Author's Note: Here's another one. Another in the cue right behind, should be up tomorrow or early sat. Good news/bad News time. First: 49.000 hits! Woot! I know, you don't care, but it's kinda cool it means 50,000 is just a day away. Next: In conversation with some others over on the KP Writers forum, it was pointed out that the end of November was looming nigh and I HAD said this was going to be done by the end of this month. Well…. looking at where I am and what still has to come, the odds of this being finished before the end of November are looking rather poor, especially since I'm currently full of cough medicine that's making me fall asleep at random mo…. Zzzzz. Huh? Where was I? Oh yes. Part of the reason for the delay is that I'd been anticipating that everything would run its course in a little over 40 chapters. Now it's looking like it will end up being closer to 50. Am I out of my mind? Yes, apparently. My blocking for the final battle royal alone is a MINIMUM of four chapters and will most likely stretch to six, so… mid-December is the new finish time. Sorry for the push-back, I just really want to get EVERYTHING in there, and I can't see rushing it at this point. Also, in the last batch of reviews Kirbilius Clausius had some interesting comments on the use of the word realism in regards to this fic... And let me say that I really appreciate comments like these, as it helps me see where I haven't made things clear enough within the course of the narrative. Obviously 'realistic' is a very relative word, and I place ATCOTS in the same general 'realistic' range as the later Sean Connery and middle Roger Moore James Bond flicks... actually OUR MAN FLINT is just about dead on, if you've seen that iconic film. Otherwise, there's just too much in the KP cannon that simply doesn't fly in reality... continents being moved, rays that invoke mind control, body switching, instant clones, giant cockroaches, machines that turn men into babies, etc. To make a truly "realistic" Kim Possible would mean pretending none of that happened or ever existed. Rather than take such a revisionist approach, however, I tried to find angles to integrate it carefully... hence my specific tackling of the "disappearing because you're embarrassed flower potion" plot thread, as I felt I was easily the single least realistic episode in the entire series. That set the bar on how "real" we were really going to get. That said, the one thing I really did want to make more realistic was the nature of the relationships and especially the entire KiGo thing. I'm a huge fan of both Kim and Shego as individual characters and the strange ambiguity of the relationship between them was one of the things I loved most about the original show. Trying to find reasons and events to fit between the actions we saw was something I found quite fascinating, and since we knew much more about Kim, it seemed the key would be locked in Shego's past. I hope I've done that in a way that stays true to cannon and at the same time is logical and believable. As for the whole half-billion dollar contract: In the real world, of course, there are numerous groups and organizations that would be willing to take Kim out in a heartbeat. And they would no doubt use weapons that would be damn hard to stop and require all out military action by Global Justice and who knows who else to stop them. But, by the very nature of that kind of plot, Kim would ultimately play a very small part in that story and be more of an observer. This is not that story but obviously someone out there can feel free to write it… in fact, I think Tom Clancy would be a great choice. Anyone got his e-mail? In the meantime, I've allowed Brotherson to present his own re-summary on the issue below, but if you've been following closely, there's no way those groups can get involved with way Brotherson framed the game. Yet. Thanks for reading all this and continuing to read/review this ongoing opus that seems to have taken on Homerian proportions. Back soon with the next installment, and for those who can't get enough of it: Ye Old Legal stuff: Kim Possible, Shego, Doctor Director, Doctor Anne Possible, Big Daddy Brotherson, Jack Hench, Adrena Lynn, Camille Leon, Team Impossible, Gemini, Summer Gale, the Mathter, Aviarius, Gill, Motor Ed and Electronique 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. Anna Stein, Cyn, Sam, Ralph and Peter Laska are original to this document and free for re-use with a nod. 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.

