Chapter II:
Kim
"I missed this," Ron said around a mouth full of nachos, kicking his feet lightly against Kim's legs.
Kim took the liberty of swallowing before asking, "What, the overcooked cheese, the sticky tables, or the smiling employees?"
"Well, there's that." Ron almost choked trying to gulp down his food, but just kept on talking. "But I also missed sitting around and talking about overcooked cheese, sticky tables, and grouchy service with the most fabulous person I've ever known."
Kim felt her face turn pink. "Are you just naturally adorable, or do you try?"
"It's a combination." Kim leaned over the small, sticky, table and gave him a short kiss on the cheek. Ron's eyes immediately went all dreamy and he sighed. "I missed that, too."
Kim could second that. After high school, Kim was accepted to a university in Hong Kong, while Ron's best shot at higher education was a scholarship from Yamanouchi Ninja School for the school of his choice - as long as it was within reasonable distance from the ninja school. It had been a long debate, but seeing as Ron wasn't about to get into a school in Hong Kong with Kim any time soon, he had gone for it. In his down time between classes and on the weekends, he spent his time learning...ninja things. He was never very specific as to what they did there, but Kim was willing to respect their secrecy. Ron had told her a few months ago, though, that they had started letting him tutor some of the newer students. The amount of time Kim and Ron had been able to spend together, as well as the number of missions they went on, decreased dramatically over the last two years. But, all things considered, they were proud of each other - if not for being successful, than surviving a long distance relationship for so long.
"So what exactly is the goal today?" Ron asked. Kim saw him sneak some nachos into the pocket of his pants. Not all restaurants could let rodent customers slide, so Rufus was gnawing on his share from Ron's pockets. "We don't exactly have anywhere specific to go, and I still don't understand who this Jake kid is."
"I was hoping to clear that up today." Kim told him. "You remember meeting Rose?"
Ron thought for a moment. "Blonde, pretty face, super-ninja?"
"I don't think you of all people have a right to go on about super-ninjas."
"Yeah but half my mojo isn't exactly natural." Ron dragged his last few chips through his cheese. "If it weren't for Monkey Fist all these years ago I would be long dead."
"If you really think like that we'd all be dead." She reminded him, "You're a few steps above average with or without magic powers. You took all the fighting and survival classes I did. And you were a pixie scout."
"Sure, but the monkey power's still pretty bad-ass," he admitted.
Kim chuckled. "Yes it is."
"Speaking of bad-ass, you saw Jake's throw yesterday, right? Where does a city kid learn stuff like that? Not that there can't be dojos or something in cities, I guess…" Ron lost this train of thought around another nacho.
Kim had some ideas, but before she could put it into words, there was a tapping on the window next to them. They both turned to see Jake waving at them from the other side of the window. Kim had told him on the phone that she and Ron would be finishing up the mandatory Bueno Nacho visit by the time he was getting out of school and told him to meet her there. Sure enough, it was three forty-five, and there he was. Kim gave him a friendly wave back.
Ron gathered up their trash. "I'm gonna grab another drink to go," he said. "I'll meet you outside."
Part of Kim wanted to say she could wait through the line again with him, but she also wanted a moment to talk to Jake by herself. She hand't exactly told Ron everything about what had happened a year ago. Kim had been hit with shock like a boulder when she went to investigate a threatened prison break only to get there in the middle of it. Not only that, but none of the escapees appeared to be anything remotely human. The biggest kickers of it all were the dragons. A dragon breaking out of prison, several dragons trying to put her back in prison, and a teenage girl named Rose who seemed all too practiced in beating them up. Somewhere in that same madness, Shego had escaped and had yet to be caught. But while she could, Kim had helped Rose and her friends track down the escaped dragon, a woman they called Former Councilor Chang.
Ron met Rose when they tracked Chang to Japan, but he hadn't seen any dragons, and Rose begged Kim to let it stay that way. Kim tried to convince Rose that Ron was fully capable of handling himself, but she was insistent. There was a lot of talk about a Dragon Council, and Kim had let it drop. Now she just needed two seconds to talk all that over with Jake. So while Ron made for the trash can, Kim pushed open the front door.
"Hey, Jake," Kim greeted cheerily, but her lips dropped a little as she approached. Jake was bouncing a little, back and forth on his feet, and had his bottom lip caught under an impressively pointed canine. "You alight?"
