Story Summary: After almost losing her BFBF to a world that believes she's just an imaginary character, "It's Only a Cartoon"'s Kim Possible decides to confront her greatest challenge, and prepares to engage…..the Multiverse!
Multiversing with Kim
Chapter 10:
Sitch 3 World: Recovery or Rescue?
(aka "Kim and the 'Lost' Sitch")
(A/N: Just 3 minutes after Kim Possible leaves Wade's computer room following her mother's "go-ahead" for a visit to a third alternative reality, Wade observes an unexpected and unprecedented event that threatens Kim's visit to that world and the entire six sitch mission that had been planned. As he tries to react to the surprising event and resolve the problem before Kim returns to his room with her Third Sitch mission gear, he is unaware that he is considering something that Kim has already briefly pondered during her stay in Pixie Hollow: Is the Multiverse somehow reacting to Kim and her activities like a living entity, and what does this foreshadow if Kim continues in her adventures? Is an already fairly serious sitch about to escalate to Mount Everest levels? And can a pre-teen computer genius handle the mounting pressure of a possibly reactive Multiverse while supporting the goals of a red-haired teenage heroine? Please R&R and/or PM. Thanks again in advance for feedback and constructive criticism. I hope you'll all enjoy this installment of Kim Multiversal's great adventure; please read responsibly….)
Kim was smiling broadly as she re-entered Wade's computer room, refreshed and ready for her third mission of the day. That smile vanished instantly when she observed the expression on her young friend's face, and noted the speed with which his fingers were flying across the computer keyboard.
And when Wade then looked at Kim with a mixture of fear and desperation, his eyes already glistening with tears, Kim understood what needed to be done without delay.
Without warning, Kim's balancer self threw Action Girl into Chagrinned Girl's arms with one instruction and one comment: "Hold her there until we're on the other side! This is a no Third Chance Sitch!"
Chagrinned Girl instantly obeyed Balancer, and embraced Action Girl with an unbreakable bear hug, resolved not to loosen that grip by even a little bit until Balancer said so. Action Girl questioned Chagrinned Girl about Balancers surprise action; after all, she was only going to shake Wade 'a little bit' to get him to calm down from whatever was upsetting him so much. CG shook her head sadly; AG had had no idea what harm would have been done had the teenager encroached on Wade's personal space, and CG was happy that Balancer had fully appreciated the danger.
Kim gently and quietly fell to her knees to bring her down to Wade's eye level, and then asked in a whisper level voice: "What's the Sitch, Wade?"
The computer genius did not answer, but instead looked back at the screen and appeared to increase the speed of his already blurring digits.
Did Mom call back, maybe with second thoughts?" whispered the redhead, hoping that she could at least get a word or two out of the clearly frightened pre-teen, and gently and carefully re-open the lines of communications.
"No." Wade responded, his own whispered answer only slightly louder than Kim's inquiry. Kim took some comfort from the fact that her young friend had actually answered at all.
"While I was out of the room, did something happen that caused you some concern about our next sitch or the six sitch mission?" asked Kim again, gently continuing the Q & A session.
"Yes."
"Did you see something that"—
Kim's third question was interrupted as Wade nearly leaped out of his chair into Kim's "open arms" as he started profusely apologizing to the teenager while tightly wrapping his own small arms around her neck (Kim's arms had actually been at her side as she had started her gentle questioning to avoid any possible repeat of that almost disastrous "personal space" incident at the very beginning of the Multiversal Project, but she quickly wrapped them around her "honorary little brother"'s back in response to his invasion of her personal space, instantly understanding that this was necessary to keep him from "losing it" even more that he already had to whatever not-yet-known sour sitch had developed in her absence. Besides, "family" invasion of personal space was completely different from the non-family version, more like BFBF "invasion", but without the potential sexual connotations that sometimes accompanied that unopposed intrusion into her private space).
"I'm sorry, Kim, I'm sorry, Kim, I'm sorry, Kim, I'm sorry, Kim, I'm sorry, Kim, I'm sorry, Kim,"—
In a very strange way, the current drama now playing out was a complete reversal of that original personal space incident, when Kim had been the one apologizing for the unintentional violation, and a forgiving (and recovering) Wade walking over to where Kim had thrown herself to assure her that things were okay despite all indications to the contrary. So now it was Kim returning Wade's hug with her own (her version of "walking back" to him), and she now must give him similar verbal assurances to let him know that things were "all right". The complication and/or difference in the current sitch was that she didn't yet know what Wade was apologizing about or for.
