Wanderer3- what can I say I have some free time this week and I've decided to use it cretaivly, as for who or what Wraithmaster is, you'll just have to wait and see

"Kim it's for you."

Kim groaned inwardly and looked in the mirror and yelled down, "just sent them up," taking a deep breath, "it's Saturday morning I should be sleeping so why aren't I?"

"Because the glorious powers that be decided since our school, and more specifically, anything involving the cheer squad, is a magnet for trouble, we all need self defense classes. And of course since we can't interrupt our normal classes we have to take these classes on the weekends. Add to that Mr. Barkin teaching the classes well, this all makes perfect sense, I hate to say it but Ron's right he is completely nuts," Bonnie sighed walking into Kim's room and leaning against the wall.

"That doesn't explain why they think I need these classes, everyone in the school knows I can take care of myself, of all people I should be exempt."

"And if they make exceptions for you they'll make them for others, then what is essentially a good idea goes down the drain."

"You actually think this is a good idea," grabbing a quick glance at Bonnie through the mirror, a small smile playing the corners of her mouth.

"Honestly yes," crossing her arms, "lets face it you…. we attract weird stuff, those around us are in danger, and while they may except it, it doesn't mean they shouldn't be prepared for it, or do we really need to bring up the Wannaweep or the skiing incidents, things that started out normal for us as a group then got way out of hand?"

"And I'm so sure Mr. Barkin's mutations each time had nothing to do with this overreaction."

"No I'm pretty sure the naked teenager on his back did that," remembering Ron's little move at the pep rally that was generally agreed to be the catalyst for the entire situation.

"And who's fault was that,"a hint of a luagh in Kim's voice.

"Can we drop it, he said we were even, so any word when he's showing up?"

"He's not, we're meeting him at the park, he was planning on a long night of playing Everlot," seeing the look of mild confusion, "It's a video game.

"Playing video games alone on a Friday night," shaking her head and sighing in disgust.

"Actually he was playing with Zita."

"Aaaaaaaaaahhhh," it was obvious by her tone what she was implying.

"It wasn't a date," a hint of venom in her voice, clearing her throat, "they've been teaming up in the game for a while now, it's no big, beside Felix was there too."

For a moment Bonnie thought about pressing the topic but choose to let it drop, "so how are we going to play this? I know you can go all out, actually I'm not sure why your not teaching the class, but Ron and I can't, or at least shouldn't."

Playfully, "she can be taught," earning a scowl from the Earth Knight, "right, Ron said he was going to down play his skills and try to keep everything he learned from the ninja school and the ax out of the way, but he's not going to play helpless, he made that pretty clear."

"Can't blame him for that, people do have a tendency to underestimate him."

"Yes they do and one of these days that's going to bite them in the butt. Anyway my honest opinion, do the same as Ron, play down everything you've learned since getting the mace, try not to out do the others or keep up with Ron or I, just," looking for the right word, "coast through the class."

Sarcastically, "gee why didn't I think of that."

"Don't give me that, you wanted my opinion I gave it."

Something between a growl and a hiss escaped Bonnie's lips as she leaned further into the wall, "I was hoping if I walked in and kicked some butt they'd let me leave."

"Well then think of it this way, if Ron and I kick butt and are allowed to leave, you can do the same. However if you do that you'll eventually have to explain how you got that good, and I don't think that's something you really want to do."

"Touché ," running her fingers through her hair, "so can we leave or are you just going to keep looking at yourself in the mirror."

"Don't even walk down that road Bonnie," turning to face her, "you know I can beat you." At the sight of her Kim feel the beginnings of a blush trying to form on her face, she still hadn't gotten use to the new look she was sporting thanks to Will and Ron, ironically both the hair and the class were the result of the same situation. Well technically the look was more due to Ron than Will, the former GJ agent wanted to tar and feather her and string her upside down by her toes from the school flagpole. Ron had originally let her off with a massive warning and the threat of one day asking her for a favor with out question, but when Will jumped off the deep end the Forest Knight had to forgo his plans and try to balance out Will's slightly insane plans for vengeance. As such Bonnie's formerly long hair had been cut down to four inches, the last inch of which was now a eye-catching white-blond. Kim was actually kind of amazed Bonnie had let them do it, and despite the early cat calls from various people in the school the Earth Knight had ended up adapting to the look, and even somehow started a trend that had spread to a few other girls in the school. But despite that Kim still felt her face flush every time she saw her, as the need to laugh welled up in her body and threatened to burst free.

