A Kigo Carol
By Eoraptor
AN: Kim Possible to Disney, "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens. Inspired by a challenge on KP Slash Haven. Rated "T" Please Read, Review, and Recommend.
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The wood splintered and cratered, right through the head of the apparition that was peering through it. Multiple large holes were bored into the hundred year old oaken door by her side arm before it was spent of its ammunition.
"Really Shego… How is that any way to greet an old friend? Honestly?" The figure stepped fully through, transcending the door, only to turn and examine it as it dusted itself off, "And since when do you use a gun?"
Miss Horowitz stared at the apparition as it turned again to face her. Without preface, she gave the answer almost conversationally, "Since it's easier to explain to the cops why I shot the burglar than why I burned him alive…"
The figure nodded after considering this, seeming to be satisfied. He was dressed as Deborah remembered him in life, if this specter truly was who he appeared to be. Clad in an expensive suit with the gaudy blue blazer he had always favoured, paired with black slacks and black shoes that matched his beady black eyes. Now, however, the suit was bedraggled, smeared with unidentifiable stains and small frays. Worse still, the clanking and gangling noise she had heard in the elevator was now explained.
The specter's entire body was looped and trussed in copious amounts of chains, as well as what appeared to be power cords, computer cables, and the occasional bit of wire conduit pipe clattering back and forth. As the Spirit stepped fully into the room the chains and wires followed, eventually terminating in no less than three cell phones and one laptop computer, all spectral in nature, tugging their way through the door behind him.
The ghostly face was pale and blue in death, but then again, that was quite normal, as it was this shade in life. That was how she had come into the employ of Mister Drew Theodore Paul Lipsky, Ph.D RRA, and a fair list of other acronyms. After she had left her brothers and their civil service organization, "Team Go," for something more personally and financially fulfilling; she had been hired by the frantic business magnate because of their shared malady, bizarre skin pigmentation.
The apparently deceased CEO of Drakken Financial, her mentor, sniffed a bit and drew the detritus of electronics and chains to himself before clearing his throat. "Shego… You're looking rather well. Business has been good to you."
Still shaking ever so slightly, the smoking pistol useless in her hands, she shrugged nervously, "Business is Business. But you look a bit worse the wear, Doc."
"Yes… and that's why I've come… Shego you've been-,"
"You're dead five years and you decide to just drop by now? Gah, typical Mister Lipsky… never could keep a sched-,"
"SILENCE!" The bed and furnishings in the well appointed bedroom rattled and wavered. Quite a trick considering they were of the same solid antique oak as the door, and that the nightstand alone weighed sixty pounds.
The shocked business maven looked around in a panic, wondering if this was more supernatural set dressing, or if the New Madrid fault had finally let loose on top of her spectral visitation.
"Shego, these chains and obstructions are signs of my punishment…" The spirit of Lipsky continued after he was certain he had got her attention, "Each link in the chains forged of a harsh word, a thoughtless deed. Each cable a bond marking my selfish obsessions and usurping of my gifts."
"And the Nokias on your ass?" She quipped by reflex, then covered her mouth, still sitting on the edge of the bed.
"Yeah… the All Mighty's sense of humor I think." The apparition mused, examining one of the three cell phones in a tiny hand, "But that is not the point. These things are my fate. I must pull them with me through this mortal coil for all eternity, forced to see others move on in their lives, unable to affect anything myself."
"And your point would be…" She waved her hand at her flighty, but still dead employer.
"Pay Attention." The blue skinned businessman snorted at her irritably, "My cruelty and selfishness in life has doomed me to this lonesome fate. I've come to try to spare you worse."
"Assuming you're not just a bad bit of kosher beef from Stoppable's lunch this afternoon, how do you propose to do that?" She snorted and rose to her feet, tossing the spent Ruger onto the nightstand.
"By warning you. Your chains are already well forged, Shego, your bindings well under way, and they will be more burdensome than mine."
The specter snapped his fingers, and Deborah suddenly collapsed onto the bed, her long body weighted down under what seemed to be yards of anchor chain and a pile of surplus electronic devices. With a grunt, she tried to force herself upright, only to find her hand slipping out from under her on a computer mouse. She gave the apparition a dirty look and sniffed indignantly.
With another snap of his fingers, the chains and devices were gone, and the business woman let out a sigh as the burden evaporated.
"So, Drew, does the snapping help?" She grumbled as she rubbed her suddenly strained shoulders. "And stop calling me Shego… You know I hate that. I stopped being that girl a long time ago."
The cerulean spirit sniffed and shook his head, "Which was when your path to this damnation began. Ah… speaking of which… I suppose I should get down to business."
