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 6: In Blackest Night…..
"This is the place," Kim said as she looked up at the tall, steel and glass structure just a few blocks from the Congressional Building after glancing at the card she held. She had landed in an alley, and changed back to her civilian clothes, deciding a low profile was best for approaching anyone in the government just then.
"Looks more like a hive for lawyers, and other drones," Ron scowled.
"Let me guess," she asked, knowing his moods. "You didn't get into college?"
"No. But not to worry, I've got into a bon-diggity cooking school that is going to help the Ron-Man refine his already inestimable culinary skills, and make me the best chef in the state. Maybe the nation."
"Not the world?"
"Gotta start out slow, KP," he grinned. "You know? Leave something to aim at when you do take off. Of course, you….."
"Just be yourself, Ron," she smiled. "That's part of why I love you."
"Only part," he grinned.
"Let's go, Chef Stoppable," she told her fiancé with a grin. "I want to get Paxton off our backs before we get back to work. I'd like to start college without the army gunning for us, along with the usual villains."
"So…….? You've decided on a college?"
"Maybe," she demurred.
"You know," he said as they approached the doors where two very big security guards stood before them. "Back when I said you were headed for the stars, I didn't actually mean….."
"Ron. Time to focus," she reminded him as they neared the guards.
"Identification, and purpose of your visit," one of the men asked as they eyed them as if distrusting the pair of them from the start.
"Relax, guys. Kim Possible and the Ron-Man just needs to see some G-Man about some serious government stuff."
"Ron," Kim groaned, and pulled out her license as the men looked ready to arrest Ron on the spot. "Kim Possible, sir. I need to see a Colonel Black. I think he's expecting me."
The man eyed the license, and nodded. "Fourth floor. Room 411-B. Don't stray," the man growled, eyeing Ron cynically.
"Nice guys," he muttered as they walked into the building. "But, you know, you've seen one henchman, you've seen….."
"Ron," Kim sighed. "They aren't henchmen."
"I don't know, Kim. I'm pretty sure I've seen that one guy's jaw in a Henchco uniform," he told her as they entered the main lobby and turned toward a bank of elevators.
Kim looked back involuntarily as she stared at the broad back. "Now that you mention it….."
"Hey, here's one," he called, running to hold the doors about to close on an open car as the men in suits inside scowled at him.
"You two in the right place," a balding man in a dark gray suit clutching an armload of files asked as he stared suspiciously at them when they got into the elevator.
"We're just going to see Colonel Black on the fourth floor," she told him, pushing Ron inside, and pressing their floor yet to be lit up.
Two of the people in the half full car tensed, but said nothing.
"So, you think this guy can really get the army off our backs, KP? 'Cause, I gotta tell you, it's really killing the favor-mill when you have tanks and soldiers showing up every time you try to catch a ride to stop some loopy bad guy de-jour."
"Dr. Director seemed to think so, and if you can't trust the head of Glboal Justice, who can you trust," Kim asked.
"Well," he mused, formulating an answer.
"Ron, it was rhetorical."
"Ree-tor-ric-cal," he sounded out carefully. "You know, that sounds like one of those school words I never quite got the hang of."
Someone in the back of the car sniggered.
Kim cleared her throat pointedly as the car stopped on the third floor, and nine of the twelve others with them got off there. Including the bald man clutching the files to his thin chest as if they might be intending to steal them.
"Just let me do the talking," Kim told him as the car rose again, and stopped at the fourth floor. "All right?"
"Not a problem, Kim," he grinned. "But I still have your back."
"And I wouldn't want it any other way," she smiled as she stepped out of the elevator with him, and noticed one of the men had stepped out with them.
She glanced around, got her bearings, and headed down the hall, the tall, lean man in a black suit still behind them as she paused to eye the door they wanted.
"Just step inside," the man drawled when she started to knock.
She looked back at the man in the dark suit with a typical crew-cut, and easily imagined him with dark glasses. "You know the colonel," she asked the dark-haired man as they walked into the room. A room that was completely empty.
"Go to the door there, please, Miss Possible," the man told her.
"Let me guess," she said as she and Ron preceded him to the single door he indicated in the room that otherwise had no open windows. Just an empty expanse. "It's a secret passage to another secret location."
"Step inside," the man asked as they found themselves looking into another elevator car. One without buttons.
