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graycardinalWe return to our story after way, way too long a hiatus. I think we're looking at nine or ten chapters overall.
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I Suppose This Means They Read the Fanfic (6/10)
A Sitch in Slash: Episode #2
Fandom: Kim Possible/Narbonic
Author: Gray Cardinal
Rating: PG -13
Classification: You tell me....
Summary: An assassin's after Shego, Mrs. Dr. Possible is trying to resolve matters without involving Kim -- and you just know that's not going to work out....
********************
Mell Kelly took her first breath of New York City air, and for one giddy moment allowed herself to take in the atmosphere like an enraptured tourist.
Then she took a second breath, gathered her thoughts, and took stock of her surroundings. After all, she had a job to do.
Dr. Narbon’s portal had landed her in an alley just off Times Square. She lingered there silently, taking mental inventory of the numerous weapons tucked into her unique array of inside coat pockets (Helen had once said they were “dimensionally transcendent”, which Dave had promptly translated as “bigger inside than outside”). Mell resisted the impulse to fondle her toys as she ran through the list; no sense drawing the attention of New York’s finest just yet. Not that she was concerned about being arrested, not with Dr. Narbon’s recall ring on her right hand – but her first priority was locating Shego.
To that end, she withdrew an oversized PDA from an outer pocket of her coat and called up one of the programs Dr. Narbon had loaded. A New York street map lit up the display, and a couple of taps with the unit’s stylus produced a series of blinks and pings as the map scrolled, zoomed, and eventually settled on a small section of the city’s financial district, where a bright green dot slid along a side street. “Gotcha,” Mell said softly. The tracking utility, Dr. Narbon had explained, was designed to identify and track Shego’s plasma aura.
After a moment’s consideration, Mell zoomed the map display out to a wider setting and tapped an icon, bringing up a subway-system map. “R train,” she decided after a few moments’ study. The decision made, she dropped the PDA back into her pocket, ran her finger lightly across the Velcro closure, and stepped briskly out of the alley.
She couldn’t resist pausing briefly in Times Square as she went, especially not when she noted a spectacular explosion being broadcast over the giant ABC network screen, followed by a shot of two pre-teen youngsters high-fiving each other: “Hicka-bicka-boo! – Hoo-SHA!”. Tune in Sunday, read the text scrolling past under the image, for a special Extreme Makeover: Home Edition! And she bought a hot pretzel from a street vendor, munching cheerily as she walked. She had just crossed 43rd St. when she felt a hand attempting to slide into the pocket holding her PDA. Without breaking stride, she slipped a penlight from an inner pocket, angled it to point backward past her right arm, and clicked. There was a quick, high SQUEEK! from behind her, and the questing fingers dropped abruptly away. Mell didn’t bother looking back; whatever the beam had done, there was one less pickpocket working the streets.
She found the stairs leading to the subway platform she wanted within another block and descended. Her timing was near-perfect; scarcely a minute after she’d paid her token and passed through the turnstile, an R train rolled into the station. To her mild surprise, she had no trouble finding a place to sit; while the train was far from empty, the morning commute was long since ended and the midday lunch/shopping crunch was only just beginning to make itself felt. As the subway car rumbled on its way, she made a point of unobtrusively studying her fellow passengers as well as surveying possible cover and mentally marking all possible exits.
Most of the riders were unremarkable – young people with backpacks, skateboards, or other personal gear . . . businessfolk carrying briefcases and cell phones . . . a scruffily bearded street musician with a battered guitar case. But as the train paused at Herald Square to trade one knot of travelers for another, one of the new arrivals caught Mell’s eye. A slim woman of above-average height, she wore a crisp ensemble of aquamarine edged with silver trim and carried an oversize designer sports bag – but her most noticeable feature was the fire-bright red hair that fell almost to her shoulders in a downswept wave. Mell had seen that hair somewhere before, she was sure – oh, yes, there had been an entry and photo in Shego’s file. Making a quick decision, Mell rose from her place toward the rear of the car and moved forward to where the newcomer had seated herself, sitting down again just to the other woman’s left.
“Kim Possible?” she inquired softly.
Her seatmate turned toward her sharply, wearing a startled expression, and thrust what looked like an oversized PDA into her jacket pocket. “That’s – right,” she said, the words carrying a question of their own. “And you are?”
“Knott,” Mell said, improvising madly. “Emily Knott. I’m with . . . .” she paused, glancing around at the car’s other passengers.
“Global Justice?” supplied her seatmate.
“Exactly,” said Mell. “You’re in New York tracking Shego, am I right?”
