Chapter 3: Leila the Destroyer

Kim opened her locker with a hopeful look on her face. "PLEASE tell me you got a hit on the website, Wade."

"Nope, sorry. Anything wrong?" Wade asked.

Kim gave him a toned down version of her infamous puppy-dog pout. "I don't want to go home today. She'll BE there."

Wade frowned curiously. "Who?"

"That girl! Leila Hawkaloogi! She's so annoying!"

"Oh. It's funny you should mention her, Kim."

"There is NOTHING funny about this, Wade," Kim said firmly.

Wade shook his head. "I had some extra time on my hands, so I did some digging. You won't believe what I found out about your new neighbors."

"What, they're not from this planet?"

"If they weren't, it'd be impossible to tell. David Jones really is former CIA, but all of his assignments and work experience is highly classified. I doubt that's his real name, by the way. Even I couldn't break into his files."

Kim stared at the screen. "I find that very hard to believe, Wade."

"Hey, I said I couldn't, not I wouldn't eventually. Give me a few days. Then, there's Leila."

Kim rolled her eyes. "I know she's not from this planet."

"Actually, she is. But that's not the weird part. You know how you can do anything?"

"Are you trying to make me blush, Wade?" Kim asked suspiciously.

"Nope, totally serious. I think Leila Hawkaloogi is the girl that can, and does, do everything."

"You're going to have to explain that one."

"She's lived on an island her whole life, so you wouldn't think she'd be very newsworthy. Three guesses as to who shows up in local newspapers every week for pulling stunts that are only common for you?"

"Don't tell me Drakken has a Hawaii-based cousin now?"

Wade shook his head. "Kim, this girl is incredible. She and her blue dog have been connected to more explosions, weird occurrences, traffic accidents, and unnatural disasters than most of your typical bad guys."

"So what are you saying? That she's trying to take over the world?"

"No. I'm saying you should keep your eye on her. She could be dangerous."

"Waaaaade!" Kim whined. "You're going to make me spend even more time with her!"

"Sorry, Kim," Wade apologized. "But if my hunch about Leila is right, she's a walking weapon of mass destruction. Better to have her on your side than working against you."

"Now I have to be NICE to her!" Kim cried.

"What are you talking about? You're already nice. Just take her to Bueno Nacho, introduce her to Ron and Monique, stuff like that."

"Can't she just keep hanging out with the tweebs?"

"Didn't I hear you say she was annoying you as it was?"

Kim sighed dramatically. "Okay, I see your point. But she better be worth the trouble, Wade."

"Don't worry, Kim. If I'm wrong about this, I'll owe you big time."

Kim's eyes narrowed. "Oh, you certainly will, Wade. You'll owe me a date. In person. No holograms or other tricks of light allowed."

"A date?" Wade asked, his voice cracking with both surprise and fear.

"You heard me. If you're that much of a recluse, we could just do it at your house."

"...I don't think that would be good for our working relationship, Kim."

"That's why it's a date, Wade. There's no work involved."

"But what if something goes wrong?" Wade asked desperately.

Kim smirked. "I'd think you'd be more scared if things went right."

Tara was in the middle of telling Bonnie about the cute outfit she'd seen at the mall when Bonnie grabbed her arm.

"Tara," Bonnie said in absolute rapture. "Look!"

Tara looked across the school parking lot. There was a bright red vehicle sitting in the nearest handicap spot. It looked like a very imaginative cross between a dune buggy and a racecar. Inside the vehicle was a small girl, and next to her was a hideous monstrosity.

But that wasn't what had caught Bonnie's attention. For the little girl was holding up a sign bearing Kim Possible's name.

"Oh, this is just TOO good to pass up." Bonnie made a beeline for the car, dragging Tara along with her.

The little girl looked up as they approached. "You're not Kim," she stated.

"No, but we're very good friends of hers," Bonnie said, elbowing Tara to keep her quiet. "I'm Bonnie, and this is Tara. What's your name?"

"I," the little girl said importantly, "am a new client of Kim's. I'm afraid my name, and anything else I could tell you, is completely confidential."

"Of course. But I thought you should know. Ever since her last mission, Kim's had a little trouble seeing brightly colored objects. She's almost completely color blind."

