Kim Possible copyrighted by Disney, etc.

Chapter 1:
There And Back Again

Professor Dementor strode through his immense lair. In a wide circular rim, his henchmen were seated at numerous computer consoles according to orders. He stood above them on an upper gantry which led to the main control room. He felt a dark satisfaction as he surveyed them at work. Everything was ready. He checked his watch.

'Ze time has come!' he said simply, then he snapped his fingers, and inside the control room, one of his men hit a large red button on the main console. A huge, circular hole slid open in both the cieling and floor of the lair. From the gigantic pit, a towering machine rose up with a thundering mechanical rumble until it locked into place, pointing a spiked electrode into the sky like a thorny robotic finger.

Dementor grinned. 'With ze power of ze Ultra-Atmospheric-Jammer, every satellite orbiting ze earth will be placed under my direct control! Ze top secret communications of every government on ze Earth will soon be no secret to me! Ze whole world will learn zat ze privacy they once took for granted is about to become very expensive!'

'Speech is free, Dementor! Everyone knows that!' said an echoing voice from the other side of the rim.

Dementor stared. Stepping from the shadows was a trim, athletic girl with red hair, wearing a black shirt and cargo pants. 'Kim Possible?' he yelled. 'How did you...?'

'Find you?' she smiled. 'Next time don't use a forwarding address to have your equipment delivered. So not the evil genius!'

'Minions!' Dementor cried out. 'Attack!' At once, every grey-suited henchman leaped from his chair and charged at Kim with roaring shouts. The henchman from the control room vaulted over the railing and dropped down to join in the assault.

'I'm coming, Kim!' yelled a squealy voice from above. From a swinging cord, Ron swooped down through the hole in the cieling with a shrill battle cry. 'Boooo-yaaaaaaaaaaah!!' The henchman stopped, staring up at him, and in so doing, Ron sailed harmlessly past them, yelling 'Hey! No fair!'

Kim sighed. She flipped forward, leaping to the attack, kicking back against the chests of two henchmen, who cried out and tumbled over the guard rail into the pit from which the Ultra-Atmospheric-Jammer had emerged. Kim backflipped, sliding across the floor and sending two more henchmen falling on their faces as she knocked their feet out from under them.

Dementor gritted his teeth as Kim took down another henchman with a quick foot sweep and tumbled towards another with a series of backflips. 'Use ze catchwebs, you fools!' he said, stamping his foot. Several of the henchmen pulled out what looked like flare guns, firing them with loud bangs. White spheres shot out which exploded into what looked like wide nets, flying straight at her.

Kim gasped and rolled to the side, barely avoiding being entangled by the web-like shots. But they were still firing at her, and she found herself being herded into a corner. Soon she would not have enough room to avoid their shots....

A wailing scream became louder and louder, and suddenly Ron swung from the side, having completed a circular arc through the base after his first miss. He was tangled in the rope of his grappling hook and hanging upside down, plainly out of control, but he plowed straight into the line of henchmen. Several catchweb guns went off as a result of the impact, and when the dust cleared, the entire squad was struggling within a sticky mass of white nets while Ron dangled above them, still spinning on the end of his grappling line. 'Ow!' he said. 'That really hurt!'

Rufus, who was gripping to the flap of his pants pocket, nodded. 'Uh huh! Uh huh!' he squeaked, before dropping to the floor.

Kim turned and looked at the upper gantry, where Dementor stared in amazement at his immobilized and helpless men. He dashed into the control room. Kim fired her grappling gun and was soon soaring up after him. She caught up with him inside the control room, which was covered with panels and had large glass windows that looked out over the pit, in which the Ultra-Atmospheric Jammer stood glowing and throbbing with power.

'You are too late Kim Possible!' Dementor said. He took out another catchweb gun and aimed it slowly at her. 'In only ten seconds, ze Jammer will activate, and whether you capture me or not, I have now set it to make every satellite re-enter orbit and destroy themselves! I am about to plunge every nation in ze world back to ze Stone Age! Surrender, or ze resulting global chaos will be on your head!'

'You're forgetting about what's on your head, Dementor!' said Kim with a smile.

