Kim Possible and all related characters are the property of Disney. Transformers and all related characters are the property of Hasbro.

The Transformers used will be a mixture of Generation 1, Beast Wars, the IDW Comics series (which is fantastic, by the way), the Aligned Continuity (The Prime and Robots in Disguise TV series and the Fall of Cybertron and War for Cybertron video games), and a smattering of The Unicron Trilogy (Armada, Energon, and Cybertron) and Animated.

My name is Kim Possible. For the time being, I'm a Global Justice agent on detached assignment with Unit E. That might change in the next few minutes, especially if I beat the living snot out of Will Du!

Will was a fellow agent, and one of the biggest control freak jerks I've ever met. He also said something extremely stupid. He just called Ron Stoppable a loser. If I wasn't so shocked by the fact that Will and our boss, Dr. Betty Director, knew that Ron was still alive, I would have punched him in the face right then and there.

"How did you know Ron and Shego were here?" I asked instead. It was a safer tactic than committing assault, even though I was pretty sure Agent William Fowler, Agent Spike Witwicky, and Nurse June Darby from Unit E would back me up.

"No thanks to you, amateur!" Will spat. "Instead of telling us, like you were supposed to do, we had to find out in... other ways."

William Fowler, the agent in charge of Unit E, never lost his poker face. He just looked at Will with an expression that would have made Mr. Barkin sweat. "And what ways are those, Agent Du? And are they ways that would violate Unit E's security? Don't forget that we're part of the United States Department of Homeland Security, and if Global Justice is spying on us, it could cause some serious problems for you."

"As for why Kim didn't say anything to you about Ron and Shego," Spike Witwicky, agent Fowler's second in command said, "she wasn't cleared to divulge that information yet. Just as I'm sure there's plenty of GJ intel she hasn't been cleared to share with us."

Dr. Director had been sitting quietly this whole time, watching everyone else react. This was something she did a lot; she would observe a room and gauge how tweaked people were getting. Then she would make her move. She didn't even blink! The only thing she did was raise an eyebrow.

"Be that as it may, Agent Witwicky," Dr. Director finally said, "the fact that these two individuals were still alive is information Global Justice needed. Shego has information about Dr. Drakken's Diablo plot that we could use. And I'm sure Stoppable, after six years, has valuable information about this Mech organization."

Will Du shot me a dirty look. "Which means he needs to be taken away from you amateurs and interrogated by professionals!"

"I've heard enough of this!" Everyone in the office turned to look at Nurse June Darby. "Let's get a few things straight right now! First of all, Ron isn't our prisoner, he's a patient. In fact, he's my patient! Second, he's been getting debriefed regularly about what he experienced during his captivity."

"I respect what you're saying, Nurse Darby, I really do," Dr. Director said. "But I'm afraid I must insist. Stoppable and Shego are returning to our New York stronghold today."

June wasn't backing down. "You're not taking Ron anywhere."

"I'm sorry Nurse Darby, but when it comes to medical decisions, I'll listen to Doctor Director." Will was sneering at me when he said this. He missed the look of June's face that could have frozen molten lava.

"Really now," June said a little too calmly. Then she turned to Dr. Director. "Tell me, Doctor, what's your medical specialty? And how familiar are you with Ron's medical history? Do you know the nature of his injuries? Do you even know his blood type? I may be just a nurse, but I have been treating that young man since Kim rescued him, and I will be damned if I let you take him away and endanger his life!"

"This has gone way past being ridiculous," I said. "Will, you and I both know that Dr. Director has a PhD in political science and isn't a medical doctor. And I know that releasing Ron and Shego to you isn't Agent Fowler's choice."

"That's right," Fowler said. "It's Dr. Greer's. And he's an actual MD. When he's done with his rounds I'd be more than happy to have him brief you on his patient's condition." Fowler stood up and motioned to the door. "Until then, I'm late for a conference call with the Joint Chiefs."

Recognizing this as our cue to get out, everyone stood up and filed out of Agent Fowler's office. June came up to me as soon as she closed the door.

