Okay, first of all, the next to last section is very much why the M is on this story. Second, no insult to players of a certain game is intended… I played it myself, this just struck me as an interesting concept. Next, answering some of the main questions I've been asked about 28, NO! THE PHOTO SHOOT IS NOT OVER! Anna's just taking a break to handle the sale of the video footage of the volcano rescue, which is time dated material. At this point I think you'd have to use a crowbar to get her out of Middleton. Hench is not PUTTING out a bounty on Kim, he's already had one and is upping it. Remember the $10 mil offer previously mentioned? If Junior's reduced to using money orders from the convenience store, he's not likely to be offering eight figure bounties. More details in this very chapter! Regarding the proceeds of the photo shoot: it's all for charity. That said, thanks for all the great reviews and PMs, and I'll let this note end with the inevitable Ye Old Legal stuff: Kim Possible, Shego, Ron Stoppable, Wade Load, Monique, Big Daddy Brotherson, Jack Hench and all other characters borrowed from the wonderful KP Universe are the creations of Mark McCorkle and Bob Schooley, and those names are all trademarks of the Disney media organizations. Although use in this context may be considered fair under parody law, just in case: this work was not created for profit, no money changed hands etc. Also, this story takes place at a time at which all characters shown should be considered to be over the legal age of 18… except, obviously Wade and the Tweebs.
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AT THE CENTERFOLD OF THE STORM
Chapter 29
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"And you're really okay with your daughter posing nude?" Dr. Possible, the Mrs. asked. She'd had to wait until they were alone, which, since the boys were going to spend the night at Wade's… poor Mrs. Load… meant that she'd given it until they were out of the plain dirt lot that currently served Global Rescue's parking needs to turn the truth ray on her husband.
"You saw the pictures, dear… I only saw the two that Kim said were 'Dad safe.' But I didn't get the impression that you felt they were anything but art. Not… well, you know." Dr. Possible, the Mr., looked back at his wife from behind the safety of the wheel. "And Monique and the others all seemed to feel the same way. Honestly Anne, it seems to me that your issues aren't really with the pictures themselves."
"I…" Anne began, then slumped weakly back in her seat. He was right, of course. The pictures had been nothing short of brilliant. Anne had always been an attractive woman and intellectually she'd known her daughter took after her, but Anna Stein's picture for last year's calendar had stunned Anne by revealing that little Kimi-cub had somehow become one of the most beautiful women in the world. If People magazine said it, it had to be true, right?
And these new pictures… it was as if she'd sat down to make a doodle on a phone pad and looked down to see she'd painted the roof of the Sistine Chapel instead. Kim was… magnificent was the only word she could even come up with that seemed to do her justice. And Shego was every bit as exquisite. Which was a problem because beautiful women with brains often became targets.
"I don't have a problem with the pictures," She explained softly. "I have a problem with how she's going to be seen, between this and the…"
"Ah…" James did his best Sigmund Freud. "So, now it comes out."
"No, it was our daughter who came out." Anne sighed. "And no, I wouldn't deny her what she has with Shego if I could. It's just that, as much as Kim has done for everyone else on this planet, she deserves the right to be left alone… and I know that there are people who are going to try to use her honesty and life choices against her."
"The operative word there, hun, is 'try.'" James Possible gave his wife his most confident smile. "I think anyone who tries to take on our Kimmie is going to find they've grabbed a tiger by the tail."
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The in-between walked into the crowded restaurant cautiously. Some might think he was being paid incredibly well for what amounted to a messenger position, but it was a rare person who would be willing to take a job that could end up with not one, but two, of the most dangerous men alive deciding that he was a link they could no longer afford to keep. And the fact that the in-between had been dying from a particularly nasty form of cancer that was held in check only by doses of an insanely expensive and quite illegal drug, the sole remaining source of which on the planet was Jack Hench, gave them a gun that was forever loaded to his head.
But that was also, in effect, his job security as well. The old pirate's adage, dead men tell no tales, still held true in the modern world of high tech crime and corruption… so who better to trust the ultimate secrets to than a walking dead man? Given his target's skills, he didn't dare prepare any 'posthumous' messages, as the first he would learn of their discovery would be when the chemicals that kept his bones and flesh from devouring themselves failed to arrive. If, indeed, his clients were willing to wait that long.
