“That was too easy,” Shego muttered as they leaned against the wall inside the Acceptable hideout.
“That was… easy?” Ron asked, gasping for air.
“They know we're coming,” Kim said.
“But we know they know,” Shego pointed out.
“Yeah, but do they know we know they know?” Ron wondered.
Shego looked at him with unmitigated irritation. “Shouldn't you be off somewhere, running away from things?” she sneered.
“Shut up!” Kim hissed. “I don't want to have to separate you two.”
Ruby popped her head out and stuck out her tongue at Shego.
“Ron, give me your Kimmunicator,” Kim told him.
Wordlessly he handed it over.
“Wade?” she asked, activating it. “Are you getting this?”
“There's a little interference,” Wade said. His voice crackled slightly. “Then again, I've heard a rumor that your location is under attack.”
Kim smiled angrily. “Our location is under siege, Wade. Now it's time for you to do your stuff. The Acceptables hacked into your software, so now I need you to return the favor. Anything interesting you find, you let me know on my Kimmunicator, all right?”
“Will do,” Wade said.
“Wasn't he with Global Justice?” Ron asked as Kim set the communication device on the ground. It sprouted wheels and took off down the corridor.
“Cute,” Shego commented dryly. “Can Mortimer Snerd pop a wheelie with that thing too?”
“Shego,” Kim said patiently. “Is it possible for you to be serious for one minute?”
Shego looked annoyed. “This is how I stay relaxed on a mission. You know that.”
“Yeah, but I need you to focus. Where are we in relation to the holding cells?”
“Down,” Shego said after a moment. “We need to go down. There are four wings, all on the same floor. If we go down a floor or two, we should locate any one of the prison wings.”
“Thanks,” Kim replied. “Let's move.”
“And if we run into the Acceptables?” Ron asked.
“We try not to at this point,” Kim told him, although Shego scowled at that remark. “But if they see us, we do what we have to.”
“We flatten them,” Shego said murderously.
“Boo-yah,” Kim muttered.
“Hicka bicka boo,” Ruby chittered.
“So, you even charge me for the cost of electrocuting my son, do you?” Senior said, his lips pulled back in a grimace. “Allow me to return some of the energy, then!”
He pushed the button and another laser blast struck the front walls near the entrance, gouging large chunks of concrete.
He was so close to the base that he barely heard the warning sirens for more than a second before the surface-to-air missile struck his helicopter, forcing him sharply downward. Exasperated, he grabbed the stick with both hands and pulled up mightily, but his age made a near-impossible task hopeless. The chopper careened downward and crashed on its belly just fifteen yards from the building.
“Well,” he said, coughing as he removed his seat belt, “any crash you can walk away from…”
“Who said anything about walking?”
Senior looked up and saw two feminine hands grab him by the lapels and yank him from the cockpit. “I wouldn't expect you to respect your elders,” he told Yvonne Acceptable.
“My brothers are mopping up the losers you sent ahead,” Yvonne replied. “Where'd you get them, you scrawny old fart? Beggars and thieves?”
“My bodyguard came from Smart Mart, actually.”
“Who?”
Rufus leapt out of his jacket pocket and sank his teeth into the flesh below her right thumb.
Yvonne screeched and began waving her hand frantically, but he wouldn't let go.
“And this scrawny old fart has learned that sparing the rod spoils the child,” Senior added, taking his cane from the helicopter and whipping it with all his strength into the back of her knee. Her leg buckled, and he slid his grip downward, driving the gold knob-shaped handle forward into her nose. It didn't break, but blood splashed out and onto his hands.
Enraged, Yvonne spun on her heel and struck him in the temple with her other foot. He collapsed like a sack of flour.
Rufus unlatched his grip on her hand and ran into the building before she could stop him.
“Come on!” she snarled, grabbing Senior by the collar with her uninjured hand and limping back into the building. She found her father and brothers putting the finishing touches on the last of Senior's men.
“Hey, sis,” John jeered. “Did the old man give you a hard time?”
“I was distracted,” she growled, dumping Senior on the ground. “Some kind of rodent came out of his clothes and bit me.”
“A rodent?” Don asked alertly, coming over. “Where is it now?”
“I don't know, it ran into some bushes.”
“What did it look like?”
“Sort of a pink, hairless gopher,” she recalled.
Don Acceptable glanced at his father. “A naked mole rat,” he said.