####

AT THE CENTERFOLD OF THE STORM

Chapter 37

#####

Brotherson stared at his monitors with sleep-deprived eyes and tried to figure out what was going on. The last team phone had STILL not been delivered! What was going on there? Obviously Adrena Lynne had ditched her chosen partner, Camille Leon, in favor of Team Impossible, but it was hard for Brotherson to find fault there... in fact, he had to admit that both Lynne and the new group she had created had moved way up in his estimation. TI weren't just competent, they had plenty of experience in the kind of clandestine wetwork that could bring this all to a quick and final conclusion, and prison had been extremely education for Lynne… if somewhat disfiguring. Of course, he'd have to change that team's name... his original pet name of Team Tits & Ass no longer really matched the craggy visages of Dash Demond, Crash Cranstin, and Burn Burmin. Hmm… maybe Team Hardbodies or Team Steroid.

As for the rest of the first group of teams…

Team Impressive Figures… or Team Sacrificial Goat, as he really should have called it... aka Summer Gale and the Mathter... was in the middle of a situation that would be resolving itself VERY shortly.

Then there was Team Whee Wee! Gemini seemed to be making plans with his usual manic skill, but hadn't attempted to contact his partner yet. That was no big surprise and Brotherson had anticipated that would happen. He had already goosed the system there, and it would come as a very rude shock for the psychotic director of WEE to find himself under someone else's thumb for a change. Brotherson had always felt that, with a little proper discipline and control, WEE could have done much better for themselves and he thought his solution to the problem was quite… inspired and inventive.

Meanwhile Team Heavy Metal seemed to have gone into some kind of planning or building mode. That made sense given their technical bent, and how else to explain that fact that, after breaking Electronique out of the GJ holding facility in a rather spectacular raid, Motor Ed had simply been parked in the middle of the desert ever since? Or, at least, that's where the silver phone he'd sent the man was. With more time Brotherson could have found a way to track the teams more effectively, but if they left the phones behind while they carried out a mission… something that was actually good from Brotherson's point of view as it was one less thing to trace back to him… he could only have a vague guess as to where they were really were.

Which was currently the case with Team Fish Nor Fowl, the team that had been moving so quickly at first. Their phone had been sitting on the outside of Middleton for a full day and his guess was that it meant that they were already in deep, deep trouble. Given that the possession of the silver phone was a prerequisite for actually getting PAID, Aviarius had probably hidden his in some secure location… but the fact that the internal proximity sensors hadn't been triggered, and that the GPS had shown absolutely no motion since yesterday, was almost certainly a strong indication that something had happened to the team itself. This seemed to be confirmed by the intel he was getting that two prisoners matching the general descriptions of Gill and Aviarius had been seen being taken in into the main Global Justice facility by someone else matching the description of Shego. Either the two had brilliantly managed to come up with a clever ruse to infiltrate their way into the very heart of Global Justice's most secure location... unlikely given the two individuals involved… or they had been captured.

Frankly, that made Brotherson glad. The game still had too many potentially interesting wrinkles left to unfold for the whole thing to have ended so quickly. On the other hand, he really needed to know what had happened, for while he didn't want Possible to die right away, it wouldn't do for every team he sent in to meet the same fate. The woman had become almost inhumanly competent over the last year, and while he wanted to string his fun out as long as he could, there was a limited supply of supervillains to work with. If Possible had new tricks up her sleeve, he would have to find a way to give his groups a little heads up. He really didn't want to let the game escalate to the next inevitable phase, which was the one that Hench had REALLY intended Brotherson to enact: an all out, open bounty to anyone who could bring in Possible dead, no questions asked. The carnage that that would cause would be…

Brotherson sighed as he pushed the thought out of his mind. With his little hand-picked teams he COULD control the flow of the bloodshed and destruction, which he was focusing in a specific direction to accomplish a completely different set of goals. If his teams failed, however, at some point he'd have to open the contest to less... manageable players. That would be an issue, because while supervillains could be counted on to act in certain predictable ways, opening the competition to larger groups… especially those with more extreme agendas like the radical hate groups and the nationalized forces of less civilized nations like those Kālpanikan buffoons… would leave him with almost no way to control the resulting chaos, and a LOT of people, especially civilians, would die in the crossfire. Hence the entire dance of needing prior authorization via a silver phone to enter the melee… or, more precisely, to get paid.

