Author's lament: So I said last chapter that I might update more often and what happens? I push myself to get a chapter done quickly and end up with something a fourth-grader would have been embarrassed to take credit for. I've decided I am in agreement with faithful reader Sestren NK who said in his latest review that it wouldn't be worth the more rapid updates if the story suffered. So after a total re-write, I've decided to stay with my earlier pace, and If I don't complete the story by July 27… better to have it sit for three weeks, than slap on a hastily-written ending.
Also: I went back to the previous chapter and changed a line about Kimono's memories of Ron. You'll see why in this chapter. I just liked the aspect of history repeating itself.
Mondo Props: To TusconCoyote who came up with the king of acronyms – "Evil, Insidious, Selfish, Nasty, Empiric Regime " Truly, EISNER is the ultimate evil villain. That one made me laugh out loud.
Thank to all who are reading.
And my extra special gratitude to those who review: Jezrianna2.0, Jokerisdaking, JPMod, Miss Piratess, LKillingsworth, Proteus, PseudoJuliet, Recon228, Kimberly Anne Possible, Spooks-A-Lot, The Incredible Werekitty, aimtbj, ron-sama, Kemiztri, Widow Shark, Dreammergurl2007, Sestren NK, Cold-Chaos, Mobius97, Sand Lord, Tuscon Coyote, Porphyria-Kris, my brain hurts, Babymama9672, MrDrP, MattB3671, and Zaratan.
There is a bit of songfic at the end of this chapter, just because I like to throw a little of everything into my stories. The song is called "Nice, Naïve, and Beautiful" by a band called 'Plumb'.
XIII.
Veronica Stoppable had a good father.
Check that, she had a great father.
Ron loved his kids equally, but there was something about Veronica he always thought was special. What exactly it was, he would not have been able to tell you if asked.
He spoiled her. And not in the bad way. He lavished every bit of attention he could on her until TJ was born, and thereafter, often made plenty of time to spend alone with her, just doing father/daughter stuff.
Of course, this is not to imply that Kim didn't love her children as much as her husband did. It was just that Veronica was unquestionably daddy's girl. Never was she able to stray too far from her dad. When Veronica went to college, she turned down scholarships from some of the best schools in order to go to Upperton University, just so she could live at home.
Veronica loved her mother, and her brother, but Ron had that little extra special place in her heart that no one else could occupy. It was, in essence, the purest and deepest kind of love that is often shared between a father and his only daughter.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but when Ron was killed, Veronica found herself wishing she had been with him.
Sometimes there's a fine line, of course, between what's healthy and unhealthy in a relationship between a parent and child. Perhaps after all, Ron did spoil her in a bad way, just a little.
On a chilly December third, as Veronica was finishing up a final exam and getting ready to head into her last semester before graduating college, her father was doing some holiday shopping in Middleton. He was just getting back to the Ninjet from the store and had an armload of gifts when witnesses say a bright green beam of light suddenly appeared as if out of the sky and struck the car. Ron dropped his gifts, shielded his eyes and was just turning to run when the car was engulfed in a particularly violent explosion. It left a crater in the street the size of a rental truck. There were no pieces of the Ninjet left that were larger than your fist, and Ron's bodily remains were never sufficiently recovered.
Because Ron was something of a public figure, news agencies felt no need to wait until the customary notification of the next of kin.
Veronica learned of her father's death from a news bulletin on the radio as she was driving home from school. She fainted behind the wheel, skidded across the oncoming lane of traffic and was hit broadside by an SUV.
She woke up in the Middleton Medical Center ICU.
As the months went on, Veronica had a difficult time just trying to function in every day life. She had to go through quite a bit of physical therapy to recover from the accident, and had to work extra hard to graduate by the end of the summer.
In May, Veronica accepted an invitation to dinner from one of her professors; a nice guy in his early fifties who was going through something of a mid-life crisis. That night, Veronica convinced herself she had found at least an echo of the fatherly love Ron had shown her all her life and began exclusively dating much older men from that point on.
As for the other members of the Stoppable family, and the effect Ron's death had on them; TJ was devastated, of course, but something deep within him took on a sort of 'man-of-the-family' attitude. Not that he felt he was suddenly in charge of things, but rather, he needed to be the strong, levelheaded one so his mother and sister didn't have to.
Kim spent a week clinging to the hope that Ron had faked his death again; even to the point that she had Wade – who was forty-four and working full time as a researcher for Global Justice – keeping an ear out for any mysterious ninja sightings in the tri-city area.
As she gradually came to accept the loss of her husband, Kim began to withdraw into herself. Her other half had been ripped cruelly from her soul's embrace long before she should have been prepared to let it go. Ron was fifty-two when he was killed, and he'd been a major part of Kim's life since they were four.
