Hey everyone! Welcome back! This chapter was insanely hard to write actually. For a few reasons. Mostly because there's a line in this chapter that spiraled this story in the first place, so technically, this chapter is kind of like the start of me even writing this fic in the first place. I would like to thank Data Seeker, Sharper the Writer, and Jae for their reviews! Not to mention the new follows and favorites as well! I sincerely appreciate it! I'm glad that there are people enjoying this story. The ride is about to truly take off, so I hope you'll stick around as it picks up(longest chapter yet!). Maybe you can predict what'll happen next? Or maybe I'll shock a few of you with where I plan on going with the story. I suppose only time will tell. Now on to the chapter!
Ron and Rufus sat in the storage room, still searching boxes. Ron had tossed and turned in his bed, trying to go to sleep, but to no avail. He would by no means proclaim himself a genius. Like ever. Buuut…he had been able to get good grades at one point. His curiosity about himself was high. He hated that when he saw his own report card, it felt like it was a stranger's. It was like finding the report card of a family member or friend. He truly had no recollection of those times and it bothered him because he had memories of other things from his childhood. Like the building of the treehouse, the cooking set his mom got him, dressing as a ballerina for halloween, and a wide range of other things that happened from childhood until now. Of course, he had memories of spending time with Kim. Obviously. It was hard to look back on those times and not think about her. They had known each other since they were four, and had been very close from that moment on. So why? Why was school a blank? Did he even really care? It was school. He hadn't before, but the grades. He gulped.
"I must have lost my mind, Rufus," Ron said to his little rodent buddy in response to the continued search through boxes. "My video game hand is starting to cramp up!"
"Uh, huh." Rufus agreed, flexing his own clawed paws.
The pair had already gone through a total of six more boxes since where they had left off with Kim in the middle of the night. Four of the boxes had been done by Rufus. Together, they had discovered a few of Ron's other graded boxes in the shuffle. Ron took the report cards from the box they were found in, and set them to the side for later review with Kim. While Ron was grabbing box number three, his dad poked his head into the room, probably curious to know what all the noise was about in what's usually the most untouched room in the house.
"Ronald?" Mr. Stoppable questioned, taking in the mess that was usually the neatly stacked rows of boxes. He was a little concerned over the sight before him as some boxes sat discarded without their tops and there were papers randomly littered all over the room.
"Oh, hey, dad." Ron said, oblivious to his dad's distress. Rufus squeaked his greeting.
"What are you doing, son?" The older Stoppable asked, more so interested in what set off this odd behavior in the first place. Ron usually was the main person to avoid the room, so it was baffling to find him casually in the 'thou do not touch room' making a mess.
"Checking out my old report cards," he voiced, pulling another one out of a box and placing in the report card pile. "Say, did you know I used to be smart?"
"Smart?" His dad looked as if he was coming to some sort of understanding. "You are smart," he told his son, placing a hand on Ron's shoulder. His dad's hand felt like it was shaking. Ron frowned. His dad could barely hide the fact he was trying to think about Ron's feelings. Well, Ron didn't need fake sympathy.
"No, you don't have to lie to me," he said, knowing it must have been taking a toll for his dad to try to make it seem like everything was hunky dory. "I know you guys are probably disappointed in me."
His dad looked shocked behind his glasses. "No, we aren't—"
"I don't know how I lost the old smarts mojo," Ron plowed on, barely hearing his dad. "Heck, I barely can remember ever even getting these grades. It's like wow!" He shot his hands up into the air. "That kid…now that kid did ya proud! And I used to be that kid! But now I'm me, and, oh," Ron put his hand on his head. "I'm so stupid, now."
"Ronald. You don't have to be smart to make us proud. You have your strengths. You regularly help Kim save the world don't you?"
"Yeah, but 'help' is probably a little too strong a word for it."