"Okay." Jake took a deep breath. Kim hadn't been prepared for him to look nervous. "So you came to me for help and all and I'm flattered, but there's not a lot a normal old teenager can do, ya feel me?" Kim wasn't sure she was 'feeling it', and was sure it showed on her face. Jake continued, "I mean I called up the friend who gave you my number - well my sister did - and she said you guys had quite the adventure and all and I don't know what kind of opinion you might have on the type of person you're mutual villain was, so basically what I'm trying to ask is-"
"Jake," Kim interrupted. He stopped and appeared to be holding his breath. Kim felt a little insensitive. What should she have expected? She came to this kid not even considering what it must look like from his perspective. His being a dragon was supposed to be a secret and she walked in and blew that safety out the window. He looked to think she might hold a grudge against all dragons for what happened with Chang - which he'd no doubt heard about - the year before. She hadn't even made sure to make it clear what she already knew.
Kim wanted to hit herself. Maybe I'm just a little out of practice, she hoped. I haven't had time for missions in a while. I'm sure it's just like riding a bike, though. Right?
She decided to start with, "I know you're a dragon," and made sure to add, "and I don't blame you for all the mistakes of your kind."
Jake deflated like a balloon. "What?" He heaved out a relieved breath as a shaky laugh. "Yo, that would have been fantastic to know, like, two minutes ago."
"Sorry," Kim apologized. She self-consciously ran a hand over the back of her neck. "I haven't told anyone. From what I learned from your friend, you handle the whole secret thing pretty seriously."
"No kidding. If secrets were miscellaneous knick-knacks, the Dragon Council would be on reality television for pack rats." Kim was glad he was relaxed enough to make jokes. "You're taking this really well, actually. I'm kind of surprised."
"Yeah, well I've been around the block a few times," she admitted.
Jake gestured a thumb through the front window of the Bueno Nacho, where Ron could be seen fumbling some cash out of his wallet for his refill. "Has he?"
Kim watched Ron's huge drink slip out of his hand and couldn't hold back an involuntary flinch when he caught it by the lid, just before it smacked into the floor. He made a more careful motion out of setting the drink on the counter before returning to his wallet. "Just as many or more, believe it or not."
"He took to the talking dog pretty quickly," Jake commented curiously. "Just what kind of stuff do you guys get into?"
Talking dog? "More than we should, really. We're used to surprises."
"Think he can handle meeting the magical world today?"
"Ron's not fragile, he'll be fine." Kim returned her gaze to Jake, who was staring thoughtfully around the crowd on the street. "Isn't this stuff like, major federal secret or something?" She had to ask. "Should you really be throwing this at him - or anyone - so casually?"
"Well it isn't 'federal', per say. I'm actually not sure the government itself knows, now that I think about it." His lips pulled into a curious frown at the thought. "Anyway, you two aren't exactly what one would call civilians, and helping each other won't be so easy if we're holding back with each other, right? If the Dragon Council doesn't like it, they have...methods. Besides, I've done worse and gotten away with it." Kim's eyebrows came together suspiciously. "Long story. Many long stories, actually."
"What exactly is your plan for telling Ron dragons are real?"
"How did you find out?"
Kim thought back for a moment. "Well there was a lot of running, fighting, and blaring sirens involved. And a lot of rapid Chinese that I'm still not sure I understood all of. I took French in high school, Chinese was a bit of a jump when I moved to China." Jake gave a kind of disbelieving, but impressed, look. "Anyway, one moment there was a woman, next there's a reptile with wings flying out of a huge hole in the ceiling. There wasn't exactly a moment for processing."
"Is that how you guys normally work - see first, process later?"
Kim felt surprised. "I've never thought of it that way, but..." Kim touched her face, thinking back for a moment. "Yeah, that's usually how it happens."
"And how does that work out?"
"There's usually quite a bit of screaming involved." From Ron, but she wasn't about to admit that. Ron would probably admit it himself, but it wasn't her job to say things like that.
Jake ran a hand over his chin. Kim couldn't help feeling there'd been quite a bit of thinking going on between the both of them. "I think I know a way we can get the processing part done before the seeing part. Maybe there'll be less screaming. Screaming freaks out the nymphs sometimes."
