Bad Moon Rising, a Kim Possible fanfic by Zombie Boy.
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Chapter Four.
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"You cannot yet imagine
How you will dance for me;
But you will dance forever
To the tune that I decree.
The kingdom of the worm
is all things to us all
But I will teach you many things,
before I let you fall."
Serial Killer, by Motorhead.
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Shego and Ron were sitting on Dave's back porch when they heard his boat motors. Heading through the house and out the front, they arrived on the dock in time to see him tossing a mooring line to Tweedle Dee.
"Hey." Shego yelled over the engine noise as she and Ron walked down the dock. "How'd it go?"
Dave made a 'wait a moment' gesture as he tossed Tweedle Dee the other mooring line. He cut the engines as the Synthodrone finished tying his boat up.
"Now that I can hear you, what did you say Shego?" Dave asked.
"How did you do?" Shego asked again.
"Pretty good." Dave answered as he shut down the boat. "I got everything you guys'll need. I'll show you when we unload."
Shego arched an eyebrow at her friend. "Just what the hell did you get? There wasn't that much on my list."
"Oh, I picked up some groceries and few other little essentials." Dave answered. "I figured, since I was out there anyways..."
"Oh." Shego said with a nod. "Then I guess we'll give you a hand then."
Fifteen minutes later, after the three of them had unloaded the groceries from Dave's boat and put them away, they sat down around a table on the veranda, each one of them with a cold soda in hand.
"Okay, first of all..." Dave began as he sat a medium sized duffel bag on the table. "In this bag is a couple of changes of clothes for the both of you, thirty thousand in cash, and just for you Shego..." he added and unzipped the bag before rummaging around in it.
From the bag, he withdrew a small black plastic case and slid it over to Shego. On closer inspection it had a stylized bull's head and the word Taurus molded into it.
"That's your new backup piece." Dave said as Shego unsnapped the latches on the case. "It's a Taurus PT-145, a polymer framed, double stacked subcompact in .45 ACP." he continued as she opened it, revealing a small,chunky looking pistol with a brushed stainless slide and black plastic frame. "It comes with a spare mag, loader, barrel brush, user manual, etc."
Dave then pulled out two green and white boxes out of the duffel and slid them over to Shego. "I also got you a couple of boxes of ammo, Remington JHP and an ankle holster as well."
Shego nodded as she pulled the slide back and checked the chamber. "Nice." she said. "It's not the same as my commander, but it'll do the job nicely."
"Taurus makes a good gun." Dave commented as pulled a pair of manila envelopes from the bag. "And here's you guy's paperwork."
Shego put her pistol down as Dave handed her and Ron their respective envelopes.
"You've got drivers licenses, Social Security cards, etc. They're good enough to pass a warrant check on in a traffic stop, but anything else will cause red flags to pop up, so be careful."
Ron squinted slightly at his new license. "Shaun O'Donnell... Huh. I'm the first Jewish Irishman in existence."
"I'm Karen Tranh." Shego said, looking at her license, then withdrew a sheaf of papers from her bag. "Insurance paperwork?"
Dave nodded. "For your vehicle. You're both listed on the title as co-owners." he said as Shego shook a set of keys from the bag. "Your gonna be driving a '96 Ford E -250 conversion van."
"Conversion van?" Shego and Ron said at once.
"Hey, you said you were gonna drive back to your place, right?" Dave asked, directing his question to Shego.
Shego nodded. "Yeah..."
"Trust me, there's nothing better on a road trip than a conversion van." Dave continued. "It rides well, is quite comfortable, and in a pinch, you can sleep in it. Plus, it has a GPS unit in it."
"Okay..." Shego said, her tone saying she thought this idea was slightly dubious in quality, but she was going along with it anyways. "Where do we pick it up?"
"It'll be in the parking lot of the Marina that I'm gonna drop you off at." Dave replied. "It's red with gold trim. You can't miss it."
"When do you want to leave?" Shego asked.
