Kim Possible
Lucky Number Seven

by Cyberwraith9

"So Kim," said Sunni, sliding her guest a sly smile, "Let's talk about your life outside of heroics. What do you like to do when you're not sticking it to the bad guys?"

Kim tilted back in her armchair, relaxing the silicon smile on her face. After the brief hiccup explaining Ron's place on the team, she was glad to move to a different topic. "For me," she explained, "It's all about staying active: snowboarding, skydiving, extreme sports…I guess the things I love to do are the things that help me on missions, too. It's one of the big plusses of the job," she decided.

"Mmm, interesting," Sunni said dismissively. Mischief replaced the brief boredom on her taut face. "She leaned in and said, "Tell us about your love life."

"My what-what?" The teen rocked back. Scarlet seeped into her cheeks as they dropped her smile clean off her face. A nonsensical string of babbles flapped her jaw in a manner quite unbecoming of a world hero, and earned several chuckles and catcalls from the studio audience. "Oh, I…ahh…ooh, that…"

A giggle from her host intensified Kim's embarrassment. Sunni held her hands up to quell the audience's laughter, and then waited with cheshire patience for Kim to collect herself. "A gorgeous girl like you can't possibly be a wallflower, Kimmie. You must have a trail of broken hearts lined up outside your door."

"I don't…'trail' is a bit of an exaggeration," hawed Kim as she stared at the ground, beet-faced. Then her eyes snapped back over to Sunni. "Broken?" she squeaked.

A screen trundled down above their heads, coming aglow with a square patch of light from some hidden projector. "We've got a special treat for you all today," pledged Sunni. "Hank, can we get the picture on the screen? And switch the feed so they can see it at home."

If a few words were enough to embarrass Kim, what came next mortified her beyond all capacity to cope. There on the screen, two faces grinned at the nation's breakfast community, wearing their formal best and arm in arm. They stood motionless in front of the Possibles' front door, smiling at the command of Mister Possible behind the camera. Kim recognized the picture an instant before the audience began to 'aww.' She sank deeper into her armchair, wishing that it could swallow her whole.

"What do we have here?" said Sunni, as Kim turtled her red face into her hands. In the meantime, her prom photo continued to delight her host. "Doesn't she look just darling, folks? A big thanks to Kimmie's parents for providing the photo."

Kim knew her mother would never do anything so embarrassing to her. 'I'm going to kill my father,' she vowed in her head.

"This is your picture from just last week, right? Big Prom Night. And who is that tasty hunk?" Sunni waggled her brows. "If I was just a couple of years younger—"

"—you'd be dating a pile of green slime," snapped Kim. She emerged with testy tones on hand to end Sunni's gushing. "That would be Syntho-Drone Number Nine-Oh-One. He called himself 'Eric.'" The name brought to Kim's mind the gruesome details she had omitted from her on-air retelling, and left a concurrent grimace on her face. "He was a plot by Drakken to keep me busy. He wasn't real, and wound up being a major pain."

The comment cut Sunni short. "Oh," she murmured. Glancing back up at the handsome fellow at vintage Prom Kim's side, she said, "He was cute though, right?" Kim's snort answered that. Floundering, Sunni continued, "So then I guess that means you're single. Good news for all the fellahs out there. Am I right?"

Sunni's cheap tactic worked like a charm, and got the crowd cheering again. Kim had to admire the TV personality's ability to keep control of her crowd. But she wouldn't let Sunni catch her off-guard again. "As a matter of fact," she replied coolly, "I did just start seeing a really great guy." She cast a warm and fuzzy look off the set. Its recipient returned it in kind, adding a wink of his earthy eye.

As another 'aw' rose from the audience, a different entourage standing off-camera turned their gazes between the two teens' tender gaze. Since the inception of Ron's tale, several other behind-the-scenes stagehands had gathered to listen. Gaffers, grips, boom operators, personal assistants, all milled around the snack setup to hear the sidekick speak.

But Ron hadn't lost his original audience, either. "Now I get it." Cooper said, and waggled his coffee cup at Ron. An expression of supreme satisfaction sat on his jowls. "You stayed with her 'cause you were sweet on her. Ha!" The revelation spread a smug smile across his lips before they broke to engulf an entire muffin from the refreshments table.