"Still, even with all of your fears, you're there by Kimberly's side stopping people bent on world conquest, and who wouldn't hesitate to kill you if it came to that. Ronald being smart is fine, but it by no way makes us love you less if you aren't. You're our son. You've always been a good son, and for the most part, you typically do what's right, and even if you don't, you learn from your mistakes. It's part of being a teenager. And even with thousands of paths before you, you've chosen the important path. The path of heart, which is the most important part on the path to adulthood. Don't worry yourself over things you can't control, and never think you're doing something, or aren't doing something, to make us proud. We love you. Never forget that."
Rufus clasped his paws together. "Aww."
"Thanks, dad." Ron smiled slightly.
"Anytime," his dad picked up his report card. It was super apparent that his hand was shaking as the paper moved in his grasp. Ron couldn't recall his dad being the shaky sort, but maybe it came with old age. "People shine all the time when the need calls for it. Perhaps…it just wasn't your time anymore to be the person you used to be."
Ron frowned. What so he didn't need to be smart anymore? Now he was all confused. "Yeah…maybe."
His dad cleared his throat, adjusting his glasses. "So, now you know you're going to have to clean up this mess? Right? We don't want to upset your mother."
Ron and Rufus groaned in unison. Not the bad news! "Aww, man!"
Kim had gotten up early for similar reasons as Ron. A lack of a desire to truly sleep. She was sitting at the kitchen table, wondering what to make for breakfast since her mother had an early shift at the hospital, when her Kimmunicator went off, breaking the silence in the room.
"What's the sitch, Wade?" Kim asked, flipping the device on, breakfast forgotten. "Any new info on Ron?"
"No, not this time. You actually have a new hit on the site. It looks like Drakken and Shego are on the move." He told her, typing furiously.
"Right on time it would seem," she said, rolling her eyes. Their behind-the-scenes antics couldn't go too long without becoming problematic. That's when one Kim Possible stepped in. Just part of the world saving circle of life.
"Yeah, it looks like they've taken to kidnapping one Professor Acgor. He's an inventor who originally lived in Germany when he was little, but has since moved stateside and become a citizen over here. He lives primarily in Washington."
"Isn't kidnapping below them at this point?" Kim huffed.
"They are villains," Wade pointed out, sipping his soda.
"Cats and stripes I suppose," Kim conceded. "Did you call in a favor?"
"Already ahead of you, Kim. I have a ride coming your way. Should be there in roughly thirty minutes, which should be enough time for you to get Ron up to speed."
"Thanks Wade. I'll let him know." Kim said, placing her Kimmunicator in her pocket.
"Know what, Kimmie-Cub?" Kim's dad, James Possible, asked, stepping into the kitchen with a folded newspaper under his arm. He was dressed in his usual button down, tie, and slacks, ready for the world before 8am had even hit.
"I have to inform Ron about our new mission," Kim said, getting up from the dining room table and moving to exit the kitchen. "Just Drakken up to his old tricks. No big."
James laughed as he took a seat at the table Kim just vacated. "When will he ever learn?"
"It would be nice if he got the message that taking over the world is so not his thing." Kim said, poking her head into the kitchen again briefly to shoot her dad a smile, before she disappeared up to her room to get ready for the mission.
"Ah, the perks of being a mad scientist. I wouldn't want to be on the wrong side of an angry Kimmie." James chuckled, starting his day with the inside of his newspaper as was his custom.
Ron sat on a plane headed on a trajectory for Drakken's newest lair, directions supplied by Wade, of course. Kim was making her way forward to speak to the pilot of the aircraft. Both teens were decked out in their mission gear, backpacks settled near the seats by Ron, full of the supplies they felt they needed for the trip.
"Thanks for the ride, Mr. Tucket," Kim acknowledged, shooting her best smile at the older man. He was dressed in a plaid red button down and jeans. His salt and pepper mustache moving up as he returned her smile.
"It's not a problem at all, Miss Kimberly. Least I can do for the gal that helped me save my ducks from that coyote."
"No big. Anyone would have done the same. Your ducks are really adorable."
