K1m Poss1ble::Butterfly's W1ngs
Disclaimer: The following is a non-profit fan work. Kim Possible and all associated characters are the property of Walt Disney and Buena Vista Television.
Chapter 4 - Headquarters
Kim huddled in the corner of the helicopter. Her eyes dashed around the every edge, every surface. It was out there. It was coming. The sound of nails scratching against the metallic exterior of the vehicle pierced through her mind like high pitched screams of endless suffering. The noise echoed through the interior making it sound like it was everywhere. Kim clasped her hands on the side of her head, trying anything to desperately block it all out. Then it happened: a blade the size of a butcher's knife cleaved into the wall of the copter, followed by another and another until ten blades were punctured through the thick metal. A loud growl sounded out as the blades flexed and dug in only to pull back and rip out the side of the helicopter with them. Outside was nothing but the storming black abyss, and Kim could do nothing but stare out at the void.
Everyone had heard the expression, but Kim did not truly expect the void to stare back until a pair of massive red glowing eyes opened deep in the black. Kim's mouth opened to scream but nothing came out, as if the sound of the world had become muted in the presence of the hulking behemoth that lurked in the shadow. A clawed hand reached into the exposed copter and dragged Kim out into the nothing, gripping her tightly. Behind her she could feel the intense heat of the helicopter exploding. Time seemed to shift after that, like hours of her being pulled through the darkness being pressed into seconds. In the deepest heart of the black, she found the red eyes to be a constant presence. Never growing nor shrinking, only staring with a savage intensity as she was brought to what she could only assume was their owner.
Soon she found those hideous red eyes' master: a titan of metal and flesh emitting a gurgling sound from its throat. It pulled Kim close to its face, those red eyes scanning her - searching for something. The creature reached up and gripped her with both hands. She could feel the bladed nails piercing into her body yet there was no pain. Just the sensation of cold metal sliding against skin. The creature's mouth unfurled through a complicated contraption of flapping layers of flesh bound in a mechanical jaw and the beast let loose a simple, innocent and yet wholly terrifying DING!
Kim's eyes shot open wide as the monster's hand began moving deeper inside her, piercing her fully as the blades that made up the creature's claws penetrated through her back and out her stomach and chest. Kim's mouth opened to scream but her jaw wouldn't move. The words "FIRMWARE LOCK ACTIVE" flash in brilliant yellow letters around the vast black space around her and the beast. She turned to look eye to eye with the creature. Her shining green glassy orbs wide with horror. Then she felt it. The beast pulling its hands apart, her mechanic and biological pieces being drawn and quartered. She once again tried to scream but the yellow letters flashed in the dark once again. The creature let loose a bellowing chortle made of repetitive DINGs over and over as Kim saw her mechanical spine now swinging between her constantly growing apart legs, the metal skull frame being ripped out from beneath the synthetic skin on her face, her torso twisting and splitting at the-
Kim's eyes snapped open. Her vision was filled with a set of holographic words in green floating in front of her face: 'Recharge Complete!' A cold sweat was dripping and sliding across her body. Where was she? Why did -
"Ow!" Kim winced as she tried to sit up only to have a short heavy cable attached to the back of her neck yank her back down. The Dock. Of course. An advanced recharging station for her cybertronic implants and prosthetics that doubled as Kim's bed. Her father had constructed it to help make sure she'd be at full power at the start of each day. The Tweebs had named it after the recharge stand for their MP3 players. Kim reached behind her head and twisted the locking mechanism on the cerebral cable and then pulled it out of the socket with a loud pop noise. The detach triggered the handful of other cable attached to various body parts to do the same. Kim sat up from the bed and stretched, still trying to shake off the nightmare. She was clad in a tank top and boy shorts - not exactly her first choice for sleepwear, nor standard issue, in a Global Justice dormitory but an unfortunate necessity of having to link her body parts to the Dock at night.
