All-Purpose Disclaimer

The author admits to the guilty pleasure he receives whenever people are impassioned and upset by what he writes. He asks that you give him a little (perhaps undeserved, perhaps not) credit, and also that you keep reading ;)

Two sections of stuffed animals organized into neat rows sat with reverence for the alter of stacked pillows at the foot of the bed, and for the adorable couple kneeling in front of it. "Dearly beloved," said Kimmie in a forced baritone, "We are gathered here today to watch these two people get married." A teddy bear with a tiny bow tie wiggled in her grasp, swaying in time with her words. "If anybody here doesn't want these two t' get married, let 'em speak now, or forever rest in—Ron!"

The person she clutched in her other hand struggled to break free, but found Kimmie's fingers too ironclad for escape. The sleeve of his jacket, liberated from Mister-Doctor Possible's closet, and many sizes too large for his tiny frame, kept getting in the way of the evacuation of his fingers. "I didn't sign on for this," he whined. "You said to come over and play, not get hitched!"

The dishtowel draped between her pigtails swished as she shook her head. She propped the bear up against the leg of her bed so she could give him the full force of her annoyance. "I said we were gonna play house," she told him.

"Well, yeah," said Ronnie. He disappeared further in to the suit coat with a shrug. "But I thought that meant you'd do mom stuff. Y'know: makin' me a sammich, rubbin' my feet, cleanin' stuff…"

Kimmie belted him on the arm and barked, "Play right! You're embarrassing us in front o' everybody." She gave him his hand back, satisfied that he wouldn't run. He used the liberated appendage to massage the bruise blooming below his shoulder. Taking up Minister Bear once more, Kimmie continued, "Ron Stoppable, do you take this girl to be your wife, to have an' hold, an'…um…obey?"

"Do I hafta?" he moaned. A fearsome look escaped her dishtowel veil, answering that question. "Okay, okay. I do…I guess."

Ronnie grumbled under his breath as Kimmie turned the bear toward herself and continued in her squeaky baritone, "An' do you, Kimberly Anne Possible the First, take this boy to be your husband, to have an' to hold, in sickness an' wealth, 'til death do you part?"

"Death?" chimed Ronnie, paling. "Wait, who said anything about—"

Kimmie silenced his protests by grabbing his cheeks and planting her lips onto his. Muffled screams failed to break the seal of her kiss, and puffed his face into a fretful red balloon instead. Kimmie released him once his hysterics ceased, and he gasped and choked for air. She snatched a clump of daisies from her mother's garden sitting near her feet and threw it into the stuffed audience behind them. "You have now kissed the bride," she announced proudly.

He clawed at his lips, falling to the floor with a tortured sob. "That's not how it's done," he yowled. "You hafta say that part before!"

Tittering snuck through her smile while he scraped the taste of her from his tongue. "If I did it that way, you'd know it was comin', and you'd just run." An evil look struck her features sober. "But maybe we do need t' do it right. C'mere."

She lunged at Ronnie, who shrieked and bolted. Plush guests flew left and right at his feet, and then tumbled away as Kimmie's feet followed quick. Shrieking laughter sang their chase around her room, up and over furniture, knocking over this and that, cherrying their faces, stealing their breath. When Kimmie caught him, as they both knew she would, she made good on her promise. And this time, Ronnie did not struggle quite so hard.

Kim Possible
The Power of Friendship

by Cyberwraith9

Kim awoke with a start, torn from her dream by the shrill, sharp talons of an electronic howl. She rolled out of bed and into a battle-ready crouch before the sleep had fully fled from her eyes, which swept the room for signs of the slumber thief, and found him squalling from atop her nightstand. The oversized collar of her pajama top—a red jersey almost old enough to drive—slipped over her shoulder as she stood, nursing the cramps in her legs. A glance at the clock gave her some reference as to how angry she should be before she scooped up her Kimmunicator and mashed its call button.

"H'llo?" she mumbled.

"Kim!" Wade's frantic features sat atop a wide set of Fearless Ferret pajamas. The bags under his eyes gave Kim a nasty little piece of satisfaction; at least she wasn't the only tired one. But she vowed to cut him no slack because of it as he continued, "We've got a major hit."

Her eyes blinked independently of one another. "Wade, it's one in the morning. I've had four hours of sleep in the last two days, and I'm not willing to deal with anything short of Armageddon until I've had a solid eight. G'night."

She was about to thumb him out of existence when he cried, "Kim, it's the Evidence Locker. They're going after the Evidence Locker."

