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Cold Reception

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Cold Reception is a Codename: Kids Next Door Fanfic by noted author Numbuh Phenon.

Almost three years after the events of Operation: I.N.T.E.R.V.I.E.W.S., a Teens Next Door operative goes rogue and threatens to expose the GKND. Nigel Uno, now a decorated GKND operative, is sent back to Earth on a mission to stop them. What at first seems like a blessing in disguise and a bittersweet chance to catch up on all he's missed back home quickly turns into a nightmare as Nigel learns of just how much things have really changed—and just who he has been sent to hunt down.


Tropes:

  • Adaptation Expansion: The final chapter expands on the original series' Distant Finale, explaining that they aren't really that old: Sector L just made them good disguises. Kuki is also not the Rainbow Monkey Corporation head, it was just her cover story. She is however hoping to go up the ranks.
  • Adaptational Explanation: The story gives a backstory to the Delightful Children, explaining just how Sector Z landed in Father's clutches. Every member of Sector Z was a homeless orphan (or might as well have been). Instead of foster homes and orphanages, they lived together in their Treehouse with no adult supervision. As a result, they dreaded their decommissioning because it meant they would be thrown back onto the streets or entered into the foster care system, and so relied on their friend and Soopreme Leaduh Numbuh Beyond to find a solution for their situation when David's thirteenth birthday approached. When it seemed like Beyond had no solution forthcoming, they went to Father (who had offered to adopt them earlier) out of desperation, who took them in and preyed upon their desire to stay together and have a home to make them go through the delightfulization process. The rest, after that, is history.
  • Armor-Piercing Question: Wally never quite got over Nigel leaving Earth for the GKND, especially when he realized it was a choice Nigel made and not an order. When they have a row over it and Nigel angrily shouts that Wally can't be "selfish" to expect that he should just stay on Earth when he could be out making a difference saving kids across the galaxy from evil adults, Wally's response leaves Nigel floundering.
    "Oh. I'm selfish? I had ta watch my mate, the kid I looked up to, leave all his friends, family, and everyone who cared about 'im behind so he could go play in space and stay a kid forever and never hafta grow up like everyone else. He gets to do all that, and I'm selfish ?"
  • Author Avatar: An interesting version. Near the end of the story we are introduced to Numbuh Eleventy Billion, who is the founder of the GKND and the Author Avatar of the original series creator Tom Warburton. However, that's just one of the many perceptions people could see him as, and later he changes his form to a little hamster, who is the Author Avatar of Numbuh Phenom, the author of this very fanfic.
  • Babies Ever After: The epilogue reveals Rachel is pregnant with Nigel's child.
  • Big Damn Kiss:
    • After reuniting with an un-Delightfulized Hoagie, a tearful Abby kisses him.
    • Rachel gives a Now-or-Never Kiss to Nigel before going off to stop the information on the KND from being leaked as atonement for her actions.
  • Big Bad Ensemble: The traitor and Father are the Big Bads of the story. While the traitor teams up with Father so they could use his resources to expose the KND and the GKND to the world, its merely a partnership of convenience and they are quick to turn of each other. Rachel then undergoes a Heel–Face Turn at the story's climax, leaving Father as the sole Big Bad.
  • Big Sister Instinct:
    • Rachel is very protective over her younger brother Harvey. It was Harvey's early decommissioning at Abby's hands that finally drove her to turn against the KND.
    • Even decommissioned, Fanny still loves and is very protective of her little brother Patrick. When she sees Patrick in the middle of the warzone that is the KND's Final Battle against Father, her first instinct after getting over her shock is to demand Georgette/Numbuh 10 to let her go and help him. And when she gets there, she's decked out in a B.R.A. and beating the shit out of a Father clone that was about to hurt Paddy.
  • Big Damn Heroes: The Final Battle with Father pretty much runs on this trope.
    • First, the other members of Sector V show up one by one to relieve Nigel of the pressure of taking on Father, his clones, and his goons. This includes Hoagie finally making his reappearance after recovering from his Delightfulization. Then the Pets Next Door arrive to help them fight Sub-Snackurath, complete with Joaquin's Heroic Sacrifice. Then H.I.P.P.I.E.-H.O.P. falls down from the Moon Base to help Kuki throw down with the DCFDTL's own mech powered up on their hatred. Then Sector W and Tommy save Sector V at their lowest point when they're all about to be Delightfulized by Father's newfound power, where they take over the fight so they can stop Rachel and the broadcast of the GKND to the whole world.
    • From there, Sector W is relieved by The Cavalry of almost the entirety of the KND sectors, followed up by the decommissioned Fanny and Patton coming along thanks to Georgette (former Numbuh 10 now Teen Operative), and then several adult villains who believe Father has crossed too many lines.
