SideTrekked: "...Where No Man Has Gone Before"
"Homeward"
OOOOOwhooshOOOOO
"That's it buddy, you can do it!" urged the boy, his eyes following the crawling mass of pink as it inched across the stone floor. "Come on, Rufus! Only… six more feet to go."
That last part probably would've sounded much more encouraging if the cage the hairless rodent had been trapped in wasn't about six feet and two inches away from where he was chained to the wall.
"Yeah… this could take a while."
His bucktoothed friend obviously hadn't fully recovered from his last few sleepless nights playing nursemaid at Ron's bedside. Even though he seemed to be moving at sub-glacier speeds, it was hard to resent the little guy for it. Besides, it gave him time to think about the past few minutes.
After Shego had… finished up, he'd found himself staring at the young woman he'd long considered to be his girlfriend. At least, he'd thought it was her. There was a passing resemblance, certainly. Of course, some part of him was still holding out hope that Drakken had replaced his Kim with one of those clones, the ones that had their brains hard wired with that sociopath poodle, Commodore Puddles. She'd definitely given off a steady Puddles vibe right then.
The most notable thing right off the bat was her coloring. He'd spent more than half his lifetime making his mental image of her, a process helped along by her almost constant companionship, her penchant for sleeveless belly shirts or short cheerleader skirts, and one totally accidental glimpse he'd gotten when he accidentally wandered into the wrong locker room, completely by accident. All in all, he felt like he knew the full palette. Not so. There'd been a shade of red spreading across her face that had nothing to do with embarrassment, which was slowly shifting to a shade of purple that'd only look healthy on Shego's brother. The whiny one with the useless shrinking power. Her fists had clenched tighter and tighter until the whiteness spread from her knuckles, down her fingers and back across her hand, creeping towards the wrist. Ron wasn't even sure if that was biologically possible but, then again, "check the name".
Her expression, on the other hand, was one that he knew very well. It's not the kind of face that you'd forget. The last time her face had worn that expression, she'd kicked someone. Off of a roof. Into a metal structure. Breaking said metal structure. It was then that he'd come to a rather startling revelation.
He was the only one within kicking distance.
Unconsciously, he'd started shuffling his feet in the opposite direction from the dangerously quiet redhead. A sharp metallic sound froze him in place, terrified that he'd rattled his chains and shifted her attention back to him. Very quickly, though, he had noticed the source of the sound hadn't been his chains. It'd been hers. Another hard clink. Another. This time, he'd distinctly heard a straining groan, but not the kind you'd think. Another click and the groan had been longer but just as shrill. Then, in a move that'd made Ron's eyes bug out the size of tennis balls, she'd been falling forward before she caught herself on her hands and knees, the only noise coming from the now loose chains whipping the stone floor fast and hard enough to send up a small spray of pebbles on either side of her. He'd looked up in total disbelief at the small remnants of chain still hanging on the wall. Sure they'd been rusty, but still…
In a slow, fluid motion, she'd brought herself back up to her feet, the lengths of chain scraping against the ground even after she was at her full height. They'd continued to drag along the ground when she had started walking towards the door. She hadn't said a word, hadn't looked at Ron once. About halfway across the room, she'd stopped. He'd been terrified that she was going to turn around. She hadn't. Instead, she'd lifted her left hand in front of her. With her right hand she'd grabbed the dangling chain and slowly, methodically had begun wrapping it around her left hand. That hadn't really made Ron feel any safer. Once she'd finished, her left hand was practically cocooned in the metal links. It wasn't until she'd knelt down that he'd realized that she was right next to Rufus' cage, the tiny captive still sound asleep. Almost faster than Ron's eyes could follow, she'd slammed the mass of chain against the top of the cage, denting it and bowing the bars so badly that the cage door couldn't take the pressure, popping off like a champagne cork. Rufus had twitched at this and had looked around for a full two seconds before rolling over into a snoring ball yet again. Without another word or even a look over her shoulder, she'd stood up again and walked out the door, slamming it behind her.
Now, after a little more than twenty minutes of shouting the little guy's name and promising at least twelve different kinds of cheese, Ron was finally seeing some results. Very slow results that… had apparently passed out again.
"RUFUS!"
Yep, he had plenty of time to think.
OOOOOwhooshOOOOO
"Hey! She can't do that! Can she?"
"I think she just did, Mr. Luloni," the captain answered. "Not that I have any idea how she did it."
"The moorings," offered the navigator, quickly. "Hers weren't as strong as ours. Got to be…"
"There was a notable discrepancy in the structural integrity of the fastened mooring lines," said Frege without taking his eyes off of his console.
"See, there you go," Propriov smirked. "Big round of applause for Commander Varicose, everybody!"
"The mooring lines anchoring the Ron Stoppable show a minimum of 27 percent greater damage from ferric oxidation," the Science Officer answered, blandly.
"You are so lucky I don't feel safe leaving my chair anymore, Frege," the other officer growled, bitterly turning back to monitor the Rufus' progress.
"I said I was sorry, Yakov," the helmsman muttered sadly.
"And I've been telling you that you were sorry for years," grunted Propriov. "Not exactly earth shattering to hear you admit it on your own. The only difference is now you've got some serious competition for the title of sorriest waste of space on this ship."
"Really?" Luloni asked, you could swear he almost sounded a little disappointed. "Who?"
"Mr. Last-of-the-Neurons over there, now that we know some little systems glitch can bend him over and show him who wears the daddy pants. Hey, Frege! You any closer to figuring it out yet?"
