Neon Strike

Prolouge

Rain hammered the Seattle high-rise. Kim Possible rappelled down the glass face, her grappling line hissing through the descent mechanism.

Forty stories. Rain everywhere. Glass slippery beneath her boots. Neon from Pike Place Market bled upward—blue, pink, green. The city glowed below.

She'd tracked Drakken here. Three hours. Wade's intel: stolen tech components, high-value targets, extraction window closing fast.

Kim kicked off the building. Her boots hit glass. She swung left, counted windows. The research lab. Forty-second floor. Lights blazing.

One hand released the grapple. The other pulled her glass cutter. The diamond blade cut across the window in a perfect circle. She caught the section before it fell, set it aside, slipped through.

Equipment scattered. Crates half-loaded. Dr. Drakken's blue face visible across the room, directing two henchmen toward a shelf of processors.

"Faster, you fools! We're behind schedule!"

Shego leaned against a console, examining her green fingernails. "Maybe if you'd actually planned this instead of just showing up and grabbing stuff—"

"My plans are flawless! Your execution is flawed!"

Kim crossed the lab. Her boot caught the first henchman behind the knee. He went down hard. The second turned. She grabbed his arm, used his momentum to flip him over her hip. He hit the floor beside his partner.

Drakken spun. "Kim Possible?!"

"Drakken." She brushed rain from her sleeve. "You know this ends the same way every time, right?"

Shego pushed off the console. Green energy crackled around her hands. "Then let's change the ending."

Plasma blasts scorched the air. Kim rolled, came up behind a lab table. She grabbed a wheeled chair and shoved it hard. The chair hit Shego's legs. She stumbled.

Kim vaulted the table. Her fist connected with Shego's jaw. Not hard enough to injure—just enough to disorient. Shego's return strike came wild. Kim ducked, swept her leg. Shego hit the floor.

"Unacceptable!" Drakken raised his hands. "I have a doom ray! A doom ray that will—"

Kim threw a sleep dart. It hit his neck. He blinked twice and toppled backward into a transport crate.

Silence. Rain drummed against the broken window. Sirens wailed in the distance.

Kim pulled zip-ties from her belt and secured all four targets. The stolen tech went back on the shelves, tagged for police recovery. Routine. Efficient. Done.

She climbed back through the window and ascended to the roof. Her grapple retracted. Water pooled on the flat surface, reflecting city lights in rippling patterns.

The Kimmunicator on her wrist chirped. Screen lit up blue.

"Nice work, Kim." Wade's voice crackled through the speaker. His face appeared on the small display—young, dark-skinned, surrounded by multiple computer monitors.

"No big." Kim squeezed water from her ponytail. Rain-soaked. Heavy.

"About that." Wade's fingers flew across his keyboard. "I ran analysis on the components he stole. They match an energy signature I've been tracking."

Kim's tactical awareness engaged. Drakken. Shego. Tech theft. But connected to something bigger.

"Where?"

"Novus City. West coast, about six hundred miles from your position. The signature's linked to a tech mogul named Alister Kade."

Kade. She knew that name. Disgraced cyberneticist. Consciousness upload experiments. Shut down for unethical work five years ago.