I do not own the Disney characters named herein, and am only using them for a nonprofit tale meant to entertain only.
Kim Possible: Rogue
By LJ58
9
"Are you kidding me," Richard swore, dropping a copy of the Denver Post on Gene's desk with a photo of five less than photogenic agents dangling from a scenic overlook. The graffiti, he had little doubt, was meant for them. "You actually tried to engage Stoppable? After everything we do know, you still tried to directly engage him?"
"Viper assured me his abilities were overrated."
"That ambitious cur has his own agenda, and you should still know better," General Flagg said, resisting the urge to shout. "You might as well have sent up a flare. You do know he's going to be coming right at us now."
"Let him come. We ran off Elizabeth's best, and we'll take care of him, too."
Richard shook his head.
"Do you know that I was there that day."
"What," Gene Hardcastle frowned.
"Middleton. Ground Zero. My bird was shot down outside Middleton when we tried to engage those things during the invasion. I was making my way to the local command post when I saw him, Gene. A scrawny little teen, who outfought, and outmuscled two nine foot aliens. He spanked them. Seriously spanked them. Those behemoths never had a chance. And Viper told you he was overrated?"
Gene frowned.
"He assured me after their encounter that Stoppable was still more hype than not."
"Viper is obviously after something else himself. I don't care what it is, though. I want his leash tightened until after we're finished with him."
"And then?"
"And then I want him finished," Richard spat.
Gene swore softly.
"This should have been so easy."
"I told you never to underestimate Elizabeth. That bitch give paranoids a role model. Unfortunately, her instincts are almost scarily accurate. Apparently, they haven't gotten rusty despite her past few years at a desk."
Gene frowned again as he eyed his own desk.
"She never showed at the Farm."
"And why would you think she would?"
"The Protocols….."
"Tell us what to expect. The woman has never done the expected. It's how she survived North Korea."
"I didn't know she was ever in…..?"
"Before your….promotion. I'll just say that if you ever have her surrounded by a platoon of Marines, you'd better shoot while you can. Because she'll still try to beat you. And the odds are, she would."
"You have to be kidding?!"
"She's that good," the Air Force officer nodded. "Better than any of our guys. In her time, she was likely better than Possible ever was."
"If she was so good, why did we never hear about her," the general demanded.
"Exactly," Richard told him.
"Huh?
"Damn, Gene, use your head. Why does MI6 screw up so much?"
"Well, hell, half their agents walk around living like bad movie stereotypes."
"So do a lot of ours," Richard scowled. "But that's just it. Elizabeth was in and out of countries that never saw her coming. Or going. She did more to undermine the Soviets, and bring about the end of the Cold War than all the politicians and soldiers in NATO combined. Her very anonymity only aided her effectiveness."
"You're joking," the army officer frowned.
"Don't underestimate her. Her spy plane was shot down over North Korea early in her career."
"And?"
"Six months later, she showed up in Seoul with four major defectors. All top ranking officers with critical Intel, and she knew more about their real Atomic Program than the North Koreans did themselves. Need I say more?"
"Why wasn't this in her files?"
"Because until recently, Global Justice operated outside our own purview. We could have milked them for intelligence right up until the Golden Moment, but you had to let your heavy-handed mercs expose our presence. Now, Elizabeth is in the wind, Stoppable is just getting started, and….."
"And?"
Richard looked grim, and only then tossed the file he held on the officer's desk.
"Shego is on to us, now."
"Shego? But we got rid of Hench. By now she should be heading off to whatever…..or whoever is running her now."
"You'd think. Open the file."
Gene opened the slender folder, and stared at the single photograph.
"I don't get it," he frowned.
"I got this from the detective that 'found' the body. Look closer."
Gene lifted the grizzly photo of the dead man, and stared hard.
Richard leaned over his desk, and tapped the dead man's forehead.
Where someone had carved three makeshift stars into the dead man's forehead.
"That can't possibly mean….."
"How many stars do you wear, Gene?"
The man eyed his epilet, and grimaced.
"Three."
