Disclaimer: They still belong to Disney; I'm still not making any money off of them. 'Nough said?
Thanks once again to Slipgate for his awesome beta reading. And thanks to everyone who's been following this story for the last several months. Our journey's almost over...
Chapter Twelve: Out There
Drakken was just putting the finishing touches on his Ultra Weather Generator when he was interrupted by a persistent ding, ding, ding.
He straightened up, glaring at the pulsating alarm beacon mounted on the wall with a mixture of annoyance and confusion. "What now? Shego!" he shouted.
"Yeah?" a bored voice spoke from right over his shoulder, and Drakken jumped in surprise. He spun around, swallowing back the impulse to yell at her for startling him.
"Come with me," he said instead, pointing at the alarm beacon. "Somebody's in the storage closet again. Maybe they brought that pink weasel thing with them after all."
Out in the hallway, the two villains crept over to the half-open closet door as quietly as they could and peered inside to see...
"Ron Stoppable!"
At Drakken's exclamation, Ron spun around, the Jade Monkey cradled in his hands. "Hey," he said, grinning as if he was greeting an old friend, "I knew you knew my name!"
Before Ron could take another step, Drakken's vine shot out and wrapped itself tightly around him and the statue both, lifting them up into the air. Drawing Ron's face close, Drakken ground out, "I don't know how you escaped from the dungeon, Buffoon, but if I have to hold onto you myself, you won't escape again."
"Okay," Ron said, shrugging.
Drakken blinked at him. That wasn't the response he had been expecting at all. "What?" he asked, shaking Ron a little. "What do you mean 'okay?'"
"I mean okay," Ron answered. "All right, fine, no problemo...?"
Drakken shook him again. "Ngh! I know what 'okay' means! What I want to know is why you are 'okay.'"
"Ooohhh," Ron said. "Why didn't you say so?" He paused, enjoying the purplish tinge that Drakken's face was beginning to take on. "That's easy. I'm okay with you holding onto me because I'm just the distraction."
Drakken blinked again. "Just the... Shego!" he yelled.
"On it," she said, and because Drakken's attention was still focused on Ron, he missed the quick look she gave the blond boy before she ran back toward the lab.
Drakken spun around and ran after her, carrying Ron and the statue with him. "Ow!" Ron cried as he was pulled roughly through the doorway.
Sure enough, as they rounded the corner into Drakken's lab, there was Kim, staring at the control panel of the Ultra Weather Generator. Shego immediately lobbed a ball of plasma at her. Kim dodged the blast easily, and it hit the side of the machine instead, leaving a nasty-looking scorch mark.
"Shego!" Drakken cried. "Be careful! Don't damage my machine!"
Shego glared at him over her shoulder. "You want me to get Kimmie, or you want me to protect your machine?"
"Both!" he barked. "Multitask!"
Shego sighed. "Fine," she said, running toward Kim and driving her back from the machine with a flurry of plasma-fueled punches.
"Go Kim!" Ron shouted as the redhead countered with a sweep of her leg that almost sent Shego sprawling.
Drakken glared at him. Then the glare slowly transformed into a shark-like grin. "Remember when I threw you into those shelves in the museum?" he asked. "That was fun."
"Heh heh, yeah, fun..." Ron answered, suddenly nervous. "Too bad there aren't any shelves around here, huh?"
Drakken shrugged. "Oh, that's okay," he said. "I'm sure throwing you at the wall will be just as fun."
Before Ron even had time to process that statement, he found himself free from Drakken's vine—and flying at far too high a speed toward one of the lab's stone walls. All he could do was cling to the Jade Monkey and scream.
—
At the sound of Ron's scream, Kim's right hand instinctively grabbed for her hairdryer grappler even as the left blocked another blow from Shego. She aimed at one of the high windows in the wall opposite her and fired. The moment the hook took hold, she hit the recoil button and went flying over Shego's head.
