Disclaimer: Again, this may be neither politically nor theologically correct. If you are ultra-sensitive, this is not for you. You have been warned. Oh, and the quoted song is by the Divinyls. You know what the name is.

Personal Affairs
Part II: The Invasion Begins
by MegaSilver

Kimberly stared into the mug in front of her. "So is Les Deux Magots's hot chocolate really the best hot chocolate in the world?" referring to the café she and her mother were in, an ornate, historic establishment in the sixth district of Paris.

"Well, it's widely considered the best in the cafés in Paris," her mother answered. "But I think you'll be able to find out for yourself if you just drink it instead of looking at it."

Kimberly grinned and took a sip. "Oh, wow; it's really good!" She set the mug down. "Oof. For Christmas, Grandma made this amazing Gugelhupf Cake… I've got to stop with the chocolate, now. Can't go back to hard training next week with a coat of winter fat … especially in Florida!" She grimaced.

Kris Rougé laughed at her daughter. "So, you all had a nice Christmas?"

"Oh, totally! Frigid cold in Munich, but really nice. Dave and I hadn't had a white Christmas since we moved out of Seattle back in 1986!" She sighed. "We'll spend next Christmas with you guys, I promise." Not that she was worried about offending her mother; her parents, whatever their faults, had always been very careful to avoid playing their children against each other.

Sure enough, Mme Rougé assured her, "It's okay. We got you last year."

Kimberly signed wistfully as she remembered that moment, her mother and Pierre suddenly showing up at the Youth Center only moments after…

… she'd kissed Tommy under the mistletoe they'd hung up.

Quickly, Kimberly backtracked mentally. No use thinking about Christmas 1995 right now. What had they been discussing? Ah, yes—Christmas this year. Back to that.

"I'm really glad I got to see Dad for Christmas, though. After he moved to Boston I started worrying he didn't care about me and Dave anymore, but… I was so happy when he called and said he wanted fly up to my exhibition, just like that. He's doing really well. He was even talking about coming to Florida on vacation during spring break."

Mme Rougé nodded hopefully at that news. The lifestyle habits of her workaholic ex-husband were still a delicate subject for her: the flash point for their divorce had been a single incident of betrayal during one of Terrence's many extended business trips, but her barely-contained frustration with Mr. Hart's inattentiveness had brewn for years. So when the then-Mrs. Hart had asked for a divorce, she had remarked, "You'll see the kids one or two weekends a month. It's not as though anything's changing in that department. I just won't be doing you any emotional favors anymore."

To her sadness, though, Mr. Hart had coped by sinking his head even more deeply into his career as a controller in order to provision as much as possible, materially, for his children, as though this would make up for never spending time with them. Ever the attentive mother, though, Mme Rougé did her best to avoid griping about her children's father in front of her children, although she could tell that they, too, were frustrated.

But maybe Mr. Hart would come around a bit now that he'd gotten to spend some time with Kimberly on this trip. One could only hope.

As Kimberly and her mother worked deep into their hot chocolates, bells began to sound in the tower of the old Abbey of Saint Germain des Près across the street. "My gosh, church bells!" sighed Kimberly wistfully. "It's so funny, you know… in America—at least in Seattle, Angel Grove or Fort Lauderdale—everything's so spread out and the only time you hear church bells is if you actually go to Church at the right time. But here, or in Copehnagen or Munich there's church bells everywhere. Everything just seams together and the bells are just a part of the life of the cities and you can't go without it—it'd be like something were missing."

Mme Rougé nodded and smiled. "It's how big, old cities are. I'd never really traveled much before we moved here—I only saw New York City for four days when I went there with your dad on a business trip—but being here so long you start to think a lot differently about the way you live life. There's not such a clean break between 'home,' 'work,' 'school,' 'shopping'…"

"Yeah." Kimberly grinned. "Will definitely be a culture shock to go back to South Florida."

"So which is prettier? France or Florida?" Kris had a twinkle in her eye.

Kimberly rolled her eyes. "Oh, Mom, there's just no comparing! Well… okay, in architecture, France, hands down. And I'm sure if I came in the summer and saw all those vineyards in Gascony you told me about I'd be just blown away. But it's kind of hard to knock a state where you live under palm trees and go to the beach all year round with this, like, bright bright neon blue sky. Besides, you've seen Grandma and Grandpa's neighborhood."

