I do not own Kim Possible, or any other Disney or DC character. I'm just borrowing them for my own view of alternative tales.
KP: Green Lantern's Light
By LJ58
Part 2: Initiation.
"We're just outside D.C. airspace," Shego told Kim who had returned to her own mission gear just then. "Any ideas?"
"Two pronged attack," she told her. "You listening, Hego," she asked over the communications frequency opened for them by Shego.
"We're listening," Mego answered.
"Hego's pouting," Shego predicted.
"All right. Shego and I go in from the front, and divert them. Hego, you lead your team from the rear, and try to get around that force shield. If they don't just drop it when they spot us. Ron, you'll hold back, and come in where and when you're needed," she told him.
"Sounds like a plan," Shego agreed.
"You know, I do have wings," Kondor spoke over the channel. "I can fly."
"Save them," Kim told him. "They'd probably just shoot you down, and I doubt you could fly through their force field."
"Now two of them are pouting," Shego predicted.
"Shego. Behave," Kim told her.
"Are you trying to sound like my mother," the woman quipped. "Because she couldn't make that stick either."
Kim rolled her eyes. "Everyone just stick to the plan, and let me talk to them."
"So, you're not going to just charge in blasting, and show them who's the boss?"
Kim frowned at her.
"What? It's what Hego would do. Wait, it's what you usually do, too," she realized sardonically with a grin at Ron.
"We both know how well that works against a Lorwardian," she retorted. "And as to the two Zarqu…."
"The who-what," Shego blinked.
"The bug-people," Kim sighed.
"That's what I thought you said," Shego remarked dryly.
"Can't we just leave her behind," Ron asked.
"Now there's a plan," Shego nodded agreeably. "You go squash bugs. Or not. I'll stay in the jet, and watch."
"You can't fly it without me, Shego. I took the liberty of pre-programming the flight computer. Unless I allow it, you aren't even turning on the radio."
"Wow, you are smart," Shego informed her. "But what makes you think I would take off and leave you?"
"Years of experience," she and Ron both said as one.
"Now, see. That just hurts."
"Get over it," Ron told her. "Just remember. You run now, and there won't be any place left to run in a few days."
"You just have to remind me of that one, don't you, monkey boy," she sighed as they closed on the city below. "Fine. Fine. We'll go with your plan. For now."
Kim shot her a glare, but said nothing.
"We're landing two miles out, Miss Possible," Hego reported just then. "We'll come in under cover of your landing, and try to make our move from there."
"If you can get through that force field, take out their ship," Kim told them. "Whatever else, we can't let them get back to report to Juggernaut. I don't want it thinking we're more of a threat, and it should come here first any faster than it's already moving."
"Understood. And tell Shego we are not pouting," Hego quipped himself before closing the channel.
Shego didn't even smirk as she looked at Kim. She was looking even more than grim than ever. "Are you saying the planet-thingy can think, too?"
"It's a form of advanced AI. Primarily focused on survival, and self-preservation, but it is conscious."
"Oh, that's just perfect. So, we're not only taking on the planet-eater's loopy friends, we have to cope with a giant brain?"
"A giant brain limited in its thinking to just what I described. But it is aware enough to drive its own course when it wants. So let's not give it reason to think we should be first on the menu, or that it should speed up for any reason."
"I agree with her," Shego told Ron.
And people called him immature he thought as he saw a different side of her at the moment. Ron only stared at her. Slowly shaking his head.
"Approaching the landing zone," Kim reported as they flew past the military trying to contain the area, their clearance already in place as other GJ forces were part of the military's response.
They stopped well short of the trio standing boldly outside their ship, and hovered briefly before they began to descend.
"All right. Useful info," Kim told them as her ring pulsed. "The Lorwardians like to bluster…."
"Doy."
"Shego," Ron growled a warning.
