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.”

Mission: Possible 007 (Chapter One)

 

Chapter One: The Team

            The scent of twenty different types of Mexican dishes (including but not limited to nachos, burritos, and tacos) helped Kim to relax after the stressful night she had in San Francisco. Bueno Nacho was a popular hangout spot for Middleton High students like her and her best friend, Ron Stoppable. There they sat in their usual booth, Kim relaying the details of her recent mission while Ron munched on his “naco” (his personal invention of combination nachos and a taco) with Rufus, his naked pet mole rat.

            “And he had the nerve to thank us for helping him and then tell us not to get in his way again!” Kim vented, slamming her fists down on the table every time she enunciated on “us.” “I swear if I ever see that guy again, he’ll be sorry he got in my way! He practically ruined my mission, wearing Alistar Krei’s face!”

            “Ew! Kim!” Ron groaned, just as he was about to take a bite out of his naco. “I’m tryin’ to eat here. Can we change the subject? Tell me more about that asset…” He suddenly burst with laughter, unable to bring himself to say “asset” without doing so – much to the annoyance of Kim. “I’m sorry, K.P. It’s just the funniest word ever.”

            Kim shot him a cold stare, her arms folded. “Yeah, Ron…hilarious. The asset is just fine.” Again, Ron couldn’t compose himself. However, he quickly did when Kim mentioned, “Sadly, his brother died in the explosion.”

            “Aw, man,” Ron sheepishly said. “I’m sorry to hear that. How’s he holdin’ up?”

            “No idea,” Kim answered. “I’ve been waiting on an update from Wade. He’s also supposed to get me some info on those three other agents I encountered last night.” Just then, her Kimmunicator beeped. She answered it right away, and Wade’s pudgy smiling face filled the screen. “Go, Wade.”

            “I got the info you requested, Kim,” Wade said over the feed. “The name you gave me, James Bond, only comes up through classified MI6 records… a lot of redacted stuff. As far as the guy who disguised himself as Alistar Krei, I wasn’t able to find anything on him without much else to go on.”

            “What about the platypus in the fedora?” Kim asked.

            Wade paused for a long time with a quizzical expression on his face. “Seriously?”

            Kim gingerly slammed her head on the booth table, exasperated by the lack of details on the co-conspirators. “Just look further into Bond for now, Wade,” she tasked, though her voice sounded muffled with her face smushed on the table.

            “What did you say?” Wade asked her, checking his audio settings.

            Ron, mouthful of naco, leaned in over the Kimmunicator, so that Wade could see him. “She said look in on the Bond dude,” he said, spitting out bits of food onto the Kimmunicator screen. “Oops! My bad!” He fixed his blunder by licking the bits from the screen.

            Wade felt like he was going to throw up, watching Ron lick the Kimmunicator screen, an act that created dog-like slobbering noises over the microphone. “O.K., I’m just gonna hang up now and bleach my eyes,” Wade said, switching off the feed as quickly as he could.

            Beneath the pile of her own luscious red locks, Kim groaned, “Why did this conspiracy have to happen on the day of Nationals?”

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

            Bond mentally couldn’t shake off the oddities that occurred the previous night: a green woman with flaming fists, a man who wore a hyper-realistic facemask, and a platypus in a fedora. Nonetheless, he reported to MI6 headquarters the next day, more business than usual. He arrived at the Q branch lab, a space enclosed within Plexiglas walls and doors, hoping for a ready analysis on the footage recorded from the ocular cameras he wore during the assignment.

            M was with Q at the moment of 007’s arrival, presumably there to see the footage analysis as well. “007,” M greeted Bond. As always, he didn’t waste time on pleasantries, getting straight to the point. “We were able to gather intel on the individuals you encountered in San Francisco.”

            “Facial recognition tells us this,” Q brought up the images of the teenaged redhead and the Krei imposter. Bond curiously looked on them as they were projected on the holotable. “Kimberly Ann Possible – Age: 16, no known aliases,” Q said of the girl. “As far as we can determine, she’s freelance, not affiliated with any bureaus or government organizations, except for Global Justice on occasion.”