Kim's eyes widened. "Nymphs?"
Ron picked that moment to walk up behind her, his straw making a terrible screech noise against the plastic lid and Rufus climbing onto his shoulder. "Hey guys," he said. "Did I miss anything?"
"So let me get this straight," Ron began after a long slurp from his drink. "It's an underground society that's pretty much exactly like normal society, except everything is magical and what-not?"
Jake nodded. He stood above them, holding onto one of the subway car's safety rails and swaying with the car motion while Kim and Ron sat in empty seats. "Yup."
"And every creature that ever made me wet the bed at night actually exists."
"All of them and more."
Kim hand't imagined having this conversation on a moving train. It wasn't like the car was crowded. There was an antsy business man on the far end and another person with their hoodie drawn over their head and headphone wires dangling out of the opening. There was also a lot more to Jake's world that she had expected. She'd heard about some and run into a few on her own, but in her life it was hard to distinguish between freak science experiment and what already existed. It was leading her to rethink a lot of the missions she'd had in the past. She could see Ron asking himself the same questions. As well as a nervous, foreboding look that accompanied visits to the zoo.
"But there's good stuff too, right?" Kim tried to sound reassuring. "You said something about nymphs?"
"Oh, sure, they're nice most of the time. Be careful, though. They have some nasty tempers."
Kim drew on more recent memories. "Unicorns?" She'd had her suspicions in the park the day before that the 'horses in unicorn costumes' weren't just 'horses in unicorn costumes'. The glowing may have had something to do with it, but she didn't want to start making assumptions.
"You helped corral a bunch of them yesterday," Jake confirmed. "There's a herd that lives in Central Park."
Ron took another long draw of his soda. "And no one's noticed," he stated.
"It's not that they don't notice," Jake said. "People just make up things to fit their own descriptions of the world. Science is even crazier than magic, sometimes." Kim couldn't help feeling his shrug was a sympathetic one. Like he'd known quite a few people to do this. He probably had friends at school who had no idea about this entire part of his life. They probably made those sorts of assumptions all the time around him and he couldn't lift a finger about it. Kim felt a stab of sympathy for Jake. Kim could tell her family and friends everything - that wasn't government classified. He must feel lonely sometimes.
Ron let Rufus have a sip of his soda on his leg. "And it's all been right under our noses, the whole time?"
"It's not like they do everything completely different. There's still economics, and politics - they even have elf labor unions." Jake spat out the words like they were toxic. Which was understandable, since they sounded a lot like school topics and that's probably exactly what Jake saw them as. "Except magical also means more extreme in most cases. Black Friday is literally a nightmare, but you should see the wrestling tournaments."
Ron had this goofy expression on his face that suggested Hanukkah had come early this year. He leaned back casually in his seat and cross his ankles. "You know what? I can totally handle this."
Kim looked at him dubiously. "You can?"
"Sure. What was it you said in high school? So not the drama. Wow, that does sound better when you say it. Anyway, I used to be afraid of monkeys. I'm sure I can get over werewolves, vampires, and gnomes."
"Gnomes?" Jake scrunched his eyebrows. "What's so scary about gnomes?"
"It's complicated," was Kim's only answer.
When the subway pulled to a stop again, both the businessman and the guy in the hoodie stepped off. Before they could do the same, Jake held out a hand. "Hold up," he said.
"Isn't this the last stop?" Ron asked.
Jake smiled. "For most people, maybe."
While they were talking, the doors slid shut. Suddenly the car lurched and there was a heavy, metal cranking noise. When Kim turned to look out the window, the station floor was shrinking beneath them. "Are we going up?"
"That depends on the physics of the portal in the ceiling-"
Ron made a choking sound. "Portal?" He turned to Kim. "When do portals ever end well? Have they ever ended well?"
"-but yes, for a moment there, we were going up," Jake finished.
When Kim looked out the window, there was sunlight spilling through it. When the doors slid open, Jake led them outside. Ron's breath left him audibly and Kim hoped she wasn't quite as loud.
"Welcome to Magus Bazaar!" Jake told them.
