An Ocean of Orange Soda
*slap*
Everyone stopped and stared; Kim Possible had just told off her best friend since forever in the middle of the dance and slapped him in the face. It was like a car wreck and everyone was waiting for the explosion.
Ron tilted his head and calmly replied, "That was a bit of an overreaction and drastically out of character if I'm being honest, but then a number of people have acted out of character tonight. I wonder…"
He raised his right hand and it burst into blue flames. Kim quickly stepped back, shifting her stance to prepare for a fight, but Ron simply pressed the flaming hand against his left cheek, causing a number of people to scream.
Ron removed his hand and the flame vanished. "Is the redness gone?" he asked.
"Y-yeah," Monique stuttered out, wondering what was going on.
"What was that?!" Kim demanded.
"Minor healing spell from Dungeons and Dragons," Ron replied. "Once I realized this wasn't real it was easy."
"Not real?" Monique asked, confused. "What is this then?"
"I'm not sure," Ron replied. "I'm probably just dreaming, though I could be in a coma from one of the many blows to the head I've taken on missions. I can actually feel pain and nothing feels off, so I might be trapped in a virtual reality trap one of the villains came up with."
"Ron, this is reality," Kim said firmly.
Ron reached forward with his right hand and was suddenly holding a massive sword at least two feet wide and five feet long. "Buster Sword from Final Fantasy," he said before sticking it on his back and letting go. "Look Ma, no hands!"
"Are we sure this is reality?" Tara asked nervously.
"Not as sure as I was a minute ago," Bonnie admitted.
"One final test," Ron said, "it's a lucid dreaming exercise." He spread his arms and slowly lifted off the ground.
"So… What's going on here?" Brick asked.
Ron sank back down to the ground. "I'm probably trapped in a virtual reality device, like an episode of Star Trek, where they either want to brainwash me or trick some information out of me."
"How do we know it's you in the machine and not one of us?" Brick demanded.
"It's more likely they want information from Kim," Monique argued.
"Can any of you override the machine and alter reality?" Ron asked smugly. "They wouldn't program that ability into the simulation so only a conscious being could do it."
"Damn, I'm not real," Bonnie said with a sigh, seeing the logic of it. "Well, at least you made me hotter than Kim."
"You are not hotter than me!" Kim complained.
Tara walked over to Ron and pushed him into a chair, much to his confusion before climbing on his lap and kissing him hard.
A number of students groaned, realizing that there was no way this was real, Ron Stoppable, who was continually called a loser by a good portion of school, wouldn't suddenly find himself in a liplock with one the cheerleaders in any sane world, so they were all just figments of Ron's imagination.
Eric twitched and began to smoke. "Not real, but must follow programming, but programming is false…" he muttered and fell over, green goo leaking from his ears.
"You made Eric a synth?!" Kim demanded, as she stared down at the slowly deflating body of her date.
Monique wrinkled her nose. "He was a bit too perfect to be real."
"Yeah, I can see the connection," Kim admitted with a sigh.
"So now what?" Bonnie asked.
"Now what?" Kim echoed.
"Now that we know we're not real, and that Ron thinks I'm hotter than you, what do we do?" Bonnie asked.
"He does not think you're hotter than me," Kim growled out.
"Girl, focus," Monique ordered her. "We're not real, what do we do with this info?"
"Tara's using it to get some facetime with Ron," Josh Mankey pointed out, "and as her boyfriend let me just say, ouch."
"If she's not really Tara and you're not real Josh, then you aren't really dating," Bonnie told him.
Josh considered that and perked up. "That makes me feel a bit better, thanks."
"What can we do if we're just figments of his imagination?" Kim asked feeling the edges of an existential crisis approaching or possibly just a headache.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"The new synth you made just shit the bed," Shego told Drakken as she saw its signal flatline on the monitor.
"What?! No, that'll ruin everything!" Drakken whined as Shego brought up footage from it to find out what had happened.
A minute later, after having watched Eric's last memories, they settled back in their chairs and quietly considered things.
"I knew it was too good to be true," Drakken said with a heavy sigh, "I mean… my plan was working perfectly."
"I thought our luck had finally changed," Shego admitted. "This plan was a lot better than your usual ones and none of the minions screwed anything up."
"What can we do if we're just figments of his imagination?" Drakken asked, echoing Kim's earlier question.
