The mid-afternoon sun was warm inside the old pickup truck. Its dark blue paint had long since let the rust stake a claim across its fenders and wheel wells. The dust of dead earth and crumbling macadam added grit to the air and an unearned texture to the deserted warehouse in this remote corner of the city.
Middleton’s urban renewal program was about five years away from even looking in the direction of this place.
The truck rolled quietly to a stop while still a few hundred yards away from the warehouse. The driver was a tall, thin man with blond hair. Next to him sat a heavyset fellow with a soft face but haunted eyes. When the truck finally did stop, the larger man got out of the front passenger seat and let those in the back seat get out.
The first was another tall man, this time with dark hair. He lowered himself down from the cab awkwardly, as if his one leg was pained, crippled, or a prosthetic. He and the heavy man assisted Kim, Shego and Ron out from the rear of the cab.
“Thanks, Ed, for giving my friends and I a lift way out here. I haven’t seen you guys in a long, long time. I’m sure glad that you were passing through.
“Well, it’s the least that we can do to repay you for rescuing us during that nightmarish canoe trip down the Cahulawassee River. Lewis and Bobby and I owe you our lives.”
“No big! That river didn’t go anywhere near Aintry; you boys were lost!”
“Believe us, we still owe you big time!” Each man nodded vigorously. The three men bid Kim a fond farewell and drove away.
“What exactly did you save them from?” Shego felt that there was something odd about those three.
“I’m not sure, they never did tell me everything.”
Team Possible Plus One walked the remaining distance to the warehouse, scanning the dilapidated surroundings for observational equipment. The ground was too dry and packed to show any signs of recent traffic.
Kim activated her Kimmunicator and asked Wade to access Drakken’s records. Ron looked around with as much insight as if he’d been placed on the Moon.
“Is there a special Real Estate agency for villains? You know, someone that helps them find places like this on the cheap?”
“Actually, yes. It’s a service of Hench Co.” Wade slurped a soda as he reviewed his results for the third time. “Sorry, Kim. I have no records of Drakken ever having been here before. This might pre-date his criminal activities.”
Shego had been looking increasingly uncomfortable since they’d left the apartment. She was ostensibly there to watch over Kim and not interfere with the apprehension of Drakken by Team Possible. But she looked as if she would rather be anyplace else.
“What’s up, Shego? Getting a weird ‘walk on my grave’ vibe?” Ron was looking at Shego with what might have been actual concern.
“Maybe. Maybe I’m just thinking how I’d already have my trap waiting for you.” Shego glared at the boy and brushed some clinging dust from her green and black outfit.
“Bueno Nacho could at least open a stand out here.” Rufus left Ron’s pocket and climbed up to Ron’s shoulder.
“lokashun’lokashun’lokashun!”
Shego let slip a brief smile at the tiny rodent. She had forced herself to tolerate the buffoon because of how much he and Kim cared for each other, but otherwise would never think any better of him. The mole rat, however, never ceased to amaze her. Shego would deny it, but she liked the little guy.
Kim veered closer as they walked down the dusty access road.
“What’s wrong?”
“Hmm?”
“Ron’s right; you’re acting paranoid.” Kim gave a very Shego-like smirk. “Even more than usual.”
“I just keep thinking about what we said at the apartment, you know, before we left. About how we each wondered what the other was thinking and doing.”
“Was Ron right, about walking on your own grave?” Kim slunk low and pretended to be stalking Shego. “Ooh, look out! Nasty cheerleader going to lay a smack down on my green backside!”
“You need to keep your head clear; this is no time for playing the fool.” Shego pointed to Ron. “That’s his job. I want you to be as much on your game as you ever were with me.”
Kim settled down and took to heart what Shego had said.
“Then what’s wrong?”
“This isn’t right. Look there,” the tall woman pointed to various dilapidated buildings. “And over there, and there.”
The younger members of Team Possible looked about them in puzzlement.
“What? I don’t see anything.”
“Close your eyes, and imagine the buildings around us. Then open your eyes and pick out the best spots for cameras and microphones.”
Kim did as she was instructed, and after only a few seconds she could see what Shego was referring to: an empty bracket at the top of a chimney, a rusted and moss-covered grill set high on a wall, and broken cables with colored wires blooming from the severed ends.
“Equipment has been removed! Why would he do that?”
“If Drakken’s staying here, he’s really let the place go.”
“What’s she taking about, KP?” Ron looked everywhere but couldn’t spot the tell-tales that Kim and Shego saw. He noticed the sparkle of light from a cracked telephoto lens mounted directly behind him, but only used it’s reflective surface to smooth down his cowlick.
“What does it mean?” Kim frowned as she pondered this.
“Princess, I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” Shego set her hand on Kim’s shoulder and steered the redhead back in the direction they were determined to walk.
“Wade, please verify target again.”
“No doubt about it; satellite reconnaissance tells me that he hasn’t left in the past few hours.” The boy glanced at several computer screens to interpret the data he saw there.