The red-haired woman’s eyes narrowed slightly. “I gather you’ve had a tip?”
“You might say that,” Mell replied, her mind racing. Dr. Narbon’s report had described Kim Possible as a freelance do-gooder, a major thorn in the side of her universe’s criminal geniuses, and the one individual who could consistently force Shego to work up a sweat in one-on-one combat. In normal circumstances, Mell’s immediate response would be to whip out a mini-cannon and blast the heroine to smithereens – but in her current undercover mode, it might just be possible (she thought, then groaned mentally at the pun) to enlist Possible as an ally in taking down Shego. The main difficulty – the briefing had also warned that Possible was fiercely opposed to killing or severely maiming her opponents.
Not a problem, she decided quickly; I can handle the maiming and killing parts. “Something like that,” she told Possible quietly. “Word’s come down that Shego needs to be taken out of the game. We’re both after the same thing – suppose we work together on this?”
Her companion pursed her lips. “Together – as equals?”
“Of course.” Mell grinned. “All I’m after is to put Shego in custody.”
“All GJ is after, you mean,” Possible said. “So, do you have any specific intelligence, or are we just waiting for the plasma to hit the fan?”
“We can do better than that,” Mell said, chuckling. She pulled out her PDA and brought up the tracking map, but the system merely blinked and displayed a message: cannot acquire target.
Possible eyed the gadget. “Too much concrete overhead. I’m sure you’ll get a reading once we’re back on the surface.”
“Right,” said Mell, trying not to sound annoyed. “I got a preliminary fix before I boarded. We’ll get off at . . . let’s see, Rector Street, okay?”
The other woman looked slightly startled, but nodded. “Good enough – we’re almost there, in fact.” And so they were; a few moments later, the train rumbled to a stop at the Rector Street station. The two women rose almost simultaneously and stepped out onto the platform, where they both paused.
“Tell you what,” Possible said, “I’ll follow you up. That way I can stay out of sight while you get a reading on that gadget of yours; if Shego spots me before you close in, we’ll lose the element of surprise.”
The strategy made sense – but there was a note in Possible’s voice that Mell didn’t like, and she also disapproved on principle of letting a known white hat, particularly one as competent as Kim was supposed to be, out of her line of sight. “Actually,” said Mell, improvising madly, “I was thinking you ought to go up ahead of me. The last thing we need is for Shego to start toasting innocent bystanders; once she sees you, that’s where she’ll concentrate her attention. She won’t be expecting me, though, so I’ll be able to move in and deal with her.” And you won’t be expecting me to take you both out in one lovely explosion, she added to herself.
Possible gave her a peculiar look. “I don’t know – I’m not used to being the distraction. The tip I got said Shego was keeping a pretty low profile just now. If you can zero in on her location before she knows either of us is here, we might be able to take her down without any toasting.”
Mell frowned. She was almost certain she was being played – but there was no way Possible could know Mell’s true identity, was there? She reflected on what she could recall of the heroine’s dossier; ah, that was it. Possible was freelance, and her relationship with Global Justice was decidedly prickly. Normal professional rivalry, then – though the way she’s handling that sports bag, you’d think it had the Crown Jewels in it or something . . . .
“Let’s do this,” she said aloud. “We’re a little conspicuous just standing here.”
Possible took a breath, clearly restless. “As equals, then – side by side.”
“As equals,” Mell agreed, reaching into one of her weapons pockets and crossing her fingers as soon as her hand was out of view. They had delayed long enough on the platform that they had the stairs to themselves as they climbed to street level – Possible hugging the right edge of the steps, Mell the left.
Mell blinked at the late morning sunlight as they reached the surface, not having bothered with sunglasses. Then she blinked again. Two human-shaped forms were diving out of the sky almost directly toward her, and one of them was very nearly a twin to the red-haired woman at her side . . . or rather, who’d been at her side a moment earlier. Her companion had leaped forward, and was tossing the sports bag at a startled-looking woman in a brown leather trenchcoat not quite half a block away. Two voices shouted at once:
“Sh- Jade firecat! Catch!”
“MOM!!!!”
Shego! The fanfic byline only fazed Mell for an instant. Her eyes flicked over the other three figures. Damn, I’m an idiot. Kim Possible’s a teenager; that has to be her and her sidekick with the jetpacks. And my subway lady is – her mother??
Mell didn’t try to sort out the obvious contradictions. Instead, her mind clicked over into action mode; she plunged both hands into her jacket. Her airborne opponents swooped to avoid a barrage of pulsed energy from the pocket Gatling laser . . .
. . . but the elder Possible’s attention was focused entirely on Shego, and not on the beam streaking toward her unguarded back.
