I do not own any Disney Character named herein, and am only using them for a tale meant for entertainment purposes only.
Kim Possible: Hearts & Minds
By LJ58
9
"Hey! What are you….. Holy….freaking…..smokes," Monique gasped, seeing what lay below. "Is that?"
"It's KP. And I think she needs help," he said, aiming the jet down at a steep angle as laser blasts filled the sky around them. "Hang on. We're definitely on, Monique!"
"Ron," she shouted, clutching her seat in one hand, and the laser rifle she grabbed up in the other as the jet dove at the ground that was coming up fast.
Very fast!
"Ron, that weird ship…..!"
"I know," he said, angling around a massive, metal saucer on long legs. "It's Lorwardian! Man, those guys are nothing but trouble!"
"I thought they were gone!"
"We beat them. They obviously came back," he spat, blasting the robot war machine in front of Kim even as he just evaded a second trying to intercept him since he was lower than ever.
"We have to come in fast, and bail before they can target us. Finish loading up, I'm going to try to land just over that rise overlooking that ship. Ready?"
"I will be," Monique assured him, and started grabbing more munitions with her free hand. "What do you need?"
"Nothing. You just get ready. We get out, you stay on the ridge, and play sniper. Keep anything from getting too close, or sneaking up on us. I'm going down to help Kim."
"Wasn't Shego supposed to be with her," she asked, looking up now as the jet banked, and the engines screamed as Ron just ducked another salvo, while weaving between the tall war machines as he aimed the nose at the nearby ridge overlooking, and partially sheltering the massive alien ship parked under the icy cliff.
"She was. Maybe she got inside already. We'll find out. Get ready," he said, and hit the breaking thrusters, even as he simply dropped the ship down to impact hard without care for finesse. By the time he was shut down the engines, he was already unbuckling, and heading for the hatch.
"Let's go!"
"Right behind you," Monique assured her. "Don't worry. I was top of the class at ranged sniping."
"I know," she was told, proving Ron did know she had once taken GJ provisional training, just like a few others from their class inspired by Kim's heroics. "Just stay low. These guys don't play," he said, and simply leapt off the cliff.
Monique swallowed hard, moving forward to hide behind a snow bank near the edge of the cliff as she looked down on a real battlefield.
"Okay, girl," she told herself, aiming her laser rifle. "Time to prove you can make the big leagues," she told herself, and tried to ignore the chaos below as she picked her targets.
KP
"That explains Stoppable," Shego sniggered as she couldn't help ribbing Kimmie.
"Hey!"
"Sorry. Sorry. Had to be said, though," she grinned at the redhead.
"Cute. Focus, will you? I think we're getting close," Kim said, taping the GPS grid.
"How can you be sure?"
"Well, the signal is getting stronger. Then again," she said, pointing out the windshield even as they felt something rock the Roth despite its impressive stabilizers. "There's that!"
"Oh, snap," Shego gasped, feeling her blood freeze as she looked down. "Is that…..?"
"Lorwardian," Kim hissed, staring at the huge ship that wasn't quite as large as Warhok's ship, but big enough. "They came back."
"Well, let's make it their third strike," Shego growled, staring down at the massive ship even as one side opened, and a score of familiar war machines came stomping out.
"I definitely think they know we're here," Kim said, barely evading a blistering laser salvo even as she hit the Roth's shield controls. "I'm going to land as close as we dare, then we have to get inside, find whatever is controlling the cyber-brain transmitter, and shut it down."
"You don't honestly think it's going to be that easy?"
"Lorwardian. Off-switch," Kim stated bluntly. "These guys are seriously two-dimensional in thinking. Still, the fact they may be behind the brain game is galling. They must think they can turn our world into a puppet colony."
"Not happening," Shego huffed. "I hate puppets almost as much as clowns."
"Agreed. So stick to the plan. I'm the bait. You're the muscle. Here we go," she said, and aimed the small car at the ground even as the robots, and ship, continued to fire at them.
"Okay, the Roth is safe, but the minute we step out, we're fair game," Kim warned, activating her own battle suit as the hum of its devices began to fill the small car. "So, ready?"
"Born ready, Princess. Let's go remind these freaks this is our world."
"Absolutely. Remember, find the communications, and their power generator, shut it all down. Then we face….whoever."
"Gotcha," she said, and rolled out of the car, hands already blazing with green energies as she launched devastating plasma blasts even as she cleared the Roth, and left its defensive shielding behind.
Kim moved laterally, openly drawing fire as she ran headlong at the thickest line of war machines moving to surround her.
"Come on," the redhead shouted boldly. "Someone on come, and play. I'm getting bored out here already," she said, and fired a grapple, tangling the line around one huge limb, even as she jerked with the aid of her battle-suit's neuro-amped muscles, and a fair amount of TK.
