standard disclaimer still applies...may get a little racy near the end...
Chapter 3: 1,2,3,4, I love the Marine Corps!
For Ron, the moment of truth was coming closer and closer like a predator for the kill. Since lunch, the myriad of cliques and other personages were either snickering at him (presumably for the proverbial bloodbath that was going to happen) or in pity to what his fate was to happen.
'Jesus, I guess word does travel fast on the high school grapevine. I wish I could use it sometime...' Ron mused, seeing how his stunt in algebra class had already made communication records around school. Ron ignored the rest of the student body and held his head high, regardless of the outcome, he stood up to the man that regarded him as a slacker and he could at least say that he was the only one with enough backbone to do it. Making way to the locker room, Ron changed into a baggy white shirt and shorts. They were confortable enough for running, though that was what Mr. Barkin had last on the list.
A sense of calmness, a realization of the act unfolding in front of him and the sheer futility of running away from his problem, Ron organized his thoughts and meditated on the ordeal to come.
'You must not forget your training, Stoppable-san,' the voice of sensei intoned,focusing Ron's conciousness even more. 'You have worked hard and made strides that made us most proud, remember that and you will master your destiny.'
Ron took a few cleansing breaths, opened his eyes, and walked out to the field where his educator and opponent waited. Mr. Barkin was already waiting, various instruments of Physical education strewn around him.
"Stoppable! Front and center, ON THE DOUBLE!" Barkin yelled, spittle flying and face going red. Ron ran as fast as he could and stopped in front of Mr. Barkin, standing straight and breathing rapidly.
Barkin bored into Ron with his eyes. " For being late, that's an extra 50 pushups!"
"Late! You said 3 0' clock in class. By my watch, it's just now 3." Ron said.
"15 minutes early to everything, Stoppable. You will be 15 minutes early to everything because 15 minutes early is on time, on time is late, and if you are late you might as well not show up! Now drop and give me 50!" Barkin screamed, showering Ron with spit and sweat. "Since I will be doing the same excersizes with you, it will not be 'hazing' as some people put it, but incentive training. " Barkin leaned in farther inside Stoppable's confort zone. "Afterwords, we'll see how much spark you have left." Barkin gave a cold smile.
"But..." Ron began. He knew that Barkin was trying to break him. Ron would not give him the satasfaction. Unbeknownst to the former Marine, Ron was in far better shape that he led people to believe.
"Do you want to make it 100?" Barkin asked, getting into a pushup position.
"No..." Ron started to get in the same position.
"No, what" Barkin growled.
"No, Sir." Ron mumbled.
"UP!" Barkin yelled, Ron following along.
"READY! EXERCSIZE! 1,2,3, 1! Count along Stoppable, unless you want to do it again?" Barkin stopped, looking at Ron. Ron, just looked back, glaring at his chief oppressor for over 2 years, not showing an iota of despair.
"READY! EXERCSIZE! 1,2,3, 1!" both men counted, all the while, Ron was thinking 'man this is going to be a long day...'
Mentally preparing herself for cheer practice, Kim was momentarily interrupted from her musings by Monique. Monique was tapping her left foot impatiently, looking slightly irate at Kim.
"Ok, spill girl. What crazy thing happened to our boy Ron?" Monique asked.
"Nothing and that's the weird part." Kim said, closing her locker door and going to the gym, Monique following right beside her. "He just flipped out on Barkin, saying that he wanted to be late. Then he accepted Barkin's PT session, and I'm worried that he won't survive that!" the last part speeding up that it almost sounded like gibberish, as both girs walked into the gym, seeing the various girls practice their individual routines.
"Girl, hold up and slow down!" Monique grabbed Kim by the wrist and pulled her down to one of the bench seats sitting out on the gym floor. "Chillax, or you are liable to blow a vein, like Barkin is going to do. "Now, when have you known your lovable sidekick..."
"Partner." Kim growled.
"...Partner been whacked like that?" Monique quickly amended.
"Attidunator." Kim deadpanned.
"Oh, right. Well any other time that he was seroiusly going against his normal attitude?" Monique continued.
"After Middleton Days? He really wasn't himself after that," Kim said, thinking about the moodulator and her actions, but just as quickly banishing them to the back of her mind.
"Well the only thing that I could say is that something happened this summer. Since you guys had no missions, you went to cheer camp. Do you know what he did?" Monique was curious about that. Maybe Ron had an epiphany and changed his outlook on life?
Kim was asking herself the same question, what had Ron done over the summer?
Having ran ahead of Barkin wearing a kevlar helmet and flak jacket, idly musing on what the cherr squad was doing. Barkin meanwhile, was fuming mad.
