Disclaimer: All rights to the characters, locations and situations from the television series Kim Possible are own by The Walt Disney Company. I gain nothing monetarily from the story.

The Closet

Chapter 7

Ron awoke sweating profusely and screaming his head off. Earlier, he had nearly unhinged his jaw from yawning and dozed off in mid sentence as he read the first few pages of "Lo, the Plow Shall Till the Soil of Redemption," while doing his English assignment. As he nodded off the dreaded nightmare came again but this time the entire vision came in crystal clear.

This time he actually saw the horror that befell his beloved little friend and the person who perpetrated the vile act.

The image of Ron's own hands squeezing the life out of his Little Buddy, then his teeth tearing into Rufus' naked flesh, were ghastly.

But Rufus couldn't be dead. Ron had heard him many times since The Closet incident, hadn't he? Ron had never seen the naked mole rat scampering around because Rufus had told Ron that he couldn't move. But the Little Guy was still in Ron's pocket now. Wasn't he?

"Rufus, Buddy, are you still in there?" Ron asked as he patted the pocket of his cargo pants. He felt the same lump that he had put in there Monday morning, back in his old room. "Whew!" Ron let out a huge sigh of relief, "I thought I'd lost you there for a minute, Buddy."

"You did," Rufus answered, but his voice sounded way too close to be in the pocket. It sounded like the naked mole rat was sitting on his shoulder. But Rufus couldn't be on his shoulder. Ron felt the lump in the pocket again and it didn't feel quite right. He reached into the pocket and pulled out the contents. Bits of cheese and other various food stuffs Ron had fed Rufus over the past few days fell from his hand as Ron opened his mitt and saw… a tightly rolled up pair of socks.

"Rufus!" Ron hollered and glanced furtively round the room. "Where'd you go, Buddy?"

"I'm right here," the mole rat answered again from his shoulder, "in your mind." Ron first patted his left shoulder then his right. "No," the voice of Rufus said loudly and then continued in complete sentences, "I'm not sitting on your shoulder. You accidentally twisted my neck and killed me in you panic Friday afternoon, then you ate me. I now only exist in your mind."

"You're a ghost!?" Ron screamed in panic and tripped over the sleeping bag as he backed in a panic across the room. "Don't haunt me specter!" Ron ended his fear filled flight cowering in the corner.

"I'm not a ghost. I'm just your friend, like before when you were younger."

"So you're Rufus, my imaginary friend?" Ron asked as some of the fright ebbed from his system. "The same one I had up until I got the real Rufus?"

"I'm both," the naked mole rat answered from Ron's shoulder, but still wasn't visible. "The Rufus you knew before you went to Smarty Mart didn't have a set form, even in your imagination. One minute he was an imaginary man or boy and the next he was some kind of animal. If you remember he was even a cootie-less girl for a few days. But now…" the image of his little naked mole rat buddy suddenly materialized before Ron on the floor. "… Ta-Da!"

"Rufus!" Ron squealed, overjoyed, "I can see ya!"

"Of course," the imaginary Rufus squeaked and ran to Ron's opened hands. He scampered up one arm and perched on Ron's shoulder. Rufus gave Ron's face a big hug, like he had a few thousand time before. "And I don't hold it against you that you killed me either."

"That's awfully big of you Little Buddy," Ron said as he nuzzled his cheek into his imaginary friend. "But now what'll we do?"

"We take care of HER," Rufus evilly chuckled as he menacingly rubbed his hand together and a sinister red light appeared from out of nowhere to shine upward, casting shadows over the mole rat in an eerie way. "Then we can take over the world! Mu'hahahahahahahaha!"

"Oooooooh, I like the villainous light show," Ron said in total admiration. "Can I get one of those?" Ron pulled the flashlight out of his mission pack and then dug around, finally pulling out a piece of light blue gel paper that he had left over from a science project. He taped the gel over the lens of the flashlight and held it to his chest while turning the light on. "Whatdaya think? Evil enough? BooYah-hahahahahahahaha!"

"Eh," the imaginary Rufus shrugged his shoulders in a half-hearted gesture. "Red is better."

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Kim had finished her investigation of the Stoppable house and was walking back to her parent's place when the Kimmunicator sounded off. "What'cha got, Wade?"

"I was going to ask you the same thing, Kim," Wade said as he took a slurp of his ever present soda. "I traced Ron back to his house and, after his parents left for work Monday, Ron left shortly thereafter on his scooter that was loaded down. I lost his trail as he drove off toward the Mount Middleton Ski Resort."

"You lost him in the mountains?" Kim asked incredulously.

