36

"Okay, Kim." Ronald said casually, thumbing the tiny plunger. Frost tingled on a small spot on the small of her back as a few drips glistened brilliantly in the light, trailing down slowly… lingeringly… coyly down the length of that thin shaft of steel. "You're going to feel a little pressure…."

"Ron," her eyes rolled typically, though they didn't wander -too- far from that silvery sliver, "so not the drama! I've been through Hell, for Pete's sake! A little prick isn't going to kill me… I hope!"

"What?" his lids closed-opening just as quickly over those chocolate dotted orbs.

"Do you even know what you're doing, Ron?" she asked. "For all I know, you could be pushing the bubbles out of some ammonia!"

A disgusted sigh, the corners of those thin lips dipping into a frown. "Reading is fundamental, KP!"

"What is that stuff anyway?"

"Prophylactics." The sliver jerked when his fingers tapped against the cylinder. "So don't worry. Though I have some moments, I'm not a complete flake!"

"Right."

"Given your treatment," he said, "and with that thing! Full of holes and bleeding like a royal Russian family, smacking you around like a speed bag, who knows what got inside you."

"Understandable."

The chilled air, the sheer cold of the table poking deeper into her buttocks, the utter soreness that burned within her like five-alarm fire; for the first time in at least 24 hours, they had nothing when Ron gently took her arm by the wrist. The needle slashed through the air gracefully, so elegantly it made a tiny swish. She looked away; she couldn't bear to see it, pressing her teeth together while her nerves drew an unnerving picture in her mind-right at the crook of her arm. She could have sworn her joint expanded-inflating like a party balloon.

"Whatever you do, Kim…" Ron said in a slowly like a professional, "don't flinch!"

Out it went, slickly and cleanly just as his fingers pressed gently against her joint.

"All done!" his pink, pudgy fail-safe exclaimed.

"So I feel…." She groaned. "Damn!"

"Was that really so bad, KP?" Ron said rhetorically-just like her mother. "Just a little prick!"

"Goody, I'm clean-" She cringed-fingers spearing for that small tangerine that mystically found its way into her shoulder. It felt like it grew; the pads of her fingers sat unevenly at the tip of her collarbone, forming around it. "-OH- Damn it…!"

The metal sliver met the floor with a sharp -TING-. "KP?"

"My shoulder…!" she pressed her teeth together tightly, just feeling the enamel rub against each other. "GOD-it hurts! Thought it was better-but wrong again…!"

"What's wrong with it?" he asked. "Did you break it?"

"M-Might have…!" she stuttered. "Shit! Feels like a goddamn softball's stuck there…!"

"Water in the joint." He noted. "That's probably it. The injection must have agitated it or something."

"No shit!" it passed out through her teeth in a growling bark.

"Can you still move?"

"Barely…."

"That does it, Kim." The soft chest of black disappeared, falling down like a curtain before her. A patch of dirty yellow sat squarely in front of her kneecaps briefly before the black shot back up. A thin metal line glinted inches above his dark mitten. "I've got to drain it!"

"No…!" she shook her head. "Don't…!"

That thin metal line floated closer.

"It won't take long." Ron continued. "I promise I won't hurt you-"

"No, Ron!" she shook her head furiously. Her grungy locks slapped her in the face.

"KP, I-"

"I said NO, RON!" she shouted, and her fingers, her palm flattened instantly, sweeping for his hand. The skin at the base of her pinky reared up against the sliver sharply, irritably. The metal spiraled aimlessly in the air, completely opposite of two-maybe four drops… translucent, crimson spots—

No…-

That slapped onto the table no more than a foot away from her hip.

She swore loudly when she looked at her hand; red oozed around the base of her little finger in a thin line. The blond looked at her dumbstruck.

"KP, what the hell!"

"No time!" sluggishly, she pushed herself off the table. Her feet felt awkward as her soles flattened against the hard linoleum, wanting seemingly to walk off on their own in different directions. The girth of Ron's torso thankfully did its inadvertent best to keep her lips off the floor. "We've got to get out of here… now!"