Ron dropped his wink and pointedly ignored the gagging noises coming from the mole rat in his pocket. A flick of his finger silenced Rufus' dramatic editorial of his and Kim's goo-goo eyes. "Are you kidding me?" he said to Cooper. "By thirteen, I was still half-convinced that girls carried that horrible scourge called cooties."

The small crowd tightened their circle around Ron and Cooper as they sensed his story's reanimation approaching. "Okay, I give, kid. I don't get it," said Cooper.

To be honest, neither did I. Seriously, I wasn't so hot to trot after Colonel Calamitous before Wade showed up. I sure as heckfire wasn't thrilled when the little genius started doing that thing where he tells us just how screwed we are.

"Colonel Calamitous," Wade stated from the tiny screen of a small, sapphire computer, "Is a brutal, insane, vicious international murderer. He used to be a weapons' designer, until he went out of his gourd and started terrorizing anyone and everyone he could find. The good news is, he's not an actual colonel. As near as I can figure, he's never been affiliated with any military forces. He just likes the alliteration," whispered Wade with a wink.

"Oh joy," deadpanned Kimmie. The two teens loitered in the smelliest, darkest, scariest alley they never knew existed in Middleton. The strange device transmitting Wade's image sat in Kimmie's palm. Fear lurked all around them in the alley's shadows. Its claws sand deep into Ronnie's blanched skin. Even courageous Kimmie felt it breathing down her neck. But she did her best to control her voice as she said, "If he's so bad, what's he doing in Middleton?"

"Dunno," said Wade. "But I do know that he's been collecting a lot of cash for something. I've found his electronic fingerprints all over a bunch of hush-hush purchases in the last few weeks. Serious hardware. We're talking end-of-the-world kind of equipment."

Ronnie cowered at Kimmie's side. His white-knuckled grip on the satchel slung over his shoulder tightened as an alley cat knocked over a garbage can in its search for dinner. "Two questions," he said between panicked moans and looks over his shoulder. "First, how does a kid living inside of Kim's new Palm Pilot know so much about super villains?"

"I read comic books," Wade shrugged. "And what you're holding makes the Palm Pilot look like a Commodore Sixty-Four."

"What's a Commodore Sixty-Four?" asked Ronnie.

Kimmie turned the device over, eliciting a 'Hey' from Wade as his camera picture went wonky. "It's like some kind of communicator," she said.

Once his view of Kimmie had been righted, Wade said, "Not just a communicator. It's a Kimmunicator. Extra special, just for you."

"I see." Ronnie hefted his satchel again. The rest of the equipment Wade had provided them with jostled inside at his touch. "And where's my name-themed stuff?"

"Ye-ah, I'll get right on that. Was that your second question?"

"No. My second question is," said Ronnie, waving his arms to highlight the alley, "Why do you have us hanging out in the dead center of Scaryville in the middle of the night? My parents would totally freak if they knew I had snuck out for this!"

"Looks across the street."

At Wade's instruction, Kimmie and Ronnie turned their collective gaze down and out of the tier darkened alcove. A long row of slummy buildings squatted on the opposite side of the streets. The wrecks looked old enough to have been condemned by their great-grandparents, and hadn't a single unbroken window between the lot of them to speak of. Humanity's castaways gathered beneath those streetlamps still functioning on the block. Some moved as Ronnie did, casting frightened looks about as they walked the length of the strip. Others held hunters' eyes beneath their scowls, content to lean against dilapidated walls and wait until the right prey came along.

Ronnie shook his head, stumbling back from the distant block. "Oh, no freakin' way," he uttered. "Not gonna happen."

A soft, slender hand clasped his shoulder to head off his instincts to bolt. "Ron, please," Kimmie pleaded. "I'm scared too."

"Oh, we are way past scared," Ronnie assured her with a gulp. "Welcome to full-out terror. Now boarding First Class passengers for freaking out."

As his bounding eyes circled the alley, looking for the fastest, safest exit, they happened upon a trembling lower lip balconied beneath the largest eyes he had ever seen. "I know you don't want to be here," Kimmie told him through her pout. Her hand slid down his arm, and grasped his fingers in hers. "But this is important, and I can't do this alone. Once we do this, we'll go home. I promise. Please?" Impossibly long lashes fluttered across lustrous green gems, beseeching him with a power his budding hormones had no defense for.

