The three endured an awkward, frosty silence back to Sappho. They would sleep that night inside the ship, then spend the following day tracking down possible leads - especially Professor Dementor. Then… dinner at the Rockwallers.
“Not that they're married - yet,” Kim thought. She shuddered at the thought of Josh spending the rest of his life with a personality like Bonnie's.
As they made their way from the car to the ship in single file, Kim was waiting for Shego to lash out, breaking her icy calm with one of her legendary outbursts. She was surprised when the first one to speak was Ron. “Uh, KP?” he asked. “Not to minimize the value of a good Mexican dinner, but is this that time of the month for you? You know, when women go -out of their minds-?”
“Excuse me?” Kim asked.
“We're having dinner with Bonnie. Bonnie. And Josh - nothing wrong with that-” He looked puzzled when Shego snorted, but went on. “But we got into fights with Bonnie even when she sat at the table behind us in Bueno Nacho. What are we going to do when we're sitting across from her?”
“Dementor's been camped outside her door apparently. Maybe she can tell us something more about what he's up to?” Kim suggested lamely.
“Yeah, she struck me as a -real- helpful sort,” Shego scoffed.
Ron stopped and turned to face Kim. “I know it's been a few years, Kim, but… this isn't about your old feelings for Josh, is it?”
Kim gaped at him. “What?! That was five years ago!”
“But he's the only person I've ever seen mess disrupt your concentration,” Ron pointed out. “Well, him and Shego, anyway.”
Kim glanced at Shego, who had also stopped and now loomed behind Ron. Her dark eyes smoldered with pent-up anger. If Kim didn't start defusing this situation now, Ron was going to find out about her relationship with Shego in the worst possible way - by witnessing a lover's spat. “I don't know,” Kim said quickly. “If he'd been almost anyone else from our graduating class, I probably would have said no. But trust me, I have no intentions of rekindling anything with Josh. He is taken, after all.”
“As I am,” she thought to herself, but she wasn't ready to share that with Ron.
“Besides,” she added with a cunning smile, “just imagine how Bonnie is taking the news.”
“Oooh, good point,” Ron said. “It's her place, so -she'll- have to serve -us-.”
Shego, however, did not appear mollified.
“Good evening, everyone,” Sappho suddenly said, her one “eye” beaming a bright white light at them that cut through the darkness. The glowing orb glanced at Shego, then looked a second time. “Is everything all right?” the spacecraft asked.
“Kimmie's decided to celebrate our first mission together by accepting a dinner invitation for tomorrow night,” Shego said sardonically. Generally she only said “Kimmie” when she was angry or teasing. It didn't take a rocket scientist's daughter to figure out which she was tonight.
“Ron, why don't you give Shego and I a minute?” Kim murmured.
Ron nodded. “Oothing-say the avage-say east-bay?” he whispered.
“I don't think Pig Latin is very effective as a means of speaking in code, Ron,” Kim sighed.
As Ron entered the spaceship, Kim stopped Shego from following him in. “Sappho, could you occupy Ron for a few minutes? Make sure he's not listening?” Kim asked.
“Of course, Kim Possible.”
Kim suddenly felt her skin crawl. “Sappho, please, don't call me - that. Just Kim is fine.”
“Staying on a first-name basis with our transporation?” Shego asked, folding her arms.
“It's not that,” Kim said. “It's just that… when she said my name like that, it reminded me of how you spoke when Drakken chipped you last month,” she explained reluctantly. “Bad memories.”
Shego looked away. “Oh,” she said. “Yeah, real bad. Of course, it was bad even before Drakken entered the picture,” she added, irritated.
“Tomorrow night isn't about us,” Kim said softly.
“I thought it was about you and -him-,” Shego snapped.
“Josh and I are not an ‘us’. We never will be. Not like you and I are an ‘us’. I know you're a trifle possessive,” Kim said, “but can't I want to talk to an old friend one time? Even if he's an ex? Come on, we can work on your interpersonal skills.”
Shego raised an eyebrow. “-My- skills have never been in question.”
“Mmm-hmm,” Kim murmured as she slipped her arms around Shego's hips. There was a momentary electric charge as their bodies touched, and then Kim was amazed at how she felt the tension seep from Shego's body within moments. Shego rolled her head forward and made noises as if someone were massaging her backside.
“And when this mission is over,” Kim went on, “don't forget that I'm done with school for a while. Maybe you and I could slip away for a day, just the two of us? As a reward for being good?”
Kim shivered as Shego trailed a lazy finger up her arm. “Oh, so you're saying you wouldn't want a day like that for your own pleasure?” Shego asked casually, the anger gone from her eyes.
