Multiversing with Kim
Chapter 4:
Sitch 1 World: A Daring Intervention
The late afternoon was bright, but cold. The sense of death hung in the air, as two beings from another world slowly succumbed to a piece of wreckage from that long dead world. And a few yards in front of those two beings, a hairless human male relished in their suffering, and gloated over their impending doom. Less than a mile away behind the gloating male, an impenetrable and almost invisible shield held back the friends and allies of those two beings. The would-be rescuers exhibited a vast array of diverse and awesome powers, but the shield was successfully resisting all of them. An Amazonian woman screamed in rage as she attempted to disrupt the force field with her fists and bracelets. A blur of red and yellow attempted unsuccessfully to vibrate through the shield. A woman speaking in reverse was similarly unable to disrupt or deflect or even open a crack in the shield. Yet another female continually repeating the phrase "Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!" was also failing to effect a passage through the dome-like shield. In like manner, a winged man's mace, another man's glowing green ring, and a third man's impressive and diverse collection of special arrows were ineffective in breaking the barrier that blocked their rescue efforts.
There was one somber, dark-uniformed individual wearing a pointed-eared cowl that was slowly but steadily making the best headway against the shield, but the computer aiding in dismantling the shield predicted its own success to occur no less than 10 minutes after the victims' demise. The individual glanced to his left to see a half-human cyborg using a sonic blaster on his arm in his own attempt to shatter or dent the wall of force, and smiled wryly as he also noted a blond-haired female using her own sonic voice power in tandem with the cyborg. Then he shook his head sadly; it appeared that no magic, science, or natural power was sufficient to shatter the bald man's defenses in time for any of them to rescue the two alien beings. Indeed, it appeared that this time there would be no happy ending, no last minute rescue.
And then something happened. Extremely high-tech devices used by the cowled individual detected a brief, but significant, jump across the electromagnetic spectrum at a point within the defense zone. While they could not identify the exact nature of the event, it was possible to identify the approximate location within the shielded area. When he directed his tech-enhanced senses at the location indicated, he was unable to believe, momentarily, what he was seeing. He turned to his right, and requested assistance from his Amazonian companion.
"Diana, look 10° to your left and about 1500 yards ahead, and tell me what you see there."
Wonder Woman did not question her companion's request despite her own increasing agitation at her inability to accomplish a rescue of one of her best friends and his cousin, but turned her head and examined the location specified.
"Great Hera, Batman, there's a girl or young woman on the field, running away from what looked like a door of light, but the door has vanished. She looks almost like Batgirl, but no, it's not her! I don't recognize her, Batman, and I know it can't be one of my people! Who is she, and how did she get there?"
"My questions exactly, Diana, and I have two additional ones as well: what is she going to do now that she is there? Is she there to help Luthor, or oppose him?"
Before Diana could respond to the Dark Knight's query, he was answered by another female's voice; one that appeared to be strangely disjointed, as if the speaker herself was not certain about the words she was speaking to her two companions. Well before the Dark Knight's question, she had been repeating the phrase "Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!" to strengthen her abilities in her failed attempt to push through the barrier, but she had stopped the mystic mantra at exactly the same time as Batman had received the indication of a power spike within the shielded area. She had felt, rather than seen, the opening of the door from elsewhere, and the entry of the stranger from that unknown world. Her empathic senses had been overwhelmed by the brief mixing of her reality with that of the stranger's own reality through the doorway, and she was still struggling to regain control as she tried to answer the questions that Batman had posed to Wonder Woman.
"She is not one of us…..she is from somewhere else…a place where she is real and…we are not. She has come to this world….to help our friends and….save the day. But I don't understand how…..in this world we are real and….she is not."
"Raven, what are you saying?" Asked Wonder Woman. "Are you saying that we are suffering from hallucinations when we think that we see this girl or young woman? Batman and I can't both be delusional at the same time, can we?"