“Kim, there’s something else; I’m getting bio-readings from Drakken that differ from the last time I scanned him. Ask Shego if he has any health conditions.”
Kim and Ron turned questioning glances at Shego, who was looking even more uncomfortable than before, if that was possible. The tall women didn’t immediately reply.
“Well? What’s wrong with him, besides the obvious?”
“I know,” piped up Ron. “He’s got an achy, breaky heart.” He quickly piped back down at the glares directed at him.
“Well… Dr. Drakken never was too well after he began testing his experiments on himself. It didn’t just turn his skin blue; his body was altered at the genetic level, just like mine was. But the key difference is that while my changes stabilized after the meteor strike, his new body chemistry was often in flux. It affected his health in general, as well as his mood and personality.”
“My dad said that Drew Lipsky always was a little nuts, even back when they were at college together.”
“Trust me, KP, no matter what your dad saw in college, that man would never have become as crazy as Drakken without an outside influence.” Ron crossed his eyes and let his head flop around.
“Do not make fun of mental illness! I swear to Heaven above, Ron Tardable, you have never been so close to a plasma enema as you are right now!” Shego turned on him, one fist raised and glowing green.
“Eep!” The blond boy flinched and moved behind Kim. Kim raised her own hand, open and empty, and gently grabbed Shego’s wrist.
“Whoa! What is happening here? Shego…?”
The green and black clad woman moved away to walk around the perimeter of the rusted warehouse walls. Ron stayed firmly where he was, wondering why he’d gotten out of bed that morning. Kim watched Shego walk away and then ran to catch up.
“Shego, please talk to me!” Long hair billowed as Shego kept moving, then she stopped so suddenly that Kim almost bowled her over.
“My… my grandfather had some trouble when he was still pretty young. Alzheimer’s, senile dementia, call it what you want. He died shortly before I left home for good.” Kim heard all of this as she watched Shego’s back.
“Ron didn’t know about that. Heck, even I didn’t know about that. Ron didn’t mean anything by it. I might have made the same comment myself.”
Shego turned and eyed Kim skeptically.
“No, I don’t believe you would have, not you. Sorry, sweetheart, I guess I shouldn’t have reacted. I’ve just always thought of Drakken as a kind of surrogate for my Granddad, even though Drakken is much, much younger. And Stoppable always drives me half nuts anyway.”
“Do you want to leave? Ron and I can handle…”
The question hit Shego like a hammer.
“You think I won’t stand with you?” She was incredulous, and that was quickly giving way to anger. “You think I’ll be easy on him because of what I’ve just told you?”
“Huh? No, I…” Kim didn’t get the chance to finish.
“I have never walked away from a fight and you know it! So I’m weak now?”
Kim steadied her own nerves and didn’t respond; she’d seen this before.
“You can stick this damn mission up your asphalt driveway!” Shego spun on one heel and marched off.
Kim sighed and reached into a pocket of her cargo pants. She removed her checkbook and a pen and began to balance it. It was amazing how well one could manage their time if they just put their mind to it. In less than a minute, Shego strolled back.
“…”
“Hmm?” Kim kept working away at the checkbook log.
“m’srry.”
“Excuse me, Rufus, I didn’t catch that.”
Shego snatched the pen and checkbook from Kim’s hand and crammed them back into Kim’s pocket.
“I’m sorry.” Kim wondered if it caused her lover physical pain to say it, her face was so pinched. Shego only had eyes for the dirt beneath their feet.
“Accepted. Now, since we have a pressing mission that really needs to get started, I wasn’t impugning either your willingness or ability to fight, but rather if you’d prefer we take a different approach.”
“Meaning?”
“You think that Drakken’s mental state has deteriorated?”
“Yeah, it might have. You can guess that he and I didn’t keep in touch often after you and I hooked up. It would explain the lack of security.”
Kim gripped Shego’s head gently in her hands and forced eye contact.
“So we’ll try the subtle approach this time. Ok?”
Shego looked around and, seeing no one else nearby, leaned in close and whispered, “Please.”
Kim feigned shock. Then she batted her lashes.
“Why, Miss Shego, both a ‘sorry’ and ‘please’ in the same day? I do declare!”
Shego grabbed Kim and crushed the smaller woman to her, lifting Kim from the ground by several inches.
“Don’t push it, Pumpkin.” There was a quick kiss. “What say we get this show on the road?”
The two walked back to find a chagrined Ron waiting for them. He wasn’t exactly certain what he’d done, but his heart was kind enough to know that he’d been offensive.
Shego avoided meeting his gaze, but otherwise didn’t say anything.
“So, are we ready?” Kim removed her laser cutter from its lipstick case.
“Let me handle this.” Shego fired up her hands and prepared to use a focused strike on the doors.
“Ladies?” Ron stepped forward and directed their attention to an open ventilation window twenty feet over their heads. “This one’s on me.”
Ron Stoppable adopted a meditative stance with his fingertips touching and his head bent down over his hands.
“Princess, I’ll give you ten to one that he loses his pants.”