The girl frowned. "Are you sure?"

Bonnie nodded, apparently feeling very sorry for her 'friend'. "Yeah. So she might miss you entirely. Her ears are just as sharp as ever, though. You want to really wail on the horn when she comes out, just to be sure to get her attention."

The girl glanced at the blue thing next to her, which almost seemed to shrug. "Well...okay. Thanks."

"It was my pleasure," Bonnie said brightly. "Any friend of Kim's is a friend of ours." She quickly dragged Tara away before she burst out laughing at the deliciousness of her latest plot to thoroughly embarrass Kim Possible.

Monique had never met Leila Hawkaloogi, but from what Kim had said on the phone last night, she expected a menace to society. After spotting Leila in the school parking lot, however, she figured that the girl was really only a threat to Kim's social life.

Leila was in the process of leaning on her horn when Monique walked up. There was no real way to get her attention with all the noise, but the blue "dog" noticed Monique right away, and poked Leila with an oddly shaped claw.

"Oh. Hi," Leila said, looking her up and down.

"You must be Leila," Monique guessed, holding out her hand. "Kim told me all about you. I'm Monique."

Leila shook the offered hand. "You're really pretty, Monique."

Monique grinned, instantly forgetting every bad thing Kim had said on the phone. "You're pretty cute yourself. Is that your dog?"

"Yup! Blue, speak!"

To Monique's shock, the dog looked at her, and then said in a raspy voice, "H-Hiiii."

Monique blinked. "...um. Hi."

"Sore throat," Leila explained. "Otherwise, he'd welcome you to the dangerously out of control roller coaster ride that is our lives. So I'll just do it myself." She hopped out of the car and threw her arms around Monique's legs. "Aloha, cousin!"

"Cousin?" Monique asked slowly.

"It's the world view we have back on my island," Leila said proudly. "Everyone's family, so we call everyone we meet 'cousin'. And now you're part of our ohana! Tell her, Blue."

"Ohana means family," Blue said in that increasingly raspy voice. "Family means no one gets left behind, or forgotten."

"Well, just between us cousins," Monique whispered, "why were you leaning on that horn?"

"So Kim wouldn't miss us," Leila replied. "Bonnie said she was color blind."

"Rule number one, Leila: Bonnie is no friend of Kim's. Let me put it this way. Was there anyone on your island that was mean to you?"

Blue growled. "Myrtle Edmonds!"

"My greatest nemesis," Leila said seriously.

"Bonnie's like Myrtle, but taller," Monique estimated.

Leila gasped. "You mean she's evil?"

Monique smiled. "I wouldn't go that far, but she has her moments."

"We got duped, Blue," Leila reported sadly to her dog.

"Hey, don't feel bad," Monique said, patting her shoulder. "Bonnie is very good at what she does, and you didn't know."

"But won't Kim be mad?"

Monique leaned in closer and lowered her voice. "I won't tell her if you don't."

Kim had only taken a few steps outside when a thick cable fell around her shoulders and tightened painfully. "Hey!" she shouted as she was yanked off of her feet and into the air.

"Hope you don't get airsick easy, Kimmie!" a familiar voice rang out.

Kim gritted her teeth. "Shego," she muttered as a hovercraft burst from the clouds.

"Well, well, Kim Possible!" Dr. Drakken laughed as he leaned over the side. "I'd ask you to join us, but you seem to be all tied up!"

"Oh, very funny, Drakken," Kim spat. "Did Shego tell you to say that, or did you come up with it all by yourself?"

Rather predictably, Drakken glared at her. "That's the last time you poke fun at me, Kim Possible! SHEGO!"

"On it, Doctor D!"

Kim couldn't see what Shego was doing, but she felt and saw that she was being drawn higher into the air, and closer to the hovercraft. Within seconds, she'd passed the height where she could still wiggle free and make a somewhat safe drop back to the ground.

That was when she first noticed the red speedster following her. It was zigzagging back and forth across the road, lurching so much that just following it with her eyes made Kim feel queasy. And the nausea only got worse when she realized who was driving it.

"Not her," Kim moaned. "Anyone but her..."