"The Zar…. The bugs, however, like to exploit that kind of thing, and sneak attack every chance they get. It's probably how they nailed the last Lantern," she told Shego, not saying anything about the fact that the ring had trouble with anything yellow anyway. And the bugs were very yellow. As were their spears, and likely the spectrum of their weaponry's charges. Zarqu were smart, too. In a universe that didn't care for bugs in general, they had to be.
"So we keep an extra close eye on the bugs," Shego nodded as they opened the hatch, and Ron and Kim both activated their nannite-driven body armor. Hers remained a silvery-white with blue piping. His was all black in deference to his ninja roots. Ron waited until the women were ready, then went full stealth mode and slipped off the ship only after Kim and Shego stepped outside.
"Just follow my lead," Kim told Shego quietly as they left the jet, and walked toward the three aliens looking the pair over with obvious disdain.
"Hey, I'm staying behind you, cheerleader. You're the one with all the protection as far as I can tell. But maybe your Nerdlinger could give me one of those magic suits next time out? A force field of my own would be kind of nice right about now."
Kim only sighed.
"Why are you small females here," the Lorwardian demanded, glowering down at them when Kim stopped ten feet away from him, and the edge of the ship's shielding. "We demanded the Green Lantern."
"You mean the red guy in green," Kim asked guilelessly.
"Yesssss," one of the Zarqu chittered, and if a bug could smirk, it did. "Where is that coward hiding. Bring him to usssss, and your world may yet be sssssaved."
"Listen, bug-boy……"
Kim shot a curt glare her way, and then looked back. "I found his body. The alien you call Green Lantern is dead."
"Dead," the Lorwardian bellowed. "Then where is his….."
"Body," the other bug demanded when the warrior faltered, obviously not wanting to give anything away.
"In pieces. We barely got away. Yeah, I was there, too. His whole ship, what was left of it, blew up. Zip. Zero. Nada. That's what's left, beanstalk," Shego told the giant warrior.
The three frowned, and then one of the Zarqu finally demanded, "And what of his ring?"
"What ring," both women asked on cue, Kim being grateful that Shego actually sounded genuinely sincere for once. And that her battle suit had covered the emerald band on her hand for the moment. She suspected that it helped she had mentally willed it to stay unseen for now, too.
The trio looked at one another again, the bugs chittering vehemently as they spoke without benefit of a translator as they argued.
"Uh, Princess?"
"I'd guess they were arguing about what to do now," Kim said, not telling her she understood every word. That the ring allowed her to hear every sound as if they were all speaking articulate English. And they were arguing about them. The bugs wanted to take a little sampling of the plunder to come. The Lorwardian wanted to simply return to Juggernaut and inform it that the threat to their survival was apparently gone, and their plans could proceed on schedule.
One of the bugs, however, was not so sure.
It kept pointing out that if the Lantern's ring were missing, then it had already sought out a new host. They had to find that host, and neutralize them before they presented a threat to their 'god world.'
"Hey, bug-boy. Wanna clue in the natives, because we don't like being ignored."
"Shego," Kim groaned, the three looking back their way.
It would have done no good to explain the Zarqu didn't have regimented gender. That they were, in essence, sexless. What they did have was attitude. Lots of attitude. Shego had to be mad to be challenging them so openly.
"As you are so quick to seek oblivion, human? We shall oblige," one of the Zarqu told her as it raised a spear.
Shego smirked, and Kim changed her mind about her.
The woman was devious.
If the bug was going to attack, that meant their shield had to come down. Which it did.
For all of the span of time it took the Zarqu to raise its spear, and fling it unerringly at Shego's green and black chest.
Kim's instinct was to act, but she allowed that this was her reluctant companion's show, and to be honest, she did like watching the woman in action at times when she had that luxury. As always, she was poetry in motion as she suddenly dodged the deadly, glowing spear even as both of her hands erupted with green energies, and delivered a devastating palm strike that actually shattered the thick half midway in midair, sending its sparking pieces clattering to the ground.
"That the best you got, bug-boy," she sneered, raising her hands suggestively.
