Kim Possible: The Darkness Without: redux Chapter 8, a kim possible fanfic

Kim Possible: The Darkness Without

Redux

Pt 8

By Eoraptor

Now, on with the Story...

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"So what do salad fixings have to do with bombs?" Monique was sitting up on the weight bench, a towel draped over her shoulders as she worked to slow her breathing.

"Salad?" T blinked from the parallel bars he was dangling from.

"Chronotrons, not crutons…" J piped up as he stared at a computer screen in the basement of the Possible household. "Time particles. They're all over in these pictures."

"Oh, okay. So what do chronotrons have to do with bombs?"

The twins had been taking turns analyzing things, since she couldn't get both the pictures and the sample from that scrap yard for them to work on. Secretly, Monique was glad for the turn-taking… one brain meant she could stall down here longer. And that meant she could keep putting off coffee with Ron. Two weeks now she'd been putting it off.

Ostensibly, the gym and lab in the basement were to keep J and T occupied. They'd told Mrs. Possible that it helped them to de-stress from therapy. Therapy was a cover too of course. That was when they met up with Monique, who they would occasionally "run into" on the way back from Middleton to the new house in the hills near Upperton.

They hadn't been to an actual grief therapy session that had lasted more than ten minutes in months. Once the ten minutes were up and they were shown to be attending, they'd excuse themselves politely and meet up with their partner.

Jim and Tim Possible obviously didn't want their parents knowing that they were helping Monique get into the world saving business, the very business that had killed their sister. They really didn't want the senior Possible's to know that they were working out to maybe go out there with her.

The twins were finally beginning to discover that they could be pretty athletic if they put their minds, or rather their bodies, to it. A pair of buff line-backer types were rapidly replacing the twin boys with the computer-geek physiques; much to Monique's surprise and slight envy.

T especially, was beginning to ride Monique about her reliance on the battle suit. She had grumbled and again pointed out that she didn't have the jeans for it, while holding a bag of Club Banana… the joke had gone right over his head, as most of her jokes seemed to.

"So, what about Ron?" came out a question of the blue. Monique groaned into her towel and prepared to launch into one of a number of diatribes she'd been repeating these past few weeks. She still wanted to know how it was the Possible Twins had figured that one out the morning after it had happened, from another state.

--Mom Alert, Mom Alert--

"I don't believe it… saved by the bell." Monique muttered. Computer screens were automatically changing to still serious looking but less incriminating information as the faintly alarming… …alarm went off.

"Oh, Monique!" Anne Possible smiled politely as she stepped off the top step and moved down the stairs. "I didn't know you were stopping by?" Her smile seemed to dim just a bit as she remembered Monique had been by quite a bit lately. Was she… involved… with one of the boys? Oh, well that wouldn't be so bad, she thought; they were growing up after all.

Smile thus renewed, she continued down the steps. For once, the boys weren't doing the same thing at the same time she noticed. This added to her suspicions, but it wasn't her place to question who the boys dated… That was James's part in parenting the kids, something he'd proven to be very interested in early on after their daughter discovered boys.

"Hey Mrs. P. Looking glowey as usual." Monique smiled brightly in return, wiping her face off. "The boys were just telling me about this killer new fabric they thought up; and C.B. might be interested… you could have two very wealthy sons' soon."

It was a prearranged cover story of course. It didn't explain why she was currently on the weight bench in tights, but the Possible's didn't seem to mind her being around and working out with the boys every now and then during the past few weeks.

"Why thank you Monique." She smiled that warm motherly smile at the compliment, and turned to see what Jim was actually working on at his computer. "A new fabric boys? Is that what all those brown scraps in your molecular reclaimer were that I found last week cleaning?"

Jim winced at his computer. He'd forgotten about the battle suit scraps left in the reclaimer after the last upgrade. Fortunately, his mother didn't notice the wince, so he quickly nodded his affirmation.

"Mrs. P! Cleaning? I'm shocked! A woman in your condition…" Monique quickly picked up, thinking fast.

