Kim Possible and all related characters are the property of Disney. Transformers and all related characters are the property of Hasbro.

The Transformers used will be a mixture of Generation 1, Beast Wars, the IDW Comics series (which is fantastic, by the way), the Aligned Continuity (The Prime and Robots in Disguise 2015 TV series and the Fall of Cybertron and War for Cybertron video games), and a smattering of The Unicron Trilogy (Armada, Energon, and Cybertron) and Animated.

This is going to be a much different story for me. It's going to be darker and not as happy, so be warned. It's also written in the first person, which is something I don't normally do in any of my writing. It works for Jim Butcher's Dresden Files books so I decided to give it a try here. And big thanks to Classic Cowboy for giving me his blessing on this. He wrote my all time favorite KP/TF story, and I didn't want him to think I was trying to steal his thunder. So if you haven't already, go read Kim Possible: Transformed. You won't be sorry! Now, on with the story.

If I made it through this in one piece, I was going to have such the talk with the people in intel. This had to be, by far, the biggest screw up on a mission I have ever dealt with. This was supposed to be a quick, easy strike on a Worldwide Evil Empire storage depot. We were supposed to just get in, take out the guards, confiscate the weapons, and grab all the information they had saved on their computers. No fuss, no muss, in and out. Yeah right. This was such the disaster. WEE goons are easy. These guys were most def not.

My name is Kim Possible, I'm a Global Justice Agent, and I am so about to get my head taken off! Instead of Gemini's lackeys, I was face to face mask with a bunch of guys (and they're all men) wearing dark green tactical body armor complete with hoods, masks and goggles, and armed with tech I've only ever seen in a science fiction movie. Our shock watches and my battlesuit weren't doing squat against these guys. My partner, Will Du, was already pinned down, and I was doing my best not to take a laser blast to the face.

The guys in green jumped at me, and I somersaulted out of the way. I may have been four years out of high school and five years out of cheerleading, but my martial arts training was more than up to it. Unfortunately we were in an industrial complex out in the middle of nowhere with absolutely no cover. So I kept running, jumping and flipping, trying to stay clear of the trigger happy guy trying to turn me into Swiss cheese. He shot, I dodged. He shot again, and I dived out of the way. He tried to get a bead on me, and I saw my chance. I started to go left, and he took aim. I shot right at the last minute, rolled, and did a forward handspring. My foot connected with his jaw, and he flew back, leaving his gun behind.

I grabbed the weapon, and it looked like something that raccoon guy from Guardians of the Galaxy would have been packing. It was held like a shotgun, but it was big and boxy, and surprisingly lightweight. "Du! Heads up!" Will looked up and saw me pointing the ray gun at him. I saw him mouth an expletive and duck. Come on, Will, I'm not that bad on the firing range. Besides, I wasn't aiming at you or the guy trying to shoot you. I was aiming for the SUV that had just brought in more of those jokers.

I got that gas guzzler in my sights, squeezed the trigger, and was knocked back by the force of the blast that erupted from the barrel of that thing. A concentrated beam of red light flew out of the barrel like a crimson lance, and right into the SUV's gas tank. It went up like my last attempt to grill a hamburger. Will looked up at me with panic in his eyes. Served him right for the last mission we went on. No one leaves me hanging from my ankles over a magma pit and gets away with it. I smirked at him. Yeah, I was ticking him off, but he so deserved it.

I heard a loud explosion coming from the stronghold. It looked like our friends were trying to take their ball and go home by blowing the place up. The complex was a series of old seismic research buildings in California along the San Andreas fault. Or at least, that's what they were supposed to be. The United States Geological Survey had no record of the place, even though everyone else had it listed as one of theirs. That was the red flag. Add in the intel our people said they had, it looked like a prime location for Dr. Director's idiot brother to set up shop. To be honest, I think our guys got the information from Wikipedia.

I dropped the gun (I know, not that smart, but guns so aren't my style) and took off into a sprint. I needed to get to that stronghold before it went up like a roman candle. I ran across the uneven rocks and dirt of the drought stricken landscape, dodging gopher holes as I went. Then something happened that I had never seen before, and that was a rarity these days. A bright green portal appeared out of nowhere, and a big black motorcycle that looked like a Harley Davidson came shooting out. The bike was ridden by a big guy who was wearing the weirdest armor I'd ever seen in my life! It looked like he had some kind of curved blades on his shoulders.