"What now," Ron asked even as the man lifted his left hand, and pressed the sides of his signet ring that shone a faint light on the featureless panel, illuminating a few digital numbers that began to run even as the car dropped so fast even Kim's stomach lurched for a moment as the elevator descended faster than she could calculate.
"You guys aren't connected with GJ, are you," Ron asked, looking just a little green when the car jolted to a sudden stop, and the door slid open again.
The man didn't reply as he gestured for them to step out into a long corridor that led toward a single door at the end of the hall. No other doors. No apparent vents, ceiling tiles, or other means of access. Just a solid passage to the single door.
"In case you're wondering, you have twenty digital scanners working to identify you right now. If you weren't who you claimed to be," the man told her. "You'd never reach that door. Not alive."
"Okay, that's a bit intense," Kim murmured as she frowned at him.
"We all have our secrets, Miss Possible," the man told her, and used the ring to open the door when they reached it.
"So, where do I find Colonel Black," she asked.
The man smiled. "My office is just this way," he said, gesturing past several desks of armed Marines at desks with rows of monitors around them. Unlike most security guards, these men didn't look lax, indolent, or even sleepy. Their eyes shift constantly, checking every monitor in turn in apparent regular sweeps."
"Mr. Stoppable, I suggest you don't touch that," the man told him when Ron started to inspect what looked like a coffee machine.
"Let me guess. It's not a coffee machine. It's a laser grid," he asked jokingly.
"Not at all. It's a coffee machine. But the boys down here take their coffee seriously, and if you mess up their settings, they'll likely take a chance on testing that mystical monkey kung-fu of yours."
"Gotcha," Ron nodded. "Ah, they do know I just saved the entire Brazilian coffee crop earlier today?"
"Of course," the man nodded at him as they walked into an office that look like any other office, except it had no windows. Just walls covered with maps, odd clippings, and even a few star charts. With circles and pushpins in it. "We do keep up with current affairs even if we do seem….buried here."
"I'm guessing you do more than that," Kim asked, eyeing the star charts, and noting one logged the trajectory of that shuttle she had launched at the sun more than three weeks ago before leaving for Oa.
"Let's just say that our Special Affairs division is to the planet what your friend's GJ agency is to U.N. law enforcement."
"Dr. Director seemed to believe you might be able to help us," Kim said as she held out his card.
He took it, shredded it in a nearby device, then leaned back in his chair.
"First, I'd like to ask you a few questions. Let me put at ease before I begin by telling you that I was familiar with your predecessor. Abin Sur? Good man. I'm sorry to hear he didn't make it."
"So you guys already know about the Guardians, and....everything?"
"Let's say I was Abin Sur's liaison with the president. Not every leader on the planet actually acknowledged the Corps, or its authority to operate on our planet, or in our system. We have tried to work with the Lanterns, however, and I would like that to continue to be the case. Especially since once of our own is now their new representative."
Kim nodded. "I'd like that, too. But if you knew…. If you know about the Corps, you have to know there are some things I cannot, and will not do as a Green Lantern."
"I fully understand, Miss Possible. Now, the questions?"
"Shoot," she nodded.
"Nine days ago, three offworld prisoners taken by your team vanished from a high-security military prison without a trace. Would you happen to know anything about them?"
"Ah, Kilowog…. That is, the Lanterns, felt it best that they were taken into their own custody, and taken to galactic prison for their particular crimes."
The man nodded. "Were you involved in the removal of those prisoners, Miss Possible?"
"I was….occupied elsewhere," she told him, thinking of some very intensive training with Kilowog on Oa after he returned from his own mission.
If she had thought Sinestro was a cake walk, the master-at-arms of the Corps was definitely the main course. Even Shego had never put her through a workout like that big guy did. But she had learned a few things, and wasn't ashamed to admit he was pretty tough.
"But you did tell them where they were, and how to find them?"
"If you know the Green Lanterns, then you know they didn't exactly need to ask me anything," Kim demurred.
She just didn't bother saying it was she who reminded Arisia about the three prisoners from Juggernaut still on the planet, or that she was a little uneasy about two Zarqu, or a stray Lorwardian being left on Earth. Even if the military did manage to hold them, they knew too much for it to be good for anyone on the planet. She had already seen far too much to believe Earth was ready for some of the things she had discovered existed beyond her solar system.
