so, who ordered some nizzie art in these trying times? Central left one is fanart from my favorite KND fanfic ever and the bottom one is a redraw from a frame from the actual show! Look at em being silly together <3
yea I’m still obsessed about these two… Was figuring out how to draw them as I went, but you can see quality decline as I got more sleepy- Btw that’s the reason why the lighting is like that, it’s literally 3am as I post this
Hopefully the other 6 nizie shippers out there get to see this -w-
The S.S. Humanity exists to provide plenipotentiary support between Earth and her extraterrestrial colonies. Goods, services, and socities from home and across the cosmos coalesce here to create a mobile headquarters of governance, diplomacy, and humanitarianism.
Emphasis on human.
fandom: codename: kids next door
characters: nigel uno, lizzie devine, the rest of sector v and mrs. thompson in supporting roles
ships: nizie, 3/4 and 2/5 secondary
genres: humour, fluff, romance, medium sci-fi (as opposed to high fantasy lol)
themes: group project, space, aliens, fireboy!nigel, plantgirl!lizzie, pre-relationship
word count: 9.9k 😁
rating: K+
cc: @paniniwrap
read it below, on ffnet, or on ao3!
~~~~~
A/N (1.6.2026): A long overdue apology. Title from Population of Two by Walk the Moon.
~~~~~
It turns out that imperialism is not a strictly human concept. All over the galaxy, empires wage wars against other planets in the name of conquest and superiority; and civilisations fight back with everything they have to protect their beloved homes and communities. Some are successful. Many are not.
What happens next is based on the conqueror. Planets may be pillaged for resources, specimens may be harvested for research, individuals may be stolen for slavery. Whatever the motivation, the planet is never just left alone. The Xerian Convention of 3804 mandates that successful expansion include accountability for the losing party; in other words, planets cannot simply be ransacked and left for dead. (It is worth stating that the Convention also prohibits enslaving conquered peoples, but the powerful always have ways around the rules.)
It is for this reason that Earth’s empire created the Space Ship Humanity, a gigantic spacecraft that moves throughout their portions of the galaxy and provides plenipotentiary support between them and their colonies. When it travels to a specific moiety, it will stay there for a predetermined length of time to be accessible for assistance before moving on.
The S.S. Humanity is a floating metropolis that rivals the technological advancements of Tokyo, the crowd and congestion of Delhi, and the cultural smorgasbord of New York. Goods and services and societies from home and across the cosmos coalesce here to create a mobile headquarters of governance, diplomacy, and humanitarianism.
Emphasis on human.
Designed as it was to provide optimal living conditions to the bipedal watery meat sacks that constitute that planet’s intelligent life, only similarly composed creatures from Earth’s empire were allowed on board. Anything or anyone else stays on their home planets, and their ambassadors are tendered between Humanity and their station.
The other species that can reside on the spacecraft are there for a multitude of reasons—cultural curiosity, employment, disillusionment with their home planets—but the most prominent is easily entertainment.
Signs boasting ‘Authentic Ryukyan Confections!’ or ‘Traditional Tamedig Theatre!’ and the like populate the main thoroughfare of the S.S. Humanity, and exposure to these novelties are the main selling point to humans who live onboard full time. They love being able to go back to Earth on vacation and talk about the self-illuminating Chordate who they danced with at a club or the Iserant who used its own scales to make the accessories they’re wearing. Humans think it’s exotic; everyone else thinks it’s exploitative. These colonised species lost a lot of their cultures to their respective wars against humans, and these performative transactions are not the ways they’d prefer keeping their histories alive.
None of these politics matter to the kids, though.
“Mrs. Thompson! Nigel set my stem on fire again!” “Not on purpose!! She’s the one who floated too close to me!”
“Mrs. Thompson, Mrs. Thompson!! Kuki left her gunk all over the floor, and I stepped in it!” “Well maybe you should have watched where you’re going!” “I don’t have eyes!”
The tired and overworked Mrs. Thompson, torn between the two non-emergencies, chooses neither. She instead casts her gaze to Abby and Hoagie, who are calmly punching each other as hard as they could to see who could dent or crack the other first.
The S.S. Humanity boasts a school system that specifically instructs the youth of other species on human culture and behaviour so that they can survive in and contribute to life on the spacecraft or even on Earth. Mrs. Thompson often likens her job to that of an ambassador and takes great pride in her work, but the task involves more borderline-supernatural phenomena than she was led to believe.
One of her students is an anthropomorphic statue that can set himself on fire, another is just a robot as far as she can tell, a third is some gelatinous green thing, the fourth is blind and scaly, the fifth is a sentient humanoid crystal, and the final one is a floating pothos come to life. They didn’t cover any of this in her undergrad DEI classes.
“Nigel: if you don’t turn your flame down right now, I’m sitting you in the corner. Lizzie, go find somewhere else to play. Kuki, please remember to only glide around the perimeter of the classroom as a courtesy to others. Wally: apologise to Kuki; it’s not nice to call her natural excretia ‘gunk’,” the teacher orders in quick succession.
The addressed students split up to make the most of the rest of their playtime without getting into more undesirable situations, and Mrs. Thompson takes a breath as she sits at her desk. She already knows today is one of those days when she’ll hit up a Phyllic distillery on her way home. There are about a dozen other students in her class, but none of them cause her as many stress headaches as these six do.
~~~~~
“Okay, students! It’s time to settle down!” Mrs. Thompson’s voice rings out above the rabble of happy prepubescent aliens after lunch on the first day of the school week. “For the last half of the school day, we’re going to talk about your next assignment.” She patiently waits for the groans to dissipate before introducing the work. “We spent the school year going over the basics of the spaceship’s layout and how it operates because this summer, you’re expected to find and start your apprenticeships.”
Skilled labour is a prized resource in space. The S.S. Humanity is a delicate ecosystem of competencies and cultures, and the expertise necessary to solve a certain crisis may be several planetary systems away. It’s necessary to keep as much knowledge in-house as possible in order to maintain self-sufficiency. This holds especially true to sustain life for the non-human occupants. Only the Torrids will know how to safely deoxidise their rust stains, and only other Ryukyans fully understand the practical applications of their globular ooze. To facilitate this essential knowledge transfer, students must take on apprenticeships within their communities and learn the roles and contributions of their cultures on board. Investing in their own heritage is necessary to uphold the enterprise of the entire ship.
“The society outside of this classroom is even more diverse and more complicated than you know, and it is my job to teach you the behaviours and habits that will allow you to live in dignity once you graduate. The most important one is teamwork. The ability to work well with individuals who are different from us is the only thing that keeps the S.S. Humanity travelling safely through the galaxy, and that’s what this assignment is all about.”
She walks to a storage closet in the corner of the room and pulls out a pouch about the size and weight of a schoolbag, presenting it to the class. “For the next week, you will work in pairs to take care of one of these.”
“Mrs. Thompson,” Wally whines.
“My apologies, Wally.” She walks over and places the sack on his desk so that he could feel the object as she lectures. “This is a flour sack baby. It may look like an ordinary bag, but there are sensors and speakers inside so that it can replicate the needs and patterns of a human baby. That means it will cry indiscriminately—it could be hungry, bored, gassy, any number of things—and it is up to you to figure out how to calm it down. I’ll give you a tablet that is connected to these sensors, and it will log whether you successfully addressed the needs of your baby.
“You will also have a budget of 100 dollars for the week. Use the tablet to track anything you need to purchase as part of the assignment. You’ll be reimbursed at the end, but you will be penalised if you go over budget.”
Nigel shoots his arm in the air and starts talking before Mrs. Thompson calls on him. “None of us are human. Why do we have to learn how to take care of a human baby?”
He sheepishly lowers his arm when she sends him a look for speaking out of turn, and she nods in appreciation. “Those are just the tasks you have to accomplish to pass,” she says, “but the real takeaway isn’t childcare. It’s teamwork. You may recall from our lessons on the limitations of human biology that humans are very social creatures.” Nods of varying confidence answer her. “That means the flour sack baby can never be alone. You and your partner will have to work together to make sure of that, and I’ll be able to tell at the end of the week whether you didn’t.”
She looks around at the growing comprehension on her students’ faces. “Are there any more questions?”
“So it has to come home with us?” Abby asks aloud.
“Yes, just like any other homework assignment.”
“Even on the weekend?” Hoagie laments.
“Even on the weekend. You’ll bring your baby back on this day next week.”
“What’s flour?” Lizzie wonders.
