A/N First off, thanks go out to Eddy13, who is beta checking my stories. He's checking things over for errors, and helped fix some of the spacing and other things on both chapters.

Second, thanks to everyone who's read and reviewed.

Both this story and the previous one came from the episode "Crush."

Now on to the story.

CHAPTER 2: Britina

Ron: Oooh, hooo, hoo, sweet ride.

Kim: Thanks for the lift, Britina.

Britina: Kim, duh, it's the least I could do after you saved my Chicago show.

Kim: Aw, the backstage fire was no big.

Britina: For you, maybe, must be so awesome not to be afraid of anything...

Who would have ever thought that I'd have someone like Britina owe me a favor-it's like some sort of dream come true-I helped a celebrity! After I helped her out, I got a backstage tour and everything-actually, after we got off the stage, she seemed just like a normal person. She took me back to her dressing room and we talked, she even showed me some souvenirs and things she'd kept from some of her other concerts!

Ron and I hadn't even been planning to see the concert, but we were in town on a mission, and he saw an ad for it. He showed it to me and I read it over; this was Britina's last stop on her tour, and I totally couldn't resist coming out to see her in person; Ron was almost excited as I was. Fortunately, it was a Friday night, no school tomorrow, and both of our parents were feeling pretty generous, and let us stay. She was going to be singing at a convention center; it was going to be a little crowded because they'd had some sort of expo the day before, and hadn't totally cleaned everything up; they'd just taken some of the walls down and stacked them all over the place. It wouldn't really matter to us, because we'd all be standing anyway. Turns out that was a big mistake.

I was just going to put this in my diary, but since I helped someone out with something, I figured I should put it with the rest of my 'mission' info. At least, that's what Ron's calling it-he says it makes it sound so much cooler, I guess I have to agree. Calling it a mission makes it sound like it's important, that I'm actually doing something that helps people in a big way. I guess we really helped in a big way for lots of people tonight...

X X X X

"KP, I'm so excited." Ron was jumping up and down. "I mean, we're actually going to a concert by ourselves-no parents to say, 'You call this music? In my day...'" Ron did a passable imitation of Kim's father.

Despite the situation, Kim was wearing a serious face. "Don't get too crazy, Ron, they're giving us a lot of trust to let us come see this by ourselves, we can't blow this."

"Yeah, I know..." He nodded twice, trying to stay serious…it wasn't going to happen. "Come on, KP, aren't you psyched? This is the Britina-in concert! So close I could touch her!" He started giggling, and a few people nearby gave him strange looks.

Kim shook her head, mumbling to herself. "I'm just glad that Bernice was able to hold her plane for a couple of hours until we finish with the concert, so she can take us back to Middleton."

They were standing outside the city's convention center, a large building, with lots of floor to ceiling, reinforced glass. Kim and Ron had arrived at the center almost twenty minutes early, in the hopes of getting a good seat; unfortunately, it looked like a lot of people had the same idea, there was a rather long line to wait through. About fifteen minutes later, they finally reached the front and passed through. Ron turned back to his friend.

"KP, we're in!" He held his ticket high, like it was a sword that would cut through the crowd.

She frowned at him. "Amp down, Ron, serious, remember? We're just two teens out to…" She reached out and grabbed Ron's arm tightly, all attempts at pretense gone. "Look! Look, it's her!" She tugged him along. "Come on, lets get closer."

"Booyah!"

Soon they were standing just off the stage; looking up in awe. When they were with their parents, they usually stayed near the back-between Kim's' dad saying the music wasn't as good as what he listened to, and Kim's mom warning of the dangers of loud music, they'd never been this close-if Kim wanted too, she could have climbed up on stage.

The band in the back was still going through their warmups, and Britina was sitting to one side, so the two teens just stood and watched, eagerly waiting for the concert to begin. The place was packing up quickly, to the point that they were almost pressed against each other, and into the stage. They barely had any room to move, but both didn't care; they were waiting for the music to start.

Well, something did start, but it wasn't what they were expecting.

"Fire!"

The call came from near the entrance, and soon screams joined the call. Kim and Ron were instantly on the alert, turning around to see what was going on. They quickly spied the danger-near the back of the room, some of the collapsible walls had caught fire. Kim gasped as she realized that the fire had started back behind the stage somewhere, and had spread, probably going behind the walls, until it had burst out of the wall. Despite the size of the fire, it still wasn't too aggressive yet; but while the fire wouldn't be too dangerous in most cases, two things made this a disaster. The first was that the sprinkler system was not working. The second was that the fire was spreading in front of the main doors. They had no way out.

