TheFourthman: I have no specific plans for other heroes at the moment.
Forlong: If memory serves, yes, it is.
Visigoth29527: Your question is answered here.
Thanks to: Triaxx2, mattb3671, daywalkr82, campy, GargoyleSama, captainkodak1, Wanderer3, MatthewC, Darkcloud1 and Alan Wilkinson.
Kim ran straight toward the giant warbot Senor Senor Senior was piloting - in the middle of his own house, no less - her eyes narrowed in concentration, her grapple gun in one hand. She had to time this just right...
The middle-aged billionaire lately turned super villain was facing the wrong way, at first. He must have picked her up on the 'bot's sensors, though, for the upper half of the machined pivoted until it, Senor Senior, and the 'bot's weapons were pointed in her direction.
"Ah, my youthful adversary," Senor Senior began, his smooth, cultured tones echoing from speakers on the 'bot and elsewhere around the ornately decorated main hall of his island mansion, "You are brave, I give you that, exposing yourself to my weapons so."
A cold but amused, smile flickered across Kim's face. While Senor Senior yakked instead of firing, Kim closed the range to just where she wanted to be. Her grapple gun, guided by her rock steady aim, sent a three pronged hook sailing up into the ceiling over Senor Senior's head.
"You missed, my dear," the villain taunted.
"Not quite," Kim jeered back.
Senor Senior's expression shifted, ever so slightly. Kim felt the now familiar tightness across the back of her head. Faint grinding and creaking noises reached her ears; the sound, she guessed, of the moving joints and tendons of Senor Senior's trigger fingers.
The warbot was armed with two short-barreled twenty millimeter auto-cannons, one in each arm, and an automatic grenade launcher on each shoulder. Kim shifted the focus of her listening to them. The instant she heard the clicks of the trigger mechanisms, she leapt up and to one side.
Senor Senior gasped in astonishment as the stream of explosive projectiles he'd unleashed passed through empty air to wreak havoc on the polished marble floor of the chamber. His eyes flicked up, following his enemy, his weapons tracking after her. Grenades and cannon shells blasted holes in the wall, obliterating priceless and irreplaceable paintings and statues. The chain of explosions filled the air with flying debris.
Kim's arc brought her to the wall. Gathering her legs she kicked off again, gaining altitude and speed. The high strength line from her grapple gun wrapped around one of the columns supporting the ceiling, bringing her around sharply and increasing her speed even more. Suddenly Senor Senior and his warbot were in sight again, with Kim hurtling down at it. She saw the eyes of her adversary widen in shock and surprise. Then Kim's booted right foot tagged one of the grenade launchers with a ringing clang.
Pressing a lever to cut the line, Kim dropped to the floor and started running away.
"A noble effort, Kim Possible," Senor Senior called after her. "Alas for you, it failed." He took aim at the retreating back, right between the shoulders, and fired.
What Senor Senior had failed to notice was that Kim's kick, which naturally should have done no harm at all to the grenade launcher, had severely distorted the barrel. When the weapon fired, the result was catastrophic. The first grenade wedged in the barrel. With no where to go, the trapped propellant gasses blew the breach out - and triggered the sympathetic detonation of the next grenade in the feed queue, which triggered the next...
Kim heard the flat crack of supersonic projectiles zipping past her, then the sharp booms of the guns that launched them, then the lower rumble of slow moving grenades. Something hit her in the back, hard enough to send her tumbling, then a deafening roar filled the hall. Kim lay flat, arms over her head, as shockwaves and hot gas washed over her and debris flew everywhere.
When things quieted down Kim opened her eyes and looked around. The hall was a mess, but seemed to be in no danger of collapsing. Standing, she brushed herself off and turned to look for Senor Senior. The warbot was still standing, amazingly enough, but its torso was gutted. The cockpit module looked intact, but there was no sign of movement from the occupant. With an ease that still disturbed her, even though it no longer surprised her, Kim ran a few steps and jumped up the fifteen feet to the 'bot's shoulder.
There was an emergency release, and Kim activated it. The canopy opened. Senor Senior was slumped in the seat, blood trickling from his nose and mouth. His heart was beating steadily, though, and his breathing seemed normal. Apparently he wasn't hurt too badly. Unbuckling him, Kim dragged the unconscious man clear. Cradling him in her arms she jumped lightly to the floor.
Once down Kim repositioned her foe to make it seem like she was half carrying, half dragging him, then keyed her Kimmunicator.
"Ron, I've got Senor Senor Senior. How are you and Rufus doing?" she asked.