Her path intersected with Ron's just feet from the wall he was hurtling toward. She wrapped her free arm around his waist and carried him with her as she continued her upward flight.
It took Ron a moment to realize he was out of danger and to catch his breath. Then he looked gratefully at his fiancé. "Thanks for the catch."
Kim grinned back. "Any time." But her smile disappeared and her eyes went wide when she heard and felt the snap of the wire that was carrying them. Before she even had time to gasp, they had crashed to the floor below.
Once she recovered from her surprise, Kim untangled herself from Ron and drew the frayed and smoking end of the wire to her. There was only thing that could have caused that. Ron had obviously drawn the same conclusion, as he lifted his head from the ground to glare across the room at Shego. "She wasn't kidding about not going easy on us, was she?" he groaned.
"Guess not," Kim said, pulling him to his feet. "Are you okay?"
"I think so," Ron said, patting himself down—with special attention paid to the little lump in his right pocket. "You okay?"
"Yeah."
"Well, you won't be for long!" Drakken shouted. They both looked over to where he and Shego now stood, in front of the Ultra Weather Generator's control panel. Seeing that he had their attention, Drakken pulled a lever with a grin, and the machine whirred to life. "Looks like the weather's about to change!"
Kim narrowed her eyes. "We need to stop this thing," she said. "But they're not going to let us get anywhere near that control panel."
Ron tapped his chin as his gaze drifted upward. "You know," he said, "this thing is just about the same height as a pyramid of cheerleaders..." He bent down, lacing his hands together and holding them near the floor with palms facing up.
Catching onto his idea immediately, Kim smiled and took a few steps backward. "Thanks for the boost," she said.
Ron grinned. "Any time. Ready? One..."
"Two..."
"Three!" they shouted together, as Kim ran forward. As she reached him, her right foot landed neatly on the platform Ron's hands had created. Ron hefted upward and Kim jumped off in the same fluid motion. Kim flew up toward the ceiling, performing one quick flip before landing perfectly on top of the machine.
"Showoff," Ron called out appreciatively.
Kim grinned down at him, then disappeared from his view. She reappeared a minute later. "Ron, I need something to plug this spout, fast. The opening's about this big," she said, drawing a circle in the air about the size of her head.
"I've got just the thing," Ron said. He picked up the Jade Monkey from where it had fallen when Shego cut the grappling line, and tossed it up to her.
"Ron," Kim chided as she caught the heavy object. "We talked about this..."
"It's the only thing that'll fit!" he insisted.
Kim sighed and shook her head, staring at the statue in her hands. He was right, it was almost perfect, but...
Her internal debate was interrupted by the same wet plop she'd heard earlier when Drakken was first demonstrating the machine to Shego—only this time much closer. She spun around and fell onto her back as she saw the dark cloud now looming over her, threatening to release its noxious contents at any second.
Thinking fast, she drew her hairdryer grappler again, saying a quick thanks to Wade that he had never disabled the device's original function. She flicked the switch from "grappler" to "dryer," aimed at the cloud and fired. A gust of hot air erupted from the gadget, blowing the cloud away from her and off over the edge of the machine.
—
Back on the ground, Drakken, still hovering by the control panel, watched expectantly as the first cloud emerged from the top of the machine and threatened Kim Possible.
Shego, meanwhile, had jumped onto the top of the tank of Super High Pollinator formula, and was preparing to make the leap from there to the top of the machine, when she heard the familiar whirr of a hairdryer. She looked up in confusion, just in time to see the cloud drift over the side of the machine and come to a stop directly above her head.
Before she could think, something wrapped around her waist and yanked her from the top of the tank—just a split second before the cloud opened up.
She stared in surprise at the spot where she'd just been standing as a mass of flowering vines sprang up from the bright green rain puddle. Then she looked down at the vine wrapped around her middle. She turned to find a frightened-looking Drakken standing there beside her. "Are you all right?" he asked, as his vine gently released her.
She nodded dumbly as he wrapped her in his arms instead.