"I…we… Crud. Fine."

Kimmie beamed. "Thank you, Ron."

He jabbed a finger at her. "But you never get to use that pouting thing on me again, understand?"

"Deal." Then Kimmie's smile dropped. Looking down at her Kimmunicator, she asked, "So, what exactly are we supposed to do?"

"See the center building?" They did; a darkened, one-story shanty sat wedged between two taller buildings, with steel shutters where its windows used to be, and a door that would have looked more at home on the exterior of a bomb shelter. Glowing neon letters clung to the boxy building's chipped paint, spelling out, 'J E'S BA .'

Kimmie squinted through the pitch alley. "A bar?"

Wade's fingers hammered out a clacking symphony on his keyboard. "Not just any bar," he said. "That's Joe's. Meanest bar in Middleton."

"And we want to go there, why?" snarked Ronnie.

"To find this guy." Wade vanished from the screen. A mug shot took his place, giving the teens a face and profile of someone they didn't recognize, and were very glad for it. Deep wrinkles piled atop the photographed man's scowl, and wrapped around the sneer of his lips. An eye patch broke the symmetry of his face. Though alone, his remaining eye burned with hatred enough for two, and sent shivers down Ronnie's spine. "His name is Patch Adams."

"Like the doctor?" Kimmie asked.

The notion made Wade fidget in his chair. "He's more like the opposite of a doctor," he said slowly.

"Meaning he sees you right away and keeps current magazines?" crowed Ronnie with a smirk. "Ba-dum chhh!"

"Meaning, don't get him angry," warned Wade. "My sources say he's Calamitous' top stooge, and he likes to hang out at Joe's."

Kimmie caught on. Her Mission Mode face cropped up again, sobering Ronnie's defensive humor. "So you want us to get in there and pump him for information," she revealed with a prideful puff of her chest.

Their youthful, genius benefactor's image returned to the screen and nodded. "Bingo. Word is, he gets chatty after he's had a few. If you're careful, you should be able to get something out of him."

"Like what this Calamitous guy is plotting." Kimmie gave their new friend a grin. "You rock, Wade."

"Just one thing," Ronnie interjected. He leaned into the Kimmunicator's camera field and waved his hand, first up and down his own pubescent physique, then across Kimmie's. "We're a couple of kids! There's no way we could get into a friendly bar, let alone a secret watering hole for deranged killers and tax evaders."

Wade's smile came too quickly, as though it had sat in waiting for that very problem to arise. "Check your bag," he told Ronnie. "I've got just the thing."

A panel built into the thick door of Joe's Bar slid aside at the soft, insistent knocking on its exterior. Two dull eyes peered from the smoky innards of the bar, and rumbled, "What's th' password?"

Ronnie trembled openly, almost unseating himself from his perch atop the telescoping stilts provided to them from Wade's bag of tricks. The long overcoat he wore to hide his false height shook with his fear. Ronnie thanked providence (and cursed both Wade and his own luck) for the bushy beard and dark glasses stuck to his face in the shadows of a wide-brimmed fedora. They hid the quake of his lips, and the nervous darting of his eyes, from the bouncer behind the door.

Dressed in an identical disguise, Kimmie reached into the pocket of her coat, just as Wade had instructed her to do. She pulled a rolled-up bill out, clasped between her fingers, and held it up to the slot. "Benjamin," she said with a smirk hidden behind her fake facial hair.

Meaty fingers reached through the slot and tore the bill from her, sucking it through the door. With the clank of its latch, the door swung open. The teens left a trail of displaced smoke in their wake as they slipped through, entering a whole new world.

Kim, bless her stony little heart, stayed cucumber cool while we walked right into the big leagues. Me…well, I admit, I was a little nervous. But that wasn't about to stop me from taking charge and showing that murderous bunch who was boss.

Ronnie stumbled on his wobbly stilted legs into a crowd of the meanest people he had ever seen outside of a television set. They lurked around tables and milled by a circular bar, nursing drinks and angry looks. One of the latter turned on Ronnie when he tripped over his distant feet and fell against a muscular wall of back.

