Disclaimer: I own none of the characters and situations from Disney's Kim Possible, and this story is derived from characters and situations from that work - largely from the episode "Sick Day" - and I intend no profit by this.
Pairing: None.
Summary: Kim & Ron go after Dr. Drakken and Shego again shortly after the events of "Sick Day." One shot which might eventually be continued.
As always, R&R!
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Sick and Ron
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"Hey, Kim. Feeling better?" Wade asked from the Kimmunicator's screen.
Kim coughed, belatedly covering her mouth. "Some," she affirmed.
"You sound better, but your nose still looks a little red."
At the prompt, Kim blew her noise noisily, bobbling the Kimmunicator as she did. "It figures," she mumbled into her tissue. "I am feeling better, though," she confessed.
"Good enough to go after Drakken and Shego?" Wade asked, pausing to sip from a disposable Bueno Nacho cup. "He just bought a bunch of cold medicine with his credit card, so I was able to trace him back to his new lair."
"Let me check with Ron; I feel well enough, but even though Drakken and Shego are sick, too, I don't want to go it alone."
"Let me know; I'll work on setting up a ride and let Dr. Director know that GJ might need to intervene."
"Will do," Kim nodded as Wade broke the connection.
Kim set the inactive Kimmunicator aside, then walked over to her bed. "Ron?" she asked quietly, sitting on the edge of her mattress.
Ron mumbled something incoherent and attempted to roll over, away from the disturbance to his sleep, but was brought up short when the blanket Kim was sitting on refused to move.
"Maybe I should let GJ handle Drakken this time," Kim thought. "Ron still looks a little green." She winced as she noticed a wet spot on one of her pillows from where Ron had drooled in his sleep. "Ewww... At least I hope it's from him drooling."
Reaching out, Kim gently wiped Ron's chin with her tissue. Despite the softness of her touch, Ron awoke.
"KP?" Ron asked, blinking in the afternoon light.
"Yep. How're you feeling?" she asked in return. His eyes were bloodshot, and appeared ringed in red from irritation. "Poor thing," she commiserated silently.
Ron visibly thought about the question for a moment before answering. "Better. Still a little clogged up, though." Ron tried to inhale through his nose, but almost immediately had to open his mouth and gasp for air when the blockage failed to yield.
"Wade's found Drakken," Kim told him.
Ron quickly sat up, throwing aside the pink bedspread to reveal the dark blue pajamas he wore. "Let's go."
"You sure?" Kim asked worriedly. "We can take a pass and let GJ deal - Drakken and Shego are both still sick, so GJ shouldn't have any problems."
"They've always been sick," Ron grinned, his ruddy nose crinkling.
"Ha, ha," Kim mock-laughed, before donning a serious expression. "Seriously, Ron. You look a little green. Tell me honestly, do you feel up to it?"
"Absolutely," Ron nodded.
Kim gauged both his mood and his health. "He still looks sick, but he does look better than he did when we went after the tweebs and Ray-X," she thought. After a moment's contemplation, she slowly nodded. "Okay, then. Let's get ready."
Ron started to unbutton his pajama top, then paused and glanced over at Kim. "Uh, KP? Do you mind?"
Kim grinned as she collected a fresh set of mission clothes and the Kimmunicator. "Why don't I just go behind the screen and call Wade?" she suggested, grinning at Ron's modesty.
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The flight to Drakken's lair passed without incident; Ron dozed in his seat, not really sleeping but not fully awake either, while Kim amiably chatted with the pilot. It was peaceful and calm in the upper atmosphere, and in almost no time at all, they were nearing Drakken's lair.
As they neared the drop zone, Kim gently shook Ron to wakefulness. "You ready to go, Ron?"
Ron blinked as he straightened in his chair. "You know it, KP," he sleepily agreed.
"He does sound better," Kim noted with relief. "He still looks a little green though; but at least he's not as green as he was at the carnival just before that unfortunate incident with Mr. Baggypants."
Together, they kitted up, checking each other's parachutes and prepping for the jump. With a final salute towards the pilot, Team Possible jumped from the plane.
They weren't in freefall long before Ron activated his 'chute, and Kim was compelled to do the same. Glancing towards her friend, Kim was momentarily worried when she saw Ron working his jaw as his face twisted in some truly bizarre contortions. "Ron? You okay?" she called to him.
"Yeah," Ron called back. "My ears are hurting. Sorry. I know you enjoy freefall, but..."
"No big," Kim waved off his apology. "It's the congestion, and the changes in pressure. Just be sure to aim for the lair - and if you feel like you're going to be sick, aim for Drakken."
"Hard to miss," Ron agreed, "the lair, too."