            “What of the American male?” Bond pointed to the Krei imposter.

            “A field operative for the U.S. government’s Impossible Missions Force,” M briefed. “His name is Ethan Hunt.”

            Bond then noticed a third image beside Possible and Hunt: the platypus in the fedora. “Got anything on this one?”

            Q paused for a long time with a quizzical expression on his face. “Seriously?”

            Moving past it, Bond proceeded to inquire, “How is it that I managed to be assigned to the same mission that three other agents from three other agencies were? And who were the three assailants that targeted Krei?” His frustrations became clearer with each inquiry. They were specifically directed towards M. “There was quite a bit about this assignment I wasn’t briefed on. Why is that?”

            In response, M used Q’s computer to bring up one enlarged image above those of Possible, Hunt, and the platypus. It was a 14-year-old boy of Asian descent with messy black hair and a slight gap between his teeth. “This is the asset you were sent to watch out for – Hiro Hamada,” M identified. “His technological brilliance has been sought after by the League, a coalition of four of the top terrorist organizations, including SPECTRE.”

            “I’m well aware of who they are,” Bond said in reference to the one aforementioned organization.

            “Agencies are gathering in response to form the Team,” M continued.

            “And these other agencies are the ones that employed our three friends? Including the platypus in the fedora?”

            M detected the hint of sarcasm in 007’s tone. “Correct,” he confirmed Bond’s spot-on deduction. “I’m assigning you the task of finding Kimberly Possible and bringing her to the rendezvous point near Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. Because she’s a freelancer, the only way of contacting her is through her young associate, Wade. He’s been looking into you particularly.”

            “I’m flattered,” Bond dryly remarked. “I suppose you’d want to recruit him as well.”

            M grinned. “We’re already on it.”

            “And what about the other two?”

            “They’re being ordered by their superiors to the rendezvous point also.”

            “Including the platypus in the fedora?”

            “Yes, including the platypus in the fedora, 007.”

            Q snickered. “Wish I could be there just to see him sitting with the rest of you.”

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            “A platypus in a fedora? Seriously?!” IMF operative Benji Dunn sat outside the “La Ratatouille” bistro with his fellow agents, Ethan and Luther, as both men recounted their recent mission in San Francisco to him.

            “I’m just relieved that I’ll never have to worry about those people or that platypus ever again,” Ethan said, sitting back in his chair and taking in the comforting atmosphere.

            His moment of tranquility didn’t last long.

            “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Ethan,” Luther uttered, right before he handed Ethan a tablet computer that he retrieved out of the black bag that he brought along with him to the bistro. Ethan figured it was just the usual computer he always carried with him. He should’ve known better.

            He let out a depleted sigh, knowing exactly what was to come.

            Taking the tablet from Luther’s hands, Ethan powered it on and a video automatically played with a man’s voice speaking over it: “Good evening, Mr. Hunt. As you know, your mission in San Francisco was to ensure the protection of the asset, Hiro Hamada. While you were successful in your mission, the threat of the League remains. In response to this threat, the British and American governments – in cooperation with IMF – have joined to form the Team. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to rendezvous with these agents near Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota.”

            When Ethan saw the agents in question were the same three he encountered in San Francisco, he irritably groaned.

            “Good luck, Mr. Hunt,” the video concluded prior to giving the usual warning: “This message will self-destruct in five seconds.” After exactly five seconds, the tablet self-destructed with a poof of smoke emitting from it.

            Smoke might as well have also come out of Ethan’s ears in his frustration.

            It didn’t help much to hear Benji still going on about that one detail from his San Francisco mission. “A secret agent platypus,” he pondered aloud. “Who’d come up with something that bizarre?”

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            “Mom! Mom! Mom!”

            Perry jolted at the sound of Candace’s frantic calls for her mother, Linda Flynn-Fletcher, as she rushed inside their residence. Anytime Candace called for Linda in that manner, it could only mean one thing: Phineas and Ferb had developed yet another invention that Candace deemed “bust-able.”

            Linda was in the process of feeding Perry at the time Candace rushed in. “What is it, Candace?” Linda asked with a breath of irritation.