Before either girl could inquire as to what he was doing, Ron raised one hand over his head and jumped from a standing position towards the warehouse wall. His fingers finding purchase where none was obvious, he braced his sneakers against the wall and swung his other hand upward. In this manner, Ron climbed what would seem to be a plain, smooth wall.
“Wow.” Shego was about as impressed as Kim had ever heard her get. “Mystical Monkey Magic?”
“Yep, pretty much comes and goes.”
“And if there’s a trap, he’ll handle it all by himself?”
“This is his apology, Shego, please accept it for what it is. He knows that you won’t care if he just says that he’s sorry.”
Shego nodded, conceding that this was true.
Their wait was short and eventually the warehouse door opened. Ron stood there with a huge grin on his face. Kim returned the smile and ruffled is hair as she moved around him, visually scanning for traps and surveillance devices. Shego just waved him on after Kim.
The vast space was apparently one large room, with no divisions or partitions. The floor was stained with oil and about an inch of dust, or so it seemed from what meager light could reach the floor from the ventilation windows. There were chain hoists hanging from support girders and struts up near the ceiling.
Packing crates were stacked hither and thither. They were of many sizes and shapes, but none smaller than a breadbox. The stacks were apparently random, just above eye level, and there were clearings and pathways that gave the impression of a huge maze.
“And me without a ball of string.” Kim slipped into the shadows and moved along the most convenient pathway.
“Yeah, that’s got to do with something that we heard about in school, right? Nah, I got nothing.” Shego reached out and smacked Ron on the back of the head.
They moved after Kim, hurrying to catch up with the slender redhead. The shadows were thicker as they moved deeper into the maze. What little light entered the building left the details scant, but they could see that most of the crates were new.
Shego stopped to inspect one of them.
“Pst.”
Kim returned to them as if from thin air.
“What’s up?” Kim held them both close, whispering.
“I know what these are, or at least where they’re from.”
Kim examined the crates for herself, but the labels and stenciled information didn’t mean anything to her.
“They’re from our…” Shego caught herself and shook her head. “They’re from Drakken’s old lairs. I don’t know what’s in them; they could be anything.”
Kim sidled up to Shego.
“Good job.” She kissed Shego on the nose. Shego grumbled; Ron made sure he was looking elsewhere.
They turned back into the murk. Several careful footsteps later they noticed that another light source was leaking outward from the center of the cavernous space.
“KP, do you feel that?” Ron covered his hears. “Is that a sound or not?”
Kim had felt this sensation before.
“Subsonic emissions”, Kim whispered.
“Sorry, KP, maybe I used too much Diablo sauce at lunch.”
Kim smacked her forehead; Shego smacked Ron’s forehead.
“Shh! Not that kind of… oh, never mind.”
A few more uneventful twists and turns later and they reached the center of the crate-maze. The yellowed glow of one dirty fluorescent light wasn’t enough to illuminate the cleared space, but this didn’t prove to be a problem because one of the occupants generated it’s own light.
The machine was large and bulky and might have contained parts of a thousand household appliances, such as the several satellite dishes, each built circa 1970, mounted at the top. The machine probably weighed several hundred pounds. This was unfortunate because the floor immediately underneath it was not a solid concrete foundation like most of the building; rusted steel plates had been used to cover what was likely the access to a basement.
Beside the machine was a small mountain of broken wristwatches.
Team Possible started to move toward the machine when they saw a small object fly out from behind the bulk of the artifact and land at the peak of the mountain. It was another wristwatch.
Slowly walking around the machine, they became aware of the singing.
“Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping… into the future… doodly, doodly, doodly, doodly…”
Ron had been walking behind Kim and Shego, ostensibly watching the rear but really because he was the one that needed the most protection. He suddenly thrust himself between them and kept them from moving forward.
“Oh, no! This is worse than I thought! Drakken has teamed up with Steve Miller!”
With only a shared glance and a nod, Kim and Shego had Ron bound and gagged within seconds and left him sitting where he’d been standing. Rufus stood guard over him, silently frowning in disgust at Ron and shaking his tiny pink head.
Another broken wristwatch hit the pile with a loud ‘clink’. By now the dark blue lab coat of a man was visible beside the humming machine. His back was to them, but they’d have recognized him from any angle.
Dr. Drew Lipsky, AKA Dr. Drakken, was busily working at his machine. In the panel immediately before him was a slotted intake vent. From a pouch at his belt, Drakken pulled another wristwatch and smashed the crystal face with a hammer. He then proceeded to scrape the material from the face, numerals, hands and all, into the vent.
“Is that how you, uh, harvest radium?” They whispered, but the steady hum of the machine made even that difficult.
“Beats me, Pumpkin. Mine’s always been a digital.”
Shego turned to Kim and held her still. She placed a long finger from her gloved hand against her lips and stroked Kim’s face with the other hand; the message was clear. Kim moved back into the shadows while Shego attempted Plan-A, ‘the subtle approach’.
“Drakken…”
The man turned around, revealing features that only his mother could love. His skin was the same pale blue and the badly healed scar beneath his left eye stood out against his otherwise unmarked face. His black hair was swept back and was drawn into its usual ponytail.