"You lookin' for trouble, Beardo?" snarled the thug. His eyes burned into Ronnie. The trembling teen couldn't help but imagine that the man was looking for good places to park his shank. "Beat it," the man told him, "Before I kill you 'til you're dead."

"Sure," Ronnie stammered, righting himself and backing away. "You're the boss." Then he yelped as Kimmie yanked him away by the elbow.

"Ron," she whispered through wriggling beard, "I need you to focus here, okay? This is serious. We need to keep a low profile, or we're dead." She ignored his stuttering response, looking through the haze in the bar. The faces of those unsavory characters choking the small building swam amongst themselves, making it difficult to pinpoint a single person. But after a moment of searching, Kimmie's eyes narrowed. "Got him. There, at the bar."

Ronnie spied their eye-patched fellow bellied up at the bar. The hilt of a knife rested in his grasp. Its blade flew between his fingers on the bar top in an impressive display of dexterous skill that made Ronnie want to applaud and empty his bladder at the same time. "Oh golly," deadpanned Ronnie, "Can I talk to him first? Please, oh please."

Kimmie just rolled her eyes and tugged down on the brim of her hat. "Just stay put and keep your eyes open, okay? Try to blend in."

"Blend in?" Ronnie called to her back as it disappeared into the crowd. "I'm wearing stilts, fake hair, a trench coat, and a hat that went out of style when movies went to color. Where am I gonna blend in? A Maltese Falcon convention?" Kimmie's eyes were the only ones around him that didn't turn and cow him with glares.

Did Kim get the info out of that Patch guy? You'd better believe it. But don't ask me how a teenage girl got a known killer to talk. Maybe she sweet-talked him. Maybe she bluffed it out of him. Heck, maybe she did that Puppy Dog Pout thing. Lord knows that could get China to give up Tibet. Frankly, it doesn't matter. After all, this is my story, and Kim has plenty stories of her own. So pay attention, because this is where things get hairy.

"Blend in," snorted Ronnie as the bar returned to its previous, brutish activity. "I'd like to see her blend…hey, where'd she go?" His eyes searched the bar for his friend while his hand reached out, searching for a chair he could escape from his stilts onto. He found one and plopped down with a whuf, still looking about. Finally, he spotted her, taking the stool next to Patch as smoothly as her awkward disguise would allow. "Ah, there we go."

"Yes," a nasally voice crowed, "Our circle is now complete."

Ronnie's head snapped around, taking in the full table he had unwittingly joined. The bar's patrons were among the hardest and cruelest people he had ever seen, and the selection at his table made the rest of them seem tame by comparison. Ronnie had never seen so many scars, knives, gun, and sneers in one place, spread out in a circle that started and ended at him.

"Now, let us set to the task at hand," continued the speaker.

Ronnie examined the speaker with a double take. The sneering man wore a trench coat and fedora identical to Ronnie's. Dark circles rimmed his eyes beneath his hat, giving his gaze a rodent quality. Raven locks stuck to his sweaty, pale forehead, which he crinkled at the collection of criminals couched at the table. "Business?" gulped Ronnie.

The man spread his hands across the table wit ha sinister chuckle. "But of course. We all know why we're here."

"We do?" squeaked Ronnie. All eyes turned to him. "I mean, we do," he grunted in a painfully deep voice. "But, uh, why not explain it for this guy here?" He thumbed at the man to his left, a vicious Cro-Magnon with a ski cap. "He looks a little slow." The man rumbled at Ronnie, making the teen shrink further into his beard.

The speaker seemed pleased at the thought. "You, my malevolent, malodious minions, are here to join in Doctor Lipsky's glorious campaign for global conquest. You, the lieutenants of the Lipsky army, shall spread my message of terror across the glove in a revolution of anarchy, fear, and ultimate subjugation!"

"Dude, who's Doctor Lipsky?"

Ronnie's question deflated the man's drama and his chest. "What?" The man dropped his arms in the loss of his moment. "I am, I'm Doctor Lipsky. Isn't that…everyone knows that, right?" He rounded the table, stalking up to the shaking, wide-eyed Ronnie. "Say, I don't recognize you…"

The fake beard whipped left and right as Ronnie looked about in a panic. "Who, me? Uh, me, I'm…Dude, I'm, like, at the top of your list. Baddest of the bad." Bullets of sweat shot down Ronnie's brow, soaking his collar. "I, uh, kick puppies for fun in my free time."