"It is another Lantern," the other bug chittered anxiously.
Kim noted that reaction. So, yellow bugs weren't that confident after all?
"No," the Lorwardian spat in disgust. "It is one of the accursed star-touched primates that defeated the legendary Warhok. Even an exile like myself has heard of this one. Be wary, she is far more dangerous than she appears."
"Got that right, stretch," Shego grinned as the shield came back up, and the trio actually backed toward their ship as both bugs now pulled their sidearms.
"Down, Shego," she shouted, and leapt to push her aside this time as the bug's energy weapons didn't seem to require a lowered shield as they flashed, and almost took her head off.
If Kim's own force shield hadn't deflected the twin bolts of yellow energy that sparked violently when they struck her suit's shielding.
"She is the flame-haired demon that slew my kinsman," the Lorwardian froze as he glared her way, shouting his obvious fury. "She is the one that cost my family its honor, and caused me to be exiled in disgrace."
The bugs warned him against his impetuousness, but the big giant roared a wordless challenge, and the shield dropped again as his own huge spear was lifted when he charged at Kim.
"Ron! Now!"
The alien warrior suddenly stopped midstep, and was somehow flung up and through the air even as he howled indignantly before he landed hard on his back thirty feet from the ship's protective shielding.
Which the bugs were apparently trying to raise even as she and Shego ignored the bigger alien to charge the Zarqu. They didn't even try to shoot them now as both turned and fled for the ship. Just as Kondor flew over the top of the alien shuttle, and came down fast and hard to deliver twin fists to the bugs before they could reach the hatch.
Team Go appeared around the bow and stern in tandem, and closed on the stunned Zarqu who chittered madly as they tried to recover even as the super-powered brothers surrounded them.
"Where's Mego?"
"Oh, he's inside making a mess of things," one of the Wegos grinned as more than a few of them simultaneously pounded and stripped the bugs until they were completely weaponless, and left flat on the ground. Hego smirked, and made a show of crushing their weapons in powerful fists as Shego only rolled her eyes. "Show off," she grumbled.
The dishonored warrior, meanwhile, was being pounded by an invisible monkey master who was having as little trouble with him as he had the first and last two invaders he had once faced.
"See," Shego sighed, glaring at Ron who reappeared only when the giant lay stunned, and unable to resist any longer. "And you wonder why I tell Drew to leave you guys alone these days? You two take all the fun out of being a bad guy."
"Then quit," Kim told her pointedly.
Shego gave her an odd look, but said nothing.
"Tie these guys up, and be careful of their mandibles," Kim told the brothers as Kondor preened, looking a little smug.
She nodded his way as she turned toward Ron and the Lorwardian, and told him, "Nice improvisation, Kondor. You're not bad at this."
"Oh, please. He got lucky, and sucker-punched them," Shego complained as she walked after Kim, feeling she had been cheated somehow.
"Don't feel bad, Shego. There's still an entire world-eating planet full of alien fanatics to deal with out there," Kim reminded her.
"See? You could have gone all week without reminding me of that one," she complained as the army hesitantly moved toward them.
"Good work, Ron," she said, and lifted the Lorwardian's own massive spear in her gloved hands.
Ron only smiled. "What now?"
"Now we question him. He said a few things that have me curious."
"Yeah, I caught the whole star-touched, and flame demon thingy myself," Shego admitted as she stood with her as Kim rolled the now bound alien over on his back, heedless of his hands now tied together with part of his own belt Ron had conscripted to that use.
The red eyes opened a moment later, and glared up at them, but the warrior said nothing.
"You knew Warhok?"
The warrior said nothing.
"And Warmonga?"
His jaw clenched, but he remained silent.
"I know you'd laugh at torture," Kim told him.
The big warrior snorted his disdain.
"You're probably laugh at our jails, too."
His expression held her beneath contempt.
"However, I wonder how you'd feel if we dragged you into one of our spaceships, and carried you home to drop you in the middle of your emperor's throne room? Bound and helpless."