"Whoa… hold your horses, Kim!" Gently, carefully he pushed her back up as she guided her feet back under. "I know time's against us, but you can barely walk!"

"Ron…!" what little of her strength she still held fast, she channeled it into her quivering throat. Her voice became a crescendo while her hands just grasped the boy's loose shirt. "Innocent people are going to die-do you hear me? Do you-GET THAT?"

"KP…." Ron pushed her hands down, off of him. One of his hands clasped gently around her good shoulder. "You've been through a lot in the past day, I understand completely. Innocent people will die; I get that fine-but remember that even more will die if we lose our cool! So get a nice, tight hold of yourself-and fast! This whole damn planet's counting on us!"

"What the hell am I doing?" sense had a difficult time as she tried to shake it back into her head. A palm met her face, dragging at what little of loose skin as she drew it down. "You're right."

"After your little -outburst- back in that nasty room, I wouldn't worry about that freak." Ron shrugged. "Chain to the head…! Man, forget about him… or it-whatever floats your boat. And even if by some crazy fluke it's still kicking-rolling, this looks like a temperature control lab! Judging by the AC, I'd say it'd be too cold for it to smell us."

That was the truth, so it appeared to be anyway. Large black vents above, stuck in a mess of wiring, pipes, and vents circulated cold air into the room, practically blowing it in. A LCD fixed squarely beside the clock on the back wall told her how quickly her blood was chilling in Fahrenheit, in rather large, red numbers. Under shelves of large, looming jars of mysterious nastiness, large, complicated arrays of tubes, bottles and jars, flasks and beakers sat on the counters, alive, teaming, filled to the brims with solids, gasses, and liquids. They seemed to glow, even in the bright fluorescents, pale with a hue of green like death, flowing together in a strange culmination on the table nearby, stagnating in a rather large tank the size of a water cooler. How appropriate. She didn't want to know what would happen if even a drop splashed on her, let alone an open wound.

"I don't even want to know what they were making down here." She said.

"It's not Gatorade," Ron replied, "I can tell you that much. Should we take some samples?"

"Forget it." She said. "No use if our resident genius is in jail at the moment. Besides, what goes on in this hellhole should stay in this hellhole before the cavalry blows it sky high! It's probably just acid anyway, or some other corrosive substance."

"Right." He nodded. "How're your legs?"

"I'm-still in pain, Ron." She frowned. "I can move, but I'll need some help. Still, some ibuprofen would be great right about now…!"

"Don't worry about it, KP." He smiled warmly. "Besides the good old comic relief, I'm that little splash of Diablo Sauce on your burrito that'll make your day! I'm the vinaigrette that makes your house salad oh-so more enjoyable, and the white stuff in your pastry!"

"Where's the cream filling…?" they shared a laugh together.

"Mr. Horse here can give you a -hint, KP," Ron said naughtily, "but then, I'm afraid you wouldn't like me anymore…!"

"Mr. Horse can keep to himself!" she said. "Is this your first time you saw a girl in her panties, let alone your best friend-hmm…?"

"Duh, Kim…." Ron took her hint at face value, shying his gaze away. Flesh just below those freckles flushed hotly with color, even his ears. "It's what some dreams are made of, if you're a guy! …And then some!"

She didn't want to know, not right now, though she had a fairly good idea what he meant.

"I believe that!" she grinned weakly. "And if it's anything, it's the first time I let a guy look at me this -exposed!"

The back of his head, the tight mat of dirty blond hair angled acutely with the floor. "Really?"

"Considering the alternative back there," she nodded, "hell-I'd rather be saved in my birthday suit than let that thing have its way!"

"I'd be worried if you didn't, Kim." He replied.

"Ron, did I say you could shun me?"

