Legal stuff: Kim Possible, Ron Stoppable, Mister Stoppable, Frugal Lucre, Wade Load, Bonnie Rockwaller, The Doctor's Possible, Dr. Director, the Tweebs, Shego, Team Go and all other characters borrowed from the wonderful KP Universe are the creations of Mark McCorkle and Bob Schooley, and those names are all trademarks of the Disney media organizations. Although use in this context is probably considered fair under parody law, just in case: this work was not created for profit, no money changed hands etc. Anna Stein IS original to this manuscript, but I release any claim to the character. If you want to use her for your own dastardly purposes. Also, this story takes place at a time at which all characters shown doing anything that can be construed as adult type behavior should be considered to be over the legal age of 18…
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AT THE CENTERFOLD OF THE STORM
Chapter Two
Mayor Frugal Lucre sat in his office, frowning. Had he been any other supervillain, he would have been rather pleased with himself. After all, not only was he technically no longer in Global Justice custody… though he WAS still in their facility, he was also actually the duly elected Mayor of Kim Possible's hometown. The thing was, Frugal Lucre wasn't any other supervillain… in fact, he really wasn't a supervillain at all. Whereas others like Dementor and MonkeyFist had got into the villain racket in order to gain power and fame, Lucre had done so because it had seemed like the easiest way to overcome his own pathological inability to stand by and watch money being wasted. At the time he'd believed that the easiest way to stop all the horrible wastage he'd had to watch every day was to simply take over and stop it himself.
He'd been wrong, of course, because he hadn't taken into account all the costs that would be incurred in the cost of actually taking over, and subsequent exposure to other supervillains had left him convinced that the current system of checks and balances was better suited for running the world, at least for the near future. He'd readily admitted that in a full confession he'd made quite willingly to a dubious Betty Director, taking the advice from his (purchased used) copy of Plea Bargaining for Dummies and Ubervillains. He'd agreed to plead guilty, minimizing trial costs, and had actually found his time in the GJ special security facility to be more pleasant than his normal life. The food was better than his previous regimen of ramen and SmartyMart canned produce, his linens were cleaned free of charge, and since he'd never been willing to pay for cable, the provided TV was all the entertainment he needed. Best of all, he usually had a bunkmate to talk to, and since some of the GJ facilities were co-ed, he'd actually met some very nice ladies who had been quite impressed with the fact that, unlike most residents of the prison, he had no problem getting the special amenities they craved thanks to regular shipments from his longtime supplier Martin Smarty.
What HAD impressed Dr. Director was the fact that once Frugal was interned, he'd become more than a model prisoner. He'd even become the go-to guy for a large number of Global Justice agents when they needed advice on taxes and investments, something that was made possible by his development of a triple-blind system where it was impossible for him to ever see any personal information (SS#, Credit Cards, Bank Accounts) so that he could do the grunt work with the calculations while they filled in the confidential parts on their own. The fact that it made him a favorite of the guards was a nice perk, but what really made him happy was knowing that he was setting people on a path that would lead to a much more cash-conscious future. That had inspired him to go a step further and start noting things that he saw around the prison itself that could use tightening. He was careful not to address salaries, of course, or suggest staff cutbacks, but even so he came up with an estimated budget that trimmed $18 mil off the center's annual operating budget AND allowed the installation of an on-site mini-SmartyMart where inmates could actually get job experience that would translate to the outside world.
She hadn't trusted him at all, needless to say, but after six different experts… including Ron Stoppable's father… had proclaimed Lucre's proposals "revolutionary but entirely financially sound," Betty had cautiously started implementing his ideas. Within a few months he'd completely won Betty over and began a systematic overhaul of Global Justice's labyrinthian maze of financial dead ends, again using the triple blind system he'd developed. Results: projected annual savings of $2 BILLION, and the raises and improved benefits package he'd recommended for GJ staff had made him even more popular.
