~Some more fluffy stuff this time around. Hope you like.
The occasional grammar mistake and/or non-word is meant to capture Drakken's "voice." Yes, and he's so good with cars that he doesn't even know how many carburetors one needs. XD~
Blub blub. Blub blub. Blub blub.
Dr. Drakken grinned his wicked grin as he blew another long stream of air into his straw. That was the only good thing about Shego being late today: he could blow bubbles in his chocolate milk, and she wasn't around to ride him for it. (Ride being the very latest teen slang for nag.)
Two of the henchmen plodded by just then, each with a carburetor slung over their shoulders. As if they were beach towels. As if a fall wouldn't have shattered them into pieces that maybe not even Drakken could have repaired!
Drakken spit his straw out long enough to bark, "Handle those gently, you big clods! They're very delicate pieces of equipment!"
The henchmen looked hurt, but they switched to a both-hands hold. At least their lumbering pace didn't leave them in very much danger of tripping.
He gave orders, and they followed them. It was science, a cause and effect that never failed to lift Drakken's spirits, especially since it was like that with exactly no one else.
So Drakken snapped back over his shoulder to the henchman behind him, "Noah, set the engine down in front of the lube - lubricat - the pole thingy that goes up and down! Carefully! You'd better not scratch the Doom-Vee's paint job!" And to another passing by, he added, "Marc, retrieve my toolbox! I shall be needing it before long!"
In a few minutes, all would be in place for Drakken to continue with his greatest plan yet! And all without him having to lift a finger. That was what a tough taskmaster he was.
Drakken tried to ignore the fact that it was also because he was just plain not strong enough to lift any of the machinery.
No, that didn't matter. The Doom-Vee, his latest harbinger of international catastrophe, was a guarantee that he would go down in history as the most powerful man on Earth. Granted, Drakken didn't know much about cars, but they were machines, like the rest of his Doomsday devices. Though he was more comfortable with chemicals, he'd had luck with machines in the past.
Occasionally.
Grrhk. A doubt. Drakken pounced on it and laser-fried it until it begged for mercy.
Because that was what tough taskmasters did.
Drakken took another long sip of chocolate milk, refreshingly cool on this still-fairly-hot day. It was Labor Day, the day most people accepted as the unofficial start to fall, although somebody with Drakken's intelligence knew autumn was still two weeks away. The temperature was still warm enough to activate the henchmen's sweat glands as they huffed and puffed under their burdens.
But Drakken was an experienced season-watcher (which sounded much better than "getting kind of old"). And he knew that, soon enough, the leaves would change and Mother would be calling to ask if he was wearing his long underwear and clicking her tongue if he wasn't. You talk about riding. . .
School would be starting soon, if it hadn't already. And that meant Kim Possible was that much busier, that much less likely to stop him, since - ha-ha! - she still had to go to high school.
Drakken resumed the wicked grin. And high school stunk. He could testify to that.
He suckled at his straw, which now produced nothing. Blast! He must have come so close to the bottom that the straw was no longer effective. Drakken tossed the thing back over his shoulder, raised the bottle to his lips, and chugged the last liquid layer - say that three times fast!
Ahhh, was that satisfying! Gosh, he loved chocolate milk. Well, in the first place, he loved milk, partially just because it came from cows. And cows amused Drakken, the way they just stared at you with their bovine stupidity - sort of like the henchmen. Then they would moo, which the henchmen generally didn't, unless they were all slightly sleep-deprived and playing one of those impromptu games Shego never joined in.
Anyway, milk was thick and rich to start with, and then you added cocoa to it? Utopia for taste buds.
Drakken rubbed a contented stomach and shoved the happy yellow bottle with the friendly brown bunny on it to the side. (He'd have to remember to recycle it later - had to keep the Earth spotless for when he was overlord, after all.) Then and only then did he fish out his blueprints for the Doom-Vee. Drakken had tipped far too many glasses over onto blueprints and wailed in despair as his chosen fluid intake blotted out his genius.
The Doom-Vee was brilliant in its complicated simplicity. It resembled a normal, gray, tank-shaped car, because Drakken had learned that paintings of himself on the side and weapons stored in plain sight brought Kim Possible down on him so fast! The only thing that could have possibly been labeled suspicious was the license plate reading "DRD," and there was a 1-in-17,576 chance of that being a natural occurrence anyway.
One flick of a button, however, and it would sprout doom rays, quadruple-barreled laser blasters, and shrink guns. (Or was that stink guns? Hard to read his own handwriting.) Those were a piece of cake. He had several just waiting to be installed. It was the actual car parts Drakken wasn't too sure about. Oh, well, he'd just have to wing it. How hard could it be?
And then he, Dr. Drakken, would drive it! Actually drive it, and it wouldn't matter that he didn't have a license. It wouldn't matter if he hit a fire hydrant, because the Doom-Vee was tough enough to take it, and, besides, he was out to stir up as much mayhem as possible.
Nearly giddy with excitement, Drakken flew to the bathroom mirror and repositioned a shoulder pad that had made its way down to his elbow. With Shego absent, he was the smallest, stringiest person around, and that didn't give off the air of superiority he was hoping for.
Neither did the milk mustache. It wasn't a professional look in the slightest, having cocoa moo smeared all over your upper lip -
Drakken's sleeve stopped in mid-swipe. Double blast, and a darnety-heck to boot! Had that phrase just gone through his brain? Cocoa moo? How unprofessional could you get?
Yet the words made Drakken giggle - err, chortle. And it was very important to keep your sense of humor. Laughter was good for your health, he remembered reading in several of those waiting-room-type magazines.
. . . but now he had to do something sinister to balance it out. Drakken headed back for his makeshift room and sank onto his saggy mattress to survey his surroundings.
This abandoned lair on the outskirts of Middleton wasn't much, but it was all he'd been able to pay rent on after Operation Catastrophic Doom had gone belly-up like the fish you hadn't fed in months. Plenty of hapless villagers to terrorize, and it was convenient to pop into town for supplies - Drakken was just constantly worried that one of these days he was going to run into the buffoon or even Kim Possible herself.
Still, the last owner had left behind a couple dozen spears that appeared to hold great promise. It was almost starting to feel like home, even if the only security system he'd been able to afford was shockingly low-tech, with spiked clubs and giant mallets. And even without his wonderful, king-sized-and-then-some red bed. This one wouldn't even bounce right.
It was the spears that Drakken was eying now. Famous and deadly tools throughout the ages. The native peoples of South America would coat theirs in poison-arrow-frog slime and stab their enemies with it. Sounded so lusciously evil Drakken had wanted to try it, but the Central Headquarters of Aquatic Supervillainy (CHOAS for short) were fresh out of poison arrow frogs, and HenchCo's were outrageously expensive.
