Taylor is technically a member of the Villain's Guild, but has been doing her best to get by with the bare minimum of villainous activity permitted. Unfortunately, as Operation B.B.Q.S.A.U.C.E. reveals, the Guild is heavily pressuring her to become more active again.
• Put on a Bus:
  • After the R.E.C.R.U.I.T. arc, 8a and 8b are not seen again due to the events of the episode M.A.U.R.I.C.E.. It's later explained that when they got infected with the Chicken Pox weapons, it was such a bad strain that their parents moved them away to get better medical treatment for their children.
  • Again after M.A.U.R.I.C.E., Maurice, AKA Numbuh 9, isn't seen again. This is because, per the events of KND canon, he's off on his one-kid crusade to stop the production of Chicken Pox weapons, and doesn't come back to the treehouse.
• Rapid Hair Growth: Taylot is shaved bald by Madam Harrier, and for a while makes do with a wig, but Holly's next mission has her acquire the Comb of Rapunzel, which allows her to restore Taylor's hair.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Taylor tries to be one… which is an extreme rarity in the world of Kids Next Door, since most adults strongly dislike children or are bumbling and fairly useless.
  • Huff might not like kids, and still calls them brats, but he at least recognizes that working for a toy company, kids are where they get their money from. It literally doesn't pay to hate children.
• Related in the Adaptation: As she was married to (or at least slept with) Father/Benedict Uno, Taylor is Numbuh One's aunt.
• Retired Badass: Taylor has long since left behind the days where she was a Cape, and just wants to raise Holly in peace. However, anyone who tries to antagonize her will soon learn that they are messing with someone that not only managed to take over a city, but quite literally saved all Earths! Operation B.B.Q.S.A.U.C.E. Reveals that GUISE is pressuring her into being active again, so this is probably not going to last.
• Retired Monster: It's implied that Taylor re-donned the mantle of Skitter before Holly was born, and is trying to distance herself from that identity. GUISE desires otherwise, and tells her as much.
• Running Gag:
  • Hoagie mooching off of Holly's food.
  • This story continues one from the show, that of one of Professor XXX-L's body parts replaced by some animal bits of some variety. When we meet him in prison, he's replaced his nose and mouth with the beak of a predatory raptor.
• School Bullying Is Harmless: Averted. Taylor is still horribly traumatized by the horrific bullying she endured at Winslow High, and because of it, she's very reluctant to send Holly to school. Thankfully for Holly, she has KND operatives as her classmates.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Father, seeing Taylor's wrath unfold at the barber shop, decides to take his children there some other time.
• Selective Obliviousness:
  • For some reason, Monty Uno is allowed to shop at the Supervillain Mart... and just treats it like another store, oblivious to its usual clientele.
  • The parents of Sector V wonder aloud why the property values of their city are so bad... while Taylor witnesses, barely a few blocks away, Stickybeard plowing through entire subdivisions and leaving a trail of destruction in his wake.
• Self-Made Man: Taylor supports herself and her daughter with her own home honey business, and is already looking for a store and hiring employees. She's already hired on Vin Moosk.
• Shock Collar: Freaky Fred was forced to wear one to control his creepy hair-cutting habit.
• Shmuck Bait: Yeah sure, it's not like that one-armed woman who wants yarn is going to be any problem for you, right miss Crazy Cat Lady?
• Slasher Smile: While not quite a "slasher", Freaky Fred's smile still perturbs Taylor and Holly tremendously.
• Shout-Out:
  • The teachers replacing the kid's lunch foods with cheap vegetarian substitutes so they can have gourmet meals themselves is very much like the first episode of Danny Phantom.
  • Holly has a massive pet spider named Charlotte.
  • Danny is implied to know Johnny Bravo. Later, it's mentioned a couple of times that Taylor and Holly used to live in Aron City.
  • An in-universe news article says that Numbuh 626 was able to work out a deal with several factions attempting to gain control of a chocolate volcano in the Hawaiian Islands. While her name isn't mentioned directly, the fact that she's from Hawaii, goes by the name 626, and is good at working things out between people means it's fairly likely she's based on Lilo. This is all but confirmed when Holly and Hoagie go and visit Hawaii and meet 626, and she's a dead ringer for Lilo Pelaki. Word of God states, however, is that she is just a shout-out, and not the actual Disney character.
  • Taylor wonders at once point if there's a game similar to SimCity on her current Earth, and if Holly would like it.
  • The man running the video game store the kids visit is named Reggie.
  • In Operation R.A.P.U.N.Z.E.L., Taylor is reading what is implied to be Skulduggery Pleasant.