By a fortunate coincidence, Kimberly's paternal grandparents, natives of Munich, held a string of profitable apartments in Hollywood, Florida and lived in Coral Springs, right near Fort Lauderdale, so she was able to board with them while she trained at the Saint Lawrence Gymnastics Center. One thing Coral Springs did not lack was trees.

"True," Mme Rougé agreed. "And their furniture is very nice." Most of it was pioneer-style antiques acquired from their friends' galleries in nearby Dania Beach. "Speaking of Florida, how is everything down there? Besides gymnastics. I haven't really talked to you that much all year!"

"Oh, I know!" Kimberly breathed. "Umm… besides gymnastics, well…" Her voice trailed off. "Well, there's school. Doing okay; can't wait to graduate, just have one less thing hanging over my head."

"Do you have time to go out at all?"

"Oh, a little bit. There's these two teammates of mine, Cindy McClintock and Marlene Cristiano—we've actually become pretty good friends and we hang out a lot. But I don't have much time to meet many people at school. I guess it's better that way, for now… I mean…" There was, of course, one person in her life she had neglected to mention.

"Do you still keep in touch with your old friends? How's Tommy?"

Well, I'll be mentioning it now. Kimberly was actually somewhat grateful to have this in with which to explain her relationship status. "Tommy… well, see, actually, we're not together anymore."

Mme Rougé's eyes widened. "Oh." She took a deep breath. "We haven't talked in a while, then!"

"Yeah, well… actually, we just broke up around Thanksgiving." Kimberly hesitated, not sure whether she wanted to give more information. Her mother didn't pry, so she fast-forwarded. "Actually, I've started seeing someone else. It's not… really serious yet—we don't have a lot of time, either one of us—but he's really cool and we always do really cool things together, so we'll just see…"

Mme Rougé smiled. "Well, one month later I find out, and I live across the ocean from you… I guess that beats the three months you took to introduce me to Tommy and then another two months to tell me you'd been dating him—when you lived with me."

Kimberly rolled her eyes. "Oh, Mom."

"Kimberly, look. I know you spent a lot of time with Tommy, and I know you weren't doing anything bad. Honestly, I liked him a lot. Still, it was just a little perturbing that you dated Tommy for almost three years and that in the two years I was there I only saw him a total of five times."

"Well, I was really busy; you didn't see all that much of me, either!"

"True," conceded Mme Rougé. "Gymnastics and everything."

"Yeah. Kimberly grinned to herself and finished off her hot chocolate. And everything.

"Listen, Kimberly," began Mme Rougé, "I know I'm not really in much of a position to be trying to be a positive influence on how you handle your relationships. But I just want to say that I think you've done pretty well steering through them. It's high school; stuff ends, and you realized it was over with Tommy when you moved across the country. If you stay objective like that I won't worry about whom you're with. You've been a very good girl these past six years; I know things have been rough with the divorce and all—"

And all, Kimberly thought ironically.

"—but you've really coped with everything well. When I found out you were going to Florida I was worried about you being so far away from your friends, but now I think you're doing okay. I know you'll have a good life." Mme Rougé put a hand on her daughter's hand." "And I know you've made some tough decisions, and even though you're strong, some days it gets hard."

"You're right," Kimberly agreed.

"But don't feel bad about anything."

Friends. Images of her friends and of the Power Team flashed through Kimberly's mind. "It's really hard not to feel bad sometimes," Kimberly admitted. "I wouldn't be here—I wouldn't have gone to Florida if it weren't for my friends. I probably wouldn't have gotten through this all if they hadn't been there with me when things got rough. I owe the life I have now to them… and… it's just kind of sad, I mean… being in Europe and even just in Florida everything is so different and my friends aren't in this new life they've helped me to get and it's like there'd be no place for them in it." She frowned a little bit.

"Kimberly." Mme Rougé leaned in a little closer to her daughter. "How long had it been since you'd talked to Jason, Trini or Zack before you saw them the other week?"

Kimberly's eyes went wide. "I don't even remember!"