The man looked horrified. "You would not!"
"Trust me, big guy," Ron smiled coldly. "She would."
"Oh, yeah," Shego agreed.
"Not, however, before I put a slave collar on that thick neck," Kim adlibbed, using information the ring had furnished her about some of Lorwardian culture and tradition when she had briefly queried it about such things as insults and slights. "Wonder what that would do for your family's standing?"
"What do you wish to know," he growled bitterly.
"I'm already guessing that having been exiled, you found Juggernaut, and intentionally steered it our way out of revenge."
"If you know that much, then what more do you wish to know," he growled, surprising Ron and Shego both who did not yet realize how much the ring could do for her.
Kim was fast finding out even without training that her only real limitation was her own imagination and will. The ring really was a kind of ultimate weapon. No wonder Juggernaut and the bugs were so worried about that one, lone Lantern.
Had Abin Sur not been so trusting, or been caught off guard, he might well have turned them back by now with Earth being none the wiser.
"You mentioned Shego as being star-touched. What do you know of that?"
"We have met her accursed kind before. How or why, we know not, but there are those who seemed to have been infused with the power of the cosmos which manifests in diverse powers that often confound us in our attempts to expand our empire," he muttered bleakly. "As you were but lowborn monkeys, my cousins felt sure that you could not have possibly harnessed the true might of those powers, and so you would not be any real threat when they came to claim your world in the name of our empire. And to avenge his battle mate's dishonor by the green one's battle mate, the Blue Pretender."
"Okay, the less said about him the better."
The warrior only scowled at Shego, and looked back to Kim. "Is that all you wish to know?"
"Oh, no," Kim smiled. "I'd like to know about Juggernaut. And how to turn it around."
"You're too late. In five ceanarrs, the world-eater will enter your system, and begin its approach to the inhabited moons we first detected on our initial sweep of your system. Then it will come here. You are doomed, flame-hair. For not even you can possibly……"
"Tell me about how Juggernaut moves," she snapped. "Or we'll be visiting your home soon."
The man's jaw clenched again, and then he began to talk.
"Ceanarrs," Shego asked as they walked away, leaving the Lorwardian and the Zarqu in army hands for the time being.
"Think hours," Kim told her. "Time is shorter than I realized. We have to get ready now."
She stopped and stared at the bug's ship. Then Team Go. "But first we need to fine-tune your powers."
"My powers?"
"All of you. If what the big jerk said was right, you've all got more potential than you realize. If it's like the ring, your own mind and imagination is what is keeping you in check. We need to get around that if we're going to have a real chance."
"You're saying I could be even more powerful than I already am," Shego grinned.
"Uh, KP? Are you sure that's a good idea? I mean, Shego's pretty tough like she is."
"For what we're facing, she needs to be tougher. All of them do. Take the jet and fly to Middleton, Ron. Tell dad to get the Keppler IX ready, and armed to the teeth. We'll be there as soon as I figure out how to fine-tune Team Go, and fly this alien shuttle. I have an idea, so let me call Wade, and get things moving."
"How long will that take?"
"Not as long as you might think," Kim told him as she held up her covered ring, but only used her Kimmunicator to call Wade.
"Oh. Right. We'll be ready, Kim," he nodded as she spoke to their younger friend, and he loped off to the borrowed jet.
"Of course he can fly it without you," Shego muttered as she watched the sleek VTOL power up, and start to climb into the air as Kim disconnected her Kimmunicator channel once she had told Wade what she wanted.
Kim only smiled. "Time to get serious, Shego," she told her as she now also deactivated her battle armor, and they headed towards the waiting heroes where Mego had rejoined them by now.
"Oh, please, I'm always serious," she grumbled as her brothers stared at that comment, but said nothing. Even Hego remembered her moods well enough to know when to stay silent these days.
"Dial down, Shego," Kim told her, and turned to Mego. "Now, tell me what you did to the ship."
