Author's Note: And another one. With this chapter, we pass the 250,000 word mark by ffn counting. I think it's a few thousand short of that in reality, but even so… it boggles my mind that this has gone so far. And we're almost there… Ye Old Legal stuff: Kim Possible, Shego, Wade Load, Ron Stoppable, Jim and Tim Possible, Gemini, Nanny Nane, Doctor Director, Rufus, 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, 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.

#########################

AT THE CENTERFOLD OF THE STORM

Chapter 53

##########################

Gemini fidgeted in his seat and stared past the pilots and out the wide viewscreen at the front of the hypersonic troop transport. The fact that they had been moving multiple times faster than the speed of sound did nothing to ease his anxiety that his last great opportunity was slipping away from him.

"This is taking too long," He whined for what the other occupants of the forward cabin would agree was the 36th time. "Someone's going to get Possible before we do!"

Nanny Nane simply gave him the same cold look that she had the last 22 times he'd said the same thing, pushing down the urge to drop him out the airlock for the 17th time. What was the point in explaining that braking from hypersonic took time and, unlike the forces ahead of them, they were actually going to have to land, again? Honestly, she mused, it was a wonder that the simpering little fool had somehow managed to live this long. Between his infantile self-fixations and habit of eliminating subordinates, it seemed almost incredible that someone hadn't simply snapped his neck out of sheer irritation… but, then again, his primary opponent had always been his sister who, as competent as she was in many other ways, still lacked the ability to separate the fact that her brother was family from her handling of him. Had Sheldon's WEE ever gone against someone as ruthless as his former nanny, he would have been reduced to a grease spot a long time ago. Exactly as she intended to see that he eventually would be, once this little game was finished. Nane could almost feel the snapping of the vertebrae as his scrawny neck would twist in her gnarled but still impressively powerful hands. Oh yes, little Sheldon wasn't going to be long for this world…

And neither would whoever selected the pieces for this little game, she added. Just as soon Nane had the money in her pocket and a way to cover the trail. Bad enough that they obviously knew way too much about her own past to suit her, but given that there wasn't a single villain on the planet more likely to get on her nerves than Sheldon, the deliberate pairing of her with him had obviously been an act of calculated insult and offense, intended to give her nothing but grief. From the second he'd started their so-called partnership by flushing money down the toilet with his massive hire of Henchman rather than a smaller team of specialized mercs, to his 'saving' funds with weapons from Colonel Chaos' Weapons Surplus Shack, half of which turned out to be literal antiques, he seemed determined to go about everything in the least efficient way possible. At least most of the old communist block armament had ended up being workable after a lot of elbow grease was applied, but they had wasted quite a bit of ammunition double checking. And, of course, there was the ongoing drain of the Henchco Payroll. Fortunately all of that was on Sheldon's Plutonium card, because once they'd received the bounty on Possible, she was damned if any of the ill-advised expenses he'd incurred before her arrival were coming out of her pocket. Which, except for the advance hiring of the transports, was all of them.

Which brought her back to the situation at hand. The fact that their rivals were using paratroops had given them an incredible advantage in terms of both speed and flexibility, one that Nane found especially galling since, as an ex-paratrooper herself, she should have anticipated it. As it was, as soon as it had become obvious that the team of transports ahead of them was clearly going to get to the target first, she'd opted for a wait and see approach, trying to get a better idea of what she'd actually be facing on the ground before committing irrevocably to landing under hostile fire. Unfortunately, during all that waiting there'd been very little seeing… her usual contacts within Henchco had disappeared, satellite surveillance was almost completely locked out and there was enough transmission and radar jamming going on in the area that it could hide a second Lowardian Invasion. To top it all off, the one thing that she WAS absolutely sure of was the identity of the force that they had followed in. The Black Widows were by no means the toughest mercenary force on the planet… in fact, Nane suspected that she and her usual knitting circle buddies could take them out with a little advance planning… but they were a good step above the Henchco goons she was stuck with, and they were utterly ruthless. Now that their decision to parachute in had both gained them more time AND secured the most advantageous landing zone, they were going to be a very hard nut to crack.