"Speaking of Dr. Greer, he and the Stoppables would like to talk to you about Ron's recovery."

"Is he okay?" The last time I saw Ron he was pretending to be asleep. That was his way of not having to talk to me. I knew I wasn't going to be his favorite person, but being ignored like that still hurt. Now I knew a little how he felt when I was so hung up on Eric.

"Physically he's coming along nicely," June said. "Just come see us at 1300 hours. We'll talk about it then."

As soon as June walked off, I made a beeline for Will. "Du!" I shouted. "My office! Now!" It was high time he and I had a little chat.

As soon as the door to my office closed, I jumped down Will's throat. "What is your damage?" I demanded.

"I don't know what you-"

"Spare me," I said, cutting him off. "Let's start off with threatening a US government security agency! And calling them amateurs! Agent Fowler is a decorated combat veteran and Spike has seen more in the last five years than we have in our entire lives!"

Will didn't say anything. He just looked around the room. "So this is all it takes to buy your loyalty. An office."

I let out a groan and sat down at my desk. "This isn't about loyalty."

"Yes it is!" Will barked. "You're selling Global Justice out!"

"Okay, you're right. This is about loyalty. My loyalty to Ron."

Will chuckled. "And now we get to it. You've got your loser boyfriend back."

I stood up and leaned over my desk. "He's not a loser," I said. "And the only reason he wasn't my boyfriend is because I was too stupid to see that he was boyfriend material when I had the chance! And right now he's in really bad shape! The last thing he needs is to be dragged out of a place where he's somewhat comfortable, be taken all the way across the country to deal with people he doesn't know, and who don't have his best interests at heart!

"And then there's Shego," I continued. "Taking her out of the detention center is a death sentence! Mech put microscopic robots in her bloodstream that are soaking up all of her comet power."

"Good. That'll make her easier to transport."

"No, it makes her into a living bomb. Those robots are waiting for the command signal to detonate, and we don't know what the blast radius is." I saw Will start to sweat. "When she goes, she might take everyone around her. Including you."

I stalked over to Will and got in his face. "You are many things, Will, but you're not this stupid! What's gotten into you? You're the one who told Agent Fowler and Spike where to find me when I was visiting Ron's grave. You're the one who was dead set on getting me out of the way for a little while, and now you're villifying me for it?" I went to the door and opened it. "You so need to get your priorities straight. Now get out. I have a friend to go see."

Dr. Carl Greer was a legend in the counter terrorism world. For twenty five years he was a field medic for the government's elite G.I. Joe team, using the code name Doc. After he retired, he left that job and the code name to his niece Carla. As a favor to Agent Fowler, he came to work for Unit E as a staff doctor. Now he was taking care of Ron. I was beyond grateful for that.

When I walked into Dr. Greer's office, I was met by the good doctor himself, the Stoppables (except for Hana), Nurse Darby, and Dr. Monica Martinez, the psychiatrist treating Ron's mental state. I was ushered into an empty seat as Dr. Greer closed his office door.

Dr. Greer was a tall African American man with salt and pepper hair, and glasses that almost looked like mirrors. His office was filled with mementos of his time with G.I. Joe, including a katana blade behind his desk bearing the mark of the Arashikage ninja clan. I had heard about those ninjas from Yori and Master Sensei. I would have to ask Dr. Greer where he got the sword.

"I assume that Hana is in with Ron," I said as an ice breaker.

Dr. Martinez chuckled. "That girl is tenacious! She's decided that she's going to be her brother's shadow, and she's doing just that. If he wasn't showing signs of warming up to her despite his best intentions, I would ask Mr. and Mrs. Stoppable to have Hana leave Ron alone."

I nodded. Enough small talk. It was time to get down to business. "So what's the sitch? I mean, I assume that Ron has a serious case of post traumatic stress."

"That's putting it mildly," Doc said. "I've seen guys come out of Cobra prison camps in better shape than Ron's in. But there's more to it than that."

"Ron feels like he's been replaced," Dr. Martinez added.

"By us," Dana Stoppable finally said. "Because we adopted Hana after he was... taken from us."

