All-Purpose Disclaimer

Kim Possible is a registered trademark of the Disney Corporation. All characters and properties within this work of fan fiction are used without permission and for no profit. It occurs to me that no one really reads these things. Seriously, I always just skim right by the disclaimer, so why not you, right? You're probably scrolling down past the title anyway, so I can basically say whatever I want at this point. For example: What's the deal with elected officials and appointed military officers soliciting a teenaged cheerleader for help? Come on, let's be honest. In real life, these kinds of people would rather eat their own soiled boxers than ask for a fifteen year old girl's help. And another thing…

Oh, crap. You are reading this? … Forget what I said. Kim Possible is totally plausible. Now enjoy the story.

The last of their terrible laughter still rang in Ron's ears as his eyes cracked open. Consciousness brought with it a pounding in his head and throughout his chest, as well as the blessed sight of his favorite foods, raised to proportions too prodigious even for his appetite. Visions of tacos and burritos swam in his blurred vision, leading him to the obvious conclusion; he had died, and this was his reward for a lifetime of helping the helpless.

Ron moaned. "Is this heaven?" he wondered aloud.

A second moan much like his drew his eyes left. As they traversed the contours of the room, he realized that this was not, in fact, his light at the end of the tunnel; rather, they were in some sort of storage facility, populated by Mexican delights better suited to giants. Somewhat of an expert on the ethnic food, Ron could tell they were not the real deal, but mere effigies made from plastic and plywood, leaned against concrete walls until their noble services would be called upon again. In the meantime, they served as his prison; he found himself suspended several feet off the ground, bound to a burrito the size of a bus, by coarse rope that cut into his arms and chest.

There, among the ornamental food, he found his best friend tied to an enormous cactus cut-out, likewise kept from the floor by thick ropes and masterful knots. "Oh, KP," exclaimed Ron. "I thought you were down for the count!" Their final moments of consciousness rushed back to him; Eric's betrayal, Kim's defeat, and Shego's sucker punch, which still wracked his ribs with aching memories.

"Uhnnn…" Kim moaned. She came to quickly, sousing out their situation far faster than Ron had. Her face fell almost before she had finished coming around. Her eyes scoured the concrete. "Why couldn't I see that he was a fake," she asked, more to herself than to Ron.

That didn't stop him from answering; "Yeah, it don't get much faker than a synthodrone, y—" He paused, coming to a sudden and violently disturbing realization. "Uhoh! You kissed a synthodrone!" That notion alone made him feel ill.

Kim's face compacted into bitter disgust. "I never kissed him," she shot back. Ron felt immediate relief, until her scowl broke, and she admitted, "…but I wanted to."

Everything Ron had been feeling in the previous week came crashing down upon him. He felt as though he were trapped in the basement of a collapsing building. "Okay," he murmured, unable to look at her, "Too much info." He waited until the stabbing pain of her words dulled, and then resolved himself with a sigh. "So," he asked listlessly, "What's the plan?"

For the first time in a great while, Ron felt real fear, as he saw desperation blossom on Kim's face at his question. That desperation crumbled into misery just as quickly. "Ron, I…I got nothin'," she confessed.

Her words lit fire in Ron's stomach, turning his queasiness white-hot. Ron had watched her pull miracle after miracle out of her bag of tricks his entire life, saving him more times than he could even recall. To see her reduced to this…it enraged him that a boy (or synthodrone, or whatever he was) could do this to her, or worse still, that she would let him. "That's my line," he snapped at her, "And what's more, that's quitter talk!"

"Drakken finally won." The words dawned from her mouth in quiet awe, drawing her mouth down at the corners with an invisible burden. Her head hung with that weight. "I should have stuck to babysitting," she gloomed. Her eyes fluttered closed.

Ron's anger grew. "All right, KP, this pity fiesta is over," he told her. Some decisive force took hold of his voice, providing him with lines he never could have come up with on his own. "Drakken has not won. He played you. Now it's payback time."

Kim's manner didn't improve. She hung there like a broken doll: lifeless, cold…everything he knew she wasn't. 'He meant that much to her…' Ron realized. His soul numbed at the thought of someone she had known only a week becoming more important than he. "And y'know…" Ron began. He hesitated; he couldn't tell her now…could he? Once more, that decisive force controlled his cracking voice. But even it couldn't keep the doubt from seeping into his words: "There are guys out there that're better for you than Eric. Guys that are real, for one thing."

