Title: The Thin Line… Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Once again, I don't own Kim Possible. Kim Possible and all affiliated symbols, names, and places belong to the Walt Disney Corporation, which is itself owned by ABC (I think – or is it the other way around?) There I said it. IN BIG BLACK LETTERS!

Pairing: Um, not sure…kinda lost interest in this story, but my interest in "Four Years Later" has actually rekindled my fire for this, the story that started my foray into the KP-verse of fiction. So, in short, there MAY be a pairing in this story, and if so – definitely heterosexual, so no worries all…heh.

Spoilers: none. (I mean, c'mon! I started this when I had seen, like, five episodes of Kim's adventures. What could I possibly spoil for you die-hard KP worshippers?)

Summary: Um, okay, so here's a story about an ordinary (not so ordinary) guy who's life gets weirder than it already is when a stranger arrives at his doorstep unexpectedly and unannounced… (For those of you who've been with me from the beginning of "Four Years Later" you'll recognise that the central character may actually be quite familiar – his abilities if not his face – well, definitely not his face)

And now: Onto the Insanity!

Chapter I

The day I met Kim Possible was the day my life changed forever.

I'm an average guy overall, so beautiful girls had no real reason to be stopping by my house. But, defying the laws I had built around myself socially, this girl came and rang the doorbell anyway, and this visitor was by far the most strikingly beautiful girl I'd ever seen, let alone greeted on the doorstep of my own house. You see, I had resigned myself to college as a single guy, and it was almost completely my own fault, of course. Because, you see...my hobby was not something that the average girl would consider interesting in the least. Add to that the fact that I was a bit of a loner, and I had a great, lively party of one.

School had ended little more than three days earlier, so I had been getting set to immerse myself in my chosen profession and hobby: Building computers. I build and sell all sorts of units using parts that are scrounged from a dumpster, or bought at a bargain price from my friend, Phil. Needless to say, the scrounged parts make up a very small minority of the quite large supply of parts that I have, but I do have a real knack for repairing things that other people would label as beyond hope. Of course, I'm still in school, so my little private business slows down quite a bit over the fall and winter semesters, but during the summer, I get quite a few orders from people. Some of them are friends of the family, and they get certain discounts, but the majority of my clients are people who see my ad in the classifieds, stumble across my website, or know me indirectly through paths even I could never untangle; A friend of a friend's secretary's husband, or something.

The good thing about my little side business is that it goes unnoticed by all of the big computer companies, and I can steal some of their potential customers away from them. While they go about their own business, selling their computers for enormously inflated prices, its child's play for me to go right under their noses and sell a top-line computer for barely more than half the price. I don't give warranties, though. I only offer my call-me-if-something-goes-wrong-and-I'll-contact-my-suppliers plan. It's a free service, and it gives me a chance to tinker with the unit if my suppliers deem it beyond repair. That's one of the advantages of being a self-taught electronics whiz: You begin to think that you can do anything you put your mind to. I don't live by the rules of the traditional computer programmer, so I think outside the box, and I can usually accomplish quite a bit more than a guy with a degree in engineering.

Another advantage that comes with being a private, single-worker business, is the fact that I don't need to pay the workers, and I don't have a boss breathing down my neck to get my job done. I had enough of that when I tried my hand at telemarketing. It was gruelling work, calling people for three hours every other day, but it had earned me a lot of money for a semester, while the computer business was in a slump.

On average, I make a net profit of about five hundred dollars per computer, sometimes a little less, sometimes much more. So, obviously, I had saved a chunk of the funds to build my own computer, since I was so good at building them for other people, I figured I could do the same for myself.

As you can see, I'm very interested in computers, and being a natural genius doesn't help. My parents say that I'm a bookworm, but they don't know the half of it. I spend my free time teaching myself about other branches of the electronics industry. I was actually thinking of expanding my business into surveillance equipment and software programming. I figured I might be able to increase the number of customers if I increased the number of my specialties, and I was probably right

Fate, it seems, had an alternative in mind for me.

So, thinking that it was Phil with the first delivery of the season, I had run pounding down the stairs from my room, only to be greeted by the sight of a lone girl standing on my front porch. I was quite surprised, honestly, to find any girl standing at my door, let alone one who looked like she could win a beauty pageant against professional models.