Lipsky leaned in, taking detailed stock of Ronnie's faux features. Seconds dragged by for Ronnie beneath the villain's scrutiny. "That is evil," admitted Lipsky as he rubbed his jaw. With a glance at Ronnie's accoutrements, the like-garbed Lipsky added, "And you are a snappy dresser."

The man to Ronnie's left snorted. "'e's just some kid in a coat. Any idiot can see that."

Ronnie staggered to his feet, throwing his chair out behind him. "What? I do not have to stand here and take this. I'm better than this. I've got brunch with Doctor Doom tomorrow." He swiveled clumsily on his stilts to march off, but then swung back around to jab a finger in Lipsky's face. "And you, sir, will be hearing from my Union rep about this outrageous…outrage!"

That last breath of indignation blew the beard right off Ronnie's chin and slapped it into the villain's face. Thick, oily sweat made it cling to Lipsky's skin, where it twisted to mimic his dawning, horrified realization. "You…" he stammered. "You…"

Beardless, Ronnie backed away. "Oh, wow, uh…Gee. I gotta go."

His stilts betrayed his retreat, catching on the chair he had discarded behind him. Ronnie fell back with a wail, bowling himself into the middle of another table, and sending its patrons flying every which way. They crashed into others, who then crashed into others, until the entire bar dominoed into chaos.

Dirty looks became shoves. Then they degenerated into punches and kicks. Soon, people were flying across the room, their screams becoming lost in the deafening fray. Chairs crunched across backs and shoulders. Knives were unsheathed to determine the new pecking order of the bar. Broken beer bottles soon intervened on behalf of their owners, but only wound up making things worse.

Ronnie watched the storm rage from its eye, yet untouched by its brawling fury. A man twice his size soared over his head and smashed into a table, flattening it with an explosion of splinters. Ronnie crouched and covered his ears, wincing as people and wreckage and glass crashed all around him. A distant voice rose above the din, calling out for Kim. He didn't realize it was his until the voice stopped short when Lipsky yanked him off his feet by his lapels.

Their faces hovered eye-to-eye. Ronnie got a good look at the pasty features of his aggressor, and he couldn't help but wince in sympathy; a long, nasty cut ran from the edge of Lipsky's eye down his cheek, smeared with red and twisted with fury. "You've foiled my campaign before it can even start, boy. And look what you've done to my face," snarled Lipsky. "Very clever, aren't you? But you didn't count on me surviving your trap, did you?"

"Trap?" shot Ronnie, as he wrestled his fear for control of his bladder. "What trap? Who are you, anyway?" His toes dangled, wriggling in a desperate bid to regain a foothold on the ground and take flight out of this mess.

"No doubt you've concocted an escape plan as well," continued Lipsky, "But you fail to realize one thing." He jerked Ronnie closer, eliciting a yelp out of the teen. Now their noses touched, giving Ronnie no place to hide from Lipsky's hatred. "I know what you look like. I've committed your very likeness into my memory. Burned it there! And know now, that no matter where you go, or how long it takes, you shall feel the sting of Doctor Lipsky's revenge. I shall remember you until the stars are snuffed by the great…cosmic…snuffer-thing…" Struggling, he jerked Ronnie again, trying to reestablish the mood. "But regardless, if it takes me that long, I shall have my vengeance. I shall—"

The back of Lipsky's head suffered the splintering strike of a stilt as Kimmie high-kicked the ne'er-do-well clutching her friend. Ronnie barely had time to cry her name before she had hopped down from her remaining stilt and out of her jacket. She caught him as he fell, cradling him, and grunted with the excess weight in her arms. "C'mon," she said, "We're getting out of here."

Ronnie howled and clutched his face to her shoulders as Kimmie lowered her head and plowed through the barroom ruckus. Her speed and agility saw them through, keeping them from harm until they reached the blast door at the front. With a leap and a cry, Kimmie crashed through the door, kicking it off of inadequate hinges and landing atop the toppled hatch. None of the thugs behind them showed any interest in their escape, and continued exercising their rage on one another. They also missed the distant sound of sirens, though Kimmie heard them all too well, and hastened her sprint until they had reached the alley where they had begun.