But Shego was caught off guard by how the man had changed since she’d last seen him.
The man’s eyes were rheumy and bloodshot. The blue lab coat, once so prim and lustrous, was grimy and tattered in places. Stains of food and other nameless substances competed for space on the dense fibers and Shego noticed that one of his black insulated gloves was missing.
In the glow of the throbbing device, her outfit shone like green fire, but the blue man couldn’t focus on her too well. As he moved about, searching for the source of the voice, the metal plates rocked under his feet. It was lucky for him that they could support him, let alone his machine.
“Shego?” Drakken still didn’t seem to have focused on her yet, though she as only a few feet away. He was reacting to the sound of her voice. Then he saw her.
“SHEGO! You have returned! You have returned to me!” The latest watch was cast aside, it’s meager radium forgotten.
The blue man walked stiffly to her, unsteady on his feet; his face was awash in nervous ticks and his tongue didn’t seem to work right. The metal under the machine groaned with the shifting of weight.
“At last, we are together again! The team that will bring the world crashing down to worship at our feet!” Drakken was standing right in front of Shego and she was afraid to think about why he smelled so bad.
“Drakken… how are you feeling?” Her words were calm and deliberate. She could already see that, in addition to everything else, the man had lost a substantial amount of weight. Never a heavy man, they were pounds that he could ill afford to lose.
“I? Why, I feel ALIVE, Shego! Thank you for asking.”
“Doc, I’ve, um, brought you a present.” Shego adopted her old stance and speech patterns, playing the role of ‘herself’ from only a year ago.
“Later, Shego! First, let me show you my latest invention! With it, I can…”
“No!” Shego needed to get him to listen to her, using intimidation if she had to. That always worked in the old days.
“You really need to see this. I have captured Kim Possible. I have her outside.”
Drakken starred at her as if she were Santa, the Tooth Fairy and Snowman Hank all rolled into one.
“What? You have? BRILLIANT, Shego! Let’s go and get her and she can be the first victim to fall from my…” The blue man wavered. “Did you say ‘outside’?”
His natural paranoia, fueled by whatever demons were playing havoc with his psyche, rooted him to the spot.
“Why do we have to go outside? I’m not going outside.” Drakken started to shake. Shego risked touching him as she gently put her hand on his arm.
“The cheerleader is out there, all tied up. Come on, I’ll show you.” Shego held out her hand to him.
Maybe Drakken was just so grateful to see Shego again. Maybe he was just lonely for any sort of human contact. He reached out and took her hand.
“Damn you, Steve Miller!”
They both froze as Ron Stoppable charged from the darkness. He had just now loosened his bindings and had come to Shego’s defense, or so he thought.
“Ron, no!”
“Steve Miller? Here? I should get my autograph book.” Drakken glanced around.
“Shego are you alright? How’s Plan-A going? Did we win?”
Shego turned to Drakken; maybe if she just killed the blond boy here and now Drakken would believe that his old Shego really had returned. What she saw on the blue man’s face stopped her cold. He was glaring at her in true recognition, a mad gleam in his eyes.
“You… BITCH! You… TRAMP!” Then Drakken stepped forward and proved once and for all that he had finally lost what little sense he’d held on to for so long.
He reared his arm back and slapped Shego across the face. The pain from the sick and frail man was negligible. The shock almost brought her to her knees.
“Drakken, no!” Kim could wait no longer. She ran from the darkness and joined her partners. She could stand neither to see Shego hurt nor Drakken slaughtered. Shego, however, was still stunned by the physical blow. How could he hit her?
“And YOU… you STOLE her from me, you and your feminine wiles! You WHORE!”
The ranting of a twisted and diseased mind could not hurt Kim. She had felt the stirrings of pity for Dr. Drakken as soon as Shego had intimated that he might have suffered a mental collapse. She just wanted to foil his plans, but now events had moved beyond their control.
Shego’s reaction to the insult of Kim was automatic. Her hands flashed green and she advanced. Even when the body is wasted, the mind can give it apparently limitless energy if it wants to; Drakken leapt back, as nimble as a dancer, and kept out of Shego’s reach.
“Oh, no you DIDN’T! You,” he first pointed to Kim, and then to Shego, “and you, think you’re all that, but you’re NOT!” He turned around and located a lever mounted on the side of the machine. The steel plates beneath creaked ominously.
“Look around you! Look at the years of labor and sacrifice and TOIL! A lifetime of scientific achievement DENIED! But no more! Today I unleash Hell! BEHOLD, my triumphant return as the future LEADER of the world!”
Drakken dragged the lever down and the timbre of the humming changed.
Nothing happened. Kim held onto Shego, not allowing the taller woman to let her fury take control. Ron kept glancing dubiously at the glowing machine and then at the darkness around them.
Drakken just looked at them and smiled, his eyes narrowed to slits.
Something bumped against Ron’s foot. He looked down prepared for danger, prepared for chaos, prepare for…
“Hey, is that a Lil’ Diablo toy?”