Mrs. Thompson chuckles. “That’s an ingredient on Earth made of grain. In the old days when teachers would assign this project, the baby replica was literally just a sack of flour. Even though the devices aren’t made of flour anymore, the name stuck.”
“Do we get to pick our partners?" Kuki asks excitedly.
The class perks up at the concept, losing interest in understanding the assignment and readying themselves to reach for their best friend.
The teacher smirks at them. “Not this time. There’s no lesson in learning how to work with someone you’re already close to.” She ignores their dissatisfaction and pivots, “Before I announce the pairs, is anyone confused about the assignment?”
The students shake their heads, and she grins. “Alright. When I call out your names, you and your partner will come to the front of the room and pick up your baby and the tablet you’ll use to log your progress. Your first task together is to name your baby and program its name into the tablet, okay? Up first… Hoagie and Abby,” she reads from her list.
The two armoured students calmly go up, separately reaching for different assigned materials before going back. They independently move their seats closer together so that they can start working. Of all the pairs in the class, Mrs. Thompson expects them to handle the assignment the best.
“Kuki and Wally,” she calls up next.
Wally drops his head onto his desk as Kuki skips up to the teacher. In her excitement to take the baby, she almost drops the tablet. Mrs. Thompson wryly regrets that affection is not a metric by which Kuki can be graded.
“Nigel and Lizzie.”
Lizzie floats out of her seat and zips over to cradle the baby in her vines. Nigel follows after at a more unwilling pace to retrieve the tablet. This is the pair that Mrs. Thompson was least confident about. They’ll either be the most efficient parents, or she’ll receive a charred and punctured flour sack this time next week. Honestly, not knowing is part of the fun of grading.
She runs through the rest of the pairs, then the classroom becomes louder as students begin planning responsibilities for their project. The conversations gradually turn to less productive topics, but she lets it happen, deciding that they can have free time until dismissal. This is a notoriously difficult assignment, and they should enjoy the last of their freedom while they still can.
~~~~~
“Who’s the cutest flour sack baby in the whole cosmos? You are! Yes, you are! Oh, there’s a pillar in front of us. I’m going to the right.” Kuki stops cooing at the assignment to warn Wally. They’re walking to her suite to discuss the project in more detail. The ship has free spaces for hanging out, but neither of them can visit until they graduate so that they don’t make any of the humans they encounter uncomfortable with their otherness. Mrs. Thompson explains it nicer than that, but that’s what it amounts to.
She is Ryukyan, a race of gelatinous creatures that excrete a slime whose properties change based on their intentions. In its base form, it is just a mildly sticky nuisance, similar to drying glue; at worst, it could be a toxic sludge. Their home planet is ceramic in composition, and humans mine there for naturally-occurring pottery.
Wally, however, is an Iserant. Their specially-designed suites mimic the sandy, desert planet they grew up in. Kuki would find it very uncomfortable to visit.
At least, she would have if she thought about it. He had to be the one to point it out to her.
“I’m gonna name you Mopsee, and I’m gonna dress you in bows, and we’re gonna have sosososo-SO much fun together!”
“Why do you get to name the baby?” he objects from beside her.
She calms down enough to consider him. “What would you like to name it?”
“Something cool, like Rathalgar.”
She protectively cuddles Mopsee closer to her torso. “We are not naming our baby Rathalgar!”
He stomps as he walks. “Why not? What kind of name is Mopsee anyway?”
“I’m gonna be the one taking care of it, so I get to name it.” She can’t help but stick out her proboscis even while knowing the other can’t see it.
She does see him stop, though. “Is that right?” he asks darkly. “You weren’t gonna let me help at all?”
Kuki melts a little where she stands, a typical Ryukyan expression of abashment. “I mean, yeah? How could you help? You’re blind.”
His paws curl in on themselves, and the muscles under his scales visibly tense. She instinctively slides backwards. Her classmate has an angry streak a lightyear wide, but she’s never felt threatened by him… before now.
He abruptly turns on his feet. “I’m going home. See you tomorrow.”
“Wait, Wally!” She didn’t realise how much slower than him she is until he was no longer keeping pace with her. “You can hang out with Mopsee! It has entertainment needs!” Luckily, she is loud enough that her voice can reach him when she physically can’t.
He stops but doesn’t turn around. She doesn’t take it personally; he often doesn’t face the direction of the individual he’s talking to (which is also because he’s blind). That doesn’t mean he isn’t paying attention to them, though.
She doesn’t fully catch up with him when he starts talking again, but she can hear him clearly. “You’re always making a big deal about how I can’t see, but I’m not blind! I’m blinded!”
“You are? What happened to your eyes?” she asks in confusion.
He growls. “I never had eyes, but I didn’t need them to know where I was going, who I was talking to, or anything like that… but then I got on this cruddy ship.” He kicks his foot against the metal floor below him. “It’s always buzzing. There’s noise in the air; nothing ever smells; there’re vibrations on every surface.”
Now that he’s said that, she can feel it beneath her. She’s never noticed that subtle trembling before, but it makes sense. They’re travelling through space at a speed she fundamentally cannot comprehend. “So?”
“All that, that…” He waves his limbs around him angrily. “... stuff going on is totally confusing me. All us Iserants, really. We’re sensitive enough to tell when someone is walking 100 cubits away; we can sense their footfalls and how air moves around them. It’s overwhelming to be on this ship where nothing is ever still!”
Comprehension slowly dawns on her. “It’s like if I was only allowed to look at life through a kaleidoscope?"
“I don’t know what that is.”
Right. Kuki thinks she gets it, though. “That must be very hard,” she says sympathetically.
Wally grunts. “If I were back home, I could do this assignment no problem, you know,” he defends petulantly. “Iserants are cooperative. Everyone’s family, and we take care of our own. I’ve been helping out with my baby brother since he was born.”
“You have a baby brother? That’s so cute! I have a little sister; she’s evil,” she babbles cheerily and asks her next question before her classmate has a chance to respond. “What kind of stuff do you do with your brother?”
“I play with him and help him get out when he gets himself stuck in places, but mostly…”
His scales are typically pale orange, like the sun back on Yamota through a thin veil of clouds. Now they are an angry scarlet like the warning signs posted around the ship. It’s funny how he can do that even though no one else like him would be able to tell. “Wally?” she prompts curiously.
“... Mostly I make him feel better when he cries,” he mumbles.
“Awww!!! That’s adorable.”
“I’m not adorable; I’m capable! Not just anybody can get a hissing Iserant to calm down! I have to do it fast and quick so he doesn’t wake up anyone else in the clan.”
Her swooning is cut off as something occurs to her. “Like, at night?”
“Yeah, he gets nightmares,” he confirms.
She gasps. “Then I know how you can help with the baby! What if I take it during the day because, let’s be honest, feeding and cleaning is easier when you have eyes; but at night, it can stay with you! You’ll be able to handle most nighttime emergencies; and if not, then it won’t be long until I can pick it up again the next day.”
“I… really like that idea,” he says with growing confidence. “And we can still entertain Mopsee together, right?”
It isn’t even conscious, what Kuki says next. “Actually, I think Rathy would be a cute name, too.”
He straightens up. “Really?”
“Mm-hm. I’m still gonna dress it in bows, though.”
He idly scratches his nose. “You keep saying that, but I don’t know what that means.”
She laughs and reaches out to prompt him to walk again, this time heading towards the marketplace on Deck 2. The best way to introduce Wally to bows is to get him a matching one with Rathy.
~~~~~
“Food?”
“Prepped and ready.”
“Diapers?”
“This thing’ll be dry for days.”
“Toys?”
“Specially constructed audio-tactile-visual entertainment devices prepared to meet every whim, at your service.”
“Tablet?”
“Right here.”
“Flour Sack Baby Unit 8R4DL3Y?”
“Components accounted for and operational.”
“Oh, we so got this parenting thing down, baby!”
“I look forward to getting an A on this project with you, Abby.”
~~~~~
Ever since they set foot on her home planet, Lizzie had been fascinated by humans. They couldn’t float! They came in so many colours! They also liked water!
Moving onto the S.S. Humanity didn’t sour her opinion of them at all; in fact, it was improved. She got to pick a human name and try human food and live among humans full time. She planned to study them just as much as they’re studying her fellow Phyllics back home.
Viridint is home to diverse races: there were vined species like herself, underground species like her cousins, trunked species like her great-grandpropagates. She understands why humans would be interested in them, but she thinks they are far more curious. Maybe by living on the ship, she could figure out why this biologically primitive race was able to find them in the cosmos when she couldn’t even find stars in the sky other than their three suns.
