Thanks for the kind words to: FutureGoddess, Jezrianna2.0, Spooks-a-lot, Widow Shark, Lkillingsworth, gargoylesama, aimtbj, Ari-Griffin, Fuzzie Muzzie, and Naeda.
Please note: I promised a specific event in the last chapter and I did not quite get to it, but I promise it is coming next chapter. Now on with the show:
Chapter 4
"Take me home," her voice was numb and emotionless.
"That's where I'm headed, honey," he replied.
"No," she objected, "I mean home. I want to go to my parents' house."
He sighed heavily and slowed the car a bit to converse with his fiancé.
"Are you sure that's such a good idea?", he asked, trying to sound patient.
"It's the only thing I really am sure of right now."
"The only thing?", he queried, sounding a little hurt, "You mean you're not even sure of my love for you?"
"I know you love me, Raymond," an edge of exasperated protest creeping into her voice, "I love you, too. Those things I am also sure of. There, are you happy?"
"Alright," he said gently, "I'm sorry. I was just trying to inject something positive into this horrible night. I guess I failed."
She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, tasting the salt of her tears on her lips. "You didn't fail," she said, offering him a weak smile, "I guess I do need to be reminded of some of the good things in my life just now."
He made a lane change, and then an illegal U-turn. "I'll drop you off and then go get your things from your apartment."
"I've got a few things at home I can wear. Right now I just need to be there."
Ray said nothing, and drove in the direction of her parents' house.
Ten minutes later, Kim Possible walked through the front door of her childhood home and collapsed into her mother's waiting arms. The twins had arrived a few minutes earlier and the Drs. Possible were just absorbing the shock of their news when Kim walked in. Mrs. Dr. Possible helped her daughter upstairs while Ray and Kim's father looked helplessly up after them.
"You're welcome to stay in the guest bedroom, Ray" Dr. Possible said in a shaky voice, "Though I can't promise we're going to be much fun to hang around with the next few days."
"You guys should have some family time together," Ray responded, "I'd just be in the way."
"You're going to be part of this family soon," James Possible said, offering him a weak smile, "All the more reason to stay."
"You should take a few days off," Ray countered, "I think the best way I can help is take up your work load at the lab."
Dr. Possible put a grateful hand on the shoulder of his future son-in-law, "I'm glad Kim's got you, especially in a time like this."
Ray nodded in acceptance, "I'll go up and say good night to Kim."
Mrs. Dr. Possible excused herself without a word when she saw Ray standing at the top of the stairs. She wouldn't have been able to say anything through her tears anyway. She went downstairs to call the Stoppables. They would have received the news by now, and she wanted to let them know the Possibles were there for them.
Ray came over and sat at the edge of the bed, taking Kim's hand.
"I think we should postpone the wedding," she said quietly.
Ray squeezed her hand gently, "I understand. But maybe there's a good reason to go ahead with the wedding as planned."
She turned her face toward him expectantly. Explain, her eyes demanded.
"The funeral will likely be in a few days," he began, observing the deeply pained expression on her face at the word funeral, "But think of this. A few days later we will stand in front of all our friends and family and join our lives together. A wedding might be just the thing to lift everyone's spirits after a tragedy like this. It's a chance for you to make a fresh start in life with your new husband. You'll finally be able to get some closure on Ron."
Kim looked at him in silence for a moment, but he could tell she was considering what he said very carefully.
"I'll have to think about it," she said finally.
"Of course", he said in his most sympathetic tone of voice. "In the meantime, get some sleep. I'll call you tomorrow."
He leaned over, kissed his fiancé, and walked downstairs.
Ray got into his car and sat staring at nothing for a few minutes, thinking, trying to clear his head and calm himself down. It wasn't working. With a half yell/half scream he slammed his fists down on the steering wheel in a rage.
Postpone the wedding? What is wrong with these people? He thought to himself, How did Ron Stoppable manage to become the center of the universe around here?
He slammed his fists on the steering wheel again with a bellow and then proceeded to breathe slowly in an attempt to calm himself once more. He was quickly running out of patience. If the wedding were postponed, he didn't know what he would do.
Go completely insane, he answered himself.
A few more minutes of breathing helped somewhat. He pulled out his cell phone, made a call, and then hung up after only a few words. At least tonight wouldn't be a total waste of his time. There was one person on this earth who would understand that the death of Ron Stoppable was a reason to celebrate. With dark amusement, he realized that in a week's time, the woman who right now was on her way over to meet him at his house would no longer be his girlfriend.
She would be his mistress.
In the dark, in the familiar surroundings of her room, the tears came again. She was convinced she was all cried out when her mother helped her upstairs. But after Raymond left, she had moved to the foot of her bed where her hope chest was. Opening it, she pulled out the Kimunicator, and Ron's old hockey jersey. He'd given it to her when he'd outgrown it. She used to wear it as a night shirt, as though sleeping in it meant in some way Ron's arms were holding her while she slept.
