Hey, I'm back! Sorry I had some RL technical difficulties, so this chapter is a wee bit on the shorter side. I figured some content is better than no content, and it's still about average of my other chapters too. I would like to thank Data Seeker, Or-lan-do626, and Sharper the Writer for your reviews! There's a lot more followers, and I'd like to say thank you to all of you as well! With that said, I'll allow you all to hop back into the story.
The Past
Camp Wannaweep
Ron officially hated camp.
It was still raining as the camp counselor, a toned man in a soaked through white T-shirt and blue shorts, studied them with his face set in an angry scowl. He had earlier introduced himself as Camp Counselor Mark. Camp Counselor Mark wore a whistle and a name tag. The name tag had smudged Sharpie ruined to oblivion thanks to the watery skies. Ron was a bit taken aback by the man's demeanor. After all, the dude was acting as if a little rain wouldn't spoil the parade. Ron just wanted to go home and get warmed up. Maybe sip a cup of hot chocolate over at the Possible household. He might even spend a little time building something with the tweebs. He was deep in the mist of his day dream when he felt a stinging pain against his nose.
"Ouch!" Ron exclaimed, startled, his hand moving up to rub his nose before his focus had fully returned. When it finally did, Mark was standing in front of him, his index finger an inch from Ron's face. He had finger flicked him! Camp Counselor Mark was sporting a very unhappy expression that made Ron want to cower.
"Am I boring to you, private?"
"Boring? Pssh, I wish. I mean, why do we have to stand out here getting drenched? We could catch a horrible case of pneumonia or the flu, Camp Counselor Mark, uh, sir."
Mark hmphed in reply. "A little rain water never hurt anyone. It might even put some hair on your chest."
Ron scoffed. "Not how it works. My mom told me it probably wouldn't happen until after my bar mitzvah. If I'm lucky."
"Come on Ronnie," Gil spoke up, wishing the smaller boy knew when to shut up. He supposed that's what made a squeeb a squeeb. "Camp Counselor Mark knows what he's talking about."
"I'm starting to doubt that more and more every second that passes," Ron muttered lowly, rubbing his hands against his wet bare arms.
The introduction to Camp Wannaweep life ended roughly an hour later. Each child received a fur cap with a raccoon's tail attached to it. Equally drenched. The rain had let up finally, turning the area into a humid nightmare. They hadn't gotten their room assignments yet, but Camp Counselor Mark assured they would have a room once they finished eating.
John approached Camp Counselor Mark while the campers were thick into the dinner festivities in the cabin posed as a cafeteria. The Counselor was going over a clipboard in hand. John couldn't have asked for better timing. "Hey, you know Ron? Short boy, kinda talks too much?"
Mark huffed, not glancing up. "Hard to miss. What about him?"
"I heard he loves chimps. Bobo's bound to love him. Maybe he could bunk with the little one?"
"Whatever," Mark said, still penciling Ron in for Cabin 13. "I'm surprised he didn't mention it himself. Boy loves to talk."
"He gets shy over weird stuff, and I don't think he knows about Bobo yet. Don't worry about it." John walked away, a crooked grin on his face. Mission success.
A chimp. Who pairs a child off to room with a chimp?!
Ron whimpered from underneath his blankets, tugging them tight and snug against himself. It was supposed to be a good night. He had gotten his room, Cabin 13. He was finally showered and dressed in something dry. He had placed the Camp Wannaweep raccoon tailed hat, damp as it still was, upon his head to try out some Camp Spirit. He had even accidentally found a loose floorboard in the cabin, and had stuffed some of the treats he had in his backpack under it. Secret hiding spots were the definition of badical. Yeah, all that had gone okay. It wasn't anything major, but it was better than the horrors he now had to face. Bobo returned right as he was getting settled in the cabin. Maybe with a name like Bobo he should have expected the mascot of Wannaweep, and not a boy whose parents loved clowns and accidentally sent him to the wrong camp, but the chimp entering the cabin was a surprise to say the least. Even more surprising was how Bobo immediately went on a blind rampage, jumping and flinging things all around the room with reckless abandon. It probably had something to do with Bobo being a territorial chimp. Coming back to find a Ron in Bobo's space probably set him off. Animal Planet never spoke about what an eleven-year-old should do when faced with the fury of an angry chimp, and Ron was petrified.
This was raw animistic violence and he was stuck in the middle of it.
