Author's Note:

Hi, nachonaco! I already had the synth Kims in my head before reading your work - although I was labelling them 'clones', which of course they're not.


"Why is it that you don't have to keep the contract, and I do?" Drakken was clearly annoyed, "We could have cloned you ages ago!"

"OK, OK. Dr D. One, it's the part of the contract that's relevant to me. Two, I didn't try to do it myself and end up creating some random clone that dissolved when you sprayed it with soda, and three, I can hurt you." Shego flared her hands in demonstration.

Drakken huffed. "I still don't get it," he started. But he was cut off.

"When you two are done having a hissy fit at each other, can we get down to business?" A voice floated up from the floor. Drakken and Shego looked down from their elevated position. Ron stepped into the circle of light on the floor, holding a bulky object in one hand. "Where's Kim?" He asked, apparently calm, holding the hyperspace vortex inducer at arm's length, "Release her to me, or I'll drop it." To himself, he really was nervous, though.

"No, you won't," came the reply, from Shego rather than Drakken. She stepped into the edge of the light, so that Ron couldn't quite see her. "You don't want anything to happen to your dear Kimmie, so you're not even going to suggest that again."

Far back in the shadows, Josh Mankey stood, almost leaning against a wall, waiting for his cue. Even farther back, Da Hand, of whom neither party was aware, was crouching in the darkest shadow he could find. 'Bluffing to a "villain",' he thought, 'now there's something that'll bring you unstuck fast.'

As another shadow passed him, he unsheathed a short knife, and handled it by the blade. Then the figure of the shadow became recognised to him - a familiar hero. He replaced his blade, just before he realised. He'd seen Kim taken into the police station handcuffed - that figure could not be her. She'd already reached Josh, though, and abruptly picked him up by the back of his collar - he hadn't even heard her approach. Rather than pick a fight, Da Hand simply shifted around so that he could get a better view of what Ron was doing

Back in the limelight, Ron was putting an effort into staring Shego down. "Where is she?" he asked again. "You have to tell me before-"

A voice he recognised interrupted him from behind. "Look what I found. Backup, I suppose?"

Ron turned suddenly. "KP?!" he exclaimed.

The apparent Kim was still holding Josh, who was now struggling to breath, by his collar. She dropped him on the floor, and then touched the back of his head. He collapsed to the floor with a sigh. Then she held up her hand, and Ron shrieked and did drop the vortex inducer to the ground. Her hand was flaring green. Two more Kim-like synths then appeared in the edge of the light.

"Isn't this precious?" Shego mocked from behind him, "Kimberleys, I know you'd like to have some fun, but it's important that these two are taken prisoner. Then when the real Kim finally gets here, if she does, we can party."

None of them were expecting what happened next. A streak of blue metamorphosed into a human next to Ron, and knocked him to the ground. Unsheathing the sword from his back, he blocked the first synth's attack, before letting go of the Claymore with his left hand and turning to stab the second synth with a short dagger, which he retrieved apparently from his left sock. It sank clean into her chest, and the synth dropped to the floor, dead. Disappearing the dagger again, the upwards momentum of his foot would have allowed him to kick the third synth hard in the face, had she not caught his leg. He tried to twist through with his other foot, but she had them both airbourne, and had wrapped her upper body around his leg before kicking him in the face.
She got him in the mouth, but to the synth's shock, instead of reacting like most people would, he bit down hard on her ankle, and folded his own knee up into her forehead before they both came down hard onto the ground. By sheer chance, the synth's head was between Da Hand's knee and the floor, and it was knocked unconscious. Anticipating what was coming, Da Hand replaced his hand on the sword's handle and narrowly made blocking Shego's attack, which still sent him and the synth flying across the room. Mid flight, he replaced the sword in its sheath, flipped and landed leaning against the wall. The synth's unconscious form, following slightly after, crashed into his ready arms, and he whispered a brief incantation. As Shego charged, he began to glow a silvery blue, and when she finally arrived she slashed through thin air that was glowing and jammed her hands into the wall.


Kim's eyes shot open as she was awoken by the sound of the front door of the station crashing open. She saw her new history teacher, holding in one arm what appeared to be her own body, dressed in her mission outfit, and realisation dawned.

"A clone?" she asked herself, standing and walking to the bars that held her.

"You have to release Kim," Da Hand advised the warden, panting, "Kids, trapped by Shego," he explained, odd breaks making his speech almost completely incoherent, "need her help."

"She is a suspect in a multiple-homicide case," the warden replied, "I can't release her."

Da Hand scowled at the warden, and hefted the synth's body onto the desk. "Listen, mister, she didn't do it. You know she didn't do it, I know she didn't do it, she knows she didn't do it, and this insult to creation knows damn well she didn't, because it probably did! Right now, Kim is needed to save a pair of teenagers that I don't think the world can particularly afford to lose. All you have to do is take your key and let her out of that cell, and everything will be fine and dandy."

