Disclaimer: I do not own Kim Possible, Ron Stoppable, or any of the other characters from Kim Possible, nor do I own the television show Kim Possible.
I. Life, Love, and Lorwardians
It had been a little more than two months since the Lorwardian invasion had concluded. Kim and Ron had used it for some rest and relaxation, comforted by the fact that everything around the world was, for now, under control. The aliens had done some heavy damage all over the planet and everyone had pitched in to help, even the villains. The Seniors had contributed a good chunk of their fortune to helping with the economic crises, as had several of their buddies at their poker club ("It's the sporting thing to do," Señor Senior, Sr. had said. "Besides, it looks good for taxes."). Dementor and Dr. Drakken had built some robots together to help clean up the destruction and had a few 'scuffles' while planning and building them (Kim still doesn't know how GJ had kept the damage to a minimum). Even Gemini contributed some of his resources to helping rebuild, but after the first meeting of the leaders of Global Justice and the Worldwide Evil Empire (which is now referred to as the 'staple incident' by those who had been there), both organizations made sure that their leaders stayed far away from each other. Now, however, things were getting back to normal for everyone. Countries were starting to argue over the use of the technology which had littered the landscape, regular citizens went back to their everyday jobs, and villains started to do, well, villainous things. Frugal Lucre, an average Joe-looking guy who had a permanent geek aura, a talent for hacking computers, and an inability to know when to shut up, was the first to cause trouble by trying to steal the Pan Dimensional Vortex Inducer with a ray gun that appeared to have been made out of a toaster. After Rufus bit the power cord on the gun, Kim and Ron were able to take down the bargain seeking villain without a sweat. However, problems began to brew after they had gotten back to Middleton.
They had decided to go to their tree house as a way to reminisce about old times and discuss the future. Summer would be coming to a close and college was looming over the horizon. Kim had settled on the University of Tokyo, majoring in law, and passed all of the exams with flying colors. Her college costs were covered by various scholarships provided by grateful citizens whom she had helped in the past. Ron was planning on going to Yamanouchi to learn how to control the Mystical Monkey Power better. Kim had felt that this arrangement was superb. She would be able to see Ron and she would be going to an excellent school. They had planned on leaving for Japan the upcoming weekend so that they would have time to settle into their new living arrangements before things got started with their various responsibilities. So when Ron said, "We need to talk," she hadn't been concerned at all. When he had told her what was on his mind, however, her picture-perfect idea of their future came crashing down.
"What?" Kim mumbled, eyes watering. This can't be real. This was not right. She had to have misheard. "This is some sort of joke, right? Right? The tweebs put you up to it? It's not funny, Ron! Now knock it off and let's go to Bueno Nacho or something." Kim started to get up to leave, but was stopped by Ron's arm on her shoulder.
As Kim turned her head toward Ron, he shut his eyes and hung his head. "Kim, I'm serious. I can't keep doing this. WE can't keep doing this. This needs to happen. I've thought about it. A lot. I need to concentrate on my training and you need to concentrate on school. So I think that it would be better if we were to stop seeing each other for awhile."
"But…how…how can you say that?" spluttered Kim voice thick with the tears that were making their way down her face. "Can't we just…can't we just stop doing missions or something? There has got to be a compromise here. We can't just-"
"We can't just leave the world on its own, KP," Ron interrupted, his voice now wavering a bit, "and you won't be content with just sitting around studying. Being a hero is part of who you are."
"You're part of who I am, too," Kim replied, her voice breaking.
"Kim, I'll still be there for you," Ron said, seeming to have recovered from his bout of emotion. He lifted his head and looked Kim in the eye with glistening eyes, "but we both have obligations to take care of and traveling for hours at a time to see each other would take a serious bite out of both of our times. Besides, it might draw attention to Yamanouchi and that's something that I've already promised I wouldn't let happen. If things work out, maybe we can get back together, but for now, we just can't. Are we still friends?"
"Oh Ron," Kim choked out, "we'll always be friends." She wiped her eyes a bit and gave Ron a big hug. "How could I ever find someone else?"
Ron chuckled softly and replied, "Well, I have heard of these dating websites…" which earned him a small giggle from Kim.
"That's not what I meant and you know it!" she said, releasing him from the hug and giving him a small smack on the shoulder. "You're a great boyfriend. How could I ever think about finding someone else when I know that you will be waiting for me?"
"Just think of it as a way to broaden your horizons. You never know; you could find someone even better than me. You deserve the best and it would make me feel bad to know that you stopped looking because of me. Please, just give it a try. You'll be in a whole new place with new people. I have friends like Yori to look out for me at Yamanouchi. And Sensei's the master of gin rummy. I won't be lonely, and neither should you," Ron told her. "Now, how about some snackage? I won't be able to enjoy the wonders of the naco for much longer, so I have to get them in while I can."
