Visigoth29527: I got that bit from the episode 'Monkey Fist Strikes'. I tweaked it a bit, but the scene basically plays out the same way, which I thought was a neat coincidence.
MatthewC: Your prediction is addressed here, hopefully to your satisfaction.
Thanks to: campy, GargoyleSama, Alan Wilkinson, daywalkr82, Triaxx2, ron-sama, The Fourthman, Cold-Chaos, I should be Studying, Spyke the Hedgehog, Wanderer3, and Salimoo.
Now for a shameless plug/shout out: mattb3671. I was massively inspired by his take on the mystical monkey power. If you haven't read his story 'The Biggest Mission Ever' I suggest you do so. It is really, really good.
"Mom, Daddy," Kim began hesitantly. She was sitting on the couch in the living room of the only home she'd ever known. Her parents were sitting on an other couch, facing her, their eyes and faces suddenly troubled, as if they knew what was coming.
The only man Kim had ever called father smile reassuringly and said, "What's bothering you, Kimmie-cub?" The relaxed facade didn't fool Kim, not completely any way. She heard the sudden up-tick in the tempo of his heartbeat. As Kim watched, her mother's hand found it's way onto her father's, clasping it gently.
When she hesitated again something similar happened to Kim. A familiar hand found hers, fingers lacing, the touch calming. Kim turned briefly and sent a thankful smile at Ron, who was present at her request for this very reason - he was the one who gave her the courage to 'do anything'.
'Anything,' Kim mused as she turned back to her parents, 'like ask the question that's been rolling around in my head for so long.' Kim suppressed a shudder. A wise man had once said, "Don't ask questions you'd rather not know the answers to." Now she was about to do what was probably the scariest thing she'd ever attempted, and possibly turn her world upside down in the process. Kim took a deep breath.
"Who am I?" she asked.
Her parents glanced at each other before her father answered.
"You're Kim Possible, our daughter," he said calmly.
"The way your heart started racing when I asked suggests there's more to it than that, Daddy," Kim said, a hint of accusation in her voice. "And before you say anything, I know it sped up, because I can hear it."
Her parents' faces became unreadable. Surprise, disbelief, incredulity, even fear. Kim thought she saw traces of all those emotions, and more.
"And my hearing isn't the only thing that's different about me," Kim plowed on. "Ron?"
"Kim and I snuck into the school last night and did some research in the weight room," Ron announced.
"And what did you find out?" Mr. Dr. Possible asked, the calm in his voice clearly feigned now.
"We started with the bench press," Ron expounded. "The biggest bar the school has will hold eleven plates on each end. Kim did ten repetitions on that with no effort at all."
"You're being dramatic, Ronald," Mr. Dr. Possible accused. "How much weight are we talking about?"
"Just over a thousand pounds," Ron stated flatly. Kim's father blinked, while her mother gasped.
"Then," Ron continued, "Kim took the same set-up and tried barbell curls." Ron mimed lifting the bar with both hands and curling it to his chest. "Again, ten reps, no trouble."
"So then Ron had me do some one handed curls," Kim weighed in. "The hardest part about that was keeping the bar balanced."
"Although Kim did admit that it was 'a little heavy'," Ron added.
Mr. and Mrs. Dr. Possible were sitting frozen in place. Ron threw another straw on the camel's back.
"I estimate Kim's maximum bench at around eight thousand pounds, minimum."
"That's four tons, Daddy, and I don't even exercise," Kim said softly. "How can I do that? How can anyone do that?"
Kim's parents looked at each other. An unspoken conversation passed between them, before they nodded at each other and turned back to Kim.
"Your mother and I have spent a lot of time talking about how we were going to handle this day, if and when it finally came," Mr. Dr. Possible said, smiling sadly. "I guess the best way is to just take the plunge." He paused, cleared his throat, and looked Kim right in the eye.
"Kimmie, you aren't our natural born daughter," he said simply.
Despite the fact that she'd been sort of expecting to hear that, the admission still stunned her.