The cold, hard fist of his words struck her in the stomach, stealing her breath and leaving fear in its place. "No one is that stupid," she whispered. "You'd have to be—"

"No offense, Kim," Wade interjected, "But your rogue's gallery tends to be heavier on the 'mad' side of 'mad scientist.' But don't take my word for it…"

His image vanished in a hail of clacking keys, replaced by a black screen halved by a lime line that began to dance. "Kim Possible, you are in grave danger," the synthetic voice of their new informant announced. "Your enemies continue to gather and grow. But they are also desperate. Your actions at Dementor's lair have forced their hand; a contingent will strike the Evidence Locker before the night's end. It is imperative that you stop them, or all will be lost. I will contact you again when I know more. Farewell."

The message ended in static, then blinked away, allowing Wade's haggard, round worry back onto the screen. Before she could even ask, she knew he had tried and failed to track the signal to its source; a grump of failure lurked in his taut lips. "See what I mean?"

Though still fatigued, Kim's last traces of sleep drained away, leaving her mind fuzzily focused. "Get in touch with Doctor Director," she ordered, striding over to her closet. The door flew open at her indelicate touch. Clothing jumped aside on their hangers until she found what she sought. "Have her meet us there. Cross-town trip should only take us fifteen minutes, so we'll be there in a half hour."

"That's awful fast, Kim," said Wade.

Kim yanked her mission uniform from the closet and tossed it onto the bed. Then she set her Kimmunicator aside, taking extra care to stay out of its camera field as she peeled the sweaty pajamas from her body. "Whoever's behind these tips, they haven't been wrong yet. Probably a Judas in whatever plot's going on. I want you to find out who he is no matter what it takes."

Wade gave her a nod and returned to his three keyboards. "See if I can't scare up thirty pieces. In the meantime, good luck."

"Thanks," she muttered from within her pajama top, pulling it over her head. "If someone's tough or crazy enough to hit the Locker, I just might need it."

"Actually, I meant good luck waking up Ron," said Wade. "I tried the same doomsday ring tone that woke you up, but his Kimmunicator bioscan shows him still a 'REMmin' along."

"Oh. Right." Kim reached over and banished Wade from the device, leaving her to stare at the red curtain draped across her arms. She lofted her pajama jersey to her face and gave its fabric a tentative sniff; after so many years as her own, and after countless trips through the wash, she realized on an intellectual level that it couldn't possibly smell like him anymore. Nevertheless, the crisp, salty scent of taco shells, woodchips, and humor filled her nose. The scent's potency startled her, and so she jerked back, but after a moment's pause, she pressed it to her face and closed her eyes.

Kim's inner dialogue—her self-scrutiny, her confidence, her criticism, her pride—had unanimously deemed Kim to be an imbecile of the cruelest variety, and unworthy of ever speaking to Ron again. She wished nothing so much as to apologize for her inexcusable behavior, but that was just it: she had no excuse, literally. Thinking back, she couldn't recall why Josh's presence had excited and confounded her so. She couldn't even picture his face. Only Ron's wounded, angry visage came to her mind's eye as she breathed deep of his imagined scent.

Well, she could still set things right, and resolved herself to do so. But as her crop top settled over her chest, she recalled that it would have to come later. For now, they were on the job, and the world needed her focused. She double-checked her equipment belt and then strode to the wall of her room adjoining Ron's. Her fist pounded thrice on the ancient drywall. "Ron, wake up. Ron!" And then she strode out of the room. Wade could reinvent every noise in the world as an alarm, but Kim knew her voice would always win out when it came to waking Ron.

She had just flicked the living room light on when a muffled bump came from the other side of Ron's door. A sleepy, distorted curse followed after before the door swung open. Ron stood on the other side, rubbing his nose and mumbling insults at his door as he stumbled out, clad only in boxers. "Whu' zat?" he yawned. "Iz the wurld endin'?"

Kim barely gave his undress a second glance. "Suit up," she clipped, and strode over to the kitchen counter. There, she lifted a bowl of pink ooze and shook it gently. A mousy face floated to its surface and yawned, blinking at Kim. "We've got another tip from Mister Voice."

A scowl escaped his sleepy squint. "Dandy," he grunted. "Then you and Mister Voice have a swell time while the rest of us sane people go back to bed."

She poured the insensate puddle of mole rat into her cargo pocket. "Ron," she said, "This is serious. Someone's going after the Evidence Locker."