That's Forty-eight years.
Twenty-four of them married and only six of them apart for any real length of time. In fact, Kim and Ron had a running inside joke between them that they were together for only forty-two years because the years between the day Ron walked out on Kim, and the night of the high school reunion didn't count.
Joke though it may have been, there was an undercurrent of denial in it that we all posses in such circumstances. No one likes to remember the bad times in their lives. Unpleasant memories aren't what you dwell on when you think back over the span of your life, and they certainly aren't things parents pass along to their children. When was the last time your parents sat down and reminisced about the bad times in their lives? Or told you stories about unpleasant events that they endured? Other than complaining about an ex-spouse, of course.
And so, while Kim and Ron Stoppable regaled their children with tales of their heroism, of the foes they vanquished repeatedly, and of the adventures they shared, there were some things they just never discussed with their kids. They never really told their kids they were apart for six years; never told them about Dr. Cody Pendant.
And never once did they tell their kids about…
"RAY BEAM?"
"Is it Ray? I thought his name was, like, Richard or something," TJ looked to his wife for confirmation.
"No, it's Raymond…or Ray, I guess. You know him?" Kimono directed this last toward Ron.
"You could say that," Ron's face darkened considerably, "Didn't Ki-…sorry, didn't your mother or I ever tell you about him?"
"Mom knows him?" TJ looked really perplexed.
"They were engaged!" Ron practically shouted.
"What?" TJ became somewhat alarmed, "I never knew mom was engaged to anyone but you. Why didn't you ever tell us about this?"
"I don't know," Ron protested, "I haven't actually lived through the years of not telling you. How could we be so stupid?"
"You know," Kimono spoke up, "The first time I ever heard of who Ron Stoppable really was, I was almost in high school. Up until that point, you and mom were just the people who would show up at the lair every couple of years to check up on me. Mother and Daddy never told me you were their arch foes until I finally asked what the deal was with you guys."
Ron looked at his son, "'You and Mom'?"
"She calls her parents 'Mother' and 'Daddy', and started calling you guys 'Mom and Dad' when she came to live with us." TJ explained.
"You lived with us?" Ron asked with a smile, distracted for the moment at all the history he had not yet experienced.
"Mother wanted me to have a normal high school life, so she sent me to live with you and Mom… I mean Kim," Kimono replied.
"Ah," Ron said nodding, "So that's when you guys…"
"No, not really," TJ answered, "Kimono and I were best friends but we never dated until almost the end of high school. And by that time it just seemed natural that since we were best friends…"
"I know exactly what you mean," Ron said with a knowing smile, then asked a question of Kimono, "What was your point about not hearing about who I really was until almost high school?"
"Just that my parents never told me about all those defeats you handed them over the years. For them those weren't exactly fond memories." Kimono explained.
"Maybe that's it," Ron mused, "Ray must have served out his full twenty-year sentence and if he was no threat to us from jail, maybe we just never bothered to tell you guys about him."
"Twenty years? What did he do time for?" TJ asked.
"Attempted murder," Ron replied.
Although it was originally two counts of attempted murder, Ray's lawyer managed to get the conviction for just one after he convinced the jury that since Ray merely stashed Kim in a cryogenic tube, murder could not possibly have been his intent. Cryo-tubes were for the purpose of keeping someone alive. The jury actually bought it.
The D.A. did manage to make the attempted murder of Ron Stoppable stick, though, since Deathray destroyed a chunk of Middleton High school trying to kill Ron the night of the reunion. That, combined with a slew of other charges, made for a grand total of twenty years in the Snakeback Ultra-Maximum Security facility in southern Nevada.
Ray Beam did his time all right, but he didn't do it idly.
Most of the first few years of his sentence were occupied with painful physical therapy in the attempt to recover from the injuries sustained by his experience with Drakken's gravimetric ray.
But then Ray figured he'd beef up his brains while he had so much free time.
He studied by correspondence and received several advanced degrees in engineering, cyber-robotics, and physics.
When you're as meticulous a planner as Ray was, you develop a knack for patience. Planning, in its very essence, is 'patience' defined. And for all those twenty years, every minute of study, every page read, every night spent in troubled sleep, his thoughts were dedicated to one purpose.
Vengeance, of course.
Ray had twenty years of planning and waiting. If that doesn't teach you patience, you're likely never to master that particular virtue at all.
His plans for Ron were simple. Terminate him. Make Kim pay for turning her affections so easily away from Ray Beam. A scorned woman might be furious, but a scorned man could be downright dangerous.
Ray's intentions for Kim were a little more elaborate. She'd never willingly come back to him, but with Stoppable out of the picture, she'd certainly be miserable enough, and there were all kinds of torments he could heap upon her. And there were all kinds of countries whose extradition agreements with the U.S. were shaky at best. A little kidnapping, a little cloning; Ray liked to stick with what he knew.