The manager of the restaurant waved to the in-between. A short, stocky man of some middle-eastern descent, he knew the tall gaunt figure by face but not name and chose to keep it that way. The in-between didn't know why the manager worked for the target of his message, but whatever the answer was, it was no doubt as morbidly interesting as his own relationship with Jack Hench. Although given his second master's predilections, it was probably something that he had done that he wanted no one to ever know about that kept him chained here. That, and the fact that, like the in-between, he knew that his services were not so valuable as to make him indispensable. Quite the opposite, really.
"He is in the third room to the back. Knock five and two," the manager informed him. As always, the managers' attempts to appear calm and in control failed to reach his eyes. He was a man living in terror, and, as he always left by the back exit, the in-between had a gut feeling that this would be the last time he saw the man.
"Shave and a haircut again, then," The in-between confirmed as he passed back into the tiny stairway hidden behind door of the manager's desk… a door that would normally appear to be no more than a closet. The code was almost always shave and a haircut. At least for him. It was possible that there were different codes for every single person the man he was meeting had relations with. In fact, it was almost a certainty.
By this point the in-between had reached the bottom of the stairs. The modern walls of the building upstairs gave way to the ancient clay brick of the rooms below. Once this had been part of a necropolis, a city of the dead, and he knew that the bones and skulls that had laid in rest in shelves along these walls were now deposited in a large pit that had been dug at the far end of the short hall. He'd once gone to look, back when he still had vestiges of normal human traits like curiosity. Now he only had purpose.
He had arrived at the designated door. A modern prefab model set in the frame of what had obviously once been a crypt. Reaching up, he carefully rapped out five rhythmic knocks and two slower.
The door opened.
A monster of a man stood inside, perhaps six foot nine, with a build that would make an American-style football player look like a simpering momma's boy, a face built more of gristle than flesh and, most tellingly, a pair of ultra-sound proof earphones held securely to his head by a complex bondage device that could only be removed by a key. Those headphones were the monster's own lifeline: he couldn't reveal what he hadn't heard, and his employer didn't care for employees who started to traffic in his own business.
"I was wondering when he would send you," the enormously fat man sitting on the pillow smiled at the in-between. It was a cold and empty smile, the same with which an already sated vulture might view yet another dead body in the middle of a plague, but the motioning gesture to the pillow across from his obese form was clear enough.
Big Daddy Brotherson, the greatest information broker in the known universe, was willing to talk. He was wearing, as it happened, the exact same Hawaiian shirt that Ron Stoppable had worn on his recent trip to the volcanic twins, albeit in a much, much larger size. He was also, unfortunately, not wearing pants, an affectation Brotherson had taken to after a metal button on a pair of custom made 501s had suddenly parted with its parent fabric at such velocity that his client of the time had nearly lost an eye.
The in-between kneeled as indicated. He was in the presence of royalty, in a sense, and if nothing else, the spirits of the dead who had once rested in the sepulchers now filled with Wing-Dongs and other snack cakes might appreciate the gesture.
"This concerns…" He began.
"Possible?" Brotherson cut him off. "Why look so surprised? What else have we ever spoken of that would merit such an unscheduled visit? Especially given this." Brotherson's eyes flicked down to the neatly folded stacks of newspapers around him. All but one bore the exact same picture on the cover. Possible and Shego in the volcano. The one odd paper out featured almost the same image, but Batboy had been added. Brotherson never discounted any possible source of information.
"Yes," the in-between replied. "My employer wishes to tell you to raise the ante."
THAT surprised Brotherson. In fact, had the multiple ripples of flesh that covered his chin not turned most of the sound into a croak, the in-between would swear the man had just gasped in horror.
"Your employer is insane."
Although he had believed that for several years, the in-between chose not to venture into such dangerous conversation. "As I believe you are aware, the nature of my position does not leave me free to make such judgments."
"Yesssss…." Brotherson shifted nervously. This was a fool's game, but he was trapped into a given set of moves. "And how much was he thinking of raising it?"
"Five…"The in-between began and Brotherson began to relax. "Hundred Million."
Now Brotherson wasn't gasping, he was grasping his chest and looking profoundly distressed. So much so that the bodyguard, who up until this point had stood passively in the background looking specifically at nothing, suddenly produced a portable defibrillator and, stepping directly behind Brotherson, reached down, parted the leaves of the Hawaiian shirt and applied the metal plates directly to a wide expanse of pasty flesh already scarred by many such previous treatments.
After a moment, Brotherson came back around enough to continue the conversation, if that's what it now was. It was really more of a ramble.
