Chapter Written by Jezrianna

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Reality twisted, stretched, and turned itself inside out. Kim felt a blast of cold air, saw a dark shape approaching fast, and got her arms up to protect her head just as she hit the ground.

Hard.

Stunned, she lay still while the world settled down again. It was dark, but one horizon was lit with pale, rosy light. She wasn't positive, but it looked like dawn. Kim felt a slight breeze, and heard branches moving with it. Towering conical shapes loomed nearby, and her nose caught the scent of pine needles. She sat up, regretting the sudden move as her head began to throb. A moan drew her attention.

Adam lay nearby, flat on his back. Willpower overriding protesting nerves and muscles, Kim stood up. A look around showed that they were on the lower slopes of a wooded hill. A plain lay below them to the east (assuming the sun rose in the East here, wherever here was). Points of light dotted the plain, flickering in the gloom.

Fires.

Lots of them.

Kim staggered over to were Adam lay. He opened his eyes, looked up at her and grinned.

"Hey, gorgeous," he said.

Kim kicked him in the ribs. Not too hard, but definitely enough to get his attention.

"Augh! What the fuck did you do that for?" he rasped, his voice shadowed with pain.

"On principle," Kim snarled. She threw an arm toward the plain. "What have you got me into now?" she demanded.

Adam pushed himself to his feet and looked around.

"Uh," he stammered. "I'm not sure. I don't recognize this place." He made a gesture. "Lumos!" he declared grandly. Light sprang forth from his hand. He played the beam around. Almost at once it fell on an all too familiar object.

"That's a Behemoth," Adam breathed.

"What's left of it," Kim agreed. At first blush the oversized land vehicle looked intact, but closer examination showed that it had been gutted by fire. It's paint was scorched, its windows blown out. Its tires were gone, consumed by the fierce heat. All that remained were the alloy wheels. The panels covering its weapons bays were still shut.

"It never even got a shot off," Adam observed.

By unspoken agreement Kim and Adam headed down the hillside. After a mile or so they found another Behemoth. Its side was ripped open, the thick armor peeled back like the lid of a sardine tin. Smashed and twisted metal was all that remained of the inside. The smell of burnt plastic was underlain with a salty, metallic odor that Kim recognized at once.

Blood. However many people had been in the Behemoth when it was hit, at least one of them had been wounded.

'More likely killed,' Kim said to herself.

Farther on they ran across the crumpled remains of an aircraft.

"Genny!" Adam cried, sprinting towards the shattered wreck. Kim followed on his heels.

Sure enough, it was Genny, or something enough like her to be her twin. Kim frowned, unable to remember if Adam had mentioned Genny being a standard production model or not. She glanced at him. His hands were covering his face, and his shoulders were shaking.

'I guess she was unique,' Kim decided. She laid a gentle hand on Adam's shoulder.

"I'm sorry," she said softly.

When Adam's grief had run its course they continued down toward the plain. Cresting a small rise, they got a profound shock. Laying in their path were the blackened remains...

...of Genny.

Adam wore a look of pure confusion. He looked back over his shoulder. His eyes weren't deceiving him. Behind them, still visible, was what they'd taken to be Genny. Adam returned his gaze to the front. He blinked, and shook his head. Genny still lay before him.

"This isn't possible," he muttered. "There's only one Genny."

"It obviously is possible, otherwise we wouldn't be seeing it," Kim corrected him. Adam gave her a sour look, but nodded.

As Kim and Adam made their way out onto the plain they got more surprises, none of them pleasant. They passed dozens of destroyed Behemoths, including one that had been crushed flat, like an empty beer can that someone had stepped on. A number of Gennys were scattered among them.

And corpses. Hundreds upon hundreds of bodies, almost all in House Marcae uniforms. The stench of blood and entrails was strong, and Kim gave thanks for the cold air and slight breeze, which kept the smell at a manageable level.

"Oh my God!" Kim exclaimed suddenly. "Shego!" She ran toward a green and black clad figure. A wave of horror and nausea swept over Kim. Shego was dead. Very much so, considering that her body was missing below her chest. A few bits of her abdominal organs remained, but that was all. A look of shock and disbelief was frozen on Shego's face, and her still open eyes stared blankly at the lightening sky.

Adam joined Kim but said nothing, just stared numbly at the gruesome spectacle. Kim turned away, staring at nothing in her sorrow. Then she stopped and stared. Not far off lay something she couldn't quite believe she was seeing.

It was her.

A closer examination confirmed it. Kim Possible stared down at Kim Possible, who lay dead at her feet, her chest a ruined mass of scarlet goo.

"What in the world?" Kim murmured. Studying the dead woman, Kim noticed a few streaks of gray among the red hairs, as well as some lines around her eyes that Kim knew she didn't have. Adam tapped her on the shoulder, pointing when Kim raised her eyes. She wasn't the only one with a corpse here. Adam's twin hung partway out of a Behemoth. While they were walking towards it, Kim noticed another figure in green and black.

It was Shego again. Nearby was a headless corpse that Kim none-the-less immediately recognized as Ron. And beyond it was another Adam.

"What is this place?" Adam asked, his rhetorical question delivered in a plaintive tone.