Sigh.
Drakken swaggered his way up to the spears. Intimidating enough, he supposed, long and thin with peaks polished to a shine. A rubbery grip around the area where metal and wood met. Just crying out to be touched.
He grasped it around the middle and hoisted it into the air. The sun caught on the tip and gleamed in a fashion that could come straight from a movie. Drakken's heartbeat raced in awe, pounding against the walls of his chest. He was actually holding it!
"I stab at thee, Kim Possible!" Drakken thundered - and lunged forward, holding the point straight out away from him like Mother always warned him to do with knives. And then he stopped with the spear ten inches away from where he was picturing Kim Possible to be. And then he pictured -
Ew. Ugh. You know what? He was never going to think about that again.
The spear wobbled in Drakken's hands and fell to the ground. He jumped away from it, back contorted so the thing wouldn't so much as touch him. Drakken and sharp objects had had a rocky relationship ever since the day he'd forgotten he was holding one and scratched his face and it. . . eh-heh. . . hadn't been pretty. Luckily, Shego had been there, and she'd kept her wits about her enough to load him in the car and drive him to the hospital.
She wasn't here now, though, and that almost made Drakken afraid to return the spear to its resting place. If he were to cut himself now, he would have only himself and the henchmen to rely on. He couldn't be certain to what extent he could trust either.
Worse than that, it was lonely. The henchmen were pleasant enough and they played a mean game of Parcheesi, but Drakken was bursting inside to talk to someone who could very nearly match his intellect.
Sheesh, three o'clock in the afternoon already? Where was Shego? She was going to hear it from him when she did show up -
No, she was going to hear it from him now! Drakken bounded to his feet, cringed away from the spears, and stalked down the hall with his tendons tightening. He had a phone call to make.
He stomped his way out to the main room, where he tossed the cocoa moo - ERRRGH, chocolate milk! - bottle into the recycling with a loud crash that almost - almost - made him feel better. The henchmen glanced up from their workloads to gawk at him, and suddenly that bothered him. Suddenly everything bothered him.
"Get back to assembling that framework!" Drakken commanded. "I want the Doom-Vee shipshape by Wednesday. Well, you know, car-shaped," he added. His henchmen weren't ones for figures of speech.
Not like him, who knew all about greasing your elbows and putting your nose to the grindstone and. . .
Anyway. Drakken grabbed the receiver of the old rotary phone and dialed Shego's number. For once, he was grateful for his skinny little fingers - they didn't get caught in the numbers as easily.
Ring ring. Ring ring.
As the other end of the line jangled, Drakken pondered what approach to take with Shego. Should he be angry or charming? Angry or charming? He was leaning toward charming, since it took less muscles to smile than to frown - although, that hardly mattered, since this conversation was going to take place over the phone. His video transmitter was still back at his haunted island lair, probably being looted by seals. . . or whoever looted island lairs these days. . .
"Hey. I was hoping you'd call." Shego's voice was liquid when she answered.
It lit up something in Drakken's chest. He heard his own voice squeak when he said, "Shego?"
Okay, that wasn't angry or charming. More like "pathetically lonely."
A loooooooong silence.
There was a moan, and Shego's words solidified. "Oh, no, not you."
The light in Drakken's chest mutated into pain. He layered bitterness over it. "Who else were you expecting?" he said harshly. The possibilities stung like the flu vaccine.
"The guy I met at the beach on Saturday," Shego said. "Gotta take advantage of the last part of summer." There was a dreamy quality to it, almost a giggle, and in that moment Shego didn't sound like his kick-tail sidekick. She sounded almost as young and flighty as Kim Possible, with no earthly idea that she might have been opening herself up to some slimy, slithery thing, like a. . . lawyer (because, as every true scientist was aware, snakes weren't actually slimy).
"You met him two days ago?"
"Good job. You can do math." Now her voice hissed right into vapor form.
"And you gave him your phone number? You don't know anything about him! What if he turns out to be -"
"A supervillain bent on world domination?" Shego teased.
Drakken dug his fingers into the wall. Somewhere inside him were the words, He might hurt you, Shego. And I want you safe. But they were encrypted, coded in a language his tongue could only translate as sputtering and stammering.
"Look, don't tie up my line for too long," Shego said, leaping to the infuriating conclusion that Drakken's silence signified he'd been beaten. "Talk fast."
To his surprise, Drakken found he'd retained some of his glow. It shone through now. Ooh, he was very good at talking fast! "I-was-just-wondering-what-time-you-planned-to-come-in-today!" he rushed.
"I don't."
Drakken's toes tangled inside his boots. "What is that supposed to mean?" Absolutely nothing on him was glowing now, he knew.
"It's Labor Day," Shego said. Disdainfully.
"Precisely my point!" Drakken bellowed, and then clamped his jaw down hard. Was that her plan, to confound him with nonlogicability? "Today of all days you should be here, doing your part to make my genius scheme a reality - "
Shego sliced off the end of his sentence with the start of her own, thrust at him with the pointiness of one of those spears. "It's a holiday, Dr. D!"
"Dedicated to labor!" Drakken registered the vocal crack, but he paid it no heed.
"No, it's a federal holiday. Day off. We always used to have our Evil Family Picnic today!"
A pang ate straight through Drakken like so much sulfuric acid. The Evil Family Picnic. Yet another luxury he could no longer afford. And would have been able to, if he hadn't spent all of the money he'd acquired from Stoppable on Operation Catastrophic Doom. Shego was right: it had been a waste. And now Drakken wanted to hit himself.
Well, not really. That would have hurt too bad.
"Because it was an easy day to remember!" Drakken groped for his boom. "Besides, we always worked at least a little on my schemes at the picnic!"
"Yeah, and you bossed us around, and you fell on top of me during the Three-Legged Race and you got sick winning the pie-eating contest." It wasn't a snarl Drakken heard anymore. It was a smirk, which was worse. A snarl was punching you in the face and getting it over with. A smirk was like a splinter. You couldn't dig it out, and nobody else saw it even when you pointed straight at it.
Drakken thought, with longing, of his shiny fake-gold five-time-champion medal, also left behind at his old lair. Now he had no money - no record of his achievements - and no companionship from his sidekick, who had hit him up for money after all when he was loaded with dough, even though she had plenty of her own. Now that Drakken was bankrupt again, would Shego -
Would she -
Labor Day! What a stupid, stupid idea!
"Why isn't it named Stay-at-Home-and-Goof-Off-Day?" Drakken shot back. "It's very misleading!" Why, when he conquered the world, such deceptive titles would be a thing of the past!