She looked at him with new hope still plagued with skepticism. "You really think there's a guy out there for me?" she asked.

This was it. This was his moment. "Out there…" he said. "In…" Something small and pink hopped atop his ropes, chittering in greeting. "—Rufus?"

"In Rufus?" Kim echoed. Then her eyes brightened at the sight of their mole rat companion. "Rufus! He can get us out of here."

Ron didn't hear Kim giving his little buddy instructions for their escape. All that reached his ears was a single, acidic thought burned from his heart into the furthest corners of his body, until everything in him hurt. He had missed that one, perfect moment's opportunity. Would he ever get another?

"The other lipstick, Rufus," snapped Kim.

Kim Possible
The Power of Friendship

by Cyberwraith9

"Here's to us," Kim announced, raising her waxy paper cup in toast. "And here's to kicking the high holy snot out of Dementor."

Cheers rose up from the rest of the booth in agreement, and then Team Possible drank to its success. Other patrons in the Upperton State University's Bueno Nacho cast the commotion a curious glance, but the staff paid it no mind. A post-victory celebration such as this one had become a regular occurrence over the last nine months. If anything, it was good for business.

The twins downed their drinks in one go, using the rush of sugar and caffeine to fuel smiles bright enough to light the room. "That was so cool," Tim exclaimed.

His brother slapped him on the shoulder. "Hey, remember when that greasy suit grabbed us?"

"And I was all like, 'Unhand me, foul villain!'"

Jim nodded emphatically. "Yeah, and then I was like, 'You won't get away with this, Dementor!'"

Monique's eyes rolled as she set her glass down. She shared a bemused glance with her neighbor in the booth. "Is that how it went? I must have been at a different fight."

A light chuckle joined the twins' enthusiasm. Kim saw so much of herself in them when she had been their age that it frightened her …and made her feel a touch old. "You guys did great out there," she assured her brothers. Their smiles somehow doubled, inciting one of her own. If her praise made fault lines of their faces, then this next news might rend their heads in twain. "In fact, Ron and I have a surprise for you. Right, Ron? Ron?"

Seated next to her brothers, Ron had no ears for Kim's big announcement. Instead, he and Rufus were obliterating the mountain of Mexican eatables set before them, taco by taco. The elastic latter of the pair dove into burritos still wrapped. Their crinkled wrappings would deflate as he poured out the other side, still unsatisfied, and moved on to the next without so much as a burp. Ron's approach was less amorphous, but just as direct; he held his food high above his head by the wrappings' corners and let gravity peel their papers away. The food then fell into his lurking maw, swallowed with only a cursory chew made more out of habit than necessity.

A nudge from Jim finally caught hold of Ron's attention. He looked to Kim with mouth full, and mumbled, "Whuv ub?" More taco than English exited his lips, so he swallowed the hard shell with a brief pained expression and then tried again. "What's up? Oh!" he exclaimed, catching on. While Rufus continued to devour the innocent tacos, Ron plunged a hand into his cargo pocket, in search of some surprise.

"You guys have really pulled through for us in these past few months," continued Kim. "And I want you to know how proud I am of you. How proud we are," she amended with a glance at her partner. "Right?"

"Huh? Yeah, yeah, fit to burst." Ron muttered an inventory of his pocket's contents to himself as he identified them by touch. "Yo-yo, no. Gum, no. Condommmmm…" He caught sight of a raised eyebrow each from Kim and Monique. "—mmminium pamphlets. Condominium pamphlets. Been thinking about a new place for, uh, when I move up in the world." A nervous chuckle failed to banish the girls' skepticism, but his triumphant cry at least put it on hold. "Ah! Here we go," he said, and drew forth two sleek, compact devices.

Jim and Tim took the offerings from Ron with hands aquiver. The glossy black casing of each device warped their reflected awe as the twins turned them over. "Are these…" asked Tim in a hush.

"They are," breathed Jim. He and his brother shared a shocked expression of joy. Together, they cried, "Kimmunicators!"

"Not quite," said Kim. "They're a little different from mine. Since you guys ride along as our tech support, I asked Wade to personalize them: Omni-tool, diagnostic equipment, over six million data infiltration algorithms, and whatever else he could think of."

"A Jimmunicator," said Jim, overjoyed.

"A Timmunicator," said Tim, elated. He tore his eyes away from the gift to end all gifts, and asked, "Does this mean what I think it means?"

