Background: The subsequent one-shots are the result of the following half-Challenge, half-Round Robin created by Rann over at the KP Slash Haven forum.
Rann's Setup (Condensed Synopsis)- Kim's trapped in a dimensional rift, and the process Wade comes up with in order to get her back sends copies of her all over the multiverse.
Rann's Challenge- The idea is this. Take a song from your music library that gives you an idea for Kim being in some other dimension. She can have just gotten there, not been there long, or she's been there for years, up to you. Also up to you is how long it is, you can write a full-length fic or just a little vignette showing what Kim's doing. She can have hooked up with a guy or girl or no one at all. She can have settled down, she can have climbed to new heroic heights; the limit is how inspired your music can make you.
Inspiration: If anyone wants to use any of these one-shots as a basis to write something more extensive of their own, go right ahead. Though crediting me in the foreword would be nice. ;)
Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events or to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Kim Possible and associated characters are the property of the Walt Disney Corporation and are used here for parody reasons without permission. Characters from any other sources are owned by their respective creators/copyright holders/trademark holders and are used here for parody reasons without permission.
- Insert something dramatic, tense, and classical here (seriously, they don't title the music from this source) -
Kim quickly wiped her right hand on her heavy beige kaki shorts before reaching out to slide the next puzzle tile into position on the altar. Looking up, Kim squinted in the gloom, trying to ignore the grating rumble vibrating through the room and the gunfire at her back as she studied the ancient, faded fresco on the temple wall before her. A second later she lifted the Colt .45 in her left hand and fired another heavy slug into the trigger on the left side of the room to free up the rest of the puzzle tiles for another fifteen seconds.
As Kim started sliding the puzzle tiles around to get the next piece into position, there was a dull metallic clank from down the hall leading to the main room they were in, quickly followed by a bloodcurdling, otherworldly, shrieking howl that even the renewed gunfire behind her failed to drown out as it rapidly got closer.
Kim slid another tile into position a few seconds later, and as she did, both the gunfire and the hideous howling went silent. An instant after that there was the heavy thud of a huge body hitting the ground. Shortly after that Kim heard the metallic clatter of a pair of clips hitting the stone floor followed by the soft rasp of two more sliding home.
"Kimberly love, that one was rather a might bit bigger than the last three that were released. And I would also like to point out that the walls have closed in on us considerably since you started." a smooth feminine voice behind her calmly stated in cultured British tones.
Even though she knew she shouldn't, Kim couldn't help but waste precious time glancing at the walls on either side of the room, bristling with wickedly sharp spikes and slowly but inexorably closing in on them. Kim's tight braid undulated back and forth as she shook her head and returned to the puzzle she was working on.
"I'm going as fast as I can here Lara. I did ask if you wanted to do this part instead, didn't I?" Kim grumbled, sliding another puzzle tile into place.
"Now we both know I'm a better shot than you Kimberly love, and besides, you still need more practice solving these kinds of things in real-world situations."
Kim couldn't help grinning. Sliding another piece of tile into place, Kim's grin turned to a snarl as the frame around the tiles clamped down and fixed them all in place. She'd only been one piece away from finishing it!
"I've got to hit it one more time Lara!" Kim said, raising her automatic again. "Get ready!"
"Always ready love." Lara answered cheerfully from behind her.
Kim shot the trigger once more and, as soon as the frame relaxed and released the tiles, started shifting the handful left to get the last piece into place. As she did, there was another loud metallic clank and a titanic roar shook the room, a moment later she head Lara mutter "Considerably larger." from behind her.
Kim slid the last tile into place a second later and gave a victorious smile as the picture was completed. There were several clicks and thunks from the altar that were more felt than heard, and the frame tightened around the tiles once more. As it did the rumbling stopped as the spiked walls to either side of them ground to a halt.
As soon as she was sure it was done, Kim whirled around and dove to the side while yanking out her second Colt .45. Rolling into a crouch to one side of Lara, Kim opened fire on the… thing, that was charging up the corridor toward them. It sort of looked like a mummified bull with blazing red eyes. If a bull had fangs and a humanoid body… with four arms…
Kim fired for center mass—the very, very large center mass—blowing huge but possibly ineffectual chunks out of the creature because she didn't want to risk wasting any more rounds. Kim kept firing until her guns ran dry and then jumped clear of the creature's path, but Lara remained where she was, firing into the creature's head until it was practically on top of her, only leaping out of the way just in the nick of time.
As Lara flipped away she fired the last few rounds from her extended magazines into the creature, and it stumbled and keeled over dead—or dead again, as the case may be—the momentum of its charge carrying it into a tumbling roll into the altar, where it bounced up and over it to land on the far side of the room in a broken heap, the ruby light in its eye sockets slowly fading to nothing.