"It's okay, Wade, it's okay, Wade, it's okay, Wade, it's okay, Wade, it's okay, Wade…"
Even as Kim continued repeating her own three words over and over to Wade in response to his three, she realized that she had to be the one to move the dialogue forward, but also realized that extreme care was needed to avoid a mission ending meltdown.
"I'm sorry, Kim, I'm sorry, Kim,"—
"It's okay, Wade, we'll work this sitch out together. Now, Wade, did something happen with the equipment?" Kim asked, keeping her volume at whisper level in the hope that her own calm voice would help her friend also calm down, and enable them to indeed work together to solve said Sitch.
"No, Kim, all the equipment is fine; there's no problem with any of the equipment. In fact, everything was fine until some sort of multi-dimensional distortion ripple moved through our own local region of the Multiverse." Answered Wade, slightly less emotional than he had been just moments before; it appeared that Kim's calming technique was working.
"Wade," Kim started gently, keeping her voice calm and at whisper level, "a multi-dimensional distortion ripple? I know that I might not have been paying full attention at all times while I was getting ready for the Third Sitch, but I think that I would have noticed the ground but moving or room shaking. How big a ripple was it, and how often do these ripples occur?"
"Well, Kim, we would not feel these ripples in our universe at all, no matter what the size." Wade explained, his voice now almost back to its normal self in emotional tone, but still at whisper level. This, of course, made sense since he was still holding Kim around her neck, and his mouth was right next to her left ear.
"Kim, remember our discussions about spaghetti strands and sauce, or violin strings and gelatin, as partial models for the Multiverse's alternate universes and the possible connecting medium between them?"
"Yes, I do, Wade" whispered Kim into Wade's left ear. She was somewhat concerned that a potentially embarrassing moment would be in the offing if Wade's mom was to walk in at this moment. Usually, "whispering sweet nothings" into each other's ears was usually associated with boyfriend/girlfriend moments, and his mom might not truly appreciate that this was simply a big sister/little brother moment. However Kim also realized that a premature separation between big sister and little brother could undo all the calming effect and put the sour Sitch back at square one, and she knew that it would then greatly complicate any further attempt to work things out. She knew she had to remain patient, and hope that Wade's mom would not unintentionally add any drama to what was going on.
Fortunately for Kim (and Wade's mom), the teenager's short and affirmative answer appeared to give Wade what he needed to release his near stranglehold on her neck. Kim responded in kind by loosening her arms a bit as well giving Wade the option to step back a bit and look at her in the eyes, which he did.
"Well, Kim, the ripple moved through the sauce or gelatin, and around the strand or string. We wouldn't feel a thing in any given universe/strand/string, but the doorway connecting any two universes would be affected since the doorway path is through the sauce/gelatin/connecting medium, and anything or anyone passing through the doorway at the time the ripple did might …suffer ….some …serious ….." Wade's voice faded away, and Kim now fully understood both why her friend could not complete that particular sentence and why he looked as he had when she had entered the room. If the ripple had hit just a little earlier, at the time she was returning from Pixie Hollow, Wade might have needed to make a call to Kim's mom that would have been nowhere near as light-hearted as Kim's own had been upon her return from Sitch Two.
"I understand, Wade, and I now see why you were very unhappy when I entered the room. Something unexpected had happened, and you quickly realized several implications stemming from that incident. They impacted both my own safety and the entire six sitch mission we had worked so hard on. You were working very hard to either fix the problem or get enough evidence to convince me to call off or delay the mission. Unfortunately, my quicker than expected return did not grant you the time you needed to do either, and"—
Kim halted in mid-sentence as she recognized a change in Wade's facial expression that appeared to be in response to her saying the word "time". There was at least one more thing that she did not yet know, but it might have something to do with time or timing.
"Wade, what else happened when the ripple passed through our region?" asked Kim, her volume only slightly above the whisper level.
Wade closed his tear-filled eyes and answered in his own "just above whisper" volume.
I thought I was doing a good thing, getting everything ready for you so that you could go as soon as you got back to the room. I had already established a good pre lock on Sitch Three World, and was humming a little tune when the ripple hit. The ripple broke the pre lock I had established, and my system responded by reestablishing the pre lock almost instantaneously with the Sitch Three World. Unfortunately, there was a slight slippage in one of the referenced linkage dimensions…."