"And by you, Agent Possible," Dr. Martinez said.

That one hurt, even if it was true. I basically replaced Ron with Eric on Diablo Night. And this was after I expected him to drop everything after I brushed him off on pizza night to save my dad. Which he did.

I looked around the room, took a breath, and spoke. "So what can we do?"

"So far, the only people he will speak to without hesitation are your brothers," June said. "And he keeps Rufus with him pretty much at all times."

"But you're his best friend, Kimberly," Dean Stoppable added. "He needs you right now."

"He doesn't want me around. The last time I went to visit him, he pretended to be asleep. It's just as much my fault all this happened to him as it is Drakken's and Mech's."

Dr. Martinez took out a file folder, one with my name on it. "That's the other reason you're here. As base psychiatrist, I am now responsible for your mental health, Agent Possible. I requested a copy of your file from Dr. Wellesly at Global Justice. This might also help with you own problems."

The problems in question had to be my survivor's guilt over what happened to Ron. I doubt I'll ever get over that. Like I said, it's just as much my fault that Ron's in this mess as the people who actually tortured him. I didn't pull the trigger, but I did put him in the line of fire.

"I'll talk to him," I said. "I doubt it'll do much good, but I'll talk to him." Besides, he needed to know what Global Justice was planning.

No sooner had I left Dr. Greer's office than my Kimmunicator went off. I had taken to wearing the wrist model Wade put together towards the end of my senior year. It was more convenient than the handheld model, and it had a lot more built in gadgets. I had thought about showing it to the Autobots to see if they could improve on it.

"What's the sitch, Wade?"

"Hey, Kim," he said when he appeared on screen. "I just wanted to let you know that I'm going to be coming to Jasper in the next few days."

I smiled. Wade was coming! "That's great news! Are you that eager to see the Ark?"

"There is that, yeah, but, well..." he trailed off. I knew where this was going. "I want to see Ron."

"And he still won't take your calls." He nodded. "I can relate. I mean, I'm here and he finds ways to avoid me."

"It's my own fault," Wade said. "He asked me for help, but I brushed him off. The thing is, had you come to me, I would have believed you."

I sighed. Everyone Ron went to that night brushed him off. Me, Wade, even my 'rents. The only people who believed him were the Tweebs. They figured out that the Diablos weren't what they seemed, and they attached rockets to Ron's scooter so he could get to Bueno Nacho HQ before Drakken fully launched his plan.

"I'll talk to Optimus. Maybe Ironhide or Bumblebee can come with me to pick you up at the airport."

That got the smile out of Wade I was hoping for. It faded quickly when an alarm on one of his consoles went off. "Uh oh."

"I don't like the sound of that."

"Someone's trying to hack into Unit E's phones and comm lines."

"Internal or external?"

"Both." He looked up at me. "But they're not destabilizing anything. It's like they're looking for a specific frequency." He typed in several commands and waited for the results. "I think whoever it is is trying to break through the interference on Shego's cell."

I chuckled. "Then it's a good thing her cell is one big Faraday cage."

"Yup. A room lined with a mesh of non-conductive materials that physically blocks any and all radio signals. You can't hack something that doesn't use a computer." He got serious. "But that means we have someone on the inside and the outside trying to do it at the same time."

"Meaning Mech has a mole." I stopped walking and leaned up against the wall. "We had a feeling this would happen."

"I'll work on a trace, see if maybe I can find out where this is coming from," Wade said. "Fortunately, I'm working with some rather sophisticated Cybertronian tracking algorhithms."

"You rock, Wade."

Okay, I have an awkward confession to make. I have jealousy issues. The Green Eyed Monster rears its ugly head whenever a pretty girl pays any attention to Ron. It didn't happen with Tara since Ron was so oblivious to it, or with Zita Flores, even though she and Ron dated. I guess I hadn't started to think of Ron as my Ron back then.

No, it only got bad when Yori showed up and dragged Ron off on a mission around the world to save Sensei. Monique called me on it, but I brushed it off. She was so right, though. I jealed. I jealed hard. That would also explain why I went so ga-ga over Ron when I wound up with a Moodulator on the back of my neck and it went to love mode. Those feelings were there all along. The Moodulator let them out for air.

