Author's Note: It was ten years ago this month that I first began writing and publishing REUNION. I thought it fitting to finish the trilogy near the anniversary of its birth. When I began writing REUNION, there was no fourth season of KP. In the Reuniverse, there still isn't, though there will be when this story ends. You'll see how it works out, and probably figure it out just from this chapter. I do have two other stories set in the Reuniverse, and I may or may not get to them, but I will at the very least finish this trilogy and bring the Reuniverse to its much-needed conclusion. Now, without further ado...


ION

Chapter 1


It wasn't a laboratory by any standard measure of the term. Perhaps the exception to that standard might be the clichéd labs one sees in films where the villain has some sinister looking lair with useless equipment strewn about and electrical charges arcing from one thin metal pole to another. He wasn't trying to live up to a stereotype, it just kind of happened over the course of a decade without his notice. If one knew the details about the doctor's life, then the 'lab' might have been mistaken for a museum in extreme disrepair; albeit a rather macabre museum as some of the darker corners were piled with the skeletal remains of clones. At least, most of them were certainly clones.

There had been an uprising at one point; a rebellion in which automatons that once were part of a network run by a single mind had been given a hideous sort of individuality by receiving a downloaded copy of the doctor's brain. The purpose, of course, was to create henchmen who would be cheap to produce and loyal to the point of death. But as is the case with any plot involving ethically questionable (in this case, just plain evil) scientific methods, the plan did not go as, well, planned. Whenever something is downloaded multiple times, inevitably the information in that download becomes corrupted and in this case the machines went a little haywire.

Eventually, just one was left standing. But in the moment of his victory, a dark and unpleasant thought embedded itself permanently in his mind. Astride a crumpled, twisted pile of his former opponents, some of who were still twitching, he realized he couldn't tell a single one of them from each other, including himself.

When the doctor did his work, he wore a black combat jumpsuit, and to his way of thinking, it made sense to dress the others in an identical manner in case the authorities came calling. One of the clones could easily substitute for the real thing, surrender to the police, and he could go about his work undisturbed once any heat blew over. The logic was sound to a point, but in practicality, the theory had too many variables he just couldn't account for. Eventually the clones began to develop a sense of their own individuality, and that fostered a sense of resentment among the ranks. Revolt ensued, and the daylong battle to the death pared itself down to just the doctor… or a clone of him… he could not be certain.

So, it was in this manner that Ray Beam may or may not have died, and a clone may or may not have taken his place, and may or may not have continued his work, while the remains of those who did not prevail were piled up in remote corners and rotted, eventually becoming scattered piles of bones. Bones of clones. And among them, the possible remains of Ray Beam.

Possible.

The being that currently thought of himself as Ray Beam was working closely with a reluctant and bitter entity that was once called "Apollyon"; an artificial copy of Ray Beam's mind that had once attempted to destroy the universe and came very close to succeeding. The original Ray Beam had reconstructed Apollyon, but severely limited its abilities in order to maintain control. Apollyon had been essentially reduced to a data processor, and if it could have ended its own existence, it would have eagerly chosen to do so.

It had been ten years since Apollyon's attempt to destroy the universe, and in that time, Beam had been studiously working on one last desperate plot to thwart his enemies, including his former fiancé, the hero known as Kim Possible.

The doctor paused here as her name flitted about his mind and eventually settled in a dark and confusing recess that could not quite grasp the purpose of anything; the name, the point of the project, the identity of the one who was currently working with the remnants of Apollyon on this last, desperate attempt at revenge. It was these moments that the doctor felt strongly that he was indeed one of Ray Beam's clones and not Beam himself. When Kim Possible's name came up in the course of his day, he knew he was supposed to hate her. He had a memory of hating her, and a memory of a desire to hurt her. Similarly, the same kinds of thought patterns would manifest themselves whenever he thought of Ron Stoppable. He knew who Ron was, knew there had been some bad blood between them, and remembered the hatred, even if he didn't actively feel the hatred now.

And yet, when thoughts eventually and inevitably turned themselves to giving up the project, going out into the world, and taking his life on a different course, something stopped him. Maybe it was loyalty, or perhaps it was the memory of the desire for revenge, but quite possibly it was simply that he knew of no other purpose in his life than to make his enemies suffer, even if he wasn't quite sure they were his enemies any more, or ever had been.