"I was thinking, eight, nine o'clock in the morning, if that's okay with you." Dave suggested.
Shego looked at Ron, who shrugged. "That'll work." he said. "Finally, you also have these."
Reaching into the bag, he slid a pair of cell phones over to them. "These are prepaid cells, paid for with cash so there's no trail, with time already loaded onto them. I've got a number in there in case you need help, just in case."
Shego smiled as she picked up her cell. "Thank you, Dave." she said. "I never even thought of that."
Dave smiled back and took a sip of his soda. "Hey, someone's gotta look out for you." he said.
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The buzzer sounded and Sicarius sent the last Synthodrone flying into the wall with a thump. Wiping a lock of sweaty hair from her eyes, she walked to the edge of the practice area and picked up a waiting towel along with a bottle of Gatorade before walking into the control room where she found her creator sitting with his feet up on a console watching CNN while perusing a magazine.
"What are you doing?" she asked, curiosity getting the better of her.
"Oh, you're done?" Drakken asked, looking up from his magazine. Sicarius nodded. "Well, you see that woman? The redhead?"
Sicarius looked at the screen that Drakken was pointing at, where footage of a redheaded woman reading a statement to reporters could be seen playing.
"Yes, I see her." she said. "She's important?"
"In the grand scheme of things? No, not really." Drakken answered. "But to me, personally? Yes. That Doctor Anne Possible, wife of Doctor James Possible, the man responsible for royally screwing me over, and mother to Kim Possible."
Sicarius nodded. "I see." she said. "So what are you going to do to her?" she asked.
"Funny you should ask that." Drakken said with a rather evil little smile. Taking his feet off the console, he leaned forward. "Right now, she's a rather sympathetic figure. Her daughter, a teen hero, was brutally murdered and her severed head was mailed to her husband.
Anne is a neurosurgeon, top of her field, her husband is a respected engineer and theoretical physicist, they have a large house, they're living the American Dream, right?"
Sicarius nodded again as she listened to Drakken's explanation. "Yes... by all conventional standards, they are." she said.
"Well, they happen to have some dirty little secrets." Drakken said, and flipped the magazine around so Sicarius could see it. "For example, here is Exhibit A."
Sicarius looked at the magazine and gave Drakken a puzzled look. "I don't understand." she said.
Drakken chuckled and pointed to the two page photo spread. "When she was younger, when she was in college, Anne and James had a wild side. Among their many shenanigans was attending a swingers party which was also being covered by Cheri magazine."
"Oh..." Sicarius said, understanding what Drakken was getting at. "So that's-"
"That's the future Anne Possible, then Anne McKinnick, in a 69 with her friend Deunan Knute." Drakken finished. "In about a day, this, along with several other things, are going to be 'anonymously' sent to a couple of reporters, because if there's one thing that they like to do more than cover a tragic story, it's to tear someone down."
"So what your doing is trying to ruin the whole family?" Sicarius asked.
"In a way, yes." Drakken answered. "I just want everyone who is close to James to suffer, that's all."
"I see." Sicarius said. "So, now what do I do, now that I've finished my hand to hand training?" she asked.
Drakken tossed the magazine aside and thought for a moment. "I believe that next on the agenda is... lunch."
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Parting the curtains slightly, Anne peered out one of the living room windows at the crowd of news reporters camped out on the sidewalk in front of the house and made a face before letting the curtains fall back.
"Vultures." she thought. "My daughter's dead, and the best thing you can do is camp out in front of our house?"
Walking back to the couch she sat down and picked up the newspaper. Opening it up to random page, she tried to find an article to read, but she found that she just couldn't focus on the words printed on the page.
Tossing the paper to one side, Anne rubbed her eyes and wished that she had someone to talk to. By all rights, she knew that she should be talking to James but that was out of the question. He was lying in bed upstairs, out cold from the prescription tranquilizers that their doctor had prescribed for him after he'd...
Anne shuddered at the thought of what had been done to her Kimmie. Dismembered and her head shipped off to her father at work.
