KP – One Oh One: Part XXX – Rocky Top

This obviously wasn't the best tactical situation, Kim thought as they rode the air currents to the craggy terrain below. While in the air they stuck out like sore thumbs and were literally sitting ducks. At least the jet engines drowned out Ron's initial screaming. No matter how many times he had jumped out of airplanes, the momentary terror and the feeling of his stomach dropping away was simply too much for him.

The jets did nothing to drown out Joss' screams. That girl had a pair of lungs on her.

The hour couldn't be helped. By the time the slow moving plane made the trip from Colorado to the East Tennessee mountains the sun was fully up. Nerves or no, Ron knew the drill when it came to jumping, but for Joss, this was a new thing. She talked a good game while Kim suited her up, but the look in her aquamarine eyes told the experienced jumper she had serious reservations. There was always the danger she would freeze up, so she would stay close and deploy her chute for her if that happened. Glumly, Kim thought it might have been better to bring a tandem rig like she used to jump with her brothers over Peru.

The rear cargo door of the plane was wide enough they were able to jump together, which made the other two a little more comfortable. If the ramp were narrow, she probably would have sent Ron of first, then Joss so she could keep an eye on what both were doing. Ron would probably pull his cord as soon as possible. Riding the parasail wasn't so bad for him, but the freefalling terrified him too much. Ron could be brave, but HALO, or High Altitude, Low Opening jumping was never going to be his thing (though Kim wanted to try that herself.)

Besides the screaming, Joss was handling herself pretty well. She got into position quickly and didn't tumble. That was perhaps he biggest danger facing the first-timer. Yet she spread her body out and caught the air like a pro, even maneuvering her body so she could see the other two. Still, as soon as her body was stable, she had a death-grip on her rip cord.

Then again, so did Ron. They needed to drop as far as they could before pulling the chutes, but that would not be long considering the craggy terrain. Kim was a bit surprised at the nature of the mountains around them. They looked much more like the rugged western mountains she was used to than the lower, rolling hills she expected in the Appalachians. Unlike with flat terrain, the ground seemed to be rushing up at them much faster. Even before Ron could start whining about it being 'go time' she pulled her own cord, bringing her descent to a much more manageable speed. The other two followed suit almost instantly.

There was another big problem with this kind of insertion. There was no really good landing zone. There were a few rocky outcroppings, but for the most part the terrain was nothing but tall, spiky pine trees, giving the mountain tops a fuzzy appearance from above. The best they could hope for was to steer toward an opening in the treeline and pray it wasn't fully of jagged rocks. If it hadn't been for their only having two of them at the moment, they would have used glider packs instead of the chutes. That way they could slow down and even hover while they looked for a safe place to put down.

There wasn't anything to do about it by then. The moment they stepped off that ramp they were committed. Oh well, she had gotten Ron out of trees before after a jump. There was even one time when he got tangled on the flag pole outside of Middleton High School.

Then she spotted it. There was a nice, wide gap in the trees, with a flat, grassy meadow visible. Since they waited a heartbeat longer to pull their chutes, Ron and Joss were slightly below her, but they apparently saw it too. They were steering right for it. Kim smiled broadly as she watched first Ron set down, then Joss, both of them landing like pros. That smile disappeared when a great, unseen hand seemed to grab Kim's harness and pull her backwards. She had the sudden felling like she was no longer held by nylon lines but a large bungee cord. The ground that had been rushing up toward her was yanked away. Looking up, she could see that her chute was snagged on the top of a pine tree, suspending her some thirty feet above the ground.

How did that happen? That tree wasn't there a moment ago, was it? How on Earth could Ron and even Joss, who had never jumped out of an airplane before, land so perfectly when the most experienced of all three of them ended up caught in a tree?

It was, in a word, embarrassing.

She found a footing on the tiny branches, keeping as close to the trunk as possible. She didn't weigh all that much, but pines were notoriously brittle, especially that close to the top. The trees were nowhere near as big as the ones she was used to at home, but she was still high enough she could be seriously hurt if one suddenly snapped off. Once she was confident of her foothold, she hit the harness release. Maybe later there would be a chance to come retrieve the chute, but that was secondary at the moment.

