AN: Thanks to all who reviewed. Special Thanks to Captain Kodak for help with the end.

Disclaimer: I don't own any characters in the story except for the ones I make up.

Into The Darkness

Chapter 3

Kim Possible, teen hero and world saver extraordinaire, sat in front of the gigantic 64" TV, watching a security video from one of her earlier battles. On screen, a man with hair the color of corn silk and skin the shade of Liquid Paper threw a roundhouse kick at her head. She dodged and tried to sweep his legs out from under him. He hopped and said something inaudible, but Kim didn't need to hear it on screen to know what he said. She had been going over the battle and her opponent's snappy patter in her head nonstop for the last few hours. It had become a routine for Kim lately: examine every new kicking of her ass afterwards to find some opening, some flaw, some hint of the person she used to know and love. It had hit her very hard, Ron's death, even more so when it finally dawned on her that he wouldn't be with her anymore. Never again would she hear his goofy laugh, see his unwavering smile or his cocoa eyes that she loved to get lost in. It seemed that it had taken forever for her to come to grips just with that hard fact of life. Or unlife as the case may be. Kim sat back against the leg of the couch, letting her mind drift back to those first few hours after Shego's escape from the hospital. Her eyes closed and she could almost hear their voices.

"Is she going to be all right?" A young woman's voice asked. Kim turned her head up to look for the source of the sound, tears still shimmering in her eyes.

"She's just in shock; give her a little bit." A young male voice answered.

"She doesn't have a little bit." Another voice, deeper, more gruff, spoke up. "She's been exposed to them. You both know what that means." He said with an air of slight annoyance as if he had been through this absurd sitch numerous times before. "Get her on her feet, we gotta go." The gruff voice stated with finality.

"Where am I? Who are you people? What happened to Shego and Ron?" Kim started rapid firing questions as soon as she came out of her panic induced lethargy.

"I think I liked her better when she was in shock." The young man's voice came from her left. She looked and saw the shotgun wielding Caucasian man from before. Opposite him was 'longbow girl'. She was walking over to Kim.

"Are you alright now? You seemed to really take it hard." The young woman asked, dabbing Kim's bruises with rubbing alcohol.

"I'm fine. What happened to Shego? Why'd she bite Ron? Who are…"

"I think you'd do better to listen and not talk for a bit." The same gruff voice said. Out of the shadows came the black man from before. He looked exactly as he had except he had doffed his cape-like trenchcoat. "What happened to your friend was unfortunate…" he started, watching Kim's bloodshot eyes fill with tears again. "But he is gone now and you had best bury anything you felt deep inside because when you see him again, he won't give you luxury of falling to pieces. He'll be expecting that; he'll use that to his advantage."

"What are you talking about?" Kim asked in bewilderment. "You make it sound like Ron's going to attack me or something."

"Ron might not," the woman said after she had finished bandaging Kim's wounds, "but the demon who now wears his face will not think twice about it."

"Demon? What are you..." Kim started again, but before she could finish, the black man interrupted, obviously upset over Kim failure to grasp the point of the conversation.

"Get this straight!" he said, almost shouting as he grabbed the arms of the chair Kim was in. "Your boyfriend is dead and in a few hours he'll be a blood-drinking, garlic-hating suck head, a vampire! Is that clear enough for you?"

Kim sputtered for a few minutes, running over what Ron had said about vampires right before they entered the hospital. "So everything in the movies and books is real?" she finally got out.

Now the bearded Caucasian man stood up and started to speak. "Forget what you've seen in movies and books. What Bram Stoker wrote back in 1897 is just a comforting fairy tale compared to the real thing. Through all the layers of bullshit though, there does lay some truth. Vampires are extremely allergic to silver. Feed 'em garlic and they go into anaphylactic shock. Then, of course, there's always sunlight. By the way, my name's Hannibal King. The young lady is Abigail Whistler. Mr. Ray of Sunshine over there, that's Blade."

"Shego called you something else. 'Nightstalkers', I think." Kim said, now looking around, very impressed and interested in everything she could lay eyes on.

"Yeah, that's our group's little nickname." King's voice then adopted a much more solemn tone. "There used to be more of us, but…" King's voice broke, and Abigail continued for him. "We had a little tussle with Dracula, and a lot of good people were killed."

At the mention of Dracula's name, Kim's head whipped around. "Dracula? You mean THE Dracula?"

Abby did not meet Kim's gaze. "Yeah. Although, he went by Drake then."

"What happened? Is he still around? Did he tell Shego to take Ron? I swear I wouldn't be surprised…" Before Kim could get any further with her theories, Blade stopped her.

"He's dead. Suffice to say that we thought we had killed all of them with Daystar, the chemical we used to take them out; it used Drake's undiluted blood to kill all suckheads in the vicinity. Apparently, we didn't get all of them."

