Life has to go on—but that didn't mean it has to be nice.
Kim's face was trying to stay calm as she followed the Coach of the Middleton Swim team into the office. She had just been going into the locker room when the Coach had intercepted her, asking to see her in the Phys Ed offices before she changed.
The Coach kind of haphazardly waved her toward the seat in front of the desk. The Coach then sat on the front side of the desk, looking very uncomfortable and very unhappy.
"What is it you wanted to see me about?" Kim asked fearing the worst (with good reason all things considered).
This made the Coach look even more uncomfortable.
Kim took a deep breath, steeling herself. "Go ahead," she prodded.
"There," the Coach said with obvious reluctance, "have been some—requests made regarding your place on the team—"
Kim's eyes got very big. "What kind of requests?" she asked in a voice that was almost a dreadful whimper.
"That," the Coach continued, not able to look Kim in the face now, "due to certain well publicized scandalous accusations, that you may not be . . . . . a proper . . . representative of the team and the school."
"WHAT?" Kim rocketed to her feet, not understanding, not believing, what she had just heard.
The Coach was now looking at her, pain, anger and pity visible in both eyes and face, hands up as if the adult was worried about a physical attack from the teen. "I know, I know! How many times have you saved the world let alone hundreds if not thousands of lives? Up to now you've been our biggest draw and hero even though you yourself have never flaunted, flashed or made yourself to by anything other than a normal girl. But now—"
"Who complained?" Kim demanded as hurt, anger, grief, and a million other emotions flashed through her eyes.
"You know I can't tell you," was the sad reply, belied by the look in the eyes that wished that the truthcould be said. "I can tell you that the final decision came from the Joint Sports Committee headed by Mr. Goody. If your to appeal, its to them you have to go."
Tears were streaming down Kim's face but she didn't say another word as she turned, stoop shouldered with lowered head, to walk from the office.
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Another week—another disaster.
Kim went into the Administrative office, doing her best as she did every day now to keep a cheery look on her face.
"Hi Kim," said the girl behind the counter, a fellow student from one of her classes last year. The girl gave her a warm but guarded smile. Like the vast majority of the students at Middleton, she were more than willing to give Kim the benefit of the doubt as far as the scandal sheet accusations. But many of students were having trouble with the rumors and charges being spread around by persons unknown (write in Bonnie and her posse). So most of them were keeping their distance and their mouths shut despite whatever it was that they truly felt.
"Hi Leann," Kim answered. "I'm here to check on my permit for the park clean up project?"
With a nod, the girl turned and searched a file cabinet. When she found what she was looking for, she froze for a second.
Kim saw it, saw the moment and the hesitation, and felt her insides tighten.
Leann's face was tight with pain and sympathy as she turned back and handed the form to Kim. "Sorry" was all she could say.
Stamped in big red letters on the top of the permit was 'DECLINED'.
A note attached, signed by a Mrs. Goody, the Chair of the Committee stated that as Kim had done the project for the last two years, it was time that it someone else be allowed to do it.
"What," Kim said in a whispered scream under her breath. "No one else wanted to do it until I did! No one else WANTS to do it!"
Kim threw her hands down, her body upright and stared into nothing as another wall in her life came crashing down.
"This can't be happening" was all she could whisper to no on in particular.
She couldn't even cry.
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Later that week
"Don't scream at me Possible!"
Kim clamped both her mouth and her eyes shut tight and considered what method with which she could rend Rachel Mayhew limb from limb.
"I am not screaming at you," Kim grated tightly, as she felt the eyes of the other six girls on the dance committee stare at the two verbal combatants with various degrees of disgust, anger, fear, annoyance and amusement. "I am just trying to get you to tell me why you have to disagree with everything at the last moment when we're right before a deadline?"
"Because," the frizzy haired pimpled sophomore snipped, "once again, we didn't make the decision on either the mood lighting or the wording of the ad posters. You just up and did it on your own. Like you were Queen or something!"
"The Stage Crew," Kim repeated again trying her very best to sound calm and reasonable, "needed a decision yesterday so they could make sure they had the proper light filters and Josh Mankey came to me on his own to ask about the posters which he has always done and which no one has ever questioned before."
