Mission: Possible
Disclaimer: Alas not mine
Kimberly Anne Possible was tired of being followed. Kim didn't like being stalked on the best of days but today it was just intolerable. Everywhere, she and Ron went there they were; a tall handsome young man with dark hair and an eye patch that reminded her vaguely of the head of Global Justice and a young girl with long darkish hair. The girl she had ran into at school at first Kim had thought that perhaps she was a transfer student. Ok, so a transfer a week before summer vacation was unusual. Kim was hurrying to French class when she turned a corner and slammed into the new girl.
"I'm so sorry!" Kim gasped. "I was in a hurry." She knelt down and started to gather the books together.
"So I gathered. I'm Dawn." She offered by way of introduction.
"Kim Possible."
Dawn raised an eyebrow, "As in 'Call me, beep me, if you want to reach me.'"
"Ah, so you've seen my website?" Kim neatly stacked the books. Her eyes fell on the top book 'Vampires: A history of Bloodlust' by Kathryn Helsing.
"So you can do anything?" Dawn's cheerful voice seemed to be a long ways away.
Kim stared at the book, for the last few months she had had terrible nightmares about fighting and dying. Nightmares that she shrugged off, after all, a teenaged hero's job was never done- but this brought them into sharp focus. She grabbed the books up and shoved them into Dawn's arms. "Late for class. Gotta go."
That had been the first encounter. Later Kim had found that Dawn and the guy with the eye-patch were shadowing her. It was getting old.
Kim slid into a seat across from her best friend Ron Stoppable and, his pet naked mole rat, Rufus. Ron was doing something gross involving a naco and hot sauce. Kim nonchalantly pulled out her compact flipped it open and peered at the other customers and hey right on time. 'Dawn' and her companion entered Bueno Nacho apparently arguing about something.
"Do you think they're spies?" Ron inquired.
"What?" Kim said distractedly.
Ron sighed, "KP, do you think their spies? Like the janitor last month and the month before that and so on. It's not like it's never happened before; being asked for help by some government or another."
Kim nodded, "That is a distinct possibility." Her mind went back to the book and her very own freak out. What could be the connection? The Kimmunicator went off. "Hey, Wade, what's the sitch?" "You're not gonna believe this Kim," the boy genius replied. "You know that town that imploded?"
"Sunnyvale," Kim rubbed her forehead.
"Sunnydale, Kim, Sunnydale," Ron said as he fed Rufus.
Kim gave him a surprised look.
"It was on 'Unsolved Mysteries'," Ron expanded. "I know. My vast knowledge of weird stuff never ceases to amaze you."
Kim smiled at Ron.
"Continue, Wade." Kim said.
"That's were you're stalkers are from, Alexander Lavell Harris and Dawn Marie Summers of Sunnydale, California. You wouldn't believe the stats on this town. It has, well had, a murder rate larger than D.C.!"
Kim and Ron exchanged a look. Yikes!
"The most common cause of death according to the coroners was exstenuation."
There was a long pause.
Ron cleared his throat, "Isn't that death by extreme blood loss."
"You're not wrong," Kim grimly muttered to herself.
Wade pulled up the satellite pictures of the town collapsing. The town looked vaguely like a tub full of water with the plug pulled out.
"Hey!" Kim yelped. "Is that someone running on the roofs?"
"Let me zoom in," Wade frowned.
The camera zoomed in on what looked like a young blond woman carrying some odd looking weapon jumping from rooftop to rooftop trying to catch up with a fast moving yellow school bus; both were trying to escape the sinking town. What was interesting was the girl actually caught up with the speeding vehicle and jumped onto it. The bus then speeded out of town just before the entire thing collapsed. Wade had set the entire sequence to the 'Star Wars' theme.
"Epic," Ron breathed.
Kim was at a lose for words. She honestly didn't know what to think about this. It could wait. Immediate problems first. "What about Harris and Summers?"
Wade smiled, "The town might be gone... but not the internet records. Harris was a graduate of Sunnydale High. A graduate during the year the school exploded."
Ron raised a brow, "The school exploded?"
"Yeah, officially there was a gas leak but there's a lot of people who say that get this 'The mayor turned into a giant snake and tried to eat the graduating glass.'"
There was a longer pause.
