Author's Note: First up, AT THE CENTERFOLD OF THE STORM just won TWO Fannie Awards: Best Mature Story AND Best Kigo! BooYahaha! Thanks to all of you who voted, and to everyone who's been reading this epic little fan obsession of mine... And before anyone even asks... yes, the next chapter, 56, is already in the works... Ye Old Legal stuff at de bottom!

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AT THE CENTERFOLD OF THE STORM

Chapter 55

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Sam's teeth were chattering so hard that he barely noticed the last vestiges of light disappearing behind the jagged mountains his transport had just missed coming in. As he splashed the final dozen feet to the snow-covered shore, the only thing he was aware of, and that dismally, was the fact that his waterproof blue thermal Hencho Cold Weather jumpsuit had proved to be nothing of the sort and he was completely soaked below the waist. The white all weather jacket he was wearing over that hadn't fared much better, but at least the woolen lining was still keeping his upper torso above freezing… and he'd only been one of the men pulling in the poor bastards who'd actually taken a swim. He'd never been colder or more miserable in his life, so he could only imagine what the henches they'd fished out were feeling… if they could feel anything at all through the early stages of hypothermia. But at least they hadn't lost anyone, as least as far as he could tell.

Yet.

So much for the notion that things were going to be better under Nane than Gemini. The hench mutter-net worked just fine and everyone knew that the entire landing could have gone even worse… and only the fact that Nane was willing to risk getting herself killed as well kept the anger from boiling into outright mutiny. That and the monstrous and ancient side-arm the woman had taken up as an adjunct to her umbrella, identified by those in the know as an artillery Luger or Lange Pistol 08, equipped with a 32 round Trommelmagazin. Gemini had almost wet himself when the woman had produced it out of her monstrous combat handbag, which seemed to be full of quite a number of reloads, as well as her umbrella, a generous helping of hand grenades and that nasty little mutt of their nominal employers, and there was no doubt on anyone's part that she knew all too well how to use with the same deadly efficiency with which she did everything else.

The whole gun thing was unnerving the henches as well. Sure, they'd all trained with them, but no one really expected to have to use them except for the occasional random shot at a fleeing hero or to supplement the monotonous diets that were so common at the more desolate and isolated henching posts. Truthfully, it was rare for more than a handful of henches to have anything more powerful than a taser rifle at once, yet right now Nane's entire force was armed with HA-47s, Henchco's slightly modified sub variant of the classic AK-47 assault rifle. No one knew what those modifications were, of course, but it probably had something to do with driving the price down rather than increasing reliability. And she was expecting them to be ready to use them. Potentially on other Henches.

That had come as the ugliest surprise of all. Sure, there was an unspoken tradition among henches that, should it ever come down to that, the intent would be to wound at worst, or simply shout 'Bang! You're dead!' if you caught the other party to rights, but an actual full scale conflict like this had never happened before, and between the fading light and the… zeal with which Nane was goading them on… one could only wonder if no mistakes would be accidentally made in the dark. And that was just with the henches on the Senior's side. The other major parties on the ground… no one had bothered to tell the henches on his level who the were if it was even known, wouldn't be party to any such agreements. And yet… Sam knew that if the choice were given to him, he knew who he'd rather go up against. Hench against Hench was just wrong, and he could only wonder what the end results of this amazing colossal nightmare were going to be.

It was a question he saw mirrored on almost every other face around him, the exceptions being those who seemed to be making some kind of prayers and the poor unlucky bastards who were already out of action.

"All right you maggots," Nane's voice called out of the night. "Form up in ranks. Three columns! We move in five!"

As Sam found himself shepherded into the strike team given the code name "Morituri," the others being "Kamikaze" and "Omega," he found himself staring at the incredible fires burning on the other side of the lake that had already tried to swallow him. The lake that he would soon have to cross again in the small inflatable zodiacs that were all a part of Nane's master plan.

A latin name. A ring of ice. A ring of fire.

Why did he have a feeling he already knew what he would find beyond those flames?