(If you asked her grove, they would have told you that moving onto the ship was a survival strategy, that they are grateful to be a species of Phyllic that didn’t interest the human agricultural scientists and were thus spared, that they thought living on the ship would help them avoid drawing unnecessary attention to themselves.
Lizzie never asked her grove.)
As volunteer transplants, her grove participated in the design and development of onboard Phyllic accommodations, which was only cool insofar as she got to witness human technology in action. They have lights that can mimic the fluctuating visual warmth of their suns! They can splice molecules together to create water out of thin air! They have these little saturation devices that could mist their air and water their soil in a schedule reminiscent of the water cycle of Viridint! Apparently they had already invented these for the quarters of a different race on the ship, and it was easy to modify them to suit Phyllic living conditions. Humans are so neat.
When she found out that she had to enter a formal education system to basically learn how to be human, she was ecstatic. Phyllics don’t have any sort of rearing culture. The suns and the rains give them all they need, and saplings are expected to learn on their own as they go. Her sudden and vocal interest in humans quickly grew weary on her grove, so school was the perfect outlet for her.
She excels in the class. In fact, she would be the perfect student and Mrs. Thompson’s favourite if not for the fact that she is supremely uninterested in her fellow classmates. Especially that Nigel kid. Just the thought of him makes her stomata clench shut. He hates participating in class, he hates living on the ship, and he hates humans! She doesn’t need that kind of adenosine triphosphate in her life. Being paired with him for the flour sack baby project is the worst of worst case scenarios, and she’s not going to let him ruin a great chance for her to get firstleaf experience in human childrearing practises.
“Listen,” she tells him as they’re dismissed from school that day. The other students are hurrying out to hit up one of the food courts or to head back to their quarters, but she asks him to stay behind so that she can set some expectations. “We both know you would rather take a bath in liquid nitrogen than do this, so I propose a deal. You stay out of my way, and I put your name on the assignment so that you get full credit.”
Nigel is a Tamedig. She couldn’t tell you what that means or where they’re from, but he looks like if a human were carved out of the rocks that succulent-variant Phyllics like to sleep on instead of nice, loamy soil; and he can set himself on fire. He’s, like, genetically predisposed to be her enemy, as far as she’s concerned. She doesn’t want that anywhere near her baby.
His voice, normally abrasive and stony, sounds crumbly to her senses. “You don’t want me to help?”
“You? Help? If I let you hold this baby, you’re gonna set it on fire!”
His mitts curl, and sandy dust falls from between his joints onto the pristine metal flooring outside of their schoolroom. “It’s not even a real baby; it’s a plastic bag full of wires!”
“Which makes it even more sensitive to flames—!” Lizzie forces herself to calm down; she was getting too loud. “This is exactly why I think the best thing for us to do is agree not to work together. All we do is argue,” she points out.
“And whose fault is that?” he shoots back. “You’re always tattling on me or accusing me for no good reason!”
She eyes him incredulously. “You set me on fire. Multiple times.”
“Those were accidents.”
She’s not even hovering that close to him, but she can still feel when a low heat starts radiating off of his body, a reliable tell for when he’s close to igniting. She floats above and away then points with several of her vines, other ones cradling her flour sack baby protectively and one wrapped tight around the tablet. “You’re about to light right now!” she accuses. “At least when I can tell it’s about to happen, I can evacuate; but sometimes you just burn up with no warning whatsoever!”
The heat somehow doubles in intensity, but there are no flames yet. “It’s not exactly something I can control,” he defends petulantly.
“Oh, please.” She rolls her eyes. “You so can. If they were really accidents, if you really couldn’t control it, everyone else in class would have scorch marks on their epidermides, too; but no. It’s just me you have it out for.”
“I used to burn Kuki!” he blurts out before slapping his mitts over his mouth, body promptly bursting into flames.
At her distance, she was nowhere close to being hit; but she reflexively floats further away anyway, avoiding not just the fire but also the impromptu shower of water from the localised fire sprinkler above her classmate.
For a moment, the water doesn’t seem to work, the flames too strong. It isn’t until Nigel’s posture loses its tension that the fire is doused. His body still radiates an intense heat, though, the droplets evaporating before they even land on him.
Lizzie floats down—not quite eye-level with him because her vines require a certain clearance off the ground, but close enough. “Are you done yet?” she asks warily as she regards the sooty water puddled at his feet.
He doesn’t just look defeated; he looks pathetic. His head, hung low, doesn’t raise as he responds, “Fine.”
“Huh?”
He turns away from her. “You can do the project on your own.”
“Yes!” She twirls gleefully upward then hovers at that altitude, vines holding her baby up to her pot for her to admire. Twisting this way and that so that the light could hit every square centimeter of the flour sack baby that she’s already begun to project upon, she babbles, “I knew you’d see it my way! Don’t worry, I’m gonna get us full marks on this project. I wrote a report comparing and contrasting Phyllic and human developmental milestones for extra credit a few months ago, so I totally know what I’m doing. Okay, first thing’s first, we need to name our baby.”
She rocks it in two of her vines while a third holds up the tablet and a fourth pokes at the screen. “When I picked my human name, I went to a list of the most common ones and picked something I liked best from there,” she narrates as she looks up the information then reads from the screen. “James, Mary, Michael, Patricia… Do any of those sound good to you, Nigel?”
She scrolls a little more on the tablet, waiting to come across a name that totally speaks to her, before realising there is no forthcoming response from her project partner. “Nigel?”
When she looks up from her tablet, the only audience she finds is a Torrid custodian mopping up a large puddle of turbid water.
~~~~~
Lizzie always enjoys school, but this project is the most fun she’s ever had working on an assignment. She and Shirley are so attuned to each other: it starts crying just when she’s getting bored and needs a distraction, she only needs a couple of tries to figure out what the baby needs from her, and it never takes her more than five minutes to calm it down when it gets fussy. She’s so good at this that she starts thinking that maybe she could get an exception to her apprenticeship and work at the Humanity’s human daycare instead of at her propagates’ pottery studio.
Halfway into the project, Mrs. Thompson’s praise gives her even more hope for that outcome.
“I haven’t seen Shirley cry once since being assigned to you and Nigel,” she observes warmly from between the two students. On the second day, everyone had to go up and introduce their babies to the class. Mrs. Thompson also allowed everyone to temporarily switch seats for the week in order to facilitate coparenting. “Are you sure you didn’t just take the batteries out while I wasn’t looking?”
Lizzie giggles at Mrs. Thompson’s eyes flitting to the other side of the room where Kuki and Wally take turns trying to calm down a wailing Rathy while getting their worksheets done. Earlier in the day, there was even a tantrum from Abby and Hoagie’s bassinet, which they handled in the corner because “Bradley is shy”.
Meanwhile, two of Lizzie’s vines rock her silent baby while another completes the classwork. “I would never, Mrs. Thompson! Maybe I just have a gift, which is actually something I wanted to talk to you about…”
She is distracted from bringing up the apprenticeship exception idea by the raise of one of Mrs. Thompson’s eyebrows. The human face has so many ways of expressing themselves nonverbally! Neat.
“Just you?”
It only takes a second for Lizzie to understand the implication. “N-no, of course not! I mean: we are really lucky to have such a composed baby.” She punctuates the thought with crescent eyes and a winsome head tilt in her partner’s direction. “Isn’t that right, Nigel?”
“Yes, Lizzie,” he responds without looking up from his worksheet.
Mrs. Thompson frowns. “You know, now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve seen Nigel hold Shirley yet.”
“That’s because…” Lizzie scrambles to come up with something sensible. “... Because that’s our arrangement! Nigel has Shirley all night. Since that’s a full-time commitment, I take it at school full-time as well to balance it out.”
Mrs. Thompson considers this but doesn’t look satisfied. “I see… The point of this project, though, is to learn how to work together with your partner… This isn’t really working together.”
“But we do! After school and before retiring to our quarters, we spend that time together. We actually, uh… have plans today to watch a movie as a grove!” If Lizzie can’t make it as a daycare employee, she should look into acting.
At least Mrs. Thompson finally looks pleased. “That’ll be fun! Be careful, though: babies have this amazing sense of knowing when exactly they shouldn’t be crying, and a quiet movie theatre will surely activate it.” She winks at Lizzie, who itches to get out her personal tablet to write down this new lore about human babies.