  • Bitch Slap: When Numbuh 5 confronts Numbuh 362 for splitting up Sector V, the latter, in a rush to stop Numbuh 206 from hijacking the Moon Base, tries talking her down by saying that Numbuh 1 wouldn't want them to be fighting. With Numbuh 1's departure still a sore spot for both of them, Numbuh 5 slaps Numbuh 362. Unfortunately, that proved to be Rachel's Rage Breaking Point from months of pent-up stress and she "goes rogue", tagging Numbuh 5 and locking her in the closet.
  • Bond Breaker: Nigel's promotion to the GKND shattered the rest of Sector V. According to Rachel, after he was gone all his team did was mope around their treehouse barely doing any missions. To make them productive operatives again, she broke the team up and forced promotions on all of them, much to their protest. When speaking of it to Nigel, Abby admits that as much she might resent Rachel for her decision, it was the right choice and did a lot of good for the organization.
  • Bus Crash:
    • During the Time Skip, Joaquin's littermates the Hamsters Next Door were killed during the attack on the Medical Boo-Boo Grove while clearing a path for him to escape the fire. Their deaths have haunted him since then, which is why he didn't fight Abby when she chose to decommission the Pets Next Door in the aftermath.
    • Numbuh Infinity dies during the Time Skip between the second-to-last chapter and the epilogue, where it's revealed that David managed to reverse the process that made him permanently a child, but at the cost of an accelerated age rate. Apparently, Infinity didn't mind, as it meant he finally got to grow up, if only for a little while.
  • Cassandra Truth: Father mentions that he's had trouble convincing the government that the KND is more than just a bunch of kids playing pretend, but he hopes that Rachel's proof will change that.
  • The Cameo:
  • Cerebus Retcon:
    • Harvey's decommissioning is played far more tragically than it was in the show. He was under immense stress and pressure due to being treated as a pariah over his sister's (faked) betrayal right before her thirteenth birthday. It all came to a head during the attack on the Medical Boo-Boo Grove, where, in a rage, he almost threw Sonia off a balcony for touching him. Lee was able to catch her before she could fall, but that proved to be the last straw for Abby, who had him decommissioned for his own good.
    • One for "Operation I.T.". Rachel's flashback reveals that in addition to the heavy workload and responsibilities that were overloading her at the time, other things that drove Rachel over the edge and led to her temporarily giving up being Soopreme Leaduh is learning that one of her operatives, a newly-graduated cadet, had been KIA, along with Rachel realizing that she cannot talk about it with Fanny because she only sees Rachel as someone to idolize rather than a person, and Rachel ruining a possible friendship with Patton over her brother's bratty behavior in the academy.
    • It's revealed that using the super hamster ray on himself during "Operation: F.O.O.D.F.I.T.E." nearly killed Joaquin, with Kuki barely able to save his life in the aftermath. When Joaquin uses the ray on himself again years later in his old age, everyone acknowledges that he's effectively sentenced himself to death.
  • Clingy Jealous Girl: Rachel is a subtle example. Even though they were never actually a couple, she could be very possessive of Nigel—she had a lot of resentment for Abby for how close she was to her leader, and deliberately scheduled the investigation of Herbie on the day Nigel was supposed to be Lizzie's date for her sister's wedding in hopes of driving a wedge between them.
  • Changing Yourself for Love: Parodied. It's revealed the treaty incident was an elaborate attempt by The Steve to impress Cree. The reason it was so easily foiled is because The Steve's heart wasn't really in it, thanks to his subconscious loyalty to the KND as the decommissioned Numbuh 100.
  • The Chain of Harm: Father genuinely loves his adoptive children, but his own horrible upbringing and naturally self-centered personality meant that his affection was often balanced out with abusive treatment. By the time Sector V encounters the Delightful Children during the climax of the story, he's become so abusive to them that when Kuki gives them an out by offering them a chance to visit the Medical Boo-Boo Grove in hopes of reversing their condition and finding new homes, they take it with only momentary hesitation.
  • The Chains of Commanding: The story pulls no punches in showing the heavy toll of being Soopreme Leaduh of the KND. Just about every single one of them we see came out of it bitter, jaded and overall just burnt-out from the experience. Even the heroic last stand of Numbuh Beyond, a legend for becoming Soopreme Leaduh as a mere cadet and proving to be one of the greatest in recent memory, was revealed to be manufactured by Numbuh Infinity, and the truth was likely much closer to what happened to Rachel.
  • Combat Breakdown: The fight between Rachel and Abby in the abandoned Ted E. Bear Mafia-Free Playland goes from them using their various tech and honed combat skills to using the environment to finally after they blow the establishment up two girls exhaustedly beating the absolute shit out of each other fueled by nothing but their rage and loathing, both for each other and themselves.
  • Continuity Nod: Not only are there several to the show itself, but to other fics from the same author. The events of Operation: FLAMBÉ A LA MODE are mentioned as one of the reasons of Rachel's betrayal and some of the narration implies Operation: NURSE and Espionage for Dummies also happened in this universe.