Her wrist bowed when she put her hand on his cheek, turning his head around gently. Those big eyes of his, warm and gentle, the whites grew slowly while his lids parted wider. Those two black dots that dotted those warm chocolate puddles grew too, dilating. His lips parted ever so slightly as those eyes rolled down as far as possible, taking their sweet time rolling back up.

Rufus let out a noise, a kind of droning sound that could barely qualify as a note, flat and hard on her tender ears. She couldn't help but take a peek, eyes way ahead of her-and wished had kept them under a tight leash. Rufus, everybody's favorite African Hairless was gaga, those dark beads boggled-overwhelmed completely BY HER!

"Get a girlfriend, Rufus!" She sighed. Rufus made a squeak when she gingerly pushed the rat back down its burrow.

"What'd you say, KP…?" Ron asked catatonically, the big brown lamps were on yet nobody was home.

"Ron," carefully, she pushed herself closer to his ear, "do you know what'd make this situation better…?"

"Whip cream…?" he replied. Her throat quivered slightly as she felt a case of acid reflux come upon her. "Maybe chocolates and sprinkles topping a layer of chocolate shell…?"

"No Ron…." She whispered.

"What's that then, KP…?"

"Some-PANTS!" she yelled. Ron stumbled over his own feet, nearly toppling onto the table.

"Huh?"

"You heard me, Ronald!" she frowned. "As much as I -KIND OF- enjoyed your helpless state, I'm going to turn into an icicle here!"

"Oh." He blinked. "That's right! Clothes…."

"You caught me on a good day, Ron." She rubbed her shoulder just below the softball. Something wet and slick moistened a spot on her arm around the pinky finger, something that stained the skin of her arm in thin, red smears, a grim reminder of the cause of horrors she beheld. "It doesn't got to be Club Banana this time! Even Smarty Mart's good enough!"

"Coming from the fashion queen?" he blinked. "THE retail snob? Boy, isn't this a Kodak Moment…!"

"Shut it!" she growled. "I don't need a whole ensemble. Just some pants."

"You can't go outside like Rambo at this time of night." Ron replied.

"Why not?"

"Hello," Ron knocked gently on his own skull, "anybody home in there? It's the desert, KP! You'll catch pneumonia!"

"Oh." She blinked. "Right."

"I spotted a laundry room not too far from here." Ron said. "You should find something there. But we've used enough time already. We'd better get going. Care for some help, KP?"

"Of course." She smiled weakly. "And-sorry I was a rabid bitch."

"That's okay, KP." He smiled back as he took her good arm into his warm grasp. He weaved his head under his own arm just as he pulled her closer. A warm sensation tingled in her belly while he wrapped her arm around the back of his neck, burning when she felt his other arm coil around her waist. She simply shrugged it off. It wasn't like it was the first time it happened. "We all have our days."

"Isn't that the goddamn truth…." She nodded. "Let's just go. The sooner, the better."

"Your wish is my command, K!"

BAMM-

"-P...!"

The ceiling roared out at them in a horrible bang. The readout on the back wall flickered briefly. The arrays jingled when glass knocked amongst each other and loose instruments jumped a couple centimeters off the countertops, only to fall back down in a nasty clatter. Wires swayed while the pipes rattled overhead-and a single vent lost much of its shape as a piece of it grew exponentially, expanding swiftly into a lopsided bulb… as though someone-rather-some-thing- was pounding at it!

"Oh… CRAP!" she cursed.

The vent finally gave way in a milky cloud of dust, crashing to the floor in a rattling clatter. The glass barely rang, the instruments hardly leapt from the table while a thick shadow flopped out of the ceiling, reaching for the floor like thick ooze. It let out a familiar, terrible snarl-and the ceiling screeched, warping and twisting so painfully it was a miracle she could even look.

The milky curtain of dust finally wiggled loose of its proverbial rod, motes twirling to the floor, their final resting place while the bane of her displeasing stay growled their swan song. Familiar orbs, doted with eager, lustful hazel, leered for her greedily, hungrily. She could see its fiery breath, billowing out of that menacing jaw in thick, noxious plumes of gray-black.

