Disclaimer: If you've seen it before, I don't own it.
--
The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Middleton eleven that night, but it wasn't hopeless either. The Mad Dogs had driven fairly deep into their opponents' territory, but being down 21-16, a field goal would do them no good with only ten seconds left in the game. Everyone in the stadium knew that the ball was going to go to Ron Stoppable; he was responsible for all of Middleton's points so far on that chilly Friday night. Almost all of the cheerleaders for both teams had forsaken their traditional outfits for their warm-ups, the lone holdout being Ron Stoppable's girlfriend, world-renowned teen hero Kim Possible. Her brothers, the mascots for the Middleton Mad Dogs, were busy chasing their tails in what some observers would think was an effort to further energize the crowd, but was really mostly to stay warm.
The ball found its way into the quarterback's hands, then into the hands of Ron Stoppable, who employed skills gained dodging self-activating lasers and spinning tops of doom to avoid linebackers and safetys. One of the defenders did get a grip on Stoppable, but when all was said and done, the Mad Dog had hit pay dirt. The small contingent who had made the trip from Middleton went wild, while the rest of the stadium quietly headed for the exits. Ron tried to savor the victory, but for some reason, he felt a bit...cold. He glanced down and noticed that the defender had gotten of piece of him, or at least of his uniform.
"Aww man! Even when we win, I lose!"
--
The Middleton High School football team had just completed its Tuesday practice in preparation for the state championship Friday night.
"All right, people, listen up!" Head coach/substitute teacher/whatever else Middleton High School needed him to be Steve Barkin addressed his team. "For the first time in any of your lives, we are going to the state championship. To you, this may seem like a great accomplishment, BUT IT'S NOT!!! The Confederacy was second place in the Civil War, the redcoats were second place in World War Two, now I ask you: Are you redcoats?" The team muttered assorted words to the effect of "no," but this wasn't enough for Barkin. "I said, ARE YOU REDCOATS?!?"
"NO!" answered the team in unison.
"OK then! Hit the showers, you people reek!" After Barkin left the locker room, one of Ron's teammates turned to him.
"You know, I thought you were just paranoid when you said Barkin was starting to lose it, but I'm starting to believe you now."
--
"Can you believe it, KP?" Ron asked excitedly.
"Well, the Mad Dogs couldn't have made it to the state championship game without their star running back," Kim said as she pulled her boyfriend a few inches closer.
"No, I mean that they're going to be keeping Bueno Nacho open 24 hours from now on! One A.M. Nacos rock!" Rufus prepared to dive into his giant cup of hand-pumped "cheese" that happened to have a few chips floating around in it. Before he could enter gracefully, the Kimmunicator went off, throwing him off his rhythm and causing him to bellyflop into the cheese.
"What's the sitch, Wade?"
"I'm at a conference in Seoul, so our biological clocks are going to be a bit off until Monday." Wade then panned his camera over to an open window to show that it was light where he was. "Anyway, hit on your site from Prudhoe Bay; I'll patch you through."
"Please and thank you."
"Miss Possible, we've had a problem up here." A rough-looking man in a parka gestured towards the pipeline behind him. It looked like it had been uprooted like a weed. "We're working on fixing it for the time being, but if you could try to make your way up here tomorrow. I would say in the morning, but the sun isn't going to rise up here until the middle of January, so just get a good night's sleep, and enjoy the sun down there in the morning while you can."
"Okay, am I the only one a bit creeped out? I mean, I'm glad they're giving us a little more time, but still, no daylight for that long, that's got to do something to them."
"Relax, Ron. Things will look better in the morning. I hope." Just then, the sound of a tiny burp emanated from the now-empty cup of cheese.
"Cheese," sighed Rufus contentedly.
--
The next morning, even though she wasn't going to school, Kim awakened at pretty much the same time as she usually did during the week; she wanted to get this mission done by Friday night for obvious reasons. In addition, Kim had to get the cheerleaders ready not only for the state football championships, but also for their own state championships, which were just two weeks later. As she stepped out of her room, she caught a whiff of something absolutely horrifying: the Tweebs' costumes, piled at the top of the staircase, left to ferment overnight. There was only one way to deal with such a situation. After putting on a pair of rubber gloves, Kim gathered the steaming pile, and in one motion, tossed it into Jim and Tim's bedroom and slammed the door, which had two effects, confining the smell to where Kim thought it belonged, and awakening the Tweebs well before they wanted to wake up. Before they could retaliate, Kim emerged into the cold, clear morning and made her way towards Ron's house. She let herself in through the front door, not worrying about awakening anyone she wasn't there to awaken; according to Ron, they could sleep through a 21-gun salute, and Hana, although adopted, seemed to take after them. Ron was waiting for her at the kitchen table. He had clearly not been awake for long, and was not particularly awake yet.