Mrs. Thompson walks away to check on another student’s work. When she’s engrossed in conversation, Lizzie leans over and whispers, “Nigel, whatever you’re doing after school later, cancel it. We need to watch a movie with Shirley.”
“We do?”
“And tomorrow, you have to be around sometimes while I take care of Shirley during school hours. Don’t actually touch anything, but follow my lead.”
“Hold on, you were serious when you said all of that?” He sounds surprised but not put-off, to her relief. “I thought you were just trying to get Mrs. Thompson off your back.”
“If Mrs. Thompson is suspicious that I’m the only one working on the project, that will ruin my apprenticeship plans for the summer, and I refuse to let you get in the way of that.”
He doesn’t follow that logic, but what he gets is—“So to fix it, we have to go on a date and I get to actually contribute to our assignment?”
She eyes him incredulously. “Don’t be ridiculous. We’re going to fix this by tricking Mrs. Thompson into thinking you’re contributing to the assignment.” She pauses then adds, “And it’s not a date.”
He smirks at her, and she doesn’t like the look of it. “Okay, I’m in.”
“... Well, good. You didn’t have a choice, but I’m glad you’re enthusiastic about it. That’ll make it easier.”
…
Deck 7 is reserved for recreational activities on the S.S. Humanity. Stepping off the elevator brings individuals right to the outskirts of a wide, open park that stretches to the hull of the ship in two directions. Contrary to the bluish lighting in other public areas, the overhead lighting here is warmer in tone to mimic a sunny day on Earth. One wall of the park that should be metallic is made entirely of tempered glass, revealing the cosmos beyond the ship’s exterior. Some stars are so far away that they appear stationary to the eye despite the spacecraft’s speedy journey through the galaxy. An observatory stands on the park premises near that wall to remark on the currently visible starfield. This is the only accessible place on the ship where passengers can see into space.
Past the park are many restaurants, an arcade with spaces reserved for tabletop and virtual-reality games, plots dedicated to various human sports (and one Chordate sport, surprisingly), and the movie theatre. It’s a very busy, popular level with a pleasant buzz of conversation and activity in the air.
The persistent, simulated cries of a human child don’t even pierce the din.
“Oh, Shirley,” Lizzie coos as she rocks the flour sack baby, her movements getting more frantic the less they work. “What’s the matter? What’s wrong?”
It had been crying ever since they got off the elevator. She kept heading towards the theatre, sure that the issue could be resolved as they progressed; but for the first time since the assignment started, she’s having difficulty calming it down.
“I’ve tried feeding it, changing its diaper, rocking it to sleep… Why isn’t anything working?!” She detours to an empty park bench to stay out of the way while she despairs.
From his bookbag, Nigel pulls out the tablet where they’re supposed to log their childcare activities; it also has a summary of the assignment expectations. “Food, waste management, rest…” he reads down the list. “How about burping it?”
Some of her draping stems stretch out and stiffen, a typical Phyllic expression of surprise. “Burping, of course! I always forget about that one since I don’t aspirate the same way humans do. Let’s get you burped, Shirley.” Two vines hold up the baby to pot level and a third one gently pats all around it, unsure of where its ‘digestive system’ should be.
It doesn’t work.
“Can I try?”
She glances over at her partner dubiously, still wary that he might set Shirley on fire. He notices her indecision and rolls his eyes before relieving a still-wailing Shirley from her grip. He rests it in the cradle of his arm and pats the bag a little more firmly than his partner did, though not with any more surety over where he should be patting.
It still doesn’t work, to her vindication. “Give me that.” She rocks and pats Shirley at the same time, worry taking over her focus once again. “It’s never been like this before…” she mutters, casting her eyes around her to make sure they’re not bothering anyone else trying to enjoy Deck 7. That’s when she realises what the problem must be.
“Movie’s off; I’m taking Shirley back to my quarters.”
“What!” He follows after her. “Why?”
“The only thing different about now is the fact that we’re out and about instead of either at school or home. Shirley must be so overwhelmed! I should have known this was too much too fast.”
Lizzie doesn’t stop her forward glide, forcing him to keep up with her if he wants any explanation. “Wh-What about the movie?”
“I’ll just tell Mrs. Thompson she was right, and the baby was too finicky to sit through it.”
At the elevator bay, she reaches for the button to call the next available carriage; but Nigel blocks her with his whole body. “Wait!”
“What?” The baby is still crying!
He stands firm against her impatience. “Before you go, can I try something?”
The display on the wall shows that an elevator is almost at their deck. In barely a minute, she’ll be on her way back to the safety of her grove where she and Shirley can find peace again.
“Please.” A warm, calloused grip on one of her tendrils draws her attention back to her classmate. Somehow, his stony facial features and beady eyes convey a curious mix of assurance, desperation, and hope.
A ridiculous thought flits through her mind before she can stop it. At least she doesn’t have to voice it, but it does unsettle her enough to give him yet another chance.
The elevator dings behind them as they reach the edge of the park where only nonsentient vegetation is present. He doesn’t reach for the baby this time, instead waiting for her to place it in his waiting limbs. She does so with only a little bit of hesitation; the sooner it doesn’t work, the sooner they can leave.
After only a minute or so being rocked in his arms, Shirley stops crying.
She almost freefalls to the ground with relief. “No way; you did it!” she cheers as she levitates herself back up. “Thank you so—”
“—Actually, I think I better hold onto Shirley for now,” he warns as she reaches for the baby.
Lizzie reels back. “Excuse me?”
He pats the bag absentmindedly. “If I’m right, and I think I am, you wouldn’t be able to calm it down if it cries again because—”
“—Are you calling me a bad parent?” Her epidermis stretches as thorns grow out of her vines. The familiar discomfort does not phase her as she advances on her classmate.
Nigel’s eyes raise at the sight. “Not at all! I was just saying—”
Her vines lock up in alarm before ripping Shirley out of his limbs and zooming backward in one fluid sequence. “Stop melting my baby!”
He slaps a mitt to his face with annoyance. “That’s not what I was—”
“—Don’t lie to me; I could feel how hot you were when I got closer!”
“Yes, because—”
“—You can’t just melt down the components inside to make the baby stop crying!”
“Would you stop accusing me for one second—”
She holds up a vine to cut him off, finality imbued in her movement. “Just… Stay away from us, Nigel.”
Outwardly he looks calm, but she can hear the stones grind together somewhere within him. “What?” he asks thinly.
“I told you how important this is to me. It’s stressing me out that every time you’re near the baby, I’m worried about how you’re going to mess up. I’m serious; I don’t want to do this project with you.”
“B-But you can’t do that! Mrs. Thompson assigned us both to watch Shirley.”
“Need I remind you that this is the arrangement you originally agreed to? Nothing has changed. I’ll give you all the credit you need to pass, but I still don’t trust you,” Lizzie states, almost imploringly, helpless to the truth of her words.
He rubs at the side of his head in frustration, the gravelly sound grating. “Need I remind you that I was the one who got Shirley to stop crying just now?”
“Yeah, by sabotaging its equipment.”
“No, because I was the only one of us that understood Shirley was cold!”
She blinks. “What?”
Shirley begins crying again.
He points. “That’s a simulation of a human baby. They’re sensitive to changes in temperature. Besides its diaper, Shirley is basically naked. You don’t dress it up in clothes, and you didn’t bring any blankets with you. I just raised my external temperature enough to warm it up.”
She looks down at her baby, finding that she’s been instinctively rocking it since it began crying again. She stares at where her vines wrap around it; she cannot feel the temperature of the plastic by contact. That’s not how Phyllics work.
Without consciously willing it, she extends to offer the sack to Nigel. He meets her halfway, picks the baby up to cradle it to his torso, and the crying stops within a minute, just like before.
Her vines hang down like they’re wilting in mid-air. “How did you know?”
He shrugs, an action she can only see because she cannot meet his gaze. “Baby Tamedigs are the same way. They don’t know they have internal combustion until an adult shows them how hot they can be.”
She floats closer, letting the warmth surrounding the other two reach her. For the first time, it feels pleasant instead of threatening.
“I don’t know anything about Tamedigs except for the fact that they scare me,” Lizzie confesses lowly
He goes cold for a second before the heat surges back. “I may not have given you the best impression.”
She shakes her pot. “You’re fire incarnate, and I need water to live. I was going to be scared even if I never knew you.”
