Assorted Ficlets

by purplegirl761

From humble beginnings to unexpected heroics (and beyond), behold: the ups and downs of Dr. Drakken, mad scientist extraordinaire. Will include pre-series, post-series, an origin story for Shego, my first ever attempt at D/S, and other random fun. Rating is for a few specific chapters; most are K Plus.

25. A Hiccup in the Time Stream

~Guess what: I'm still alive. My brain's just been off on some other planet lately; I don't think I even got around to reply to last chapter's reviewers. I've got no excuses, but I'm here now, and I really appreciate everyone who reads and reviews. I'll try to be more in the loop starting now. Love ya guys!

In the meantime, have some fun with our beloved characters' hopelessly-dorky middle-school selves! :D

Occasional non-word is meant to capture Drakken's "voice."~

The word blossoming in Dr. Drakken's mind like a sunrise was foolproof.

All right, so - as Shego had often been unkind enough to point out - he'd said that about several schemes before, and they'd all been foiled. And did sunrises actually blossom? Hmmm, he'd have to flip back through that poetry book Mother got him once. The world would expect its new ruler to be eloquent. . . i. . . fied.

Still, none of that mattered right now. Drakken held the key to global conquest in the palm of his hands. Well, actually, it was in the palm of both hands, wedged behind his back as he stood before Shego. Even when he used the term foolproof, she only gave him an eyebrow-hike, and that was nothing. Shego could be far sassier with her face if she wanted to.

"Shego," Drakken said, holding it in his throat long enough to feel the succulent rumble, "time travel is no longer a thing of the future! It is now a thing of the present! Well, I suppose it can still be a thing of the future, since it can transport you there - or to the past - but that doesn't -"

"Was there a point to this?" Shego interrupted. Her lack of inflection suggested that no, no there wasn't, and maybe she should just go back to her magazine until further notice.

And he couldn't have that happen, not when he was this close! Drakken shook his head several times at her and hoped the gesture didn't seem too pathetic. "Behoooollld," he droned, whipping out the compact gray rhombus of an object that had been cramping his wrists, "the world's first functional time machine!"

Now Shego's profile was one big caustic blade. "It looks like a toaster."

"Wha?"

Drakken studied his brilliant invention. All right, so its sinister metallic finish did seem small-appliance appropriate. Add to that the dials used to scroll back through the years, the handle-like activators, and the two crowning slits that displayed today's date, and -

Curse Shego. It was as if she viewed everything through a flaw-enlarging magnifying glass - and left it there until you caught fire like some poor tortured ant.

"Maybe it can make time toast," Drakken said, knowing as soon as he finished the sentence that he never should have started it.

"What the heck is 'time toast'?" Shego said.

Drakken forced his smirk to outgrow hers - not a difficult feat, considering how wide and rubbery his mouth was in comparison to hers. "Something I couldn't expect the average mind to comprehend."

Shego snorted, which through the universe's unfair dispersion of luck, she could do without sounding like a congested hog. It seemed to broadcast that she'd won, even though she hadn't!

The sting was hard to shake off, but Drakken made a valiant effort, whipping his ponytail in the process. "You recall, Shego, how we've been trying to destroy Kim Possible for years now?"

"Oh, we have?"

Drakken refused to indulge her in that one. "And how we've failed every time because she's freakishly overqualified for a girl her age?" His fists tightened, the anger like the much-needed drop of a potent chemical refusing to leave the container. "For anyone's age?"

"Yup."

"And then it occurred to me," Drakken said, "that all of our attempts were against her present-day self! Why not simply invent a time machine and travel back to a time before she was well-nigh invincible?"

"Yeah," Shego agreed. "Don't know why we didn't think of that before." She examined her gloves, obviously to hide how impressed she secretly was. "So where will be warping back to?"

"Ah-ah-ah. When, Shego, not where. And not warping. This is time travel, not space travel." It was Drakken's turn with the magnifying glass, and he planned to get as much mileage out of it as a human being could. "You know, you really should do more research on your - "

Shego held up a threatening finger.

"Middle school!" Drakken answered, taking another moment to savor the boom so that he didn't sound as though he were kowtowing to his sidekick. "The land of blemishes, hormones, and vacillating self-esteem. If there's a more vulnerable period in any adolescent's life, I don't know what it could be!"

Shego nodded, as if she could understand, as if she had ever, ever been anything other than strong and confident and cutting. Drakken's own memories pinched at his mind just a smidgeon less.

"Kim Possible in her pre-glory days!" Drakken said as he rotated the dial. Today's date stayed securely printed on the top slot, but the bottom scrolled to nearly-five years ago, in the middle of September. "Want to see?"

He was reaching for the handle - doggone it, the activator - when Shego suddenly piped up, "Whoa. You're just gonna slam us back into the past? Just like that?"

There was a sprinkling of something in her voice - not quite fear; it was more an edge of Drakken-are-you-stupid?! That was Shego's way.

"Oh, relax. It's perfectly safe," Drakken said. "We even have a Panic button and a Reset button. They're both made out of indestructium -"

"That's not a real metal."

"Gnnnggk - hush. Even if the rest of the time machine is destroyed, they will be undamaged. The Panic button sends us back to the present day and the precise location where we activated our journey through time. The Reset button will erase the memories of everyone involved in the incident, including you and I." Drakken finished with a flourish of his arms and the rush of using I when your standard halfwit would just say me.

"Sounds...smart," Shego said. The words groaned out as if she were passing a kidney stone.

Drakken's smile was so wide it ached. Receiving that praise from Shego was like struggling your way up Mount Everest, fording the Mississippi River, and accomplishing several other things of geological significance. "I know, right?" he said.

With the smoothness of a professional, he reached out and pulled the activator down.

To Drakken's immense satisfaction, there was no "KA-CHUNG!" toaster-noise. There was only a flash of light that had Drakken seeing diamonds, and then a gust of air that suspended him somewhere beyond a gravitational field, organs floating inside him and tumbling as he sped through a funnel of pure G-forces.

Maybe Shego hadn't been so far off when she'd likened it to space travel.

After only seconds, the funnel tapered away, and Drakken was lying tummy-down on his lair's floor. His temples throbbed and his pores, strangely, itched. Was there such a thing as time cooties?

Drakken leaped to his feet - whoops, apparently a little too quickly. The room bucked and sent out a wave of dizziness that dropped him back to one knee.

When Drakken rose again, at a more mild rush this time, he swiveled around to check on Shego. She had one hand pressed to her forehead, squinting at nothing in particular. For the briefest of instants, even she was not immune to the effects of time travel, and she could not name Drakken her inferior.

Drakken scanned the room and its surrounding halls. It was immediately familiar and negligibly different. The maroon walls had a cleaner shine to them, and the kitchen door was smooth, unmarked by the hole Drakken had accidentally lasered into it last month.

It worked!

And then footsteps pattered down from three rooms away - footsteps so important, demanding, and precise they could only belong to Dr. Drakken himself.

Drakken snagged Shego's sleeve and tugged her into the shadows. "Come on," he hissed. "We better get out of here before our old selves show up - well, I mean our younger selves - well, I mean - "

"Your younger self," Shego hissed in return.

Oh, right. Sometimes it was hard to remember that. Drakken felt like he'd known Shego just a few months shy of forever.

"Well, at any rate, we'd best be going." Drakken curled his grip tighter around the arm of Shego's jumpsuit and led her quickly to the door. "Crossing your own timeline rarely ends well."

Drakken spoke this with authority. He had read everything from The Time Machine to The Magic Treehouse and marathoned Doctor Who for twenty-four straight hours before he'd even begun work on his machine.

They hustled out the door onto the UNWELCOME mat and the skinny strip of sand where the hovercraft awaited them. Drakken climbed in, and although it probably didn't count as stealing when the owner was your own past self, he nevertheless felt the sweet release of evil spread as if it had been plugged into him with an IV.

That was more than just gratifying. It momentarily united him with Shego, who swung herself one leg at a time into the passenger seat. She was smiling at him, and not the kind of smile that characterized watching someone make an utter idiot of himself. It was one villain to another.

Shego tapped the dashboard. "What are you gonna do if your old self finds out it's missing?"

Drakken inflated his chest to counteract the sag before it could become noticeable. "Oh, I'll think of something. I am a genius, after all."

---

Not to brag - but it was the truth.

This Drakken was persuaded of as they landed on the Middleton Middle School lawn. The trip had taken them overseas and cross-country without a hitch. No police pulled them over, likely because - eh-heh - Dr. Drakken hadn't made much of a legend of himself until Shego had joined his workforce.

MMS was smaller than Drakken remembered it being, yet no less imposing. Sometime after his interance as a student here, the building had been repainted a sunny orange, exactly the shade that twelve-year-olds everywhere resented. The lawn was clipped shorter than it had been - and so were the girls' skirts as a group of them sashayed up the front walk.

Drakken ducked behind the hovercraft - why had he built such a short hovercraft? He had to practically crab-squat to ensure only his eyes peeked out above as he scanned the group for a redhead.

Nope. One girl's hair was blonde, the other's was black, and the bossy-looking one who marched in the lead was a brunette.

Of course, even if it were Kim Possible - she wouldn't recognize me yet.

Drakken truncated a chortle. Yes, he was so brilliant that sometimes it took him awhile to catch up with himself.

Shego had parked herself right beside the hovercraft, propping her back against it, ankles crossed in the grass. "Well?" she asked.

"So glad you asked, Shego!" Drakken reached under the hovercraft's dashboard, flipping himself briefly upside-down in the process, and rifled until he found his next machine. "Say hello to the Juvinator!"

Drakken felt himself beaming from one earlobe to the other, awaiting Shego's praise on his well-chosen weapon. She only flicked her gaze up to her bangs and let it dismiss him.

"You're gonna bribe them with baby toys." The contempt couldn't have been clearer if Shego had spit at his feet.

The Juvinator did look rather like a high-tech baby-stacker, the kind with the rings that spanned the color spectrum, narrowing at the top and broadening toward the base to introduce infants to the concept of size. That resemblance was intentional.

But the moment of equality they had shared on the hovercraft was gone. With her stone eyes, Shego was once again a sidekick rising out of her position, needing to be shoved back.

It made the haughty lift of Drakken's chin easy. "Oh, do try to be sensible, Shego!" he snapped. "I'm going to use it to transform myself into a seventh-grader!"

There was another snort. "Riiiight. 'Cuz my idea was just TOO impractical."

Every cell in Drakken's body strained to ignore her. The plan is brilliant. I am brilliant. Someday soon, they'll understand.

The rhythm aligned with his heartbeat and his breathing pattern, and Drakken could sense the calming effect already as he picked up the Juvinator and turned his back."I'm going to go change. . . in the bushes," he told her.

"Kaaay?"

"It's going to alter my proportions," Drakken explained. "I haven't tested it, so I don't know -" he could feel his cheeks blossoming pink like the aforementioned sunrise - "what it'll do to the whole 'clothes' situation."

Shego shut her eyes, as if they had reached the grisly portion of a crime-scene program. "Yeah. Really needed THAT in my mind."

Well, she was the one who questioned it.

Drakken stepped behind the tallest scrub of plant life he could find - they were so well-manicured, for once Drakken was happy that he was no bodybuilder - closed his own eyes, took one last breath of the piney outdoorsy scent mingled with the stench of bus exhaust. And he jammed the Juvinator's top button.

It didn't hurt, was Drakken's first thought. There'd been a tingle, something akin to a minor electrical shock, certainly nothing like the power surges he'd erroneously wound up channeling a few times, and then stretching and popping and now. . .

Drakken squinted his eyes open and almost fell over again. The landscape had changed - even in its clarity, there was something different about the way he was viewing it, as if something heavy rested between his gaze and the horizon. Somewhere in the farthest recesses of his brain, he had a file on it, but it was dusty from. . . from about. . .

He counted forward on his fingers, several times around. About twenty-three years.

The new-old pressure on his nose confirmed it. His glasses. Or - to a serious scholar such as himself - "spectacles."

Drakken slid a tentative tongue over his teeth. It wasn't the effortless back-and-forth he was used to. If that had been the glide of a paintbrush on a wall, this now was more of an attempt to paint a merry-go-round. His tongue swept over several dips and rises before jamming entirely behind a band of metal.

It worked. Drakken could not summon an exclamation point this time.

With equal parts thrill and dread percolating in his gut, Drakken glanced down at himself. He was, thankfully, still clothed - scrawny arms dangled from the sleeves of a black T-shirt with a green alien skull on it. Jeans fell in loose folds away from hips that Drakken had forgotten could get any bonier. From what he could see of his forearms, he knew he was still blue, and his facial skin felt greasy, boiling with a few hotspots. His tie-shoes stuck out in front of him, in the child-size he had never quite managed to outgrow.

He was Drew Lipsky again.

Drew licked a hand and dragged it back over his hair-spikes, all the way down to the half-tail shielding his neck from the world, and he stepped out from behind the bushes.

The world went still enough that he was sure you could hear a butterfly's wing beat. There was only a hiccup as Shego muffled laughter into her palms - reluctantly, as far as Drakken could tell. A grown woman who was clearly not old enough to be a middle-schooler's mother could not afford to draw attention to herself on-campus.

It was an intelligent thing to have noted just then, and that enabled Drew to lift his eyes until they met Shego's. "Don't be fooled, Shego!" he said. "Beneath this unassuming exterior lurks the heart of a bona fide bully!"

His voice split in two. Half disintegrated on contact, and the other climbed up the scale and disappeared.

Color whispered at the edges of Shego's cheeks, where it had never appeared before. Restraining a laugh was a greater exertion than mountain-climbing, and Drew was not appreciative. A lesser villain would have been stung.

Drew only took a moment to clear the squeaks from his throat before continuing. "I shall find Kim Possible, and I will not rest until I have made her life thoroughly miserable! Her fledgling adolescent spirit shall be crushed! She will not dare to show up for cheerleading practice, much less tangle with the greatest villains the world has ever known!"