Rachael gave Kim an extra nasty look and laid on with an equally sly voice, "doing things with the ex-boyfriend as well as the new one. We hear from the scandal rags that you like multiples."
Kim erupted out of her chair with her right fist clenched, naked fury on her face.
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The three friends met up near the flagpole in front of Middleton High. All their faces were drawn, their eyes pained and worried. As one, they turned and started down the sidewalk towards home.
Monique walked next to Felix, her hand crushing the one that wasn't on the control for his chair. Her face was torn between rage and tears with the battle far from undecided. Felix's own eyes were straight ahead, but his look was dark without a sign of his usual smile or unquenchable spirit.
Ron walked with head bowed next to Felix on the side opposite Monique. He had just recently graduated to the use of a cane so that other than a noticeable limp, he was able to move and navigate with almost his normal speed and lack of control. But at the moment, this achievement was forgotten in the blackness of the moment.
After almost a block, Ron had to break the silence with a hushed, "I can't believe it, Kim suspended for attacking Rachel Mayhew."
Felix snorted. "Barkin had no choice. The rules required it even though he and everyone else knows that there was more than enough provocation. At least he went real easy on her. Just one day and no other marks against her. Also no detention and no suspension of any of her other privileges."
Ron snorted at that last statement. "What 'other' privileges?" He shot an angry glance back toward the school. "Everything and I mean everything else has already been taken away from her."
Monique looked over. "She's still going to the Cheer Camp before the State Finals isn't she? That's only in a week or two away isn't it?"
Ron snorted even louder. "She hasn't even told her 'rents about it. She figures her Dad is just going to say a loud, resounding 'NO' to her."
Monique's eyes grew wide as she turned to bore her look in on the limping youth. "But your going aren't you Ron? That would make a difference wouldn't it? I mean, you could argue that the one before the Regionals last year, where the thing with the ah—jock happened, you weren't there and maybe it wouldn't of happened it you had been."
Ron shook his head sadly. "I couldn't go last year because I was on infinity detention after that little incident involving the Freshman Art room, that pallet of mystery meat on it's way to the cafeteria, the Bookmobile, that electric skateboard and Rufus." After the mention of his lost friend, they were all silent for a minute. Then Ron went on. "I don't know if I'm going this year because of this bum leg. I mean," and he waved his entire upper body around in a helpless flail, "there's no sense of me going if I can't Mad Dog and since I've been relieved of all my Gopher positions, there's no other reason to be there."
Monique stopped dead. "RON!" she shot at him; horror, accusations, dreadful portents and everything else she could manage to shove into her tone and look to try and make her point as hard a possible. "She has to go. It's all she has left! And if you have to go to make sure she does—" and she left it hanging as that was the greatest threat she could utter.
Ron continued walking up several steps up before she stopped. Then it took a moment before her turned to them with a sick look on his face accompanied by more arm waving and eye rolling, "I know. I mean I know I know . . . you know. But what—and what—I mean how—no, I mean what, or do I? Yes I do. I do, do I? Yes. But—how can I—is there anything that I . . . . ." and he closed his eyes and mumbled "my head hurts."
Concern and empathy was plain on Felix's face and he said simply, "you have to do something Ron. For Kim's sake."
Ron's face stared at the both of them with a very definite 'why me?' look. But the equally firm looks on both Monique's and Felix's face answered the question for him.
You're her boyfriend. You're all she has!
Ron closed his eyes and his face slowly pulled together as if he was forcing himself to focus. Then, that look that they rarely but were more frequently seeing came onto his features and as his eyes came back open, it burned with a steady fire. It was the look that meant that he was focused, was thinking, was right on it and that he had made a decision. He suddenly turned around and started back towards school.
"Where are you going?" asked Monique, now perplexed as to what she had started.
"To get the big guns," was Ron's terse reply.
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Kim trudged drearily up the hill toward her house. Everything was in pain; body, mind, and soul. The body from the fact that she had absolutely no concentration or control at her Kung Fu classes that evening and her instructors had beat her up and thrown her around like a blow up doll.
Her mind was in pain from sheer overload from everything that she had been trying to deal with over the last couple of weeks. It seemed that other than her times of quiet with Ron, every waking moment and three quarters of her dreams had been confused jumbles of utter chaos.