[to be continued....]
********************
I Suppose This Means They Read the Fanfic (6/10)
A Sitch in Slash: Episode #2
Fandom: Kim Possible/Narbonic
Author: Gray Cardinal
Rating: PG -13
Classification: You tell me....
Summary: An assassin's after Shego, Mrs. Dr. Possible is trying to resolve matters without involving Kim -- and you just know that's not going to work out....
********************
Mell Kelly took her first breath of New York City air, and for one giddy moment allowed herself to take in the atmosphere like an enraptured tourist.
Then she took a second breath, gathered her thoughts, and took stock of her surroundings. After all, she had a job to do.
Dr. Narbon’s portal had landed her in an alley just off Times Square. She lingered there silently, taking mental inventory of the numerous weapons tucked into her unique array of inside coat pockets (Helen had once said they were “dimensionally transcendent”, which Dave had promptly translated as “bigger inside than outside”). Mell resisted the impulse to fondle her toys as she ran through the list; no sense drawing the attention of New York’s finest just yet. Not that she was concerned about being arrested, not with Dr. Narbon’s recall ring on her right hand – but her first priority was locating Shego.
To that end, she withdrew an oversized PDA from an outer pocket of her coat and called up one of the programs Dr. Narbon had loaded. A New York street map lit up the display, and a couple of taps with the unit’s stylus produced a series of blinks and pings as the map scrolled, zoomed, and eventually settled on a small section of the city’s financial district, where a bright green dot slid along a side street. “Gotcha,” Mell said softly. The tracking utility, Dr. Narbon had explained, was designed to identify and track Shego’s plasma aura.
After a moment’s consideration, Mell zoomed the map display out to a wider setting and tapped an icon, bringing up a subway-system map. “R train,” she decided after a few moments’ study. The decision made, she dropped the PDA back into her pocket, ran her finger lightly across the Velcro closure, and stepped briskly out of the alley.
She couldn’t resist pausing briefly in Times Square as she went, especially not when she noted a spectacular explosion being broadcast over the giant ABC network screen, followed by a shot of two pre-teen youngsters high-fiving each other: “Hicka-bicka-boo! – Hoo-SHA!”. Tune in Sunday, read the text scrolling past under the image, for a special Extreme Makeover: Home Edition! And she bought a hot pretzel from a street vendor, munching cheerily as she walked. She had just crossed 43rd St. when she felt a hand attempting to slide into the pocket holding her PDA. Without breaking stride, she slipped a penlight from an inner pocket, angled it to point backward past her right arm, and clicked. There was a quick, high SQUEEK! from behind her, and the questing fingers dropped abruptly away. Mell didn’t bother looking back; whatever the beam had done, there was one less pickpocket working the streets.
She found the stairs leading to the subway platform she wanted within another block and descended. Her timing was near-perfect; scarcely a minute after she’d paid her token and passed through the turnstile, an R train rolled into the station. To her mild surprise, she had no trouble finding a place to sit; while the train was far from empty, the morning commute was long since ended and the midday lunch/shopping crunch was only just beginning to make itself felt. As the subway car rumbled on its way, she made a point of unobtrusively studying her fellow passengers as well as surveying possible cover and mentally marking all possible exits.
Most of the riders were unremarkable – young people with backpacks, skateboards, or other personal gear . . . businessfolk carrying briefcases and cell phones . . . a scruffily bearded street musician with a battered guitar case. But as the train paused at Herald Square to trade one knot of travelers for another, one of the new arrivals caught Mell’s eye. A slim woman of above-average height, she wore a crisp ensemble of aquamarine edged with silver trim and carried an oversize designer sports bag – but her most noticeable feature was the fire-bright red hair that fell almost to her shoulders in a downswept wave. Mell had seen that hair somewhere before, she was sure – oh, yes, there had been an entry and photo in Shego’s file. Making a quick decision, Mell rose from her place toward the rear of the car and moved forward to where the newcomer had seated herself, sitting down again just to the other woman’s left.
“Kim Possible?” she inquired softly.
Her seatmate turned toward her sharply, wearing a startled expression, and thrust what looked like an oversized PDA into her jacket pocket. “That’s – right,” she said, the words carrying a question of their own. “And you are?”
“Knott,” Mell said, improvising madly. “Emily Knott. I’m with . . . .” she paused, glancing around at the car’s other passengers.
“Global Justice?” supplied her seatmate.
“Exactly,” said Mell. “You’re in New York tracking Shego, am I right?”
The red-haired woman’s eyes narrowed slightly. “I gather you’ve had a tip?”
