Author's Note: Just a side note for those who hadn't noticed, the ATCOTS universe just got a little bigger with the integration of two more side stories. The first, PUTTING IT ON, wasn't originally intended to be connected, but when I started working on the follow-up, BRINGING IT ON, I realized that they WERE connected, and it will have some interesting ramifications with a part of the story that I've been a bit mum on for the last dozen chapters or so… oh yes, I think you'll like how that turns out. Ye Old Legal stuff: Kim Possible, Shego, Wade Load, Ron Stoppable, Jack Hench, Camille Leon, Senor Senior Jr., Bonnie Rockwaller, Adrena Lynn, Dash, Crash and Burn aka Team Impossible, Will Du, Hirotaka, the Yamanouchi Ninjas 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. Original characters Ralph Emerson, Jose Mendoza, Stevens and the luscious Cyn Rushing may be used by any and all, just send their paychecks to me. 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 52

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"Kim!" Ron's voice yelled inside her head. "They're moving on us now!"

"Back up plan!" Kim fired back, knowing that even as she spoke the ninja named Hideki was taking her place at the base of the holographic deception that Ron and his team were deploying. She'd planned on being there already, being the one to dodge the fire if necessary, but somewhere between the rocky terrain, the continuous abuse and repeated explosions, her rocket skis had given up the ghost a half mile back and for the last two minutes she'd been on foot. Damnit! Too many things going on at once. "Will, give them the kiss as soon as Wade's projections say it's safe. Ron, get your guys to safety as soon…"

"We got it KP, no time to chat!" Ron cut off her off, though she could see both his and GROne's points of view as reduced images in her visor. To be honest, she was grateful she didn't have to talk and run… her lungs had been burning since she started running up the last ridge. Normally no big deal for a girl her age and in her shape, but that was before taking her newly re-broken ribs and internal bleeding into account. Given that Shego was carrying out HER part of the plan with a broken leg, Kim hadn't felt her own discomfort worth mentioning, but she was definitely feeling every bit of battle damage she'd incurred in the last few days. God, just one more ridge and then, once this was all over, the two of them could find a nice beach or hot spring someplace and let the pain soak away…

She saw the flashes in her visor before she heard the sound of the Vixen's guns echoing from over the hill ahead… but Ron was already yelling "Scatter!" and other instructions in Japanese, while Will was simultaneously dropping in to execute the crazy idea she'd had… her team had it covered. They knew what to do.

And speaking of which, Team 2 was about to drop its own bombshells…

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Hench #93041 stared at the frozen landscape and looked back at his driver. Something was very wrong.

"Stop!" He ordered, holding his hand outside the window to motion for the truck following to do the same.

"What is it, sir?" His driver looked up, puzzled.

"We must have gone too far," The leader scowled, motioning towards a rising outcrop of stone and the high walls of the valley that encircled the road they were on… a road that he knew turned UP the mountain a few hundred feet more up the road. "They'd have had to go to the south to get around that, but based on that original signal, we should have met them before now."

"Perhaps the problem is that you didn't know who you were supposed to meet," the driver returned smoothly.

"Huh? What was that?" 93041 turned back around and almost lost control of his bowels upon seeing the machine pistol aimed at his head. "What the f…?"

"Order your men to step out of the vehicles and lay their weapons down," Hirotaka smiled. "Otherwise I am afraid that my friend Agent Mendoza and his men on the hill will have to use those mortars they have trained on us."

The deadly chill that 93401 had felt envelope the base of his spine upon looking down the barrel of the weapon held by the man who he'd somehow never realized he'd never seen before only increased as he followed the ninja's head motion towards that same rock outcrop he'd noticed, only to see row of four figure suddenly appear from the snow. They'd been invisible due to improvised ghillie suits made of pine branches and snow, but now that they'd moved, he could also see the bazooka like weapons they had aimed directly at his position… directly into…

Oh shit.