Kim nodded and they both got up from the beaten-up couch. As they climbed down the ladder to the tree house, Kim wondered how her world would be able to work now.
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Near the summit of Mount Yōtei, a vehicle resembling a flying saucer was floating around, randomly stopping and accelerating as if looking for something. It eventually came to complete stop, a voice mumbling incoherently from the driver's seat. The face of the driver was covered by a map which had the words 'Secret Lair Locations' written in crayon across the top. A tuft of spiky black hair protruded from the top edge of the map as did a few flowering plant vines which swayed with the wind.
"Grrr…why did I have to have a lair in the middle of a mountain? And why did we pick this one as the meeting place?" a deep, raspy voice whined. "I mean, we have the lair in the Caribbean and the one in Middleton. Heck, even the one in the Amazon is easier to find than this one. Blast Shego and her incessant demands!" The man threw the map into the waiting tendrils of a vine and revealed his blue face which was fixed into a deep scowl, eyes surrounded by large, dark circles. Underneath his left eye was a scar that stretched from near his small, hooked nose to the outer edge of his prominent cheekbone. He had a large chin, ears which stuck out, and a long, luscious black ponytail. He let loose a growl as his hovercraft continued to wander the mountain. "'It's the most secluded lair, Dr D. No one will find us here. We should stay out of the media's eye, Dr D. Lay low for awhile somewhere out of the way,'" he muttered in a nasally voice while waving his hands in the air and nodding his head up and down. "Bah! It's so secluded that even I can't find it!"
After a little more than 10 minutes, he found a large metal door which was hidden in a crevice on the mountain. Sighing with relief at the discovery and shivering as he was hit with a cold blast of air, the man drove the hovercraft over to the side of the cliff where a device which looked like a retinal scanner stuck out of the rocks. After dusting off some layers of snow and cracking away the ice, he pulled his black lab gloves off and put the tips of his thumbs on the spots where most people would assume the eyes go. A bright light scanned the prints and a robotic voice said, "Voice verification required."
"Drakken. Doctor Drakken. Now let me in before I turn into a human popsicle with herbal flavorings!" the doctor practically yelled at the machine.
"Voice match confirmed. Welcome, Doctor Drakken." The metal doors slowly swung inward to reveal a large garage filled with dusty flying vehicles, including a helicopter and a green and black jet. The hover car flew in and settled down on a small platform. Doctor Drakken climbed out of the vehicle and did a few stretches, cracking his back in various places which caused him to groan painfully. The vines, which were protruding from the neck of his loose-fitting dark blue lab coat, also stretched. The one that had the map gave it back to Drakken who proceeded to tuck it into on of the numerous hidden pockets of his lab coat. Suddenly realizing how loose his coat was on his frame, the doctor gave a frustrated scream which echoed throughout the cavernous lair.
"Not only did I not get anything from helping those ungrateful nobodies at Global Justice, but I seem to have lost weight! I'll have to buy a whole new set of lab coats! Gee, thanks heightened plant mutagen metabolism. On the plus side, I might actually fit into a size 6 if this keeps up."
Drakken proceeded to the main section of the lair with the enormous television screen that had computer consoles linked up to it and expected Shego to be sitting in one of the chairs filing her nails while complaining about how boring it was just sitting and waiting for him to show up. Instead, the room was empty and a fine layer of dust on everything suggested that there had been no one there for quite some time. Grumbling about lazy assistants showing up late, he decided to clean the place a bit and make it inhabitable again. He went to one of the supply closets and grabbed numerous bottles of Breeze cleaning agent and some dusters and put the vines to work. After a few minutes of cleaning without incident, Drakken began to let his mind wander to the last couple of months. He allowed an evil smirk and a moment to think about how much fun it was to 'accidentally' break some of Dementor's things when they were stuck working together on those robots. Watching him go into one of his rages while Drakken claimed innocence and blamed the vines was superb. And there was no way for Dementor to prove that Drakken was the one doing it! However, it was still torture to have to spend nearly two months working with 'I'm-the-only-true-genius-here' chrome dome. Of course, Shego had decided that it was a waste of her time and had gone on vacation to someplace or another now that they had their records cleared. He remembered about the ceremony that had taken place at the UN a couple of months ago. The vine reaching out and grabbing Shego to force her into a hug with him was not something that he had planned on happening. 'Then again, I really didn't have much control over them, now did I?' Drakken thought to himself. She wasn't angry like she usually would have been when it had happened, which was a slight relief. Her expression was one that he'd never really seen Shego use. It was a smile, but there was something weird about it. Had she been embarrassed? 'It would make sense' Drakken thought. 'After all, it is pretty embarrassing to be hugged by your loser boss in front of all of our peers and some other random people.' Drakken let loose a sigh and allowed his shoulders to sag, which caused the bottom of his coat to scrape against the floor. Under all of his bravado and self promoting ways, he did realize how others thought of him, and that was the same even with him having saved the world. They just said that one person can only fail so much and he just happened to succeed on something important; he would never be able to reproduce similar results. Global Justice was already working on a way to subdue his plants should he try to take over the world with them. They'd never had to do anything like that with any of his other projects. Not even the 'Little Diablos', his greatest plot ever, warranted such attention. Thinking back to all of his former experiments and world conquest attempts just made him all the more depressed. Looking up, he saw all of the vines had stopped dusting and were pointing their flowers at him, which is what he figured was their way of looking at someone.