"Does he have any idea what this could cause?" Brotherson worried out loud. "We'd agreed to use Possible as the focus because we'd thought she'd be both the most vulnerable and the one who'd leave us the least exposed. This," he again motioned to the newspapers, "Changes everything."
"We were already completely wrong about the girl. Her contacts were actually MORE powerful than Global Justice's, because they were all 100% reliable; and between her father's scientific friends, Stoppable's monkey powers and, most especially, Wade Load's incomparable skills, she had all the bases covered, technical, mystical and informational, to add to her own physical prowess. Why does Hench think NO one was ever able to stop her? Because they weren't trying?"
"And now, now that she's tied up with SHEGO," the human toad flapped his flabby arms wildly, "AND allied directly with GLOBAL JUSTICE, NOW he wants to actually pull the trigger on this insane plan?"
Brotherson paused to wipe his sweat-soaked face with a greasy palm. "The idea was to put up an offer that would attract the next generation of evil leadership; find the go-getters who would be willing to take on an incredibly difficult task like taking out an A-class threat just to prove they could do it. The money was a joke; it wasn't even enough to cover expenses. It was just to seed an idea and see where sprouts came up. The same reason we stepped up the activity on the Hate Sites."
Because, Brotherson thought, Hench and I are in a dying business. If there are no new supervillains, what need is there for the people who supply those villains? So like drug dealers, they had sat out to create new clients by enticing them with a new, cheap gateway drug… which in the case of a wannabe supervillain meant a quick buck and instant fame.
$10 million for the head of Kim Possible had seemed like the perfect hook. She was just a kid, right? All by herself?
But it hadn't worked out that way. The damned girl just got better and better. She'd already put a good portion of Henchco's best customers in prison, and sent a steady series of henchmen to the hospital. It had gotten to the point that any job that was Possible-possible… a PP job for short… required triple time as a minimum just to fill the slots! And then her 'bumbling' sidekick had revealed himself to be able to drop-kick a spaceship into orbit and she'd actually REFORMED two of the great hopes of the current crop of villains. Well, Drakken hadn't been such a terrible loss, but everyone had known that if the ex-hero had ever actually tried, Shego was the one villain who most likely could have really conquered the entire planet. And then Frugal Lucre had gone legit as well. That man would never have been a decent customer, but it was an ugly trend that Brotherson could see continuing. And the fact that not even the AAA-list seemed to be able to do more than put Possible in the hospital for a few days, while she was consistently putting them in prison, had definitely kept the real up and comers far away. In fact, there just seemed to be a general shortage of up and comers period these days.
Maybe… Maybe that's what Hench had in mind. That if Possible wasn't taken out soon, there wouldn't be any more up and comers period.
But it was still idiocy.
As a boy, Brotherson's already enormously gaining girth had sent him down the path of games and puzzles that had ultimately led him to becoming the master of hidden knowledge, a journey that had begun after first experiencing TRUE power in the form of controlling life, death and resurrection. Yes, Big Daddy Brotherson had been a dungeonmaster, and in times of stress he still reverted to that early persona and way of thinking.
In the great pantheon of evil, Hench and Brotherson were demons… not the ultimate princes of darkness, but definitely among the greatest of the aiders and abetters. But there were things that even demons fear: Dragons, which Shego was most definitely, were not to be trifled with; and a horde of anything in sufficient quantity, like orcs, was always a threat, which was how Brotherson viewed Hench's own employees, Gemini's WEE and the legion of GJ agents. Game fodder, for the most part, yet throw enough of them at a target and you might eventually overwhelm it. But Possible was even more terrifying than that. She was a goddamn PALADIN, the only one currently in the game besides Betty Director herself. Possible didn't just think the forces of good and right were behind her, she knew it, and she had the devil's own gift of acquiring whatever she needed whenever she needed it.
And the scariest part of all was that she was just starting to come into her own. Brotherson had researched Possible intensely over the last several years, and had become firmly convinced that, like Shego, she hadn't been living up to her full potential. The girl had been far too fixated on living a 'normal' life, of going to school and having friends. And to do that, she'd been gaming the system. Brotherson had been stunned at first to realize that Possible should, by all rights, already have finished college, that she'd intentionally held herself at a normal pace in school when she could have flown through it as fast as her brothers were now doing. According to his stooges at Cal-tech, Harvard and Johns Hopkins… all three of which were negotiating simultaneously to create a program just for her… she'd essentially already had much of the knowledge and only lacked turning in the requisite reports and research papers to earn the first set of diplomas. It irritated Brotherson, because it meant she was as smart as he was and didn't lord it over others, as if it wasn't the most important thing in the universe. And it terrified him.