But one day, near the end of his sentence, Ray stumbled upon an interesting formula that could focus a beam of light and cause disruption to a specific type of hydrogen atom in a specific target without harming those same atoms in the immediate area. This was key, since hydrogen is the most common element on the planet. If he could cause a controlled hydrogen explosion with just a beam of specifically focused energy, there would be many governments and supervillains who would pay much for such a weapon.
In fact, upon Ray's release, one government of a small African country was willing to let its people starve in order to fund his work. They paid half the agreed-upon price up front, fully funded Ray's research, and demanded a field test of the weapon before they paid the second half of his fee.
Ray was only too happy to oblige. All they had to do was mount the weapon to a satellite and park it above Middleton. Once the test was complete, they were welcome to take their little toy anywhere in orbit and vaporize away all their perceived problems.
Of course, Ray was careful to launder the money so thoroughly, in fact, the government it originated from couldn't trace it to him.
Then, on a chilly December third afternoon, Ray and a Colonel in the army of this particular African government stood at the window of a rented office in downtown Middleton and watched as Ron Stoppable returned from the store with an armload of gifts.
Could be they knew Ron would be there at that approximate time.
Could be due to the fact that Ron got a call informing him that the gifts his wife had ordered were wrapped and ready to be picked up. Could he come down immediately and get them? The store would be closing soon.
Ron Stoppable: naïve and trusting right up to the last minute of his life.
Even Ray was a little surprise at the force of the explosion.
Ron's benefactors were ecstatic with the outcome of the test and paid him the balance of his money; just short of a billion in U.S. currency. Soon after, however, that African government was overthrown in a coup by rebels who had ideas of their own about how the country should be run. No one was ever able to prove it, but Ray had been funneling money and weapons to the rebels for months. His only condition was that they destroy all evidence of his involvement with the previous government and disavow any knowledge of some alleged hydrogen weapon as well as destroy any evidence of it.
The U.S. government helped a little in this regard with a reactionary move; shooting down the satellite from which the beam had originated.
Ray Beam was a master at playing both ends against the middle.
He laid low for about six months, until he felt confident no one was going to come sniffing around him about Stoppable's murder, then quietly slipped into Middleton and hired a private investigator.
Ray liked to stick with what he knew.
He had the investigator dig up every scrap of information he could about Kim Possible any surviving family members. As expected, Kim had pretty much shut herself off from the world, while her son carried on the hero work. And the daughter…
Hello, what was this?
Not only was the daughter gorgeous, but she'd recently begun dating older men. Dead father issues perhaps?
Why settle for Old and Busted when Ray could have the New Hotness?
Ray enrolled in summer courses at Upperton University and, pulling out all his old skills at charming women, set to work on Veronica Stoppable. The fact that she'd never heard of Ray Beam was icing on the cake. The further fact that Mom didn't quite approve of Veronica's dating older men was the cherry.
She was reeled in much more easily than Kim had been some twenty-six years before.
And a subtle suggestion that Veronica not tell her mother she was dating this new guy was not only met with approval, Veronica actually made him promise he wouldn't tell anyone either. After all, Mom really might disapprove of her dating a man who had recently been in jail. But he convinced Veronica he was making a new start in life, and she just might be the guardian angel who would help him make that start.
She fell for it.
As in the old days, Ray turned on all his charms; pretended to be the caring listener, offered his best feigned sincerity and solace whenever Veronica needed it. Ray soon discovered that he was once again dating a woman who would NOT SHUT UP about Ron Stoppable!
He found himself having to control a lot of rage, with very few outlets to vent it upon. It was too soon for Veronica to become one of those outlets, but in time…
Ray finally proposed after a few months, and Veronica accepted. She wanted a large wedding, the type a lot of girls dream about from an early age, and part of that entailed her mother's approval. Veronica went to visit Kim one day, to tell her of her impending nuptials and ask if her mother would be there. Ray thought it best if he didn't go along for the time being.
Kim barely let her daughter speak, demanding to know just how old this new fiancé was.
Fifty-one, was Veronica's hesitant answer.
Kim lost her temper, and began ranting about how Veronica was just trying to replace her father, and so forth. She may have been right, but the conversation never progressed to the point where Kim learned what her future son-in-law's name was. Otherwise things might have been different.
Veronica flew out of the house in tears, went straight to Ray and begged him to elope with her.
Of course he would, if that's what she wanted.
So that's what they did, after which Ray spirited her off to his recently purchased island in the Caribbean.
For the first couple of years, Veronica had little to no contact with her family, then gradually resumed contact with her brother mostly through holiday greetings cards and so forth. At some point, about four years into the marriage, Veronica felt the need to reconcile with her mom.