"But did you have a good time with them?"

Kimberly didn't even have to think. "Morphenomenal!" she breathed. She blushed when she saw the puzzled look on her mother's face. Oops. "It was… more… phenomenal than anything in the last eight and a half months! I loved seeing them in Copenhagen like that."

"See? That's how good friendships are. You can set down the glass when you need to go off for a time, and when you come across it again you pick it back up and it's still just as good as ever."

Kimberly nodded and smiled. Maybe her mother was right. But pick up the friendships… she had no intention of moving back to Angel Grove soon. All her family was out. Even the Campbells were out. And what if everyone back home felt bad for Tommy and thought Kimberly a mere selfish bitch…?

"So do I at least get to find out your new boyfriend's name?"

Kimberly laughed a little, grateful for the well-timed cut into her thoughts.

Five hours later, having concluded their annual mother/daughter after-Christmas shopping spree—albeit a couple of days later this year than their traditional date of 26 December—newly relocated from the Angel Grove Galleria to Le Bon Marché on the Left Bank of Paris, Kimberly and her mother strolled down the Hausmannian Boulevard Raspail, the crisp evening Parisian air perfectly complementing the gay Christmastide lighting scheme.

"Ah," remarked Mme Rougé, spotting a bakery. "Better get a couple of baguettes before the bakeries close!" Kimberly waited outside, and when her mother returned she found her daughter sporting a nice pair of shades.

Mme Rougé laughed. "Kimberly, it's nighttime! Why on Earth are you wearing sunglasses?"

Kimberly grinned toothily. "They just look cool!" she admitted. "Come on, my grandparents got me Christian Dior lunettes du soleil for Christmas and you expect me to wait until I'm back in Florida to use them?"

Mme Rougé sighed and shook her head, still chuckling. "Well, I'm glad to see you're practicing your French, at least," she joked as they resumed the path.

"Yeah, like all the ten words I know."

"My French isn't quite what it should be," admitted Mme Rougé. "I took six years between high school and college and never used it again until I met Pierre. Living here has helped, but we still speak English with each other almost all of the time."

Kimberly removed the sunglasses and put them back in her purse as the pair began walking again. "Dave seems to be learning pretty well, though," she remarked.

"Oh, of course. It's a lot easier when you're younger. Plus, he needs to transition into a Francophone school, so he's under a lot of pressure to learn it fast. Maybe it'd help if I had a job. After all I've been enjoying this place for a year now, and Dave's beginning to get settled in; I think I could stand to go back to work soon."

Very soon they crossed Boulevard Montparnasse and made their way to the building on the corner of Boulevard Raspail and Rue Léopold Robert, where the Rougés lived It was a cozy, charming classic place where Pierre could paint in peace after getting off his day job as an assistant curator at the Musée d'Orsay. And though the bustling Latin Quarter and Montparnasse were just around the corner, this particular area was normally nice and quiet.

Today, however, the place was anything but calm when they walked. Mme Rougé gasped at the sight of police cars and ambulances at the entrance to the building. and scrambled to look for an officer who didn't look like he had his hands full. "Excusez-moi! Qu'est-ce qui s'est passé ici? Mon mari et mon fils—"

"Madame, calmez-vous," answered the officer. "Vous habitez ici?"

"Oui! Ah… il faut—je dois trouver mon mari et mon fils. S'il vous plaît, aidez-moi !"

Hearing her mother try to communicate with the cop in a foreign language only added to the sense of besiegement and helplessness Kimberly felt now. She had no idea what had happened and until someone could get through her mother's halting French and her mother could relay it to her in English, she would remain in the dark. Shivering in the cold, crisp European air, she whirled her head back and forth, doing the only thing she could think to do: search manually.

Her search paid off. "Mom, there they are!"

"Merci, monsieur!" Mme Rougé bade the officer. The two ran over to join the rest of the family, Mme Rougé practically jumping into her husband's arms. "Oh, Pierre, what happened? Davey, are you okay?" Her husband had a black eye and a paramedic was slipping her son's arm into a sling.

