I do not own any Disney character named within, and am only borrowing them for a work of fiction meant for entertainment purposes only.
Kim Possible: Rise of the Machine
By LJ58
IV
"Awake?"
"I'm going to tear you….."
"Just calm down," Ron said, holding up both hands as she noted he now wore a familiar uniform which looked odd on the faux Ron. "I had to get us out of there, and away from the enforcer."
"Wait. The….? You called it…. Cyber….?"
"It's a cybertronic cybernetic enforcer. Machine-mind impressed over a human mind. Lately, the Queen has been infusing all babies from birth with her new cybertronic matrix, making them hers to command literally from the cradle."
Shego's jaw dropped.
"Are you saying…..?"
"I'm from twenty-seven years into your future. The one you won't have if you don't listen to me," Ron, Jr. told her bluntly.
Shego swallowed hard.
"Drew is really…..?"
"Very dead. So are you, in my time. But your son is still alive. He's one of our best fighters against Possible's Cybertronic Matrix, and Sky-Net."
"Sky-Net?"
"It's part of the Matrix. Part of the problem. Hopefully, with your help, we can prevent any of it from ever happening. I hope. Frankly, time travel involves a cornucopia of disturbing concepts that even our best tech people admitted made it hard to ascertain if we really do have any chance of stopping Kim. Or changing the timeline. But….it had to be tried. For all our sakes, we had to try."
"So….. You're Ron, Sr. and Kimmie's son?"
"No. My mother is…..someone else."
"Who," Shego asked suspiciously. "Because I don't see the buffoon leaving Kimmie for anyone."
"My mother is a Japanese girl that loved father very much. Enough to risk violating her own family's will to marry him when Kim turned on him."
"Uh-huh. So, Kim actually takes over the world? She actually runs things? In just a few weeks?"
"Faster than you would imagine, but, yes. She does."
"You know, Junior, I think you and I had better talk. Tell me everything. From the beginning."
Ron nodded. "It began three months ago," he told her. "When you killed Kim Possible."
"Huh?"
KP
"This is useless," Kim huffed, and stopped running in circles on the enclosed track in the safe house that she had already ascertained was somewhere underground, likely located in the Pacific Northwest from what she could ascertain from the strata of the stone walls around her. "When am I going to get some real action?"
"For now, we're still waiting to hear from Shego," Will Du told her.
"Don't you mean Drakken," she smirked.
"Drew Lipski was killed four days ago," he admitted. "It looks like Shego did it."
"Shego….killed Drakken," Kim frowned.
"Every inch of his body was badly burned by intense heat and radiation. Every one of the henchmen with him were similarly injured. I doubt there's anyone else that could have managed that feat."
"Wow. Guess he finally pushed her too far, too," Kim remarked without much sympathy.
"There were forty-seven other bodies on location, too," Will told her. "It's possible, no pun intended, that Shego may well have become dangerously unstable."
"All the more reason to get me back in the field," she complained. "What about the tweebs' satellite? Have they launched it yet?"
"Not yet. It's still awaiting federal clearance…."
"By the same people that sent me in blind on my last four missions," Kim demanded.
Will said nothing to that.
"I am starting to wonder which side you, and they, are on, Agent Du," Kim said, and Will frowned, wondering if he was seeing things as it looked like her eyes were shimmering with silver flecks. "So, whose side are you on?"
"I'm on the side of Justice, Miss Possible," the man told her firmly.
Kim sniggered at that.
"You so sound like Hego just now. What does he say about Shego's rampage?"
"He doesn't know yet. We're keeping Team Go out of the loop on this one. No one knows about her apparent rampage beyond GJ's investigating team."
"And we're still here, twiddling our thumbs? Waiting while she could be killing even more innocent people?"
"I doubt Drew Lipski…"
"You know what I mean," Kim spat, and Will frowned, knowing that her eyes really were silvery now as she gave him a curt glare, and turned to the locker room. "Forget it, errand boy. I'm so out of here. It's obvious that if anything is going to happen, I'm going to have to do it myself."