And the pain inside her—
Her deep, deep anger at her Dad over what she felt was treatment of her; his 'precious little baby girl' attitude. The power of the anger frightened her and she was scared to death that it might not be just a reaction to everything else that was happening to her, that it might be that she really was starting to hate her Dad! What was even worse was the 'hate for" and the 'guilt inside' herself she felt for being so angry at him.
Kim's grief over Rufus and her gut wrenching worry about Ron over his loss compounded with her concern and worry about how what was happening to her and how it might be affecting him. Her anger and self-loathing over what she felt was her inability to show him just how much his quiet steady (and yes, still goofy) presence was the main support that was keeping her going through it all.
For her other normal pillar of support was dangling in the wind and that was a fresh, raw wound for both parties involved. Her Mom, in response to continued rise in critical follow-up surgeries in her field as a direct result of the Diablo disasters, had been forced to go into a pool of surgeons working the entire center of the country. So her Mother had been on average, home only one or two days in ten in the past several weeks. The only saving grace had been that those days had been ones in which especially putrid incidents had hit the fan.
But even then, her Mom had been almost totally taken up with trying to corral and control her husband from banishing Kim to Black Hole Deep (for her own pureness and safety of course). But while Kim more that appreciated her Mom doing all that, she still had had almost no time for her! And Kim desperately missed and needed her Mom on something other than a speakerphone—
And her Mom knew it—
And both of them had thrown up barriers and walls of selflessness and guilt so that it was difficult for them to just do anything let alone . . . . . talk.
And finally, there was Kim's equal hatred of herself at her eroding self control and esteem that was causing her to look into the mirror each morning to find a slowly eroding person. A repeat of what had happened when she had been trying to 'make up' to Ron but this one, undeliberate, unconscious, insidious, slowly overtaking her, turning her into a listless, uncaring, sloppy, unkempt stranger who'd actually lost it and got suspended for attacking another student. Who knew what waited for her when she entered her house in moments and was confronted by her parents (how fortunate that her Mom was home for this one) with this final last straw.
She figured she was due to be grounded to her Dad's space station with Frederick the Space Monkey for the next several millennium.
She came up her driveway, something tugging at her senses that there was something there that needed notice but she was too wasted to care. She reached and entered the front door, her tired complacency immediately broken by hearing several voices coming from the front room, two of them, voices most unexpected as she came to a halt in the foyer and stared with open mouthed amazement and sudden fear to see—
"Mr. Barkin? Ms Whitler?" as well as both of her parents and Ron sitting, apparently talking earnestly. That was what had been out in front that she hadn't registered. Barkin's car and another that she hadn't recognized that must belong to Whitler.
Barkin and Whitler immediately glanced at each other and stood. "I'm glad we agree," Barkin said with what sounded like a pleasant voice, giving her parents who now stood to shake both teachers hands, a nod of acceptance.
"Thank you for coming," her Mother told the departing pair, pure gratitude in her voice. Kim noted with growing agony that her Father said nothing and that his face was set and without a trace of emotion.
Kim tried to keep the panic out of her face as she looked to the two teachers as they went past her on their way out. Whitler didn't even look at her. Barkin gave her what would pass for him as a slight smile (a corner of his mouth jerked for a moment). As she heard the front door close behind her—
Please, she whimpered to herself, I can't take any more stress. I cant!
"Come sit down Kimberly," said her Father in a very neutral voice.
She started into the room, arms going to clutch her own shoulders as if she was shivering from the cold. She glanced from her parents to Ron just as her own Mother looked to him and said, "Ronald, please?"
"Ah . . . yeah. I'll wait up in her room." And flashing her a warm but wary smile he darted off for the stairs to her loft.
RON! NO! she screamed silently to herself as she watched him go. She looked back to her parents—
"It's okay Honey," said her Mother soothingly as she came forward to take Kim's arm with a loving touch and lead her to the couch. But Kim's eyes were still on the hard, blank look on her Fathers face and her insides were quickly locking up tight. She allowed her Mother to sit her across from her Father who also sat with a grumpy flop that startled Kim more that she would like to admit. Her Mother then quietly backed away and glided out of the room.
MOM! NO! As Kim's fear turned into terror as she was now alone, unsupported, with . . . . her Father.