Ron's grinning face popped up on her screen.
"Boo-yah!" he exclaimed, pumping a fist. As Kim smiled Ron turned his own Kimmunicator so she could see, all the while giving a triumphant voice over commentary.
"The Senors' plan to obliterate Rome with a giant particle beam unless Europe surrendered to them is, in a word, toast!" Ron proclaimed grandly. An image of a huge, twisted pile of smoldering metal confirmed that fact. "And we'll be home in time for the Homecoming Dance."
Kim grinned. Ron, ever irrepressible, was stoked about the dance. As usual the two of them were going together, sophomore Josh Mankey, dreamboat that he was, having not yet deigned to notice fifteen year old freshman Kim Possible (the fact that she was unable to utter so much as word in his presence contributing significantly to that problem).
"What about Junior?" Kim inquired. Ron chuckled.
"Rufus took care of pretty boy," he snickered. "Seems Junior has a thing about small hairless mammals." Another turn of Ron's Kimmunicator showed a tall, muscular man in his early twenties...huddled in a corner, gibbering in terror at the tiny pink form of a naked mole rat.
"Nice work, boys," Kim said with a congratulatory smile. "I'm on my way. See you in a few."
While the Senors' were being hustled aboard a Spanish Navy helicopter for their ride to the mainland and a Global Justice cleanup crew started sweeping the Senors' private island for evidence, Kim drew Ron aside.
"Would you take a look at my back?" she asked in a hushed voice. "Something hit me there during my fight with Senor Senior. It tickles a bit, like it's bleeding."
Moving behind her Ron immediately saw the spot Kim was talking about.
"Well," he said, keeping his voice low, "There's a hole as big around as a tennis ball in your shirt, and a little dried blood here." Kim felt something wet brush across her skin, probably one of Ron's fingers. "Just a pinprick," Ron declared. Then, "Just a sec, here." Kim felt a tug at the hem of her shirt, one of the long sleeved, midriff baring ones she always wore on missions. Kim had noticed a kind of scratching sensation back there, but her clothes and hair were still so full of bits of debris that she'd hadn't paid it any mind.
When Ron was done doing whatever it was he'd been doing, Kim turned to face him. In his hand was a lump of dull yellow metal and a few fragments of similar material.
"What is that?" she asked.
Ron looked up at her, his eyes full of wonder. Kim felt uneasy, as if she knew she wasn't going to like what he was about to say. Of all people, Ron was the only person who knew the true extent of her remarkable abilities. He was her best friend, after all. She had to have someone to confide in, and for some reason Kim wasn't keen on letting her parents know, even though she was pretty sure they suspected something.
"I think," Ron said hesitantly. "I think," he repeated, with emphasis on the 'think'. Ron swallowed nervously. Rufus, sensing something amiss, crawled out of the pocket he'd been dozing in and scampered up to Ron's shoulder.
"Out with it, Ron," Kim urged, her voice trembling.
"Out with it," Rufus squeaked in agreement. He hated to see his human friends upset.
"I think this is the tungsten penetrater rod from a twenty millimeter armor piercing cannon shell," he said quietly.
"It had to be a ricochet," Kim said firmly. Desperately, "It had to be."
"Maybe," Ron conceded, not sounding convinced.
"Oh, God," Kim choked, a shudder running through her slender frame. As a tear spilled down from one eye Ron slipped his arms around her waist and drew her in to a gentle hug. Kim buried her face in his shoulder, sobbing quietly.
"What's happening to me, Ron?" she asked with pleading eyes when she finally looked up at him.
"I don't know, K.P.," he apologized. She looked at him, her lower lip quivering, fresh tears welling up in her eyes. Ron drew her in again and held her while she wept. "I don't know," he murmured softly. As he comforted Kim, Ron's mind considered the implications. If he remembered the briefing about the warbot correctly, that rod would have been able to punch through an inch of steel armor at a thousand yards. No unarmored human could have survived such an impact, not on the torso anyway. But Kim had. So what did that say about her?
"What's up with those two?" the second in command of the GJ team asked his boss, gesturing at Kim Possible and her sidekick.
The man in charge glanced over. "Post-combat let down, I'm sure. Happens to everyone."
His underling looked skeptical. "Should I tell them to see the psych boys?" he asked.
"Nah," the boss answered. "They're young, they'll be fine."
Andrew Lipsky opened his eyes and winced as too bright light stabbed into them. Every muscle in his body ached, and his skin itched like mad. He couldn't muster the will to scratch, though. Keeping his eyes slitted against the glare, Lipsky painfully turned his head from side to side. He could just make out an IV stand to his left. To his right was a blurry shape that might have been one of his henchmen.