Dementor looked confused. 'What?' he said. 'Is zere something wrong with my helmet?' he felt his helmet curiously.

'There is now!' said Kim. Rufus leaped and started crawling around on the eye holes of Dementor's helmet. He flailed and twitched.

'Ach!' he screamed. 'Get zis vermin off me! Ekeln! Er hat keinen pelz!'

Kim leaped forward, landing a solid kick in Dementor's chest. Rufus flipped up and Kim caught him neatly in her hands while Dementor flew back into the wall and collapsed with a groan. But he looked up smiling. 'You think you have won?' he said. 'You still cannot stop my Jammer!'

Kim stood at the main console, still smiling. Then she reached down and hit a large red button. The holes in the floor and the cieling began to close again.

'No!' said Dementor, waving his hands. 'Zat equipment is extremely fragile...!' But the massive panels closed, crushing the spire of the Jammer at the cieling with a flurry of sparking bursts, while at the base, the Jammer was pinched from it's housing in the middle. The Jammer fell to the side and collapsed into a massive pile of smoking junk.

Dementor stared at the shattered wreck of his machine. 'Ja, zat would do it.' he said feebly.

Police were leading Dementor and his tangled henchmen out of the base. Ron was still swinging from the cieling - the closing panels had not snapped his grappling line. 'Way to go, KP!' he said. 'I'd have helped, but I thought I'd just hang out for a bit!'

'You helped.' she said fairly. 'Thanks for taking out the henchmen.'

'Aw, no big!' he said. 'But could you, like uh, get me down or something?'

Kim sighed. 'Just hit the release button on your belt.' she said.

'Oh yeah...' said Ron, and he squirmed in the tangle of rope for a moment. Kim heard a click, and then Ron fell to the floor with a yelp. Kim and Rufus glanced up. Ron's pants were still swaying from the rope in mid-air. 'Aw man!' said Ron, standing up. His polka-dot boxers flapped in the breeze.

Kim looked away, blushing. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same...

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With a high pealing ring, the bell sounded through the halls at Middleton High. The marquee outside sported bold letters reading "You want to put off your homework until WHEN?" Kim managed to avoid seeing Jim and Tim between classes as much as possible. She wasn't sure if they liked bumping into her because it made her uncomfortable, or if being in the same school as their big sister made them uncomfortable. They cartainly got into their own share of mischief, and were building quite a reputation at the school beyond Kim's sphere of influence.

She closed the door to her locker with a metallic clang and saw Ron coming down the hall, waving. 'Yo KP!' he said. 'You up for a Naco run after cheerleader practice?' He stopped, leaning on the lockers next to hers.

'As long as you're there.' she said, smiling. 'We've got at least two hours in seperate classes until then. I could use a little Ron-shine to pull me through...'

With that she slid her arms around him and gave him a slow, but chaste kiss. When she broke it off, Ron stood dithering.
'Whaugh... oooh.... uh.... woah...' he said, looking cross-eyed and woozy. Kim smiled. They'd been dating for many weeks, but he still got just as thunderstruck by her kisses as ever. It was blatent flattery, but she loved it.

'I'll miss you.' she said warmly, and gave him another quick kiss on his lips.

At once, there was a flash of light and a tinny voice sounded through a megaphone. 'Attention Middleton High!' came Tim's voice. 'Your school has been infested with cooties! Evidence will soon be photocopied and posted on the bulliten boards along with instructions on how to protect yourselves!'

Kim turned in fury and saw Jim dashing down the hallway, looking back at his sister and waving a camera with a grin, while Tim hared after him, megaphone in hand. 'You tweebs!!!' she said, her teeth gritted, her face flamed red. All around, other students were chuckling and staring. Bonnie's face stood out in the crowd, a pleasured smile on her face. Kim turned back to Ron, noting that while he was a bit red around the ears, he didn't look nearly as flustered as she did. 'Later Ron - I've gotta go... deal with this.' and she dashed down the hall after her brothers.

Ron watched her as she tore down the hallway and disappeared around a corner. 'Cooties.' he heard Bonnie's voice faintly as she turned and walked away. 'Do her brothers have any idea how lame they are? Still, I hope they beat her to the photocopier....'