Not that it was any sense of social responsibility that kept Brotherson from allowing more radical groups to participate, it was the simple fact that ultimately they had little use for he and his own services to begin with. And the more collateral damage, the more people who would ultimately be coming after the people responsible for setting the whole thing in motion. If he was going to allow Possible to be killed and have to endure the worldwide shitstorm that would ensue... she was simply too well loved to think that anything else might occur... then he would do it in a way that would leave Big Daddy Brotherson in a much more powerful position once the dust had cleared. Of course, to take that position, he would have to remove some of the people who were sitting where HE wanted to be, but he'd structured the game in such a way as to, if everything went correctly, to do that as well.

The amusing thing was how those same people had given him the weapons to do that with, yet still couldn't see what they had done. Brotherson had given Hench, for example, several possible ways out of the dilemma, if the man had simply had the sense to take them, but Big Daddy had long ago realized that Hench really didn't understand what he had at all. The man was entire too confident and full of hubris to see his own Achilles' Heels, or to realize that the tower he sat in was built on a foundation of sand. And when enough grains were removed...

######

"Hey Ralph!" Henchman #68287, Samuel Jackson (no relation,) greeted his arch rival across the crowded lunch room. Wiggling his way through the crowds of hungry henchmen, he somehow managed to make it to the table Ralph was sitting at without spilling a drop of the classified top secret meat on his overflowing lunch tray. A 'big' man in the beanpole sense of the word, Sam liked his meals heavy, filled with starch and soaked with gravy, yet it never seemed to touch his 6'4" scarecrow-like frame.

"Hey Sam," Henchman #85109, Ralph E. Shepherd, replied with a slight smile. His smile was the only thing that was slight, however. Pushing the scales at 320 and just under six feet tall, he was habitually fighting the absolute weight limit for Henchmen his height, hence the modest green salad and cantaloupe slice decorating his plate. He didn't really feel like talking, but he knew what his friend was after. Although neither matched the classic profile of a computer geek, they were two of the highest posting members on the Henchman's Life section of the Henchco website… in fact, last year Ralph had actually had THE single highest post count on the entire site and as a reward for his participation now owned one of the incredibly rare Hector Henchco T-shirts. (Rare as in actually purchased, the back stock room was so full of them that they were often used for mopping up spills.) Of course, while both men publically professed to enjoy the sense of camaraderie the site was supposed to encourage, their real; interest was much more personal.

They liked to tell jokes.

More than that, they liked to WRITE jokes. In the Henchman's Life Kim Possible joke section, they were two of the most acknowledged masters of the form, yet despite their rivalry on the verbal battleground, they'd discovered that the two of the actually drew creative energy from the competition… hence the fact that they always managed to find a way to eat lunch on the third shift together… when they weren't actually henching, that is.

"So, got any new ones?" Ralph finally asked, knowing the wait was killing his friend.

Sam, who had been practically bouncing, nodded with enthusiasm. "Yep. Why is Kim Possible's grappling hook disguised as a hair dryer?"

"I don't know Sam… Why IS Kim Possible's grappling hook disguised as a hair dryer?"

"Because if they disguised it as a vibrator, she'd never have left her fucking house."

"Not bad," Ralph admitted. "Not bad at all." One of the reasons he and Sam got along so well is that neither went for the really nasty jokes, the ones involving rape, torture or other forms of bodily harm. That probably had something to do with the fact that they were both fathers themselves. However, ever since the calendar, it had been agreed that Kim Possible's vagina was now a wide open target… pun intended… and they'd practically invented the now insanely popular "LRP" format together.

"So what have you got in the cooker?" Sam asked cheerfully.

"Not sure," Ralph sighed. "I'm still trying to come up with a new 'Little Red Pussy' joke, but it's hard to find a trick that hasn't been done there yet."

"Which is what Kim Possible's little red pussy says about all the guys she knows," Sam zinged with a grin.