Nane growled softly and chewed her Kevlar dentures with irritation. Her natural inclinations were against going in with as little advance intel as she had; with a small trained team of real mercenaries and a stealth assault vehicle it would have been one thing, but the WEE troops and their hypersonic transports would be sitting ducks for anti-aircraft fire. The men were expendable, of course, but the value of the rented transports combined would reduce the profitability of the entire operation to practically zero once all the other expenses had been met. And unlike standard Henchco units, she doubted that the Black Widows would hesitate to blast them out of the sky if they had the opportunity. That meant far more restraint was required then she would have normally employed, which was a good part of the reason Gemini was getting so anxious.

All right, she was getting anxious too. And for all his whininess, Sheldon was quite correct that someone else was bound to get Possible first. In fact, barring an incredible stroke of luck, Nane was beginning to consider that to be inevitable.

But… then again, as she'd oft delighted in telling her young charges when taking away the coins and other treasures they'd discovered, finders weren't necessarily always keepers. Especially when the finders had already been bled dry in the act of doing the finding by the previous keepers, and a newer, fresher finder came along. And in this case, a trophy was a trophy… all that mattered was who handed the head over, not how it had been obtained.

Enough. Decision made.

"Contact all the other transports," She ordered her own pilot, then indicated a spot on the map display. It had originally been an emergency fallback in her mind, but now it was clearly the safest option… safe being a relative word. "We're going in now… and we'll be landing here."

The pilot's eyes followed the finger, then back to her grim expression, as the color completely drained from his face.

"I've read the specs. These transports CAN do that, right?" Nane asked icily, waiting for his shakey nod of 'yes.' Perfect. If HE thought it was unlikely but doable, then the odds were that no one else would have thought of it either.

And then, no matter who got Kim Possible first, Nanny Nane would be the one who got her last.

##########################

"Possible," Kim thought to herself, running as quickly across the snow covered forest floor as she dared, "You have a big mouth… not to mention a habit of writing checks without looking to see how much you have in the account first." In this particular case, she'd been doing a little analysis on the video of Team Impossible as she angled towards where she assumed they would be heading and things weren't looking so rosy. To be honest, she hadn't expected them to be carrying that much heavy artillery, and unlike the Henchco types she'd gone up against earlier, the three members of TI were formidable opponents even without the machine guns, flame thrower and God knows what kind of small arms. Tossing Adrena in for good measure only made things more dicey. Even if she'd had Shego to back her up… and, to be honest, was a little less wrung dry herself… it would be tricky. As it was…

Okay, it was probably suicide. If she just charged in there, anyway. Even if she pulled out every trick Kimmunicator could generate, Team I were sharp and they'd already seen a little of what her holograms were capable of when they attacked Ron's team. Between the three of them, she couldn't count on more than a few seconds worth of distraction, and after that the tech advantage went to their side. Relatively low tech compared to hers, of course, but when it came down to it, a hunk of lead would kill you just as dead as a laser and probably hurt a lot worse.

Still, she mused, never dropping her pace as she hurdled over a small ravine filled with ice, anything was possible for a Possible… she just had to find another way to bend the odds in her favor. Moreover, if she let this group get away, she'd just have to deal with them again at a time when they had the advantage of surprise. That said, the first order of business was going to have to make sure she DIDN'T run into Team Impossible until she'd managed to pull a few more rabbits out of her hat. And when you needed magic, there was only one place to go…

"Wade?" She asked into sub-vocal mike, "What's the sitrep?"

"Secret weapon's been dropped off, Team 2's taken their first objective and those transports we've been watching have been slowing down, which means they must be planning to land but we don't have an exact eta," Wade came back quickly, "But I imagine you've been listening to the traffic and knew all that, so what did you really want to talk about?"

"Team Impossible," Kim admitted. "Is there any way you can track them while they're on foot? I'm thinking something like heat signature, maybe?"

"Actually…" Wade replied thoughtfully, "That we can do. The sats that Jim and Tim tied us into for our overview are D.O.D. anti-ibm birds, so their thermal tracking's even better than their visual. I can't tell you which member of the team is which, but their gear is still fairly warm from being inside the copter so…" He popped the thermal view display so it appeared in her head's up display. "There we go. That's where they are."

"Beautiful," Kim grinned, because it truly was. Not only were the four green blobs representing her quarry placed on the sat-view, but her own position was noted as well. "Wade, you rock!"

"Er," Wade flushed. "Actually, that was your brothers, this time. But this may not be a long term thing… they're wearing better than average thermal gear, so the longer they're out in the weather, the more their exteriors are going to cool. At some point, all we'll be picking up is their heads, and that's a pretty small target to track if they get under heavy tree cover…"

"Right," Kim nodded. So she'd have to figure some way to even the odds before they lost the ability to track them, and that window was already shrinking. It was too bad that none of her targets had opted to bring along some heated socks or those gloves with microwaveable inserts…

Wait… that was a crazy idea, but…

"Wade? Would one of the satellites Jim and Tim hooked be a HERFsat by any chance?"