The big machine staggered, skittered, and went down in a weird approximation of dominos as three nearby machines went tumbling with it, and one exploded, setting off a chain reaction. The others quickly spread out, and then moved to surround her.
She couldn't even look toward Shego, or her last position, as she had to move, and move fast to avoid being stomped, trapped, or zapped by their lasers.
Then she considered what she did in the medical clinic.
She focused on the closer of the machines, and it's laser cannon swiveled, and blew another of the warbots to pieces. She grinned, and spread out both hands, focusing on the machines around her as she sent their cannons to blasting one another, and soon had a growing mound of debris around her.
The only problem was that were a lot more of those machines still coming, and she was still just one woman.
"KP," someone shouted, even as a bright blue flash exploded to her right, and a man in black landed just beyond a warbot that literally fell in two different directions, sliced right down the middle. "You couldn't wait on backup," Ron complained as he stood upright, both hands wrapped around the handle of a glowing mystic sword he rarely pulled out unless things were past serious.
She guessed that the current sitch counted.
"Seemed like a good idea at the time," she grinned, and rolled out of the way of a laser blast sent her way when she was distracted enough for the targeting systems to refocus on her.
Even as she tumbled away, a high velocity blast echoed over the snow pack, and the cannon firing at her exploded at the side of the warbot.
"Is that….?"
"Monique was not getting left behind this time. That, and she felt it was probably going to be safer with me."
"Does she still think that," Kim grinned, and bounded away, and then eyed another of the nearer bots, focusing solely on the big machine before her that suddenly stiffened, rose off the ground, and slammed back to take out four more of its kind.
"Way to go, KP. You're getting better with that trick."
"Still gives me a hell of a headache," she complained.
"What about Shego? Isn't she with you?"
"She went to look for the off-switch."
Ron laughed.
"Think it will be that easy again?"
"We can hope," Kim grinned, and lifted another warbot as Ron leapt up to slice the legs from under another.
On the hill, Monique continued to target the laser cannons on those machines she could see, taking them out before they could fire.
"Catch that one," Ron shouted, pointing at one of the warbots now moving toward the plateau after it apparently figured out that there was an unseen player on the field. "Monique can't fight them up close!"
"Got it," Kim said, and pulled it back even as it tried to climb the icy slope, and used its momentum to slam it back down into three more of it's kind.
"Man, you'd think they would run out of these things," Ron complained, slicing through more of the long, metal legs trying to slam down atop them when the lasers proved ineffective.
Meanwhile, more of the metal war machines continued to spill out of the open hatch now only a few feet away.
"Is Monique on frequency," Kim asked, moving around, and forcing more of the machines away, and into others, literally bowling them over with each other as Ron continued to cut their legs from under them.
"You got it, GF. Am I guessing you have a plan beyond making a mess of things?"
"We're about to join Shego inside," she said. "When we go, I don't know if these things will follow us, or go after you. The minute we're in, you get ready to bail. Don't let them close on you," Kim said over the wireless com that fortunately wasn't jammed by whatever kept her from contacting anyone outside the area.
"That's a good idea, Monique. You're a good shot, but there are still a lot of these things, and…. Kim," he shouted, pointing again.
Even as he did, Kim was fixing her glittering eyes on a pair of the war machines now trying to use the others as cover to climb the plateau.
She lifted both up, and slammed them into one another, letting them fall atop the massed warbots that had been covering their ascension until they rose over the tops of the gaudily painted saucers.
"Time to go, Monique," Kim shouted. "They definitely know you're up there. Stay low, but go. Now!"
"Okay. I'll be on channel, so if you need me…."
"We'll call," Ron assured her. "Just hide. This just turned into a one-on-one here. Go."
"I'm gone," the woman said, though the barrel of her rifle was still showing over the icy bank.
"Clever," Ron said, guessing she left it on purpose to keep anyone from guessing she was actually retreating.
"I'm going. You with me," Kim said, ducking, jumping, and then using a flailing limb to launch her the rest of the way into the open hatch where she grabbed an oncoming warbot's limb, and used it to spin herself up, and into the huge ship.
"Right behind you," Ron shouted, racing between massive limbs, jumping around already mangled pieces, and functional machines trying to stomp him.
He leapt up, spinning in midair to land on the edge of the open hatch, and then jumped on inside. Behind them, the machines kept going.
"They're definitely coming after you, Moni," Ron called over the radio. "So if you still hear me, get out of here."
There was no answer.
He paused, looking back, and saw Kim standing near a huge hatch that led into a long corridor not unlike the last Lorwardian ship they had visited.
"We have to trust her," Kim told him. "Let's go. Shego went this way."
"How can you….? Oh," he said, seeing the warped hatch torn open, and half melted.
Behind them, the war machines rising out of the deck just stopped, and stood in place, no longer trying to leave.
Ahead of them, however, were over a dozen sentry drones.