“Doesn't Ron Stoppable have a pet mole rat?” Mr. Acceptable asked.
“He does,” John agreed. “I saw it several times when I was monitoring Stoppable.”
“So did I,” Don said.
“Why would the old fool have a naked mole rat, the same kind of animal that Possible's sidekick has?” their father asked.
“We could ask him,” Don snapped, “if our sister could control him without knocking him unconscious!”
Yvonne glared hatefully at him. “You can bite me too.”
“And would someone deactivate the alarms?” Mr. Acceptable added. “The threat is over, and they're giving me a headache.”
Don went over to a computer console and patched in. “Oh, shit,” he said.
“What?”
“Two more alarms went off since the first one,” he said rigidly. “The first one was someone breaking in through the back. The second one was someone has accessed a prisoner's cell without proper authorization.”
“It's Possible!” the father realized. “She used Senior as a diversion so we'd be distracted.”
“Senior and Possible?” John asked.
Don made a disgusted sound and smacked his forehead. “How much you bet that's where they've been hiding? With the enemy of their enemy, aka their friend?”
“When this is over,” Mr. Acceptable said almost reflectively, “remind me to have his island sunk.”
Señor Senior Junior looked up groggily from his bed at the womanly silhouette standing at the door. Oh God, she was feeling frisky again. “Please, Yvonne, not tonight,” he begged. “I still haven't recovered from what your brother did to me.”
“What's the first thing every villain needs?”
He stared. That wasn't Yvonne's voice, and those words were oh-so-familiar. “I know it's not an evil laugh,” he replied carefully.
“Freedom to commit crimes,” Shego said. “Come on, we're getting you out of here.”
Junior staggered to his feet and, with a primal yell, leapt through the air, tackling Shego into the hallway and wrapping his hands around her throat. “So, my old teacher, you couldn't spare two minutes to take me with you?!” he roared. “Do you know what those lunatics did to me after you were gone?”
“Dude, I like the effort, but could you save it for the really bad guys?”
He looked up, and the expression on his face was almost comical. “You?! Eh, what was your name again?”
“Jeez! Can't one person remember my name?” Ron complained.
“Sorry about that,” Shego said, knocking his hands away.
“Shego! I found her.”
Junior relaxed. “Was that Kim Possible?” he asked, amazed.
As Shego pushed Junior off, she saw the fresh bruises. “Again with the sorry,” she added quietly. “But I brought your father this time.”
“My father is here?!”
“Come on, Junior,” Ron said. “We left markings for you to follow. You'd better move it before someone notices we're here.”
Shego ran over to where Kim was kneeling by one of the cells nearest the doors. “You're sure you're all right?” Kim was asking.
“Really, Kimmie, I'm fine,” her mother replied. “Admittedly I've seen and heard things here that I may have nightmares about, but I'm just glad to see you.”
“Shego,” Kim said.
Once again Shego put her claws against the opening mechanism, as she had many times already. The circuits frosted, then froze, and then cracked and shattered. The door slid open noiselessly, and Dr. Possible took her daughter in her arms. Shego looked away uncomfortably.
“Thank you, Shego,” Dr. Possible murmured.
“It's not over yet,” Shego said flatly. “We still have the Acceptables to worry about.”
“Don't worry, she's always that way,” Kim assured her mother.
“Please, don't forget her,” Dr. Possible said, pointing at the cell opposite hers.
“Who?” Kim asked as Shego deactivated another set of doors.
“Hello, Kim Possible,” Dr. Director said as she carefully stepped out.
Kim was shocked. “Dr. Director? What happened?!”
“It's a long story,” she replied. “And Shego is right, you must stop the Acceptables. They have information that could be used against Global Justice with terrible consequences.”
Shego looked at her. “They got to you too?”
Dr. Director nodded. “Shego. What did they do to you?”
“Broke three fingers. You?”
She showed them her missing ear. “Surgery without anesthesia.”
“Huh,” Shego said, as Kim looked on, horrified. “You were stronger than I was.”
“Were any of us strong enough?”
“As depressing as all of this is,” Kim interrupted, “we've got to get you out of here. Any minute now the Acceptables will know we're here, and you need to be out of the crossfire.”
Dr. Possible quickly hugged her daughter, and Dr. Director squeezed her arm. “I'll expect you for breakfast in the morning,” she whispered in Kim's ear.