"Huh… uh well… Oh. Oh!" Wade grinned. "Why yes one is, and if you're thinking what I'm thinking Kim, you are an evil woman."

"Yeah," Kim sighed. "Looks like the green is starting to rub off. So, you know what I've got in mind. Can you manage it?"

Wade cracked his knuckles in anticipation. "Piece o' cake."

##########################

Carefully… oh so carefully… Ron lowered himself onto the back of the Skyvixen, using every ninja and monkey-fu trick he had to make his actual contact with the vehicle as light as possible. Sure, those Team Impossible asshats had only said that there anti-personnel mines in front of the entrance, but neither he nor his ninjas were about to take any chances on setting off some other trap they'd set up.

When nothing blew up underneath him, he let out a breath he hadn't been aware he was holding and slowly crab-walked to the spot directly outside the door, then took a deep breath, held and blew, using the vapor from his own condensing breath to check for lasers or other trip-switches. Due to his ninja preferences, he wasn't wearing a helmet like Kim… he preferred his hand-held Ron-Com… but a full manual sweep from infra-red to ultra-violet failed to reveal nothing, as did a second scan done peering over the edge. Finally, convinced that there was probably nothing outside the hatch to trigger something lethal, he let his head drop over the doorframe so that he could see Bonnie directly.

"Hey BonBon…" He began, and then it was all he could do to keep a fake smile plastered on his face. He'd had issues with the cheerleader in the past, but no one deserved to be treated as she obviously had been. The bondage pose she was handcuffed in and the gag in her mouth would have been bad enough, but her face was badly scraped on one side, she was missing a fingernail and the parts of her body that were exposed were covered with bruises… which was all of it except for what was covered by her badly abused panties, and… Oh geez…

"Igottago!" He ejaculated suddenly, disappearing back the way he came.

##########################

'Oh what the hell now?' Bonnie thought as Ron made a strange expression with bulging eyes and then immediately vanished, leaving only the afterimage of a totally red face behind him. What the..?

Oh, Bonnie realized. She'd forgotten her bra had stripped off during the crash… and it was a sign as to just how cold she was that she hadn't really noticed that those portions of her anatomy were now just as frozen as the rest of her. On the other hand, it wasn't as if most of those interested hadn't seen her tits by now thanks to her multiple photoshoots, so while Stoppable's show of chivalry was thoughtful, her personal modesty was pretty low on her list of priorities right now.

"Gatbeeeaaatrrragggg!" She yelled in exasperation, the best she could manage for 'get me out of here' around the edges of the ball gag. She knew enough about the predicament she was in from listening to her captors setting it up to know that neither he nor she could touch the beams that surrounded her like a maze. She'd been puzzling over the problem and actually had some ideas, so the fact that the gag was making it impossible to communicate that information was the ultimate icing on the cake.

"It's okay, Bonnie, I'm not looking!" Ron had finally returned, though he was ridiculously holding one hand over his eyes as he dangled upside down in front of her. "Everything's gonna be fine, but… uh… just in case you don't know, you don't want to touch any of those laser beams around you. That would be bad."

Bonnie's best 'no shit, Sherlock' expression was obviously lost to Ron, but she made it anyway, rolling her eyes.

"Right," Ron was saying. "Now just hold tight and try not to move as we send the expert in, okay?"

"Ogay!" Bonnie grunted, then felt her stomach do a queasy dip as Ron lowered in 'the expert.'

In retrospect, Bonnie realized, that it was a good thing that she'd already decided that the old Bonnie had to go, as that bitch would have found this to be the final straw. Of course her karma hadn't been skewed enough just to have to be rescued by Kim Possible. She'd already sucked that down. Even being rescued by Ron Stoppable was something she'd be able to come to terms with. No, destiny had obviously been determined that she, Bonnie Rockwaller, was now going to have to eat every single bad word she had ever spoken about any of her former arch-rivals posse, and would forever owe her life to, among many others, a small pink, naked mole rat.

"H'roo!" Rufus waved, then began the task of navigating the maze of deadly beams that kept his larger partner from entering the wrecked vehicle.