With the pleasantries taken care of, Kim headed back and sat across from Ron. He looked bored; his eyes half lidded as he stared out of the nearest window showcasing fluffy clouds. Kim paused. He wasn't always completely down for a mission, depending, but he was never really reserved as he was now either.
"Hey, Ron? Are you doing okay?" The red head asked of her best friend. Ron sighed and turned to face her.
"Yeah, I mean. I kinda have a lot on my mind," Ron admitted. Rufus popped out of his cargo pants pocket and pet his hip.
"S'kay," The mole rat said, wanting to perk him up.
"Oh, about the report cards?"
Ron nodded, passing her the new report cards he and Rufus had found that morning. "Looks like sixth grade is when my grades took a swift nosedive into 'C' territory."
"It is kind of strange." She still found Ron's missing knowledge of elementary school so bizarre. "Did school get harder for you?"
"That, and maybe procrastination nation hit hard around then, too," he pondered something, then frowned. "I know puberty did."
"For me too," Kim muttered under her breath. The start of adolescence from childhood was so not fun. Bras, pads, and noticing boys were boys, was rough. "But it's a drastic drop in schooling if you really think about it, and it's odd that you always average 'C's. From sixth grade onwards." There were no other grades. Never an 'A' or even the lowest of grades, an 'F'. He always managed to pull 'C's. Kim narrowed her eyes as she reviewed his sixth to eighth grade report cards. Was it some kind of Camp Wannaweep curse? Or did school just start increasing the heat too much for him to handle? It was hard to tell just going based off of a solid grade, without a good reasoning for why he even got the grade he did in the first place.
"I had a good talk with my dad about that this morning," he supplied, watching her look over the reports. "It's not the smarts that make the man, it's the heart. And you make up a lot of my heart, KP, I mean! Uh." Heat flooded both of their cheeks, neither eying the other anymore. "Um! What I meant to say was," he swallowed roughly. "I got your back ya know?" Ron rubbed the back of his neck. Awkweird slip of the tongue.
Kim nodded, her cheeks still tinged. "Yeah, I know, Ron. I have never doubted that I can rely on you if I need to. You're my best friend. I don't think anything could ever change that." She placed a hand on his knee. He placed all his focus on it.
"Right back atcha, KP," he now looked up at her and smiled. Kim sat back realizing she had been leaning closer to him.
"Anyway," she started, getting herself mission ready, her eyes narrowing with determination. "We should be nearly to Drakken's lair. You ready?"
"Pssh, cha. Drakken's not going to know what hit him. I'm gonna be like he-yah! And he-yaw! And wa-tah!" He said, moving his arms around sporadically as he bounced around the plane.
"Leave the kung fu antics for when we go up against Monkey Fist," Kim told him, smiling slightly. "Come on, it's time to make the jump."
"Why can't we ever just, you know, land normally for once?" He questioned out loud.
"That would be too easy. Now let's go, Ron."
"Maybe easy is what I wa-wahhhh!" He screamed, as Kim helped him out of the door with a gentle push, leaping out of the plane behind him.
Drakken laughed manically within his lair. The Professor was strapped to a chair directly in front of him. Shego stood with her hands on her hips a little behind Drakken, more so waiting for the torture segments of this little questionnaire to begin than anything else, but she knew the boring bits were going to come first. Dr. D had a bad habit of needing to blab every insipid detail before he actually got any real work done. It was no wonder most of his plans ended up DOA.
"You do remember this device, don't you, Professor Acgor?" Drakken asked, holding up a helmet like device. It was white, with orange and green wiring coming out from the left side of it.
The Professor stuck his nose up. "I invented it."
"That-um, that didn't answer my question," Drakken blinked. "Is that supposed to be a yes?"
"Ugh!" Shego rolled her eyes. Sometimes Drakken acted slower than the Buffoon. "Yes, Dr. D! He invented it, so he knows how to work it, blah, blah, blah. Learn to read in between the lines."