Acting cautiously, expecting another joke from my prankster friend Joey, I slowly opened the door and stepped outside.

"H-hello...?"

Without showing any signs of having heard me, the redhead gave me a slight shove backward and followed me into my home. "Come on, Ron."

A short blond boy sprang out of the bushes by the door and trotted into the house, "right here, K. P."

In the long silence that followed their unconventional entrance into my home, I looked from the redhead to Ron, studying them from head to toe. I was at such a loss for words, that I could do little else.

The redhead's hair was tied back into a loose ponytail that had an air of practicality around it, rather than style. Her hair was quite a bright shade of red, almost fiery, and it hung fairly long - perhaps halfway down her back. Her soft brown eyes stood on either side of a rather smallish nose, and her cheekbones were set high on her face, giving it a long, narrow appearance. Her neck was also a little on the long side, but her entire body was long and willowy, which did nothing to decrease her beauty. Her body was lean as well, giving the impression that she was no stranger to hard old-fashioned exercise. Her skin was lightly tanned, which was really the only quality that linked her to the types of girls I knew from school. Other than that, she was totally unique - in a class of her own. Her lime-green tank top suited her well, as did the worn blue-jean cargo pants. Her bare arms looked lightly tanned and well built, as if she were an accomplished athlete. She had a digital watch on her left wrist, and a fairly large, vaguely rectangular pouch hanging from her belt on the right side. There was something hard and metallic in it, but I didn't inquire about it. I had the unusual, distinct impression that she might react quite explosively if I did. It looked sort of like a hand-held radio, but I couldn't be sure.

The boy - Ron -, on the other hand, obviously believed himself to be standing at the height of coolness, as far as his clothing and attitude were concerned. His straw-yellow hair was cut very short, and his bangs were fairly high. His hair was a study in chaos and disorder, as if he had never run a comb through it in his life. His eyes were a dazzling shade of blue, and they probably held the gaze of many an attractive girl, if I was to hazard a guess, and his nose might have been a hair on the large side. He wore a red hockey jersey over a white cotton t-shirt, and a pair of khaki cargo pants that were at least fifteen centimetres too long. His ears were large, and his skin pale, almost like cream. And, where the girl appeared to work out regularly, he looked like he could use a few hours in a gym to bulk up. And, similarly, where his friend was a little taller than eye-level with me, Ron was almost half-a-head shorter than me. In the left knee pocket of his cargo pants, there was a small lump that wriggled every once in a while, as if there was something alive in there. I found that sort of odd, but I didn't push the subject.

The girl's voice brought me back to myself, and my current situation, which - I must admit - could have been quite hilarious, had I not been so mystified. "Okay - here's the deal: I'm Kim Possible, and this is Ron Stoppable."

My overworked brain finally kicked back into gear, and I stared from her to her friend, "...Possible? Stoppable?"

She rolled her eyes, a gesture that did nothing to decrease my attraction to her. "Don't ask. It's the curse of our families. We're doomed to carry on those names forever." The small smile that spread across her face added countless dimensions to her beauty. "Anyway, we need a place to lay low for a while."

I remained silent as I studied her face for a few moments. "You do realize that you're both complete strangers to me, right?"

Her smile grew wider, and I had to look away before the sight made me blush. "Yes, but that means that the people that are hunting Ron and I are also strangers to you. All my contacts in this city have been compromised. I know you don't want to let complete strangers into your home, but trust me," she rested a soft, cool hand on my arm. "We're here to hide, and we may be able to help each other.

I thought about that for a moment, and then studied both their faces, focusing mainly on their eyes.

Now, you've probably noticed that I have a strange...interest in people's faces, and it's time I told you why. You see, ever since I entered puberty, I've developed some abilities that are more than a little unique. You could say that I got a little more out of my adolescent years than any of the other guys, but whatever...

One of these abilities is a little confusing. It's either a strong form of empathy, or a weak telepathy. You see, depending on the kind of contact I have with a person, I can sense certain things about them. If I'm looking at them as if from a long distance, the only things I can discern are surface emotions, like things they're feeling right at that moment, such as anger, envy, or interest. If I'm looking them in the eyes, I can get a little deeper under their skin and sense emotions that are closer to the heart, like love or hate. If, however, I can manage to make a physical form of contact, such as shaking hands or brushing elbows - skin to skin -, I can get even deeper and sense some actual thoughts and impulses, what a person intends to do or what they're thinking right at that moment and so on. Of course, what I can sense depends on what kind of person I'm dealing with, but other than that, my abilities are usually able to perform consistently with whoever I'm working with. Most of the time, I try to ignore anything that's going on deep in someone's mind, because that's where the private thoughts move around, and I have no right to invade anyone's privacy like that. Lately, however, I've been starting to lose control, and I've been unable to screen out other people's thoughts, which kind of worries me.