"Harris," Wade continued and brought up a black and white photo, "was a member of the 'Crime Club.' It included Harris, W. Rosenberg, C. Chase, D. Osborn, and interestingly enough Dawn's older sister Buffy; I'll get back to that and who names their kid Buffy anyway? Also, it was hosted by a R. Giles school librarian and former curator at the London Museum."
Ron blinked in confusion, "Why would the curator guy be a librarian in some one Starbucks town?"
"You got me," Wade returned. "Anyway Harris's school records have him and his friends down as chronic trouble makers. Now what got me were their medical records. They're huge. Apparently, there was nary a week went by when someone didn't need medical attention."
"What about Dawn's sister?" Kim sipped her soda.
"I was getting to that," Wade said reprovingly.
"I think it's a demon," Xander said flatly. "A tiny, squiggly, pink, hairless demon."
Dawn looked up from her naco, "What?"
"That thing," Xander made what he thought was a stealthy gesture at Kim and Ron's booth.
"You mean Ron's pet? Xander, weird as it is, it's not a demon. I asked around- it's a naked mole rat." Dawn said patiently. The Hellmouth had made them all paranoid-a necessary survival trait for Sunnydale. It was sad really.
Xander glared at her, "Look at it. It's wearing a Hawaiian shirt and doing the hula!"
Dawn looked at it, "So it has your keen fashion sense and it's well trained. That does not make it a demon. Hey, I think Ron's what would happen if you and Andrew had a kid!"
Xander made a choking sound.
Wade's recital of life in Sunnydale had eventually made Ron turn green and push his food away. Stoppable had seen a lot of horrible stuff— in the course of being Kim's partner there was lots that he'd didn't tell his parents. South American Dictators could get nasty just for an example... but this? This was something that made ordinary crime fighting look like a walk in the park.
Wade also gave a brief history of each of the infamous, 'Crime Club' and their exploits. The kid genius was convinced that there was a lot missing from the files. Who where these people? And more importantly what did they want with Kim.
"It's so not a demon," Dawn gave Xander a exasperated gasp.
"Is so," Came the stubborn reply. Xander looked around. They had tracked Batgirl and the Boy Wonder to a stone quarry that looked suspiciously like the one used so often in the original 'Power Rangers.' Xander smiled grimly... it was a trap. The kids had decided that they'd had enough and set something up. It was sneaky, devious and entirely something he would do. This new slayer might just work out after all.
"Yerleep!" it was Dawn's familiar semi-shriek.
A moment later Xander followed with a manlier "yelp!"
A gentle breeze made the nets they were caught in to sway. The nets were tied to a tree.
Xander was unfortunate enough to wind up upside down; he could feel the blood rushing to his head. Just perfect.
"Well, looky, what we caught KP." Ron shouted out jovially.
"Kim," Dawn called out. She turned awkwardly in the net to peer at the super-teen. "It's Dawn, you met me yesterday."
Kim nodded, "I remember. Now why are you stalking me?"
"We have vays of making you talk," Ron did his best to look menacing. It didn't really work.
"Do you think you could let us down? We'll tell you why we're here. We're not dangerous." Xander said plaintively.
Dawn let out a snort at the 'not dangerous.'
Kim and Ron exchanged a look. A look that held a whole conversation; Dawn recognized that look. It was a look that the Scooby gang shared. Most of the time they just didn't need Willow's magic telepathy thing, they just knew what the others were thinking.
The drop was short with a sudden stop at the end. Xander was just glad that he had time to twist in a way that prevented him from landing on his head
"So what's the what?" Ron said as he clicked on a taser and pointed it at Xander.
As for Kim she simply folded her arms together and looked at the both of them.
"Destiny, vampires, killing of said vampires and other bad things, Kim's a slayer!" Dawn waved her hands about wildly.
Xander sighed, so much for not sounding like crazy people.
Ron pulled the taser back, "That was not at all anything we would have expected. Also not spies. I now owe Wade a dollar."
Kim gave the both of them her version of the hairy eyeball, "would you go through that once more and slower?"
The silence was long.
"You realize of course that we don't believe a word you say?" Kim asked after a moment.
There was another silence.
"I don't suppose you have a graveyard around? The creepier the better," Xander ventured.
"We're not crazy, I promise. And we can prove it to you," Dawn added.