'I've thrown everything I have at him!' he thought. 'A 10 mile run, Marine Corps pushups, weighted stairsteppers, windsprints! Something is wrong, he's turned into a machine. I wonder...'
"Stoppable, double time back to the gym. I need a sparring partner for the tri city kumite this weekend." Barkin ordered, catching up to Ron.
Ron turned around and faced Barkin, "Are you sure that's allowed? I mean isn't there rules about this sort of thing? Students fighting teachers doesn't sound kosher to me."
"Let me handle that. I have something to make it sweeter. You beat me in an honest fight, I lay off you for the rest of your time in school, except for your normal workload from my classes. No more riding you, or picking you out. It's done. I've seen clips of your antics with Possible. I know that you can at least fight back somewhat."
"If I lose?" Ron asked, worrying about the answer.
"You are mine." Barkin grinned, like the cat catching a canary, savoring the meal to come. Ron thought it over for a moment. On one hand, here was a release from daily torment from Barkin, his extra homework and detentions. The other hand, it flirts dangerously with exposing his abilities...
"Deal." Ron said, holding out his right hand.
"Agreed." Barkin said, shaking Ron's hand, putting pressure on it. Ron, noticing that Barkin was trying to overpower him, squeezed back, Barkin's hand strength lacking against Ron's, both men locking stares at each other. Releasing each other's firm grip, Ron ran back to the gym to get ready, while Barkin with his right hand starting to hurt, had the first sliver of doubt lance through his mind for many a year.
Back at in the gym, Kim was getting tired of Bonnie stealing all her thunder throughout the practice, throwing snide remarks at Kim, derisively insulting Ron and his lack of a chance to survive Barkin. Currently, Bonnie was rearranging the cheer routine for the cheer competition that was happening this weekend. It was a coulpe of days away, but the routine needed some polishing.
"Okay. We have our base and second tier. Tara and Hope are on the third tier, and I'm on the apex!" Bonnie snippishly said to Kim, who was looking over the pyramid for weak points. She rolled her eyes and Bonnie's antics to usurp the captainship of the team. Kim looked at the height of the formation, looked back at Bonnie, and shook her head.
"Bonnie, the third tier is too high. You won't be able to make it." Kim said honestly. "You'll knock into Tara and topple the whole thing."
"Tcha! So you think," the pompous heiress replied, not worrying about the height of the pyramid. " I can do just as well as you can. Stop the stalling. Are you this bad on missions?"
"What do you know about the missions that I go on?" Kim heatedly retorted.
"Yeah, stuck to your hand for a day, remember? I try to forget that." Bonnie remarked.
Kim looked away, aggrivated by her royal snottiness, when the Kimmunicator beeped its familiar tone. As she was turning to take it out of her bag, there was a crash and loud, protesting voices. Turning around again, the entire formation was a heap of limbs, with Bonnie screaming for everybody to get off her.
"Take five, girls. Get some ice packs for those bruises, Bonnie!" Kim tittered as she picked up the Kimmunicator. Smiling at Bonnie's miscalculation, Kim keyed the transmit/recieve button and saw on the mini LCD screen her tech guru and web manager, Wade Load.
Wade was different than his usual chubby self. His mom started him on a diet and excersise regimen over the summer and it paid off. No longer was Wade his hefty self, but a slightly slimmer, more toned version.
"Hey Wade, what's the sitch? Kim asked. Wade took a long gulp from his super slurp. It seemed that his mom wasn't able to break that particular addiction.
Smiling, Wade answered, "Nothing much, though we did get a hit on the website asking for 'security consultations'. The client is a cybernetics lab that deal with replacement limbs and regrowth of neural pathways.It's some really cutting edge stuff."
"Sounds like it. First of all, who is asking for us and second why?" Kim queried.
"The second question first. The reason being that you and Ron have the most experience defeating exotic security systems..."
"With your help." Kim added.
"...with my help, they wanted to make a comprehensive security net that would discourage industrial espionage, or certain unmentionable people." Wad ended.
"So from like Dr. Drakken and such?" Kim shot off.
"and others. Do you want to know who asked for you?" Wade asked, starting to fidget in his seat. Kim nodded her head.
"Dr. L. Renton. Felix's mom! The reason for this is because she wants to give the latest research to Felix so that he could walk again. But, she doesn't want the villan community to find out."
"Why is that?" Kim asked looking around the gym, seeing the cheer squad relax and talk.
"With the excess neuropathways, henchmen could react faster and be more aware. the cybernetic replacement limbs could increase someone's strength by an order of magnitude." Wade said in awe.
"Teenspeak please." Kim asked.