Blue blasts erupted from the rider's hands, sending the goon squad flying in all directions. He pointed his mammoth arm at the bad guys, and more of the blue fire sprayed out. He was making short work of a bunch of guys who had me on the ropes for the last twenty minutes I was so not down with this. Will and the other four guys in our squad came up to me.

"Who are these guys?" Will asked. He was still getting the grime and metal shards out of his hair.

"You've got me," I replied. "Who else knew about this place?"

Will didn't answer. Oh yeah, we were so going to have a chat with the intel boys about dropping the ball on this one. But that was a fight for later. Right now, I wanted to know who it was that was flinging around the kind of ordnance you normally see from super villains. I took off again, making a beeline for the guy on the motorcycle who was making us all look like rookies (I will not use the word amateurs. I still get enough of that from Will). The bike was running circles around these jokers, painting the place with blue lighting. No way was this guy taking these guys down before I got some answers.

"I think it's time we got acquainted with these creeps!" I took off after the biker before Will or any of the others could hold me back. I saw one of our bad guys trying to get on an all terrain vehicle, and I dissuaded him. Translation, I did a flying kick that left him flat on his back after my foot smacked him upside the head. I got the ATV, and a sore leg to go with it. That guy either had such the hard head, or more armor in that mask than even Wade could make. I revved up and followed the dust clouds left by the reject from a post apocalyptic motocross show.

I finally caught up to the guy about a mile away from the supposed WEE outpost. He had about a half dozen of the green freaks on the run, but they weren't running without a fight. They were all on a flatbed truck, and all but the driver were firing energy weapons at me and the biker. Those guns would have made Dementor giggle, and then shout about how they would be his. It was a good thing he was currently under lock and key. It was bad enough these guys had this kind of ordnance. It was high time I relieved them of it.

I pulled up beside the mystery motorcyclist, and got a better look at him. His hands, if you could call them that, were just clawed fingers jutting out of where his arms ended, and they were HUGE arms. They were like cylindrical tree trunks, and were attached to the rest of his body by what looked like posts coming from where the shoulders on a normal person would be. There was no physical way those arms should be able to work. And those arms were long, too. They went from those claws to what looked like severely curved plates about a foot after his arms should have ended at those faux shoulders. Come to think of it, his legs were huge, too!

I was right that the bike was a Harley. A big black one with silver accents. It matched the rider's armor. His arms, legs, and helmet were black, and his torso was the same silver. His visor seemed to glow blue. He was covered head to toe, but even with that coverage I could tell he wasn't too happy about me muscling in on his turf. Such the tough luck, pal! We were here first, and this was our takedown!

"You need to back off!" the rider shouted at me. His voice was like a hoarse, gravely roar. He sounded like he had the worst case of laryngitis I'd ever heard, or like that guy who played the Fearless Ferret in those recent movies.

"Not happening" I shouted back. "This is my case, and I don't need a reject from a 90's sci-fi movie getting in my way!"

I barely dodged a blast from the truck. So sue me, it had been a while since I'd bantered on a mission. Just a few short hours away from six years, to be precise. That reminder gave me an extra boost. I wanted to end this mission so I could spend the day remembering like I did every year! I opened the throttle up as far as it would go and redlined the engine. I was going to get close to the truck's engine compartment, and then use my shock watch to short out the electrical systems. It was times like this that I really missed Wade's tech (with the exception of my battlesuit, and I had to fight tooth and nail to keep that), but I knew what I would be giving up when I went pro and joined Global Justice.

I was closing on them fast, but these guys were smarter than some of the other villains I'd fought against. They didn't shoot at me, they shot at where I was going to be. The front tires went right into the big hole they just blasted, and sent me flying. In moves a daredevil would be proud of, the biker swerved, jumped over a few rocks, grabbed me and slung me on the back of his bike. "This is so embarrassing," I muttered.

"I told you to back off, Possible!"

"So not gonna happen," I shot back. "And who the heck are you to be giving me orders?"

"Name's Sideways," he said. "And Mech are nothing like anything you've ever faced before." He rubbed one of those monstrous arms of his. "Trust me on this."

I smirked at him, even though he couldn't see me. "Sounds to me like you need some backup then."