"Oh, well, in that case…" He was halfway back in his door when her words reached him, and he turned back with a troubled, fatigued look. "Wait. What the hell is the Evidence Locker?"

"The Evidence Locker is a unique necessity," Doctor Director explained, "And contains enough destructive potential to threaten our world a hundred times over."

The eye-patched super spy led her best freelancers down a frigid, featureless hallway made of riveted alloys. Guards stood on either side of the hall at regular intervals, offering salutes to the trio that went unreturned. Doctor Director's brow hung heavy as she tried to dismiss her teen wonders' fears, even as she herself worried what might happen if they became reality.

Ron tried to lag, but the ladies' pointed glances kept his feet shuffling. He shoved his hands into his pockets and did his best to keep his eyes away from Kim. The angry knot in his stomach made it easy. Whenever her guilty greens flashed his way, he just brought to mind the nauseating smell of chicken parmesan, and felt enraged all over again. "Exactly why are we worried about a locker in some quasi-abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of town, anyway?" he groused aloud. "Seems like a job for a hall monitor, not the great Kim Possible."

The line of Kim's mouth grew thinner as Doctor Director said, "The 'locker' part is just a nickname, Stoppable. What you are walking through now is Global Justice warehouse Kappa-Alpha-Peter Zero-Zero-One, our Middleton storage facility. Whenever GJ confiscates anything from a Team Possible caper, we catalogue it, tag it, and place it in storage. There, we can pull it out for study, or other purposes."

"Still not seeing our part in all this," said Ron. He made a point of missing Kim's surprised glance.

His rudeness didn't faze the Doctor in the slightest. "Stoppable," she explained, "When you and Possible wallop the bad guy so he doesn't atomize Cleveland with his atomic ray gun, and he gets hauled off to jail, where do you suppose that ray gun goes?"

The question quieted Ron into thought. "If I say 'out to the curb on garbage day,'" he asked slowly, "Are you going to give me that look like I'm the stupidest man alive?"

Doctor Director regarded him as though he were the stupidest man alive. "Global Justice can't let weapons like that float around until they're snatched up by some other megalomaniacal nut case," she said, continuing to stride through the twisting corridor. "And you can just imagine how many missions you've been on over the years."

"Something closing in on 'lots,' I'd guess," joked Kim, casting a sidelong glance. Her icebreaker only got her more ice from Ron, who felt positively chilly to be around.

"Anything from a pea shooter to a nuclear warhead gets put in here. At first, it really was just a locker." A reminiscent smile lit the Doctor's hardened features. "Of course, that was early on, before we had even approached you in person. Eventually, we needed a warehouse to store it all in."

Kim's expression darkened. "Only now, somebody wants to raid this little treasure trove.

A snort flared Doctor Director's nostrils. "Impossible. The Evidence Locker is a state-of-the-art underground bunker, with the very best GJ has to offer in security. We're virtually detectable from the outside, and…"

Kim's focus drifted from Doctor Director as she began rattling off the thousand and one things that would keep their ambiguous aggressors out. The sour wall blanketing Ron's face bobbed in and out of her peripheral vision. His eyes remained locked on some point ahead of them. Fists curled at his sides, clenched so tight, they were whitening. Kim dropped back a half-step from Doctor Director and murmured, "Ron, we need to talk."

He didn't even glance over, and kept his gaze instead between Doctor Director's shoulder blades. The spy hadn't taken notice of their waning attention. "So talk," he graveyarded back.

When she tried to draw closer, he drifted further away. "Ron, I'm so sorry for last night," she pleaded in her ghost of a voice. "You have no idea—"

"I kinda do, don't I?" he retorted. "I was there."

She bit her lip, then whispered, "I know. But I had no idea—"

"Doesn't really matter, does it?" he said, cutting her off again. The wall across his face cracked slightly as his eye twitched, and he said, "At least it cleared the air."

"What is that supposed to mean?" she asked with a frown.

Ron afforded her the barest of glances. "With Mankey back," he muttered, "I don't have to wonder anymore, and you won't have to settle."

The icy dagger broke Kim's stride as it plunged into her back. She stood in shock, staring at Ron's back as he marched on behind Doctor Director. When Kim jogged the few steps to catch up, she reentered their trio at another arm's length away from Ron, and said nothing.

