Please note: This story is set outside of Disney's canon universe. I will attempt to keep the characters true to form, but certain requirements of my alternate universe will impress changes upon them.

Warnings: Mild violence, Homosexual relations, Mild language

Update Schedule: Will be once a week on Saturday evenings/Sunday afternoon.

Chapter Seven
In Which a Hero Breaks a Few Laws

The blank computer screen was not normally daunting to Betty Director, Columnist for the Go City Times – even under periods of high stress and passed deadlines. However, something about this particular article was creating difficulties. She tapped the spacebar a few times, then deleted the spaces she created. Clucking her tongue against her teeth, she spaced again.

"Director, I have the pages you wanted."

She glanced up and into the eyes of her assistant. He saluted her quite seriously and she held back her desire to roll her eyes. His willingness to please was usually a boon, yet as of late she felt that he was getting too attached to her, too demanding of her praise and attention. She felt like he was regressing into a hapless puppy.

"Thanks, Will." She hesitated a moment, but couldn't refuse the shine in his eyes despite the firm rigidity of his salute. "Good job."

"Is there anything else you require?"

"How about a coffee?"

"Two sugars?"

"And a half and half." She requested. His footsteps faded behind her and she turned her attention back to the screen. With his reports beside her, she typed a short, temporary title for her next piece: Hero or Zero. It was terrible, she was well aware, but it was a start.

After a few rough sentences, she picked up the top sheet from Will's pile. A series of police reports had never quite made it into official filings. She wasn't sure what Will had done to obtain these documents, but she was grateful for his thoroughness and determination. Many of the reports detailed witness descriptions of a tall blue man setting fires, digging ditches, laying bear traps, and doing various other shady activities. All signs seemed to point at Drakken, yet nobody pressed charges or spoke of the incidents. Betty was baffled.

"Your coffee."

She twitched at his intrusion. After years of his almost ninja-like quietness, she had built up a certain resistance to being surprised, but it was imperfect. He sat beside her, sipping his own simple black coffee. Blowing the heat off hers, she stared down into the liquid.

"Betty?"

"Yes, Will?"

"Did you read that?"

She glanced up and then towards the paper sitting on her desk, the one he pointed at. She shrugged. "I did."

"Is it serious?"

"Maybe. But this has to come out." Betty retorted. "This city needs justice, and the world beyond it."

"What did he say?" Will tossed his empty cup into the waste bin.

"Just that, and I quote, I need to seriously cut it out before I ruin his rep." Betty sniffed. "But if he thinks he can deter us…"

"Is it a threat?"

"No, otherwise our job would be even easier. We'd have it on record that he sent us something and he wouldn't have deniability. I wish he was dumber."

Will peered over her shoulder at the computer screen. She threw her hand into his line of vision.

"Looks like you have a good start."

She couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic. "I guess. But we have to be careful. We need to look as authoritative as possible. Bringing him down won't be easy, and he won't come quietly."

"Did you talk to Her?" From the intonation of his voice, she could sense the capitalization. It was as close as they would come to actually naming Kim Possible – just in case someone was listening.

"Not yet. Not past the letter."

"Are you going to?"

"If I need to, I will." Betty swiveled back around and cracked her knuckles. "If you're quiet, you can stay."

"I could go see what else the library has on his history."

"Do it." She commanded. He saluted again, but this time the tiniest of smiles was on his face. When he was gone, she pulled out her cell phone, dialed, and waited.

"Hello?"

"Miss Possible?"

"How did you get my number? Who is this?"

Betty chuckled. "You gave it to me. This is Betty Director."

"Oh! I'm sorry."

Betty could almost see the blush spreading over Kim's cheeks. "I was calling to see if you'd like to meet with me. Give me your side of the story."

"I'm not sure." Kim murmured. Although she had given Betty her number for just that purpose, she didn't want any negative backlash at either herself or her family.

"We could give you a codename."

"What, like Deep Throat?" Kim laughed.

"If you want. But try not to think of this like Watergate. Drakken is no president."

"What if we just called me… Cold Steel."

Could use a little work, Betty thought, but as she glanced at her own shoddy work on her computer, she realized that everything could. Agreeing to Kim's terms, Betty began jotting down the shorthand version of what happened to Kim, and then spent the rest of the hour filling out the details. By the end of their conversation, Betty felt as if she had been handed a treasure map, guided along the dotted path, and then given the shovel to dig up where the X marked.

"This should be published sometime next week."

"Do you think anybody will read it?"

"Come on." Betty chided. "This is the expose of a lifetime. Someone will notice. People will care. This isn't fabricated. No matter how much the good doctor might wish."

