Kim Potential...
Summary: A desperate Dr. Drakken has sensibly reviewed his Files of Past Plots to find the most effective weapon yet used on KP and improve it with unexpected results. Ron and company find they have a new partner.
Disclaimer: No infringement intended.
Part XCII...
North Korea, secret landing strip near the Chinese border...
Where Shego found herself in perhaps the most bizarre situation of her many years experience, excepting of course, marriage and motherhood...The number two guest of honor in an old-fashioned ticker-tape parade.
Through the town square was unquestionably largely a set worthy of Hollywood...Facades of tall buildings hastily erected, sidewalks and side streets leading off to emptiness and dirt roads...Billboards sporting images of the happy children of the Great Leader, and said Leader benevolently beaming, covering in areas that were obviously empty fields...And as for the cheering crowds of desperately beaming, clearly starving, terrified faces...
Still, my would-be son-in-law seems to be having a whale of a time, she noted, eyeing Lindendon next to her in the open car, waving to the crowds...
What's that play?...In Shakespeare...Where the hero has switched sides and is being cheered by his old enemies just before they turn on him? Drew would know.
Oh, right...
Coriolanus...
You could almost feel sorry for the son-of-a-bitch if you didn't know he was quite serious about planning to kill most or all of these people as unworthy and useless to him...As well as everyone else...
...
"Have they reached the surface?" Drakken, anxiously watching the screen on which the craft the Kims had taken was being tracked via relay from several pursuing craft.
"Not yet but within ten minutes, Doctor..." the Dementor team commander noted.
" Can your people pursue them in the atmosphere?" Drakken turned to Dementor.
" Ja, but they will attract UN attention..."
"I don't care, we have to know..." impatiently...Pacing...
"Drew...We already know vere dey ist heading." Bortel sighed. "The question is, how do ve best help."
"Help? Cyrus, I want them brought down! In one piece, but..." Drakken, insistent.
"Kim and Kim Possible?" Bortel eyed him. "Drew, we both know der drill...We shoot their craft down, they fly off, mit der battle suits...We try to capture them, dey will kick our people's asses, droid or human. Plus, the UN will get involved and while they may elude them, we are too big and too many to. And then we lose any hope of helping them."
Drakken fuming...Then sigh... "Well, what den...Then...?!" anxious wave of hands.
"Let us keep our two best pilots in pursuit...In der shielded small vessels that will elude the UN. We will follow but underwater, hugging the sea floor while we try to learn what Lindendon plans to do via your link to Shego and see if we have anything to use against him, based on our mutual observation. Then und only den , ve move...No doubt bringing the UN along."
"If they engage Lindendon..."
"Your daughter ist not der self-sacrificing fool, Drew. She(s) vill be cautious. After all, the Colonel wants her for his new world...So long as she does not interfere with him or his plans, he won't harm her. Far more danger to them if ve come storming in with the UN in pursuit. Then will he take action...And revenge."
"True enough I suppose." Drakken sighed. "But there's still the danger of the neural transfer. My girl still wants to take up permanent residence in Possible. And Kim's reset to her mindset in that semi-comatose state can only facilitate that."
"A concern, yes...But to der extent of her abilities, she won't allow herself to leave until she ist sure you and Stoppable...And Shego...And the Possibles...And even, perhaps the rest of us...Are safe. She needs two Kims...They need each other, Drew...For now."
"Shego..." Drakken blanched. "She's in more danger now. If Lindendon thinks Kimberly has turned on him..."
"Have faith..." Bortel smiled. "That young lady of yours and the Possibles may not be a physical match for the Colonel, even in duplicate...But she ist surely able to wrap him around der little finger in der brainpower. And she hast der experience with the fellows mit der large ego, yes?" wry smile. "Come, my friend...We must check in with my Allan and see vat he hast learned...And then..."
"...ve get to play nice together..." grin.
Drakken frowning but slow return grin...
"Commander...?" Bortel turned to summon his henchthug in chief over... "Time for us to be underway. Retrieve craft 5, 8, und 10, let 2 und 7 continue to pursue. Follow our pursuit vessels' coordinates but carefully...As for us, maintain shielding and keep as close to der floor as possible. We must avoid UN detection for as long as we can. And..." he lowered his voice... "Be vigilant, mine friend. Ve may have der spies aboard...Trust no one, droid or human, too far." stern look. The commander returning his nod, carefully...
Understood.
Bortel raised his voice. "Gut. "Dr. Drakken und I will consult in der lab on our further plans. Contact me if Colonel Lindendon wishes to communicate but maintain complete communications silence otherwise. I will inform him of our plans myself when the time comes."