Before he could reply, the goons, or Mech as Sideways called them, opened fire again. Sideways worked that bike like it was an extension of himself, but even he couldn't dodge all the laser blasts and chunks of earth. We both went flying off the bike. Sideways hit like a ton of bricks, but I went into a roll. I came up into a crouch just in time to see the truck hang a major U-turn and come back for us. "Well scrap," I heard Sideways say as he got the bike back up on its wheels. "They're coming back for another pass." If I could've seen his eyes, I bet they would've been glaring daggers at me. "And this is why I told you to back off!"

"I can take care of myself. I've been dealing with losers like these since I was in high school."

He bristled a little. "Not like these guys."

I looked at him, then looked over at where the truck had pulled to a stop. "Look, we are seriously outnumbered here. You need to get your head in the game!"

"My thoughts exactly."

The air was filled with the metallic sound of gears moving and plates shifting. The motorcycle looked like it was going to pieces. The side panels popped out, and the seat folded down. The bike sprouted arms, and the exhaust pipes angled on them like some kind of blasters. It sprouted legs and stood at full height, somewhere around eight feet tall, if I was any judge. The wheels and the assembly they were attached to moved and shifted until the wheels were jutting out of the back, where the shoulder blades would be. The windshield became some kind of chest plate. The only thing missing was its head. That's when my mind was really blown.

Sideways jumped straight up, and he started to change. Those extra large arms and legs folded and unfolded, wrapping around Sideways' body, and plates on his sides and back moved to cover his head and fill in the gaps. A blue visor slid into place, covering the last of the silver. He had turned into a jumbo version of his own head, and connected to the motorcycle. He then pointed the exhaust pipes at the the truck, and they split open. Blaster barrels extended out, and blasts of blue energy lanced out. He blew up the back of the truck, making the Mech guys run for cover.

I smiled. This was a sitch I could handle. I grabbed one of them, and threw him at one of his buddies. Then I kicked another in the chest (I was ready for armor this time), and sent him flying into to more goons. Then Sideways picked two of them up and slammed them into each other. It took a few minutes, but we had them on the ropes. Until another truck came barreling down on us from out of nowhere. A guy packing some kind of bazooka popped out of the passenger side window and took a pot shot at me.

Sideways jumped in front of me and took the full hit. He flew over my head and landed in a heap five feet away from me and kicked up a lot of dust when he hit. When that dust cleared, we were alone. "Great. They got away."

"You're welcome," Sideways grumbled. When I looked over at him, I saw that his right leg was messed up. The metal was torn, wires were exposed and sparking, and he was leaking some kind of glowing blue liquid. He pulled himself onto his feet, and almost stumbled. His head popped off and changed back into the rider while the body transformed back into the motorcycle. He looked at the damage to the bike and his shoulders slumped. "Ratchet's gonna kill me."

I looked at where the bad guys had been, and then over at Sideways. Even though he wasn't connected to the bike anymore, it looked like he was hurting. "Thanks," I finally said. "And I'm sorry you got hurt."

"As you like to say, no big."

"You seem to know a lot about me," I said.

He shrugged. "Who doesn't know about Kim Possible. The girl who can do anything."

I groaned. "Yeah. Not so much anymore."

"As fun as this has been, I need to get back for repairs." Sideways held his hand to the side of his head. "Hey, Kup, open the ground bridge. And let Ratchet know I'm gonna need his repair kit. I got roughed up a little." That green vortex opened up as Sideways got back on the bike. It may have looked like a wreck, but it still roared to life. "See you around, Possible." With that, he road into the vortex, which closed up behind him.

I scowled at him. I hated when people said "see you around, Possible." I really hated it, and I wasn't sure I liked the guy who just said it, either.

By the time I got back to the others, it was clear that the whole mission was a complete wash. Not only that, but there were several military cars and trucks idling in front of the stronghold, as well as what looked like a whole platoon of Army rangers. Will Du was getting the riot act by one of them, but he was holding his own. That's the thing about Will, he can give as good as he gets when he thinks he's right. And he always thinks he's right.

Then a wind picked up, and I had to shield my eyes from it. If I still had the long main of auburn hair I was once known for, it would have looked like my head was on fire. As it was, my shorter 'do was still going all over the place as the Army helicopter came in for a landing. From out of it jumped a tall African American man with a pot belly and a blue suit. "What in the Sam Hill is going on here?" he shouted over the chop of the rotor blades.