"Which referenced linkage dimension, Wade?" Asked the teenage heroine, suspecting that she might already know the answer.
"Time, Kim; the pre lock slipped 15 minutes ahead from its original position. And because of the causality protocol agreement we had regarding this six sitch mission, I can't move it back."
Kim's blood chilled when she heard Wade's answer. "That means I'm over 6 minutes too late." she said looking at the clock and adding the numbers.
"Yes, Kim, she's dead, and it's all because of me!"
Kim noted the rise in Wade's voice, and the increasing tension in his tone as well. Kim had to nip the pending second meltdown in the bud.
"No Wade, the ripple killed her, not you!" Kim responded, her voice very briefly going above "near whisper" before returning to "calm Wade mode" level. "But now at least I understand the rest of what I saw in your face. You've been blaming yourself for something that's not your fault. You can't do that anymore than you could blame yourself if Shego is ever lucky enough to get a direct hit on me and take me down for good during a mission in this universe." Kim concluded her attempt to deal with the un-dealable with a "real-world" sitch that would hopefully ground her young friend long enough for her to get on with her attempt to salvage the possibly unsalvageable sitch they were now in. She could only hope that her tactic would not backfire and raise Wade's tension level the next time he saw a hit on her website that sent her out on a Drakken and Shego mission.
"But, Kim, I"—
"No, Wade, you can't blame yourself for what the ripple did any more than if a meteor was to fall from the sky and take out this entire house. You, I, and your mom would all be dead, but it wouldn't be your fault that it happened. As good as you are, and Wade, you are very good, you do not control everything. Meteor, Shego, ripples through the multiverse; there are some things that nobody really controls, but that we all must deal with the best we can. Rogue events that nobody really expected have to be addressed, but we have to do that only after we accept the fact that we're not responsible for the side effects and aftermaths that they caused. Right, Wade?"
"Yes, Kim, but"—
"No ifs, ands, or buts about it," interrupted Kim. "The ripple event and what it did to the pre lock has turned my rescue mission to a recovery one instead, but it's not your fault. All that we can do now, both you and me, is to let me go there and recover her body before THEY decide to cut her up, and let me return her to her friends in one piece."
"But, Kim, I"—
"Wade, if something did happen to me out there, or in this universe, wouldn't you want someone to bring me home to my family and friends, as intact as possible?
"Yes, Kim, but if another ripple comes along"—
"Then it's like Shego getting lucky, Wade; sometimes bad things happen, and we just have to deal with that possibility. Otherwise, Wade, wouldn't it be better if I just stayed home in Middleton so that Shego never gets lucky?"
"Well, Kim, when you put it that way, I guess"—
"Great, Wade; then we are back on track, sort of. I open the door and go through, retrieve her body, return her to her friends, and then return back here."
"But what of her friends are upset when you return her body? What if they get really upset when they realize WHAT you are and"—
"Then I would tell them about the ripple, and how sorry I was that I could not save her. Don't forget Wade, in all the important ways, her friends are not all that much different from you and me. It will work out. After all, I'm Kim Possible, and I can do anything!"
"But Kim, if you go through the door, and another ripple hits"—
"Then 'Shego' happens, Wade, but it's my fault, not yours, that I did not dodge it in time."
This tactic appeared to be working to calm Wade down, but Kim felt like she should also try adding another line of thought to help bolster this calming effect, possibly helping him to appreciate that even if things were bad, they were not quite as bad as he first thought they were. This plan had definite possibilities to taking the edge off of the sitch, but there was also a definite possibility of a backfire that would worsen the sitch greatly. Kim had to do everything just right the first time.
"Besides, Wade, if this is the first time you've seen a ripple, and you don't know what really caused it, what are the chances of it happening again anytime some?"
"I don't know Kim, and that is what frightens me".
Kim took hope from the fact that Wade was now talking calmly while admitting to his fears. As long as she was able to keep him in that mode of operations, they could probably manage to work things through without a melt-down happening.
"Understood, Wade; until we know what caused it, or what the pattern associated with it is, you can't really make any predictions. But, in the time you had before I returned, were you able to make any headway, even just partial, in understanding this new 'thing' that we now need to study? For example, did you find there were any pre ripple warnings that tie into the one ripple that has hurt us so badly?"