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"What the hell is wrong with you?" Dash demanded, the veins popping from his forehead as Adrena finally pulled her shirt off completely and dropped to her knees. The infurriating woman had been walking in an erratic pattern ever since she'd discarded the parka and bulletproof vest he was now carrying over his shoulder along with his own, and under any other circumstances he'd have just said screw the bitch and left her. Unfortunately, only she knew exactly how to contact the people running this nightmare, and if Dash couldn't contact them, he'd just effectively trashed everything Team Impossible had been able to build for nothing. And he couldn't carry Adrena too, not on top of all his other gear AND still be ready for whatever else Possible's allies might pull out of their technological asses.

"Get up and keep walking!" He shouted again, kicking snow at her in frustration.

"Why?" Adrena gasped, showing she didn't give a damn about what he was doing as she grabbed handfuls of the melting snow and began rubbing it over her body, now covered from the waist up in only a thin and completely soaked sports bra. "Haven't you figured out that they're going to cook us alive? Touch your damn zipper!"

Dash blinked and…

"Son of a bitch!" He exclaimed, letting go of the jacket closure he'd touched like it was on fire. Because it WAS. Well… more like superheated as if left out in the desert sun for hours, but still enough to leave the imprint of the teeth tingling across the inside of his fingers where they had started to scald…

Sweet Jesus, Adrena was right! Microwaves! The reason they hadn't seen any of the ninjas is because they were going to be cooked from the inside out instead…

No… no… even as pissed off as Possible's people were, they probably weren't going to kill them outright… probably… Not if Possible was still alive, anyway. But then why…?

"SHIT!" In seconds he was stripping himself… not of clothing, but of gear, because if it was metal heating up… He'd seen ammo go off in fires but, how hot did it have to actually be? 500 degrees or so normally… his guns couldn't get THAT hot, could they? Frustratingly, he couldn't remember… but he'd seen a guy set off a bullet just by hitting it the right way on the sidewalk.

And if the primers were being heated from the INSIDE…

The grenades were the first to go, chucked, pin-in, as far as he could beyond the biggest piles of rock he could see. With those gone, Dash hastily began ejecting every bullet and clip from every weapon in his entire collection, holding them out at arms' length just in case. He wasn't going forward without a gun… not with those ninjas out there… but he could at least play it safe by keeping the clips separated so if a bullet did blow, it wouldn't foul the weapon as well. And if he wrapped them in Adrena's discarded Kevlar vest, then shoved the whole kit into his backpack along with the blonde's now empty handgun, that ought to contain any rounds going off, right? The one thing he was pretty sure of was that if they went off while not in the chamber, the force would mostly blow out the sides… it would be really nasty if it went off in your hand, but not lethal… but the flak jacket they were wrapped in coupled with his own body armor should make it safe enough to carry. He thought.

His ears barely caught the multiple 'zzaaattt!s" from inside the machine gun's clip in time. Maybe it was the actual act of tossing the item over the next outcrop of rocks, coupled with the heating brass of the cartridges inside, but SOMETHING finally hit the bursting point and suddenly the self igniting primers were doing their best to turn the sparking clip into a Jiffy-Popgun! Holy fuck!

Suddenly Dash was feeling a lot less confident about carrying the backpack.

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"They've landed on the lake." Wade informed Kim quickly as she kept up her surveillance on the distant pair. "Three made it safe, one's going down…"

"Survivors?" Kim asked quickly, wondering if they were going to have to stage a rescue on their own attackers. It could be done but…

"Looks like no losses," Wade fortunately replied. "They may have lost some heavy gear, but they're forming up for something… and despite the accident, they look just as organized as the Widows. Maybe better."

"Damn," the Redhead swore to herself. Some days a girl just couldn't catch a break. And that meant that while the control freak in her hated it, the shortening timeline was going to force her to let something go. "Okay, Ron, I'm sorry, but you need to roll your part of the plan now with the back up and I'll try to catch up with you if I can."

"Right KP," the blonde ninja confirmed, "Wade, I need to run some things by you and Will, but we don't need to distract Kim with it."

"Opening a second channel for that conversation," Wade confirmed. "As for the rest of the sitch, it looks like Ralph's actually still got a group of the Widows still trying to put out the fire. Who does that guy think he is, you?"

"I'm sure as hell not going to complain unless he tries to wear my clothes," Kim returned, "Good help is hard to come by, however you get it. But what's Shego's stat…"

"I'm fine Princess," Shego jumped into the conversation, her image in Kim's visor looking a little smoked but grinning broadly. "But I'm afraid poor Camille was in the wrong place at the wrong time. At least a dozen men must have seen her engulfed by that fireball. With any luck, no one will be inclined to dig under the wreckage to see if there's anything left."