The Kimmunicator went off with a series of perky beeps. Kim pulled it out of her pocket and flipped it open.
"What is it Wade?" "Kim, Shego has just broken into the National Guatemalan Museum. She's taken something called "the death mask of Ixtab."
Dawn drew in a breath, "The Suicide Goddess."
On the little screen Wade blinked, "That's right. The infamous Dawn Summers I presume?"
"Infamous?" Dawn blinked.
Xander shot her a look.
"Oh, yes, well, in certain circles I suppose I would be." Dawn said after a moment of thought.
Xander stifled a chuckle; Watcher Jr. sounded more like Giles everyday.
"Anyway," Wade went on, "In ancient Mayan civilization, the act of suicide was considered sacred. A one way ticket to heaven."
"Charming," Kim muttered to herself.
Ron was troubled, "why would Draken want with Mayan artifacts? Just not his style."
Wade pulled up some video footage, "Not Draken. Just Shego. And look at her! She's like an automaton. I don't think Miz. Glowy-Hands is doing anything of her own volition."
"The mask hath the power to cloud the mind. For Ixtab hath touched it with her power. It lives and desires to be reunited with its mistress. In correct blood rites it can call her forth. It hath the authority to compel willing sacrifices...bla bla bla ...I forget the rest." Dawn recited it in a strange eerie monotone that made shivers go down Ron's spine. He wondered idly if she was seeing anyone.
"A mask that does stuff. Where have I heard that before?" Xander asked the world at large.
Dawn shoved his arm lightly, "That year when Buffy came back. It made zombies remember."
"Vividly," Xander said dryly. "Hey, how do know about that mask anyway?"
"'Rites of Darkness' by Lilith Torlly. During research I've had to read it about a dozen times." Dawn replied.
"Take us with you," Dawn pleaded.
Kim gave her a dubious look.
"Look, I know you don't believe us. Just give us a chance to prove we're not crazy. The mask is dangerous and a lot of people will die if it's not stopped." Dawn was getting desperate.
Kim shook her head, "I don't know...magic masks?"
Ron gave her a wry look, "That's sounds as unlikely as oh, say, 'Mystic monkey powers.'"
"Sure, bring that up," Kim muttered.
Disclaimer: Alas not mine
Kimberly Anne Possible was tired of being followed. Kim didn't like being stalked on the best of days but today it was just intolerable. Everywhere, she and Ron went there they were; a tall handsome young man with dark hair and an eye patch that reminded her vaguely of the head of Global Justice and a young girl with long darkish hair. The girl she had ran into at school at first Kim had thought that perhaps she was a transfer student. Ok, so a transfer a week before summer vacation was unusual. Kim was hurrying to French class when she turned a corner and slammed into the new girl.
"I'm so sorry!" Kim gasped. "I was in a hurry." She knelt down and started to gather the books together.
"So I gathered. I'm Dawn." She offered by way of introduction.
"Kim Possible."
Dawn raised an eyebrow, "As in 'Call me, beep me, if you want to reach me.'"
"Ah, so you've seen my website?" Kim neatly stacked the books. Her eyes fell on the top book 'Vampires: A history of Bloodlust' by Kathryn Helsing.
"So you can do anything?" Dawn's cheerful voice seemed to be a long ways away.
Kim stared at the book, for the last few months she had had terrible nightmares about fighting and dying. Nightmares that she shrugged off, after all, a teenaged hero's job was never done- but this brought them into sharp focus. She grabbed the books up and shoved them into Dawn's arms. "Late for class. Gotta go."
That had been the first encounter. Later Kim had found that Dawn and the guy with the eye-patch were shadowing her. It was getting old.
Kim slid into a seat across from her best friend Ron Stoppable and, his pet naked mole rat, Rufus. Ron was doing something gross involving a naco and hot sauce. Kim nonchalantly pulled out her compact flipped it open and peered at the other customers and hey right on time. 'Dawn' and her companion entered Bueno Nacho apparently arguing about something.
"Do you think they're spies?" Ron inquired.
"What?" Kim said distractedly.
Ron sighed, "KP, do you think their spies? Like the janitor last month and the month before that and so on. It's not like it's never happened before; being asked for help by some government or another."
Kim nodded, "That is a distinct possibility." Her mind went back to the book and her very own freak out. What could be the connection? The Kimmunicator went off. "Hey, Wade, what's the sitch?" "You're not gonna believe this Kim," the boy genius replied. "You know that town that imploded?"
