Life is ours to be spent, not to be saved. - D.H. Lawrence
College Days: One Last Caper
One of the many peculiarities of BAU, and the McGinnis Culinary Academy, was that they began their academic year in the next to last week of August. This meant, much to the delight of the freshmen (all the students, of course, but especially the freshmen), that the student body had barely two weeks of classes ere their first three-day weekend. Due to the number of out-of-state students that the two schools attracted, both kept their housing facilities open for the duration of the holiday.
That arrangement was perfectly acceptable for Kim, Ron, and Monique. It was only Ron's second year in Overton, and Kim and Monique's third, so they decided to take the long weekend and just bum around town. Of course, with Kim there, 'bumming around' took a somewhat regulated definition.
What can be said, she liked to have some order in her life, even if some of Ron's spontaneity had rubbed off on her.
So it was, then, that they were seated in Kim and Monique's dorm room, planning out their weekend, when the call came.
Beep-beep-be-beep.
Kim just rolled her eyes and looked apologetically at Ron, who had been waxing rhapsodic about the restaurant he was going to take her to, and pulled out the kimmunicator.
"Sitch me, Wade," she ordered, just a bit sharply.
"Let me guess," the young man replied. "Bad time?"
"Not as bad as it could be," Kim admitted, "but still... what's up?"
"Just a hit on the site," Wade replied nonchalantly, "from Señor Senior Senior."
"Oh yeah, they let him out of prison last year, didn't they?"
"Yup, thanks to the deal you made with the DA. Anyway, he says he needs to talk to you and Ron. Want me to patch him through?"
Kim looked at Ron, who nodded, and Monique, who just shrugged. Monique herself had never actually run afoul of the Seniors, so all she knew about them was that they were the eccentric old guy who wanted to take over 'nice tiny islands' and the somewhat dim-witted son who wanted to be a teen pop star, but who couldn't carry a tune to save his life.
Which would likely serve him well as a teen pop star, but that was neither here nor there.
"Sure, patch him through," Kim said.
Wade vanished from the screen and then, after a moment's darkness, Señor Senior Senior flickered into view. Kim thought he looked a bit thinner than usual.
"Ah, greetings Kim Possible," Senior said gallantly, "and to you to, Ron Stoppable-"
"He remembered my name," Ron whispered soto voice. Kim shot a look at him, and Ron replied with a silly grin.
"-and who is this picture of beauty?" Senior continued, his eyes turned towards Monique.
"I'm Monique," she replied with a raised eyebrow, and quietly added 'somewhat creepy' to her mental profile of Senior.
"A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Monique. I apologize for my rudeness, but I must speak with Miss Possible and Mister Stoppable..."
"Anything you need to say to my friends you can say in front of me," she replied.
Senior's mouth twitched slightly.
"I see. You are a most self-assured young lady, Miss Monique. I suspect my son could learn much from you... but there is no time for such an introduction... I have not the time..."
Senior's voice trailed off for a moment, and an odd look crossed his face. But the moment quickly passed.
"But enough. Miss Possible, Mister Stoppable, I request your presence on my island, or I will plunge much of the western United States into utter darkness."
"Say what now?" Ron asked.
"I said it quite clearly," Senior replied, sounding somewhat perplexed. "You will either come to my island, now, or I will disrupt the power feed from the Mojave Cold Fusion Array."
Kim stifled a gasp. The MCFA was a relatively new power plant, only a few years old, but its multiple cold fusion reactors fulfilled the power needs of every town and city from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.
"You wouldn't dare," she hissed.
"Oh, I would, Miss Possible," Senior replied coldly. "If you do not agree to come to my island, and face me, then I will blackout most of the American Southwest. Then the real fun will begin..."
"Fine," Kim said after a moment, "you win, I guess. Same island as last time?"
"Of course. Oh, and leave the naked mole rat there. This is just between the three of us."
Then Senior signed off.
Ron just looked a Kim helplessly, and then they both shrugged. He quietly transferred Rufus from his shoulder over to Monique while Kim finalized the transport arrangements with Wade.
"So much for dinner, huh?" Ron said as he stood up.
"Yeah... I guess we'll do something when we get back. Mon..."
Monique waved a hand in their general direction.