In the aftermath of the Diablo debacle, Betty had decided to throw Lucre at a bigger target, helping to repair the damaged national infrastructure. Always as part of a team, of course, but with the unspoken acknowledgement that Lucre would be the point man. It was the first time Lucre had to butt heads with petty-minded bureaucrats who seemed determined to do everything as inefficiently as possible, and more than a few chose to use the fact that the "financial expert" sitting at the end of the table was wearing a GJ ankle bracelet as negotiating tactic to keep their favorite pork-barrel projects alive. For someone who hated seeing money wasted more than anything, it was hell on Earth. And then Martin Smarty, a man for whom Lucre had always had tremendous respect, had made a comment that changed Lucre's life forever.
"The fact is," Smarty had told a particularly odious official as they were attempting to finalize a food services contract where SmartyMart would provide transportation to school systems on the reverse legs of their delivery runs, "Frugal Lucre could be the greatest financial genius of this century except for the fact that he is fundamentally unable to stand seeing ANY party to a deal end up getting the shaft. He's what all you political types always promise and never deliver."
For some odd reason, Lucre had never really considered politics before, but the more he delved into the murky depths of bureaucracy, and the more crooked and corrupt politicians he met, the more he saw the desperate need for more common sense in how the government was handling money. Researching the issue in a borrowed library copy of "So You Want to Run for Office But You're a Convicted Criminal," Lucre was surprised to learn that Middleton, the very city where the GJ Facility in which he was incarcerated was located, was one of the places where a convicted felon could actually hold public office. He couldn't VOTE for himself, ridiculously enough, but he could run. And when the current administration, completely exhausted by the rigors of recovering from the initial phases of the Diablo disaster, threw in the towel, Lucre seized the opportunity.
Unwilling to lock himself into the tenets of any of the major parties, and reasonably sure that he'd be shunned by them in any case, Lucre had quickly formed his own political association, which he dubbed the "Common Cents" party. Disregarding any other issues or platforms, he'd focused solely on the economic mess that the city (and by extension, most of the country) was in. His campaign manifesto was his budget, which he put up on his website and openly asked for any improvements on. He spent no money on TV, instead working a "trade-for" deal with SmartyMart to have his flyers printed on the backs of store brand food products and receipts. He financed his mail-out costs by including his flyers with saver-pack coupons. And as he gathered volunteers, instead of putting them to work at phone banks or knocking door to door, he sent them around the city asking people where THEY thought the budget could be better spent. Sure, it was an odd approach, challenging people to think instead of simply telling them a party line, but it DID motivate the people who were already motivated enough to vote in the first place. The television coverage he had spurned quickly came back in his favor as the news began to cover the man who was climbing up in the polls despite running his campaign from a penitentiary, and the anchors never seemed to be able to get enough mileage out of his own candid admission that, "Yes, he'd been a criminal, but so were a large percentage of politicians and at least he was open about it. Besides, if the electorate didn't like the job he did, he'd already be in prison so there'd be no cost of an impeachment."
The final touch had been the three way debate on the campaign. By forcing his opponents away from issues that were completely outside the scope of the position they were competing for and back to economics, Lucre was able to completely dismantle both parties attacks with cold and simple logic. How could the Repubicans argue for the validity of "Trickle down" economics when that candidate' own plastics company had moved its factories and customer service departments overseas and his own personal wealth was hidden in a tax-shelter? (Lucre had taken just a bit of evil pleasure in having the accountant who'd engineered that very shelter, now a fellow inmate, wave hi to his former boss.) And how could the Democrats argue for increased spending on social services, however noble the cause, when they were already running in deficit on existing programs where what should have been enough money was being consumed by six layers of needless middle management? Lucre's closing argument, that his own campaign, based on a budget that had been endorsed by hundreds of world-renowned financial experts and almost all the local law enforcement agencies (the exception being a singular Sheriff from an outlying suburb noted for its speedtraps,) was actually running cash-positive despite having never taken a single public donation, was the clincher. He'd won the three way election by a sufficient majority to not even require a runoff.