"My examination of the embedded protocol has been temporarily suspended, Lieutenant." Frege answered, though he showed no signs of even slowing down as his hands continued to fly over the control panel. "Once the Shego released us, it immediately resumed its dormancy. In order recover it, I must either wait for the specific conditions that activated it to begin with or manually call up all existing programs in the core memory and inspect them for evidence of similar code parameters, with which I am currently engaged."
"You'd better keep at it, Mr. Frege," said Haupt, speaking a bit more gently than his navigator. "We can't afford to let the ship be disabled like that again. I doubt I'm the only one that hated feeling so completely helpless."
"Like any of us had time to feel helpless?" Propriov shot back. "We were all to busy feeling everything we ate in the last 72 hours clawing its way back up. Unless, of course, you're talking about that chain thing, because that totally left me wondering why we even bother following that crazy chick around. No offense, Sofie."
"That's very interesting…" the Counselor said, smirking. "I wouldn't think a simple display of the Kim's capabilities would be able to affect you so much. Though those kinds of feelings of inadequacy would explain why you're constantly lashing out verbally at everyone around you. No offense, Yako."
"Oh, ouch," the navigator gripped his chest in mock pain. "Didn't know you ever brought out the claws for anybody but the Cap. Hey, does that mean you wanna sit on my lap next?"
Sofia was about to respond when she suddenly realized why he'd asked. Turning her head slowly, she saw that the captain had come to very much the same conclusion. That much was easy to see because their faces were now barely inches apart. After all the shaking, she hadn't exactly been eager to stand up again right away. Then, when she'd recovered, the Kim's actions followed by the conversations on the bridge had been enough to keep her distracted. It was a totally rational excuse… for why she was currently warming her commanding officer's lap with her finely-toned fanny.
She practically leapt off of the captain's thighs, blushing to the roots of her dark hair. Looking down, she kept her eyes glued to her uniform as she straightened it again, not daring to look any of her crewmates in the face quite yet. A quick, accidental glance behind her revealed that the legendary Richard C. Haupt was reddening just as bad as she was.
"Mr. Propriov may have hit on a good point, Counselor," Capt. Haupt managed weakly, still nowhere near willing to make eye contact with anyone, especially the lady officer he was addressing. "Even for the Kim, that was an unusual show of force. Can you think of any glutes, CLUES! Clues, I mean. Can you think of any clues as to how she managed to do something like that… is what I wanted to ask you."
"Smooth, Captain. I'd even go so far as saying that was as smooth as a baby's--"
"Shut up, Mr. Propriov."
Some distance away, a solitary figure sat in absolute silence. The bare walls of his chamber, though many would mistake the room for a hallway because of its long, narrow shape despite having a door at only one end, were really colored a gleaming white but the clinging darkness kept the scenery a dull gray. His seat, which could just as easily be called a throne, was as far from the stretched football-shaped entryway as possible, nearly touching the rounded wall behind him. The distance was intentional, giving anyone who dared to approach a great deal of time to contemplate the worst. If the frail, trembling creature cowering in the doorway was any indication, it was working.
"Approach," the seated one croaked, sending a fresh batch of shivers through his visitor.
It had the desired effect. The fear of disobedience immediately overrode the fear of being unwelcome, worn boots pattering and skidding across the floor in his hurry. He stopped a good short of the seat, dropping to one knee with his bulbous head bowed low.
"Y-you do me great honor, my Commander, in granting me audience," he said, hurriedly.
"I do no sssuch thing," said the rasping, airy voice with words that dug into the chest like spear points. "On your feet."
Sweating freely now, he scrambled back up. His thin, serpentine tail hanging limp behind him apart from the occasional twitch.
"Closssser."
With a gulp, he took a single step forward. The look in the Commander's eye made it clear that it wasn't nearly close enough. Shuffling and dragging his feet, he narrowed the gap between them until he could've reached out and taken hold of his superior's tail as it writhed languidly over the left arm of the chair.
"Ssspeak."
"Of c-course, Eldest," he managed, what little remaining courage he had swallowed up by that grimly focused eye. "The Brotherhood… w-we… they… the Brotherhood has called upon me to voice their concerns. The recent--"
A raised hand returned him to terrified silence.
"What the Brotherhood hasss… isss doubtsssss," the Commander corrected, almost gently, as one might explain to a child. "Life isss brief, wyrmling. Lying to one who already knowsss the truth isss pointlesssss. Choose your wordsss with greater care."
"I… The Brotherhood…"
"hasss…?"
"The Brotherhood has… doubts, Commader," his voice was a small, quivering thing. "Some have even begun to doubt that the Awakening… a small section of our forces believe it won't come about at all. When the Emperor failed to respond to the Verdant Goddess' touch, there was AACK--"
Long fingers gripped like steel cables. Jagged nails bit into the soft flesh of his throat as he felt his heels start to lift off the ground. The Eldest's face wasn't twisted in anger, his eye was steady but clear. His expression hadn't changed at all, but the pressure on the squirming creature's throat got his message across very clearly.
"You were warned," he said, icily. "Sssspeak again, and ssspeak true."
"W-when…" he struggled, as much for breath as for the "truth" his Commander was demanding. "When the Goddess failed! When the Goddess… urg… failed to awaken the Emperor…"
His airway opened again and he rocked back on his heels, not daring to stumble and fall for fear of angering the Eldest further. The threatening hand withdrew much slower than it'd struck.
"The othersss make you ssspeak for them," he hissed, the edge rising in his voice. "They make you their mouth, ssso you will carry my wordsss back to them. Our glorioussss Emperor will rissssse! It isss inevitable. As sssure the ebb and flow of the Golden Tide. The Verdant Goddesssss proved an unworthy vesssel for Hissss power."