"It's a battlefield, obviously," a cool voice whispered. Kim and Adam whirled, their guards coming up. No one was in sight. No one living, anyway.

"Where are you?" Adam demanded. "Show yourself."

"In order," the voice replied, "Here and there and, no."

Kim heard Adam's teeth grind together.

"What happened here?" she asked diplomatically.

"They attacked me," the voice chuckled. Kim listened closely. The voice was pitched tenor, or thereabouts. The gender of its owner was indiscernible. It sounded pleased, though, and a trifle smug.

"I fought back," the voice added grimly.

"But why did they attack..." Kim began, but she was cut off by two tendrils of shadow that formed in front of them and darted in to touch their foreheads. Kim found herself frozen, and felt a presence enter her mind and wander through it, examining every thought and memory she'd ever had. The process seemed to drag on forever, and left Kim feeling thoroughly embarrassed and violated.

"That explains it," the voice mused cryptically. "You two are from the past. That's why you don't know what happened here. The tendril that had been touching Kim's head drew back, then pointed like an accusing finger at the still restrained Adam.

"As I'm sure he's told you, repeatedly and at excruciating length, your universe is but one of many." Kim nodded. "All of which are polluted with multiple versions of him and his kin," the voice went on.

"Not quite the way he put it, but yes," Kim allowed.

The voice chuckled. "At any rate, one of the dumber Adams of the multiverse got it in his head that I was plotting the downfall of House Marcae."

"Where you?" Kim inquired. She could practically see the speaker shaking her (Her? Kim wondered suddenly.) head. "Why bother? True, they're annoying, pretentious, inbred and cretinous, but they're also easily manipulated. I've never had any trouble managing them, so why waste the effort it would take to destroy them?"

"But you did," Kim challenged.

"Like I said, they attacked me. At any rate, once that particular Adam got the notion, he went about selling the others on the idea. I got wind of it, of course, and protested my innocence, but that only seemed to fuel their suspicions."

Kim couldn't help but smile. "I can see that," she said, drawing a glare from Adam.

"So they massed theirs armies and allies and attacked."

"Why not attack you in each separate reality? Why'd they group up?" Kim probed.

Adam spoke for the first time. "Because she's not like us, Kim. The various versions of me are separate individuals. She, on the other hand, while present in all realities, is a unique being. Anywhere you happen to run across her, it's always her, not a counterpart."

"That," the voice agreed, "and this is the only reality in which I have an estate. Naturally, they assumed it was my 'stronghold' and threw themselves at it headlong."

"But it wasn't a stronghold," Kim deduced.

"Of course not. I have no need for something as tacky and useless as a fancy house. I came by the estate by accident. I didn't even want it, really, but circumstances sort of forced me to accept it."

"Then why...?"

"Because I took an oath, Kim, to govern and protect. I don't make promises lightly. If you manage to pry one out of me I keep it, no matter what."

"So you did all this?" Kim asked, gesturing at the miles upon miles of death and devastation.

"Oh Heavens, no," the voice demurred. "My soldiers did most of this. People tend to get a bit angry when you attack their homes and families, you understand, and the first rule in the Marcae book of warfare is 'indiscriminate bombardment'. I concentrated on killing Marcaes." As the last words were spoken the shadowy tendrils morphed into the figure of a woman clad all in black, with long, dark hair, pale skin and deep, dark eyes.

"I knew it was you!" Adam exalted smugly. He seemed pleased with himself, as if he'd put something over on the new arrival. The woman crossed to him, cupping his chin with one hand.

"Do you really think you can trick me into anything?" she asked, her voice terrifyingly pleasant.

"I suppose you're two steps ahead of me, aren't you?" Adam sneered, his tone making Kim doubt his sanity. When they had met at Adam's party the woman had been warm and friendly. Not a trace of that was in evidence now. She seemed to radiate malevolence.

"More like two hundred," she replied casually.

"So you killed them," Kim said. "Won't they just be reborn?"

The woman shook her head. "I took special precautions in that regard." She smiled coldly. "The multiverse is largely Marcae free now."

"Largely?" Kim repeated.

The woman shrugged. "There may have been a few who were smart enough, or self-absorbed enough, to not show up. If so I'm not going to waste time hunting them down." At Kim's questioning look the woman explained. "Unlike him," she said, gesturing at Adam, "I don't go overboard. I do no less than is necessary, but no more, either. If they didn't take part in the attack they are obviously no immediate threat, and so, not worth bothering about."

"So you're not going to kill him?" Kim asked, hardly daring allow herself to hope.

The woman scoffed. "He hasn't attacked me, has he? No, I'm not going to kill him." She frowned suddenly. "Interesting. A temporal vortex is about to form around you. Apparently, whatever brought you here is getting ready to move you on." She turned her attention to Adam. "Learn from this," she commanded. "If someone invites you to join a crusade, just say no! Who knows, if you can talk sense into your counterparts, maybe you can keep this from ever happening," she said, jerking her head at the battlefield. She stepped back.

Reality began to spin. The world around Kim and Adam swirled, the images coming apart like fog scattering before a wind. The ground dropped out from under them and they fell toward...