His words did elicit a hungry-lioness smile from Shego. "Crushed Kimmie," she said. "Yeah, that sounds pretty decent to me."

"Exactly." Drew thumped his bulging pocket. "I'll have my cell phone with me at all times, and I'll text you updates. And don't worry - I won't let anyone catch me with it in class."

Shego's eyebrows leveled until they were parallel with her bangs. "Drew" - that was all too easy for her to say - "it's the '90s. They won't have a clue what it even is."

"All the more reason to keep it hidden!" Drew said. "It's an anachronism!"

Shego blew out a "WHATever," which Drew also ignored as he took off across the school's lawn, still green with the last of summer. It had always struck Drew as unfair that school had to start up again just when the weather was starting to cool down to the year's loveliest temperatures, ones that begged to be enjoyed. He loved the schoolwork. Hated being cooped up inside with no (literal) wiggle room.

But if it would bleach away the stain that Kim Possible was on his life, it would be well worth it.

Drew slipped in through the double doors. Another gaggle of giggling girls (phew, there was a tongue-twister for you) flocked by as if he were a nonentity, which left Drew ample opportunity to eavesdrop. Every word he heard only cemented the brilliance of his plot.

These girls were anxious, anxious, anxious. They worried that no boy would ever call them on the phone. They were afraid someone named "Bonnie" would be able to tell that their parents had refused to buy them brand-name jeans. They counted the day until their birthdays, when they would finally be allowed to watch PG-13 films.

Somewhere out there, Kim Possible must have been just as flighty as the rest of them. Her sprightly little self-confidence could barely have manifested itself yet - and Drew was planning on running it down with a couple of ice cream trucks before it could.

Ice cream trucks. Why did he say ice cream trucks? It should have been drag cars - or whatever those things were Eddy got all excited about - something that would signify the appropriate level of violence he brought -

At any rate, it had another distinct advantage over all of his previous schemes: the most amount of legal trouble he could get into was being sent to the principal. After all the time he served in prison, the so-called threat of the principal's office was stupid at worst, laughable at best. (Though the two terms meant much the same, "laughable" had to be better, Drew thought - because who didn't like to laugh?)

And then his surroundings sank in, and all Drew could think was, Whoa.

Middleton Middle School was an incredible building, as large and important-looking as it had been back when it was Middleton Junior High. The lockers were set low on the walls to accommodate the students who hadn't hit their growth spurts yet. Shego would have approved of the pine-green walls and the ringlet staircases. The linoleum floor, grayed by years of sneaker soles, rolled off into the distance like an infinite beach. Farther down, the classroom doors punctured the walls as if they'd been shot in with a staple gun - by someone far more dexterous than Drew. (His last encounter with one of those had ended with the little metal fangs biting the tender flesh of his thumb, reflex tears, and Shego rolling her eyes so hard she could've strained an iris.)

Was Room 113 still the science lab? Run by that one teacher, so alive with the beauty of science and the most sympathetic face a preteen boy could ever pray to encounter?

Drew was drawn toward it like a fly to a garbage heap - no - no - like a bee to a clover. (Much more poetic; much more fitting.) She must have been pushing fifty, if she were still there at all, but Drew just wanted to peek in at her. That didn't count as crossing your own timeline, did it?

Whether it did or not, Drew was never sure. His left shoelace came untied, weaseled its way under his right shoe, and he found himself sprawled across the linoleum.

Oh BOTHER.

Drew sighed - even that sounded entirely too high-pitched - and brought his foot up to rest on a bench. The old, crumbling stone one that had stood there when he was a student had been replaced by a new, metal-over-plastic one - "mod," as the kids today would say. . .or, well, errr, the kids five years from today. It had been quite awhile since he'd worn tie-shoes, but it came back to Drew quickly. His lamentably small hands, which couldn't snap open the jelly jar or keep a firm grip on the remote, had no trouble looping the laces around each other and pulling them tight.

Giving the ties a proud fluff, Drew took one step forward. And that was when a significantly larger hand came down on his shoulder. "What'cha doin' there, dipstick?" someone demanded.

Drew gave himself credit for not rocketing completely out of his clothes. He only squealed and tumbled backward on the slick surface underneath him, landing on his rump.

The ceiling was an empty, glimmering white.

A pack of boys clustered around Drew as he got to his feet and dusted off his jeans. "I was tying my shoes, not that it's any of your business." Drew tried to shove his way past one of the smaller boys, which only resulted in big arms closing around him from behind and jerking him around to meet a glower.

He didn't have time for this! He had to go find Kim Possible and get right to work on Operation: Spirit Crusher.

"Did your wittle shoewaces break?" asked the biggest boy. He had to be an eighth-grader - and a jock. The first traces of whiskers around his lips. The jersey screaming the name of some team Drew had never heard of. The macho growl coming out of him.

"Oh, come on, guys," Drew said. "Leave me alone. Must we resort to acting like Neanderthals?"

"Did you just call him a caveman, dude?" another boy yelled from somewhere in the pack.

Since when did the bully-jock type boast a working brain?

Drew pulled up to his full height - which, he just now realized, was all of about four-foot-six. "I - I was only commenting on the behav -" he began.

And never finished. The biggest boy seized him by the front, twisting the alien skull. It was, Drew realized crazily, the shirt he had always wanted when he was twelve, but Mother would never buy it - it was too "morbid" for her.

Mother wasn't here now.

So many memories of so many hands lit up and flashed in Drew's brain. He began to tremble from the toes up, unspoken screams rattling in his airways.

There was an audible jeer as the pack closed in. Drew's flailing leg was only good for nailing one kid in the kneecaps. All of them seemed to take the hit, from how they spewed words that Dr. Drakken had only heard a few times before, and then only from fellow felons.

Drew tried to focus on that better-than-average alliteration (fellow felons), tried to trick himself into not noticing how his arms were being locked behind his back. He had a few choice phrases of his own he could have hurled at them, were it not for the fact that his tongue had gone dead. Hard fists closed around his wrists and ankles, and his hair-tail couldn't protect him from the particularly nasty hold it was clutched in. This must have been how it felt to be put in the stocks.

Although surely the stocks were preferable to whatever it was they were preparing to do to him. A wedgie? A swirly? A lunch-money-shakedown? A pantsing?

"Look at 'im. Little wuss," one of them said. His glob of saliva landed an inch from Drew's pinned-down face. The foot he pulled back, Drew could tell from experience, wouldn't miss, no more than the calloused knuckles that had already bounced off his chest.

Drew closed his eyes and was about to curl into a ball - degrading as it most certainly was, he had to protect himself - when someone else was suddenly saying, "Stop, you guys! Leave him alone!"

Whoever it was got a ton of yuks from the boys, but it didn't last long. Drew heard the unmistakable sound of a sneaker against a chin, followed by a glorious groan of pain. There were three heavy thuds, which Drew surmised were the three biggest boys being knocked to the ground, and frantic clomps as the rest of the pack disbanded and ran for their lives. It wasn't long before the bigger ones joined them.

Drew pressed up against the nearest bank of lockers. He was still shaking on an atomic level, and for a moment or two it left no room for humiliation.

It didn't take long for some to find its footing, though. This was both an enormous yes! and a huge no! His rescuer couldn't have been a teacher - they'd be fired, if not arrested, for laying a finger on any of the students.

That meant he'd been saved by another kid. And from the swishy-skirt foosteps approaching him, Drew was ninety-nine percent certain it was a girl, to boot. He stayed motionless, hoping against all hope that he'd be beamed up by Mr. Scotty or perhaps just vaporized by Captain Kirk.

At least it couldn't get any worse -

"Hey, are you okay?" the girl asked.

No.

I know that voice.

No.

"My name's Kim. What's yours?"

---

Dead silence.

Kim kind of wanted to tell the kid that she didn't have any easier questions. The poor guy was already about to shiver himself into oblivion, though. He was way too much like Ron.

She'd thought he was Ron when she'd rounded the corner and found all those jocks clumped together in some nasty version of their halftime-huddle. That always meant they'd found a punching bag.

Taking them down was easy. Those boys were big for eighth grade and in total shape from basketball and stuff, but they still weren't used to Kim's new martial-arts gig - the one that pumped her and doubled her reasons to wake up in the morning. Kim was still catching up with herSELF. She'd always been the girl who had a finger in every extracurricular activity, made practically-perfect grades, and to Bonnie Rockwaller's disappointment, couldn't be pushed off the edge of the cool crowd. Guidance counselors whispered, "Overachiever," like it was a bad thing, teachers used her as an example of a model student, and she was holding her own against the twins in brag-points with Mom and Dad. All of which was delish enough -

Until the day of cheer tryouts. And Mr. Paisley's hit on the site. Both of those were basically the mature equivalent of that day in elementary when you discovered you were finally tall enough to ride the Stomach Twister. When she was cheerleading - and now, when she was saving people - Kim felt like she might actually be someone besides a flat-chested, tinsel-toothed seventh-grader.

She couldn't remember when she'd felt as borderline-smug as when she watched those boys pound their Converse to get away from her. It didn't fade when the gang was gone and Kim glimpsed a head of hair the exact opposite of Ron's staticky blond.

Right now, the kid had his eyes closed and his chin almost tucked into his chest, as if he were having his own personal tornado drill. "Drew," he finally said.

The eye came open, through a lens as thick as a windshield. Its brownness was just a speck off black and spiky-lashed and wobbling with tears. A case of feeling-bad-for-him stirred Kim's heart.

Kim smoothed down the miniskirt she'd spent two weeks convincing Dad to let her buy with her own allowance, scooted in closer to Drew - and her words stuck the landing and fell down in a heap.

No way. No way was this kid blue.

Kim caught her lip in mid-curl. Okay - so he was sick. Hurt, maybe. She'd been taking Red Cross classes since she was eight, and she knew, as Ron put it, "six or seven different ways to make people start breathin' again."

She was just about to roll up her sleeves and start one of them when the kid spoke again - this time with exasperation that blasted back in Kim's face like a shower of sand. "I have a skin condition, okay!" he said. Screeched.

Kim saw a flash of silver right before Drew's hand shot up to cover his lips. His head hung in embarrassment, a sign that he totally hadn't learned how to cope with metal-mouth yet.

With you on that, Kim thought.

She flashed her own braces at him in a show of sympathy. "Does it keep you from doing anything?" she asked. If it did, she was about to be sent on a deluxe, all-expenses-paid guilt trip.

Drew seemed to retreat farther into his baggy outfit. "No, not really. It just keeps me from looking normal."

"Oh, well, then! No big!" Kim gave her wrist a do-I-seem-sincere-enough? flip. As much as she wanted that to be true, this was middle school. She was already offering up a prayer of thanks that she didn't have Drew's "condition."

And that made her feel like a grade-A snob. Kim frowned for a second, and then she said, "Are you new? Because I don't remember seeing you around before."

She hoped Drew couldn't hear any hint of I would have remembered someone like YOU.

It wasn't just the blueness. Freckles and pimples flecked his face at random, and Ron's weird little pet rat could hang-glide from those ears. Although he wasn't exactly ugly, Kim decided, puberty hadn't been very nice to him.

A short tail of hair flipped up in the back, curled like the tip of a soft-serve ice cream cone. In the so-not-cool category, it was right up there with the specs. Above them, his brows were as fat and black as that stuff Kim had seen boys put under their eyes before they went out to play football.

Rip Snorter and those guys were going to eat him for lunch.

Drew nodded slowly, as if his head weighed two tons. "Yes," he said - just as slow. "New. That's it. I'm new."

O-kay then.

Kim pushed herself up from the floor and stretched a hand down to Drew. "Hey, you wanna eat lunch with us? We could give you the lowdown on MMS."

Drew stared, loose-jawed and blinking, for almost a full minute. "You mean that?" he said.

"Of course." Kim tossed her ponytail in the direction of the cafeteria. "Come on, I'll show you where our table is."

After another few sink-in seconds, Drew smiled, and his braces glimmered shyly. He was actually kind of cute in a put-together-wrong way when he did that.

Drew shuffled after her as if he was leaving part of himself behind. His body was sort of wonky, like his hands didn't fit his arms and his arms didn't fit his legs. Half the boys in the school had the same look, but the way Drew dragged it around, like a ball-and-chain in one of those old prisoner movies, pretty much advertised him as fresh bait.

Yeah, you'd have to be some kind of stone-cold Bonnie not to feel sorry for him.

"I suppose I'm in your debt, since you saved me from those brutes," Drew said. He was suddenly talking like one of the teachers, and it was just short of hilarious in his only-a-few-squeaks-lower-than-Ron's voice.

"Oh, please. SO not the drama," Kim said. That wrist-flip as natural as the organic fruit Mrs. Stoppable insisted on buying. "Don't feel bad. Those guys harsh on everyone."

Drew stuffed his hands into his pockets, thumbs spilling over the sides. All he needed now was one of those cartoon clouds hanging over his head. "I bet they never pick on you," he muttered, and the teacher-imitation disappeared into something dark.

Actually, he was right. But Kim didn't see any point in saying that, not with Drew hitching his pockets and swallowing so hard his Adam's apple seemed ready to break through the skin. She'd never seen any middle-school boy other than Ron this close to crying, and she didn't have enough experience with this one to have any idea what to do.

Luckily, they were at the cafeteria door a minute later. Drew sloppily wiped his entire face on his sleeve before he entered, and Kim steered him toward the second table from the west window, where Ron was already sitting and folding his napkin into an airplane shape. "Drew, this is my best friend, Ron Stoppable," she said. "Ron, this is Drew -"

"Lipsky," the kid mumbled.

"He's new here," Kim finished.