"But… the coming of the Goddess…"
"Wasss a sssign of Hissss return," he said before the other could finish. "Nothing more. Did you think He would ever sssettle for anything lessss than the ultimate conquessst?"
"You don't mean…" it was difficult to even consider it, let alone form the words.
"'Lo, the chainsss that bind fall away. The All-Father awakenssss to sssstand and sssstretch and reach into Heaven for one who would be, to Him, a light unto Hissss purposssse.' The Eldessst of Eldessstsss knew, even from the firssst, that she would be our dessstiny."
"… The Angel of Sunfire."
"Ourssss by rightssss, wyrmling. We ssshall not be denied!"
OOOOOwhooshOOOOO
"Yep, there's no use denying it. Kim's never gonna want to come near me again."
The tiny head tilted and beady black eyes shone with sympathy as he pat his human gently on the cheek.
"Awww." His recent power nap leaving him with a small surplus of energy, Rufus was out of Ron's pocket and onto his shoulder where he could comfort him more easily.
"I mean it's not like I can blame her," said Ron glumly. "I'm damaged goods. My girlfriend has one nemesis… Well, two if you count Bonnie, which she does. And she's been all over me twice now, what with the naco royalties in junior year and last fall with the Homecoming Queen thing. It's like I'm catnip for girls that hate Kim's guts! Hey, do you think Tara or Yori had it in for her, too? Maybe my parents have some super secret feud with the Possibles, and they're only pretending to like me so they can send me over to Kim's house then extract information from me in my sleep! AAARGH! MY PARENTS TURNED ME INTO A DOUBLE AGENT!"
From his perch on Ron's shoulder, Rufus sighed and did his best to make himself comfy. He knew from a lifetime's worth of experience that living with the boy meant having to listen to a rant or two. Or fifty. This new development with Kim and the green lady was important. He knew it. He knew Ron knew it. Eventually, the conversation would find its way back to that, but first they'd have to take this little detour through the familiar territory of paranoid delusion. It was halfway through a speech about the Fifth Amendment and radio transmitters in dental fillings when Ron completely forgot about where he was going. Figuratively and literally.
"Stupid evil lairs…" he muttered in frustration. "All these hallways look the same. And why am I in such a hurry, anyway? She's not gonna be happy to see me. Whenever she looks at me, all she's gonna see is Shego doing… things. I wouldn't blame her if she never wanted to see me again."
"Hnn? Nuh-uh. Nuh-uh!"
"That's nice of you to say, buddy. But, I don't see how-- mmmrrrph" Ron suddenly found himself silenced by the grip of deceptively strong little claws.
"Grrr. Unh-uh," the rodent insisted scowling up at his human for even thinking such a thing. "Chippy."
"Chippy?" Ron asked with his newly freed lips. "Wasn't that the name of that monkey that wore Kim's Nana dress when she had her DNA all messed up by that weirdo Monkey King necklace? What does that have to do with…? Wait a sec, you're trying to remind me that when I thought that little monkey was KP, it didn't matter that I wanted to run away screaming and hurl my guts every time I looked at it. You're saying that if somebody as screwed up as me can get past the monkey pain back before we were even dating, a girlfriend as amazing as Kim can handle it no problem. Rufus, when we get out of here, I'm gonna have Wade scan you for leftovers from that project Phoebus thing 'cause you are a genius!"
"Hee… Shucks," Rufus beamed, his front legs crossed behind him while left hind leg scuffed a tiny circle on Ron's shoulder. He relished in the easy praise Ron would often give him, making the almost never-ending chore of caring for his human that much more rewarding. Not that it made it any easier, especially when it came to the mood swings.
The fact that the boy could go so quickly from laughter to tears to hysterical panic, occasionally all in the same sentence, had the little pink guy checking his neck for Moodulators about as often as Ron had checked Kim right after their junior prom. Which was another thing that just about drove the mole rat almost past the brink, the idea that the only way a girl like her could ever like him was mind control.
Ron's self-image was skewed to the point of being a total paradox. He'd brag about how well he could dance, his status with the ladies, and his "mad fu skillz" without a lick of truth to back any of it up, but try to talk to him about something he was actually good at and he'd downplay it in a heartbeat. How was it even possible to suffer from an over-inflated ego and low self-esteem simultaneously? Rufus hadn't missed when Ron had called himself "screwed up," but hadn't seen the point in arguing when he'd obviously bounced back from his pity fiesta.
While there was still plenty of room for improvement, he was only one rodent, after all. Even though he hated to think of anything so mushy, he almost wished his humans would just get it over with and mate already, if only on the off chance that being with a female for that length of time without a coupling was the root of Ron's problems. He knew that, if he'd lived in a colony instead of a pocket, hanging out with the Queen for more than a decade without a single litter of pups to show for it would not have done wonders for his sanity.
"Hey… um, think you can use some of that genius to figure out where the heck we are?" Ron's sheepish request broke Rufus off the less than wholesome tangent he'd been on.
Go time. He looked around carefully, using the same instincts to judge his position in the maze of nearly identical hallways that would have been used to navigate tunnels in the wild. Tunnels that led to the Queen and her big, comfy breeding chamber where two mole rats could…
Rufus growled and shook his head furiously. Quickly, he chattered out a set of directions, telling Ron to turn around and take the left hallway at the T junction, before scampering down the black mission shirt, across the pant leg, and back into warmth and security of the cargo pocket. He was especially thankful for the fact that his human shared his gift for extra-species language. Having to point and grunt like he would for any other human would have kept him out on that shoulder way too long, and he was sure his little rodent brain would've blown a fuse if he had. After all that female contact, it was like the boy was drenched in pheromones.
