Mission: Possible 007 (Chapter Two)

 

Chapter Two: The Cheerleader

            It was the day of the National Cheerleading Championships at Middleton High School. This was the specific location supplied to Bond by MI6 Chief of Staff Bill Tanner. It was the location where he would find Kim Possible.

            007 rolled into the parking lot in his Aston Martin DB5. The sporty vehicle garnered a few stares from some of the visitors in attendance for the championships, including one freckle-faced, bespectacled young man. “Wow, Mister,” he told Bond in a rather nasally-sounding voice. “That’s some car!”

            “Thank you,” Bond remarked with a nod and a smirk. “Keep an eye on it for me, won’t you?”

            The young man gladly accepted his temporary job. “Yes, sir!”

            Bond blended in with the crowd. He was lucky to have noticed other men dressed in suits like his, so he would not have stood out in the crowd. Then again, those other men could have possibly been talent scouts, and Bond could’ve easily been mistaken for one himself. Best to lay low as possible for this one, he mentally deliberated.

            The crowd gathered in the school gymnasium, which served as the main stage for the Nationals event. Bond sat uncomfortably in the bleachers among a group that included parents with unruly children, teenaged couples engaged in public displays of affection, and one blond kid who cheered for one distinct cheerleader before she was even out on the court. “Alright, K.P.!” he yelled. “Let’s do it!”

            007 began to wonder if Tanner made a mistake in this location. He gazed around the stands to see if one of the people sitting in the area was Kim Possible. Though he did spot one or two redheads, none of the other teens there fit her description.

            “Shouldn’t you be down there with the other scouts, brah?” he heard the blond kid addressing him. He looked his way in aggravation and then disgust when he noticed a naked mole rat perched on the boy’s shoulder.

            “I’m not one of the scouts,” Bond told him.

            “Ya could’ve fooled me with that fancy suit ya got on,” the kid noted. “You must be one of the parents. You’re not Bonnie’s dad, are ya? I can’t remember if I ever really seen him before, but I’m pretty sure that…”

            “I’m here on business,” Bond did his best to divert from the conversation.

            Unfortunately, his answers only piqued the blond teen’s curiosity even further. “You’re not a scout and you’re not a parent…what kind of business do you have at a high school?” He then gasped as he conjured up one other assumption: “Are you our new principal?”

            Annoyed to no end, Bond considered moving to another section of the bleachers, but he was stopped as soon as the lights switched off. His instincts as a 00 agent heightened for a brief moment, chiefly to the cries of the crowd. Upon closer examination, he realized those cries were in fact cheers, stirred by the commencement of the Nationals event.

            “Ladies and gentlemen,” the announcer said over the P.A. “Give it up for the Middleton High School cheerleading squad!”

            A group of teenage girls dressed in synchronized cheerleading uniforms ran out onto the basketball court. Bond could barely believe his eyes when he saw one of them to be Kim Possible. She’s a cheerleader, he reflected in disbelief, smirking as he watched Kim and her squad perform cheers that they had presumably spent weeks practicing on. Kim herself displayed some of the same moves Bond remembered seeing in San Francisco, albeit more for entertainment than defense.

            “YEAH! GO, K.P.!” he once again heard the blond kid cheer her on.

            Bond’s interest in the young man changed on discovering his connection to Possible. “You know her?”

            “Heck yeah, I do,” he told 007. “K.P.’s been my best friend since Pre-K!”

            “Interesting,” Bond uttered. “What else can you tell me about her?”

            Now it was the blond kid who started to become a little annoyed from Bond’s prying. “Eh, I dunno, man,” he said. “Would ya stop weirdin’ me out with creepy questions? I’m tryin’ to support my friend.”

            Bond obliged to the young man’s request, deciding to simply sit and watch the show with renewed interest. He figured after it was all over to be the right time to approach Possible.

            BOOM!

            There came an explosion within the gymnasium, massive enough to shake the bleachers. Bond felt the vibrations reverberate across the bench he sat on. The explosion destroyed one side of the building; luckily, no one was caught in it. The cheers Bond mistook for cries earlier had now transfixed into the real thing. People in attendance panicked, fleeting to the nearest emergency exit. Kim and her squad tumbled from the pyramid they formed at the time of the explosion – although Kim was the only one who managed to land gracefully on her feet.

            Bond witnessed her graceful landing just as he also noticed a red laser that dotted directly on her forehead. It was a sniper laser, and Kim was right in its crosshairs. Quickly, Bond looked skyward to see where the sniper was located. He saw one man clad in black, including a ski mask, taking aim for Possible through an open skylight.