And then, less than three months later, the Lowardians had attacked. In the wake of the devastation, nobody would have been surprised if Lucre had gone back on some of his plans and campaign promises. Instead, he'd actually become more ruthless in his managing of the budget, decreeing that deficit spending would only be an option when it could be shown to actually save money. He's been brutal in negotiating with the companies that swarmed in to do business. The ones that agreed to his draconian terms got the jobs, the ones that decided to look elsewhere despite the desperate need found the full details of the deals they'd turned down on the internet. Everyone told him that it would be political suicide, but no one really seemed to understand that for Lucre, politics were only a means to an end, not an end in and of themselves. And besides, it was, quite simply, the wrong time to look greedy in the public eye, as the knowledge that not only was there life beyond our planet but that some of it was openly hostile, brought the people of the world together in a shared brotherhood. As a result, the presidents of two of those companies had been tossed by their stockholders, a dozen more had shamefacedly come back to the table, and the one company with organized crime connections that had attempted to put a hit on Lucre had discovered the hard way that trying to kill the most loved inmate in a state of the art jail run by Global Justice and filled with super villains was really an extremely bad idea. When the company's entire board and a large percentage of it's less savory consultants simply vanished off the face of the Earth, Martin Smarty bought their assets and made an even better deal on concrete than Lucre had hoped for.
But even so, it had been only luck that the city had been able to weather the storm as well as it had, and some of those pieces of luck had been… the kind of thing that was starting to make Frugal Lucre truly believe in karma. Besides Martin Smarty, there was one other individual who seemed to keep coming back up in Lucre's life: Kim Possible. However, unlike the proverbial bad penny, Lucre was beginning to realize that even if he hadn't been aware of it at the time, every change in his life that the plucky teen hero had engendered ultimately seemed to go his way. Being captured and sent to Jail had sent him on the path to politics in the first place, and it was the father of her associate Ron Stoppable who had helped get Betty to trust Lucre's plans. And then there'd been the calendars.
The first calendar, a simple homemade fundraising affair created by a high school cheerleading team that had attracted the attention of Martin Smarty (and there HE was again,) and gone on to be a critical cash cow at the moment Middleton needed liquid cash the most.
The second calendar. Okay, technically, the second TWO calendars, as the one featuring Ron Stoppable and other former Maddog players had done extremely well, but it was the X-Cheerleader calendar that had rocked Lucre's world. Professionally produced with entirely donated services, the only cost had been the printing itself, which had happily done by a local Middleton printing company using an advance from SmartyMart. Now distributed in 40 countries, it was an honest to gosh financial bonanza and had fired more cash into the reconstruction effort than any other single venture.
And no one doubted that the key to the calendar was Kimberly Anne Possible.
Which, of course, lead to the issue that Lucre was now struggling with. The fact was that reassembling the "X-Middleton Cheerleaders" was going to be a tricky issue no matter what. Five of the girls had already signed professional modeling contracts and while the girls might still be willing to pose gratis, their agencies might not so agreeable. And then there was Ms. Rockwaller, whose recent public incidents of public lewdness and general misbehavior and were really not the sort of thing the town council wanted to associate with Middleton. But without the other cheerleaders, would they even be able to convince Kim to DO another calendar? Lucre knew the young hero had been a little distressed at some of the initial reactions to the project, but she'd never actually said one way or the other if she regretted it. On the other hand, he knew that a lot of other people had tried to get Kim to pose for their causes since and she'd turned them all down. But if there WAS no new calendar, they were right back to where they'd been last year. The Middleton Miracle, as it was called by the media, would stall in its tracks. Unless he wanted his city to be in the same shape as Upperton or Go City, both of which were desperately short of reconstruction funds, SOMEONE was going to have to ask her, and that someone was probably going to have to be him.