"Not much," he admitted. "Everything was pretty…..well, alien, so I just went right for what looked like the main computer, and pulled all three plugs that looked important."
"Nothing else," she asked the purple-clad hero.
"Like I said," he muttered," he told her as they walked on board the ship and he gesutred around them. "Alien."
"All right. Plug those leads back in, and let's see if I can figure this out before we rendezvous with Ron and my dad back at Middleton."
"Uh, Miss Possible," Hego pointed out. "As much as we want to help, how are we going to manage…..out there," he asked with surprising shrewdness in Shego's opinion. "We can't exactly breathe in space."
"That's why we're headed for the Space Center, first," Kim told him. "We need to amp your powers, put my plan on the table, and then get ready for a fight."
She glanced at her Kimmunicator. "All in three hours," she added.
"But, no pressure," Kondor remarked with more than a little concern.
"Just tell me, are they all going to be like those…..creatures," one of the Wegos asked. "Because, I have to say. Bugs?"
"Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr," the other twin finished with a genuine shudder.
"I doubt they'll all be Zarqu. Bugs," she amended when all of them stared at her. "Hopefully, they'll be the sort that put you on an even playing field long enough for us to neutralize Juggernaut."
"Just how exactly are we going to do that," Shego asked now as Mego turned to give Kim a thumb's up after he grew back up out of the computer to one side of the rather large cabin that was a single room in the alien ship. No amenities on this spacecraft. Just a few seats, and the consoles that controlled the vessel. The rest of the ship was crammed with engines and whatever else made it space-worthy.
"Okay," she said, raising her right hand again. "Let's see if the tutorial thingy can give me a crash course in flying alien ships," she said as pointed the ring at herself not for the first time.
"Uhm, Miss Possible," Hego asked. "Just what exactly how safe is…..?"
"Hush. Grownups working," Shego drawled, knowing he had been out of the loop for most of the ride, and knowing he liked to be the leader. Since they had shown up, Kim had been stealing his thunder, and she found it rather hilarious. She knew firsthand how that had to be killing him. Still, even muscle-head how to know how far out of his depth he was just now.
"That….seems simple enough," Kim murmured more to herself than anyone else a moment later as she turned to eye the main console.
"Uh, Kimberly," Kondor called from the still open hatch. "There's a guy with lots of ribbons out here that wants to see you," he told her before she could take a seat.
"Now what," she grumbled, and headed to the hatch to look out to see the army now surrounding the small alien ship.
"Miss Possible," the silver-haired man saluted her. "We appreciate what you've done, but we'll be taking possession of this alien vessel now. So why don't you and your associates step outside, and let us do our job."
"Now he grows a pair," Shego remarked from behind her shoulder.
"General…..Paxton," she read from his uniform. "If you check with Dr. Director….."
"Global Justice does not trump the United States Army, young lady," the old soldier growled. "Now, step out of the alien craft, and….."
"Ooooohhhhh, someone is going to get spanked," Shego tittered as Kim reached over, and pressed a button. The hatch closed instantly, cutting the man off even as he blustered.
"The clock is ticking," she told her curtly, heading back for the controls. "And we don't have time for this nonsense."
"Hold on, guys," she said, settling down to start the engines as she deftly activated them, the shields, and the communications all in deft, practiced movements as if she had been doing it for years. "We're going up."
"Look at that," Shego grinned, looking at the video monitors since the ship didn't actually have windows or ports. "I can see them shooting, but I don't hear, or feel anything. I gotta get one of these."
"Shego, sit down," she told her as the ship rose horizontally from the ground.
The green-skinned woman started to ask why even as she was hurled across the cabin to land in Hego's arms when Kim activated the main thrusters.
"Don't. Say. A. Word," she hissed at the grinning man as Kim turned to a monitor that now had Dr. Director's grim visage on it.
"Dr. Director. We're heading for Middleton. You might want to calm down a General Paxton. Our clock is still ticking, and he wants to play games over authority."