But it was her. The fact that Leila Hawkaloogi was driving at her young age flew completely over Kim's head, especially when she picked out Monique squeezed into the passenger's seat.

Kim risked a glance upwards, and gasped when she spotted Shego's plasma-coated hands rising into the air. "Get away, Leila!" Kim shouted. "She's going to fire!"

But the speedster continued to follow the hovercraft, and a moment later, a bright green beam of plasma energy sailed past Kim, slamming just inches away from the car's left front tire.

Kim was half-hoping that the close call would convince Leila to back off. She was therefore completely surprised when the speedster's trunk popped open, and what looked like a small cannon emerged and drew a bead, not on the hovercraft, but on Kim herself.

"This can't be good," Kim whispered.

Seconds later, the cannon fired, and something round and blue just missed Kim's head as it whizzed by. There was a horrible shriek of metal being torn in two, and Kim looked up to see a decent-sized hole in the bottom of the hovercraft, which was now issuing a tremendous amount of black smoke.

Just then, the cable around Kim's shoulders slipped away, and she went into a freefall. At her current height, the best she could hope for was being plastered all over the front of Leila's speedster.

Without warning, something brushed against Kim's back, and then she felt an odd pressure on the seat of her pants, almost as if someone was holding her. She looked down, but couldn't quite see what had latched onto her. This became less important, though, because the ground was quickly rushing up to meet her.

Only it didn't, exactly.

Instead, there was a slight bump, and then she stopped moving.

Kim blinked a few times and looked down again. She was on the ground. Well, about two feet above it. And now there was a definite pressure on her bottom, and it felt strangely like paws.

The speedster zoomed up and skidded to a stop a few feet away.

Leila stuck her head out of the window. "Come, Blue!"

Kim gasped in surprise as she began to move towards the speedster. "What's going on?"

"Girl, whatever you do, don't look down unless you're ready for a rude shock," Monique warned as she climbed out.

Kim waited until she was set down on her feet before turning around and covering her mouth with a well-timed hand.

The small blue creature at her feet stretched out his paw in greeting and rasped, "H-Hiiii."

Kim might've fainted if Monique hadn't slipped an arm around her. "Take deep breaths, Kim. That's the only way the shock seems to fade."

"What is that?" Kim asked weakly, pointing.

"Leila's dog. And from where I was sitting, he just saved your life."

"Good boy, Blue!" Leila cheered, gathering her dog up in a big hug.

Kim wasn't sure if she was just imagining all of this or not. But when she tried to look away, she spotted the hovercraft weaving unsteadily across the sky as it flew lower and lower, still spewing smoke. She tried again, and found herself staring at the cannon that was still pointing up from the trunk, and smoking slightly, no less. That put things into perspective pretty quickly.

"I think I need to lay down."

"I think a chimmerito combo would help even more," Monique suggested. "Anyway, I ran into Ron outside Barkin's class, and he's saving our usual booth."

"What's a chimmerito?" Leila asked curiously.

"You'll find out soon enough, cousin," Monique answered, earning big smiles from both Leila and Blue.

Kim grabbed her friend's arm as they began to pile into the speedster. "Monique, PLEASE tell me you're not related. Please?"

"It's an expression, Kim," Monique explained airily. "You really have to lighten up. You're ohana now, girl."

"I'm what?" Kim demanded fearfully.

"Family!" Leila translated with a grin. "That means we'll never, EVER leave you alone!"

Kim looked as if she wanted to cry. She made do with a resigned sigh as she climbed into the backseat. "Could you at least let Monique drive? Since she knows the way and all, I mean..."

"Oh, no." Leila patted the dashboard affectionately. "She doesn't respond well to strangers. Right, Blue?"

Kim risked a glance up front, and her eyes nearly bulged out of her head. Because while she had seen Leila in the front seat earlier, what she hadn't seen was that Blue was sitting in her lap, doing the driving himself. With a soft moan of horror, Kim stretched out across the seat and tried to block out the sound of the tires screaming as the car lurched forward again.

Next Chapter: Ron finds himself the object of Leila's affections, and Kim discovers one of Chewie's hidden talents.