  • Cool and Unusual Punishment: Rachel gets sentenced to community service for the GKND as punishment for stealing confidential information from them and threatening to leak it, and blackmailing Numbuh 74.239 while doing so. This means having to perform backbreaking (and at times dangerous) tasks for the GKND, which includes serving at the cafeteria and having to mow the lawn of a planet full of carnivorous plants. At the very least, she will get Friday and weekends off, the chance to see Nigel again, and free dental.
  • Deconstruction Fic: This story deconstructs the overall premise of the Kids Next Door and its purported mission. Contrary to the humorous and fantastical elements of the show, this story shows that several children and adults have died in the never-ending war between the KND and adult tyranny, a fact that is glossed over and ignored by all except the higher-ups of the organization. Additionally, service to the KND can be physically and emotionally taxing, which, compounded with the knowledge that the operative will ultimately get nothing in return, can grind down even the most devoted operatives.
  • Defecting for Love: Inverted in the case of Wally. The TND has a policy that only two operatives per sector generation are allowed to become teen operatives, with the rest being honorably decommissioned. Sector V is no exception; with Abby having already claimed one of the spots for their team, Nigel in space, and Hoagie out of the running, it came down to Kuki and Wally over who would be the next TND operative. When Kuki became Soopreme Leaduh, the spot went to her, so Wally defected before his thirteenth birthday and became a free agent so he wouldn't forget about her.
  • Disappointed by the Motive:
    • Nigel is flabbergasted and disgusted that all of Father's crimes since he left Earth, from the destruction of the Medical Boo-Boo Grove to hitting Hoagie with Delightfulization, were all over the pipe Nigel took from him during the scavenger hunt. It only ups when Father, annoyed that Nigel just threw the pipe out the airlock rather than keep it as a trophy, walks off and rummages around to pull out a spare pipe, meaning all that suffering was due to "principles" and one massive overblown temper tantrum.
    • When Numbuh 2 realized that the confidential GKND information that Rachel had been attempting to leak was nothing more than a coding programme that the Important Ones used to cheat at "Star-Void Legends", Sector V and Rachel were baffled by how much had been sacrificed for what was essentially a bunch of cheat codes. Even Father found the revelation to be somewhat anti-climactic, though he still proceeds with uploading it anyways.
  • Don't Split Us Up: Father was able to manipulate Sector Z into joining him by preying upon their desire to keep their Family of Choice together. Even as the Delightful Children, they hate being apart to the point that any form of separation is psychologically traumatic.
  • Dying Curse: During a flashback, it's implied the events of the story are in part due to a curse the Charming Servants of the Lower Circle (a pair of demons that used to serve Grandfather's grandmother and Predecessor Villain, Mother Dearest) cast upon the original group of operatives that defeated them and sealed them back into their teapot:
    • Numbuh Beyond: Her and all the Soopreme Leaduhs after her were to "suffer under the weight of the crown", hence why every Soopreme Leaduh since then has suffered under The Chains of Commanding and turned into a bitter wreck, culminating in both Beyond and Rachel betraying the KND.
    • Numbuh Nine-Nine: His idealism would one day fail him, and he would lose everything he held dear. Years later, during the Great Junior High Rebellion, Nine-Nine would broker a deal with the GKND to spare the Earth planet-wide decommissioning in exchange for becoming an ageless diplomat for both sides, renaming himself Numbuh Infinity in the process. Doing so meant betraying his crush Numbuh Beyond (who had since gone rogue), and who was eventually killed during the whole mess.
    • Sector Z: They were to suffer an "eternal purgatory" so horrible that it would haunt them for the rest of their lives. Only a few months later, they were delightfulized by Father and made into the Delightful Children from Down the Lane.
  • End of an Age: When explaining why she's matured to Nigel, Kuki declares herself the last of the Seventh Age, with everyone else from her generation having already aged up and moved on with their lives. The fact that she's due for her own "decommissioning" soon only adds to the honest solemness of her statement.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: No matter how many an Ignored Epiphany or Redemption Rejection he has, how toxic that love is or even whatever their differences, Father really does love his Delightful Children and his brother Monty. For the latter in particular, Benedict has the opportunity to blast Monty when he has him dead-to-rights or even just dodge Monty's shot in order to finish off Nigel and Rachel, but he does neither of these things and lets his brother shoot him to bring him down.
  • Even Evil Has Standards:
    • Father's ruthless attack on the Medical Boo-Boo Grove horrified so many of his fellow villains that they broke ranks and started helping the KND protect and save several of the children that were being treated there.
    • Knightbrace is a retired villain by the time of the story, but when he sees Nigel get absolutely stomped by one of Father's clones, he does try to help and even faces off with the villain to buy some time. He survives the encounter, though he loses his apartment in the destruction.
  • Evil Is Not a Toy: Grandma Stuffum warns Father to not summon Sub-Snackurath, a food monster that's even more dangerous than her Slamwich, stating that not even she could control it. Father summons it anyway to sic it on the reunited Sector V. It's subverted because Father manages to gain control over the monster by scaring into submission.