"I could ask you the same thing!" I got a good look at him when he stopped in front of me. He was tall, and had a stomach that hung over his belt, his sport coat didn't look like it could close, and his yellow and blue striped tie didn't cover that belly of his. But he had a strong jaw, a steely gaze, and a look of determination I'd like to think I used to get back in the old days. "This is a SMART operation and you just got in the way!"

The man looked over me with the same look Mr. Barkin would give... would give Ron. He waited for the gale and the noise from the chopper to wind down as the rotors slowed to a stop. "It wasn't too smart from where I was standing," he finally said.

I tried not to growl at the guy. He was talking down to me and I don't take too well to that. "S, M, A, R, T," I said. "Special Missions, Action and Reconnaissance Team. And this was our mission."

The man just folded his arms across his chest. "I know what SMART is. You're Global Justice's elite strike force."

"Since you know us," I said, "don't you think it's rude that we don't know you?"

He straightened up and pulled his ID from out of his sport coat. "Special Agent William Fowler with Unit E."

I groaned. "Please tell me Agent Trakker didn't send you." I had enough problems last year when that guy tried to recruit me.

"I'm not with the MASK division, soldier," he said.

"I'm not a soldier! I'm-"

"I know who you are, kid. You're Kim Possible; former teen hero, and currently Betty Director's protege. You're also-"

An explosion cut Fowler off before he could finish his sentence. Will, Fowler and I were all thrown in all directions. When I looked up I saw one of those green guys, only this one was wearing some kind of exoskeleton that made him look like something out of an Iron Man movie. I wiped the dirt off my face, and activated my battlesuit.

This was actually a newer version of Wade's old design. It was black with blue trim, instead of white with blue trim, and it didn't have all the bells and whistles the old one did. The energy shield, shapeshifting gloves with their energy redirection abilities, fabric regeneration and adaptive camouflage functions were too much for the suit's systems to handle. It kept crashing. This one could regenerate, had armor reinforcement, and it could make me stronger and faster. But what it was best at was amping up my agility. I narrowed my eyes when I felt the suit come online. "Let's do this."

I leaped into the fray, taking the goon's attention away from Will and Fowler. "Hey! Creep! Can't you hit anything?" My trash talk wan't in the same league as Ron's, and I was really missing having him make with the distractions, but I was on my own. Fortunately for me, the goon took the bait. He took his attention away from the others, and focused solely on me. Also fortunate was the fact that the guns on his arms and back would make a loud whining noise and light up just before they fired, giving me time to get out of the way before I got blasted to bits. Too bad the handheld guns didn't do the same thing. Maybe I wouldn't have wrecked that ATV if they had.

He shot, I dived out of the way. He tried to get me back in his sights, and I was already long gone. I needed to get behind him and hope that his guns couldn't turn a hundred and eighty degrees to nail me. I ran for him and jumped, letting the battlesuit give me the extra height I needed. I landed on his back, hanging from one of the cannons. He tried to swat at me as if I was a bug. Luckily for me, his arms were too bulky for him to reach me. Unluckily for him, I had a clear shot at the guy's face. "Lights out!" I cocked my arm back and let a punch fly. I wouldn't have been surprised if his eyes crossed before he blacked out. Too bad I couldn't see them under those goggles.

The exoskeleton kept him on his feet, so all I had to do was drop down off his back. I powered the suit down, dusted off my hands, and walked towards Fowler. "And that's why this was a SMART operation." I looked at the shock watch on my left wrist left wrist. It was almost midnight. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have an after action report to write, as well as a ton of paperwork to fill out." I looked over at Will and the others. "Let's get out of here."

"Wait a second, Possible," Fowler said, reaching for my shoulder. I spun around and grabbed his arm. "I don't answer to you. The mission is over. It was a loss. I have paperwork to fill out."

"A loss?" The look of confusion on his face made me confused. "This is the first of these guys we've ever caught!"

"Look, Fowler, I don't know who these Mech creeps are, and I don't care. We came here expecting a different adversary from the one we found!" No reason to tell him who and what we were after. I looked over at Will, who looked like he was finally getting his smug swagger back. "Agent Du, let's go."