"So do I. So does Sam. I think it's a message to us. Just like Stoppable's less than subtle jab. She's coming for us next."
"Or….one of us."
"I saved the best for last," Richard told him. "The autopsy showed three more stars on his chest. Three more on his…..backside. She all but named us. Only she knows which she equated with…..what part of the anatomy. But she's coming. I'm returning to the Bunker. It's time to escalate, or our entire project may yet fall apart before we can move."
"We're not nearly ready!"
"We'd better be. We have a genuine cosmic monster coming after us, along with a monkey master who has uncharted abilities. Which is why I wanted to move slower from the start, to ensure the lose ends were neutralized. Why I wanted to be especially careful. Especially when Stoppable showed back up. As I recall, your impatience is what undermined Cadmus, too, wasn't it," the Air Force general asked him blandly.
"Maybe," Gene murmured sourly. "Maybe it's time to let Viper finally earn his pay."
"We still need him for…."
"Anyone can play his part. We have some very good, very gullible agents of peerless skill," the officer snapped at Richard. "But how many can match Stoppable? How many have both the drive, and ambition to bring him down? I say we send Viper to intercept him, and take him out. Once and for. Problem solved."
"Gene, I swear to God, you're an idiot. I'm going to the Bunker. I need to get ready to shift the base of operations before this site is revealed to the wrong people."
"I'll call Viper," he said stubbornly.
"Do what you think best," he spat, and turned to go. He waited till he was in the hall to mutter, "Stupid, fanatical moron. You're going to blow everything."
He waited until he was in the authorized lift only a half dozen people in the world could use, and pulled out a cell phone.
"He refuses to yield. Proceed as planned."
He put his phone away, not feeling too bad about Gene. After all, he wasn't really one of them. He only thought he was, which made it expedient to be rid of him anyway.
Twenty minutes later, General Eugene Hardcastle was found in his office, victim of an apparent stroke that left him virtually comatose. Unable to even move a single finger.
KP
The nurse walked over to the man in the bed covered by an oxygen tent, and eyed the nearby machines that chirped and buzzed as they kept the man on the bed alive.
The new nurse had actually giggled at seeing their patient, unable to believe his skin was really that blue, thinking someone was playing a prank on her. Ellen Greer checked the patient's vitals, and dutifully recorded them on the chart as she went about her duties with her usual grim efficiency.
She had been working with the man since he had been brought him just over two years ago. In all that time, he showed no response. No signs of improvement. He acted brain-dead, except for the fact that the scans run on him indicated sporadic, if frenetic brainwave activity at odd periods.
No one knew what had happened to him.
Her employer simply charged her with keeping the man alive, and relatively well.
Considering what she owed her, she didn't have any trouble with accepting the mandate.
Meanwhile, she watched over her other patients. Mostly older, or injured agents who had been maimed, or injured so badly they couldn't reenter society. Or function even if they tried. The center she ran was a medical research center, but it was also a top secret, and very exclusive retreat where said agents could safely convalesce without fear of being found, or of accidentally spilling secrets they might yet retain.
The blue man wasn't even technically a legitimate patient.
Ellen was one of only four people in the entire center that even knew he was in the closed wing.
Still, the recent news that Dr. Director herself was on the run, and the entire Agency had gone Ghost concerned her.
Something was happening.
Something big.
She had a hunch it had something to do with the man that her mentor claimed had to know something worth killing him. Why else had someone attacked him?
At first glance, he did seem a stroke victim. Or someone caught in some accident. But if Dr. Director said the blue man had been attacked, she believed her. Which was why she kept her snub-nosed wheel gun strapped under her scrubs every single day she came into work.
Even she knew that if you tried once, odds were, you'd try again.
Even as she left the blue man's room, she heard an ambulance come in, and a grizzled man in Army green was dragged in to the clinic's ER. The old man was displaying the same symptoms as the blue man.
Ellen didn't say a word.
But she didn't believe in coincidence. Her hand stayed close to her sidearm until every new face in the ambulance departed. Something about one of them didn't look…..trustworthy.