"Rufus," he cried, flinching when he realized he had fell into his crutch of needing his original best friend. He hadn't called on Rufus for years. He immediately felt smaller and embarrassed. He understood that Rufus wasn't real. That he was imaginary. A concept that existed within the bounds of his mind alone, but he wished his old friend to be real. It would be nice to have a soldier on his side right about now.
What's more, he missed Kim dearly. While he shook under his blankets and hoped Bobo wouldn't dream of bothering him as he did his best to act like a shivering corpse, he hoped that Kim would try to make the best of the summer. Tears filled his eyes. It was supposed to be the best summer ever for the two of them, and here he was cowering in fear inside what was to be his bedroom for the next seven weeks. Life was so not fair.
The Past
Stoppable Household
Andrea sipped her beverage wistfully. Elliot kept an eye on her curiously. Ron had only been gone for a few hours, dusk settling in, and he wondered how she felt. Her glance was toward a photo of the three of them, Ron in the middle a bright, beaming, front toothless smile on his face, and the remnants of tears in his eyes. He had just lost those two teeth, having been afraid that it would be super painful to lose them. In the end, they fell out near naturally, and he still cried, but in relief that it hadn't hurt as promised. That was their Ronnie. He was an open book with fears a mile long, but he had a way of pulling up his big boy pants when he needed to.
"Do you think we did the right thing? Sending him to camp?" She asked, worriedly.
"I don't know." Elliot answered her truthfully. "It's kind of weird, him being gone. The house feels emptier."
Andrea smiled. "Really? He was over the Possible's house most of the time."
Elliot shrugged, a half-smile appearing on his face. He adjusted his glasses. "Okay. Point taken, but he was close by. Now he isn't."
Andrea closed her eyes and sighed, understanding exactly what her husband meant. "What do you think of the spur of the moment method we went with this time?"
"Our Ronnie sometimes needs a bit of a push. A, 'this is our way of telling you', method. If we told him in advance, he would start to spiral."
She nodded, chuckling. "Yeah, or he'd skip straight to hyperventilating." The last time, which concerned the matter of what they would have for dinner, and he couldn't decide between meatloaf and tacos, reciting all the good and the bad between the two of them, and worrying over the choice of one if he didn't choose the other. They wound up just getting take out pizza from J.D Barrymore's that day.
She received a nod from her husband. "That goodbye was full of emotion I hadn't expected." He mentioned, unable to really get how sad it made even him to witness Kim and Ron saying a temporary goodbye to each other. They were like two lovers during wartime, with Ron having to go across the seas, not just to camp a few hours away.
"They've been friends since Pre-K," Andrea murmured, which lead into a deep sigh. "Maybe I've been overthinking things all along. I just worry he's too attached to her. Hmm, no, not that exactly. It's more that I worry he might be blindsided one day."
"You're right. You worry too much," Elliot said, moving to sit beside her. "Did you see the same thing I did? She was as heartbroken as our boy. She cares about our Ronnie, and it isn't one sided. They are their own people, and they will fight, they will laugh, and moreover they will be friends for as long as they need to be. There's no guide to a successful friendship. There's no guide on how to live life. I could mention a number of statistics, but it doesn't mean they'll be accurate or true. We determine our own destiny's and they will surely find theirs."
She nodded, thoughtful. Her husband had a way of keeping her grounded. "You're right. I shouldn't meddle. I'm sorry."
He kissed her cheek. "You have nothing to be sorry for. You feel the way you do because you care about him."
"Of course I do. Remember when he had the chance to be double promoted?"
"Absolutely." Elliot knew what she was referring to. It had been less than a year ago.
Andrea thought back. Ron's teacher, Ms. Honey, asked them both to meet with her for an early conference.
"He's exceptional," Ms. Honey had gushed, an open folder of his work in front of her. "He finishes assignments well before anyone else. Quick-witted. He occupies his free time doodling. At first, I figured it was random childish artwork, but on a closer inspection, they're blueprints for machines and ideas I didn't know a ten year old could have. I think if he stays in the grade for his age level it'll just hold him back. A mind like that deserves to blossom and grow, so I'm offering him the opportunity to skip a grade or two."
They were awed by the praise their son received. How could they not be? Even more so that the teacher felt he should be double promoted. Ron's usual pattern was to eat dinner with his parents and have breakfast at the Possible's, heading to school with Kim, so during that night's dinner they told him what they assumed would be good news. "Well, Ronnie, what do you think?"