##########################

It had been a slow mission for Rufus until now, though that had been completely by design. The truth was that naked mole rats simply are not designed to handle sub-freezing climates well… originally hailing from the arid climes of Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia, they were, in fact, unique among mammals for their bodies' lack of ability to regulate their own temperature, with his species' normal adaptation to cooler weather being to nestle together in large groups or in sun-warmed parts of their enormous underground burrows. Normally Ron's pocket served this function for Rufus, but all had agreed that sending the mole rat out with Ron under the current situation was probably unwise, as no one really wanted to find out if it was possible to unthaw a moleratscicle.

So, instead, Rufus had spent most of the mission inside the hovercraft curled up in a small pouch on Cyn's lap, soaking up her body heat and conserving his own for an eventuality just such as this. Truth be told, he'd slept almost the entire time, as that was what usually happened when he was warm and comfortable and he liked the way Cyn smelled. However, when the moment finally came for him to do his legendary thing, he was still the best infiltrator on the planet… and Team Impossible's laser grid had clearly not been designed to stop someone who was only three inches tall when he walked on all fours.

"N'Big!" Rufus smiled as he ducked the latest beam to present itself as an obstacle. Getting to the annoying one, as he'd always personally thought of Kim's self-appointed arch-rival, would be ridiculously easy. The difficult part would be figuring out how to switch off the laser grid, so that was his first priority. He didn't see any extra remotes or anything lying around, but he COULD see several of the laser projectors. Unfortunately, each and every one of them seemed to have some kind of booby-trap attached… his sensitive nose clearly made out the scent of PE4… similar to C4, the British-favored plastic explosive was not something that the molerat felt he should be messing with if he didn't have to. So what next…?

"Eeey! Oberhergammit!" the tied up cheerleader hissed around the ballgag in her mouth. "UGtibee! Fagawdzake!"

Rufus looked at the bound female and it suddenly snapped. Of course! She was wanting her top clothing piece. For some reason human females seemed to find the loss of those almost unbearable… and come to think of it, his own human seemed to be having a lot of issues with her bared mammaries as well. Looking around, Rufus spotted the discarded bra lying on the floor in the opposite corner. Not a problem, he thought, hopping in that direction…

"Ngggggg!" Bonnie screamed as she realized where he was heading, "Ngggdagggg!"

##########################

"Pick up the pace, Burn!" Dash snapped over his shoulder, ignoring the look of anger on the stockier man's face as they trudged up yet another snow covered ridge.

"Damnit," the heavily sweating accountant turned action hero turned assassin swore back, "You try carrying the goddamn flame thrower!"

"Your choice of weapon," Dash scowled, hefting the M60E4 he'd opted to take as his own main defensive piece. "And by the time we add in the extra ammunition we're carrying, it's damn near as much."

"Yeah, just suck it up," Crash added. This was hardly a new argument. While Burn was in excellent shape for a man his weight, Dash and Crash had always been able to run rings around him. Of course, neither of them were half the accountant he was, which was a huge portion of the real reason that Team Impossible had managed to stay in the black, despite the free competition from Possible.

Burn didn't even bother looking at Adrena for sympathy. If he pushed hard he might be able to swing her to his side… but then again, she also had been insisting that they re-think their plan to completely skip the area once they had the chance to steal local transportation. Only the combined arguments of all three men working together had convinced her to keep heading with them towards the town south of the dam. "Yeah, well if those ninjas DO come after us, you're going to be glad we've got an area weapon."

"They're not going to come after us," Dash argued. "Not as long as Stoppable's in charge and we've got the rem…"

The huge explosion from behind them cut him off.

As one, they all turned back in the direction they'd been coming from. Was it their imagination, or could they already see a trickle of smoke on the horizon?

"Well," Crash deadpanned. "I guess they tried to get her out."

"Aw fuck!" Burn groaned, looking for the thin column of smoke that would mark the final passing of the SkyVixen. "How long 'til those ninjas can catch up with us?"

"Too damn soon," Dash growled, breaking into the long, loping stride that had given him his nickname. Adrena was on his heels in seconds, followed by Crash. It took Burn exactly that long to figure out that, burdened as he was with the flame thrower and his already heavier bulk, he was being left behind as a hopeful distraction.

"You mother fuckers!" He screamed, starting to plow forward through the snow and almost immediately falling flat on his face. He came up, gashed forehead bleeding and eyes filled with ice, but shoved himself back to his feet and started moving again. His so called partners were already gone, but their tracks were easy enough to follow in the snow. He'd catch up eventually and then…

He wasn't expecting the red headed explosion that slammed into him.