"If you would please hurry," Hirotaka nudged. "I fear my Global Justice friends have what you call itchy fingers, and while my ninja training may allow me to survive being exploded, I do not believe I will enjoy the experience very much."

It was a partial bluff, of course. Mendoza's men's weapons were actually armed with knockout gas canisters, but Hirotaka… who had seamlessly replaced the original driver just before they left the castle… hated the headache that stuff always gave him. And besides, he really didn't want to miss out on the big finale.

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For a brief, terrifying second, Bonnie felt her body start to leave the cockpit's floor as the Skyvixen fell out the sky beneath her, but that momentary sensation of weightlessness came to a painful end as she slammed back to the floor a fraction of a second later as sparks exploded across the interior of the cockpit, emergency lights flashed and her four captors screamed/gasped in harmony as their bodies also absorbed the impact! With a shock Bonnie realized that the helicopter must have been only a few dozen feet above the ground the ground when whatever had hit them had hit them, but that comprehension had no sooner crossed the surface of her mind than she was forced to focus on more important things like trying not to snap any bones as the suddenly canting angle of the downed craft sent her skidding/rolling across the metal-screen floor. Her limbs screamed in agony as the handcuffs refused to give and the front of her body became one giant scrape, yet amazingly the only major casualty was her bra, which snagged on something somewhere along the way and stripped off like a rubber band shot from a sixth-grader's forefingers just as she impacted the wall furthest from the exit hatch.

And then everything became TOTAL anarchy as everything went red… some kind of safety shields had covered all of the ports and windows at the moment of the original hit, and all that was on now were the crimson emergency lights.

"What the FUCK was that?" Adrena was screaming as she tried to tear herself out of her safety harness. "I thought this thing was fucking indestructible!"

"Undetectable!" Dash corrected at the top of his lungs while Burn offered his own "I don't know!" at a matching 100 decibels, and Crash joined in with a "This is impossible!"

"Well something found and hit us with SOMETHING," Adrena snarled, severing the straps that had locked during the collision with one of her vast array of knives. "And you fucking know which bitch it was!"

"Goddamnit, stay cool Adrena," Dash was out of his own seat as well, still hanging on to the headrest to keep himself from following Bonnie's sliding path to the far wall. "They may have knocked us down but we're still locked and loaded!" To Burn "We ARE still locked and loaded, right?"

"The starboard guns, yeah," the heavier man huffed, his fingers flying across the safeties as he disengaged all of them. "Trying to get our external lights and cams back on now!"

"Good," Dash wasn't wasting any more words on Burn, spinning instead to Crash. "Keep the blast shields up, but as soon as you've got visuals, shoot anything that moves! I don't know who those guys were, but there's no way they can get in here…"

Dash's voice cut off in a strange eeping sound as the whole cockpit suddenly HEAVED back in the other direction, causing the tall black commander's tight pull on his seat to suddenly be far too much pull in the wrong direction.

"We're falling again!" Adrena freaked!

"No! The wreckage is shifting!" Burn yelled as the Vixen continued to tumble.

"The fuck it is," Crash screamed! "Those fuckers are ROLLING us back the other way!"

"SHOOT!" Dash commanded in wild panic, "Just shoot everything!"

"I'm trying!" Crash was hitting every weapon control he had… he should be spraying lead everywhere, but he was getting no response at all! "Nothing's working! It's like the guns aren't even there!"

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"And here goes the last one!" Ron grunted as he swung the Lotus Blade again, this time completely taking off the last of the external machine guns. "Give me just a second and then I'll start opening this can of sardines for you!"

The assembled Ninjas needed no further instructions, backing away from the battered hull of the helicopter they'd been rolling as their leader completed gelding it.

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Now completely forgotten in the chaos, Bonnie found herself rolling across the floor again, but this time her new position put her eyes even with something she hadn't noticed before. A red lever at the bottom of the wall, next to a panel that didn't seem to serve any purpose except as… an emergency exit! Yes! There was a smaller etched panel beside the lever. Explosive bolts…

"Everyone arm yourselves," Dash was ordering, even as he was strapping on an insanely huge machine gun. "We've got more firepower in here than they could possibly have out there."