"Fair enough. One last question, if your nation asks you to intercede in certain matters on their behalf, are you willing to answer the call?"
Kim drew a deep breath as she stood beside Ron, and looked at the man. She had half been expecting that question all along.
"If I can help, and if it doesn't violate my own principles, or those the Corps represents, I will always try to help. Just as I've always done. I will not, however, be a weapon, or a puppet for any nation on the planet, colonel," she told him flatly.
He eyed her silently for a full minute, then slowly nodded.
"You might be interested to know," he told her with the first faint hint of a smile, "That Abin Sur told me the very same thing the first time we met."
"What about the army guys, guy," Ron asked.
"I'll put in a call. General Paxton was overstepping his bounds anyway by trying to put out warrants on either of you. That's our department," he smiled dryly.
Kim nodded. "Well, we'd appreciate getting him out of our hair," she admitted. "It's going to be hard enough trying to lay low without the army showing up every time I do."
"Indeed. By the way. Good luck in Hong Kong. I'm told it's a very good institution."
"Hong Kong," Ron turned to stare at her. "You picked Hong Kong?"
"It's not that far from Yamanouchi," the man behind the desk reminded him knowingly. "And I understand Tokyo has some very fine cooking academies with branches in both California, and Upperton."
"You know a lot," Ron said quietly, his face suddenly somber.
"That's why they pay me the big bucks," the man drawled. "I believe that concludes our business. You two can leave the same way you arrived. The sentries will let you out. Oh, and if you need to contact us in the future, just ask Elizabeth to call me."
"Eliza….? Oh. Right," Kim nodded, turning for the door. "Thanks. We appreciate it."
"You're really going to Hong Kong," Ron asked as they walked out of the building a few minutes later.
"Just for two years. That should be long enough to get my Bachelors, and ground me in medical research before I head for graduate school."
"Medical….research?"
"Yeah," she told him. "I think I'm going to go into bio-technology."
"Oh, no! You're not going to turn evil, are you," he gasped.
"Ron," she laughed.
"What? It's the kind of stuff that only evil mad scientists do. Robots, and twisted experiments that….."
"Ron. I'm not going to be doing anything evil."
"So, you're going to be creating stuff for real mad scientists to steal?"
Kim rolled her eyes.
"I'm not going to be doing that kind of work, Ron. I want to make things that help people."
"So, no exploding ticks, or dimensional-whatever-thingies?"
"Not even close," she smiled. "But why would he mention Upperton?"
"I…..was looking at a culinary school there because it's near a pretty nice restaurant, and….a house I was thinking of buying."
"Really," she blinked.
"For us," he told her.
"Oh," she murmured. "Oh!"
"Of course, that was before….the whole space ring, and the cosmic hero job, and…."
"Ron, it's still me. I'm still the same girl, and I'm still your fiancée," she told him. "That is not going to change."
"You sure, Kim? I mean, what if you get called out, and don't come back? Or you run into some outer space hotty, and…."
"Outer space hotty," she sniggered.
Ron blushed as they headed for the alley after leaving the office building.
"What? It could happen," he sputtered.
"And you could end up dumping me for someone closer to home, and more….normal," she reminded him.
"What? No! Never," he denied as they walked into the alley. "You know I've never even looked at another girl except….."
"Bonnie? Tara? Yori? Oh, and Monique? Then there was that redhead in New York that time....."
Ron blushed.
"Kim, it's always been you. The Ron-Man may have looked around, but he knows what's best for him. And that is you….."
"The Ron-Man better zip it, and hand over the wallet," a lean, twitchy man with a scraggly beard hissed as they froze, realizing belatedly they were no longer alone.
Both of the young teens turned to stare at the man holding a gun on them with a trembling hand.
"You, too, red," he all but whined. "The jewelry and watch, too. C'mon, I ain't got all day!"
"You want the honors," Kim asked Ron. "Or shall I?"
"Well, I don't want to show off," Ron grinned.
"Since when," Kim laughed.
"Hey! I'm serious here, you freaks….!"
"Okay, now that was just rude," Kim said as she flew away with Ron a few moments later.
"Guess some people just don't have the kind of respect and background you do," Ron stated as she carried him aloft in the green bubble again.