Moving back to the center of the room, Kim and Lara mirrored one another as they ejected their exhausted clips from their guns and replaced them with fresh ones. They mirrored one another in other ways too. Both wore fingerless leather mitts, heavy knee-high hiking boots and socks, kaki shorts, a small, compact backpack, and a complex harness around their waist and thighs that held their thigh holsters, spare ammo clips, mini-grapnels, flares, and a couple of smooth, handball sized round grenades.
They differed in many ways as well however. The superficial was their tops; Lara wore what was essentially a one-piece blue bathing suit of heavy woven synthetics, while Kim wore her trademark style black, midriff baring crop top with three-quarter sleeves. Despite the fact that both women wore their hair in a single long, tight braid, Lara's was a true auburn, which made Kim's all the more noticeably dark red in comparison. Then there was their builds; while both women were highly lean and athletic, Kim was more heavyset compared to Lara's slender frame—though oddly enough, they were incongruous when it came to their feminine endowments; Kim still had small, pert breasts, despite her heavier frame, while Lara had rather… large, well rounded ones, to say the least.
Releasing their locked slides once the fresh clips were in, Kim and Lara holstered their guns and then Lara said; "Well Kimberly, you're certainly coming along nicely as my apprentice." Lara smiled. "Though a few years ago if anyone had ever told me I'd even have an apprentice, let alone a lady as young as yourself, I'd have probably laughed in their face."
"Thanks. I think…" Kim smiled back.
A lot had changed in the last two years since she'd fallen into this world through that dimensional rift and been saved by Lara—and, in the course of exploring the ancient ruins they had been in at the time, saved her several times in return. This world was… darker, than her own. More… dirty, in some ways… crueler. But it had plenty of good things in it as well, like her new mentor Lady Croft. If it hadn't been for Lara, Kim wasn't sure she could have gone on, knowing she might never go home to her friends and family again. She'd given her a new path and a new focus—and a shoulder to cry on on those long, cold nights when the enormous weight of her situation seemed to close in, seeking to crush her with black despair.
"Well now, let's see what we've done, shall we love?" Lara's voice broke Kim out of her revere.
Kim nodded, and both women turned to the altar, taking a single step forward before there was a loud clunk felt through the floor beneath them. They only had time to turn and look at one another, their eyes widening while Kim said "Bloody" and Lara finished "Hell!" before the entire floor in front of the altar opened up and they fell into the inky darkness below.
After a long fall both women plunged into icy cold water, sinking deep before their momentum was finally absorbed and they were able to kick their way back to the surface without undue difficulty.
"Are you ok love?" Lara asked, only able to see a few feet around her.
"Yeah, I'm ok." Kim answered, popping a chemical flare.
In the luminous green glow of the flare, both women swam towards a distant shelf and pulled themselves up onto it, quickly shaking the water off themselves as fast as they could.
Holding her flare up, Kim looked around and asked; "You see any way out of here Lara?"
Joining the visual search, Lara soon answered; "Not that I can s… hang on love, what's that up there?"
Lara pointed to a dark spot about twenty-five feet up the far wall. Kim squinted at the rough cliff wall in the gloom, and then, with a silent prayer, threw her flare toward the dark depression. A moment later it passed out of sight, illuminating the mouth of a small passage.
"Good shot Kimberly." Lara congratulated Kim. "And that's our way out."
Twenty minutes later both women were coming out onto a narrow ledge high on one side of a huge, sprawling temple room nearly the size of a football field. Below them, all across the multiple levels of the temple floor and raised areas around it, dozens of black-clad mercenaries stood guard; looking in every direction while a well-dressed man approached the central altar and the huge, elaborate demon statues behind it.
Reaching out, the man picked up an intricate, ruby encrusted scepter. The shaft glowed faintly with a light of its own, pulsing evilly from within the golden rod. Turning to a pair of coldly beautiful twin blondes waiting for him at the foot of the dais the altar was resting upon, he raised the scepter high above his head and grinned with maniacal glee.
"We have found it my daughters!" The man all but shouted, his voice high and weak and old, despite his powerful-looking frame. "The Key of Sorrow! Now we can open the gates of Mordus Kull and release the Dread Lord Salkalesh from his otherworldly realm, and he will plunge the world into ten thousand years of darkness, over which we shall rule second only to him, with eternal youth and vigor as our reward!"
Looking over to Kim sympathetically, Lara very softly said; "I'm sorry this wasn't your way back home love."
Kim shook her head and whispered back; "It's ok Lara. There's dozens of other artifacts out there that are connected to legends of traveling to other realms. One of them is bound to get me home." Lara nodded, a proud gleam in her eye, and Kim continued; "But for now, we have business to take care of."
"Right you are love." Lara whispered, her eyes going as hard as Kim's while she carefully slid a gun and a grenade into her hands, just like Kim was doing.
A lot of things had changed…