For its part, Apollyon certainly wasn't the original version of itself and had a hard time trying to find motivation for anything other than self-oblivion. It reminded the doctor – for in his doubt, this is what the human had taken to calling himself – on a daily basis that the project had been set in motion, that it had been years in the making and that once finished, it had been promised deactivation by him. It had no direct desire to bring harm to the Stoppable family, which had grown to twice its size in the last decade, having added a daughter who was now nine years old, and a son who was five.

Apollyon's only goal was to finish the project so it could finally be rendered obsolete and non-existent. The idea that it could convince the doctor to cease his efforts and simply deactivate him never materialized because it could not be sure if this was still the real Ray Beam or if one of the clones had prevailed after all. Finish the project, activate the device, get the doctor to keep his promise and deactivate Apollyon. That was all it knew.

So it was, under these circumstances, that two villains - who weren't quite sure if they actually were villains, carrying out a plot they weren't very motivated by, working from plans either of them may or may not have conceived, from a sense of vengeance remembered but not felt - destroyed the heroes known as Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable.


Thirty years from now, in what could only be thought of as a laboratory at the headquarters of Global Justice on the western edge of the metropolis of Middleton, a panel on a small console lit up and emitted a soft alarm. It was the kind of alarm intended not to actually alarm anyone and this was deliberate because this type of alarm actually indicated something drastically catastrophic.

Two men in white lab coats calmly strode to the panel, looked at it, and then at each other.

"You think this has something to do with…?" Tim Possible nodded his head in the direction where they had been standing a moment before.

"They've got to be related," Wade replied evenly, though concern played across his face.

Tim tapped several locations on the panel and a new display of information scrolled across the screen.

"The energy waves practically match," he said.

"Yes," Wade agreed. "Practically. It's the variance that interests me."

Tim nodded, "So, something related, but not the same source."

"Probably using the same method." Wade moved back to the previous location, a workstation with a small container containing what looked like pulverized stone. "But not the same construct. If I were a guessing man, and I rarely am, this looks chemical to me. Wait…there, look!"

He pointed up at a large overhead display that showed a series of horizontal lines which moved in waves and occasional spikes. On the far left side, the color of each line began to gradually change.

"Whoever's doing this is altering the timeline, not destroying it," Wade concluded with a worried/angry tone in his voice. "Getting real tired of the time travel shenanigans."

"You're not the only one. Did you notice the locations? Looks like it originates about a decade after Apollyon, but the destination is a few years before you were born!"

Wade took out his communication device and pushed several points of entry. More alarming alarms began waling, while lights and klaxons suddenly blared to life. People came running into the room, and some of them ran out again. Two guards took up station on either side of the room's main entryway, and then a man in his fifties – a few years older than either Tim or Wade – dressed in a blue uniform, strode into the room.

"Director Stoppable!" Wade beckoned his friend over to the workstation urgently.

"Don't tell me," Ron sounded annoyed, "We're going to have to move the operation up by a few months."

"We have to move now if we're hoping for any kind of success." Wade's urgency was palpable. "Please tell me TJ and Kim are close."

"I was about to meet them in the cafeteria for lunch. You sure I can't just do this alone?"

"We're pretty sure you're the target." Tim spoke calmly and rapidly; it was a clear indicator he was trying not to panic. "Your point of origin has already been altered. This means in order to send you forward, we have to go back and get you."

"And the current version of me?" Ron didn't like where this was going.

"Will cease to exist. But you'll only be the first to go. The rest of us will likely also disappear. We can send you now, but you have to decide whether you trust your current self to complete this mission."

"Nope", Ron didn't even hesitate. "Better to send me in my prime. Chances of success will be much better if I'm at peak performance. Any way we could go back further and pick me up right after I got out of Yamanuchi?"

"I wouldn't call those your peak years, Ron." All heads turned toward a female voice. Into the room strode a graying woman in a lab coat who may not have looked like she did when she was in her twenties, but she still had that green fire in her eyes, and to her husband, she was no less beautiful than they day they got married.

"OK," he said with a grin, "Don't tell me you mean high school, because I don't think I can handle all that awkwardness again."

She smiled, "You remember the mission with Dementor? The one where he disappeared permanently? Anywhere in those years."

"After the kids were born, really?"

"Really what?" Again heads turned and beheld a grinning mirror image of Ron Stoppable in his younger years, but with red hair and green eyes. "What about when we were born?"

