Kim Possible and all related characters are the property of Disney. Buckaroo Banzai and all related characters are the property of Earl Mac Rauch and W.D. Richter.
----
"Lorwardians?" The joyful expression on Ron Stoppable's face faded and his complexion turned a deathly pale white. The excitement he had felt at meeting the legendary Buckaroo Banzai was now gone. "No," he quickly said, shooting to his feet and making a beeline for the front door of his in-laws' house. "Not again. I'm not doing it again!" Ron stormed out into the early evening air and ran off as fast as his legs would take him.
"Well," James Possible said, "that went better than I thought it would." He turned and looked at his wife's onetime teacher. "Sorry, Buckaroo, but the Lorwardians are a bit of a, well, a touchy subject for Ronald."
"Understatement much?" Kim said in a worried tone. "It's been two years, but he still has nightmares about that sitch."
"Shouldn't someone be going after him?" Buckaroo Banzai, former world saving hero, doctor, musician, and all around Renaissance man asked.
"If I know my son-in-law, he'll be heading to his parents' house," Anne answered.
"And right to his baby sister," Kim added. "That's actually the best place for him right now."
"We need him here," Buckaroo said with conviction. "Ron defeated the last two Lorwardians who attacked us, and we're going to need him when this next wave arrives. Where do your in-laws live, Kim? I'm going to have a little man to man talk with your husband."
"Not without me you're not. Come on, Buckaroo, it's not far."
----
In deep space, out beyond a region of the solar system known as the Oort Cloud, a large warship came out of hyperspace. Unlike other Lorwardian vessels, this one had dark hull plating that reflected very little light, making it nearly impossible for land or space based telescopes to see it against the black backdrop of space. That same hull plating also rendered it invisible to most detection systems. No one would know that this ship was there until after the attack had already begun.
On its bridge stood a tall, slender man with green skin, no hair, and yellow eyes. To the Lorwardian race, Warpaath was considered an outcast. He wasn't a statuesque personification of raw physical strength like other males of his species. Rather, he was a shrewd tactician who took the time to learn about his prey instead of throwing a world into chaos by disabling its power grids and then stomping it into submission with mechanized walkers. By knowing the enemy better than they knew themselves, Warpaath could anticipate every move his foes would make. His unorthodox methods had earned him victory after victory. In fact, Warpaath was considered one of the greatest of Lorwardia's warrior class; something that vexed his peers to no end. Especially Warhok.
Warhok, the strategist thought with disgust. You were supposed to be the fiercest warrior in the galaxy. You were hailed as the standard by which all Lorwardians were judged, and yet you met your miserable end on this backwater planet. A scowl formed on Warpaath's face. You dishonored your people, and you took Warmonga down with you. Had she accepted my help when I offered it instead of shunning me, she would not have perished in defeat alongside you. I will succeed where you failed, Warhok, and I will be the most feared warrior this galaxy has ever seen! From behind him emerged a being who looked like a red skinned reptilian. "What do you want, John Ya-ya?"
"Just to know where we are," the Red Lectroid replied. "How soon until we arrive at Planet 10?"
"We're not going to Planet 10!" Warpaath snapped. "We're going to Earth. I want to face the one revealed to be the Great Blue; the one who defeated the so called 'mighty Warhok.' While we're there, we can retrieve that oscillation overthruster you were going on about. I must admit that this 8th Dimension you described to me has potential strategic value."
That answer enraged John Ya-ya. "I have waited over a century for revenge on the Black Lectroids, Warpaath. I will not be denied!"
The towering Lorwardian grabbed the smaller alien by the throat. "One: you belong to me and will address me as 'Master.' Two: this is my ship, and my word is law. Three: Planet 10 is on the other side of the sun, whereas Earth is on our current trajectory. Four: we will deal with your home planet only when the oscillation overthruster is in my posession, and the Red Lectroids currently trapped in the 8th Dimension are under my command! And five: make demands of me again and I will snap your neck like a twig! You are standing here alive and not mounted on some trophy wall by my good graces alone, reptile! Do not forget that, or your promise to deliver the overthruster and your fellow Red Lectroids to me! Your worthless life is mine to do with as I please, Ya-ya. Understood?"
"Understood. Master," the Red Lectroid rasped. For now........
----
"It never ends, does it, Han?" Ron sat in his little sister's bedroom with her on his lap. She was looking intently at her older brother, as if she was hanging on his every word. Insightful though she was, young Hana really had no idea what her big brother was going on about.