"We're going to shoot our way out?" Crash gasped. "Are you nuts?"

"Do you know how many years we'll do if we're caught with the remains of the Vixen?" Dash fired back. "I'd rather make a break for it. It's not that far to civilization."

"Good point," Burn acknowledged, heading for the rack with his favorite flame thrower, then stopping and pulling out a quartet of gas masks. "Just in case."

Bonnie stared at the red lever. Could she activate it, as tied up as she was?

And then she was staring at a pair of boots.

"What about the girl?" Burn asked, looking down at Bonnie with apparent regret for lost 'opportunities.' "Hostage or liability?"

"If that's Possible's bunch out there," Dash mused, "She'd be a shield at first. After that, though, she'd just slow us down."

"Then take her, slash her as soon as we've gone a safe distance…" Crash began.

"No," Adrena suddenly snapped. "I've got a better idea. Give me some of those detonators."

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"Commander Cholla! We've located the local contact."

Cholla looked up from the contour map of the local terrain as a group of his forward scouts came back towards him at double-time, escorting what he assumed was a slim young woman in a heavy parka. Damn, he hoped the intel she had was really going to be worth the trouble of putting up with her, as she was obviously in poor physical condition. No… he revised his opinion, as he saw that she was being partially supported by one of the regular Henchco troops. She was obviously in completely shit poor shape.

"Camille Leon." The Black Widow commander forced a face smile onto his face. "My employer hadn't informed me that you were injured."

"If your employer answered his phone more quickly," Leon snarled, "Maybe I wouldn't be. My men… Junior's men, that is, just tangled with Possible and Shego less than ten minutes ago."

'And obviously got your collective asses kicked,' Cholla added mentally, though he didn't say it out loud.

"But," the villainess added quickly, "I know exactly where they're going and the route they're probably taking."

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Shego watched the Widow Commander's face carefully. She'd drawn the lot of playing Camille for this round due to the fact that she was the closest physical match, a precaution that turned out to have been a wise one indeed, given that she'd already been patted down three times. Fortunately, she was wearing Camille's actual clothes, so the image of that that was being overlaid by the Shegophone's projector was currently effectively only overlaying her face and skin tone… well, that and disguising itself so that it was invisible sitting on top of her head, a place no one ever thought to frisk. As it was, though, she could be stripped naked and still appear to be Camille. That HAD been the point of her impromptu photo session with Ms. Leon, afterall, hadn't it?

Well, mostly she grinned inwardly to herself. Shego, you are a BAD girl.

"Okay, where are they going?" Cholla bit. "Castle Senior, right?"

"No, though that's their second priority," Shego lied smoothly, pointing at the inferno still raging to the south and then to the matching point on the map. "Their top priority was to put out that fire over there… that's how Junior lured them here in the first place. If it keeps burning, this whole glacier will destabilize and end up in the lake. THAT's what they came here to stop. Catching Senior Junior will come after that."

Cholla's eyebrows shot up at that and in that instant Shego knew could read him like a book. She knew he had to be aware of the next set of transports coming in, so this was just one more fire that had to put out… in this case literally.

"Fuck!" The heavyset commander growled. His men had been digging in since they'd arrived and NOW he was learning the place could be a death trap? But if they pulled up stakes and tried to move now, they'd be caught with their pants half up…

Or… Shego could see him working it out, just like Kim had hoped he would without Shego/Camille prompting him too obviously…

"DALLAS!" Cholla bellowed at the nearest of his unit commanders.

"Yes Sir!" The scruffy looking subordinate appeared instantly, a nervous, ratty look in his eyes.