They rounded corner, where one last guard waited at the end of the corridor next to a door devoid of lock or knob. If Doctor Director noticed the increased distance between Team Possible, or their sudden quiet, she said nothing of it. When they reached the door, Ron's façade slipped again, this time in delight, as he recognized the guard on duty. "Well, well, welly-well-well," he hummed, eyeing the scrunched face beneath the rim of the guard's helmet. "So this is the finest GJ has to offer to protect all our old junk? Yeah, I feel loads safer now."

Will Du's sneer tightened to keep his retort at bay in his commander's presence. His grip on the rifle at his shoulder tightened. Eyes locked forward, he announced, "Doctor Director, Kappa-Alpha-Peter Zero-Zero-One welcomes you—"

"Stow it, Du," ordered the Doctor. She stepped around him and summoned a panel from the wall. A blinking screen rotated from the wall alongside several new, bizarre-looking sensors. At the computer's instruction, Doctor Director offered her palm and remaining eye for scan. After a moment to process, the doors rumbled open. Kim was surprised at their thickness, which could not have been any less than three feet. But her shock redirected itself to the room inside the doors as Doctor Director announced, "Kim, Ron, welcome to your life."

What lay beyond stretched out for an incredible distance—Kim's thoughts likened the space to a football stadium, if the stands were hollowed out to make even more room. Every last square foot of the room held a crate, or a box, or a stack, of Team Possible's history. So tightly packed was the space that the walkway rows set between were scarcely wide enough for two people shoulder-to-shoulder. Kim spotted a hoard of deactivated Kill-Bots lined up a dozen long and three deep. Next to them, a defunct rocket sat in three large pieces, its warhead missing. Off in the distance, a tremendous robot bearing a Z on its chest towered over the fields of boxes as if it were a dormant guardian.

Kim's eyes spun from box to box to box, taking in the dispassionate enormity which her life's work had been summed up in. Labels like 'Ray Guns, Sm—Lg' brought to mind a thousand close calls. A large crate, 'Golf Ball/Grenade (CAUTION: CONTENTS VOLATILE)' made the deep scarring across her back ache. Nearby, a stand with miniaturized ninja weaponry gathered dust, and evoked a tingle where Kim could recall them and those like them slicing into her skin. Everything about the room felt like a bad memory that had been tagged and categorized. The sight of it all overwhelmed her.

"So many memories," yawned Ron, whose coarse gaze took in the room in a few seconds. "So many pants lost."

"As you can see," said Doctor Director, "The Locker is secure."

Kim shook her awe away. She drew her Kimmunicator and thumbed it on, then scrolled through a long list of data files. "Let's make sure it stays that way," she said, selecting a program from the list. The air above the Kimmunicator sparkled and filled with flickering green lines that took on the shape of the complex. Kim watched the hologram build itself on a rotating axis as she said, "Our informant is sure that someone will strike sometime tonight."

"See, when a robot-voiced stranger says something," Ron explained to no one in particular, "She's all ears. When I say something—"

Anger broke through Kim's wafer-like patience. "Why don't you do something useful and go check the place out, Ron?" she suggested in a not-so-suggestive tone.

Ron stopped short, mouth poised in mid-complaint. He snapped his jaw shut as his face compacted into a baleful slate. He drew himself up and snapped off a smart salute. "Right away, Commandant Possible," he said, and stalked off before she could apologize.

"Agent Du, escort Stoppable through the facility," barked Doctor Director. Will echoed Ron's expression before marching after Ron. Once the two of them were alone, she glanced through the hologram at the haggard young woman rubbing the bridge of her nose with eyes squeezed shut. It took some effort for the aging spy to remember that Kim Possible was more tan her best free agent and much more than an unstoppable dynamo for justice. She was a nineteen-year-old girl. "Trouble in paradise?" the Doctor asked.

Kim cracked an eye and remembered herself. A ramrod replaced her spine, and cold business, her anguish. "It's nothing," she said. "Just a little…disagreement."

"I wouldn't worry," Doctor Director said cheerfully, never realizing how awful she made Kim feel as she added, "Like they say, love conquers all."

Each step through the endless, disturbingly familiar field of crates brought Ron a new wave of anger. By the time he passed a half-destroyed genetic resequencer pod (the sight of which made Rufus squeal and dive back into Ron's pocket), he had a raging tsunami congaing through his veins, no idea of where he was, and no particular concern of where he was going.