• Smug Snake: To call Madame Harrier smug is a massive understatement. She thinks she can take on Taylor due to having only one arm. It costs her dearly.
• Superpowerful Genetics: Holly has the power to control bugs much like her mother. However, unlike Taylor who dominates them, Holly actually speaks to them much like an insect Dr. Dolittle. It seems like her power also makes insects intelligent or aware enough to be able to understand other humans, though Holly still is the only one that can actually have a two-way conversation with them. This is backed up by Worm canon- Holly is technically a second-generation Cape, and therefore a) her powers, though budded off of her mother's, are different from hers, and b) her gaining them was far less traumatic than a first generation cape's.
• Sure, Let's Go with That: Nigel figured that KND Arctic Base was purposely giving them bad meals as a hidden test, which is why his team and Holly sneak off after curfew to make better food for themselves. Numbah 274 quickly agrees and even allows Holly to help in the kitchen during the day, congratulating the kids on figuring out the "Secret Test." When 274 is questioned on this, since no, it was not a secret test, he admits that he agreed with the kids mainly because he's tired of the bad food too.
• Trapped in Villainy: GUISE apparently requires that its members commit to one scheme a year at least. Taylor reveals to Monty Uno that she's being pressured to get back into be an active villain by them, with the implication being that she will be Killed to Uphold the Masquerade, since GUISE tries to keep their existence a secret.
• Tsundere: It's revealed that Father is this to Taylor — the two were in a relationship (which resulted in Holly), and while they had a messy breakup, he still cares for her in some capacity. The evil scorpion he gave her has hot sauce for venom, and Father wonders if she figured this out in time for the BBQ with his brother.
• Undead Tax Exemption: Subverted. Taylor's lack of documentation, due to being from another universe, is what draws Cree's suspicion. Even Count Spankulot, a villain who is centuries old, has a birth certificate that can be located.
• Unknown Rival: Numbuh 274 is this to Holly and Taylor. He gets offended when Maurice suggests using Taylor as a resource for teaching kids how to fight adults, and focuses heavily on Holly when she's in training as a result to prove how training from adults doesn't mean anything. Even after 100 retires, 274 is still prickly about the subject of the Heberts, as his response to Cree getting advice from Taylor indicates. The Heberts themselves are unaware of this, and Holly just thinks he's a bit of a jerk.
• Unskilled, but Strong: As Maurice notes few members KND operatives have use technique or skill to fight and are just straight-up brawlers.
• Villainous Lineage: Father mentions that his family has a long history of villainy to the Delightful children at one point.
• Weirdness Censor: Taylor notes that most of the non-villain adults in Adultville seem to be completely oblivious to most of the villainous activity. At the barbecue in Operation B.B.Q.S.A.U.C.E., Taylor listens to the other parents muse about how mysterious it is that property values in town are so low and that there entire neighborhoods with houses no one will buy while she sees a pirate ship moving through the streets with her powers.
• Weird Trade Union: GUISE, the Villain's Guild. It appears to be primarily focused on making sure that villains don't butt heads over overlapping schemes, as multiple criminals trying to steal the same thing simultaneously often ends with all of them failing, and many of them getting caught. They also act like an organized group, punishing those who intrude on their territory without permission.
• We Need a Distraction: The Charmain of G.U.I.S.E. uses Taylor's attack on the Mayor as a distraction for having some artifact stolen from a local museum nearby.
• Wham Episode: Operation B.B.Q.S.A.U.C.E. is one for the story. First, it's outright confirmed that Father is Holly's biological father, making her cousins with Numbuh One, niece to Monty Uno (AKA Numbuh Zero), and related to Grandfather. Second, it's implied that the memory wipe is causing problems for Monty... but that he's also starting to break through it. Next, the Delightful Children meet Holly for the first time, and actually desynch for a moment as they realize who Holly's mom is, and what that means (and are later shown lying to Father about it). Finally, Taylor is starting to have a breakdown between G.U.I.S.E. pressuring her to be an active supervillain again, having to move back to Adultville, losing her hair, and fear at the possibility of Holly meeting Father.
• Wham Line: Taylor's thoughts on the Delightful Children:
  It’s not like they were real kids anymore, anyway.
• Worldbuilding: One of the things that makes the story so appealing is that it expands on the KND universe, exploring the stuff behind the scenes that we never got to see in the show.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Taylor stays up late to catch the person who keeps leaving presents that she didn't get for Holly on Christmas, thinking that someone from her past is stalking them. Turns out it's just Santa.

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