At that point, her Father did not look at her and this added to her terror even more. Seconds seemed to turn to years as she looked at him, appalled at the fact that she was ready to bolt and run from her own Father rather than face whatever was at hand.
So tightly was she wound that she actually jumped and felt a wave of light-headedness pass through her when her Dad suddenly blew out a tired breath. He started to fidget with his hands and several times his head started to rise and his mouth started to open, only to have them close and it drop again.
And a wave of shame and grief rolled over her with the realization that, he's trying to talk to me and he cant do it. My own Father can't talk to me. Has it really come down to this?
And she, without conscious thought, prodded him gently, "Daddy?"
He glanced up at that, their eyes met and they found each other there.
But neither person found was truly recognized by the other. Had too much had passed? Had too much—?
"I wont say," he said abruptly as if forcing himself to start, "that I think of myself as a bad parent."
Horror filled Kim and she started to open her mouth but he held up a stopping hand.
"Lets be honest, God knows we need it," her Father said, making it sound like a pronouncement.
Kim subsided and waited.
It took a moment for her Father to settle and ready himself. What came out was clear, heartfelt, and colored with pain and regret.
"What I will say is that I'm an excellent parent for two pre-teen mad scientist boys but when it comes to beautiful almost adult daughters, I have a lot lacking."
"Daddy," her own pain and guilt filling that word—
"Kim please. Lets look at the facts. Like what your Mother and I hoped would be an excellent, well behaved child, you have always come to ask questions or advice when you felt the need."
He phrased it as a question and waited until she bobbed her head in agreement.
And he took what had to be a pained breath before going on. "And I always tried to respond to all those didn't I?"
Kim sat and looked at him, so many emotions tearing her up inside that she was afraid she would crumble at his feet for she knew the answer and if her Father was going to force her to say it—
"Daddy, PLEASE!"
"Did I or did I not Kimberly?"
Lowering her head in shame, her voice barely audible, ". . . . . no, no you didn't."
A grim smile came to James Possible's face but his voice was the gentlest that she could ever recall.
"Your right, I didn't."
Kim's face came up to gaze at her Fathers. And he asked just as softly, "and what were the questions that I always avoided answering?"
Kim wiped at her runny nose and tried not to sound angry when she said, "anything having to do with boys or dating or anything having to do with the fact that I'm a young woman and—" she caught herself in time before she said—
But her Father said it for her, "and that you're not a little girl any longer." Kim's head dropped back down and gave a nod of acknowledgement. "I," he continued, "always managed to pass those off to your Mother didn't I." His Daughter nodded again. And finally, "even," his voice was now heavy with guilt, "those questions that you wanted to hear answers from the aspect of a Father or even worse, a male, so that you could get a clue to one of those endless mysteries involving one of 'those boys."
"Yes Daddy," Kim's head didn't come up, but there was clearly anger in her voice now. "It would have been nice for you not to duck and run at least once or twice in the last couple of years. It's not like I could have gotten the answers, or even just input, from someone like Ron who would be the only other 'male' I trust dearly enough to ask something like that."
Her Father nodded and sighed. "I know. I wish I could change."
That brought her head up with a snap, at which time he added, "but I cant."
Confusion and denial swept through her. "Daddy, what do you mean you cant—?"
Now her Father gave an exasperated snort. "Simply said, I was never ready emotionally or mentally to be the parent and Father of a girl." He now gave her a lopsided smile. "If you think boys are a mystery, you don't have a clue about what I think of 'girls'. Has your Mom ever told you everything she went through just to get my attention in college let alone anything beyond that?"
And the grin faded, "and again, simply said, while I found that I could 'manage' little girls, I have found that I can't accept that those girls eventually grow up," and now his head dropped as if in shame, "nor can I accept that those girls will probably sooner than later find boys, and everything that implies."
"Daddy," Kim started, suddenly afraid for him, "you don't think—"
"Kimberly," he interrupted her, misinterpreting her as well, "I know just as well as your Mother and all your friends that nothing happened in that Boarder Base other than you taking a shower. The young man at cheer camp however—"
Kim colored.
"And the problem is," he went on, "is that I don't want to control my feelings or my actions however they may effect you. It's like you have so much freedom and control in your life now, how much decisive input do I have left?"