"Sunnyvale," Kim rubbed her forehead.
"Sunnydale, Kim, Sunnydale," Ron said as he fed Rufus.
Kim gave him a surprised look.
"It was on 'Unsolved Mysteries'," Ron expanded. "I know. My vast knowledge of weird stuff never ceases to amaze you."
Kim smiled at Ron.
"Continue, Wade." Kim said.
"That's were you're stalkers are from, Alexander Lavell Harris and Dawn Marie Summers of Sunnydale, California. You wouldn't believe the stats on this town. It has, well had, a murder rate larger than D.C.!"
Kim and Ron exchanged a look. Yikes!
"The most common cause of death according to the coroners was exstenuation."
There was a long pause.
Ron cleared his throat, "Isn't that death by extreme blood loss."
"You're not wrong," Kim grimly muttered to herself.
Wade pulled up the satellite pictures of the town collapsing. The town looked vaguely like a tub full of water with the plug pulled out.
"Hey!" Kim yelped. "Is that someone running on the roofs?"
"Let me zoom in," Wade frowned.
The camera zoomed in on what looked like a young blond woman carrying some odd looking weapon jumping from rooftop to rooftop trying to catch up with a fast moving yellow school bus; both were trying to escape the sinking town. What was interesting was the girl actually caught up with the speeding vehicle and jumped onto it. The bus then speeded out of town just before the entire thing collapsed. Wade had set the entire sequence to the 'Star Wars' theme.
"Epic," Ron breathed.
Kim was at a lose for words. She honestly didn't know what to think about this. It could wait. Immediate problems first. "What about Harris and Summers?"
Wade smiled, "The town might be gone... but not the internet records. Harris was a graduate of Sunnydale High. A graduate during the year the school exploded."
Ron raised a brow, "The school exploded?"
"Yeah, officially there was a gas leak but there's a lot of people who say that get this 'The mayor turned into a giant snake and tried to eat the graduating glass.'"
There was a longer pause.
"Harris," Wade continued and brought up a black and white photo, "was a member of the 'Crime Club.' It included Harris, W. Rosenberg, C. Chase, D. Osborn, and interestingly enough Dawn's older sister Buffy; I'll get back to that and who names their kid Buffy anyway? Also, it was hosted by a R. Giles school librarian and former curator at the London Museum."
Ron blinked in confusion, "Why would the curator guy be a librarian in some one Starbucks town?"
"You got me," Wade returned. "Anyway Harris's school records have him and his friends down as chronic trouble makers. Now what got me were their medical records. They're huge. Apparently, there was nary a week went by when someone didn't need medical attention."
"What about Dawn's sister?" Kim sipped her soda.
"I was getting to that," Wade said reprovingly.
"I think it's a demon," Xander said flatly. "A tiny, squiggly, pink, hairless demon."
Dawn looked up from her naco, "What?"
"That thing," Xander made what he thought was a stealthy gesture at Kim and Ron's booth.
"You mean Ron's pet? Xander, weird as it is, it's not a demon. I asked around- it's a naked mole rat." Dawn said patiently. The Hellmouth had made them all paranoid-a necessary survival trait for Sunnydale. It was sad really.
Xander glared at her, "Look at it. It's wearing a Hawaiian shirt and doing the hula!"
Dawn looked at it, "So it has your keen fashion sense and it's well trained. That does not make it a demon. Hey, I think Ron's what would happen if you and Andrew had a kid!"
Xander made a choking sound.
Wade's recital of life in Sunnydale had eventually made Ron turn green and push his food away. Stoppable had seen a lot of horrible stuff— in the course of being Kim's partner there was lots that he'd didn't tell his parents. South American Dictators could get nasty just for an example... but this? This was something that made ordinary crime fighting look like a walk in the park.
Wade also gave a brief history of each of the infamous, 'Crime Club' and their exploits. The kid genius was convinced that there was a lot missing from the files. Who where these people? And more importantly what did they want with Kim.
"It's so not a demon," Dawn gave Xander a exasperated gasp.