Ron immediately lit up, the way the puppy across the street did whenever anybody walked by. "Hey, Drew!" he said. "My man!" He held out his fist for a knuckle-bump.

Drew's fists, which could probably both fit in one of Ron's palms, hung blankly at his waist, and his backbone cringed. "What does this mean?" he said. To Kim.

She couldn't hold back a grin any longer. "It's just Ron's weird way of saying hello." Kim nudged an elbow into the teddy-bear shirt no one could talk Ron into giving up. "I'm gonna go look at the menu and see if they're actually serving anything edible today."

Ron shot Drew a look that clearly said, Is there such a THING as bad food?

Drew gave him one back.

Good. They were going to bond after all.

Kim picked her way through the lunch line, selecting the least icky of today's specials until she had enough foil on her plate to fill Mom's crock-pot. She'd used all of her debate-team-sharpened arguments when she'd gone round and round with the lunch lady and the principal and the school board about how environmentally-unfriendly all of that was, and she'd always gotten the same droning response - it was "cost-effective." Kim gave the lunch lady an eyebrows-up look now to show she wasn't planning on giving up anytime soon as she headed back to Ron and Drew.

Once they'd navigated the line, they came back with heaping trays, which they attacked like the starving orphans in Oliver Twist. The two of them together couldn't weigh more than the star basketball forward Kim had just landed an uppercut on.

"So, Drew, dude," Ron said, crumbs spraying as he talked, "how come you're blue?"

"Ron!" Kim heard herself snap. "Ever heard of manners?"

She expected the explanation to blast at Ron, maybe even harder than it had at her. Instead, total confusion swam over Drew's face. He grabbed the fork he didn't need to eat the cafeteria's imitation hamburger and poked it at nothing.

"He has a skin condition," Kim finally answered for him, kicking her foot against Drew's under the table.

Ron nodded as if he understood completely. "Allergies or somethin', huh? That's not so weird. My dad has awful, awful allergies. He swells up like Pop-Pop Porter's blimp and turns super-pink if he even gets near anything with fur. That's how I met this little guy."

He reached into his pocket, and Kim fought an eye-roll. Great. Now they were going to go gaga over the little naked jellybean. Straight into boy-land where she could NOT follow - and it wasn't like she hadn't tried before.

But Drew yelped and backpedaled, threatening to overturn his chair, as Rufus yawned from Ron's palm. It trumped even Bonnie's introduction to Ron's freaky new friend. "What is that?" he said. "It almost looks like a baby - "

"Yup, a baby naked mole rat!" Ron finished for him. He was obviously more delighted than offended as he patted Rufus's wrinkly head. "His name's Rufus."

"Oh, of course," Drew said. "How stupid of me not to have guessed." Kim could see him trying to sneer - and failing miserably. "So - your father's allergies have forced you to consort with hairless vermin?"

Rufus jibbered something Kim would swear was, "Hey!"

"Hey, no hate for the Ruf-meister, 'kay?" Ron waggled his head back and forth. "He's my bro now. Up 'till now, I was what you'd call an 'only child.'" His fingers twitched around the words.

"As am I," Drew said - in the quietest voice yet.

Kim gave a cheerful groan. "You guys are lucky. My little brothers drive me so completely crazy that I want to ship them off to a desert island half the time. Last night, when I was doing my pre-algebra, they -"

"We are not lucky!"

Drew wasn't being quiet anymore. He had a white-knuckled grip on the spoon that he waved in Ron's direction. "Well, maybe he is, but I'm not! My entire family is just me and my mom. Has been for almost. . ." Drew's freckles nearly doubled over on themselves as he counted forward on his fingers. ". . . four years."

He looked at them like he was expecting horror. Wanting it, even. It was hard for Kim. Her parents had been together for going-on-sixteen years, but the number of kids-of-divorce in her homeroom alone would fill up her fingers if she'd counted.

It was Ron who spoke up. "Aww, geez, that tanks. Why parents gotta do stuff like that?" He put his burger down and slid his hand across the table.

Whatever Ron was planning on doing, Drew shook it away. Kim felt a speedy stab at her insides. For a sec, Ron seemed all wise - if you could overlook the teddy bear tee. It only took another sec for Kim to flash back to first grade, when she'd found Hope, one of her now-fellow cheerleaders, crying on the corner of the blacktop because her mommy was moving to another house. Kim hadn't known what to say to her, so she'd organized a game of kickball - Hope's favorite - and insisted everyone let Hope go first.

Why couldn't things be as simple as when they were six?

Like he'd read her mind, Drew whipped toward Kim. "But you," he said. "I bet you've got the perfect little family, don't you?" It could have been an insult, except that voice was slicing into itself just as much as it was into her.

Honestly, Kim almost wished it were an insult. At least then she'd have a retort.

"Why are you dissin' Kim, dude?" Ron said, gritting the teeth he almost never clamped down. "She's only, like, the nicest kid in the whole school."

No, actually, that's you, Ron, Kim wanted to say. But it must've touched off something raw inside Drew, because he leaned forward and his shoulders rolled in until they were about to collide. Bitter shame stung his eyes.

"Sorry. I guess I just get a little. . . jealous," Drew mumbled - through a mouth so hurt-shut each word might as well have left behind a new cold sore. "Of normal kids."

Kim stared. The tough-guy act spread around the boys at school like a gorchy case of athlete's foot - and even though most of them weren't too good at it, Kim had never watched one fall apart that fast. And Drew had to be beating himself up for it, if you went by how he punched his fists into opposite armpits.

"So, where did your family move from?" Kim asked - instead of, What IS your ish?

And again, Drew didn't answer. Kim looked up to see him playing with a wad of aluminum that some unidentifiable hot-lunch goodie had come wrapped in. His tray was already empty. This kid really would eat anything.

"Yoo-hoo!" Ron waved a hand in front of Drew's blank stare. "Earth to Drew!"

Drew raised his own hand as if to swat Ron away, and then left it lying flattened on the table. "Lots of places," he said, the "places" ten notches higher than the "lots." "I think we were in the Caribbean before we moved here."

"You think?" Ron said. "Man, I'd love to live in the Caribbean. You could have class outside 24/7 - well, I guess it'd be more like 7/5 - but I'd get to rock the beach bod all year 'round." He paused to squint. "The Caribbean's an island, right?"

"It's a - it's a -" Drew failed his arms like some helpless baby bird. "It's a stretch in the ocean. There are many islands there. But enough about me." He swiveled around to face Kim again. "Tell me some more about these brothers of yours."

He sounded super-perky all of a sudden, and Kim wasn't going to question it. Lunch period had been enough of a Stomach Twister already. Besides, hadn't she just been invited to vent about the brat-brains?

"Jim and Tim?" she said. "They are the worst. They're only seven, but they've got the brainpower of a couple of super computers, andthey don't use it for good. They reprogram my alarm clock to go off way early, they do 'fabric experiments' on my favorite clothes, and last night - last night I was doing math. Trying to do math, at least. I can't get a handle on this pre-algebra stuff - which of course they've already mastered - and they were just hovering around me, going, 'Awww, come on, Kim! This stuff is so easy! What you do mean you can't figure it out?'"

Kim found herself unwinding as she lifted the bun to inspect her hamburger. At least she wasn't unraveling.

"Interesting," Drew said. He scribbled on a napkin, fascination shining behind those went-out-last-decade glasses of his. "And would you say it crush -"

The five-minutes bell jangled before he could finish. "We'd better finish eating fast," Ron said - around chomps of mashed potatoes. "It's almost time to get to our next class."

Drew poked at the tip of his pencil. "Is our next class math?" he said. There was something almost gleeful about the question. He was a stranger-than-most new kid.

Kim shook her head. "Gym. Don't know what genius thought THAT up - "

She stopped, because Drew had jolted forward in his chair and clutched the table's edge, eyes bugging. It was worse than a deer-in-headlights look. He was the headlights.

"Gym?" Drew squeaked.

And suddenly he didn't look weird at all anymore. He looked like a discolored version of Ron, trembly and pale at the thought of facing whatever disgusting things went down in the boys' locker room.

To be honest, Ron, sporting the grin he never brought out right before gym class, looked less scared than Drew did. "Don't worry, bud," he said happily. "We'll look out for each other, okay?"

"Okay," Drew said in an almost-whisper.

Ron grinned bigger than ever. "Man, this is gonna be great. I never had a locker-room buddy before."

Kim was hit with another pang. That was the one area where she could not help him.

Thank goodness for Drew, weird as he was.

Drew perched like that same baby bird on the edge of his chair and waited for Kim and Ron to finish eating. He stuck right next to them as the three of them stood up to throw their trash away and return their trays. He was pretty much Velcroed to them as they left the cafeteria.

One of the eighth-graders whammed into Drew in the hall, landing him up against the bank of lockers. He let out a cry, and Kim felt her heart quicken with pity - and anger. She amped up the threat-level in her gaze and kept it there until it was time to gender-split.

"And after gym, then do we have math?" Kim could hear Drew saying as he slipped into the locker room behind Ron. His floppy arms were arranged in a fold, going for cynical. Kim thought about warning him that he needed to drop the whole tough-guy thing because he was about as tough as a bowl of rainbow sherbert, but she held back.

She didn't want to crush what was left of this miserable kid's spirit.

---

This was not going according to plan.

This was not going according to plan at all, and Drew was sure he could feel goose bumps down the very walls of his throat as he stiffly followed Ron - that was his name, right? Ron? - toward the locker room.

One hour at Middleton Middle, and what had he accomplished? Insulting the naked mole rat, which had had very little effect since apparently Kim Possible hadn't come to love him yet the way she would in the future - well, in the present - well, in the time when he would have a ponytail and she wouldn't. A jab at her perfect family, which had only earned him a very strange look. It was clear Kim Possible didn't think him a bully - she thought him a lunatic.

And for the first time in a long time, Drew Lipsky thought himself a fool.

He should have known better than to accept a lunch invitation. At the sound of those words - "You wanna have lunch with us?" - he should have turned and bolted back down the hall. Except no one had ever said them to him before. He was curious.

The small mental whisper, I saw my opportunity and seized it! Besides, I was planning to do more to her, was precious little comfort. Part of Drew had longed to slump in his seat and plug his fingers with his ears. He hadn't wanted to hear about her wonderful life and her hardworking, probably churchgoing family and her position on the cheerleading squad. The resentment felt like bile in his soul.

But she'd been looking at him so kindly. . .

And he was exactly what those boys in the hallway had called him. A wuss.

And now Drew was entering one of the most perilous places known to mankind - a locker room full of seventh-grade boys. A scale model of prison.

The room swept itself into an ugly hush when Drew and Ron entered. The boy who swaggered over to greet them wasn't as big as the one who'd assaulted Drew in the hall, and his shirtless state displayed his ribs - but also a set of budding pectorals. "What do we got here?" he said. "Look, guys, Loser Boy's found a little loser friend."

There was a chorus of hoots. Another boy muscled his way to the front, this one stripped down to only a pair of plaid boxers, and Drew suddenly realized with his goose bumps icing over that he was probably sporting Spider-Man on his own underwear.

I'm an adult, Drew reminded himself. The words, factual though they were, were weak and not to be believed. And standing there among them, knobby-kneed and underdeveloped in the midst of their athletic legs and newly emergent chest and armpit hair, he knew that he was three checkpoints behind them in the video game of puberty.

And Ron hadn't even gotten his console plugged in yet.

That was why it surprised Drew when Ron grinned, knocking his face back another three to five years. "I dunno about that," he said. "We don't even know what the game is yet, so how can we tell who wins or who loses?"

A general disbelief fell, and during it, Drew seriously considered distancing himself from Ron, attempting to join the tormentors. It was the only semi-villainous thing to do. And yet it would do no good - Kim Possible's spirit, like an equation with a negative slope, rose the more beaten-down her little friend was. Besides, to break up an alliance while still in enemy-occupied territory was stupid, and Drakken had met his quota of stupidity for the day.

It was time to behave in a manner befitting the genius he was.

"Aw, come on, Stoppable," Boxer Boy scoffed. "When have you ever won anything in your life?"

Stoppable. Yes, the name did have a familiar ring to it.

"You know," Drew said, "being able to play sports doesn't raise your IQ. It doesn't make you a decent person. It won't always land you in a position of leadership. It's not good preparation for the real world."

Hating the fractures in his voice, Drew jerked his head back toward Ron for support. But the kid appeared to be in some kind of trance, until all at once he thrust out a finger and cried, "Yeah! And ya know, I did win the ring toss game at the carnival last year! And everyone knows those things are rigged!"

Even without the aid of a mirror, Drew could tell how badly his cheeks were blotching.

Before any of the boys could even start toward them, though, someone else cried from the corner, "Hey, check this out! Reiger here's got a sunburn on his butt!"

Ron and Drew were quickly forgotten as the boys stampeded over to "check out" that unfortunate child's backside. For once Drew was glad; for once it was better to be ignored.

"C'mon, Drew," Ron said. He tugged Drew toward a curtained stall. "In here. While they're distracted."

Drew threw a terrified glance at the stall door. Was this the one with the lock that always came unfastened right at the moment you finally got up the nerve to strip your shirt off - or worse? It appeared shinier and more silvery-bright than the one he'd relied on in his youth, but who could know if it had been replaced or just polished?

"Come on." Ron gave Drew a light shove to the back, and Drew waited for old-man pain that never came. "Go in there, and I'll guard you while you change, and then you can do the same thing for me."

Drew twisted around to look straight into Ron's eyes. "Really?" he said. "You would - you would do that for me?"

Ron shrugged merrily. "Like I said - I always wanted a locker room buddy."

It was ridiculous to trust him; however, for lack of other options, Drew was forced to do so. He walked into the shower stall and pulled the lock into place behind him. There was a creak as Ron's weight leaned against it to keep it shut.