"Lousy, rotten, flippy-haired, dinner-ruining, bossy, know-nothing know-it-all," he muttered on, keeping his eyes glued to the concrete, well away from the awful memories surrounding him. His hands were jammed in his pockets, his shoulders hunched. "Go check the place out, Ron," he whined in falsetto. "Go far, far away while I write Joshy-Poo a sappy love note: Oh, Monkey, how I love thee. Let me count the ways…"

"Stoppable, hold it!"

Ron dug his eyes deeper into the floor. "Little busy, Du-Little," he shot at his feet. "Why not try back later? Go polish the stick stuck up your ass, or something."

Will's footsteps doubled as he tried to catch up. "No, Stoppable, wait. You have to stop, or—"

A fearsome look cowed Will's warning as Ron craned his neck around without slowing. "Or what, Dudley Du-Right? You gonna write me up, or—" His insult became a grunt when he met with something hard and bounced backward. The faint sound of metal gonged before he hit the concrete. When he looked up, a tower of steel painted powder blue loomed in front of him. Leaning back further, he could make out a barreled torso with a set of enormous arms high above him. A second blue tower sat at some distance to his left, helping to hold the torso aloft.

"—or you'll run into that robot," Will finished coolly.

"The Z-Boy," groused Ron, rubbing his temple. "Great." He glared at the silent steel leviathan and its blank screen. Nakasumi's bizarre creation dredged up a whole slew of memories that he didn't want to deal with, and couldn't stop.

"Attention, everyone. Contrary to popular belief, Kim Possible and I are not dating. Good news for you, Josh Mankey."

Boy oh boy, how true that was, even today. If he could go back in time…But then, he hadn't felt that way about her then. It wasn't until that escapade with Drakken's Diablos that his hunky-dory status quo had been shattered by a bizarre new feeling. He could still remember holding her after the police had hauled Drakken and his deadly toys away, patting her on the back and soothing her with whispers.

"Thanks, Ron," she had murmured into his neck. "Who needs a boy friend when I have you?"

Will pierced the miserable veil in his mind. "You didn't hurt yourself, did you?" he asked. "I saw you hit your head, and assumed that nothing vital was hurt."

"Nothin' broken I didn't walk in with," murmured Ron.

"Pardon?"

Ron's sadness distilled into renewed rage. "I said shut your ugly jerk-hole, and let's get back to securing the perimeter," he snapped, "Or whatever it is you Global Justice guys do."

Will quirked an eyebrow as Ron hopped back onto his feet and stalked off. "Whatever you say."

"—and the vents are guarded with a laser detection grid that sets off an electrical charge through the whole ventilation system capable of bringing down a rampaging caribou," said Doctor Director. "And, like everything else, it's backed up with triple redundancy." Her fist popped into her open palm. A satisfied look settled around her eye patch.

Kim dismissed the hologram with the push of a button, and stowed its source back in her pocket. A discontent look lurked in her overall uneasiness. She let her eyes wander about the actual structure, focusing on its concrete construction instead of the treasures it housed. A tingle born from seven years of constant battle refused to quell at Doctor Director's reassurances. "That'll keep the sane crowd out," agreed Kim, "But my guys won't scare so easily."

Incredulity furrowed Doctor Director's brow. "Is there a way in we haven't thought of?" she asked.

The ceiling answered her in a prompt fashion by shattering open with a clap of thunder. Mortar and steel hailed where it had not vaporized, masking the entrance of a disc-like craft. Kim and the Doctor ducked on reflex as an impounded Hum-Vee with enormous tires crumpled noisily beneath a metric ton of rubble. Lasers leapt from the expanding dust cloud and ignited a field of crates. Fire leapt to the ceiling, and gobbled up more crates in a growing ring of detonations. An instant later, the ceiling opened up with a spray of icy water that fought at the edges of the resilient chemical fires around them, which set off earsplitting explosions at random intervals.

Smoke strangled the air, pulling tears out of Kim's eyes that vanished in the sheets of water pounding at her from above. "There's always the dramatic way," she grunted, and looked up.

Dark shapes leapt from the disc, disappearing into the flickering haze. There was no time for thoughts of chase, though, as the disc parted through the cloud's edge. "Hi, Kimmie," called the green-clad driver, giving Kim a wave from behind the hover car's wheel. "Gosh, it's been ages. So, how've you been?"

Doctor Director smirked through the torrential haze. "This has got to be the dumbest heist I have ever seen," she announced.