"It's hard to do that when he didn't read all of his lines, now isn't it!" Drakken cleared his throat. "Now, ah, yes! If you know what this is, then you can most likely understand what it is I plan to do with this invention of yours, then?"
"You want me to remember one of my previous works," Acgor stated.
Drakken waited for him to add more. It never came. He grunted. "You really don't say much, do you?"
"Maybe you should take notes," Shego couldn't help saying.
"Ugh!" Drakken turned to her. "Can't you see I'm busy here, Shego? Two intelligent men are having a battle of wills."
"Oh, whatever! Just put the device on him and get him to remember some things already! Then we can get to my favorite part," she lit both of her hands and held then so the Professor could see them.
"Ah, right." Drakken cleared his throat, holding a fisted hand to his mouth. "Anyway, indeed! I want to access one of your more…grandiose endeavors, and you're going to supply it to me personally."
"Maybe."
"You will! And you're gonna like it! Hurng, well, you don't have to like it. But you'll do it anyway!" Drakken wiggled the helmet. "After I place this on you and restore your memories, Shego will do the honors of making sure you'll talk."
"That's all I'm here for," Shego said, with a cocky grin.
"When I say maybe," The Professor explained, not seemingly phased by anything occurring before him. "I mean maybe. I know how it works to a 'T'. For one, the user can only remember a memory, as in one, that is most deeply repressed at the time of use. And that doesn't mean that my most repressed memory will have anything to do with my creations." He stuck his nose up again, and Drakken grinded his teeth together in irritation.
"This better not be another snag," Shego said, frowning. Drakken gulped.
"It's not a snag! He's-he's bluffing."
"Oh, please," Sniff went the Professor. "We aren't playing poker, and my hands are literally tied. Why do I need to bluff?"
"Because! You don't want to be tortured! It's a last-ditch effort, and one that has nearly worked on you, Shego."
"Like I said before," Shego growled. "Put it on him already!"
"Stop right there!" Kim's voice echoed through the lair causing all three people to glance up in the direction. "You're not going to do anything to the good Professor."
Ron showed up from behind Kim. "Aside from letting him go. Which you can do at any time. And we can pretend like this whole thing was one bad dream. Any takers?"
"Urgh, Kim Possible and..and buffoon! You will not interrupt! Shego!"
"On it!" Shego said, quickly moving into action. Kim flipped off of the second floor and landed on the ground below. She didn't have time to truly enjoy it before she had to bounce out of the way of one of Shego's plasma induced punches. She stayed on the defensive for a few attacks before she shouted.
"Ron! Try and free the Professor!"
"I'm on it, KP!" Ron replied, slowly making his way from the second floor to the first. Kim made it look so easy flipping off and landing gracefully like that to enter into a fight. Ron, on the other hand, had to do things the normal and slow way. Which meant… "Hey, Rufus. Try to get to the Professor first. See if you can maybe bite him free or something." Rufus saluted, and then scurried off. Showcasing that yeah, he could indeed get there faster than Ron could.
"You ever think about just minding your business, Princess?" Shego asked, throwing a barrage of punches Kim's way.
"What? Don't want to work at world domination?" Kim asked, dodging a spin kick, as she threw her own punch, only to have it blocked by the raven-haired woman. "I didn't take you for the easy way-out sort. Or are you just tired of losing?"
Shego grunted angrily, as she supercharged her plasma and threw a few balls at Kim, who dodged, barely, but she didn't get hit.
Rufus, in the meantime, ran up the professor's leg and hopped up examining the rope. He bit into it. It was sturdy rope, but with a little more time he could have the Professor free. Unfortunately, Drakken wasn't going to let him do so easily.
"Ugh, you rat! Get out of here!" The blue man screamed annoyed, fanning his hand at Rufus who grumbled over being swung at.
"Huhuh, hey!" The naked mole rat replied angrily, as he continued dodging Drakken's slap like swings.