Jim echoed his brother's hopeful tone. "Yeah, are we…?"

"It does," said Kim, "And you are." Before they could explode with delight, she added, "But only part-time, understand?" Her finger waggled at them in an unconscious impression of their mother. "This doesn't mean you can sneak onto missions when Ron and I say it's too dangerous. And if your grades start to slip, it's over. Got it?"

She doubted that they heard a single word. "C'mon," Jim said to his brother, "Let's go try these babies out."

Tim was hot on his heels as the gangly teens tore themselves from the booth. "I bet they cut our man-hours on Project: Carmageddon in half!"

"And leave Mom's minivan alone!" Kim shouted after them, but they were already out the door. She leaned back with a sigh. "Why do I feel like I just contributed to the end of mankind?" she half-kidded.

Monique scoffed. "Don't be too hard on them. They're just excited. Besides, anybody'd be psyched to get one of those."

"Is that so?" asked a coy Ron. He and Kim traded furtive smiles that baffled Monique until Ron produced a third wonder. Its lilac casing scooted across the table, skirting across years' worth of grease for a frictionless flight. "Ta-da," Ron said.

Monique caught it in a daze, and stared at the silent communicator. Terror and awe belted her in the stomach, leaving her queasy and breathless. "I…" Thoughts jumbled into her mouth, unable to order themselves into speech. The profundity of the gift wasn't lost on her, but neither were the responsibilities it carried. She could feel the weight of it tug her hand back toward the table. Finally, she looked between her expectant friends and managed to say, "I don't know, guys."

When Monique tried to return her gift, Kim pressed it back into her hands. "You were a big help too, Mon. Watching my brothers' backs…" Green gratitude showered upon Monique. "It means a lot to me."

"Not to mention the rescue from Destructo-Dude's lair last month," Ron added before resuming his gorging.

Monique still felt torn. Globetrotting held a world of appeal to her, but she could definitely do without the long hours. Even now, she was running on only four hours of sleep, having returned from their night mission in the Pacific to discover that it was already early afternoon in Upperton. She would never admit to it, but she admired, even envied, Kim's ability to handle it all. To look at the redhead, one would have guessed she had spent her morning preening in front of a mirror, not beating up some dwarf scientist.

And the death-defying? Forget it. Trying to sleep on the plane ride home had only brought her nightmares of giant killer ants, and exploding Vortex thermoses, or whatever it was they had liberated in the raid. "Don't get me wrong," she said, "I'm happy to help. I just…I don't think this is me on a regular basis. You know?"

She tried to give it back again, and again, Kim refused it. "Keep it," the hero insisted. "You've earned it, even if you never go on another mission."

"They make awesome MP3 players," Ron interjected between burritos.

Kim watched him unwrap yet another with disgust dug deep into her features. "Besides," she added to Monique, as they watched him devour again, "I'm thinking I'll need a new partner if my old one keeps eating like that."

Ron dismissed her judgment with a wave. "Puh-lease. Your jealousy is way transparent, KP."

"Oh?"

"Yeah." He waggled his golden brows. "The girl who can do anything just wishes she could eat like this." And he proceeded to eat a burrito without the aid of his hands, or his teeth.

Both girls clutched at their stomachs and made a great show of their disgust as Ron consumed his prey as a snake would a field mouse. "So not," gagged Kim. "I mean, come on. What would you say if I ate like that?"

Ron pondered this for a moment. Rusty gears whirred behind his eyes, constructing the image. "That would be really hot," he decided aloud.

"Shut up!"

Kim slapped his shoulder, inciting a laugh from him she couldn't resist returning. He scooped up packets of Diablo Sauce and chucked them at her, peppering her with a barrage of spicy projectiles and worsening her giggles. She snatched at the spent ammo and sent it back his way. The sauce war grew, as did their laughter and delighted shouts, until the pointed clearing of Monique's throat made peace between the sides.

"So," said Monique, leveling a smug smirk at the two flushed teens, "Should I leave you two alone, or would you like to get a room?"

A blush stormed Kim's pink cheeks, burning them scarlet. Ron found sudden interest in his tray, which had been emptied before its time thanks to his and Rufus' efforts. The pink putty rodent now rifled through the wrappers, licking clean whatever stray beans or gobs of cheese had thought to escape his wrath. "'scuse me," Ron mumbled. "Think I'll load up on round two. You girls want anything?" Monique shook her cheshire smile. "KP?"