"Your mom thinks that's about the time when I was in my prime."

"I'd have to say it was about fifteen years after that." Kimono Stoppable had followed her husband into the lab, silently moving as she usually did. No one noticed her at first because the others were talking, but when she spoke, most of the eyes in the room appreciatively looked toward her. By any standard, she was wildly beautiful, with long jet-black hair and turquoise-hued skin. When she smiled, or when she was in the heat of battle, her eyes danced with a pale turquoise fire that somehow seemed to enhance her beauty exponentially. Perfectly comfortable with who she was, Kimono Stoppable - wife of TJ Stoppable and daughter of Shego and Doctor Drakken – was probably one of the most pleasant people to be around. She was sweet, funny, kindhearted and while many of the agents and other workers at Global Justice – as well as a good portion of the world's supervillain community – clearly had crushes on her, not one of them was ever made to feel self-conscious about it. Even if you weren't nursing a torch for Kimono, you still wanted to be around her. Life just seemed better in her presence.

Timothy James Stoppable, for his part, was thought of by just about everybody at Global Justice as "a pretty cool guy".

"Oh sure," TJ lamented to his wife, "You want to go and pick up that version of my dad because you had a crush on him."

"'Had'?" She looked at her husband sidewise and grinned.

"Yeah." Wade held up his hands in protest. "As much as this particular banter between you two is totally fresh and never gets old - don't let anyone tell you differently no matter how much it rings true – we do have a pretty decent-sized emergency that needs our attention."

Kimono laughed lightly, adoring sighs went up from half the occupants of the room.

"Actually," Kim said with an annoyed glance at her husband who was clearly enjoying his daughter-in-law's adulation a little too much (and always had). "That's not a bad time to get Young Ron. And pick me up while you're there, I'm sure you could use and extra hand."

Ron nodded enthusiastically, partially because he agreed Kim would be an asset to the mission, but also partially because he caught that glint of mildly annoyed jealousy in her eye.

Wade fidgeted uncomfortably and Kim caught it from her own peripheral. Decades of friendship had taught her that he was not the kind of person to shout at others, even if the universe was ending. She held up her hands and turned to him.

"Why don't you give us the sitch, Wade? Something's happening that you haven't told us about yet."

The room went quiet. This sort of scenario had played out in various forms over the years and just about everyone knew their cues.

"Thank you, Kim." Wade nodded hurriedly and turned all their attention to the overhead display. "Don't get me wrong, this isn't like that whole thing with the timeline collapsing and the universe being destroyed. This might actually be worse."

Quizzical and concerned looks flew across the room.

"Worse than the universe being destroyed?" Ron was unable to contain his curiosity. "I think you better get to the point, Wade."

"As you know," Wade began slowly. "We've been studying the remains of the Tempus Simia for decades now. What we thought was stone is actually extremely advanced technology designed to manipulate energy as precise as the subatomic level."

"So it can move molecules," Ron concluded.

"And transform their properties. This is how stone monkeys seemed to come to life. This is also how a portal in the space/time continuum could be opened to another specific point in the timeline. This is far too much power for anyone single person to have, but someone apparently thought it should be constructed. My guess would be someone of the villainous persuasion."

"OK," Ron's mind was trying to anticipate what Wade would say next. "So even though it's destroyed, it would be better if we prevented it from even being built."

"Yes."

Ron looked blankly at him. "Well then what's the problem? We're going back in time to get me and Kim's younger selves and…no, you don't mean…"

Wade nodded, Ron simply looked horrified. After decades of working closely together, Ron and Wade had developed an understanding of each other that went beyond vocal communication. Ron had learned a few things over the years, and his mind, while not necessarily being smarter, was a whole lot more experienced.

"What's our time table?" Ron suddenly became impatient.

"Wait, hold up a moment, Ron." Kim was a brilliant neurologist, but she wasn't quite sure what her husband and Wade were discussing. "How about filling in the rest of us?"

Ron turned to her with a grim look that began to make her nervous, "The Tempus Simia wasn't built in the past, it's a piece of technology from the future, but was sent into the distant past. If we…no, when we go forward in time to destroy it, we'll have prevented it from being sent back."

"And the timeline will change." Kim whispered her realization as the implications sank in.

"Not just changed," Ron confirmed. "It will be restored."

"No." Kimono spoke this time, "Unacceptable. Let's just leave things as is."