"Don't worry about me, girl. Rufus and I'll take care of ourselves," she said confidently, as she scratched Rufus behind the ears. "You two just go and take care of business."
Kim grinned and looked at Ron. She was already feeling a pre-mission adrenaline rush.
"Battle-suit time?"
"Eh, couldn't hurt," Ron replied. "It'll make getting past the spinning tops of doom a lot easier."
"Spinning tops of doom?"
"It's Senior, KP," Ron said as he gave her a kiss on the cheek and turned to the door. "Of course he's going to have spinning tops of doom. The man knows how to take good advice. Anyway, I'm gonna go back and change. Meet you at the airport?"
"Sounds good. See you in a bit, Ron."
"You too, KP. Rufus, you behave yourself, okay buddy?"
"Right!" Rufus replied with a salute.
"Mon," Ron continued, "if anything happens to us... you take Rufus and you come and you rescue us..."
"What? And risk my naked mole rat?"
"I'm serious," Ron continued as he walked out the door. "It can get cold on that island, and I don't wanna get left."
"We're at the jump zone, Miss Possible," the pilot called out from the front of the craft.
Ron just stood quaking in front of the jump door. Kim turned back to the cockpit.
"Thanks for the lift, Colonel Carter!"
"It was my pleasure," Colonel Samantha Carter, USAF, replied, "after you saved that F-22."
"Eh, that was no big. Anyone could have seen that video tape lying on the engine cowling."
"Right... jump at your pleasure, Miss Possible."
"Thanks! You ready, Ron?"
"NO!"
"Oh come on. I know for a fact you've done this before without a panic attack."
"Two things, KP," Ron growled as the jump door opened and the air started to whip and roar around him. "One, that was to save you. Two, I was wearing a paraAGHHHHHH-KPPPPPP!"
Kim didn't wait for the rest of his gripe; instead, she grabbed his hand and pulled him out the jump door with her. Whatever it was that he was yelling was pulled away by the roaring wind, although Kim was able to read his lips well enough to tell that he was just cursing generically, with none of it directed specifically at her.
She gave his hand a quick, firm squeeze, and then they traded glances and released each other. They each brought their legs together, and tucked their arms in against their sides, as if they were skydivers attempting to minimize drag. Then they both went spread-eagle, and a trio of membranes appeared on each suit, one between each arm and the torso, and one between the legs, which converted the battle-suits into perfect squirrel suits.
The idea had actually been Monique's, after she had accompanied Kim and Ron on a squirrel-suit-sky-diving jaunt. It was an extension of the technique that Ron had used when he'd gone to save Kim from Sparks and Drakken, which combined the ability of the suits to adjust their tightness and form new, extended edges, with the self-repair system (which was what actually created the larger membranes). Wade had pronounced Monique to be brilliant once they had informed him of the idea, and he immediately hammered out the firmware protocols and remotely updated the suits.
So it was that Kim and Ron glided in to a perfect night landing inside of the Senior's compound.
It hadn't changed much.
They commanded the membranes to melt back into the suits after they landed, and then Ron turned and fixed Kim with a glare. She smiled back at him, and made her eyes sparkle (he really wanted to know how she did that; it was almost as powerful as the Puppy Dog Pout!), and he suddenly found his mind almost empty of gripe.
Almost.
"Why is it that I can't stay mad at you for more than two minutes?" he groaned. She grinned, took his hand, and started leading him towards the Senior's house.
"Admit it, Ron. You enjoyed it."
She tried to beep Wade on the kimmunicator, but she couldn't get a signal. That worried her... but not as much as it should have.
"What, being pulled from an airplane by my psycho, albeit beautiful, girlfriend?" he grumbled as he followed her lead. Tellingly, he did not let go of her hand.
"Yes."
"Yeah, okay."
Kim smirked as they reached the front door. She knocked on it.
"KP, is that-"
He was cut off when the trap door opened up beneath their feet and dumped them into a dark shaft.
"So where to, little guy?" Monique asked. "Bueno Nacho or McTrumps?"
"Hmmm..." Rufus muttered, as he gave the question serious consideration.
Then the phone rang. Monique raised an eyebrow and answered it.
"Hello?"
"Monique! This is Wade."