"I'm not fully certain, Kim, but I think I've detected a 1 minute, a 10 minute, and a 20 minute pre ripple micro ripple signal. But without a second ripple to compare with, it is remotely possible that the things I think are pre ripples had nothing to do with the real ripple, and will not permit me to give you any advance warning about another incoming wave."
"Understood, Wade, but at least now there's a possibility that that could be something that might give us advance warning if you see these 20, 10, and 1 minute pre ripples. In the meantime, I'll just have to depend on my anti 'Shego' capabilities to not be using that doorway at the same time a ripple moves through it. And once we do see a second ripple, you might be able to work on a pattern that would help us understand it better and feel better about advance warning. And if we don't see a second ripple, that would tell something about how rare it is; sort of like lightning. After all, lightning is dangerous if it does hit you, but the chances of that hitting you are rather remote."
Pausing for a moment, Kim then had another idea that might help calm things more and give Wade something to work with. At the very least, it would help occupy his mind with something a little more positive.
"Say Wade, how about me giving you a theory about that ripple; it's something that you can start studying while I'm taking care of…my now-recovery Sitch. And it might help us both in better dealing with this whole ripple situation moving forward."
"A theory, Kim?" Wade clearly remembered that some of her theories had had surprising merit to them; Was his teenage friend about to show once again that he was not the only genius on the team?
"Yes. Now, Wade, you said you'd never seen a ripple before, correct?"
"That's right, Kim, I was still in the process of searching when you returned to my room and saw me typing away, but I haven't found any evidence of anything like this ripple ever since I started working on the PDVI for this mission."
"Okay, Wade, we've never seen this ripple before. It's brand new. So what else is brand new, today; something else we've never done before?"
Kim paused for a moment before continuing; she knew she had to be very cautious in the way she presented it to her friend.
"Today is the first day I stepped through a doorway after opening it. Wade, is it remotely possible that this ripple is simply a delayed echo of that first door opening, and/or of me actually stepping through that opened door?"
"I suppose, Kim, that could be. But that would almost mean that the multiverse was almost alive in some way. I know that that thought was popping into my head more than once while I was trying to work this whole thing after that ripple event, but I thought you might think me a little crazy if I mentioned it to you."
"Well, Wade, I don't know how to say this without you maybe thinking that I'm a little crazy, too, but I also had some thoughts about whether the multiverse was alive in some strange way and reacting to my presence, or my decision to engage it as part of my 'save Ron' scheme while I was in Pixie Hollow, waiting for Queen Clarion to arrive."
"You, too, Kim? Well maybe we are both crazy and we both deserve some straitjackets, but at least your theory would give me something to work with. But one thing, Kim."
"Yes, Wade, what is it?"
"I have opened doorways before, as part of testing before today's start of mission. I would not have allowed you to go out there without first checking out the doorway mechanism and reassuring myself as to safety concerns. So, you may have been the first person to go through the doorway, but I have been opening the door, so to speak, for about two weeks."
"Yes, Wade, but did you ever send an object as big as me through the door? Didn't you restrict yourself to small objects like naked mole rats and squirrels, plants, boxes, and books during your pre mission testing? Isn't it possible that I exceeded some sort of weight or size limit that then triggered the ripple effect?"
"Well, Kim, I'm not your boyfriend, but even I know I shouldn't be saying anything about a weight or a size limit regarding you."
Kim smiled in response and chuckled. "Understood, honorary little brother. It's just unfortunate that my own little brother's don't give me the same consideration". Despite the sadness of the lost Sitch, Kim took comfort in knowing that Wade had recovered at least enough to begin making some half-jokes.
Kim then became slightly more serious, adding "But isn't it possible that this is a nonlinear response to objects going through the doorway and that we are seeing an echo from having exceeded some sort of trigger level?"
"I suppose, Kim, that it could be that, and if I look very carefully for very low level ripples I might see that's exactly what has been happening. If that's the case"—
"Then maybe we can predict when the next wave will be coming through and take appropriate action regarding it; like not going through it at the same time." concluded Kim, more confident now that working on that theory would keep him busy and keep his mind off things that could not help anyone at this time.