"Take a couple of marksmen, a mortar squad and as many of the Bazaalt AsP-500m's ll as you can cram in an ATV, get as close to that fire as you can and lay down suppressive fire until it's under control. Be aware that Possible and Shego may be in the area and shoot to kill if you can, otherwise herd them into the range of an Bazaalt."

"Sir, yes sir!" Dallas snapped to attention, then dashed off.

"An AsP-500m's a Russian fire-fighting bomb," Cholla informed Shego, who already knew exactly what they were but had to play the role of Camille, who probably didn't. "Basically they suck all the oxygen out of the air. If Possible and Shego ARE down there, that'll finish them off."

NOW was the time to get antsy, Shego judged. "But we should send more men, Shego and Possible are…"

"I'VE got more pressing business at the moment, Ms. Leon," Cholla had already dismissed her for the moment. "IF I have to make a raid on Senior, I'll need you for intel, but in the meantime you're just in my way."

The Black Widow commander motioned to two of the men who'd been standing guard. "Take Ms. Leon to the Com-Wagon and let her sit in the back seat. It'll be warm and we'll know where she is."

"Sir!" The guards saluted, then motioned for 'Camille' and the Hench supporting her to precede them towards the armored van at the center of the camp.

"That couldn't have gone more perfectly," Shego gloated as she rested her weight on the man beside her. They'd actually managed to trick one of their opponents into doing one of the jobs they hadn't had the time or the resources to do themselves, while at the same time making the first split in his forces. Best of all, she was going to get a chance to sit and rest up her broken leg for a few minutes. The former villainess was beginning to suspect that her girlfriend might be a witch as well as bewitching, but she didn't dare get too confident just yet. With her Shegophone in a place she couldn't actually reach at the moment, she was effectively cut off from the rest of the team until 'Camille' had the opportunity to let her hair down in private. Still, things seemed to be going spectacularly well.

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"BOOOOM!"

Ron leapt away just in time as the main hatch to the fallen helicopter suddenly blasted off of its own accord… thank goodness for the mystical twinge of magic monkey mojo that had made him pull back a fraction of a second before he'd been about to open it himself. Even as he was rolling in the ice and snow to avoid shards of flying metal, he knew what had happened. The explosive bolts securing the door had been fired - Wade had warned them about those, which was why nobody had been near the door when it went, but it was a sign that things were about to take a serious turn for the worse.

Sure enough, the door hadn't been blown off for half a millisecond than a handful of fragmentation grenades came flying out afterwards in a wide V of destruction, spewing more flying shrapnel followed by a couple of gassers and smoke bombs. Within seconds, visibility was down to zero and then ANOTHER pair of frag grenades went off in the cloud even as Ron was starting to rise! 'Damn!' he swore, kissing the snow again. He MIGHT be able to avoid the worst of the damage with his Mystical Monkey Power, but there was no way that the rest of the Yamanouchi could dare get anywhere near this barrage… If Mendoza's men had been here instead, their body armor could theoretically have been better able to handle this kind of firepower, but the determination had been that the Ninja's speed and ability to disappear had given them the better chance of surviving a strafing by the helicopter if something went wrong, while the next phase…

But that could wait 'til later. Whoever it was in there obviously had a plan for getting out of their rat trap and Ron didn't want to risk the wrong people getting hurt accidentally. Not when whoever he was up against clearly knew what they were doing.

"Modotte taizai!" He ordered quickly in rapid Japanese. "Stand back! Nariyuki o mimamoru!"

"I see someone has sense," A deep male voice called out of the smoke. A voice Ron remembered from somewhere. "We've got a hostage. Watashi-tachi wa hitojichi o motte iru! Anybody tries to stop us leaving, she dies!"

And he wasn't bluffing, Ron realized, the man's rough but understandable Japanese once again forcing him to up his opinion of his opponent. Better to wait and see what options might present themselves than push desperate people into doing something rash. Especially desperate people who were obviously working to some kind of coordinated plan.