"Funny, I seem to recall I was beating you in the last fight," a grinning like a cat who got the cream.

"Yeah you keep telling yourself that," grabbing her jacket from her bed and walking to the stair, "and just maybe it'll come true," laughing little as she hopped down the stairs, Bonnie following a few steps behind her.

In response Bonnie just playfully growled letting the insult roll off her, the two continued to make small talk on their way to the school and trade insults off each other, each a little more comfortable in each others company than they had been when the strange situation began. It didn't take them long to get to the school gym, a few of the others girls had beaten them there and were dressed in various forms of sweats and work out clothing, that ranged from functional to 'work out video' to street clothing. Of the group Kim ad Bonnie were the only ones really dressed for the knid of training that was mostly likely going to come from Mr. Barkin. The pair didn't really have to look to see the mats on the floor and the large teacher pulling more from the store room.

"OK I'm going to say it," Bonnie hissed under her breath, "someone's going to get hurt I can see it all now, mark my words."

"Let just make sure it's not us," Kim replied in an equally hushed tone as they approached the others.

As they approached the group of cheerleader Kim and Bonnie picked up bits of the conversation, "forget it….. No way…… not happening….. I still say we draw lots…… this has got to be against some rule…. they can't honestly make us do this."

"Ok what's going on," a slight growl in Bonnie's voice signaling she was not in the mood to listen to them complain about the arrangement.

"It's Ron we don't know who's going to work with him," Tara said pulling away from the others.

'Oh boy,' Kim thought, 'this is going to go to his head I just know it.'

"We're all a little worried he's going to hurt us…," Hope added

'Defiantly going to his head.'

"….I mean the guy can barely get through practice without falling over his own two feet, with our luck he'll collapse on top of us," she finished.

'or not,' as Kim grabbed the bridge of her nose.

"Not to mention he's a guy," Lisa added, "I don't care how you justify things he's going to 'slip' and grab things, I refuse to get groped by a pervert," the rest of the girls agreeing with her sentiments.

Kim was ready to calm them down when Bonnie let of a ear piercing whistle silencing everyone. "Look," she growled holding her hand up, "no ones going to argue that Stoppable is a klutz most of us have known him to long for that, but by the same token we all know he's not a pervert. Of all the guys in the school he's had more chances to try something to us than anyone else and he never has which is more than I can say for a lot of others, so everybody just cool it, working with him would not be the worst thing on this planet, and it's only for one day."

Kim was a little taken aback by Bonnie's little speech and stood stunned for a few seconds before shaking it off, "besides," the redhead spook up, "Ron and I have agreed that to be fair we'd be working together. He knows what I'm capable of, and on the off chance I let lose a little he's the only one that can take it with out getting seriously hurt."

A chorus on "No" came from various girls, before Lisa silenced them, "we were hoping you'd help us, at least you know what your doing and it's not like Ron's ever going to get any better."

Kim was ready to bite the girls head off after than little remake but never got the chance as Mr. Barkin's voice filled the air, "All right ladies, I see we're almost all here so lets get going."

Kim did a quick look around not looking forward to Ron's reaction to the situation, while she did see the rest of the girls walk through the door she couldn't see him any where, "we are missing someone Mr. Barkin," she spook up.

"I'm not going to argue," one of the girls said softly enough to hide her identity.

"Right Stoppable," from his tone it was obvious the teacher didn't really care but at the same time was irritated by what he perceived as a dismissal of his authority.

"Can you give me a second to call him," A hint of fear in Kim's voice, Ron was many things, late generally wasn't one of them, and there were plenty of reason on her mind while he could be late, many of them ending with him laying in the street bleeding any number of very dangerous people standing over him.

"Make it quick Possible," he barked.

Kim nodded and pulled her kimmunicator from her jacket, and walked away from the other girls who were following Mr. Barkin to the mats. She made a quick call to Ron and after a few moments it became clear he wasn't going to answer and flipped the channel over to Wade's, her webmasters face appearing almost instantly on the screen.

"It's kind of early Kim something up?"

"I can't raise Ron and he's suppose to be here at the school right now, think you can pick him up for me, I know he probably over slept but humor me?"

"Sure one second," as he started typing, after a few seconds he looked up, "that weird," he said more to himself than Kim.

"I don't want to hear that Wade," the Fire Knight hissed looking at his image.