Finally, I nodded slowly, "alright, you can stay as long as you like as far as I'm concerned, but I'd appreciate knowing exactly who you two are, and why you chose to hide in my house."

"Done." Ron thrust out his hand. "This is a done deal, my man."

I shook his limp hand and grinned, "You'll still have to convince my mom, however, and she's a tough case."

The girl's smile became secretive. "Maybe not, but we'll see soon enough."

After a long moment of silence, during which I toyed with the idea of using my abilities to rip answers out of these two strangers' heads, I realized that we were all still standing in my front hallway. "Well, come on in and make yourselves at home."

"Thanks bro." Ron trotted into the kitchen after slapping me on the back. "Delicious treats, here I come!"

"Bad choice of words, Matt." Kim stepped into the house and tossed her knapsack onto the stairs. "He'll eat everything in the house if you tell him to make himself at home..." she trailed off and smiled coyly at me, obviously trying to spark some sort of nervous reaction.

I waved the comment away, unworried. You can't manipulate a telepath that easily, I thought. "We're just about out of food anyway - hey! How do you know my name?"

The girl - Kim - smiled disarmingly, "let's deal with that after Ron's taken the edge off his hunger. It's his story anyway."

"Sure." I took another moment to look Kim Possible over before heading back upstairs to my room.

Once the door was closed, I let my calm exterior dissolve like water evaporating off a lake. Now, I was left lying on my back in my bed with my ceiling fan whirring at top speed, worried about these strangers in my house. I had no problem with people, so it couldn't have been that, but I knew that I had to watch myself now, at least until I had found out everything I could about this pair of strangers, and what kind of awareness they had. See, I'd been living pretty comfortably for the past few years, since I knew how my parents' minds worked. I'd been able to relax and have some fun every now and then, free my mind of the stress of the day, and my dark secret. But now there were two wild cards thrown into the shuffle, and they could have meant trouble for me.

I closed my eyes, and breathed a soft sigh of defeat. "It's up to you now, God."

As if timed by the Almighty himself, the phone on my desk went off like a time bomb, blaring so loud that it could probably have been heard all the way to the College, where I'd be starting school the next fall. Mentally cursing the device, I picked it up. "Hello?"

"Yo, Matt!"

I sat up, still holding the phone to my ear. "Phil, is that you?"

His voice was unnecessarily loud, "affirmative on that, bro. I've got some hardware for your business but I must say this gear isn't very impressive. I know you're capable of building a better machine than this."

"Well, I guess it depends," I stood from the bed and grabbed one of the large hard plastic cases that stood by the door of my room. "What the client wants, the client gets. Can you truck it over to my house?"

"I'm already on my way, dude. I'll be there in about twenty minutes."

"Great. That gives me enough time to set up shop. I'll see you in a few."

"You've got it."

I hung up the phone and grabbed the other case by the door, lugging them both downstairs to the kitchen table. I set the two plastic cases on the table side-by-side and opened them, revealing a wide array of electronics gear in the left one, and an equally impressive collection of tools, both electric and manual, in the other. Taking a quick look around the room, I placed the circuit tester on the table and ran back upstairs to grab the case of computer parts, as well as a large crate of computer casings, another crate of parts, and my binder of orders. Needless to say, it took several trips, but I managed to set up my workshop with a few minutes to spare before Phil's arrival.

When I returned to the kitchen with my binder, I found Ron standing over the box of extra circuit boards, staring at its contents while munching on a sandwich that looked larger than his head. Kim, on the other hand, was sitting quite calmly at the table, studying my gear. She looked up at my arrival and reached down to unsnap the black leather pouch on her hip. "What's with all the equipment? Are you some kind of freelance computer builder?"

I nodded, smiling. "That was very perceptive, Kim."