Kim tried to lift herself up from the Dock but wobbled a bit on her two feet. She heard a cry from further down the row of beds, "Don't push yourself! I'm coming!" The quick patter of feet through the dormitory quickly revealed a young woman with short spiked hair dyed yellow and black in the design of a radioactive warning symbol. She was about 4'10" with olive skin and excited brown eyes. The woman wore a standard global justice uniform but with the words 'FIRE IT UP' written in black marker up and down the sleeves, "We've all been taking turns standing watch till you woke up. Well, all of Unit 10 at least. We were taking bets on who'd be on watch when you woke up! I just won twenty bucks and a bag of jelly beans!"
Kim stared at the woman, her mouth agape. It was hard for Kim to believe that this woman was actually two years her senior when she behaved more like a high school freshman with a sugar addiction, "Tint, How long was I out?" Tint wasn't her actual name. It wasn't even her assigned code name. It's just what they all decided to call her when the entire unit discovered their demolitions expert couldn't pronounce TNT.
"A week. Give or take a few hours. Like a babe too. Not even a gurgle, snore or snort out yer mouth. Makes me envy Trapdoor," Tint gestured to the adjacent bunk to Kim's dock that she had plopped down on, "The gear heads down in the lab wager it something about yer internal batteries being drained too quick or some such. It's all French to me."
"Greek," Kim spoke up, shaking her head trying to gather some measure of alertness.
"Huh?"
"The phrase is 'It's all greek to me'," Kim looked up at the other woman with a smirk. She had stood up and was starting to put on her regular 'around the base' clothes of a Global Justice workout uniform: track pants & jacket with a white undershirt, each in GJ colors and insignias.
Tint rolled her eyes and shrugged, "But I speak Greek, Phee. Don't know a lick of French. Ol' Du-or-Die tried to teach me once, but I couldn't make heads or tails of that masculine and feminine and what not."
Kim paused for a moment as she tossed on the track jacket, "Doesn't Greek have those as well?"
Tint laughed with a snort, "Naw. Greek is all Alpha! Sigma! Delta! Omega!" The demolitions expert shouted each letter's name in a big announcer voice and gesturing in different directions as if she were giving a presentation.
Kim just shook her head with a smile. Tint always reminded her of a weird cross between Monique and… Him. That thought dampened the smile some, "Well my battery may be finally back up but I am starving. Care to join me in the caf?"
Tint hopped up to her feet, "Thought you would never ask. Rest of the team is there too. Two Eyes will be happy to know his 'Widdle sis' is up and alive."
The two girls laughed and wandered out into the Global Justice Headquarters main facility. The structure was a set of 6 domed 'pods' connected by intertwining tube shaped corridors, all of which was suspended nearly fifty thousand feet above the Atlantic Ocean. From this installment, Global Justice sent orders out to the hundreds of smaller, more localized GJ bases across the world. Only a select few were welcome to walk these halls, the elite members of Special Tasks Unit 10 of which Kim was unprecedentedly invited to join after completing her recruit training just a couple of short months ago.
As Tint and Kim walked the corridor towards the General Living pod that housed the cafeteria and other down time activities, Kim couldn't help but notice that amount of stares and whispers by the other Global Justice recruits and members around the hallway. Kim leaned over to Tint, "Is there something on my face? What's with everyone?"
"Yer kiddin' right, Phee? You squared toe-to-toe with Kosch the Killer in the square circle and came back alive and in one piece to tell the tale. Hell, I should be asking for your autograph too," Tint shot Kim a toothy grin.
Kim tried to return the smile meekly but her thoughts were occupied with flashes of her nightmare and barely scraped by escape from 'Kosch The Killer.' It may have a week for everyone else to gossip about the whole encounter was still fresh in Kim's mind. Those claws scraping at the metal, making a horrific screeching noise. That mask with the cold red glowing eyes. The noises it made when-
Kim slammed into another person. A large African-American man with curly hair and an eye patch strapped across his scar-ridden face, "Hey, watch where you're going there, Little one."
