The Starbolt sizzled through the air, missing Kim's head by millimeters. The secret agent pushed herself off the bulkhead, dodging the other incoming blasts. If she hadn't had such frequent experience of fighting someone else with energy-projection powers, she would have been fried. As Kim ducked another blast, she ruefully observed that, despite the other similarities, Shego had never belted out energy like a machine gun.
Kim dove across the hall, finally reaching her destination; the intersection that would provide her with some actual cover, and give her time to set up a counterattack.
As the intruder took shelter, Starfire held her ground. Flying straight at an opponent she couldn't see would remove her advantage in firepower.
"Who are you?" the alien princess-in-exile inquired imperiously.
"Sorry, that's classified," the snide remark came sailing back.
"Why are you here? What have you done with Robin?"
"I thought the whole 'classified' thing was kind of a blanket statement," the intruder returned.
Kim reached into her tactical equipment belt. She had a suspicion that the taser she was carrying, designed for human targets, wouldn't do the trick. Judging by the way her opponent could fill the air with energy, a smoke grenade was just as pointless.
As she rummaged, the receiver in her ear chirped. The voice of Wade Load, her team's resident electronics genius, came over the airwaves.
"Kim, I've cracked the door combination-"
"Open them! Open them now!"
With characteristically quick thinking, Kim leapt up, her plan formed, and closed her hand over the grip of her trusty grapple gun. She dove into the hallway, narrowly avoiding the barrage that Starfire sent at her. Landing on the opposite wall, she pushed off immediately, seeming to fly into the middle of the corridor. Whipping the gun forward, Kim shot it directly at her adversary. Starfire dodged the hook without problem, but quickly saw that she was not the target.
The hook and line whizzed through the slowly-opening security doors, coming to a clattering stop somewhere within the ship's hold.
Landing on her stomach, almost winded, Kim thumbed the retract control. The grapnel skidded backwards for a moment before its titanium hooks dug into the deck, sending Kim catapulting forwards.
"Close!" she shouted into her mike as she passed Starfire.
The doors reversed direction. Kim stretched out, making herself as thin as she could.
The last view of the outside she got before the doors shut was an enraged Starfire, rushing the doors. A slam of tungsten steel and a boom of impact indicated that the secret agent was safe for the moment.
Picking herself off the floor, Kim knelt to catch her breath. Taking a quick glance around the cavernous room, she activated her mike again.
"Wade, are we still clear?"
"One-hundred percent. Just secure the objective and leave the rest to me. Twelve meters down, forty meters directly ahead."
"I see it."
She did; the objective was hard to miss. Tucked among a veritable jungle of electronic equipment, steel ducts, and snake-like tubing, a Plexiglas canister glowed in the dim lighting.
Even from that distance, Kim could see its contents: the nutrient fluid that illuminated it, and the black-haired boy suspended within.
Her wind recovered, Kim jogged to the canister and made a quick search of the surrounding control panels. Plugging a fiber-optic cable into a port, she activated her transmitter, letting Wade undo the locking mechanisms and retrieve their package; after being designated missing-in-action for nearly a year, Danny Phantom had been located.
Wade completed his task within seconds. The fluid drained away and the canister slid down, allowing Kim to catch the seventeen-year-old as he heeded the call of gravity.
At least whoever's behind this has some sense of decency, Kim thought, thankfully noting that Danny was clad only in a pair of trunks. It would have been rather awkward to carry a naked boy around while escaping; half-naked probably wasn't much of an improvement.
Danny's eyelids fluttered, slowly opening. His eyes swam groggily, settling on the masked face of his rescuer.
"Who-"
Kim pulled off the balaclava-style mask. The boy's features slid into a slow recognition, and a smile. Kim smiled back.
"Consider yourself paid back," Kim said.
"Cool," Danny replied thickly.
"Ah, Kim?"
Ron Stoppable's voice, a little on the shrill side, interrupted the conversation. She clapped her hand to her ear to trigger the mike.
"We're pulling out, Ron. Objective secured."
"Yeah, that's cool; but can you tell that to the crazy chick with the purple hair?"
After infiltrating the crew, planting the homing device that led Kim to the ship, disabling Cyborg, and securing the security center, Ron had figured that the rest of their mission would be smooth sailing. Raven disagreed.
After loosing contact with both Robin and Cyborg, the sorceress had headed towards the security center, discovering Ron, his rodent companion Rufus, and her half-mechanical, fully-unconscious teammate. Having a choice between certain death and serious injury, Ron had done what any sensible person would have; he'd jumped out the nearest porthole. Landing in a conveniently-placed pile of empty boxes, the blonde sidekick and his mole rat had proceeded to dash around the deck of the ship, silently thanking God for the beautiful, cushiony, brown miracle called cardboard.
He'd evaded Raven for almost five minutes, but hadn't noticed that he was being penned in and driven toward the ship's bow. As he called Kim, he was crouching behind a spare spool of chain, the last cover he could find.
Now, Ron knew he was doomed. Raven floated into view, dark energy glowing around her fists. She telekinetically swept the chain aside with a wave of her hand, then fired a veritable battering ram of energy at him. Ron rolled to the side, knowing that even his superhuman reflexes couldn't help him dodge the attack. However, Ron Stoppable is not known for predicting the future.
The blast collided with a hemisphere of pulsing, green energy. Ron looked up to see Danny, now white-haired and resplendent in his uniform, shielding him.
"I thought we were supposed to be rescuing you," Ron said, elated that he wasn't going to have all his bones broken.
"Can't let you lovebirds have all the fun," Danny returned, picking up his friend and dropping his shield as they flew over the astonished Titan.
Raven recovered her composure quickly. She calmly analyzed the situation; the white-haired boy hadn't attacked alongside the other two. Therefore, he had either just arrived, or he had been on the ship, but disabled in some way. One of the quiet voices in her mind suspected the truth, but her priorities asserted themselves; she had to stop the intruders at all costs. This time, it was Danny who disagreed.
As Kim, emerged from the ship's belly, and Ron, atop the towering bridge, bundled into a remotely stationed tilt-rotor, Danny sucked in a huge breath of the cold sea air. He released the breath in a roar that seemed to shake the entire world. Raven was knocked flat to the deck, while the ship sank several yards under the pressure of the Ghostly Wail.
One mission failed, one mission successful.