"Oh, so that's why they call it a 'T junction,' it's shaped like a big 'T,'" Ron mused out loud before taking the left. "You know, they can make you study a thing for hours in Driver's Ed, but until you see it for yourself, you're never gonna understand…"
The short hallway had opened out into the main chamber, but the sidekick wasn't moving. Wondering about the delay, Rufus popped his naked little head out for a look. His bucktooth mouth dropped open a good three inches which, for a six-inch mole rat, is very impressive.
"Eep," was all he said before diving back into Ron's pocket, curling into a shivering pink ball.
"Yeah," said Ron, still transfixed by what he was seeing. "I'd say 'eep' pretty much covers it."
OOOOOwhooshOOOOO
"Who… wha… how…?"
"Three excellent questions, Mr. Luloni," Capt. Haupt mused, hardly believing what he saw on the view screen. "Anyone happen to have an answer?"
"That depends," the navigator said, guardedly. "Do you think we were out of commission long enough to miss World War III?"
The captain looked at him for a moment, arching an eyebrow, before slowly shaking his head.
"Then I got nothing," finished Propriov, returning focus to his instruments.
OOOOOwhooshOOOOO
Timidly, Ron took a few steps into the lair. The place looked like it'd been hit by a tornado, a tornado that had decided to back up and hit it a few more times, just to make sure it hadn't missed anything. All around him, the ground was littered with dented metal, bits of glass, obliterated computer parts, and even a few pieces of the weird pointy rock formations that, now that he thought about it, shouldn't have even been there at all considering the lair was inside a building.
The giant computer terminals, at least the ones that were still standing, looked like Swiss cheese, or would have if the holes in Swiss cheese typically spat out 10,000 volts of electricity at random. A little further into the lair, he noticed the platform where he'd seen the shipping crate with the missing parts. The crate wasn't there and, apparently, its last act of life had been to give birth to about half a million baby toothpicks. As for the cutting edge components inside…
"I guess it's a good thing nobody wanted any of this stuff back," he said, picking up a piece of tech so trashed he doubted Frugal Lucre would even bother dumpster diving for it.
OOOOOwhooshOOOOO
"…And we're sure that no part of the ship came in contact with a self-destruct button?" The captain's question was directed to the Communication's officer behind him, though his eyes never left the view screen.
"I've confirmed it with both hands, both elbows, the legs, I've even asked Duff," answered Lt. Indlebe, knowing Haupt expected that level of thoroughness from his crew, though he could count on one hand the number of times the aft decks had initiated a destruct sequence.
"Captain, I have analyzed the impact patterns in the surrounding debris," the Science Officer offered. "The lack of scorch markings is inconsistent with lair self-destruction commands. All evidence points to blunt force, specifically an accelerated high-density material. The indentations show a single line with rounded areas at an interval of 4.27 centimeters."
"Right…" the captain appeared to meditate on this for a moment. "What would you say the chances are that the 'impacts' were caused by someone swinging around a length of chain?"
"Approximately 93.86 percent, Captain," Frege answered instantly, calculating the odds in his head at lightning speed. "That is, indeed, a logical assessment."
"Wow, Captain," the helmsman gaped. "You guessed it just from what Frege said?"
"Actually," Sofia responded with a ghost of a smile, "I think it had more to do with the fact that the Kim happened to have two lengths of chain attached to her wrists the last time we saw her."
"Whoa, hold it right there!" Indlebe spoke up defensively. "You're not suggesting the Kim is capable of this kind of devastation."
"Actually, Rae'Kwon, I think 'devastation' is the key word here," Haupt said sadly. "She had a front row seat to… I just think we should be thankful she didn't decide to take out her frustrations on the ship."
Counselor Sofia was beside herself. In all her time aboard the Ron, she'd never seen Capt. Haupt display that level of empathic thought. Well, except for when she'd first found herself on board. He'd been so considerate of her feelings, making her feel more at home than she'd even thought possible. She'd felt such a connection to him then.
"I think it's obvious that our best course of action is to find the Kim and explain that whatever the Shego did, it didn't mean anything," the captain finished, confidently.
And then he'd started saying things like that.
"Captain Haupt," she said, sending him a warning glare. "I'm not sure it would be in anybody's best interest to immediately mention anything having to do with--"
"The Drakken!"
"Um… no," Sofia turned, confused, to Propriov after his outburst. "I was actually talking about the Shego."
"And I was actually tuning you out," the navigator said, sounding hurried but still taking the time to be snide. "I've spotted the Drakken and the red shirts."
"Damn," the captain said, paling slightly as he imagined what might have happened while they'd been inoperative. "I'd forgotten all about them. Are they…?"
"They're in the right amount of pieces, Sir, don't worry about that," Propriov reassured him. "Looks like the Kim decided to take everything out on the scenery and left them alone."
"So they're all still fuctioning," Haupt said, relieved. The Kim breaking some equipment was one thing, taking other ships out of commission was something completely different.
"Yeah, so far as the scanners can tell, but there's something else," he answered, squinting at the monitor in front him. "They're in some kind of formation. I think I recognize it, but I can't be sure."
"Run it through the system, Mr. Propriov," Haupt said, secretly glad to be back in the familiar territory of giving orders and having them obeyed. "I'll get Spines to cross-reference it with the ship's memory. In the meantime, Mr. Luloni, see if you can get us a little closer."
The men snapped to their orders, as a comfortable silence fell over the bridge. This recent… brush with the Shego had left the whole crew feeling helpless. And it wasn't the constant helplessness that they'd come to expect from being onboard what was essentially a civilian ship repeatedly thrown into daredevil maneuvers and live combat, they were used to that. Haupt was basking in the lack of tension when Hatfield's voice squawked through his COM system.