And it wasn't just because he was Japanese.
KP
"Fancy meeting you here," Shego drawled sardonically as she dropped out of a tree to land near a tall shrub where a casually dressed Ron Stoppable stood.
Only it was a Ron with seemingly dark hair, and mirrored sunglasses.
She stood there looking the same as she had almost five years ago, and showed no hint of the years that had matured him. She grinned, dusted the front of her distinctive cat-suit, and just nodded at him.
"I like the incognito look, but trust me, their facial recognition software will peg you the minute you step through their doors."
"That why you're still out here, too?"
"Nah. If I wanted those posers, I'd already be inside carving their hearts out," Shego drawled.
"Well, since you're bothering to talk, you obviously want something."
"Yeah. You. We need to talk, monkey-boy."
"That's why I'm here. When your path started to take a very definite turn after Jack's apparent suicide, I knew you were headed here, too."
"You did?"
"Even I can connect dots."
"I liked the piñata's you left on Mount Middleton," Shego smirked. "C'mon, my car is over this way. We can talk in my room. We'll have guards coming this way in ten minutes."
"Seven. They use randomly fluctuating patrol patterns."
"Whatever. Coming?"
"Sure," he said, making a gesture.
"You got ninja buddies out there?"
"A few friends," he commented.
"Better tell them to lay low. These guys aren't playing."
"Neither am I, Shego," he told her, and followed her to a low, black sports car that was no Hybrid.
"Nice."
"Never know when you might need a good getaway," Shego smirked, and slid behind the wheel. "My motel isn't too far. We'll talk there."
Ron just nodded, wondering how it was no one reacted to the blatant slap in their faces as Shego sat there driving through the heart of the nation's capital looking very much like, well, herself.
"It's driving you nuts, isn't it?"
"Don't know what you're talking about," he murmured.
"Sure you do. You're wondering how in the world I can get away with running around in broad daylight without half the city's law coming down on me. Right?"
"Well, yeah."
Shego tapped the small pouch on her right side at her waist.
"Hard-light hologram. Looks, and feels real. I can make myself look like anyone I want, and no one will believe otherwise. I only turned it off when I jumped out of the tree. And inside the car, special tint hides my features," she said, tapping the window at her side.
"Smart."
"I do learn from my mistakes. How about you?"
"I try."
"Not what I heard. Viper suckered you big, is what I heard."
"I was focused on the wrong target, but saving lives was my primary concern," Ron grumbled.
"Whatever. I just can't believe some poser actually beat the guy that put our Lorwardian friends back in orbit."
"He's a monkey ninja, too. A good one."
"Really," Shego smirked. "That's primo info, sidekick."
"I'm no sidekick…."
"Sure you are," Shego grinned. "Mine."
"What?"
"Come inside, and I'll explain. Trust me. You want to come inside."
Ron climbed out of the car after she parked it, and followed her into the room on the ground floor. She didn't stay there, though. She walked into the bath, yelled, "Come on, Stoppable. Time's wasting."
"Huh," he frowned as she stepped into the shower with her clothes on.
"Get in here," she ordered.
He glanced around, shrugged, and stepped into the shower.
The entire tub sank into the ground the moment Shego pulled on a certain curtain holder.
"You don't seem too surprised," Shego noted.
"You wouldn't believe how often this happens to me," he remarked dryly.
"Wow, Little Ronnie's becoming a worldly sort, is he?"
Ron said nothing to that.
"Okay," she said, stepping out of the tub, and walking over to a small card table covered with papers, a laptop, and a single mug with cold coffee. "Welcome to the local lair. Let's chat."
Ron stayed on his feet.
"You first."
"Okay. obviously, I want your help."
"With what?"
"Don't play coy. By now you know these are the same guys that killed Hench, tried to kill Drew, and have been trying to play puppet master with the whole freaking nation lately."
"Yeah, I got that part."
"Well, have you got to the part where they have something to do with Kimmie's disappearance?"
Ron stepped forward.
"What do you know?"