"Now, hold on…"
One moment Will had been reaching for her shoulder.
The next he was flying across the width of the gym, and barely avoided smashing headlong into the hard wall. He managed a less than graceful tumble to dissipate his momentum, leapt to his feet, and turned to face….. Nothing.
Pulling out his communications device, he thumbed the side, and said, "Get me Dr. Director. Oh, yes," he replied at static-filled response. "I believe you can say it's an emergency," he said.
KP
"In three weeks time, the very day you die, Kim's brothers launch the self-aware, cybertronically based satellite they call S-1. Sky-Net almost immediately links with the cybertronic AI in Kim's own brain….."
"Wait. She has a computer in her head now?"
Ron just nodded. "Trust me. She's got far more. Or she will. Once linked, Kim's mind and the satellite collaborate on a way to 'save the world' from itself. Logical, yet twisted in her own unique perspective, Kim decides to force order upon the world. Order that is molded after her own unique transformation. Middleton is about to become ground zero for what will become a pandemic of cybertronic origin. It all begins right after she kills you."
"Huh?"
"With the satellite guiding her, she infuses every world leader, and major celebrity with the same cybertronic nanites that fill her. Making her, and trust me on this, unbeatable. The difference is, once she's 'infected' a host, they don't have a computer mind. They become….drones. Mindless automatons that serve only her will."
"Like that…thing back in the lair," Shego frowned as they sat in the middle of a clearing next to the hover-pod Ron had 'borrowed' in their escape from the lair.
"Exactly. That woman used to be one of her best friends. In….four weeks, she is just one of many that is made over. Now, she's a mindless thing. A machine. One that will not stop until she fulfills the commands of her maker."
"Which is….."
"To kill us."
"O-kaaaay. But she obviously blows it, because you said Kimmie kills me….. And I did not just try to argue I can't die yet because I'm going to be killed later."
"Like I said; a cornucopia of disturbing concepts. Still, the point is that we're already changing history here."
"We are?"
"Yes. History said that after you escaped the scene of Drew's death you were found by local law enforcement. Only our records state that GJ picked you up, and held you for two weeks. It is after you break out that Kim tracks you down, and…. Well, you know that part by now. The point is, you weren't found by GJ this time, so you aren't being held. So, in essence, we've already proven we can change things. That gives me hope."
"Wait," she frowned. "So, if we succeed, don't we end up…..destroying your world?"
"Honestly, I hope we do. It's not a very nice place," Ron said quietly.
"So you said. Just how did you and your rebel friends escape Kimmie's bots if she's got the whole world in her fist?"
"By accident. There were still a lot of people living off the grid. Dad was one of them. A lot more went underground once they saw the writing on the wall. But as I also said, now she's taking babies at birth. It won't be long before there isn't a single free human being on the planet. You either join her, or die. We have to stop that. Here, and now."
"Okay, while I'm not really the heroic type. Not these days. How? Because by your story, I get the feeling I don't have a chance against Kimmie in the here and now."
"In three weeks, you don't. If we find her now. Before she perfects her control over the Cybertronic tech in her body, we can hopefully defeat her before that happens. Especially since you'll be having my help this time. Also, we have to stop that satellite launch. It's crucial. So…"
"I get it. Spank Kimmy. Blow up a rocket. Save the world. You would not believe how much like déjà vu this seems to me right now," she sighed, shaking her head.
"I can imagine. Dad told me a lot of stories."
"I'll bet. So, if you're his kid, do you have the whole monkey-mojo thing going for you, too?"
"I took on the mantle of monkey master a year ago after dad died facing down an army of enforcers in Tokyo," Ron, Jr. said so quietly that Shego felt a weird shiver etch her spine.
"I don't get it," she finally said. "If you could time travel, why not just go back a little further, and stop her from ever…..?"
"There were….complications. If it could have been done, it would have been. All I can tell you is that we have one chance to stop the nightmare I know from happening, Shego. Now, I need to konw. Are you in, or out?"