—
Kim holstered the hairdryer and pulled herself to her feet, staring at the spout from which the cloud had emerged. The machine was still chugging away beneath her, no doubt ready to churn out another cloud any second. She looked at the Jade Monkey again and sighed. Mr. McCorkle isn't going to like this.
Without giving herself any more time to think about it, she grabbed the statue, lifted it up over her head, and then plunged it down into the hole.
Ron had been right—it was a perfect fit. Only the grinning face of the monkey remained visible, jutting out of the spout. Within seconds, the machine began to groan and rumble beneath her feet. Kim ran to the edge and jumped off, doing a triple flip in the air to land beside Ron once more. They both turned and stared at the machine as its sides slowly began to bulge from the building pressure.
"Time to go?" Ron said.
Kim nodded. "Time to go." She grabbed his hand, and they both ran for the door as fast as their legs would take them.
—
As she watched their escape, Shego mirrored Kim, grabbing Drakken's hand and tugging him toward the exit. "Come on, Dr. D, we'd better get out of here, too."
But Drakken dug in his heels and yanked his hand from her grasp. "No!" he cried, staring wild-eyed at the Ultra Weather Generator. "We're not done! I can fix it! I can—"
"Drew!"
His eyes snapped up to meet Shego's. She held her hand out toward him, just a hint of pleading in her voice as she said, "It's not worth dying for."
Drakken stared at her for several long seconds before finally his shoulders slumped and his gaze fell to the ground—and he reached out and took her hand and let her drag him from the room.
Kim and Ron had just reached the beach when they heard the kaboom! of the explosion behind them. A second later, the force of the blast knocked them both flat in the sand.
Before they'd had time to recover, they both heard another sound—the whistle of something falling from a great height. They both looked up just in time to see a dark, cylindrical object flying through the air, and all they could do was cover their heads as it landed just a few feet in front of them, throwing up a wave of sand.
After a minute, once it seemed safe to assume that no more flying debris was headed their way, they both uncovered their faces and blinked at the sight of what had almost hit them. "Oh good," Ron said sarcastically, "it's okay." Kim could only laugh.
There sat the Jade Monkey statue, without even the slightest chip or crack in its smooth black surface.
As they stood up and brushed the sand from their clothes, Ron glanced back at the lair. "Do you think they made it out okay?"
"Of course," Kim said, sounding less confident than she was trying to be as she followed his gaze to the dark smoke now pouring from some of the lair windows. "They always do."
As if her words had been a cue, suddenly they saw the silver glint of the hovercraft come flying through the smoke.
"You think you're all that, Kim Possible," Drakken bellowed down at them, "but you're not!"
"You know," Ron said as he watched the hovercraft fly off toward the setting sun, "I've kind of missed hearing that." Kim giggled as he turned his gaze to her. "But just for the record, you are 'all that.'"
"Thanks, Ron. You too—Mystical Monkey Power or no Mystical Monkey Power."
"Ayep." He puffed out his chest. "Nobody does distractin' like the Ron-man."
Kim gave him a sly smile. "Well, I could use a little distractin', Ron-man," she said, leaning in for a kiss. But Ron stopped her with a finger placed gently against her lips. She looked up at him questioningly.
Ron stared back at her, eyes shining with unmasked affection. "First, uh, since the mission's over—and I have my pants back—I guess I should do this right."
He fell down onto one knee in the sand, pulled the little velvet box out of his pocket and flipped it open. But before he could say anything, Kim knelt down in front of him and put a finger to his lips, shaking her head with a soft smile. "You did it right the first time, Ron."
Ron stared back at her as she lowered her finger. "Yeah?"
"Yeah." She nodded, grinning as she leaned forward to rest her forehead against his. "It was weird... but I liked it."
Ron couldn't think of anything to do but grin right back as he took her hand and slipped the ring onto her finger. Neither was surprised to find it was a perfect fit.
To be concluded...