"Sorry, but yes," Wade answered. "The satellites that were in the area at the time moved out of range so I wasn't able to track him any further. Ugh," he growled in frustration, "if I had known he was up there on Monday I could have re-tasked the satellite to remain in the area and kept track of Ron."

"So Ron could be anywhere east of here by now," Kim groaned downheartedly. "He could've traveled two hundred mile over the last two days on that scooter of his."

"I don't think so," Wade said as he rapidly typed away on his computer board. "Ron's scooter isn't powerful enough to handle the mountainous terrain so I think he was headed into the mountains to hole up in one of the abandoned mines." A three dimensional image of the surrounding area appeared on the screen with a flashing red dot coming from one of the many dots that spotted the map. "According to thermal imaging, one of the former mines was recently occupied up until yesterday."

"How can I get up there to check it out?" Kim asked her website keeper.

"I have a ride all set up," Wade answered as his picture returned to the screen. He laid back and stretched out in his chair. "It'll be at your house in three minutes."

"You rock Wade," Kim enthused as she ran the last block back to her house.

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"Thanks for the lift Mrs. Horn," Kim chimed as the station wagon pulled off the side of the road into a vista turnoff.

"No, thank you Kim," Mrs. Horn answered as she stopped the car. "You've been the best babysitter ever and my little Timmy is behaving so much better now."

"It was no big," Kim nonchalantly waved off the compliment as she got her mountain bicycle out of the back of the station wagon. "Anyone could have spotted that Timmy has Attention Deficient Disorder. Just keep him on his medication and he'll be no trouble at all."

Kim biked up an old dirt road that was barely there into the mountains and, after only a few minutes, came to the mine shaft she was looking for. She pulled out her Kimmunicator and thumbed it on. "Wade, I'm here."

"Hold the Kimmunicator out and let me scan the shaft to make sure it's safe to enter," Wade said as he typed on his keyboard. Kim followed instructions and a blue beam emitted from the top of the device. "Hummm, it does appear that the shaft was occupied in the last coupla days… But whoever it was, they've left."

Kim shifted through the now extinguished camp fire ashes at the mouth of the entrance with her foot. She reached down and picked up a partially burned piece of photo and peered at it. She recognized the image right away. It was part of a photo of her and Ron at the age of seven, goofily posing for the camera. "Ron was here alright. This is part of a photo he always kept on his desk." Kim stood up and looked around the area. "So now what? Do you think Ron is still in the area, maybe in another mine?"

"No," Wade answered as he typed on his computer some more. "There aren't any other shafts that have been occupied for quite some time in the area but…" He stopped typing as he looked up at the camera, "…it does appear as if Ron used some of the material in the shaft to make another vehicle. Parts of his scooter are still in a cavern at the end of the shaft and a few of the rail cars and exhaust vent blades have been messed with." Wade's eyes went wide as it dawned on him what had happened. "It appears as if Ron built a helicopter out of the different parts!"

"A helicopter?" Kim said in disbelief. "My Ron built a helicopter out of a scooter, some old rail cars and fan blades?"

"That's it!" Wade said excitedly as he clacked away at the computer. "Do you remember the other day when I told you about the fire at Smarty Mart?"

"Yeah," Kim said, non-commitally as she got on her bike and slowly wound her way down the hillside. "You said a bunch of fireworks were set off but that it wasn't important at the time."

"It wasn't then," Wade said as he continued whacking away at the key board. "I knew you were at cheer practice so the video I saw didn't make any sense, until now."

Smarty Mart security video of a red-haired girl walking in the front door of Smarty Mart appeared on the Kimmunicator screen. For all practical purposes it appeared to be Kim except for the strange fact that the person was wearing a red hockey jersey.

"That's me!" Kim gasped in shock before she took a broader view of the person, "but I'm wearing Ron's clothes!"

"That's right," Wade enthused as the video was replaced by security footage of the Smarty Mart Kim loading up a small helicopter type vehicle outside the building. "It didn't make sense since I knew you were at practice and wouldn't be caught dead walking into Smarty Mart. But if Ron had been using his Movie Magic Makeover kit to disguise himself and the copter to escape…"

"That little sneaky…" Kim huffed as she quickly pedaled down the hill and entered the vista turn off. She came to a skidding stop in the turn off and glared at the Kimmunicator screen. "Is there any way to find out where he went from Smarty Mart?"

Wade was doing his rapid fire typing again and, without looking up, said, "Working on it." All of four seconds went by before he stopped and a broad smile came over his face. "I got it Kim. Ron is holed up in an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of Middleton. If you can wait for two minutes I already have a ride on the way." Wade leaned back in his chair and took a quick sip of soda. "His name is Fred and he's a cross country trucker. I've worked with him a couple time when I needed some personal electronic equipment hauled out here from the east coast."

"Wade, you rock!"