  • Famous Ancestor: Abby and Cree's mother, Adeline, was Lupin V, making her (and the Lincoln sisters by extension) a descendant of Arsène Lupin.
  • Fake Defector: Rachel was supposed to have an honorable "decommissioning" like Maurice before transitioning to the Teens Next Door, but a combination of the former Numbuh 206 infiltrating the Moonbase and a stressful confrontation with Abby caused her to snap and follow Chad's example and "betray" the KND instead. She did eventually turn traitor for real, but that was over a year after her thirteenth birthday.
  • Foil:
    • Chad and the traitor, Rachel, as lampshaded by Chad himself. Both lost everything to the Kids Next Door and got nothing in return, and felt no little amount of resentment for it. But whereas Chad can recognize Vengeance Feels Empty, accept that chapter of his life was over, and move on, the traitor isn't and is willing to do anything to spite the KND in revenge for the perceived betrayal, no matter how much collateral damage they leave in their wake.
    • The Traitor and Father as well. Both feel that the KND stripped every person they have ever loved or cared from away from them and set out on a crusade to end the KND forever. Rachel eventually realizes that they themselves had a big part in alienating their friends by closing themselves in and starts to seek redemption when everything is over. Meanwhile, Father does not want to accept that he is the problem in alienating his brother away and continues to blame the KND in everything that has gone bad in his life instead of taking accountability himself.
  • Forgiven, but Not Forgotten: Nigel and Chad prove that time does not heal all wounds when they reunite and find they still can't get along. While they do come to something of an understanding at the end of their conversation, it's clear that their relationship will never go back to the easy friendship they had when they were kids.
  • Frame-Up: Upon their reunion, Rachel briefly convinces Nigel that Abby is the traitor. It lasts up until Abby herself catches up to them and reveals the truth, whereupon Nigel goes into an immediate Heroic BSoD.
  • Godzilla Threshold: The Important Ones of the GKND warn Nigel if he cannot stop the Traitor within the timeframe given to him, they will have no choice but to "reboot" Earth and its KND branch via mass decommissioning. Back when they first did it in the 19th Century, the chaos allowed Grandfather to rise up and become world-conquering tyrant he's known in history as a consequence. They came dangerously close to doing it again during Numbuh Beyond's major uprising and war between the KND and teenagers, only being foiled by Numbuhs 74.239/Dave, Vine/Lizzie, and Nine-Nine/soon-to-be-Infinity/Jerome and the latter's appointment as ambassador to keep it from happening again. Though Jerome later learns to his shock and horror that mass-decommissioning is only the "warning shot"; if Earth had been deemed to require the reboot again, they would have resorted to a much more permanent solution.
  • Going Native: Numbuh 74.239/Dave as a secret operative of the GKND admits this happened to him when he grew enthralled with Earth despite his mission being originally just to survey Earth KND's current tech level, becoming astounded with humans and their kindness so different from what the Important Ones would ever show him. From there, he assimilated further into Earth life, even seeing his own caretakers, who learned about his true alien origins when his disguise tech malfunctioned but didn't care, as his parents. His desperation to avoid being found out as the leak that let Rachel get the GKND info is as much to avoid losing his Earth life as it is to dodge responsibility, as he knows the GKND would scrub him from Earth and decommission everyone who associated with him, with special fear going towards his "parents" given they're adults, if they know. Numbuh Infinity sympathizes with his friend and settles for simply deleting Dave's memories as a GKND agent to let him live a happy life on Earth with upgraded disguise technology to avoid any mishaps.
  • Got Volunteered:
    • This was how Abby became Soopreme Leaduh. An argument between her and Rachel caused the latter to finally snap from months of pent-up stress, prompting her to tag Abby (thereby making her Supreme Leader) and lock her in a closet so she couldn't tag anyone else.
    • Rachel gets conscripted into the GKND as Earth's second GKND operative as punishment for her crimes. Unlike Numbuh 1, she won't get assigned field missions but instead gets assigned to a two-year probationary period in which she would have to do community service. The other alternative would have been decommissioning, but unlike the Earth KND's decommissioning, GKND decommissioning would effectively rewrite the person's personality.
  • Greater-Scope Villain:
    • Although Grandfather has long been defeated during the events of "Operation: Z.E.R.O.", he still casts a looming influence over the story's events, mainly his abusive treatment of Father which plays a part in the latter's gradual Sanity Slippage.
    • As the story goes on, it becomes increasingly obvious that the Important Ones of the GKND are responsible for much of the systemic problems rooted in the KND, and their unbending adherence to the rules and willingness to cross major lines to punish those who would break them have caused no end of grief for operatives across the ages, which motivates many of the traitors to rebel in the first place.