Thankfully that chain put a real nasty chink in its crimson-slicked helm, practically a dent. The left eye was practically buried in a thick gnarls of black and blue that was dragged over from the left, the temple fractured certainly and was dragged along with it. The jaw looked broken on the left, dropping more that what it should have with the actuator snapped clean off, hanging loosely from the cheekbone like a strange piercing. Its hand of strange flesh gave the mandible a hearty tap, listening to ring flatly… if it could do such a thing-before it let out another terrible growl.

"Too cold to smell us, eh…?" she frowned. "Think again, Stoppable!"

"How was I supposed to know?" he exclaimed.

The freak reared back its head. A hollow, ragged sound filled the room; it was a crescendo-and the little flame that swayed atop that large, oral tube sank right into it!

"Forget it!" she pushed herself away from him. "MOVE!"

Ronald yelped, tumbling to the floor over his own feet when her bear paw pushed firmly against his sternum-and a ragged cone of yellows, oranges, and reds shot past her, glowing, lapping hotly for her when its master shouted. She yelped herself, the furious heat caused her too to leap backwardly for the cold tile-

And then it was out, just like that, the reheat dissipated like vapor, consumed by the cold. The room, it was an ice cube on par with the Antarctic. Perhaps it was too frosty for the flamer to work efficiently. Playing it easy, she carefully rolled herself to her side-her body jumped reflexively when her hip touched something hot-not lukewarm, not even cold-hot like a soldering iron. She heard it, water crackling, fizzling. The patch of skin dried up instantly; she could feel it shrink.

"God-If I didn't have ENOUGH crap wrong…!" she growled, wiggling her way back a few inches. A piece of the table had dribbled on the floor-dribbled- on the floor! It had pooled into a little misshapen circle while the rest of the table, that sleek and shiny table forged from stainless steel had become butter in an instant, melting in a thick glob. The glass window above dripped onto the steel in orange, glowing gobs. "With… me…!"

"I don't WANT TO MELT!" Ron cried as he scrambled to his feet. One of his cargo pockets shivered predictably.

"Don't touch the flame!" she shouted. "You'll be butter in an instant!"

"Don't have to tell me twice!"

She forced herself to a squat-and she dived over the molten metal while the freak gasped again. She stole a look in mid-flight; the freak had its head reared back, and that little flame was nowhere to be seen!

"Oh CRAP!" she exclaimed as she came out of her dive, rolling to her cold feet. Ron's eyes darted uselessly, his feet frozen while his waist twisted him around, as though looking for some emergency box to break open for the solution to his quandary. His feet thawed instantly when she seized him by a short sleeve. "The next room, Ron! GO!"

She felt another dive come upon her as the Tank Man roared again. The heat of his fury wisped against the flesh of her back when it blew through the door, so hotly that it was unbearable. The flames crashed against back wall of the next room, her eyes could catch wisps of jet-black fume from out the wall, and the stench of burning rubber bands blew into her nose-

But yet again, the flames vanished into thin air though their traces could easily be seen, staring her right in the face. It felt like a nightmare; she felt so hopeless, so powerless that she just wanted to awaken to her bedroom back in Middleton. Yet the nasty, smoking blackness on the wall, the contusions on her body had power, showing to her how real was everything around despite how unreal it seemed.

That's why I can't wake up…-

This room reminded her of the one back in the stick man's little fun house, small and cramped, where one would look on with impunity while the men did their jobs. Thankfully, the room had not the bizarre and unnerving instruments she had been accustom too over the past day or so. A rather large control panel sat squarely in front of the squared hole where that magic mirror was planted, festooned with more buttons, slides, and jog-wheels than she could shake a stick at.

"The control panel!" she said. "That's it!"

"-Oh…-" Ron groaned, "what's it…?"

"Fight fire with fire, Ron!" she said.

"We're a little short of a M2-2 at the moment, KP!"

"Trust me on this!" she said. "Just get to the control panel! Rufus!"