"Well… wanna go drop in on the dance and watch me fight Kim?" Shego suggested.
"That does sound like fun," Dr. Drakken admitted with a sad smile. Looking around he spotted the big red button on the console and hit it.
"The self destruct on the robots?" Shego asked.
"Might as well have the satisfaction of hitting it myself for once," he said, forcing a grin on his face.
Shego laughed. "Wanna stop for ice cream on the way?"
"I'd love some Rocky Road," Drakken said, genuinely perking up as he realized if he wasn't real he could completely ignore his diet.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
*Crash!*
"Greetings Princess!" Shego called out as she kicked open the door to the gym, her left hand holding a pistachio ice cream cone.
"Shego, Drakken?" Kim asked, confused.
"Eric was a decoy to separate you and your sidekick," Drakken explained, in between bites of his chocolate cone.
"It was working perfectly too," Shego said, "You didn't even suspect that we'd used Bueno Nachos to sneak robots into just about every house in the world."
"They're kinda small," Monique pointed out.
"They can grow to dozens of feet high using the technology developed in Dr. Possible's Hephaestus project," Drakken explained.
"Damn, that sounds like it would have worked, if we weren't all…" Monique waved a hand.
"Figments of Ron's imagination," Shego finished for her. "Yeah, we saw through Eric's sensors before he melted down."
"So we aren't in a virtual reality you created to get something from Ron?" Kim asked.
"Hey," Drakken perked up, "maybe we are. Not sure what the buffoon could possibly know, but maybe that's why our plan was working so well."
"If I was making a sim me I'd make sure she had everything go her way," Shego agreed.
"Hands!" Barkin called out, causing everyone to turn and see Tara remove her hands from under Ron's shirt.
"Wait, why am I listening to you," Tara asked, "you're a figment of Ron's imagination."
"Well, if I'm calling you on it then obviously he feels a little uncomfortable moving that quickly," Barkin replied.
"Really?" Tara asked Ron.
"It's not first date material and you're not easy," Ron told the blonde on his lap.
"You say the sweetest things," Tara said, "but since I'm not real…"
"I can't see myself taking advantage of you that way, not even in a dream," Ron said apologetically.
"If I was the real Bonnie I'd call you a loser for that," Bonnie said, "but since I'm not, I'll admit that is sweet."
"I came here to fight you," Shego told Kim, "because even if I'm just a figment of someone else's imagination I still want to kick your ass."
"Well, let's get to it," Kim said, pulling off her corsage and tossing it on a table.
"Let me finish my ice cream first," Shego said, "I love pistachio."
"Sure," Kim said with a shrug, since she wasn't really herself and that wasn't really Shego there wasn't any reason to rush.
"Sensei?" Ron addressed the air, pulling back from Tara who turned to see what he was looking at.
"There's nothing there," Bonnie pointed out.
"You have to know Astral Projection to see him," Ron said.
"You know Astral Projection?" Shego asked in disbelief.
"I took a class," Ron said absently as he listened to his teacher. "So the healing… Oh, I didn't know that. "The sword?" Ron groaned. "Well I didn't know it could take the form of any weapon I wanted."
"Are you sure whoever you are talking to is real and not part of the virtual reality trap?" Kim asked.
"I have protections on my mind so they couldn't draw it out or trick me into revealing it," Ron replied. "Okay and what about the flying? Yeah, it was more levitating."
"I really wish I could see the other side of this conversation," Drakken complained.
"You're not missing much," Shego replied, "just an old Asian guy sitting cross legged."
"You can see Astral Projections?" Kim asked.
"Comes with the cosmic powers," Shego replied, "and since he's communicating telepathically, I can't even read his lips."
Ron sighed and nervously turned to the crowd. "Good news guys, you all aren't figments of my imagination."
"So, I'm me?" Monique asked hopefully.
"Yes, you are you… this is all real," Ron said.
"What about all the things you did and Tara making out with you?" Brick asked.
"I have some abilities… and a magic sword," Ron admitted.
"And Tara making out with you?" Josh asked.
Tara buried her face in Ron's chest.
"She's had a crush on R… That Loser for a while," Bonnie said.
"What? Really?" Ron asked.
Tara gave him a thumbs up, but kept her face hidden in his chest.
"So my plan would have worked?" Drakken asked in horror.
"It was a brilliant plan," Ron said, "we weren't even close to stopping you and I couldn't get anyone to listen to me."
