Boilerplate Disclaimer: The various characters from the Kim Possible series are owned by Disney. All registered trade names property of their respective owners. Cheap shots at celebrities constitute fair usage.
Written by A Markov with even less editing by KiY.
Chapter 13 - To Be Continued
"Where have you been," KiY hissed at A Markov. "You were here in chapter three, and I haven't seen you since."
"I, uh, had something I needed to do," Alex explained.
KiY sniffed. "Have you been drinking?"
"Not enough that anyone will notice."
"Unless they happen to smell your breath."
"Do you want me to give an award or not?"
"Yes, of course! But I may not have time to edit."
"I can wrok without a net," Alex assured him.
"That's work… Oh, go up and give your award."
Alex walked nervously out onto the stage. He was a tall thin man with thick salt and pepper hair mostly pulled back into a short pony-tail. He shuffled nervously to the center of the stage and glanced around the poorly lit auditorium. "…hem." He glanced back the way he had come while gingerly patting the various pockets on his over-sized green jacket. The action put many of the audience members in mind of a young Peter Falk, or rather it would have reminded them of a young Peter Falk if any of them had ever seen Peter Falk when he was young. In fact, only four of the attendees even got the reference and all of them had been nominated in the "Writer over 45 who most shows their age by putting excessive references to '70s pop culture in their stories." King in Yellow, the only person there who had actually seen a young Peter Falk, was busy fighting off another attack by mutant spiders and missed the entire thing.
Alex cleared his throat once more. "…hem… I'm a little nervous… I'm not used to talking in front of so many people…"
"There's only twenty of us, ya great southern poofter!"
"I hope you don't mind if I give myself a little liquid courage…" He went on, ignoring the interruption and pulling a small flask from one of his many pockets. "Just a little sip to calm my nerves…" with that, he up-ended the flask and emptied the contents into his gullet with a smooth easy gesture. -cough- His eyes crossed slightly and he rocked backward for a second before shaking his head and looking out over the audience. "Where was I?"
"You haven't even started yet!"
"Right… I'm here to present the Fonnie for the best unfinished story that hasn't been updated in a long time. There are many reasons why writers abandon a story. Sometimes there is a computer software crisis and all of the notes and outlines and plot points get lost into the void of unretrievable data. Sometimes, there is a family crisis that takes away all of one's writing time and when the author gets back to it, they find they no longer have the inspiration to continue that particular plot. And sometimes, they find out how hard it is to write in a particular style or to come up with a fresh idea involving six people stuck on an island and give up because they're too darn lazy to finish it up. I'm sure that all of the authors in this category fall into one of the first two situations…
"So, while I top off my flask, let's take a look at the nominees… First up…
Deathsheadx's Emerald Rogue.
Pain.
indescribable pain.
that's what Shego was feeling as the electricity coursed through her body.
She wanted it to stop.
But it went on...
But there was something else... a different kind of pain she couldn't understand... and then...
And then her heart stopped.
And suddenly Shego remembered.
And her heart started to beat again with renewed purpose.
As she was thrown in the back of the armoured transport Shego opened her eyes and looked around...
"My beautiful planssssss!" cried Drakken, "ruined! Totally ruined! Shego are you listening to me?"
"No," said Shego "I wasn't, I was too busy remembering... oh Bet..." she started to laugh a strange laugh. It wasn't her usual laugh this was something colder... there was a sense malice in the laugh
"Shego?" said doctor Drakken.
Shego turned and looked at doctor Drakken and doctor Drakken nearly peed himself
Oh he'd done it before, Shego always scared him but what he saw in those eyes chilled him to the very core of his being this wasn't rage, it wasn't the threat of pain...
This...
This was a promise...
A promise of annihilation
"You're not going to kill me are you Shego?"
" I should, it would make up for the crap you've put me through for the last 3 years... but no… I have bigger fish to fry..."
As the stage lights came up, Alex's flask went down and he walked a little unsteadily back to center stage. "Thanks for leaving us all in the lurch on that one Deathsheadx. Up next is a crossover that everyone wants to see finished, even though it never really got started. I give you, MrDrP's Stoppable's Island.
"Stoppable," Barkin called out as he headed towards Ron. "Let's get ready to shove off!"
Ron shook himself from his reverie. "Uh, I think we're still expecting one more passenger," he observed. "Shouldn't we wait?"
"This isn't some fancy-pants cruise line," Barkin said as he now stood nose to nose with his first mate. "This boat is leaving on time!"
"Gotcha," Ron said as he slowly backed away from his bellicose skipper. The young man barely avoided tripping over his own feet, then undid the lines fastening the boat to its slip. He signaled to Barkin, who engaged the motor vessel's engine. The Minnow was beginning to pull away from its berth when an auburn-haired, pony-tailed, green-eyed young woman wearing capris and a sleeveless blouse that, with a nicely-turned knot, she'd turned into a crop top, came racing up the gangway. Ron felt bad for her; she'd just missed the cruise by minutes.
He shrugged and offered a sympathetic look as he saw the disappointment on the would-be passenger's pretty face. He watched with curiosity as she took a few steps back and her face became a study in fierce determination. Ron was stunned as she bounded forward, then launched herself into a triple somersault. He couldn't help but stare slack-jawed as she landed gracefully on the deck of the Minnow.
"Badical!" he exclaimed. "That stadium rocked!"
"Well, that move did help win the cheer regionals a few years ago," the final passenger said as she brushed aside her bangs and tried not to blush from the compliment.
"I'm Ron Stoppable," he said, feeling wholly at ease with the young woman. "I'm the first mate."