It terrified him because Kim Possible was out of high school now and had moved out of slacker mode. Because, instead of moving directly into college and giving evil another few years of coasting, she'd gone into overgear. He had the reports: by herself, BY HERSELF, she'd taken out over 65 of Dementor's men, including the Professor, in less than an hour after going in to his last lair UNARMED. More frightening, in this recent dustup in Kālpanika Rāstra, she'd demonstrated that she could, and would, use lethal force if sufficiently threatened, and that she apparently had an excellent knowledge of firearms, a fact that she'd somehow managed to conceal from the rest of the world including Brotherson. And reading between the lines, it was obvious now that one of the two "GJ agents" sent to retrieve her had actually been Shego.
Which, coupled with reports he'd been able to gather regarding what had happened with the Lowardians, meant that this 'new' partnership the volcano pictures and the formation of Global Rescue had announced wasn't as new as everyone else thought. The facts went through the bloated, fleshy abacus that Brotherson used for a brain, and while he had no experience of sex himself, he'd long ago trained himself to understand the physical tells and subtle signs. Priceless little bits of information that, when added up, led inevitably to the conclusion that Shego and Possible weren't just working together; they had mated.
And if there's nothing more dangerous than a lioness protecting her cubs or mate, what did that mean when it was two lionesses that were bound? Let alone a Paladin and a Dragon? To attempt to tackle that pair, for any price, would be suicide. It would take an army to take them down; a literal army given the resources now at their command. Posting a half-billion dollar reward on their combined heads might indeed draw out the new talent Hench and Brotherson had sought, but it would also draw out every morals-deficient fool on the planet. And even though Brotherson imagined that they would succeed in the end, simply by virtue of the numbers, the vast majority of them might as well be fed into a meat grinder. It would gut the resources of evil for a dozen years.
And yet… and yet Brotherson couldn't back out. He was in too deep. Hench had been brilliant in making Brotherson his partner… what better way to keep the real people behind something a secret than to make the master information broker a co-conspirator? To have the ONLY source of information about the offer be a 'rumor' that in truth was originated, not merely spread, by the rumormonger supreme? Anyone who was serious would inevitably end up having to come to Brotherson to learn more, and that was the trap he had missed. Granted, he'd intentionally blown off the obvious wanna-bes, like that oafish Kālpanikan Colonel, but there had been a few legitimate inquiries, and if this offer went up, he WOULD have to communicate the information to any number of people who might then steer the authorities back in his direction. Or worse yet, Possible and Shego themselves.
But if Hench went public with the word that Brotherson had reneged on an agreement, Brotherson's reputation was destroyed anyway. He might be able to hurt Hench badly on the way down, but given the company Hench dealt with, that would only serve to shorten whatever post evil career Big Daddy might have briefly enjoyed.
"Alright," He finally announced to the still waiting in-between. "I'll put the word out. But this is the last time I work with Hench. We're done."
"I'll inform him of that," the in-between nodded gravely. He'd been expecting that from Brotherson's reactions. He'd never seen the fat man even worried, but now he seemed to see his own ghost waiting for him.
"No need," Brotherson replied, making a strange little hand gesture. "We have a previously agreed upon signal."
And that's when the in-between felt two powerful hands grip his neck from behind. It was almost the last thing he felt, the final experience being the sensation of his skull being literally pulled off the top of his neck like cork from a champagne bottle.
He had been both right and wrong, he thought as his final moments of consciousness faded. Right, in that it would be the last time he would see the poor manager outside, and wrong in that he would be leaving. He would never leave this building again, and his body was destined to join the pile of bones at the bottom of the pit at the end of the hall.
Funny how he'd never realized that before.
Brotherson watched absentmindedly as his bodyguard plucked up the in-between's body and took it away for disposal. He would spread the word, as promised. And then he would make preparations for a quick retreat to one of his most secret bunkers.
Where he, Big Daddy Brotherson, would pray. He would call on the Gods of Darkness he had served ever since discovering them on a pamphlet stuck inside a used copy of an old Monster Manual, and he would beg them. Plead with them.
To send someone capable of beating Kim Possible before she found out what he had done.
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"YES! YESSS! I've finally beaten you!" The words ripped out of Shego's throat with a raw and primal passion as her entire body quivered with excitement! "FINALLY!"