She blushed, "thank you." From inside her hip pouch, she withdrew a small, vaguely rectangular device with a four-by-four inch LCD screen on the upper half of one side, and a number of grey buttons on the other half of the same side. "Hey, Matt?"

"Yeah?" I walked around her to get at the empty side of the table. Then, I set the binder on the table, opening it to the first page of the 2003 tab.

"While Ron and I were running for our lives, I managed to drop my communicator. I think the fall may have jarred loose the transistor and overloaded the circuit. Could I use some of your tools to check it out?" She smiled hesitantly, almost shyly.

I restrained myself from grinning. "Of course, Kim."

"So," she reached for a screwdriver and started removing the case from her matte black device. "What's a kid like you doing with so much equipment?"

I managed to interpret a slight edge of playfulness in her voice, and decided to reply in kind. "Excuse me? I'm eighteen years old and I build computers for a living. You're what – twelve?"

She chuckled softly. "I'm seventeen, thank you very much." She looked up from her work and caught me studying her face intently. She smiled, and I thought I could sense a dark shade of red creeping into her face. I met her gaze, and felt my own cheeks growing red, so I looked away.

Ron was oblivious to the unspoken communication between his friend and I. "Hey buds…why the sudden silence?"

I was spared from having to answer by the doorbell, which rang with the chorus of a hundred thousand dying animals.

I stood from the table and walked into the front hall, dimly aware that Kim had followed me for some reason. I stopped at the front door just long enough to see who it was, and then threw it open.

"Hey Phil, how's it going?"

"Goin' great kid," the older man smiled, and then caught sight of my guest. "Hey…who's the pretty lady?"

I couldn't help but smile, "You've got me. All I have is her name. Kim Possible, this is Phillip Younger, my supplier." I clapped a hand on his shoulder.

He chuckled as the girl shook his hand, "I never thought I'd meet anyone with a name as bad as mine, much less a hot chick like you – no offence."

"None taken," her expression didn't change, but I thought I saw something pass behind her eyes as she turned away to head back into the house. Once she was gone, I stepped outside to do business.

"Nice," he was murmuring as we walked to where he had parked his jet-black pickup in my driveway. "Well Matt – now that I'm here, the summer has officially started."

"What do you mean?"

"I make deliveries to you every two weeks all summer, so the first delivery marks the beginning of my summer. I thought a computer whiz like you would have realized that after three years."

"Yeah, I guess." I nodded my head to his truck. "Nice wheels."

He grinned and brushed some of his sand-coloured hair out of his face. "It's one of the perks of getting a raise at that God-awful desk job." He opened the truck's passenger door and pulled out a large cardboard box. Smiling, he handed it off to me.

"So, what have you got for me?" I took the box without opening it.

Phil reached into his truck again and grabbed a clipboard. "I've got a dozen hard drives of various capacities, as well as some bottom-line sound and video cards. Like I said, you can make much better stuff than this." He reached into the truck once again and brought out a box about half as large as the first one. "And, since I like you and I'm such a charitable guy, I'll throw this in free of charge."

I pulled out my wallet. "You told me it would be six hundred, is that right?"

"That's right, but due to inflation, I'm afraid I'll have to charge you six thousand instead." Phil's voice was deadpan.

"Just take your money and shut up," I held out a wad of twenties.

"Thank you very much." He slid the cash into an empty envelope and placed it in his own wallet. "It's always a pleasure doing business with you, Matt."

I grinned, "Likewise."

Closing the door of his truck, he turned and leaned against it, "so. Who's your lady friend?"

I leaned both boxes on the hood of the truck. "I told you, I don't know. She just showed up at my door and said she needed a place to lay low for a while, as if the mob was after her or something."

He smiled knowingly, "and you just couldn't turn away a pretty face, could you?"

I remained serious, "it's not just that, Phil. There's just something about her, like an aura or something that makes me think she's worth the mystery. I've got a feeling something really big is going to happen now that I've met her."

Phil snorted. "Yeah – I don't know about all that premonition stuff, but there's no doubt that she's worth something." He looked around suspiciously and lowered his voice. "So, does she know?"

I tried acting innocent. "Does she know what?"

He punched me on the shoulder. "You know exactly what I mean, Matt. Does she know?"

"Of course not" I looked back at the house, "give me a little credit, Phil. If I haven't even told my own family about my powers, do you seriously think I'd tell a total stranger?"