"Wade? What's wrong, you sound kinda agitated."
"Well... did Kim or Ron have a cell phone on them, by any chance?"
"Not that I know of, why?"
"Great... someone's jamming the kimmunicator frequency, and I really need to get through to them."
"Why? What's happened?"
"I just got a call back from the MCFA. There are no power taps, or bombs, or henchmen, anywhere along their outgoing lines. No satellites, no odd cars, nothing. There's no way that Senior could shut down the power output.
"This is a setup."
"AHH! TRAP DOOR OF DEATH! TRAP DOOR OF DEATH!"
"Chill out, Ron," Kim said as they continued to slide towards whatever destination awaited them. The complete and utter blackout, coupled with the uncertainty of where they were going-
Well. While she wasn't yelling and screaming, Kim was very glad that they were still holding hands.
Ron quieted down, and he even managed to pull Kim just a little bit closer to him (something that they both appreciated). A few seconds later and they saw a bright light at the end of the black tunnel. They hit the light, and were quite unceremoniously dumped into a large, well lit room.
The room itself was completely smooth, with neither definable edges nor visible protrusions; the only change in the texture was a single door at one end of the room. Kim even had a hunch that neither the hair dryer nor the wrist grapnel would find purchase on the walls.
Ron, for his part, saw little more than the white cushion that they were falling towards.
They hit it with a fairly solid smack, and bounced up and down a couple of times, but the cushion absorbed the energy of their fall, and kept them from harm.
Then it started to deflate, rather quickly in fact, and in short order it had lowered them into an 10x20x12 (width, length, depth, all in feet) pit. They stood up, brushed themselves off... and then, with a groaning sound, the side walls started to close in.
"Okay, now, this is just wrong," Ron grumbled. "KP? Any ideas?"
"Just one."
Kim drew her grapple gun, set the range, and attempted to hook the top edge of the compactor walls. She fired, got a good arc, and then she tried to pull the hook tight.
Unfortunately, the grapple could not gain purchase on the wall: the corners on the top had all been rounded off, and the hooks couldn't quite pierce the metal.
So the grapple just flew back and landed at her feet.
"Ah. That's not good."
The walls drew closer, and Kim was at a loss as to what to try next.
"Hang on, KP," Ron said out of the blue. "I've got an idea."
He flexed his hands and unsheathed the ferret claws (one of the many Ron-specific enhancements that Wade had built into his battle-suit; and the absolutely most badical one as far as he was concerned). Kim was about to say something, as she'd already calculated that while he could climb up to the top, neither of their arms were long enough for him to pull her up after him, but then she realized what it was that he was planning, and she moved unbidden to one of the ends of the pit.
Ron dug into the wall with his claws (his hands could exert more force than the hooks on the grapple could, especially after the training Kim was giving him), and he climbed to a point about six and a half feet above the ground. He hung there for a moment, waiting and watching, and then when the two walls were close enough he swung out from the wall, and pushed his feet against the other wall, and braced himself there suspended above the ground.
Ron adjusted his grip a bit, and then he released the wall with his right hand, and let it dangle. Kim took off running, and she reached up and grabbed his hand, and he lifted her up off the ground and swung her through the air. She released him, and with a half twist and a full flip, she executed a ten-point perfect landing on the wall right above him.
No small feat, that, on a wall with a rounded top.
She quickly crouched down and helped Ron the rest of the way up, but it was a near thing: no sooner had he pulled his left leg up and away than the walls closed together. They both sat atop the death-trap and caught their breaths.
"Ron, you all right?"
"Oh, I'm great, KP," he replied with a silly grin. "I mean, that jump... with the twist and flip thingy... and that landing... do you have any idea just how much fun it is watching you move?"
She laughed and smacked him on the arm, though she was quite pleased with his observation.
"Okay, I think that earned you about three weeks worth of Sensitive Guy Points."
"Boo-yah!"
"So c'mon, Fun Boy," she said as she pulled Ron to his feet. "Door's this way."
"Right behind ya, KP."
They made their way over the trap and to the main floor, and then to door that led to the rest of whatever it was that Senior had waiting for them.
