"Oh my god. So, there was a version of me too?" Kim Possible asked again in disbelief at the destruction all around her. Rubble and dust piled across the floor, even as medical personnel carried assorted GJ agents down the hall way past the group in stretchers. Though the attack was over, a sense of urgency still filled the hall ways as assorted instructions were sent out over the base PA system while various agents hurried themselves to their various duties and tasks.
"And, clearly, she brought an atomic bomb with her." Ron Stoppable added as he stepped over a large piece of what used to be ceiling. Ahead of him and Kim, Doctor Director led them through the wrecked facility.
"An atomic bomb is a firecracker compared to what they got their hands on." Doctor Director stated in no uncertain tone as she walked down to the 'Lab's' enormous steel doors, where technicians still struggled to undo the lockout over the door. "We still haven't been able to get inside and get an exact count on what was taken, but based on the footage that we were able to recover from inside the Lab, we could be looking at enough parts to build the mother of all doomsday weapons here."
"I thought you said they crippled your main system. How did you recover video footage?" Kim asked, her voice slightly distant as she continued to survey the sights around her. Men with visibly dislocated bones and serious burns to the surface of their skins still lay on the ground, unable to be safely moved, given only the very basic of attention by fellow agents until the overworked medical staff of the facility could reach them. Kim could only imagine that this was what it was like on a battlefield. So many wounded, and not enough aide to attend to them.
"They did. Fortunately, a few things around here work on independent systems inaccessible from the main one, including the monitors inside the lab. I've already taken the liberty of sending the footage to your friend, Wade." Doctor Director smiled at Kim and Ron. "Of course you realize that that footage and all information and knowledge pertaining to the occurrence of this attack are considered highly classified. By all rights, the two of you shouldn't even be here." Doctor Director's voice took on an official tone.
"Understood Doctor Director. You can count on us." Kim saluted proudly.
"Mum's the word." Ron followed Kim's example.
"Uh-huh. Lips sealed." Rufus added from atop Ron's shoulder, miming the motion of zipping his lips shut.
"Good." Doctor Director's voice changed from formal to grave. "Just promise to give those two bit punks one for me."
"Count on it." Kim smiled in an assuring manner at the Director before adding to herself 'if we could just figure out what they're up to."
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Kim and Shego walked side by side, each eying the other uneasily as if ready to attack as they entered the laboratory where Ron and Drakken worked.
"No, no, no! This goes here, that goes there." Ron motioned to illustrate his instructions as he held his wrench tightly in his spare hand, as if ready to beat his 'lab partner' over the head with it.
"Sure, if you want the entire thing to melt down after the first shot! Whoever taught you how to build a doomsday weapon anyway?" Drakken shouted back in defiance.
"You raise your voice to me one more time and so help me…" Ron's hand rose in the air as if ready to strike.
"Boys, boys. Play nice now or I'll make you both stand in the corner." Kim mocked as she walked past the squabbling pair up to the large device being constructed before her, a mess of tools littered all around her.
"He started it." Ron and Drakken accused simultaneously.
"That's great." Shego answered dismissively as she stood beside Kim. "So, are you two going to actually have this thing working soon?" Shego looked up in awe at the impressive mechanical construct before her. If nothing else, it certainly was big. Whether or not it was capable of even half her new partners had been boasting was still largely in question in her mind.
"Assuming 'Andrew' here doesn't cross anymore wires and blow us all up, yeah. We'll be ready to party in no time." Ron answered as he went back to work.
"And once this cannon is finished, we will be able to defeat Kim Possible and rule the world!" Drakken began his trademark maniacal laugh, drawing looks of disbelief from both Kim and Ron.
"Rule the world? Is he serious?" Kim asked Shego rhetorically.
"Forget it. Can't be done." Ron answered simply, not bothering to look away from his work.
"Say what?" Drakken asked sheepishly. "But… I thought we were going to conquer…"
"What? You thought we'd build some super gun, destroy cities and then just take over the world like it was ours to take, like candy off a shelf." Kim asked, her gaze boring deeply into Drakken's eyes.