"Do you think that when you ground me?" she growled but there was an easier tone to her voice now.
"And I realize," he continued as if he hadn't heard the comment, "that I have probably been going a little too far out in right field the last couple of weeks and I need to apologize for that."
Kim sat fully upright, blinked in disbelief, suddenly holding her breath and incapable of daring to wonder what was coming next.
"I guess," her Father continued, finally sitting back and allowing her to see fully, the sadness and regret in his eyes, "that I was just seeing the picture from my narrow, hyper paranoid, 'parent' point of view. I had no idea—" and he sighed heavily with a grim shake of his head, "and I guess the truth be known, I also didn't want to know, just how all this stuff might be affecting you out there." And he waved his hand in a flapping motion at the world outside of the Possible home.
He now looked at her with a face pleading for forgiveness. "I know your Mom has tried to tell me. I don't think I've ever managed to shut her out of my head as well as this has done. And while you don't need to know the details, you do know your Mother and what her reaction to those kinds of things can be so it will suffice to say on the days she's been here, that breakfast and bedtime have been more than a little frosty of late."
He snorted again and shook his head, "Heck! The twins have even tried to tell me! But I just couldn't bring myself to listen."
And a small, slight smile came to the corner of his mouth. "It took Ronald," and her Father had to stop a moment and then say in a very considering voice, "your boyfriend," Kim looked at her Fathers eyes and could not read all the emotions that raced through them as he said that phrase in that way. But her Dad then broke the gaze, dropping his head as if in shame to say, "It took Ron showing up here with your Administrator and your Cheer Coach, not asking, but demanding mind you, and believe me when I say that only from Ron would I take that kind of stuff, that if I couldn't listen to you, him or even my wife, then at least listen to two not quite impartial but very concerned adults who had some very important things to say about it all."
And with that Mr. Possible came off his couch and came over, gently enveloping his daughter in a hug, saying softly, "And considering what those two very concerned adults had to say, I say to you that I am very, very sorry for making this unnecessarily rough on you, that I love you very much and that you better start getting your stuff together because Ms Whitler needs you desperately as her Assistant Coach at that Pre-State Cheer Camp coming up."
"Oh Daddy!" Kim cried into his arms, ecstatic that for the first time in she didn't know how long, that she was crying with happiness.
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Ron spent the time lying on Kim's bed with heart-in-his-mouth expectation. He desperately hoped that Mr. Possible would make the right decision from the talk with Barkin and Whitler; he seemed to have had all the appropriate reactions during the discussion.
At one point, he could faintly hear Kim crying and that worried him immensely. It immediately made him wonder if he had gone about it all wrong and had made a total disaster out of the whole thing. He of course managed to work himself up to a point of concern where Kim would be ready to blame everything on him and would be a fire-breathing, flesh-rending, revenge-seeking terror when she came up the stairs.
So, when he heard feet hit those stairs, he tottered to his, half ready to run to the window and dive headlong out it for fear of his life, bad leg or no—.
And so, he got the shock of his life at the blazing look of joy on a certain redheads face as she came up at him like a rocket. All he had time for was for both his eyes and mouth to go wide as she plowed headlong into him, wrapping herself around him and locking her mouth to that wide open one of his.
He felt her tug and twist and they were down on her bed. For a moment he was fearful that she would . . . . .
But he felt her start to relax and become more gentle and tender and he knew that she had gotten control and he could relax. At that moment, she broke the kiss, hugged him with fierce strength and with a tear strained voice, whispered into his ear, "thank you, oh thank you—" and she just kept repeating it as she hugged him between times of deep kisses.
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And a last kiss at the front door, much more gentle and chaste than the ones in her room as the 'rents might be watching. With a lingering touch of fingers—"see you tomorrow," she whispered at him. He gave her his goofy smile and a wave and started off as jauntily as he could manage with the cane.
Halfway down the drive, as the true reality of it all hit him, that it had worked, that he had done real good, he gave a "Booya" and tried to do a fancy little step—
Of course he ended up flat on his face.
"RON!" came Kim's shrill cry from behind him.
He turned bright red when he realized that his lady had been watching him walk away from the side door window (what a romantic thought in itself) only to see him do a major pratfall. There was no justice in this world.