Fowler grumbled, but let us go. Not like he had much choice anyway. He wasn't our boss, and he knew it. And I wasn't lying about that paperwork. I swear I spent more time writing and filing reports than I did in the field. I wanted to get that done and get home so I could at least pretend to get a couple hours of sleep. I had an appointment the next day, and I had no intention of missing it. I hadn't missed it the previous four years, and I wasn't going to start now. Besides, Rufus would start to worry if I didn't get home before three AM. He could be such the worry wart.

There were some people, like Will Du, who thought me doing this every year was stupid. No body was ever found, so this was an empty grave. But being here, I don't know, it helped me. Like meditating, I guess. I could sit here in the peace and quiet of the cemetery and think about my failures, and what brought us here. It was for me, and it was for Rufus, who was curled up on the small grave marker in front of me. I felt the stinging in my eyes start up for the fiftieth time today. But I wouldn't cry. I didn't deserve to. It was my fault he was here. Well, it would have been if he actually was here. Like I said, no body. But given the explosion and the fire, that wasn't a surprise. Not even Drakken and Shego got out alive.

Actually, it was more than one explosion that destroyed Bueno Nacho Headquarters. We think the explosion started in the main control center that Drakken was controlling the Diablos from, and that set off a chain reaction of smaller explosions that tore the building apart. No one got out alive, and the investigators didn't find much in the way of physical remains. The best forensic anthropologists in the country were brought in, but the fires were so hot, and the explosions so intense that not a lot survived.

But at least we found Shego. Or at least, a piece of a female pelvis. And Shego was the only woman there, so we know some of her remains were recovered. Most of what was recovered were charred pieces of teeth and a few bone fragments. Whatever pieces of Ron were left were intermingled with those of Drakken and his goons. There wasn't enough left of anyone to fit in a shoe box.

God, I hope he didn't suffer. I hope it was quick, and that he didn't feel it, or even see it. It was bad enough that he died alone. I couldn't take it if he spent his last moments in agony.

I hung my head. "I'm sorry, Ron. I'm so, so sorry."

My eyes shot open when I heard a pair of people coming up behind me. I quickly stood and spun around, coming face to face with Fowler, in that same blue suit, and another guy in a pair of blue jeans and a plain black polo shirt. He had wavy brown hair and the kind of face that would have made me go all ga ga back when I was a teen. This guy was the definition of a golden hottie. I didn't trust him. The last hottie I met wasn't what he seemed. "What are you doing here, Agent Fowler?"

"At ease, Possible," he said. "I just came here to have a chat."

"And how did you know exactly where I'd be?"

"That one wasn't easy," Fowler's companion said. He held out his hand. "Agent Samuel J. Witwicky," he said. "But you can call me Spike."

I picked Rufus up, who was now growling at our uninvited guests, and put him on my shoulder. It took a while for him to be okay with me, and it felt good to have someone watching my back. "That didn't answer my question."

"Your friend Agent Du told us," Fowler said. I should have known. Will never did know how to keep his mouth shut. "Look, Possible, it's come to my attention that you encountered one of our, ahem, more colorful operatives last night."

"The head case," I said.

"That's one way to describe him," Spike chuckled.

"Look, Agent Fowler, I have a better than top secret security rating. You don't have to worry about me spilling any of your secrets. Are we done here? Because I'd like to get back to doing what I was doing."

That was when Spike went around me and looked at the marker. "Ronald Stoppable," he read. "Son, Friend, Hero. Not a lot of people know what he tried to do at Bueno Nacho headquarters that night." He looked over at me. "But then again, from what I've read, Stoppable didn't get a lot of the credit he deserved. Not even after he gave his life." He came over to me and put his left hand on my shoulder. I saw the gold band on his ring finger. He was married. That meant he wasn't some kind of wrong-sick Kim bait. I relaxed. Maybe this Spike guy wasn't so bad after all.

Fowler took Spike's place at Ron's marker. He stood tall and saluted. "At ease, soldier," he said. "Rest well." Great. They were both being nice guys. I so hate trying to tell someone off after they've been nice!

"Look, Agent Fowler," I said in a much less confrontational tone, "this is my personal day. This is the only day of the year I take for myself. Rufus and I come here, remember Ron, then I go and spend the evening with my family and Ron's. I don't know what you want, but it can wait until tomorrow." With that, I walked off, heading towards the parking lot. I would come back later. I'm sure Ron would understand. The cooing noises Rufus was making told me that the little mole rat understood. It was so nice having him not hate me anymore. Now if only I could stop hating myself over this.