"I don't make 'em, I just call 'em," Shego said. She was teeth-grindingly calm. As usual.
Drakken swallowed hard. "So does this mean you're not coming in?" He felt as if he were a second-grader again, cautiously crossing a wide span of wood chips to ask another kid to play. They'd always said no. Always.
"Well. . . is there something super-exciting happening over there today?" Shego asked. She had a playful tingle to her voice, which either meant she was hopeful or awaiting an opportunity for her next zinger.
Drakken chose to believe the former. His own tingles shimmered up his arms, and he tingled even more to share them with someone. "Construction of the Doom-Vee is coming along swimmingly!" he reported. That was a bit of an exaggeration - but so what? "And. . . I bought chocolate milk!"
He was proud of himself for not saying "cocoa moo." For not even thinking it until this very second. Shego should have come over for that reason alone.
There was a dark silence.
"I'll be in tomorrow, Doc," Shego said.
Drakken was unsure whether to bang his head against the phone or jump for joy. On the one hand, she was coming in tomorrow, so she wasn't going to abandon him, even though he wasn't rich anymore. On the other, that was eighteen endless hours away! How was he supposed to stand it until then?
As if she'd read his mind, Shego added crisply, "Stop twisting the phone cord around your finger. Go back to your evil car thing."
Only then did Drakken take notice of how cold his index finger was and see that, indeed, he had it wrapped up like a birthday present. He yanked it free, feeling its beautifully painful throbs. Beneath the glove, Drakken knew his fingertip had gone from baby-blue to periwinkle.
"How did you know?" he said.
"I just know."
It was true. She did.
Drakken heaved a long sigh that he hoped would prick at Shego's conscience and forced himself to smile. Less muscles required should have meant the movement was easier to do, but he had to physically lift the corners of his mouth with his fingers. "I'm choosing to be happy, Shego," he told her. And himself. "Because, you know, it takes less muscles to smile than to frown."
"Fewer muscles," Shego said.
The back of Drakken's neck burned. Where did she get off, correcting him all the time, making it clear he'd messed up? When all he wanted was not to get anything wrong, not ever? "Sometimes, Shego, I just - gghk! Do we even speak the same language?"
"Sure we do," Shego answered, a little too quickly. "It's just that I speak it correctly."
"Shego, you - "
"Choosing to be happy, remember?" Drakken could picture her eyes sparkling in mischief.
He took a breath so deep it gurgled. ". . . you wonderful woman who I am not thinking about strangling at all."
Shego gave another actual giggle. It would have been sort of sweet if it hadn't been edged with ha-ha-you-loser. "See you tomorrow, chief."
Chief. Drakken liked how that rang in his ears, even if it was said in half-sarcasm. "Promise you're coming in tomorrow?" he ventured, eyes locked on the front door. Imagining her walking through it, hair swinging and twitches tipping her lips, was the only thing that kept him from squeaking again.
"Uh, yeah. I mean, unless a meteor falls on my apartment in the night - "
"Don't even JOKE about that!" Drakken cried. His throat closed up at the thought. He needed Shego!
"Sheesh, all right, calm down." Shego's tone dropped into its calming mode. "Yeah, I promise I'll be in tomorrow."
Relief melted Drakken down against the wall, and his in-charge villainous self was able to take over from there. "Thank you, Shego," he thundered, all business. "Oh, and, uh - Happy Labor Day."
He couldn't help that last part.
Shego mumbled something along the lines of "same to you," followed by mutterings about having probably missed Beach Boy's call and getting a splitting headache.
Drakken hoped it wasn't a migraine. Ew, he hated those. He extended that hope into a wish that she would have enough Tylenol at her apartment to get her through to morning, when he could hand her some himself.
And, as he placed the phone back on its cradle, he couldn't stop himself from hoping that Beach Boy wouldn't call. If he were a decent fellow, this young man would have been concerned about taking things too fast. And if he weren't -
Drakken rubbed his hands together, sly and sinister and not even trying this time. If he weren't, then Drakken would have to introduce the guy to his security system. As much as he didn't like the idea of spearing or clubbing someone to death, he would do anything to protect Shego.
And it wouldn't even necessarily have to be to death. You could rough him up a bit, scare him, and then he could run away and somebody would call a doctor for him.
Yeah. It was okay. It was all okay again.
Until Drakken replaced the receiver and heard the click of finality. Then his outline of today was marred like someone had scribbled over it with a black crayon.
He'd worked the henchmen on a federal holiday. An unfamiliar knot cramped Drakken's muscles, a sensation that could have almost been called guilt. Well, it could also almost have been called anti-gravity sickness, but such a term would have been incorrect.
No, neither one was accurate, Drakken decided. This wasn't guilt he felt. It was nerves - a far lesser crime for a supervillain. His henchmen were about as bright as a twenty-watt bulb - and that wasn't very bright - but what if they figured out they'd slaved away on an afternoon they were legally entitled to have off? What if they got mad? Drakken had never seen the henchmen mad before, and with their massive bulks, it was a queasy prospect. Worse, what if it made them upset enough to hand in their resignations? Where would that leave him?
Alone with a bunch of car parts he couldn't lift, that was where.
Drakken glowered down at the floor as though it were responsible for anything other than coming between him and the dirt. It was stupid, he knew, but the smudges on the floor couldn't glare back at him the way everyone else in the world could. And did.
A responsible employer didn't wear his workers down to the bone. He was going to have to make it up to them.
Yep. There was no guilt in that. Just good business sense.
Drakken scrambled over to the enormous doors that scissored jaggedly down the middle and plastered his body to them. The metal chilled through his lab coat. Yes, there was just enough of a nip in the air now to justify a fire.
Saliva production increased. And what would a fire be without. . . .?
Drakken jumped onto the box whose height only pushed him to his shortest henchman's level and cleared his throat in his best I'm-the-boss fashion. "Attention, my loyal henchmen!" he thundered.
The henchmen stiffened instantly, arms pressed to their sides. Drakken paused to feed off the power for a second before continuing.
"In honor of Labor Day, we are going to knock off construction of the Doom-Vee early this evening!" Drakken jabbed a finger into the air to emphasize the Great Importance of his words. "However, I have another assignment for you!"
The whole room seemed to be waiting for its next breath as Drakken spun around and stabbed the finger at the only henchman he trusted with a lighter. "Adam, go start a fire in the fireplace! Marc, fetch our inventory of graham crackers! Noah can handle the marshmallows and, Bill, I want you on chocolate!"
"S'mores?" Fred asked. It came out more like "Sh'moresh?" because his mouth was in a perfect O. So were the rest of the henchmen's, for that matter.