"Nice to meet you, Ron," she replied with an open, friendly expression, as she, too, felt surprisingly at ease with her new acquaintance. "I'm Kim, Kim Possible."
"Well, welcome –"
"Stoppable! Stop goofing off and get to work! This boat won't sail itself!"
"I'm on it, Skipper," Ron called up to the bridge. "The Skipper's lost without the Ronman," he said, his chest puffed-out. Ron then turned to go – and his trousers fell down. "Awww man!" he whined. "This cannot be happening!" Ron exclaimed as he realized everyone, save Barkin who had witnessed this before and was merely rolling his eyes, was gawking at him.
Kim stopped staring, stifled a giggle, then offered Ron a warm, reassuring smile as she headed aft to join the other passengers.
III.
Her passengers aboard, her crew alert, the Minnow motored out of the tropic port and began her fateful trip.
TBC …
This time when the stage lights came up, Alex could be seen hitting the flask once more. He was definitely wobbling when he walked out to center stage this time and his words were delivered in the slow, deliberate manner of someone trying to pretend they weren't drunk. "And finally… Hobnob… I mean Humbug… Not like 'bah! Humbug' …or maybe it is like that… I never really thought about it like that… anyway… Humbug's Stubborn Beast Flesh.
Kim kicked off from her perch at the same moment that Shego felt the breath driven from her body. Something had grabbed her around the waist and was holding her like a vice. She was dragged forward by the weight of Kim's body, Shego desperately holding onto her Princess with both hands, causing her torso to rest painfully against the rim of the stack.
"Kim, wait… I can't…"
"Shego, come on!" Kim looked up at her wife in confusion as she dangled in space, one tiny hand in Shego's strong grip as her other hand gestured downwards at the maelstrom below. "There's no other way!"
"Something has me!" She could feel the force pulling her back, tugging her away from her angel and the taking away from her the choice that they had made together. She looked down at herself and saw the gunmetal blue of the arm, not knowing what it was.
Whether it was an attempt to free her mate or to leave her behind was uncertain; Kim lifted her other hand to take hold of Shego's wrists and then lifted her legs to plant her feet against the side of the vertical stack. Shego felt her pulling.
"Kim, don't do this!" She had to get herself loose.
"It's the only way."
"Don't leave me alone! I want to be with you!" If she could just free her hands, maybe even just one, she might be able to melt away the offending coils holding her back from oblivion, but Kim had Shego's hands in a death grip. She looked back down at the younger girl and noticed that the remnants of Kim's clothing were starting to burn from the ever-rising flames.
"Kim, please… please, baby… baby you're on fire!"
"Goodbye, Shego."
"No!"
Kim just smiled up at her and then she let go, dropping from sight and lost amid the fire and smoke.
"… not without me…"
Shego knew no more.
Alex moved toward center stage like a dead leaf caught in a small dervish before eventually coming to a stop facing the crowd. "And the winner is…" He flourished an envelope. "And the winner is…" He peered dumbfoundedly at the paper in front of him. "This can't be right…" he slurred. "There's nothing here…"
"We were running a little behind counting the ballots! I didn't even have time to edit that misuse of dervish," KiY hissed from off stage. "The final results are still out in the car…"
Alex finished off his flask and headed off stage. "I'll go get 'em…"
The stage remained empty for several minutes. A cough from the audience managed to echo through the musty theater and urgent whispering could be heard coming from several parts of the theater.
Cpneb leaned over to MrDrP and said, "I don't think you should be too worried about not finishing writing that story. No one's ever going to finish reading it either." Unfortunately, he was seated near a conch shaped cornice and his voice carried through the theater like a bullhorn in a chime shop. After he finished he looked around for the writer of this segment with murder in his eyes.
"That's not the kind of thing I'd say." He thought. But the writer just pointed at KiY and mouthed the words 'He started it.' KiY didn't notice though, he was too busy looking for Alex.
There had already been three paragraphs of dead time and even though they were pretty short, the crowd was getting restless. "I don't think he's coming back. Who's supposed to be presenting next?" KiY hissed at Mr Wizard, who had not planned on attending the Fonnies, and felt terribly surprised to have been called in for the guest shot because KiY had given him a preview of the ceremony earlier in the day. KiY tried to be quiet, but he was facing another one of those conch shaped cornices that the theater's interior decorator happened to like almost as much as the author of this segment and his voice carried throughout the entire auditorium where the attendees reacted as one by peering down into their laps at their programs. An exercise that proved futile because of the poor lighting in the room. Even had the light been sufficient to read by, the action would have done them no good. There hadn't been enough money in the budget to print actual programs, so KiY had lifted a bunch of self-help brochures from the courthouse where his wife worked and handed them out to the unsuspecting patrons of the night's event. The good news was that if any of them happened to be pregnant, there was a toll-free telephone number they could call to get state-funded birth control.
After four paragraphs of nervous waiting, they realized that A Markov was supposed to present the next award also. After a brief search through the dumpsters, they found him and pushed the drunken bum out on stage. Alex staggered out from stage right and tripped over a footlight. (Don't tell me there aren't any effing footlights, I bloody well just tripped over one!) His short pony tail had transformed into a shocking halo of gray hair and his beard was now tangled with various pieces of deitritus. He stumbled around and eventually came to a stop facing away from the audience at what might have been a heavy velvet curtain at some point in the distant past but now closely resembled an aging lace tea cozy… a really big aging lace tea cozy through which you could see several more of the ubiquitous conch shaped cornices.