Panting, Kimmie let Ronnie down to his feet, and then collapsed against her own knees, doubled over. She reached for the Kimmunicator, thumbing its switch as she drew it out of her pocket. "Wade?" she said between gasps. "Wade, are you there?"

"Right here, Kim."

She gave him a twisted grin. "I got it," she said. "I got everything we need. Calamitous has a lair up at the top of Mount Trinity."

Wade frowned, disbelieving. "Just outside of town?"

"You know any other mountains around?" Her grin didn't falter. "Set up an anonymous tip for Sergeant Preston. Let's let the police handle it from here." She clicked the channel closed and replaced the Kimmunicator in her pocket. Breath eluded her once more, this time out of excitement. "Oh my God, Ron. Oh my God! That was so awesome. I did it, I really did it!" Soft sniffling came as reply, tearing Kimmie's head from the clouds and turning it to her friend. "Ron?"

Ronnie crouched behind a garbage can with his legs drawn up to his chest. His face sat between his knees, muffling the short sobs he couldn't contain. The shake of his shoulders dislodged shards of glass and splinters of wood from his torn trench coat, littering the ground with souvenirs of the bar fight. "Oh, man," he moaned, clutching fistfuls of his straw hair. "Oh my God…"

Kimmie knelt down to him, reaching out with a hesitant hand. "Ron, are you…are you hurt?"

"…could've died, Kim," Ronnie whimpered. "Almost…they were everywhere, and they all had…" He couldn't even bring himself to look up at Kimmie. "Never again. I can't…I…never."

The exhilaration in Kimmie's face drained away, replaced with overwhelming guilt. She knelt down beside Ronnie and wrapped her arm around his shoulders. "It's okay," she said soothingly. "We're all right. We're okay. See?"

See? Man, all I could see were the faces of every single one of those psychos from the bar. Any one of 'em could have gutted me without even blinking. I would have been dead, and for what? I didn't understand what was going on, and I didn't understand how Kim did, or why she would choose something like this. All I knew was, I had come closer to dying than I ever had before. Way more than when I thought I could fly off of my own roof. And it made the choice easy:

"Never again," Ronnie said again. His head rose from his knees, staring at Kimmie with a mixture of anger and terror. "I won't ever do that again, Kim." Tears slicked the surface of his scowl, making it glisten beneath the street light. "You can't…that was…Never. I won't."

Kimmie blinked at the strength in his voice. Ronnie couldn't exactly blame her; his was a fun-loving outlook on life. But there had been no fun for him in the bar. Not like her. "Okay, Ron," said Kimmie, rubbing his hand as he wept his fear away. "We…we don't have to do anything like that again. Promise."

"…and we never did," Ron finished in a quiet voice.

Silence followed the end of his tale, infecting the crowd that had doubled in size since he had started painting the scene. He took the opportunity to refill his punch and grab a handful of grapes. Only the sound of Kim's interview in the background saved the4 room from total stillness. That, and the muttered grumbles of Ron as he tried, and failed, to toss the grapes into his mouth.

"Wait…" Cooper exchanged glances with Rufus. Standing on the table, the naked mole rat could only shrug before he dived back into the whole pineapple he had been in the process of excavating. "Wait a minute. What?"

"Yeah," someone from Ron's crowd called out, "What are you talking about?"

"Kim's a worldwide hero," another person added.

Stabbing his finger at Ron, Cooper insisted, "You're full of it."

"Okay, okay," Ron said, raising his hands in defense. His last grape hung abandoned in the air, and bopped him atop his head when he turned away to appease his audience. "Man, haven't you people heard of dramatic license?"

"Ho, showoff," came the squeaking reply from the inside of a pineapple.

Ron shot Rufus a dirty look, and then faced his audience. "What I meant was, we didn't go heroing again until things really hit the fan."

"Well, what happened?" insisted Cooper. Complementary shouts of 'yeah,' and 'tell us' rang through the crowd. It seemed as though half the studio had shown up to hear Ron's tale, and they wouldn't accept this dénouement as a satisfactory ending. "C'mon, kid, don't leave us hanging. Did the cops move in on that Calamitous guy?"

Ron chuckled. "Did they ever."

"Back in a moment." Sunni grinned for the cameras. "But first, a word from our sponsors."