In a word, Magus Bazaar was...whimsical. Apparently it was a busy day, because the streets were full up with people, not-so-people, and definitely-not-people. Everyone's clothes were some weird mix of medieval and current. While a man with a horse's body for legs strode by in plate armor and a lance in one hand, a woman with squid tentacles for legs slithered(?) past in an NYU hoodie. There were more abnormal and strange creatures than Kim had names for. Jake was greeting the occasional creature and gave the horse-man (wan't centaur the word for those?) a high-five. Even stranger than that, were the things being sold. Kim saw jars of eyeballs, unnaturally colored plants, and she thought she heard someone yelling about guano. The look on Ron's face probably mirrored the awe and shock on her own.
Ron poked Jake in the arm. "So you're one of the, uh..." He pointed around the street.
Jake blinked. "Oh, did we leave that out?" He pointed to his chest and said with the utmost pride, "I'm a dragon."
Ron looked him up and down. He put a kind of pout on his face and crossed his arms. "Okay, even I have a limit. You're like, five feet tall. "
Kim could have sworn she saw smoke leave Jake's nostrils. "I am five foot six, you're maybe two inches taller than me! And it's not like I'm a dragon all the time. We're natural shape-shifters." To prove his point, he held out his arm. White-hot fire sparked from his hand and traveled up his arm, startling Rufus from Ron's shoulder. When the flames backed away, it left Jake's arm covered in cooling red scales and his fingers replaced with sharp claws. Ron moved a finger to poke at Jake's scales, but before he could they were engulfed in fire again and there was nothing left but human skin.
With the expression on Ron's face, one might guess his birthday had come early. "So," he gestured to all of Jake, "all of you can do that?"
"Yeah, but it's not the most convenient thing to walk around as. The streets are crowded right now, but maybe I can show you later."
Regaining his courage, Rufus leaped from Ron's shoulder to Jake's. He scurried down Jake's arm and sniffed it, Jake lifting him arm so Rufus wouldn't fall. Then he pulled at the sleeve and looked up at Jake, squeaking curiously.
"Yeah, what happens to your clothes?" Ron agreed. Or at least Kim thought he was agreeing. Rufus-speak was never quite her forté.
Jake stared at his own jacket sleeve for a second and shrugged. "I never really thought about it." He turned to lead them down the street. "Come on, I can show you around."
Before Ron could follow, Kim put a hand on his shoulder. "And you thought the monkey stuff was unnatural." Kim didn't miss the extra upward twitch to his lips.
A little ways down the street and multiple close saves to Ron's safety involving magical tea leaves later, Jake turned to Kim. "You've got picture of that Shego chick, right?" Kim searched her pocket for a moment to verify first, but eventually she pulled out a copy of Shego's mug-shots and nodded. "We can show it around while we're here. See if anyone knows anything. Federal government has nothing on gossiping witches."
"Good idea," Kim agreed. "Here..." Using the Kimmunicator on her wrist, she printed off a few extra copies. She handed them to Jake. "Give one to Ron, too. I'll start asking around."
Jake took them but he had a bit of hesitance in his expression. "Okay, but be careful. Some of these guys are total creeps."
Kim smirked confidently. "I'm pretty good at handling creeps, if I do say so myself."
Kim wished she could say she was getting more out of this little field trip than a brand new perspective on the world, but an hour later, and she still had nothing to show for their mission than all of the miscellaneous junk Ron could both buy with human money and fit into his pockets. She'd spent most of their time talking to the more approachable locals, hoping to get at least one sighting of Shego out of it.
At this point, though, she was beginning to wonder if her hunch was wrong. Something about Shego's showing up in New York City had felt different. Everything else so far had been random and in smaller towns. They hadn't been able to put down any connection of any sort between the locations. When they'd gotten the anonymous tip about New York, though, something about it felt...different. Not just the tip itself, but when she'd found Shego scaring the herd of unicorns in Central Park. In every other place they'd chased her to, Shego pulled her vanishing act before they could chase her off location. This time she stuck around long enough for Kim to driver her out of the park, down the street, and for the police to put up a barricade and for Ron to bring back-up.
The initial plan in contacting Jake hadn't been for him to help out immediately; it was more like long-term reassurance. If they'd ever come through the city again, they'd need someone they already knew. But then unicorns hadn't been part of the plan either. Did Shego know they were unicorns when she attacked? Maybe that was the connection. If everywhere she'd hit had some sort of magical influence, then none of the contacts she would have been able to pull up before now would have known anything about it. Kim made a mental note to ask Jake more on that later, and returned to looking around for faces she hadn't questioned yet. It was getting hard to tell the difference between the whiskers and the face antennae.