"What's wrong? A guy can't think around here?" he muttered angrily at the mutant plants. The vines took a few glances at each other and then proceeded to give Drakken a group hug. "What the-" They started to tighten their grip on him in an attempt to make him feel better. "Well, at least you guys appreciate…me…!" he gasped the last part. "I…can't breathe… Guys...?"
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Will Du sighed and rubbed his temples. How had he gotten stuck with desk duty? He had realized that it was a bit irrational and unprofessional of him to shock the nearest person with his taser watch and then hide under a table when the Lorwardians started attacking, but what else could he do? There were no protocols that he knew of that covered an alien invasion. His superiors felt that he had acted inappropriately for some reason and had stuck him with desk duty until further notice. And now he was stuck updating the file on a villain wannabe when his incredible skills could be put to use taking care of the real bad guys. However, he would do his job to the best of his ability and went through the process as efficiently and quickly as he could.
"Name?" he asked the figure in the chair.
"Frugal Lucre!" said the cheapskate villain in the scariest voice he could manage, striking a pose as he replied, which only made Will raise one of his eyebrows as Lucre's fake moustache fell off.
Will sighed and continued. "Villain alias?"
"Say what?" Lucre said as he tried to put the moustache back on after he had scrambled to the floor to grab it.
"The name which you use while you are performing criminal acts," the GJ agent replied. He could already tell that this was going to be a long night.
"Oops. I gave a wrong answer. Can we go back? Will this be counted against me later?" Lucre began to ramble while wearing his moustache upside-down. After assuring Lucre that it would be just fine to correct everything and fixing the error, it had already been 20 minutes, five minutes more than it takes for him to process most criminals. Gritting his teeth slightly, Will continued down the list.
"What villainous activity was committed which warranted your arrest by Global Justice?" he asked.
"Well, I had just finished with helping to haggle for good deals on emergency supplies when-"
"Please, Mr. Lurman, just the act. Not the planning," the agent interrupted, his eye now twitching slightly.
"I tried to steal the Pan Dimensional Vortex Inducer!" Frugal Lucre replied with gusto, his moustache dangling dangerously from the corner of his mouth.
Will Du looked up from the paperwork, somehow appearing both interested and annoyed. "What would a…villain...such as yourself want with the Pan Dimensional Vortex Inducer?"
"Well, everyone else, including my idol, Doctor Drakken, wants it, so I figured that I should want it, too! Besides, I haven't seen it in Smarty Mart, so it must be one of those hard-to-stock items, and boy, do they up the price on those!" Lucre replied, nodding his head. Will then proceeded to plant his face on the top of his desk, wondering 'Why me?' over and over while Lucre started to monologue on the reason he got into villainy.
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Author's Notes:
If you're wondering why Kim and Ron didn't get an intro like Drakken did, I have 3 reasons: 1. They're the main characters of the show. If you don't know them, then you're S.O.L. 2. It's much easier for me to do an intro for Drakken than for Kim and Ron. 3. I felt that Drakken should get a nice, funny intro now since he's going to be having some troubles later.
Why do the scene with Will Du and Frugal Lucre? Why not? Will Du has to be doing SOMETHING, and he really doesn't work well under pressure, so I would think he would be stuck with desk duty after the Lorwardians came. Also, the paperwork for putting the villains in jail doesn't do itself. I thought it would be something funny and interesting to do with people that don't seem to be used much.
The story is going to be taking place mostly in Japan because it helps to keep all of the characters in one place and I won't have to write too much about Mr. and Mrs. Dr. P. The tweebs, however… evil grin Anyway, I figure that most of their other lairs are in shambles and it would be quite hard to destroy a mountain, so the lair from 'So the Drama' was used. The University of Tokyo is supposed to be a school for the elite, so Kim would fit in well there…sorta.
I would like to thank Supreme Distraction for taking a look at my story and helping me with the faults that were present and with the title. I wouldn't be able to come up with a decent title even if my life depended on it.