  • Heroic BSoD: Nigel completely shuts down when he realizes Rachel is the real traitor, not Abby, and can't even bring himself to scream as Rachel pushes him and Abby out of an airlock while they're still in the sky.
  • Heroic Lineage: Father's flashback in Chapter 29 reveals that it's not just Numbuh 1's parents, but some of the parents of Sector V, who were part of La Résistance that toppled Grandfather's reign of terror. In fact, they are the original Sector V.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: To stop Sub-Snackurath, Joaquin uses the super hamster ray on himself again and transforms into his giant form, knowing full well that using it in his old age will kill him for certain.
  • History Repeats: A Supreme Leader falling in love with an operative under their command where one member of the pair turns out to be a Love-Interest Traitor and the conflict of duty threatens to tear their relationship apart? Rachel and Nigel aren't the first to do this song and dance, as Numbuh 100/Steve and Cree along with Numbuhs Beyond and Nine-Nine/Infinity can attest.
  • I Just Want to Be Normal: Numbuh 100 had the option of joining the TND, but declined, opting for a normal life as Cree's betrayal and reasoning for it soured him to the idea of continuing on. He did briefly rejoin the war as a member of the other side as The Steve, but that didn't last and in the present story he's bowed out of the conflict almost completely.
  • Irony:
    • Harvey suffered the Sins of Our Fathers treatment for Rachel's (fake) betrayal, the stress of which eventually caused him to lash out and led to his early decommissioning. It is this early decommissioning that led to Rachel betraying the KND for real.
    • Tragically, Sector Z took up Father's adoption offer because they believed the KND, and more specifically, their friend Numbuh Beyond, had abandoned them. The day they left to meet with Father and were labeled missing, Numbuh Beyond went to their treehouse to surprise them with the establishment of the Medical Boo-Boo Grove, the KND's personal hospital that would treat kids and house homeless children and runaways for as long as needed until they could find good homes. She was going to give them command over the Grove, which would've given all of them (particularly David, who was due to be decommissioned the day after) a place to stay together like they wanted. When the Delightful Children find out the truth decades later, all they can do is let out a Howl of Sorrow.
  • I Hate Past Me:
    • The Delightful Children from Down the Lane despise their old lives as Sector Z, as they view their whole service as just one big waste since the KND would have split them up once David turned thirteen regardless of their accomplishments. When they learn decades later that their Supreme Leader Numbuh Beyond had in fact managed to find a loophole for them by establishing the Medical Boo-Boo Grove the very day they went to Father for his own offer, it turns into deeper self-loathing that they couldn't have faith in her promise.
    • A recommissioned Harvey/Numbuh 363 admits to Rachel that he's ashamed of how he acted during the events of Operation I.N.T.E.R.V.I.E.W.S.
  • It's Personal: The DCFDTL may hate the KND on principle but they confess during their huge battle with Sector V that they hate their sector most of all. Their constant interference with them and Father's plans only brought his wrath down on them again and again and made them suffer more and more while Sector V got to bask in victory and go home laughing to loving (or at least functional) family (despite them paradoxically also enjoying the interference on some level since it brought so much excitement to their otherwise rather dull lives). Deeper than that though, Sector V's friendship hits too close to home to them about their own lives as Sector Z and the mess it ended up in, and so they take great pains to call out all their transgressions against each other as well as the KND's treatment to try and break them down.
  • Laser-Guided Amnesia: After Nigel left to join the GKND, his parents were decommissioned again, with an additional wipe to make them forget they ever had a son. This is later revealed to be a lie fed to Sector V by Numbuh Infinity—Monty and Agatha were allowed to keep their memories and remain recommissioned, but only if they promised not to interfere with any KND business.
  • Last of Their Kind: Joaquin is the last living hamster of the original horde that Sector V cared for when they were still active, making his death even more emotionally devastating for all of them.
  • Living Emotional Crutch: It's gradually revealed through Rachel's flashback that Nigel was the person she leaned on the most during her time as a Kids Next Door operative. He was always there for her whenever she needed a shoulder to cry on and pumped her up whenever she needed a confidence boost. After he left for the GKND and literally disappeared off the face of the earth, it didn't take long for Rachel to slowly and surely fall apart. When Rachel reflects on everything the KND has taken from her, she lists Nigel as last, showing it was his loss that hurt the most.
  • Loved I Not Honor More: Nigel genuinely loves Rachel, but no matter how much he loves her, he loves the KND more. This realization does nothing to negate the grief and anguish Rachel feels, and instead only furthers her resentment of the KND. Nigel's arc is all about having to confront this mindset and realize/remember that when the chips are down, he always put friends and family over the mission or the organization.
    "This was her fault. All her fault for falling in love with a Kids Next Door operative who was never supposed to grow up."
  • Love-Interest Traitor:
    • Rachel T. McKenzie, the former Numbuh 362 and the girl Nigel loves, is the TND traitor he's been sent to hunt down.