"Son of a bitch," Raph blinked "Did you just make that up?"

"Right on the spot. Which is where Kim Possible's little red pussy likes to be rubbed."

"Damn," Ralph sighed. "You've been on fire lately."

"Nah," Sam denied, shoveling three Ralph-meals worth of mashed potatoes into his mouth. "Just ain't had much else to do. You were working that Dementor gig, right?"

"Yeah, and had Possible crack my damn tibia again as a result, thank you," Ralph groaned. "Good thing Hench has such great medical coverage."

"Coverage my ass. He pays the docs in cash. You think any insurance company would cover this…"

Sam's usual 'we need real insurance monolog' was about to roll into high gear when there was a shriek of feedback from the overhead speakers. All conversation in the room immediately ceased and every eye in the room rotated as one to focus on the podium at the far end of the room, where Thomas Gunn, Henchman # 46503, the acting shift leader while Jerry Friedle, Senior Hench #8305, was recovering in the hospital from what Hench Operatives referred to simply as PMFGR (Possible-induced Multiple Fractures of the Genital Region, aka kicked in the balls so hard it fractured his pelvis,) was now standing.

"Okay people! I've got the kind of announcement we like: WORK!"

A modest cheer went up. Work was good in that those on it went to full-time pay, versus the half pay they received while on reserve. Work was bad in that Henchmen got hurt. A lot.

"We got two orders to fill," Tommy was saying. "First one's a biggie; the next hundred names I call I will come stand behind me. You're all going to Senior, Junior."

There was a collective "Ah!" then a "Ohhh…"as the 'Junior' was tacked on the end. Everyone knew that Senior Sr. not only ran one of the tightest ships in the villain business, but he also gave his henches access to his hotel's recreational facilities and, in really slow periods, even allowed them to pick up extra cash as caddies, pool boys or... that most dreamed of positions, driving those cool little golf carts. Junior, though, was a less predictable customer. He was no slave driver, but his organizational skills were crap, so everything always ended up being done at the last minute, which was hell on a henchman's nerves and back. On the other hand, with a hire this big, he was clearly up to something big… and with all the buzz going around about the Possible Contract, something big could mean the ticket to the chance to punching Possible's ticket out once and for all.

Ralph wondered what they would think if they knew that, personally, he hoped the little red fireball would keep on ticking... and not just because she was an endless font of jokes. He'd never say it out loud, and sure as hell not here, but he'd always rather admired the little cuss. He still remembered going against her once when she was just starting out, all gawky limbs and flat-chested, awkward, pre-teen body... and she'd still kicked his ass. Now, when he snuck a look at the calendar he kept in his desk (telling the other guys he used as inspiration for jokes,) he had to admit she'd grown into an impressive young woman. That resonated heavily with Ralph, who had a daughter of his own, currently being raised by his ex-wife, and he'd been shocked to learn that Jennifer's personal hero... as a result of that same calendar, no less... was one Kim Possible. Jen had always been short and slightly built... petite was what the girls called it, but short and scrawny was what it was… but apparently seeing Possible... who still didn't have much going on in the height or boobage department even now... posing sans makeup and clothes for that calendar had somehow inspired her to go out for cheerleading... and to her shock, making the team as something they called a flyer. She'd even taken to calling herself Jen-credible.

He wondered what his daughter would think if she knew what her father really did for a living? That he wasn't still the assembly line mechanic he'd been before the plant closed and he had to find another job for a guy with strong arms but no college degree. Or that he saw her hero on a regular basis, usually while part of a group trying to beat her to death.

No wonder he couldn't write any funny jokes these days.

"Ralph."

"Huh, what?"

"Tommy just called you man!" Sam whispered urgently. "Get on over there, you lucky bastard."

"Oh, yeah. Right. Thanks. Maybe you'll get picked too."

But Sam didn't. Not for Senior. That's when Tommy dropped the big bomb.