"I had to open some old files, but I found the formation," he informed the captain, smugly. "I've patched it through to the navigator's station so he can confirm."
"Thanks, Spines," said Haupt, impressed. "That was fast."
"'Fast' he says," Spines huffed. "Of course it was fast. You finally managed to ask me about something we actually had in the archives. You'd be surprised what kind of speedy service you get when you're not asking me to cut and paste you a copy of War and Peace when all I got down here are the Sunday Funnies. Hatfield out."
Capt. Haupt chuckled a bit at his old friend's rant before lifting his head to check the navigator's progress. Propriov seemed to have gotten the data, judging from the look of concentration on his face, but that looked like it was quickly fading into disbelief.
"What is it, Mr. Propriov?" he asked. "Can you confirm Hatfield's read on the formation?"
"Oh, I confirmed it, alright, Captain," the lieutenant said, wearily. "And it makes perfect sense, considering I just remembered the last place I saw it."
"And where was that?" the captain pressed, curious.
"Middleton Daycare Center," he answered, before taking a moment to massage his temples in a vain attempt to ward off the fast approaching migraine.
"Middleton Daycare…? You..." Haupt stared up at the exterior feed in disbelief. "Are you telling me that formation…?"
"Duck, Duck, Goose," deadpanned the navigator. "And, yes, that's the Drakken there in the Mush Pot."
OOOOOwhooshOOOOO
Cautiously, Ron made his way towards the grown men sitting quietly in a circle. If any of them acknowledged his presence it was with a slight turn of the head to see him better before staring back into space. Drakken didn't even bother to look up, he just sat there glaring sourly at nothing.
"So… yeah," Ron spoke up, the dead silence finally getting to him. "I'd file this one under 'foiled plots,' am I right?"
No one spoke up. The blue villain showed no sign of even having heard him.
"Not that this wasn't one of your better ones," he continued. "Real criminal mastermind stuff. I give you an 'A' for creativity."
Nothing. Not even a twitch from Drakken. Ron frowned, his usual nervousness around the hired muscle fleeing as he stepped past them into the middle of the group.
"So, what is this? I don't think we ever actually stuck around this long after beating you before. Is this like some kind of bad guy tradition? Power circle, maybe? Anybody, feel free to jump in with an explanation. Hello? Buffoon in the dark over here. What, is it 'share time' and nobody remembered to bring the Talking Stick?"
With a sigh of frustration, he crouched down directly in front of the silent scientist and stared him straight in the eye. Their faces were inches away, but his blank scowl gave no indication that there was anything more that empty air in front of him. Ron brought up a hand and waved it in his face, which was soon followed by the other hand. Irritation mounting, he stretched his arms wide before clapping them loudly back together inches away from Drakken's nose. He thought he saw a flinch, but realized it'd just been the shadows from his hands.
"Drakken? Dr. Drakken?" he decided to see if adding the bogus title would help. Nope. "Um… Dr. D? Let's see… Doc? Dr. Lipsky? Drew? Great Blue?"
As Ron looked up, trying to remember if there were any other names Drakken might answer to, he failed to notice a single, pulsing vein that was growing steadily on the not-so-good doctor's forehead. He also missed the faint squeaking of rubber on rubber as Drakken clenched his less than impressive hands into even less impressive fists.
"Um…" Ron continued, still oblivious, "… Drewbie?"
"grrrrRRRRRRRAARGH!!!" Drakken's face twisted in anger as he grabbed fistfuls of his spiky black hair and yanked. "YOU INSUFFERABLE LACKWIT! HOW ANY ONE HUMAN BEING COULD BE SO MIND-NUMBINGLY AGGRAVATING IS BEYOND oops…"
Startled by Drakken's sudden explosion, Ron had jumped slightly at the shout and fell inelegantly on his butt. As he sat there contemplating the implications of something being "beyond oops," he noticed that the now trembling Drakken had clamped both hands tightly over his mouth and that he seemed to be turning a slightly paler shade of blue.
"I KNOW I DIDN"T JUST HEAR SOMEBODY TALKING DURING QUIET TIME!"
Her footsteps sounded so much louder than her size should have been able to produce. With every step, the rusted chains slung over her shoulder jangled softly. Idly, Ron wondered if she'd found the keys for the manacles, used one of Wade's gadgets to zap them, or if she'd just reached down and ripped them off once they'd started to get in the way.
"I didn't want to talk, I swear!" Drakken pleaded, rising to his knees and clasping his hands in front of him. "He made me do it! He just went on and on, I couldn't take it anym--"
She silenced him with a glare that Barkin would've, and possibly had, killed for. When she spoke again, her voice didn't sound angry so much as hollow.
"She's gone."
"You see, I was telling the truth!" said Drakken, hopefully. "She left just before you broke loose. So, believe me when I say that I have no idea where she is. I mean, does Shego seem like the type to tell her employer the names of the clubs she frequents? Of course not! I could be bleeding in a ditch somewhere and she'd never know. I ask you, where is the loyalty, where is the--"
"Ranting," she interrupted him, quietly but giving off a palpable wave of murderous intent. "Stop. I went to her room. Wasn't much to break. Broke it anyway."
"Yes, well that seems fair," Drakken nodded in answer.
"Then I went to your room. There was a lot more to break in there."
"Oh…" he deflated a bit. "You didn't happen to… was there anything… ? Not that I could blame you, but did you manage find enough mercy in your heart not to…?"
"I didn't touch your teddy bear," she answered after he trailed off, ignoring the relieved smile on his face. "I'm angry. Not evil."
"Of course. So, I take it you'll be leaving, then?"