"Good." He slipped his shades down from the top of his head. Pushing himself away from his truck, he walked around to the driver's side and climbed in. "You take care of yourself, Matt."

I stepped back, taking my boxes with me. "You too, Phil. And say hello to the family for me."

"That I will." He started the truck and was soon gone.

I returned to the kitchen to see Kim seething at the table. Ron was nowhere to be seen.

I sat down beside her, "hey." She made no reply so I tried again. "Are you all right?" Still she made no sound. Cautiously, I reached out to touch her shoulder. "Kim?"

She turned her head and focused her eyes on mine. "Your friend has a little problem with women."

I leaned back in my chair and met her gaze, understanding what her reaction to Phil's… unorthodox compliment had been:

Rage.

And perhaps a little disgust as well. "He's not that bad, Kim; once you get to know him, at least. In fact, for what it's worth, when it comes to strangers, he's all talk."

"How do you know?" Kim's eyes softened and her rage cooled quite a bit.

"He's actually very happily married with three kids. He simply compliments girls as a hobby."

That certainly caught her off-guard, "oh." She fell silent for a while and turned her attention back to her communicator.

I watched her for a few more moments, and then turned my own attention to my work as the toilet flushed noisily on the other side of the wall behind me. So that's where Ron was.

A few seconds later, the blonde himself appeared around the corner, and took a seat at another of the table's chairs. "Yo, dude."

I replied without really thinking. "Yo." Then, I grabbed a razor blade from my toolbox and opened the box I had paid six hundred dollars for.

Inside, I found everything Phil had described to me. I was disappointed that the first six orders of the season were for some really low-tech units that weren't really good for anything besides word processing. The only thing these computers would have going for them would be their low price and their usefulness as paperweights.

"Man, these people don't know anything about computers." I reached for a hard drive and started rummaging through all the boxes for all the other bottom-rate parts that I would need for the first order. "Alright," I muttered to myself. "Harold Wren wants a hard drive with twenty gigabytes of memory, thirty-two megs of RAM, a piece of garbage sound card…" I ran through the order form, assembling the components together and then selecting an appropriate tower casing. I was about to carry it outside to paint it when I had a flash of inspiration. "Hey Ron?"

"Yeah?" He looked up from his fidgeting.

I grabbed a can of spray-paint. "You look bored; why don't you take this casing out back and spread out some newspaper?" I tossed the paint can to him. "I'm sure you can figure out what to do from there."

He caught the paint one-handed in one fluid motion, and grabbed the plain grey aluminium casing with his free hand. "Cool," he slipped outside after grabbing a stack of old newspapers.

Kim looked up from her work once he was gone. "Well, that was interesting."

I returned her look of curiosity with one of bewilderment. "Huh?"

She smiled sweetly. "I had figured you to be the type of guy who was territorial about his work. I didn't think you'd be the type to share a job with someone else."

I looked back down at the pile of half-rate components sitting in front of me. "Well, he looked bored, and I thought he might enjoy spray-painting that casing." I looked back up at the redhead, "so I guess you could call me the type that likes to keep everyone around him from getting bored."

She was silent for a heartbeat, and then whispered: "I admire that."

I replied in a whisper too. "Why are you whispering?"

She blushed darker than her hair and looked away, offering no explanation.

I grinned happily, "I never figured you to be the shy one, the way you barged into my house."

That got a smile from her, and she returned to her work.

Without the tower casing, I couldn't really do anything with the parts that would go into Mr. Wren's computer, so I leaned forward to observe what Kim was doing.

After removing the black casing, she looked at the one, tiny lithium battery that powered the entire thing. I didn't know anything much about what the device was for, but I could tell from the components stuffed inside that it could send and receive audio and video, access the internet, and pick up a variety of frequencies. It could also store a huge amount of data, presumably to save the time it would take to access the Net all the time. It was quite a range of capabilities for such a small device.

As she had suspected, the transistor had been knocked out of place. Once she had replaced the component and screwed the casing back together, she turned it over and spoke, "okay Wade. Try it now."

I was confused. "Wade? You've named your communicator?"

She giggled, "Don't be silly." She held the device out to me, showing me the screen as static coursed across it. "This is Wade."

The speakers on the side of the device exploded with the swish of static, but there was also a low frequency buzz, suggesting that the device's receiver was trying to track a weak signal. Then the static on the screen began to fade, revealing the image the transmitter on the other end was broadcasting. The sound also calmed somewhat.