Drew sighed to himself as he pulled off his shirt. His chest was so narrow that it looked like his lungs were sucking themselves in to conserve air and as smooth as Ron's rat friend, with only a downy layer of delicate hair. He'd seldom seen more a disheartening sight. His gym T-shirt went on quickly.

Next came the change into shorts. Complete with the expected Spider-Man boxers. Drew was afraid to look at the tag, afraid to see the size, afraid that his mother would have stitched "Drew Lipsky" - if not "Drewbie Lipsky" - onto it as an identifier, so it couldn't get mixed up with some other pint-sized -

The knob rattled from the outside. Drew was about to jump out of the shorts he'd just wiggled into when Ron hissed, "It's just me. Hurry up before they come back, okay?"

Drew wanted to say something in agreement, but his mouth had turned into the Sahara Desert. And the Sahara Desert didn't talk, except to those poor lost souls gone mad from thirst. He just tied his gym shoes - another skill he'd learned late - and exited the stall, switching places with Ron, propping himself against the door. Drew tried to whistle casually, to no avail.

The Sahara Desert didn't whistle, either.

Ron was faster than Drew would have expected from him. He was in and out of the stall in under a minute, giving Drew a high-five and saying, "All right, let's do this thing."

Drew stared, stunned, at his palm. Its nerves still held the imprint of a tender grip he'd never known before. When it faded from his tactile memory, he felt empty.

Please not the physical fitness test, Drew begged whatever higher being was in charge of P.E. schedules. Please - I haven't done a chin-up in twenty -two years. . .

Mercy was granted - Drew supposed. It was not chin-ups, but basketball. There was the humiliating picking of teams - teachers still hadn't figured out what that did to a child's morale? - that left Drew hugging the wall, facing the rolling eyes of the unlucky team fated to choose him for their last player. Even Ron had been accepted with less reluctance, likely due to his lanky-legged advantage.

Well, despite the fact that they were on opposing teams, Drew planned to stick close to Ron for the rest of the period. They alternated warm-up stretches together to make sure someone was always on the lookout for large wedgie-giving hands. They took breaks on the same bench, shared gulps from Ron's water bottle. They gave each other thumbs'-up before heading back into the fray.

At one point, someone actually passed the ball to Ron. Though he looked ready to have a conniption on the spot, the kid got it together enough to shoot up for a dunk. But he'd figured the ball's trajectory wrong, and it clunked off the backboard and bounced straight toward Drew's team.

Its angle as it hit the ground automatically grafted itself into Drew's brain. He knew right where it would end up - thanks to the power of science! I'll prove them all wrong!

Unfortunately, his show of genius didn't really bump him up the two inches it felt like it ought to. The ball sailed right between Drew's straining fingertips, and he pumped himself backward in one final bid for success - and the slick gym floor slid right out from beneath him, landing Drew hard on his rear.

The crowd roared. Before the couch could even reach for his whistle - not that Drew saw with his slightly doubled vision, at least - Ron got there, reached a hand down to him, and hauled him back up. For a half-instant, the kid's face was soft and understanding before he took off after the rebound, tripping over himself along the way.

They still got laughed at a lot, but at least there were two of them.

Drew was especially grateful for that once they were commanded to hit the cool-down showers before their next class. He would have clung to Ron's hand in the locker room if he hadn't been acutely aware of how much worse it would make things.

After four minutes of standing guard outside Ron's curtain, Drew started to drift into daydreams. He wouldn't have blamed that Reiger kid if he skipped gym for the rest of his school career. . . and he wondered what Past Drakken was doing back in his lair right at this moment. . . and he didn't notice another form much bigger than his own dart in beside him.

Not until the curtain snapped with a swish-thwap and then a pained cry from Ron. Drew didn't need to see the red-raised welt to recognize The Lash Of The Rolled-Up Wet Towel. It was a sound that had haunted him even after graduation.

And on my watch, too! What kind of a friend am I?

Ngggk. He really needed to get a grip. He was not Stoppable's friend; he was his mortal enemy, and Stoppable should've been the only one of the duo foolish enough to not grasp that.

"You guys really need to come up with some new tricks," Drew said, the chance to put the jocks in their place (probably) his only incentive. "They were doing that when I was in - "

Foreheads puckered.

"- sixth grade," he finished feebly, grabbing his own change of clothes while they were still stunned into inertia.

Great. He'd almost said when I was in middle school. The first time. Thirty years ago.

As he stepped into the stall to shower and change, Drew could almost hear Shego's slow, degrading clap.

He'd just buttoned his blue jeans back on when something vibrated from the pocket. It was his phone with a text message. Speak of the sidekick. . .

Where are you? The letters poked at Drew like demanding fingers. Making any progress yet?

Gulp.

Technical difficulties, Drew sent back. But I'll get to her in math class. Promise!

With every one of those exclamation points still resounding in his head, Drew peeked out the curtain to make sure the coast was clear and helped a now-dressed Ron limp to the door. He wished he'd ever been able to isolate which mysterious property of Kim Possible's gave her such an air of superiority - the quality of being, as she would say, "so over it."

Hopefully it was still in its infant stages.

"So - do we have math class after this?" Drew asked as he tagged along beside Ron.

"Well, yeah. I mean, it's not right after this, but it's after this. Last period."

Last period. Shego was not known for her patience. He'd be cutting it close - but - but, oh think of it, the great Kim Possible, stymied by pre-algebra!

An intelligent person's lack of prowess in a single subject could make the perfect spirit-crusher.

"So, what is our next period?" Drew asked. He heard himself squeal with excitement, yet managed to refrain from bouncing on his heels and thus sacrificing his casualness entirely.

"Language arts."

Ron shrugged as he said it, and his casualness made a casualty of Drew. Everything inside him ceased to function, and he had to grab at the sides of his hair to determine he was still a living organism.

It would be language arts.

The word was irony, and it vexed Drew to the bone - because he couldn't quite recall how to spell it.

---

As usual, Kim was in Room 1748 and at her desk two minutes before the warning bell rang. Still breathing hard from the laps she'd run - though they were getting easier every day - she tapped a pencil into its slot at the top of the desk and arranged her Structure of the English Language textbook and spelling-slash-vocab book below it. Half of last week's words had looked like they belonged on one of Mom's med charts, but after finishing every lap in first place, Kim was in a major bring-it mood.

Someone soapy-smelling came in and flopped into the seat behind her the way only one person could do. Kim could recognize Ron just from the frantic slamming around inside his desk for his books and the avalanche of pages turning because his getting-too-big-for-him fingers couldn't grab any LESS than ten at a time.

"Last second, right on cue," Kim hissed to him without turning around.

"The Ron-man's got it nailed to the wall, KP."

"How was gym class?" Kim said.

She could hear Ron's shrug rattling against the back of his chair. "Slightly less traumatizing than usual."

It always broke Kim into a grin whenever Ron came out with a four-syllable word. Too bad they fell apart in his throat whenever a teacher was within six feet. Maybe hanging out with geeky little Drew all day would actually drive them deep enough into Ron's brain for him to wow Mrs. Yen.

Kim glanced around the room for the new kid and found him in the back row. He had one arm flung lazily across the back of the chair and both of his still-twitchy feet hitched onto the book rack beneath it, ruining the nonchalant act with way too much energy.

"So - you guys watched each others' backs in gym?" Kim asked Ron.

"Yeah. He seems nice." Kim could imagine Ron tilting his head. "Weird, but nice."

Just like you, Kim was about to reply, when Mrs. Yen stepped to the front of the room and clapped her hands until the chalk dust from her last class flew up around her like smoke signals.

"All right, boys and girls," she began, and Kim could feel the unanimous held-back groan across the room. That was a phrase that even rubbed wrong against the twins, and they still ran around the house in their underwear half the time. "Today, we will be working on our spelling and vocabulary words. Please open your books to Lesson Two on page 20. Copy down each word and its definition."

Kim took another look around the room. Bonnie did everything but yawn to show what a cakewalk THAT was going to be for her. Drew was looking more green than blue. Ron Reiger had his knees drawn up under him to support his weight while he turned a shade of flaming red to match his hair.

Personally, Kim was up there with Bonnie - just minus the whole being-a-snot-about-it part, Kim hoped with all her heart. Copying down spelling words was a major bore, but it didn't pose any threat to her GPA.

By the time Kim ended her last letter with a cheerleader-flourish, only twenty-five minutes of class time had ticked by. She swiveled toward Ron and formed the "okay?" sign with her fingers and got an upturned thumb in response. Ron didn't exactly have what you'd call a knack for spelling, but he was fine as long as the words were right there in the book.

Kim turned back around and fingered the first word at the top of her paper. Metamorphosis. A process of great change, such as a caterpillar becoming a butterfly or a tadpole becoming a frog.

Like all of us, Kim thought.

That was good for yet another pan of the room. Legs were longer than they'd been at the end of sixth grade. Girls who weren't Kim were starting to develop actual figures. Boys' voices squawked like the recorders nobody could play back in music class, but at least you could tell them apart from the girls' now. They were all awkwardly wedged into a cocoon, somewhere between chubby caterpillars and graceful butterflies, together, and -

And - sheesh - how corny was that? Kim would've been laughed right out of the locker room - and off the cheer squad - if she'd come out with a line like that while Bonnie was flaunting her brand-new curves.

Even now, Kim threw a quick glance over her shoulder to make sure she hadn't somehow triggered Bonnie's uncool sensors. Bonnie sat with her arms folded across her tank top. When Kim's gaze met hers, Bonnie flung her hands down over her finished paper and stabbed Kim with a look meant to melt her lip gloss.

Yeah. That was the major diff between them and butterflies.

Behind Bonnie, Drew dug through his already-standing-on-end hair. He was staring at his notebook like he had a stomachache - which was totally possible after a cafeteria hot lunch. The eraser end of his pencil scrubbed back and forth, and Drew squeaked a grunt when it tore a hole straight through the paper.

Mrs. Yen looked at Drew as if he'd been caught playing the backpack-belly-bump the boys hadn't figured out yet was SO elementary and tapped her finger to her lips.

Sure. Don't go help him or anything. Kim was surprised at how sour her own thoughts were, and she instantly fixed politeness on her face.

As soon as Mrs. Yen's back was turned, though, Kim strolled to the back row and squatted down beside Drew's desk. "Is everything okay?" she said.

Drew frowned down at her. His eyes were red and runny, and Kim wondered if he might seriously be sick. Especially when he moaned and smothered his miserable face with his hands.

"What's the problem?" Kim said.

"I'm stupid in Language Arts, okay?"

The words were probably meant to be hard and edgy. Instead, they sounded like Drew was getting his tonsils yanked out right where he sat.

Kim clamped her mouth shut over the Are you kidding? that fought to get out and looked at Drew's paper. Even under the eraser-film, she could make out several manglings of metamorphosis. There was meatmorphosis, metaphormaus, and metamorohpsis, practically carved into the paper with a forlornly dull pencil.

"You're allowed to look at the spelling in the book, you know," Kim said.

"I know!" Drew said. His cheeks were the color of bubblegum, one particularly nasty pimple flaring red. "And I am looking at the book! But somewhere between the book and my pencil - everything gets mixed-up and turns out backwards and upside-down. Logically speaking, it can only be the middleman who's the dunce!"

Wow.

"Look, anyone who can even think to use the words 'middleman' and 'dunce' isn't one, okay?" Kim adopted the tone Mom used when she had to ground the twins for the third time that week. "You said everything turns out backward?"

Drew nodded.

Kim crouched closer to his paper. "And it looks like the letters get scrambled around - because you obviously know what you're trying to write."

Another nod.

"Then - it looks like you just have dyslexia," Kim said.

Drew went from blue-green to dead-white. "What's that?" he said. "A disease? Is it fatal?"

Panic was spiraling his words straight up toward the ceiling, and Kim would've dragged it back down with her fingernails if she had to. "No," she said. "The teachers call it a 'learning disability.' It's just something that makes it hard for your brain to arrange letters and numbers in the right order for some reason. You read them backward."

Drew sagged against his desk. "So I am stupid."

"Uh, no again," Kim said. She did a quick check for any sign that Mrs. Yen was paying attention and saw her engrossed in her grade book. "Dyslexia isn't a low-IQ thing, from what I've heard. Tons of major-smart people have it. They think even Leonardo da Vinci might've been dyslexic, because he wrote backward half the time, and he was, like, this total brainiac."

"The leading mind of the Renaissance," Drew agreed in a whisper. "He would write backward, and they didn't call him stupid?"

Kim let out the "Are you kidding?" this time as she shook her head. "They just chalked it up to the whole kooky-genius thing."

Drew stared at her for what felt like ages before he blinked at a smile at her. It was shaky and timid and happy-go-lucky all at the same time. And it sloppily invited Kim to smile back at it, which she couldn't help doing.

Just as suddenly as the frown had disappeared, it came back and Drew directed it down at the paper so savagely eraser-scratched that his next attempt would probably tear a hole straight through it. "What's the cure?" he said.

Kim nibbled at her bottom lip. The kid looked so unbelievably earnest, his eyes perfect circles behind the headlight-lenses, she might've guffawed right out loud if it hadn't been so darn sad. "There's no 'cure.' I mean, you're not sick."

Drew flung his head beneath his wadded-up arms and muttered something into their baggy sleeves.

"Sorry, that was a total did-not-catch," Kim said.

Drew rearranged his fold so that his head was on top, and he tipped it toward Kim. "Then what am I supposed to do?" he said.

Kim said, "I don't know" - three words that pained her more than any other combo in her vocabulary.

"You don't know?" Drew repeated. The only thing that kept Kim out of Humiliation Nation was the fact that his jaw was about to fall off its hinges.

Huh. She could so get used to this whole "trust-in-Kim" thing.

"No. I don't," Kim made herself say. She stood back up and brushed at the imprint the carpet had left on her knees. "But you know who I bet does know? Mrs. Yen."