Kim chuckled despite the weak attempt at humor, glad that Ron's spirits were high despite his less than robust health.
As they drifted down, the duo had ample opportunity to study the top of the lair. The structure was large, constructed of matte grey stone, square in shape, and had the air of solidity of an old bank - the kind built in the era when sticks of dynamite were the worst threat the lucre within would confront, and were now largely considered anachronisms - too small to be useful, and built far too sturdily to either expand or remodel economically.
Despite the difficulties involved, Drakken had clearly adapted the structure to suit his own nefarious purposes. An enormous circular opening had been added to the roof, giving a glimpse of a large machine inside the building, and incidentally providing a perfect target for the parachutists to aim for.
Kim and Ron regrouped on the roof of the lair, shedding their parachutes before peeking through the opening. The chamber within appeared to encompass the bulk of the volume of the building, and the majority of the room's space in turn was filled by the machine they'd glimpsed inside during their descent. From their vantage above it, most of the details of the machine's construction were unclear, but at the center, aimed through the opening in the roof, was a huge parabolic dish. At the cardinal points, delicate spires rose from the central mass of the machine - forming a vaguely crown-like formation around the dish.
After a glance at each other, they simply shrugged, not recognizing either the machine or its purpose. They returned to their observations, trying to see beyond the machine's expanse to the rest of the interior, but found the view simply too obstructed by the machine to be of any help.
Shrugging again in dismissal, Kim drew her grappling gun and seated one hook of the grapnel solidly in the stone of the roof. "Be ready for anything," Kim quietly instructed.
"You got it," Ron replied
Kim winced, since Ron's response was far louder than she would have preferred. "Probably the congestion," she thought. "He can't hear well - not even himself."
Once Ron had a good grip on her harness, Kim dropped through the opening. Together they shot down between a pair of the machine's spires, narrowly missing the dish, their descent accompanied by a high pitched whir as the grappling gun's spool played out.
Upon reaching the floor, Kim quickly ejected the spool of cable from her grappling gun, leaving the cord dangling from the opening far above, and glanced about. Neither Drakken nor Shego - nor any of his red-suited henchmen - were visible, but Drakken's voice - sounding congested, but comprehensible - could be heard echoing through the chamber.
"Hah! Even while sick, I've still got it. My Proto-Voltaic Muon Infuser will ensure the world bows to me!"
Shego's voice quickly retorted, "Don't sell yourself short, Dr. D. You've always been sick."
Kim choked back a snort of laughter. "She's got your sense of humor, Ron. Anyway, I'll go find Shego, you take care of this... this... the... Muon thingy."
Ron glanced up at the colossal machine, momentarily concerned by the sheer size and complexity of it, until he remembered that it had been built by Dr. Drakken - so a convenient self-destruct mechanism or glaring flaw simply had to exist; it was just a matter of finding the weak point. "Sure thing, KP," he breathed quietly.
Kim walked around the curve of the machine and found Drakken and Shego. Shego was sitting in a reclining lounger, covered by a green quilt, reading a magazine, only vaguely listening to Drakken's ranting. Drakken, on the other hand, was wearing a heavy bathrobe over his usual blue scientist garb, and the purple tinge to his cheeks and his nose showed that - for once - there was a rational explanation for the febrile gleam in his eyes.
Shego looked up from her magazine and blinked at the sight of Kim Possible leaning against Drakken's fancy new gizmo, casually listening to the mad scientist ramble on and on about his latest plot. "Feeling better, Kimmie?" she asked.
"Much, thanks," Kim grinned.
Drakken blanched, tinting his face in a number of interesting shades of blue and purple. "Kim Possible? But how? No, never mind - that doesn't matter. Get her!" he ranted, pointing one quivering finger at his teenaged nemesis.
Shego sniffled. "One sec," she commented, then blew her nose noisily.
Kim quickly took the opportunity to do the same. "Ready for a Global Justice prison?" she asked through the muffling insulation of tissue.
"You wish," Shego snorted, tossing her soiled tissue to the floor beside her chair. Rising to her feet, she let the quilt slide down her legs before stepping free of the puddled mound of cloth around her feet.
She ignited her hands, sending plumes of green plasma wafting into the air. "Let's go." She leaped to the attack, even as Drakken broke into a coughing fit that doubled him over.
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Ron was beginning to despair of finding the weakness in Drakken's machine when he quite literally stumbled over it. Looking up from his ungainly sprawl on the dusty granite floor, he grinned at the mammoth power cable leading from the machine in the center of the chamber to the outer wall. "Score," he breathed, struggling to untangle his feet from the thick power cord.