The young woman continued to struggle to make herself understood. "No, you are not delusional, there is…someone…in there, and she is trying to help us. But she has no reality in this world; in this world, she is an imaginary character who is seen only on a television program that Beast Boy watches each week. But in her world, she is as real as you and I are here, and she has somehow found a way to step between her world and ours."
"Through the door way of light that Batman and I saw earlier, Raven?" Questioned the Amazon.
"Yes", Raven answered, "and it somehow allows the real of one world to enter another world of real." The troubled empath continued to struggle to control her emotions and the effect of that brief mixing of the two worlds had had upon her. "I'm... I'm sorry, Diana, it is just so hard to deal with the interaction of two partially conflicting realities and to explain to you and Batman at the same time. "
"It's all right, Raven, just do the best you can…." Reassured Diana. As she comforted the younger woman beside her, she asked a question of her other companion. "Batman, what is she doing now?"
"She's continuing to head towards Luthor and our friends… No, wait, she's stopping about 50 yards short of the kryptonite….."
Kim halted her forward motion for a moment, performed a quick visual scan around her, then knelt down and took off her backpack. Knowing full well that time was of the essence, she quickly opened her backpack and took out her second special item for this particular sitch. She then closed up the backpack, put it back on, and resumed her path towards her target. As she narrowed the distance, she was able to hear the words of the boastful man much more clearly; he obviously was still completely unaware of her approach, and was thoroughly enjoying himself.
"So, Superman, what do you have to say in the last minutes of your life? And, what of your cousin? Does she have any sweet words for me to remember her by?" Asked Lex Luthor, his every word dripping with sarcasm. It taken a lot of effort to set the trap, lure the teenage Kryptonian within the range of kryptonite, and then used a special device of his own design that temporarily enhanced the kryptonite radiation just enough to surprise her would-be rescuer, quickly turning a rapid speed fly-by into a crash landing. Now both Kryptonians were secured to their adoptive world by titanium-steel chains, and the architect of their doom was savoring every labored breath of his other-worldly adversaries. Wearing his 1000 dollar-plus business suit instead of his classical battle armor suit had helped fool the female into thinking he posed no danger to her during their encounter, and had displayed a particularly brilliant stroke of genius on his part. It was, undoubtedly, the last mistake she would ever make in this life.
"Luthor, please let Kara go; your fight is with me, not her." The Man of Steel to struggled to get the words out; he had rarely been this severely affected by green kryptonite, and he was beginning to realize that this time could be the time that the criminal genius would finally claim victory. Perhaps, however, he could at least convince Luthor to let his young cousin go…
"Kal, no; don't you beg him for anything, I won't leave you here alone. Besides, you should know by now that he is totally devoid of mercy. He's always criticizing us for being nonhuman, but in all the really important ways, he's even less human than we are."
"Don't worry, Blondie, I have no intention of letting you live past this moment", Luthor sneered. "After all, your cousin is a big enough pain as it is, but he is, after all, but one Kryptonian. You, however, are far more dangerous than he ever could be."
"Kara is more dangerous than I am?", questioned Superman, incredulously, certain that the kryptonite poisoning was affecting his hearing even more than just removing the "super" from in front of it.
The blond-haired teenager also could not believe her ears. She often joked with her cousin about how she looked better in the "S" than he did, and that anything he could do she could do better if she really tried, but she had been totally floored by Lex's confession that she was the real threat to him and his world, and not her more famous relative.
"Lex, how am I more dangerous than my cousin is?" Kara demanded to know. After all it was bad enough that she was about to die, but to die with this unanswered mystery hanging over her was somehow make it even worse, if that was it all possible.
"I assume, young lady, that Krypton had its equivalent of 'the birds and the bees'? And that you are fairly well versed in the subject matter?"
"Of course, Lex, and I got a high honor plus grade in health education class, but what does that have to do with..?"Kara stopped in midsentence, and her eyes widened, as she finally realized the import of his line of conversation. No, Lex, you can't mean that you want to kill me because…."