    • Back in the past, Cree, the former Numbuh 11, ended up becoming this for Numbuh 100 when she went rogue the day of her decommissioning.
  • Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Chad, in his poignant conversation with Nigel, acknowledges that what drives many former KND operatives (including the rogue operative Nigel is chasing down) to betray the organization is the realization that they've given up everything to the KND, and will get nothing in return. Rachel's flashback chapter shows this in full as she becomes bitter and cynical as the personal losses and sacrifices start piling up on her while she struggles to keep it together. Learning about her brother's early decommissioning and hearing Numbuh Infinity say keeping her Locked Out of the Loop regarding the GKND's interest in recruiting Nigel was to avoid a "conflict of interest" prove to be the tipping points of her loyalty.
  • My God, What Have I Done?:
    • Even years later, Cree still regrets accidentally killing Rachel's hamster Bon-Bon during the events of Operation: FLAMBÉ A LA MODE.
    • Abby deeply regrets having to decommission Harvey/Numbuh 363, realizing there could have been many other ways to address his issues without resorting to such a measure.
  • My Greatest Second Chance: Joaquin resurrects the Pets Next Door to aid Sector V in their rescue of Rachel, in part to atone for being unable to save the lives of his brothers and sisters during the attack on the Medical Boo-Boo Grove. Bradley later calls him out on it when it drives him to use the fatal super hamster ray on himself to stop Sub-Snackurath, saying whatever redemption he's seeking is not worth his life.
  • Nepotism: The KND, much like many real-life organizations, could be heavily nepotistic when recruiting new operatives. Many cadets with older siblings already in the KND had a leg up over their peers, usually with better training that allowed them to pass the evaluations more easily. Rachel is shown to have heavily resented this preferential treatment when she was a cadet, but that didn't stop her from using it to try and justify allowing Harvey to pass his cadet training, even though his personality profile showed him to be completely unfit to be an operative. Rachel notes her reputation took a nosedive for this in the aftermath, which only put more pressure on Harvey to prove that he earned his spot and further exacerbated his issues.
  • Never Got to Say Goodbye: The reason Rachel took Nigel's leaving Earth so badly. The fact that Sector V couldn't give her any details, only cryptically saying that Nigel vanished didn't help. Further twisting the knife is that their last exchange involved her coldly dressing him and his team down for their failures to capture the DCFDTL's birthday cake and taking her brothers side over his, something she'd even been planning to make amends for the next day once the mission was over.
  • Never Grew Up:
    • Numbuh Infinity, thanks to an experimental serum injected into him as part of his bargain with the GKND. While physically ten, chronologically he's somewhere in his late twenties to early thirties.
    • The Delightful Children from Down the Lane, thanks to the effects of their delightfulization. To give context to how old they are, the members of Sector Z were already Living Legends during Numbuh Beyond's era, when Infinity was still a normal KND operative and Numbuh 100 was a cadet, by the time of their transformation. This is a major source of angst for them, because they hate the fact they're eternally stuck as children and unable to move on with their lives.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!:
    • Wanting to prevent Nigel from leaving Earth too quickly via finishing his mission to capture the traitor at the earliest opportunity, Kuki calls up Chad and tells him to run interference on the operation so the traitor can escape. Chad obliges, and his tip-off to the traitor and teens combined with the arrival of the Decommission Squad Wally called in with the secret authorization codes Kuki also gave him causes such a disaster that the traitor escapes, but Wally is captured by the Decommission Squad alongside the present teens and set up for decommission.
    • Long ago during the reign of Grandfather, Monty gave Benedict the Book of KND and told him to read it in order to find the spark of hope that inspired him and the other rebelling kids to fight their father's tyranny. Unfortunately, Benedict was too deep in his own despair and resentment to take the lesson to heart and when he read ahead of where Monty and the rest had and spied the amendment that Numbuh First Light made to the decommissioning process to make it optional, he erased the amendment in the selfish hope that one day Monty would someday come back to him rather than spend the rest of his life with his new friends. As Father realizes and laughs about to Sector V when he remembers this little event to their horror, that one act caused more damage to the KND than possibly anything else could have.
  • Noodle Incident:
    • Subverted. For most of the story, Hoagie is alluded to having some sort of an "accident" while Nigel was gone that ended both his career as a KND operative and broke the rest of Sector V down further. Eventually, it's revealed what happened: he had been captured by Father and forcibly Delightfulized—the KND had to decommission him to preserve whatever was left of his original personality.
    • There are references throughout the story of adventures that happened after Nigel left Earth, including run-ins with the Mozzarella Mafia, Candy Vikings, and the Toy Mafia.
  • Official Couple: Sometime after Nigel's departure, Wally and Kuki finally made it past the Unresolved Sexual Tension stage of their relationship and became a couple. Their relationship is what drove Wally to defect from the KND and become a free agent—he didn't want to forget about Kuki.