            “Mom, Phineas and Ferb are in Hill Valley right now, building a time machine!”

            “Didn’t they already build a time machine?” Linda couldn’t believe she even had to ask that.

            “I said the exact same thing,” Candace admitted. “But this one’s out of a DeLorean! And they got that crackpot old lady, Doc Brown, to—!”

            “Alright. Candace, you really need to get your stories straight, because I’m starting to lose track of where you are with this one.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “Just yesterday, you said the boys found jobs as Ghostbusters in New York City.”

            “They did!”

            “So how can they be in Hill Valley building a time machine out of a DeLorean with Doc Brown?!”

            “Two words, Mom: Teli-Pad! They got it in the garage right now! C’mon, I’ll show it to you! C’mon! Let’s go!” Candace was already halfway through the house before Linda could even move a toe.

            Having been distracted by her daughter, Linda reminded herself that she still needed to feed Perry. However, when she looked down, all she saw was Perry’s bowl. “Huh, that’s strange,” she muttered. “Where’s Perry?”

            Unbeknownst to Linda, as she was distracted, Perry stood upright on his hind legs, put on his fedora, and slipped through one of the secret passages within the Flynn-Fletcher household. Sliding through a series of tubes that were something out of a water park ride (just without the water), he arrived in his lair where he landed perfectly in his chair and faced the large viewscreen that already had a live feed of Major Monogram’s mustachioed face.

            “Good morning, Agent P,” Monogram greeted. “I must congratulate you on your hard work in protecting Alistar Krei…even though he turned out to be another guy disguised as Alistar Krei.”

            “That mask was so real,” the nasally voice of Carl Karl (O.W.C.A.’s hapless intern) spoke off-screen. “It’s like rubbery human flesh. It’s so disgusting!”

            “Not now, Carl!” Monogram grumbled.

            “Sorry, sir,” Karl whimpered.

            “Anyway, Agent P,” Monogram recommenced. “We monitored your assignment in San Francisco and learned more about the other agents you encountered.” Images of the three agents superimposed beside Monogram on the viewscreen. “I understand you prefer to work alone, Agent P, but the government has asked that we cooperate with some of the best counterterrorist agencies in the world and protect the asset, Hiro Hamada.” Hiro’s photograph appeared on the feed, overlapping the three from before.

            “You must rendezvous with the other agents at Mt. Rushmore. You remember Mt. Rushmore, don’t you, Agent P? We did a fun, heartwarming episode there back in Season One.” The deadpan look he noticed Perry giving him urged the major to get back on topic. “You know what to do now, Agent P. Get to that rendezvous point in South Dakota pronto!”

            Perry saluted to the major and leaped away, taking another secret passage out of his lair. Shortly after his departure, Carl asked Monogram, “Sir, is it true that one of those other agents Agent P’s working with is a cheerleader?”

            “Seriously, Carl?!” Monogram remarked in annoyance.

Mission: Possible 007 (Prologue)

            Tonight was a big night for Hiro Hamada. The San Francisco Institute of Technology (a.k.a. “SFIT”) was holding a convention for up-and-coming geniuses, like Hiro himself, to showcase new inventions that would receive an acceptance into the university. Hiro planned on presenting his microbots – swarms of tiny robots that linked together in any arrangement imaginable using a neuro-cranial transmitter, worn like a sweatband on Hiro’s head.

            Investors were impressed by Hiro’s presentation, including Alistar Krei (CEO of Krei Tech). Shortly after the presentation’s conclusion, Krei attempted to approach Hiro and recruit him, until…

            SWOOF!

            Krei’s head was nearly knocked from his shoulders by a green-glowing fist that came within a hair of connecting. The attacker was an attractive, curvaceous woman with pale green skin, black lips, long thick black hair, and forest-green eyes. Krei would’ve been enchanted by her looks alone, had she not been there to kill him.

            She moved in with a fast and fierce roundhouse kick, which had suddenly been blocked by a blond-haired man in a grey flannel suit that constricted a muscular build. This man, whoever he was, became Krei’s protector that evening. He went toe-to-toe with the green woman, deflecting every single one of her blows.