"Because you could produce a whole new generation of Kryptonians to colonize my world? After all, 10 or 20 strapping young teenagers could probably best me even with me in my battle suit, and they could go on to produce hundreds or more of a second generation after ridding earth of her best true defender."
"Luthor, you can't be serious!" Argued the last Son of Krypton with almost literally his dying breath. For some unknown reason, Luthor's accusation against his cousin hurt him even more than the kryptonite poisoning did. "My cousin is not a Kryptonian rabbit, and even if she was, she would need to have a mate, and there is no one…."
Lex Luthor cut him off before he could finish his sentence. "Come on now, Superman, even you must know that first cousins can marry on this world, and after all, it is the survival of your entire species that's at stake, isn't it"?
Superman looked at the bald-headed man with disgust and then glanced at his cousin. What he saw in her face nearly killed him inside: her pleading eyes tried to show that she'd never considered that option, and had never even thought of that solution to Kryptonian survival, but that she now feared that somehow her cousin would think that Lex Luthor had somehow read her mind and uncovered her deeply held secrets.
Then suddenly her expression changed, and she turned her attention back to Luthor, and spoke with him with as much strength in her voice as she had left. "OK Lex, you win, I'm much more dangerous than Kal is; so why don't you just kill me right now by bringing that kryptonite right next to me, and finishing me off quickly, once and for all. Then let my cousin go free, because without me there's no chance for a Kryptonian colony here." Kara realized it was unlikely Lex would take her up on her offer but she had to try to save her cousin; that way, at least one of them would be around still to help the people of Earth when they most needed the help….
"No, you devious Kryptonian female" emphatically snarled Luthor before Superman himself could interrupt, "I will not rest easy until both of your permanently green bodies are interred in the ground and out of my life forever. Only then will this world be saved from your alien meddling influence, and only then will I be free to—"
"Pardon me, Mr. Luthor, but did you know that it's not a good idea to let your pet rock be unwrapped in the cold afternoon air? If you're not careful, it can really cause that beautiful green color to fade, and then where would you be? You would just have an ordinary rock, after all, and what fun is there in that after you spending all that money to steal it from the Nairobi Museum?"
The criminal genius spun around, and glared at a redheaded teenage girl who even now had just completed the wrapping of the kryptonite rock in a blanket as if it was a child she was about to baby sit.
"Who the devil are you, and how did you get past my impenetrable shield? I designed it specifically to make sure that none of their friends could get to them in time to save them! And what group are you with? Batman? Black Canary and her stupid birds of prey? Are you with that group of sickening teenagers, the Teen Titans? Or are you just a new loner, a new vigilante female, whose first and last foolish venture into being a hero brings her a quick and painful death?"
Without waiting for even an attempt at an answer to any of his questions, Lex Luthor flung a previously hidden knife directly at the heart of his unknown adversary. The finely honed titanium steel alloy blade sliced quickly through the air towards its target, and—
Kept on flying through the chilly afternoon air, since the "doomed" target had vacated that space only fraction of the second before certain death would have occurred. The girl had executed a perfect triple forward somersault in midair even as the knife had left Luthor's murderous hand, and had landed only 20 feet from the increasingly confused master criminal himself. And she was still wearing that silly, ridiculous smile, almost as if she hadn't really realized that he had thrown a knife at her, and that she had almost had his last sentence as her epitaph.
She, however, quickly disabused him of that notion. With a twinkle in her green eyes, she spoke to him a second time.
"Oh, Mr. Luthor, now look what you've done; you've gone and lost one of your beautiful shiny toys. Now, I know that you are very wealthy man, but you really should not be so careless with your things. Besides, a girl could get the impression you weren't at all thankful for my help with your pet rock problem, and I'd really like to leave here with the idea that I have really helped somebody who needed it. After all, it's what I do every day where I come from."