That having been said, I was totally not jealous seeing Ron laughing with and hugging a cute little brunette when I went to his room. Here was a female who loved Ron as much as I did, even if it was in a different way. Besides, I could never be jealous of Hana.

When I got to Ron's door, I saw Hana reading to him from her favorite Flippies book. Hana was one sharp cookie! At four years old she was reading at a first grade level. I could tell that her big brother was more than impressed.

"Kimmie!" Hana exclaimed when she saw me. Ron, meanwhile, had a panicked look on his face. "Brother and I were reading about the Flippies going to Mars! You wanna join us?"

I smiled. "Another time." I picked Hana up and hugged her. "Your 'rents are in Dr. Greer's office. Why don't I take you there so I can have a chat with your brother?"

"Kay." She jumped from my arms and hugged Ron tightly. "I love you, Brother." She kissed him on the cheek and ran over to the door.

Ron rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah. See you later, you little intruder."

I was back within five minutes. Ron's head was covered by blankets, and he was pretending to sleep again. Rufus had gone with Hana, so it was just the two of us, and he knew it.

"That's not gonna work this time. I know you're awake." I looked over at the food tray beside the bed. "There's half a grilled cheese sandwich sitting there that, by the looks of it, was made by my mom and not the cafeteria. So come on. Up and at 'em! We need to talk."

Reluctantly Ron sat up. He looked over at the sandwich with equal parts longing and disdain. "Sold out by cheese," he grumbled. "That is just wrong sick."

I took a seat beside him. "You're warming up to Hana."

"Yeah, well, she likes the Flippies, so she can't be all bad."

"There are a few things we need to talk about," I said. "First of all, Dr. Director and Will Du are here."

Ron winced. "Du's here?"

"I'm afraid so. And they want to take you to GJ Headquarters in New York. Agent Fowler, Spike and I aren't going to let that happen."

Ron quirked an eyebrow at me. That was his default "I'm confused" look. "Why not? I mean, you're Global Justice."

"I am. But I also know that moving you now is such the bad idea." I looked down at his leg. "You just had your knee replaced, and you have a lot of physical therapy to go through. That needs to happen here, where there are doctors and nurses who know what you've been through."

"Okaaaaay." Ron didn't sound convinced, but I understood why. I wouldn't have believed me either.

I took a deep breath. "And I was talking to your 'rents and Dr. Martinez. About you."

Ron slumped. "I knew this was coming."

"They told me you feel replaced."

Ron shot me an icy glare. "Well now, let's see, shall we? You blew me off for a fake pretty boy, my parents adopted another kid, and you went off and joined Global Justice after replacing me with Monique!"

I blinked. "Monique? She only helped with one mission, when the Fashionistas and a shapeshifting former heiress named Camille Leon stole clothing designs from Coco Banana. I so wouldn't have gotten through that without her.

"And do you honestly think I like working with Will? Come on, Ron! He's more full of himself than anyone I've ever met! More than Bonnie ever was! Besides, I went from working with the best to someone who thinks he's the best."

Ron snorted. "And let me guess, the best was me?"

"Yes."

"Spare me."

I stood up and went to the door. Instead of walking out, I closed it. When I turned around to face him, I was unbuttoning my shirt.

Ron's eyes went to the size of flying saucers. "Kim, what are you doing?"

I shot Ron a look that was probably a lot more sultry than I was going for. "Relax, Ron, I'm not flashing you." No matter how much I'd like to. "I'm only going to show you something."

When I sat down, I pulled the left side of my shirt and a little of my bra out of the way, showing him the tattoo over my heart.

"Why do you have 'Never be Normal' tattooed on your... on your... uh... chest?" he squeaked.

"I got this for you," I said in an almost reverent voice. "Your motto, inked over my heart. I got it when I turned eighteen." I buttoned my shirt back up. "This is a constant reminder of the best friend I ever had, and how I failed him."