Ron shrugged, reflecting that Bonnie simply didn't get it. When you were comfortable in your own skin, it didn't matter whether you knew if anyone thought you were lame or not. And Jim and Tim were certainly comfortable with who they were. 'I can't believe she said she liked me in her diary...' he thought, hoisting his backpack and making his way to the next class...

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Far from Middleton, a medium-upper scale house stood among a group of similar houses on a suburban street. Two figures walked up the sidewalk and into the house, closing the door behind them. One was an athletic-looking teenage boy with a head of spiked auburn hair. The other was a blonde-haired girl. Grimm Probable strode into the entryway with Rhonda Fatigable at his side.

'Mom, I'm home!' he shouted, his voice seeming for all things as if he had simply been out a little too late and that he was now apologizing.

A voice came from the kitchen area. 'Grimm? Your father and I were worried about you - you were out so late last night!'

'Sorry Mom, I got held up on a job from my website.'

'Well, how did it go dear?' came the voice from the kitchen.

Grimm shrugged. 'Mixed bag.' he said.

'Well, you got a package last evening. I went ahead and put it in your room. And breakfast will be ready in ten minutes, Grimm.' said Mrs. Probable.

'We'll be up in a few.' he called back. 'Is it OK if Rhonda joins us?'

'That would be fine, dear!'

'Thanks Mom.' he said. 'Oh by the way - Rhonda and I are dating!' Grimm smiled as he heard a shriek of excitement come from the kitchen, then he turned toward the stairs.

Grimm went down the stairs into the basement. A sign on the door said "Grimm's Room". He strode in and Rhonda followed him, the door closing behind them with a click. The lights flicked on. Grimm's room combined the look of a secret lab with a typical crashing site for a teenage guy. Unfolded clothes and sports posters competed with equipment, panels and computers for space.

'Home sweet home-away-from-home!' said Rhonda, flouncing into a beanbag chair. A small weasel slithered out of her backpack and landed next to her with a soft phlumph. Rueful put his paws behind his head and let out a relaxed sigh. Grimm smiled as he sat down at a table littered with boxes and papers and took out his communicator.

'Jade,' he said. 'we're back!'

Jade popped up on the screen to his communicator. Her spiked hair with it's colored streaks framed irregularly around a thin, pretty face. 'G-man! Took the scenic route home! How was your date?' she said with a wink.

'Rope it in, Jade.' he said smiling. 'Just because Rhonda and I are shipping doesn't mean you can go all coy on me. How's our street rep?'

'Still sizzling!' said Jade with a grin. 'You've got five more job offers. First is from someone named Killigan, and that Drakken guy has been emailing two or three times a day....'

'Put them on hold Jade.' said Grimm, waving his hand. 'We're going to be working on a personal project for a while.'

Rhonda looked up from her chair. From her shoulder, Rueful poked his head up, cocking it from side to side.

'Personal?' said Jade.

Grimm nodded. 'We've still got unfinished business with Possible and her crew.' he said. 'Our last encounter with them was technically a success for us since Drakken made off with the Stafford technology. But it still ended with us getting caught.'

'Come on, that was weeks ago.' chirped Rhonda, sidling up behind him and putting her hands on his shoulders. 'Besides, I'm not complaining about how things turned out!' Grimm glanced up with a smile, but his eyes were steely and cold.

'Kim played us. That's not gonna stand.'

'So.... what's the skinny?' said Jade, looking both apprehensive and eager at the same time.

'We're going to engineer some play-back.' he said. 'And I think I know the perfect way.' He pulled a package labelled "HenchCo" across the table towards himself. 'I dipped into the petty cash a while back and ordered this.' Rhonda looked down and saw a label on the side which read, "Attitudinator" along with a small diagram - it looked like a helmet of some kind.

Grimm laid a photo down. 'Anyone knows that to break a chain, you go after the weakest link.' he said quietly. 'But we're going to take it a step further. We're going to take Kim Possible's weakest link and turn it into our strongest one!' Rhonda stared at the photo. It looked like Ron Stoppable, but he was dressed in some kind of weird cap and was wearing goggles and a cape.