"Understood, Kimberly. I'll contact the president myself as soon as you're clear. I hope you have a plan?"
"Working on it. I'm heading for the Space Center now. I trust the military there won't be getting in our way?"
"They're all under Commander Du's authority. He'll be leading the elite assault force going with you. I felt you could use a little more help."
"It can't hurt," Kim agreed. "I just hope he's ready. We have to launch in less than three hours to intercept that behemoth, or we all may yet lose."
"They're already ready, Kim. And Wade sent special armor and weapons for your team, too. He thought you'd be needing them."
"I was hoping he would be ready," Kim agreed. "Thanks, Dr. Director."
"And…..cue the jets," Shego pointed out five F-22's coming up fast behind them as she came up to sit on one side of Kim, gesturing to a monitor showing the aircraft on their tail.
"I'll let you call this guy before he declares war on us," Kim grumbled in disgust before closing the channel with the head of Global Justice.
"Five of them," Mego, who sat closest to Kim, and frowned at the monitor.
"What do we do," Kondor asked.
"Wave bye-bye," Kim told him, and flipped a switch.
Shego deafened everyone in the cabin with her shout of glee as the craft accelerated so fast the jets were left behind in a literal eye-blink. Then the switch was thrown again, and the ship decelerated with very little real inertia plaguing the occupants as she circled the region, and came down toward a large, dome that was the heart of the Middleton Space Center.
She landed not far from a sleek, delta-winged craft that was being crawled over and under by dozens of techs and workers. Ron stood outside with Wade and Dr. James Possible as they guided the men. Nearby, thirty men in dark blue flight-suits and carrying heavy weapons stood at attention as Will walked toward the arriving alien ship.
"Will," Kim nodded as she stepped outside first. "Dr. Director said you had a team ready to help out."
"Our finest," he nodded grimly. "They've been training for this kind of mission since that Lorwardian fiasco. We didn't want to get caught off guard again," he said, shooting a scowl at Shego.
"All right. Once I take care of Team Go, and brief everyone, we'll launch."
"I have everything waiting in the conference room, Kimmie-Cub," James Possible told her as Wade nodded. "But is it really that serious. Ronald said…."
"It's worse than Lorwardians, dad. If we don't stop this thing out there, there won't be a planet left to come back to if we blow it."
"Well, I have every faith in you, sweetheart," the rocket scientist beamed, making her blush.
"Could we get over the mush, and just get to it already," Shego complained.
"It's nice to see that a little something like the end of the world can't improve your personality," Mego huffed.
He quickly ducked around Hego when she turned to glare at him, her eyes glittering ominously.
"So, just what do you think you're going to be able to do for us," Hego asked quietly as Kim walked over to join Wade, and took something from him.
"We're going to amp your powers," she told him, and opened a small case she had taken from Wade.
"Isn't that like your battle armor," Shego asked, eyeing the silver bands.
"Somewhat. I made a few modifications that should help you out there," Wade told them. "First of all, it'll give you up to ten or maybe even fifteen minutes life support if your other suit fails. More importantly," the young genius told the members of Team Go, the suits, once activated will soak up ambient energies from the void around you, and fuel your own strength and powers by a factor of ten."
"Ten," Shego murmured, and eyed the bands.
"I'll tell you now, these are completely experimental. I'm not sure how well they'll work, only that they should."
"I'm sure they'll work fine," Hego nodded, taking one of the bands to slide it on a thick wrist.
"It'll have to," Kim told him. "We don't have time for practice," she said as she handed out the bands. "Don't activate them until we're ready to go, and actually face this…..sitch. Now, guys, let's go make a plan."
"Make a plan? I thought you had one," Shego sputtered as she slid the simple, silver band on her own wrist.
"Sort of," she shrugged. "That's why we're here with Wade and dad. To work out the bugs."
"Work out the…..? We're dead," Shego groaned.
"I think I already pointed out birds do not belong in space," Kondor added as he realized he didn't get one of the bands.
No one listened.
To Be Continued……