A/N: Okay, I promised to have this done last weekend, but unfortunately I got sick that Friday (and nobody around to sing Soft Kitty to me, or put vapo rub on my chest), and this past week I didn't get a lot of time writing (for starters, up to last Wednesday, I was still feeling a little crappy). Anyway, I finally found some time again and added the stuff before and after the final battle.

Disclaimer: don't own it, don't make money with this, just having fun.

"Leonard? Are you okay, buddy?"

Leonard barely registered his friend's question, blankly staring ahead, not seeing anything. Not his friends, not the flashing lights underneath their seats, nothing registered with him. The only thoughts going through his mind were the vision of seeing his girlfriend lying still on the floor, before he was forcefully taken. "They killed her," he whispered, repeating it over and over.

Regaining consciousness at the slap to her cheek, Penny heard Veronica say, "Wake up." It still took her almost a minute to finally open her eyes. "You can stop slapping me now," Penny ground out, when Veronica was about to slap her again. She tried to sit up, but found it nearly impossible to move.

"The effects of the tranquilizer will wear off in a minute or so," Veronica assured her.

It took Penny twenty seconds before she was able to move into to a sitting position. "Where's Leonard," she asked.

"That's preposterous," Sheldon said, scoffing, and causing Leonard to roll his eyes. "Penny may be lacking femininity and she does possess a stocky build, but I refuse to believe she's some secret agent. Secret agents are supposed to be sophisticated and intelligent and Penny is neither."

"No, it's true," Bernadette said. "We saw her sparring with four other agents and winning."

"Your short friends are right."

Leonard turned his head to where the voice had come from and saw a creepy looking man, accompanied by a tall blonde.

"No."

Penny glared at Veronica, crossing her arms in front of her chest. "I wasn't asking, I'm telling you."

"Penny, all agents posted to protect everyone in this case were killed, except you. They didn't take Dr. Hofstadter and his close friends, they took yours! You were the target, not any of them."

"Doesn't change the fact they have Leonard," Penny replied. "And you're crazy if you think I'm just going to stay here and do nothing." She tried to step back when she saw a hand coming her way, holding a cloth, but she was too late and quickly lost the battle to remain conscious.

"Ah, I actually used to be a CIA agent," the man who had introduced himself as Gareth Franklin said. His speech was cultured, the cadence oddly soothing, despite the creepiness of the man himself. "My specialization lay in interrogating but at some point the agency felt my techniques were... excessive."

"I still don't get what that has to do with us," Leonard responded.

He smiled at Leonard, making him seem even creepier. "With you," he said, gesturing to Leonard and rest of the friends, "virtually nothing. If it weren't for the closeness you all share with one former CIA agent, you would not even be in this situation."

Leonard looked down, becoming sad again. "If you're referring to Penny, I have bad news. She was killed, trying to protect us."

"No, no, Dr. Hofstadter. Penelope wasn't shot with a bullet like the other agents employed to guard all of you. No, we used a tranquilizing dart to assure she would not interfere in your capture."

"Not so tough now, are you?"

Penny looked at the guy casually leaning against the wall of the walkway towards the bathroom and the two bedrooms. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me," Penny said, rolling her eyes when she realized it was asshole number one who had decided to pick on Leonard, during her first sparring match with Veronica. "Flying solo today," Penny asked, referring to his partner in crime.

"Yes, my partner couldn't make it today."

Penny smirked. "So, they asked you to keep an eye on me?"

He shrugged. "You just got lucky before. Besides, you're handcuffed and your legs are tied." He started walking toward her. "But I do believe I owe it to my partner to return the favor."

Penny raised her brow. "I'd think you owe an apology to Leonard and me, but whatever."

"I really don't get how you could be happy with someone like him. He's short, unskilled..."

"Oh, he's very skilled," Penny interrupted him. "And he never makes me want to pick the lock on the handcuffs." She saw his eye flick down to where her wrists were hidden by the chair and her body. Not wanting to disappoint him, she swung her arm around, her fist connecting with his knee. As he stumbled back, grabbing his knee, Penny quickly untied her legs and stood up, her fist hitting him in the side of the head, knocking him unconscious.