"And thus endeth the Trojan Horse game, Act 1," Kim nodded with a matching smile, "At least, until we need 'her' again. I assume you've gone to Trojan Two and have a way to cut out of there when the heat gets too hot?"

"As if it could ever get too hot for me," the green girlfriend snorted. "You're the one who cooks, cupcake."

"I know, I know. Just be careful, Hot Pants," Kim soothed, taking great pleasure at the stunned bulging of Shego's eyes.

"D…did you just call me Hot Pants?"

"Says the woman who just called me a pastry product," Kim managed a good approximation of a smirk. "And besides, you have to admit that that one rolls off the tongue pretty naturally."

"I'd comment on that if this wasn't an open channel."

"Well, if you don't like my tongue rolling…"

"Fine! Okay! I'll be carefull and you can call me hot pants!"

"Speaking of which," Wade inserted smoothly. "Do you think Team Impossible has cooked enough yet?"

"Funny you should mention that," Kim grinned toothily as she eyed the magnified image in her visor.

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"Get up damnit!" Dash screamed at Adrena as his last 'partner' continued to lie face down in the snow. "Get up and walk you goddamn bitch!"

Adrena didn't move. She barely even moaned, only the movement of her sides as she drew long, heavy breaths making her look alive.

Dash barely held back urge to kick the woman. The way his luck was running, he'd probably cave in her damned ribcage and then where would he be? Not that he had any reservations about hurting the blonde at this point… he fully intended to give her an intensive work over with some little tools he'd picked up from an ex-KGB interrogator if she didn't volunteer the information he needed voluntarily. But for now, he needed her able to walk, because he damned sure wasn't up to carrying her lazy carcass AND guarding against attack.

Now that he'd had time to think it through, he felt confident pretty confident with his second plan. Dumping out his walkie-talkie… it wasn't like he had anyone to talk to now anyway… he'd quickly re-purposed its hard leather, steel and plastic case into an improvised ammo box. Wrapping enough of the clips and magazines for a quick response into his ski mask, tossing in a handful of snow… a safe bet given that it would take weeks of soaking to affect them under normal conditions… he'd then stuffed the whole wad into the case. As long as he kept his heavy snow gloves on while handling them, they OUGHT to be safe enough for a quick reload.

At least until whatever new crap his opponents threw against him. No, THEM. At least until he could get the information out of Adrena, he had to keep thinking of them as a team. He had to.

Oh, FUCK it!

With a savage growl, he slung the one gun he'd kept at the ready, then reached down and grabbed the former TV star, tossing her over his shoulder like a sack of rice.

And several thousand yards away, a feral looking creature whose name had been Kim Possible smiled. "Wade…?"

"Uh, this is Tim, sis. Wade's on the other channel."

"Doesn't matter," Kim continued easily, slipping off all her superfluous gear with only a minor wince as her ribs seemed to flex inside her. "The thermometer's about to pop on the turkeys. Get ready to pull the plug."

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"Um, Dr. Director, ma'am, sir?"

Betty Director looked up at the face of Ron Stoppable, flanked by those of Wade Load and Will Du as they peered back from the bank of monitors in her mobile HQ from which she'd been monitoring the multiple unfolding situations surrounding Castle Senior and the cities beneath the dams. Needless to say, accessing this particular address from outside was supposed to be impossible, but where Wade Load was involved, that was a word that truly ceased to have meaning.

Not that she was complaining. So far, her Global Rescue counterparts' excellent intelligence team of Load and the two younger Possibles had done a spectacular job of helping her extremely limited local ground forces cope with the nightmarish task of staging a major evacuation while keeping the enemy forces less than a mile away unaware of the fact. Of course, since the eruption of the forest fire they'd had very little trouble getting the citizens in the nearest communities to start moving VERY quickly, and it appeared that the radio blackout that was being spread by the complex net of satellites and remote transponders on Global Rescue's two aerial assets was holding tight… aided no doubt by the fact that Senor Senior Junior, while definitely psychopathic, left quite a vacuum in the genius part of Evil Genius. Now that Sheldon and, according to her reports, his partner Nanny Nane had arrived, however, that situation was about to change radically.

