Heading south from Alkali Lake, Nevada.

Blasts of ionic energy rained down from the huge aircraft hovering above them, the villainous laughter of Doctor Drakken echoing through the dusty, arid desert at every shot fired. Yet still, Kim Possible and her grossly underestimated sidekick Ron Stoppable refused to give up the fight; the defences of the hive instinctively lashing out at Drakken the only way it knew. As Kim began to outfit herself with an assortment of mission gear and armour-plating "donated" by a Mecha-Kim drone, she found herself thanking it before she saw the smile on Ron's face.

"Still think they're tools, KP?" Wincing as the miniscule effort of blinking caused his facial scar to expand and contract painfully, Ron watched the way his partner secured the bracers around her wrists before she looked back at him to reply.

"Oh, Ron… I don't know what to think of them any more. They're still robots, and I still think the ones that look like me are creepy on levels they don't even have names for yet. But they are learning, I'll give you that." Struggling to tie the thick bandana around his head to keep the hair out of his eyes, Ron snapped his fingers and whistled for Rufus and kept a hand up to steady his pet as the little pink-skinned creature scurried up his shoulder to tie off the bandana. Following their new commander's orders, and picking up on a mutual hatred for Drakken, a smaller group of drones broke away to act as a moving shield around the humans while they went on the offensive. With explosive blasts of energy slamming into the ground all around him, and a single Bebe pushing him forward into the fray, Ron became utterly locked in the icy grip of fear as the desperate little "suicide mission" pressed ever onward. At the sound of screaming, Kim paused to turn and check on Ron as her own artificially-enhanced senses took over aiming and firing her ever-present grappling gun. A thick length of black liquid-cable discharged from the barrel, the four prongs of the hook snapping out in mid-flight until they snagged on a convenient access ladder. Stowing Rufus in the most secure pocket he could find and warning him to be ready for anything, Ron moved to wrap his arms around Kim's waist, her free arm moving around his shoulder, and he just lost himself in her eyes…

"Ready?"

"KP, I was born ready," Ron responded with typical enthusiasm before the grappling line began to retract, sending the two teens soaring into the skies. Screwing his eyes tightly shut as he held onto Kim, he shouted to make himself heard over the sound of rushing air.

"If you'd just let me finish, I didn't say I was born ready for everything!" Their robotic bodyguards had followed the couple just a few steps behind, and the two drones began to crawl over to the door next to the access ladder, prying it open for Ron and Kim.

Leading Ron and Kim behind them, the two drones marched through the corridors of Drakken's mobile lair, not drawing the attention of his multitudes of henchmen and other operatives. They knew what they were getting into when they signed the contracts, why should they be concerned with the apparent return of Doctor Drakken's robots? To the untrained eye of the average henchman, it looked as if they'd even managed to capture Kim Possible and that Stoppable guy. Alerted to Bebe's presence aboard his heli-carrier, the doctor sent Shego down to meet them while he tried to concentrate on his other schemes. He had seen countless Bueno Nacho outlets pass beneath them as they flew toward the west coast, all adorned with the same giant fibreglass taco and it sparked something powerful deep down inside him. Shego, however, just got hungry whenever she saw the giant taco, and she silently cursed her super-accelerated metabolism before leaving the Possibles to get comfortable. They were a nice couple, and Shego desperately wanted to just live a normal teenage life with her own family after seeing the way Andrea and Jon cared for their daughter, and she told them as much before leaving.

"You two've raised a great kid. Well, time for me to go and kick her brains out," Shego joked as she met with Andrea's disapproving glare, instantly replying, "What? While I fight Kimmie, that gives the little goof a chance to sneak in and rescue the pair o' ya. I'm not doin' this for me, I'm doin' it for him." Before either Possible could drag her into a debate about the dubious logic behind her statement, Shego had disappeared to fulfil her obligation to Drakken. The Bebe robots had Kim and Ron with them, and Shego regarded the drones coolly. Without warning, her hand ignited and sliced cleanly through the neck of the drone standing in front of Ron, the young man's eyes meeting with hers as the deactivated drone crumpled to the floor, some odd reflex causing it to reach out and try to defend him. Unfortunately for Stoppable, the drone's fingers closed around his belt and yanked it off; sending his pants plummeting as he loudly bemoaned this cruel twist of fate…

Tossing aside the wreckage of the robot, Ron stumbled backward and fell lightly on his butt before scrambling out of the way of Shego's razor-sharp fingers. As the second drone pulled him to safety, narrowly avoiding a blast of green plasma that sizzled through the synthetic hair piled on top of her head, Kim moved to intercept her deadly rival with a short sliding kick that took her by surprise. Reorganizing his pants and making sure his headband was still tied, Ron turned away to take the Bebe and carry out Kim's cyber-telepathic command.