"Well, it better work."

"Leave that to me." Betty promised. "What's your next move?"

"Good question." Kim responded. "I'll let you know as soon as I do."

Upon hanging up, Betty turned by to her computer and began typing with renewed vigor.

|x|x|x|

Kim stood on the edge of a rooftop. Her newly crafted superhero uniform had not yet been broken in, and clung to her in awkward places. Beside her, Ron crouched. Thanks to Shego's friend, Ron was outfitted in gear that would help him help Kim in case problems arose. He clicked a button on the device in his hand. The screen showed two green dots – which represented them – and a red dot.

"The bank is three blocks that way." Ron pointed north before tucking the GPS into his pocket.

"I don't know if I want to do this, Ron."

"You're going to do it and you're going to like it."

Kim tensed her muscles briefly. "You've been spending too much time with Shego."

"Regardless."

"Fine. Let's go."

He rubbed his neck with one hand. "I was just going to, y'know, wait here for you."

"Are you serious?"

"We'll be connected by earpieces." He reached out and tapped the little nub in her ear. "But I'll honestly just be slowing you down. I can't run, or jump, or fight. You'd spend half of the time worrying that I wasn't getting exploded."

"I guess so."

"I know so. So can I get a booyah?"

"Booyah." Kim muttered.

Alone, she lunged off the rooftop and to the next one. Her leg muscles tensed and released, easily giving her the power she needed. As she drew nearer to the bank, she waited expectantly for Ron's voice and directions in her ear.

"Do you see the front of the bank?" He crackled in.

"Yes. There are, like, five police cars and a S.W.A.T. van."

"Well, according to this Wade kid there are two robbers inside and fifteen hostages. Ten of those are bank employees."

"So what am I going to do?"

"The map shows a back entrance. If you go around to the alleyway behind it… Tell me what you see."

Kim leapt from building to building and then threw herself the two stories to the ground. She landed with a pronounced thud and stood up. She saw no door.

"I don't see anything, Ron."

"Are you sure? There's definitely a way in marked on the map."

She peered again at the building in front of her. Six feet above her head was a steel grate that probably lead to the ventilation system. Grimacing, she jumped up and snagged her fingers into it. Bracing her feet against the brick wall, she pulled until the steel snapped out of place. Before she could fall backwards onto her ass, she grabbed the edge of the vent. It was times like these that she was glad it was more difficult to cut her skin. For a moment she wasn't sure she would be able to drag herself inside – but the moment slipped away and she slipped into the darkness.

"Make two lefts, and then a right. Then go straight ahead until you're in the room the thieves are in."

She reached into one of the pockets on her utility belt and brought out a mini flashlight. Following Ron's directions was easier with the path lit. Eventually she found the room and peered through the grates. The two thieves were easy to spot. Everyone else was plastered face down on the ground with their hands attached to their heads.

"See 'em?"

She wished she didn't have to speak to answer, but whispered as quietly as she could, "Yes."

"Can you point your watch at them and hit the button on the side?" Instead of answering, she merely did as she was told. A small laser darted out and scanned the room. Luckily neither of the two robbers noticed. "Alright, they're both armed, so you'll have to be careful. The one on your right has the one gun in his hands, and a second tucked away in the back of his pants. The other has two in holsters on his hips."

"Got it."

In one motion she beat the vent in and swung into the room. The robbers spun to look at her and fired a round of bullets. She dove behind a counter and yelled a verbal warning at them. When they responded with laughter, she stood up straight and advanced on them.

"Stop laughing! I'm being totally serious here!"

The taller thief took in her skin tight navy tights with matching shin length boots, while his buddy snickered at the latex white leotard adorning her upper half. A pair of navy gauntlets protected her arms. She was just thankful there was no cape, but she did have to live with a hard plastic mask glued to the areas around her eyes.

"And who are you supposed to be? Supergirl?" The tall one called.

"Halloween's not for months, kid. Go back your mommy."

"I'm going to stop you." Kim announced. Their attitudes towards her riled her up. They weren't nearly as annoying as Shego, but they were certainly committing crimes and making fun of her outfit. "And we're working on it."

She watched them relax, clearly labeling her a nonthreatening entity. She used their mistake in a heartbeat by dashing at them and grabbing each of them on the neck. Before they could complain she slammed their foreheads together and they tumbled down to the ground. She checked their pulses, to make sure she hadn't created a fatality, and then turned to the hostages.

"You can all get up now. You're safe."