Rising to his feet, Ron grasped the cable with both hands and yanked as firmly as he could. "Hmm," Ron thought as he tried again, only to fail to sever the connection. "Okay, this might be more difficult than I thought." He tried tugging the other way, hoping to dislodge the other end of the cable from the machine, but this attempt was likewise fruitless.
The sounds of Kim and Shego fighting began to reach his ears, echoing around the mass of the machine - the muted thumps of limbs striking, the crackle of plasma evanescing, the hiss of clawed gloves cutting through the air. Ron tried to ignore the conflict's noises, but a particularly loud crash caught his attention - especially when what sounded like a grunt of pain from Kim accompanied it.
Ron squeezed his eyes tightly shut as he strained to dislodge the cable. His ears popped as the congestion in his eustachian tubes shifted, so great was his focus and the strain he forced, but still he squeezed, his fingers slipping on the insulated wrapping that protected the power cable. He groaned, the cords in his neck bulging beneath his flushed skin from the effort... and Ron suddenly found himself sprawled on the floor.
Groaning, Ron slowly sat up, one end of the sparking power cable still clutched between his gloved hands. In stark contrast to the crackles of actinic blue electricity spitting from the end of the cable, a fading green glow was coming from the raw edges of the break in the cord. Carefully, Ron tossed the live wire he held far away from himself, then rose to his feet.
"I'm coming, KP," he called - as best he could. Thanks to the congestion in his head, he couldn't really tell how loud or how clearly he had spoken.
Stumbling into a run, Ron hurried around the machine - giving a wide berth to the severed cable that twisted and hissed on the stone floor like a rattlesnake rousted from its den - and was promptly knocked to the floor for a third time. Ron's gaze met Shego's from very close range as he frantically fought against the desire to sneeze - which would have erupted directly into her face.
Shego's lips twisted into a snarl, and Ron quickly grabbed her wrists. Shego reignited her hands and instinctively tried to slash at him with her claws, but his grip was sufficient to keep himself safe; he had the leverage, and his hands were positioned low enough on her forearms to be beyond the range of the globular mass of plasma encasing hers.
Dismissing the sidekick as unimportant, Shego simply scowled at him rather than trying to injure him. "Let go," she ordered, her eyes glittering with barely repressed menace. "Or I promise that you'll regret it - for however long you manage to survive," she swore.
Ron chuckled nervously and slowly loosened his grip. "Sorry?" he ventured.
Shego shook her head in disgust and pushed off him, doing a backflip to return to the fight. She landed and flexed her claws, her plasma flickering into brighter, more intense life.
Despite the imminent threat Shego posed, Kim didn't seem to notice. She was distracted, staring aghast at Ron. "Ron!" she screamed.
Blinking in surprise - unused to being ignored, and confused enough about the situation to forego the huge opening Kim was leaving in her defenses - Shego turned to follow Kim's line of sight. "Stoppable?" she demanded, equally aghast, as her jaw dropped.
Ron slowly sat up, staring at his hands - and at the aura of green plasma that surrounded them. "Um..." he began, exceedingly uncertainly, only to fall silent once more as he watched the flickering contrails left by his hands' movements fade as he continued to leak glowing green plasma into the air.
Shego's expression as she stared at Kim's partner-slash-sidekick slowly shifted from surprise to confusion, then to dismay, before ending with anger. "Drakken!" she screeched.
"What?" Dr. Drakken demanded, turning away from the darkened monitor he was examining in an attempt to determine what was wrong with his muon infuser. His sudden intake of breath was accompanied by a swift widening of his eyes. He raised one shaking hand to point at the sitting sidekick, but even though his lips quivered and his jaw moved, he couldn't seem to speak a single word.
"What have I told you about cloning?" Shego shouted. "No cloning! No cloning, no genetic manipulation, no sequencing my genes - and most of all no experimentation with my powers!" she barked.
Dr. Drakken glanced back and forth between Kim and Shego, meeting their scowls with a thoroughly nonplussed expression. "Why are you looking at me like that, Shego?" he demanded, his face flushing a deeper purple as he rounded on his nemesis. "I didn't do anything. Talk to the cheerleader. She's the copycat!"
"What?" Shego asked, so confused by Drakken's response that the plasma sheathing her hands winked out.
Pointing an accusatory - and unsteady - finger at Kim, Dr. Drakken insisted, "Hah! I knew you weren't all that. Copycat! Copycat!" he taunted. "You're so transparent. Just because I have a sidekick with green skin and plasma powers you had to have one, too. But I had mine first, so there!" he stuck out his tongue childishly at the teen.
Kim and Shego shared a look, a mix of disgust, dismay, and confusion as they dismissed the mad scientist from their thoughts. "But if he didn't do it..." Kim began. "...Then who did?" Shego finished. "And how?"