Doubt all but gathered over Drew's head like one of those old-time cartoon clouds.

Kim didn't care. She was already halfway back up the aisle, spinning a silky speech inside. Mrs. Yen was "not very understanding" - which was Mom's polite way of calling her a big ol' grouch - but it was her job to recognize the difference between a stupid kid and a dyslexic one.

One of Mrs. Yen's carefully-lined eyebrows lifted when Kim reached her desk. "Do you need something, Kim?" she said in a whisper pinched with annoyance.

"Sorry to bother you," Kim said. "But it's that new kid, Drew, in the back. He's - "

"He's making too much noise for you to concentrate, isn't he?" Mrs. Yen interrupted. Her hardened-syrup voice climbed down the back of Kim's neck.

"No. That isn't it. That isn't it at all." Kim paused to get her breathing back into the I-can-so-do-this zone before she added, "He's just having a lot of trouble with the assignment. And I'm ninety-nine percent sure it's because he's dyslexic."

Mrs. Yen pointed her red pen straight toward Drew like a way-long extension of her fingernail. "That little dark-haired boy in the back row?"

"Yeah, that's him." In her mind, Kim gave Mrs. Yen some credit for not referring to him as "the blue one."

Mrs. Yen's face softened a fraction. She rose from her desk and floated, classy as an aging cheerleader, to the back row, where she squatted to talk to Drew. Judging from the brittle knot he formed with his lips, dependable teachers hadn't been a big part of his school experience up 'til now.

It flew Kim back down the aisle and hovered her over Mrs. Yen's head until the teacher sighed heavily and said, "Thank you, Kim. I believe I can do this without your help."

"Oh, it's no big," Kim said. "I've already finished my work, and I'd be happy to -"

"Miss Possible." Mrs. Yen's forehead flattened. The bulgy vein would be next.

Much as Kim hated to admit it, her I-can-do-anything instincts lost out to the I've-never-had-a-detention-in-my-LIFE ones. She hustled back to her own seat, where she checked and re-checked the word list until it stopped looking like words at all. It was a freaky-weird feeling, and she wondered if Drew felt it every time he looked at an assignment.

Yikes. No wonder the kid acted like he had a family of mice living in his clothes.

Kim took another backward peek at him just to make sure Mrs. Yen wasn't reading him her infamous riot act.

Nope. He was nodding slowly as Mrs. Yen talked him through how to cover each word with a Kleenex and peel it back one letter at a time so he could keep track, and the knot had relaxed into an O of awe. It was as satisfying a sight as the bad guy you'd defeated being hauled off in cuffs.

When Drew looked up and caught Kim looking at him, she shot the "okay?" sign his way. He responded by sliding down on the tip of his tailbone, his lanky arms jammed into a cross that they couldn't seem to find the ends of.

Strange kid.

Out-weirded only by my best friend.

She turned her attention back to Ron, who'd finally made it through the first half of the list. His tongue crept out and stayed there while he mouthed the next word to himself and copied it one lopsided letter at a time. Rufus sat in the paper's margins and jibbered, apparently serving as Ron's proofreader.

Meanwhile, Bonnie had finished copying and obviously wasn't dying for another assignment. She'd managed to sneak a compact out of her skintight pocket and get to work applying bronzer that, as far as Kim could tell, she didn't need. Her tan glowed with a brand of normal that left Kim cold.

Even though Kim would've gladly forked over a month's worth of allowance to look as exceptional and sophisticated as Bonnie did right that second.

---

Seriously, Dr. D - have you made ANY progress yet?

Ran into some more technical difficulties. Drew poked out the letters, fingers still damp and shivery from the class he'd just exited. Mrs. Shush Lips had turned out to be a valuable mentor, schooling him in ways to read that were less likely to tangle the text in his brain. But he couldn't tell Shego that he'd had his first positive Language Arts experience since the Nixon administration - or about the dyslexia diagnosis. Kim Possible had said it as if it were so obvious - not even snidely; what was up with that? - that surely Shego would lay into him for not having figured it out before now.

Logically speaking, Drew couldn't fault her for wanting to burn him at the stake on charges of incompetence. The blaze in his own chest threatened to incinerate him from the inside out first.

Still, when Shego's next text came up, Drew decided to go ahead and fault her anyway.

Have you considered that this plan is NOT going to work? Just like ALL the others?

The words stung like a swarm of mutant yellow-jackets. Drew wondered vacantly why he hadn't developed an immunity by now.

No, Shego, it is going to work, Drew texted back. I've been biding my time until afternoon classes started. Believe me, math class shall be her downfall!

It was Shego he sent it to, of course, though Drew could see how he would benefit from believing his own prognosis. He had to get over his petty feelings of companionship and strike his foe down at the very place she'd been gullible enough to take him under her wing.

Not that Kim Possible had wings. Up until today, that had been about the only weakness she'd even shown him.

Drew pocketed his anachronistic cell phone before anyone else could catch a glimpse and resumed his surveillance of the hall from a leaning-against-the-lockers position. It wasn't an observatory with a high-res telescope, but it would do for now.

Those boys, the whole pack of them, were playing some version of soccer with the lunch box of the only dimwit who still brought one. Drew's blood itched for the kid. The other boys, normal ones, simply punched each other on the arms and burped and generally flaunted their immaturity. A group of girls flocked around the water fountain to examine their nails and gossip. Kim Possible, contrary to Drew's expectations, stood a few feet apart from those girls, watching them with a veiled sense of something in her eyes. If he wasn't mistaken, it was caution.

Drew didn't know how big his grin had grown before he recalled his mission and hid it behind a hand. So the great Kim Possible had some social anxiety after all! This was going to be more of a breeze than he'd imagined.

Yes, it just took some patience, and your quarry would wander right into your trap. Just like they'd said on Animal Planet.

It was easier to swagger into the Mathematics room now that he wasn't lugging around the ten-ton weight of an impossibility. Stoppable wasn't in this class. The brunette cheerleader with the glossy sneer was.

Perfect.

Drew found a seat - in the front row this time - and sank into it, arranging his fingers in a scholarly fold on the desktop and made a point not to look too smug. That was no small task when you were so close to global conquest you could smell it, and the odor was like that of a Halloween bucket full of candy. That childhood scent of compact plastic combined with every variety of mouth-watering sugar you could imagine -

The teacher bounded to the front of the room, as different from Mrs. Shush-Lips as another woman could be. She was wearing one of those cute little jumpers that everyone liked back in the '90s - well, back in the now - and under it was a smiley shirt that matched her expression perfectly, except in a neon color. Not even Dementor's skin had that bright a yellow cast to it. A plus sign dangled from one ear, a minus sign from the other.

Drew liked her right away.

All right, why was he getting into the habit of liking people? That had to stop. Sudden panic assaulted Drew. Could it be that the Juvinator actually regressed you emotionally, and he was becoming his lonesome twelve-year-old self?

Okay. Okay. In and out, in and out, in out in out in out. I can still do this!

After all, even as Drew Lipsky he'd had a mean little heart. The things he had wished on those jock bullies in the labyrinthine curves of his mind where no one could see them -

Drew yanked his gaze over to the nameplate on the teacher's desk. Ms. Dayrumple. It fit her.

"All right, class," Ms. Dayrumple said. "We're going to have some more fun with balancing equations today." She stuck out her tongue and crossed her eyes at the groan that spread around the room like a quick-growing fungus. "And we'll also be looking at how this will carry over into the science you learn this year, next year, and into high school."

Drew sat on top of his fists so he wouldn't punch them into the air victoriously. It may not have been global conquest - yet - but it was a close second.

"Kim, why don't we start with you? Come on down to the board." Ms. Dayrumble said it as though she were selecting Kim Possible to compete on a game show with fabulous cash winnings.

The peachy-pink color seemed to drain right out of Kim Possible. Nevertheless, she pasted on a smile and gave her hair an all-too-familiar flip. Trying to raz-dazzle her way out of it, no doubt. Drew was surprised she didn't simply deliver a roundhouse kick, as seemed to be her answer to any problem.

His abdomen ached with remembered blows and a shiny new resolve. It was official: from now on, he was going to cut Kim Possible as much slack as Shego had ever cut him (which was a decimal percentage, at best).

Drew zeroed in on Kim Possible as she picked her way up to the chalkboard. He couldn't counterfeit utter boredom with numbers and formulas around, but a hefty dose of superiority settled in and made itself at home.

Ms. Dayrumple chalked x - 2 = 7 on the board. Drew had it mentally figured out before she'd even finished drawing the 7's leg.

Kim Possible, on the other hand, stared at it for a solid minute, one foot tapping the floor as though sending out an SOS to someone who might be able to tell her the answer. But this wasn't Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? and there was no lifeline at her disposal. Drew licked his chops.

Finally, Kim Possible picked up the chalk herself and wrote, in much daintier strokes than the samples of her handwriting Dr. Drakken had seen over the years - x = 5.

Drew snorted right out loud.

Kim Possible didn't even turn to trace the noise. She just lifted a face struggling to remain optimistic to Ms. Dayrumple. "That's not right, is it?" she almost whispered.

"No, I'm afraid it's not." It couldn't have been less of a scolding had Ms. Dayrumple handed her a free cookie. Too bad. The teacher turned to the class, fiddling with her minus earring. "Can anyone help Kim fix this?"

All other thoughts fled from Drew's brain. He stuck his entire arm into the air and waved it back and forth so frantically he almost lost his balance.

"Yes, you?" Ms. Dayrumple pointed at him, and Drew's pulse raced through every major artery. "What's your name?"

"Drew," he said offhandedly. He didn't see the need to add the "Lipsky" in front of this crowd of torpedoes just waiting to be launched.

"Come on up then, Drew."

With pleasure.

It was yet another thing to boil inside Drew as he sauntered masterfully to the board. He'd blurted his last name by mistake during lunch, only realizing after the fact that it was one Kim Possible might recognize. She hadn't; looked at him with a complete blank slate. Her father had never gotten around to mentioning him.

Behind Drew, a couple of the self-appointed cool boys were hunched together in their middle-row desks, snickering to each other, eyes glittering at the wrong answer on the chalkboard, big apelike hands poised to clap. It reminded him of the way they encouraged each other into taking slam dunks in PE, even if they were yards away from the hoop.

Every single goading smile said, Slam dunk 'er, Drew - for the men!

Chalk dust turned to dingy water in the lines of Drew's palms. This was it - even more of an it than he could have hoped. One well-timed blow, and he'd shatter Kim Possible's spirit, demonstrate his genius to the field of doubters, and cement his status as "one of the guys," as they said on TV sitcoms. The only way it could have been more perfect was if his father -

Drew jerked back to Kim Possible. Her hands were hanging at her sides, her eyes downcast, bearing no resemblance at all to his feisty, fiery-tongued nemesis. She was as vulnerable as a kitten whose claws hadn't hardened yet.

And he was a bad, bad junkyard dog.

Well, a junkyard pup.

No - he had it now - maybe he was a vet, brandishing declawing instruments without any anesthesia in sight!

Drew leaned forward and left a chalky handprint on the board. Wishing he had the height advantage and willing his vocal chords not to flee for higher grounds, he hissed, "Bet it makes you feel pretty stupid, doesn't it?"

---

All Kim could do was blink. The "excuse me?" she wanted to say fizzled out and died from serious disbelief.

Drew twisted a glance back at the jocks, who had their bodies tilted his way and wore grins they could've snatched off a pack of hyenas. He looked like one of those guys in the horror movies Mom and Dad didn't know she'd seen, trying to decide whether or not to sell his soul. That was when Kim got it, and the air she took in tasted bitter.

Really, Drew?

"What does?" Kim said, doing her perky-best to keep her voice light.

Drew gulped, and Kim watched the Adam's apple crank up and down. His head started to turn toward the jocks again, and then it stopped and scrunched itself down toward his shoulders as if he were trying to squirm out of one of Aunt June's hugs.

"The school system," he finally said. The last syllable jumped for the ceiling. "You can be perfectly brilliant in all other areas, but the second they find something you don't have an aptitude for, they might as well stick you in a dunce cap for life!"

Kim blinked again. She wouldn't have put it so dramatically, but -

"I catch you," she said. "And it tanks. Because you and I - we're so not stupid."

"Hey, why don't you two get a room already?" said a boy-shout.

Ms. Dayrumple got to him before Kim could, and he got off easy with a finger-snap and a stern scribble on one of the fifty Post-It notes that littered her desk. Kim didn't dare scan the room this time. She could already imagine Bonnie's lip somewhere around her forehead, and Marcella and Liz trying to giggle their way into her approval, and Tara looking at Kim with pity thick enough to gag you.

Maybe she understood Drew better than she'd thought.

He currently looked like he wanted to crawl right under the carpet. Like, there was actual forehead-against-the-heels-of-his-hands action. He'd obviously given up on any hope of saving face.

Kim took a sec to appreciate Dad and his constant corny pep talks.

"So," she nodded toward the board, "are we gonna fix this or not?"

Drew stared at her like she'd just offered him backstage passes to the concert of the season. "Yes," he mumbled. "Yes, right, well, fixing. . ." He held out his palm for the chalk and then squeaked it across the board. "It looks like you were attempting to solve the equation by applying the 'minus two' to both sides. It's a common mistake among amateurs."

He sounded so over-the-top snooty, it would've been insulting if his voice hadn't matched the chalk squeal for squeal. As it was, Kim could barely keep a straight face.

"What you want to do," Drew said, "is get x by itself. And so you have to get rid of the 'minus two.' To do that, you'll need to add two. Minus two and plus two, of course, add up to zero, so we can forget about that." He drew "+2" under the "-2" and then crossed the whole thing out.

Kim held back a sigh. That left her with x being equal to seven, and it was a big duh! that THAT wasn't right.