M. Rougé looked and sounded like he was still a bit shaken up. "Someone knocked on the door. When I answered, there were two men in masks. One of them struck me on the side of the face with a crowbar. David was right behind me and his partner struck him on the arm. They searched the apartment and left—they didn't take anything. But when they were going, some other people went out into the hallways to investigate; they struck them as well."

Mme Rougé looked disgusted. "What kind of sick fuck would club a kid?" Kimberly heard her whisper to her husband, not as discreetly as she perhaps was trying for.

After sunset, two vengeful-looking young men stood before a translucent black orb facing a wall in a back alley of a dinghy Parisian suburb in Seine-Saint Denis. Within moments, violet lightning shot across the wall and gave way to a communications portal—with Zedd's face inside.

"Yes?" the evil menace snarled.

"You owe us money," said one of the boys with a thick working-class accent.

"Oh, I don't think so! You get the money after you deliver the girl."

"She wasn't there. It was necessary to arrest the project."

"And do you think I care? You are under contract here! You don't get paid until you fulfill your end of the bargain. Now try again!"

"We can't. The police will be ready if we go near her now! You gave us a name, an address, and a picture, not a list of times."

"Then you can kiss this client goodbye!" With that, the portal closed.

Infuriated, one of the two young men smashed the orb with his foot. "Putain de merde!"

In his beat-up RV on the moon, Zedd drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. "Drat! I always knew these primitive humans would be unreliable for major tasks! If only we could use direct power without being undetected—oh!" He began to glow with anger. "Now I'm actually starting to wish I had a sorceress around to give me advice on spells! FINSTER!"

His fawning but conniving agent slipped into the motor home. "Yes, my Lord?"

"You wouldn't be familiar with any of Rita's incantations, would you?"

"Somewhat, but I cannot guarantee I'll have exactly what you're looking for. I'm a technician, after all; I studied magic only inasmuch as it was necessary to ground Rita in case of an emergency."

"Well, it would have to be something subtle and short-range, anyway. We can't afford to project high-powered beams of any sort!"

"All right. I'll sift through the books I was able to grab before we left the palace!"

"Oh, and one more thing! Can you set up the materialization projectors?"

"I can, but it'll be slightly risky. Teleportation requires a little more power than the communications portals and there is a small chance that it could be detected."

"How small of a chance are we talking?"

"Well, the Rangers or the Machines would have to be on guard, actively looking for unusual energy signatures and happen to cross the exact frequency during the moment in which one of us passed through. It's a small risk, indeed, but in the circumstances I don't want to lie about it."

"Well, we'll just have to take that risk!" Zedd was set on Kimberly. Nothing was stopping him.

"I love myself, I want you to love me
"When I feel down, I want you above me
"I search myself, I want you to find me
"I forget myself, I want you to remind me."

A strange mixture of tunes—though all conspicuously modern, and most of them fairly risqué—from rock to pop to Death Metal boomed throughout the funky club in San Francisco as the partygoers, themselves unusual, danced the night away. The place attracted such a bizarre crowd that scarcely anyone acted surprised at the two evil space aliens that had just entered to mingle among them. In fact, guys were patting Master Vile and Rito Revolto on the backs, girls inviting them to dance, and waiters offering them cocktails as though they fit right in.

And, much to his father's consternation, Rito looked to be succumbing to the wily charms of one particularly odd but potentially gorgeous young lady.

"Knock it off, Rito!" Master Vile scolded.

"Aww, Pops! Can't I have a little fun while we're down here?"

"Out of the question! We're here to work!" Dragging the spoiled brat along, he proceeded to the back of the joint and downstairs to the main office. He knocked on the door.

"Come in!" bade a cheerful female voice. Master Vile opened the door. Inside a beautiful brunette woman sat in a swivel chair behind a desk reading a paper, right leg crossed over left, sporting an attractive little red dress and red Prada high heels. At the sight of her clients she stood up and smiled pleasantly. "Oh, it's you! Master Vile, isn't it?" She spoke in an accent clearly originating in the south of England. "It's been so long!"

Rito scratched his head. "Wait a second—who are you? I thought we were coming to see…"

"You mean… he didn't tell you?" the woman asked. "I'm the Evil One. The Tempter. The Deceiver. Old Nick—or Nikki, if you prefer. The devil."

"But… I thought you'd be a man!"