"…is not an invalid." Anne came right back, a playful smirk on her face. "Monique dear, I know you're a bit young to realize it; but I'm four months pregnant, not in a wheel chair. And even if I was, I am still the mother of two very troublesome seventeen year olds."

Both boys ducked their heads, as if shamed by an unspoken insult.

"So, hows the Foundation treating you?" Monique continued after a moment also spent eyeing the twins Possible.

"Oh, god Monique… If I thought brain surgery was hard… it's got nothing on federal grant paperwork. But then again, I suppose anything with Kim Possible's name attached to it is bound to be complicated." She smiled a weary smile.

Anne Possible, Monique knew, was now the chairwoman of the Kim Possible Foundation; a scholarship organization that was targeted towards young women interested in political science and law. It had been established with the money that poured in during the days following Kim's death. Money which would have been impolite, not to mention politically delicate in some cases, to refuse. Rather than just let the money sit in a disused bank account, or give it back and risk insulting the donors; James and Anne had decided to do something to create a living memory of the Kim that the world didn't get to see on a day-to-day basis.

"Lots of R.T. on the Benjamins huh?" Monique was getting up to grab a bottle of water, even as Mrs. Possible was handing one to her.

"Yes," Anne replied after a moment, thinking she knew what the younger woman's abbreviation meant this time. "Yes, lots and lots of R.T. dear."

"And speaking of conditions, do you know the sex of the next little Possible?" Monique grinned, eyeing Anne's faintly swollen abdomen.

J and T both perked up at this, their attention suddenly riveted as they waited to know if they would know whether they were going to have a baby brother or sister.

"Yes Dear… In fact, I just came back from the OBGYN. Do you think you could design us some nice… stylin' pink swaddling?" Anne grinned a bit, enjoying the chance to sound cool around her boys and their friend.

Monique nearly shrieked for joy. J and T smiled, but looked at each other in consternation as their resident detective sank into "Full and Total Girl Mode."

"FTGM?" Jim asked from the computer quietly.

"To the max. Maybe we better get scarce." Tim responded as covertly.

"Oh Fine boys… go on and get." Anne grumped playfully, easily picking up on the boys' code. After they had fled up the stairs, she sat down in the now vacant computer chair.

"What about you Monique? Any special man in your life?" her olive colored eyes glanced slightly at the closing basement door.

"Oh… there's a few, just no one I want to be procreatin' with." She nodded self consciously, suddenly very interested in the fabric of her towel.

"Oh, I'm sure you'll meet someone dear. What boy wouldn't want to date a woman who hangs out around fashion models all day?" Anne smirked slightly, patting Monique on the knee. She sat back and sipped her own bottle of water a bit.

Monique didn't bother to volunteer that she'd been on sabbatical from Club Banana's purchasing department now for nearly nine months herself. She could go back any time… but she had more pressing matters to attend to at the moment.

She pulled hard at her own bottle of water, making it pop. She then decided that since Kim's mom was in such a fabulous mood, she might be ripe for a little surveiling.

"Mrs. P., did Kim ever say anything about a new enemy when you talked?" Monique went straight for the heart of the issue, hoping to use a little shock and awesome to get her answers.

Anne's smile evaporated pretty quickly. She'd thought she was long done answering those questions. Then again, this was Kim's best girl friend asking, not some nameless bureaucrat or GJE investigator. She sighed heavily thinking back to painful days, and to days before painful days, before answering.

"No dear… no one that she ever mentioned to me. She wasn't even taking missions as often, you know?" She had to bite the inside of her lip to keep tears from coming to her olive-hued eyes. "W-why do you ask?"

"Oh… Just that Ron and Wade and I were thinking about the good ole' days and wondering bout it all… Silly I guess, what with Global Justice Enforcement on the case." She tossed the answer off flippantly, hoping that it and the question were accepted that way.

"Oh, okay hon…" Anne answered after a moment's consideration. She wanted to believe that was the end of it… but something told her it wasn't. It was a voice she didn't like hearing in her mind, because it was the kind of voice a mother always had to listen to, one that never boded well.