The first thing I noticed was the state-of-the-art computer that sat on a desk in room lit only by a medium-powered desk lamp. In front of the computer sat a somewhat overweight boy of no more than eleven years. He had short black hair, darkened skin, and wide curious eyes.

"Hey, Kim? I think it's working," he was saying as he fiddled some more with the camera. "Oh – wait. You're not Kim."

"No, I'm not." I handed the communicator back to Kim and sat back to examine the circuit boards I was going to be installing in the tower.

"This is good, Wade." Kim reached into one of the pockets of her knapsack and withdrew a small cylindrical module with one wire trailing from it, attached to a tiny jack, which she plugged into the side of her communicator. "Okay, I've got the projector hooked up." She placed the module on the table and stood the communicator beside it. "Give it a try."

There was a moment of silence, and then a high pitched hum as a small hole appeared in the top of the module, and a line of white light shot out, expanding slowly until it was a ball of pure white light. After a moment, it began to pulse and shift to other colours. I leaned forward and studied the hologram with interest.

"That's good." Kim picked up the communicator and spoke to the screen. "How useful do you really think this projector is going to be?"

"I'm not quite sure Kim, but it's better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it, I guess."

"Sure." Kim disconnected the projector and slipped the communicator into her hip pouch. After dropping the hologram projector into her bag, she turned to face me more fully. "So, Matt." She crossed her arms and leaned her elbows on the table. "How do you feel about getting that explanation?"

I looked up at her and raised my eyebrows. "I thought you wanted to wait for Ron."

She waved aside my comment and looked to one side. "Forget that. I'm bored now, and I can tell a lot of the story – except for the part about why we're at your house."

I grinned and sat back, studying her expression. What are you feeling, Kimberly Possible? Boredom, curiosity and – what? You feel interest, but in what?

Kim looked up and caught me staring at her again. She slowly leaned back and studied me with the same even, discerning gaze that I was using. After a heartbeat, she snapped out of her daze and smiled. "Before I start, can I ask you something?"

Busted…

I nodded, "of course."

She leaned forward again, "why do I keep catching you staring at me?"

I looked away, stalling for time, but before I could even think of answering, Ron came bursting in from the back door. Kim and I turned simultaneously to look at him. I sensed the storm in the old boy's mind, but I held back and waited for him to explain his outburst.

His eyes were wide and full of fear. He looked around wildly, and finally focused on Kim. "K.P, we've got to move! He's here."

Kim's outward reaction was so sudden; my empathy almost didn't catch it before she snapped into action. "Oh my God!" She shot to her feet and pulled me up with her by my shoulder. "Matt, do you know anywhere we can hide?"

"From who?" I looked at both the front door and the back door, but saw no one.

Kim was frantic now, "come on, Matt! I promise to explain later, but we have to get out of here!"

I sighed, knowing instinctively that there was one way – and one way only – to escape from whomever it was that had these two so terrified. "Alright, I'll help – but ask no questions." I looked from Kim to Ron, pausing for a heartbeat. "Follow me."

Kim loosened her grip on my shoulder and smiled shyly again, despite the terror that coursed through her body as certainly as blood. "Deal."

I stepped past her and ran to the front hall, turning to bolt upstairs as the other two followed.

Now, while I was cool as a glacier on the outside, my inner mind was anything but. A thousand thoughts and images flew through my mind as I pounded up the stairs to the bathroom.

So, I have no choice. The secret that only Phil knows is now going to be shared with two virtual strangers… I wonder how they will take it…

Just after I had acquired my weak mental ability, I came into possession of a second set of abilities. I had been transformed into a water elemental, with the ability to turn myself, and anything I could touch, to water, vapour, or ice. When it comes to water, I can do almost anything: turn myself invisible, slip through a screen door or air vent, or even fly. I picked up quite a few other minor things during my transition through puberty, such as a greater learning speed, sharper senses, slightly increased strength and speed, as well as the reflexes and dexterity to give me a thin advantage over the school bullies. They would have loved to catch me – the geek with above average grades who built computers as a hobby. But there was also a third major power that had only recently manifested itself, and that was the ability to manipulate the weather at will. Of course, this ability was so new, in fact, that I still hadn't found out how limited my control was.