"No," squeaked Kim, unable to look him in the eye.

He scooped up his tray, mole rat and all, and left in a hurry. Once he had left their earshot, Monique turned to Kim and said, "So spill already. How are things on the Ron Front?"

Kim found her voice again in Ron's absence. "Confidentially? Really great!" Lecturing her brothers five minutes ago, she had possessed a matriarchal air. Now Kim sounded thirteen again, talking at a sleepover about which boy band was the cutest. "Things have just clicked between us. We're totally synching."

Monique leaned in. Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial tone as she asked, "Kiss him yet?"

"You mean, since Christmas?" Kim shook her head, even as her lips tingled with the mistletoe memory. Then her face became uncertain. "Well, there were a few close calls. New Years', that night in the apartment…and the one you interrupted in Destructeron's dungeon," she added wryly.

"What?" Monique slapped her forehead. "If I'd known that, I would've taken my time." She watched Kim's expression fade dreamily. Stars twinkled in the redhead's eyes during a silence that Monique could not bear for long. "Well, are you gonna?" demanded she.

The daydream burst, plunging Kim headlong into reality. "What? Oh. I…" She edged back from the question. "I'm just waiting for 'the moment.'"

Dreamy words met their match in Monique's arched eyebrow. "And which moment would that be?" she asked.

"You know," said Kim, "'The moment.' A sleepy glaze settled over her eyes as they wandered from the booth and found their way to a tuft of blond straw bobbing at the counter. "The moment when everything feels right. Birds sing. Flowers bloom. Bells…ding-a-ling." Her face scrunched as her imagery faltered. "Stuff like that, I guess."

"Something 'round here's a ding-a-ling," muttered Monique.

"It has to be perfect," Kim insisted. "This is, like, Terror Level Red territory. If I mess it up…"

Monique eyed the young woman in a new light. True fear was a rarity on Kim's face, and it looked odd to Monique now. Didn't she realize that there was no earthly, heavenly, or feasibly possible way Ron would reject her? Or was it something else? "Are you afraid of 'the moment,'" Monique asked, using the same emphasis Kim had placed on the words, "Or what comes after it?"

"What comes after what?" asked Ron. He set his tray down and sat opposite his two friends with a clueless smile. Kim tried to answer him, but nothing even remotely close to actual words made it out of her mouth. The sudden speechlessness piqued curiosity in Ron powerful enough to divert him from his tray of snackage. "You okay, KP?"

While Kim babbled for an answer, Monique rushed to her rescue. "Boy, they filled your order fast," Monique exclaimed in a voice brimming with interest. "I didn't think they could make 'em that fast. Did you know that, Kim?" Kim offered a muted shake of her head and a grateful look. "Wow," Monique said loudly.

"Oh-kay. Weird." Ron shrugged and unwrapped a soft shell. "I guess. They've been slow since spring semester ended."

"Ooh! Summer!" A shimmy infected Monique's shoulders and hips. She succumbed to the unheard beat and said, "Girl, I'm gonna grab some sun, find some sand, and party like I mean it. Mmm!" Her dancing carried her into Kim, where she tried to bump the redhead into joining her. "How 'bout you two?"

Ron leaned on the table in thought, propping his taco halfway to his mouth. "Sun and sand sound too far out of the way for me and my pea-sized budget," he said. "I'm just gonna chill out here and catch up on the eight hundred hours of sleep I missed out on during finals. Maybe read some comics, or stock up on snackage."

"You generally need food for that," Kim pointed out.

He gave her a confused look. Kim just smiled and nodded at his tray. There, a pile of empty wrappers sat, untouched by his hand. His horrified gaze traveled up to his fingers, between which burbling pink ooze devoured the last of his tacos right from his very grasp. His hands flew open and the heavy mass of liquefied splattered onto the tabletop. When it congealed into a more familiar shape, its girth bulged with the memory of food well spent. "Rufus!" cried Ron.

Rufus rolled back, rippling at the edges, and burped. "Ho, sorry," he moaned. He didn't sound the least bit apologetic, but figured that even feigned remorse would stave off any serious anger on Ron's part. At the moment, he couldn't run from a snail doped up on tranquilizers, let alone a taco-cuckolded teen.

Annoyance welling up in Ron vanished at a musical laugh. Kim sang amusement at his expense, and excused herself from the booth. "Here," she said, "Let me grab you something. Suddenly I am hungry. Anything, Mon?" When Monique shook her head, she asked the fat smear on the table, "How about the naked mole pig?"