  • Older and Wiser: While all of Sector V has matured significantly from when they were kids, Kuki is the one who has changed the most, having become Soopreme Leaduh of the Kids Next Door. Nigel is put off-kilter by seeing her act so responsibly.
  • Passing the Torch: A very dark example. When Father in a rage turns his Delightfulization machine on himself to remove his own inner child, the action is perceived by the senile decommissioned Grandfather hooked up to a life machine in his retirement home, who in the middle of a heart attack remembers everything and realizes what's happened. Grandfather's final act before flatlining is to (backhandedly) acknowledge that Benedict has finally come into his own.
  • Power Armor: The Steve gives Rachel his Battle Ready Armor (with its own AI based off the Steve's own personality), which she puts to good use when storming Father's corporate headquarters, though she couldn't access the suit's weapons systems until she gave the password.
  • Prison Riot: As part of their plan to break Wally out of D-Block, Nigel and Kuki trigger a riot as a distraction, using the recently-captured Teen Ninjaz and their obvious desire for some payback and escape to work in their favor.
  • The Promise: Before his fake defection, Chad made Rachel promise him that she would look after the KND in case something happened to him. She obliviously promised she would, unaware of just what her superior had been planning at the time, and it caused a massive strain in their relationship when they finally reunited years later as TND operatives.
  • Rank Up:
    • After Nigel left for the GKND, Rachel forced promotions on the rest of Sector V to get them out of their funk: Hoagie joined the Deep Sea Research Lab, Kuki was made the Head Nurse at the Medical Grove, Wally was made the head drill sergeant at the Arctic Base (replacing Patton), and Abby became Soopreme Leaduh. Later, after Abby was "decommissioned", Kuki became the next Soopreme Leaduh, a position she still holds upon Nigel's temporary return to Earth.
    • Rachel's flashback shows her own rise through the ranks of the KND, from her time as a Cadet, to her graduation and enrollment into Sector Q, to joining Moonbase Covert Operations, and finally becoming Soopreme Leaduh.
  • Raised by Grandparents: Joaquin raised his granddaughter Pashmina, after his daughter, her mother, died giving birth to her litter, of which Pashmina was the only survivor.
  • Rejected Apology: Abby reveals to Nigel that after she was "decommissioned", Cree tried to reach out to her and reconcile their relationship. It didn't work, as Abby could never be certain whether or not her sister was sincerely sorry for everything she did or just saw her chance to have a relationship with Abby now that she had "forgotten" all the terrible things Cree had done. The two finally reconcile in the story proper, right before the climax, after Cree reveals to Abby that she knows about the TND and encourages her sister to go and help Nigel save Rachel.
  • Redemption Rejection: The traitor rejects various atempts by other to stop her mission when they learn the motivations behind it. They rejects every single one of them, feeling that they have gone to far to back out. It isn't until Harvey regains his memories and talks with Rachel that she finally gives up and tries to amend her actions.
  • The Remnant: The Teen Ninjaz suffered two (arguably three) major blows to their organization in the time since Nigel left Earth. First they split off from Father after his attack on the Medical Boo-Boo Grove, though by that point they had gotten familiar enough with his tech they could reliably make it and upgrade on their own. Then one of their top agents Cree quit the organization, and then their leader The Steve left and disbanded them when he did. Now the Ninjaz are scattered about with several large factions competing with each other and the KND but no real unifying force behind them.
  • Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: Almost all of the KND believe the Delightful Children from Down the Lane drowned after their last big birthday party ended with them being sucked away and they never resurfaced in the public eye for years. In reality, that particular failure coupled with Father's explosive break-down over the loss of his pipe during the scavenger hunt lead him to ground them to the manor for all that time. They were only let out shortly after Father learned about Nigel's return to prep for the "homecoming party", and that they take dark joy in revealing their survival to both Sector V and later to all the KND through a hacked system broadcast.
  • The Resenter: During her flashback, it's revealed that Rachel heavily resented Abby during their KND careers due to the latter's comparatively easier entry into the KND and her close relationship with Nigel. This resentment reached its highest point after Abby had Harvey decommissioned, whereupon Rachel came to see her as the embodiment of the Kids Next Door and everything it took from her.
  • Retired Badass: Chad has retired completely from the Teens Next Door and is now living a normal life. Nonetheless, he still has contacts within the KND and briefly comes out of retirement to wreck Nigel and Wally's mission on Kuki's behest, so Nigel can stay on Earth longer. He also shows up in Chapter 31 to provide some long-range secret help for Sector V to break through the defenses around Father's corporate headquarters.
  • Rogue Agent: Wally is a free agent; not officially a member of the KND anymore, but he's not a TND nor is he with the Teens. He still runs operations and spy work for the former, but technically speaking official policy is that the KND shouldn't hesitate to bring him in for decommissioning if they catch him.