Drew must have been able to read that on her, because he added, "But we're not done yet! Next we add two to the other side of the equation." His fingers flew across the board with the first bit of confidence Kim had seen in him, and it made her immediately want to be as good at this as he was.

Seeing the potential in that made it less mortifying to ask, "Where did we get that 'plus two'?"

Drew's chest shrunk as if he were holding back a huff of his own. "Because whatever we do to one side of the equation, we have to do to the other side, as well."

Kim nodded, hoping I-get-it would pounce on her by the time she stopped.

Drew's too-nice-for-a-guy's eyelashes flicked downward, then pointed back up with an idea. "Think of them like your little brothers. You must do the exact same thing to each of them, or they'll start whining about it not being fair. Just call one side - err, what are those children's names again?"

"Jim and Tim."

"Perfect!" Drew scrawled Jim on side of the equals sign and Tim on the other. "Only you can prevent this tantrum, Kim Possible!" he added, his arms windmilling in the air.

It was all definite overkill. Who really cared at this point, though?

Kim refused to close her eyes in front of the whole class, but she was able to blank her vision so that she only saw what she wanted to picture - herself dropping two pieces of candy into Jim's sticky seven-year-old hand, and Tim rearing up for a scream because if Jim got two, he got two. Sure, it was the dorkiest thing since clip-on ties -

She nudged the chalk from Drew's hand and walked up to the board, taking in the identical set of "plus two"s. Back straightened, Kim wrote x = 9.

You would've thought she'd explained the Unified Field Theory, the way Ms. Dayrumple shone at her. "And that, Kim, is absolutely correct," she said.

Kim resisted the urge to shake imaginary pom-poms in the air. Nah, instead she turned to Drew and gave him her biggest grin. "You rock, Drew."

It might be just as uncool - but at least it's quieter.

The kid blushed. Not a crushing-on-you blush - more like the kind that was flabbergasted to be noticed in the first place. The second Ms. Dayrumple gave them permission to sit down, Drew bolted for his desk as fast as an Olympic sprinter.

"All right, this next one is a two-stepper. A little trickier." Ms. Dayrumple wrinkled her nose as she looked at the class. "And, Bonnie, you've been so quiet today -"

If only.

" - why don't you come on up here and work this one out?"

Bonnie turned on the cheerleader-charm and cranked it to the max. The same way Kim had, only her teeth weren't strung with wires and rubber bands, and her hair kickflipped like a pro before landing in perfect symmetry on either side of her face.

Kim felt nasty-sick for a minute.

It didn't work. With obvious exasperation, Bonnie flounced herself to the board and took the chalk in the between-the-fingers hold most people reserved for dead fish. I am NOT going to need Nerd Boy's help up here, was sizzling all over her face.

And she didn't. Bonnie got through the "two-stepper" - in the correct order, no less, and Ms. Dayrumple didn't seem to think it was a lucky guess. She exclaimed, "Wonderful job!" while Bonnie stood there with her arms flowing to her hips like a walking ad for Club Banana.

"There are really only three things you need to remember for basic pre-algebra," Ms. Dayrumple said after she sent Bonnie back to her seat. "First of all - you'll want to get x by itself." She wrote the words on the board while she said them, and half the class read along, the boys doing some sort of warbles in their throat that sounded absolutely nothing like Ms. Dayrumple.

No way was Kim getting in on that action. She opened her math notebook to the first clean page and jotted it down in the shorthand she'd begged Dad to teach her.

"Once x is alone on one side of the equals sign, you'll know you have your final answer." Ms. Dayrumple thumped her jagged-cursive sentence with the chalk before moving down to start another. "Secondly, as Drew pointed out, whatever you do to one side of the equation, you have to do to the other. You can subtract two, multiply ny three, add one hundred - you have the power to do whatever you want to this equation, as long as you do it to both sides."

Too bad Ron wasn't here. He would've gotten a kick out of that. Kim could already imagine him multiplying everything up into the millions just because he could - and then getting himself totally lost.

"And third, remember the order of operations," Ms. Dayrumple said. "This gets a little more complicated once you get into full-strength algebra, but for now all you need to know is that adding and subtracting come before multiplying and dividing."

Kim added the exclamation points she always tacked on to a you-must-remember-this tip.

"And now the biggest question of all is," Ms. Dayrumple gave the class another nose-wrinkle, "why does any of this matter? How's it ever going to help us in real life?"

A lanky blue arm shot up and waggled back and forth.

Ms. Dayrumple passed her hand across her mouth like she was shooing away a smile. "Yes, Drew? Would you like to explain?"

Did he breathe? The guy was about to split with excitement.

Drew marched to the front of the classroom and let those arms dangle at his sides. "Algebra comes in handy in many areas of our lives, especially when it comes to shopping and buying things. If you know how much cereal is in a box, and you know the cost of the box, you can figure out whether or not you're getting a good deal by figuring how much you're paying per ounce. Geometry helps you figure out the most efficient ways of storing your things in a messy room. You can use charts and graphs to calculate the expenses of your doomsd - of your lemonade stand - and find the maximum profit."

Wow. Dad would love this kid.

"There are even more uses for quadratic and cubic equations, which we won't get to until high school," Drew said. He gazed at the class in a way that reminded Kim of those old World War II posters of Uncle Sam in her history book before turning back to the board. "For example, an equation to measure electrical resistance is as follows -"

Standing up there in front of the board, writing equations as though he'd learned them in kindergarten, Drew looked so accomplished, it was hard to imagine anyone picking on him. Until he was done and looked up and sniffed and shoved those big glasses up his tiny nose.

Ms. Dayrumple had an entire Kleenex pulled across her mouth by now.

Kim intently studied her manicured-by-Mom fingernails so that she could pretend to miss the group eye-roll Bonnie was organizing. It was one cheerleader huddle she suddenly didn't mind not being a part of.

---

The second the last bell rang - the very second - Drew zipped for the restroom and locked himself in a stall. The only thing he could be thankful for - besides that the boys' bathroom was in the same place as he remembered it - was that middle-school boys didn't migrate to the bathrooms in posses the way the girls did.

Posse. Why he'd have to think that word? Three young faces and their adult counterparts flashed in and out of Drew's mind like a strobe light, and it made him want to slam his forehead into the wall. The memory was like a vampire bat: it cut him with its fangs and then lapped up what dribbled out.

No, that was ridiculous, Drew told himself. Memories weren't capable of such ghastly things. They were nothing more than the left hemisphere of your brain playing on a crude projector, with film that could have been loaded backward or become hopelessly tangled or any number of other things.

Drew pressed two clammy hands to the back of his neck as the flames licked at his heart - what seventh-grader had heartburn, anyway? He'd blown it. Majorly blown it. If he'd "blown it out of the water," as Drew had heard the chatty cheerleaders gush about their auditions, that would have, somehow, been a good thing. But this was bad, it was so very bad, that he had to have "blown it" somewhere else. Straight down into the Land of Failure, Drew supposed.

Kim Possible had been scant millimeters away from a lifetime of misery. As soon as the "stupid" left his mouth, she'd stared at him without a hint of offendment in those plucky green eyes Dr. Drakken had always despised, knowing before he did that he would not turn on her.

And he hadn't.

Those boys in gym class were right: he was nothing more than a wuss. An ingenious wuss with many brilliant ideas, but a wuss nonetheless.

From his pocket, Drew's phone vibrated as if too were trying to shake some sense into him. He found it with a bleak grip and withdrew it. He knew it would be Shego sniping at him, and for once he didn't care. How could she possibly scold him any worse than the accusations in his own head?

She was Shego, that was how. Drew took one look at the phone's screen and the burn in his chest scalded.

Dr. D, school is OVER. What. The. Heck. Look, whatever you're doing, it's NOT working. I'm gonna step in and take care of this myself.

A chill-thrill spilled over Drew. Although there was no stutter, his Autocorrect got quite a workout turning Wath do yuo mena? into What do you mean?

Look, Kimmie has extracurricular activities, I'm guessing? Shego sent back.

Right. The letters seemingly tapped themselves out, the way they did on one of the wee-hours-of-the-morning horror films he'd caught before.

So I'm coming to finish her off. Shego-style.

Malfunction. Malfunction! The speckled finish of the stall wall grew larger as Drew tipped against it to prevent himself from collapsing.

Shego, wait, please - he started to type, and his fingers then froze. Shego had spoken with finality that was unmistakable, even over text. Nothing could stop her now.

It was a thought that drove Drew's fists to the wall. She's going to come in - this was my chance - and now she's going to steal my glory!

What glory? scoffed an inner voice that sounded very much like Shego.

Doggone you; my glory! said his adult-voice, his Drakken-voice. His left hemisphere obliged him this time by spinning out the silent reel of his aspirations for today: Kim Possible's spirit shriveling and shrinking from sight, her face crumpled as it fell victim to tears. It was a far crueler and more fitting fate than any death trap he could devise.

And, all right, so the fact that it would be accomplished without bloodshed had rather appealed to him, too.

(So he didn't love the sight of blood. So sue him!)

Drew opened the door of the stall, staggered forward, accidentally flipped on a faucet, and stumbled into the adjacent sink. Or was it the same sink, since they shared a counter and all?

Who even CARED?

His reflection was almost painful to look at as he turned the water back off. Definitely not that of a junkyard dog. More like a Pound Puppy.

His eyes were watery, swimming in red, onion-cutter's eyes. His - err - blemishes raged as though infected. The discolored skin was an even sicklier hue of pale than usual.

Not once since he'd last seen that exact image in the glass had Drew experienced such a tsunami of self-disgust.

With that in his gut, venturing out of the bathroom wouldn't have been a good idea were his sidekick not about to destroy his biggest nemesis. Then again, Drew reasoned, under different circumstances he wouldn't be feeling so nauseous in the first place, and Kim Possible wasn't really all that big, physically -

Ladies and gentlemen, ADHD at work, he could almost hear Shego say.

That dumb ol' Juvinator. It had regressed him mentally! That was why he was too lonely to be vicious. Why his singular goal had been reduced to a parenthetical digression. Why even now he'd just thought "dumb ol'" instead of "blasted."

To Drew's horror, the blood vessels in his eyes began to swell with whatever was happening in his heart. So it was not a digestive issue at all, but a circulatory one, and because of it he was now either about to cry or go into cardiac arrest.

Saying he'd prefer cardiac arrest would have been every bit as dramatic and brave and stiff-upper-lipped as Drew hoped to be, but - really - who would rather die than cry?

Well, whichever he was going to do, he couldn't do it here, not right next to a urinal. What if one of those jocks walked in and discovered him? He'd be up the flagpole before a lamb could shake its tail - or whatever the colloquial was.

Besides, if he didn't hurry, Kim Possible would be finished off without his ever being even a part of it. And as torn as Drew's emotions were, that was the most devastating possibility they could dredge up.

Drew groped with limited visibility for the door. It slapped open under his palms and allowed him to leave.

He was just beginning to assess the situation when something smacked him on the backside. Drew gasped and prepared to be wedgied to death.

It was, however, only the door nailing him on its way back to its frame. Drew seared it with a glare and stumbled forward. He breathed hard through his nostrils, but his pulse wasn't interested in slowing.

Surely even Shego would agree he deserved a role in his own arch-foe's demise!

Okay. Okay. Okay. It'll be okay. Drew braced himself against a wall once more and ground his teeth. I'll go find Shego - no - go find Kim Possible before Shego does.

And let her catch you blubbering? said the Shego-voice. Right. Good luck with that.

Drew took three more running steps forward and barreled straight into the water fountain - seriously, even the inanimate objects seemed to be conspiring against him. He hid himself under it - which was depressingly easy to do - just for the sake of appeasing the twelve-year-old inside him.

All right, so he would get a handle on himself first. Then he would find Kim Possible and see to it that he wasn't the only member of the "posse" who would cry today.

A tear bounced off one of Drew's clenched fists.

---

"We'll see you at cheer practice, right?"

There wasn't a hint of ditch-us-and-we'll-ditch-you in Liz's voice, so the smile that sprang to Kim's face didn't feel like she'd just run it off a copy machine. Bonnie hovered in the background, busy glowering at the not-that-cool jumper Tara had had the nerve to "let" her mom ship her off to school in.

"Of course I'll be there," Kim said, jabbing a playful hand at Liz's arm. She thought about adding, What would you guys do without me? - as a joke - but that could backfire in more ways than Dad's first car. She replaced it with, "Cheerleading is my life."

Okay, so that wasn't completely true.

"I just need to give Ron the sched, and I'll be right there," Kim said.

Liz's eyes shifted, like she was considering whether or not to make a sourball-face at the mention of Ron. When she shook her head, Kim had the same giant Phew! she got whenever Dad decided NOT to ground her. "All right. Just don't be late, 'kay?"

"Wouldn't miss it!" Kim called over her shoulder as she walked away.

That was the truth. Bonnie had gold hoops almost the size of training wheels dangling from her lobes today, and Kim couldn't wait to see perfect little Bonnie get a well-deserved tail-chewing in front of the entire squad.

Karma, anyone?

Kim kept the smile as she slipped through what Dad on the first day of sixth grade had called a "teaming mass of humanity." That'd also been right about when Kim had discovered some advantages to her a-little-smaller-than-average size. Now she slipped easily between two basketball players and did a full swivel around that one girl who always wore a too-big blue jacket - even on seventy-five-degree days like this one - and headed for the school library as soon as the bell rang every day. She was about to make a wide turn around the corner toward Ron's last-period Social Studies room when a nearby door opened and another wave of kids streamed out in one big surge of pent-up energy.

One eighth-grader who was big enough to have been held back a year or two threw his sweaty chest against Kim's arm - ewww - and slammed her up against the door to the girls' bathroom. She felt the handle digging into her unprotected belly button.

"Hello!" Kim jerked her head around to yell over the fray. "Rude much?"

And that was when she heard the crying.