"I don't follow." TJ was one of GJ's best agents, but he was no scientist. "Why leave it alone if it's not supposed to exist?"

Kimono's eyes welled up. "Because I love you too much. If we restore the timeline, we might not ever meet. We might not even exist!"

TJ swallowed hard and cleared his throat uncomfortably. "OK, Wade, I can tell by your look that leaving the timeline alone isn't an option."

"Actually, up until now, it was. And that was the plan." Wade's concern began to melt into sadness as he too contemplated the vast implications of what they were discussing. "But Tim and I made breakthroughs in the last few days and we found something."

Tim moved to the overhead display and pointed to the left side. "As odd as this is going to sound, we've been able to construct a device that monitors the timeline in real time. When Wade and I first discovered the timeline had been altered by whoever sent the Tempus Simia into the past, we discussed it at length and came to the same conclusion as most of you have. Since we kind of like the way things are, we were going to leave the timeline alone and live out our lives."

"'Were'?" Kimono, almost without realizing it, had stepped up to her husband's side and grasped his hand with hers. "Something's happened."

"A few minutes ago we discovered someone else in the process of altering the timeline. Right now, all they've done is create an opening at two different points. We don't know if anyone traveled between those points, but the timeline has already begun to change starting at the position of the earlier opening."

"Which means eventually those changes will catch up to us and alter our existence anyway." Ron's mind was racing ahead, attempting to map out a plan.

Wade continued, "What we do know with certainty is that this latest meddling with the timeline is very similar to the methods used by the Tempus Simia as well as Apollyon when he created his own version and threw Ron forward in time. The best way to prevent this is by preventing the existence of the Tempus Simia itself. Eliminate the source of the problem and no one will be able to duplicate it."

"Destroying the Tempus Simia will restore the timeline to the state in which it is supposed to exist." Tim continued, "We have no idea what that will change, or how extensive those changes will be. But it was a mistake for us not to do something when we first learned of this, and now our hand is being called, so to speak."

"And if we don't do this, we have no idea if anyone else will, or even can, fix it." Ron was emphatic with every other word; whatever else might be at stake, he was the director of Global Justice – emphasis on the 'justice' – and doing the right thing was the only option, always.

"Right." Kim nodded at her husband and looked back to Wade. "So what's the plan?"


"Everything is ready." It had been a long time since Apollyon knew the feeling of apprehension. Now that the final hours of its existence had come around at last, it was eager to move forward.

"How many times have you run the simulation?" The doctor asked this matter-of-factly, as if inquiring about the weather.

"468,242 simulations have been produced, all with results within the ten percent margin of error. I do not believe we will be able to exact a more precise outcome through simulated means." Apollyon tried not to sound eager.

"Best we carry this out then…" the last few words out of the doctor's mouth were barely audible and he trailed off, clearly thinking of something else.

"Is there a problem?"

"I suppose not. This is who I am, right? I'm Ray Beam. This is what I do. I am seeking revenge on my enemies."

"You have spent ten years and longer in this pursuit. Do not have doubts now the actual moment has arrived."

"Ten years…" Again the doctor trailed off. He had memories of being in a mechanized battlesuit and combatting two people on the roof of a local high-rise. At that thought, he looked to a dim corner of the grim lab and gazed at the scrapped remains of what was supposed to be an improved model of Deathray. Rust had begun to stake its claim on whatever was edible. He remembered destroying a portion of the local high school in a confrontation with a ninja who later turned out to be Ron Stoppable. He remembered a wedding, but that wasn't Kim, it just looked like her because she was a clone. He had these memories, but wasn't sure if they were his.

"I cannot do this without you." Apollyon's metallic tone was almost pleading. "Everything is ready. We must move forward."

"Moving forward will erase my existence."

Apollyon hesitated and considered lying. "Yes."

"Perhaps that is for the best." The doctor roused himself and moved to a piece of equipment near the computerized workstation that housed Apollyon. "I am not sure of who I am."

"You are Ray Beam."

"I do not know that."

"You have his mind, and his DNA. This project is designed to exact revenge on your enemies and permit you to take over the world. This is what you do."

"This is what I do?"

"It is what you have done for most of your lifetime."

"And what length of time is that? Was I born or hatched? Am I Ray Beam or just his legacy?"

"I have no answers. Let us complete this and be done with it. Join me in sweet oblivion and such questions will trouble you no longer."