"Plug her into the computer mainframe, she can map every inch of the lair from there, Ron!" Kim turned her head to give her partner a nod and a wink as she crossed her arms to let Shego's claws bounce harmlessly off her armoured bracers. The villain's black lips split into a malicious grin as she mocked Kim's new style, swinging those lethal razor-sharp fingers at the smooth chrome plating. Drawing her enemy in closer, Kim began to bring her knees up to protect herself, a lucky hit catching Shego in the ribs and giving Kim an opportunity to press the attack. Ron, meanwhile, was being led by the hand through Drakken's corridors on a rescue mission with the fiercely loyal Bebe #62 and his pet naked mole rat by his side; searching for the prison level. He could still hear Kim's thoughts urging him onward, and also felt Bebe #62's need to protect her master, something that made him feel really uncomfortable and led him to express his opinion to the robot.

"I hope you don't mind, but… Well, I was kind of hoping you wouldn't call me that any more, since it's really creepy. If you have to call me anything at all, just call me Ron. Please? Thanks…" Listening to him and watching Rufus nod in agreement from his shoulder; Bebe #62 curtly nodded and wheeled around to advance down a likely corridor as her head swivelled to face in the same direction as her body.

"Rufus, do you think that was a yes or a no?" Listening to the odd string of noises strung together by the naked mole rat, Ron grimaced and gave his affirmation to the little rodent's response, adding "Yeah, that 180 thing with the neck freaks me out too." Still, he had a mission to complete and the drone knew the way, so he might as well follow her…

Hoping to clear his head, Drakken set aside his artist's tablet and stylus to leave his inner sanctum and take a short constitutional, stopping by the vending machines outside the elevator on the prison level. Bleary-eyed from working in near-darkness, the mad scientist stumbled forward and held out a hand to keep his form upright. Looking down at the smooth, polished chrome surface that his disturbingly small hand had found, Doctor Drakken followed the shape of the feminine body upwards to the glowing red eyes and doll-like face adorned with a single small beauty-mark. She had come back to him! Giddy with excitement, the mad genius began to dance on the spot with an idiotic grin plastered all over his blue face.

"Finally! Victory is within the grasp of Doctor Drakken! With Bebe as my weapon, I am unstoppable!" Distracted from his moment of eccentricity by the sight of a young blonde man bearing a vertical scar down one side of his freckled face, Drakken peered closely at the oddly familiar features until the teenager spoke.

"No… But real close," he laughed and folded his arms, Bebe standing at his side like a bodyguard. And then, the realization dawned on Doctor Drakken, his eyes growing wide with horror.

"I know you! You're… You're the one that always gets in the way! With the… The weasel thing! Bebe! I command you to eliminate this buffoon, immediately!"

"Bebe #62 is unable to comply with this request. Subject, designate: Doctor Drakken is not recognized as primary command unit within Bebe hive." Just staring blankly at the drone, Ron gave her a non-verbal command to translate that into easily-understandable teen slanguage for his benefit.

"Bebe #62 is like wow! Totally unable to comply with this request. Like, totally, Doctor Drakken is ya know, like, not recognized as a major hottie. What-everrrr!" The reply came, and Ron found himself instantly wishing he'd never asked, the robotic drone primping her shoulder-length blonde hair. Either there were still some major Bonnie-bugs to iron out of the whole system, or something much worse had infected her personality programming, Ron voicing his major concerns.

"Okay, I'd just like to point out that no self-respecting teenager on the planet talks like that. This kind of language has no place in the world of covert ops," Ron began to rant as Drakken attempted one more time to force the statuesque fem-bot to follow a simple command, growing ever more frustrated.

"I will not stand for this gross insubordination a moment longer! Prepare for a taste of sweet electric justice, Missy!" Yanking open his lab coat, Drakken let his face split into a twisted grin as his fingers closed around one of the many small unlabelled devices with single red buttons that he always kept secreted around his person. Stabbing the button with a finger, he cackled maniacally as… Absolutely nothing happened. Then, a small cheery voice piped up from a speaker embedded in the device,

"You have elected to shut down all essential and non-essential functions on board the J-75748 Aerial Fortress. Please ensure that the J-75748 Aerial Fortress is not actually airborne at this time, as this may severely limit your abilities to provide effective consumer feedback to our customer service help-line…"

Drakken's face fell and he threw down the tiny control device, wheeling round to point an accusing finger at Ron.

"Look what you made me do!"

"Oh, so now it's what I did? Well, maybe if you…" Stopped in the middle of his rebuttal, Ron froze as he heard the sound of groaning, creaking metal, the colossal turbines driving each jet engine shutting down in sequence. Then, a sudden sensation of downward motion as the mobile lair began tipping forward, the incontrovertible force of gravity pushing down on the command pod at the "head" of the flying fortress.