Panels opened up across every wall in the warehouse, each sliding up to reveal a line of armored Global Justice troopers that streamed out in perfect synchronization. Their black battle vests and featureless visors glistened in the artificial rain and gleamed in the firelight, creating a starry ring around the circumference as their numbers swelled. In five seconds' time, the perimeter of the Evidence Locker was thick with soldiers, whose rifles rose to target Shego and her fantastic craft.

"Gentlemen," Doctor Director announced loudly, pressing at the microphone in her collar, "Open fire on my command."

Shego smiled beneath the threat of a hundred rifles, and held up her hands. Her waterlogged hair pooling at her shoulders and the puckish look she wore gave her an illusion of innocence. "Looks like you got me, Cyclops. Should've thought to bring some playmates of my own." Then her smile doubled, and her thumb flicked into her fist. "Mind if I borrow a couple?"

At first, nothing happened. Kim dared to hope for a split second that Shego was bluffing. Then a quivering came over a crate several feet to their left. Then the one next to it started shaking as well. Then another, and another. All around them, boxes shook themselves out of stacks. Cracks appeared and widened in their wooden sides.

Kim gave Doctor Director a questioning look. The raw, horrified expression on the spy's lined face froze Kim's innards. "What's in those boxes?" Kim demanded.

"It's impossible," whispered Doctor Director. "This facility is signal-shielded. There's no way—"

"What's in them?" shouted Kim.

The boxes burst with expanding reds and yellows. Gruesome faces grew out of tiny, smiling imps that spilled from the cracks, rising atop massive torsos that sported trunk-like arms and legs. They shoved up against one another as the limited free space in the Locker disappeared, lost to a sea of robotic monstrosities.

A ghastly silence drowned out the hiss of the sprinklers and the crackling flames. Kim watched the all-too-familiar robots lift their arms in unison and turn them on the ring of soldiers. "Diablos," she breathed, feeling her icy innards clench.

Hellfire cut the air apart in streams of gunfire and burning beams. The GJ soldiers leapt out of formation with scattered screams as Diablo lasers blackened the walls behind them. Those too slow vanished in blinding light, leaving behind singed, severed limbs left outside the lasers' reach. Bullets ricocheted off the Diablos' armor like the droplets of water from the sprinklers above.

Kim grabbed Doctor Director and leapt out of the way of a sweeping beam, all the while working out a plan in her head. Spy in tow, she rolled beneath the tripod of an enormous freeze ray that, for some forgotten reason, made her think of a blue fox. Kim yanked her Kimmunicator out. "Ron," she shouted in to the device. She prayed he could pick her voice out of the rolling explosions and gunfire. "Ron, can you hear me? It's Shego, she's activated the old Diablo bots. Ron!"

Left and right, Ron bolted through the burning stacks of evidence as fast as he could. The sound of war echoed from every side: gunfire, blasts, and the screams of the dying. His Kimmunicator cut into his grasp, pumping up and down, blurring Kim's fuzzy image into a trail of red. "Kim, you're breaking up. I think there's some kind of signal-jiggy cutting in on our Kimmunicatorage." He paused in speech, though not in step. "Or it's gremlins. Hell, what do I know?"

"Di…go…trans...eed y…"

The signal never settled long enough for a whole word to make it through. Disgusted, he stuffed it back in his pocket and kept running. Conflicting emotions swam in his mind: he still felt furious with Kim for her pigheaded callousness; he felt guilty for shoving her apology back in her face; he felt relieved that she was okay now that Hell had dropped down around their ears; and now he felt more anger, mixed with worry, that she would hero herself to death in this madhouse before he had a chance to be angry with her some more.

A voice behind him huffed, "Stoppable, wait!" Will Du tried to keep up, but layers of heavy armor and equipment slowed him down, and worsened his sweat from the inferno's fury. What's more, water began seeping into the collar of his armor, leadening him further still and making everything down below soggy. "You cannot go gallivanting about. I'm responsible for you while you are in this complex."

Ron rounded a corner and skidded to a stop. A wall of flames stretched across the narrow alley where a mountain of boxes had collapsed into conflagration. Will trundled behind him while he searched for a way through. When that turned up nothing, he went to his backup plan. "Rufus," he said, digging into his pocket. Rufus quaked fearfully in Ron's palm as he drew him out, shying from the wet inferno outside the world of Ron's pants. "Buddy," said Ron, "I need you to find Kim. Find her, and tell her I'm on my way."

Tasked with this important mission, Rufus pulled himself together (quite literally) and sprang up into a salute. "Ready," he chattered.