If it hadn't already, she added mentally, noting the three worried looking faces on the monitor central monitor. Damn, all she really wanted was to get her own boots on the ground and DO something, but in the meantime it seemed the only thing constructive she could do was exude that aura of calm self assuredness that leaders are invariably supposed to project.

"Yes, gentlemen?" She smiled politely, exuding at full confidence level as she addressed Global Rescue's brain trust… minus 2.

"We have a question, ma'am," Will Du finally took center mic at Misters Stoppable and Load's apparent insistence. "About a certain issue that's come up… and under the circumstances we'd really rather not distract Kim or Shego over it until we've heard your opinion first."

Betty felt the brow over her good eye arch up of its own accord. Will Du NOT bucking to take charge and actually working as a coordinated unit with a pre-teen genius and… whatever it was that Stoppable was? Unbelievable. What WAS Possible putting in the Kool-Aid over there?

Oh yes, possibly a strong dose of reality. The head of Global Justice had known of the growing resentment by certain factions within GJ against what was seen as unwarranted favoritism towards Kim when it came to doling out prime missions, especially since the girl wasn't even an actual agent. Her subsequent 'gift' of the safehouse for Kim to stay in had raised even more hackles, but in the long run it had proved to serve perfectly for both of the purposes that she had intended. First, and most obviously, it had helped her mitigate some of the danger of the hero being taken out by assassins lying in ambush, but even more importantly, though far more subtly, it had also allowed a large number of GJ agents to actually witness both the sheer volume of missions that Kim went through and the incredible speed with which she executed them. As young as Possible was, she already had more field experience than most agents would have in their entire careers, and that was before adding in all her other rescues and anti-super villain activities. By cycling all her field operatives through a week or two of Possible-Watch, Betty had rather effectively cut all griping about Kim down to almost zero. Not only had her agents all been stunned by what they were seeing, leaving no one doubting the reasons as to why Kim was so often hand-picked for the most critical assignments, the level of respect for the girl within GJ had skyrocketed… which would have suited Betty's plans perfectly had she ever managed to snare Possible as an actual agent, and had certainly caused almost all thoughts of favoritism to go out the window. After all, only a crazy person with an... ahem... possible death wish could possibly want to live the life Kim Possible did.

Still… that DID describe Will fairly accurately as well, and given that she'd almost given up on salvaging the otherwise quite capable agent for higher responsibilities due to his arbitrary fits of pique and jealousy, the change was as impressive as it was welcome.

But she'd dawdled in her thoughts long enough. Time to see what the Y-chromosomed half of Global Rescue wanted.

"Just as long as you realize that I'm only offering an OPINION," Dr. Director smiled dryly. "I'll be glad to offer that…"

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One foot after the other, Dash kept moving forward, his mind focused on the mantra his old survival training instructors had impressed on him on the subject of surviving a death march. Besides the obvious 'Don't get stuck in one.'

'Ignore the weight' he commanded himself, step after step, 'Ignore the heat."

Hell, sometimes it even worked. The dead weight of Adrena on his shoulder still ground into his bones, but she was balanced by the guns on the other, and he could almost imagine that the sweltering heat that threatened to suck the air our of his lungs had cooled slightly…

No… wait… DID it actually feel a little cooler?

He heard the sound and threw Adrena one way and himself the other just in time… except it was a fraction of a second too late, because what he'd thought had been some kind of weapon was actually an anti-weapon… Possible's damn grappler! Whipping in like cobra, it unerringly struck the one gun he'd kept at the ready, the machine pistol, and jerked it from its holster before snaking back into the darkness. Dash's eyes could barely followed the blurring shape against the mottled fields of ice encrusted trees and snow covered rock, but it was easy enough to find the target at the end of its trajectory.

"Hey Dash," Kim Possible smiled from her position atop a nearby pillar of rocks… his gun now in her hand. "Been a while."

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Kim watched as Dash took in her position and the fact that she definitely had him covered… but she also knew that he knew that, if push came to shove, she'd shoot to wound. Would he risk that? It seemed like a bad idea but…

The irritating thing, unfortunately, was that if she was in his shoes, she'd definitely try something. And unlike her, she doubted he'd have much compunction about using Adrena's unconscious form as a human bullet stop. But she'd had time to anticipate the various ways how this would play out.