The pale woman rolled her eyes as the dead tycoon retrieved one of the spectral devices and tapped at it. He began again after a moment of perusing it. "Ah yes… here it is. Tonight, She… erm Miss Horowitz, you will be visited by three spirits. At the tolling of each hour they shall show you the errors of your ways and hopefully teach you to avoid my fate. Only by changing your ways and mending your heart can you begin to unmake those burdens."
"Ya know… much as I appreciate your little bit of Pro Bono work here, Boss… Tonight really sucks for me. Could we set up a meeting? After the first of the year? I could have Mister Stoppable get back to y-," With a grunt and a jerk, Deborah found herself again lying on the bed, beset by spiritual restraints, and barely able to breath this time at the weight of power cords, chains, and electronic devices.
"This is not a matter for debate or delay Shego. You have one hour to prepare yourself." The figure of Lipsky turned and set for the door. He turned back one last time, his face full of grave seriousness, "Heed the spirits guidance, Shego… it's the last chance you'll get."
With a grunt, Miss Horowitz was again freed of the ephemeral burden the Spirit had inflicted on her. She turned to look at the door, even as her own ePhone chimed and vibrated across the nightstand. She blinked and looked down at it as it self-dialed a number she'd not even looked at in years.
"Hey, this is Kim. I'm probably elbow deep in exploration at the moment, so leave a message and I'll get back to you when I've got reception. BEEP."
The call had rung straight to voicemail, and the elegant woman found herself ranting to her phone without even thinking, wishing desperately for the familiar chipper voice that was supposed to be on the other end of the line.
"Kimmie, it's Debbie… Erm I uh… Something's happened, something weird." She looked to the massive oaken door, only to find the nine splintered holes and shattered shellac absent, replaced by the worn smooth façade of the sturdy door once again.
"Or maybe not… I don't know… Look. I just… You know what… forget it. I don't know why or how I even called this number."
She scowled and hit the red end button on the expensive device, tossing it next to the still-spent pistol on the rattled nightstand. It read; "call ended, Doctor Possible, time, thirty seven seconds."
With a glare at the healed door, the broker collapsed back into her luxurious bed. She sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. After a few minutes, rubbing the pressure points she had learned from a certain redhead, she drifted off to a deep slumber atop the bed, still clothed in her business regalia and returning to the dark embrace of unconsciousness.
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The ringing of her mechanical alarm clock stirred the irritated woman from her sleep, and she scowled at it from her off-kilter position across the bed. She didn't remember the little clockwork timepiece ringing so deeply before, more like a church bell than a tin alarm bell. She picked it up, wondering what was causing the dysfunction, and was more than a little shocked to find that it was not, in fact, ringing. She also expected it to register five AM. It now read one.
Flinging the unmanageable antique away, she rolled out of bed, just in time to remember the vision of the last hour. She quickly glanced to the oaken nightstand, and found it still held her phone and pistol. Shaking her head, she noted that the phone was signaling a message on its flat screen. She was about to reach for it when the oaken doorway exploded inwards.
Deborah barely had time to shield her eyes as splinters showered her body and the bed. A brilliant beam from a flashlight was shown in her face a second later, and she growled, igniting her hands at the challenge.
"Ya'll ain't even got a coat on yet?! Jeeze, an' here I thought ole Mister Lipsky was supposed ta prepare ya!" the figure beyond the beam of the flashlight began with obvious consternation.
Miss Horowitz scowled and as the light was lowered, she looked at the intruder, standing amongst the remains of her bedroom door. She… Deborah thought it was a she despite the lack of feminine curves, stood about a head shorter. She seemed young in body and stance, yet the skin of her freckled face was also weathered and aged beyond all apparent years, leathery and drawn.
She wore clothes of a western style… but old west, not modern. Despite this, clipped to her belt was a mobile phone and some kind of gun-like device with a spool attached to the side. Her hair was short, barely to the shoulders, and a mixture of young auburn and octogenarian silver that defied any further description.
Deborah was startled out of her consideration as the figure spoke again, "Well, come on then! We ain't got all night."
"Oh, an I'm that there Spirit of Christmases Past." She, if it was indeed a girl, continued as she turned and shone her bizarrely powerful flashlight against the wall of the bedroom. "Now, stick close, these trips can be kinna disorientating."
"Through the wall? I think you've been out on the range there a bit too long, Tex." Deboeah shot back, disbelief giving way to irritation.
"Hush up an come along!" the Spirit gripped her by the wrist and dragged her right at the wall.
They passed smoothly through the area illuminated by the flashlight, which oddly, did not contract even as the light was carried nearer it. They passed through the plaster and woodwork, and Dedorah found herself on the other side; but not the other side of her wall. She now stood on the other side of town, outside the Go City Orphanage, a place she knew well.
A bit more confusing, it was sometime in the morning now, and she saw, but could not feel, the sun at her back. "Ooooohkay… So Spirit, why is it we're suddenly across town?"
"An time… Lookey." The lithe, androgynous western ghost pointed to the door. "It's Christmas day, nineteen an eighty nine.