"Sorry, I just can't pick up his cords signal, let me check his kimmunicator," as she started typing again and continued half talking to himself, "huh wonder where he stuck this, lets go thermal," looking up at his camera, "nothing Kim if he's around I'm not picking him up, for that matter I'm not picking anyone up in the house."

Kim could feel sweat running down her face, "don't you have a tracking device in him or something?"

"You know that wouldn't be ethical," shifting his eyes from the screen, "besides the organic tracking chips are still in beta testing," a hint of embarrassment in his voice.

"Lowering her voice, make a call to Zee, have her check on him see if they can find him."

"Right," as he started typing on his key board, "oh boy," his eyes getting big.

"OH BOY WHAT!" her voice carrying through the gym, the words echoing off the walls and bringing everyone's attention to her.

"I can't find them either, give me a second I'm going to make a few calls and see if their parents know what's going on."

"No," the word an order more than a suggestion, her voice low, "I'm going to check on him, get the blow hard to meet me at Ron's place, keep everyone out of the loop, I don't want to worry their parents till we have to." Kim flipped off the device and turned to the others who were starting to gather around her, "look I'm sorry I have to go," walking to the door, "something's come up and I really have to handle it, nothing major but you never know." A quick look told her the others were probably buying the lie, the lone exception being Bonnie, who was trying to keep her face neutral, but still had a hint of fear on it.

"No way," Bonnie barked turning on the bitch voice bring everyones attention to her, "if she can bail on this so can I, I was under the impression this all or nothing deal." A heart beat later the other girls erupted in unison, none wanting to waste their Saturday at a class they didn't want to be at.

"QUITE!" the teacher barked, "no one getting out of this," folding his arms, "I don't know what you and Stoppable have planned, but your not getting away with it."

"We don't have anything planned," she growled the concern in her voice quite clear, "look I'll make you a deal, call this off, and next Saturday I'll teach this class alone, you can sleep in, I'll deal with everything myself, everyone OK with that?"

The girls all agreed in one form or another, While Mr. Barkin just kept his arms crossed and mulled the idea over in his mind, "fine, but I will be checking in, if you all aren't here, I'll hold you responsible for this Possible."

"Fine with me," as she turned and ran for the door not waiting around to see if he changed his mind, half way to Ron's house she slowed down letting Bonnie catch up and filled her in on the details as she shot back up to full speed, she was glad to see Will outside of Ron's house waiting for them.

"Nice hair rocky," a smirk on his face as he called out what had become his traditional welcome to Bonnie.

"Tell me you know something," Kim coughed in Will's direction sucking in a deep breath and keeping Bonnie from verbally retaliating.

"I just got here a few minutes ago, I'm not really sure what the situation is so I held back, but I did a quick perimeter sweep, I'm not seeing anything weird, other than nobody seems to be here, but that doesn't mean much at the moment."

"Great," Kim growled not liking the situation and pulled out her kimmunicator and flipped a slot at the back open and caught the key that fell from it and walked to Ron's front door. "Always have a key ready," as she slipped the key into Ron's lock and pushed it open," much to her relief nothing exploded. It only took a quick sweep to find a note on a table near the door.

'Son, at the company retreat be back tomorrow night, keep the house in one piece, Mom.'

"It's his mom's hand writing," the revelation making Kim feel a little better, if something happened to Ron and Pyre it would be bad, if it happened to his entire family it would be worse. "RON, PYRE GET OUT HERE," her voice carrying through the room not bothering with stealth, after a few moments it became clear no one was going to show up. "Bonnie, Will check down here, I'll check upstairs if you find anything yell."

Will nodded his head, "sounds good," turning to Bonnie, "try not to touch anything that might be a clue."

"How about you kiss my…"

"Guys," Kim yelled half way up the stairs, "we have a real problem here so save it."

"Fine," as Will turned his attention to the task at hand.

"Got it," Bonnie doing likewise.

'This is not good,' a sinking feeling in Kim's stomach as she entered Ron's room despite nothing seeming out of place. 'No struggle,' a small ray of hope falling on the situation, 'but that just adds to more questions.' A quick once over didn't tell her much other than her early suspicions were right and he wasn't taken by force. Forcing herself to be calm she pulled out her kimmunicator, Wades face appearing, "I need a full scan of the room, I want to know if anything can be picked up."

"One second," typing on his keyboard, after a second several sensors shot up from the blue box and began moving independently of each other. After a minute or so the sensors retraced and Wades fingers flew over the keyboard as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing.

"Any day now Wade," the Fire Knight growled impatiently.