"Sir..." The commander saluted and stepped away... "Prepare to get underway..." he called to the various henchthugs of the crew at their posts. "Call back 5, 8, and 10. Have craft 2 and 7 maintain pursuit."
Sound of massive turbines firing up...Shudder of the base as it lifted from the seafloor...
...
"How long till we're at Wade's best coordinates?" Ron in copilot's seat next to Sally...337 standing near by.
"About one hour now." She replied. "And no sensor contact in the air or on the surface or signs of unusual energy output as yet." She indicated the main sensor display on a screen to her right and Ron's left.
"Ok..." he nodded. "So if anything starts jumping up...?"
"Could be but not definite...There's a lot of ships and things on this ocean...We'll need to screen anything." she noted.
"Right..."
"Ron? Mr. Stoppable?" she corrected, keeping eyes on the controls and viewport... "What did you mean, Kim has nowhere to go now? If I may ask...?"
"Her mother's made it clear she hates that part of Kim..." Ron shrugged... "Drakken may have dredged it up but it's as much Kim Possible as anything else about her. I know Dr. Mrs. P didn't understand that or didn't want to but that's what it amounts to. I know Kim. And I know, despite the stuff Drakken pumped into her, your Kim is Kim...At least now that she's 'grown up'. And now Kim knows her mother would rather see her dead, than see that part of her...A part of her she can't get rid of, anymore than I could get rid of my darker side."
"She couldn't have meant that...Dr. Possible? She loves her daughter...I've monitored her and Kim before, for the Boss." Sally eyed him a moment.
"She meant it...And Kim knows it. It's her worst fear." sigh. "I guess I shouldn't have said that to a Team Drakken-type." Wry smile.
"It's every kid's fear, isn't it? Not measuring up, hiding the parts they're afraid to let show? And it actually sounds like some things the Boss has ranted about her, over the years. I guess he really did come to understand her, in some ways..." wan smile.
"You like him, don't you?" Ron eyed her... "Drakken? It's not just a job for you..."
"We all do, Ron. He's the nicest boss most of us ever had." shrug. "And whatever you guys think about him, he really does want a better world...Faster. We really do believe in him, even if it might be hard to...Sometimes." Wry smile.
"A Drakken world..." Ron frowned.
"It might surprise you what that would mean...In the long run." Sally noted quietly. "But that's not what he's after here..."
"I know." Ron nodded. "I wouldn't be taking a chance with you people if I didn't believe he and all of you are her family...That you all love her."
"That and stopping Colonel Lindendon...There is a difference between him and Dr. Drakken, Ron, whatever you may think. And we're not fans of mass murderers, even if we're not willing to sit and wait for a better world."
"I hope so. But I won't risk Kim on that."
"Right." She nodded. "Is she really capable of that? Dr. Possible? Every parent knows her kid has flaws, a darker side...I know her father makes a big deal out of..."
"A daughter of Dr. Mrs. Possible doesn't..." Ron, sadly... "And now she has a perfect excuse for rejecting that side of Kim...Thanks to you and Dr. Drakken. For her, it'll always be something Drakken put there. I was hopin' one day, she'd accept that Kim's only human...Not her always perfect, world-saving, little supergirl. Her father would, I'm sure, in time...He's just anxious to prove he's as good as his fellow scientists, what Drakken would have been if his friends hadn't humiliated him. But Mom Possible demands perfection...And now...Whatever happens, there's no turning back. And while I'm glad Kim has you all...I'll never forgive you or Drakken or myself for that." Calmly...
"You?" Sally stared...
"I've always been the sign of Kim's imperfection, her wanting to settle for a guy like me...Dr. Possible's always intended that Kim would 'grow out' of me, maybe in college or after, and choose the worthy mate Mom would choose for her...A proper addition to the clan. And now, I'm the guy who accepted flawed, dark Kim, helped Drakken contaminate Kim...Helped to spoil her baby's perfection."
"Ron? You're talking as if Dr. Possible...?"
"Yeah...And Colonel Lindendon saw her, dimly, in Kim." He noted calmly. "Someone who shares his ideals...A worthy mate, not just in the genetics..."
"But our Kim...I mean with all her dark side..." Sally paused..."You don't mean our Kim, do you?"
"Oh, he wants Kim dark, sure. But Lindendon didn't suddenly become infatuated with Kim." Ron sighed. "He wasn't wasting his time in that prison...He was laying his plans...Carefully studying the most suitable mate he could find. And her family..."
........