Anyway, as I pondered whether I was doing the right thing, Kim and Ron both arrived at the top of the stairs, prompting me to action. Turning to face them, I acted upon a sudden inspiration. After leaving Ron standing in the hallway, I pushed Kim into my bedroom, leading her to my closet. Once there, with my own body blocking Ron's view of his friend, I placed one hand on Kim's shoulder and closed my eyes, activating my secret ability.

"What-," was as much as Kim could squeeze out before her vocal chords were transformed into water vapour, along with the rest of her body. Within a few seconds, Kim had become virtually invisible to anything short of thermal imaging, which I doubted was a commonly-needed tool of Kim's trade.

Shutting the closet, I returned to Ron. "Follow me," I rounded the corner in the short hall, and led the shorter blonde to the closet in my dad's study. Shoving him in, I repeated the process, much more swiftly, since I was getting used to turning people that weren't me into water vapour. Ron didn't even get the chance to blink, before he was suddenly invisible and expanding to fill the closet, and beyond unless I contained him. Keeping the closet door closed was only a delaying action, but it was all I had at the moment, so I did just that, and slid the wooden door shut all the way.

No sooner had I disposed of the boy then there was a loud banging at my front door. With a tremor of apprehension, I slowly walked downstairs and prepared myself to meet whomever it was that had so terrified the girl that had struck me as the fearless type.

When I got to the front hall, I was suddenly struck by a sense of déjà vu. Not two hours ago, Kim Possible had been standing right where this man and his companion were now.

Standing on my front porch was a man that boiled down to a blue-skinned, creepy scientist who was at least as old as my own parents. His black hair was all greased back, and his face was long, looking a little like a horse. He wore a simple blue jumpsuit, black boots and gloves, and a scowl. I didn't even have to make eye contact with him to sense his anger and suspicion. Standing beside him was a girl. She was about my age – maybe a year or so older –, and she was almost a carbon-copy of Kim. Almost. Her hair was black, and hung all the way down her back, disappearing somewhere around her waist. She also wore a smile that was clearly a façade, an element to fool unsuspecting people into thinking she wasn't really paying any attention to the world around her. She even had a similar build as my new redheaded friend, although a little taller, a little wirier, but her face definitely wasn't as expressive. This young woman seemed to only be able to express herself through her eyes, which were only half-opened as she carefully observed the world around her. She only met my eyes for a brief second, but it was enough to tell me that she and Kim had some history together – bad history. Something had happened in her past to make her virtually hate Kim Possible. I could see the fury in her eyes, barely hidden by her carefully maintained indifference, and barely controlled. What struck me most, however, was the sight that met me when my gaze moved down to her hands, attracted by an odd light.

Her leather-gloved hands had a faint green glow surrounding them like a cloud.

That phenomenon alone made me curious – both about the girl and about her history with Kim. The blue-skinned scientist wasn't nearly as interesting, because there wasn't anything really special about him. He clearly thought he was the brains of the duo that stood on my front porch, and why the girl let him believe that was a strange thing. No, the girl was clearly the more…intriguing of the two, even more so than Kim. A stray thought materialized in my head and I found myself amazed that my calm, quiet solitary lifestyle had been disrupted by not one, but two strikingly attractive young ladies in the same day.

The man spoke before I could dwell further on the subject. "Good afternoon, my dear boy. I am Doctor Drakken, and I have come for Kim Possible and her friend, the Buffoon."

"Ron Stoppable," The girl mumbled offhand, as if she'd done it often. Her voice would have been a strangely pleasant sound, had it not been carrying a faint hint of her hatred for Kim, as well as the unpleasant taste of boredom and sheer indifference.

"Whatever," the doctor dismissed his companion's interruption as quickly as she had said it, proving that these two had gone through this many times before. "As I was saying, my boy, we know Kim Possible is here. Just hand her over and we won't be forced to become…unpleasant." The way the blue-skinned man stressed that last word while glancing pointedly at his companion told me that he wouldn't be contributing to any sort of unpleasantness that might come my way, other than to egg her on from a safe distance.

When I purposely made no move to answer, this…Dr Drakken did the one thing I was hoping for – he made the mistake of looking me in the eyes. His gaze was confident, but my own almost empathic stare pierced straight through his superior appearance and plumbed the unseen depths of his mind, probing for his true intentions. Like most people of knowledge that I had encountered, the doctor's thoughts were a jumbled mess but one garbled thought caught my attention and made my decision for me; he was a reasonable man, and would only harm me if I was holding his quarry.