'I'm gonna be leaning on you pretty heavy for this one Jade.' he said. 'We'll need information. Lots of it. Can you get into the records of Possible's hacker without him knowing?'

Jade cracked her knuckles. 'Just watch me!'

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Kim's day didn't get much better as it progressed. Later in practice, the rest of the cheer squad were stretching and doing warm-ups. Bonnie was lounging on the bleachers, talking on her cell phone. 'Head in the game, Bonnie!' Kim said, motioning to the gym floor where everyone except Bonnie was getting ready.

Bonnie's resentful face went up like a mask and she shut her phone off, glaring at Kim as if she had interrupted the most important call of her life. 'Have you got some major luncheon appointment lined up or something?' she said, 'What's with the rush hour treatment?'

'It's just that some of us have lives to live, and the sooner we get started, the sooner we can live them!' Kim said.

Bonne took her place in the squad line-up. 'Oh I keep forgetting - your GBF is probably waiting for you somewhere.'

'GBF?' said Kim questioningly, but she guessed an instant before Bonne spoke what she was about to say.

'Geek boyfriend.' she said, her hands on her hips.

'Grow up Bonnie, everyone is so over that.' said Kim, feeling nettled despite herself.

'He may think you're all that, but everyone knows that I'm the one carrying the squad now that you and he have got your heads in the clouds.' she said, putting a new slant on her tiresomely held belief that she was the only girl on the entire squad.

'Define 'everyone'. said Kim coldly.

Bonnie didn't answer directly, but came up with an equally sharp barb. 'You know in the time it took you to argue about 'getting started', we could have started already?'

'So not the drama!' said Kim.

'And do you ever get as tired of saying that as we do of hearing it?' Bonnie said.

Kim stared, feeling as if an icy thread was connecting her gaze with Bonnie's. She clapped her hands and the squad, who were starting to figdet and glance nervously at each other, began practicing the routine.

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In his dark computer room, Wade surfed several web sites at once. No mission alerts had yet come up on Kim's web site, so he had some down-time to enjoy. As he tended to various auctions and other raids with his clan in Everlot, his eye flashed towards his router boxes. He could have sworn, from the blinking alone, that someone was trying to access his systems. But another glance at the monitor which he used to track his firewalls showed only the usual intrusion attempts which were all blocked and showing green checkmarks. He kept an eye on it all the same, but was more engrossed in his exploits within Everlot....

Grimm looked at the lists of data scrolling on his computer screens. 'Well,' he said. 'She does get around.' Rhonda sat on a stool off to the side looking sulky. Grimm could sense it, and added as an aside, 'Not nearly as cute as you, though.' Rhonda blushed and seemed to relax a little.

'Is it all accurate?' he said. A small window showing Jade's face popped onto one of his monitor screens.

'Good as gold.' she said. 'It actually wasn't that hard to get. Kim hasn't made any big secret about her missions. Seems like she really enjoys everyone knowing about how many times she's saved the world...'

'Show-off.' growled Rhonda from the side.

'And there are plenty of news reports to confirm it.' Jade continued. 'You'd think a girl with as many enemies as she's got would want to keep her home address secret....'

'Focus on the incident with the Mega Weather Generator.' Grimm said curtly. 'And see if you can gather as much as you can on their current schedules. When they go to school, where they work, when they're at home, that sort of thing. Is the equipment ready to go?'

'That's a big 10-4.' Jade said. 'And I've got a couple locations in Middleton already scoped out. Addresses to follow.'

'You rock, Jade.' he said, smiling as more and more data kept coming into his inbox.

'I've got the rock if you've got the roll!' Jade answered. 'Middleton awaits!'

Grimm stood up. Rhonda still looked a little miffed, but she smiled as she looked in his eyes. 'Put on something black and slinky.' he said, pulling documents from his printer. 'Team Probable is on the job again!'

Author:

This story is the second KP fanfiction I've written. Originally, I had planned to have Dr. Drakken use the Attitudinator to turn Ron back into Zorpox. However, after writing "All Things Probable", I was so pleased with the way the characters in Team Probable turned out that it actually made more sense to make "The Return of Zorpox" a sequel to the story.