Drakken permitted a millimeter of a smile. "Yes, indeed! S'mores. Now get to it!"
As the henchmen scuttled off (he liked that word, scuttled), Drakken affected a swaggering walk up to the front of the Doom-Vee. His newest baby. The framework had been assembled so that it could actually stand up on its own, and the engine even lay nestled under where the hood would be. Scientifically curious, Drakken ran a hand across that engine and came back with what he knew was an oily glove, though their shades of black were virtually indistinguishable.
Now there was just the rest of it to be put together. The lasers and ray guns had already been assembled - and were being stored in a corner with "Do Not Touch Unless You Are Dr. Drakken!" signs hanging from them - but where could he locate the more lackluster tools? Like wrenches and hammers and nails and saws and wrenches. . . wait. . . hadn't he said that already?
Drakken rubbed his face in thought and then winced at the warm dribble that clung to it. He'd forgotten about that darn oil.
Yet, when Drakken examined his reflection in the shiny pupil of one of the tires still awaiting use, he liked what he saw. The smear of oil down his cheek had him looking down-and-dirty and manly and very involved in what he was doing. Even made his hair stand up on end. Well, more so than it usually did. Drakken filed away a promise to buy one of those over-the-shoulder mechanic jumpsuits. Then he'd truly look like a grease primate!
Immersion in the role gave him confidence. Ah, he'd find tools somewhere! This place had been an abandoned garage before he'd moved in, so surely there were some tools lying around. Garages were where they fixed cars. And didn't every father keep a toolbox in their garage?
He rejected the lump in his throat.
Soon the crummy little shack was filled with crackling wood, warm air, and the pleasant type of smoke that wasn't the result of an exploding lair. Pure joy goose-bumping his arms, Drakken hopped, knees first, onto a chair he remembered too late was springless.
Yee-owch! The thing had less winter padding than he did! Drakken felt a scowl forming as he massaged his sore thigh, hoping, hoping, hoping that the pain wouldn't spread to his back.
But when the henchmen showed up again, arms laden with supplies for s'mores, the scowl's habitat was threatened and it went extinct. Drakken thrust his nose into the air, already sniffing the fresh, grainy scent of the graham crackers, the sugared fluff of the marshmallows, and the rich chocolate of the. . . well, the chocolate. None of them could have been stale, either, because he'd bought groceries for this new hideout just last week.
Drakken skipped merrily over to the long tables and swiped his blueprints off to make room for the ingredients. It was no longer possible to control his prancing feet, and without being asked, he flew back to the kitchen and retrieved a nice big stack of paper plates. Oh, was there any grander way to end the day than by eating a few of these scrumptious morsels? It thrilled him, all the way down his spine.
The henchmen were grinning, too, and nudging each other with meaty elbows that would have knocked Drakken over. It made Drakken draw himself up into a stiff, upright, tall-as-he-could position. "Special Boss Dibs on going first!" he declared.
There was general agreement from the henchmen, of course. No Shego there to challenge him.
And nobody he had to shove away to get to the head of the table. A tingle sparked through Drakken until it could have been mistaken for static electricity, only on the inside. He was sure his hair must have been in precise, straight-up-and-down points by that. . . point.
Then he stared down at his plate as the terrible, terrible lack of some other points occurred to him.
Didn't that just figure? The skewers were still at his island lair. Sticks were flammable, and Drakken didn't anticipate that being a good mix with the henchmen's clumsiness.
All right, all right. . . maybe there was some uncoordination on his part, too.
"Uh, boss?" one of the henchmen began. "We don't have any - "
"I know!" Drakken spit back at him and pulled his arms across his chest to mope. The presence of the henchmen, brooding with him, should have eased his burden. It didn't. He was as prickly as a cactus. Pointy as a spear -
A spear!
Drakken felt a light bulb much brighter than 20 watts flicker on over his head. "Be right back!" he cried, stumbling over his own boots as he zoomed down the endless hallway toward his room.
He was panting by the time he arrived, but he managed to wrestle half-a-dozen spears under each arm. Unfortunately, two steps into his trek to the door, one of the spears shifted out of place and ripped a hole in the seam of his lab coat. Barely missed nicking skin. Would have been a whole lot worse than a nick, actually.
Euaaaaaawuggghheeeh. Drakken cut his nervous giggle short and let the spears clatter to the ground. No, there could be no messing around here. Not without Shego around to shuttle him to the ER if need be.
Drakken adjusted his plans and carried the spears out two at a time. There weren't quite enough for everyone, but they could share. The henchmen could share, that is. Drakken was The Big Cheese, and he deserved his own spear.
Drakken grinned as he stuck the spear through a marshmallow. Even if he was too chicken to do the same to Kim Possible, there was a use for these weapons after all. At the very least, they would add to the scary atmosphere he was trying to create. The buffoon would take one look at them and run off wailing for his mommy.
He poked the spear into the fire and let it toast his marshmallow to perfection. And he wondered if Shego ever got tingles. Certainly nothing seemed to excite her into a frenzy, the way it did Drakken. It must have been a very mundane life without them, and Drakken hated "mundane" more than anything else on earth - with the possible exception of hangnails. No wonder Shego wanted to fight everybody.
The dreariness of that hung over the room like a 9:00 curfew. . . or a storm cloud or something. Drakken shivered under it. He did eerie clouds, not dismal ones.
Neither was necessary two long minutes later when Drakken was biting into his very own s'more. And the marshmallow mushed and the chocolate oozed and the graham cracker crunched and ohhhhhhhhh, it was utterly delicious! He let out a loud, appreciative moan.
The only thing that could have made it any better was a good movie. . .
There was that light bulb again! Some days it was great to be a supergenius.
Oh, who he was kidding? It was always great to be a supergenius!
As his henchmen lined up to grab their marshmallows, Drakken scooted over to his video collection and pawed through the cases. He'd nixed Bambi due to the sadness factor and Mary Poppins because of the strict-dad plot when his hand bumped against Robin Hood. The animated version, the one with the foxes.
In it went. The entire credits played at the beginning, which was aggravating, but they did a good enough job of introducing all the characters and what kinds of animals they were to keep it bearable. Surrounded by his henchmen, Drakken watched and laughed and snorted and laughed some more and ate s'mores until marshmallows were about to come out of his ears. Well, not really. The human digestive tract would never link to the ear canal, no matter how full it got. Still, it felt that way.
As soon as the Disney logos had faded from the screen, Drakken fell back onto the couch and rubbed his tummy, content to the max. Boy, some cocoa moo would taste fabulous right about now, though he wasn't sure he could fit it in. The room was like a sauna and the fire was popping and the last of the crickets were warming up to chirp outside. . .