Kim nodded, her eyes moistening. “Okay.”
“As for you,” Dr. Possible added, looking at Shego, “for the rest of us, make sure you do something fitting to that John Acceptable.”
“You can count on it,” Shego said. Her gaze smoldered.
Then the two older woman were rushed away by Ron.
“Kim!”
“Wade, what's the sitch?”
“Four Acceptables heading toward the prison floors!”
“Thanks, Wade. We'll take care of it. How's the hacking coming?”
“They think they're the smartest, but they're not. Ask me again in ten minutes.”
Kim put the Kimmunicator away. “Ready?”
Shego only nodded.
“Could you move a little quicker?” Don asked Yvonne irritably. They'd split up. John and their father had gone to the other side of the building.
“He hit me behind the knee,” she said waspishly. “Give me another couple minutes.”
“Girls just can't take a hit,” he sneered.
Kim dropped down from the ceiling above them and, landing on her feet, drove the heel of her palm into his chin. His teeth nearly cleaved his tongue in two. “You wish you could fight like a girl,” she mocked him.
“Possible!” Yvonne screamed.
Don spat blood and flexed his muscles. “Fell right into our trap, didn't you?”
“Really? Who was lying in wait for who again, exactly?”
His eyes narrowed. “You'll never escape.”
“I don't plan to escape,” she said. “I'm walking out the front door.”
“Enough with the stupid banter,” Yvonne snarled as she sprang at Kim.
Kim neatly caught Yvonne by the wrists and, planting her foot in the other girl's chest, fell back and flipped Yvonne through the air. She landed flat on her back.
Don's fist, however, rocked across her cheekbone, and she saw stars. “Can't beat us both, you know,” he taunted her.
He felt a tap on his shoulder and, instinctively, he turned around.
“Hello again,” Shego said before savagely punching him in the nose.
Don stumbled backward, clutching his spurting nose. “Little girl's gotten her game back?” he said, his voice muffled.
Yvonne stood up, but Ron caught her from behind, wrapping his arms under her armpits and holding her in place.
“You've hurt everyone I care about,” Kim said coldly before burying her first in Yvonne's stomach.
Meanwhile Don and Shego were grappling. Don's fists were in Shego's hands, and they fought for dominance over each other.
“I'm bigger and stronger than you,” he reminded her.
“Cold hands, cold heart,” she retorted, letting go of his hands.
Suddenly conscious of a numbing cold, he looked down and discovered his fists were encapsulated in ice. He looked at them stupidly.
Shego smiled and, putting a finger to her lips, blew. A icy breeze danced across his cheek. Then she dropped down and swept her leg, knocking his feet out from under him. “I bet you're getting chills just thinking about how I'm going to kick your ass.”
“Mr. Acceptable?”
He stopped, putting a hand to his ear. “Yes, dear?”
“Kim Possible, Shego, and Ron Stoppable have Don and Yvonne outnumbered, and possibly outgunned,” his wife said over the commlink, sounding exasperated. “Would you and John head over to the east wing and bail them out?”
“Right,” he said. “What are you doing?”
“Taking care of some garbage downstairs.”
She severed the connection and turned back to the computer consoles, reattaching the headband to her forehead. Wires connected the band to various computers, as did more wires attached to bands on her wrists. “I'm back, sweetie,” she said out loud, her voice surprisingly loving. “And we're going to have lots of fun tonight.”
“Kim!”
“Kinda - busy - now,” she growled, trading blows with Don.
“John and Pops are on the way. I hacked into their communications.”
“Damn,” she said.
“Yeah, but you'd better shift the fight. You've got to get downstairs to the ground floor.”
“Why?”
“Because - well, you have to see it to believe it,” he told her, “but Senior Senior and those men of his are in real danger.”
Kim spun and planted two punches in rapid succession in Don's torso, driving him back. “Got it,” she panted. “Shego! Ron! We've got more coming! We need to move downstairs!”
“Fine by me,” Shego grunted, shoving Yvonne into the wall. “I need more room to move anyway.”
“You'll have to get by us first, Kim Possible.”
Kim looked up and saw Mr. Acceptable and John were now at the other end of the corridor. And the three of them were suddenly boxed in, two Acceptables in either direction. “Which way?” she murmured to Shego.
“Don and Yvonne are beat up,” she said, “but I really want to do something to pretty-boy's face.”