"But I have a birth certificate," she protested feebly.
"Only because the circumstances in which we found you allowed us to pass you off as our own," Kim's mother explained.
Kim's mind whirled as she tried to understand what had just been said. In some desperation to put her thoughts in order Kim latched onto a part of what her mother had said.
"Wait, wait, you found me?" Kim sputtered. "You found me at a campsite at Lake Middleton?" Then, "I was abandoned?"
Kim's mother crossed to where her daughter sat and knelt down in front of her, reaching out to take Kim's free hand.
"Kim," Patricia said soothingly, "Your parents, your biological parents, they didn't abandon you. They sent you here to save your life from a disaster."
"They sent me to Middleton?" Kim asked, her voice quavering, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. Kim saw her father shake his head.
"They sent you to Earth, Kim," he said.
Kim leaned heavily on Ron, glad once again for his presence. She was sure her parents would have supported her if Ron wasn't around, but to be honest, she wasn't exactly sure how she felt about her parents right at the moment. They were in the basement, having been led there by her father after his startling proclamation. He'd said there was something Kim needed to see down here, and Kim found herself wondering, a bit numbly, where it was hidden. After all she and Ron, and later she and her brothers, had explored every nook and cranny of the basement. Hadn't they?
Apparently not, for her father walked up to a completely solid wall and began touching it in various places.
"I put this room in after we found you, Kim, because I couldn't very well keep this in the garage," her father said.
A large section of the wall sank back, then split in two down the middle, the halves sliding to either side. Behind the false wall was a large, brightly lit room. Sitting square in the middle of it was a black, arrow head shaped...thing...standing on three thin legs. Mr. Dr. Possible walked up to it and touched some symbols etched into the thing's side. There was a whirring sound, and a panel opened on the upper surface. Almost against her will Kim stepped forward. A small compartment, barely the size of a laundry basket, lined with blankets, filled her eyes. Kim's mother joined her and gestured at the compartment.
"That is were we found you, Kim," was all she said.
Kim swayed slightly, unable for the moment to form a coherent thought, let alone speak. She felt Ron's hands tighten as he steadied her.
"There will be a blue light," James warned as he fiddled with more symbols. "It will paralyze you, but only for a few seconds. I think it's some sort of brain scanner."
A second, smaller panel opened and a silvery object rose up out of it. A blue light filled the room, overriding the cold white of the fluorescents. As Kim's father had warned, she found herself unable to move. Oddly, though, the blue light was comforting. Then, an image sprang into existence.
A man. Tall, distinguished looking, with thoughtful if somewhat troubled blue eyes and hair who's color matched Kim's exactly. A woman appeared beside him, and Kim saw her own face and eyes looking back at her.
"I am Jor-el, your father," the man said. Or seemed to. Kim thought she heard his voice inside her mind. Certainly, when his lips moved they didn't match the words she was hearing.
"And I am your mother, Lara," the woman joined in.
The man reached out, ghostly fingers brushing at Kim's face.
"Kara," he said, very softly, his eyes glistening. "Kara, my daughter," Jor-el went on, his voice breaking slightly. "You are the last survivor of the planet Krypton. By the time you see this recording, we," he said, gesturing at Lara, "will have been dead for many years, along with the rest of our people." A new image appeared, of a planet swathed in oceans and wreathed in clouds, whose continents were clearly not those of Earth.
"Behold the world of your birth, the planet Krypton," Jor-el said. "And its end." The image changed. Ribbons of fire became visible on the surface. The image shrank, as if the camera were moving rapidly away. More and more of the planet was covered with fire and then...
...it exploded.
The image of the cataclysm faded, and Jor-el spoke again.
"Within the memory systems of this ship are stored the accumulated knowledge of Krypton: our culture, our history, our science. Everything we knew."
Lara took up, "We now bequeath it to you, Kara. You are our legacy. We, and Krypton, will live on in you. Don't forget us." Lara's voice took on an edge of quiet desperation. "Don't let the universe forget us, that we existed, that we mattered." Jor-el laid a hand on Lara's shoulder and she fell silent.