            Acting fast, Bond drew his concealed gun and opened fire on Kim’s would-be assassin. He knew this action would only create more panic to the people around him, including Possible’s associate and his pet naked mole rat. But it was a risk 007 was willing to take to save Kim’s life.

            None of the shots fired from Bond’s gun hit their intended target. Some of them hit around the skylight’s frame, others shattering glass. They spooked the sniper assassin more than anything and directed his attention towards Bond.

            Upon hearing the shots herself, Kim had also noticed 007.

            “Bond?” she muttered. “What’s he doing here?”

            She got her answer as she followed the aim of his gun to the skylight. She only caught a glimpse of the sniper that nearly killed her before he fled. Immediately thereafter, the “egghead” henchmen she fought in San Francisco, as well as Drakken’s own henchmen, dropped in through the shattered skylight and surrounded Kim on the basketball court.

            Bond dashed in from the stands and expertly took out a few of the cronies in hand-to-hand combat. Possible took out a few herself with some flips and kicks until she was standing back-to-back with 007. “Are you stalking me?” she asked him. “If so, then…ew!”

            “You’re welcome for me saving your life, by the way,” Bond exchanged as he also exchanged a few lefts and a right with a Drakken henchman.

            “Why’re you at my school?” Kim asked, back-flipping over Bond to crack an Egghead henchman with a swift kick to his head.

            “I was sent to recruit you.” Bond tossed a Drakken henchman that attempted to tackle him from below.

            “Recruit me for what? MI6?” Kim executed a cartwheel with a kick that connected with an Egghead’s chin, sending him sprawling back into three others and knocking them all down like bowling pins.

            “Your friend Wade should stop looking into me, if he values his life.” Bond kicked at the knee of a Drakken henchman, sending him down on the other long enough to punch him in the face.

            “Don’t threaten Wade!” Kim dodged an Egghead’s attempted punch, grabbing him by the arm and judo-flipping him over her.

            “I wouldn’t dream of it…not after he’s already been recruited.”

            “Recruited for what?!”

            Together, Bond and Possible delivered a coordinated punch to one tall, muscular Egghead with enough force to knock him down with a loud thud. He was the last of the two distinctive henchmen they dealt with. Afterwards, they focused their efforts on catching up with the sniper.

            “He’s still on the school grounds,” Bond surmised.

            “No doubt,” Kim acknowledged.

            They ran out of the gymnasium among the fleeting pack of panicked bystanders. Had he not been deafened by all the cries, Kim would have heard Ron calling out her name from the stands. He was about to chase after her and the weird British guy he met before all the chaos, until someone snatched him by the arm and held him at bay.

            Turning to see who it was, he was met with the intimidating glare of Bonnie Rockwaller. “Explain, Stoppable!” she demanded. “Is this another one of Kim’s sworn enemies or whatever? ‘Cause if it is, consider her off the squad!”

            “I don’t really know for sure what’s goin’ on myself, Bonnie,” Ron replied, “but I promise you we’ll get some answers as soon as we catch up with Kim and our new British principal.”

-----------------------------

            Kim and Bond pushed their way through the crowd piling out of the gymnasium. The sniper already had a good two-minute head start, taking into account that he had to disassemble his rifle before fleeing the scene. Luckily, Kim spotted him just in time leaping onto the roof of the main building on the MHS campus, adjacent to the gymnasium. “He’s up there!” she alerted 007.

            Wasting no time, they climbed up the roof access ladder along the side of the main building. When they made it onto the roof, Bond – who was the first to make it there – nearly had his throat sliced open from a knife wielded by the sniper assassin. Had he not instinctively ducked his head back, while still gripping onto the ladder, the knife would have met its mark. His reaction, however, costed him his gun, falling out of his grip.

            He kicked the sniper away from the ladder, allowing himself and Kim to step onto the roof and engage in two-on-one combat with the black-clad hit man. He delivered an elbow to the face of Bond, staggering the 00 agent to make it an even one-on-one fight between himself and Kim. She went in for a kick, only for the hired gun to have caught her leg and toss her into the nearest wall.

            The back of Kim’s head smacked against the wall, leaving her stunned. The world around her turned into a haze. She could only make out one black figure looming over her and pointing something directly in her face. As everything began to clear up within a few seconds, she realized that she was staring down the barrel of a handgun.

            She gasped, her body freezing up. Never had she stared into a gun at such close range that she could see the bullet ready to fire between her eyes.

            It would have been the end of Kim Possible for sure had it not been for the recovered 007, who tackled the hit man away from Kim. The gun fired as the assassin reflectively gripped on the trigger, though the shot was into the air rather than Kim’s face. She watched both men crash through another skylight, rushing over to look down it to see where they landed.