Rufus stuck his head from Ron’s pocket and confirmed, “si!”
The tiny red and black wind up toy had strolled out of the darkness and blindly clattered against Ron. Then it started to grow.
The sounds of splintering wood could be heard all around them as crate after crate burst asunder from the pressures within. Shego spun around and pulled Kim and Ron to a location of relative safety, or at least it would remain so for a few seconds.
“Kim, this shouldn’t be possible! These units shouldn’t be able to function. Drakken told me that they’d not been fitted with individual power supplies yet. That’s what the coding on the sides of the crates meant!”
The maze was being destroyed as more and more crates divulged their litters of growing robots, each capable of growing more than two stories tall and with the fire power of an entire armored division. Each was half the size of a grown man now.
“So what’s giving them power?” Ron did his best to shield himself and the girls from flying pieces of wood. Kim was staring at the heart of glowing machine. The faint voice of Wade reached her ears. They directed their attention to the Kimmunicator.
“Kim, this is incredible! This is the first time I’ve ever seen an energy signature like this one, but I’ve cross-referenced it against all possibilities and can only supply one conclusion: Drakken is using broadcast power!” The young boy sounded torn between respect and awe.
“You’ve got to shut off that thing before these robots reach full size!”
“Thanks, Wade. We’ll cal you later.” Kim switched the small device off.
Without announcing her intentions, Shego turned and faced the machine. Cupping her palms together, she launched a sphere of plasma at its heart. The fiery green ball flickered out before it could hit the mark.
“Oopsie! Don’t you HATE it when that happens?” Drakken pranced with maniacal joy. “UNLIMITED power, sucked from the very AIR around it, the energy of the very UNIVERSE… and your plasma emissions if they get too close. Would you like to see a presentation I made on the design? It’s really quite good.” Drakken nodded his head happily, eyes shining with open glee.
The robots were more than ten feet tall now, and were starting to gain self-awareness. They walked into each other and some fell over, but soon enough the motions would become more controlled, the robots more organized.
One turned towards Team Possible and raised its arm cannons. They fired and the blasts were absorbed into the receiving field of the device.
As one, the three ducked behind the source of the broadcast power. When they did so, they were again reminded of the unstable floor beneath them. Kim dropped to her knees and examined the void between the gaps in the plates.
“If we can just collapse the floor, we can deep-six this damn thing. It’ll crack like an egg!” As more of the robots became aware of their presence, they each turned their blasters on Kim and her teammates.
Drakken was simply dancing around and around, also safe within the receiving field.
“Operation: Humpty Dumpty, Princess? I love it!” Shego ducked beneath another blaster strike.
“Language, KP! You kiss your daughters with that mouth?”
Shego grabbed the edge of the floor plate closest to her and tested it.
“Princess, you get Stoppable out of here! As soon as those stiffs realize that all they need to do is walk around to this side of the receiving field, we’re toast! I’ll wait ‘til you’re clear and then topple this bastard!”
The machine was sucking in every erg of power from the robot attack and the concussive force was dissipated before contact, so unfortunately they couldn’t just let the robots destroy it for them.
“You two run at the count of three! One…two…thr…”
A glancing blast shattered the concrete of the floor a few feet in front of Shego. A chunk of it spun upwards into the side of her head, knocking her backwards and dropping her to the floor. Ron was at her side in a second, checking the wound.
“She’s out, Kim! We’ve got to get out of here, now!”
Robots, each now grown to their full height, entirely filled the warehouse. Although they could not see it, the fragile walls were being shredded as powerful arms sought freedom. Soon, hundreds of the metal beasts would take to the sky and converge on the closest population center: Middleton.
Kim looked around desperately for a way out. They were at the center of target practice for a horde of monstrous robots, so there was no ‘away’ that hey could run to. The void beneath their feet wasn’t an option because that was where they needed to drop the machine. That only left…
Kim took her lipstick laser and used it to cut a hole in the ceiling far above them. The circular metal cut out was blasted before it had a chance to hit the floor. Kim noticed this and reset the retraction speed to ‘high’ on her blow-drier grappling hook.
She fired the hook straight and true; the grapple was firmly anchored to something on the surface of the roof. Kim handed the drier and the Kimmunicator to Ron.
“You take this and pull Shego and yourself to safety! It’ll be really fast so that the robots don’t notice you… hopefully!”
“No way! We go together!”
“y’uh! hell owtta dawj!”
Kim kissed both Ron and Rufus quickly.
“Throw the drier back down to me after you get to safety! Now go!”
The young man paused only a second and then did as Kim had instructed. He passed the cable under his arms and around his chest, holding onto the unconscious Shego with both hands. The mole rat saluted Kim, black eyes glistening, as Ron retracted the cable.
Kim watched the robots raise their arms and fire. Each and every one successfully hit the empty spaces that Ron had just left. He and his precious cargo shot up through the hole in the roof.