"Oi! Heya dere Two Eye!" Tint chimed in with a snarky smile plastered across her mug.
The large man's warm expression dulled in the face of a joke told about two hundred times too many, "Tint. It's Three Eye. My code name is Agent Three Eye."
Tint nodded with her eyes closed in a mock sagely fashion, "Aye, so the roster says. But ya lost one."
Kim giggled slightly at the exchange. In the short time she had known her unit, they had proven to be the closest thing to family she had since coming to Global Justice. They helped her remember the good times. "So THREE Eye, we were just headed to get grab something to eat in the cafeteria. Would you like to join?" Kim asked.
Three Eye shook his head, "No can do. I've got a training session scheduled in ten. Going for the gold on the Weenie Fort simulation. But Phoenix, I'd keep your eyes open. Word has it that the Director was looking to talk to you ASAP when you were up. She didn't look to happy about it either."
Tint tapped her chin, "Oooh yea. She did mention something about 'As soon as Phoenix pulls her cybertronic behind out of the ashes, get her to my office immediately.' But I didn't think she meant like… right away."
Hands slowly rose up and covered the faces of Kim and Three Eye. The dance of shaming continued with slight but slow shake of the head and an exasperated sigh from the pair. Kim looked up at Three Eye, "Well then. I should go and grab something to eat before she fi-"
"KIMBERLY POSSIBLE! TO MY OFFICE! NOW!" The shrill voice of a very upset Doctor Director rang out across the loudspeakers in the base.
Three Eye whistled, "No code name? She must be upset about something. Good luck, kid."
Tint gently patted Kim's shoulder, "I'll save ya some grub."
Kim gave an audible gulp as she turned around and made her way to the Central Pod.
The Central Pod was a continuous hive of activity with agents manning the computer stations and constantly monitoring the globe for field reports, back up to agents, and monitoring for what they called "Class 3 or higher" criminal activity, in other words anything that the local police wouldn't be able to handle. Kim actually learned upon joining up and seeing some of her own files that for a while she was listed as a Class 3 case for 'unapproved vigilante activities.' Naturally, something that was straightened out over time and interaction with Global Justice but it just goes to show that a simple misunderstanding can make you a super-villain for a day.
Kim stepped into the circular office of Doctor Director, the walls lined with monitors bearing the Global Justice logo with the notable exception of the one behind the Director's desk which had the unmistakable image of the most recent addition to the World's Wealthiest People list: Jack Hench.
"Now, Global Justice will have to sign an exclusivity contract for all clean up, maintenance and reconstruction tasks with HenchClean for no less than a five year period," Jack said in his best salesman's pitch.
"That's highway robbery, Jack, and you know it. We'll sign a six month contract now, and then move to a year-to-year pending the quality of your company's work," Doctor Director announced from her desk. Chair swiveled away from Kim at the entrance.
"That is outrageous! It's unheard of! It's preposterous! But just for you, sweetheart, I'll have to add a 15% surcharge and you got yourself a deal."
Doctor Director growled at the utterance of the him calling her 'sweetheart' but quickly regained her composure, "Fine. Have the paperwork sent here and I'll have the signed contract back to you in the morning."
Jack Hench's smile beamed across the screen, "Excellent! It's always nice to be helping the forces of justice help the world!"
"I'm sure," the Director said sarcastically as the screen switched back to the Global Justice logo. Kim used the opportunity to give a slight but audible cough. The chair swivel around to reveal the eyepatch wearing, short brunette haired, blue jumpsuit wearing commander of world-wide Global Justice operations: Doctor Bethany Director, "Kimberly."
Kim sheepishly stepped forward, "You wanted to see me, Dr. Director?"
"Explain yourself."
Kim gulped, "Ma'am?"