She curled up under the covers once again, clutching the shirt in her hands. Putting it on would have felt wrong, somehow. After all, she was engaged to a wonderful man who had pledged his life to her. It wouldn't be fair to Raymond. She merely held the shirt, stroked it, smelled it, and closed her eyes. Sobbing quietly, Kim Possible retreated from a cruel world and into her memories.
"How is it that a rock can conquer a pair of scissors, but be overcome by the flimsy nature of paper?" Big Daddy Brotherson asked the young man sitting opposite him.
"Dude," Ron replied, a smile on his face and a secretive look in his eye, "That is the eternal mystery of the game. Sometimes a weakness can become a strength in the right circumstances."
Wow, Kim thought, gazing at her boyfriend with a look of surprise, as big a goofball as Ron is, he has his deep moments. She concluded this was probably one of the many reasons why she loved him so much.
"Quite fascinating", Brotherson observed, raising a hammy fist above his palm, "Let us engage in another round."
Ron looked into his opponent's eyes with sly determination. Simultaneously, the two held their fists above their open palms. With three strikes of the fist upon the palm, they each revealed their weapon of choice. Up until now, Brotherson had relied on rock, convinced of its invulnerability. Each time Ron had conquered him with paper. But now, he deviously switched to scissors, and outflanked his opponent.
Ron breathed a sigh of relief. He was worried it would take another six or seven rounds for Brotherson to figure it out. "You changed to scissors!" Ron exclaimed, "Dude, you so rock at this game!" (It would be later that day before Ron realized his unintended pun).
"Indeed" Brotherson said, clearly pleased with himself, "Of all the silly games I engage in, I like this new one best. What is it you wish to know?"
Ron turned and smiled at Kim. You're on, his eyes told her.
"We're looking for information on a scientist by the name of David Kilgore," Kim explained, "We believe he may be involved in a recent break-in at HenchCo labs."
"He's more involved than you may realize," Brotherson said languidly, "David Kilgore used to be John Hench's top researcher. He's the man who discovered and developed a device called the Molecular Enhancer."
"Yeah," Ron said wistfully looking at his biceps, "We're familiar with it."
"What you may not know," Brotherson continued unhurriedly, "Is that when John Hench began selling this device to the highest bidders, he kept both the credit, and the profit to himself."
"So now Kilgore's looking for some payback," Kim concluded. "Do you know where we can find him?"
Brotherson regarded her sleepily, "Rumors indicate he has a lair somewhere in the Canadian Rockies."
"You sir, are a veritable fountain of exposition!" Ron said enthusiastically.
"I do what I can," Brotherson said, smiling drowsily.
Kim and Ron got up to leave.
"Do return, soon," Brotherson said slowly, "I sense you are a master of silly games. You would be a most worthy opponent."
"You got it, Big Daddy," Ron promised, "Next time I'll teach you to play chutes and ladders."
"Chutes and ladders?" Brotherson looked momentarily alarmed, "Such a game must be a paradox of silliness."
"It's all that and more!" Ron said over his shoulder, waving.
"Nice work", Kim said affectionately as they walked away, "What would I ever do without you?"
"Sit around at home with no one to smooch," Ron postulated.
"Come on, sweetie," she said taking his hand, "We've got to find a mountain-top lair in the Canadian Rockies."
"Why can't the bad guys ever just live in normal houses in normal neighborhoods?" Ron wondered aloud.
Despite the fact that it was late spring, it was still cold at this elevation in the Rockies. It took awhile to find the lair, but eventually Wade homed in on some suspicious signals and they parachuted in. They were able to bypass most of the security systems, but Wade was having trouble with the motion sensors in the hallway leading to the central chamber of the lair. Team Possible crouched at the far end of the hall, waiting for word from Wade that he'd disabled the sensors.
"I still don't get it", Ron whispered, "If this is just a beef between John Hench and a disgruntled employee, why not let them duke it out? I don't see why we should do Hench's dirty work for him."
"This is the guy who invented the Molecular Enhancer," Kim explained patiently, "If it has a weakness, or can be destroyed, David Kilgore will probably have that information in a database somewhere. We could put a major damper on Hench's operation."
"OK," Ron conceded, "I can see that. Fewer henchmen in the world means less work for us."
"Exactly, and less work for us means more time alone together." She whispered, giving him a knowing look.
"Oh, I am definitely on board with the mission now!" Ron exclaimed, brightening, "What's taking Wade so long?"
Kim took out the Kimunicator, Wade appeared on the screen. "What's the latest, Wade?"