A couple of whiny grunts came out of Ron's favorite cargo pocket. The African Hairless managed to wiggle his tiny little head out from under the pocket's flap. Those black beads blinked while he angled his head, slipping the rest of his body out before his owner pushed himself to his feet.

Another blink. "Hmm…?"

"Rufus!" a sigh of relief gladly blew out her mouth. "Glad to see you're not bacon!"

"True-true!" the rat grinned.

Out from the previous room came another hollow, ragged growl. Despite the pain in her body, the burning intense, she had managed to roll away from the door before the real heat blasted inside. Rufus made like the Road Runner, the clicking of his claws in an all-out skitter before the white-hot flames bathed the floor.

"Rufus!" she exclaimed. "That freak on wheels!"

"Uh-huh-uh-huh!" the rodent hung onto her hasty words tightly. "Yep…?"

"The wires!" she said haggardly. "On the back of its head! Cut them-sever them all! I got this feeling…!"

"Uh-huh…?" the rodent nodded.

"Now!" As carefully as her trembling limbs would let her, she scooped that little African Hairless into her hands. Predictably he made a squeak of surprise as she cocked her good arm back, but it was instantly buried underneath yet another shallow, ragged growl howled out from the next room. Those brilliant hazel orbs glinted sharply in the light, grinning at her as it were while that fleshly lip of its curled into itself atop that slick row of soiled pearly whites.

It reared its strange head back again-this was it, no time for second thoughts, no regrets!

"RUFUS!" the hairless' master shouted. "KIM! WHAT THE HELL?"

"Fly, baldy!" came her reply. "FLY!"

The rat shrieked terribly, a scream so terrible that it did more hurt to her ears than the freak's grotesqueries. He made like a football, spiraling perfectly with practiced ease of a professional, drilling into the air while it sank into a dive. Her hasty preparation seemed to be working; the freak was caught off guard, ceasing its furious howl, practically choking on its own foul breath.

A little ball of fuming black puffed out from that tube mere seconds after Rufus dug its nails into its face. Whatever wounds the rodent did claw, it was lost completely on that strange, tight flesh. Feebly, the Tank Man tried to swat at him with that metal claw-it was too bulky, too large and cumbersome to even grace the tip of its nose. The rat had sank behind the head, wiggling below the horizon of its skull long before the thing realized it had still a natural arm-

"YES…!" it came out with welcome relief-

The arm that still wielded it some use while that talon plummeted to the linoleum, the arrays jumping, crashing into each other when the floor resonated in a hefty -BANG! Those dots of hazel shrank, overwhelmed by a field of white as Tank Man let out a terrible growl.

Rufus had a gleam in those dark beads, beaming the triumph they shared so joyously. Ron let out a whistle, not unlike the ones that had pierced her ears during a football or a basketball game back at school. She thought they had caught a "boo-yah" out through the rodent's buckteeth as it leapt from the top of Tank Man's skull, scampering for her on the center table. Rufus judged it wrong; he was too small to clear the space between the table and the windowsill. Thankfully Ron had caught him with an open glove.

"Good little hairless rodent…!" she said.

Her smirk was fleeting at best. The corners of her lips dropped, pulling the rest into a stern frown, the top wrinkling into a sneer as she stared daggers at the root of her current irritation. The whining drawls of servos, the encroaching mark of its sadistic, terrible-evil- presence that stalked her so, had died. By the utter grace of the Almighty, its bite rivaled not the sound of its bark. The dirty little secret was out, staring helplessly back at her in the face. Tank Man was utterly gone; Drazen's attack dog was nothing more than a hobbled sibling after all.

"Well, well, well…!" she huffed. "Look's like your human after all! Hell-looking at you, G, I'm not even sure that you are human! If you do, you can barely be classified as! Look how pathetic you look clinging to life with that crap! I guess I never really noticed till now…! You are fearsome, Galil, I'll give you that. But that's all you are! Don't expect anything else from me-not anymore!"