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Global Justice Enforcement Director William Du looked as though his face were trying to crawl its way round to the back of his skull just to avoid looking at the man before him. He understood why they were meeting in private like this, and even why the man's strategy was so formidable. What he didn't understand was why Dr. Al Norm's appearance was anything but ordered for a man who prided himself on rigorous attention to order and probability.

"Everything is going according to plan I see…" Norm practically purred. He sat there, in a lab coat that looked like it was sewn together from the coats of several now-deceased clowns, stroking a clipboard that sat in his lap.

"Yes Dr. Norm," Will began, trying not to be blinded by the patch-work coat. He couldn't help but notice, as the Technicolor lab-coat forced his eyes upwards and away, that the man's hair also seemed to belong to several different people, along with his diabolical looking goatee.

"…yes. Things are proceeding exactly as you'd predicted. The world's various governments are giving Global Justice Enforcement all of the powers and authority you'd said they would. After I made sure to take Global Justice public and lend its resources to the United States and to the member nations who held interests inside of the Tower at the time it was attacked, it accelerated to power transfer."

"Good lad… Soon everything will be nice and orderly. Just as I said, from chaos…"

"…comes normalcy." Will repeated as if by wrote. He'd heard the doctor say those words so often he felt as if he might begin chanting them in his sleep. "Yes Doctor. Our plan seems to be working well. That rogue agent Possible is out of the way, Shego seems to have gone deeply into hiding these past two weeks, and we have GJE agents in one-hundred and two countries already, working in official capacities now instead of skulking in the shadows."

"Yes yes… more's the pitty that fate couldn't have eliminated Miss Go's random contribution along with Miss Possible's. However… her ripple won't do much to disturb the plot of our graph."

Will kept his face passive. These mathematic metaphors were starting to work his nerves.

When Doctor Director had announced her retirement nearly a year and a half ago, Doctor Norm had come to then Agent in Charge Du with a plan. It seemed incredibly grandiose, and relied on a lot of what-if's that Will had then not been comfortable with.

After the first what-if, his being named Director, came to pass; Will started listening to the flamboyantly dressed statistician. His probabilities showed that Kim Possible would have to fail sooner or later, and that when she did so it would be spectacular. That was why Will had asked for her on the Sears Tower… The higher the profile, the more likely the failure, Norm had said.

And indeed, with the 99.6% factor that Dr. Al Norm had predicted, she'd been blown not only to bits, but right out of existence. It had indeed been a spectacular, if disturbingly accurate turn of events. From that point on, Director Du had started to incorporate more of Norm's probabilities in with his own plans for redesigning Global Justice in his own image.

Norm had yet to make a mistake, and his recommendations were helping Director Du to make the world a much safer place. Everything was being done by the book, just the way he liked it. Laws were being passed that let his people take care of the bad guys with increasing ease and latitude; and that meant that no rules had to be broken when dealing with both super-villains and Mafioso.

Rules of Evidence, in Will's opinion anyway, were cumbersome. The more insidious foes knew that and made his life as an agent hell over it. Yet, they were still rules… which meant they had to be followed. Now that most of the world's governments were allowing GJE to ignore the usual rules, and writing new ones for them in fact, Will found his tasks much more easily accomplished.

"So, Doctor Norm," The Director clasped his hands before himself, "what does your handy little chart say our next challenge is likely to be?"

Norm eyed him in a way Will was not entirely sure he was comfortable with. "93.2 percent chances are that Shego will reappear soon and resume whatever crusade she believes she has against our agents, Director."

"And just what does she have in the way of crusades?" Will wondered aloud. Shego had badly beaten nearly a dozen of his people in the last six months… One she had apparently caused the death of. Certainly she had reason to fear the enforcers taking her in on any of a number of warrants, but it seemed as though she were on some sort of personal vendetta against Global Justice Enforcement; one she had not held before.

"I don't know… even my charts can't read minds Director Du." Dr. Norm responded to the half-asked question. Du eyed the painfully colorful stats-man again, and boggled at his eagerness to answer any question posed to him with authority.

"Fine fine… What do the numbers say would be the best way to handle her?" he eyed Norm carefully still, concentrating on his ever-present clipboard to avoid the man's coat and hair, or those wild eyes; one blue and one brown.