"What kind of monster would do that to a child?" Anne thought, shuddering as she crossed her arms. " It's bad enough that they took her from James and I, but they had to desecrate her body as well-"
The chiming of her cellphone cut Anne's thoughts off and she recognized the tone- it was the one that she's assigned to the Stoppable's land line. Striding over to where she'd left it on the coffee table and snatched it up.
"Hello?" she answered.
"Anne?" asked Gloria Stoppable.
"Gloria!" Anne exclaimed. "At last, a friendly voice who isn't a gorramed reporter..."
On the other end Gloria gave a halfhearted chuckle. " I figured you needed a familiar voice." she said. "I know I do." she added darkly.
Anne's gut immediately tied itself up into knots when Gloria said that, as it reminded her that while Kim was dead, Ron was still listed as missing.
"Gloria, what's wrong?" Anne asked, shoving aside her grief by shifting into physician mode. It wasn't a cure for her problems, but at least she was doing something besides hiding in her house from reporters and trying to keep from falling into an endless black pit of despair.
"Everything." Gloria answered. "That's what's wrong. Everything. No one seems to be able to tell me what's happened to my son, or where he is, and the only people who seem to care are you, James, and us."
Anne nodded, even though Gloria wasn't there in person. "I know." she said. "I don't like it either. What they did was more than just Kim. Ron was just as much a hero as she was."
"Not that you'd know it, by the way that the media's going on about it." Gloria muttered.
"And not for a lack of trying on our part." Anne said, voicing her agreement.
"Anne, how's Jame's doing?" Gloria asked, suddenly switching topics.
Anne sighed and thought for a moment on just how to put it. "He's..." she paused for moment "He's taking about as well as can be expected. Right now, he's gone up to his brother's ranch in Montana, and took the boys with him, get them out of the limelight."
"That sounds like a good idea." Gloria said. "How come you're not with him?" she asked.
"I wanted to stay here, just in case." Anne explained. "That, and the media will keep an eye on me instead."
"Oh."
There was a lengthy pause as Anne drummed her fingers on her thigh, pondering a question that had formed in her mind while she had talking to Gloria.
"Oh, the hell with it." she thought.
"Hey, Gloria..." she asked.
"Yes?"
"Would you mind if I came over? I think we could both use some company right now." Anne said.
"That... that would be nice." said Gloria, sounding slightly relieved. "Call me when you get here."
"I'll be right over." Anne said.
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Ron jumped slightly when Shego fired the first round from her pistol, the muzzle flash about the same size as a softball. Mixed with the report was the clang of the steel gong fifteen yards away as it spun around twice.
"Well, it's accurate." Shego commented as she watched the gong swing back and forth on its pivot in decreasing arcs.
"Not to mention loud." Ron commented.
Shego glanced at Ron with an arched eyebrow. "I told you to cover your ears." she said
"I did." Ron replied. "I'm just used to fire crackers, that's all."
"I see..." Shego said, and raised her pistol again.
Ron grimaced and covered his ears tightly before Shego opened fire this time, hitting the gong and the other four beside it in rapid succession. When he saw he lower the gun Ron took his hands off his ears.
"So, do you like it?"
Shego thought for a second, looked down at the pistol, then nodded.
"Yeah." she said. "It kicks a little less than what I'm used to, but it'll do."
"It kicks less than what you're used to?" asked Ron a little incredulously. "It looked like it was kicking plenty hard as it was. I'd hate to see what you're used to."
Shego snicked and put the weapon on safe. "I'm used to a Colt Officers Model, Ron. That's an all steel handgun. This-" she pointed at the pistol with her free hand "is polymer framed. They tend to absorb recoil compared to the all steel ones."
Ron nodded, having gotten the gist of what Shego was trying to tell him. "Okay, I get what you're saying, I think." he said.
"Good." Shego said with a smile. "Now it's your turn."
Ron face went blank with surprise. "My what?" he asked.
"It's your turn to shoot." Shego said, explaining her intent with more precision.
