--Chapter 2--
The following day at Middleton High, Jon just stood quietly alone by his locker in between two classes. Unlike most other students, he really wasn't sociable, and preferred spending all his free time working on the computer system he had installed inside the locker. Although he wanted little to do with his mom's past at the same school, he did like the computer-in-locker idea she would often tell him about, and had imitated her in this aspect. The only difference now was that no ten-year-old genius would ever appear on the screen.
As Jon lent all his attention to the computer screen, he was quite unaware that someone nearby was discretely watching him.
"Hey Liz! What's up, sister?" the secret observer's best friend said, noticing her standing around a corner.
"Him, Sarah," Liz responded quietly.
"Again?" Sarah responded, looking in Jon's direction herself. "Look, girl, you should admit you have a small crush on him, since you're always interested in his movements…"
"What? Eww! No!" Liz responded. "I'm not interested in him—as a person! It's his family I'm interested in… his mom especially…"
"Right… Kim Possible, huh? Why don't you just tell him directly then that you really want to meet his mom?"
"Actually, I tried once… and just mentioning her name to him made him bark and storm off."
"And you think that simply watching him at school will lead you to her…"
"Well… not exactly, I suppose…"
"Changing the subject, Liz, listen: I wanted to be the first to tell you that Marie is leaving the school this coming year, which means there is finally an opening for the position of Captain of the cheerleading squad! Since you're one of the best on the squadron, I hope you don't mind that I nominated you for the position…"
"Yes!" Liz cried out, embracing her friend with joy. "Finally! I've been waiting for this chance!"
"Um… You do have one small obstacle, though…" Sarah finally with a little discomfiture. "Victoria Flagg… um, also nominated herself for the position."
Liz turned over to look over at one of the more popular girls in the school, surrounded by a couple of cool boys and talking out loud on her cell phone. "Darn! She always has to be a thorn in my side!" she said with a frown.
"Don't let her get to you," Sarah responded, turning Liz away from her direction. "Anyway, if you do make Captain, maybe your parents will finally encourage you…"
"Sarah, how many times must I say that my parents still do not know that I'm a cheerleader, and that I have absolutely no intention of telling them so, anytime soon?" Liz exclaimed, rolling her eyes.
"Right, because of your dad's so-called 'phobia' of cheerleaders…"
"And basically everything else I do behind my parents' backs," Liz said. "Listen, you know yesterday, I actually managed to get into Wade Load's computer at the library through a back-door, looking to see if there was any small missions I might've been able to find and maybe go on myself…"
"You're kidding! How did that go?" Sarah exclaimed with interest.
"Well… don't tell anyone, but just as I was about to access the missions directory, I somehow—and I still don't know how, but—I crashed the entire Library computer system…" Liz responded with embarrassment.
"That was you?" Sarah exclaimed. "It was in the news yesterday, saying a hacker had infected every terminal there with a intricate virus, and now they have to replace all their equipment!"
"Virus? I never wrote any virus! I just accessed the system, that's it, that's all!" Liz said with some surprise. "I would never dream of destroying all the systems there!"
"That's what I thought… so you can't have been responsible, right? Anyway, the technicians there say the library viral attack was most likely the work of a great villain, and I know for a fact that you're no villain, sister."
"Thank you, Sarah! That means a lot to me!" Liz said, hugging her friend again. "On that note, I have something to show you…" she said, moving over to her own locker and removing a magazine from inside of it. "Look at this, in the newest issue of Hero's Digest, there's a whole how-to section on taking out villains using simple household utensils! I was thinking about trying this trick here… on my own brothers at home tonight!"
"Cool!" Sarah responded, looking at the magazine. "They won't know what hit them!"
Later that day after school, Liz stood in front of her home for a couple of minutes, contemplating its exterior. On the front, it closely resembled all the other houses on the street. Like her neighbors, there was a large tree planted in front; neatly cut green grass, a driveway with a family mini-van, and a basketball net over the garage door.
With a small groan, she walked up to the front door, because she knew that although the outside wasn't out of the ordinary, the inside always was.
Sure enough, after stepping inside, the first thing she was confronted with was a large electronic cannon-like device pointed directly at her, with her two younger twin brothers, Jack and Zack, sitting at two separate sets of controls on either side.
"Alright you tweebs… What the heck is this now?" she said expressionlessly, rolling her eyes at them.
"Our newest doomsday device!" they both responded together. "Give us all your pocket change now, or prepare to be disintegrated!"
"Yeah, sure…" Liz said, raising her right arm. In an instant, her hand began to glow green with plasma sparks, and in less than a few seconds later, the front of her brothers' device was in pieces. "Oops, your machine is now defective at the moment! Now leave me alone, alright?" she said, moving off to her room.
"Mom! Liz broke our machine with her plasma thing!" the twins cried out in shock.
"Lisa? Are you home now?" their mother said, quickly storming into the main hall.
"She disappeared into her room," Jack said.
"Upstairs, mom," Zack continued.
"Look what she did here!"
"She completely destroyed the firing head!"
"We have to rebuild it completely now!"
"And it took us so long to build in the first place!"
Their mom sighed. "I'm sorry guys, I don't know what is always with her all the time," she said somewhat angrily. "I have to go talk to her now…"
"Ohh… Liz is in trouble again…" the two boys said together.
"Yes, but let me warn you two boys as well to stop always teasing your sister…" she responded.
Upstairs, Liz's mother entered her room without even knocking, with quite some force, banging the door open.
Liz was used to her mother entering this way, though, and was kind of expecting her at the moment. "Please go away mom, I'm really not in the mood to talk to you right now," she exclaimed with some attitude, laying front down on her bed, reading a pocket book novel.
"Lisa, sweetheart, you know we've talked about using your plasma ability in the house," her mother said with some antagonism.
"You use yours on dad all the time…"
"You see now, I don't… I mean, I do only when he gets on my nerves, and only in private, you should know that. I don't like when you do it to your brothers."
"It's the tweebs' own fault, they always provoke me and get on my nerves."
"Ok look, don't call them that!"
"Are we done yet?"
"Um, no we're not, dear. There's another serious matter I wanted to discuss with you. This morning, when I came in to vacuum your room here, I discovered this under your bed…" Her mother held up a recent issue of Hero's Digest. "Care to explain what this is doing in our house?"
Liz turned around to look at the magazine in her mother's right hand with some trepidation. She had completely forgotten to hide that one with the others in the morning. "Um… look, I… I only got that one single issue because it… uh… um, because it features an interview with uncle Hector, mom…" she said, fully lying to her.
"I don't care if any of my brothers are ever featured in it, I don't want to see this magazine in my house! Imagine if Dad found out about this…"
Liz groaned. "So just don't tell him!" she exclaimed.
Throwing the magazine at her daughter, her mom exclaimed in a commanding tone, "Get rid of it now, this instant."
"Yes mother…" Liz said vacantly, tossing the issue into her garbage bin.
As soon as she was alone with the door closed once again, however, she immediately went over and removed the issue from the bin. Turning towards a large poster featuring a number of the worlds worst supervillains hanging on her wall, she quickly removed it and slid open a secret compartment hidden behind.
Grabbing her schoolbag, she quickly removed her own cheerleading outfit and hung it up inside beside a collection of small super-hero tools, pictures and posters, as well as a tall stack of Hero's Digest magazines. In the centre of it all was a large picture of Kim Possible in attack pose. Smiling at it, she softly uttered to herself, "One day, Kim, me and you. One day!"
To be continued…