"If I say 'yes', are you going to hit me?" Drakken replied meekly.
"Have you ever taken a look at the world?" Kim threw her hands up in the air, as she began walking off, speaking now in general to no one in particular. "Ever bothered to just stare at a globe, maybe get some perspective on this whole global domination scheme of yours? The Earth is huge. Even with over seventy percent of its surface covered by water, that still leaves over a hundred and forty eight million square kilometers of ground to cover, and all across that are over six billion people and counting."
Kim walked over and picked up a spare tool that had been discarded to the side. "Six billion and counting, and it only takes one spark to start a fire. One person, one random stupid person to stir things up and turn the whole world upside down. The world is just too much to hold on to, too unpredictable and unstable to keep a grip on. Hitler couldn't do it, Napoleon couldn't do it, the British Empire, the Roman Empire, hell, even God couldn't hold on to it forever. What makes you think you could do it with some stupid doomsday weapon."
Drakken was left speechless as Kim continued in her rant. Though she couldn't see it, Ron smiled widely as Kim went on.
"You want to sit on the throne of the world and wear a crown that says 'Emperor'. Go right ahead. You might as well stand in the middle of the biggest bull's-eye ever with the words "Shoot Here" painted on your forehead. Check your history. Every would be Emperor of the world either got his castle smashed to the ground or stabbed in the back before he could even wear a hole in his throne. You want to take the world, go ahead. You'll never hold on to it."
"So, why stop the world when you can change the way it spins?" Ron smiled
"Exactly. Why take over the country of Rodeghan when you can just force its King to offer sanctuary to you and your men whenever you need, once you've convinced the King of just how easily you can get to his spoiled, no good son and kill him on a seconds notice. Instead of spending all your time battling with the law, bribe the right corrupt heads. The ones that won't take cash can take lead, and if they're not scared for themselves, they will be for their families. Get yourself your own criminal organization and make sure that they get their claws into every major government on Earth, and suddenly, you're quite not running the world, but you are running the people who run it instead."
"Pull the right strings, and before you know it, you've got whatever you want whenever you want it without having to make yourself the center of the world and a target. You dangle the strings, and the people will hate your puppets instead of you, never being any the wiser." Ron finished, grinning at the recollection of disturbing memories. Even as he finished his thought, he connected two wires together; drawing a loud hum from the machine as it slowly came to life. "Ok, it's finished." Ron announced proudly.
"So, now what?" Shego asked softly, almost afraid of the answer.
"Now, we pull some strings." Kim replied.
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"Good news guys." Wade spoke over the Kimmunicator, his voice carrying through the battered halls of Global Justice. "I just got a call from your dad and… uh… Dr. Lipsky." Wade added uneasily. "Our new interdimensional tracking system is up and running."
"Alright, score one for the good guys." Ron added enthusiastically, high fiving, or rather fingering, Rufus on his shoulder.
"Great, now all we need is for them to open another portal and we can track its source?" Kim asked.
"You bet. The only thing now is…. Uh guys. You gotta see this." Wade's eyes went wide as they beheld an image on the computer screen in front of him. After a few choice key strokes on his computer, Wade was able to show Kim and Ron exactly what he was talking about.
"Oh no." Kim let out a faint whisper as the image of Team Possible, the other Team Possible, came through over the Kimmunicator.
"Attention world." The image of the short haired Ron Stoppable speaking, with Kim Possible off to his side, came through over a slight static. "For those of you out there who don't speak English, this message is being translated for your convenience, and because what we have to say, we are only going to say once."
The other Kim went on. "We are Team Possible, not to be confused with a pair of do gooder looser super heroes who happen to look exactly like us, running around and saving people. And this…" Kim motioned behind her to an enormous machine with a long cannon shaft extending outward through a targeting vent in the ceiling "… is our gun." Kim finished rather simply.