Ron cleared his throat and shifted around. "Your boyfriend can't have liked that. I mean, a tattoo about another guy."

It was my turn to snort. "What boyfriend? I've been on two dates in the last six years. I don't trust myself with guys anymore. Not after being fooled by a synthodrone." I took Ron's hand again. He was sweating. He really thought I was going to flash him!

"I've had a lot of time to think about what's important over the last six years," I told him. "I've had a lot of time to realize how badly I screwed up on prom night."

Ron took his hand from my grip. "So you've said."

"What I told you is the truth, Ron. I believed you about the Diablos, but I ignored you anyway. You paid the price for it."

Ron let out a mirthless chuckle. "Yeah, it just proves what a loser I really am." Tears started to fall from his eyes. "I mean, I finally got to be the hero! I figured out the bad guy's plan, I went to his lair, and I stopped him! I was even gonna follow Sensei's example and save the bad guy. But what happened? I still lost! Drakken got wasted, I got captured, and, and..." Ron trailed off on sobs.

I leaned forward and embraced him. He struggled at first, but then melted into me. That was when I realized that I was crying too. "You are so not a loser," I whispered. "I am. I turned my back on you, and you paid for it. Had I gone with you..."

"Mech might have gotten you too."

"I don't care!" More tears squeezed out as I closed my eyes. "You wouldn't have been alone. And you wouldn't have thought that I didn't care. That I didn't love you."

Ron shot up, his eyes wide and full of fear. "What did you say?"

"I said I love you." I wiped my eyes. "I realized that the day of your funeral. That's another reason I got this tattoo!"

Ron started trying to push himself into the headboard. "What are you?"

"I'm me. I'm Kim. You know, KP?" I slowly backed away. I didn't want Ron to freak out any more than he already was. "What's wrong?"

"Syntho-Kim one forty seven said it loved me," he managed to say. "Right before it did this." He lifted his shirt to reveal a stab wound in his right side.

"Dear God," I said in a hushed whisper. "I'm real, Ron! I swear to you I am! We learned to ride bikes together! Your mom took Walter Nelson and me to the orthodontist when we kissed and our braces got locked together! You told me, before you disapperaed, that the worst part of Camp Wannaweep was being away from me for an entire summer!"

I slowly sat down on the bed again. "I love you, Ron Stoppable. That's the real reason I don't date. No matter how nice a guy is, or how popular or good looking, he wouldn't be you."

"Just... just leave me alone. Please."

"Okay." I stood up and went for the door, my heart breaking more with each step. I opened the door and started to walk out. "Can I... can I come back to check on you later?"

"Please just go."

So I did. I was in a daze, my vision clouded with tears. I almost didn't see June coming towards me.

"Kim, are you okay?"

I looked at the older woman and practically threw myself into her arms. "He hates me," I sobbed. "He hates me."

I must be a real glutton for punishment. No sooner had I recovered from my encounter with Ron than I decided to go to yet another emotionally charged situation. But at least the drive from the base to the silo housing the Ark would help me clear my head. That was the theory, anyway.

The first place I went was to the repair bay to check on Sideways. His chest plate had been removed, exposing some of his inner workings. Ratchet was trying to do what he could. The only thing that looked promising were that Sideways' vitals were stable. Then I heard a groan come from a nearby diagnostic table.

"Bulkhead?" The Wrecker looked like he was trying to come out of a drunken stupor. "Bulk are you all right?"

"You Junkions sure know how to party," he slurred. "Hey, Wreck-Gar! Let's have some more of that radium rum!"

"Ignore him," a voice from behind me said. I turned and saw Ratchet holding a melted and cracked cylinder. "He's recovering from surgery. Sometimes coming out of induced stasis can be difficult."

"I can imagine," I replied. "Wait, surgery? Is he okay?"

Ratchet motioned for me to come over to his work table. "He's fine. I still couldn't make heads or tails of the hack job Mech did on Sideways' locking chip, so Bulkhead offered his."

A proud and sad grin came to my lips. "I'm not surprised. Will this hurt Bulkhead at all?"