Drakken could feel himself drowsing, and he saw that the henchmen were yawning, too. But if they fell asleep with a fire going, it might blaze out of control and burn down the lair, taking them and the Doom-Vee with it! A responsible employer didn't let that happen, either.
With great effort, Drakken pushed himself, fully, to his feet. "Adam, put out the fire," he instructed. Sleepiness had stolen his exclamation points. "The rest of you, back to your chambers."
The henchmen drooped a little in disappointment, but they didn't utter a single complaint about the few crowded rooms they had to sleep in. Times like this, Drakken remembered why he kept them around.
Only once they had shuffled off to bed did Drakken glance down at the s'more he'd hidden beside him for the duration of the movie. The one he'd been saving for Shego, in case she'd changed her mind and decided to come in after all. Women did that a lot, and it was best for a man not to be caught unprepared. He'd roasted the marshmallow golden brown, because Shego had said she hated raw ones or charred ones, lined it on either side with a Hershey's, and tucked the whole thing between two graham crackers without a chip on them.
But it was obvious Shego wasn't going to be showing up now. Drakken sighed and picked up the plate. He'd save it in the refrigerator overnight and give it to her in the morning. And she'd be so pleased with him! There was something soft and mushy in his chest, as if a marshmallow had migrated there.
Warning! Warning! Warning! flashed through Drakken's brain as he covered the plate with foil and Sharpied "THIS IS FOR SHEGO KEEP YOUR GRUBBY HANDS OFF!" across it. Wasn't "marshmallow" the exact word Jack Hench used when he was warning villains not to let themselves tenderize? Or was it tenderfy? Either one brought to mind a steak that hadn't been left on the grill long enough.
Drakken momentarily considered whether anyone ate marshmallows with steak. And then he shook his head until the rubber band slid partway down his ponytail.
It was one thing to take a holiday off. A true villain, however, had to be vigilant in his planning, or some other bozo might swoop in and take over the world when your attention was elsewhere. And that would never do.
That tingle ached on Drakken's tongue like hunger. The marshmallow in his chest burst into flame. That burn was all too familiar. There would be no escaping it, nor the mocking, nor the blank stare he received from would-be hostages when he told them his name - as if they were asking "Who?" - not until he rose above it all as the mightiest man on the planet.
Drakken leaned against the refrigerator door to shut it while another sigh, even deeper than the first, rolled out. He understood why things couldn't be cozy and friendly all the time. But, just for a nanosecond, he wished they could be.
Because it was eerie in here and, just for a nanosecond, eerie wasn't all it was cracked up to be.
STATE DRIVER IDENTIFICATION
Possible, Kimberly
Height:
5 feet 3 inches
Weight:
112 pounds
Green eyes
Restrictions:
None
ORGAN DONOR
"Spankin'," Kim Possible whispered to herself. She gave the skinny piece of plastic in her hand one last study before sliding it into her purse.
The photo wasn't as bad as the license-pic horror stories got you to expect. The dull gray DMV walls washed out Kim's skin but made the red in her hair really pop out, like fall leaves against a cloudy sky.
And, actually, Kim wouldn't have cared if she'd looked like Professor Dementor. Because - hello? - major key to adulthood in her possession? It was a bungee-jump rush.
Kim elbowed the front door open and started across the parking lot to where Dad sat in the Possible family's stodgy old red car. Not exactly the type of thing Kim had pictured herself driving. "Mature" didn't have to mean "middle-aged," did it?
Dad was waiting like her valet - except that none of the upper-crust servants Kim had met would ever chew their fingernails like that. She was surprised Dad even HAD any left to gnaw, the way he'd nibbled on them all through her sixty required hours of supervised driving. It was funny - Dad had stared down Drakken and Killigan without so much as a swallow of fear, and facing the Bebes had only driven him further into problem-solving mode. But put Kim behind the wheel. . .
Kim hurried toward him. She didn't even have to break the news. She knew it shone through her smile.
Sure enough, Dad stopped in mid-lean with his finger on the unlock button, and his face lit up. Kim couldn't resist nudging him in the ribs as she slid practically across his lap into the driver's seat. "Move over and make room for Middleton's newest driver," she laughed.
Dad obligingly slid into the passenger seat, and then he reached over and wrapped her into a hug. Kim fought off the urge to sneak a glance back at the parking lot. It was sweet - but what if somebody from school saw this?
"I knew you could do it, Kimmy-cub," Dad said. He rested his chin on the top of Kim's head. "I couldn't be more proud."
The breath he blew against her hair was shaky. Good grief - he wasn't going to CRY, was he?
Kim squirmed in the arms that no longer seemed so strong and bearlike. Dad wasn't a rock-cold man like Mr. Barkin, but he wasn't a Drakken who hyperventilated emotions at the drop of a hat, either. Dealing with them when they did show up was going to be like defusing one of Duff's exploding golf balls. Nothing she couldn't handle, but fierce with potential mess-ups.
When Dad, mercifully, released her, he left behind a sliver of sympathy for him. She had to at least TRY to cheer him up, and not just to shush her Kimness. "Hey, think of it like this: now you won't have to keep carting me all over town." Kim grinned at her father and waited for him to grin back.
He didn't. His eyes were glassy and staring so far back into the past, Kim knew it was a toddler version of her he was seeing.
Snap. He'd actually liked doing that?
Kim wove her fingers around her father's sleeve. "Look, it's just a driver's license. It's not like I'm going to elope, Daddy." She said the last word deliberately, and she put as much cheerleader-perk into it as she could without going into a routine right there in the parking lot.
"Don't even joke about that," Dad squeezed out. But he chuckled, that husky chuckle Kim had been hoping for. "I just can't believe my little Kimmy's getting to be so independent," he murmured.
The hairs on the back of Kim's neck stirred. Blurting "Da-ad! I'm sixteen!" would have been SUCH a sophomore stunt. But this was victory, as much as the moment when the villain realized he had been beaten and Kim got to release the smile she'd been suppressing. And she didn't want Dad spoiling it with any of his Daddy-nostalgia.
Ew. Did she sound like a sucky daughter or what?
"Well, at least you won't have to ride around with that Mankey boy anymore."
Kim rolled her eyes. "Dad, I got a ride from Josh once. And I had to sit in the backseat with his eight-year-old brother because his grandmother was in the front. Not exactly a recipe for romance." She didn't add that Josh-encounters had been WAY too rare for Kim's taste ever since the start of the school year. She was still trying to figure that one out herself.
Dad's chiseled-to-a-point jaw flexed. To the rest of the world, he would appear stoic, but Kim could see his Adam's apple jerking. "Romance" wasn't the best word to even say to him.