"I'm okay, I'm okay," he repeated over and over as Kim wrapped her arms around him and hauled him back up to his feet. He left the blush deepen as she fussed over him—
Then it was back to a reluctant, not so reluctant goodbye kiss, which was not as chaste as before considering their distance from the front door and possible prying eyes.
Kim pulled her face back and touched his nose with her finger. "Straight home," she growled. "And by the streets. Don't cut through the woods, not with that leg, not in the dark, not with your ability to find every possible way to fall on your face."
"Yes ma'am."
Kim opened her mouth and Ron could see that she was going to try to strain to say the words. He grabbed her and pulled her into a tight hug where he could breathe into her ear, "go in and get some sleep coach. That way you can prove your love for me by cranking the Middleton Cheerleaders back up to their winning standards. Which they'll need since they wont have their mascot present. OOFFF!"
Kim pulled away with an evil grin after digging Ron's ribs with a knife hand. "Don't get all ego on me Stoppable. Besides, you will be there."
Ron stopped rubbing his side and blinked in surprise. "There's no way at all that I can go since—"
He shut up when Kim reached out and took the rubbing hand, which she brought forward and placed over her heart, all the while looking at him with those bottomless emerald eyes. "You'll be there because you're with me, right here, in my heart, at all times and for forever."
Ron then gave her a goofy but loving smile. "See, you really don't have to say the words. You just use a different language."
Kim using the hand she still held then jerked him to her again, growling deep in her throat, "then lets just revert back to the original language, one last time."
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Kim came back up into her loft, eyes half closed with a mixture of fatigue and a desire to close her eyes and live the last couple of hours all over again. She rolled into her bed, snatching up Pandaroo into a death grip as she did so.
She was both frustrated and proud of herself. As she had been sorely temped to cross the line and try to show her appreciation for what he had done in other ways (even in her parent's house, even with her parents home. She was that desperate to show him just how much she appreciated what he had done tonight and to show him just how much she loved him!). But she hadn't. She'd controlled herself although it had been difficult. And the pride was greater than the frustration, which felt good. In fact, right now, for the first time in far too long, everything felt good and maybe, hopefully, the dreams would be good—
And she could sleep.
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For the first time in far too long, for the first time in fact since before Rufus had vanished into the mysterious unknown, never to be seen from or heard from again, Ron felt at peace. He had done something really good for someone really good and he had done it without any screwball antics or Ron Factor accidents.
So with a jaunty step (or as much of one that he could manage with a cane), he headed home.
He rounded the corner off of the Possible's street and continued down the hill. As promised, he stuck to the streets, having normally cut across the block of open woods that separated the upper end residential area the Possible's lived in to his housing track. This made the trip much longer but he didn't want anything else to mess his leg up at this point.
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Like animals they packed together. They liked to think that it was because it was cool and it gave a sense of 'belonging'. But the real unspoken fact was that it was 'a pack'. Safety and anonymity in numbers. Fun and thrill in the chase and the kill with little or no worry about ones self getting hurt or having to take personal responsibility.
A pack human wolves.
And they had their quarry, their limping, wounded quarry, in sight. It wasn't going its usual route. It was sticking to the streets where there were lights, maybe cars, people. So there would be no play, no confrontation, no surrounding, no bullying and terrorizing, it would be a straight hit, in, take care of business, and out.
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Ron was enjoying the extra long walk. It allowed him the peace, quiet . . . . and personal privacy for some particular – stimulating fantasies about him and Kim. So his mind was happily occupied so he didn't even feel the soft night breeze.
When everything lit behind his eyes in a massive incandescent explosion, it was the suddenness of it all even more than the blast of pain in his head that disoriented and freaked him. Somehow, and there wasn't a bit of Monkey Kung Fu in it, he managed to stay on his feet as he whirled about in shock and confusion. Then what just had to be a second explosion of light made everything go BLACK!
Time had no meaning. When, through the pain, he was at last able to gather himself and open his eyes, it took him a minute to figure out what it was he was looking at. The fact that the only light was from a single streetlight up the hill didn't help. But after a moment Ron realized that he was looking down at the street pavement, that a rivulet of something dark was dribbling past his left eye to drip and splash on the ground in front of him.