Ray forbid it.
And by that time, Ray had worked out enough anger on his wife over the years that she timidly obeyed. Ray believed in a particular philosophy about marriage: Kick a dog enough times and eventually it will come to believe it did something to deserve it. The philosophy worked with particular effectiveness on Veronica.
Veronica finally realized she never really loved Ray, and the moment she made noises about leaving him, he sat her down and explained, in great detail, how he had killed her father. And just so she understood very clearly, Ray had a satellite parked over her mother's house and the second she was gone, Kim would be vaporized.
Of course there was no satellite, but Veronica couldn't take that chance. With great despair, she promised Ray she would never leave him.
Ray patted her on the head, told her she was a good girl, and had her make him lunch.
That night, away from the listening ears of Veronica, Ray placed a call to his ex-fiance and explained with not-so-subtle hints what exactly had happened to Ron, and then gave a graphically detailed account of what would happen to her daughter if he ever saw a GJ agent, specifically TJ, anywhere near his shores.
Kim was bitterly furious, but her daughter was in the hands of a monster. She stayed quiet – as did Veronica - and TJ was kept in the dark.
Ray Beam was a master at playing both ends against the middle.
TJ sat in stunned silence.
Ron had just finished telling them everything that had happened in the six year period when he and Kim were apart, before they got married. He told them everything he knew about Ray Beam, about the cloning of Kim and the final showdown in Ray's lair.
Kimono was speechless herself. Apparently Ray Beam was a subject Shego never cared to discuss with her daughter either.
"We gotta do something," Ron said quietly.
"Like what?" TJ asked.
"I don't know," Ron replied, "Something. How long have they been married?"
"About seven years," TJ said glumly.
"Mother?" came Kimono's voice from the front, she had dialed her phone, "It's me…hi… oh, we're OK. Listen, I just found out something about Veronica's husband… well, specifically, his name… apparently it might mean something to you."
Ron and TJ looked at each other.
"Ray Beam" Kimono continued, "No, I'm not kidding… what?… Does it matter where I heard it?…look… all I want to know is what you know about him. Yeah… fine… that's all before I was born though, right? OK…no, what did he… WHAT?… no, that's fine Mother, that's all I needed to know. I'll call you tomorrow, OK? Love to Daddy."
Kimono hung up and turned to look at her husband and father-in-law.
"Mom wouldn't come out and admit she had an affair with him, but she did say Ray has anger management issues in that he manages to take his anger out on whoever's near by." Kimono said in a stunned voice.
Ron nodded, "I'm sorry you had to find out like this, Kimono."
"It's all right," She replied, "And just call me KD. That's what you used to call me in high school."
"Katy?"
"No. Kay Dee, those were my initials. You called me that because you said you already had one Kim in the house and two would get confusing." Kimono explained.
"Ah," Ron grasped, "OK. What is it with me and initials? So what was your name before you became a Stoppable?"
Her tone of voice had an 'isn't it obvious' quality, "Kimono Drakken, what else?"
"DRAKKEN?" Ron exclaimed, "Your dad is… and he and Shego… My head is going to explode."
"Rufus," TJ said. He'd been lost in thought, "Contact Ariel for me will you?"
"Affirmative," The mole rat acknowledged.
"What's up, Teej?" A miniature hologram of Ariel appeared on the Ninjet's instrument panel.
"Hey, you remember the coordinates to the island where Veronica lives?" TJ asked.
"Yes I do." She answered.
"I need you to park a satellite above it and run scans all day tomorrow. Can you do that?"
"Sure. What am I looking for?" Curiosity laced Ariel's voice.
"Everything," TJ responded, "I want a complete tech scan of Veronica's house, top to bottom. All possible approaches, any defensive systems, you name it."
"You got it," Ariel disappeared.
"An Island?" Ron asked.
"He's wealthy, but no one knows where he got the money. Bought his own island; that's where they've lived the last seven years." His son explained.
Ron nodded grimly, "My daughter married a villain and lives in a lair."
"You know there's no way she knows the whole truth," TJ said evenly.
"Yeah, I guess," Ron replied, "But I don't understand why your mom didn't say anything. Kim would have freaked the minute she found out her daughter married Ray Beam."
"Maybe she did?" Kimono put in.
"How's that?" TJ asked.
"When I talked to Mother, her voice ran cold at the very mention of his name. But it sounded like there was fear there, too. Mom said if we're going to do anything, we need to do it soon."
"Shego, would you do me a favor and go get a newspaper from that newsstand across the street?"
"You want me to pay for it, or is this the usual 'Shego, go get me something' routine."
"Better pay for it. I don't want us to get stuck in the time stream because we were caught stealing a newspaper."