"I want to help. I want to fight." Kim said with renewed fire as she stood up from her seat.

"No." Abby and King said at the same time. "Right now, you're such a mess; you could go three rounds with a fruit fly." King continued. If he hadn't sounded so serious, Kim would've thought he was joking. "You're upset over Ron. You're mad and looking for someone to take it out on."

Then Abby spoke up, "That's just the angle Shego is looking for. She's expecting you to come around thrashing every punk and hustler, looking for info on where she is so she can take you out while you're still in shock."

"I don't care. I want to help. You guys can train me. Teach me to bury all that stuff and keep me focused on finding Ron."

"It's still too dangerous." Blade said with finality. "You may have fought your fair share of freaks, but you're not ready to roll with this."

It had taken several hours, but Kim, with help from Abby and King, had finally worn down Blade's defenses and gotten him to accept her as a Nightstalker-in-training. The martial arts training was nothing new to Kim, with the exception of learning to strike to kill. "Mind your surroundings." Blade would often say as Kim was usually taken by surprise by him in their training sessions. He also kept reiterating on "doing what is necessary when the time comes." Kim was still unsure on this point. She had often brought up the numerous times she had diffused sitches without killing or violence, but Blade and even Abby and King would remind her that vampires would not listen to reason or bargaining. They considered themselves above humanity, and as such, bargaining and appeals to better nature usually only brought an even quicker death to their prey. But Kim was resolute. When push came to shove in her looming fight against Ron and Shego, she would not become a killer. She saw how well that mindset worked after her first fight with Ron. It had been on the roof of the Middleton Museum of Natural History and he had been every bit as cunning, ruthless, and non-chalant as they had said. She had only survived through a gap in Ron's defenses as he bent to bite. That and a gap in his trousers which allowed her to deliver a full-force kick to his groin with no buffeting or cushioning of the blow. After he had recovered, which was too fast for Kim's tastes, he made some snide remark about her playing too rough and then jumped off the roof, ancient manuscript in tow. Kim asked Wade to send a ride to take her home. She didn't trust herself to walk home now after dark, at least not in this condition. It had been shortly after her second fight with Ron that Kim had taken to combing through security tapes when possible to find some hole in his defense as well as some remnant of the Ron she knew. Now with five losses under her belt, and progressively worse injuries every time, Kim was trying to push everything away, family, friends, even her new "co-workers" so she could focus on finding him and… killing him.

The Kimmunicator's familiar ring broke her from her thoughts. "What's the sitch, Wade?" She said in a somber voice that seemed hardly at home on her features.

"Got a new hit on the site. Apparently, Shego has something to say."

Kim fought back bitter hatred and said in an even tone, "Put her through, please, Wade."

On the small screen, there appeared the leering, pale-skinned face of Shego. She was obviously bursting to say something. "How are you, Princess? Feeling any better since last time?" She grinned widely at this memory.

"Get to the point, Shego!" Kim growled.

"Tut, tut, tut, what have I told you about that temper, Kimmie? Especially when talking to an elder. Anyway, I was just wondering if you still wanted your little boy-toy back." Kim's face hardened visibly as she watched Shego file her nails without taking off her gloves. "Cause if you do, I might just know how." Shego's grin widened impossibly as she saw Kim's features soften slightly. "That is, if you still care. I mean, you haven't found anyone else, have you?" Kim went red in the face at this. She hadn't spoken to hardly anyone in the last few weeks as she had been so focused on finding Ron and 'doing what was necessary.' "If you want to know, get tech boy to track Ronnie's chip. Until then, Princess." With that, Shego blew a kiss and cut the connection.

"Get me the location, Wade." Kim said with an air of 'don't argue, just do it.' to her voice.

"Ok, Kim, but what about the rest of Shego's message." Wade said even as he typed.

Kim looked puzzled for a minute. What was Wade talking about? "What rest of the message, Wade?"

"The part that says PS: This is a trap." Wade said, looking quite worried and more than a little scared at the look in Kim's eyes.

"I can't worry about that now, Wade. Even if it is a trap, Shego may be a lot of things, but she keeps her word."

"Got it. Abandoned factory at city limits. Already got your ride set up. I don't have to tell you to be careful, but be careful just the same."

Kim smiled at her long time friend. "I'll do my best, Wade. And just because I don't say it enough, you really do rock. Later." She switched off the Kimmunicator and set a neutral look on her face. Again, as was procedure nowadays, she had her mission clothes and vamp fighting gear ready at a moment's notice. She ran out the back door without a word to anyone. Mrs. Dr. Possible could hear "I'm coming, Ron." as her daughter left. A single tear rolled down her face.