A knock on the driver's window snapped both their heads toward Ron's cheeks pressed against the glass. One arm rested above his head like an awning. The other dejectedly dangled its lanky length down his side. The giant "E" on the school nurse's eye chart couldn't have been any clearer than that pose.
He hadn't passed.
Kim rolled down her window, heart already sinking. She'd really been counting on the two of them being able to celebrate together. And Ron had been so incredibly pumped about getting his license. Something about "ladies digging a guy who can drive."
"What did you hit?" Kim groaned. Please, don't let it have been somebody's cat.
Ron gave her the shamefaced variation on his smile. "Just the curb."
That was an improvement. Last time it had been a mailbox.
"And the instructor said it was concerning that I looked at Rufus whenever I didn't know what to do."
Rufus punctuated that with an indignant squeal, and Ron rubbed the top of his pet's head. "Sorry, buddy," he said. "He just doesn't know how smart you are."
Kim opened her door and pulled herself from the car. Anyone could tell you that having a license when your absolute best friend didn't got to be mega awk-weird if it went on for too long. "Ron, I'm so sorry," she said. "I thought you had it nailed. Nailed to the wall."
If Ron could tell that she'd made the slang up on the spot, he didn't care enough to comment. "I thought I did, too," he said, with a sigh that he must have been storing in his chest for five minutes now. "Man, I really am gonna be like ol' What's-His-Face, doomed to take the city bus forever!"
His worry slammed a door somewhere in Kim. "Ron, lots of people fail their first driver's test and then come back to ace their second. Or third. It's not one-and-done, so stop whining." She poked her finger teasingly into his ribs. "You've still got your awesome scooter."
Ron's smile cranked up a few notches at the mention of his two-mile-an-hour piece of junk. "Yeah, there's always that. Wouldn't make a good getaway car, but as long as you've got - "
He stopped so abruptly the last few syllables ran into each other. "Kim!" Ron's freckles sprang to life. "What about you? Did - did you pass?"
Kim could only nod. Dad, by contrast, pulled the front of his shirt out from his skin the way he did when he was about to brag on somebody. "Indeed she did," he reported. All that fatherly pride in his voice made Kim wish Mr. Stoppable were here to balance it out some.
Thanks, Dad. Not actually helping.
"Oh." Ron seemed to grow small before her eyes.
"Uh, yeah. And now I'm embarrassed for passing, and you're embarrassed for not passing!" Kim shook her head, flipping through the cheer-up options like the pages of Cool Teenz magazine.
Luckily, Ron's mood was generally pretty easy to lift. When Kim finally said, "You know what? How about we not waste time being embarrassed?" he was all over that.
"Yeah, we gotta celebrate!" He put a hand on Kim's arm that Dad removed with a dirty look. "Celebrate you, I mean. Bueno Nacho is calling your name, Kim! Can you hear it?"
"Kiiiiiiiiiiiim Possssssssssibllllle." Kim hadn't known Rufus could draw out his little mole-rat squeal like that. It was so cutely ridiculous, Kim forgot how utterly smack-worthy the two of them could be sometimes.
"Resistance is futile," Ron continued in his best imitation of one of Wade's miniature robots. "You will come with us." His brown eyes flicked up to Dad's face. "Uh, if that's okay with you, Mr. Dr. P."
Dad nodded - tensely. The older they got, Kim had noticed, the less happy Dad was about her hanging with Ron so much. She understood the whole overprotective-father thing, but come on. If there was any guy who couldn't be classified as a boyfriend-threat, it was Ron.
"Be home before dark," Dad said. And he fixed Ron with a stare just a little longer than it should have been. Kim had a whole "it's-not-a-boy-it's-Ron" reminder prepared before it hit her that might have been exactly what Ron DIDN'T need to hear right now.
Since Dad's effort to somehow fit into her growing up was written in strained lines down his face, Kim leaned over and pecked his cheek. "I will, Dad," she promised. "Love you."
It was the most public setting she'd said that in since she'd started kindergarten. Kim was sure Dad was sniffing up tears when they left.
They walked across the parking lot to Ron's scooter, kicking up some early leaves that crackled like Dad's laugh. Kim made a note to ask him for help with her algebra homework tonight. He was only about the smartest person she knew - maybe even smarter than Justine Flanner. And he should get to see that Kim still needed him.
Ron buckled the chinstrap of his helmet and hunkered down on his scooter like it was a Harley. "Prepare to burn rubber," he said, trying to rumble the sentence like a throttle itself.
Kim didn't point out that Ron's scooter couldn't have "burned rubber" if you'd struck a match on one of its tires. She just dug her own helmet out of the trunk where Ron kept it, clicked it on, and pretended to have to hold on to Ron for dear life.
She really didn't mind that part so much. Ron had a funny, rubbery feel to him, not exactly soft but pliant, as if his thin muscles stretched and sprang back easier than most people's. It always made Kim's day to grab him and grin to herself.
When they reached Bueno Nacho, Ron swung off the scooter with a flailing of limbs and held the handlebars so Kim could get off, too. Both helmets came off. Ron's always-messy tousle of hair stood up in Tweeb-spikes.
Kim groaned as she batted a few wayward strands of red away from her face. "My hair is totally messed up, isn't it?"
Ron squinted at her. "Welllllllll, no. Not totally. Just a little - ya know, maybe half. Half messed up and half fine?"
Great. The boy was nothing if not honest.
Bueno Nacho was, as always, comfortably warm inside, filled with the greasy-taco-place smell they kept dialed down a few degrees below gag-me levels and the chattering of the after-school crowd. Kim spied a blurred-together knot of purple-and-orange Mad Dog cheerleader uniforms and felt the helmet-head sitch grow more disastrous by the second. Bonnie was the only one likely to say something to her FACE, but there would have been giggles, even good-natured ones, and that bothered Kim more than she cared to admit. It just seemed so vain and shallow and so - so Bonnie to get your cargoes in a twist over something that could be fixed with a mirror and a hairbrush.
"Be right back," she told Ron and booked it for the ladies' room.
Arrgh. It was just what she'd been afraid of. Kim watched her own eyes roll as they took in what used to be her 'do. It had frazzled out to both sides of her head, hunks blown every which way across her part by the newly-fall wind.
She had just gotten her hairbrush out her backpack when she heard footsteps approaching from down the hall. Kim's fingers tightened on the bubblegum-colored handle. Girls would say things in the bathroom that they wouldn't have DREAMED of saying anywhere else.
Kim exploded into motion. She was across the floor and locked in a stall before the bathroom door even squawked open. Those martial arts move come in handy even when I'm NOT being chased by some evil freak, Kim thought.