Twenty feet…She was too close to dodge the next one, thought Lex with satisfaction. His right wrist moved a fraction of an inch as he noted with satisfaction her eyes glancing without concern at the instrument of her impending destruction. She would never know what hit her—
Then, suddenly, his satisfaction turned to confusion, and then to fear. He could not move his right arm any further, and his wrist felt like it was in an iron vise. A very soft, well padded, iron vise, that is.
"Now, Lex, I really think you should calm down now, and not do anything more foolish today. I suppose I should feel flattered that you see me as such a threat, but I'm not sure I'll even have one child someday, much less a whole new generation of Kryptonians. I just wish you would get it if through your head that Kal and I are nowhere near the danger to Earth and her people that you are."
Lex Luthor looked to his right to behold the blond Kryptonian, as she slowly raised his wrist with her left hand and gently but firmly removed the deadly knife from his right hand with her own. "Isn't that right, Kal?"
"Yes, Kara, it certainly is," said the Man of Steel as he took the shield generator remote control from the left hand of the now defeated criminal, and prepared to press the "off" button.
"Not yet, Superman", quickly interrupted the auburn-haired girl. "Don't let them in yet; please and thank you. I have something to say to the three of you before I leave here".
Superman considered her request, and glanced first at his young cousin, then to his left to view their friends just outside the still-solid barrier, all of whom had ceased their efforts to break it after Batman had informed them that Superman and Supergirl had Lex Luthor and the situation well in hand. Still thinking, he looked again at her, and she imagined that she could almost feel his x-ray vision scanning her as he glanced from her head to her toes, and back again…..
The teen adventuress patiently waited for the Man of Steel's decision. If he turned off that shield now, the second part of her mission here would be at risk, and she might even have to try to beat a hasty retreat, or hope that Wade's retrieval mechanism actually worked as planned. As she studied the Man of Steel's face, trying to decide what his decision would be, she realized she could not tell whether he would grant her request, or instead ask his friends to check out the strange visitor from another world at great length without delay.
All she was really certain of was that if he did not cooperate, the existing sitch would become sticky indeed, and the entire six sitch mission would become even more complicated….
****To Be Continued****
(A/N #1: I saw that this first sitch was turning out to be at least a "double sized" chapter like chapter 3, but decided that this time I would split it in two, and used the point where the two "victims" have effectively regained control of the situation [and Lex Luthor!], and don't really need our red-headed teen heroine's assistance any longer. Will Superman comply with her request, or will the entire Justice League soon be talking up close and personal with our bon-diggity cheerleader [cue Batman with serious face, or Wonder Woman with lasso of truth]? Will Wade then consider this a "Retrievable Moment", and push that much vaunted button? And if so, what happens if a super-fast Flash manages to "grab" Kim before she's pulled through? Will the next chapter be titled "The Fastest Man in Middleton" or "The Amazon and Mr. Barkin"? Well, I guess, dear reader, that I should end this speculation exposition and get back to the actual Chapter 5 work area, so that I can eventually answer these and other fascinating questions. In the mean time, thanks again, in advance, for any reviews or PMs you may care to send my way on this chapter; they will be greatly appreciated)
(A/N #2: [added to chapter 4 on 01/25/2012]- I've edited the first sentence of the next to last paragraph to remove 7 unneeded words and initial cap'd two words and resubmitted this chapter following my submission of a new chapter 5 to the story to improve readability and flow to the continuation of this tale. Thanks again to all who have reviewed the story so far and/or who have sent PM's; they are all greatly appreciated)
Kim Possible © Disney (created by Bob Schooley and Mark McCorkle)
Superman, Supergirl, Lex Luthor, Batman, Wonder Woman, and the others with them © DC Comics
Additional Disclaimer: I, like whitem, do not own either Wal-Mart or WalMart or any similarly named organization; and the actual owners retain all rights, etc., regarding same.