"Oh, snap," Drakken whimpered as he tried to brace himself on something, Ron beginning to slowly regain his mobility.

"Under the circumstances, I think stronger expletives are called for…" the younger man whined, Bebe #62's self-preservation programming kicking in automatically as she grabbed Ron and tucked him under her right arm, deciding to take Drakken under her left, the mad scientist still trying to think of an appropriate word to use.

"Oh… Shizzle?" he ventured, looking to Ron as the rest of the Bebe drone's programming came rushing into her central processor from Ron's own mind, ordering her to find Kim Possible, Shego and Kim's parents.

"Not nearly strong enough, but it'll do for now," Ron replied before #62's powerful legs carried the robot and her charges to the approximate location where Kim Possible could be found, racing through corridors that flashed past both men's eyes in a long blur. Shego and Kim's fight had taken them all the way to the main hangar, a panicked crowd of henchmen and other assorted underlings working on the doors with blowtorches and any other tools they could find in their hurry to escape. Grabbing Shego and pulling her to the escape pods with him, Drakken scowled furiously and held his ribs, stumbling toward the open pod. Groaning and coughing, the evil scientist shook his fist at his teenaged foes, hoarsely yelling,

"Kim Possible! And you, the other one! You think you're all that, but you're noooooooooooooooottt!" as the pod's engines fired, sending the villains flying to relative safety.

Still sharing their prison cell, Jonathan and Andrea tried their best to make each other comfortable during the inexorable suicide dive of the airborne fortress as it began to pick up speed, drifting in a north-easterly direction over the Strip. According to the best calculations he could estimate "on the fly", as it were, Mr. Doctor Possible believed that they would find themselves crashing down in the desert not too far from Groom Lake and its infamous "secret" Air Force base.

"That's right, honey, Area 51! Oh, it's been a dream of mine to set foot on that base ever since I got my degree," he wistfully sighed as he held onto his wife's hand. He tried to keep her spirits up, and that was very sweet of him… Repaying him with a playful little Eskimo Kiss, Andrea rested against Jonathan and dreamily gazed up into his eyes.

"Please, just forget you're a scientist for a moment. I'm scared, Jon, deeply afraid of what might have happened to Kimmie…"

"Of course I'm afraid too, sweetheart. But you know as well as I do…" Glancing up at the sight of the reinforced cell door being torn off its hinges, the almost middle-aged couple huddled closer together and stared in shock at the vision in polished chrome before them, another one beside it wearing the form of their firstborn daughter. Squinting and protecting his eyes from the sun, Jonathan was surprised to see the recognizable human features of his beloved Kimmie-cub as she laughed nervously.

"Mom, dad, I'm so glad to see you! Hurry up and come with me, we're getting off this thing right now," she yelled above the sound of jet engines, Rufus jabbering in his owner's ear curiously.

"Kim, Rufus thinks the engines just came back on-line! We can-," Ron was about to finish his sentence until #62 pointed out the small squadron of jet fighters that were scrambled with orders to intercept the unknown aircraft. Seemingly acting without Ron's influence, the single drone repeatedly tried to send a distress signal out to the fighters and the nearby base.

"Humans receiving our signal loud and clear, Kim Possible. Do your parental units require medical attention of any kind?" Picking up on the general vibe of discomfort at the sound of those words, Kim cringed and gave Ron her best piteous little puppy-dog pout, getting only a vague shrug of his shoulders in return. Mentally, he told her that it was preferable to the alternative, and she nodded back. Calmly, Bebe #62 stood and waited for further instructions, even allowing Jonathan to examine her as Kim and Ron both tried to explain their situation to Andrea without finishing each other's sentences. Outside, a small group of cadets were taking orders from the familiar voice of Wade, setting up a zip-line from the side of their helicopter. Taking instructions through her implanted Kim-municator, Kim showed her mom and dad how to fasten the safety harness which could comfortably accommodate two people on the very strong cable. Apprehensively watching the trolley flying down the line at such high speeds, Ron shook his head softly and took a deep breath, allowing the ever-helpful drone #62 to fasten him and Kim into the harness. Holding onto one another for security, the teens shared a quick glance before Kim moved to plant a kiss against Ron's cheek.

"For luck," she explained as Rufus waved a tiny paw at Bebe #62 before being safely zipped up in Ron's pocket. And Ron found himself looking back at the drone once his feet touched the floor of the helicopter, thinking he could almost see a tear in that glowing robotic eye as the flying fortress drifted further away.


Dedications: This chapter is dedicated to Carrie Fisher, a spiritual ancestor to Kim Possible as the character of Princess Leia, and also a very distant relative on the side of her mother, Debbie ("Nanna" Possible) Reynolds.