Burn croaked in horror as he found his air supply cut off by the rapid chop to his windpipe, and then even that was taken away as Bam! Bam! Bam! Three rapid punches, two to the gut, one to the face, sent him reeling.

"Sorry," Kim said, not looking sorry at all, "But I don't have time to hurt you as much as I'd like."

The last thing Burn was conscious of was a way-too-close crotch shot as Kim Possible's right foot slammed into his left cheek. He never even saw the packed snow that broke his fall and his nose.

Reaching into her utility pocket, Kim pulled out a seat belt cutter… specifically designed for cutting canvas straps, she'd had it as a backup since the HALO jump and had decided that it would be a far safer way of cutting off Burn's flame thrower than her lipstick laser. A quick slide over each side, pull, and the device was off. Three pairs of zip ties came out of the same pocket, secured Burn in a fashion almost identical to how they'd bound Bonnie. As a final touch, she activated a tracking dot and taped it to the small of the unconscious man's back. That left disposal of the flame thrower… she hefted it under one arm and set off in pursuit again. No doubt she could find a safe place to stash along the way.

"Wade," she subvocalized into her internal mic. "The flame thrower's out of the picture, so we're set as soon as I can ditch it."

"Got it. Wade growled inside her head. "They didn't seem real upset about Bonnie, did they?"

"No," Kim agreed. She'd been watching while in full stealth from a nearby treetop as Team Impossible slowly began to turn on itself. Any latent sympathy or reluctance about what she was about to do to them had disappeared with their complete lack of grief or even guilt. On the other hand, their little internal squabble was music to her ears. 'A house divided against itself cannot stand,' and all that, and she was definitely in the mood for a little house wrecking,

"No," Kim repeated, "They didn't. I think it's time to light the fire under their asses."

####################

Bonnie sat in the cab of the truck, shivering, as she looked at the remains of the helicopter. She wasn't even shivering from the cold anymore. No, this was anger. Pure anger. How many times had people already tried to kill her today? She'd completely lost track and it was only thanks to the mole rat that was currently nestled between her breasts that she'd managed to survive yet again.

He'd been trying to get her brassiere when her repeated cries of "Mgag! Mgag!" had finally made sense to him and he'd sprinted through the laser maze and up onto her shoulder. After puzzling over the locking mechanism for a few seconds, Rufus had opted for the simpler solution of gnawing through the strap and she'd finally been able to speak. THAT had allowed her to tell Ron that she didn't care if he was getting free peeks or not, but there was a panel beside her with explosive bolts. A few seconds later and one of the ninjas was relaying the advice to "Stay calm and not move" (as if she COULD, between the handcuffs and her muscles locking up) and then Ron's sword was amazingly cutting out the panel from the other side, with Rufus and the ninja relaying instructions to Ron when his sword started getting too close to a beam.

And then, just like that, they were easing her out the side of helicopter where Ron cut the handcuffs off of her. Then things had become a little blurry, though she remembered them intentionally blowing up the helicopter to keep whatever was inside it from falling into the wrong hands, and at some point someone had come up and given her a cup of hot chocolate and a Henchco jumpsuit to wear. The former had been the best thing she'd ever tasted, the latter had puzzled her for a moment until she noticed that several of the ninjas and another group of men who she eventually figured out were Global Justice Agents, were all pulling them on as well. No one had explained what was going on and she hadn't bothered to ask, yet. It was all like coming out of some very long, very bad dream, and still not being quite sure that the dream was over.

"How're you feeling?" the woman named Cyn asked, offering the thermos again… she was part of the Hovercraft team, if Bonnie recalled correctly.

"Like shit," Bonnie admitted, eagerly accepting the refill on the cocoa. "But at the same time, really, really good…" She fought for the right word and finally found it: "Safe."

"That's a good word," Cyn agreed, "Though we'll need to evac you and Rufus out of here before the next set of fireworks begins. But before we do that, there's someone who wanted to talk to you."

Bonnie followed Cyn's head nod to a figure dressed in a Henchco jumpsuit. Then did a double take.

"Hirotaka!"

The ninja's lingering question about whether his only American girlfriend would remember him was answered as she leaped into his arms. Rufus barely had time to leap free before being caught in a press most human males would have found enviable.