"Uhhh... Shego, I've never shot anything that big before in my life..." Ron stalled.
Shego arched an eyebrow at Ron again. "This coming from a man with a dick that could shame most horses."
"Huh-what- How does that have anything to do with shooting?" Ron sputtered.
"Are you telling me you've never 'choked the chicken' before" Shego asked as she put the pistol down and stepped behind Ron.
Ron went beet red as he looked at his shoes. "Why are you asking me embarrassing questions?" he asked in a small voice.
"Because..." Shego said as she planted both of her hands on his back "It's distracting you and enabling me to do this!" she added, punctuating her statement with a small shove, propelling Ron towards the firing line. "Now get your tight little ass over there and pick up that gun!"
Ron yelped as he was propelled over to the firing line, and looked down at the pistol like it was some sort of exotic snake that was about to bite.
"Uhhh..." Ron said and looked over his shoulder at Shego. Seeing the look on her face, he gulped and picked up the gun. "Now what?" he asked.
"What do you mean, 'now what?" Shego asked, annoyance creeping into her voice. "Don't you know how to shoot?"
Ron nodded, making sure the weapon was safely pointed in the right direction before answering her. "Y-yeah, but I'm used to a nine millimeter Glock..."
Shego blinked in surprise at Ron's answer. "When the hell did you learn how to shoot?" she asked.
"Global Justice." Ron answered. "It was Dr Director's idea." he added. "She was intending for me to have a backup in case KP and I ever ran into to some real trouble..."
"Huh." was Shego's response as she gained a bit of respect for Dr Director. "She's more paranoid than I gave her credit for... anyways." she continued. "You see that lever on the frame, right above your thumb?"
Ron looked at the gun, and found the described lever. "Yeah." he said.
"That's the safety. Flip it down so you're ready to fire." Shego said.
Ron swallowed and did as he was told. "Okay...I did it."
Shego nodded and continued with her instruction. "Alright, now get a good grip on it, but not a death grip, aim it at the target- you know how to aim, right?" she asked.
"Yeah. Concentrate on the front sight, put it on the target, then bring the rear sight up in alignment with the front." Ron answered in a slightly distracted voice, concentrating as he was on maintaining a correct grip on the weapon and keeping it pointed in a safe direction.
"Okay, do that, and give the trigger a squeeze." Shego finished.
Ron swallowed again before bringing the weapon into his line of sight. The target and rear sight went a little blurry as he sighted in and his forefinger touched the trigger. In the back of his mind, he noticed the surprising amount of slack before he felt the resistance of the trigger meeting the sear. Applying the slightest bit more pressure, he felt the trigger break half an instant before the gun kicked with a distinct, snappy, muzzle flip and the muzzle flash blossomed before his eyes.
Ahead of him the gong spun as his shot hit home, and he remembered to breathe again.
"Wow..." he said, his voice sounding somewhat distant.
"Okay, now do that again." Shego said. "You should have about three shots left in the magazine."
Ron nodded and raised the gun again.
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Wade paused from where he had been listlessly flipping through old CD-R's -anything to keep himself busy and keep his mind off of his friends- and briefly wondered if he was hallucinating, because he could have sworn that he had just heard the chip tracking program announce that it had just acquired the signal from Ron's chip.
When it beeped again, Wade gasped and then lunged for his workstation, sending his stacks of CD-R's flying to every corner of his room.
"c'mon, c'mon, COME ON!" he yelled, panic filling his voice as h scribbled the mouse back and forth, impatiently waiting for his computer to come of it's screen saver.
Finally, the screen lit up and in the center of his monitor was a window, with Ron's GPS coordinates, heart rate, body temp, and other indicators.
"he...he..HE"S ALIVE! RONS ALIVE!" Wade screamed, leaping to his feet. "I gotta...I gotta- his parents. I gotta call his parents." he added.
Adrenaline flooding his system, Wade reached for his phone but stopped when the browser in the background caught his eye. It was his e-mail program, with the e-mail he'd gotten from Ms. Shackleford opened.