"Kara," Jor-el said after a brief silence, his voice once more heavy with emotion, "your mother and I loved you very much. On Earth, as it would have been on Krypton, I know you are destined for greatness. Make us proud, last child of the House of El."
The image faded.
Tears were streaming down Kim's face. Her mother's too, though Kim didn't notice. Her fathers eyes were brimming.
Kim turned, twisting out of Ron's grasp. She bolted out of the room and up the stairs.
"Kim!" Ron and her father exclaimed as one, each moving to follow her.
Patricia stopped them with a look.
"Let her go," she said. "Kim needs to think this over. Give her the time and space to do it."
Ron climbed the hill behind the Possible home. It had been several hours since Kim had run off. For Ron the wait had not been easy. He was worried about his friend, and had spent the beginning of his wait pacing nervously. That had finally gotten on Mrs. Dr. Possible's nerves. Almost out of desperation, Ron had then tried meditating to pass the time. He'd learned the technique at the Yamanouchi School in Japan, where he had recently spent a short but very memorable time learning the ways of the ninja and how to control and use the mystical monkey power he'd been exposed to in the home of crack-pot archeologist Lord Monte Fiske. To be honest, he hadn't learned all that much, just the very basics, really.
'I really need to go back there,' he'd told himself.
Sitting cross legged on the floor the living room he'd tried to open himself to the power. Soon, sooner than he expected, he could feel it flowing into and through him. Suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, Ron found himself zooming toward the place he half expected Kim to be, the old tree house they had built when they were kids. Whenever Kim needed to be alone, to think, she would go there. She jokingly referred to it as her Fortress of Solitude. Sure enough, she was there. At least he was seeing her there. But was his vision real, or a figment of his imagination. Ron didn't know for sure, but it felt real, felt right, somehow. He decided to trust the vision. Knowing that Kim hadn't gone far had eased whatever concern Ron had felt. So he had waited, calmly and patiently.
Until the time was right.
When he had gotten up and headed for the door Kim's mom had tried to stop him, but he'd stopped her.
"It's time," was all he'd said, but Mrs. Dr. P. had stepped out of his way.
At the foot of the tree he paused, looking up.
"Mind if I come in?" he called.
"Go away," Kim's voice commanded.
"Sweet, I'm coming up,' Ron answered cheerfully, starting to climb.
He found Kim glaring at him with red rimmed eyes.
"Go away, Ron," she growled. "I want to be alone."
"Correction," Ron said, "You wanted to be alone, and I left you alone. Now you want to not be alone, so here I am."
Kim blinked at him. "Whatever," she finally muttered and turned away from him.
Ron sat down next to her. He didn't say anything, just sat there. The silence went on and on until Kim couldn't stand it any more.
"Do you think it's true?" she asked quietly.
"I know it's true," Ron answered promptly.
"How?" Kim demanded.
"You know I was exposed to mystical monkey power, right?"
Kim nodded, thinking back to their encounter with Lord Monte Fiske.
"Remember when I went to Japan on that student exchange?"
"Yeah," Kim said slowly.
"Well, I was sworn to secrecy, so I can't go into detail, but I can tell you that the school I went to is run by a guy who knows about stuff like that, and who taught me a little about using it."
"You seriously expect me to believe..." Kim began.
Ron cut her off by clearing his throat and nodding at something across the small room. Kim's eyes followed the gesture to an old hair brush of hers lying on a shelf. Ron extended his hand. His brow furrowed in concentration.
The hairbrush jiggled, then started sliding toward the edge of the shelf. It clattered when it hit the floor, but it kept moving toward Ron until it slid into his waiting hand.
Kim looked at him wide eyed.
"I can also sense people, when I'm meditating," Ron told her, "Kind of taste their life force, I suppose. Everyone I've met since then has had pretty much the same 'flavor'..."
"...except for me," Kim finished. Ron nodded.