Kim did an immediate once-over of the hall to see if anyone else was hearing it. She severely hoped not. Tears in middle school were basically a big honkin' neon sign that flashed, "Pick on me! Pick on me!"

None of the hall's grins lit up and turned nasty, and the sniffles were so close that Kim decided she was probably the only one who caught them as she peeled herself off the girls' door and shot a glance at the boys'. They were two of the three little niches that took up part of one wall, parked farther back with the water fountain between them.

And, sure enough, there was a boy-kid in the shadows under the fountain, folded into such a tight knot that all you could really see of him were his blue-jeaned knees and the one arm he'd flung across them. Its awkward length could have belonged to any boy in the school, but once Kim was close enough to see the baby-blue color - that sure narrowed it down.

Yeah, maybe she'd have to miss Bonnie's chewing-out after all.

Kim wedged herself in front of the water fountain until most of the "teaming mass" had trickled away and then squatted down beside the kid. "Drew? Are you okay?" Dumb question. "What's wrong?"

A low foghorn-moan came out of him. It sounded like the only thing that was holding in the full-out sobs wobbling at its edges.

"Did one of those jerks beat you up?" Kim said.

"No. Not since this morning."

"Okay - did some girl say something evil to you?" Kim had her fingers crossed that that wasn't it. Boys were WAY easier to keep in line than girls.

Something about that sentence seemed to scare Drew. His head-shake was frantic this time and accompanied by a computer-on-the-fritz type of hiccup. "No, it isn't any of them. It's you."

"Me!?" Kim said. "What did I do? I thought I was really nice to you today!"

"That's exactly the problem," Drew said, swiping at his cheeks. "You've been entirely too nice. You and Stoppable both."

He was shaking so bad - and so not making sense - that fear gripped at Kim. The Red Cross classes hadn't gotten to treating hysteria yet. Kim had only seen Mom talk a few soon-to-be-patients down from whatever craziness had landed them in her operating room in the first place, and she tried to channel her mom's softness when she said, "What do you mean?"

"First you save me from those eighth-graders!" Drew wailed. "Then you invite me to have lunch, then Stoppable watches my back in gym, and then you help me in language arts! You tell me I have dyslexia, and I didn't even know that was a thing and - and - and - " He paused for a gasp, and Kim noticed that the halls were pretty much quiet and empty by now except for a set of sharp, authoritative steps that had to belong to a teacher.

She jumped at the chance to fill the rest of it. "Seriously - Drew - why is that a problem?" Kim said, inching closer and resting her fingertips on Drew's wrist. It felt as if he cringed straight down to his bones.

"Because!" Drew let out the loudest choke-cry so far and plunged his gaze to his denim lap. "I haven't been entirely honest with you, Kim Possible. And the truth of the matter is - I was sent here to hurt you."

Kim waited for the freak-out to climb up her backbone and grab her by the neck. Instead, she had the demented urge to laugh. "What are you talking about? Sent here by who?"

Drew lifted his face and searched Kim's with eyes that were truly mournful. "Myself."

The word went through Kim like a snake bite, and it killed the laughter in two seconds. She plastered both hands over her mouth more from sheer shock than the terror that hardly flickered on her radar screen anymore. If only she could wrap her brain halfway around it - she could cook up a plan, no sweat.

But this was a total blank. Give her villains with lasers any day.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Am I interrupting something?" someone said above them.

Kim had never heard any voice out-cut Bonnie's, but this one could've pinned you to the wall like one of those ninja stars she'd seen on TV. It perfectly matched the cold, almost-white beauty that Kim saw when she lifted her head and stared at the woman in front of her.

She was definitely an adult - with, like, an actual figure and skin that had recovered from its last pimple years ago - but she barely looked old enough to be out of college. Definitely not someone's mom. And not a teacher, either, not in that green-and-black-patterned - what had Mom called the hideous thing packed away in her closet from two decades back - a jumpsuit? It should have come across as stupid and outdated as it was, but instead it elegantly draped her body and left her looking like she'd just come gliding off a runway wearing nothing but designer brands.

And a dead expression that raised goose bumps right down to Kim's ankles.

The woman gave Kim a glance so empty that it had to be hiding something before boring a pointy-eyed glare into Drew. "You do know she's waaay too young for you, right, Doc?" she said.

Kim felt her forehead pucker. What the heck was that about? This lady seemed like the type who had too much class to pick on a kid with glasses.

Drew looked as if he were on his way to the chopping block they'd read about in history class today. He started to stand up, stumbled over his own legs, and sprawled across the tennie-streaked linoleum. "Yes," he said, every letter more high-pitched than the one before it. "Hi, Shego."

No matter how unflattering the whole lip-hanging-to-the-chest thing was, Kim couldn't pull hers back in. He KNEW her?

Shego - seriously, who named their kid that? - pulled something out from behind her back that could've been a baby toy if it weren't obviously metal-hard and full of circuits. "Come here, shrimp," she said. "And take care of that." She waved a hand up and down Drew's entire skinny frame.

Drew took a few obedient steps forward, but Kim was right behind him. "Look - whoever you are, leave him alone!" she said.

It only halted Drew, and just for a heartbeat. Cheeks squeezing as if he were in bee-sting pain, he skittered the rest of the way to Shego. She tipped the baby-toy thing into his hands, and with a sigh bigger than he was, Drew squished down on the stump that stuck out from the rings.

There was a burnt-yellow explosion of light, like some obnoxious kid had burst open a mustard packet. When it cleared, Drew was gone.

In his place was a blue man.

He wasn't an especially big man, but he was a man all the same - a head-and-a-half taller than her, with a sturdier look to his gangliness. A stark black scar ripped down one sharp cheekbone. His eyebrows had merged and formed a threatening V over his eyes.

But his eyes didn't have the same hard, cold glitter to them that the woman's did. Oh, sure, they were trying, but something unsure - maybe even scared - rested in them.

Those were still Drew's eyes.

It was the only thing that kept Kim from flying at him with fists and shouts of "You liar!"

Instead, she got a handle on the jaw-drop and squinted at the guy. "Okay, who are you?" she said.

"I am Dr. Drakken!" the man said. His words didn't squeak anymore. They rumbled their way from his throat as if they were climbing the sides of a canyon.

Yeah, might miss cheer practice over this.

It gave Kim enough exasperation mojo to roll her eyes and say, "And lemme guess - Drew Lipsky was your alias."

A blink in response. "No. Drew Lipsky is my given name." The man's eyes winced, as if he wished he hadn't said that.

Kim could feel the ball bouncing back toward her court, and she raced to intercept it. "What do you want with me, then, Drakken? I've never even MET you."

"Ohhh, you may never have met me," Dr. Drakken said. "But I've met you many times before."

Yikes.

"Oh, I get it," Kim managed to say. "You're psycho." In spite of the fear that was beading on her forehead, her words didn't squeak. No way was she letting these two know that she'd chop off her own hair to have shy little Drew back.

"Or I'm from the future!" Drakken said. The snobbery that had been almost-cute on Drew coated his face like a layer of grime. "You see, Kim Possible, years from now, I am the planet's foremost mad scientist, poised on the brink of world domination! And you are the single biggest thorn in my side!" He flung one endlessly-long arm toward Kim with all the coordination of his twelve-year-old self.

She threw that self the only lifeline she could find - "Is this about your dad?"

Kim watched as Drakken hardened into a disheveled statue. "No!" he said. Droplets of spittle broke loose and Kim backed up, because if one of them made contact with her, she knew she'd throw up. "This is about the world that rightfully should be mine - isn't!"

"Grammar, Doc - " Shego said with what sounded like complete boredom.

"Hush, Shego! It's about the humiliation you have handed me, the disrespect you've shown me, the fool you've made of me! It's about all the times you sent me to prison!"

It was that last word that froze Kim's heart to the walls of her chest. So far, she'd only been involved in sneaking into villains' lairs and back out with stolen tech without them ever knowing she was there. She'd never known anyone who'd actually been to prison, let alone because of her.

So I grow up to be a hero after all. It was more of a rush than being allowed to stay in the pool during Adult Swim this summer.

Kim liked to think of herself as a nice person, but there was a not-MY-fault-you-turned-out-a-loser ready to rocket right out of her. Before it could, though, Drakken swallowed her with a look so dark neither of them could escape from it.

"And that is why" - he parted his lips in a snarl, and Kim blankly registered that the braces had worked miracles - "I am going to rid the world of you before you ever get the chance to defeat me even once!"

It took about two seconds for Kim to put together what he was saying. That was one second longer than it took for Shego to slip over and curl sharp-tipped iron fingers around Kim's wrist. Kim instinctively shot up a knee to jostle Shego in the stomach with it, but Shego easily blocked her with the opposite forearm. Silent, mean laughter twitched at her mouth.

Kim could feel her pride scraping down as her scream of, "Somebody - HELP!" went up. Still, if it worked -

It did work, just not in the way Kim had expected. Shego had to let go of Kim's arm to grab for her mouth, and as soon as she did, Kim slammed one arm into each of Shego's sides with all her eighty-two-pound strength. The curves Kim had seen earlier were all wiry muscle and only took a blink of time to recover.

But a blink was long enough. Kim wrenched herself free and took off down the hallway, leaving the bathrooms and the crazy must-have-been-supervillains in her dust.

There was a low-pitched zing from overhead. A snot-green trail of something blasted the floor in front of Kim, leaving a scorch mark that majorly outdid the sneaker-treads. Its hiss mixed with the blade of a voice that snapped, "Class isn't dismissed yet, Kimmy."

Kim didn't let herself hesitate. Before her legs could go limp, she had already backflipped herself over the green goop, breath held as the heat from it brushed her fingertips, and touched down on the other side, already jogging again before her feet had fully touched the ground. She pushed and pumped until knitting needles pierced at her ribs, a feeling she barely remembered that just fired her up more.

A backward glance showed Shego was keeping up behind her - just about running on the walls, from what Kim could tell. The woman oozed raw talent as much as her hands oozed that gross-me-OUT! stuff.

The hall's next bend was visible up ahead, and Kim powered herself toward it. She'd stick with the plan - she'd find Ron bumming around his last class, and together the two of them could -

But she hadn't even made any decent progress on a plan when Shego vaulted in front of her with a backflip that made Kim's look like something from toddler tumbling classes. She had her elbows cocked and aimed like guns, twin green circles enveloping her hands. "Going somewhere, princess?" she sneered.

Who was this girl?

Oh, well. I've been wanting to try this move for a while, anyway.

Kim barreled toward Shego and jumped in the instant before she'd have hit her. Using Shego's shoulders and shivering at the power she could feel hidden inside them, Kim executed the launch that always got her to the top of the cheerleader pyramid in nothing flat. She couldn't help grinning as she braced her ankles to take the weight, exactly the way she'd learned, so she could keep right on running.

She never got the chance. Between Kim's landing and her next step, Shego had slipped in front of her. She swung one leg out like a construction crane, sweeping both of Kim's out from under her.

Black spots quivered in front of Kim, and she was still on the ground when another body dropped all neat-and-tidy on top of her.

In the dim light of the bulb flickering for its life above them, Shego's pointy face was starting to look closer and closer to pop-bottle-green. She wrenched both of Kim's arms behind her back with the ease of somebody who'd done this before and laid her feet over Kim's toes so there couldn't be any kicking.

Sheesh - today was prep for School Spirit Week, wasn't it? The cheer squad was going to be so tweaked when Kim finally did show up. All but Bonnie, who'd just stand around feeling vindicated - to use a vocab word - that Kim was going to get in more trouble for her insane lateness than Bonnie had for her stupid earrings.

Kim fought back with her fingernails, insteps, thighs, and every other piece of herself she was still in command of. But Shego was bigger and stronger, with years of practice and discipline and something else that kept her chest from desperate-heaving and took the place of sweat as she jerked Kim's back into ruler-straightness.

Pure hatred.

And hers didn't have the same scab-freshly-ripped-off vibe as Drakken's did. Shego's hate was cool and smooth and stopped just short of amused. It was as if this was what she did for fun.

Clumsy footsteps approached, and Kim kept her eyes glued to Drakken to search him for any hints of Drew. She didn't find any - not with him hiding behind some weird machine that looked like he'd swiped it from one of Ron's bad-graphics video games. The thing had an extension that jutted out the front, shower-nozzle-style, and sparkled with silver mini-wires. Buttons and knobs gave way to a back end that was one long cord, plugged into the top and then curving down to an identical plug at the bottom. Drakken's fingers were currently tangled in it.

Kim had no idea where he'd been storing that up until now, and she didn't especially care. She recognized a weapon when she saw one.

I HAD to wish for villains with lasers.

That thought screamed in Kim's mind - over the throbbing backbeat of, I could be in real trouble.

Mom's and Dad's faces sped into the twins' and Ron's like a dizzying music video. Kim thought she might have even seen Rufus in there.

Kim ground her heel back onto Shego's foot. Shego only tightened her hold, something sharper than just fingernails nicking Kim right through her sleeves, but she couldn't give up. She wasn't used to losing. She didn't know how to lose.

It had been a long time since tears had clouded Kim's vision, but she was sure having some trouble seeing now. Still, she forced the sweat on her forehead into ice. She'd follow the Possible tradition and be brave. She'd fight, but she wouldn't cry. Wouldn't beg.

Kim bit one of Shego's fingers. She pulled back with the kind of hiss people used when they were trying not to cuss. It freed her lips for a second.

No, she wouldn't beg - but she would try asking.

"Drew?" Kim said. "Drew, are you in there?"

A muscle jumped in the man's round jaw.

"Look, I didn't know Drew Lipsky very well," Kim said.

Drakken looked down at the floor. Kim was sure it was to hide something she wasn't supposed to see, something too strong for him to White*Out.