"It means combined, you would be dealing with people that had ten times their strength and quicker reactions, not a good combinations if you ask me."
"Don't think so either. Tell her that we'll be going for the lab this weekend. Have the entire security staff waiting. Going off on a tangent here, have you noticed that Ron has been acting weird?" Kim asked her tech guru. Wade just cocked his eye brow at her. "Okay, weird for Ron." Kim added.
"Not really. I've monitered him and his biometerics, body chemistry, and brain patterns. Nothing happened to him over this summer that was extraordinary... except," Wade typed on his keyboard and a screen came up with biometeric readings dated a week before school started. Wade came over the speaker of the Kimmunicator explaining his findings. " Ron was doing something, I don't know what, when his brainwaves went off the charts for about 3 seconds. Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Theta waves were converging, then back to normal."
" I take it that's not supposed to happen?" Kim said rhetorically. "Was it the Mystical Monkey Power?" Kim lowered her voice. "Was it Zorpox?"
"Neither, I have Ron's brain patterns when either the MMP or Zorpox is active. Neither of these patterns were present. What do you think we should do?" Wade asked, perplexed at the readings on the screen.
"Send a copy of the readings to my Mom. With her being a neurosurgeon, she'll know what to do." Kim ordered.
"Sent. I'll keep an eye on Ron for you and see if anything turns up."
"Please and thank you" Kim said sweetly. As she was disconnecting from the call, the doors to the gym opened up and let a blast of afternoon air in. Walking through, A figure with a shirt over their head walked toward the boys locker room, across the gym. Time seemed to slow down for Kim, as she took in the sight of a boy, almost a man. walking passed her.
His arms were tight like steel cable, his torso toned, with a little amount of fat to soften the definition around the abs, Legs that were like tree trunks, covered by shorts that were a little loose the midsection.
The girls just stopped. Bickering, complaining, whatever it was, stopped. 12 sets of eyes focused on the retreating figure. As the boy walked through the door to the boy's locker room, time sped up again.
Whispers of "who was that?" and "where does he live" percolated through the area that the girls were in. Most of them were getting ready to investigate, when the doors opened up again, this time Barkin coming through with a smug look on his face. This killed the adventurous and amorous mood that most of the girls were caught in, Kim and Monique included.
"Ladies, are you done in here?" Barkin questioned, trying to come off polite, but succeding to come off as brash. Taking the subtle hint, the cheer squad gathered their things and walked out, grumbling about the oppression of the teachers and such other trivial matters.
Monique, walking out with Kim, had a light go off in her head. "Kim, lets watch what happens from under the bleachers. It has to be good if Barkin is kicking the squad out!" Agreeing to the plan, Kim and Monique darted from the door to the bleachers and got under the scaffolding, watching Barkin pace around.
After about a couple of minutes, The same boy that Kim mentally shut down over, walked to the center of the padded mats where Barkin was standing and stood in front of him. Both girls' minds grinded to a halt as what they saw percolated through their minds. Turning to face each other, both girls hissed at the same time,
"It's Ron!"
"Okay, Stoppable, Here are the rules. Since I fight full contact, we'll both be using padding. No groin kicks, breaking bones, throat punches, back breakers, kicking out one's kneecap, or breaking ankles. Everything else is allowed, understand?"
Ron looked at Barkin in bewilderment. 'where does this guy fight that requires those rules?' he thought. 'I fight much rougher fights that I have no padding for'. Nodding his assent to those rules, both combatants went to the edge of the pads and got on sparring equipment. Both Kim and Monique looked on in awe as Ron took off his shirt and strapped on sparring gloves and boots, both colored blue. Barkin was sporting a red gi with a black belt, red gloves, and boots.
Both fighters got about a body's length distance away from each other, bowed and got into a fighting stance. Barkin was in a basic stance, legs bent and arms cocked in front of him. Ron on the other hand went into neutral stance, hands at his sides with his body cocked sideways away from Barkin. Neither Barkin nor Kim was confortable about that. Barkin, because he knew that Ron could snap into any style he chose, and Kim, because Ron had no defenses that he could block with.
Circling around each other, both men was eyeing his opponent with an calculating stare; sizing one another up; when Barkin rushed at Ron, clenched hand coming down for a hammer blow to Ron's head. With practiced ease, Ron moved abck about a step and a half, grabbed Barkin's forearm, and spun around on his left foot throwing him to the ground. Barkin did a complete faceplant onto the padded matting giving him "matburn" on his face. Scrambling to get on his feet, Barkin got back up into his previous stance, inwardly amazed that Ron knew Judo throws. Ron continued to lock visages with Barkin, who was inching ever closer.