When I got to the paring lot, I saw a yellow 1970's muscle car with black racing stripes parked next to my car. And Fowler and Spike were hot on my heels. "I'll get right to the point, Possible," Fowler said. "We need you with Unit E."

That's what I was afraid of. I spun around and looked both Fowler and Spike in the eyes. "I'll tell you what I told Agent Trakker last year. I'm so not interested. I've worked with and for Global Justice since I was in high school, and I'm happy there. I'm doing a lot of good." Not as much good as I did as a freelancer, but still good work. I unlocked my car and opened the door. "I appreciate the offer, but the answer is no."

"You took down a heavily armed Mech operative single handed," Spike said. "And he was sprung from our custody before we could get him back to base for interrogation. You know how to deal with high tech adversaries, and right now we need that expertise."

"You have the guy on the motorcycle," I pointed out. "He seemed pretty high tech to me, and he could handle himself against those Mech guys."

"Sideways is good," Fowler said, "as is the rest of the unit he's part of." He loosened his already loose tie. "Look, kid, we need you. If I have to, I'll go to Dr. Director herself and see if she'd be willing to temporarily place you under my command." My blood started to boil at that one. "Just think about it. Spike and I are going to be in town until tomorrow afternoon." He pulled a business card out of his coat pocket and handed it to me. "That's my cell number." He and Spike got in the sports car, started it, and quietly pulled out and left.

I looked at Rufus, and he was growling at the departing agents. "Jerks," he squeaked.

"That's a kinder word than I would've used." I took him off my shoulder and held him close to me. "But you're right." I looked back at the cemetery, and the empty grave that acted as Ron's final resting place. It looked like I wasn't going to be coming back here tonight after all. I'm sorry, Ron, I thought. I guess I keep failing you. I started the car and just sat for a minute. Then I looked down at Rufus, who was sitting in the cup holder. "As Ron would say, this tanks."

True to his word, Agent Fowler went right to Dr. Director, and she was tweaked! I stood in her office early the next morning while Agent Fowler plead his case. He was in that same suit again. Didn't he ever change, or did he just have several versions of the same outfit? Spike, on the other hand, was wearing a black suit and tie. He looked like he was from the CIA, or something.

"You read Possible's report," Fowler said. "And you read the materials on Mech that I provided."

Dr. Director leaned back in her chair, steepled her fingers, and glared at the party from Unit E with her one eye. "What you gave me wasn't much."

"That's because we don't have much." I could tell that was a painful admission for Agent Fowler. "These guys are always one step ahead of us, and we think they might have some people on the inside. That's one of the reasons we need Possible. She's got experience with these kinds of adversaries, and she's an unknown quantity in Unit E and the military. She might be able to give us an advantage over Mech. There are other considerations, as well. For the last few years Unit E has been involved with some clandestine operations. I'm not at liberty to go into details, but Agent Possible has encountered one of the operatives involved."

That got my interest. "The head case? There are more like him?"

"Not exactly," Spike said. "But he's not unique."

Fowler looked over at me. "And I have something to offer." He nodded at Spike, who produced a file folder. "That is the technical specifications of a mothballed weapons platform called Project Damocles."

Spike handed it to me, and I gave him and Fowler a questioning look. "Why give this to me now, and not wait until after I've agreed to work with you? For that matter, why give it to me at all?"

"Call it an olive branch, Possible," Fowler said. "You still have my number. We won't be heading back to base for another couple of hours." With that, he and Spike left. I was about to follow them out when Dr. Director stopped me.

"Agent Possible, a moment please. And close the door." Uh oh. Closed door meetings with the boss were usually a bad thing.

I collapsed into the nearest chair. "This is so the drama," I muttered.

"You can say that again," Dr. Director said. She started to rub her temples. One of the things I learned about Dr. Director since joining GJ was that she was prone to migraines. It looked like she had one brewing.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

She let out a tired chuckle. "Not really. There's this Mech mess, intel dropping the ball with what we thought was a WEE base, and now they're blaming each other for the mix up, and then there was the attack on NORAD three nights ago. According to the troops on the ground, it was three unmanned F-22's."

"Drones?"