Using the limbs as if they were a sort of ladder she made her way to the ground. Ron was smiling softly at her, knowing good and well that wasn't the time to make fun of her error. Maybe he was saving it for later, when they could hash it out over a tickle fight. Joss was just grinning from ear to ear.

"Now that was excitin'. We're gonna have ta do that again!"

"Not now. Time to get all our heads in the game." She touched the call button on her wrist Kimmunicator. "Got anything yet, Wade?"

"Satellites are reading strong thermal outputs just about a half-mile north of your position. That should be either their power plant or their ventilation system. In either case, that should give you an in."

"Got it. YRW." She shut off the connection and called up the compass function, getting her bearing. It was almost straight up the rugged slope from their position."

"YRW?" Joss whispered to Ron as they started their climb.

"You Rock Wade." He explained. "Kim's best girlfriend, Monique, has this habit of speaking in acronyms, and it's sorta rubbed off on Kim."

"OIC." She whispered back, grinning.

"Shhhhh. Being sneaky here." Kim growled softly. "The last time we infiltrated these guys they had armed patrols." That fact alone was still bugging her. That meant WWEE was taking things up a level if they were defending themselves with lethal force. That made what they were doing all the more dangerous. It also made taking them down that much more important. If they were playing for keeps, then perhaps their plans were being kicked up a notch as well. The super villain's world was becoming much more dangerous, considering the threats other bad guys, like terrorists and rogue nations brought to the table. Those were the sorts of baddies Kim was more than willing to leave to the professionals. Unfortunately, the line between the freaks she dealt with and those bastards was getting fuzzier by the day.

As they worked their way up the hill, Kim noticed something interesting. Rufus wasn't riding in Ron's pocket as he usually did. Instead, he was on Joss' shoulder, standing fully alert. She wondered if he had been with her since the night before when they had been making out on the airplane. Was he just comfortable with her or was he a little put out? Certainly it was the former, since he almost always made himself scarce when things grew intimate between Ron and her. Still, she was going to have to find out if his feelings were hurt somehow. The thought that their relationship could come between Ron and Rufus was somewhat painful.

That got shoved to the back of her mind. She said it herself, they had to have their heads in the game. Time and place she reminded herself.

"How did ya'll sneak in b'fore?" Joss whispered, dropping back beside her cousin.

"We found the intakes for their ventilation system. That's probably how we're going to have to approach this time."

"What if they've gotten wise to that? Seems like if I was setting up security, I'd fix it so nobody's gettin' in that way."

"They tried. There were some nasty bladed bars about halfway down the shaft, but that's no big." She patted the pocket on her tool belt that contained one of her mother's laser scalpels.

"See, if I was designing it, I'd figger that you'd even get past that and instead of one big shaft I'd drill several smaller ones. That way there'd be nobody crawlin' through it no how."

"I agree. Just don't pull a 'Ron' and mention that to any bad guys. If they want to keep being stupid, let them."

"I heard that." Ron whispered back with a scowl.

"Spinning Tops of Doom." She whispered back, reminding him of the time he engaged his mouth before his brain, setting Señor Senior Sr. down the road of super-villainy.

"So what if Joss is right? One of these days one of the smarter bunches are going to figure that trick out."

"So not the drama." Kim put her hand on Ron's shoulder and pointed.

Just above them was an open door. It would have been hard to see even if they climbed right over it if closed. The exterior of the metal hatch was disguised as rock and ground cover. Yet, some fool had obviously left it open. Kim was actually surprised there were no cigarette butts lying about, considering even the bad guys had the sense to order their lairs to be smoke-free. Interestingly, the only thing sitting on the ground outside the door was a rather plain, though heavy duty padlock, the type that used to be advertised by somebody shooting it with a magnum revolver.

"I don't like this." Joss whispered. "It feels, I dunno, sorta trappish."

"And you said that wasn't a word." Ron added.

"It isn't, now hush." She tentatively stepped into the opening. Ron touched her shoulder and pressed his tactical light into her hand. She shined it down the corridor. Apparently the installation had been there for some time, as there was a thick layer of dust on the floor, a layer that had recently been disturbed. Kim put her booted foot next to one of the footprints.