"Don't get snippy Kim this isn't easy, Ron's room isn't like most peoples, between himself and Pyre all sorts of weird things show up in that room, Pyre emits some kind of nontoxic mutant butane, the plants near his home are processing carbon dioxide more effectively than they should, not to mention the fumes from his various food concoctions on occasion have permeated his room leaving weird residual signals."

"Cut the chatter and give me an answer."

"I don't know, I'm defiantly picking up something weird but I'm not sure what, I'm going to have to get back to you Kim, this may take a while to process, I think I'll have transfer the data to another system with the specific tools to analyze it."

"How long Wade," her words carrying the hint of bodily harm if she didn't like the answer.

"A few hours, maybe a couple of days," earning a death glare from Kim, "look," snapping at the redhead, "I don't know, I'm not even sure what I'm looking at here, until I know what I'm seeing I can't go with a specific tool, so just give me some time to figure this out OK."

"Sorry Wade……. I'm just…."

"Your worried I get it, I do, so am I, but yelling at me won't make things go any faster," shaking his head, "I'm going to call Monique, send her down, hopefully she can do something I can't."

"Thanks Wade."

"Hey Ron's tough," Wade's voice was sympathetic, "whatever it is he can handle it."

"Lets hope so," switching the kimmunicator off, "where are you partner?"

Groaning, "to early mom," as Ron turned over and felt something poke him in the head. Groaning loader but keeping his eyes closed as he felt for the thing poking him half wondering if something had fallen off his head board or if it was Prye's armor. After a few misses he found it, his mind becoming more lucid as every second as he started registering that he was touching a rock, "what." He slowly opened his eyes and registered something was very wrong, there was nothing above him but sky and clouds that somehow seemed different from the trees near the forge, "son of a….," sitting straight up, "OK I want to wake up now I really do," as his mind fully awoke and he registered the surrounding, a place he had only seen once before, he was back inside Everlot.

Growling and cursing under his breath he stood up and looked himself over silently hoping he was in a dream, and forcing himself to stay calm. His body was in the same clothing it had been in the first time he was here with the exception of two addition, his arm cuff and his green communication cord. Focusing his mind the cuff glowed a slight green, then faded as he choose to let the power remain dormant, 'until I know what the hell is going on I need to keep something in reserve.'

Tapping his cord, "wide spread, this is Ron somebody pick up."

Rather then wait for a reply he couldn't be sure was coming, he decided to look around and try to get his bearing, he knew he was in a field, but with the games lay out that meant he could be anywhere of a hundred places. To his right was a forest, to his left a smoking mountain, and off behind him seemed to be an ocean. Yelling, "map," somehow he wasn't surprised that nothing appeared, "Zeforus Escape," and no blue whirlwind appeared to pick him up. "Ok I can't figure out where I am, and I can't teleport away, nice to know, but in no way helpful."

"Ok I guess I can go walk around," looking out trying to pick a direction only to stop s he felt his cord restrict on his wrist.

A quick tap brought Zita's voice to the surface, "oh thank you I'm not alone."

"Zita where are you."

"You mean other than Everlot?"

"Yeah, it was hoping for a specific location."

"Not really sure, some kind of forest, and none of my game magic's are working and I can't find fine my sword."

"Same here, though a few other things I'm carrying are fully functional, if you catch my drift."

"Yeah think so should we…"

"No lets keep it in reserve till we know what's going ……on," his attention pulled skyward as something appeared over head. The clouds began to shift and spin forming together and growing dark. "Zee tell me you see this."

"You mean the sky morphing or something else horribly wrong."

"Defiantly the sky, means we're probably near each other, it seems to be over my head so try heading towards it and we'll meet up, lets just hope this thing isn't dangerous."

"Considering where we are dangerous is a guarantee," Zita hissed heading to where she hoped the Forest Knight might be.

After a few seconds the clouds stopped shifting and took Wraithmasters form from the shoulders up, the red slits of his mask angling down to look in Ron's directions, "Hello again," rather than Malcolm's voice it was booming voice he had used then Ron had first met him.

"What's the game Malcolm,' he growled

"I think you already know," laughing, "but I'll wait for our fare maiden of the mountain to join our little conversation."

"So your behind this?"

"Very good knave, can you also count to five?"

"I thought we were cool Malcolm, I thought you gave up this insanity?"

"Simple minds think a lot of things and few of them are ever true."

"This simple mind helped kick your butt before and the second he gets back to the real world he'll tear that puffy shirt off and force it down your throat."