"We're taking the last hovercar," Ron relaxed slightly at the first mention of "we," glad she wasn't planning on leaving him behind.
"The last…" Drakken mentally pieced it together. "You destroyed them, didn't you? Aren't we the busy little bee?"
He smiled weakly. If Kim found any amusement in his analogy, she didn't show it. She shot a look at Ron and gestured with her head for him to follow, then turned and started walking. Drakken felt a sharp tug at his shoulder that nearly toppled him over as the sidekick used him as leverage to scramble up to his feet. The buffoon almost collided with her when she stopped. She didn't turn around as she spoke.
"I expect a call from GJ tomorrow morning telling me that you and your lackeys turned yourselves in."
"Now see here, Kim Possible!" he shouted at her back before he could stop himself.
He watched fearfully as the tension spread from her shoulders to her neck and out to all her extremities. At that moment, he'd have been willing to give up the whole world just to keep that slender, teenaged cheerleader from turning around.
"See what?"
"Global Justice is a government agency," he continued, trying desperately to mask his mistake by matching the previous indignant tone in his voice. "Do you honestly believe there are government employees working that early on a Saturday? I think not! However, I would be willing to use my one phone call to let you know the details of my arrest, provided that you promise to immediately phone my mother and let her know I'll be needing the family lawyer again."
Silently thanking whatever patron saint looked after super villains, he saw the girl's muscles relax slightly.
"I'll get Wade to do it," she said dismissively before she started walking again, the buffoon following close at her heels.
"Well?" Drakken looked expectantly at his hired help. "You heard the lady. Get up! The communications array is currently a pile of scrap metal so, if we want to contact Global Justice tonight, we'll have to go out and find a payphone. Now, does anyone have any change?"
Following Kim through a slightly mangled pair of doors, Ron found himself in the hangar area of the lair. Or, at least, what used to be a hangar. Except for one untouched hovercar in the corner, there wasn't anything in the cavernous room that would ever be considered skyworthy again. Wordlessly, they climbed into the rounded vehicle and her Kimmunicator was out and routed through the hovercar's systems.
"Kim!?! Are you guys okay?" a thoroughly freaked Wade Load brought his face right up to the in-dash screen. "I've been trying to reach you for hours! If I hadn't heard from you in the next… thirty-six minutes, I would've called everybody from GJ to Yamanouchi to your mom to storm in there and get you."
"We need a ride home," she said, ignoring his concern. "Can you hack one of Drakken's hovercars?"
"I… well, yeah. Sure," answered Wade, hesitantly.
From his room, he did a quick study of her face. Her expression was just about unreadable. He'd seen her tired before, lots of times. This was different. She looked like she'd had the life drained right out of her.
"Kim, is something wrong?" he asked. "Did something happen to Ron? His ch… his you-know-what is still giving off a clear signal."
"We're fine," she snapped before she managed to compose herself again. "Just… get us home, okay?"
"Okay. I'll have you back in a few minutes. Are you sure nothing--"
"I think we should maintain radio silence on the way back," she cut his question short. "So you can focus on your driving."
Before he could respond, she flipped a switch and cut the visual feed. Back at his computer, Wade ran stubby fingers through his tangled hair. He'd been worrying himself half to death over his three best friends and now Kim was shutting him out. He knew he shouldn't take it personally, that it had nothing to do with him and everything to do with the mission, but it hurt just the same. With a sigh, he pressed a few keys and brought out his Wadebot joystick while, miles away, the hovercar's engines roared to life. Another combination of keystrokes opened the outer doors and, using readouts from the craft's navigation equipment, guided them out into the night sky.
For a few minutes, Ron tried to distract himself by looking at the passing scenery over the side of the hovercar. Despite what most people thought, he wasn't acrophobic. Really, the only thing about heights that scared him was jumping from them. The moon was big that night, and they were far enough from any big cities that the stars were dotting almost every square inch of the sky. In the soft light, even the sparse landscape they were flying over looked pretty. He didn't even want to think about how beautiful his girlfriend looked in this ethereal glow. Eventually, he'd had more than enough, so he turned to her.
Beautiful? That went without saying. She sat there, shoulders slack and eyes closed. As the moonlight brushed along the edges of her face, Ron's heart felt like it was caught in a vice. She was sadness, or at least the perfect picture of it. He had to do something. Say something…
"KP… I didn't want to--"
"I know," she spoke without looking at him, or even opening her eyes. "She's got powers, and you were chained to a wall. There's nothing you could've done. She was going to get what she wanted."
"Then, why…?" his unfinished question hung there in space for a few moments.
"YOU PLAYED MOTORBOAT WITH HER, RON!" she cried out, turning to look at him with big, anguished eyes, before her eyes fell and her voice grew quiet again. "Whether you wanted it to happen or not, it did."
He started to speak, several times, but there was nothing he could say. More than anything, he wanted put his arms around her and tell her that everything was going to be alright. She was barely two feet away from him in the cramped vehicle, but there seemed to be a barrier around her that put her miles out of his reach.
"It was going to be a surprise," she said, finally. "Mt. Middleton Ski Lodge. They still owed us a favor after we exposed the 'snowbeast' as one of DNAmy's experiments so their customers felt safe enough to come back."
At that moment, Ron was very surprised. The last weeks of March were definitely considered the off season for skiing, even if there were patches of leftover snow at the highest elevations.
"One of the nicer chalets, all to ourselves," she continued, smiling a little bitterly. "Normally, they'd have charged us a few hundred dollars, even just for the one night, but we were going to get it for free as long as we made it to the lodge before 8 o'clock. They couldn't hold it for us any long than that, but I told them it'd be no big."
