Chapter Three
"Don't worry Camille. You're going to love this place!" Bonnie said. "I thought since Senior and Junior were going to talk to some wrestling found guy, we could have a girl's night out."
"It is so awesome for you to think so! It's so nice to know someone that is as rich as I am to go shopping with." Camille replied.
"Driver, stop here." Bonnie told the chauffeur.
Camille looked out the heavily tinted windows of the black limousine. "Where are we?" she asked with curious disgust. They were parked outside of a bright pink, two story house. Outside was an overgrown garden filled with flowers that Camille had never even seen before.
"Just here to pick up a friend of mine." Bonnie smiled, stepping out of the door as the chauffeur opened it. "Come on. It'll only take a second."
Camille pouted for a moment before sighing. "Fine. But I am not going to be seen here." she said, stepping out of the limo behind Bonnie. Before she even stood up, Camille's complexion had lightened, her hair darkened, and her height and weight changed dramatically to look like Britina, the international pop sensation. "Okay, let's get this over with."
Bonnie watched as Camille walked forward. An evil glare passed over Bonnie's face as her sparkling blue eyes turned to violet slits, then back again. "You're going to just love Amy, Camille..."
Jackie Oakes sat in a reclining chair in his boxer shorts and a muscle shirt, watching the Global Wrestling Association's latest spokesperson make a mockery of the kingdom that he had built. He brushed Naco chips from his now overgrown belly as he flicked a cigar into a nearby ashtray. A knock at the screen door grabbed his attention. "Go away!"
"Father! This smoke is burning my eyes and filling my delicate lungs!" a young, whiney European voice said.
"Junior, quiet!" came an older, more dignified voice.
Jackie struggled to lower the foot stool of his chair. "Who's there?" he asked, grabbing a portable dinner table from beside the chair and raising it over his head. Two European men walked through the curtain of beads that hung in the entryway of Jackie's living room.
"Mr. Oakes, I presume? I am Senor Senior Senior and this is my son, Senor Senior Junior. We are here to ask you a few questions." Senior said.
"Sorry, I don't want whatever it is you're selling." Jackie retorted, putting down the table tray.
"Are you certain this is the man we seek, Father? He seems a little... uhm... short to be that monstrous beast that we saw on the television." Junior stated.
"What's it to you? I founded the GWA! I could have been the champ if it hadn't been for that teenaged... wait... what do you guys know about the Jackal?" Jackie asked suspiciously.
Tucking his hand into his overcoat, Senior pulled out a gold, crescent shaped talisman. "Tell me, Mr. Oakes... do you recognize this?" Senior lifted the talisman as Jackie jumped for it.
"It's... it's the Talisman of Anubis! Give it to me!" Jackie shouted, nearly crawling on Senior to reach it. "It's precious!"
Junior shrugged. "Enh. I have many gold chains at home. It is not so special."
"You idiot! That talisman has the power to grant supernatural strength when worn. The powers of Anubis are granted to the wearer when they recite an incantation..." Jackie shouted, poking a stubby finger into Junior's abdomen.
Junior slapped his hand away. "Please, keep your greasy, smokey fingers off of my person."
"If I had that talisman you wouldn't talk to me like that!" Jackie shouted again.
Senior put a hand on the man's hairy shoulder to get his attention, then wiped his hand on his overcoat. "Mr. Oakes, we are not here to cause trouble, I assure you. However, we would like to inquire as to how you managed to activate the talisman."
"Why?" Jackie asked angrily. "So you can take the destiny that should have been mine? Fat chance!"
"Very well." Senior said, tucking the talisman back into his coat. "There was to be a handsome reward for your information..."
Jackie lunged, knocking Senior to the floor and tearing the talisman from inside his coat. "This is all the reward I need!" he shouted, backing away from Junior and Senior. "Anubis, Protector of the Tomb! Your time is now, the time of Doom! Ah-ha-ha-heh-huh?"
Nothing happened. Jackie shook the talisman as Senor Senior Senior chuckled, picking himself up off of the floor. "Thank you, Mr. Oakes. You have been most helpful."
"But, wha?" Jackie stammered, confused and defeated.
"Come Junior. We must study the real talisman." Senior said, exiting the dusky house. "You my keep that one, Mr. Oakes. Perhaps it will serve as a nice reminder of what you once had."
As Junior and Senior exited the shack and passed the overgrown grass, they heard the smashing of glass as something was thrown.
Kim sat in her apartment with psychology text books and notes strewn across the dinner table. She had narrowed her topics down to a few of her most memorable greivances. Some she had crossed off due to the fact that looking back, seemed trivial or humorous now. Some things, while apparently bad at the time, had turned out to be a good thing. One that she had begun writing down, then scratched off, was the harrowing experience just after graduation.
Beep-beep Beepbeep
Tapping the answer button on her Kimmunicator, she asked in a tired voice, "What's the sitch?"
"Are you okay?" Wade asked.
"Been a long day." she yawned. "Find anything on Camille?"
"No, and what's stranger, I've lost track of maybe a half dozen other villains as well." Wade said, obviously at a loss.
"In hiding? Any new heroes that we haven't met yet?" Kim asked, intrigued.
"Drakken and Shego are still with Global Justice. Team Go is still in Go City. Neither of them can explain what's going on." Wade said.
"Less villains in the world? Can't complain, I guess." Kim shrugged.
"There is one weird thing about the dissappearances, though." Wade said, his fingers blurring over his keyboard to double check his findings. "They all had some kind of genetic mutation."
Kim thought for a moment, her psychology paper now the furthest thing from her mind. "Have you got a list?"
Wade inspected his monitor closely. "Alligator Guy, Botulisk, Gill, Camille..."
"Wait, Gill is missing?" Kim asked, suddenly perking up.
"Yeah. Went missing a few months ago. Why?"
"Around the same time Ron and I had that mission in Canada?" Kim asked, recalling her battle with Bonnie, both in the auction house and in the cargo plane.
A strong soccer style kick tossed the laser back into the air out of Bonnie's hands. "Kim!" Bonnie shouted, leaping over Kim's sweep kick. She landed on her feet, catching one of Kim's wrists in each hand. "There's a little more to me than meets the eye now, Kim." she said, squeezing Kim's wrists with unnatural strength.
Kim's expression turned from determination to surprise as Bonnie's eyes suddenly turned a fluorescent purple with slitted pupils and back to normal again. "What have they done to you, Bonnie?!" She didn't wait for a response. Falling onto her back, Bonnie predictably let off pressure to avoid being thrown again. Kim grinned, tucking up her legs and pushing for all she was worth.
Shock caught Bonnie off guard as she was thrown out of the open rear hatch. Her scream was drowned out by the roar of the plane's engines but Kim raced to the opening, trying to find any sign of Bonnie. Nothing.
"You think Bonnie's been doing something with the missing villains?" Wade asked, skeptical.
"It would fit. The super strength, the eyes, the fact that she survived a fall into the middle of the ocean..." Kim said, trailing off.
"And the mess of mutant DNA I found in the museum the other night!" Wade exclaimed.
"Looks like Bonnie's become a sitch all to herself. With that kind of mutant signature..."
"Can I track her? You bet!" Wade grinned. "I'll keep you posted."
"Please and thank you!" Kim added as the connection was cut. She was about to put pen to paper again when Ron walked in with a Buenos Nachos take out bag. "My turn to cook tonight?" she asked with a smile.