"I know that just over two years ago, Drew contacted Kim about something. Something….big. So big it freaked him out beyond normal."
"You don't know?"
"He called me up, too, and said he needed me. By the time I got there, he was being loaded into an ambulance, and was a very life-sized vegetable."
"You couldn't find out what happened?"
"It wasn't any lab accident. I know that. Right before he hung up that last time, he told me if anything happened, to get to Kimmie. Only by the time I realized something wonky was going down, Princess had vanished, too."
"You never found out how?"
"Oh, I found out how. And I found out where. But by the time I tracked her, she was gone again. Only this time, she was….. Well, I don't know what she was. Or where she went. I only know she disappeared, and those guys know where."
"And how?"
"Oh, I know how. It took a while, but I've got a few pieces put together now, and I figured it out. For all the good it did me."
"Tell me," Ron said.
Shego gestured at her laptop, and stabbed a few keys to open a photo file.
"What do you see?"
"A…..shoebox?"
"Hardly. They call it the Matrix. The most deadly piece of alien technology ever found. It came from the Big Greens' ship. GJ snatched it."
Ron groaned.
"Your Nerdlinger figured out fast that it was bad news. He even dared Cyclops, and told her to get rid of it, fast. Ironically, she agreed. In the end, her bosses didn't. They saw power, and wanted a slice."
"Okay, I'll go out on a limb here, and say it went to…..Lilac Valley."
"Top secret boy's club where all the war hawks, and wannabes play with things they shouldn't, trying to build bigger and better toys to club each other with," Shego nodded. "I'm guessing here, but I think they finally dragged in Kimmie, thinking she might know how to use it since they couldn't make it work."
"What happened?"
"That's the part that I want to know. Kimmie went in, but she never came out. Every man that was there the day something went down is now dead. Accidents. The usual. One by one, they dropped dead. Except two. Now, one."
"The one?"
"General Hardcastle was found two days ago after an apparent stroke. The same kind of stroke that made Drew a lawn ornament. That only leaves General Richard Flagg. The only man alive and well that knows what really happened that day."
"Someone's cutting loose ends," he remarked casually.
"That's my guess. And that three-star goon knows what really happened. That's my guess."
"You have the Matrix."
"I might have….acquired it recently," she smiled.
"Dr. Director thinks you're working for someone."
"I am."
"She thinks they have an agenda."
"They do."
"You going to share?"
"Want to show me the Lotus Blade? Maybe give me the keys to Yamanouchi?"
Ron stared hard.
"Baby steps, Stoppable. My….boss isn't too trusting, and neither am I. These days, you trust anyone, you're dead. Ask Jack."
"Why were you after him?"
"He's involved. Or was. You know how he operates. Or how he operated. Then, just about three years ago, he started going exclusive. Hiring out to a single, unknown entity. He hired, and trained only the best of the best. Only they weren't leased out as usual Henches."
"Military?"
"Some."
"GJ found Henches under the Pentagon. They were drilling with military weapons. Experimental prototypes. The kind that aren't supposed to exist," Ron told her.
Shego leaned back in her chair, instinctively reaching for the cup of cold coffee. She took a sip, scowled, and then fired a tiny burst of plasma in the tepid beverage to heat it up again. Taking another sip, she smacked her lips, and then eyed him.
"I didn't know that part. It's just one more piece of a growing puzzle, though. Someone is about to do something big, Stoppable. I don't know what. Or where. But if they're training their own hired Henches, then it must be bigger than even we thought."
"Let me ask you one thing," Ron asked after a moment.
"Yeah?"
"Do you think…..Kim's alive?"
Shego straightened up, and eyed him.
"I don't know. Nothing I've found so far says one way, or the other. But….I don't feel her dead. So, no, I can't believe she is dead. Does that make sense?"
"Perfect sense. I feel the same way. I'm curious, though. Why are you trying so hard to find her? Do you think she can help Drew?"
Shego snorted.
"Screw Drew," she snorted. "I want her back because Kimmie's my wife!"
Ron found he didn't have a word to say after that one.
To Be Continued…