She turned away from him, then, wrapping her arms around herself like she was cold. Even with the night breeze blowing through the open cockpit, Ron knew better. Still, he couldn't bring himself to touch her.
"She didn't even know what she was taking away from me…"
That's when it started. The shallow breaths, the sniffling, he could already pick out the stray whimpers. It was a sound that men everywhere, for more than a thousand generations, had been conditioned to dread.
The unbeatable Kimberly Ann Possible, hero to millions, was crying.
OOOOOwhooshOOOOO
The lucky ones passed out after the first few seconds. Some of the hardier ones clutched their temples as they writhed on the cold, metallic floor plates. Even the captain's face twisted as the assault clawed savagely at the fringes of his sanity. Monitors and relays flickered on and off and warped to the point of being virtually unrecognizable. At some point, one of them screamed out what they were all thinking.
"God in Heaven, MAKE IT STOP!!!"
Counselor Sofia found herself scrambling from station to station, desperately trying to control her fellow officers as they clutched at and pounded on their instruments in mindless pain. She'd just yanked Propriov away from the targeting computer when she heard the captain struggling to speak.
"Mr. Indlebe… r-reopen communications with the Kim," he groaned. "We… we need to s-stop this before the Ron breaks down completely."
The lieutenant managed a pitiful "Aye, Sir" before he fumbled with his controls. Just as clumsily, Haupt slammed his fist down on his miniature console again and again until he finally hit the right button.
"Spines…" his voice was strained as he pleaded. "She's crying, Spines…"
"Don't you think I know that?" Hatfield's voice squawked back in answer. "Damn it, Rick. I'm a doctor, I'm not made of stone! If you prick me, do I not bleed"
"J-just give me something… something I can use."
Without waiting for a response, Capt. Haupt let the COM system cut out. Sure enough, a list of archived data flashed across his screen. With the hand that wasn't pressing against the throbbing pain in his head, he picked one of the entries and sent it over to Indlebe's station.
"On my mark, fire on the Kim, full compliment battery," said Haupt, barely conscious now.
"What?" Sofia gasped out, realizing too late what the captain had planned. "No, YOU CAN'T!"
"FIRE!"
OOOOOwhooshOOOOO
"Come on, KP," said Ron gently, fighting the urge to pull her close. "The prettiest eyes in Middleton should never cry like that."
Much to his relief, his words made her pause. Slowly he reached out a trembling hand. It was less than an inch over her shoulder when he heard her speak again.
"Liar."
Ron froze, his hand still hovering where it was.
"What?" he asked, totally confused.
"You're lying," her head whipped around, a fresh tear falling and landing on Ron's hand which he jerked away like it'd been burnt by acid. "If I remember right, I don't even have the prettiest eyes in Middleton High."
"Kim, what are you talking about?"
"Drakken. Truth Ray," she spat, her voice still on the edge of tears as she turned away from him again. "You told Penny Brown that she had, quote, 'the most beautalicious eyes in school.'"
"Kim, I…" he choked on the words.
"So, I guess there are two possibilities here," she cut off whatever excuse he might have made. "Option A: You were lying to Penny while you were under the influence of an evil ray gun that forced you to tell the truth, or Option B: you're lying to me now."
"KP…" he reached out again, this time brushing a fingertip against her arm.
"Just don't, Ron!" she snapped, flinching away from his touch. "Just... just don't."
OOOOOwhooshOOOOO
She might have been slapping him too hard, but she preferred to think that it was more out of panic than a need to punish him. When the captain had slumped over in his chair, she'd just about lost it. At the moment, she was straddling his lap, slapping him on either side of his face again and again as she shouted for him to wake up. Her palms were stinging slightly, making her wonder how bad her commanding officer was going to feel when he woke up, when she felt a gentle but unyielding grip on her wrist. Standing beside her was Frege, standing perfectly straight with his face just as impassive as ever. Before she could ask why the Kim was having no affect on him, she glanced up and noticed the veins on his scalp pulsing wildly, sometimes looking as though they were about to burst.
"There is another solution, Counselor," he said, guiding her back up to her feet.
"But the captain…" she looked back down at the now rosy-cheeked blond.
"Captain Haupt is currently incapacitated," he answered calmly, but with the slightest edge of firmness. "As his First Officer, I temporarily assume his command. As interim Captain, I require immediate analysis of the Kim Possible and how best to alter our circumstances."
Sofia was completely taken aback. She'd never seen the Science Officer act in any way that could be considered proactive, only taking whatever orders the captain gave him. Up until a few seconds earlier, she hadn't even known that Frege was the acting Executive Officer. No XO that she'd ever heard of would have stood for being ignored and ridiculed a fraction of the amount that Frege faced on a daily basis. Realizing that his eyes were still laser focused on her, she shook off the surprise and focused on the task at hand.
"Firing off compliments was the worst thing we could have done," she explained. "Well, I guess it might've been worse to say she looked fat, but we still messed up. What the Kim needed to hear was some honest reassurance, not some hackneyed band-aid comment she could see through in less than a second. I mean, how would you feel if you were hurting on a deep, emotional level and all your best friend and partner could think of saying is a superficial compliment?"
"Counselor," the First Officer's blank stare reminded her exactly who she was dealing with. "As I find myself ill-equipped to even speculate on your proposed hypothetical scenario, it would be logical to defer entirely to your expertise in this matter."
"Right," she blushed slightly, partly from her mistake though a large part seemed to come from the fact that someone was willingly acknowledging her as an asset. "We need to be totally honest, her defenses are too strong for anything less now. I… don't have the slightest idea how."