  • Sanity Slippage: Father lost his mind after Nigel left for the GKND, having never gotten over his nephew stealing his pipe and getting away with it, which made him a laughing stock among the villain community and worsened his already-low self-esteem. This eventually culminated in his attack on the Medical Boo-Boo Grove, at which point several of his former allies cut ties with him because they felt he had gone too far.
  • Shout-Out:
    • Abby and Rachel's fight takes place in the abandoned Ted E. Bear Mafia-Free Playland, which is stated to have been shutdown after the KND put in an anonymous tip to a certain pair of Freelance Police.
    • When Nigel recalls how Sector V had to share a homeroom after the events of "Operation S.P.I.N.A.C.H.", he notes that no one expected it.
    • When the Hoagiemobile is giving Father an off-screen beatdown, the latter notes how the former is punching his kidneys.
    • When talking about how his scheme will result in the GKND decomissioning every Earth-based KND agent, Father states that 'I for one welcome our new alien overlords'.
    • Apparently, the only reason Earth became a KND outpost was due to someone mistaking Earth for Uarth.
    • Numbuh Eleventy Billion is heavily implied to be a Celestialsapien, albeit one with a mutation that results in him having one personality instead of two.
    • Numbuh Infinity's decomissioning of Dave echoes similar scenes from Men in Black.
      Dave: See you around.
      Numbuh Infinity: No, you won't.
    • Before he became a diplomat for the GKND, Numbuh Infinity was a Brooklyn boy known as Numbuh 99.
  • Sins of Our Fathers: After Rachel pulled a Chad and faked betraying the KND to make her transition into the TND, Harvey suffered the brunt of the KND's ire for her betrayal due to being her brother and trying to preserve her legacy. This eventually culminated in his decommissioning after the stress became too much and he nearly killed Sonia by accident after she touched him.
  • Start of Darkness: Half of Chapter 21 is a flashback showing the entirety of Rachel's KND career, depicting her gradual decline from bright-eyed cadet to disillusioned TND traitor.
  • Stranger in a Familiar Land: What heavily taints Nigel's return to Earth is the gradual realization that everything has changed—his team has completely fallen apart, his parents no longer remember him, and the girl he loves is a traitor who has turned her back on everything they both once believed in. Eventually, his frustration boils over during a conversation with Rachel (the aforementioned traitor, who has tricked him into believing Abby is the rogue operative he's after), who is not impressed.
    "In reality, it's no different from every other situation I've dealt with since I've gotten back. Hoagie out of commission permanently, Abby lowering herself to the title of traitor. They've changed. Everyone's different now! I sound like a whiny brat, but I don't care! I'm just so sick of it! Why can't everything be like it used to be?"
  • Tragic Villain:
    • The Delightful Children from Down the Lane, who, as Sector Z, only took up Father's offer of a new home and adoption out of desperation of not being separated. In return, they were delightfulized, had their memories wiped, and were put into the care of an abusive parent who used them for his plans and punished them when things went wrong. The worst part is that deep down, they hate what they've become and believe they don't deserve to be saved.
    • The Traitor. Rachel used to be an optimistic KND operative. But after several personal losses—including her pet hamster during the events of 'Operation: FLAMBÉ A LA MODE''— and being overwhelmed by The Chains of Commanding causes her to gradually become disillusioned with the KND. And then Numbuh 1, her Living Emotional Crutch who kept her grounded, went AWOL shortly after he and Rachel had a falling out. Her realization that she'd been Locked Out of the Loop was the straw that broke the camel's back.
  • Tsundere: For all that Wally could be antagonistic with the Sector V's hamsters and various other pets, he cared about them as much as the rest of the team did. Naturally, he's the last of the team to accept Joaquin's impending death, furiously insisting that they can still save him somehow.
  • The Unmasqued World: Rachel's ultimate plan is to use Father's resources to broadcast all the secret intel of both the KND and GKND to the world. The original plan was to hand the intel off to the remains of the Teen Ninjaz and let the resulting war with the KND do the job for her, but Numbuhs 1 and 4 interfering at the meeting point left that a bust.
  • Villain Has a Point: Father makes several rants and lectures about "discipline", "responsibility", and "tough love" to justify his actions, but the one speech that truly gets to Sector V is when he reveals that while he's the one responsible for erasing the amendment that made decommissioning at age 13 optional, for all that many a KND operative rails against the unfairness of mandatory decommissioning none of them have had the thought or will to make it optional again since.
  • What You Are in the Dark:
    • Despite all her anger and resentment, when it comes down to it, Rachel can't bring herself to betray Nigel to Father and instead goes to stop the villain herself.
    • Despite all his self-delusions, entitlement, and abusive behavior, when it comes down to it, Father can't bring himself to blast the shuttle carrying the DCFDTL away from him out of the sky for their "betrayal", screaming and crying as the memory of them telling him they love him causes him to point the fire blast away. Later still, despite everything that's gone down between them, Benedict can't bring himself to attack Monty even when the latter is pointing a weapon at him and chooses to let his brother shoot him rather than even try to get out of the way.

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