"Ooookay…" He ventured carefully, looking up into the now dissipating mist to see the forms of two men and a woman standing about ten yards from the chopper, all holding what appeared to be remote controls. A third man was closer to the copter, patting something into the snow. "Why don't you tell us what you want?"

"No," The man who'd been speaking countered. "First, I'm going to tell you what we HAVE."

"First, we've got three remotes, dead man switches, to a bomb inside the Vix… the helicopter. A bomb that's sitting right next to your pretty little friend. If anything happens to any of us, that bombs going off and… well, she won't be so pretty anymore."

By this point the smoke had cleared enough that Ron could recognize who he was dealing with, even with their concealing gas masks, and his brain hit a scratch like a broken record. It couldn't be. It couldn't be! Team Impossible were supposed to be good guys! And was that… Adrena Lynn with them? Who the hell was it that was calling the shots in this game that they could get supposed heroes working with crooks? Not that Team Impossible were all that clean, Ron remembered, and they were armed to the teeth. He just hoped Kim was getting all of this relayed to her, because he was now officially way out of his depth.

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Dash grinned. Adrena's little improv was nothing less than inspired and it was working just as well as they had hoped. Now he just had to sell the rest.

"Go ahead and stand up Stoppable," he told the ninja-clad young man. "I want you to see something."

He waited until Ron had stood, then saw his reaction as he saw what had been done inside the helicopter. Red beams crossed everywhere… everywhere except a small area towards the back, where a hogtied girl and gagged girl lay on her side, eyes wide in terror.

"Yeah…" Dash laughed. "You remember this one, don't you sidekick? That's a McHenry Laser Grid… a couple of models up, but basically the same thing your partner cracked to steal her first job from us. And then, just to make things interesting, we've also just placed several anti-personnel mines directly outside the main hatch."

"Now, the deal," He continued, relishing Ron's glare of anger, "Is that we've also got the remote for that. Once we've made out escape, we'll shut off the grid and you can get your friend if you get around the AP Mines. Shouldn't be a big deal for ninja like you, right? On the other hand, if ANYTHING touches that grid before then, it's bye bye Bonnie. Got it?"

"Got it," Ron growled. "And how do we know we can trust you to not blow the bomb first?"

"Well," Dash admitted, "You don't. But you DO know that we WILL blow her to kingdom come if we think you or any of your friends here are following us. And I should point out that while your ninjitsu is impressive, we've got a lot of automatic weapons, grenades and a flame thrower to even the odds. So I guess it's a case of better the Devil you don't know than the devil you do."

"So," Adrena added, waving her remote pointedly. "You gonna tell your posse to let us pass or not? Or do we put a Bonnie in the oven?"

Ron hesitated… just a fraction of a second… then made a quick hand motion and the ninjas who were visible parted to the south.

"Wise man," Dash nodded as he, Adrena and the rest of Team Impossible cautiously began their long walk back to civilization. "And just to make sure we're clear, no one follows us or..."

"Right, right, we understand," Ron gritted painfully, turning to look at the trapped Bonnie. Damn, she had to be freezing in those… those clothes that she wasn't wearing. But… he couldn't do anything until he was sure the Impossibles were out of hearing range. As soon as they were, however, his Ron-com was in his hand.

"Did you get all that?"

"Yeah," Kim's voice seemed oddly out of breath, though her image seemed fine. "Wade, do you think you can jam the transmitters on those dead man switches?"

"I'd be scared to death to try," Wade evaded. "That many signals and no clue to what the frequencies are, let alone the codes…"

"Understood," Kim sighed. "Looks like we need to bring in the secret weapon. Go ahead and call them in, Ron. I'll catch up with you as soon as I can."

"Right," Ron acknowledged. "Um… and exactly what will you be doing?"

"Keeping you an honest man," the redhead grinned.

"Huh? What?" Ron had seen that look on his best friend's face before and he really didn't think he liked it.

"You promised them that no one would follow, Ronnie," Kim's grin had taken on a distinctly Shego-ish smirk. "You never said that no one would intercept."