"Big Time"
Story Written by Freedom Fighter
Hmmm... I just realized all of this set-up for the main plot is taking a bit longer than I anticipated. I'm writing this intro after I finished the chapter, and I discovered at least part of the next chapter, if not all of it, will still be needed to get all of the plot points planted.
It's not to say there's a lack of any seeds planted in this chapter. It does start moving faster. And the timeline will pick up its pace, I promise. After all, I can't afford to make this a one-hour-a-chapter story à la '24.'
Speaking of which, I've always wanted to do a '24' style fic since I started watching that show at the start of Season 3. Maybe I've finally found a show worthy of attempting the premise with?
Wait, I'm rambling, aren't I? Gotta get this story finished before I plan any more KP fics... priorities, priorities...
Disclaimer: The characters and places of the TV show 'Kim Possible' do not belong to me. They are property of Disney and the show's creative staff.
Part Three - Appreciate Your Assistance (07.18.06)
First Middleton Bank
46 Hours Until the Senior Class Graduation from Middleton High...
With his laser rifle pointed at Kim, the agent laughed once more before firing a single, solitary shot. Kim acrobatically dodged it, leaping up onto the top of a nearby desk. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched as the beam scorched the floor where she had been standing.
"Is that all you got?" taunted the teen heroine.
Enraged, the evil agent resumed firing, letting off several shots in succession. Flipping and cartwheeling every which way, Kim managed to avoid being hit by any of the beams. But at the same time, she noticed that the guy was firing methodically. Each shot had whizzed ever so closer to the hostages who shivered in fear across the room.
"Pretty nimble for a nobody!" he exclaimed.
"You don't get out much, do you?" Kim shot back smugly.
Kim led him to the opposite end of the room, farther away from the hostages. Too focused on eliminating Kim, he failed to notice a leg stick out from behind a desk at the last second, causing him to trip and fall. In the process, his rifle fell out of his hands and onto the floor, breaking into four or five pieces before him. He looked up just in time to see, to his surprise, Agent Du had pulled out a rope and was beginning to tie him up.
"What the..."
"Never underestimate an agent of Global Justice."
Kim turned about to see Agent Du alive and uninjured, and apprehending the bad guy before her very eyes. She ran back over to the GJ operative, with a question or two to ask.
"How did you... I thought you were..."
Agent Du pointed to his uniform and said, "A Level 2 Kevlar Armored Suit. Standard issue for..."
"All top agents, I know," Kim interrupted. "Sheesh... like I haven't heard you say that a million times already. Nice to see you again, Will."
"The same could be said for you... Kimberly."
Kim smiled. "You mean you actually missed me?"
"Of course! I always appreciate your assistance."
"Smug as ever, I see."
Minutes later, all of the hostages were free and the enemy agent was in the custody of Global Justice. Work began to clear up the mess inside the bank, and Kim was preparing to head back to school.
"Well," Kim began, "it was nice working with you again, but I gotta head back to school. Graduation rehearsal's mandatory and all..."
"Before you go, Kimberly, there's been something I've been meaning to ask you."
"Really? Like what?"
"Well... GJ's been impressed with all you've done, and... they want to recruit you to be a new agent."
Kim gasped with glee. "GJ wants me?"
"If you're interested, be at Middleton Park at 7 am sharp. There'll be a team there to bring you to the testing site."
"Testing site?"
"Well, we just can't let anyone become an operative, now can we?"
"I guess not."
Will then pulled out a small little badge with a globe design on it and the letters 'GJ' in the center and handed it to Kim.
"I'd think long and hard about this before deciding to become a recruit, Kimberly. Pass or fail, this will change your life forever."
"Forever?"
Agent Du nodded. "Of course, if you don't want to undertake the testing process, all you have to do is press the little button on the badge I just gave you. Do that, and you'll never hear from GJ again. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I trust you'll make the right choice."
"Of course! I'll be there in the morning!"
The GJ operative nodded and waved goodbye as he went to accompany the capture team back to headquarters.
"They want you to join GJ?"
It was roughly two hours later, and Kim and Ron were sitting on the bottom step of the bleachers of the school gym. The rest of the senior class was around them, all abuzz as the gym was all prepared for graduation rehearsal.
"I'm not sure if I want to. GJ's great and all, but I've always seen my whole saving the world thing as, you know, a hobby."
"A hobby in which we fight bad guys who want world domination, mind you!"
"I know, I know, and as fun as it is helping hundreds of people... I never seriously thought of doing nothing but that for the rest of my life."
"But Kim... people look up to you! Old and young, rich and poor, smart and the not so smart... do you know how much you mean to the world?"
Kim sighed. "And I appreciate every single one of them! But... don't I get to have a life?"
Ron gasped in shock. "You did not just say that. I can't believe you just said that!"
"Said what?"
"You said what I've been thinking for years!" Bonnie jumped in. "Kim Possible has never cared about anyone other than herself!"
"It's not like that, Bonnie!"
"The truth hurts, Kimmie," smirked the brunette. "No matter how long it takes you to realize it."
"Do you mind?" Ron shouted, pushing Bonnie away. "I'm trying to have a heart-to-heart with my girl here!"
"Well, I never!" Bonnie said, insulted as she walked away.
"Ron, what's this all about?"
"Kim, what's going on with you? You've been strange these past few weeks, what with everything that happened at prom..."
"I told you, I am so over Erik! He wasn't even real, remember?"
"Then the whole deal with not getting valedictorian..."
"Justine totally deserved that. I don't mind finishing second to her."
"And, of course, there's the whole thing of being rejected to every single college you applied to."
"Well... nobody can say I didn't aim for the top!"