"By all means keep talking I find your bravado mildly amusing."

"And I find you repulsive," Zita spat emerging from the tree line.

"Ah and our beautiful Ice Warrior appears, your reputation has grown quite a bit since out last encounter, I look forward to this rematch."

"So that's what this is all about a rematch?"

"Please, nothing so pedestrian this is about settling old scores and being able to move freely into the future unencumbered by petty details of the past."

In unison, "What?"

Arrogantly, "you'll see, well you won't, the rest of the world will but you'll be dead by then."

"So your what going to shot a lighting bolt and kill us while you just hover there Malcolm," Zita hissed.

"As I said nothing so pedestrian, I'm going to give you a chance, you two seem to want to face the three beast and I'm going to give you that chance. If you defeat all three you can fight me, and if I am defeated you'll go free."

"You expect us to believe that Malcolm," Ron growled at the cloud.

"Believe whatever you want Knave those are the rules they cannot be changed, if you win your free, if you don't you die here."

Ron was ready to bark something when Zita spoke up, "What about a fair fight last time we had our weapons and magic, you expect us to take the three beasts on without any kind of help?"

"You know the rules, once you enter this level all you have is what you brought with you, it's not my fault you didn't come prepared," throwing his head back and laughing as the clouds lost cohesion.

"We are in so much trouble aren't we," Ron asked, his voice tired as he began to truly understand what was about to happen.

"Oh yeah," nodding her head, "I wasn't going to tell you guys this till after we were able to get to this level, but I did a lot of checking, called in a few special favors and managed to get the low down on the three beasts, to put it lightly we're in trouble. These are the toughest creatures in the game, supposedly the few that actually make it this far haven't survived for more than ten minutes and after they lose there characters are not only wiped from the server but their own hard drives as well, a little detail the factory didn't bother to put out. That's how no one knows about them, the few that have seen them no one will listen to because everyone believes they're noobs making stuff up."

"In other words, we're dead."

"Pretty much, yeah."

"It could be worse, at least we aren't fighting monkeys."

"Did I mention the demon monkeys on this level?"

Ron just stared at her with an open mouth, "tell me that's a joke, please tell me that's a joke."

Smiling, "yeah it is, I just figured I should lighten the mood a little."

"Evil," Ron snarled at her and turned his attention to the smoking mountain in the distance, "so any idea where these things are suppose to be," all the while thinking, 'do say it, do say it, do say it.'

"On the three sides of Ragnarok Keep."

Giving her a side long look, "do I look like a walking atlas?"

"You were looking at it."

"Excuse me, I have to go pound me head against a tree for a while," as he started walking to the tree line ready to knock himself unconscious.

"Stop being a drama queen, it's not like we don't have an edge here, we've survived fighting giant monsters before."

"Except we never fought giant monsters, we watched other things fight giant monsters, and generally they didn't win either."

"HEY DID TO!" as a jet of fire brushed across Ron's ear.

Ron just stared for a second before breaking into a dash and picking up the rodent in both hands, a little surprised that instead of his Tunnel Lord body he was in his armored rodent form, "Booyah, we have an edge."

"Hey," pushing Ron's hands away and brushing off his armor as he stood on his hind legs.

"You hear bud?"

"Oh yeah, big trouble."

Zita walked over to them, "all right three on three, the odds are looking better."

"How small, beasts big," making hand movements showing the size difference.

"How do you think flame thrower," as his arm cuff glowed green for a second causing a smile to form on Pyre's lips as he raised an eyebrow and rubbed his hand together.

"Thunder Dragon going down," a small jet of flame slipping form his lips.

"Down boy," as Ron shifted the rodent into one hand and pushed him down with the other, "right now these are our only edges and we're not wasting them, so don't get ant ideas about burning everything to the ground, till we know what's going on we're moving slowly, cautiously." Turning to face Zita, "Everybody cool with that?"

"No problem on this end but I defiantly want a shot at the phoenix before this is over."

"If winning really is the only way out of here I'm sure you'll get it, but till I say so, we keep everything on a low key, got it."

The pair nodded.

"Good, so lets get going, the sooner we're out of here the better."

"Or the sooner we walk into a monster."

Authors note- A little bit of development but still no real clue what's going on expect that to change soon in the next few chapters. Well not much to say really but hopefully things will start coming together next chapter. And for anyone who wants to know why the magic's working in the virtual world, well I'm of the mind that magic and science can be integrated but if you don't plan on it before hand you can never be quite sure what the results are going to be.

Please R&R