For the most part, the rest of the 'fun house' was a relatively simple affair, at least compared to the other stuff they'd run into on their many adventures. The piranhas were easily bypassed via a flow duct that connected their tank to the one with the irritable and underfed koi. All of a suddenly, both sets of fish had something more to worry about than Kim and Ron.
There were only two spinning tops of doom. The whole concept had never really caught on in the villainy world, so HenchCo had relegated the line to a 'custom order' area of concept purgatory, which did little more than drive the costs up. In the end, Senior decided that it just wasn't worth the money to maintain a full stock.
In any event, Kim and Ron were able to use the wrist grapnels on their battle-suits to redirect the tops, and send them crashing into one another.
The first trap that gave them fits was the laser room. This room had a series of tracked, motion-sensing automatic lasers mounted on the walls and ceiling; they kept Team Possible jumping around like a couple of frightened jack rabbits. At least, they were jumping around until Kim got fed up and stood her ground. She shifted the right arm of the battle suit into the jai alai glove she'd used against Shego, and in a series of almost supernaturally fast and graceful whirls and leaps, she destroyed each of the laser cannons by redirecting their own fire.
Of course, it took a moment for Ron to stop jumping around, as he'd been so focused on staying one random step ahead of the lasers that he hadn't noticed that they were all destroyed.
Kim took great amusement in that.
The next trap was an absurdly complex construct that looked like some sort of archaic siege weapon, one which was also drunk. They figured (correctly) that it was of Junior's doing, and so they just walked past it, since they couldn't quite seem to figure out how to trigger the trap.
This disappointed Ron, as he found himself strangely curious as to what the construct would have done.
The last trap also gave them fits; it was a giant mecha, which was armed with a machine laser and a rocket launcher. It wasn't made by HenchCo.
The mecha had another symbol on it, the same one that Kim had seen on the boxes at Drakken's last hideout. As a result of that event she'd asked Doctor Director to keep her informed not only of the hunt for Drakken's Legacy, but also of anything and everything GJ knew that had to do with the Panther Group.
She'd have to face them eventually, she knew, but due to their reputation... she hoped that encounter would be a long ways off.
They wouldn't discover it until later, but the mecha that they were fighting was another piece of Legacy Tech. Senior had purchased it, not knowing its provenance, from a German he'd encountered in Barcelona.
The fight against the mecha went very badly. At the last Kim and Ron were separated by a rocket blast, and Ron looked up from the acrid smoke only to see the mecha aim its laser at Kim. This made him mad.
He began to glow blue, the Power began to flow through him, and through the tactical sight of the Power he identified his targets and stomped on the ground.
Two stone columns fell on either side of the mecha and crushed both of its weapon arms. Then, still glowing blue, Ron leapt at the mecha and drove his right fist into it. The mecha blew apart with a loud noise, and Kim had to shield herself from the flying debris.
When the air was clear she looked over and saw Ron kneeling on the ground, breathing heavily. She got up and rushed over to him; he heard her coming, and he stood to his feet and took her in his arms.
"Are you okay?" he whispered, his voice harsh and ragged.
"I'm fine, Ron," she replied. "How... how did you do that? That was awesome."
She was grinning.
"Mystical Monkey Power, KP," he replied with his own grin. "It comes in handy."
"I'll say."
Though the mecha was the last piece of the trap, Kim and Ron were unaware of this, and so they opened the last door figuring they were about to encounter another giant device of doom, but not really knowing what to expect.
What they did not expect was the sight of Señor Senior Senior, and Señor Senior Junior, seated at a table that was covered by a sumptuous banquet. Senior was dressed in a fine, formal, old school tuxedo, while Junior wore a pair of black pants, a black sports coat, and an open-collar white shirt.
Kim confirmed her observation from the earlier communication: Senior looked thin and pale, as if he were slowly wasting... he even needed Junior to come over and help him stand.
Something clicked in the back of her mind.
"See, Junior, what did I tell you?" Senior said triumphantly. "They have made it through! Ah, that was most exciting to watch, my young friends, very clever, very clever indeed."
He gestured at the table.
"Would you care to join us for dinner? I believe you may have missed yours on my account, and I do not wish to be an ungracious host."
"Host? What are you-" Ron began, but Kim cut him off with a quick squeeze to his hand.