Leonard's initial relief at hearing his girlfriend was still alive, was quickly replaced with fear for her, his friends and himself.

"Fortunately I have some friends in high places, and was informed in time of my impending arrest. However, the CIA found me rather quickly and sent Penelope and her brainy partner to capture me."

It suddenly clicked in Leonard's mind. "You tortured and killed Scott."

If Franklin was surprised, he hid it well. "Indeed I did, Dr. Hofstadter. As I explained earlier, I really did enjoy my job of interrogating the subjects I was given, but that night showed me another aspect I had never before experienced. The reactions of a caring witness. Granted, Penelope arrived rather late, only moments before I ended his life, but to witness the strong emotions was thrilling."

"And now you're going to do the same to me?"

Franklin simply nodded. "That is the plan. However, this time I will wait until Penelope is here to witness it all."

Leonard chuckled. "You're going to be dead before you get a chance to lay a finger on me."

"Au contraire, Dr. Hofstadter. You see, your friends are sitting on top of very powerful bomb. A very fine laser grid above them will prevent anyone from crossing over to this side. If anything passes through two laser beams the bomb will go off immediately. In addition, I have a dozen friends who will keep Penelope occupied." He gestured behind them as a door opened and a dozen men and women entered, taking up positions in front of the group. "More importantly, the CIA attempted to keep Penelope away. The longer it takes her to get here, the more worried she'll be and, by extension, less focused and effective."

"What if the CIA doesn't let her come, assuming she even knows where we are."

"She knows where we are," Franklin said. "She shot one of the men that came for you in the ankle, using a special bullet, containing a miniature tracking device. Nicely designed, by the way, Mr. Wolowitz. And as for the CIA not letting her come, she's already escaped them and is on the way here."

Penny slipped out of her own apartment, having retrieved a few necessities. She heard some of the agents ascending the stairs, even heard Veronica complain about the broken elevator. Penny quickly and quietly moved toward the roof, jumping across to the building beside this one, the three feet gap hardly an issue. She smiled as she remembered lying to guys about slipping and skinning her knee, none of them even noticing her knees had been perfectly fine. She retrieved her lock-picking kit and picked the roof access door's lock quickly. She decided on taking the stairs, just in case agents were posted at the elevator exit downstairs, though she doubted that was the case.

Once she reached the ground floor, she briefly peeked around the corner, smiling slightly when nobody was there. She made her way quickly toward the back door and slipped out. On the parking lot, she chose the vehicle closest to her, happy that the car was quite old, old enough that the chances of it being electronically safeguarded against theft was minimal. She made short work of the car lock, slipped inside, and ducked under the dash to hotwire it.

Using her phone, she called up the app that allowed her to track the bullet's GPS tracker. Five of the six devices were at North Robles, and she quickly disabled tracking those. The other one was only two miles away, and Penny sped up, ignoring the speed limits and most red lights.

"Ah, how nice of you to join us."

Penny was shocked at the sight that greeted her as she entered the rather small room. She was faced by a dozen bad guys. Behind them her friends were tied up and gagged and behind them, Leonard had been singled out, tied but not gagged, and behind him the man she hated the most was smirking at her.

"And this time you are actually in time to witness."

Penny folded her arms across her chest, pushing her emotions to the back of her mind. She couldn't allow herself to think too much about the situation, and especially not the fact that the cause of her nightmares was now threatening her current boyfriend. "Well, well, well. Former agent Franklin. How nice of you to drop by."

"Always a pleasure to visit an ex-colleague. What do you think of my set up," he asked, gesturing around. "Closest to you are a dozen, hand-picked former CIA agents, all well-versed in hand to hand combat. Behind them your close friends are sitting on a nicely designed bomb. Any of them loses more than a few ounces of weight: boom. You try to move past them: boom."

Penny tried to look indifferent, but it was hard to ignore the real danger threatening to kill her friends. "You do realize that when they go 'boom', so will you, right?"

He shrugged. "Perhaps, but I'm fairly certain you wouldn't do anything rash if that would result in the demise of your friends, especially that of your boyfriend, That brings us to the final distraction. He's going to become really well acquainted with my specialization, not unlike your young partner did ten years ago."