“Yesss,” Kim sighed. “-But-, if that's the only incentive I can offer you, then I'll just have to control myself.”
“You're such a tease, Kim,” Shego said somberly, shaking her head. “Maybe you're the one who needs to be taught how to be good.”
Kim felt her cheeks flush. They'd only kissed a few times. Since when had their relationship become so -heated-? Maybe Shego's angry tension hadn't simply disappeared. Maybe it had just been channeled in another direction. “Shego,” she began to say, but the raven-haired woman leaned into Kim's informal embrace, and both girls felt the temperature rising.
“Kim, Ron is coming,” Sappho informed them quietly.
Breaking away from Shego, Kim tried to collect herself as the door-sized hatch opened and Ron's silhouette appeared in the light. Shego looked hurt for a moment, but she swallowed it.
“If you guys aren't coming back inside any time soon, I'm going to take advantage of the situation and watch pro wrestling,” he warned them.
“Coming, Ron,” Kim called. “After the mission,” she whispered to Shego as she turned away.
“I don't like waiting,” Shego muttered unhappily, and she pushed past Kim, going into the ship. But Kim felt a ghost of a hand caress her waist, and she felt the blood return to her cheeks.
“Guess you two got pretty hot with each other, huh?” Ron asked as Kim came in.
“What?” Kim asked nervously.
“Musta been some argument.” Ron sounded not only unsurprised, but a little pleased. Obviously the notion of Kim and Shego fighting wasn't entirely unwelcome for Ron. “Your cheeks are red.”
“Oh, yeah,” Kim said, chuckling weakly. “No big. Just a bit, um, heated.”
“Hey, Shego!” Ron suddenly called out. “What did you just change the channel to?”
“Travel Channel.”
“Oy,” he muttered.
“Vey,” Rufus agreed.
Kim offered Josh an encouraging smile, but she guessed by the look on his face that he was slowly realizing that this had been a bad idea. Kim, Ron, and Shego had allowed Bonnie to talk uninterrupted for the past twenty minutes about three years of ballet studies and recitals. They were all willing to be bored out of their minds. It was better than awkward silences.
“Does she usually go into this kind of detail?” Kim muttered to Josh.
“Not really, no,” Josh said.
She nodded. She suspected Bonnie's conversation topic was an attempt to prove that her life was so much better than Kim's. The fact that half of Kim didn't care how happy Bonnie was, and the other half of Kim envied her high school nemesis her life, wasn't helping.
Bonnie had greeted them at the door with an expression of unrestrained malice that swiftly disappeared behind a mask worthy of a young star of the stage when Josh had joined her. Since then Bonnie had alternated between thinly veiled insults and aloof silence.
Team Possible hadn't fared much better. Ron's solution had been to stuff his face at the table. It saved him from having to speak.
Meanwhile, when Bonnie had approached Shego with a plate of rice and beans and a nasty look in her eye, Shego had whispered into Bonnie's ear.
“If any of that food ends up in my lap, or Kim's lap, instead of on our plates, I'll break your arm.”
Bonnie had looked into Shego's eyes and filled their plates with the utmost care. But she'd studiously ignored Shego since then, as if by doing so Bonnie could convince herself that Shego didn't exist. Which was fitting, since Shego appeared to be ignoring Josh.
Kim had tried to engage Josh in a discussion of his life since graduation, but while Shego had behaved, Bonnie had interrupted constantly and tried to divert Josh's attention back to her. Eventually Kim gave up.
Josh was left to look from Bonnie, busy monopolizing the conversation, to Ron, seemingly mesmerized by his food, then to Shego, acting bored, and lastly to Kim, whose attempts to hide her discomfort were increasingly obvious. “Maybe we should just call it a night,” he suddenly said, interrupting Bonnie.
More than one person were unable to hide an instinctive look of relief, and Kim groaned silently.
“Bonnie,” Kim said before anyone could take Josh's comment as an invitation to leave the table. “Has Professor Dementor given you any indication of what his plans are?”
Bonnie glared at Kim with pure rage, which Josh failed to notice, as he was looking at Kim in puzzlement. “Who's Professor Dementor?” he asked.
“Mad scientist,” Shego explained idly. “Would-be conqueror. Not that dangerous, but at least he's smarter and pays more for henchmen than some people I know,” she added darkly.
“He's a villain,” Kim told Josh, who looked less than enlightened by Shego's remarks. “We think he may have stolen Justine's invention. Since we followed him to Bonnie's dressing room last night, we thought maybe…” She stopped, since she'd allowed Josh to think that they'd gone to the ballet to see Bonnie.
He understood what she meant, however, and if anything, it seemed to clear things up for him. “I see,” he said. “And why didn't you tell me some criminal was at your dressing room last night?” he asked Bonnie.