"What do you want with it anyway."
"Just want to check the date."
"Ah, and find out when we are?"
"Right."
Be right back…Drew."
…
"Well?"
"Looks like we came back about eight months."
"OK. Now what we need is a way to scan Kim Possible's energy signature without her freaking out about it. The sidekick, too."
"You can't just scan them from a distance?"
"Not with this. Has to be in close proximity."
"Wait a minute."
"What?"
"You're saying we need to get close to Kim Possible and take a scan of her energy signature without her reacting or trying to come after us?"
"You make it sound so simple, Shego."
"Maybe it will be."
"Wha-?"
"Look at the announcement on the front of the local section of the paper."
"'Former Teen Hero and Nobel Prize Winner Kim Possible to Wed This Weekend'. You want to crash the wedding?"
"I'm thinking we drop in on the reception, bring a gift to throw them off balance, and skedaddle after a quick scan."
"That's crazy."
"Well, if you've got a better id-"
"No, I mean it's so crazy, it just might work! We've got, what, three days until the wedding?"
"Uh…yep."
"Perfect. We'll lay low for a couple of days, then I'll sneak into my lair Friday night while I'm asleep-"
"While you're asleep?"
"While the other me is asleep. The one who belongs in this time period."
"Oh."
"Anyway, I'll sneak in and grab my laser letter opener. That'll make a nice gift…huh."
"What?"
"So that's what happened to the letter opener. I thought I lost it eight months ago."
"They'll be so busy fussing over what looks like a tiny ray weapon-"
"And the fact that it'll be their wedding day-"
"They won't be too troubled to come after us. You know, I think you're right."
"How's that?"
"It's so crazy, it just might work."
"Word up, Shego."
Kim was halfway across the pacific before she realized she had to check with Wade on the coordinates of Yamanuchi. She'd never actually been to the ninja school Ron had trained at for four years. It gave her a twinge. She'd be seeing a place that held special significance for Ron and he wasn't here to share it with her.
Again, the tears began to well up. But she thought again of Justine, working away at the lab, putting aside her grief to help in the effort to save the world. She pushed the tears back down again.
She had just given her Global Justice security clearances to Tokyo Air Traffic Control when Wade beeped in.
The look on his face told her half the story.
"What's the sitch, Wade?" She tried to sound jovial.
"What's this thing you're doing at Yamanuchi?" Wade began cryptically.
"I wasn't going to do anything," Kim explained, "I only came here because there's no other way to contact Sensei. I gave him a promise the night of my wedding, and he's asked me to fulfill it. I'm on my way to explain why I can't."
"Maybe you should think about keeping it… your promise I mean." Wade suggested.
"What are you talking about?" Kim began to feel inexplicably cold.
"We've been taking readings of the timeline with the Quantum Disruptor for the last couple of days. For the most part, it's kind of like a sonar. We send out a reading, and get a sort of Quantum Echo from the timeline." Wade explained.
"And today you got no echo." Kim guessed, the dread creeping into her voice.
"Yeah…" Wade said glumly. "We're a still at least two weeks away from testing a potential working model of the Artificial Tempus Simia. I don't think we have two weeks."
"Explain something to me Wade," Kim practically demanded, "If we can develop an artificial Tempus Simia in two weeks, then at that point in the timeline – two weeks from now - we should be using it, right?"
"Not exactly," Wade explained patiently, "Time travel isn't supposed to exist. The events of the timeline are those that don't account for anyone time traveling. Once Monkey Fist stepped outside the timeline, events began to shift. But the shift happens in real time. If right now you were to travel to tomorrow – and I literally mean the day after today – you'd find us all behaving normally; going about our regular lives because the events that concern Monkey Fist and his time traveling won't get there until you and I get there…to tomorrow, I mean."
"Man," Kim said exasperated, "Time travel is a truckload of ferociously whack theories."
"That's one way to put it," Wade agreed.
"So how much time do you think we have left?"
"A week," Wade replied despondently, "Maybe less. In fact we're shutting down the labs now, sending everyone home to be with their loved ones. Justine says she'll keep working…for obvious reasons."
"What are you going to do?" Kim asked her friend.
"I'm going home to be with my wife." Wade answered.
"You're wife? Did you guys-?"
"No. But I wanted to say it just once to see how it feels."
"And?"
"I like it." Wade's voice began to tremble, "I only wish I'd gotten to say it for real."
Kim didn't know what to say in response. She had a lump in her throat and a cold, hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach.
"Kim," Wade said quietly, "I'm glad I got to share my existence with you and Ron."
"Me too, Wade" Kim tried to keep the emotion out of her voice but couldn't "Give Monique a big kiss from me. Tell her I said…
goodbye
"…tell her I said you guys rock."