"You broke our agreement, Senior," she said lightly. He chuckled in reply, and leaned heavily on his cane.
"Ah, but I did not, Miss Possible," he said. "As your Mister Load has no doubt already discovered, I have no plans to sabotage the MCFA, so I have technically committed no crime, except for luring the two of you here under false pretenses. As to the other half of our deal... I believe this is Labor Day weekend for you, yes? So, unless I have missed something, you have not had to 'skip class to deal with me'.
"I apologize for having interrupted your holiday," he said gravely, "but I am short on time, you see."
"You have cancer," Kim said quietly.
A thin smile crossed Senior's lips.
"Quite correct, Miss Possible," he said with obvious admiration. "Pancreatic cancer, to be precise. Quite terminal at this stage; I wasn't symptomatic until recently."
"How long?"
"Six months," he replied quietly. "They have me on a combination of chemo and immunotherapy, but the doctors are not hopeful. All I wish, now, is to last long enough to see Junior earn a recording contract.
"So you must understand my sense of hurry," he continued, his voice rising again. "I wished to see the two of you once more, just one last caper for old time's sake. Any hard feelings?"
Kim and Ron looked at each other, and without words or motion they read each other's heart.
"No," Kim replied with a smile. "None at all, Senior... though you might want to call Wade. I couldn't get through to him on the kimmunicator, so he's probably about to call in the Marines or something."
"He worries about us," Ron added.
"It is already done," Senior replied with a laugh. "I contacted him shortly after the two of you arrived in my... Fun House of Doom. Ah, I have waited all night to say that..."
His laughing turned into a pained cough, and Junior quickly moved to his side, whispering something. Senior waved him off, and steadied himself.
"But enough. Again, I've not much time, so... would the two of you care to join us for dinner?" he repeated.
Once more he gestured at the feast.
Ron quietly took Kim's hand in his.
"We'd be honored, sir," he replied with a smile.
"Excellent!" Senior cried, and he indicated two chairs to them.
"Please, sit and entertain me."
Despite his request, it was Señor Senior Senior himself who did most of the entertaining. Often he would regale them with tales of his exploits fighting, as a young man, for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War.
"My family was originally on the side of General Franco," he explained, "but then my father crossed Franco in a very bad way, and I watched him and my mother both dragged into the ainadamar and shot dead. From that day forth, my brothers and I fought against the Fascists."
He also told them how he'd come across his wealth. During the Civil War he spent some time, for one reason or another, in Casablanca. During his brief stay there he wound up acquiring a sizable parcel of Arabian desert in a high-stakes card game. In the post-war era he sunk a couple of oil wells there, struck pay dirt... and soon he found himself able to buy his own island.
Talk veered into recent times, and to recollections of their many fights over the years. Many were hilarious in retrospect, and in that room laughter was nearly as bountiful as the food.
Junior even told them what his trap was meant to do. Ron was duly impressed.
For her part, Kim quizzed Senior on where exactly he had found the mecha. He informed her that he did not know that the symbol on it had any special meaning, but that it was all right, since as with all of the traps the mecha had a fail-safe: it would not have shot her, even if Ron had not intervened.
Kim wasn't so sure of this, but she let it go, and didn't pry any more. It didn't seem all that important, and they were all having too much fun.
But all things must end. Eventually the food was consumed, the table was empty, and their return ride had arrived.
Senior himself saw them out to the plane. Their company seemed to have revitalized him for a moment.
"Senior, my mom's a brain surgeon," Kim began as the plane was landing, "but she knows some of the best oncologists-"
Senior cut her off with a hand wave.
"My dear, one of the sad truths of this world is that money can get you further than a good name, or a good word. I have already seen the best, and there is nothing more that they can do, except to buy time.
"What remains of my resources will be used to help Junior obtain his dream."
Kim nodded.
"But that is enough of such talk. It was very good to see the two of you in action, one last time. Miss Possible, Mister Stoppable... I thank you."
They said their goodbyes, and Senior watched as Kim and Ron entered the plane... and snuggled up against each other in the seats. He smiled as the plane taxied away and flew off into the air.
"Ah, to be young and in love," he whispered as he turned for home. "Goodbye, my friends."
THE END