"Is so," Came the stubborn reply. Xander looked around. They had tracked Batgirl and the Boy Wonder to a stone quarry that looked suspiciously like the one used so often in the original 'Power Rangers.' Xander smiled grimly... it was a trap. The kids had decided that they'd had enough and set something up. It was sneaky, devious and entirely something he would do. This new slayer might just work out after all.
"Yerleep!" it was Dawn's familiar semi-shriek.
A moment later Xander followed with a manlier "yelp!"
A gentle breeze made the nets they were caught in to sway. The nets were tied to a tree.
Xander was unfortunate enough to wind up upside down; he could feel the blood rushing to his head. Just perfect.
"Well, looky, what we caught KP." Ron shouted out jovially.
"Kim," Dawn called out. She turned awkwardly in the net to peer at the super-teen. "It's Dawn, you met me yesterday."
Kim nodded, "I remember. Now why are you stalking me?"
"We have vays of making you talk," Ron did his best to look menacing. It didn't really work.
"Do you think you could let us down? We'll tell you why we're here. We're not dangerous." Xander said plaintively.
Dawn let out a snort at the 'not dangerous.'
Kim and Ron exchanged a look. A look that held a whole conversation; Dawn recognized that look. It was a look that the Scooby gang shared. Most of the time they just didn't need Willow's magic telepathy thing, they just knew what the others were thinking.
The drop was short with a sudden stop at the end. Xander was just glad that he had time to twist in a way that prevented him from landing on his head
"So what's the what?" Ron said as he clicked on a taser and pointed it at Xander.
As for Kim she simply folded her arms together and looked at the both of them.
"Destiny, vampires, killing of said vampires and other bad things, Kim's a slayer!" Dawn waved her hands about wildly.
Xander sighed, so much for not sounding like crazy people.
Ron pulled the taser back, "That was not at all anything we would have expected. Also not spies. I now owe Wade a dollar."
Kim gave the both of them her version of the hairy eyeball, "would you go through that once more and slower?"
The silence was long.
"You realize of course that we don't believe a word you say?" Kim asked after a moment.
There was another silence.
"I don't suppose you have a graveyard around? The creepier the better," Xander ventured.
"We're not crazy, I promise. And we can prove it to you," Dawn added.
The Kimmunicator went off with a series of perky beeps. Kim pulled it out of her pocket and flipped it open.
"What is it Wade?" "Kim, Shego has just broken into the National Guatemalan Museum. She's taken something called "the death mask of Ixtab."
Dawn drew in a breath, "The Suicide Goddess."
On the little screen Wade blinked, "That's right. The infamous Dawn Summers I presume?"
"Infamous?" Dawn blinked.
Xander shot her a look.
"Oh, yes, well, in certain circles I suppose I would be." Dawn said after a moment of thought.
Xander stifled a chuckle; Watcher Jr. sounded more like Giles everyday.
"Anyway," Wade went on, "In ancient Mayan civilization, the act of suicide was considered sacred. A one way ticket to heaven."
"Charming," Kim muttered to herself.
Ron was troubled, "why would Draken want with Mayan artifacts? Just not his style."
Wade pulled up some video footage, "Not Draken. Just Shego. And look at her! She's like an automaton. I don't think Miz. Glowy-Hands is doing anything of her own volition."
"The mask hath the power to cloud the mind. For Ixtab hath touched it with her power. It lives and desires to be reunited with its mistress. In correct blood rites it can call her forth. It hath the authority to compel willing sacrifices...bla bla bla ...I forget the rest." Dawn recited it in a strange eerie monotone that made shivers go down Ron's spine. He wondered idly if she was seeing anyone.
"A mask that does stuff. Where have I heard that before?" Xander asked the world at large.
Dawn shoved his arm lightly, "That year when Buffy came back. It made zombies remember."
"Vividly," Xander said dryly. "Hey, how do know about that mask anyway?"
"'Rites of Darkness' by Lilith Torlly. During research I've had to read it about a dozen times." Dawn replied.
"Take us with you," Dawn pleaded.
Kim gave her a dubious look.
"Look, I know you don't believe us. Just give us a chance to prove we're not crazy. The mask is dangerous and a lot of people will die if it's not stopped." Dawn was getting desperate.
Kim shook her head, "I don't know...magic masks?"
Ron gave her a wry look, "That's sounds as unlikely as oh, say, 'Mystic monkey powers.'"
"Sure, bring that up," Kim muttered.