“Several times, I heard,” Ron mentioned helpfully.
Bonnie shot him a look of death.
“Several times?”
“I didn't know he was a criminal!” Bonnie said defensively. “He said he was a college professor. For God's sake, he -is- a college professor. They said he was!”
“He's a teacher, yes,” Kim admitted, “but it's possible he's returned to his criminal roots. And since he's visited Bonnie more than once, we thought maybe he'd dropped a hint about what he was working on.”
Bonnie glanced at Josh. “I thought he was just this obsessed fan. The first time he was going on about what a great dancer I am - which I am, naturally - but then it became some kind of claim that he'd make me the most famous dancer in the world, and it creeped me out. He obviously wanted me, and I -told- him I had a boyfriend. But he kept coming back.”
“Why didn't you tell me? Or the stage manager?” Josh asked.
“Believe me, I told the manager. It was backstage, he wasn't supposed to be back there. He kept sneaking in.”
“Because, you know,” Josh pointed out, “you've always said I'm not allowed to be backstage either. Maybe you could have sneaked me in once or twice.”
Kim was rapidly regretting her question. She hadn't intended to cause an argument between Josh and Bonnie, and it certainly wasn't helping the atmosphere. Bonnie shot her another look, but this time Josh caught it. He looked back and forth between Bonnie and Kim. “You two really don't like each other any more than you did in high school, do you?” he realized.
The two women shrugged before finally nodding.
“It's been five years. Can't we all just move on?”
“It's not just high school,” Kim said.
“It's a personality clash,” Bonnie agreed.
Josh sighed and ran his hand through his hair, still one of his best features. “What about this Dementor guy?” he asked. “Have you given him any hint that you might return his affections?”
“God, no, are you kidding?!” Bonnie burst out. “He's -old-, and he's short, and he wears a mask all the time. He must be hideous underneath!”
“Okay,” Josh said. “So next time you go on stage, I'll do a little sneaking of my own. And if he shows up, I'll make sure he gets the message. Okay?”
“Yes, Josh, of course,” she replied. “You know I only want you.”
Shego rolled her eyes.
“What about Kim's question?” Josh asked. “Do you know anything about any plans he has?”
Bonnie hesitated. Of course she knew he was a villain now, but she didn't want to help Kim any more than she had to. “He seems to think he'll have a lot of power some day,” she said. “Like he can make me a star, he says. I doubt one college teacher could do that. So I guess it could be something you'd say if you were planning to take over the world.”
“Surprise, surprise,” Kim said to Shego and Ron. “We'll have to follow him twenty-four…”
The doorbell rang before she could finish.
“I'll get it!” Bonnie said with fake brightness, all too eager to leave the table.
“What did he steal exactly?” Josh asked.
“It's kind of a screwy time travel device,” Kim said. “It can turn animals into their prehistoric counterparts.”
“What are YOU doing here?!”
“I only came to see you, my dear.”
“That's Dementor!” Kim said out loud.
“That was Dementor,” Josh added angrily as he rose to his feet. “He'll be leaving now.”
The others followed closely behind Josh as they moved from the dining room to the front door. Professor Dementor was standing there, Bonnie having taken a few steps back as he approached her. “Ah, you must be the boyfriend,” Dementor said, one hand behind his back. “I never imagined a flower like you would be involved with such a -neanderthal-!”
Swiftly he pulled a complicated machine out from behind his back that vaguely resembled a rifle, and pointed it at Josh.
“Get down!” Kim shouted, shoving him out of the way.
Professor Dementor fired.
A bluish-white bolt of energy resembling a lightning bolt emanated from the barrel of the device, hitting Kim where Josh had once stood. She screamed as her body was engulfed.
“No! KP!” Ron screamed, but Shego held him back.
Dementor watched avidly as Kim's body was wracked with convulsions, forcing her to hunch over. Her flesh rippled as waves of energy, possibly fluctuations from the time portal, enveloped her. The others could only look on, appalled.
Then Kim crashed to the floor, the process completed.
“Kim!” Ron yelled, falling to his knees as he gingerly put a hand on her shoulder.
Shego moved toward the mad doctor, but he pointed the device at her. “Ah, ah, my dear Shego,” he said. “It looks like that would hurt a little.”
“Ron, how is she?” Josh asked.
Kim raised her head and looked at Ron. “Ooo?”
“Uh-oh,” Ron said.
Her cranium had become a bit larger. And her face, while still feminine, had a harsher, uglier quality. The lower part of her face jutted out slightly. It was the face of a cavegirl.
Slowly she got to her feet. Her clothes hung at awkward angles on her body, as she'd become over a foot shorter and slightly hunched over. Her hair was a mess. And her body was more heavily muscled than usual. “Ooo?” she repeated.