She pounced on the pencil-thin hope and kept going. "But I liked him. He was a sweet kid." Kim's voice warbled, and she cleared it back into place. "I know he wouldn't want to grow up to be the type of person who'd kill a twelve-year-old girl."

That was when Drakken lifted his gaze to meet Kim's. The White*Out had worked this time. His face was a void.

"Drew Lipsky never got anything he wanted," he said.

Shego's hand clamped back down over Kim's mouth as Drakken lifted the laser again. Noticing that the thumb that reached for the trigger was trembling didn't do a whole lot to comfort Kim. Drew was in there, all right, but somewhere between twelve and - what, twenty-eight? - he'd gone crazy-desperate enough to do anything.

ANYthing.

"Say goodbye, Kim Possible," Drakken said, with an edge as stiff as a drenched-and-dried swimsuit. The stomach Kim was slammed up against shook, laughing without a sound again.

Kim closed her eyes. We love you, Kimmy, she heard Mom say.

Whatever happens, it'll be just fine, Dad added.

Please be right.

There was a loud crackle of power - and then an explosion of grunts that ricocheted off the walls and back again.

Kim opened her eyes and glanced down at herself. She didn't know much about the afterlife, but she decided that the mosquito bite itching on her left shin was a pretty good sign she was still alive.

That and Shego starting a mountain lion routine under her breath. Kim followed the poisonous eyes as they made a beeline straight back to her wack boyfriend-or-whatever-he-was-to-her.

Drakken had never touched the trigger. A half-centimeter below it, the power cord had been yanked out of its sockets and was currently dangling like a dead snake. The rest of the thing shot sparks to rival Shego's.

Maybe I'll make the last half of cheerleading practice.

Drakken finally collected enough syllables to snarl, "Dagnabbit all!" Kim could only marvel at how much he sounded like Elmer Fudd and wonder how she was even getting air at this point.

"Dr. D-eee!" Shego flounced back her hair without lifting so much as a finger from Kim's arm. "Oh, for the love of - I'll just do it myself, then!"

Shego broke out the green glow again. It surrounded a fist that pulled itself expertly back and had no intention of missing.

A second, weirdly-small hand closed around Shego's wrist. "No, Shego, wait!" Drakken yelped - complete with the familiar crack between words, which Kim guessed could be chalked up to having just fast-forwarded himself back through puberty. "We can't ki - destroy her! Not here, I mean. Not now!"

It didn't put the glow, whatever it was, away. Shego just flipped it around toward Drakken, and for a second Kim actually expected her to rake it down his face. "You are not wussing out on me now!" Shego said.

"Certainly not." Drakken sniffed, going from Elmer Fudd to King George III. "But I've done a few more calculations - in my head, at that - and I've determined this entire scheme has been faulty from the start."

"There's a shocker for ya," Shego said. Her sarcasm was thicker than the malts down at Cow-N-Chow.

It was Drakken's turn to close his eyes, as if it took all his strength to ignore that. "If we eliminate Kim Possible at this point in time, unforeseen consequences could ripple up the entire time stream!" he said.

"Such as?" Shego's smirk stayed in place, though Kim could feel her hesitating.

"Such as - remember that time she saved my life?"

Shego's stomach twitched Kim back and forth again. "Sure I do. You woulda been blueberry toast if she hadn't - "

"Precisely my point!" Drakken interrupted a little too fast. "If we destroy her here and now, I might wake up one day in the future and find myself dead, and that would make me very cross!"

Uh, do you think?

Shego nodded as if she were in pain. "Meaning?"

"Meaning - there's only one thing for us to do, Shego." Drakken hitched at the belt his close-together hips were barely keeping up. "We must return to the current present" - current present? - "and find a way to crush her there."

Shego gave another of those substitute-for-swearing hisses. "I shoulda known this was too easy," she said, prying her fingers loose from Kim's arm. The tiny cuts all but hummed in relief. Shego gave Drakken a look that could've killed a cockroach - and then turned and delivered an identical one that dried up Kim's grin before it could even take shape. She suddenly felt stupid and shallow for ever having considered Bonnie "evil."

Without a word, Shego sailed down the hallway, footsteps clacking out, I don't have TIME for this. A shadow as big as the school itself seemed to follow her.

It was Drakken who spun toward her as he backed away, his eyes circling like a plane that couldn't find the landing strip. Kim wondered why that came to mind instead of a vulture until he opened up and talked again.

"Until we meet again, Kim Possible!" Drakken roared. "Or - or for the first time. . . the next first time? Oh, whatever. Just - be afraid!"

She was, Kim thought. But probably not as afraid as he wanted her to be as she watched him scurry after Shego, his kid-hands drawn together at his chest.

Maybe I should have left him for those eighth-graders to pick over after all.

It was an empty thought with only numb fingertips and slices in her arms for backup. If there were any righteous anger to feel, it wasn't gonna show up 'till a lot later.

Kim didn't know how long she stared after the just-as-empty hallway, aching for a story she'd never know and a friend who was apparently never meant to be hers and a trust that hadn't seemed naive this morning. All she could put together was that the janitor hadn't made his final lights-out rounds by the time sneakers banged around the corner toward her.

"KP!" Someone's voice cracked and sent most of the ache away.

"Over here!" Kim called back.

Ron skidded to a stop beside her and cocked his head. "Seriously, Kim, where the heck have you been? Tara sent me to find you 'cuz you never showed up for practice, and you swore you'd be there and everyone was really worried - well, except Bonnie - she was just tweaked because -"

Kim didn't catch the rest. Now that the threat had cleared out and she was, you know, still alive, she felt like a pulsing bag of feathers. Ron, with his absolutely-zero muscle mass and his floppy Muppet-feet, didn't look a whole lot stronger - he never did - but Kim threw her arms around him and held on anyway.

Thank goodness it's you.

Kim didn't know she'd said it out loud until Ron's whisper - "Why?" - tickled her ear.

"Because you're the only one who'd believe what just happened to me," Kim said.

"Geez," Ron said, resting a clumsy hand on her back. "You look like you just saw a ghost." He whipped around to study the hall, face mission-wary. "You didn't, did you? Rip Snorter was right - the sixth-grade wing really is haunted by the vengeful spirit of an old student, isn't it?"

"Ron - "

"They say he got stuffed in a locker and suffocated before they could get him out -"

"Ron!" Kim held him out at arms' length to pin him with The Look. "It wasn't a ghost. At least, not one from the past. More like. . . a ghost from the future."

"'Kay," Ron replied with a blink. "That, uh, doesn't make major amounts of sense. Come on, tell me totes!"

He deepened the last sentence in a pretty-good imitation of the guidance counselor - except Mr. Bleakman never would have said totally, much less totes. Kim did grin this time, though it threatened to shake right off any second. She squeezed Ron's hand in a way she hadn't done since elementary ended - without even checking to make sure no one saw her.

And if Bonnie didn't like it, she could go take a freezing-cold shower.

---

Dr. Drakken would have described himself as many things but never - despite Shego's assertions to the contrary - a failure.

Now, with the burn in his chest burning and the doubts outshouting the BeeGees record he had playing, it seemed rather more accurate.

The only good thing was that they'd made a clean escape from Middleton Middle. And even at that, Drakken had gotten an earful of Shego's opinion on the way home. As much as he tried to shut his auditory canals to it, it was like a jackhammer in the eardrum: it couldn't be tuned out.

As soon as they'd arrived back at the lair, Drakken had time-traveled them back to the present-day; he took some comfort in the fact that he had remembered to do that before destroying reality as he knew it. Not enough comfort, though, to keep him from storming into his lab, slamming and locking the door, and reaching for some tunes of his own. He didn't want Shego's company, considering he didn't have much to say in his own defense.

Kim Possible had accomplished exactly the sort of feat her name suggested - she'd beaten him without throwing a single punch. Drakken figured that, all things considered, he deserved to be alone with the demons of the past he'd dredged up.

Except there were no "demons." Just a painful-looking adolescent boy with enough angst for any five other preteens.

Drakken heard himself groan as though from far away. Shego would have told him to "stop feeling sorry for yourself, Dr. D" - and yet Drew was a creature Drakken had kept so far removed from him that Drakken could hardly think of Drew as himself. Where he came from was supposed to be swaddled away in his "Tragic Backstory" file, not out spraying graffiti over his past schemes. Present schemes! Future schemes? His brilliant schemes - whenever they were - for world domination.

Not demanding something else altogether.

Still, the plan should have worked, if Shego hadn't come nosing her way in, insisting upon an actual death. Slaying Kim Possible emotionally, not physically, would have created far smaller ripples in the time stream. Manageable ones. No need to whip out The Butterfly Effect and The Grandfather Paradox to double-check the survival of his someday-subjects.

Of course, if Kim Possible had never had the courage to become a hero, who would have saved him six months ago from that rebellious nitroglycerin about to level his entire lair?

Drakken picked up a pencil from his desk. It slid counter-clockwise in his grip and pricked through his glove in a perfect graphite puncture. Drakken's temper, already bloated to the breaking point, burst; he yelled, "YAAAGGNN!" and hurled the pencil at the wall. It hit with a miniscule noise as Drakken stood there staring at it, panting worse than Commodore Puddles on a midsummer's day.

And who could blame me, really? he thought. Up until now, I've never experienced a locker room scene and the demise of a foolproof scheme in the same day.

The plan really had been foolproof. It simply wasn't Drewproof. The two were not synonymous.

Naturally, Drakken realized, because Drew is no fool. It was a weak victory, but at this point it felt every bit as solid as a sweeping checkmate.

Seriously, though - he had failed at what had to be among The World's Easiest Tasks To Accomplish: breaking a metal-mouthed pipsqueak. Kim Possible's spirit had proven more indomitable than that. His own - err, that was to say, Drew's - had been less so.

(Was "less indomitable" the same thing as "more domitable"?)

Drakken groped for even a strand of something positive.

Well, there was the fact that he would undoubtedly go down on Kim Possible's permanent record as a genuine threat. She'd forever see him as the man who pointed a trigger straight between her eyes.

But even that thought was sore to the touch. Drakken had been so close to ridding the world of his nemesis, mere seconds away - and she'd been struggling there, so little, eyes squashed shut, and his subconscious had had second thoughts and his hands had slipped and then every villain-instinct he had came at him in a rush of Do it now! Pull it!

No, no, Kim Possible would never know if he had terminated the mission on purpose. How could she? Drakken himself didn't even know.

Drakken slammed a fist down on the surface of his desk. The Juvinator, looking as innocuous as. . . well, a baby's ring toy, jittered and tipped against his portable time machine. It sat there and looked obnoxiously like a toaster, though it reminded Drakken more of a chicken pox scab, forever shaming you with the knowledge that you scratched when your mother clearly forbade you to. He took a moment to pore over it, taking in its toaster-dials and the slits where the date he wanted would spring up like Pop-Tarts.

All right, so that analogy didn't quite work - since the dates wouldn't come popping partway out of the slots, where they could be fully extracted with precision and wooden tongs. Still, there were so many as-yet-unexplored uses for it. Drakken could warp himself back to the Stone Age, convince the cavemen he was a god, and start a cult that would be passed down the generations. He could travel into a future where he was already ruler and then work backward, though that smacked a little of paradox. . .

Wait - I'm missing something. What am I missing?

Of course. The Reset button. The one that would wipe the minds of everyone involved, including Drakken himself.

Drakken didn't reach for the button right away. There were, after all, a few advantages toward letting the event stand. Kim Possible would recognize him at their "first" meeting two years ago, for one thing, which would be flattering to that year's unaware Drakken, although by the time it traveled its way up the time stream to now, it would be nothing more than a memory.

But that also meant Drakken would have shown her vulnerability and weakness right from the start, before the start - in the pre-game cutscene. Their classic supervillain-and-his-nemesis relationship was in enough peril when he wasn't shorter than her.

Did he want to remember being Drew Lipsky again?

Was that a trick question? He could hardly bear to look back on his first past.

There was a sudden drop to his insides, as if Drakken had stepped onto a down escalator without warning, as an even more horrible prospect fell into place. Every time he looked at Kim Possible now, he would see her willingly sitting with him at lunch, her crouched beside him in Language Arts, telling him that his brain had a known compatibility issue with spelling and it wasn't his fault -

And he'd never, in good conscience, be able to kill her. If there was one thing Drakken had learned in his life as a mad scientist - well, alongside such lessons as make sure your robots aren't smart enough to rebel and never store piranha in the coffeepot - it was that it was far easier to wipe a mind than a conscience, and if he didn't wipe one of them soon, he would never be able to rule the world.

Trade a day's pleasure for a lifetime of glory.

Should have been an easy decision. So why did something ache right square in his center? Could have been from where that eighth-grade doofus had knuckled him earlier, Drakken supposed.

He wondered - briefly, vacantly - if he would wonder about the inevitable bruise after he Reset. Most likely not, Drakken decided. Most likely he'd chalk it up to having slammed into one of the lair's ominous rectangular structures that he loved so much.

The first few dramatic notes of "Stayin' Alive" invigorated him, spiking his pulse, and with the face of a lonely twelve-year-old swimming in his brain, Drakken leaned forward and pushed the button. The time machine hummed and emitted a wide, white beam of light that cleansed the world.

Mind bleach works faster than Clorox, was all Drakken could think in the instant before it hit him. Maybe I could even get it to take out that toothpaste jingle I can't get out of my -

WHOOSH.

Dr. Drakken opened his eyes and blinked against the rude stickiness of his contact lenses. He felt strangely tired, re-awakening, as though he'd taken a nap - a luxury he rarely permitted himself. Who had time for sleep when one was poised on the brink of world domination?

Well, maybe not poised on the exact brink. But he'd certainly driven past the "CAUTION - CLIFF AHEAD" sign, laughing all the way.

Drakken cracked his knuckles, shook his oddly-fogged head, and headed for his computer. Next stop: the Unofficial Obscure Bioweapons Forum.