Pulse pounding in his ears, he remembered what the corners report on Kim had said, and then he realized just how much danger Ron could be in. And that he could probably use a rescue right now.
Sighing in defeat, Wade picked up his phone and dialed a number other than the Stoppables.
"Ms Shackleford?" he asked when the line picked up. "It's me, Wade Load? We talked the other day on the phone? Yeah. I have something for you."
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Drakken watched with a disarmingly detached expression as Sicarius carefully and methodically fired her AK-103 into the targets projected onto the backstop. According to the impact tracking system that he had cobbled together out of a lidar system he had lying around, her aim was getting progressively better.
"Well, she's getting to the point where she can shoot reasonably well..." Drakken thought, stroking his chin "Of course, that doesn't mean bupkiss as for actual combat ability. But how am I going train her..."
A smile slowly crept over Drakkens face as an idea came to him. "That might actually work... " he thought, then he punched the intercom. "Okay Sicarius, when you're done with that magazine, start working on burst fire."
Sicarius lowered her weapon, nodded once, and resumed firing. Drakken, meanwhile, grabbed a notepad and began to jot down ideas.
"Lets see here, to do this, I'm gonna want four people for this, I'm gonna need them linked up and transmitting data 'cause this is probably going to be a complete party wipe... it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to have an extraction plan in place just in case they do manage to pull it off.
The only thing better than having the complete memories of four Sicarius clones with fighting experience is actually having four Sicarius clones with fighting experience..."
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"So, what have we got?" asked Harbinger once he and Owen were seated.
"A lead." Julie responded. "It turns out that Mr. Stoppable had a tracking chip implanted into his hand."
Owen frowned when his fiancee said that. "If he had this thing, why wasn't it active before?" he asked, pointing out the obvious question.
Julie merely shrugged. "He doesn't know." she said. "He said when they entered the base he lost the signal, probably due to the fact it was built into a mountainside. Now he thinks it might have been damaged or otherwise unable to transmit."
"It could be a trap." Harbinger opined. "This Drakken guy kills the kid, takes the chip, and then goes somewhere and turns it on, hoping that the good guys will come charging in."
Julie nodded her agreement with Harbingers assessment. "That's what I thought too, but he mentioned that the chip was also transmitting his biometric data too, so there is a chance that he's right."
"Or he infected the kid and then reactivated the chip." Owen added.
Harbinger thought about that for a second, then shook his head. "No." he said. "It's past the full moon."
"So it's genuine, and not a trap." Julie stated.
Harbinger nodded. "That's my feeling on it." he said.
"So you mean we get to rooting around after a lead in the tropics?" Owen asked, his tone showing that he was not looking forward to it at all. Standard MHI gear in anything over seventy degrees was a sauna, and he had been rather liking the cool Rocky Mountain weather.
Harbinger merely grinned at Owen. "Sorry Pitt.. That's going to be for Hurley and his bunch in Miami." he said. "I've got something that your accounting abilities can be put to use for."
"Huh?" asked Pitt.
"I've been asking around the other teams, and no one has heard hide nor hair of the Monster Control Bureau." explained Harbinger. "Something's going on, and I want to know what."
"Oh." Owen said, trying not to sound disappointed. He preferred shooting things. "Okay."
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Evans brow furrowed in concentration as he read the latest missive from Wade. Sighing, he rubbed his eyes and got out of his chair, heading for Lt. Mendez's office.
"Hey, Lieutenant, you got a moment?" Evans asked after knocking on the door frame.
Lt Mendez looked up from his paperwork and nodded. "What is it, Sargent?" he asked, gesturing for him to come in.
Evans stepped inside and stood in front of Mendez's desk with his hand's clasped behind his back. "Apparently Mr Lipsky failed to kill Stoppable."
Mendez arched his brows in surprise at his Sargent's response. "Really." he said. "I take it there's proof?" he asked.
Evans nodded. "Yes sir." he replied. "His chip reactivated. And Mr Load told Miss Shackleford about it."