"Uh, KP?" Ron tentatively began, holding up one burning hand as he continued watching the tendrils of plasma as they danced in midair around his widespread fingers. "When I was in their last lair... doing Operation Ray-X? Shego kind of sneezed on me."
The two females shared another look, and then in unison took a single step away from each other. "Just in case," Shego muttered, not meeting Kim's eyes.
"Oh, yeah," Kim fervently agreed with a nod.
Shego suddenly spun and shot an intense beam of green plasma into the trash can next to the lounger she'd been recuperating in, incinerating the contents and leaving the metal mesh of the container aglow with heat.
"What was that about?" Kim asked curiously, edging a little further away from the villainess.
"I don't want Dr. D to get any ideas," she shot back, then fired another stream of plasma at the tissue she'd left on the arm of her chair, obliterating both the soiled paper and the chair arm, before turning the beam on the few scattered wads of tissue lying on the floor beside it, vaporizing them and messily sanitizing the area.
"What am I supposed to do now?" Ron harshly demanded, waving his hands and waggling his fingers in a futile attempt to quench the burning plasma englobing them. "I can't be green! I'm a pink sloth!"
"Ease up, Ron. We'll figure something out," Kim tried to soothe him as she tried to adjust to his new coloration. In retrospect, she had to admit that his skin tone was identical to Shego's - as if the plasma burning around his hands left any doubt of the connection. "And here I just thought he was nauseous."
Shego's lips twisted into a truly evil grin. "Don't worry, kid. I'll give Hego a call - I'm sure he'll be more than happy to welcome the new holder of the green Go-Team glow to the team," she snickered. "You two deserve each other."
Ron scowled, and the expression was an eerie echo of the villainous sidekick's usual. "Ok, first of all... Hego? I know he's your brother, but the man tried to kill the naco! No way am I ever going to live in a town where the naco has been replaced by a veggie wrap." Ron's expression twisted in utter disgust at the very thought.
"And second," he pointed menacingly, and gestured emphatically to reinforce the point, sending a small spurt of plasma from the tip of his finger, forcing Drakken to leap over the sudden plume with a startled yelp, "there's no way I am ever going to answer to the name Ron-go!"
Kim shook her head in disbelief as she glanced back and forth between Shego and Ron-g... er... Ron. "Maybe it'll wear off," she suggested hopefully.
Shego and Ron snorted in shared disbelief - and after sharing a glance, Shego muttered, "I get hit by a comet to get these powers, but it only takes a sneeze for the buffoon to get them. What's wrong with this picture?"
"Um, Shego," Dr. Drakken tentatively suggested. "I've got my crypto scanner; I could examine you both, maybe find out..."
"No!" the green-skinned pair snarled in unison, then scowled at each other - their expressions, skin tone, and stance an eerie mirror reflection.
"Oh, boy," Kim mumbled.
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Author's Notes: Call this one a one-shot. It was sort of an idea in search of a plot, or the set up for a story without any actual story to build to. The plots that derive from the setup seem too... ordinary or overused for my taste. Hopefully the conclusion was enough of a surprise - I teased it, but tried to not make it too obvious.
In case you're curious, the pattern of infection was : Unknown patient zero to Jim & Tim to Kim to Shego to Drakken to Duff, as well as Shego to Ron. So why didn't Drakken inherit the glow? Based on the episode, Ron had been exposed to Jim and Tim as well as Kim, without contracting the illness, so the Stoppable Fortress of Immunity was obviously up to the challenge of that strain... but not that of the less virulent, lesser (but unique) variant of the strain that briefly developed in Shego as a result of an interaction with her comet powers. If I continue this, I'll brush up on my immunology and virology in order to explain this better.
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Coming Soon: The second in the series of unusual pairings that began with "Koo-koo-ka-choo, Ms. Whisp" ...
Some scenes from the episode:
"Feels good, feels right doesn't it?" Mr. Barkin grunted as he crashed against Ron.
"Mr. Fuzzy might get cold," Steve Barkin protested, curling up beside his shivering student.
Bonnie Rockwaller raised one aristocratic eyebrow contemplatively as she eyed the pair in front of her. "Weiner, yes. Little, no."
Ron Stoppable... slash... Steve Barkin are... "The Boys of Bonding."
Nah, just kidding. And in case you couldn't tell, all the quotes in the fake ad above are taken directly from "Bonding" - although all are almost entirely out of context.
Actually the next in the series (although it will be another one-shot set in an entirely different universe) will be called "Bonnie's Mom Has Got it Going On," and will again feature Ron in the starring role.
Watch for it coming soon... Maybe. So many stories in progress, so many story ideas, so little time.