“Father, look out!” Don suddenly called out.
Only Don had seen the small black shape descend from the shadows above his father. Mr. Acceptable turned around, only to be kicked in the stomach rather than the back. The effect was the same, sending him stumbling to his knees.
“You!” John gasped. “How did you get in here, Oryx?!”
“Who is that?” Kim asked.
“Whoa, the Oryx,” Ron said, whistling. “I read about her in the papers. She's Middleton's new crimefighter. A real crimefighter. Hey wait, I thought she was the Onyx.”
“Oryx!” she called out. “With an ‘R'!”
Kim and Ron stared at each other. “Did that sound like…” Kim began to say.
“Shit, can we go now?!” Shego yelled at them, grabbing them both by the arm and running toward John and his fallen father.
John tried to defend himself, but Shego's eyes blazed like headlights as she fell on him like a hyena on carrion. She struck him in the face with her elbow before grabbing him by the arm and throwing him over her shoulder. He landed on his father.
“Kim? Ron?” Oryx said, startled.
“Monique?” Kim asked as they ran together, away from the recovering Acceptables.
Oryx pulled her mask off halfway and revealed the face of Kim's best gal pal. “Been a while, Kim.”
“What are you doing as a crimefighter?”
“Someone had to, Kim. No offense. And these clowns are obviously not it.”
“But where did you learn to fight?”
“Pro wrestling.”
“Steel Toe, baby!” Ron shouted.
Monique smiled and pulled her mask back on.
“Wade, we're almost there,” Kim said as they approached the center of the ground floor, which apparently served as a hangar for their ground and air vehicles. “What's - whoa.”
The four of them stood still in the entrance, as the large robot completed its ascent through the floor. It was standing motionless, as a large hydraulic lift carried it through an opening in the floor. It was about thirty feet tall, and its shadow dwarfed them all. When it stopped rising, it took two hesitant steps backward, allowing the lift to drop back down and the opening to close again.
“Dontcha think you coulda mentioned that, Shego?” Ron asked quietly.
“I didn't know!” Shego said flabbergasted. “But we left the others behind, and the only one left is…”
“Well, well, well,” Mrs. Acceptable's voice echoed across the hangar. It was silky with menace. “Everyone we've been looking for, here for the taking. Your gambit was deft, Possible, but I have the ultimate advantage now. Soon you, your friends, and even that old man Senior will be nothing more than memories.”
“Getting tired of letting the kids do your work for you, huh?” Kim retorted, trying to think of how she could respond to this new threat.
The robot bent over, its spherical, blank head drawing near. “I thought you knew, Kimmie,” she said. “I do have a fourth child.”
A circular opening appeared on the face of the robot, allowing them to see inside.
Kim gaped.
“Uh, KP, why is there a baby in there?” Ron asked.
“Kim, meet my youngest son, Thomas Ronald Acceptable,” the mother said.
“She does have good taste in names, anyway,” Ron added.
“Also known as T. Ron Acceptable. Or the newest member of the Acceptable Family, Tron Acceptable. He may be less than two years old, but he does come with a few cybernetic implants that help make what you see before the most technologically advanced cyborg on the planet. Robot body, human brain - guided by the wisdom of a loving mother, of course…”
The robot's fists began to glow green.
“And some very useful plasma technology,” she added.
“Those look familiar,” Shego snarled, infuriated.
The baby gave no sign of noticing them, and well it didn't. All it saw were a hundred images of his mother's face, inviting him to indulge in what was known as the “terrible twos”.
“Guys, I hear the others coming,” Monique said hurriedly. “Maybe we should move somewhere else?”
Tron pointed his hand at them, and the green glow intensified.
“Yeah, I think we all know what's coming,” Shego pointed out.
The four dashed to their left, and the green plasma burst exploded against the floor, missing them by only a few yards.
They skirted the edge of the room, taking refuge behind some barrels of aviation gas, as the remainder of the Acceptables came into view. “Whoa!” John blurted. “Baby brother!”
“Now what?” Monique asked. “Do you even have a plan?”
“Don't worry, dears,” Mrs. Acceptable told them sweetly. “I could see you weren't doing very well. Let Mother and baby handle it.”
Don ground his teeth.
Kim and Shego looked at each other. “Yeah, we have a plan,” Kim said. “And I think now it might work even better than ever.”
To be continued!…