"Considering I've got three weeks to live according to you, I think 'duh' is a suitable response. But…? Couldn't you….? We….? Go back later, and maybe….save Dr. D?"
"Dad always said you guys were closer than….."
"Bup, bup, bup, bup. I just need him to sign my last check. I haven't been paid this month," she frowned darkly at him. "It's not like I really…..care," she said quietly.
"Right. Okay, here's my plan. According to what I know…"
"Who's the dad?"
"What?"
"I just realized. You said my kid is helping you fight Kimmie's future. Who's the dad? And how the heck did I even have a kid if I'm…..going to die?"
"I don't know the details. It's been assumed you were….already pregnant. I do know that after your death, the fetus was removed by Kim's scientists, and gestated in an artificial womb she created. Why she did it, no one knows. But he eventually rebelled against her control, and joined us."
"She didn't….infect him," she asked.
"He has your powers. The nanites can't survive in his body."
"Oh. What…. What was he named," she asked quietly.
Ron sighed. Glancing away, he looked back after a moment, and said, "We don't know his name. He always told us to just call him…..Pain."
"Pain?"
"I think it was his way of expressing his…..joint legacy. And his purpose in life."
Shego only nodded. "I never thought I'd have kids," she murmured. "My genetics…."
Ron said nothing to that.
"When I was younger…. I used to dream about a family. I was going to call my daughter Sharon, and my son….."
"Move," Ron shouted, a burst of orange flame exploding between them as he leapt up shoving her one way as he somersaulted backwards, and then landed in the trees.
"How did she find us," she protested even as they moved.
"Trust me. It can find you anywhere after it's programmed to do so," Ron told her, jumping out of the line of fire again.
"You said I can melt these things," she demanded, just rolling backward, and rising gracefully to her feet as she moved herself the moment the monkey-master shouted. "So why don't I…..?"
"You can't penetrate their armor. Your only chance is when it's still mostly human. The nanites are vulnerable. The armor it wears isn't," Ron said. "So get ready."
"For what," she demanded, seeing the sunlight glittering off the silver body headed right for them even as she ducked another energy blast flung at her.
"Your chance to take out the nanite controllers," Ron hissed as he leapt forward now, his hands suddenly holding a glowing, blue sword that materialized out of the very air as if it had been there all along just waiting for him to reach for it.
"Now," he shouted, spinning away from the faltering metallic female whose arms had just been sliced off at the elbow.
To Shego's horror, the female bled silver.
"Now! Target the arms! Before she regenerates!"
Shego howled, and unleashed raw plasma through her hands as she saw to her horror that the arms were starting to actually regenerate before her eyes. She pinpointed the raw wounds, and sent the plasma surging up through the stumps as the silvery body began to twitch and spasm, and then the silver armor cracked and began to fall away like dead skin.
By the time the body fell, only a smoldering, dark shape was left that whimpered and stared with dark eyes up at them.
"Oh, my God," Shego hissed, staring at the seared body as thick lips tried to move, and she knelt down to listen.
"Termin…. Term…. Te-Te….T….."
Then a faint hiss, and the woman was gone, her dark eyes empty.
"You see," Ron asked quietly. "Now, the arms. We can't let it have anything left to use to regenerate," he said, indicating the severed limbs that lay nearby that did indeed look as if they were trying regenerate new arms beyond their stumps.
To someone that had seen a lot of mad science, it was still disturbing.
She flash-fried the silver limbs, and nothing but smoldering meat was left before she stopped. "Look," she said, turning away from that stomach-churning sight she wished she weren't still smelling. "Why not call the harpy. Someone? I mean, GJ would be quick to….."
"Global Justice will help her take over the world. For all we know, they're probably already being infiltrated and subverted as we speak. In fact, their first victims are your brothers. Along with anyone else that might have stopped Kim's rise to power."
"My brothers…..die, too?"