"Will d-… I will, Kim." Wade said with conviction, "I guess that was our last sitch, huh?… Goodbye, Kim Possible."
The monitor blinked out.
Kim's mind was numb as she began to descend toward Mount Yamanuchi.
"We are approaching the coordinates," Rufus Three Thousand announced.
"Guys," Kimono said over her shoulder, "Maybe we should put the Veronica problem on hold until after the mission. There's not much we can do about it tonight."
"Good idea," TJ agreed. Ron nodded.
"Incoming message from Ariel," Rufus declared.
Ariel showed up on the instrument panel, "I've got the satellite in place. You guys are coming up on DMV headquarters. I'm not reading any air defense systems, so I don't see why you can't just land outside the compound. But keep your eyes open."
"Will do," Kimono acknowledged. They were approaching a tiny outcropping of an island off Nova Scotia. Kimono descended to less than fifty feet and they streaked along the surface of the water. She switched off all lights that would be visible to the ground and powered up a three dimensional display that superimposed itself over the terrain, making it appear as though they were flying in virtual daylight.
At the last second, the Ninjet drastically decreased its velocity and approached the tiny island at a semi-hovering kind of speed.
The lair took up most of the space on the island, but there was a clearing just on the other side that provided adequate space to land.
The lair itself was a large metallic, geodesic dome, about five stories high. There were no interior lights visible from the outside.
The Ninjet settled to the ground in front of a giant sign with a large number nine painted on it on it and the four of them got out into the crisp Canadian night air. Water lapped and sloshed against the rocks on the shore, the stars were visible in abundance, and there was a tang of salt in the air.
Ron looked up and wondered if his wife or daughter might be watching the same night sky somewhere.
It was decided the best approach would be from the roof. A moment later, three grappling hooks sailed up and latched themselves to various anchor points near the top of the dome. Rufus sat on Ron's shoulder as they ascended the cables.
Ron had decided to leave his mask in the jet since Kimono and TJ didn't wear them. They said they didn't get the whole secret identity thing.
Rufus lasered a hole large enough to descend on suspended cables and four figures dropped silently into the center of the dome.
The darkened interior was mostly empty in the center, but was ringed with a large upper balcony. Ron thought he saw shadows moving in the dark and told Kimono as much.
"Those are our bad guys," she explained.
"Why don't we grab 'em?" Ron asked.
"You'll see. These guys do everything the same way every time. First the lights will come on, then cue the maniacal laughter, and then they'll introduce themselves. They never deviate, never cut any corners." Kimono whispered.
"Seems kind of anal retentive," Ron observed.
"Yeah, well, they're the DMV. Once we tried to apprehend them before they got around to explaining their evil plan, and they refused to talk to us or even cooperate until we 'followed the correct procedure'. They hit the self-destruct button and we all came this close to getting fried." TJ contributed.
"So now," Kimono went on, "If we at least let them go through the motions, we usually have a fighting chance to do what needs to be done and get out of here."
Suddenly the lights came on, and the dome began to echo with maniacal laughter.
"So, Team Ronin, you've found our latest lair!" came a slightly crazed voice from the balcony above, "Now prepare to tremble before the deviousness of our latest plot to inconvenience the world! MWA HA HA HA HA HA!"
TJ looked at his wife and father and rolled his eyes, "This is where - despite the fact that we all know each other - they introduce themselves."
Ron looked up to see three men glaring down at them with insidious grins on their faces. The one on the far left had been speaking, now he continued.
"We are the Departmant of Maniacal Villains! I am Diabolik!" He said raising his fists into the air.
"And I am Mentallo!" The one in the middle shouted, pointing his finger at the heroes.
"And I'm Verne!" Said the third man in a friendly tone.
"'Verne'?" Ron whispered.
"Yeah," Kimono whispered back, "He's the friendly face of the DMV. He gives you the misimpression that your time here might actually be a quick and pleasant experience. But it never is."
"Behold!" Diabolik cried. A panel in the floor slid aside and a large ray-type weapon rose dramatically from below, "Our Molecular Decelerator!"
For some odd reason, there was a cat lounging on one of the weapon's control panels.
A side door opened and a henchman came running out. The ray turned abruptly toward him and fired. The henchman stopped in his tracks, flailing his arms and moving his torso, but unable to move his feet.
"With this weapon, we will bring the world to a complete halt. They will pay billions to be released from such an inconvenience. The world will bow to us!" Mentallo ranted.
"OK, hold up!" Ron finally spoke, "Just to clarify; the DMV's latest plot is to make everyone stand around all day, so that no one has the ability to go anywhere or get anything done?"
"Last time we took these guys down," TJ exposited, "They had developed a ray that turned billboards and road signs into large eye charts. People got so confused trying to read them there were traffic accidents across the globe."