Doctor Director stood up with her hands firmly planted on her desk hard enough that she may have left indents in the metal slab. The head of Global Justice's voice echoed in the chamber with a frightening calm, "Not one single moment of your mission was even close to protocol. You left without safety gear, you put yourself on full display of the enemy with no attempt of stealth, you handed crucial and sensitive data to a known criminal hacker forcing us to access your internal storage while you were recovering to get the files."
Kim's lip twitched. They accessed her 'internal storage'? She was not a machine. She had the right to some privacy, didn't she? What else did they dig around in?
Doctor Director continued, "And worst of all - you hesitated to execute a direct order from me. Normally, these actions alone would merit immediate expulsion from Global Justice. As well as possible criminal charges if we felt there was no need to silence you in a more permanent fashion."
Kim's eyes were wide light a deer staring down an oncoming vehicle that showed no signs of slowing. Her internal HUD was going wild with warnings about her mental and physical state as she slipped into panic mode. Even worse was the small biometric scan in her HUD that was showing that Betty was giving no signs of lying about what she was saying.
"However, Kim, you are not normal. You were helping Global Justice back when you were still a kid. You have foiled countless A, B and C Rated villains before even donning the uniform. Even after trying repeatedly to get you adjusted to our protocols and procedures by 'coincidentally' having you shadow our best agent, I suppose I can't expect you to simply fall in line and replace him."
The eye-patched woman's glare turned to solid ice, "Even if the decision to enlist you cost me said best agent."
Kim shifted her jaw as she had to actively bite her tongue to keep silent. The room felt ten degrees colder suddenly.
"You get one more chance, Kimberly."
Kim stopped her teeth gnashing and blinked. Her eyes vacantly fixed on the woman at the desk across from her. Doctor Director eased back into her seat with a smug grin. Was this some kind of mind game? Was she trying to 'break' Kim?
"The W.E.E. is after something in Moscow. You are going to find it and get it first. Expect a full briefing tomorrow after you have some recovery time and keep your hacker friend out of this. Dismissed."
Kim turned to walk out, doing her best to keep her legs from giving out due to all the shaking. She couldn't tell if the quaking was anger or fear anymore. All she knew was she needed out of this room. She summoned all her nerve and walked out the sliding door when she heard Doctor Director's voice once more.
"Oh and Kim?" the voice of her commanding officer grasped her by the heart. It was almost a warm tone. After all that bitter cold rage disguised as a cool, calm talk-down, there's warmth in Betty's voice. The emotional whiplash stunned Kim and she froze.
"Good job on not dying to that bastard. We'll get his head next time."
The door slid shut behind Kim and the young woman let out a staggered breath. Kim let herself lean back against the wall to take the pressure off her one good leg. She had many encounters with Doctor Bethany Director over the years, but never did she feel as threatened by a friend or enemy then she did right now.
Kim's breath slowed as she it slowly came crashing down that this wasn't going to be like becoming the hero once again. She was a soldier now.
With that fresh in mind, Kim decided that if she had a single day of reprieve she was going to need some food… and something hard to drink.
Next Chapter: Connection
A/N: Apologies for the delay on this chapter. I write in my spare time along with a lot of other projects and leisure activities, so it's sometimes slow going. Slower still when my muse is being stubborn as was the case here. I wasn't expecting so much difficulty with writing Kim's interactions with Global Justice. I knew the major points I needed to hit and I attempted to do so gracefully. Still, I felt the pang that this update was being drawn too far out so I decided to break the tale of Kim's time back at headquarters into multiple smaller chapters.
I do want to thank everyone for their kind reviews and welcome reception to the Kim Possible fanfic community. As for questions in the comments, I will do my best to address them:
Lord Jaric: "Didn't Shego and Drakken stop being criminals at the end of the series?" It was never explicitly stated one way or the other. Regardless, there is a reason that Drakken is acting the way he is at the start of the story. We'll get to that reason in time.