He raises his head to look at her, and she’s finally brave enough to look back. Just like before, there’s a curious mix of assurance and hope in his eyes. She thinks she sees determination, too. The ridiculous feeling comes back.
“Instead of a movie, how about a field trip to my quarters? You can see what life was like back on Suminol.”
It takes a second before guilt settles along her leaves. She didn’t even know what his home planet was called until now.
He misunderstands when she meekly retracts into her pot. “I think it’ll help you get over your fears if you learn a little more about us, how we live. You’re into stuff like that, right?” he offers kindly.
She has no clue what he’s into. The guilt doubles, but a surprise gratification blooms too. “O-Okay…”
Nigel smiles at her, wide and genuine. Hints of minerals in his rough surface glitter back at her, and she can’t look away.
She is so jealous it’s ridiculous. His impassive, stony face can still emote like a human’s.
…
The Tamedig quarters are on the same deck as the Phyllic ones, to her surprise.
“Have we always gone the same way home from school?” she wonders as the elevator begins its ascent.
He shrugs. “Couldn’t tell you; you always stay back for extra credit or volunteering or something.”
That’s true. Mrs. Thompson is the only individual she knows who is willing to not just humour Lizzie’s questions about humans but also encourage them. If early human development doesn’t work out as a career path, she would certainly like to try her leaf as a teacher.
She says as much to her classmate, who makes a face. “You’re already thinking about stuff like that? You’re still a kid; why worry about adulthood?”
“Actually, I’m only still a kid to humans because I have physically been alive for a little over ten years. Back on Viridint, I’d be treated like an adult already.”
“What?!” He almost drops Shirley, but he rights himself in time to reassert his hold. He refuses to pass it over when she offers a vine to help.
She rolls her eyes. “Unlike some of us here, I matured within a few months of sprouting,” she taunts, an easy segue. “My ‘childhood’ lasted until my fifth year; after that, I’m socially an adult. There are a lot of different races on Viridint, though, with different maturity rates. We set adulthood at fifteen years planet-wide just to make interactions easier; but the social rules definitely change when you’re in a species-dominated region.”
“... You know a lot about your planet and society,” he observes hesitantly.
“Thanks!” she chirps. “I used to never think about this stuff before, not really; but after I moved onto the Humanity and got real curious about humans, I had to be able to talk about what I’m used to so that I could get proper explanations for the differences that interested me… Weirdly, being a fan of humans made me appreciate being Phyllic much more.”
Nigel grunts in acknowledgement but doesn’t properly respond as he leads them off the elevator and towards his quarters, which is the opposite direction of her own. She doesn’t notice until the air gets slightly more warm and humid that it had gotten quite chilly in the elevator towards the end of the ride.
“Is this deck humid by default?” she asks absentmindedly. She presumed it was like that in the Phyllic wing because every time they open the doors to their quarters, some of their specially-designed atmosphere spills out into the hall; but they’re nowhere near a Phyllic dorm right now.
“From what you’ve told me, I think it kinda has to be.”
Lizzie laughs at him. “They wouldn’t make the whole deck humid just to acclimate the Phyllics.”
“They would if two races needed it.”
Before she could ponder the meaning of that statement, he stops in front of a door and uses his RFID card to unlock it.
“Welcome to Humanity’s closest approximation of Suminol,” he announces just as the door whooshes open.
If she had lungs, she would cough. Cloudy mist spills out of the door and into the hallway, displaced by their movement as they ascend a low incline to enter the damp but not dank living quarters. As it is, the humidity in the air simply condenses on her epidermis in the most refreshing way. It’s like she’s back in the jungle regions of Viridint.
“You live here?” she wonders as she floats around the room. It’s foggy enough that she can’t see that far ahead of her, but not so foggy that she ever runs into anything. The room is dotted with rocky outcroppings of various heights and widths, one of which makes up an entire side wall. There are three pits in the ground, not too close together, that seem more intentional than just dug-out holes. Lights above provide just enough illumination to prevent the space from seeming dreary. None of the quarters have windows as they are all sited deeper within the spacecraft; with the notable exception of the park on Deck 7, any rooms close enough to the hull to have a window serve in defensive or strategic capacities.
“Yep, just me and my magments.”
“Oh, like human families!” Phyllics live in groves, multiple individuals to one dorm. They’re optimised that way, but Lizzie often wonders what it would be like to have some more space to herself.
“We call our ‘families’ heaps, but yeah.”
When she finishes her inspection of the room and turns to face Nigel, he’s just on the edge of her visibility in the mist, leaning on a narrow pillar with a flat top just a little taller than he is and with Shirley balanced against where his leg hinges on his torso.
“Is all of Suminol like this? How? Why?”
He chuckles at Lizzie’s obvious excitement. “Where do you want me to start?”
“The fog!”
He smiles, small and away. “I was hoping you’d say that. It’s why I wanted you to come visit.” He reaches up for a crag in his pillar and lifts himself to sit on a ledge she didn’t even notice jutting out for how narrow it is. It seems to support his full weight plus Shirley just fine, though, and she intends to ask about that next.
For her part, she floats to a flat shelf nearby and settles her pot such that only a bit of the lip hangs out over the edge, just enough for all her vines to hang through.
“I haven’t been everywhere, but I’m pretty sure all of Suminol is like this,” he starts. “I don’t know where it comes from, though; we don’t have a water cycle like Earth does. I don’t even know how the humans got the fog in here.”
“Oh, oh, I do!” She remembers learning that the saturation devices installed in her own quarters were developed for a different race on the ship, and now she knows which race it is!
Before she can launch into an impassioned regurgitation of everything she remembers, he quips, “Of course you do.”
The sarcasm nonplusses her. It isn’t the first time he’s made a remark like that, but it’s the first time she doesn’t interpret it as an insult. She can’t. There’s something too perceptive about it, something familiar in the sense that she isn’t surprising to him. If she didn’t know any better, she’d almost describe the tone in his voice as fond.
“Um.” She doesn’t want to think about any of that, though, so, “Is that it?”
Nigel straightens and looks at her in such a way that makes her wish there was more fog between them. “You said you needed water to live like it was a core difference between us, but I wanted to show you that wasn’t the case. I need water to live, too.”
Before she can ask the question, he plops Shirley on top of his pillar, hops off his shelf, walks a few more paces away, then blasts a temperature she traditionally associates with being in his presence. If it weren’t for the humidity in the room, he would surely be on fire. As it is, Lizzie is just uncomfortably warm. She errantly worries Shirley will start crying soon.
The heat cuts out abruptly. “If my magments tried that, they would have been able to ignite.”
She almost topples off her perch. “Tamedigs are powerful enough to light themselves on fire in such damp conditions??” Was this supposed to make her less scared of them?
“They are as adults. I bet it’s like your thorns.”
The appendages in question almost make a reappearance, she’s so offended. “My thorns let me defend myself against threats! I only grow them out in emergencies.”
“That’s what our flames do, too! Lizzie, I’m trying to tell you: I’m not supposed to be on fire all the time.” He comes closer as he entreats, “The air outside our quarters is too dry for me; I’m not used to it. I can’t control myself like that yet. If you and I had met on Suminol, though, you’d never get burned because there’s too much moisture in the air.”
She thinks of all the other Tamedigs she’s seen aboard the ship and how none of them have ever accidentally set anything on fire. If his propensity for it were species-wide, she’d hear stories like that every day; but no, it’s just in her classroom.
She floats off the pillar and down to him, aiming for their version of eye-level. “What threat do I pose to you, then, that you keep burning me?”
“You don’t threaten me!” he refutes. “Our heat is, just, tied to our emotions. That’s all.” The temperature in the room climbs again as though to prove it.
“So… I make you mad?” That’s… kind of disappointing, actually. She doesn’t bother him until he bothers her first. At least, she thought so.
“No!” He hesitates then admits, “I do feel… a lot. When I’m around you. It’s not a bad thing. It’s just… a lot.”
She tilts her pot.
He doesn’t seem inclined to answer her obvious question, though. “Since we’re openly communicating for the first time all year… Why Shirley?”
He is so lucky he picked a topic she is intensely passionate about or else his obvious attempt at deflection wouldn’t have worked. “I’m guessing you haven’t looked up what it means.”
“Human names have meaning?”
She pauses. “If you didn’t know that, how did you pick the name Nigel?”
“I didn’t; my magments picked it for me.” This is the wrong answer, and he must know it as the room suddenly increases in temperature. “Can we go back to Shirley now?” he snaps.