"I mean, here I am, the 'Ultimate Monkey Master' and all that," Ron continued, "and I faced my greatest challenge with those alien guys, and now they're coming back! I mean, what's up with that? If they were my greatest challenge, the 'Big Test,' then why do I have to take it again?" Ron's head fell. "Unless Sensei was wrong. Maybe I did fail when I killed those two and now I have to do the whole thing over again. Maybe all I am is a murderer."
Hana reached up and grabbed Ron's nose. "Brother silly!" she happily said.
"Real nice, little sis, I'm having a crisis of conscience and you're making me sound like I have a cold. Thanks for the support." That made Rufus, who had been perched on Ron's shoulder, laugh so hard that he nearly fell off. He quickly regained his composure and retreated to the safety of Ron's cargo pocket.
"Maybe she's just telling you to stop beating yourself up over this." When Ron turned around he saw his wife standing in the doorway with a concerned look on her face. "You've never really gotten over this sitch, have you, Ron?"
"Sister's here!" Hana happily exclaimed, wriggling from her brother's grasp and running right into her big sister-in-law's arms.
"Why don't I take Hana, Kimberly," Dean Stoppable, who had followed Kim and Buckaroo to Hana's room said. "I think this is a private talk between the three of you."
"Thanks, Dad," Kim said, handing Hana over to her father-in-law. "We'll play later. Okay, Han?"
"Kay," Hana happily replied.
"How do you get over murdering someone?" Ron asked after his dad and sister had left.
"Ron, you didn't murder anyone! They were going to kill me and who knows how many other people!"
"That didn't give me the right to kill them instead!"
Kim was about to launch into her normal counterargument when she felt a hand on her shoulder. "What gave the Lorwardians the right to invade our planet, Ron?" Buckaroo asked. "What gave them the right to destroy lives and cities. What gave them the right to do what they did?" Ron didn't answer. "The Lorwardians weren't innocent in all this, Ron. They claimed quite a few victims before you stopped them; innocent victims who didn't deserve the end they received." Buckaroo put a hand on Ron's shoulder. "The Lorwardians showed no mercy, son. You and I both know that they wouldn't have stopped until everyone on this planet was either dead or enslaved."
"That's what Sensei keeps telling me," Ron replied in a quiet voice.
"Then your sensei sounds very wise," Buckaroo said.
"He is," Kim confirmed, "and you should listen to him. And to us." Kim sat down in front of her husband and took his hands. "This is something I could never share with you, honey. I've never had to take a life, so I don't know how it feels."
"I do know how it feels," Buckaroo said. "It's never easy. You were left with no choice, Ron. They would have murdered you without a second thought, and with none of the remorse you're feeling now. Don't forget that you were fighting for survival; not just yours, but Kim's, Hana's, mine, and every one else's. You were faced with an impossible situation, but you did what had to be done in order to survive. I know that doesn't make it any easier, but it's true."
Ron closed his eyes as the events of that day flashed through his memory. "They were gonna turn Kim into some kind of a trophy. Sensei told me that this was my destiny, and that I was ready. I don't know how, but I knew he was right, so I stepped up and took them on. After I knocked them down a few times, they came at me, and I threw them as hard as I could. I didn't even know that their ship was overhead when I did it, not until they flew into it and it blew up. I didn't even think about doing it! I just did it. I didn't think about it until later, after they found the bodies....." Tears started to fall from Ron's eyes. "I don't think I can do this again, KP."
"Look, Ron," Buckaroo said, sitting down beside the young blond, "I don't know how you did what you did, and I'm not asking. I know all about keeping secrets, and this sounds like a pretty big one. I think it's safe to assume that you have some kind of power. If you had the capacity to become the same kind of that evil you and Kim fight against, you would have by now. As Lord John Acton said, 'Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.' I get the feeling that you didn't want whatever power you have, which is probably why you have it. You also have a kind soul, Ron Stoppable. That's your greatest strength."
"But I have gone evil, Buckaroo!" Ron protested. "Twice!"
"Both times were because of personality altering devices, Ron," Kim pointed out. "That cackling maniac wasn't you. This," she held up his left hand, showing him his own wedding ring, "this is you. 'Out there, in here,' remember? I love you, Ron. I wouldn't have married you if I thought you were an evil monster."
"This is something you're going to deal with for the rest of your life," Buckaroo said. "A lesser man would have been broken by this, but you're not a lesser man. Let me put it to you this way; it's a damn shame you were born when you were. Had you and Kim been born a few decades earlier, you would have been on my team. I need you on my team now, Ron. Help me stop the Red Lectroids and the Lorwardians. I can't do this without you."