"Humans are, say, vanilla," Ron proposed, "With little variations added to give each individual a taste of their own."
"So what 'flavor' am I?" Kim asked.
Ron's eyes sparkled merrily. "How about...Rocky Road?" he grinned.
Kim glared again. "Rocky Road? And just what is that supposed..." She trailed off, her eyes widening.
"You tricked me," she accused, "Into forgetting that I was feeling sorry for myself."
Ron gave her a smug look.
"I'm a sidekick," he bragged. "Distractions are what I do."
Kim giggled in spite of herself. Ron saw her relax, and slipped an arm around her shoulders. Kim relaxed even more, leaning against him.
"You really don't mind that I'm an alien?" she asked.
"Why should I mind? I've known you for what, twelve years now? You didn't suddenly become a different person, K.P., you just found out that you were adopted, that's all. Besides," he added, grinning again, "How many guys can say their best friend is from another planet?"
"Not even you can," Kim said seriously. "Not where anyone else can hear it, anyway."
Ron nodded. "Understood," he said gravely.
"At least," Kim added, relenting slightly, "not until I figure out how I feel about all of this."
Ron stepped out the front door of the Possible home. It was late, and he had to get home. Kim had come back with him, feeling a little awkward toward her parents but resolved to start sorting things out. James and Patricia had told her the whole story of Patricia's fake pregnancy and the turmoil it had caused in their marriage, and how Kim's unexpected arrival had seemed like a gift from heaven to them. That had been a stunner in its own right, but small compared to Kim's true origin. And she was taking it fairly well, once she'd had a little time to think about. But then, Kim had always been resilient, emotionally. Ron had no doubts that she was going to be fine.
"That's it," Lipsky said glumly. "The mind control virus is going on the back burner."
Shego nodded reluctantly. She hated to give up on anything, but there was no more avoiding the fact that it would be years, maybe decades, before they'd be able to produce a viable weapon. Every attempt so far had achieved mind control, but only with disastrous side effects, like sterility, or greatly diminished intellect, or other equally devastating consequences.
"So where do we go from here?" she asked.
"I'm not sure," Lipsky admitted. "I do know, though, that I'm through putting all my eggs in one basket. From now on, multiple lines of attack, as it were."
"So, then," Shego probed. "What's our overall goal?"
"Take over the world," Lipsky answered instantly. No change there.
"And how are we going to do that?" Shego asked.
"If subtlety is out, brute force will have to do the job," Lipsky answered. "Right now it looks like an army of clones, or maybe killer robots, is our best bet."
"Eeew, clones," Shego shuddered. "Messy. Expensive. And long term, too much so, don't you think?"
"It's just an idea we should look at, Shego. And there are always the robots."
"Yeah, but there's also the little fact that neither of us is a robotics expert," Shego pointed out.
"If we can't master the craft, we can always outsource, unless you have a better idea," Lipsky said huffily.
"Well, I don't know if it's better, but I did see an article in Villain's Digest that might interest you," Shego said kittenishly, which made Lipsky swallow nervously. She produced a magazine, already opened to the article in question. Lipsky began scanning the page.
"Hmmm, combine the best aspects of clones and robots, at a fraction of the cost? Totally obedient yet convincingly lifelike?" Lipsky's voice rose with excitement as he read. "Synthodrones!" he exclaimed. "This could be our answer Shego!" Lipsky began pacing to and fro as he considered the possibilities. Then he noticed how Shego was looking at him. Her eyes were almost feverish. She licked her lips suggestively, and her bosom was heaving. He had forgotten, again, how much seeing him get excited about something turned her on. One hand went to the zipper on the front of her jumpsuit. Lipsky looked around, slightly panicked. His desk was between him and the door to his office, and the tranquillizer gun was locked in one of the bottom drawers.
A metallic rasping sound drew his eyes back to Shego. The slider of her zipper was just below her breasts, which were moving in a very interesting way as the jumpsuit that held them in came undone...
"Oh boy," Lipsky squeaked.
Shego attacked.