Miss Horowitz looked to where she was pointed, and blinked. Coming out the door was a gaggle of a family all right. Two twin redheaded boys of maybe four erupted from the doors first, pushing with all their tiny might. A slender boy slightly older, with purple black hair in a rat tail, and a hefty looking boy of maybe fifteen both came bounding out directly behind them.
"Yay!" screamed the twins in unison, "Sissy gets come home with us!!!!"
Emerging from the door, and wincing at the shrill yell, was a slender girl of nine, her hair drawn back in a pony tail which exposed her pale, almost-but-not-quite-green skin tone to the winter-time sun. She wrapped an emerald scarf loosely around herself, and looked up to the portly woman coming out beside her.
"Holy shit! Is that me?!" the tall woman boggled at the scene as the woman who would become her adoptive mother yanked a black watchcap down on top of her younger self's head before adjusting her scarf.
The heavy-set woman, Fran Horowitz, smiled and patted her on the head. The girl yanked the hat off, and loosened her scarf as well, whining faintly, "It's too hot!"
"Now now Debbie…" The jolly woman chided her, smiling, "It's winter in Go City… no time to run around without a hat."
"Yeah, Shego…" the boy with the rat tail sneered, "Too cold, even for you!"
Fran chuckled softly and shook her head at the siblings, bustling everyone off towards her station wagon. Deborah found herself jerked along again, and resisted when the spirit put her hand on the handle of the back door.
"Hey! I don't think so! Besides… won't they notice two grown women, er people… suddenly piling in with them?"
"Have they yet?" the duster-clad specter grinned and pointed as one of the twin redheads walked right through her lanky body. "They canna see or hear us. So git your green butt in there!"
With a shove Deborah found herself sprawled in the back seat. The old station wagon seemed much smaller now than she remembered, almost cramped rather than cavernous. She also found it odd that no one noticed she and the cow… girl? …sitting in the back seat. The twins and Melvin were in the middle bench, and Deborah the adult was sitting next to Harold on the back bench while her younger self was in the front with Fran, peering through the windshield.
The spirit hummed some annoying tune from the other side of the unknowing Harold as they drove to what would become little "Shego's" home. Deborah tried to ignore the annoying sound, and instead listened to the chatter of the child-selves of her siblings.
With the beam of her flashlight, "Tex" led Deborah out the wall of the station wagon, glass and all when it came to a stop. The elegant woman found herself not standing outside the car as the kids piled out, but instead, inside the house. She looked around confusedly, and then to the stairs. She saw herself coming down the stairs, but a few years older than she had been in the station wagon. She was peeling off her black mask while talking to the girl who had become her best friend over the intervening years.
"I hate this stupid mask! Like anyone is fooled that the green skinned girl at PS 42 ISN'T Shego!" She grumbled audibly as she threw the mask away from herself to the hallway table.
"But it makes you look so cool, Debbie! And really, it works for Clark Trent on the TV you know…" a skinny redhead pointed out as they crossed in front of the ghostly pair. She was covered in freckles and braces filled her mouth, making her words slurr slightly as she kept pace with the taller teen.
"Yeah yeah... Look, Ron knows. And you didn't even tell him!" young Debbie countered as she tugged her boots off next to the decorated fire place. "Stupid public service! I don't have any money for presents this year cause I can't do this and keep a job!"
"I don't need a present! What would I do with another barrette or a slammer pog?" the redhead complained, "Now, if you could get me tickets to that Egypt exhibit in Middleton."
Deborah the elder chuckled, remembering the little redhead's knowledge-lust, even at this early age. "And anyone doubted she was going to grow up to be Indiana Jones…?"
"As if! Like I can fly that jet without Harold or Fran around, even if I could get tickets! Otherwise I would, you know that, right Kimmie?" She peeled out her wallet from the costume they all wore doing public good work. The wallet contained two cash dollars; which she was holding on to for dear life. "Like I could even afford to take us to the dollar theater anyway, let alone that museum of yours."
The redhead suddenly clutched her taller friend around the neck in a big bear hug, "No one should call you the Grinch! I know you're nice if you can be!"
Deborah found herself being dragged along by the arm again, just as she was starting to sink into the scene and remember how nice it felt to offer someone something out of the goodness of her heart rather than out of contractual obligation.
"Hey!" She complained and was dragged through yet another wall.
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AN: I'm afraid this story is going to have to take the place of my planned holiday story "The Twelve 'Sitches of Christmas" this year. I just don't have a tale that long in me right now. Meanwhile, please enjoy the upcoming, expanded chapters. The first two didn't need much, but Christmas Present and Christmas Future could really use more fleshing out and that is what they will get over the next two weeks. Note also that these chapters appear on KP Slash Haven DOT net a few days before they do here, if you want a sneak preview or discussion : )