"Somebody else wears a size seven." Ron commented, comparing the print to his lover's foot.

"They lead up to the door and back in. Strange. As if we were meant to find them. I'm starting to agree with Joss more and more about this feeling Trappish." She turned and locked eyes with Ron. "Not a word."

"Hey, I wasn't saying anything."

Sherry casually made her way toward the internal monitors. There were three ways Kimmie and company could make their approach. One was their usual route of using the HVAC vents. That way, she knew, would be frustrated. Instead of a single, human-sized shaft, the ventilation was made up of a number of wide but shallow shafts only large enough for a squirrel to use. Maybe that rat thing could get in that way, but that wouldn't do them that much good.

Then there was the power plant. Access shafts had to be dug, so it was obvious they could get in that way if they had some means of detecting the small reactor. Still, it wasn't the best way in, especially since she had literally paved the way for them earlier.

She waited until the operator of the console she was 'lounging' at wandered off, probably taking a break. Gemini was up there on his platform berating one of his subordinates. The old 'Shego' would have liked to have been around to watch, especially if the poor sap managed to tick the boss off enough to be offered 'a seat.'

She called up views of the HVAC system. Nothing. Not so much as a rat had gotten through the screens. Somebody with a real brain had actually set that part of the base up. If this particular installation survived the day, she was going to have to remember it. The place would make a great hideout if she ever had to go on the run again. She hated thinking that way, but it was practical.

The power plant was unrevealing as well. It was totally automatic, but sensors had been embedded all around it just in case some old moon shiner found his way up there. Sherry really had no idea if there ever were such people in these parts any more, it was just the first image that came to her mind.

The third view brought a smile to her formerly black limned lips. If she was setting up a trap for the princess, she would have fallen right into it. Well, at least it was time to set things into motion. She shut off the monitor and slowly got to her feet, making certain everyone around her noticed how painful it seemed to her lower back. The uniform didn't show off her pregnant belly so much, but she leaned back to give it the greatest effect.

Muttering to herself loudly, she mounted the steps up to Gemini's platform. "Hey, Patch, you ever considered getting an office on the ground level? These steps are killing me."

"I must apologize, dear Alpha. This installation was not built with expectant mothers in mind."

"Maybe I need to report you for violating the ADA." She leaned heavily on his console, grinning slightly at him. He seemed to get the sarcastic part, chuckling lightly at her sense of humor.

"You know that plane that flew over a little while ago?"

"What of it? It is well on its way to Charlotte by now." He glanced at her sideways, frowning.

"Did you happen to check its altitude when it flew over?"

"What?"

"Check camera seventeen, in the officer's quarters."

He pulled up the proper screen, yet it remained filled with static. He checked a couple more readouts. "The camera is off line."

"Yeah, chief. As in it's been disabled. I checked the flight path for that plane. It was way too low for a regular flight. Don't say I didn't warn you."

Gemini growled audibly, grabbing his microphone. "All agents, be on alert. Possible intruders!"

"Truer words were never spoken." Came a familiar voice from below.

Both of them looked up as the trio of adventurers fanned out across the floor. Ron bolted to one side, plowing into a group of advancing agents. Sherry leaned against the console, just watching as the boy went to work. It seemed like every time she had been in a tussle with them before, she had to keep all of her attention on Kimmie. She hadn't taken the time to see what "the buffoon" was really capable of. Kim told her they had been doing much more serious training together, though at the time she simply took that as them having yet another excuse for having their hands all over each other.

Being a trained scrapper herself, she was able to judge his abilities much more professionally than others. His fighting style was…odd. One goon would advance on him and instead of taking him on directly, he back flipped, catching the guy on the chin pretty hard with his boot. Ron landed on all fours and sprung up again, ready for the next guy. This time he sidestepped the attack in a fluid motion, jumping on the guy's back and springing into the air to land a punch on the third. Stoppable was way, way more dangerous in a tussle than she ever gave him credit for being.

She caught herself noticing just how much he had grown up as well. She didn't spend a lot of time around him the last time they all met, spending most of it actually crying on Kim's shoulder.