Behind them, the police were only just arriving to find the junkie who had been robbing unwary pedestrians all week dangling from a fire escape by his ankles. His gun had been literally pulled apart into several pieces by Ron's mystically enhanced grip after Kim showed him two of her nineteen martial arts.
He was screaming for help before she finished showing him the first.
"You know, you've been gone for a while," Ron reminded her with a sudden grin.
"Nacos," she asked knowingly.
"Need I say, ah, boo-yah," he drawled.
"Well, you're paying, naco-boy," she grinned. "Lanterns aren't paid, and I haven't exactly been making a living lately."
"Bummer," Ron drawled. "I can see the downside to this whole space cop deal now."
"Oh," she asked as they rose high over the city, and flew west.
"No retirement! How are you going to retire if they aren't even paying you," he demanded.
Kim rolled her eyes. "Ron, sometimes you are genuinely weird."
He only grinned. "You say that like it's a bad thing. Besides, didn't you say…..?"
"I like weird," she agreed, and flashed him a smile.
*
"That's right, Elizabeth," Ian spoke into the phone as he watched the very short, very one-sided confrontation with the skel in the alley just across the street on a local monitor. "At the moment, I don't think we have anything to worry about. Miss Possible seems to be staying true to her own code of conduct."
"I expected no less. Still, I wonder if we perhaps we should extend her provisional agent status with Global Justice, if only to keep a handle on her. She has been known to take on more than even she can handle, or understand when left to her own devices at times."
"You think she might start poking into matters that we might consider politically sensitive."
"Remember her antics during the hijacking of the Chinese freighter in Somalian waters a few months ago? Kim is good, colonel, but she's not learned subtlety. Or tact."
"Idealism does often come with blinders," he agreed. "I'll speak to the president. I'm pretty certain he'll agree with your judgment. Exposing her to more structured operations might help her in the long run, too."
"Agreed. You might add Stoppable to the roles, too."
Betty actually groaned.
"He's more capable, and intelligent, than you realize, Elizabeth."
"I know that. It's just, his Yamanouchi connections make that….tricky."
"Made the mistake of admitting you knew about the school, and wanted to conscript their services, didn't you," he asked knowingly.
"He is a little suspicious of me lately," she admitted by way of answer.
"Present it in a manner he might consider an olive branch. Besides, once you get them both in your ranks, you can subtly use that authority to guide their missions, and keep them out of the more troublesome parts of the globe where their freelancing antics might cause more trouble than not."
"I guessed that was your intention all along when we realized she really was the new Lantern in our region."
"I am paid to see the big picture from the start," Ian Black drawled mildly. "By the way, did you know she's seriously looking at Hong Kong, and a career in bio-tech?"
"What happened to diplomacy, and international law?"
"You tell me," Ian said. "Later, Elizabeth."
Betty hung up, and frowned at the phone. Law and diplomacy were actually harmless enough, and could be directed. But if Kimberly were going into bio-tech? She almost shuddered at the idea that someone with her background and potential might be going into one of the most unstable, and genuinely dangerous fields in human scientific history. What truly bothered her was that she had not known about the change of heart. When had it come? And why? Maybe it was time she brought Kimberly back in, and sat her down for an extended conversation on her…..options. Her true options.
*
Shego, lounging in her plasma-resistant cell for the moment merely because she had no place to be, and was enjoying the time away from Dr. Drakken, stared at the newspaper she had been given from the prison library. It was yesterday's paper, and spread across the entire page was an all-too-familiar image that proved Possible was back after all these weeks.
The woman was standing there with that maddeningly cocky smirk in her 'Lantern' costume, posing in front of a downed jet that set on its belly in the middle of a city park somewhere up north. The banner headline declared, "Kim Possible Saves Malfunctioning Jet!" The story revealed the woman was Earth's newest superhero, and while flying home from a 'secret mission,' she had spotted the falling airliner in time to literally save it, and the four hundred people on board.
Shego growled as she finished the story, looked back at the redhead smiling at the camera's, and could almost hear her drawling, "No big," as the reporters questioned her.
Once, Shego had been on those headlines. Even after her apparent fall from grace, she was all but assured of headlines every time she pulled a caper, and showed the world just how formidable she could be. Until lately, between monkey boy, and Drew's growing insanity, she was all but being relegated to comedic relief.
Shego. Baddest, and most dangerous woman in the criminal world.