Through the narrow gap at the bottom of the stall, Kim could pick out two pairs of white tennis shoes. One was the same good-enough bargain brand Dad had insisted on buying for Kim. The other was spotless, so expensive that smudges probably wouldn't dare to show up on them. They could have only belonged to one person.
Okay, I take back what I said about no evil freaks.
Bonnie was actually a hundred times worse than any of the villains Kim had ever faced. The worst they could do was kill you. Only Shego had mastered the art of humiliating mind games the way Bonnie had, and at least Kim was allowed to kick Shego in the stomach. With Bonnie, she was a head cheerleader without her pom-poms, a crimefighter without her grappling hook. Her one defense was her mouth, and it didn't always come through with a sassy retort - not calmly, at least.
"Can you believe Possible got her driver's license before me?" The voice stung like a long-nailed slap. Yep. Bonnie.
"Why not? Kim's a good driver. I mean, not that you're not good, too, Bonnie. You're both good drivers."
That had to be Tara. No one else would make that much of an effort not to hurt Bonnie's feelings.
If Bonnie had any.
"Uh, hello? Because she totally freaked out in Driver's Ed last year? And I thought she'd want to wait until Stoppable got his." The might-as-well-have-been-a-spit on Ron's name was so common it shouldn't have wound its way down Kim's backbone like it did. "And that's obviously not happening any time soon."
Somebody please hold me back.
Kim could imagine Bonnie's eyebrows crawling down in that snakelike way that fit her so well. "I could drive rings around Kim any day," she sniffed.
Frazzled hair or not, Kim would have leaped from the stall and smacked Bonnie's lip gloss off - if there hadn't been cracks in Bonnie's usually smooth words. She sounded like she was trying to convince herself of something, and Bonnie Rockwaller had never needed convincing that she was better than everyone else.
"Then what's the prob?" Tara's voice was kind, gentle. She was way more patient than Kim could have ever been.
"The prob is getting in sixty hours with a licensed driver!" There was a silky flap as Bonnie shook her head. "You know my dad's never around. My mom treats me like a three-year-old. And my sisters - well, that's just not even an option."
Bonnie's 'tude broke and pulled itself back together before Kim could glimpse what hid behind it. Suddenly Dad gnawing off his fingernails as he rode shotgun seemed like complete support.
She'd never really taken the time to think about Bonnie's home life. All Kim knew about the Rockwaller clan was that Bonnie's mom embarrassed her - because that was what mothers did - and her sisters had won the talent show every year they were at Middleton High, which Bonnie never let anyone forget. Picturing a house full of snotty, perfect people pressed Kim's legs against the cold porcelain she was perched on. At least this thing had a lid.
"What about Brick?" Tara suggested. "Doesn't he have a license yet?"
"No. He totally knows how to work a car, but he's never managed to pass the written test. That's hard for him." Bonnie parted with one of her it's-tough-being-the-only-person-in-the-world-who-isn't-lame sighs.
Kim's sympathies immediately shifted to Brick. That had to stink, having your own girlfriend think you were a moron. Brick was SO not what Kim would have called a prize catch, but he deserved way better than Bonnie. Everyone did.
Even Bonnie.
The thought was gone before Kim could figure out where it had strolled in from. "I'll get those hours if I have to kidnap one of the seniors," Bonnie hissed. "There is NO way I'm letting that loser Stoppable beat me to a license!"
"I don't think Ron's a loser," Tara mumbled. It was all Kim could do not to jump out and hug her.
"Tara, you're way too nice!"
Yeah. Bonnie would consider that the worst insult ever.
Tara's sneakers squeaked on the tile. Bonnie's only left behind dignified shushings as the door slid open and slapped shut again.
Kim unlocked the stall and walked up to the mirror, still white-knuckling the brush. She felt weighed down now, as if another person's burdens had been dumped on top of the responsibility she already had to the entire world. Kim hadn't felt that way since Drakken had bawled over his college days.
Of course most of the villains were miserable, or they probably wouldn't have been trying to take over the world in the first place. Some were just better at hiding it than others.
And Bonnie guarded the person inside herself as if she were ashamed of it. That was why the idea of evil older Rockwallers didn't really surprise Kim. The girl was such an expert at manipulation, she had to have been taught it from Day One.
Kim could have sworn she saw bags forming beneath her reflection's eyes. This stuff was WAY too heavy for a celebration dinner. For Pete's sake, Wade had already beeped her this morning about changing her locker combination because somebody had broken in yesterday.
According to Wade, the would-be thief had taken one glance at Drakken's and Shego's wanted posters and hightailed it out of there. Whether it was due to Shego's capable-of-cutting-through-stone face or the knowledge that this locker belonged to the girl who had been responsible for putting these villains away - or even Drakken's mug-shot scowl that could be scary if you didn't know him - was anybody's guess.
Wade was pretty sure it was just some dork looking to rip off someone's cell. Kim wouldn't have been surprised if it had been Bonnie herself, searching for Kim's permit info. That would have been right up her sick little alley.
Kim shook her head at herself as she guided the brush through the last of the snarls in her hair, leaving it lying deflated but de-frizzed on her shoulders. She should get back out to Ron and tell him about the miniature beards sprouting from her driving instructor's ears so she could hear him guffaw - a sound like a burst of fresh air. It was the best trick for getting rid of a Bonnie aftertaste.
Kim was so used to scanning a place for enemies that she found the cheerleaders as soon as she stepped out of the bathroom, gathered in clumps around a booth the whole room's length away from Team Possible's usual spot by the front windows. She was so busy sighing with relief as she eased into her seat across from Ron that it took her a minute to realize a mild bean burrito with a side salad and a grape soda were parked at her place, as if they'd just been waiting for her.
Her fav.
Ron grinned at her - that closed-lipped grin he'd been working on recently. It was enough to banish all the Bonnie thoughts except one.
Kim leaned forward and rested her hand on Ron's thick one that always looked three sizes too huge for his knobby wrists. "You're gonna ace that test this weekend," she said. "You are SO getting your license before Bonnie."
Ron glowed, all the way up to his bangs. "Really?" he squawked - loud enough for the lady with the hearing aid behind them to catch. "Bon-Bon doesn't have a license yet?"
"Keep your voice down!" Kim didn't have the about-to-be-attacked stiffening, but she glanced over her shoulder anyway to confirm Bonnie wasn't coming after them with a spare stiletto heel even now. "She doesn't have enough drive time yet," she whispered. "She's pretty tweaked and, actually, I don't blame her."
Ron's eyes popped like a dog toy's, but the bulge lessened as he slowly began to nod. "Family problems?" he asked.