She glanced down at where Ron had left his pants behind on the floor. Even in the center of this holocaust, Kim grinned. She would have to remember to tell Shego about that. The drier clattered to the floor, apparently unnoticed by the enormous robots. The durability of its outer casing was a testament to Wade’s design.
Kim aimed and fired the drier, again successfully targeting something solid for the hook to hold on to. Now to get Drakken; the man was standing mesmerized at the sight of his towering metal beasts as they continued to blast the machine.
Her immediate plan was to grab Drakken while she attempted to collapse the unstable plates beneath their feet. She could hear him muttering as she moved closer.
“See, my children? Even YOU cannot raise our hands to harm ME! I am your CREATOR!” Kim was glad that Drakken didn’t choose to test this claim and walk away from the machine. She knew quite well that only its receiving field was protecting them from the energy blasts.
Dr. Drakken noticed her before she could grab him or render him otherwise compliant.
“Ah, the cheerleader! The deviant world-saver!” He sneered, eyes mad and unable to stay fixed on her for more than a few seconds at a time. “Do you like that word, hmm? Are you a DEVIANT? Some folks might think so!”
Kim had no time for this. Keeping well within the limited boundary of the receiving field, she kicked out at Drakken. She easily caught him in the side, but he remained standing. Like a crazed animal, he lunged at her.
As chaotic as events were unfolding, Kim noticed the flames projecting from the feet of several of the giant robots. They were starting to take flight, even now bursting through the dilapidated roof. Kim prayed that Ron had already gotten down and away from the building entirely.
There was no time left for anything. Thousands would die if she didn’t destroy the machine now.
Kim let Drakken reach her and allowed him to batter at her uselessly while she tied the drier and it’s cable around his waist. It was fortunate that madness didn’t improve his fighting skills. She hit the retract button and felt let the science of man haul them both towards safety.
Then, deliberately, she let go of the madman and let the universal force of gravity pull her back down to Earth.
She landed right on top of the broadcast power device. Her 110 lb. body was just heavy enough, when combined with the acceleration from her drop, to gain the necessary mass to buckle the unstable metal floor plates.
Rusted metal squealed as floor, machine, and Kim toppled into the yawning void.
The young adventurer had hoped to jump clear, maybe being able to dodge blasts until the fading power ended the robot threat. She hadn’t counted on exactly how fragile the machine was; her feet crashed down into the machine and became caught.
Kim thought of her parents, deeply loving, always so proud of her.
The receiver field flickered and winked out. A brief, final surge of energy ‘distracted’ them long enough to stop their concerted attack. By the time they would have resumed, they were already starting to shrink back down into their original, harmless form.
Kim thought of the people she’d known from school.
The machine flipped over as it fell, trapping the entangled Kim beneath it. When one of the oversized satellite dishes caught on the edge of the concrete rim of the pit, Kim dangled there in relative safety. She was able to pull her feet from the mangled device, but any attempt to climb free could jar the machine loose from the precarious wedge.
Kim thought of Ron and Rufus and Wade and Monique, their happy faces smiling at her with love and joy.
Metal and fiberglass bent and shattered as the dish slowly cracked and broke loose from the edge. Floor plates and machine fell straight down the hole, a perfect fit, with Kim directly under them.
Kim thought of Shego and of their children and of their lives together.
“I love…”
The drop was not very long and the impact not particularly impressive. The machine was far more fragile than even it’s creator could have realized; almost every component separated from the whole and it did truly crack like an egg. Several hundred pounds of metal, plastic and glass, many parts still hot and sizzling with power, struck the bottom of the subbasement and settled in a heap in the grime and filth of decades.
The torn and crushed body beneath the wreckage would have hardly been noticed.
Lungs would not draw air, but there was no need. Arms and legs could not move, but there was nowhere to go. Eyes could see nothing, but there was nothing to see.
Calm and still, waiting for something but not fully understanding what, the darkness embraced Kim like a lover.
Ron Stoppable finished binding the side of Shego’s head with his torn sleeve. The blood flow had been staunched but he imagined that Shego might need stitches, her accelerated healing ability notwithstanding. No sooner had they been propelled to the roof than dozens of the giant robots had apparently realized that they had been designed with the ability to fly.
The initial shock of seeing Drakken arrive without Kim was over-ridden by the urgent need for safety. It was all that Ron could do to handle the unconscious Shego and the raving madman to the edge of the building and climb down with each slung over his shoulders. It was fortunate that the blow drier grappling hook was still functioning and that Drakken had become insensate. His flight upwards may have been too great a shock for him because he was in a fetal position and drooling when Ron lifted the man’s body.
Feeling none too well himself, the three humans and one rodent took shelter in a shed several yards from the warehouse. Ron watched in horror as robots crashed through the roof and began to turn towards his hometown. When they started falling back to Earth, he barely noticed his cry of elation.
“BOOYAH!”
Momentarily forgetting his charges, Ron ran back to the warehouse. His thoughts were only of Kim, so much so that he almost didn’t respond to the musical chime of the Kimmunicator in his pocket.