"Ooh," groaned Rufus, "So full."

"Right." She gave them a wave, letting her eyes linger on Ron a half second longer than she should have, and then glided to the counter.

Once he knew she couldn't hear, Ron released a sigh that started from his toes. He watched her walk with naked admiration, and didn't break his longing gaze until he felt Monique's eyes staring at him, and turned to meet them. "What?" he demanded of her knowing grin.

His ignorance didn't fool her for a second. "Do I have to ask how it's going?" she murmured.

Ron checked again to ensure that certain sculpted ears were well out of sight, lest they burn. "Between you and me? Really great!" he hissed excitedly. "It's like being back in Pre-K, only this time, when she kisses me, I don't think I need cootie shots."

"She didn't tell me about…" Monique trailed off, taking notice of the dangerous amount of interest Ron paid the blurted thought. "…the cooties," she finished lamely. "So," she said, switching gears, "Should I expect a wedding invite anytime soon, or will you just keep Kim as part of your harem?"

"Har, har." He sneered away her mockery in good spirits, leaning in and motioning for her to do the same. "As a matter of fact, I do plan on making a few giant leaps for Ron-kind tonight," he whispered.

A surge of surprise coursed through Monique. Of the two of them, she had never expected Ron to be the bolder, counting on Kim's characteristic courage to win that contest. It amused her to no end to think that, in matters of the heart, Ron was the lion and Kim was the mouse. "Detail me up, Ron-meo," she insisted in low tones. "A night of dinner, dancing, and delight?"

Ron shook his head. "Nope. Something this important calls for a surgical strike. I gotta hit her where she lives."

"Your apartment?" asked Monique, bemused.

The subtle sarcasm drifted past Ron's ears. "Exactly. First stage of the attack: candles and music. Second stage: mouth-watering chicken parmesan with a Caesar side-salad. And when she's crammed full of food and ambiance…" He leaned back, lacing his fingers behind his head. "Stage Three: The Ron lays it all out on the table." With a sniff and a sigh, he declared, "Guaranteed to succeed."

"Crammed full, you say." However lacking she found his diction, she couldn't help but admire him. That goofy smile splitting his freckles said it all. She returned the smile in kind, masking the tiny prick of a green knife in her heart. "Sounds classy."

"Crammed full of what?" Kim slid her tray onto the table, unwittingly splitting Ron and Monique's surreptitious counsel. Her suspicions arose when she spied their guilty faces. "Crammed full of what?" she repeated, this time with face and voice pointedly curious.

"Uh, c-crammed full of, uh…uh…" stammered Ron.

Monique supplied, "Food."

"—food, right, crammed full of food." Ron's eyes jumped about the restaurant, seeking support. They found purchase on Rufus. His hands shout out and scooped the mole rat up and raised him as evidence. "Rufus here. I said it was okay for him to eat his fill—"

"As if he could be stopped," Kim pointed out.

"—because I thought I'd cook diner for us tonight," Ron finished. Regularity returned to his stuttering voice as it moved back into a truthful realm. "I figured, y'know, we could have a nice meal at home. Something nice, and really…nice. Wouldn't that be nice?"

Kim's suspicions dissolved. "Cool," she said. Then she glanced at Monique. "You in?"

"What." Ron said in a graveyard whisper.

"What!" cried Monique.

She reeled at their reactions. "What?" she asked. "The more the merrier, right? Besides, we should hang out more before you jet off and 'get your summer on,' or whatever you called it." She tried replicating Monique's booth dance, only to give up with a laugh. "I'm sure Ron wouldn't mind another mouth to feed if he has some helping hands to go with it." Looking to her partner, she asked, "Would you, Ron?"

"Wha'? Oh, I…uh…"

"Ron already asked me," Monique said quickly. Ron gave her a sickly nod, and she continued, "Yeah, he already brought it up, but…but I have this…"

"Little cousin," said Ron.

"Sick mother," Monique said a half second after Ron spoke. They exchanged panicked, confused glances beneath Kim's skeptical eye. "My, uh, little cousin, he's watching my sick mother for me, and I…promised I would help."