Had she really done that? Did losing Neil affect her that much?

Sherry turned her attention to the other person with them. If Drakken had been around, she would have accused him of attempting to clone Kimmie again. The girl was dressed in that ugly old fleece outfit of her one-time nemesis and, for all intents and purposes, she looked just like her twin, though her hair seemed a touch darker, even if it was hard to tell in this light.

The girl obviously knew how to fight, though she didn't have the fluid grace of Kimmie or the strange, monkey-like stance of Stoppable. She relied much more on her fists and her speed to carry her through. She fought with her upper body, using her legs to dance around the assorted goons attacking her while she landed blow after blow on chins and eyes.

It suddenly dawned on her who she was. She was that little cowgirl cousin of Kimmie's she had seen that summer in Montana. Seeing her 'all grown up' suddenly made her feel a little old. She had mostly forgotten her, but remembered thinking she looked like the princess must have looked when she was eleven or twelve. Now she looked the same as Kimmie did when they first met at Drakken's Caribbean lair.

Kim was using the melee itself as a distraction. She was advancing right up the middle, moving to take on Gemini himself.

Time to make herself scarce.

Kim was generally pleased. They had almost complete surprise on their side. The open door in the side of the mountain turned out not to be a trap after all. She did wonder how Gemini finally realized the installation had bee breached, but by that time they were already at the main control center. It was patterned after the other three WWEE installations she had seen, with the banks of large screens manned by uniformed agents and a central platform.

As Ron and Joss took on the bulk of the surprised agents, Gemini rose up from his control platform and raised his metallic hand in front of him.

"We meet again, Kim Possible. Mind if I give you a hand?"

"News flash, Gemini. That was old the first time you used it." She sprung upward, just as the first of his fingertip missiles exploded on the staircase right where she had been moments before.

"Then let me try something a little fresher." He pointed his index finger at her. A laser beam lanced out, slicing through braces, causing the staircase itself to buckle and sway slightly.

Kim lost her footing, but was ready for something like that. In one fluid motion she drew her grappler gun and fired, sending the hook up into the framework. The cable pulled taught and she sailed up into the air, arcing up over the villain.

Down on the floor, Rufus was scrambling about, ducking under consoles and ripping out any cables he could get his claws onto. Sparks started flying as some of the electrical cables touched each other. In moments, he was surrounded by thick, ozone filled white smoke, causing his tiny eyes to burn.

He didn't let that bother him. His job was to make as big a mess underfoot as he could, so he raced across the open floor, looking for more equipment to sabotage. It was perhaps because of that, though, and the fact there was just too much hubbub in the melee around him that he didn't hear of see the attack until it was almost too late.

Something roughly his size barreled straight into him in a flurry of short fur and teeth. Instantly he recognized the yapping, growling sound. Rufus had very little fear of dogs and cats, or any other animal that would normally consider him or his other rodent kin a meal. The last cat that he went up against ended up almost mummified in duct tape, and it was perhaps the most cunning, most intelligent feline he had ever gone up against.

Chihuahuas were generally very skittish dogs. It went along with their relative sized. That was, until their masters were threatened. Then they forgot they were the size of large rats. Their one instinct was to protect the alpha member of their pack, and for him, Gemini was that person.

Pepe may not have been as intelligent as Rufus, but he remembered the little pink monstrosity from their last encounter. If his little muzzle was capable of it, he would have worn a sinister smile. He was going to enjoy ripping the little rat-thing limb from limb.

What he did not figure on was a naked mole rat having mystical monkey powers. He charged in to bite once more. He had the element of surprise the first time, but he still didn't get a good grip on the little nearly hairless animal. As he sailed through the air at his opponent, a tiny clawed fist caught him straight in the nose, sending him sprawling. Then Rufus simply leapfrogged over him, landing and kicking backward, catching Pepe in the rump.

Kim closed the distance between her and Gemini, forcing the large man to use up all his missiles in a vain attempt to stop her. He even tried the laser, but at close range he couldn't seem to bring it to bear on her long enough to generate a beam. In desperation he reached for a pistol strapped to his waist.