“Wade, hang on, I’ve got to see if Kim…”
“Ron, wait.”
Something in the boy’s tone made Ron slow his pace.
“What? What is it?”
“Ron, I’m not reading her signal.” Wade looked stricken, tears running down his face.
“Signal? What does that mean?”
“Trust me on this, Ron. I should be getting a signal from her and I’m not”
At the behest of Kim, both she and Ron had been implanted with subcutaneous microchips that emitted a signal when life signs were present. Kim had long ago asked Wade to keep this a secret from Ron.
“That means that she could be…”
Ron fell to his knees and slammed the blue casing of the Kimmunicator into the packed dirt.
“Don’t say it! She’s Ok, she has to be.” Ron was wheezing, but he stood up again, the after affects of his adrenalin high fading fast. “She has too much to live for.” Leaving the device behind, he staggered back to the warehouse door. Had it really been less that a half an hour ago that they’d entered?
The full extent of the destruction was painfully evident from the sunlight pouring down from the great holes in the roof. The shattered planks of crating material lay everywhere, and tiny red and black toys littered the floor. Rufus had scampered down from Ron’s pocket and examined one of the fallen toys carefully. He kicked it once he was certain that it was inert.
There was a rectangular hole in the center of the floor now. It was the access to the subbasement through which the broadcast power generator had fallen. No, Ron reminded himself, not fallen. His best friend in the whole world had sent it to its destruction, and apparently her own. He sank down at the edge of the hole.
“KP!” Nothing replied, not even a decent echo.
“KP!” The void didn’t care, it never does.
Rufus ran to the edge and sniffed, peering down into the darkness with his sensitive eyes. He could sense nothing, and all the little animal could do was watch his master and friend weep in abject loss. After a few moments, the mole rat knew that nothing more was to be gained here, and decide to do something about it.
“c’mohn, gotago’
Ron didn’t react. If anything, he curled tighter into a ball.
For all of his fantastic gifts, Rufus was an animal, a beast blessed with more self-awareness than the rest of his kin. He had neither the ability nor the capacity to express his belief that Kim wouldn’t want Ron to grieve like this, that all she would want is for her friends and family to go on without her, maybe pausing now and then to remember the good times they’d had together once upon a time.
What he did know was that Kim Possible didn’t need their help anymore. He bit Ron on the finger, making the boy shriek in pain.
“Damn it, WHAT do you WANT?” Ron didn’t see that he’d raised his fist over the rodent. Rufus stood firm and didn’t budge.
“leevnow”
Ron sniffed and lowered his fist. Apologies could wait until later. His life was still going on, while Kim’s…
Turning away from the black opening, Ron stooped to gather his little friend into his palm. They did their best to comfort each other, but neither of them could see how this sitch could ever improve. Ron choked at the thought of Kim’s personal slang word.
“Ron?”
Ron turned. What had he heard? Was there someone still in here of had Shego woken up and called to him from outside?
“Shego?”
The young man spun around and looked towards the gapping hole in the center of the warehouse floor. His mind was numb and his heart was like a lump of stone.
“Please…” A slender hand reached over he edge of the pit, weak and limp, grasping for something to hold onto. Ron ran back to the hole, falling to the floor and reaching down to take the body of Kim Possible into his arms. He didn’t speak a word but hauled her up and gripped her to his chest.
It was Kim, filthy and barely moving, but it was Kim and she was ALIVE!
Ron rocked back and forth, comforting himself as much as the tattered girl in his arms, sobbing openly and laughing at the same time. Rufus climbed all over the motionless form of the red headed girl, nose twitching in confusion.
How could he have been so wrong? How could his senses and instincts fail him so? He had heard nothing, seen nothing and smelled nothing.
Both Ron and Rufus were startled as Kim coughed and retched. She drew a ragged breath and flailed her arms.
“Where, what…?”
“It’s Ok, KP! It’s Ruf-Daddy and the Ron-Monster!”
“Oh, wow, I hurt all over.” Kim fought to lift her hand and move her hair from her face “I’m as weak as a baby. Where’s Shego? What happened?” She glanced at the destruction around them.
“Shego is outside. She should be Ok, but she was hurt and knocked out. Drakken’s there too, but he’s in pretty rough shape.” Ron carefully lifted her head and looked closely at her
“What do you remember?”
Kim’s eyes focused on the recent past.
“I sent Drakken up, then I jumped back down on the machine.”
“You did WHAT?”
“kaypee kix’azz!” Rufus had climbed to the top of Kim’s head and was making a comfy nest in her hair.
Kim laughed, retched, and then laughed some more.
“Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time!”
“m’heero!”
“Anything else?”
“It fell and I fell with it, then…” Kim’s focus wavered. “Then blackness and being pinned. It was all I could do to get free. Then I was climbing.” She shrugged.
“Sorry, that’s it.”
Recalling his first aide training, Ron carefully examined Kim for broken bones and cuts. Other than general bruising everywhere and complaints of feeling like a dog’s chew toy, Kim was whole and intact. Supporting her as bet he could, Ron led Kim out into the open air.