Lizzie saves this topic for a future line of questioning. “There are a lot of levels to it,” she says by way of introduction. “The basic one is that it’s unisex. Shirley is obviously just a plastic sack, so I didn’t want to pick a name that was too feminine or too masculine. It’s also a very uncommon name despite apparently being quite famous, and I liked that balance of popularity against uniqueness… But most of all, I like that it means ‘clear meadow’ in English. It reminds me of where I was planted back on Viridint,” she ends wistfully.
“It must have taken a while to find a name so fitting.” It’s a gentle observation that somehow means the galaxy to her in that moment.
She lifts her vines in her best approximation of a human shrug. “I had the time. Nothing else for me to do on this ship except schoolwork and study humans.”
She expects the silence that follows her admission and tries not to imagine what conclusions he could be drawing about her in light of it. She never cared about what he thought of her before and shouldn’t now.
“Lizzie?” She meets his eyes with resolution. “Would you like to watch a movie with me?”
Huh? Besides that being the last thing she thought he’d say, “Isn’t it too late for one? Curfew’s soon.”
“I mean after the assignment’s over. You and me should watch a movie together.”
Her vines stiffen straight down. “Oh.” After a second, they relax, then curl, all without her prompting. “Okay, yeah. That sounds… nice.”
When he smiles at her this time, she doesn’t feel jealous. In fact, she wishes that she had a mouth so that she could smile back. It’s not the first time she’s regretted her physiognomy, but it’s the first time she felt it about him.
Nigel clears his throat. “So, uh, any other questions?”
She can spend a little extra time investigating the ledge-chairs (Tamedigs have an astounding sense of balance) and the rock columns (replicas of natural formations which Tamedigs have adapted as multi-use furniture) and the ditches in the ground (everyone in the heap has one that they roll around in to get clean) because she doesn’t have to contend with the elevator rush hour to get home. All his answers just beget more questions, so she insists on coming over this weekend to discuss further. He agrees only if Shirley can spend the evening with him. It’s an easier trade off than it would have been even an hour ago.
She will not realise until later that this is the first time she’s been curious about a species that wasn’t humans, and it will take longer yet until she realises why that matters.
~~~~~
The following Monday, Mrs. Thompson collects the flour sack babies and the tablets, hears their reports on how the assignment went, and gets to grading that evening. Her students aren’t the only ones looking forward to knowing the results as soon as possible.
Kuki and Wally get the only A+ in the class. Mrs. Thompson was impressed by their new understandings of the other species’ strengths and weaknesses, the problem solving and compromises borne out of that knowledge while prioritising Rathy’s needs, and the way they came in wearing matching bows as an expression of their family on the last day. They completely embodied the spirit of the assignment; they earned it.
Abby and Hoagie were nowhere close to such a grade, and the extent to which that is true surprises the teacher more than the truth itself. Abby’s razor-sharp edges ripped their flour sack baby open literally the first day, but they hid Bradley in a bassinet to avoid detection. Hoagie used his superior understanding of electronics to manipulate the sensors and speakers into thinking the baby was being taken care of even though it was no longer in its intended form factor. In any other circumstance, the exhibited teamwork and cleverness would earn them at least a B+. Remembering the remains of the flour sack baby they still called Bradley, Mrs. Thompson can only give them a C. It’s the lowest grade of the class. (The two of them did volunteer to build a more robust model of the product before the end of the school year, and she thinks she’ll take them up on that in exchange for extra credit.)
Of everyone’s grades, Lizzie and Nigel’s A- makes her the most proud. Lizzie had tried to come clean about how she wouldn’t let Nigel participate in the completion of the assignment, but Nigel maintained that he contributed in other ways. Clearly there were more conflicts in this match-up than Mrs. Thompson originally anticipated, but the results speak for themselves: Shirley has the highest satisfaction diagnostic of all the returned flour sack babies, both students are proud of their efforts towards the assignment, and Lizzie was hovering closer to Nigel than she ever has without a hint of anxiety.
The next day, Mrs. Thompson announces their grades, and everyone’s spirits are high. It was hard work, but it was fun; and now they can look forward to less demanding homework for a while.
After school is dismissed, she isn’t surprised when Lizzie floats up to her. “I had a feeling I’d be seeing you again today,” she greets with light teasing. “Any new insights or questions inspired by the assignment that I can help with?”
She is surprised when Lizzie shakes her pot. “It is inspired by the assignment, but it’s about an idea I had. More of a hope, really, about my apprenticeship.”
Mrs. Thompson sits at her desk and motions for her student to make herself comfortable. “What’s on your mind?”
Unfortunately, Lizzie’s childcare dreams don’t have a lot of precedent on the Humanity. “I’ll try to talk to some people,” Mrs. Thompson offers after her student explains herself, “but I don’t think we could get the permissions soon enough, if at all. You could probably find employment at the daycare on Deck 4 after you graduate, but any sooner would be difficult; and counting it as your apprenticeship is even less likely.”
Lizzie is not surprised but understandably disappointed. “I just don’t have a passion for Phyllic enterprises.”
This is not the first time Mrs. Thompson has heard the lament, but it is the first time that she could imagine another kind of future for her student aside from the one prescribed for non-humans on the ship. Lizzie could make for a great teacher, too, even back on Earth.
“I don’t think you should give up on this idea,” she encourages. “It may not happen as soon as you would want it to; but if there’s anyone who could do it, it’d be you.”
“You think so?”
“If my husband and I are fortunate enough to have a child, I’d trust you to babysit.”
“I… I would be honoured to.” Lizzie may not have a mouth, but her eyes still squint the same way hers do when she smiles. Mrs. Thompson relishes in the ability to boost her confidence, and it wasn’t an empty promise besides. “Thank you, Mrs. Thompson.”
“Anytime, Lizzie,” she says warmly. “Was that all you wanted to discuss?”
“Yeah, for today!”
“Are you sure? I saw all the notes you left on the assignment tablet. I have time,” she assures.
A vine reaches up to rub the back of her pot, which is not a gesture Mrs. Thompson has ever seen from Lizzie before. It is familiar, though. “I was going to come back tomorrow, if that’s okay. Um.” Mrs. Thompson waits for her to finish the thought. “I kind of have a date to get to.”
Every muscle in her face freezes taut to avoid having a reaction to that. “That’s nice. I hope you enjoy yourself,” she says placidly.
The slight tension in Lizzie’s vines relax. “Thanks!” she chirps. “I’ll see you tomorrow!”
No sooner does the automatic door slide shut behind the floating flora’s departure than Mrs. Thompson surrenders the professionalism expected of her position. A class average of B+ on a module and a burgeoning romance as a result? She is damn good at her job.
~~~
A/N (1.6.2026): I have literally undergone worldbuilding activities six different times in order to write this fic. I love making alien societies, but I hate how much it hurts my brain lol
If you have trouble picturing everyone, I gotchu. I cannot draw, but I have the power of god and anime on my side.
Nigel the Tamedig still looks like his original design but if it were an articulated mannequin where the separate parts are made of rock/stone/clay. His hands look like mittens not gloves. Of course, the on-fire parts are directly taken from the headcanon that he could possess fire powers the way Father does.
As a Borrid, Hoagie retains much of his original design but with a robotic form factor. Like Brobot (The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius), he transports himself on wheels. Where his helmet is in his original design is an exposed dome situation like The Brain’s (Teen Titans Go!); but instead of a human brain, it’s a tangle of wiring.
Ryukyan Kuki has the torso of her original design on top of B.O.B. (Monsters vs. Aliens)’s lower half. Like B.O.B., she’s made up of a globular substance but in a cute, sparkly green instead of a cryonic blue.
I’m gonna be so fr with you, I personally basically envisioned Wally as a blind Sandshrew with duller claws lol BUT I want you to envision Iserant Wally as him with orange lizard scales, an underbelly, a hoodie-like tail, dull claws, and a ‘bowl cut’ made of scales.
As a Chordate, Abby looks like if her original design could only be drawn with straight lines and was made up of a polished amethyst body. There are a lot of sharp edges going on here, and she’s mildly translucent but hella reflective.
We know what Lizzie looks like as an alien, but my description of her body movements is heavily inspired by @gen-toon's doodles.