"Yes, Kim, but I'm still a little concerned about"—
"I know, Wade, but please let me be the one to worry about 'Shego' getting lucky, at least until you have more evidence regarding this ripple stuff. We both know that that will give you a lot of incentive to help bring this thing out real quickly by checking out the theories and by proving or disproving them."
"Okay Kim, but please be very careful to make sure 'Shego' doesn't get lucky before I figure this all out."
"I'm on it, Wade!" Kim answered, and without further ado or debate, the teenager rose up, turned to the far end of the room, and lifted up her MK and pressed the button to open the doorway.
It did so without incident or fanfare, and with her MK unit confirming an 11-dimensional lock, Kim raced through the doorway before either Wade or another ripple could stop her.
Wade quickly returned back to his chair and the computer screen to begin watching her on the viewer, as he also began to furiously type on the keypads again in an effort to prove or disprove her theory and possibly predict when the next ripple would come through. He knew he would feel much better when he had that in his hands, his tiny and not-yet-worthy hands. His eyes continued to glisten, but they no longer leaked tears, and his face showed only concern and determination, with no trace of the desperation and fear that he had expressed only a few minutes before.
Kim had certainly succeeded in defusing a very serious problem, and getting the young computer genius back on track, at least for now. Unfortunately it was not as certain as to what might happen to him or the mission should have another problem arise and Kim was not there to talk him through it.
Kim emerged from the light doorway with a speed that exceeded her Sitch One World entry, but she quickly found that the ground truth of this newest reality, unlike the first AU, would not support rapid ground level travel for long. Her newest battlefield was strewn with rubble of diverse shapes and sizes, and even her mad cheerleader moves could only compensate so much for the terrible terrain she now faced.
Tears flowed from her eyes as she surveyed the area and got a firsthand look at the hopelessness of this particular Sitch. The time slip itself was bad enough, but it was also the time that Kim had had to take to work things out with her junior partner, and somehow keep him from becoming a basket case as well. She realized she could have done it no faster than she'd done it, but those minutes added to the unlikelihood that there was anything that she could do to save the Sitch at this point.
She was now very very late, well behind schedule, and could clearly see the near-certainty of an epic mission sitch failure if she didn't somehow figure out how to adjust and make up for the time already lost. What could be done to turn things around and get her to where she now needed to be in time to save a desperate and endangered female being pursued by a nearly unstoppable foe?
Her Multiversal Kimmunicator was in OmniScan mode. Kim could clearly see all the major players in this seriously lost Sitch.
Herself, desperately trying to think of some way to save this majorly messed up Sitch.
Her target, already too far away due to the time slippage.
Her target's Foe, already way too close to the target, and also too far away from Kim.
Four of her target's friends, moving towards the target and the Foe, but also too far away to do any good in the time remaining to the target before the Foe finally finished her off.
Allies of the Foe, apparently unwilling to move towards the battle scene until the Foe had finished off the target. In this instance, THEY were unwilling to get their hands dirty or risk their own necks by confronting the target directly.
Another friend of the target, hovering in midair, apparently observing the battlefield and possibly giving advice or guidance to the four other would-be rescuers.
And finally, just now coming within range of the OmniScan, a possible fifth friend of the target on the ground. The MK seem to be reading it as alternately solid and then not so solid as it apparently was rapidly catching up the group of four. Kim quickly realized that this continuous shifting of the readings for this one particular moving item was because the person was being tracked could phase through matter and effectively run through walls without injury. But the advantages conferred by this ability were not enough to refute the fact that this person also would be far too late to save the target.
So it was "Game Over" before it even started, and the rescue mission was now just a recovery mission. It was just so sad; Kim always liked rescues more than recoveries. And she had so wanted to rescue her target in this alternate universe and get her to a safe place away from lethal conflict, and return her to her friends alive and well.
But facts don't lie, and it was perfectly clear that saving the sitch wasn't in the cards. Too much time had been lost, she was too far away from the target and her Foe, the foe was already too close to the target, and the rubble and general wreckage precluded her sprinting to the rescue techniques that had saved so many back on her home world, including her boyfriend and even herself. Of course, with sufficient resources of her home world at her command, it was remotely possible to save the sitch even at this late date, but she had access to only the resources that she carried on her person or in her Third Sitch Mission Backpack. And there was no GJ hoverjet, no Team Go, no Gigawatt Pulse Rifle, or Justice League Teleporter in that backpack. She was just an average girl who occasionally saved her world, not a superhero or a starship captain. And her options were extremely limited at this point.