"Hey!" Ron exclaimed equally upset, seeing that his buddy was under attack. "Leave him alone!" He raced over to them and they had a short three-way standoff. "Looks like you're outnumbered." Ron said, smiling at Drakken.
"Outnumbered?" Drakken huffed. "By what? A buffoon and a rat? I've come too far for my plan to fall to pieces now! I will get what I want out of the Professor!" Drakken grabbed the helmet and tried to place it on the Professor's head. Ron didn't know what it was exactly, but if Drakken wanted to put it on the Professor's head, then it had to be eighty miles of bad road. He lunged, and Drakken tripped, placing the helmet on Ron's head instead.
"Huh?" Ron said, trying to pull the helmet off. "What is this?"
"It's official name, which that blue man never did think to ask me, is the Remehi Helmet." Professor Acgor supplied. "It's a combination of the word remember and the word hippocampus, which is where memories are stored."
"You're using way too many school words right now, dude!" Ron said, in a gigantic panic. "How do I get it off?"
"Oh, dear," The Professor actually looked nervous now. "If it's not just coming off, it may have…already been accidentally activated."
"That sounds bad. Why does it sound bad!?"
"Because—" Before the Professor could explain any further, Drakken grabbed him. "You! We may need to escape. Ugh, Kim Possible! Always showing up right before I have things my way!" He said, heading for his hovercraft. "Shego!"
"One moment, Dr. D!" Shego said, plasma punching Kim to a stalemate. Kim did her best to try to open up an opportunity for her to gain some sort of advantage, but the green woman was tough today and wasn't showing too many openings or weaknesses. She must have been really amped up already.
"KP! Help! I can't get it off! Rufus!" Ron struggled with the device attached to his head, pulling on it to no avail, and swaying side to side in an effort to get it off. It was starting to make him feel funny and a little lightheaded. Rufus watched, panicking as well, unsure of what he could do to help his friend. If Ron couldn't pull it off himself, there was no way he could.
"A little busy Ron," Kim said, as she dodged a punch to her midsection. Kim flipped out of the way, and quickly looked over to where Ron was, seeing him struggle with his newly acquired, but very unwanted, headgear. There were little bursts of electricity dancing in the air around it. Okay, Ron's current sitch wasn't good. She had to end this and fast.
"Hiyah!" Kim exclaimed, front flipping and serving a kick towards Shego. Shego blocked it with her arm, sending Kim flying back a little ways. Shego grinned, knowing that Kim was going to become a little sloppier in her fighting prowess with her sidekick in trouble. The buffoon always seemed to muck things up more than he helped, so Shego couldn't help wondering why the cheerleader always seemed eager for him to be there. Sure, there were times when he was just the right one to accelerate the demise of their evil scheme, but it didn't seem the tradeoff was worth the hassle of deadweight. Eh, if the Princess wanted a giant handicap, Shego wasn't going to complain. It just made things easier for her. Like right now.
"Don't touch it!" Professor Acgor quickly shouted from the hovercraft, causing Kim to immediately stop in her tracks, catching the panic in his voice. "If you tamper with the device before it has completed what it is programmed to do, and successfully remove it before it is done, it will scramble all thought within him. He wouldn't know right from left!"
So not the news Kim wanted or needed to hear. She hated being helpless. She hated it more so when she couldn't do anything to assist Ron.
"What's the worry, anyhow?" Drakken wanted to know, crossing his arms, from the driver's seat of the hovercraft. "It's just stuff he already lived through. Big flapping whoop."