Kim gave them a silent third degree, probing their nervous grins. "You two are acting kind of strange." With a glance at Ron, she told him, "You, I'm used to. But you…" she said to Monique, and leaned in. "What are you—"

Four musical notes rode in on a white horse, pulling Ron and Monique from the pit they had dug for themselves. Kim reached beneath the table and produced her Kimmunicator. She thumbed the 'answer' button, but nothing happened. The four notes played again. Confounded, Ron combed his pockets, coming back with his own Kimmunicator, and tried his. Again, nothing. That's when Monique figured out that the ringing came from her pocket. "Oh, sorry," she said. "That's me." With uncertain motions, she pulled the lilac device from her pocket and thumbed it on. "Um, hi?"

"What up, Monique?" Wade said from the tiny screen. "Just checking in to see if everything's working on the Monnunicator."

"Hey, cute stuff," Monique sang back, and smiled at Wade's blush. "Everything except the name. 'Monnunicator' sounds like some retired wrestler on welfare."

"Thank you!" exclaimed Ron. He shot Kim a smug look and said, "See? What'd I say? I said out-of-work luchador." Kim gave him a raspberry in response, making him laugh.

Wade said, "We'll go over the features later. I also called to make sure everything went all right with that weird tip I set you guys up on last night."

Kim and Ron ceased their face-making and crowded around the Monnunicator. "It went all right," said Kim, all business now. "We went in and out as planned. Everything our new friend said was right."

"New friend?" asked Monique. "You mean, someone told you guys that Demented—"

"Dementor," corrected Kim.

"Whatever. Someone told you he was planning something?"

Ron nodded. "That's the long, short, and in-between of it. Real creepy guy, but you can't beat the intel." He pushed his way into the Monnunicator's camera field and said, "Hey Wade, can you set us up with a clip show?"

"I'll do you one better, Ron. He's contacted me again." Wade's image flickered and disappeared, replaced by a neon line that cut the screen in half. Monique had just enough time to flash an unreturned glance of doubt at her two friends before the line began to jump and dance to the beat of a hoarse, tinny, artificial voice.

"Kim Possible. You and your team did well in last night's raid on Professor Dementor's compound." The strange voice held a touch of pride for the teens' handiwork. It failed to pierce the thick haze of mistrust on Kim's stony features. "But the danger is far from over. Even now, your enemies conspire to retaliate for this latest victory. Be on your guard. I will be in touch."

A low whistle rolled off of Ron's tongue. "Spooky," he announced.

"Is there anything else?" asked Kim, still frowning. It galled her to take advice from a contact they didn't know, but she knew when her pride was getting the better of her. Besides, she had once trusted a stranger she met via a computer, and trusting him had turned out to be one of her best decisions. She looked to that former stranger now, and asked, "You haven't made any progress in tracking him?"

Wade returned to the screen to shake his head. "That's all I've got. Whoever this guy is, he's good; he's bouncing his signal off of so many satellites, relay stations, and backwater servers that it would take me months to dig out the source of his signal." He would have said more, but a flashing red glare rode on and off his face, reflected from some beacon hidden within the wall of monitors in front of him. "Whoops. Looks like trouble." When he looked back at them through the camera, he said, "Just got an alert on the local circuit. There's a robbery in progress at the Middleton Art Gallery. Feel up to it?"

The aches in Monique's leaden bones laughed at the thought. "I pay taxes so police can handle stuff like that. Count the part-timer out."

"The on-staff handsome guy has to agree," said Ron with a sage nod. A rumble escaped the knit of his jersey, and he added, "And so does the handsome guy's stomach."

"I think Kim'll be interested in this one," Wade said in a sly voice. His image blinked out again, replaced with black-and-white footage that had a time stamp in its corner from just a few minutes ago. Glass showered from the ceiling of the room the camera stood watch over, making way for a trio of coiled ropes to drop and unfurl. A gaggle of jumpsuit-clad men rode the ropes down, led by a two-toned vixen with a devilish smile. She caught sight of the camera, and then the video ended in a sudden burst of bright flames from her hands.

Kim's hands balled into fists. "Shego," she uttered. Her narrowed gaze softened as it returned to Ron's face. The pleading expression he wore almost made her reconsider. Almost. "Well," she said to him, "If you're cooking, I'm going to need to work up my appetite. C'mon!" She snagged Ron's wrist and pulled him from the booth toward the entrance. "Later, Mon!" she tossed over her shoulder. "I'll talk to you later."

"Aw! How come I don't get a choice?" Ron had just enough time to grab his bloated mole rat and stuff him in his pocket. They were out the door before he could protest again.