"Help her out 'til I get there," Ron told him. The mountainous flames became an academic study to his eye. He gauged its height and guessed at its depth. Water streamed from his stony face. "I'm going to throw you," he decided at last. "You know what to do." Rufus squeaked an affirmative, less certain now. Sucking in a breath to drown out his prayers, Ron drew his best bud back and hurled him above the flames.

Rufus launched his form out in every direction, spreading his pink putty out into a large, thin sheet. The charcoal claws dangling from each corner twisted down and grasped at one another. Stifling updrafts filled the cupped space above the claws, ballooning Rufus up and over the fires. Rufus steered himself through searing currents toward the building's entrance, vanishing from sight.

"Stoppable," bellowed Will. "I am in charge here. Pay attention!"

Ron whirled around and forced his fists open, spraying water as he went. He would have liked nothing better than to show Will plenty of attention, until the pompous jerk's nose fountained with his attention, but Kim would just scold him for it. Thoughts of the redhead's imagined condescension pickled his brain with anger again. "Okay, then, Doorman Du. You're the boss. So what should we do?"

Mild surprise sobered Will's soaked face. He considered it a moment, and then said, "We should double back and find a different route. We need to find Doctor Director and obtain new orders."

"Wish I'd thought of that," Ron said. He turned and stalked back the way they came.

"And stick close," Will called after him. "As long as you're with me, you'll be saf—"

The last word gargled out of him on a wad of bloody phlegm. Ron spun at his grunt in time to see the blade sprout from the middle of Will's armor, slick and red. Will and Ron both gaped at the dripping blade, mute with horror, frozen in place. The agent tried to speak. More blood dribbled from his mouth. He sunk to his knees, then fell to the floor, revealing the crouched form of his killer, who clutched at the hilt buried in Will's back.

"Ron Stoppable." Lord Monkey Fist greeted him with somber voice. His katana slid out of Will smoothly with the sound of steel scraping bone. Sword in hand, he planted his fingered foot at the fallen agent's side and stood tall and proud. A satchel plump with unknown bounty hung from his shoulder. "I've looked forward to this reunion for quite some time."

Thoughts glaciered through Ron's shock, trying to make sense of the last few moments. Fire without, ice within, rain all around, he somehow found the sense to raise his arms in defense. The gesture brought a smirk to Fist's lips. "You're in on this too?" called Ron. Without bravado, the words sounded hollow.

A chuckle parted Fist's lips. He circled around, slapping scarlet footprints onto the wet cement in his wake. A bloodied knuckle drifted up and traced around the bronzed medallion clasping his robes at his breast. "You could say that," he agreed. The satchel at his hip bounced once, giving an ominous rattle. "I must say, for all his hot air, Drakken's really outdone himself this time."

Catalogues' worth of ancient artifacts and weapons rushed through Ron's mind. Any one of them could spell disaster in Monkey Fist's hands, and Doctor Director had been shortsighted enough to gathering them all in one place, making them ripe for the plucking. Ron tried to force his eyes away from the tepid pool at Fist's feet. His fists shook with a mixture of rage and uncertainty. "'Bout time I spanked the monkey," he shot tonelessly.

"Oh, the toys are nice," said Monkey Fist as he shifted the satchel back. Gangly fingers curled into hammers. A row of graceful toes cracked against the concrete in anticipation. Murder glinted in black, beady eyes. "But I think what I'm most looking forward too," he added, "Is settling our score once and for all, Pretender."

Kim shook the sputtering palm top with a curse before stuffing it in her pocket. The top-heavy freeze cannon rattled above them with stray shots, while the screams of the frightened and the dying squeezed between the oppressive din of gunfire.

Her thoughts and feelings mashed together in a terrific pile-up: Ron would not be coming; Ron was trapped out there, alone, where she couldn't rescue him; Ron had been such a jerk when she tried to apologize; Ron still didn't know how she felt about…but did she (that thing wish Josh, no shut up, but it was there, no, shut up)?

The half second of human weakness fled from Kim as she tossed her head. Her face hardened into that of The Girl Who Can Do Anything, and then looked to Doctor Director and said, "Get your men out of here."

Doctor Director finished loading a fresh clip into her weapon before she gaped at Kim. "You're crazy if you think I'm going to hand over a warehouse of doomsday weapons to She—"

A terrified yowl leapt up, and was silenced just after, near their hiding spot. The heart now locked deep inside of Kim gave a lurch, but she forced it down further still. "Your men aren't equipped to deal with this."