It was clearly hopeless. It was clearly impossible. Yes, indeed, a real "Mission Impossible"!
Impossible? Uh, did someone forget to check her name?...You know, Kim Possible? Bodacious cheerleader, straight A student, a really "all that" girl? A girlfriend who could be so arrogant in her mission mode and confident in her Kimness and her abilities that she successfully rescued her boyfriend from a world that thought she was only a cartoon and despite the fact that her computer genius friend later determined that the rescue should have been impossible?
Kim smiled, even as her tears continued to flow freely. Glancing at the MK OmniScan one last time to burn the image into her memory, she shoved the MK into her cargo pants leg pocket, and began sprinting in a direction that was NOT towards her target, but nearly 90 degrees off course.
Even in this less rubble filled direction, Kimberly could not maintain her Olympic level speed for very long, and quickly had to change into a tumbling motion at times to maintain her forward progress, switching back to sprinting for a few moments, then switching again to a combination handstand and forward flip, followed by a hop, skip, and a jump, another quick sprint across a 45° angle wall, pole vault over another piece of rubble using a broken pipe she had just grabbed, followed by a 50 second sprint that would have tied an Olympic record if anyone had been there to observe it.
Of course, someone did observe it, but it was not an Olympic official. It was a young black woman hovering in the air some distance away from Kim's original arrival point. She was surprised by the appearance of the teenager in an area that should have been off limits to all but her friends and the foe that currently threatened one of them.
Kim's sprint was then followed by another series of cheerleader moves combined with martial art techniques as she tried to get through another rubble field in the minimum amount of time. After that it was another pole vault this time using a broken flagpole that was handy, another hop, skip, and jump, another handstand forward flip followed by a cartwheel, followed by yet another sprint of about 20 seconds, three more cartwheels, followed by a 40 second sprint to a 60° inclined wall. Optimistically using a broken clothesline that barely held her weight, she scaled the wall, leapt over the gap between it and another collapsed wall, and then ran down the second wall at an incline of 30°. She then leapt over an abandoned trench, and then sprinted for yet another 50 seconds.
She appeared to be making very good time indeed in her travels, but not without some costs. Her mission clothing looked very roughed up to now, and appeared that she had developed some scratches where her mission clothing had proved to be inadequate to fully protect her. She was now sweating profusely and the combination of the smoke in the air and the dust and dirt on the ground had turned her clean and neat face into one grime-filled mess. And her continuous use of nearly 120% of her normal abilities was rapidly depleting even her unusually large energy reserves. She would soon have to stop or wind up collapsing in mid stride.
And she was now even farther away from her target than what she'd started running. The airborne observer could not make any sense of what the young redheaded woman appeared to be doing. That confusion, however, would not last for long.
Just before the teenage heroine would have been forced to stop moving and try to catch her breath anyway, she grabbed her grappling gun, pointed it nearly straight up, and fired it into the air. As her first now labored breaths attempted to restore a balance in the body chemistry, Kim pressed the retraction button on the grappling gun to lift her and her backpack rapidly into the air following her confirming that the grappling hook had engaged its target.
As she rose rapidly towards the top of a devastated power tower, Kim was able now see a bird's eye view of the battlefield that she had found herself thrown into. Although she could not yet see the target, she could clearly see its foe. And although its back was turned to her, Kim clearly perceived that there was nothing her target could do to stop it from fulfilling its mission. Only Kim herself had the remotest chance of stopping the foe, but she was far too far away to do it. She had to get a lot closer, and she had to do that as quickly as possible.
Reaching the top of the tower, she unhooked her grapple-gun hook from the tower itself, and placed the grapple-gun back into her mission belt holder.
Her breathing a bit less labored now, Kim then pulled out which she now needed. It was a single semicircle hook with a handle attached to it. When Kim grabbed the handle and held a tightly with her right hand, it appeared almost as if she was auditioning for the role of Captain Hook in "Peter Pan". However, instead of threatening Peter or Tinker Bell (certainly not after Pixie Hollow!), she slung the hook over the dead cabling that had once carried a large amount of power at a high voltage and began to slide down it at ever increasing speeds. She was soon moving faster than she could have moved on her own, and she now was moving towards both the target and the Foe. The question, however, remained: could she get there fast enough to do any good?