"If they were, they're the most advanced drones I've ever seen. It just seems like things are going from bad to worse, and that means this is one time when I don't want to be losing one of my top agents." She thought for a moment. "Speaking of, I understand it was Du who told Fowler and Witwicky where to find you. What are you going to do about it?"

I gave an evil grin that Shego would have been proud of. "I'm sparring with him this afternoon. He just doesn't know it yet."

That made Dr. Director chuckle. Then she pulled out a white file folder. "I also wanted to talk to you about your latest psyche eval." I groaned at that. I started seeing a shrink three months after Ron died, and I see the GJ psychiatrist once a month now. "Dr. Wellsley is happy with your progress. You have better control over your anger, but still seem to be suffering from survivor's guilt."

I hung my head. "Ron tried to convince me what Drakken was up to with the Lil Diablos," I said, "and I brushed him off! So he went on his own. I don't know what happened to him at Bueno Nacho Headquarters, only that something made the building blow up! And no one lived to tell the tale! So yeah, I've got survivor's guilt. I don't know if I'll ever get over that."

Dr. Director stood up, circled her desk, and came over to me. "I've lost a lot of good friends over the years. Some of them as a direct result of missions I sent them on."

"Ron took this one on his own. He didn't even take Rufus with him!"

"Exactly!" Dr. Director said. "He did this on his own. Ron understood that it might be a one way trip, but he did it anyway. That makes him a hero, even if no one gets his name right." She sat down beside me. "Now, what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to read this file," I said. "I've never heard of Project Damocles, and I have no interest in weapons platforms. But there's got to be some reason Fowler gave this to me. He's not one to just blow smoke."

Dr. Director smiled at me. "You had Wade do some digging, didn't you?"

I returned her smile. "He may not run my website anymore, but that doesn't mean we're not still friends. William Fowler was an Army Ranger and a combat pilot during the first Gulf War. He's highly decorated and received an honorable discharge. Then he joined Unit E, and was placed in charge of an operation so top secret even Wade couldn't hack his way in." Dr. Director's eye went wide. "Yeah." I looked at the file. I was curious about what was in it.

That curiosity was satisfied ninety minutes later, and was replaced by a need to break something. A lot of somethings. Project Damocles was an offshoot of the old Strategic Defense Initiative from the 80's, only this was a satellite that was designed to target and destroy enemy installations. Instead of a laser it used a cutting edge directed energy weapon, and It was only used once. On Bueno Nacho Headquarters. This is what killed Ron! And the guy behind it, a guy named Leland Bishop, was former Special Tactics and was missing. Needless to say, he was wanted by a lot of parties for what he did. I sat back in my chair and looked at the pictures on the desk in my cubicle. One of them was of Ron and me our junior year, just a few months before he was killed. For the first time in six years I had a name and a face for who killed him. And I was giving Agent Fowler's offer some serious thought.

After Ron died, I vowed to find out what caused his death, and to bring in whoever might have been involved. My mom said revenge wasn't going to bring Ron back, and that the explosions might have been an accident, caused by an overload, or something. And I knew she was right. But it might help me make up for my part in his death. Ron went in alone to stop the Diablos, and he was blown up along with those things. I finally had a clue; an energy blast that came out of nowhere. And I knew who built it. I didn't realize that I had grabbed my desk phone until I started dialing the number Fowler gave me. After he answered, I said two words. "I'm in."

The next day I met Fowler at the airfield outside of Middelton. He'd decided to stay an extra day after I said yes to his offer to give me time to get my affairs in order. Spike and that sports car of his were long since gone, and Agent Fowler was going to be taking me to Unit E's base in Jasper, Nevada. Yeah, I was going to the middle of nowhere. He was standing in front of a VTOL plane. It had fan blades in its wings, and was black and red. I had never seen seen any bird like this before. The Tweebs would've loved to get their hands on this. Again, Fowler was wearing the same clothes as before.

"Do you have a closet full of that exact same suit?" I asked.

"Yes, actually," he replied. I was so not surprised. "You can stow your gear in the cockpit. It's roomier than most fighter jets."

He started up the ladder to the cockpit when something occurred to me. "Don't we need G-suits?" I'd flown in enough fighter planes to know what G-forces could do to you. I never blacked out, but I came close. I hurled more than once, although I won't admit that to Will.

"We won't be going supersonic on this flight, Possible," he said. "Besides, this plane's special. Her cabin pressure regulator makes flight suits unnecessary."