"C'mon, KP, admit it! It's bugging you that you don't have a future, right?"
"You know me better than that, Ron!"
"But think about it! You without a college to go to. Me not knowing if I'm going to graduate in two days..."
They glanced over to the east wall, where a good number of the students were gathered because that's where all of the seating placements for the ceremony were being posted.
"You mean Barkin didn't tell you if you passed the history final?"
"He said he won't have time to grade it until before the ceremony starts. No matter, Kim, the point is... in this time of hardship, of tough decisions about what's to come, we need to confide in each other!"
Kim seemed apprehensive to agree... but she did anyway.
"You're right. I shouldn't be keeping all of my feelings bottled up inside."
"Exactly," Ron said, patting his girlfriend on the back.
"So... where do we start?"
"Well, how do you feel about all of those rejections?"
"Uh... I guess I'll admit maybe applying for an Ivy League school was out of my league, so that accounts for Cornell, Columbia, and Penn..."
"How are they out of your league? You're a straight-A student!"
Kim shrugged her shoulders. "That's for rich, snobby, I-have-everything-and-you-don't types. Then there's Northwestern, where I could get more time to decide whether to follow in my dad's steps as a rocket scientist or my mom's as a brain surgeon. But I suppose the Chicago area isn't exactly comforting..."
"Just because they have Bears, Bulls, and Wildcats up there doesn't mean it isn't safe!"
"I'm not worried about the sports mascots, Ron."
"What mascots? I was referring to the wild animals up there!"
Kim rolled her eyes. "Anyway, next was USC... I applied for an athletic scholarship in cheerleading there. Didn't get it, but I guess it's okay... as much as I would've loved being around famous movie stars all the time, my parents wouldn't approve of the wild party atmosphere."
"But it's Hollywood, Kim. HOLLYWOOD!"
"And last but not least, there's the University of Colorado. Of course, I'm not going there..."
"But why not? They sent you an acceptance letter, didn't they?"
"Yeah, but... do you know what people would say if they heard someone with my talents, my intelligence, my status... attended a school like that? I'd be the laughing stock of the entire senior class!"
"You never seemed to be worry about your status before."
"Maybe you haven't, but I have!"
"I never cared one bit about where I stood in the school," Ron said with a smile. "Not one bit. "And look where it got me!"
"Lo-ser! Lo-ser! Lo-ser!" cried some nearby students as they started pelting Ron with tomatoes.
"Uh..." Kim stuttered, moving far away enough just to avoid being splattered by tomato juice.
"I'm SO glad I'll get to start my rep over in college. And whose idea was it for the cafeteria to offer whole tomatoes for lunch?"
Rufus came out of Ron's pocket with a handkerchief in hand, looking to help his buddy clean up after his tomato shower.
"Thanks, pal!" complimented Ron, who then started to wipe himself clean.
"So you're saying I should just go to Colorado?"
"Why not? You won't be that far from home, anyway... your family can come and visit you as often as they like. And vice versa!"
"Oh, and I suppose you'll want to come by too, right?"
"Of course!" Ron confirmed, moving to use the handkerchief to clean out his ears... which Kim promptly reached up and stopped him from doing so. "Now that we're together, we need time to let our relationship bloom! We can't be like 'I love you, you love me, but I'm going away to college where there's all of these hotties and I hope there's no hard feelings when we get back together for Christmas and one of us is with another person!'"
"You mean you're worried about me finding another person in a college hundreds, maybe thousands of miles away, who loves me more than you do and you're not going to be there to say 'Hey, you! Back away from my girl!'"
"What?" Ron panicked. "No way... I know you wouldn't do that to me."
Kim smirked. "Admit it... you're scared of me finding another Josh or Erik, aren't you? That's why you're so concerned of where I go!"
"Come on," Ron responded, trying to cover up the truth. "I trust that you wouldn't do something behind my back."
Kim grabbed Ron by the hands and pulled him closer to her. In the process, Ron forgot he had been holding his now tomato juice-soaked handkerchief, which he promptly dropped on Rufus, who was sitting on Ron's lap.
"Hey!" Rufus shouted, shaking his fist at Ron after digging himself out.
"Of course I wouldn't!" Kim smiled. "I care about you too much to hurt you like that!"
She then leaned in to kiss Ron. Catching on, he did the same. But before their lips could meet...
"Possible! Stoppable!"
At the sound of Mr. Barkin's towering voice, Kim quickly turned about and let go of Ron's hands. But Ron hadn't heard him, and he leaned forward so far that he lost his balance and fell off the bleachers and onto the floor. The entire senior class broke out in hysterical laughter as Ron picked himself up.
"Save the extracurricular activities for after school," Mr. Barkin said, looking first at Kim, then at Ron... and noticing Ron's tomato-stained shirt. "And Stoppable, go clean yourself up. Such a state of dress is not what is expected for a student who might be walking down the graduation aisle in a couple days!"
"Yes, sir!" Ron saluted as he picked up Rufus and ran out of the gym and to the locker room, with the class still laughing their heads off. Kim groaned as she reached into her backpack and pulled out her journal so she could use it to hide her face.
"At least this day can't get any worse..." Kim muttered to herself.
"Young lady, would you please explain... THIS?"
Kim had just gotten home from school, with a cleaner Ron with her, and she was greeted at the front door by her father... and a letter from the University of Colorado. Kim could tell... she saw the insignia in the top left-hand corner. She took the letter and started to read it out aloud.
"We regret to inform you that the previous letter we sent you was sent in error. As of this moment, I am saddened to tell you that... the University of Colorado has DENIED your application for admission?"
To be continued in Part 4 - Coming next week!