"Still want to make jokes," Ron asked, his sword gone, but his resolve unshaken.
Shego found herself staring at the dead woman, and shook her head.
"What do we do," she asked quietly.
Ron nodded. "I have a plan. But it's going to be dangerous."
"When you say…..?"
"We could both get killed early. That's why we take out the satellite first. Then move on Kim."
"All right. Count me in," she nodded firmly. "Let's stop this nightmare. Now."
They headed for the hover-pod, and Shego grimaced at the smoking hole in the engine compartment.
"Looks like a long walk," Ron sighed.
"From what you've been telling me, we'd better make it a quick run."
He nodded. "You're right. Let's go," he said, and led the way through the forest even as the sun began to set.
KP
"I'm leaving," Kim told the sentry as she walked to the lift that led to the surface after figuring out she was in an underground base. "Open up."
"Sorry, Miss Possible," one of the two Marines told her. "Not without orders."
"You have orders," she huffed, standing there in a blue, GJ jumpsuit since she didn't exactly have anything else to wear just then. "From me."
"Sorry, ma'am…"
His wail followed him over thirty feet to the end of the long corridor before he hit the end of the underground walkway, and the sickeningly audible snap of fragile bone sounded in the silence as his cry was abruptly cut off.
"How about you," Kim asked with a chilling smile as the Marine gaped at the small, slender redhead who had just tossed his comrade aside like a child's toy with deadly results.
"If you want out," he said somberly, and turned and keyed in the security code. "I'm not going to argue," he assured her as the panel lit up, and the hum of the elevator's machinery preceded the arrival of the lift car.
"Smart man," she told him smugly, and stepped inside as she stepped into the lift after the doors opened, and pressed the only button available. "Sorry about your buddy, but I'm feeling a little impatient. I'm really late for a very important rematch," she informed him.
"Yes, ma'am," he said stoically as the doors closed.
And he stabbed an emergency override button.
By the time the car reached the surface checkpoint, it would be full of enough gas to knock down an elephant. And the entire security team up top would be waiting for the redhead. And to think that Simon, his now dead colleague, had thought this was an easy post. Just sit and watch one little girl that wasn't going anywhere.
He should have known better. When someone goes through all the trouble to hide someone like Kim Possible, it isn't because she's not a problem. "Sgt. Weems," he called through the hard-line intercom, radios useless this deep. "Do you have her? Sgt. Weems?"
It was taking too long to answer. Still, the lift was moving back down now. They must have regained custody of the woman, and even as five men moved toward him from down the corridor after his silent security alarm put the base on alert, one man looked at Simon with more than a little concern.
"Corporal Thomas, what happened," the NCO in the lead frowned back at Simon as the lift continued to descend.
"Possible, sergeant," he told him. "She walked up, tossed Simon down the hall like a doll, and demanded to be let out. I let her go topside, then gassed her once she was on her way up. Only I can't raise Sgt. Weems. No one up top is responding."
The man frowned, and made an immediate decision.
"Safeties off," he told the squad, thumbing the switch on his own sidearm. "Shoot to kill."
"You want us to shoot…..?"
"Thomas, if we're lucky, we'll slow her down," the man spat. "But I was in the briefing with GJ. If she's half what they claim, we'll be lucky to hold her off until real help gets here."
Allen Thomas, who signed up for a steady check, not fame and glory, gaped at him.
"What….happened to her," he rasped even as the controls chirped, and the doors started to slide open.
"Stand ready," the NCO hissed, and every weapon was trained on those doors as they opened.
Allen gasped as they slid open, and two men turned aside, vomiting.
The NCO turned chalk-white, and bolted, shouting, "Clear that lift. I have to get the word out!"
Allen Thomas just stared helplessly at the elevator car crammed with dead and dying men who were piled on and around each other in ways that seemed anatomically impossible, and beyond painful. Thomas looked at a few pale faces still semi-conscious, whimpering in pain, and passed out cold. He never heard the ironic call for a medic.
To Be Continued…