            The area looked to be a biology classroom. The bodies of Bond and the sniper assassin hit one of the lab tables before being sprawled out over the floor, covered in glass (and bruises). It didn’t take long for either man to recover, continuing their brawl within the empty classroom setting.

            Kim knew she had to get down there right away and help Bond. She darted through the exit door and down the stairwell. When she made it into the hallway of the topmost floor of the main building, she followed the grunts Bond and his opponent made in their scuffle to determine which classroom they ended up in. The grunts got louder the closer she got, and once she was able to single out the specific classroom they were in, she was just about to kick down the door.

            Until…

            “Kim Possible!” she heard the angry voice of Bonnie Rockwaller call out to her.

            Oh, no! Not now! Anytime but now!

            She saw Bonnie run up to her with Ron breathlessly following close behind. “You O.K., K.P.? What can we do to help?”

            “We?!” Bonnie sneered. “Oh, no, no! This is her mess to clean up, as usual! She ruined our chance at winning the Nationals!”

            “Bonnie, now is not the time for this!” Kim argued.

            “Oh, don’t worry, you’ll have all the time you want for your little crime-fighting side job,” Bonnie said, “because you’re off the cheer squad!”

            “What?!” Kim exclaimed. “Bonnie, you can’t—”

            BLAM!

            Their conversation abruptly concluded as a gunshot rang out from inside the biology room. They collectively gasped in seeing what appeared to be blood splatter onto the frosted windows. A body slammed against them, slumping down to the floor and tracking even more blood from a head wound.

            “Oh, my…!” Bonnie cried, her hands over her mouth. “I’m gonna be sick!”

            While Bonnie ran to the nearest girls’ bathroom, Kim was heavily nervous as to which of the two men inside the biology room won the scuffle: Bond or the assassin. The doorknob unlocked on the other side and twisted, prompting Kim to guard Ron, in case it was the bad guy who survived.

            She was relieved to see that it was actually a worn-out, slightly battered Bond who walked out. Seeing 007 in such a state, Ron deduced, “Hey, you’re no principal at all, are you?” He grew a bit aggravated from all the secrecy. “Alright, spill! Who are you?”

            “He’s…a friend,” Kim spoke on 007’s behalf, though her answer didn’t sound too convincing to Ron’s ears.

            Meanwhile, Bond took out his phone and made a call.

            “M,” he addressed the person on the other line. “Yes, I found her. So did some of the League’s lackeys who were sent to kill her. One of them is lying dead in a biology classroom on the fourth floor of the school. It’s a safe assumption the League knows about our plan.” He paused for a brief moment to hear M’s orders. “Understood. We’re headed to the rendezvous point right now.”

            Bond hung up the phone and took Kim by the arm, leading her towards the stairwell. “Don’t touch me!” she ordered, pulling her arm away from him. “What rendezvous point? Where are you taking me?”

            007 admired how feisty she was, but now wasn’t the time for it. “Mount Rushmore,” he told her. “The rest of the team is waiting for us there.”

            “Team?” Kim reacted with an eyebrow raised in question. “Consisting of who?”

            “You and me for starters,” Bond said. “And two others you’ll recognize when you see them.”

            “Hey, British dude!” Ron asserted. “Wherever K.P.’s goin’, I’m goin’, too!”

            “No, you aren’t,” Bond refuted. “You’re not a part of what’s happening here.”

            “I beg to diff, Mr. Bond,” Kim countered. “Ron has always been a part of all my missions.”

            Bond sternly shook his head. “Not this one.”

            He headed out of MHS’s main building with Kim and Ron. They exited the building to a gathering of shaken students, parents, and faculty members. The police and the fire department were also there – the former to take statements and make arrests on the Egghead and Drakken henchmen, and the latter to put out the fire brought on from the explosion.

            The presence of the local authorities was Bond’s cue to leave with Kim.

            They approached where he parked his Aston Martin DB5, which had been looked after the entire time by the freckle-faced young man, in spite of all the mayhem that occurred on campus. “Thanks, son,” Bond told him with a pat on the shoulder.

            “You got it, mister,” the young man said. “I wasn’t gonna let those creeps lay a finger on it.”

            As Bond got into the car, Kim turned to Ron and promised him, “I’ll call you, as soon as I can.” It was the last thing she told him before hopping into Bond’s Aston Martin, although she momentarily confused the driver’s side for the passenger’s side, due to the vehicle’s European design.

            The despondent Ron (with Rufus peeping out of his pants pocket) and the freckled, bespectacled young man watched them depart.

            “Ain’t she a beaut?” the young man asked Ron.

            “Shut up, Ned!” Ron grumbled.

            “What? I was talking about the car.”