"Um, gg…. You have?" Kim's voice came in ragged, gurgling waves, the sounds rippling out between the throws of her own massive orgasm. Despite the fire… REAL fire… that repeatedly enveloped her body, she was in more danger of drowning, as every inch of her was literally awash with the fluid evidence of her passion, sweat and more than a bit of saliva and… other things, and her red hair was so drenched and slathered with perspiration that she might have just come back from a swim rather than the most incredible three hours of sex she'd ever had in her chronologically short but extraordinarily intense and vigorous experience. "How…. OH GOD!... How… do you…. figure…?"
"I've come twenty times," Shego groaned, going for twenty one. "But I've given you at least three more."
"And that's me LOSING?" Kim laughed, grabbing the gloating ex-villain's head and pulling it up so that she could see more than just her eyes. An impossibly nubile flip and her face was suddenly pressed, upside-down, against Shego's, and she tasted herself as she devoured the equally drenched she-dragon's talented mouth with her own. "Then try and beat me again you damned wicked woman! Just try it!"
"But…" She whispered as she began to work her way down Shego's chest, leaving a trail of small bites inter-spaced with kisses. "I'm not going down without a fight…"
"Oh you're going down Possible…" Shego gasped, looking up in the mirror to see that she, too, could sometimes predict the future… especially when it was already happening.
Shego's moan of ecstasy was so deep it tore a hole into another dimension of experience, and as her Princess deftly plunged into the cave, seeking to slay the Dragon yet one more time, the fire of her passion flared more intensely than ever before, escalating in a series of incinerating bursts that drove both of them inexorably forwards towards a hitherto undreamed of level of explosive rapture.
"YES!" She screamed "YES!" and another haze of burning green glory enveloped them.
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In the end, they never were sure exactly who "lost." Although, based on structural damage, it was probably the new sheets, which even underneath the flame suppressing blanket had still picked up an astonishing variety of scorch marks… many of them quite identifiable silhouettes of either Kim or Shego. The headboard had suffered a bit of damage as well, with a few burned handprints that they agreed gave it 'character.'
What Kim did know, as her eyes fluttered open hours later to take in the gorgeous green body lying half beside and half on top of her own, was that there was never going to be another person like Shego. Could never be another person like Shego. And the sight of the woman who had once been her enemy, now snuggling close to her not for warmth… the room was still a bit on the overheated side… but simply the comfort of her touch, was one of the most profound things she had ever experienced. Kim had loved before, but she had never NEEDED the way she needed Shego.
She had to admit, in the very back of her mind, that there were some things that she was afraid of, that she had been putting off dealing with. Monique might think Kim was assimilating all of this with unusual speed, but the redhead was well aware that there were going to be some rough patches and cruel words ahead. She knew that there were those who wouldn't understand what it was that she and Shego shared. Talking with Cyn and Ellis had confirmed that while Middleton was more progressive than many cities, it was hardly a paradise for the LGBT community. Things had improved noticeably after a gay-bashing city councilman had been voted out of office several years ago, but there was still some political backwash sloshing around that seemed to have come from the middle ages, and on a state level…
But, so be it. Shego had already survived far worse and miraculously come back whole, and Kim was nothing if not enduring. Although actually, the term she'd most often heard applied to her was "harder to kill than a fucking cockroach."
And now, knowing what others like them must have experienced, she found herself wanting to get more involved in the one arena that she had always tried to avoid. She didn't really want to, and if there was any other way she'd take it in a heartbeat… but it wasn't right that some people should be denied what made them happy, just because of someone else's preconceived notions of what was and wasn't right. And since fate had put her in this strange position… a wonderful one, yes, but very strange compared to what she'd ever anticipated for her life… she knew that she couldn't give less than 100% in doing everything in her power to make the kind of future she wanted for herself and Shego possible.
Shego Possible… that combination of words brought a delighted feeling of wonderment, a sensation of warmth that spread from her heart and throughout her body… and most especially to her lips.
Lips she gently placed on the forehead of the sleeping woman who now meant everything to her. And for whom she would give everything in return.
Barely stirring in her sleep, Shego smiled.
Kim Possible rarely cried, but the tears that ran down her cheeks now flowed freely. She'd never known such happiness was even possible, that a human heart could actually hold so much emotion.
But it could. And hers did.
"Forever and always," she promised silently. "Whatever it takes."