"Okay, here's what we're going to do. First, I want you to move away from Adrena… very slowly…"

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"And then, I want you to start tossing all of your weapons," the redhead in the painted on black and purple bodysuit ordered, "Plus that cute little ammo holder you made, as far as you can in my direction."

Dash gnashed his teeth. How long had the bitch been watching them? How many of the tricks he'd set up did she know?

Well, the one thing he DID know was that he wasn't letting the cheerleader take him. Not with all the evidence they would already have found… the theft of the SkyVixen alone would send him to rot in some federal camp for a couple of lifetimes. And while she was hiding it well, his experienced eye could see that she was moving just a little slowly and trying not to favor one side.

He could take her. He knew he could. And then the whole stupid fiasco would pay off.

"Fine," he lied out loud, carefully rising with his hands held in plain sight and slowly moving a dozen yards to his left… Possible's right… and cautiously reaching for the straps holding the machine gun on his back, his currently worthless M60E4. Although the weapon was his personal favorite, and while the magazines were among the few he'd decided to keep, they were also unfortunately buried in the bottom of his backpack surrounded by the Kevlar vests. On the other hand, the clip for the NEXT weapon he was going to go for, the R5 assault rifle originally chosen for Adrena, was right to hand in his little belt-box.

"Okay, I'm tossing the machine gun," he announced out loud, making a show of holding the weapon in way that would make it impossible to use quickly, then tensing and trying not to cringe as the trusty weapon flew a dozen feet and hit a rock under the snow with a nasty clank. He looked up at Possible, but she didn't seem to have moved, her eyes still watching him impassively.

"Keep going."

"Right," Dash nodded, preparing to unsling the R4. He'd have only seconds here, but…

"Wait!" Possible commanded. "The ammo box next."

Shit! She must have read something in his body language. He'd attached the box to Adrena's utility belt and then looped it loosely around his waist, so he'd be able to pull the whole thing off in a hurry if the ammo did go… but that meant the simple act of unfastening his belt would leave him stripped of ready ammunition. With gnarling fingers, Dash reached for the buckle… and then realized what a chance this had just given him.

"Hold on, it's stuck…" He began, then before she could react. "No, it's…"

And on what WOULD have been 'fine,' he bolted, leaping to one side, sliding the R4 around and off his shoulder with one hand while flipping open the box and grabbing the 35 round magazine, rolling as he clipped it in and came up firing.

At someone who wasn't there.

"What the…?" He gasped.

And then Kim's boot kicked him in the chin as she suddenly appeared next to him like a ghost, and the R4 was flying out of his hands. Holy crap! She'd kicked him, whirled and kicked him again, so fast that he'd barely been able to see it!

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Dash was tough and fast, Kim had to give him that. That first kick would have laid most men out cold, and he might have even got the drop on her, if she'd actually stayed where she was instead of rolling a fixed loop of herself in that position while slowly backing away behind the rocks and then circling around to the side under camo-mode. But, of course, she had and he hadn't. That left her with the gun and him with none.

Hardly fair.

Then again, she'd had a beef with this guy since he'd first shown up trying to intimidate a tiny little cheerleader who was just trying to save the world.

"Get up." She ordered and watched as he rocked back up to his feet, seemingly barely worse for wear besides the split lip and the rising welt in the shape of her size 7 foot slowly rising across the lower part of his face. "Pack. Off. NOW."

With a look of pure hatred, Dash complied, tossing the backpack away.

And then his jaw dropped as she took his gun and followed suit, throwing it as far as she could into the trees.

"A long time ago, you said that you could take me," She purred, taking off her helmet. "Let's see if that's true."

And then Kim Possible went to work.

To be continued… AND HOW!

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Ye Old Legal stuff: Kim Possible, Shego, Wade Load, Ron Stoppable, Jack Hench, Camille Leon, Senor Senior Jr., Nanny Nane,Gemini, Adrena Lynn, Dash, Crash and Burn aka Team Impossible, Will Du, Jim and Tim Possible AKA the Tweebs, 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 Sam Jackson (no relation), Ralph Emerson Shepherd, 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.