When I got up the ladder, I saw the name "Windblade" on the side of the canopy. I so couldn't see Fowler using that as a call sign. I made a note to ask him about it later. And he was right about the roomy cockpit. There was more than enough room for my duffle. Besides, I packed light; one of the advantages to wearing mostly uniforms.

The trip was made in silence. Fowler had given me a lot of info to read over about Mech, even though most of it didn't tell me anything new. There was nothing about Unit E, though, or about Sideways and the others he worked with. I guessed I would be getting that debriefing once we got to base. Only, we never did go to base. Fowler flew us past the Unit E airfield, to a mesa that housed an abandoned nuclear missile silo thirty miles outside of Jasper.

Jasper was a town that made Middleton look like New York or Los Angeles. It had one high school for the whole county, one library, and never had a Bueno Nacho. Ron would have taken offense to that. Of course, he would so be tweaked that BN went out of business after Diablo Night. But despite all that, it seemed nice. Of course, the real test would be to see how the shopping was. If there was a Club Banana, then I'd know there was culture.

Fowler landed us on top of the mesa. The engines powered down, the canopy opened, and he jumped out. I grabbed my gear and followed suit. "Um, where are we?"

"Almost home. You'll want to back up a little." I gave him a funny look, but did what he said. "Okay, Windblade, you can show yourself now."

The plane made those same noises that Sideways' bike did, and it started to break apart. The wings extended out, the paneling on the back of the fuselage opened up, and the plane jumped up. The back plates moved and shifted, and the back half of the plane rotated a hundred and eighty degrees before turning into a pair of slender legs. Arms extended out of the body, and the nose cone folded onto the back. The plane stood up to full height, and a head rose out from the main body.

This robot looked female, and the headpiece almost looked the the hairstyle geishas wore. Her silver face had what looked like red kabuki makeup, and there was a symbol on her chest that looked like some kind of a red face. She got down on on knee and held her hand out. "It is such an honor to meet you, Kim," she said. Her voice was clear and smooth, not like Sideways' growling. Well, that explained why the canopy said Windblade. That was her name and not Fowler's call sign.

"Um, yeah. Hi." I so wanted to ask if she had the whole head thing like Sideways did, but wasn't sure if I should bring it up.

"Come on, Possible," Fowler said. "Let's go meet the rest of the team." He led me over to a large elevator platform. As soon as all three of us were on it, it started to descend through the mountain. We went all the way through the mesa to a huge underground chamber. It was there that I saw something that took my breath away; an enormous golden yellow spaceship. I real honest to God spaceship! My Dad would squeal like a fanboy if he could see this! Then I thought about how Ron would pull the whole "I told you there were aliens" thing. I did my best to banish that thought. I was here for Ron; to bring his murderers to justice. I had to remember that.

The elevator came to a stop at what looked like some kind of airlock, assuming robots needed air. The door was open, so we walked in. The place was built for titans! Windblade was tall; taller than a house, and some of the workstations on this ship were for robots even bigger than that! I was afraid of getting stepped on. We kept going until we came to a large door with that same face on it. It opened, revealing what had to be the bridge. There were computer terminals, viewscreens and monitors. And there were robots. Huge, freaking robots. I saw Sideways there who, if I didn't know better, did a double take. He was in his head mode and attached to the repaired motorcycle.

One robot, a big red and blue one, came up to me. His face was silver, had no nose, and was covered by some kind of faceplate from where his nose would have been to his chin; like a ninja mask almost. On his head was a blue helmet with long spikes on the sides. His chest was made of what looked like the windshield of a semi truck, and the grille was his abdomen. That face symbol was on his left shoulder. "Welcome aboard the Ark, Agent Possible," he said in a deep, rumbling voice. "I am Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots. We have much to discuss."

Author's note.

I'm back. For a while, anyway. I had some time to sit down and write, and had this idea brewing in my head for months. It was finally able to worm its way out.

As I stated at the beginning of this story, this is going to be different from my usual. Kim's riding solo and is wracked with guilt over her best friend's death. I know I'm not the first one to do one of these "What if StD went differently" tales, but it just felt right to do my Transformers/KP story this way instead of shoehorning it into existing continuity.

Hopefully you all enjoy it! So far I've enjoyed writing it.

Next Time: Kim gets to now the Autobots, and faces off against the Decepticons for the first time.