"Its full name is somewhat technical and tedious to pronounce, so we've decided to shorten it. We call it a Mega Cannon, simply because the destructive power that this thing will unleash is in the megaton range. So for those of you who aren't good with numbers; that makes it a gun with the punch of a nuclear weapon." Ron smiled widely at the screen.
Kim continued. "Now, some of you might be wondering, what makes a gun like this so special, that we just had to go and interrupt your boring little lives to tell you about it? Well, because this little toy has a very special feature."
"You see, the reason you don't see many death rays or Mega Cannons or other similar weapons out there these days is that they are all limited by line of sight. A gun like this only has a certain theatre of operation, and a very limited one at that. Hence, why most countries prefer missiles that can be propelled via rockets to far away targets, adjusting their course even if the target is not a straight shot away. Sadly, these days, missiles just aren't as reliable as they used to be, which is why we went with this. What makes this gun so different you ask?" Ron asked rhetorically.
"We've made some improvements. Here, take a look. Oh, and by the way, for those of you in the northern Arizona area, more specifically, the vicinity of the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon, now might be a good time to run screaming in terror. It won't help, but knock yourselves out anyway." As Kim grinned sadistically at her own statement, the screen moved to capture Ron as he activated the device.
The enormous death ray on the screen powered up, its point tip glowing a bright red as the room around it seemed to vibrate and shake with the energy being gathered. However, before the weapon discharged, Kim and Ron were shocked to see a bright blue and white vortex, virtually identical to the one Global Justice's cameras had seen the alternate Team Possible use to escape from within their complex, appear not three feet in front of the gun's cannon tip.
The weapon discharged directly into the vortex, the enormous red beam completely consumed by the portal before the ray powered down, prompting the vortex to disappear.
The image on the screen changed again. This time, Kim and Ron could tell that they were looking through a live satellite feed which Kim quickly recognized as the Grand Canyon. Promptly on cue, the same blue and white vortex materialized again, immediately depositing the very same red beam right over the center of the Canyon.
The image on the screen began to dissolve in the face of the enormous resulting explosion. Rock, tree, underbrush, and indeed all of nature itself was knocked up into the air in the face of the devastating explosion. Rock structures that had taken countless millennium to form were reduced to debris, defaced beyond all recognition before the awesome power unleashed.
The explosion radiated outward, continuing to consume everything in its path. The image purposefully expanded further and further up to show the full effect of the weapon's power as the Canyon was turned into a lifeless crater.
The image shifted again to show a simple outline of the entire canyon from a map's perspective. A lone dot marked the point of weapon impact, followed by a red dotted outline that expanded ever outward to illustrate the full effected area of the weapon. Kim and Ron lost their breath to see that it expanded well beyond the total radius of the Canyon itself.
"For those of you wondering what just happened…" Ron's voice and face returned to the screen. "… we just opened an interdimensional portal over the grand Canyon, allowing us to deliver the full power of the Mega Cannon at point blank range to a target millions of miles away."
"This very targeting technology can be adapted to target any point on the globe, and deliver the same weapon with the same devastating effects that you just saw. We now have the ultimate long range weapon, and the ideal delivery system. No place on this planet is safe from us." Kim's voice bellowed with cruel delight.
"In exactly one hour, we will start targeting major cities around the globe, one every fifteen minutes after the hour deadline. Now, I'm sure you're wondering 'oh no. Whatever will we do? What could these cruel people want?'" Ron feigned distress in a high pitched tone of voice.
"Ooh, that's my cue!" Dr. Drakken could be heard exclaiming excitedly off to the side as he stepped into view of the camera. "People of the world, I am Dr. Drakken. My demands are as follows…hey!" Drakken began to rant, but Kim and Ron were surprised as their evil alternate selves pushed Drakken back off to the side, putting their own visages close to the camera.
"What do we want? Oh that's easy." Ron's face taunted the camera and his helpless audience.
"We want to hear the screams. So don't hold back." Even as Kim spoke, the image on the Kimmunicator went dead, only to be replaced by Wade's horrified expression.
"Guys, I think we are in big trouble."