Kim nodded back, surprised. Ron being that perceptive had to mean -
He can relate to it.
Well, doy he could relate to it. Ron had had mega-trouble getting those driving hours himself. Ron's dad could calculate anything except the time he WASN'T spending with his son. And Mrs. Stoppable - she was usually halfway in some other world whenever Kim saw her. Even though they weren't mean parents, you couldn't really count on them, either.
So Kim had volunteered her family. With Dad's robots that he brought home from work and the frumpy dresses Nana was always knitting for her, with Mom keeping tabs on everyone's brain activity and the Tweebs taking brattiness to super-genius levels, it sometimes felt like Kim had enough family for two or three people. And they all loved Ron - even Dad. Mom thought he was "the sweetest young man," and the Tweebs worshiped him as the big brother they'd never had.
"It can't be this weekend, though," Ron butted in, cheeks stuffed. "Cousin Reuben's bringing his fiancee home to meet the extended fam."
The grade soda Kim had taken a sip of nearly launched from her mouth. "Just now? The wedding's in, what, less than two months?"
"Guess he wanted to wait until she couldn't back out." One of Ron's shoulders lifted slightly higher than the other in a shrug as awkward as everything else about him.
Kim grunted her understanding. The Stoppable clan wasn't exactly what you'd call close-knit. Must be sad when the naked mole rat is the most supportive member of your family.
"Hey, you know what would hurricane-rock, Kim?"
Kim felt the corners of her lips twitching. "Uh, no. What?"
"Picture this: I get my license. And then the next day I wake up and come downstairs and there's this brand-new Mustang in the driveway. And I say, 'Whose is that?' and my parents say, 'It's yours,' and I say, 'Why didn't you tell me you were gonna buy me a car?' And they say, 'This is our way of telling you.'"
Ron pounded his fist on the table, narrowly missing Rufus, who was rolling around on its surface, holding his little sides. Ned gave them a curious glance, and Kim waved at him. She could almost hear him thinking, It never quits around here.
No, it doesn't, she answered him mentally. And I would be enormously bummed if it did.
"Okay, I'll bite." Kim stabbed a lettuce leaf with her fork. "Why a Mustang?"
Ron leaned back against the padded top of the booth, self-satisfaction working its way across his face. "To prove I'm not afraid of mechanical horses anymore."
Kim went ahead and laughed.
"Well, whatever happens," Ron said around a mouthful of naco, "it can't be any weirder than when I got my permit ID."
Part of Kim wanted to roll her eyes. ONLY heard it about twenty-five times.
Still, this was one of Ron's funnier stories, and she slanted forward to help him tell it. "They asked you if you wanted to be an organ donor," Kim began.
"I thought they meant pipe organs!" The defensiveness cracked a voice that puberty was already playing havoc with.
"So you said, 'My family doesn't have any.'" She'd wanted to disappear just a tiny bit.
"And the lady there gave me a really funny look," Ron added.
"Funny?" Kim cocked a brow. "I thought she was going to cut you open right there!"
"Ew!" Ron shuddered inside the red sweater he'd been wearing for at least two days straight. "Didn't need that brain pic, KP!"
Kim did roll her eyes at that point. "Right, like I love to imagine my best friend getting dissected." The frogs in freshman biology had been bad enough.
"So it can't be any worse when I get my license," Ron said. He went as ghostly-white as the sheets in Mom's operating room. "If I get my license. If I don't become that deadbeat dude who's gotta have his friends drive him everywhere!"
Actually, right now, Kim wasn't positive Ron should get his license. He'd changed lanes without signaling so many times in this conversation alone, her head would have been spinning if it hadn't spent the past twelve years tracking his thoughts. "Not everyone who doesn't have a license ends up like Drakken," she said.
Ron's neck jerked back and almost wobbled. "Drakken? Drakken doesn't have a license?!"
Kim could have kicked herself. As it was, she squirmed on the hard-packed seat - seriously, had no one ever thought of PADDING those things? "That's what I heard him say when the police were taking him and Motor Ed away," she admitted. "Why he thought that would get him in LESS trouble, I have no idea - "
Ron interrupted her with a flood of panic. "So I'm not just gonna be a loser? I'm gonna be a supervillain, too?"
Oh, bro-ther. Kim planted her palms on the table and tilted forward, making sure her gaze was crimefighter-stern on Ron. "Drakken did not turn evil because he doesn't have a driver's license," she said in the most no-nonsense voice she could drum up. "He turned evil because his friends picked on him in college."
It was easier to say "his friends" than "my dad." Dad was the kind of guy Kim would have described with words like "gentle" and "patient," and he'd sounded genuinely sorry when he'd told her about all the drama with the first Bebes. But whenever he got anywhere near Drakken, what Kim saw her in own father was just as disturbing as what she saw in Drakken himself.
She would have thought that learning your friend had gone out and become a megalomaniac would have given you a heck of a lot more guilt than just him dropping out -
It seemed like kind of a pathetic reason - but then, Drakken was kind of a pathetic person. As in, Kim genuinely felt sorry for him most of the time.
"Ya know what?" Ron gulped his last bite and hit his chest, his "polite" method for holding back a belch. "I bet things woulda been really different for Drakken if he'd had a friend like you."
Kim felt sunrise on her face. "Stop it, Ron. You're going to make me cry." She said it playfully, but the eyes she rolled might really have misted over a little.
Yeah. I've got it pretty good.
Especially compared to people like poor old Drakken. Or Bonnie. Even though Bonnie was probably going to get the car of her dreams the moment she'd earned her license and probably a vanity plate that said 2COOL4U, Kim could still hear the moment Bonnie's lip-curl had failed her in the bathroom.
So, decision. If - WHEN - Ron gets his license first, I'm not gonna rub it in Bonnie's face. I'll just let her find out for herself. Can't promise I won't relish it when she does, but. . .
But there you had it. The feud with Bonnie had been going on since BEFORE middle school, and it was one of the things Kim would be glad to get away from when she graduated.
The weight Kim hadn't been feeling since exiting the bathroom pressed on her again. One of them had to grow up eventually, and it definitely wasn't going to be Bonnie.
Besides, who had the next step to adulthood stashed away in her purse?
Kim stuck her hand into the side pocket and felt the slender card again. There was even more she could do now. Jump on a plane, go save the world, and then drive herself home from the airport? Pretty glam gig for a junior.
Bonnie didn't even get to eat dinner with a sworn-true friend or have a father care enough to overprotect her. That could take the heat right out of Kim's hate.
So. Maturity works. Spankin'.
And as soon as Ron dropped her off, Kim was going to give her dad the hug he deserved.