Comic relief blinded by her own dimwitted employer with his 'rainbow flashlight right,' as the media dubbed it.
The paper began to smolder and char as her temper rose, and clenched her fists around the image of a smiling Kimberly Anne Possible who was definitely not off in space now, or laying low. Instead, she was basking in the limelight, and seemed more popular than ever.
Then she spotted the sidebar that declared that Kim Possible had been officially confirmed as the second youngest agent to ever be accepted into Global Justice's ranks, and was now considered a full-time special agent for the agency. One that would be assigned special cases as needed.
"That's……it," Shego hissed, flinging the charring paper from her glowing hands as she rose to her feet, the image of a green-clad heroine with flaming-red hair on the front page yet again as she saved an entire airliner this time after preventing it from crashing into the St. Louis Arch.
There was a time when she played with Possible. Even respected her to a degree. But lately she was stepping up in ways that left Shego gaping.
Bad enough her sidekick had to suddenly go into hero puberty, and go all monkey on anything and everything in his way. Now Possible, a cheerleading wannabe, was literally up there holding her own with real Capes. Not dimwits like her brother, but the heavy-hitters that juggled mountains for fun.
And she was left sitting in jail after Dr. Dimwit tried to take out the competition with a…..rainbow flashlight.
Roaring in incomprehensible syllables to vent her rage, she stalked over to her bars, and simply melted/tore her way through them.
"No more playing around," she growled as she stalked down the woman's jail block of the Federal SuperMax for special prisoners. Too bad their so-called latest plasma-resistant cell wasn't.
"Hey, Amy," she stopped to look into the dumpy scientists cell as she paused at the end of the corridor. "I'm busting out of here, and going after Possible. You in, or out?"
"Seriously," the stocky geneticist asked, looking up from a stuffed doll she was crafting out of pieces of her cellmate's blanket and pillow stuffing.
"Seriously," she growled, noting said cellmate was huddled in one corner, not saying a word.
"Then I'm in, hot stuff," the loopy woman grinned. "I've wanted to take that meanie down for so very long. Especially after I heard she might have been responsible for my dear Monte's disappearance."
Shego ignored the sound of alarms around her, and pulled open DNAmy's cell door.
"Let's go recruit a few others we need. Then we're going to rain on that redhead's parade, but good," Shego promised her as Amy followed her out of the woman's cellblock, and toward the woman's.
Only four guards got in her way, proving they weren't ready for her, and they didn't even slow her down. She ignored the other shouting prisoners, one blue-skinned moron in particular, and walked over to an older man simply staring blandly at her as if content to do so all day.
"Senor Senior," she drawled. "I'm going to take out Kim Possible. You in, or out?"
"Oh, I'm most indubitably in, my dear. I trust from the fact Dr. Hall is with you that you have finally severed your ties with that cerulean pretender you usually accompany?"
"This is a first-string operation all the way," she told him. "No posers or wannabes allowed."
"Oh, dear," he said as he stepped out of his cell once she fried the lock on it. "I suppose that leaves Junior out this round."
"You betcha, old man. Now come on. We've got one more stop, and then we need to split before they get brave enough to try swarming us."
"Of course. One must never discount the value of a hasty retreat at the proper moment," the older man agreed as he moved with surprising grace as he followed her and Amy back down the hall. "But who else are you going for if you aren't going to free your usual companion-in-evil?"
"Trust me," Shego smiled a cold, dark smirk. "Our last recruit is going to help us finally crush Kim Possible once and for all. And when we that fancy ring she's got, we are going to be the ones making headlines."
She stopped and smiled coldly as she added, "And making all the rules."
Senor Senior stared at the cell they had stopped before, and smiled. "Excellent choice, my dear," he commented as the occupant just stared at them with cold, flat eyes.
"C'mon," Amy told the felon as Shego tore open the cell. "We're going to go beat up that meanie Kim Possible!"
"Beat her up," the felon inside the padded cell in the mental ward of the prison hissed as she came forward, her dark eyes glittering. "Oh, we can better zhan zhat," she hissed, eyeing Shego just a bit manically. "Much better. Ve zhall completely destroy her," the pale skinned Electronique screeched.
"Now that is what I like to hear," Shego smiled as they turned for the nearest exit. One she was about to make herself as her hands began to glow brighter than ever.
To Be Continued……