"Damn it," Lucre sighed irritably. He was the mayor of a city, and he felt like a dirty old man. The trick would be to find a way to make it attractive enough to her that she wouldn't even think about saying no. But how could he…?
Lucre paused, thinking back over his last thoughts. And then the idea came.
Without a beat, he picked up his phone and began making calls.
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Kim was pulling off her clothing even as she walked through the door. The flight back from Germany had been in the back of a overnight delivery plane, and while the ride itself had been smooth enough, the cargo hold where she'd tried to grab a few hours sleep had been less than clean. Fortunately, the small bathroom was the first door on the right as she entered her tiny apartment… she'd moved out to spare her parents and brothers the constant scrutiny of the paparazzi. While the Middleton PD was only too happy to come and haul off the vehicles that were in clear violation of the recently installed "no parking or waiting" signs, they'd have done little else for the first month after the calendar hit.
Fortunately, Dr. Director had steered her to this first floor walkup, which had been a safe house until someone got sloppy and a guest the last witness interned there had let in had splattered him across the wall of the dining area with a shotgun… if Kim looked hard, she swore she could see a human outline underneath the white paint, but Betty had sworn all the drywall was replaced.
Kim only stood under the spray long enough to wipe away the basic grime. What she really wanted was sleep, and if she started to shampoo her hair it would take forever to dry. Wrapping a long towel around her… the Propery of Global Justice printing ironically covering her ass… she wandered into the bedroom/living area and plugged her Kimmunicator into its dock on her PC. It was easier than typing in the complicated passcode/thumbscan that was the only other way to hook into the ultra-secure connection, and Wade would immediately know that she was online.
"Hey Kim," Wade smiled as he took in her lack of an outfit. He might be a child genius, but he was quickly becoming aware of exactly why Kim's photo had caused such a stir.
"Hey Wade, what's the sitch?" She yawned.
"Lots of e-mail and Bonnie's a bitch," Wade returned in what had become a common ritual.
"Oh God, what's she done NOW?" Kim moaned. They hadn't seen each other since the NEWSTIME interview, but ever since the calendar shoot, Bonnie had gone nuclear in her attempts to drive Kim crazy. Or perhaps it was just that Bonnie had always been this insane but her family kept her in check. Besides moving in with an international criminal… okay, it was Jr.'s dad who was really the criminal, no one took SSJ very seriously anymore… she'd been steadily building on the notoriety she'd gained as the "OTHER" model in the calendar. That first photo shoot had led to a whole series where Bonnie had pretty much revealed everything to anybody who wanted to look. Kim had to admit that she'd always felt that BonBon was better looking than she was, but the girl's personality had gone completely "Lohan." Besides being frequently photographed with no underwear at top clubs, she'd had three arrests for public intoxication and had flashed a prominent talkshow host in the middle of an interview where she'd obviously been under the influence of something.
That interview, of course, had been to promote Bonnie's so-called tell-all book, "Spread-Eagled- My Three Years Between Kim Possible's Legs." Kim hadn't read it, of course, but Monique had, and aside from an almost minute=by-minute description of what had occurred when Kim and Bonnie were accidentally molecularly bound together, the rest of the book was apparently mostly innuendo about what the other cheerleaders had THOUGHT was going on with Kim's (actually non-existent) sex life, spiced up with some rather shocking descriptions of what Bonnie herself had been up to.
"The woman had a three way with Brick AND Josh Mankey in the BOY's locker room!" Monique had informed Kim. "And then she…"
"SO DON'T WANT TO KNOW!" Kim had yelled, pretty much setting the tone for every conversation she'd had about Bonnie since then.
"Maybe you should get some rest first," Wade warned. "You're really not going to like this one."
Kim took a deep breath. Like she'd be able to sleep with THAT hanging over her head.
"Wade. What. Did. She. Do?"
The young boy flushed. "She's making a movie Kim."
"And…?" Kim was trying not to snarl.