"Okay, here's the surprise. ANOTHER biggie! Next hundred I call form a line against the opposite wall! Going to Gemini and WEE!"

A shocked hush filled the room. GEMINI was hiring again? Bad news. Really bad news. Highest mortality rate of any employer, even during non-combat shifts. And a HUNDRED? Something seriously nasty was going down.

And it got even worse. The third name on the list:

"Jackson, Samuel #68287!"

Even from across the room, Ralph could see the look of horror on Sam's face, and he wondered if he would ever see his friend again. For not the first time in the last couple of years, he wondered how in the hell two otherwise nice guys could have screwed up so bad as to end up here?

#####

As Jack Hench sat in the command center, watching the planes being loaded on closed circuit TV with a cool and calculating eye, someone who didn't know Henchco better would think he was a tough but caring General watching his men go off to war while he was forced to stay behind the lines.

Nothing could have been further from the truth. To be sure, Hench's tight expression reflected concern, but it was for the value of the product being moved out the door. That was how Hench saw the Henchmen, as an expensive and difficult to replace commodity that he had created through careful recruitment and training. Two hundred men at once was a huge chunk of his available stock, and the odds were that a significant portion would not be returning. But the deaths he could deal with, it was the ones that DID return, but in less than optimal condition, that worried him. If the product could be repaired and put back on the market quickly the loss in health costs would be offset by the savings in not having to train replacements. Long term disabilities though... let's just say that his senior field officers had special instructions to help minimize those costs. Instructions the regular henchmen would have killed him for if they had known.

And actually, come to think of it... maybe he couldn't handle even the deaths right now. Business had been so bad that he'd been letting the recruitment and training programs slide. And the more he thought about it, what was really beginning to worry him was the job that he suspected most of those men were heading for. He couldn't be sure who Brotherson had asked to 'play' his insane game, but Gemini was right at the top of that list. Senior Jr.? That was within the realm of possibility, but highly unlikely. He would have expected the elder Senior to have held the younger back from something like this under any situation, and they certainly didn't need a mere half-billion dollars. But the men going out to WEE? He really should be kicking a recruitment program in now for their replacements. Except he didn't have the cash, and wouldn't for months. Every single bit of spare change he could squeeze out of the system was going directly to paying down the huge Plutonium Card charge he'd racked up... so if the men going to Gemini turned out to be a loss, Henchco would be badly hurt in terms of available inventory. In fact... he ran the numbers in his head... once one pulled all the Henchmen who were already out on assignment out of the calculation... he'd only have a few hundred able bodies left available.

Well, there was no help for it right now. Henchco's product department was just going to have to make up the difference... perhaps it was time for a previously 'lost' stockpile of attitudinators to be discovered. There always seemed to be a market for those.

######

"A... a... attitudinator..." Motor Ed gasped desperately, as he attempted to disappear into the crack in the wall of the cave. Stark naked and covered with scratches, he was a mere shadow of the man he'd been twenty four hours before. "Nee... need a..."

"Yooo hoooo! Teddie!" Electronique called and Ed held his breath as the naked blue woman walked past towards the next turn... then... no... NO!

She turned. "Oh there you are! Come back to bed already!" Arcs of electricity fountained from the blue woman's fingers as she came forward to embrace him! She was insatiable! "We can work on the details of our Possible project in a little bit!"

As he felt her hands lock about his withered and beaten scrotum, Ed gave in with a pathetic whimper. He couldn't refuse Electronique... literally... that thing she kept DOING made him ready again and again... and a man's business wasn't designed to DO that! He was red and raw in places he'd never been red and raw before, and felt as though half his insides had been drained from his body... and yet even so, he felt himself rising to the call of duty again.

"That's a good boy," Electronique giggled, leading him back to the sleeping area by the conveniently provided 'handle."

Too exhausted to fight, Ed followed meekly. "Okay... but this is the last time, seriously! We've got to go after Possible!"

Electronique's only response was an insistent tug and a seductive giggle.

Shuddering, Ed gave himself in to his fate.