"Water," he croaked, his mouth and throat dry as dust.
The shape moved, and a man who was indeed one of his henchmen leaned over him.
"What was that?"
"Water," Lipsky repeated.
"I'll get you some," the man said, turning away. Lipsky soon heard the sound of water pouring into a glass. There was a pause, and an electronic crackle.
"What is it?" Shego's voice demanded testily.
"He's awake," the henchman said.
"I'm on my way." Shego's voice was suddenly all business.
The cool liquid, sweet as any nectar, seemed to soak instantly into parched tissues as the henchman slowly tipped the glass farther and farther. Lipsky drank eagerly, and soon the glass was empty.
"More," he demanded.
The henchman hesitated. "Shego said..."
"What did I say?" Shego demanded as she strode into the room.
The henchman flinched. "You said not to give him too much water too soon," he explained hastily, holding up the glass.
Shego frowned, in thought rather than anger. "One more won't hurt, but it'll be all for the moment," she said finally. While the henchman scurried to comply, Shego crossed the small chamber. It was cross between a hospital room and a doctor's exam room. Lipsky lay on a bed centered on one wall, surrounded by monitors and other equipment. Various medical instruments were racked nearby, above a cupboard with a countertop and a small sink. Shego selected several of them, placing them in the pockets of the green and black jumpsuit she'd designed, then went to Lipsky's side.
"How do you feel?" she asked pleasantly.
"Terrible," Lipsky murmured. He would have giggled, he didn't have the strength. Shego had slipped into the role of 'friendly, concerned doctor' effortlessly. She had a medical degree, and had done her residency while working on her PhD. She had never gotten her license, nor had a practice, but she knew the drill. That had been immensely helpful when the two of them had gone as far as they could with mice and naked mole rats and been forced to move to human testing. Shego was far better at reassuring the homeless people kidnapped as research subjects that, no, they hadn't fallen into the clutches of a murderous mad scientist, but they had contracted a rare disease, and were in a special clinic set up to treat them. Shego had played the role so convincingly that almost all of them had willing gone along with any procedure she suggested, even the final one. It stood to reason, after all, that if you autopsied the ones who died from your experiments to find out what killed them, that you would want to know why the ones who survived had lived. And no matter how reassuring Shego was, Lipsky had yet to meet anyone who would willingly undergo dissection, so...
"That's understandable," Shego said with a smile. She stuck an electronic thermometer in his ear.
"Hmmm, still running a fever," she murmured. She pulled an otoscope from the pocket where she had stowed it, fitted a small black cone to it, and peered into his ears, then up his nostrils. She looked into his eyes with yet another instrument, then at his throat. Generally, she poked and prodded him for a good quarter of an hour, asking numerous questions and noting his answers on a chart.
When she seemed to have finished Lipsky jested, "Well, Dr. Gogh, will I live?"
"I think you will," Shego joked back. Then she became serious again. "I think I'll put you on a light schedule for a week or ten days, to give the changes time to finish up." She gave him a firm look. "That means no lab time, regular meals, and plenty of sleep, got it?"
"Yes, ma'am," Lipsky answered meekly.
"I'll get you some lotion for the itch, but we'll hold off on painkillers, if you can tolerate it. They might interfere with the regeneration process your brain is undergoing."
Lipsky nodded. Unlike Shego, who craved physical power, Lipsky had opted to augment his mental acuity. "I want to be the greatest intellect on the planet," was how he'd put.
Shego, in that maddening way of hers, had pointed to the numerous citations and prize certificates on his walls, as well as the magazine covers and newspaper articles. "A lot of people already think you are," she'd said.
"I want it to be an undisputed matter of fact, not an opinion held by a mere majority."
"Did it work?" Shego's voice brought Lipsky back to reality. He pondered the matter.
"I don't know," he said finally. "It's kind of hard to gather my thoughts."
"Give it time," Shego suggested. "In the meantime, we'll keep an eye out for other side effects." She clamped her hand over her mouth instantly, but still too late.
"Other side effects?" Lipsky half asked, half demanded.
Shego took a breath, glanced about nervously, then opened a drawer and pulled out a hand mirror. She held it out so Lipsky could see his face.
"Oh my!" he exclaimed softly. "Oh my." He'd turned blue. And not a nice blue, like ultramarine or azure. A dead, corpse-like blue.
"Oh my," he repeated.