The warden's glare hardened. "Alternately," he replied, "your barging in here, heavily armed as you are, entitles me to take that key and put you in there with her." He chose that moment to hold his sidearm up to Da Hand's face. "Step back from the counter, and place your hands behind your-"

A green flaming hand tore right through the warden's hand and crushed the pistol. The Kim-synth's eyes shot open as she stood up in one movement and pushed the warden against the wall behind him, pinning him by his neck, which stifled his scream and choked him.
In an equally swift, but not as complicated movement, Da Hand sliced his sword through from the synth's right shoulder to her left hip, and as the top of her body fell away, the warden fainted. In her cell, Kim dropped to her knees and retched.

Da Hand felt around the warden's neck to check for tissue or bone damage before taking out a small dagger, and cutting away the pieces of flesh that were burned to the broken pistol. He bandaged what was left of the warden's hand and stood up.

"What are you doing?" Da Hand turned around to see Inspector Hobble glaring at him. He simply pointed to the warden and broken synth in response.
Hobble looked at the warden, the two halves of the synth's corpse, at Kim's cell, where she was still on her knees, holding her stomach, in the case that she would actually vomit instead of dry-retching, and back to Da Hand, and silently mouthed "Oh."

Without a further word, the inspector took the cell keys from the hook on the wall, and opened Kim's cell. He took hold of her arm, and pulled her to her feet. Kim swallowed, closed her eyes, and set her balance. When she opened them, she was greeted with a simple, sincere statement.
"When you've finished, you better be able to give a good explanation for this." Hobble then picked up the warden and carried him to a back room in the station.

"I don't know whether to thank you, or scold you, Mr. Da Hand." stated Kim.

"Len."

"What?"

"Please, just call me Len. As in, short for Leonard."

"Len Da Hand, hey? That's even worse than 'Will Du'."

"Indeed. Right now, however, it's time to go and rescue your boys."

"My boys?" Kim's tone indicated that she was not impressed by what she heard as they exited the police station. They started to run towards Middleton Park, which fortunately enough took them past Kim's house.

"Shego and some blue guy have Ron and Josh trapped. There's more of those faux clones," he paused, "synths, you might call them, back where they are."

"The blue guy is Dr. Drakken. Theoretically, he's a genius-"

"Hence the synths?"

"No, he couldn't synthesise a stable lifeform if he gave up his 'evil genius'ing to solve that one problem. Also, as far as I know, Shego has a strict thing against him getting a hold of her DNA - you saw the synth's hands burning in there. That's Shego's 'glow' power."

"Seen? That one nearly ripped my leg off in their lair! Why are we stopping here?"

"Supplies." Kim said, walking up the driveway of her home.

They entered Kim's home, and Len followed Kim up to her room. She opened a closet and selected a backpack from a rack of about fifteen. "Considering your array of weapons, I presume you intend to go in guns blazing?", she asked Len, "figuratively speaking, of course."

"Already did that, so they'll be ready for it," he replied, "and I don't normally, anyway. If I have a choice, I prefer to avoid confrontations like that."

Kim replaced the pack and selected another one. "Stealth it is, then. Damn, where's the Kimmunicator?" she asked herself.

"Kim, is that you?" Wade's voice penetrated the darkness.

"Yeah," Kim replied, without looking up, "what's the sitch, and do you know where the Kimmunicator is?"

"It's, uh, in Drakken's lair...."

"That would probably explain how Ron and Josh were baited, then." Len surmised.

"Yeah, uhm, I fell for that one too," admitted Wade, "I kinda' contacted Ron directly. I should have checked if you were in your room, as well."

He winced in Kim's computer monitor when she flicked it on. "You what?" she scowled. Then her face relaxed. "I probably wouldn't have been there anyway. I spent the last 4 hours in a cell at the police station. Which is going to be tough to explain to my parents when they get home."

"Well, I shouldn't have dismissed the anomaly in your DNA scan, anyway. I thought it was residue from your super strength episode."

"Shego's glow power gene?"

Wade furrowed his brow. "Yeah, but there's something else as well. Looks like it's an entirely synthetic chromosome. I'm not quite sure what it is, but I'll tell you as soon as I know."

"OK. You remember my cellphone number, right?" Kim pocketed said device.

"Of course. Good luck." With that, Wade signed out.

Kim reached into another pack, and retrieved a grappling hook. She offered it to Len.

"Got that covered," he said, showing her the launching device strapped under his forearm that she'd previously assumed was yet another knife. She put the grappling hook down.

"Let's go, then."