“You might say that,” Mell replied, her mind racing. Dr. Narbon’s report had described Kim Possible as a freelance do-gooder, a major thorn in the side of her universe’s criminal geniuses, and the one individual who could consistently force Shego to work up a sweat in one-on-one combat. In normal circumstances, Mell’s immediate response would be to whip out a mini-cannon and blast the heroine to smithereens – but in her current undercover mode, it might just be possible (she thought, then groaned mentally at the pun) to enlist Possible as an ally in taking down Shego. The main difficulty – the briefing had also warned that Possible was fiercely opposed to killing or severely maiming her opponents.
Not a problem, she decided quickly; I can handle the maiming and killing parts. “Something like that,” she told Possible quietly. “Word’s come down that Shego needs to be taken out of the game. We’re both after the same thing – suppose we work together on this?”
Her companion pursed her lips. “Together – as equals?”
“Of course.” Mell grinned. “All I’m after is to put Shego in custody.”
“All GJ is after, you mean,” Possible said. “So, do you have any specific intelligence, or are we just waiting for the plasma to hit the fan?”
“We can do better than that,” Mell said, chuckling. She pulled out her PDA and brought up the tracking map, but the system merely blinked and displayed a message: cannot acquire target.
Possible eyed the gadget. “Too much concrete overhead. I’m sure you’ll get a reading once we’re back on the surface.”
“Right,” said Mell, trying not to sound annoyed. “I got a preliminary fix before I boarded. We’ll get off at . . . let’s see, Rector Street, okay?”
The other woman looked slightly startled, but nodded. “Good enough – we’re almost there, in fact.” And so they were; a few moments later, the train rumbled to a stop at the Rector Street station. The two women rose almost simultaneously and stepped out onto the platform, where they both paused.
“Tell you what,” Possible said, “I’ll follow you up. That way I can stay out of sight while you get a reading on that gadget of yours; if Shego spots me before you close in, we’ll lose the element of surprise.”
The strategy made sense – but there was a note in Possible’s voice that Mell didn’t like, and she also disapproved on principle of letting a known white hat, particularly one as competent as Kim was supposed to be, out of her line of sight. “Actually,” said Mell, improvising madly, “I was thinking you ought to go up ahead of me. The last thing we need is for Shego to start toasting innocent bystanders; once she sees you, that’s where she’ll concentrate her attention. She won’t be expecting me, though, so I’ll be able to move in and deal with her.” And you won’t be expecting me to take you both out in one lovely explosion, she added to herself.
Possible gave her a peculiar look. “I don’t know – I’m not used to being the distraction. The tip I got said Shego was keeping a pretty low profile just now. If you can zero in on her location before she knows either of us is here, we might be able to take her down without any toasting.”
Mell frowned. She was almost certain she was being played – but there was no way Possible could know Mell’s true identity, was there? She reflected on what she could recall of the heroine’s dossier; ah, that was it. Possible was freelance, and her relationship with Global Justice was decidedly prickly. Normal professional rivalry, then – though the way she’s handling that sports bag, you’d think it had the Crown Jewels in it or something . . . .
“Let’s do this,” she said aloud. “We’re a little conspicuous just standing here.”
Possible took a breath, clearly restless. “As equals, then – side by side.”
“As equals,” Mell agreed, reaching into one of her weapons pockets and crossing her fingers as soon as her hand was out of view. They had delayed long enough on the platform that they had the stairs to themselves as they climbed to street level – Possible hugging the right edge of the steps, Mell the left.
Mell blinked at the late morning sunlight as they reached the surface, not having bothered with sunglasses. Then she blinked again. Two human-shaped forms were diving out of the sky almost directly toward her, and one of them was very nearly a twin to the red-haired woman at her side . . . or rather, who’d been at her side a moment earlier. Her companion had leaped forward, and was tossing the sports bag at a startled-looking woman in a brown leather trenchcoat not quite half a block away. Two voices shouted at once:
“Sh- Jade firecat! Catch!”
“MOM!!!!”
Shego! The fanfic byline only fazed Mell for an instant. Her eyes flicked over the other three figures. Damn, I’m an idiot. Kim Possible’s a teenager; that has to be her and her sidekick with the jetpacks. And my subway lady is – her mother??
Mell didn’t try to sort out the obvious contradictions. Instead, her mind clicked over into action mode; she plunged both hands into her jacket. Her airborne opponents swooped to avoid a barrage of pulsed energy from the pocket Gatling laser . . .
. . . but the elder Possible’s attention was focused entirely on Shego, and not on the beam streaking toward her unguarded back.
[to be continued....]
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