Bonnie glanced in the opposite direction. If only she could get to the bedroom, she could get her camera.
“Kim?” Ron asked, at a loss for what to do next. “It's really you, right? Not a monkey ninja?”
Kim looked at Ron and her eyes brightened. “Ooo!” She wrapped her arms around him.
“Test subject appears to be attacking her prey,” Dementor murmured to himself.
But she wasn't attacking. In her primitive brain there lingered memories of her best friend, and she hugged him with abandon.
“Uh, KP, can't - breathe,” he gasped.
“Kim, put him down,” Shego said from behind her. Ron's toes were a few inches off the floor.
Kim suddenly dropped Ron and swiveled to look at Shego. “Ooook,” she said.
Her eyes darkened with a physical desire that was so intense that Shego nearly took a step back. It occurred to Shego that Kim was no longer ‘civilized’ enough to have inhibitions. Her fabled self-control had given way to her instincts. Surely that was why Shego saw such -need- in Kim's eyes.
The only other people in the room in a position to see the way Kim looked at Shego were Dementor, who didn't understand what it meant, and Bonnie, who did.
A wicked smile spread across Bonnie's face.
Shego looked at Professor Dementor. He was fascinated by cave-Kim like everyone else, but if she didn't do something, he'd turn them all into Cro-Magnons. “Hey, Dementia!” she jeered at the villain. “Say, does early senility run in the Demented family tree?”
“Impertinent girl!” he snarled. “See how smart your tongue is when you've lost capacity for speech!”
He fired at her, but she'd backed up enough that she had time to leap out of the way. The beam struck a desk lamp, which seemed to retract in on itself before vanishing.
“Somewhere twenty million years ago, there's a caveman praying to that lamp,” Shego thought as she dove behind a couch.
Maybe Kim remembered Dementor was an enemy, the way she knew Ron was a friend and Shego something more. Maybe not. What mattered was that Kim saw Dementor attacking Shego, and her lips pulled back in a growl. She began moving toward him.
“Stay back, Ms. Possible,” he warned her, aiming the machine in her direction. “Or I'll…” He looked at her, then the device. He couldn't exactly threaten to shoot her, since he'd already done so. “Or I'll do - something!”
She leapt through the air and landed not two inches from him. Her hand made a loud whistling noise as it shot through the air toward his face. He just managed to turn his head to the side, and her hand hit the wall, leaving a sizable dent. When she pulled her hand back, it wasn't even bleeding.
“I think I liked you better before,” Professor Dementor whimpered. Hastily he made an adjustment to the time machine and fired it again, hitting her point-blank in the chest. She flew backwards through the air and landed with a thump against the opposite wall.
Then he cried out as a burrito hit him in the face with a wet smack.
“You'd better run, Dementor, or I start dishing out the hot sauce!” Ron told him, pelting him with packets of tabasco.
“You haven't heard the last of me!” the mad scientist shrieked. “Soon I will rule the world, while -you- are all trying to learn how to make fire!” Then he ran out the door, hitting his shoulder against the jamb as he tried to wipe melted cheese from his eyes with one arm.
Shego darted out from behind the couch and went over to Kim. “Kim, are you all right?” she asked, but she was afraid of how Kim might answer. Her genetic makeup had been drastically altered not once, but twice, and within a span of five minutes. There was no telling what kind of permanent damage might have been caused. Maybe she should have asked if Kim was all -there-.
Kim raised her head groggily and tried to focus her eyes on Shego's face. “Did we just have a full-day sparring session?” she croaked. “Because I'm sore all over.”
“She's okay,” Ron said, relieved. “She's going to be okay.”
Shego wanted to be relieved too, but they needed to be sure. “We'd better get you out of here, Kim,” she told the other girl. “You're going to need to see a doctor.”
“What happened?” Kim asked. Her features, lovely again, crinkled in confusion.
“Sort of a bad flashback,” Shego replied.
Josh slowly got to his feet as Shego began helping her up. Ron came over to assist them. “What the hell just happened there?” he asked.
“Josh,” Kim said weakly, “if the Professor returns, contact us immediately. He's obviously got issues with you in particular. Go to my website, and Wade will get in touch with me.” She dropped her head, exhausted.
“All right,” Josh said. “Let us know what the doctors say, all right?”
“Sorry about dinner,” Kim mumbled.
He shrugged. “Frankly, the way things were going, being attacked by a masked man with a laser was a fitting end.”
Shego chuckled as the trio left the apartment without saying goodbye to Bonnie.
The dancer watched them leave. “She owes me for my wall,” Bonnie grumbled.
To be continued…