"Call me, beep me!" Monique called back as the door swung closed. She stared a moment more, watching them gear up in helmets and jackets before mounting Ron's motorcycle and roaring out of the parking lot. The way Kim's arms wrapped around Ron's stomach made the green blade in Monique's chest twist, if only a little. But she shook the unbecoming thoughts aside and instead looked into the promise of that night. Imaging Kim's excited voice over the phone the next morning gave her reason to smile again. "Good luck, you two," she said to empty air.

Dementor sat at the cusp of his cracked marble throne. Defeat hung his helmet, and echoed in the ruins of his sanctum. The last of the fires had died out hours ago. Now, only their smoke remained, choking the first rays of a new, embittered dawn. Dementor's henchmen were long gone, evacuated when the island's defenses had turned on their masters; the king lorded over a broken realm in solitude.

"Hear that? That's the sound of your little empire crumbling," the Possible girl had said, with her angelic face darkened by hate. "Get used to it. Because the days of us running around, playing this little game? They're fading fast."

Game? The Possible girl thought this was a game? The notion turned Dementor's stomach. All these years, his aspirations for a new world order had been little more than amusing antics to a cheerleader. Now as the cheerleader grew up, she tired of their game. A game? There were rules, certainly: common courtesies extended across both sides of the border dividing hero and villain. It was only proper to have rules of engagement. But a game? And if it were a game, did that make Dementor the loser?

A howl cut from his throat, fueled by pain and rage unimaginable. His cry consumed the battered halls of his sanctum and fled to each corner of his domain. He howled until his lungs could give no more, until his throat ached with the effort. Drained, he fell from his throne and knelt with the scattered remembrance of his domain. When the last echoes of his voice returned to him from the edge of the world, they stole from Dementor the last of his resolve. A single tear escaped the rim of his helmet and smudged the sooty sheet beneath his bed of rubble.

"Knock, knock," a sing-song voice called from the sanctum's inner door. "Sorry to be rude, but your door was open, so I thought I'd let myself in." Freshly polished black boots crunched a path across the devastation. Frigid lips curled into a smile as the eyes above them surveyed the room, carrying in them a malicious twinkle as they did. "I must say," the interloper confessed through his smirk, "I love what you've done with the place. But the theme…it seems familiar." He stopped in front of Dementor. "I think we have the same decorator."

Dementor glared at the powder blue joy taken at his expense. He stood and brushed his tunic clean. Drained of resolve or not, he would not let this joke of a rival see him in the throes of loss. "I have no means with which to threaten you," he said, "So I will simply call you a boorish peasant, and insist that you leave at once."

The devious Doctor Drakken rubbed his fists beneath his eyes and said, "Oh, boo. Boo hoo." Dropping his hands, he showered disgust upon Dementor with a look. "So Kim Possible roughed up your precious little getaway. Do you have any idea how many of my lairs that little brat has toasted over the years? My credit rating is…" He stopped to think about it. "Not that I ever actually pay for anything, but you know what I mean."

"Yes," muttered Dementor. "You are a useless idiot. Now leave me. I have no use for you here, or anywhere."

"Hmm. I can see you're busy," agreed Drakken. He circled his prey with a vulturesque smile. "Mourning lost empires, and all that. But fiddle not, my miniscule Nero. I've got the cure for your blues."

"You are my blues." Dementor turned away in disgust. He could not bear to hear the prattling of this self-titled genius while his island smoldered. Not long ago, he would have atomized Drakken where he stood, but alas, Kim Possible's thoughtless boot had taken that small joy from him, too. "I have little need for anything you might offer, Drakken. I…"

Two new shadows joined Drakken's on the floor, inciting Dementor to turn around. There, he saw a new intruder at each of Drakken's sides. The two were a menagerie of differences: one colorful, the other dark and drab; one almost as short as Dementor, while the other topped Drakken by several inches; one wore a set of garish golf clubs behind his highland clothes and tartan, while the other swathed himself in robes the color of moonless midnight.

Though Dementor had never met them in person, he knew these men by reputation alone. "Duff Killigan," he stated to one. "Lord Monkey Fist," he said to the other.

The two flanking villains remained silent, letting Drakken speak for them. "Sit back down, Professor," suggested Drakken. A wild gleam took hold of his eyes as he said, "I've got a proposition for you that I think you're going to LoVE."

To Be Continued