Ron on the other hand was having the time of his life. He just pratfalled Barkin into the mat and was inwardly cackling madly at the red patch of skin that Barkin was now sporting. Seeing his opponent move closer, Ron quashed those emotions and readied for the next attack. Barkin got to within arms reach of Ron when he started throwing jabs, and hitting nothing. Ron was avoiding the punches for them to connect and was moving out of the way. A plan started to percolate into Steve Barkin's head. 'I need to make him blindingly mad or scared to throw his focus off, but nothing distracts him except... that's it!'
"Stoppable! Monkeys!" Barkin pointed in a random direction, mock surprise on his face.
"C'mon Mr. B, that was a good try, but I've already gotten over that." Ron retorted, shaking his head in slight disbelief. Kim, Monique, and Barkin (to a lesser extent)privately thought that getting over that particular was a feat in and of itself.
Seeing that didn't engender a reaction, Barkin again went on the offensive. Alternating between jabs, Ron moved into dead air where there was no threat. Barkin changed up to hooks intersparced with snap kicks. Ron bent at the waist and avoided most of the hooks, and changed into a handstand, blocking the kicks with his shins, then flipping back into his original stance.
Getting even more PO'd at this turn of events, Barkin racked his brain as he sized up Ron. 'Well since monkeys didn't do it, the next thing is to insult him and Possible, even though she is one of my best students.' he mused.
"So all you do is run behind Possible's coat tails, that explains why there is no focus on you. You are the side kick, Stoppable! An expendable asset, Possible doesn't even care about your feelings." Barkin jeered, throwing punches and kicks at Ron, who was blocking them deftly with parrying blows. "You stare and stare and you know that you will never attain her, because you are weak!" At that, Barkin went into a spinning roundhouse kick that Ron ducked under, only to be bearhugged by Barkin. As Barkin squeezed the breath out of Ron's lungs, he moved his head to Ron's left ear and whispered, "Just think, you will never be 'her first' only the best friend who gets to hear all about the experience but her memory will be with another, because you. are. pathetic..."
Ron's blood percolated at Barkin's words, not because of the sheer inpropreiety of them, but of Ron's secret fears being brought to the light of day.
"NO!" Ron screamed. He elbowed Barkin, grabbed him by the arm and tossed him clear across the mat, just to land hard on his back. Huffing and puffing, Ron switched stances to that of taichi, hands forming a circle and legs parted for a low stance. Barkin rushed at Ron, who gave Barkin a backhanded left fist, with a succesion of punches to the midsection and a bicycle kick to the jaw, making the teacher stumble back. Redoubling his efforts, Barkin came at Ron again, who responded with a jumping snap kick to the chest. Seeing Barlin stop mid charge, Ron added to Barkins pain with a dragon srtike to the stomach, a reverse ridge hand strike to his right armpit, and a leg sweep to drop him. Ron got back into his taichi stance as he saw Barkin kip up, face red from embarassment.
" Hit a nerve did I?" Barkin taunted. "I'll take it back if you beat me."
"It will be my honor." Ron growled
For the next five minutes, that mat was a warzone. Kim and Monique were amazed that Ron gave more than he got. Barkin was amazed that Stoppable got as far as he did. Trying to stem the power from Ron's blows Barkin was beginning to flag when he made a critical error in judgement that allowed Ron to get behind him. Seizing the opprotunity, Ron began to blood choke Barkin as hard as possible to cut the blood supply to his brain and knock him out. Barkin thrashed for a couple seconds, then collapased like a ton of bricks.
Ron got up and unstrapped the padding from his hands and feet to which he sat them in front of Barkin's unconcious form. Ron spoke, much for his benefit than Barkin's "You will take back what you said, and now I'm finally free of you" Getting back up, Ron turned to go to the locker room to change. Walking, he smirked to himself and thought 'and all that time they both saw me. well no use hiding it from her now...'
Kim and Monique rushed out of their hiding spot to see how Mr. Barkin was doing. Kim checked a pulse point at his neck and found a strong slow pulse. Mr. Barkin started to groan, his head feeling like a timpani drum being banged on by a hyperactive crack-addled rabbit.
"Are you okay Mr.Barkin?" Kim asked, helping him to sit up.
"No, and what are you two doing here?" Barkin asked, looking at the two girls.
"Um, nothing?" Monique suggested, looking away toward the locker room.
Barkin deduced what had gone on and got up to his feet. "This was between Stoppable and myself. Clear?" he asked.
"Crystal!" both girls said and both were out the door. Walking back to Kim's house, both girls were lost in their own thoughts. Ron fighting and winning against Barkin, keeping up with him during the PT session, and the biggest one, what set Ron off?