"Can we take 'em yet?" Ron asked.
"Not until the henchm-" TJ began and was interrupted by doors sliding open all around them. They were rushed by about thirty goons.
"Whoa!" Kimono exclaimed getting into a combat-ready stance, "These guys look extra vicious. Where'd you get them?"
"The NHL," Verne explained helpfully, "Since there was no season this year, these guys were looking to make a few extra bucks."
"Ready to go to work, baby?" TJ said, his voice tensing up with excitement.
"Always," Kimono replied, her fists erupted into turquoise fire.
Ron dropped into a crouch and leaped into the air, over the heads of the onrushing henchmen. He knocked two heads together and landed on a third guard, slamming him to the floor.
Rufus leaped from Ron's shoulder to the Molecular Decelerator and began sabotaging the weapon.
Kimono blasted a guard into two others, spun, and clothes-lined a fourth. Then Ron watched as she grabbed a fifth and threw him at TJ.
"Teej!" she called out, "Right leg roundhouse!"
TJ was busy knocking two heads together and, without even looking, swung his right leg out just in time for the flying guard to fold around it with a sharply exhaled grunt.
"That was baddical!" Ron shouted excitedly, then felt a heavy hand on his shoulder. He turned and ducked, barely missing an incoming fist. Ron stepped backward a few paces, using the guard's momentum against him, pulling him by the hand that had just been on Ron's shoulder. Ron stopped abruptly, twisted so the guard ran square into his hip, and flung the guard up over his shoulder, dropping him to the floor. Then he did a quick handstand on the unconscious guard as two others rushed in on either side of him. He threw his legs out and caught both guards under their chins. They dropped like bags of concrete. Ron pivoted around on his hands and vaulted himself up into a combat-ready stance.
Kimono sprung up onto the shoulders of the nearest goons and vaulted from him, into a backward handspring to the shoulders of the next guard, then vaulted from his shoulders to a third just before the second one dropped. She dropped to the floor behind the third guard and blasted him against a nearby wall.
"Everyone halt where they are!" screamed Diabolik. The heroes looked up to see the villain holding Rufus by the scruff of the neck, a nasty looking ray-type pistol against the rodent's head. "Cease this immediately or your hairless pet will be disintegrated."
Team Ronin froze. The henchmen closed in. Ron vaulted off the nearest guard, caught the edge of the balcony floor, and swung himself up, coming to a halt facing Diabolik and Rufus.
"Not another step," the villain said menacingly.
"That's a disintegrator, isn't it?" Ron asked.
"You only know that because I just said it was," Diabolik mocked.
"Which means you won't fire." Ron said casually, "You'll disintegrate yourself as well."
"Do not concern yourself with me," Rufus said with deep-voiced authority, "To die in the cause of justice is an honor every mole rat agent craves."
"Anyone ever tell you that you sound like that guy from the old TV series 'Space Passage'?" Ron asked, taking a step forward.
"Couple of times," Rufus confirmed.
"Not another step!" Diabolik shouted. "I will disintegrate him!"
"So do it," Ron said shrugging his shoulders, "You heard him, it would be an honor!"
"All right," Diabolik said, holding Rufus at arm's length. He flung the mole rat straight above him and raised the weapon.
Before Diabolik had finished saying the word 'right', Ron was moving. He ran straight up Doabolik, kicked the weapon from his hand, and vaulted off the villain's shoulders, snatching Rufus out of the air and tucking the mole rat into his arms. Ron curled his legs in and threw his head back, somersaulting over backward. TJ and Kimono drew in sharp breaths as they realized Ron had flipped too hard, and would end up doing an extra half somersault, crashing down on his back or head. But Ron had no such intention. On his way down, his legs shot out, scissoring Diabolik's neck in a vice grip and twisted his body, slamming the villain to the floor. Ron landed on his stomach with a grunt, but managed to gently toss Rufus away from him just before impact so the mole rat went harmlessly tumbling away.
Diabolik didn't get up.
"OH YEAH!" TJ shouted with enthusiasm, "Who's your daddy, Diabolik? My daddy, that's who!"
"That makes a lot of sense," Kimono muttered sarcastically, "TJ, left elbow back!"
TJ brought his elbow up and drove it into the face of a guard who'd been stalking toward him.
Ron moved on to Mentallo who didn't put up much of a fight, and Verne surrendered good-naturedly after that. Realizing they probably wouldn't be getting a paycheck, the remaining goons gave up.
"Rufus, contact Ariel" Kimono ordered.
"Affirmative," Rufus confirmed. A moment later, a hologram of Ariel appeared in the lair.
"Ariel," TJ spoke up, "We need a clean-up on Isle Nine."