Those eyes shot her a dirty look. SFC Jude was right, so it seemed.

"Understand me, huh?" she shot back. "Good for you! Hope you told your brother goodbye, G! Hope you made peace with God, since you're going out to pasture like the little monster everybody knew!"

"KP…." She turned for the blond. Those chocolate eyes of his gazed at her incredulously, almost in sheer amazement. "What are you saying?"

She closed her eyes, taking in a cool breath. Thoughts were a muddle as they raced through her mind, so merciful, so cruel, so kind, so hateful, so disturbing. It was a giant schizophrenia. Ron didn't know what she was saying? Hell-after the past few days, she didn't know what the hell passed through her lips anymore, maybe never again….

"Burn it."

"I'm sorry?" Ron batted his eyes, those dark and innocent chocolate eyes. Amazing really, how the boy had the courage to pull the trigger against the freak in the first place.

"You heard me, Ron." She nodded. "Burn it."

"Are you serious!"

"Ron!" she growled. "There is NO argument here! Need I remind you that we got a maniac to pursue?"

"KP…."

"Don't feel sorry for this creep!" she said. "It's a killer all right-and God only knows how many it done in before! You of all people should know what your Torah says about murders!"

Ron batted those eyes again. For some reason they looked so hurt, but why though…?

"Burn it, Ron!" she said again. "It's a temperature controlled laboratory, after all. Just spin the jog-wheel, put the temperature at max, and hit the button! If you're worried that it'll get out, don't. Rufus severed all the wiring. It's not going anywhere!"

Ron blinked again, still as incredulous as ever.

"Don't look at me like that!" she frowned. "I'm legally sane, you know!"

"KP, it's not your sanity that worries me." He shook his head. A hand of his smacked the panel sideways, fingers arcing backwards while they rolled off the jog-wheel. The wheel buzzed while it spun swiftly on the panel. "But in recent light, you're beginning to scare me!"

"What?" her brow kinked.

"Listen to yourself, Kim!" Ron put his attention on the panel, fingers almost hyper-extending on the sliders. "What would your parents think? Looking back long before we even heard of The Family, do you honestly think you sound the same as before?"

She growled.

"I thought as much." Ron dragged his finger around the circumference of the button, tracing it. "You're not that bubbly cheerleader anymore. I don't even think -sakai- begins to describe it. It's more unbridled rage or something."

"Are you done?" she folded her arms.

"Fine." He shook his head. "Have it your way, KP. I should know better than to toss pearls to swine!"

Her brow kinked. "And just what's that supposed to mean, Ronald?" she said crossly.

"Figure it out, Kimberly!" he shook his head again. His finger fell onto the button at its dead center, the pad simply resting on the piece of plastic, dulling its sheen quite a bit. "Nothing's impossible for a Possible, after all."

The hobbled ass took in a haggard breath, and when she looked-it already had its strange head reared back. The flame that had burned atop of that blackened tube was nowhere to be seen. No more time for tit-for-tat-and the button had no problem sinking into the control panel when it met the bottom of her hammering fist.

"OW!" Ron yelped. "My FINGER! DAMN!"

He snoozed; he lost, and nearly broke his index in the process. Her hand slipped off the button when the boy tore his finger out from under, but the deed had been done, playing out before her on the LCD. The numbers to the right cycled faster than the ones flanking them to their left, the temperature rising exponentially. The freak nearly choked on its own breath, a little black cloud pluming out of the flamer, practically indistinguishable when the room glared at her in a fiery, furious red. So hot, so intense; the heat blowing in her face that she had to back up a step. She almost felt sorry for the freak, and thankfully "was" and "almost" did not have interchangeable meanings.

The thing was practically dead in the boiling water, flailing his only arm wildly, predictably, fighting against the scorching heat of that terrible redness. It let out a buzzing shriek, screaming at her while she simply watched those red numbers climb well over the 175 mark. The flailing of that arm slowed dramatically; it was working till finally that keeled over on its cart. Slowly, it lifted that strange head up and gazed upon her with those hazel orbs, so broken, so lost. She felt her heart shift a bit. It let out another noise, a final moan, drowned within that crackling buzz.