Or what used to be sentry drones.
"Yep," Ron said, shifting his grip on the Lotus Blade to one hand. "Shego has definitely been here," he said, seeing the claw marks, and molten metal scraps all around him.
"Goes without saying," she said, stopping again, and looking around.
"What is it?"
"I….feel something. I'm going this way," Kim told him. "You keep following Shego, in case she needs help?"
"What if you need help," Ron shouted after her as she ran off to the right when they reached the intersection of wide corridors.
"What could happen," she cheerfully tossed back, even as she mentally slammed two of the floating sentry drones into each other, and kept going without looking back.
"And she used to complain when I asked that one," he groaned, and kept following the trail of wreckage through the spacecraft.
Ron moved faster now, concerned for Kim, but knowing she had good instincts after all the years they had spent taking down villains, and worse. True, she had more than a few close calls, but there was something almost preternatural about her luck at times.
Not all of it could be pinned on his shoulders, either.
Kim just had a way of making things happen around her.
Ron ran now, moving carefully, but trying to close the distance as he now heard sounds of fighting, and ran into a large chamber where several corridors joined, and spotted green flames surging just ahead where a group of obvious humans were trying to swarm the lone, green-skinned woman.
"Shego!"
"It's zombie central, Stoppable," Shego growled, punching and kicking at the bodies between her and her destination, "But I can't figure out where they're all coming from!"
"Doesn't matter," Ron said, leaping up, bouncing off the walls, and dropping beside her. "They're all about to stop," he said, and reached for his watch.
"What, are you going to give them a time…..out…..?"
Ron grinned as the concussive wave spread out around them, turning the brightly lit corridor into a dim tunnel as only flickering emergency lights somehow remained on as every cyber-drone around them suddenly stopped, convulsed, and fell flat.
"Whoa," Shego blinked. "Tell me you can do that again?"
"System recharge in eleven minutes," the small watch stated as Shego stared.
"So, which way," Ron asked.
"Well, they seemed real eager to keep me away from that door," Shego pointed.
"Well, let's go find out why," Ron said, and moved with her as they simply walked over the piled bodies left around them.
KP
Kim felt the rush of something sweep around her, sensing much of the tech around her simply shut down, even as lights sputtered, died, or simply flickered wanly.
Someone had fired some kind of EMP, or she wasn't a scientist's daughter.
Still, she could sense a lot of active tech still functioning around her.
Apparently, whatever was going on made some of the technology resistant to ordinary defenses. She glanced down, saw her Kimmunicator was dark know, and that meant her own battle-suit was history. Not good, but still, she could get by.
It wasn't the first tight spot she had been in without backup. She kept going, forcing a door open, and noted the hovering sentry drones did seem to have all fallen down.
She couldn't help but count that a plus.
She moved through the corridors, and then stopped, glancing to her right as if in afterthought, and then approaching a set of heavy doors that made her realize this was what she sought.
She used the borrowed makeshift blade taken from a piece of ruined machinery, and pried open the doors to step into the huge chamber dimly lit by faint lighting that had yet to fade. Around her, certain machinery still functioned, and dull glow of central illumination seemed fixed on a huge crystal set in the center of the room.
She walked toward it, frowning, and then moved around it even as she realized the crystal was somehow surrounding something setting in what appeared to be a large chair.
She frowned as she moved around the large crystal, and gasped.
"No way," she rasped, staring at the tall, if seated figure.
KP
Monique sped away from the alien ship as her small jet skimmed around the ground, but realized she was still in trouble.
Just ahead, a virtual wall of war machines was moving to blockade her.
Behind her, more of the machines were moving to surround her as they closed the circle.
She could try for altitude, but she already knew those things could, and would shoot her down, as the smoking starboard engine could attest.
That left her with one option.
Only it was not going to help it things went south from there.
Even as the mass of machinery tightened the circle, she activated her own defensive EMP that shut down the small jet now only hovering over the icy ground. The aircraft thudded to the ground when it's struggling engines simply shut down, not being one of those protected from Wade and the twins' failsafe.
She yelped as the jet fell that short distance, and looked out as the machines staggered, faltered, and many just fell over.
She grimaced as she sat there, already feeling the cold starting to penetrate the small jet's thin hull when the power faded. She looked around for protective clothing, but saw only a thin flight jacket.
Better than nothing.
She pulled it on, then headed for the weapon's locker.
She strapped on everything she could carry, and then grimaced as she eyed the hatch.
She was four miles from the alien ship, in the middle of Antarctica, surrounded by robots that wanted her dead.
Or worse.
Could things get any worse?
Which was when she realized something outside was still moving.
And starting to bang on her hatch.
"Seriously, why do I even ask," she moaned, gripping the laser rifle she clutched in both hands, staring at the hatch with rounded eyes.
To Be Continued…