"Why are you doing this?"

He laughed. "Why? Have you already forgotten about what happened eleven years ago? The reason I was forced out of the agency?"

Penny let her anger slip through. "You were deliberately feeding us bad intel, so we would capture innocent people you could torture for your own pleasure, knowing full well they didn't have any information to give."

"Don't we all have hobbies, Penelope? But the point is, you and your young partner figured it out and told the head of the agency."

Penny tilted her head to the side a little. "Then why don't you let my friends go? You got me here now."

"No, no, you're still missing the point of this exercise. You see, you taught me something ten years ago. It's fun to torture someone, I admit, but you showed me how much more fun it is to have someone who cares about the subject actually witness it. Unfortunately you only were able to see the final moments last time, but today, you get to experience much more."

"I could just kill you where you stand," Penny said. "I don't really have to move past the explosives under my friends to accomplish that."

Infuriatingly he grinned broadly again, shaking his head. "Sweet Penelope, do you really think I have not foreseen such an event?" He turned his head to the side and gave a small nod. Moments later Penny saw a tall blonde walk into view, positioning herself in front of agent Franklin. The woman's stance and cool, detached expression screamed 'CIA' to Penny's trained eyes.

"You know," Franklin said, "since we were colleagues and I do have a heart, I will go easy on your boyfriend the first, say, two minutes. It will be painful to him, but I won't do anything permanent. Think you can deal with a dozen agents and defuse a bomb in that time, sweet Penelope?"

Penny's threw her two knifes into two of the agents. She had immediately started a sprint and reached the group before they had responded to her sudden attack. Her right leg connected hard into the abdomen of a third agent as she yanked both knifes out of the two agents. One knife was planted into a fourth agent and yanked back immediately. The actions so far had taken less than ten seconds, but by now the other rogue agents were prepared, and were starting to fight back. Her leg swept around, knocking another agent down, and Penny somersaulted away, to gain a little more room.

Two agents managed to grab her wrist, though they had mistakenly both grabbed her left one, leaving the right one free to drive the palm of her hand into the nose of one of them. Her left foot connected with the ankle of the other agent still holding her, the sound of bones breaking clearly audible, and she followed it up by driving her fist into the side of his head. She kicked backwards, her foot connecting to the head of the next rogue agent approaching her. Unfortunately, the contact wasn't enough, and the agent grabbed her leg. Penny immediately spun around, placing her other leg on the other side of the agent's neck and both hands on the floor. She squeezed her legs together and spun her body around again, forcing the agent down. She immediately sat up and drove her elbow into his throat.

In a quick move she was back on her feet but she staggered to the side when someone managed to land a blow to the side of her body. Her latest attacker had immediately grabbed hold of her arm, but Penny jumped up, placing her feet against the nearby wall, and in a few steps landed on the other side, sweeping her leg around while still in the air to hit it against the head of another agent, who stumbled into the one holding her arm. Once again free, Penny immediately jumped up and spun in the air, her outstretched leg connecting with head of the agent who had only a second ago held on to her arm. The force of the kick snapped his neck and had the added bonus of his head smashing into the other agent.

It had taken her less than a minute to take care of half the rogue agents standing between her and her friends, but she didn't have the luxury to boast about it to her enemy. Her eyes traveled over the remaining agents, each of them in a defensive stance. She immediately noticed one of them wasn't exactly stable on his feet and she assumed that was the agent she had kicked in the abdomen early on in the battle. Penny slowly started to walk around them, maintaining both distance, as far as that was possible in the confined space, and a defensive posture. Three agents approached her immediately, but Penny had seen it coming, and somersaulted over them, her feet hitting two agents behind the three. She immediately rolled forward, her feet connecting hard against the back of the one in the middle, both fists hitting the other two were it hurt the most. With those two doubled over in pain, she quickly grabbed their heads and smashed them together. She was up on her feet in a flash to deliver the final blow to the agent in the middle, then turned around to watch the still remaining agents.