She looked miserably at the Communications Station, where Lt. Indlebe was currently hanging half out of his chair in an unconscious stupor. She didn't have the first clue about how to operate it. And she knew that Frege, intelligent as he was, would have anywhere near enough subtly, let alone sensitivity, for this kind of work. She was somewhere beyond confused when she felt another tug at her wrist as she was led to one of the larger consoles, one that she'd rarely ever seen used.
"I believe I have a solution to your communication requirements, Counselor," he said, his hands darting across switches and knobs as he reconfigured them. "Please, speak clearly. You are now in direct interface with the Ron Stoppable's core mainframe."
She hadn't even begun to process what he was talking about when a metal arm shot out of the console, on the end of which, she assumed, was a microphone. Looking helplessly at Frege he nodded his head almost invisibly, urging her on. She licked her suddenly dry lips and cleared her throat.
"Ron…?"
A few seconds passed. Without warning, every monitor on the command deck went black. She turned to Frege in terror and disbelief, ready to ask what she'd done wrong, but suddenly a bright green text flashed across every screen.
RSIntCogLn: Kim?
Her voice disappeared in the wake of her shock. It was impossible. She was talking to the ship? And the ship thought the voice was coming from the Kim? She looked up at the Science Officer again, a million questions flashing through her mind.
RSIntCogLn: I must be going nuts… Now I'm hearing Kim's voice in my head. I guess that's the only way I'll get to talk to her from now on.
That was enough to shake her out of her stupor. There was no way she was going to let the whole crew down. They were counting on her. The Ron was counting on her.
"Ron," she spoke as clearly as she could into the device. "The Ki… I'm not going anywhere. I know how you feel. I just need to hear it."
The lights on the console flashed a little faster as the screen stayed blank a little longer this time.
RSIntCogLn: I don't know what to say. I'm no good at this.
"You don't have to be good," she said, earnestly. "You have to be honest. Tell the truth. The words have to come from your heart. No filters. No lines. Just say it… Please."
The lights were flashing almost too fast to follow. Sofia unconsciously shifted backwards, like she was worried it might explode. Suddenly, the flashing stopped. The lights on the console were shining brightly all at once.
RSIntCogLn: The truth…
OOOOOwhooshOOOOO
"The truth is, I'm gonna have to go with Option C," he said, finally.
Kim shook her head, sniffling softly and sighing in disbelief that he was actually going to try this again.
"There was no Option C, Ron."
"Actually, there is," he said, softly. "Option C: I was telling the truth then, and I'm telling the truth now."
"It doesn't work that way," said Kim, harshly. "You don't get to change what's true just because you feel like it."
"Last year, I could've said I was on the cheerleading squad as the mascot and that would've been the truth," he calmly explained, ignoring her tone. "Then, something changed. This fall, I could've said that I was on the football team as a running back and that would've been true."
"Yeah," Kim laughed, but there was no joy in it. "But, last time I checked, Penny's eyes look exactly the same as they did back then."
He could feel her face tightening even with her back turned. She wiped away another tear, flinging it violently off of her fingers. It didn't stop him from speaking again.
"Penny's eyes didn't change."
"Oh, so mine did?" she asked, skeptically. "How? Tell me, Ron, what's so different about my eyes? What do you see in them that's changed? What do you see in my eyes that's so freaking beautiful?"
"Love."
She stiffened. He heard her breath catch in her throat as he said the word without a moment of hesitation. As she sat there, still facing away from him, he continued to say the first thing that came to his heart.
"Some people might look at a sunset or a mountaintop and say it's pretty. Yeah, a sunset is nice, but imagine how it'd feel if you knew all those colors in the sky were there just for you and nobody else. A mountain's great, but it'd still be there all tall and majestic even if nobody bothered to look. I look in your eyes, I see a spark. Kim, there's always been a fire in your eyes, but when you look at me it's different. It's different because we put it there. Because it's our fire. And I can always look at it and know that I'm a part of it. There's nothing prettier than that. I look in your eyes and all I want, more than anything in the world, is to be the guy that you could love forever. So, no, I wasn't lying then, and I'm not lying now. That look in your eyes is the pretties thing I've ever seen and… and I don't know what I'd do if it ever went away…"
The rush of wind in his ears was deafening in the silence. She sat there, stone still, and there was nothing he could do except wait.
"Wade," she said suddenly, flipping the switch next to the tiny screen.
"Uh, yeah?" he asked, startled that she had changed her mind about the radio silence. "Did you need something? You guys are less than ten minutes away from your hou--"
"Change course!" she shouted, causing the tech to jump and almost fumble the control stick in his hand.
"Oookay," he answered, leaning away from the screen. "Where wou--?"
"Ron's house," she interrupted him again. "Please and thank you."
"Fine, I'll get you guys there as soo--"
Another flick of her finger and the image blinked out again. Meanwhile, Ron had his face buried in his hands. He'd screwed up. As usual, he'd said the completely wrong thing and now she didn't even want to go back to her house with him, something they'd done after almost every mission they'd ever been on. He supposed he could leave the clothes behind, he had a half dozen sets just like them, but he'd left his backpack up in her room.
He lifted his head, hoping to beg for safe return of his school books, and noticed that Kim didn't have her back to him anymore. His mouth dropped open at the look in her eyes and she seemed to think that was all the invitation she needed as she launched herself at him, creatively sealing his mouth shut using only her lips.
OOOOOwhooshOOOOO
Temporary Author's Note: Okay, I really wanted this posted tonight, so I don't have time to do a full spiel, here. That'll come within the next few days, hopefully. Until I have the time to mention you all, thanks very much to anyone who reviewed.
Blessed be,
-Brother Bludgeon