The first man to rise wore a nametag that labeled him as "Mark – Head Teller." Mark shook her hand and she tried not to shudder at the amount of sweat the clung to his fingers.

"Who are you?"

Kim boxed her shoulders and tried to look at something far off in the distance. "You can call me Cold Steel."

Slowly the rest of the hostages stood up and filed towards the doors. She headed them off and stepped out into the police's lights. Tensing at the sheer amount of firearms pointed at her body, she blocked her eyes from the intensity of the lights.

"Stand down!" She yelled. "I'm not a bad guy. These are the hostages – and the bad guys are inside on the floor!"

"Good job!" Ron crowed in her ear. "You totally were like WHAM! POW! KIZZOW!"

"Is your entire life a comic book?" She asked him under her breath as police rushed past her into the building.

"No, just the awesome parts." He corrected. "So you can come back now and help me home. I have a lot of gear to carry."

"One second." Kim strolled over the news vans parked as near to the crime as possible and waved down one of the reporters. When one ran to her with his microphone outstretched, Kim took a deep breath and summoned the speech that she and Betty had decided upon. "My name is Cold Steel." Kim stared into the camera. "I am a new breed of superhero, the kind this city actually needs. Do not be fooled into complacency. Check tomorrow's Go City Times for an article by Betty Director. Instruct yourselves."

With her piece said, and her nerves shot, Kim ran for the side of a building and jumped. Letting her fingers sink into the bricks, she scaled the side of the building and began bounding back to Ron. Betty's speech had felt so stiff and fake, but Kim felt the message was there. She just hoped people actually listened to it.

When the paper came out the next morning, two parties most certainly paid it heed. The first of which proceeded to shred the offending article into pieces – the second stroked his chin in thought.

|x|x|x|

Although Kim felt invincible after a string of heroic deeds, she still wanted to sleep more than she wanted to celebrate. The foiling of the bank robbery had been her first act of heroism and since then she and Ron had worked with Wade approximately five times in the past three days. Crime never rested, it seemed, but she needed to.

"Wake me up in six years." Kim grumbled.

"Your name shouldn't be Cold Steel," a particular laughing voice interrupted her attempt at a nap, "it should be Sleeping Beauty."

"At least I'm beautiful." Kim pulled a pillow over her ears. "Unlike some of us."

"Oh ouch." Shego sneered. "I take it back. You'd probably be more like the Beast. Except there's not magic spell that'll remove your curse."

"What's yours?" Kim snapped back. "Contrariness?"

"My contrary nature is not a curse. It's a gift."

Kim peeked out at the infuriating woman near her. "I suppose you're not going to just let me sleep?"

Shego laughed. "That would be too nice, and aren't I a supervillain?"

"Don't remind me. I should turn you in to the cops."

"But you won't."

Kim wrinkled her nose. "Has Drakken been active anywhere?"

Ignoring Kim's attempt at changing the direction of the conversation, Shego plopped down on Kim's mattress. "Why won't you, anyways? Turn me in, I mean."

"Why does it matter?"

"The city's newest superhero is harboring a supervillain?"

"Isn't it more that the city's most devious supervillain is harboring a goody-two-shoes?"

Shego crossed her arms; Kim imagined this to be Shego's form of an emotional shield.

"Why does it matter?"

Kim sniffed. "Oh how the tables have turned."

"Shut up." Shego turned to the look at the wall. "So your last mission… I saw you got blown into a building."

Expecting a critique on her fighting form or a crack at her clumsiness, Kim frowned. "Yeah, maybe I did. But I got the job done."

"And you're not hurt?" Shego kept her tone flat so as not to betray her fear.

"Not a scratch. Maybe a bruise." Kim poked at a slight discoloration in her arm. "Yeah, just this little bruise."

"Well, good."

"I know, right? Ron's been great at letting me know what's up."

"I'm sure he's fantastic." Then, if just to maintain her reputation, Shego added, "For a doofus sidekick."

"Says the pot calling the kettle black."

"I was never a doofus."

"Sure." Kim tucked her pillow back under her head. "Now that we've got that settled…?"

"Right." Shego got up and went to Kim's bedroom door. She flicked the lights out. "You should, y'know, sleep tight."

"I won't let the bedbugs bite." Kim responded, closing her eyes.

Shego paused a moment in the doorway and stared at Kim's lank form. Her lips parted, as if she was going to speak again, but they closed just as quickly and she padded down the hallway. Some things didn't need to be said.

A/N: Have you ever noticed how difficult it is to think and write when you can barely breathe? Colds suck. End of statement. But you know what doesn't suck? Reviews.

Toodles! Qym.