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Heinz purred with satisfaction as he moved his queen into position. “Mrew!” (Checkmate!)
Professor Destructicon, known as Kevin by Heinz and his other human friends, laughed behind his mask. “Curse you, Heinz the Ocelot!” he grumbled good-naturedly from his OWCA prison cell. Heinz purred as he packed away his chess set. “Same time next week?” he asked, already knowing the answer.
Heinz chirped an agreement and with one final farewell, padded back off to his office with his travel chess set under his forearm.
The years had been both kind and unkind to Heinz the Ocelot. Having once been human, his old Ocelot-inator had not perfectly transformed him into an Ocelot – he still aged as a human, and retained much of his human intelligence. This meant that he had far outlived many of his fellow agents, including his two adopted siblings, Odette and Otto. He had pictures of the three of them, together and separate, as well as letters and mementos they had sent each other from the field, but it wasn’t the same as having them here, beside him now.
However, he tried not to dwell on it, though it did lead him to isolate himself a bit from the current batch of agents. His intelligence, advanced even compared to most humans, meant that after he deemed himself ready to ‘retire’ from field work, he could still work for OWCA inventing new technology for agents and examining evil scientists’ failed inventions. In that respect, life was none too shabby.
Heinz’s left ear swiveled to hear Carl running up behind him as he walked through the halls towards his office.
“Agent O! Agent O! The major would like to see you in his office STAT!” Heinz’s ears twitched – his position at the Agency meant that he served all the divisions, so usually the Major or Admiral came to his office or laboratory when they needed to talk to him. What could the Major want with him at his own office?
Heinz turned to Carl and held a paw up, indicating that he should wait. He dropped off the chess set in his office, then relocked the door and followed Carl as he babbled about one of the new devices they were working on in the labs.
“Ah, Agent O! We have a new assignment for you,” Monogram started as soon as Heinz entered the office. Heinz felt the fur on his neck rise, even as his ears flattened and he regarded the Major critically. Besides Carl and a few of the older agents, no one called him Agent O anymore – generally he was always Heinz to everyone else. Carl, sensing the change in the senior-former-agent, gulped noticeably and hastily excused himself from the office.
“Mrowrrrr,” Heinz stated, pointing towards his noticeably absent fedora. He hadn’t worn one in years, ever since he retired. Monogram knew that.
Monogram cleared his throat. “The Agency needs you to come out of retirement, Agent O. We have a new threat to the Tri-State area, and we need one of our all-time top agents to handle it.”
Heinz pulled out his notepad and wrote one name on it, and held it up to the Major.
“Peter may be our top active agent at the moment, but we feel this threat to be beyond even him.” Heinz tilted his head. Peter the Panda was the current top agent – young and talented, top of his class, highly fought over by the evil scientists for the honor of being his nemesis. For this to be beyond him…
Heinz crossed his forearms and motioned for the Major to continue with narrowed eyes.
The Major smiled, grimly. He punched a few keys, bringing up a few files on the flat screen on the wall.
“Doctor Bartholomew P. Platypus. Early thirties, moved this last month to Danville from Australia for reasons unknown,” he continued, showing the headshot of a moderately tanned man with teal hair and reddish-brown eyes. Heinz’s eyes widened at the intensity of his gaze – this was obviously not your average evil genius.
“Graduated top of his class at evil university. Even Dr Gevaarlijk admitted, grudgingly, that she didn’t completely despise him. Worked through a whole slew of agents in Australia due to his own advanced combat training and natural reticence to hit it off, figuratively, with any of them.” Monogram flipped through a few more pages on screen, allowing Heinz to skim quickly over the list of all his very near misses and several successes.
“He has a higher success rate than any other evil mastermind we’ve fought in the history of this agency. Peter’s currently on assignment with von Roddenstein,” Heinz growled lowly, “and we need the best agent we have to combat this threat. You were one of our longest running and most highly decorated agents, and have more field experience than anyone here at the agency. We need you on this one, Agent O.” Monogram finished.
Heinz ‘grrred’ thoughtfully, eyeing the image on the wall, looking at the long list of failed agents next to it. Nodding once decisively, he wrote out his only demand and held the notepad back up to Monogram. The Major frowned after reading the short demand, but sighed begrudgingly.
“Fine. If this doesn’t work out, we’ll let you stay officially retired, except for when we need you to act as a neutral agent in any major, earth-threatening crisis.” Heinz purred to himself, and the Major’s frown deepened. “Now go get a fedora and do reconnaissance on your new assignment!” he barked out, gesturing for Heinz to get out of his office.
Heinz’s purr dropped as the left the room, trotting back to his office downstairs. Plopping down in his desk chair, he read over the files Monogram had sent to his email, memorizing the scientist’s appearance and basic facts. Little was actually known about the Doctor – he apparently had never even spoken to any of the agents assigned to him, so all they had were copies of his school transcripts, a few legal documents, and random newspaper articles. Though he was fresh from Australia, he actually had a dual-citizenship with England as well. Had won several awards for both his less evil inventions as well as his martial arts skills.
The Doctor had also been head of the Australian chapter of LOVEMUFFIN, and with his new citizenship here in the states, could very well take over as leader of the local chapter. Heinz purred at that thought – he’d give almost anything to see Aloyse von Roddenstein ousted from his office.
Heinz glanced over and stared at his fedora in its glass case. He hadn’t been more than a general field agent in years. Heinz and Professor Destructicon had despised each other almost from the start, and Heinz had happily thwarted his schemes for years until Kevin’s final evil plan to set fire to the sun. Heinz still didn’t understand the reasoning behind that one, but it was severe enough to land Kevin a permanent spot in the OWCA prison cells. They still kept in touch regularly, and Heinz played chess with him at least once a week.