“Kimberly and Ronald! Stay where you are! Let us come to you!”
The wail of the bullhorn was shockingly loud in this desolate corner of Middleton. Ron shielded his eyes against the glare of the afternoon sun and Kim was still trying to clean he face of grime. The sight that greeted them was impressive, to say the least.
Dozens of Global Justice field agents wearing biohazard suits were encircling them, each brandishing sensors and probes of varying design. ‘GJ’ vehicles covered the surrounding roadway and ‘GJ’ helicopters could be seen above.
“Do not be alarmed!”
Kim lifted her head and muttered, “Doy!” Ron started to cry again, but he was smiling. One suited form broke away from the rest and walked right up to them. The nameplate below the sealed helmet was labeled ‘DU’.
“Thank goodness that you’re both safe. We came he second that your friend contacted us.” Will’s face was a mix of concern and gratitude.
“Who, Wade?”
“Yes, the young Mr. Load let us know of the forces you had found yourselves up against. Anyway, Global Justice is constantly scanning for anything that matches the postulated energy signature that could indicate the use of broadcast power. Imagine our surprise when we found that the two locations were identical!”
“What happened to Drakken? Where is he?”
“Dr. Lipsky has been sedated and detained. He will receive a full examination back at Global Justice headquarters while we determine what to do with him.”
Kim could hardly stand, let alone walk, so Ron lifted her into his arms and carried her to the base of operations. That ‘base’ was an enormous black camper. Once inside, the two friends were reunited with the third member of Team Possible.
“Get your hands OFF MY WOMAN!”
Shego was seated at the end of the camper apparently devoted to triage and medical treatment. The side of her head was bandaged and she looked a little unsteady on her feet. She took Kim away from Ron, albeit as gently as when she held her own daughters, and set Kim on her lap.
Shego’s injury was not serious or life threatening but the medics had given her something for the pain while her preternatural healing abilities sealed the laceration better than any suture could. It had left her a little woozy, and the staff was hard pressed to keep her from becoming agitated while the field agents went out to search for Kim and Ron.
The medical team had a difficult time examining Kim because Shego would not relinquish her hold on the younger woman. After several frustrating minutes, the physician in charge declared Kim to be ‘fit and well’, although he also strongly recommended no strenuous activity and complete bed rest for the next twenty-four hours.
“Sorry, Doc.” Shego face was buried in Kim’s neck, nuzzling her. “She won’t get the one without the other.” Shego looked up and noticed the looks the staff were giving her; some were disgusted, some merely uncomfortable, and some were openly jealous.
“What’d I say?” Shego returned to her task at hand, namely Kim.
“Shego, behave!” Kim felt wonderful being cradled this way, but Shego was obviously annoying the medical staff. The tall woman leered at Kim, glancing around until her eyes rested on Ron.
“Hey! Stop Ronnable! Did you pull her out of there?”
Ron was sitting directly across from Shego but she was yelling at him as if he were a mile away. Her movements were exaggerated and sloppy, as if she were drunk.
“Kim can tell you the story later, but yeah, I did.”
“I love you, man!” Shego reached across and grabbed is shoulder; she was getting all weepy. A nearby monitor flared to life and was filled by the overjoyed face of a small boy.
“Kim! Boy, am I glad to see you again! I thought…” He paused to wipe at something in the corner of his eye. “We thought you’d bought the farm.”
Kim looked up and blew Wade a kiss. He mad a show of catching it and held both hands together tightly at his chest.
“BWAH HAW HAW!” Shego was pointing own at Ron’s boxer shorts and howling with laughter.
“Shego, what is wrong with you?” Kim was appalled by this behavior.
“What did I tell you, Princess? I win the bet! BWAH HAW HAW!”
She flinched as if from a sudden pain.
“Ouch, what…” Shego slumped in her seat as the tranquilizer dart took effect. Ron was there to keep Kim from sliding off Shego’s lap and onto the floor. The physician in charge returned the tranquilizer gun to its proper compartment and walked over to Shego, who was by now snoring heavily. The snoring did nothing to mute the clapping and applause from the rest of the staff.
“Hippocratic oath be damned, she can be a real pain.” The doctor gently removed the dart, cleaned the impact point with alcohol and covered it with a tiny gauze bandage.
“Sometimes, yeah.” Both Kim and Ron had replied in unison. “Jinx! You owe me a soda!” Kim smiled weakly and nodded off to sleep, a naked mole rat still nestled in her hair.
To be continued…
Author’s Note: What few lyrics I used from ‘Fly Like An Eagle’ are from the Steve Miller Band and are being used without permission.
To the die-hard KP fans, I apologize; I think that Ron is a total moron who is just lucky. Yes, I’ll give him some good moments, but otherwise I got nothing.
Also, I’m not a medical doctor or an engineer or a physicist; you’ll have noticed that by now in my writings. If that will be a problem, it’s been wonderful and thanks for sharing the ride with me this far. Still here? I’m glad. Now, let’s see what’s waiting for us just around the corner.