Speeding across the rubble beneath her, Kim realized she had to be very careful at the end of the line to avoid being injured either by landing in the rubble incorrectly or running into the steel girder that was still attached to the insulator for the now-dead power line despite the fact that the girder itself was now at ground level. Of course, she also had to make sure that a safe departure from her current mode of transportation did not slow her down; she still had too much time to make up!
As she swung left and right in preparation to avoid wreckage that came just short of the wire itself and effectively blocked her straight-through path to the wire's end, Kim developed an idea that might just solve both problems at once.
As she successfully avoided the blocking wreckage by timing herself so that she was swinging right at just the right moment to breeze by the blockage without injury, Kim pulled out the grappling gun with her left hand and prepared to fire it at the very top of a telephone pole that had lost its wires, but was otherwise still standing almost straight up. From Kim's vantage point, it appeared to be leaning slightly to the left, and was actually slightly to the left of her current path of travel. When she had traveled three quarters of the way from the top of the first tower to the bottom of the second collapsed one, she swiftly aimed and fired the grappling hook up towards the top of the telephone pole. At the almost exact moment the grappling look made contact with the pole, Kim pressed the retraction button on the gun to pull her towards the telephone pole at the exact moment she also pulled herself up with her right hand. She then almost instantly extended her right arm to lift the hook up off the wire and swing the hook to her right to avoid any chance of her being torn apart as the grappling hook wire retraction pulled her towards the telephone poll. She managed to do this successfully only by nearly inhumanly perfect timing with both actions as well as properly using her own body's inertia to permit the hook dismount without catastrophic effects. It was indeed somewhat similar to the magician's trick with a tablecloth covered by a platter of fragile crystal glasses, with the expert magician pulling on the tablecloth so hard and fast that the platter has no time to react and remains stationary even as the tablecloth leaves the table entirely. Of course, in that example, only the platter and the glasses were at risk, not a redheaded teenager and her rescue target.
Kim halted the grapple hook retraction when it was only 9/10 done, so that she could again use her current speed and the inertia of her body to safely swing pass the tilted telephone pole and successfully reach an actual stopping point: the top of the one story building that had remarkably remained partially standing. The moment she had reached that safety point at a speed slow enough for her to safely stop without injury, she pressed a reverse retraction button on her grapple-gun to pay out some slack on the grapple line, and then with a quick twist of her wrist, sent a transverse wave out towards the telephone pole to cause the grappling hook itself to free itself and drop off the telephone pole, ready for reuse.
Once again using her impeccable timing, Kim pressed the retraction button to pick up the slack and once again pulling the grappling hook towards her, then stopped the retraction as she then moved her hand and the gun as if she was using it as a fishing pole to cast the grappling hook as if to catch a fish. She followed that up with again pressing the reverse retraction button to again pay out the grappling line so that the hook, with the inertia it had received by Kim's "fishing pole casting", could freely continue on to its next destination, the roof of a three-story building that was also still standing in the middle of the otherwise almost continuous wreckage field.
Kim jumped off the one story building as she pushed the retraction button yet again to swing halfway between the one and three story building before she pressed the reverse retraction button and allowed herself to touch ground level once again.
Once again sprinting off at maximum speed to run around the building, she again performed the necessary transverse waving of the grapple line to dislodge the hook off the building, followed immediately by pressing the retraction button to retract the grappling hook (all the way back in this time!) into Kim's grapple-gun.
Not fully rested up from her original exertions, Kim was soon back in her heavy breathing and sweating mode, as she raced to her next grappling hook opportunity. She obtained only momentary respite as she briefly had to slow down her speed to maneuver around some boulders, and then do some tumbling to get over some unintentional hurdles placed in her way.
She then had to run and hop back and forth between two nearly parallel partially toppled walls to quickly negotiate the remaining distance between her and her grapple-gun firing point. Her maneuvering reminded her a little bit of the last time she and Ron had had to maneuver themselves around Drakken and Shego as both Drakken's doomsday machine and timeshare lair started to self destruct at the same time. Ron had thought it was like a Pre-K hop, skip, and jump game and had even said it was even cooler than mummy mayhem.
Kim briefly smiled at those memories, but quickly returned to full mission mode again as she jumped off the last portion of the wall and started sprinting again towards the nearest still standing power tower. Once again, as she reached her firing point, Kim truly felt she was almost at the point of collapse and rest time, but managed to yet again hold on until the retraction button was pressed and she felt herself again ascending quickly into the sky, briefly resting as the retraction gun did all the work.