After a few international incidents and crises, Heinz bounced around a bit and did a stint as a trainer at the agents’ academy. When he finally felt ready to resume a nemesis position, he was unfortunately assigned to Aloyse von Roddenstein. The two hated each other instantly, and not in the good way. That pairing did not last long, and was nasty enough to result in Heinz’s voluntary retirement from active field duty in except all of the most severe international incidents.
Now Heinz was content to help with training green agents and working in the OWCA labs, inventing new gadgets for active agents’ use. As a retired agent himself, the labs had progressed leaps and bounds in providing animal-agent-friendly, high-tech gear for fieldwork. And now this Doctor Platypus threatened to take all that away.
His only consolation was that the evil Doctor probably wouldn’t hit it off with him, either, so he could finally retire peacefully and never have to go through the trauma of trying to set up another working nemesis relationship again. His purr returned, stronger this time.
He leapt out of his chair, and retrieved his fedora from under the glass. The faster he got this over with, the faster he could return to his beautiful retirement.
*****
Heinz narrowed his eyes from his treetop placement, thankful it was a such warm day in early October, for he still had just enough leaf cover to perfectly blend in. He had to admit, watching his target run through the park, this Doctor Platypus was much more fit than your average evil scientist. Of shorter stature than the average human male, his form fitting black track pants and tank top left no doubt that he was physically in his prime. Heinz made a mental note to hit the agency training facility later – he hadn’t slacked off on his physical conditioning, since he could still be called out at any time for a major crisis, but he would definitely need the extra training to make sure to keep ahead of this one.
If he accepted the placement, he reminded himself. Still wasn’t planning on it, but still… a little extra training would keep him sharp, even in the labs…
Heinz resumed his watch of the doctor and his surroundings as he made yet another lap of the park. The human didn’t appear winded in the slightest, keeping a steady, quick pace, and he had been running for nearly an hour now! He was however developing a healthy sheen of sweat, something which every human female (and a few males for that matter) seemed to greatly appreciate. The doctor, however, seemed completely uninterested in anyone’s attentions, acknowledging every smile, wolf-whistle or car horn with a brief nod and no change of expression.
The man finally checked his watch and changed his path back to the walkway that led towards the far end of the park, where Heinz knew he rented out a penthouse in a skyscraper there. Heinz followed the man’s progress until he disappeared back into the concrete jungle.
Finally. Heinz nimbly scaled the tree back down to the ground. The Agency had set up a surveillance point on a nearby rooftop, where he could resume his reconnaissance of the doctor in his penthouse apartment. Heinz turned away from the tree on all fours, ready to go to his second stakeout point…
…only to have all his fur stand on end as he came face-to-face with Doctor Platypus himself. He let out a startled hiss as he instinctively jumped backwards into a fighting stance. The doctor only raised one teal eyebrow at him, arms crossed with an un-amused expression on his face.
The man’s arms dropped abruptly, knocking off a sharp salute as he stared at Heinz, then did something strange with his fingers before looking at Heinz in some sort of resigned acceptance.
Oh. OH. Heinz’s eyes widened as his brain parsed what he had just seen. He lowered his fighting stance (still completely on guard, however, one could never let down their defenses around evil geniuses) and snapped off his own salute in return. He obviously couldn’t fingerspell, but he could sign ‘doctor’ easily enough, tapping his bent paw twice on the upturned wrist of his other forearm. Doctor Platypus’s own eyes widened in turn, and the two just stood there, staring at each other as they both worked through the implications of their interaction.
‘Hello, Agent.’ That was what the man had told him with his hands. His acknowledgment of the car horn earlier indicated he was not deaf, but apparently no agent before had ever realized that the man was in fact mute.
Obviously not, given the new look of calculated appreciation in the man’s eyes now.
‘I take it you are my new OWCA nemesis?’ the man signed, his facial features still neutral, but not quite as severe as before.
‘Possibly,’ Heinz signed easily, eyes still wide as he sharply examined the man before him. His post-workout scent was fascinating, and the tiny little smirk playing on his lips even more intriguing. Heinz remembered himself and bristled a bit, resuming his fighting stance.
Doctor Platypus raised his hands in supplication, before signing, ‘I’m not here to fight you. Yet. Once I’m settled in, I’ll have something suitably evil for you to attempt to thwart.’ The Doctor paused his signing, giving the ocelot a firm once over. ‘I look forward to seeing you in battle,’ he signed with a wide grin, before turning and running off.
Heinz stood there, frozen and slack-jawed for a few minutes after the man’s abrupt departure. Shit. He hadn’t been instantly-in-loathe with someone like this in well… ever. Even Kevin and he had had a rocky beginning, before finally finding their groove and building a nice, balanced nemesis-ship. But this guy…
Snapping out of his stupor, not even realizing he was purring, Heinz took off for his second post, a very well-concealed lookout point on a building near the Doctor’s. There was no way any normal evil scientist would realize he/she/they were under observation, but Heinz hoped…
Yes. The Doctor exited his bathroom, toweling his hair dry as he sauntered to the balcony, shirtless and barefoot, wearing a pair of low-slung jeans. Exiting his lair, he looked straight at Heinz’s vantage point, smirked, and snapped off another ‘Hello,’ followed by the signs for, ‘Nemesis’.
Heinz was fucking doomed, in all the best ways. He had a real nemesis again.