"No luck!" Wade said, frustrated, "For some reason, the motion sensors are regulated by an independent network. I can't even link up to them. The good news is, I scanned the hallway, and the sensors only work up to four feet above the floor. Above that and you won't be detected. There should be a deactivation switch on the far end of the hallway."
Kim stood up, pulled out the grappler, and aimed above the door at the far end of the hall. Once the cable was latched in place, she turned to look at Ron. Ron reached down and pulled a sleepy Rufus out of his pocket.
"We need you to get to the other side and turn off the motion sensors, buddy," Ron whispered to the rodent. "And don't fall or we're all hosed."
"Hosed?" Kim asked sarcastically.
"When in Canada…" Ron responded, shrugging.
Rufus chattered something to the two of them and then scampered nimbly along the cable.
"Rock", Ron said to himself and began giggling uncontrollably.
"What?" Kim asked.
"Rock!" Ron said again, laughing, "I told Big Daddy Brotherson he rocks at Rock, Paper, Scissors. I just got that." And again he went off into uncontrolled giggling.
"You know how I feel about puns," she said, glaring at him, "Now focus!"
Rufus found the switch, disabled the sensors, and gave them a thumbs up. Kim tentatively stepped into the hallway, fully expecting alarms to blare at any second. None did.
"Let's go," Kim ordered. They moved off down the hallway.
The massive central room of the lair was one giant villain cliché. Electronic equipment was scattered about the place. Laser weapons and destructive rays were lined up menacingly against one side of the room. The obligatory giant view-screen occupied the wall opposite the entrance hall. No one seemed to be home.
Rufus found his way back into Ron's pocket. Kim crept into the central room and looked around, hoping to find something that might lead her to the Molecular Enhancer. One of the computer terminals near the view-screen had a common serial port. Whoever David Kilgore was, he was an amateur bad guy. She plugged the Kimunicator into the terminal.
"What exactly do you think you are doing?" a thin, nasally voice echoed in the huge chamber.
Ron uttered a startled yelp and dove for cover. Kim turned toward the source of the voice in a combat-ready stance. She could see no one.
"Why are you here?" the voice demanded.
"Your Molecular Enhancer has been causing havoc with my social life", Kim said seriously. She glanced quickly at Ron and winked.
"I fail to see how that's my problem," the pinched voice stated. From behind one of the banks of electronic equipment stepped Professor David Kilgore. He stood just short of four feet tall, had a thin, wiry build, was bald and wore an angry expression on his face.
Ron stood up hesitantly and looked around. Upon sight of Kilgore he let out an involuntary guffaw. Rufus could take this guy, he thought to himself.
"What are you laughing at?" Kilgore demanded.
"Sorry," Ron said chortling, "Usually the bad guys are all huge and scary."
Kim relaxed her guard a little.
"I mean," Ron said continuing, "You should at least have some guards or something. You know, like a squad of henchmen to-"
Kilgore cut him off with a shout of rage, "Do not say that name to me!"
"What?" Ron asked, confused, "Hench?"
"YAAARGH!", Kilgore screamed. He jerked back the sleeve of his lab coat and pounded a small fist against a wristband on his other hand. Suddenly he began to change. His chest bloated abruptly, and looked as though it would explode. His legs bulged, rippled, and swelled. His face turned a deep crimson as his high-pitched scream of rage became a deep, guttural bellow of fury. But for some spandex pants, he tore through his clothing as his size increased fourfold within a matter of seconds. A sixteen foot tall brute with hulking muscles towered above the teen heroes. He roared, swinging his massive fists in rage, destroying a nearby beam weapon and smashing it into twisted metal.
Clearly, Kilgore had made a few upgrades to the Molecular Enhancer.
"I think David just morphed into Goliath!" Ron shouted, terrified.
"How ironic", Kim observed, and vaulted out of the way of Kilgore's fists as they smashed down upon the spot where she was standing.
"Laugh at me now", Kilgore bellowed at Ron, stalking toward him.
"I'm gonna take a pass on that," Ron whimpered, and scrambled to get away.
Kim sprinted over to Ron, took out her grappler, and pulled them both to the ceiling in relative safety.
Kilgore stood glaring up at them, roaring angrily. Suddenly, Wade appeared on the chamber's main view-screen.
"Kim!" he exclaimed, "I've extracted several huge files regarding the Molecular Enhancer, but it's going to take a few days to study them. I don't think there's anything else we can do. You might as well head home."
"Yeah, no problem, dude," Ron muttered, "We'll just waltz out the front door."
Kilgore turned his attention to the large eleven-year-old currently occupying his main viewer. Wade, seeing all this through the camera on the Kimunicator, couldn't resist a non-genius moment. He stuck his tongue out and made a face.
Kilgore drove a gigantic fist through the screen and received enough voltage to drop a herd of cattle. The force of the voltage drove him backward and sent him smashing through the wall opposite the screen. Suddenly the lair had a new front door, though it opened on a thousand foot precipitous drop. Kilgore tumbled most of the way down the mountain.