"It's um… a porno, Kim," Wade gulped. "It's called Quim Possible – She'll DO anyone. She plays…"
"I can guess who she plays," Kim sighed, the beginnings of a migraine starting to pound beneath her temples. "And I'm assuming our legal experts say there's nothing we can do, right?"
"You're a public figure," Wade confirmed. "That means they can parody you as long as they don't say that this Quim IS you."
"Yeah, that's what I figured," Kim sighed. "So what else do we have to keep me up tonight?"
"Well… there are more offers about posing."
"Uh…"
"I know, I know. I sent the same blanket e-mail out to everyone, but there are three I think you should look at."
Knowing she'd probably regret it, Kim nodded. "Okay, shoot."
"The first is from the Society For the Prevention of the Wearing of Animals."
"The SPWA?"
"That's right. They want you AND Rufus to pose nude for a poster that'll carry the phrase "We Don't Need Fur and Neither Do You."
"Send it to Ron, maybe he'll be interested. Tell SPWA I don't have an issue with the poster, but their organization has some other political agendas that I'm not comfortable endorsing."
"Right. Very diplomatic," Wade nodded. "The second is from Global Justice."
That got Kim's attention. "What?"
"Well, apparently they're doing a Ladies Of Global Justice calendar. Dr. Director's already agreed to pose so…"
"What the hell do they need to raise money for?" Kim wondered. "Thanks to Lucre, they're positively swimming in cash."
"They didn't say and I'm afraid to ask. Something very black ops, most likely."
"Right. I think I can politely decline that as well. I'm not an agent of Global Justice, and if I were to do another calendar, it would have to be for a really good cause like restoring Middleton."
"Which brings us to request number three. Straight from the desk of Frugal Lucre himself."
"Oh shit."
"Yeah. I think you need to actually read this one." The lower half of Wade's image was suddenly cut off by the top part of a manuscript file, leaving only his eyes peering Kilroy-like above it.
Kim scanned the document quickly.
Stopped.
Read it again.
And again.
"They're serious?" She finally managed to ask.
"Deadly," Wade's eyes replied. "And you have to admit, if anything would outperform the last calendar, this is what would do it."
"Damn," Kim swore. "Damn, damn, damn." She'd almost been ready to say no, but this… this would help restore the devastated areas in four cities. And Wade was right. It would sell.
"And Abrianna Stein has already agreed…. To come back and shoot all 12 pictures?"
"She's already booked on a flight Friday. To come in and talk to you about it. About concepts."
"And…?" She didn't have to vocalize the rest of the question.
"Yes, Kim. Lucre already has everything lined up. Everything. If it doesn't happen, it's be because of you."
'It's a damn good thing Lucre isn't a supervillain anymore', Kim mused. 'He's obviously figured how to play me better than any of the others ever have.'
"Okay…" She relented after a long moment of thought, suspecting that she'd be wondering about this decision for the rest of her life. "I won't make any promises. But I will meet with Anna to discuss it."
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Three days later, Kim found herself in the lobby of the Middleton Fitz-Harlton. It was quite a step up from the Night's Inn where she'd met Anna prior to the last shoot. Apparently the hotel chain knew the high profile clients attracted by the top photographer in the entire world, and had eagerly donated the large room that would serve as the calendar shoot headquarters. The PROPOSED calendar shoot headquarter. She still hadn't agreed.
That's right, she thought, as she stepped into the ridiculously ornate elevator. She could still walk away.
And as her finger was poised to hit the "P" button for the penthouse, a voice she knew all too well hit her like a wall of bricks.
"Hold the elevator!"
Kim hit the open button quickly and looked up as the other person hopped into the elevator.
Their eyes locked.
The elevator door slid slowly shut.
And the one thing Kim wasn't prepared for was the shy, nervous smile on a face she hadn't seen in person for over half a year.
"So Princess," Shego smiled softly. "Are we gonna do this calendar or not?"