Kimono shot a glare at her husband.
"GJ aircraft are on their way," Ariel confirmed. "They're being escorted by the Canadian Bureau for the Resistance of Evil Ways."
"I was wondering if BREW was going to get in on this," TJ mused.
Kimono walked over to Ron, who was standing by the disabled Molecular Decelerator, "Nice work, agent Stoppable!"
"Oh," Ron said with a modest wave, "I didn't do anything. But I did apprehend this cat!"
He picked up the feline who yawned and looked at him with half closed eyes.
"I think we can dispense the justice right here without having to bring him in," Kimono said playing along, "Hold him up, please."
Ron did as he was asked.
Kimono pointed an accusatory finger at the disinterested cat.
"Bad Kitty!" She said firmly, then winked at her father-in-law, "I think he's learned his lesson."
Kimono turned and walked serenely away. Ron's jaw gaped, then he looked over at TJ who was grinning, "Oh, I like her. She's silly."
A few minutes later, the Ninjet rose up and away from Island Nine at rapid velocity, the four occupants chattering excitedly about their recent victory.
Reluctantly, Rufus was forced to put a damper on the mood.
"Agent Stoppable," The mole rat turned to TJ, "I have an incoming e-mail holo-message. It is from your sister."
"Veronica?" TJ looked at the others, "Go ahead and play it."
A holographic version of Veronica appeared on the instrument panel. Ron caught his breath. She had short hair that came down to just above her shoulders, and was a little on the thin side, but otherwise she looked just like her mother.
"Hey, little brother. I know you haven't heard from me in a long time…"
Having just sent her e-mail, Veronica huddled in a closet near the back of the house. Sometimes when Ray drank, everything would be magnified by a factor of ten, especially his anger.
Ray drank a lot lately.
When he did, Veronica would take her MP3 player and hide from him. Most of the time these days she only listened to one song.
She's only known
Heartache and pain
But she's never known
A pain like this.
Veronica often retreated into her headphones to try and drown out the torment that plagued her.
Seven years.
Had she really been with Ray that long?
She stands alone
Defending her name
When all that she's done
Is be who she is.
Music was an escape for her. But this song was more than that. It spoke to her. At least all but the last verse did. It was like she could have written this song herself. She would spend hours and hours listening to it, each time stopping the song before it got to the final verse, each time pushing the button to start it over again, each time coming closer and closer to what she saw as the only means of escape.
Why is it so wrong
To be who we are
When all that she's done
Is fail.
It was her fault. She knew it, had said it to herself a thousand times, and Ray, of course, took every opportunity to remind her. If she hadn't been so trusting, so blind… so stupid…
'Cause she's so nice, naïve, and beautiful
Why did she get taken for granted
Why does she live in a world so cold
He took advantage of the nice, naïve and the beautiful
Mom probably wouldn't understand. Veronica had to pay for her own mistakes. Mom was right, she had been seeking a substitute for her father. And Mom knew more than anyone that there wasn't one. Better to live with the pain of loss than the bitterness of regret.
Cold is the throne
Of her hardened heart
No one has seen
The softest part
How did she come to this? The daughter of a world famous hero was the scared, timid sponge of a dark man's rage. She had given herself over to everything her mother…and her father… had spent their lives fighting against.
Day after day
She holds an ache
And won't budge to show
Her secret place
Tears always came when she imagined what her father would think of her if he were alive. He'd be disappointed. Never once had he shown anything but pride in her. But Veronica Stoppable wasn't raised to marry a villain. She'd betrayed his memory. Now there was only one way out.
Is it so wrong
To hold on to hurt
Maybe she could
Set it free
Tears streamed down her face. Veronica pushed the button to start the song over.
Soon.
Soon she would find to courage to go through with it.
Soon she would set herself free.
And she would be in a place where Ray couldn't touch her.
A place where she wouldn't have to be tortured by the ghost of her father.
A place where perhaps she could be a ghost herself.
"…but I wanted to say a few things." Veronica's message continued, "I wish everything had turned out differently. I wish it didn't have to be this way between Mom and me. But there are some things you don't know about, and I can't tell you, because if I do, Mom might be hurt, or worse."
It was clear that Veronica had begun to cry.
"It's all my fault. None of it is Mom's. Would you do me a favor and tell her she was right? I was trying to find comfort in men Dad's age because I missed him so much… I still do."
She paused as the sobs took control of her. Then regained herself a little.
"I just wanted you to know I love you…and Kim, too. And tell Mom I love her."
The message ended abruptly.
Silence pervaded throughout the cockpit.
"What was that about?" TJ asked after a moment, confused.
"I know what it was about." Ron said quietly. "I've seen that look in her eyes before."
"Where?"
"A long time ago, in the mirror."