            “You’re good,” the woman told her opponent. “But I was expecting a certain cheerleader, not a hunky beefcake like yourself.”

            “Sorry to disappoint,” the man responded with a distinguished British accent.

            They continued to fight after their brief exchange, which sounded a little like flirting to Krei. The CEO’s bodyguard soon came to his aid, escorting him away through the crowd, stirred by the sudden chaos. They did not get very far, as more assassins leapt in and took down Krei’s bodyguards.

            These attackers were different from the woman. They were ducks adorned in orange-and-red uniforms, complete with egg-shaped helmets. Their commander was a sharp-dressed rooster with a metal beak. He stood in Krei’s way, blocking his escape. “Goin’ somewheres, Mistuh Krei,” he asked, talking as if he was a gangster from the 1920s.

            Krei saw how he was surrounded by the rooster’s egg-headed foot soldiers. With nowhere to run, he demanded to know, “What do you people want from me?!”

            “We want ya to fry!” the metal-beaked rooster exclaimed, prior to retrieving a gun from his suit jacket, firing an electric beam that almost incinerated Krei. Thankfully, a redheaded, teenaged girl swooped in from the rafters and kicked the gun right out of the rooster’s hand. It dissolved into a nearby vat of acid on display for another presenter.

            The rooster looked on the interfering redhead with a fiery glare. “Who dah heck are youse?!”

            “That should be the least of your concern,” she told him. “I gotta admit I was expecting to find Dr. Drakken.”

            “He sends his regards,” the rooster sneered and then proceeded to chomp at her arms and legs with his metal beak. The teenager dodged his chomps, moving acrobatically in a series of flips and somersaults.

            Once again, Krei used the distraction to get away. Without any protection, he made his way to the rooftop.

            The first fight – between the pale green woman and the blond Englishman – led to one of the displayed inventions getting damaged by the green woman’s flaming fists. It exploded in a hail of sparks that set the entire exhibition hall on fire. The green woman and the rooster both noticed Krei fleeing to the roof. They brusquely abandoned their respective clashes and went in pursuit of the CEO.

            This prompted the teenaged redhead and the blond Englishman to give chase, but not before accidentally (and literally) bumping into each other along the way.

            “Who are you?” The redhead asked the Englishman.

            “I was about to ask you the same question,” he cynically retorted.

            Rather than dwell on figuring out each other’s identities, the two focused on the mission they seemed to have shared: protecting Alastair Krei.

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

            As soon as Krei arrived on the rooftop, he took out his phone and made a call: “Luther, where are you?”

            The burly voice on the other line answered, “I’m comin’ right at ya, Ethan. Rendezvous with me near the lake adjacent to the showcase hall.”

            Krei looked over the edge of the rooftop that faced the exact lake Luther had mentioned. It was about twelve feet from the building’s foundation, presumably enough space for Krei to make the jump. He was just about to, before he heard a bothersome voice taunt him there on the rooftop, “Alastair Krei! It appears you have nowhere else to run!”

            Turning to see the speaker, Krei saw a man he vaguely recognized. His skin was pale blue, he had black ponytailed hair, and there was a scar below his left eye. Again, Krei demanded to know, “Why are all of you people after me?!”

            “Because you’re in the way of our future!”

            The scarred, blue-skinned man brandished another gun (like the one that the metal-beaked rooster had) that fired a concentrated beam of electric energy, meant to fry Krei to death. Just as before, Krei’s life was spared as he was pushed out of harm’s way by someone that arrived on the roof long before him.

            That someone Krei discovered to be a platypus in a fedora.

            “Perry the Platypus!” the blue-skinned man identified in a mix of surprise and agitation. “What are you doing here?!” After a quick second, he realized, “Wait. Why am I even asking that?!” He then fired his electro-gun at the fedora-wearing platypus, who avoided every blast until he managed to leap onto the gun barrel and deliver a fierce uppercut to the blue-skinned man’s scarred blue face, knocking him out cold.