He paused, fork midway to his mouth. "Will this mean I wouldn't be in the same grade as Kim?"
"Most likely." Elliot had said, matter-of-factly.
"Not interested." Was their boy's immediate answer. Ron frowned. "I don't care about any of that stuff," his forked hand pounded against the table. "Youth only happens once. I have plenty of time to blossom. Besides, it's nature vs nurture. The carnal jungle rules in the form of a school society. I'd get eaten alive by kids twice my size. I'd feel rejected by my peers and would fall down the rabbit hole of bitter loneliness and self-pity. I'd come to regret being short! The entire course of my future would be thrown askew by what seemingly appears to be an innocent act towards enhancing my growth. Sometimes things need to follow the right step by step order to grow efficiently. Cheating the system isn't the right course."
At the time, they hadn't pushed him. Knowing Kim was his only friend, Andrea didn't want to split them up, but how could she not wonder if allowing him to make that decision had been the right one? Like anything regarding an unknown choice, there was simply no way to know what the other outcome would have been for sure, but he was happy and that was all she rely on.
"Do you think Kim would have tried to do the same thing?"
"In a heartbeat." Elliot answered. If there was one statistic he knew for sure, the two of them had found a soulmate in each other. Or maybe he was more of a romantic than he had assumed. It was hard to tell.
The phone began to ring and Andrea moved to answer it.
"Hello?"
"Rampaging monkey!" Ron's voice bleated into her ear. She flinched as she pulled the phone away from her ear slightly.
"Ronnie? What on earth?"
"I wanna go home!" He sounded frantic. She rubbed her temple. He hadn't even been there a full day. There was no way anything could have happened already. There hadn't been enough time.
"What happened to you giving it a chance?" She asked, frowning.
"I have! And I want to go back to Middleton. I don't want to room with a murderous chimp!"
"Ronald please. Give it more than a few hours, will you?" She shook her head. The only time she'd question his intellect was when he was scared or overly worried. He used slang more, and he could forget things he knew easily any other time.
There was a lengthy pause. She could hear him breathing, which told her he was indeed still holding the line. "O-okay."
"Thank you." She hung up.
"What did he want?" Elliot asked. Before she could respond, the phone rang again. She studied it for a moment before she answered, having a very good inkling on what was occurring.
"Hello?" She answered warily.
"Save me!" Ron wailed. Andrea rolled her eyes. It was going to be a very long summer.
The Present
Kim held Ron's head cradled against her chest, his body splayed out, while she had her legs folded in. Her heart ached in her chest. They had near death experiences all the time. It was the sort of thing that came with the territory of saving the world as they did. While she knew he wasn't in one of those stitches, he was so not going to die, she couldn't stop the pain that was flowing through her. A pain that was brought on by that obvious emotion painted on his face right before it became too much for him. A pain she wished he hadn't felt at all. She pulled Ron a little closer, barely noticing how frantic Rufus was by her side.
Had Ron experienced too much grief? Were things just coming at him much too fast? She had no actual way of knowing the answer to those questions. Not until he actually woke up anyway. Oh, please wake up soon, Ron! She couldn't help thinking.
Rufus was chittering away a mile a minute. Kim finally focused on the naked mole rat. Kim knew Rufus was right, sitting around and wallowing wouldn't do anything for Ron. She needed to take action. Anything was Possible for a Possible. Taking a deep breath, Kim made sure Ron's head was snug against her forearm. She then pressed her fingers against the pulse point on his neck. His heart was undergoing erratic palpitations. That probably wasn't good. She pulled out her Kimmunicator and flicked it on. Wade immediately popped up, a smile on his face, until he took in the grim line that was Kim's mouth and her worried eyes.
"Kim, what's up?"
"Wade, Ron fainted," she quickly stated, desperate emotion laced in her voice. "I think it has something to do with the device attached to his head. I'm not sure what to do. Professor Acgor told us we shouldn't take it off, so I don't want to unless I know it won't hurt him."
"Hold up the Kimmunicator so I can run a scan, please?" She did as she was asked, holding it sideways towards Ron's body, the top of the Kimmunicator facing him. A white beam of light, thin and horizontal in shape, emerged out of the device. The white beam swiftly moved from the top of Ron's head to his feet. Once the light disappeared, Kim moved the Kimmunicator back so she could see Wade again.