After another moment, he realized that he was on his hands and knees in the street, that he rear of his head felt that something had split it open like a watermelon and that he knew—that he wasn't alone.
Ron then knew several other things. He was under attack, he was in a—lot of pain, and he was bleeding badly. He was alone, Kim wasn't here to save him and there had to be more than one of . . . . . . THEM!
That left three things to do.
Run!
Scream like crazy!
Panic!
So with a scream that scared him (that was his blood) he leapt up, blindly flailing out in all directions as he did so. He felt the cane, still tightly gripped in his one hand hit something but he didn't know what even as he tried to get his feet under himself. But he of course was unsuccessful as he felt himself trip over his own feet and lurch toward the side. There he felt himself run into something solid—
And human! And it was grabbing him, folding itself around him—
Panic! The flight part of Fight or Flight! Strategic Withdrawal to the rear with unreal haste! He didn't have any words to match the concept that filled him with incredible strength as he twisted and scrambled like a cat in a furball. He felt himself tear through and physically roll over the form holding him, feeling them both hit the ground with Ron on top.
He frantically scratched and tore himself free, jerking himself up onto his knees, his arms swinging wildly trying to ward the attackers off. He felt the cane, which he somehow had managed to hold onto 'whack' into something solid—
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As the human wolves gathered around their wounded prey, their cruel smiles revealed their evil anticipation of the joy they would shortly experience as they administered brutal pain and injury to the helpless quarry in front of them.
But to their own startlement, with a soul rending cry, the form they though was helpless after being subjected to two jagged edged pieces of concrete rock from the rear came alive in a detonation of vicious, controlled fury. The cane lashed out and caught the Fat One in the groin immediately dropping him to his knees. At the same time the prostrate, bleeding form leapt up and charged to his side in a ferocious attack that caught the Bald One in the gut with a full-force shoulder blow, the two of them wrapping up tight at the Bald One went down—
The others yelled and tried to move in, startled and frightened by the sudden attack of a prey they thought had been easy and already defeated. The Dark One moved in to grab the prey, only to see in an unbelievable martial arts type twist, the prey pull itself out of the grasp of the Bald One even as the pair of them hit the ground. The prey spun around, arms whipping like the wings of a bird and before the Dark One could react, that twice damned cane caught him square in the left temple and dropped the Dark One for the count—
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Ron felt 'something' crash to the ground in front of him and he tried to escape backwards in an uncontrolled flailing of body parts. He heard his own screaming. That and the pounding in his head kept him from hearing but he knew that others were yelling as well. In his roll around, blood had gotten into his eyes and he was blind. He had to get out NOW!
He spun about, having to guess a direction, dropped his head like a charging bull and dug his feet into the pavement—
And he ran headlong into—something—.
He felt his neck and spine jar, tweak and compress from the force of the blow. He felt whatever he had hit fold around him, heavy weight coming over onto his back—
It was going to push him to the ground!
With a full-throated cry of absolute abandonment to total fear and complete hysteria, without thinking about the ridiculousness of the situation, he tired to stand—
And the weight was gone—
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The Fat One was trying to get to his feet as the Prey whirled about. The Skinny One ran around the Fat One, screaming at the top of his voice "get him! Get him!" The Skinny One had a two foot length of steel pipe raised—
The Prey turned and charged without warning, head lowered like a bull catching the Skinny One right in the belly, folding the Skinny One around the Prey's attacking form. Then with a mighty cry, the Prey sprang upright, bodily throwing the Skinny One into the air like a bull throwing a dog where the Skinny One crashed down on top of the Bald One on the ground behind them.
"Take him out!" screamed the Fat One.
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Ron was disoriented, nauseated with fear and pain and running now without thought. He tripped and stumbled around in a full circle, one hand whipping madly at his eyes so that he could see. He caught a bare glimpse of the streetlight up the street. He tried to swerve around toward it—his feet tangled—
He twisted, turned—
He started to hear loud "CRACK's!" behind him—
He tripped, started to fall—
He felt something pluck at an elbow, a brush past an ear as the 'CRACK's!' continued.
He felt his knees hit—
Just as something like a white-hot poker lanced into the rear of his—
TO BE CONTINUED