Captain Possible and The Centurion Legacy

Mara stoked the fire that her three sisters and grandfather were crowded around, sending sparks sizzling into the air. She was excited, and was finding it difficult to sit still. "Mara! You're getting ash all over the rabbit!" Lara shouted, snapping Mara's attention back to their meal. The small morsel continued to turn by Lara's hand and Mara was almost tempted to give the whole thing to the rest of her family.

"Oh, it doesn't matter, Lara!" Kara said as she poured some boiled river water into a dented tin cup they had often used for camping, before the Diablo War. She carefully handed it to her grandfather, guiding his hands around it. It was during a Diablo attack that he had lost his sight, and he had considered himself lucky since then, having memories of the world before, locked in his mind. "Here, Grandpa. Take this."

"Kara's right." Mara grinned. "Captain Possible's coming. They say she's got a hiding place far away from here that the robots never got to. A whole city of people. With food, and clothes, and..."

"If Kim were still around, she would have done something a long time ago." Tara said with a frown. She was the second oldest after Lara, but instead of complaining about every little thing in their lives, Tara had resigned herself to the situation. Kim Possible had never returned to the prom after the woman in green and black came and took her date. When the Diablos continued to rage across the planet, everyone assumed the worst. Humanity had been on the run ever since, Tara and her family included.

Mara, the youngest, had been only eleven when the Diablo War started, and seemed to only have vague memories of what the world had been like before. She snorted. "Don't be a pessimist, Tara! Like you know anything about Captain Possible, anyway!"

Tara frowned again. She didn't like dashing her sister's hopes, but found it hard to bring up her own. "Well, I'm going to see what I can find for more firewood." she said, tying back her straggled blonde locks of hair with a bit of string.

"Ooo! Pick up some ice-cream, too!" Kara grinned, taking the empty cup back from her grandfather.

This forced a smile onto Tara's face. Without Kara's sense of humor, she doubted any of them would have kept going like they had. "Any particular flavor?"

"Rocky Road!" Mara shouted while Lara sniffed at the joking.

"I'll see what I can find." Tara smiled, walking toward the burned out forest close by.

Kim Possible dragged her feet in the dust and ash that surrounded the encampment that was hidden in a small rocky alcove. She grinned, and pulled a flare gun from the holster on her thigh, shifting her hip to the side as she fired a round into the air. She didn't approach the campsite; that wasn't what she was here for.

A loud pop caught Mara's attention, and she dropped her fire stick. "It's her! She's here!" she shouted with a grin. Kara and Lara looked up to see a tiny bright speck reach into the sky, then begin a quick descent as a plume of smoke followed it back to the ground. "Come on, Grandpa!" she said, taking the elder's hand.

"You take your sisters and go, Mara." he said, staring into the distance. "I'll get my things and wait for Tara." he smiled. It had been so long that he had waited for something good, to no longer be a burden on his grandchildren. He did his best to keep the things he held dear in the same place, so as to know where to find them himself. Mara, Kara, and Lara picked up what supplies they could, eagerly moving to where the flare had originated.

Tara heard the flare pop and looked into the clear sky to see the bright light begin to fade. Instantly, a relieved smile spread across her face. Could it be that Kim really had survived the Diablo War? She dropped the small pile of branches that she had collected in the burned out forest, moving at a full run toward her family's makeshift home. Her few years on the Middleton cheer squad, and running from robots had given her the agility to move through the burned up trees and ash quickly.