Ratchet huffed. "Are you kidding? Bulkhead's armor is so think I don't think he can get damaged enough to go into stasis lock! But to answer your question, he can live without it, just like you can live without a kidney or your gallbladder. He just needs to be careful that he doesn't sustain life threatening injuries in battle. No locking chip means no stasis lock." Ratchet looked over at the other table where Sideways was laid out like the pieces of a model kit. "But thanks to Bulkhead, Sideways is now stable."

Ratchet went back to examining the cylinder. "And what's that?" I asked.

"The tertiary data core from the stasis pod that brought Sideways to Earth."

"It's a mess."

"That's putting it mildly," Ratchet said with a sigh. "Stasis pods are designed to take a lot of punishment. They have ablative regenerating shells, multiple redundant memory backups for the central core, and a power generator that can run for up to ten million stellar cycles without a recharge.

"The problem is that this pod went through more punishment than its designers could have anticipated. Four million years' worth of interstellar travel, micrometeorite impacts that went on until it accumulated a shell of rock and ice, then entering Earth's atmosphere, the volatile ices in the shell exploding, crash landing, and laying buried in the Siberian ice and snow for another century. Then there's whatever Mech did to it to get it open! It saved Sideways, even if he was nearly totaled in the crash, but the datatracks are completely unrecoverable."

I lowered my head. "What does that mean?"

"I had hoped that perhaps the life support data the pod had from Sideways would have been intact. With that, I could have seen what changes Mech had made when they rerbuilt him, and try to fix the extra damage they caused." He set the cylinder down. "But unfortunately, the data is completely gone. With Bulkhead's locking chip, I can keep Sideways in stasis indefinitely. But what kind of a life is that if I can never heal him?"

A series of chirps and beeps from the repair bay door got our attention, and got Ratchet majorly tweaked.

"Oh for Primus' sake, Bumblebee," he said. "Use your head! Spark transplants are science fiction! Besides, we'd need a blank protoform to put him into, and we don't have one. Now go away and let me work."

Bumblebee started to say something else, but Ratchet cut him off. "Yip, yip, yip! Not now!"

I took that as my cue to leave. I nodded to Bee and we walked out the door. He beeped at me a few times.

"Optimus wants to see me? Where is he?"

Optimus Prime and Ironhide were on the Ark's bridge looking at holographic images of the TransMetal Driver and the nucleon canisters. Ironhide was shaking his head.

"I'm getting really tired of these Decepticon scavenger hunts," he said. "First it was when we were on Cybertron, trying to keep Megatron from findin' the Matrix before you became the boss, and now this."

"Which begs the question," I said, "of how these Cybertronian artifacts got here in the first place. I mean, the Ark and the Nemesis chasing each other here I can see. But Sideways' pod winding up here four million years ago? And BlackArachnia's pod millions of years before that? Not to mention the fact that there are energon deposits here."

"Earth used ta be a depot planet, kid," Ironhide said. "We had a front row seat to your species evolving."

"And we left energon here, buried in deep pits so that sediment could build up over time and crystalize it," Optimus added. "Solid energon is more potent than energon in its liquid form."

"Bee said you wanted to see me," I said, getting down to business.

Optimus approached me. "Spike and Agent Fowler tell me that your superiors from Global Justice have arrived. I was wondering if it would be in our best interests to ally with them."

"A lot of our energon spikes and 'Con sightings take us out of your country," Ironhide said. "It sure would be nice to have folks in these other nations who wouldn't go all ape slag on us if they saw us."

I thought about that for a minute. "Dr. Director I trust. My partner Will Du is another story. He's more concerned about his reputation than the work." I thought about it some more, then shook my head. "The other problem is Dr. Director's twin brother. If you think Starscream and Slipstream are bad, Dr. Director and Gemini are worse! Most of the time it feels like I'm stuck in the middle of the world's worst case of sibling rivalry. Most of the time we're fighting Gemini's goons than we are taking care of bigger threats to world peace."

Optimus nodded. "Thank you for your honesty. I would still like to meet with Dr. Director to see for myself."