Kim lowered them to the floor and retrieved the Kimunicator. Ron's attention was caught by something shiny; a red button on the main control panel.
"Self destruct button", Ron said, shaking his head, "This lair was designed by a total rookie. Sometimes I wonder if the company that builds these lairs just throws in the self-destruct option for free, knowing it'll be used and they'll be back out for another expensive lair-construction job."
A minute later, Kim and Ron were snowboarding down to the waiting Canadian Air Force Cargo Plane while two thousand feet above them, a series of explosions leveled Kilgore's hideout.
They were the only two passengers on the cargo plane. Kim sat looking straight ahead with her hands folded neatly in her lap, Ron sat quietly humming to himself, sometimes checking his watch, other times looking forward to the cockpit. After what seemed like forever, the pilot called back on the intercom.
"Ms. Possible, you wanted to be informed when we reached American air space. We just crossed over."
Ron looked at her hopefully, she returned his gaze with a sultry smile.
"Mission officially over", she purred and then pounced on him like a cat.
They had spent an afternoon discussing rules of conduct for missions. Now that they were dating Kim didn't want to get caught making out with her boyfriend at the wrong moment, or holding hands when they should be battling foes and henchmen. When they were on missions, it was all business, or at least business as usual. Missions would begin the moment they left Middleton, and would end at her discretion. Whenever she gave the word, the mission would be over and they were free to be their casual selves again. Ron was mildly tweaked at first, but after a couple of missions, saw the wisdom in this. After all, Team Possible was her creation; she was the hero, he was the sidekick. She called the shots where missions were concerned, but was very careful to treat Ron as an equal when they were over. She would often find herself very eager to declare a mission at an end, especially the longer ones.
When the co-pilot came back to use the lavatory a few minutes later, he was alarmed to see the young man was in some kind of medical distress. Ms. Possible had him pinned to the floor and was administering mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
"Is your friend all right?" He asked the young lady.
Without even coming up for air, the blonde kid gave a thumbs-up and they resumed their activity.
An hour later, the co-pilot bet the pilot they wouldn't even stop what they were doing to make the skydive when they reached Middleton airspace.
"You're betting me they'll just toss themselves out of the plane without even parting lips?" the pilot asked, incredulous.
The co-pilot merely nodded.
He won a crisp, new Canadian dollar.
Morning, and Ronin was perched on a rooftop several doors down from his parents' house. He watched the car pull into the driveway, and watched a miserable Kim Possible emerge from the vehicle with her mother. They had come to console the Stoppables. Perhaps they had also come to find consolation themselves.
He cursed himself for being such an idiot. Faking his death had been easy. Word was out this Lord Deathray person was looking to eliminate both him and Kim Possible, and Ronin surmised the Reunion was the most likely place Deathray would attempt to carry out his threat. By the time he pulled into the parking lot the previous night, Wade was already monitoring the area and had detected Deathray hovering far above the high school. When he fired the first shot, Ronin was already in his battlesuit, tossing his backpack with his driver license and a few other personal items onto the front steps. As anticipated, they were obliterated in the explosion, but there was enough to positively identify Ron Stoppable as the only blast victim. He hadn't anticipated Kim pursuing him up to the roof, and it was difficult looking into her eyes without ripping off his mask and revealing himself.
Ever since he found out Kim was getting married he'd been utterly miserable. Depression was his constant companion. After awhile, the idea of faking his demise began to appeal to him. He entertained the fantasy of a lone hero, romantic and tragic, thwarting evil while never having a real identity. Not that he wasn't already too far from it. When he learned of Kim's engagement, a huge part of him died inside. Ronin barely knew who he was anymore. The notion of burying Ron Stoppable and living out his life as Ronin became an obsession, and he finally made it a reality. Along the way, he had never once though about what it might do to his parents, or even to Kim's parents for that matter. They had been a second family to him, and all he could think about was ending that part of him that was Ron Stoppable.
He couldn't face them now. His mother and father wouldn't understand, and the shock of finding her son alive after learning of his death just might drive his mother to the grave. And Kim? Kim would hate him now if she ever found out. He couldn't live with the shame of that. Ron Stoppable had a sizeable fortune thanks to his Naco royalties and subsequent investments, and he'd set enough aside to take care of his parents for the rest of their lives. Ron Stoppable, Ronin decided, was better off dead.
He turned to leave when he caught the glint of sunlight on metal; a car had turned onto the street and pulled up to the Stoppable house. Ron saw Kim's fiancé get out and stand there as Kim came out to greet him. She gave him a kiss and a long embrace. This was too much for Ronin. He leapt from the roof and sprinted blindly, as far as he could, from his former life.