However, even the extremely physical fit teenager had human limits, and as she reached the top of the power, she realized that she not fully regained as much of her reserves as she had with the first tower. She clearly could not keep this up for much longer, but she smiled with breathless relief as she realized that she had reached her last leg of the obstacle course. She would now need only to slide down this last wire to the ground surface, and then super-sprint another 100 yards to catch up with her Foe and her target.
But time indeed was running out, and Kim realized that her recovery/rescue target was undoubtedly exhausted and was in no shape to fight any longer against its Foe. Would she be able to make it there in time, and save her target before was too late?
At the top of the final tower, Kim once again became Captain Hook, and started sliding down the last run of unpowered electrical wire. However, because this time there was no convenient telephone pole to allow her to do a much gentler dismount, Kim instead had to twist her hook in such a way as to help reduce her speed so she could jump off without injury by repeating the "tablecloth maneuver" she had performed a little earlier.
As she hit the ground running to begin the final sprint, Kim once again pushed herself to her own ultimate limits, and then tried pushing herself even further ("That's Impossible!...Uhh, check the name?..."). As she once again pushed her ultimate Kimness to overload and even melt-down, she realized that she was indeed tearing herself apart, and as the cliché noted, she would "definitely feel it in the morning".
Yes, she realized it, but she did not care in the least. If she was able to save the target, she knew that she could easily deal with the pain and suffering the next day; if she failed to save the target, she would never be able to deal with feeling anything less than absolute agony the "morning after".
Her breathing was forced, her exhaustion complete, and she was still 10 yards short of the optimum point when she heard the Foe's voice began its final targeting announcement to the now helpless person collapsed on the ground in front of it.
Time had run out, and the target was about to be terminated; Kim had to act now without further delay.
She had already returned her grappling gun and hook to their positions in her belt while sprinting. She pulled out the MK from her pants pocket with her right hand, holding it tightly, as her left hand moved up and slapped her torso just below her chest to activate a very special trigger device.
As with its close relatives built by Wade for, her special Sitch Three jet backpack quickly placed a safety helmet on her head as it also quickly deployed its wings, followed by a speedy activation of its rocket-jets. She now had a lot more power lifting her up than a simple retraction mechanism on her grapple-gun, and she rapidly moved towards her goal of stopping the target's Foe.
And rapid movement was indeed vitally essential; time had indeed truly run out, and the unstoppable object was about to level its death-dealing weapon at its now completely helpless target.
Had she arrived in the nick of time, or had she actually still failed by the narrowest of margins?
Recovery, or rescue? That question had yet to be answered, but it would be answered very soon.
Life, or death? Zero, one, or two fatalities? Those questions also had yet to be answered, but they also would be answered very soon. Answered within the interval of the intake of a human breath, or the beat of a human heart.
And after those questions were answered, what then? What, if anything, could the cheerleader from another reality do after those other questions were finally answered.
Yet another important question, whose answer would impact not just this world, but at least 4 others beyond it…
********To Be Continued*******
(A/N: Well, I've again left the reader at yet another cliff-hanger, with questions asked and not answered. However, fear not, good reader, the answers to all these questions and more lie in Chapter 11, which I will endeavor to present in a timely fashion [please note emphasis on the word "endeavor"]. In the meantime, please post a review or send me a PM, I will respond to both as soon as possible, and I really do appreciate reader feedback. In addition, if you haven't already done so, please check out the other stories I've presented, and let me know what you think about them as well.)
General and Specific Disclaimers: I own nothing but my own imagination, and I do not own either the television series or movie franchise associated with the iconic phrase of "Mission Impossible" used in this chapter (in fact, I still don't buy the "Benedict Arnold"ing of Jim Phelps [why, yes, I am rather pro-Peter Graves; why do you ask?], but I do accept that those who do own the characters can savage them all they want).
Kim Possible and her friends © Disney (created by Bob Schooley and Mark McCorkle)
Tinker Bell and her friends in Pixie Hollow © Disney (Tinker Bell created by J. M. Barrie)
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. I also don't own the Disney Company in either this or other realities and do respect the rights of each as appropriate within their own reality (i.e. AU Disney companies in KP universes do not own her but still own Mickey Mouse, etc.)