"No!" Professor Acgor yelled, looking put out. If he wasn't tied he would strangle the man for his lack of competent knowledge. "You obviously don't understand the very nature of my invention! It doesn't just allow a person to remember things that easily. It's a lot more nuanced. A rare treasure in the mental landscape. It takes the users most suppressed memory and brings it back to the surface!" He lowered his head over the severity of what was taking place before him. "Ooooh, most people don't suppress good, wholesome memories. In fact, most repressed memories in normal people are traumatic, which means—"
"Oh," Drakken said, his eyes moving from the Professor to Ron, who had stopped struggling and was just…standing in place for whatever reason. "Th-then that means the buffoon…" Drakken flinched a little as he concentrated his focus on the buffoon with that information. Ron was just standing with his mouth slightly agape, as the machine whirled, forcing him to relive whatever memory the poor boy had chosen to forget. Did one so simple even have layers of sophisticated thought in the first place? There's no way any of his memories could be that bad. Nergh, besides he, Drew Lipsky, better known as Dr. Drakken, was a villain! What did he care if he broke the boy for all eternity? Perhaps that would even show Kim Possible. Perhaps…aha! Perhaps it would even break her mentally too, he thought, glancing at the horrified look the teen hero shot her best friend. Drakken grinned. However, unaware of Drakken's twisted thought process, the Professor continued.
"Ah, yes. He's probably suffering from his darkest memory of all," He said, hollow. Civilians weren't supposed to get involved. He hadn't fully tested the device after all. The test subjects had been few and far between. Human test subjects lower than that. "One so dark and foul he buried it in the depths of his mind. To have that suddenly be pulled from the depths you had long since forgotten and hitting you at full force..." The Professor shivered. "I can say with absolute certainty that I would really hate to be in his shoes right now."
Kim began to freak when she saw tears streaming down from Ron's eyes. It was such a solemn look, so devastatingly sad, that it chilled her to her core. She had seen lots of Ron faces over the years of their friendship. There was the time he was super ecstatic for the Bueno Nacho grand opening, and the time he cried for hours on end when she fell off her bike and skinned her knee, or the times he would get royally upset when she became so utterly stubborn and selfish. But none of them held a candle to how absolutely heart wrenching his face was to her now. The grief, sorrow, and absolute anguish in his tear filled eyes...it was enough to make her feel like her heart was being torn from her. It was also enough time for a woman clad in a skin tight green jump suit to get in a cheap shot on the cheerleader, sending her flying and skidding to a halt in a towering machine.
"Ha! How do you like that payback, Princess?" Shego sneered, reigniting a hand with plasma. She loved cheap shots when they were completely in her favor.
"Come along, Shego! I think we can comfortably say we have won this round. As the buffoon would say, 'booyah'! Hahahaha!"
Kim winced as an intense burst of pain shot up her side from the impact if hitting the machine at top speeds. She watched through half closed eyes as the notorious pair, along with a struggling Professor Acgor, escaped through a hole in the roof. Shego's laughter rang in her head, the ugliest it had ever been to her, in the face of her best friends impending torment happening some hundred odd feet away. That's right. Ron needed her right now.
She got up and ran over to him as fast as she could. She didn't care about Shego and Drakken getting away. She didn't care about the henchmen grabbing random doohickies on their way out of the lair. She didn't care about the alarms going off signalling that it most likely wouldn't be long until the lair went up in smoke. All she cared about was getting to Ron.
"Ron…speak to me please," Her voice was breaking, and her hand was shaking as she reached to wipe the tears from his eyes. What on earth did the helmet do to make him like this? She wanted to rip it off immediately, but she wasn't sure if there wouldn't be any adverse effects if she did. The Professor said there would be, so she needed to heed his advice. She couldn't become irrational. That wouldn't help Ron in the slightest.
His eyes held hers. Pools of tears still filling them as they fell in a cascading waterfall down his cheeks. "I…I remember." And then he fainted.
Yeah, it's cliffhanger time. And I'm really sorry to do so because the next update maaaay be a little slower than the ones that came before it. I'll try my best not to make it too long of a wait though. That chapter has also been one I knew would be added to this story, so it's more so just having the time to write, edit, and post. I hope you've enjoyed reading this one in the meantime, I seriously can't express how happy I am that you guys are enjoying this bit of fiction, and I can't wait to see you all in the next chapter!