Its head made a sturdy bang when it crashed into its rolling cart. It was done; finally, it was gone. The room dropped the glare when she thumbed the button again, easing back into its normal parameters, gazing at her brilliantly with bright fluorescents. Certainly it wasn't hot enough for it to catch ablaze, though the heat lamps had cooked Tank Man to a golden brown-almost good enough to eat!

She blinked before her locks swished before her, side to side. It was time to go, of course, and it couldn't have come sooner.

"Feel better now, Kim?" Ron nursed his sore finger with the other hand. "It's dead."

"So you're not blind." She smirked bitterly. "Good to hear. Can you fire a gun too?"

"Don't be an ass, KP!" Ron frowned. "We're wasting time! Can we just get a move on-please? Though I've wondered what it'd be like to be ambidextrous, I'd like to go before I become completely LEFT HANDED!"

"Point taken, Ron." She nodded. "But there's one more thing I have to do."

"And what's that?" He rolled his eyes. "Pee on the corpse?"

"Don't be disgusting." She hobbled over to the doorway. Tank Man lay before her in a cooked heap; even in death its smell was something else, drilling into her nose still. Her soles felt warmth on the floor as she walked for the doorway; she took a step in-and yanked it out. The tiles-they were hot, burning. She felt a piece of skin shrink dramatically while she caught a faint sizzle. "OW!"

"Can't stand the heat, KP…." Ron shrugged.

"Out of the kitchen!" His rodent finished for him. "Huh!"

"That's right, little buddy." She sighed. "But Rufus, can you do me a little favor?"

"Ma'am!" the rat shot her a salute.

"In the temp room, do you see that large tank of green nastiness?" she pointed. "You can't miss it, even if you tried."

"Yep-yep!" it nodded.

"No use trying to push it off the counter." She continued. "I thought I saw a little spout on the front."

"I see!" it nodded again.

"Thankfully, it's in the right position." She said. "I need you to open that spout."

"KP?" Ron blinked.

"Dump as much nastiness on it as you can." She nodded. "No way it's coming after us again!"

"Yes ma'am!" Rufus saluted.

She took him into her hands, guiding him over to the closest countertop as much as her joints would let her. Rufus gingerly hopped off. It was quite a spectacle, watching that little guy island hop from table to table, table to counter, scampering for that glowing tank. A naked paw met the top of his bald noggin, scratching as it gazed upon that tank.

"KP, are you sure about this?" Ron asked. "Though Tank Man's dead now, shouldn't you leave it in peace? It never hurts to quit while you're ahead."

"And it never hurts to kick the enemy right in the balls when he's down!" she said simply. "Hit it, Rufus!"

"Ma'am!" the rodent squeaked, and a gush of flowing liquid filled her ears. The pale green liquid drained from the tank as the rat kicked the spout off-clean off! It clattered to the floor hollowly, skittering a few inches down the room before it was overwhelmed by the mysterious green goop. Raining acid on the freak's botched parade! Rufus didn't need to be told twice as he hightailed it back.

"Good naked mole rat!" she grinned as he hopped back into her hand. His pale cheeks went flush with deep red as her lips met his skin. "Thanks!"

"He-huh!" The rat nearly fainted. "Welcome!"

"Come on, Ron." She said. "Let's go!"

"'Bout time, KP." He nodded.

A stirring poked her in the ear while Ron took her around the waist, one of her arms behind his head. She stole a final glimpse into that room. Nothing looked off, and Tank Man was still down for the count. But something stirred in that temp room, she was sure. But it was so soft, so faint that perhaps her brain clicked wrongly. Perhaps it was the liquid, nothing more-but still!

"Something up, KP?" Ron asked.

"No…." she shrugged. "Nothing. It's nothing; forget it. Let's get going."

"SECOND!" Rufus… well-seconded.