If these visual guides didn’t help, that’s fine! Use your imagination and make it make sense to you lol
memorable encounter explored through changed universes, totally excellent
fandom: codename: kids next door
characters: lizzie devine, nigel uno
ship: nizie
genres: romance, comedy, fluff, pre-canon, first meeting, transfer student!lizzie, hero complex!nigel, nigel pov, mostly
themes: paranoid!nigel, nigel asks first, literal schoolyard bullying, canon typical laws of physics, loosely inspired by operation holiday and stop the g:knd
word count: 2.6k+
chapter: 1/3
rating: K+ for depictions of bullying
read it below, on ffnet, or on ao3!
~~~
A/N (1.11.2025): I can’t believe a kids' cartoon is what breaks my 2 year fanfic writing slump. All of this is sparkymouse’s fault. If they didn’t leave such a great comment on just another textbook case, none of this would have happened!!!
I didn’t rewatch every episode of C:KND, just the Lizzie ones. If anything I write contradicts canon (not that the show is overly preoccupied with canon to begin with, lol), then just read this like an AU, nbd. I deal in feels, not facts.
One-shots are in the order of ideation, nothing more particular than that. Chapter titles are from Soldier by the Backstreet Boys.
~~~
somebody shot you down
His working theory is that Lizzie is a disguised alien from a planet of sentient plants sent to monitor Earth’s children, and he just needs the proof.
~~~
“Class, settle down! I have an important announcement to make before homeroom ends!” Mrs. Thompson’s voice rings out above the chatter of fourth graders.
Nigel listens with half a mind as he draws up blueprints for the new scanner he wants to install in mission control. Projectiles smaller than a baseball are currently ignored by the treehouse’s security system, but the Teen Ninjas have started paintballing graffiti onto the tree trunk; and he wants that behaviour curtailed expeditiously.
Normally he’d use this time to chat with his teammates, but they’re all out this morning. Hoagie has food poisoning, Kuki’s got a family emergency, Wally is suspended, and Abby is on some personal candy mission. It’s just him today.
“We have a new student who’ll be joining us for the rest of the year! Please give a warm welcome to our newest classmate, Elizabeth Devine. Elizabeth, why don’t you go and tell us a little bit about yourself?”
He lazily tilts his head up to catch sight of the new girl—long auburn hair in twin braids framing a cherubic face, wide circle glasses framing wide brown eyes, wide frame in general. She doesn’t look like much; but then again, he thought the same of Kuki until he got to know her better.
“Hiii, everyone! I’m Lizzie, and I just turned 10,” she introduces with a voice that sits high in her throat. “I like watching romcoms with my sister and baking pies with my grandma.”
At least she’s American. She won’t have it as bad as he did when he transferred to Gallagher. In fact, he notices a group of girls in the class surround her table once Mrs. Thompson prompts her to sit; and the sound of eager gossip among them starts not too long after. Seems like she’ll be in good hands.
He doesn’t pay her any more attention for the rest of homeroom, and he more or less forgets about her entirely, too… until recess, that is.
While on his customary playground patrol (a routine he is well-equipped to handle even without the rest of his team), he catches sight of a group of kids where the fence meets the wall of the school. Curiosity propels him closer; to his knowledge, that corner of the playground has nothing there to play with.
He doesn’t want to unnecessarily get their attention, though. The point of recess is that kids can spend their time doing whatever they want in order to recharge and face the rest of the school day; so be it if these guys are choosing to spend their time over there. A few paces away, he makes the decision to just leave them be… but then he hears laughter.
It’s not the fun and happy laughter of a good joke; it’s meaner than that. It’s the laughter of bullies.
He lurks on the periphery of the group to observe the situation. Through the gaggle, he sees someone on the ground, but he can’t tell yet whether that person was pushed down.
“But I don’t understand,” a familiar voice pleads. “What was I doing wrong?”
“For crying out loud, girlie! You were eating dirt; do I really have to spell it out for ya?” the ringleader jeers.
Natural shifting of the crowd reveals none other than the new girl, Lizzie, as the center of attention. She’s lounged on the ground, hands trenched in the earth and legs neatly tucked to her side. There are grass stains on her blue skirt and a brown smudge on her cheek, too, lending even more credence to the absurd accusation that Nigel just heard.
Was she really eating dirt? he thinks to himself with slight disgust. That is, admittedly, very, very weird.
But for all that she essentially doomed herself to a lifetime of name-calling and ostracisation, she does not appear distressed at all. Her posture is lax and movements unhurried as she draws herself up to stand.
“Gee, I had no idea…” Her voice wobbles with innocence, and her eyes get impossibly more fawnish.
Nigel’s face hardens. He has to step in before she starts to cry.
“Absolutely no idea that THIS SCHOOL IS FULL OF NOSY BULLIES!!!”
Caught mid-stride, her volume forces him to take a step back. The bullies circling her get the brunt of it, though: the power of her decibels knocks them onto their butts, skidding in the dirt.
“How bored are you that you have to go around causing trouble where there isn’t any, huh!? Does it make you happy to pick on kids all by their lonesome? Kids who aren’t bothering anybody?? Only losers care too much about what other people are doing with their free time! Go touch some grass, why don’t ya!”
Kids flee left and right, but very few escape the wads of turf she throws after her aggressors. Her aim is erratic, but her power and frequency more than make up for it.
Just on the edge of the target zone, Nigel merely watches her defend herself with an eyebrow raised in interest. He believes he just got to know Lizzie better.
“Haven’t had enough yet, baldy?” she growls at him as he walks up to her.
“Trust me, I’ve had plenty; but I’m afraid you’re mistaken. I’d never join a ring of playground bullies like those guys.”
He stands in front of her with feet shoulder-width apart, arms crossed behind his back, and chin held high. “Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Nigel Uno; but when acting in my capacity as a Kids Next Door operative, I go by Numbuh One,” he says with a slight smirk. He’s not ignorant of the effect he tends to have on people between his position, his confidence, and his accent.
“‘The Kids Next Door’? What’s that?”
The smirk freezes on his face in an awkward way. The KND aims to save kids worldwide from adult tyranny, and no team was more prolific at that mission than Sector V. Based in America as Lizzie was, surely she should have heard of them. Has his team never saved her or her classmates from overpowered bullies, insane teachers, or gross school lunches before?
No matter; he was never one to pass over the chance to advocate for his cause. He passionately describes the mission, vision, and creed of the Kids Next Door; details the various perpetrators who stand against kids’ rights and privileges worldwide; and expounds upon the bonds and camaraderie that forms among operatives.
The only thing that stops him is the bell that signifies the end of recess.
Lizzie noticeably perks up at the sound, to Nigel’s mild embarrassment. “Well… All that being said, you should join us. The Kids Next Door is always on the lookout for promising youths to join our battle against adult tyranny. Extending recess by an extra 15 minutes is one of our long term goals,” he entices.
“That’s real sweet of you to offer, Nigel, but I’ll have to pass. See you in class!” She punctuates her dismissal with a smile and a wave before skipping off towards the school entrance.
He stares, flabbergasted enough to let her get a head start, but he quickly gets himself into gear. “W-W-Wait, are you sure?” he stutters as he catches up to her.
Nigel prides himself on his 100% success rate of recruiting hopefuls into the KND ever since he himself was scouted by Numbuh 5. He knows potential when he sees it, and he’s usually so good at galvanising that potential into action. What part of his impassioned spiel didn’t immediately appeal to her? Lizzie has moxie and gumption and spunk and—
“Yeah. I’m not interested, no offense; I’ve got other hobbies that need my time. I really appreciate the invite, though! Your club sounds like it would be the perfect fit for someone else, someone with way too much time on their hands or who has trouble making their own friends. You know the type. Anyway, good luck with recruitment!”
—absolutely no interest whatsoever. (Not to mention tact.)
He watches the school doors swing shut behind her, bewildered and a little bit offended. What kid would give up the opportunity to join the Kids Next Door?
Then the hamster wheel in his brain kicks into gear, and his eyes narrow.
Unless she isn’t a kid in the first place.
~~~
His working theory is that Lizzie is a disguised alien from a planet of sentient plants sent to monitor Earth’s children, and he just needs the proof.
There’s the alleged dirt thing, of course; but Nigel didn’t see that for himself. He tries tailing her during recess in case of a repeat performance, but she’s since started hanging out with some girls from class. They often gossip in the shade of a tree with branches whose strength he misjudged, and they did not appreciate it when he accidentally crashed onto the flower crowns they were in the process of making one afternoon.
(There is an errant thought about how the crown becomes her when she puts it on, but it is fleeting and ignored in favour of figuring out his next course of action.)