The man, Du thought, looked as if he had just been given the keys to the mint. "Chances are that Shego will try to get closer to GJE's upper echelon agents, such as Miss Justice. If she does… the best thing to do would be to allow her to over-exert herself. Once she has tired, she is eighty-two percent more likely to lose her temper and make a critical error, which will lead to her death."

Will frowned at this. There'd been a lot of death in Norm's numbers lately… more than in any previous projections he remembered seeing, but then again, they lived in more active times.

"Fine… Fine then…" he sighed after a moment. "Oh, and there seems to be a new player. Someone broke into a U.S. Government scrap-metal yard. They've been linked to UniquePossiblities dot com. Any thoughts?"

"Someone wants to be the next Kim Possible… Director Du." Norm leaned forward. He almost seemed eager, Du thought now, as he was forced to look at the man's ill-aligned grin and the crooked teeth behind it.

"…and? Do we dare hope she fails less spectacularly than Miss Possible did?" The Director frowned. He disliked strongly freelancers like Possible, who knew no chain of command.

"I would not doubt it Director." Norm lied smoothly. He'd not predicted someone would take up Possible's mantle so soon. He aimed to make sure it didn't last. Such willy-nilly crime fighting needed to be nipped in the bud. It just wasn't normal to run around in tights at the ringing of a beeper. It. Just. Wasn't. Normal.

"This person has a high likelihood of getting in over their head before they can get to such a dangerous place."

"Good. I hope you're batting average stays high Dr. Norm. Good Day."

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Touching the bandages around the newer implants, Sara smiled. The first set, implanted last week, had worked as promised. They'd allowed her to control and operate her new prosthetic as though it were the arm she'd been born with. The weight of that arm was a little off-putting, but she was willing to trade the slight extra load on her shoulder to regain a nearly full range of motion on her left side.

This second, more complicated set of implants didn't even itch. They were implanted under the skin, so there was nothing exposed to risk infection or inflammation, and would allow her the control needed to operate her second, more complex prosthetic.

With a smirk, Sara drew a sleeveless red turtleneck over her bare torso, and with a slight grunt of effort, popped her remnant through the proper arm hole. She was not looking forward to a week without the use of any prosthesis, but she was already pushing her recovery schedule. In a little over a week, she would be able to attach her newer, realistic limb again on a limited basis, and a week after that, she could start playing with her other new toy.

"And to think, I owe it all to a squat little German who sells junk chips on eVile." The redhead smirked as she adjusted her clothes. She was talking to herself, although the Swiss nursing staff that was there to help her was still in the recovery room.

"Still, you must admit," she continued, this time to the Hechco nurse she'd been assigned for the next week to tend the incisions, "Only a week for recovery from a major surgical implant directly on to my nerves is fairly impressive… I should send Bortle a fruit basket or something."

Smiling at the rapid progress she was making, in body as well as in planning, Sara gave one of the male orderlies a smack on the ass. "Ein was für reizvoller Mann! Sind Sie heute Abend beschäftigt?"

Her assigned nurse clucked her tongue and frowned. "Kein Geschlecht oder Anstrengung für zwei Wochen, Fräulein Smith. Sie wissen dieses."

Sara gave a pout and frowned. Then again, it was probably the pain killers talking, she was certain she wouldn't feel nearly as confident or sexy in about an hour when the anesthesia was out of her system. "Fine fine… give me a call in two weeks, Superman."

With a shake of her hips, the redhead strutted out of the room, leaving confused glances and one irritated nurse in her wake.

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Author's notes continued: Yay, enter our villains. I'm hoping I've given you enough to hang yourse- erm enough to keep reading and guessing what may happen next. ^_^

And what's this? An entire chapter without Shego? What kind of fanfiction is this turning into?! Well, I did insert a new scene with Sara at least, previously this chapter had only Will and Norm, and the scene at the Possible House. And to any german speakers… Sorry about the last section… It's babelfish. I can read and understand only a tiny bit of German, not enough to get across the exchange I wanted.