Drakken groaned and sullenly ate his ice cream.
"What happened?" Kim asked Shego, seeing as the plan had somehow been foiled and not by her since Drakken was sulking.
"Dr. D hit the self destruct before we left so he'd have the satisfaction of denying you two the opportunity," Shego said, a bit amused and still working on her own cone.
"Oh," Kim said. "Well, look at it this way, it was such a brilliant plan that only Drakken could come up with it and only he could stop it."
"That does make me feel a little better," Drakken admitted, perking up.
"Okay, now we have two choices," Ron said to the crowd, "we can either pretend you guys never saw me do any of this or I can erase the memory from your minds and I've never tried to erase anyone's memory and only kinda know what I'm doing."
The crowd looked torn between nervous and horrified as all the doors to the gym slammed shut simultaneously.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Josh quickly said, "tonight was just your average dance except for some villain plot and Tara breaking up with me to go out with you."
"What?" Ron asked, confused.
"She put herself out there, you can't turn her down," Josh said firmly.
"I'm not," Ron assured him, getting a squeeze from Tara who was still not moving off his lap.
"Yeah, between you performing brain surgery on us and just focusing on other things that happened I think we can all agree you're the same old loser you've always been," Bonnie said, "but if you hurt Tara I'll end you."
"Gotcha," Ron replied, relieved Bonnie was taking it well.
"Were you ever going to tell me about all of this?" Kim waved her hand.
"Kim, we both agreed that being best friends doesn't mean we have the right to know every secret the other has," Ron reminded her.
"Yeah, but I thought that covered… intimate things, not super powers," Kim argued.
"Oh," Ron said, "Well, it covers that too. I have a right to my own secrets."
"Fine," she said with a frustrated sigh, "but if it becomes important for me to know, tell me, alright?"
"I will," Ron promised.
"Would you really have gone all Carrie on us?" Monique asked.
"Carrie?" Ron asked before realizing what she meant. "Oh, the doors. That wasn't me, but it was to keep everyone in one place so I wouldn't have to chase everyone down. Everyone would have been knocked out and a gas leak would have been blamed for the memory loss and headaches when they woke up. You know I wouldn't hurt anyone."
"In that case we need to flee the scene of the crime," Shego said, before finishing the last bite of her cone.
"You think I'm just going to let you walk out of here?" Kim demanded.
"Too many innocent bystanders and the school board might get a bit upset at the damage if we fought here," Shego teased.
Kim opened her mouth, paused, and then closed it again. "Yeah," she admitted.
"See you later, Princess," Shego said with a smirk as she grabbed Drakken's arm and left.
"Stoppable, detention for excess PDA at a school dance," Barkin said as someone restarted the sound system and the students went back to dancing.
"What about Tara?" Kim asked.
"She's dating Stoppable, that's punishment enough," Barkin said before turning to keep an eye on the rest of the students and make sure their dancing wouldn't break those same rules.
"How in the world is that fair?" Kim demanded.
"Meh, I kinda expect it from him at this point," Ron admitted.
"I still don't know why he has it in for you," Kim said, glancing down at her date's dissolving body as it turned into a large green puddle.
"Because I'm not living up to my potential," Ron replied. "At least that's what he always tells me."
"He must think you have a lot of potential then," Kim said, "because with the way he treats you he must think you can walk on water."
Ron laughed and Tara giggled.
"You can't… can you?" Kim asked.
"Kim," Ron groaned.
"I'm not talking about things that definitely did not occur," Kim excused herself, "I'm just asking if you can do amazing things completely unconnected to that."
"KP… I really don't want to have to mess with your memories," he whined.
"Fine," Kim said with a huff. "I'm going to go dance with Josh."
"Have fun," Ron said. "So… you know you're going to have to come out sometime," he addressed the blonde girl hiding her face in his chest.
"Make me," Tara replied, before Ron started tickling her and she was forced to defend herself.
"Would you like to dance?" Ron asked now that he could see her face.
"I think I'd like that," she agreed and climbed off his lap.
A slow song came on and they moved closer together.
"Would you really erase Kim's memory?" she asked curiously. "She is your best friend after all."
"No," Ron admitted.
"I didn't think so," Tara said, enjoying the dance.
"For me to do that, there would actually have to be a technique to erase memories," Ron whispered in her ear.
Typing By: Abyssal Angel