He almost caught her eating celery once during lunch—which is honestly no better than eating dirt and would have been surefire proof she was not a human child—but it turned out to be ants on a log. Just because he doesn’t think that’s a real snack doesn’t mean she’s forcing children to eat vegetables against their wills necessarily. Since then, Nigel’s been monitoring her lunch every day, cleverly taking samples when she wasn’t looking and searching for unknown contaminants hidden in her food that might indicate her true biological identity, but he had to stop after he made the mistake of actually trying one of her homemade meals. He was out of commission for three days after that.
(He can’t help but be impressed that she finishes every bite of her lunches, though. He’s always been jealous of kids who can eat whatever they want without getting sick; it’s almost like a superpower.)
She behaves strangely in class, too. Whenever someone uses an idiom, she has to ask the teacher what it means. On top of that, she actually takes notes and pays attention. That should be enough to make anyone suspicious, but she also doodles! By virtue of their last names, Nigel sits far enough behind her that he can surreptitiously examine her notebook with 2x4 technology (Glaring Ocular Gap Gadget Lets Entities See). The flower sequences she draws all over her notes are patterned in such a way that reminds him of code. He hasn’t quite cracked it yet, but he’s working on it.
(The most common flower has a blue center and yellow petals, which instantly brings to mind the shirts she always wears. It’s to the point where he can pick her out in any crowd by that fact alone.) (For surveillance, of course.)
As far as he’s concerned, he needs no further proof; but he knows his team. If he goes to Sector V with anything less than photographic evidence of Lizzie Devine’s alien heritage, they’ll make fun of him and his paranoia for weeks. He just has to keep observing her until he captures something on camera.
When he reviews the photos later at his locker, however, her eyes seem to take up more and more of the images’ focus.
“These are useless,” he mutters to himself.
“What’s useless?”
“Wah!”
He jerks away from the surprise voice, and the photos from the Long-range Orbit Observations Kaptured Only Using This fly into the air. He hastily grabs at them as they fall down before whirling around to find none other than the object of his investigation holding one that he missed.
“Hey, I look good in this!”
“Lizzie!” he screeches in embarrassment as he snatches the picture out of her hands. How is he going to explain this? “What are you doing here!?”
She crosses her arms and levels him with an unimpressed glare. “As of two weeks ago, I go to school here, Double-Oh-Seven.”
Nigel’s embarrassment is momentarily overshadowed by excitement. “Actually, my Numbuh is One,” he corrects eagerly, thinking this is her way of expressing interest in taking him up on his offer from all that time ago. He knew his sense for potential operatives wasn’t deteriorating! If she joined the KND, it would summarily lay all of his misgivings about her to rest!
“More like Number Dumb,” she scoffs, crashing his hopes again. “When you told me all about your little spy club, you made it sound like you were actually good at spying.”
“I’m one of the best there is!” he retorts with offense.
“That’s sad, then. I could tell you’ve been following me and my friends around for the last two weeks, and I’m actually here to tell you to knock it off. The other girls won’t keep hanging out with me if some loser with a crush is always there to weird them out.”
He blushes something fierce. “I’m not f-following you,” he stammers out. “I-I’m just… gathering valuable intelligence about areas where you happen to be.”
“I see. So this is for one of your missions?”
“Yes!” he exclaims, happy that the easy answer is the truth.
“Can you tell me about it?”
“I—Um. Am! I mean, I am… I am afraid that’s classified.”
“Oh, so I’m a suspect.”
“N-not necessarily.” His voice breaks as he deflects.
“Am I a target, then?”
“I’d be taking much better precautions if you were,” he swears.
She leans forward as she baits, “I’m not any kind of person of interest?”
He blinks. “I, uh, wouldn’t say that…”
She looks him up and down before raising her eyebrow. “For a James-Bond-wannabe, you sure are a bad liar.”
He’s actually a fantastic liar. Normally. He doesn’t know why it’s so hard now, though.
The longer it takes for him to think of something to say, the more amused she looks. She even smirks at him as she leans back.
This is nothing like he’s used to. He knows how to handle himself in front of threats to his safety or threats to other kids’ freedoms, but this? Whatever threat Lizzie poses is not one he has any defences against.
But let it never be said he ever backed down from a threat.
Just when he decides to stop letting her get to him, however, she rolls her eyes and sighs. “Let me make this easy on you, then. Do you know what a pinky promise is?”
“Of course I know what a pinky promise is,” he snaps.
She shrugs. “I just learned about them on Tuesday. Anyway. Ask me whatever question you want, and I pinky promise to answer it honestly.”
He gapes stupidly at her outstretched finger, offered way too lazily considering how vulnerable she’s making herself to him. Whatever internal conflict he was facing doesn’t matter now. He could learn anything about her: where she came from, what she’s doing here, whether she really eats dirt.
It’s a heady feeling.
He sees himself reaching out his own hand in slow motion, not fully cognisant or controlling of his own actions. Not until his skin touches hers.
“Are you free on Saturday?”
Instead of his pinky hooking around hers, his hand settles over her fist in entreaty. He hastily arranges his fingers into the correct orientation before meeting her eyes, and what he sees there makes him gulp.
The guarded look she always wore—the one he can only recognise now that it’s melting away—is replaced with a surprised delight, glittery and warm.
“I sure am.”
She giggles behind her other hand, and the sound wraps around his heart and squeezes a little too tight. If Lizzie really is a threat to the children of Earth, she’ll have to get through him first.
There is no one else he could allow to face her like this.
Runway Show “NIZIE”. Paris City Fashion Week. Women FW2020/21 . @catwalkshows for ”FabUK Magazine” @fabukmagazine https://fabukmagazine.com/row/paris/nizie-interview-during-paris-fashion-week-2020/ . . Brand: NIZIE @nizie_official Photographer: Christina V Henningstad @christina_henningstad @catwalkshows Photo Assistant: Serguei Chatel @serguei_chatel Press Team: Paris City Fashion Week @pariscityfashionweekofficial Make Up: Make Up Art Academy Paris “MAAP” @makeupartacademyparis . #NIZIE #nizie_official #fashionworld #parisfashionweek2020 #pfwwomen #parisfashionweek #fashionseason #fashion #fashionweek #фотодляжурнала #cvhphotography #catwalkshows #pfw #hautecouture #fashiondesigner #pariscityfashionweekofficial #vogue #whattowear #wtf (at Hôtel Mona Bismarck) https://www.instagram.com/p/B9oc5KnoFZc/?igshid=ltpf415288ez
Runway Show “NIZIE”. Paris City Fashion Week. Women FW2020/21 . @catwalkshows for ”FabUK Magazine” @fabukmagazine https://fabukmagazine.com/row/paris/nizie-interview-during-paris-fashion-week-2020/ . . Brand: NIZIE @nizie_official Photographer: Christina V Henningstad @christina_henningstad @catwalkshows Photo Assistant: Serguei Chatel @serguei_chatel Press Team: Paris City Fashion Week @pariscityfashionweekofficial Make Up: Make Up Art Academy Paris “MAAP” @makeupartacademyparis . #NIZIE #nizie_official #fashionworld #parisfashionweek2020 #pfwwomen #parisfashionweek #fashionseason #fashion #fashionweek #фотодляжурнала #cvhphotography #catwalkshows #pfw #hautecouture #fashiondesigner #pariscityfashionweekofficial #vogue #whattowear #wtf (at Hôtel Mona Bismarck) https://www.instagram.com/p/B9oczVeoNPn/?igshid=11tkv5gr5q2a1
Runway Show “NIZIE”. Paris City Fashion Week. Women FW2020/21 . @catwalkshows for ”FabUK Magazine” @fabukmagazine https://fabukmagazine.com/row/paris/nizie-interview-during-paris-fashion-week-2020/ . . Brand: NIZIE @nizie_official Photographer: Christina V Henningstad @christina_henningstad @catwalkshows Photo Assistant: Serguei Chatel @serguei_chatel Press Team: Paris City Fashion Week @pariscityfashionweekofficial Make Up: Make Up Art Academy Paris “MAAP” @makeupartacademyparis . #NIZIE #nizie_official #fashionworld #parisfashionweek2020 #pfwwomen #parisfashionweek #fashionseason #fashion #fashionweek #фотодляжурнала #cvhphotography #catwalkshows #pfw #hautecouture #fashiondesigner #pariscityfashionweekofficial #vogue #whattowear #wtf (at Hôtel Mona Bismarck) https://www.instagram.com/p/B9kcz6mII7l/?igshid=eub57zcjythz