Disbelief dug into the Doctor's face, refusing Kim's offhanded answer. "And what do you think you're going to do?"

Sprinklers sobbed onto Kim's face as she stuck her head out into the bedlam. "What I always do," she muttered.

The hero in her took flight from their refuge, leaving behind a little girl too scared to face the field of lasers and bullets. She did not feel the lead flying past her ears. She did not hear Doctor Director bellowing for her men to retreat. She did not see anything except Shego's leer skirting the edge of the hover car above her. Gone were the trappings of humanity—the doubt, the fear, the weariness—left in the shuffled prints of her boots on the sooty floor.

Kim hurtled over a row of burning crates, simultaneously ducking a Diablo laser that would have decapitated her, then rolled beneath a second shot through a shallow bed of flames back up into a sprint. The majority of Diablos concentrated their fire on the retreating GJ soldiers, but a good dozen of them had taken notice of her. No doubt Drakken had ingrained some of his own hatred of her into his robot minions. Their arms swiveled around, aglow, ready to vaporize her on approach. She welcomed the attack.

She rolled left, unconcerned when streams of photonic death cratered the floor formerly beneath her, and leapt up into the semicircle of robots. They turned inward as her feet struck the chassis of one of their number and leapt away. Their shots too slow, they holed their fellow until he became a belch of fire and shrapnel that propelled Kim into the next one in line. She leapt again from this second robot's hip, scarcely feeling the heat as it exploded from its brethren's sluggish aim. Then she landed on a third, running up its arm. The robot shuddered beneath her in the throes of death, pounded again and again by lasers that didn't find her and didn't concern her. Up the arm and off the head, Kim springboarded from the third Diablo. Her hand snatched the grapnel gun from her hip and fired it on instinct as the bot exploded beneath her, peppering her with tiny shards of shrapnel that stung all across her back and thighs.

The grapnel hook sunk into the antigravity plates on the hover car's undercarriage and tugged Kim skyward. She clicked her heels together and then watched the world blur as a controlled burst of her rocket boots swung her up and around, high above the battlefield. Blinded by the thick smoke and water, she trusted her instincts, cutting the line and the jets at her feet so that she landed on the rim of the floating vehicle.

Shego seemed unimpressed by Kim's entrance. She leaned against the car's controls, giving a yawn. "What kept you, Kimmie?" she asked. A smirk lit her black lips. Through the thick haze, Kim spied an unusual glint on her arch-foe's lapel; a small medallion of burnished gold. She couldn't make out the etchings, though, as Shego's fist had just lit with green danger. Her other hand clutched a tiny cylinder wit ha button atop it. Kim guessed its purpose at once, and forced her watery eyes into a scowl. "Give me that transmitter," she demanded.

Shego's smirk grew. "Make me," she taunted.

Emerald lightning threatened to burn the eyebrows from Kim's face. Kim reeled back and almost fell from the slick surface of the hover car. She bridged her hands behind her feet and kicked up, driving Shego back. Up on her hands, she windmilled her legs and then sprang forward. Her feet found purchase on the floor of the hover car, while her fists found their way to Shego.

The women traded blows, each taking as well as they gave. Kim sacrificed a hit, feeling her ribs crumple beneath Shego's heel while her arm wrapped around the kicking leg and twisted. Shego's head cracked against the metal grating floor. Dazed, she cross-blocked Kim's boot and shoved the teen back, then flipped to her feet. "Trying to crush my skull? That's a little Pee Gee Thirteen for you, isn't it?"

Kim scowled and threw a backfist that forced Shego's smirk to retreat. "People are dying, Shego," she shouted. "Is this a game to you?"

"It's always a game," countered Shego. "You just never play to win."

Rage boiled in Kim's veins. She struck with rekindled vigor, launching a combination that brought her fists across Shego's jaw and up into her stomach. Her foot slipped behind Shego's leg and swept back, thrusting Shego to the floor. Her other foot crushed Shego's wrist, forcing her hand open, which allowed Kim to pluck the transmitter from her palm.

"Look at that," Kim said, raising the cylinder. "I win."

A telltale click wrenched Kim's gut. She caught sight of a blue flash leaving Shego's jacket, but hadn't time or sense enough to move before Shego had a pronged laser pistol leveled at her midsection. The longest instant of Kim's life crawled by as the two women glared at each other, one with an expression of ultimate triumph, the other with dawning horror.

"Ditto," said Shego, and pulled the trigger.

To Be Continued