His tongue was out to the side of his mouth as he analyzed whatever he was reading on his computer screen. "Hmm, I think it's shut off," He said, confidently. "It should be safe for you to remove it."
"You're absolutely sure?"
"Of course. I wouldn't tell you to do it if I thought Ron would be in danger from it."
Kim knew she could trust Wade, so after swallowing a shallow breath, she moved her hands towards the helmet. Placing her hands on either side to get a firm grip, she pulled up slowly, scared to do irreversible damage to Ron. Unlike when Ron was trying to remove it, however, the helmet came right off with ease, like she was Arthur in front of the sword Excalibur.
"What is up with everyone making helmets these days?" She asked, turning it over, relieved that it didn't seem to hurt Ron in any way. Rufus seemed to calm down as well, but he still watched his human with a worried expression.
"My guess is the portability factor. You should probably hang on to that. I don't fully have an update on how that helmet works, so I'd like to do a more formal analysis when you have the time to let me do so."
"Got it."
"Speaking of, you also better head out of there, stat. While the building structure isn't as destroyed as it can be from some of your exploits, it will come down. It's best you're not in there when that happens."
Coming back into awareness of her surroundings, Kim nodded her head, taking into account the rumbling and slight shaking on their current environment. She had best make quick time. Head in the game. "On it Wade."
"Call me when you get to safety."
Placing the Kimmunicator away in her cargo pants, Kim picked Ron up with ease bridal style. Carrying him was usually no big for the teen hero. She activated her roller rocket shoes and swished around any fallen debris or other obstacles that were in her path to escape. Rufus, held on firmly to her shoulder. His body wanting to be flung away thanks to the momentum of the speed by which they were traveling.
Once Kim was sure they were out of dangers way, she sat down on the damp earth, waiting for a ride to arrive. She studied Ron, hoping he would wake up and tell a joke or two, and that things would go back to being fine. The helpless feeling that clung to her ever since she knew what was happening to her best friend made the ordeal that much more worse. She ran a hand through his blond hair, and to her surprise, his eyes open slightly, enough to where it seemed as if he were squinting.
"K-Kim? What are you doing here?" Ron asked, wincing harshly, as he sat up, his hand immediately disappearing into the blond hair. "Ugh, my head."
"Ron!" She threw her arms around him in a tight hug. "What do you mean what am I doing here? We had a mission. You know, Drakken, Shego, Professor Acgor?" She shot him a worried glance. Had taking the helmet off scrambled up his memories?
"Oh, right." He blinked, winced again. Rubbing a hand over his face. "It feels like that just happened."
"What just happened?" She asked confused.
He closed his eyes, she could feel him shiver from where his body still leaned against hers. "Camp Wannaweep."
"So you did get back a memory?" She asked, unsure if it was a good or bad thing if he had.
"I did."
She waited, but when it became clear he wasn't going to add more she frowned. "And?"
"I don't want to talk about it, Kim." He said, not looking at her. What the heck?
"Cryptic much." She said, frowning. Here she was worried to death about him and he gives her nothing to go on. "Like why were you crying?"
He hesitated. "It, uh, kind of hit me hard. Like I was there in that moment. All over again. Ticks, Bobo, polluted water. You've heard it all before."
"So you're telling me that you just relived all of your major Wannaweep horrors? That's it?"
He frowned. "It's deeper than that. It's not me just making a big deal out of it for no reason. You've seen Gil, Kim. And then there was John too."
"John?" She blinked. Had he ever mentioned a John before?
"It doesn't matter. Can we just go home?" He asked, irritation in his voice. She blinked, not quite understanding what was going on. She had expected him to be more forthcoming with information.
"Uh, yeah, our ride should be here shortly." Kim said, not quite liking his tone or attitude. He nodded, and didn't say anything more. Rufus and Kim watched Ron in confusion.
I really hope there aren't any negative consequences to him being hit by this device, Kim thought to herself, hoping that things would go back to normal before they had to rescue Professor Acgor once again.
And that's it for now. I'll -try- not to make the wait until the next chapter too long. Is Ron keeping something from Kim? Maybe. Where will next chapter lead? We shall find out together! Well, not really, since I'm the one writing the story, but I digress. There will be a few more past to present switches. It's kind of like living out what Ron remembered, so it has to happen. Until next time, I bid you all good day my friends!