It may be vanity associated with the fact that Team Probable were my own creations, but I truly thought the characters had deep psychological pull which made them an excellent choice for the sequel. Reader response to Team Probable was very positive. I didn't get nearly as MUCH resonse as I would have liked, so I can't be sure it represents how the entire KP community would feel. But the people who did respond nearly all spoke in highly favorable terms of the characters.

I'm saying nothing against any of the established KP villains, but none of them had much of a psychological aspect to them. Almost all of them want to take over the world, and act in a nearly identical fashion, with physical plots, physical devices, and physical threats to KP and her team. (The noteable exception was Drakken's Eric gambit in "So the Drama")

When I decided to write a fanfiction, I knew simply from watching Batman cartoons that if you can come up with a truly memorable and cool villain, then a story will practically write itself. The thing was, the typical base of villains has been admirably covered by the show already. The only thing left would be to make a stronger, scarier villain who was more threatening and powerful than the ones already made by the writers on the show. But given that KP is a show for kids, you can't do that. Blood and injury is eschewed, especially by Disney, and it just didn't seem right to have a KP villain who was actually trying to KILL her.

And so in creating Team Probable, I wanted something that went deeper than physical danger. The idea of an 'anti' Team Possible, with members who were their 'opposites' appealed to me greatly. But I wanted a foe that would not only be able to vie with Kim physically, but someone who could mess with her head and get her to question herself. Someone who knows the best way to defeat an enemy is to get them to defeat themselves.

Not only did I decide to make Team Probable into opposites by making them criminals, I also decided to reverse the gender of each one. This added, among other things, an element of chemistry to this group of anti-Possibles. Hence, Grimm Probable practically jumped out from my keyboard and drew himself in my sketchbook.

Grimm represents an opposite to Kim in so many ways - overt and subtle. He's a guy, she's a girl. Both are competitive and athletic, and both enjoy helping people who they think are in trouble or oppressed. But while Kim helps people because of a good heart and for fun, Grimm helps troubled villains for fun and profit. Kim is a natural leader. Grimm is a skilled puppet-master. Kim loves to take charge and seems to enjoy the attention it gives. Grimm prefers to weave events from the sidelines and feels more in control as a power behind the throne. Kim's fighting style comes from cheerleading and sixteen forms of Kung-Fu, and is very aggressive and flashy. Grimm's style comes from gymnastics and Tai Shing Pek Kwar, which is primarily a defensive form of Kung-Fu. In most of his battles, he prefers to make his opponents come to him and to be so skilled in fending them off that they begin to doubt their abilities. (This served the purpose of being a way to psychologically tweak his foes, as well as getting around the whole 'you can't hit girls' thing) Hence, his fighting style is more relaxed, quiet and calculated. Their moods reflected this as well. While Kim is outgoing and nearly forceful, Grimm is more calm and cunning.

Rhonda Fatigable stands opposite to Ron. Both are energetic and eager, though clumsy. (Though no gimmick will ever be used to make Rhonda's pants fall down, for obvious reasons) Rhonda is Grimm's best friend and was drawn to him, just as Ron is drawn to Kim. Both are a bit insecure and unambitoius, but have amazing potential when motivated. I have not yet written a 'power' for Rhonda to be an opposite to Ron's Mystical Monkey Power. But I have written her as a student of Judo as opposed to karate or Kung-Fu. Rhonda can be motivated to near-nastiness when she feels someone is in 'her' territory - and after All Things Probable, that turned to a very short temper which flares up against anyone who goes after 'her' Grimm.

I wanted to shy away from the typical villains who always put each other down, sell each other out and never cooperate. Instead I made a group that truly liked each other, meshed well, worked together as a team, and are protective of each other. It made for a more interesting dynamic to have them band together when things get tough instead of abandoning each other as most TV villains do. Not ALL villains are craven cowards.

Zorpox of course stands out as one of the most memorable KP villains ever and I wanted to give his return a proper level of respect. And so there are several threads woven into his return by Grimm which takes the story far beyond simply having Zorpox reappear. As "The Return Of Zorpox" unfolds over the next month or so, hopefully you will draw as much enjoyment from the story as I gained simply by writing it.