#####

The twin Henchco target planes took off one after the other, following the standard exit vectors from parallel runways so that they were almost within spitting distance of each other. As they hit cruising altitude, however, the pilots received the encrypted information packs that would tell them their actual course and objectives... the locations being kept secret until this very second to keep possible spies among the Henchmen from leaking word of their destination to unfriendly organizations like Global Justice or rival villains. Now one plane banked off to the north, headed for nearby Upperton while the other headed straight east, across the Atlantic.

Sitting in the thin metal seat that would be his bed for the next eight hours, Ralph opened up his pocket notebook and tried to write a joke.

When the meal of cold sandwiches was passed around four hours later, the page was still blank.

######

"Are you sure you want to do this Kim?" Dr. Director asked carefully. "We can still abort…"

"And what's the backup plan, Betty?" Kim shook her head, looking far more mature in her new Global Rescue uniform. To everyone's amazement, the collaboration between the boys (including Wade) and Monique had actually been an incredibly productive one, and although there were a number of surprises still hidden in the suits, not all of which were prime-time ready yet, it had been decided that this was the moment to showcase them. An ultra-form fitting body suit… you could tell Kim was an 'innie" and Shego an 'outie'… made of an extruded fabric that combined the flexibility of spandex, the bullet-proof qualities of Kevlar, the flame resistance of Asbestos and the 'make your ass and tits look terrific' appearance of painted on wet latex, Kim's version of the suit was the same purple and black color combination as her last mission suit had been, but with the color restricted to a single broad stripe across the top covering the neck and shoulder, two narrower stripes that began at her hips and down her sides in a military styling that would have made been a perfect fit in an episode of Star Voyagers, and a few pits of random raised piping, while Shego's suit was practically identical save for the use of her trademark green where Kim was purple. Over their right breasts were their now clipped on Kimmunicator and Shegofone, while above their left breasts were what appeared to be namestrips reading 'Possible' and 'Shego,' but that were also integrated led flatlite panels with micro-focusing lenticular lenses that allowed them to be used as spots or floods. Strips of similar panels crossed the half-gloved knuckles of each hand... where they conveniently doubled as the equivalent of brass knuckles... and each of them was wearing the slimmed down 'dress' utility belt. Of course, neither was wearing the combat helmets they would wear on missions, or the multiple knife and tool belts that also attached to the uniform, the integrated backpacks or heavy over-boots that went on top of the body-suit's existing built in slim-boots... which could also alternately be fit with a set of standardized swim-fins the Twins had designed.

"No…" Kim admitted. "I'm not looking forward to this, but the one thing we can't control is the press. If they set up camp outside Global Rescue, there's too much chance that someone will see something and report it. And if we can keep the bad guys guessing long enough…"

"So be it. I just… wanted to give you the option."

"Appreciated. But this is so not the drama..."

"Okay, maybe it is. But Shego and I are big girls now. We can handle it."

"Yes..." Dr. Director eyed the two confident young women. If 'handling it' referred to each others' buttocks, where they each currently had a hand casually draped, that was 100% true. Otherwise… it was more like 120%. She'd never seen anyone look more composed or ready. Of course, if they didn't start watching their public displays of affection, people were going to begin calling Kim "Whenever, wherever" Possible… though with who knows how many supervillains after her own ass, who could blame the little hero for sneaking in what she could, when she could? And Shego WAS hot. As, Dr. Director had finally come to realize, was Kim. Her little girl really had grown up, and in the most delightful ways…

"Yes, I think you can," Betty agreed, at the same time wondering if Global Rescue was in need of an exceptionally skilled inventory officer? That would relieve an ethical issue she'd been dealing with herself. And Helen Dassak would look drop dead amazing in one of those skin tight GR uniforms.

"Okay, hon," the redhead spoke up to her raven-haired counterpart. "Are we ready to do this?"

"Yeah, we are."

"Then I guess there's no time like the present," Kim smiled. "Phase one, Razzle Dazzle is go."