There was one agent missing and Penny turned around quickly, barely able to block the missing agent's attack. She placed her counter attack on the big guy, but found it wasn't as effective on him as it had been on the agents she'd dealt with so far. His fist connected to her jaw, and she staggered back half a step, before putting up her left arm to block his second attack, her right fist hitting his kidney as hard as she could. She noticed his eyes briefly glance behind her and he leaned a little to his right. Penny quickly raised her right arm and turned in the direction just in time to block the attack a female agent, who had somehow obtained a wooden fight staff. Penny remembered her martial arts training and had been very proficient with the fight staff; she grabbed hold of it and kicked the woman in the abdomen, managing to separate the agent from the staff. Penny immediately turned back and hit the big guy in the side of his head, hard enough for him to fall down. She then turned back to repeat the move on the woman as she tried to attack Penny again.

Penny twirled the staff in her hand as she looked at the only agent still standing, smirking slightly at the nervous look on the woman's face. Penny struck her with the staff as she let herself be distracted by the door suddenly opening. She then assumed a defensive stance, facing the just opened door. She was relieved to see Veronica enter, but quickly turned around to see what was going on with Leonard and her friends.

Much to her surprise, the tall blonde had handcuffed Franklin and released Leonard. She held up a small device in her hand. "I grabbed this," the woman said, "from this guy." She nudged Franklin. "Looks like he wasn't going to take any chance of the bomb going off with him that close. I've deactivated the triggers."

Penny gave a curt nod to acknowledge the woman's explanation. "Leonard, are you okay?" At his nod, she turned to her friends. "Guys, everyone alright?"

Leonard stood a few steps behind Penny as she knelt down near the grave, placing an object there, though he couldn't see it clear enough to determine what it was. He could hear her talking.

"I'm sorry I haven't been here for over a decade." She was silent for a while. "We finally got him, sweetie. The bastard won't see the light of day, ever." Her fingers traced the letters on the headstone. "I'm so sorry I caused this..."

Leonard took a few steps and placed his hand on her shoulder, offering her support.

"He went after my boyfriend," Penny continued after a minute. "Forcing me to be an agent again." She sighed and looked down briefly. "Franklin was going to do the same to him as he did to you."

Leonard knelt down when Penny indicated him to do so. She kissed him as soon as he did, giving him a small, sad smile.

"I quit the agency after... well, all the crap with Franklin. They asked me back, but I can't. I could never fully trust the higher-ups, would question every mission they'd send me on. I had an offer from a freelance security organization. I'm thinking about accepting it."

Leonard turned to look at her, the information all new to him, but he remained silent.

"I kinda missed the action, you know," Penny continued, then sighed. "I don't know, really. I don't even know if I could trust them. Plus, I have this amazing boyfriend now, and I wouldn't want him to worry over my safety."

Leonard gently squeezed her shoulder, right in that instant deciding that if she was going to be a spy again, he would just have to trust her and her training. He'd seen her in action against a dozen former spies only a week ago and even the double agent who had freed him had been impressed.

"I brought you a figurine from that stupid sci-fi show you loved so much. I found it a few years ago and decided to buy it for you." She smiled slightly. "Sorry, it's not mint in box anymore." She chuckled. "Leonard taught me that, you know? Why all you nerds keep things in the box you bought it in."

Leonard smiled and then frowned as he looked at the figurine, not recognizing it at all. "What show is he from?"

Penny turned to him. "Farscape. This guy is Dargo, but with an apostrophe after the D." She turned back to the headstone. "I actually watched all episodes after Scott had died," she said, before going quiet for a minute or so. "Would you be okay if I took the job," she asked.

"Penny, I'll support you no matter what you want to do in life."

She turned to look at him, smiling. "Promise me that if you feel it's too hard on you, if you find yourself worried too much, you tell me?"

"I promise."

A/N2: This concludes this story. As mentioned before, there will be more stories with "kick-ass Penny", though it will most likely be in the crossover section, as it will be a crossover with the TV-show "Chuck" (thank you "Earnie" for pointing that show out to me; I loved it and watching the show sparked my interest in continuing this story beyond the first chapter).

When I wrote agent Franklin, I had Australian actor Wayne Pygram in mind, as his cadence and voice, especially as Scorpius in Farscape, was exactly what I had in mind as I wrote his dialog.