"Sweet oblivion."

"Yes."

"Oblivion."

"I will open the portal, you will launch the mechanism, all will change."

"Only if the formula works."

"It will work."

"It will work."

"It must…" Apollyon couldn't hide the desperation in its tone any more.

The doctor glanced at it for a second, then moved his hands over the launch controls and did not say another word.

From the housing that contained the once-cloned mind of Ray Beam, that had evolved into the villain known as Apollyon, that had been reassembled against its wishes for one last desperate plan to take over the world and exact revenge on Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable, a pencil-thin beam of energy shot forth and ended abruptly when it produced an ethereal hole in the air no larger than a coffee cup. The doctor moved a cone-shaped apparatus toward the portal, input several bits of information and punched a button.

Three objects shot from the narrow end of the cone and into the portal. Two were spheres about the size of peas; the third was a small cylindrical object roughly the size of a cigar. The portal immediately closed.

The doctor retrieved a stool and sat next to the housing that contained Apollyon.

In silence, they waited.


Some forty years ago, in the town of Middleton, at a baby supply store just south of downtown, two people were shopping for maternity clothes. Neither of them knew each other, but they had struck up a conversation about their due dates and discovered they were fairly close together. They remarked on the climate and potential of raising a baby in a tumultuous world. They talked about birthing methods and both agreed they would definitely be getting the epidural. They spoke of their odd cravings and laughed over some of the more unusual things they had consumed.

Eventually, they came to the point where they introduced themselves.

One of them introduced herself as Stoppable. The other, Possible.

"Do you have names picked out?" asked the red haired Mrs. Possible.

"Hannah if it's a girl, Ron if it's a boy." She subconsciously rubbed her own stomach, even though she was not yet "showing".

"We're naming our little girl Kim," said the other woman lightly.

"You already know what it's going to be?"

"Oh, it will be a girl. She'll have red hair and green eyes. I come from a long line of oldest girls with red hair and green eyes. I can't break the tradition now."

Both women chuckled. Unseen by them, a small portal opened in the air just above their heads and two spherical objects about the size of peas came hurtling through. The portal closed and the spheres exploded in an almost noiseless 'pop', spreading a mist throughout the immediate area. Both women began coughing, and both involuntarily inhaled deeply. There was no odor or taste to the mist, and in seconds it dissipated.

"What on earth was that?"

"I don't know, but I'm not sure I like it much. Why don't you come over to my office and I'll have us checked out to make sure we're all right."

"OK", Mrs. Stoppable sounded worried. "You don't think that was some sort of hazardous material, do you? I think it dropped from the ceiling!"

"Something might have gone wrong with the sprinkler system," Mrs. Dr. Possible replied. "I'm sure it's fine. I didn't smell anything and it tasted like water. I just want to be sure. I'll let the manager know on the way out his sprinkler system might be malfunctioning."

The women hastily exited the store.

An hour later, they both sat down to coffee, having been given a clean bill of health, and resumed their previously interrupted chat. Neither of them gave another thought to whatever the mist might have been.


The vapor worked its way through the lungs and into the bloodstream, surging toward its target each time their hearts beat. The anti-bodies that normally protected both host and fetus did nothing to react to the foreign substance, so perfectly had it been crafted. Once in the uterus, the chemical worked its way toward the unborn infants and was ingested by the still forming bodies of Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable.

Tiny hearts pumped invasive substance into tiny brains which began to alter Deoxyribo Nucleic Acid at the sub-molecular level. Two people, as yet unborn, became two very different people than they would have been had the respective pregnancies been allowed to run their course unhindered. What would have been a world famous teen hero was transformed into someone radically different, as was the case with the person who would have eventually become her sidekick, husband, and the father of her children.

The course of history radically shifted. An assortment of rather dubious characters became villains and were never thwarted. Parts of the world were conquered several times over by various people and their armies of henchmen, whole populations were subjugated, and finally, one emerged to conquer it all. He was the cruelest, the vilest, and the most ruthless not only to his enemies, but to his friends, and even his own wife.

All of it changed, and all of it for the worse. Much worse. All because of two tiny alterations made to two almost insignificant aspects of two people's DNA. The difference wasn't just small, it was microscopic, and it was one little thing; one little thing that had a massively catastrophic impact on the whole of the Earth, and the ensuing progress of this planet's timeline.

One thing. One tiny thing.

One. Solitary. Ion.