"Instead of telling us first?" Mendez asked. "You normally don't have such bad control of assets, Sargent."
"I know, sir, but bear in mind, he is a child, and this is one of his friends who thought dead." Evans pointed out. "Plus, he's only been an asset for a short while, sir."
"Good point, Sargent." Mendez conceded. "So, what do you propose for a course of action?" he asked.
Evans cleared his throat. "Well, sir, MHI is undoubtedly going to be sending a team to look for the kid. I don't know what assets they would have available to do that, so I'm going to need to talk to our southeast CONUS people and see what they can tell me.
While I'm dealing with them, I'm going to have Load throw MHI off their trail as best as he can."
Mendez cocked his head to one side and gave Evans a quizzical look. "Why? MHI is the best available option for dealing with him."
"I know, sir, but remember, Stoppable has the MMP. If he's been infected with lycanthropy, that combined with the MMP he could become quite formidable. And if MHI makes contact with him, it would make...recruiting him much more difficult." Evans explained. "And having another person like Major Winters is well worth any damage Drakken might cause."
"That's true." Mendez agreed. "I just hope we find Lipsky before he can do anything. You can go ahead, Sargent."
"Thank you, sir." Evans said, saluting Mendez before striding out of the office.
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Pulling her earplugs out and letting them dangle on their cord, Sicarius opened the door to Drakken's lab and stepped inside.
She found her creator seated at his desk, typing away at his workstation.
"I've finished my firearms practice." she announced.
"Excellent. As soon as I'm done here, I'll take a look at the results." Drakken said as he entered one last command into the system, which beeped once in acknowledgment.
As her creator turned away from the workstation, a low reverberating hum started coming through the walls along with the gurgling sound of fluid moving through pipes.
"Doctor, are you pumping something?" Sicarius asked, looking around the lab.
"Huh- oh." Drakken said, getting what the clone was asking about after a moments hesitation. "Yeah, I'm firing up the cloning tanks. You're going to be getting four slightly updated sisters."
Sicarius tilted her head to one side slightly as she looked at Drakken. "You've improved upon me already? Am I of any further use?"
Drakken grinned and rubbed his hands together gleefully. "Oh, I'll be needing you for a very long time. So don't you worry, Sicarius." he explained. "I just had an idea, and we're gonna need more than one of you to pull it off."
"Oh." Sicarius said. "So what is your plan?"
"It may sound kind of lame, but, it's just a plain, old, bank robbery." Drakken said.
"And the objective?" Sicarius asked.
Drakken's grin got even wider when she said that. "Oh, if only Shego had been more like you, I wouldn't have had to kill her." he said and gave the clone a pat on the shoulder. "Thank you. You made my day."
"You're welcome." the clone replied. "And the objective?"
"Ah, yes. That." Drakken said and clapped his hands together. "The objective of this plan is not the money, but the experience of running an operation like this. That is worth more than the contents of any bank vault.
Come, follow me." he added as he headed towards the door. "I'll fill you in on what I've fleshed out."
Sicarius dutifully followed her creator as he headed back to the firing range. "Anyways, here's the plan, or what there is of it: We send four clones for a daylight bank robbery. They're gonna be transmitting the whole time, because lets face it, this is probably going to be a suicide run.
In the event that they pull it off, there will be an extraction plan. But, since that's not likely, the transmitters they have on them will ensure that we're able to recover their memories and thus add them to future clones templates.
And when it's when it's all said and done, we can figure out what went wrong and where, change our plans accordingly, and then do it again." Drakken said. "So, what do you think?"
Sicarius thought for a moment as they neared the firing range door, and nodded. "In light of anything to the contrary, it looks like that it will work."
"Excellent..." Drakken said, a maniac glint coming into his eyes. "Now, lets look at those firing results..."
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End.
Authors note: No, I'm not dead. I'm just lazy- and I have that piece of electronic crack knows as Fallout 3 on my PS3.
Don't worry, I'll get more updates out.