----
Kim and Buckaroo eventually calmed Ron down, but did very little to relieve him of his guilt. Regardless, all three knew they had work to do. As soon as Ron pulled himself together, they returned to the Possible house, where Buckaroo Banzai told his story.
"It all started in 1938," he began, "with Dr. Emilio Lizardo and my mentor, the late Dr. Toichi Hikita. They had developed a machine they called an oscillation overthruster, which they hoped would allow them to pass through solid matter. It worked, but it did so by opening a gateway between our world and the 8th Dimension. That's when the trouble started. Out in the Kuiper Belt is Planet 10, home world of the Black Lectroids and their warlike cousins, the Red Lectroids."
"Planet 10?" Ron asked, clearly confused. "Guess those Lectrode people don't follow the news. I mean, Pluto isn't considered a planet anymore, is it? Wouldn't Planet 10 be Planet 9 now?"
"Ron," Kim said in her mission mode voice. "In the moment, please and thank you."
"Sorry, KP. You, uh, you were saying, Buckaroo?"
Buckaroo let out a small chuckle at Ron's interruption, then continued. "The Red Lectroids had been improsoned in the 8th Dimension by the Black Lectroids following a devastating war of expansion. Lord John Whorfin, one of the banished war criminals, escaped and took up residence in Dr. Lizardo's mind when the good doctor pierced the dimensional barrier during that first experiment. John Whorfin managed to release a thousand of his followers, who were all able to mask themselves by basically hypnotizing everyone in the world into seeing them as human. Only their leader was actually inhabiting a human body. This was on October 30th, 1938 in Grover's Mill, New Jersey."
"Wait," Tim Possible said, recognizing that date. "Wasn't the day of the War of the Words broadcast?"
"Very good, Tim," Buckaroo said with a smile. "Despite what Orson Welles would later say, that wasn't a radio play; it really was a news broadcast about an alien invasion, albeit, not one from Mars. The Red Lectroids hypnotized him into thinking it was just an adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel. Later, they founded a company called Yoyodyne, and masqueraded as defense contractors. All the while they were tying to find a way of getting the rest of their comrades from the 8th Dimension and then return to Planet 10 for their revenge. John Whorfin had been institutionalized at the New Brunswick Home for the Criminally Insane after the Grover's Mill incident, but he broke out after he heard of the successful test of my overthruster in 1984."
"When you drove your jet car through that mountain," Jim said. "That was so cool!"
"The Black Lectroids showed up and helped me to defeat John Whorfin," Buckaroo continued. "I initially thought that the threat of the Red Lectroids was over, but I was wrong. One of them, a lower level minion named John Ya-ya, had survived the battle and went into hiding. Several years later, my team and I fought against him for the overthruster, but there was a malfunction. Instead of throwing him into the 8th Dimension, it opened a wormhole that Ya-ya fell through, right before opening a pan temporal vortex and sending my team and I into a possible future where wars were fought using giant battle robots. It took quite a while, but needless to say, we were able to get back home. After that I decided to start stepping back from public life. I've been pretty much retired from the hero thing since 1995."
"Giant battle robots?" Jim and Tim asked excitedly.
"It's not the same, but we once built a suit of armor that could turn into a motorcycle," Jim said.
"It was heavy and bulky, but it was so cool!" Tim added. "How big were the ones you saw?"
"And do you have the specs?" Jim asked excitedly. The wheels in the Tweebs' heads were turning.
"Boys, that's enough," Anne said, trying to avoid a possible disaster. "Give the man some room."
"It's quite all right, Anne," Buckaroo said. "I've always loved talking to kids about my exploits. I'll tell you the story later, okay, boys?"
"Cool!" the Tweebs declared.
"I hope you don't mind if I sit in on that," James said.
"You know, Dad," Tim smirked, "Dr. Banzai was in a band."
"Yeah!" Jim added. "The Hong Kong Cavaliers! That means he's technically show folk."
"And we all know how much you love show folk," they both said.
"Dr. Banzai is a well respected scientist, as were his band mates," James argued. "Besides, I happen to like the Hong Kong Cavaliers."
"Excuse me," Kim said, "getting back to the point here. How do you know that this Ya-ya guy is with the Lorwardians?"
"I have photographic evidence," Buckaroo said. "I've kept in pretty close contact with Planet 10 over the years. I became very good friends with a Black Lectroid named John Parker when he was sent to help me. You kind of form a bond with people when you face a life or death struggle with them."
"Another dude named John?" Ron asked, unable to help himself. "What, are they all named John?"