I made up my mind. "She's not here."

The blue-clad man smiled in triumph and barked a laugh. "Aha, if you truly weren't hiding her here, you wouldn't know who I am talking about. That was your first mistake, my boy. I'll allow one more before I kill you and search your house."

He made the mistake of meeting my gaze again, and I almost burst out laughing. Even without the eye contact, I could tell he was a horrible liar, but it was reassuring for my own hit-and-miss observation to be verified by my much more accurate sixth sense. Dr Drakken clearly had no intention of harming me. He was actually a rather…humane man, if it weren't for the intense lust for world domination that I sensed in his core. "I didn't say she was never here," I pushed on. "I just said that she isn't here now." At his doubtful look, I spread my hands defensively, a gesture I could sense he would appreciate. "What – do you honestly think I'd let a stranger into my house just because she asks me to trust her?" I would if it were a beautiful young woman who didn't really give me a choice in the matter, I mused to myself, fighting a grin that would be a little out of place in this situation. "Come on – I'm not stupid."

He appeared to think about it, tapping his hands together thoughtfully, but I could see the belief in his eyes before he spoke. "I'll grant you that. Naïve and foolish you may be, but stupid you definitely aren't."

"Gee thanks," I replied sarcastically.

The scientist snapped his fingers, "Shego! Keep this young man company. I'm going to search his house for good measure."

The girl sprang into action, proving my earlier observation that she wasn't as indifferent to the world around her as she appeared. She grabbed me by the shoulder and pulled me away from my front door with little apparent effort. I knew it was pointless, but I could sense that Dr Drakken was expecting me to protest. "You won't find anything," was all I allowed myself to say, respecting myself far too much to play his childish spy game.

"I'll be the judge of that." He disappeared into my house, leaving the door wide open.

"Here," the girl led me around the corner of my porch to the wooden bench my dad had bought a couple months ago. "Sit."

I did – and watched as she took a seat beside me. I could feel a bit of a tingle spreading from where she had been gripping my shoulder. It didn't feel too bad, but my experience with my water elemental powers had taught me to watch for the signs. The slight numbness in my shoulder told me that whatever was making Shego's hands glow was dangerous. I couldn't tell to what degree, but I made a mental note to try and keep her from touching me again. I turned to look at her and saw that she had gone back to hiding behind her mask of indifference. I couldn't resist pointing out how pointless her act was, so I just grinned knowingly. "You're a pretty laid back bodyguard, aren't you?"

"I'm not a bodyguard," she said immediately. "I'm a thief – and a pretty damn good one too." She relaxed slightly and crossed her arms. "Besides, there's nothing you can do that would surprise me. Dealing with Kim has taught me enough."

At that unexpected confession, I decided to drop my scared-kid act completely. I leaned back in my chair and rested my hands behind my head. "I bet I could surprise you." I was, of course, thinking about my own superhuman abilities, but I had no real intention of revealing them unless it proved to be absolutely necessary.

"I doubt it." She uncrossed her arms and started pulling her black leather gloves off. The green glow intensified as I laid my eyes on her uncovered hands for the first time. It was quite a sight.

They were cracked and hideously darkened in patches. Her nails were completely black, but not from polish. Her hands were still roughly the same shape they should be, long and slender, and probably would have been an attractive part of her body if it weren't for the unnatural-seeming skin condition that marred their once clearly flawless appearance. There was a long, bubbly scar along the edge of her left hand, and it looked like it had healed about as much as it was going to, leaving an ugly reminder of whatever accident she'd had. Looking on the slightly brighter side, I could see that she wasn't in any pain, and she appeared to still be able to use her hands with some proficiency, so I guessed her problem was mostly cosmetic – except for that green glow, which was starting to worry me more and more as the numbness in my shoulder took a much longer time to fade than was normal for me. The water in my own body was repairing the damage, but the fact that it was taking so long was more than a little disconcerting.

I knew better than to think that it was an accident that did this. "You're saying Kim Possible did this?"

A/N: So, what do you think? Even more off the wall than I'm known for, eh?

Tell me what you think, and I'll continue it…seriously!