            The electro-gun was dropped in the process, skidding directly to the feet of Krei. Picking up the gun, he glanced at the platypus named Perry and said, “I’m not sure whether to thank you or ask how I was just saved by a platypus.”

            Suddenly, the rooftop entrance door was blown off its hinges, permitting the green woman and the metal-beaked rooster to storm out. Krei fired the electro-gun their way, holding them off long enough for the teenaged redhead and the blond Englishman to show up and engage the two assassins, this time exchanging opponents.

            Their matches were soon disrupted by a section of the rooftop that crumbled, due to the intensifying inferno inside the building. The need to get off the roof was felt by both opposing forces, yet only one possessed the means of doing so. The metal-beaked rooster arranged via communicator for a pickup from an unmarked black helicopter. It dropped a ladder for him and his green-skinned associate to climb, but not without the unconscious blue-skinned man, who the woman carried on her shoulder.

            Watching the assassins leave in the chopper, Krei was now stuck on the collapsing rooftop with the Englishman, the teenager, and the platypus.

            “Any of you guys have an idea as to how we’re getting off this roof?” the teenager inquired.

            Krei remembered the adjacent lake and instructed to the other three, “We jump! This way!” He motioned for them to join him on the ledge facing the lake. With no other choice, they all made one grand leap that only increased in force when an explosion erupted behind them, propelling them across a distance much further than they collectively anticipated.

            They landed in the lake with a collective splash.

            After reaching the shore, the teenager noticed Krei’s face appeared disfigured. “Mr. Krei…your face,” she gasped, assuming the CEO sustained physical injury from the explosion. “Are you alright?”

            When Krei realized it for himself, he seemed very frustrated. “Argh!” he groaned, tearing away at the skin of his face, much to the disgust of the three people who witnessed him doing it. However, it dawned on them that what Krei was tearing away was not his skin but a mask of some sorts. As the layer was torn off, another face was revealed – that of a dark-haired man with features more chiseled than the one he masqueraded as.

            This unmasking undoubtedly came as a shock to the teenager, the Englishman, and the platypus.

            “Sorry for the deception,” the imposter’s voice sounded electronically distorted, Krei’s voice overlapping it. He removed some type of strip taped to his throat, allowing him to speak naturally. “I was sent to protect the asset.”

            “So was I,” the Englishman said.

            “Yeah, me, too,” the teenager also verified.

            The platypus gave his own confirmation with a distinct chattering sound it made. The humans still found his presence there questionable.

            “Who do you work for?” the Englishman asked the imposter.

            The imposter merely smirked and told him, “People who I would imagine you’d never find out about. People who I would imagine are pissed right now, because there’s no way for sure to tell if any of us succeeded in our mission, since none of us had eyes on the asset.”

            “You mean Krei?” the teenager clarified. “Don’t you know where he is, since you were the one who took his face? By the way, that was really gross.”

            “Krei wasn’t the asset…he was a loose thread,” the imposter clarified.

            “Then who is the asset?” the Englishman asked, his voice bordering on aggravation.

            Before the imposter could answer, a black van pulled up near the group. The side door slid open and an African American gentleman stuck out his bald head, addressing the imposter: “The asset’s safe. Though there was one casualty in the explosion. We better get goin’.”

            “Couldn’t agree with ya more, Luth,” the imposter told the man. As he headed for the van, he left one parting message to the teenager, the Englishman, and the platypus: “Thanks for the help…but don’t get in my way again.”

            They watched him drive away with his bald accomplice.

            The teenager particularly felt annoyed with his choice of parting words. “He thinks that we helped him?! Who does he think he is?!”

            “I don’t know,” the Englishman said. “I’m still having trouble fathoming how a cheerleader and a platypus were assigned for a government mission.”

            The platypus delivered a chatter of despondency before swimming away back in the lake. Now left alone with the Englishman, the teenager remarked, “Well, I can’t speak for the platypus, but I’m more than capable of handling a mission, Mister…?”

            “Bond…James Bond,” the Englishman introduced himself.

            Unbeknownst to the teenager, Bond had captured her face and all the others he encountered that evening, thanks contact lenses doubling as cameras.