"KP!" Ron looked around in terror, hyped up in his own fear just as much as the rest of the crowd. "We're gonna get burned alive."

Kim looked over at him; then yelled at him to calm down. He couldn't hear her, and kept freaking out. After waving her arms didn't get his attention, she leaned in and grabbed him tightly, then whispered in his ear "Ron, focus. We have to do something."

She pulled back, and his wide, fear-filled eyes almost caused Kim to freak out herself. Fortunately she was able to reign in that fear, then steel herself against it. She looked around.

Most of the people that were pushing around, away from the fire, were all clustered around the front of the stage. Kim looked to the stage itself, then climbed up onto the stage, pulling Ron with her. A few seconds later, they had moved onto the stage, and back towards Britina and the band. The teen music star was standing in shock, her eyes wide and fearful at the blazing inferno working its way towards them. A light touch by Kim worked her out of her fear. "Wha...What?"

"The sprinkler system-the fire extinguishers, why aren't they working?"

"I-I don't know." She turned, and started backing away from the fire, before focusing on Kim again. Finally she looked over her shoulder, at the backstage area. "Follow me."

Britina led the two offstage, back into the area that housed her room, as well as the different equipment and things that she used on her concerts. As soon as they were backstage, Kim looked around, seeing that one section of the hall was lit up with fire; she guessed that was where the fire had started before spreading. Britina led them in the opposite direction.

They headed down a short hall way before turning a corner, going into another small area behind the stage. It was basically just a closet and a couple of small rooms-the maintenance room, and some supply closets. The teen singer led them directly to a man in the back, standing near the small closet door; he was bent over, looking at something and grunting.

"Joe...Joe, why aren't the sprinklers working?" As the man pulled his head out, Kim realized that he must be the engineer and sound director for Britina's music group. His face was covered in dust and soot, and he had a small cut over one eye, probably from trying to wedge himself into a tight area.

"The fire started back stage here somewhere, and it looks like it managed to damage the sensors in the fire detectors, that's why they aren't working. The manual override is here in the maintenance closet, but..." He looked at the three teens. "...the sprinkler pipe is jammed-I think the safely shut-off has gotten locked somehow, and I can't reach it. I'm too big." he quickly sized up the three kids. "We need someone smaller."

Kim didn't hesitate, squeezing forward into the small area, then twisting her body in a number of ways, doing her best to reach the area that she needed. She realized that she was close, and could even get one finger on the metal-but she couldn't quite get enough of a grip to do anything. She winced, pressed again, and realized it was too far. She needed something smaller...

An idea hit. "Ron! Rufus! Get Rufus, he can reach the shutoff!"

Finally the blond nodded, and pulled something out of his pocket. He quickly passed it to Kim, and the red-haired teen had to suppress her initial feeling of dropping the pink thing. This was the first time that she had touched it, Ron's feelings notwithstanding. She actually realized that it wasn't that bad.

The teen shook her head to get back on track, and raised the mole rat up, until she could see its face. "Rufus?"

"Hnk?" The small creature squeaked at her, confused, realizing that she wasn't the blond boy he was used to.

"Rufus, I need to you to get the safety shut off." She held the mole rat up, pointing him to the little round wheel. "I need you to spin it, so that the sprinklers will come on."

The mole rat nodded, then crawled up her hand, his little legs kicking to get leverage. Finally, she felt it crawl up onto the pipe, then she watched it move down to the water shutoff. Kim held her breath, wondering if it would know what to do, and if it would be able to do what was necessary. She needn't have worried, because the mole rat quickly figured out what it had to do; within a few seconds, it had turned the valve, and the teen heard water rushing through the pipes around her. Seconds after that, there was the sounds of water falling, and a hissing sound as the fire was put out.

"Kim, Kim, it worked, you did it!" Ron grabbed her leg, yelling in to her.

She nodded to herself, then looked up. The mole rat slowly made it's way down to her, and she picked it...him, up off the pipe, bringing him to where she could see him. "Thanks Rufus, you really saved the day."

The little pink mole rat grinned up at her shyly. "Hnk, aww, thanks."