"KP, give me a few minutes. The Ron-man needs a few more minutes and a few hundred more calories to fully boot up."
"It's a long drive, you can sleep most of the way there, and we'll probably have to stop a couple of times." Ron grabbed pretty much all of his heaviest winter clothing and piled it into the back seat of the Sloth. He then buckled himself into the unoccupied half of the back, and by the time Kim left Middleton in her rear-view mirror, he had already fallen back asleep.
"Wade, can we get an update on the Alaska sitch?"
"Bad news, Kim. Whatever damaged the pipeline is back, and they're also reporting some pumps out of commission. Now if you'll excuse me, it's almost midnight here, so I'll give you another update when I wake up."
"Good night, Wade." Kim turned to the back seat. "Good night, Ron," she said to her already-asleep boyfriend.
--
The drive northward was rather uneventful, and as the sun was going down, they found themselves stopping at Big Ed's Gas Farm in a small town in Washington just south of the border. At this rate, they would never make it to Alaska, clean up the mess, and get back to Middleton in time to be ready for the state championship. Clearly, a faster means of transport would be necessary. Fortunately, Kim knew someone who could arrange that.
"Good morning, Wade. Can you get us a faster ride to Alaska?"
"Hang on...done. It looks like a cargo plane will be picking up a few more things an airstrip about a mile north of you."
"That's all well and good, but how does that affect us?" asked Ron.
"You are those few more things," answered Wade with a hint of exasperation.
"Oh, right. When is that plane going to get here? We've only been here a few minutes and I'm already a little weirded out. I mean, there's a lady here who was carrying around a log, and she said it gave her psychic powers or something."
"But they do have good coffee," said Kim. Rufus took a sip.
"And hot!" the naked mole rat added.
–
The plane had to make an overnight stopover in Fairbanks, and now Kim and Ron were starting to get a little anxious about the time frame of their mission. At least for Ron, he got to visit the world's northernmost Bueno Nacho.
"Okay, we have about thirty-six hours to figure out whatever it is that's attacking the oil fields, go back to the lower 48, and win the state championship."
"Sounds straightforward enough. But we'd better stock up on Diablo sauce. It's going to be cold up there."
"Heading up to the North Slope, are you?" asked the only other patron in the restaurant. "It's not too bad this time of year, only about twenty below. Don't worry, it's a dry cold." Kim and Ron looked at each other with more than a bit of pensiveness.
"Only twenty below?" they asked each other silently.
--
Kim and Ron emerged from the plane that afternoon just before dusk, and it was like walking into a freezer that had been souped up by Motor Ed.
"Rufus, you'd better stay in there with the Diablo Sauce. You'll be a naked mole-ratsicle in ten seconds out here." The two of them were greeted by the man they saw in the video.
"Hi, I'm Rich Field. Welcome to the North Slope. I suppose y'all will be wanting to get a closer look at the scene of the crime." They climbed into one of a number of trucks near the airport, which was also carrying one of the crates from the plane.
"So, um, what's in the crate?" asked Kim.
"The single most important part of keeping the oil flowing here." said Rich.
"Snackage for the workers?" Ron guessed.
"That is important, but that crate there contains about half a mile of duct tape. It's what's been holding the pipeline together ever since it got torn up." After a short drive, Kim and Ron got out and began surveying the scene. It was as though something had just come by and pulled it out of the ground, while in other places, it was simply dented.
"Wade, can you do some scans for us?"
"Sure thing." A greenish beam shot out of the Kimmunicator and over the damaged part of the pipeline.
"Kim, you're not going to believe this."
"Try me."
"According to the scan, the dents were caused by a moose."
"You were right, Wade. I don't believe it."
"Then you really won't believe what pulled the other part of the pipeline out of the ground. I found traces of ivory."
"Is your friend telling you that we have a giant moose problem and an elephant problem?" asked the oilman.
"Yeah, it doesn't sound very plausible either, but these scans have never been wrong before."
"Hey, Kim! Check out these footprints!" Kim ran over to where Ron was, and saw a trail of decidedly elephantine tracks heading off into the darkness.
"OK. This has turned from very cold and weird to very cold and very weird. How could elephants possibly be up here?"
"Oh, these aren't elephant tracks! These are from my latest creation, the Woolly Mammoose!" A figure in a lavender parka with a sickeningly sweet voice called in the distance. Suddenly, everything was tied together quite nicely.
--
AN: This is an attempt to write something as close as possible to the original source material. It is set after "Homecoming Upset" and "Clean Slate." I also have found myself doing a bit more research than I anticipated. Reviews are appreciated and almost always replied to...eventually.