He didn't even get a chance to raise it before it was kicked out of his hands, clattering to the floor far below them. An instant later, a hundred five pounds of former cheerleader was bearing him to the floor of his platform.

"Give it up, Gemini."

"Oh, I think not. Agent Alpha, finish her."

Kim risked a look up, spying the other figure hiding behind the console just a moment too late. The wicked grin on that hooded face was unmistakable. She gasped loudly.

That was all the distraction Gemini needed. He kicked out, sending Kim sprawling on the platform. Alpha loomed over her as the man tried getting back to his feet. Then she pulled the hood off, letting her black hair spill out down her back.

"Hello, Princess."

Kim scrambled backwards, her eyes wide, not believing what she was seeing.

"This is the moment you have been waiting for, Shego. Do your job, finish her." Gemini screamed.

"This is going to be fun." She said to Kim, who was just getting back to her feet, dropping into a fighting stance.

"What are you waiting for? Finish her!" He shook his spent metal fist at the two women.

Sherry just stopped and leaned back against the main control console. "Oh, I'm sorry, Patch. Didn't you know? I'm on maternity leave. You wanna fight the Punkin here, you gotta do it yourself." She winked so that only Kim could see her.

"What?" He bellowed as a new set of alarms started going off.

"Hey, said I'd be your Alpha, whatever that means. Didn't say I was going to do any fighting for you. I'm not in any condition to do that anyway. I knew somebody would eventually come for me. Maybe it was going to be Drakken himself, though it seems to me he's had one of his occasionally flashes of brilliance." She turned back to Kim. "I seem to remember you once telling me we'd better be getting out of another place."

"Good call." Kim said. She wrapped her arm around Sherry's waist and fired her grappler into the superstructure. They swung out onto the main floor, near the entrance they had used only minutes before.

Ron and Joss were already there waiting for them, and they beat a hasty retreat the way they had just come, as hundreds of Global Justice troops poured into the installation.

Betty Director was waiting beside the hoverjet as they emerged from the mountain installation. She had a very smug expression on her face.

"Good work, Kim Possible. We've already routed out the mole in our organization, thanks to the help your friend Wade provided. I see you have also apprehended Shego, once again."

Sherry glared at Kim for a moment, then at the older woman confronting them. However, Kim was the first to speak. "I'm sorry, but Shego was nowhere to be found. We were here to rescue my friend, Sherry."

"Miss Possible, what are you playing at? I know for a fact that Sherry Godfrey is Shego."

"Oh, really? I seem to remember Shego having green skin and a power signature that could be read almost anywhere on Earth."

"That is just makeup." She grabbed Sherry's face and started rubbing.

"Got news for you, sister, I haven't put on a scrap of makeup in a couple months." She growled, pulling away from the unwanted touch.

Doctor Director glared at Kim. "You do know, this isn't going to sit well with my superiors. I know what you're trying to do. I order you to turn her over to my custody."

Kim just shook her head. "Sorry, can't do that."

"You are under contract and are subject to my orders."

"Really." It was Kim's turn to smile smugly. "It's funny, I don't recall ever signing any such contract, plus, when you pulled this 'independent' stuff, I seem to recall Ron and I were both seventeen at the time."

"What are you saying?"

"What I'm saying is Team Possible are not your independent contractors. We're just plain independent. Tipping you off to this base and helping you find the mole, that was a courtesy. The only reason we're here right now is to help our friend."

"Very well." She turned her glare on Sherry again. "But be warned. If we detect Shego's power signature at any time, for any reason, we will send every available agent to apprehend her. Is that understood."

"Perfectly." Sherry responded for Kim.

With that, Betty climbed back into the hoverjet, just in time to see an escape pod rocketing from the mountaintop. Another craft tried to pursue, but was outstripped as it rose into the upper atmosphere.

Moments later, the four of them were left alone on the mountaintop. Shrugging, Kim started off in the direction she knew would take them towards Gatlinburg.

"Uh, Kimmie, you think that little drama could have waited until they took us home?" Sherry asked. Kim turned around and shot her a look.

She shrugged herself and started after them. At least the exercise would do her some good.

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