"Yes actually, they are. Even the females."
"Okay, weird," Kim said. "But then again, both of the aliens we faced off with had the word 'war' in their names."
"As I said," Buckaroo continued, "I'm still in contact with John Parker on Planet 10. The Black Lectroids mastered interplanetary travel a while ago, and they recently developed the means to travel faster than the speed of light." Buckaroo hung his head in sadness. "The first ship they sent out into interstellar space was destroyed by a Lorwardian battle cruiser."
Buckaroo opened his briefcase and pulled out a a laptop sized device, with what looked like a large disc of hardened wax wired to it. The push of a button caused the picture screen to come to life, showing the last message the Lectroid ship would ever send. It was just an image of a tall, slender, green skinned alien with a red skinned reptilian cowering behind him. "Kim, Ron, meet John Ya-ya. Apparently, that wormhole deposited him somewhere in the Lorwardian sphere of influence. It almost looks like they decided to keep him as a pet. According to the last recorded telemetry of the Lectroid ship, they were about five light years away from Earth."
"That is one skinny Lorwardian," Ron pointed out.
"How long till they get here?" Kim asked.
"I don't know," Buckaroo said. "There's no way of knowing how fast their ships are, or where they're planning on entering our solar system."
"What about those Lectroid guys?" Tim asked.
"The good ones?" Jim clarified. "Can't they spot the Lorwardians and tell us where they are?"
"Planet 10 is on the other side of the sun right now," Buckaroo answered. "Even with their subspace transmitters and relay satellites, it could be a while before we hear anything from them. And again, there's no guarantee they'll see anything. Our solar system is a pretty big place."
"We're on our own then," James said, bolting into an upright position. "I'll call Chen at the observatory and have him keep an eye open for any and all anomalous sightings."
"He'll have all the recourses of the Banzai Institute at his disposal, James."
"And I'll have Wade contact Global Justice," Kim said. "We're not getting caught with our pants down again."
"Although that would be familiar territory for Ron," Jim quipped.
"Tweeb," Kim growled, "not now."
Buckaroo let out a weary sigh at the mention of Ron's name. "There's something else you should know. John Parker told me that his people picked up a subspace message from the first Lorwardian ship right before it was destroyed. I think it was from some sort of emergency transmission that was triggered when the ship entered our atmosphere in an uncontrolled dive." He pressed another button on his viewer. The image changed to a bird's eye view of Ron, charged up with Mystical Monkey Power, hurling his foes into the path of their incoming ship with all his might. "They know that it was you who defeated Warhok and Warmonga, Ron. It's a pretty good bet that you're on their hit list."
"Uh oh," Rufus squeaked from Ron's pocket.
"They know and they're coming to get me!" Ron screamed. He was getting hysterical. "Why didn't you tell me this before?!"
"I'm sorry, Ron, but this IS my way of telling you," Buckaroo replied, much to Ron's chagrin.
----
Lorwdian technology, advanced though it was, still had its limits. Even though they were billions of miles away from this system's parent star, the relatively close proximity of Warpaath's ship to the star's gravity well necessitated traveling at sub light speeds. Having just exited the cometary repository known as the Kuiper Belt, Warpaath's ship was approaching the orbit of a world the natives of this system called Neptune. This slow voyage gave the conqueror the time he needed to study his enemy. Once again Warpaath scanned over the transmission he intercepted from Warhok's ship; a transmission that would, thanks to Warpaath, never reach Lorwardia, leaving him as the only one who knew of the great warrior's defeat at the hands of the so-called Great Blue.
He is puny, Warpaath thought, studying the image of the glowing blue human. But his small stature can work to his advantage. No doubt he is faster than I. He is also strong; the ease with which he dispatched both Warhok and Warmonga attests to that. But that doesn't mean he can't be crushed like a crystaline spider under my boot. He must have weaknesses. The image changed to one of a flame haired female; the very female who had once defeated Warmonga. A devilish grin crossed Warpaath's lips when he saw the Great Blue spring to the female's defense. He'd found what he was looking for.
So, the "Great Blue" and the fire haired one are battle-mates. Like a fool, he tethers his heart to another. Warpaath let out a low, feral growl. Love is a weakness that will be your undoing, "Great Blue." It is said that you will lead my people to victory, but the legends never spoke of what kind of victory that would be. I never believed in that old superstition. In fact, I believe I will be the one who decides Lorwardia's ultimate fate after I utterly destroy you in battle. Warpaath indulged in a subdued laugh. His time was coming.