Before I could say anything else, my phone went off. If it wasn't for Teletraan-1 automatically routing the cell phone signal through a series of sky spy satellites, I wouldn't have gotten the call. Thank you, Cybertronian technology! I saw that it was Spike, so I put the call on speaker.

"Possible here."

"Kim, you need to get back here NOW!" Spike said in a terse voice.

"What's the sitch?"

"The sitch is that your boss and her flunky are trying to get Ron and Shego out of here."

"I'll bring her back myself, Spike," Optimus said. "We'll be ground bridging in!"

Optimus came skidding out of the ground bridge portal right in front of the infirmary. I jumped out of his cab and took off in a mad dash towards the main entrance, where June was waiting for me.

"They're in the physical therapy room," she said. "We'd taken Ron there for some exercise, and your boss and her little sycophant followed us in. Dr. Greer's holding them off, but I don't trust that Du guy as far as I can throw him!"

"Don't worry. I've got this."

I sprinted the entire distance to where Ron was, dodging doctors, nurses, and the occasional patient on my way. When I got there, it was an Old West showdown without the guns. "Just what the hell is going on here?" I demanded.

Ron was sitting ramrod straight, his back totally rigid. His hands were in fists on his lap, and his knuckles were all white. His eyes were wide and his mouth was a thin line. I'd seen this look so many times before, right before Ron would go into hysterics. He was right on the edge of a meltdown now, but it seemed like he was trying to fight it.

"Good timing, Kim," Doc said. "I was just having a disagreement with your colleagues about the best place for Ron to receive his treatment."

"Stoppable is coming with us," Du sneered. "You amateurs have done enough damage."

Doc didn't take the bait. He simply walked up to do and looked the younger man in the eyes. "Son, I spent over two decades fighting threats like Cobra. I faced off against Crimson Guard commandos, Dreadnocks, Battle Android Troopers, and Cobra Commander himself! A little boy running around acting trying to like a tough grown up doesn't scare me."

Will backed down and swallowed. "Cobra? You... you were in G.I. Joe?"

"He was," I said. "Wich makes all of us the amatuers here!" I turned to Dr. Director. She still had that one eyebrow raised, and was looking at me with an unblinking expression. "We talked about this earlier. Dr. Greer is the one who decides if Ron stays or goes!"

Doc came up beside me. "He stays."

"I expected better from you," Dr. Director said to me. She turned to Ron. "Don't get too comfortable, Ron. Both you and Shego will be coming back to New York with us." See turned back to me. "As for you, Agent Possible. I'm afraid your services are no longer required. As of now, you are dismissed from Global Justice."

With that, she and a visibly gloating Will turned and left. Doc and June were right on their heels. I was about to follow when Ron stopped me.

"KP." It was the first time he'd called me that since we got himn out of the Circuit Breaker suit in Lowerton.

I went and sat down next to him. He was still sitting stiffly, like his life depended on him staying still.

"We have a serious problem," he said.

"A synthodrone?"

I was back in Agent Fowler's office with Spike. Wade was on the Kimmunicator, listening in and continuing to look for the communications hack. "That's what Ron said. We have a synthodrone on base."

"And he's sure about this?" Spike asked. "I mean, you've said yourself that Ron's powers of observation are... well... sometimes lacking."

I had to give Spike that one. "Under normal circumstances, if you put me in a room with someone who looked like me, not an exact duplicate but close enough, Ron would have a fifty-fifty chance of choosing the wrong Kim. But we left normal circumstances six years and at least a hundred and forty seven synthodrone duplicates of me ago. He's sure, and so am I."

"According to my digging," Wade said, "the internal hacking attempts started shortly after Will and Dr. Director arrived."

"And we're sure it's Mech?" Agent Fowler asked.

"They're doing a good job of getting around the blocks I'm setting up, and I'm using Autobot code to do it. So yeah, it's Mech."

I started to rub my temples. I was getting such the headache. "So now what?"

Agent Fowler let out a chuckle. "Maybe it's time we gave them what they want."

Next time: Unit E vs Global Justice