"Excuse me." Kim startled at a tap on her shoulder. "I couldn't help but notice; you look lost." A man had come up behind her. An elegant hooded cloak covered most of his appearance, but she could still see the tips of well-kept hair and an expensive suit under the heavy fabric. In any other circumstance, talking to someone in a hood and cloak would set off alarm bells - not to say that it wasn't - but he was at least the seventh person she'd seen in Magus Bazaar sporting similar clothes.
"I'm looking for someone, actually," Kim pulled her copy of Shego's picture from her pocket and held to for him to see. "Any chance you can tell me where to find this woman?"
His eyes narrowed in thought. "Can't say that I can. Is she lost?"
"In a way," Kim explained. "She's dangerous, and if you see her you should call...whoever you see as the authority."
The man pointed over Kim's shoulder. "I believe that would be him,"
Kim turned and saw Jake introducing Ron to a woman at one of the stalls across the street. "Oh, yeah, I'm here with Jake," she added. "We have reason to believe she's up to something here - in New York City, I mean - and we're working together."
"I see. You're in good hands, then. Everyone's heard the countless feats of heroism of the American Dragon." The man kindly handed Kim back the photo. "If I happen to cross this woman, I'll be sure to let you know."
American Dragon? Kim had assumed that whatever role dragons played in magical society, it was a large one. The few she'd met with Rose in Hong Kong were always spoken to with respect and Rose wouldn't have directed her to Jake if he weren't useful in some way. When she found out how young Jake was, though, any thoughts of him being anything more than a kid with superpowers and connections had left her thoughts completely. She hadn't even considered just how important he might be to these people. In retrospect, she felt guilty. She had made quite a name for herself by Jake's age. It felt wrong to not be able to so easily expect the same of other people.
Personal thoughts aside, Kim nodded her thanks. "We appreciate your cooperation, sir."
"Call me Eli," he told her, extending a hand.
Kim took his hand in her own. He had a firm grip, but his hands were soft. "Kim," she returned. "Kim Possible."
"KP!" Kim turned around when Ron called across the plaza. He was waving his arms and holding some new gadget in one hand. "Come check this out!"
She turned to say goodbye to Eli before leaving, but when she turned around again, he was gone.
They left Magus Bazaar when the sun started setting. Kim and Ron took the subway back to their hotel. Jake had gotten off at one of the first stops and told them he could fly home from there. Ron had wanted to go out with him to see his wings, but Kim didn't want to have to pay for their tickets all over again, and sat him back down. Instead, Ron babbled on for a while about all his new stuff, the conversations he'd had, and about the one woman they'd met with the spider legs. After a few stops, though, he grew quiet. He toyed with some sort of play-gadget for child harpys that Kim couldn't even begin to describe and started chewing his lip. Rufus had fallen asleep on his leg to the clatter of the tracks.
Kim bumped shoulders with him. "Something on your mind?"
Ron didn't look at her, and his voice came out rather hurt. "You knew about all of this? And you never told me?"
Kim took his hand. "Not all of it," she told him, honestly. "Mostly just the dragon thing. Rose asked me not to talk about it, and..." Kim's cheeks burned guiltily and she swallowed. "I'm sure I would have told you eventually, but we're not exactly neighbors anymore, Ron."
Ron took her hand back. "We're still country neighbors," he said. "That's gotta count for something, right?"
Kim squeezed his hand. "Of course it does."
There was a moment where Ron just looked at her with his own version of the puppy-dog face that Kim was sure he didn't even realize he had. He was no doubt thinking five hundred different things that, even after closing in on two decades with this boy, she could never quite decipher. But a few blinks later, he was stretching an arm over her head, oh so casually pulling her close, and saying, "So you know those horse rides in Central Park? Jake says he knows one that's pulled by a unicorn. Said he could hook us up with a discount. And by discount, I mean free, because I don't know about you, but I'm flat out of leprechaun gold."
Kim laughed and smiled, happy just to see the good old Ron she'd always known. "That sounds great, Ron."
(Edited: 3/2/2015)
-Kinetic