The devil laughed, walked over to Rito and caressed his chin. "Oh, silly, I'm whatever people want me to be! I just happen to find this to be one of the more palatable forms to most of them. So far I meet with a fair amount of success these days." She licked her lips and then lost her smile. "Unlike some beings I know," she muttered, glancing upwards.

"You mean…?"

"God? Yes." The devil rolled her eyes. "So eternal, so static, so… inflexible. Ever since the dawn of time He's thought He can demand that souls come to Him on His terms. I, on the other hand, am one step ahead. I go to people as they are; they come to me as they are. That's why I get more souls to follow me; it's just easier for them to do all they want."

Rito looked puzzled. "And so… when they come to you, then they follow you to hell for all eternity?"

"Well, no deal can be all positive, now, can it?" Re-donning a smile, the devil turned to Master Vile. "Really, darling, how are you?"

"Not so well, I'm afraid! My daughter Rita has just met an untimely death—and we suspect foul play!"

The devil frowned. "Oh, I'm so frightfully sorry to hear it! Do you have any leads?"

"If my instincts are correct, it was almost certainly that impotent husband of hers! Her mother always told her to pick a respectable cosmopolitan slime bucket! Why she ever married that landed savage is beyond me."

Tsking, the devil shook her head. "You know, you have to watch out for that male sex. Nothing but trouble, that's what they are."

"Hey!" protested Rito and Master Vile.

"Present company excluded, of course," she qualified, smiling.

"Anyway, I'm afraid I have a bit of a bone to pick with you!" declared Master Vile.

"And why is that, now?"

"I sold our souls to you and your service in exchange for our eternal life. And now it appears that one of us isn't holding up her end of the deal!"

The devil cocked her head. "Oh, really?" She slinked over to the desk and picked up a massive handbook. "Darling, had you only read section 8., you would have understood that my role in this was merely to guard against such ailments as excessive aging, poor health, frailty or negative interference by my own personal agents. I simply have no control over the free will of non-possessed sentient beings who choose to act upon the lives of others, nor can this pact provide protection against fortuitous accidents or, if you will, acts of God." She rolled her eyes and let out a puff of air. "But then, no one ever reads the contract."

"I thought the bold lettering made it clear that this was a soul-for-eternal life deal!"

"Now surely you realized that slogan was polemics. Any successful marketer embellishes the presentation to make his point. That's why we read the contract between watching the commercial and signing, darling."

"That is the biggest load of malarkey I have ever heard!" Master Vile thumped his cane on the floor.

"Darling, if you ask me, I'd say just including that information in writing was more than a few steps above my title of 'Deceiver.' But frankly, anyone who is deceived has only himself to blame for not exercising due vigilance. I am sorry about your loss, but I cannot do anything about it," the devil insisted firmly, retaking her seat. "Men die only once, and then comes Judgment! And don't think that that maxim doesn't apply to women, as well."

Fuming, Master Vile started to stomp out of the office. Just as he was about to open the door, the devil spoke up again. "There is… one thing. A loophole of sorts, though I'm not sure you'd be interested."

"What?" Master Vile faced her once again. "Of course I'm interested! Spit it out already! I don't have all day!"

"If your reports are correct, Rita died in a state of grave sin. Accordingly, any chance at eternal redemption has expired and someone must pay the eternal debt of hellfire for her iniquities. However… there is no reason why it has to be Rita herself."

Slowly, Master Vile approached the desk. "Are you saying we can offer a sacrifice to revive her?"

"In a word, yes. It won't redeem her soul; only a perfect soul could cover the sins of another, and only before death. You can, however, make an imperfect sacrifice to bring her back into this realm—though of course if she dies again without reconciling, she'll go right back to hell. Not that that bothers you, I'm sure, but you'll need to find a sacrifice to cast forever into the lake of fire. By that, I mean something sentient and souled; not one of your artificial monsters or—what do you call them?—Tengas."

"Aww, gee, Pops!" sighed Rito. "How are we ever going to get one of those?"

Master Vile just stared at his son. The devil noticed his gaze and began staring at Rito as well. Rito darted his glance back and forth between the two of them.

"Uh-oh."

TO BE CONTINUED…