This chapter is quite a bit longer than the others for two reasons. One, I haven't been able to post weekly like I originally wanted to, and two, I felt I owed everyone a bit more for making y'all wait so long. Sorry 'bout that…

First let me thank everyone for staying with this story and leaving reviews. It has become the longest story I've ever written, it's received the most hits of any of my other work, and it also has received the most reviews. I have all of you to thank for that!

Once again, thanks to all those who left a review for the previous chapter: CharmedMilliE, DuffKilliganFan, AtomicFire, Alphamech, kim's 1 fan, RealityBreakGirl, trecebo, and Romantic-Cancer!

Disclaimer: I think everyone knows by now I don't own a thing regarding these characters!

Chapter 23

Rufus could feel the power flow through him, just as it did in Japan all those years ago, and he had also used some of the tricks that Yamanouchi had taught him to get free when Ron was attacked by this new style of Eric drone. Initially he tried to bite through their hide like he had before, but these were tougher, and his incisors just weren't sharp enough.

Rufus had done what he could by tripping up a couple of them, but in the end, the five drones prevailed and took his human captive. He eventually escaped by the proverbial skin of his teeth.

Now he lay in a small air vent that wasn't much bigger than he was, but Rufus felt safe. For some reason the drones either didn't notice him, or didn't think he was a threat, as they never did try to follow or catch him when he made his getaway.

Now he surveyed the situation that was growing on the floor below him.

Looking to his left, Rufus saw that Kim was standing on top of a panel truck, and to one side of that was Killigan, surrounded by three of those drones. Off to his right his human Ron was being led to the center of the room by five other drones.

Now being a Naked Mole Rat, Rufus had the best defensive weapon he would ever need (besides his MMP), his sense of smell. He had gotten a good whiff of the original drone when he bit through that (ugh) Eric's foot, and he was also able to get somewhat of a smell from these new drones when he tried to bite through one of their feet a few moments ago. Their smell was slightly different, but basically the same. Once he was able to get the scent though, he could also tell how they were all situated, and where they were located throughout the area

But something didn't quite add up, because he could smell another one. Using his meager eyesight, Rufus scanned the area looking for this errant drone. If it hadn't been for his nose, Rufus wouldn't have known the drone was there, because it was right beneath him, up against the wall! And it appeared that no one else in his group knew it was there!

As soon as Rufus made this discovery, he silently slid further back into the vent, and tried to formulate some sort of plan. Then he heard something… something inside his head. It was an almost distant voice at first, but it eventually grew loud enough for him to realize that it wasn't a voice from anywhere in the building, it was inside his head! It was his human, Ron!

Rufus… Buddy… Can you hear me? He responded with a loud "Yes" from his mind.

Amp it down, Buddy. I can hear you all right. I know this has to be kinda weird for you, it is for me. I've never tried this with an animal before. Can you create a distraction of some kind that would take the attention of at least one of these drones guarding me?

Yup… yup! Came the much more tolerable answer. One more.

What's that Rufus? Ron asked. One more drone? Where?

Underneath vent, to your left. Rufus figured out that he could communicate better with mind-to-mind communication than by voice. I'm in the vent right above it.

OK, Buddy, I see where you are located, and I can barely see the drone you're talking about. If you poke your head out of the vent and look to your left, you will see a power cord. If you can get to it, crawl down the cord, and on the end there is a box with four buttons. It controls a block and tackle (a series of pulleys and chains used to lift large amounts of weight). Push the button that releases the set of pulleys, and it should drop right on top of the drones head. Do you understand?

Rufus cautiously moved to the edge of the vent once again, looked to his left, and saw the power cord. Immediately he thought back to Ron and told him he understood.

This entire communication between Ron and Rufus only lasted about three seconds total in real time. Kim was the only one who noticed the blank look on Ron's face that lasted for those three seconds.

Closing his dark eyes, Rufus did a quick meditation on what he had to do, and to prepare himself to do it without making a sound. This only took about 3 more seconds. He leaped from the vent, grabbed the power cord, and slid down to the control box.

Only then did Rufus think, I can't read! So he figured he could go by color. There were four buttons all in a row. The top one was red, then green, yellow, and black. Calling upon his memory of all the lairs he had helped to destroy by pushing buttons and pulling wires, Rufus performed a bit of deduction. This was another trait that was unique to him.

OK. He thought, Definitely NOT red or green, as red usually means something bad, and green almost always means Go, or On. So my only real choices are yellow or black. Yellow usually means danger. So let's do… black.

He closed his eyes and pressed the black button. Immediately the block and tackle released from its attachment on the small over-head crane, and fell almost silently towards its target. Almost silent in that the drone did hear something metallic click together and then the whir of a cable being pulled over a pulley, and looked up. It was just in time to have the approximately 500 pound unit of pulleys and chain land square on its face!

The word Boo-Yah escaped from Rufus' mouth as he pumped a small fist in the air.

After the block and tackle made a connection with the drones face, it definitely made more noise as it crushed the drones body into a puddle of mush, and clanked noisily on the cement floor. The rest of the cable continued to play out as it also landed on the floor, curling over itself. Two of the drones guarding Ron left him to go investigate the noise that occurred. Distraction complete!

As the two drones left Ron, he also noticed that the other drones looked over to where the noise had come from, and it was enough of a distraction of them for him to take his own action.

Unseen by anyone in the room, a blue ball of energy formed in his right hand and suddenly a small cutlass-type sword appeared in his fist. The drone on Ron's right never had a chance as the sword sliced it in half at the waist. He then brought the tip around to his left, and effectively sheared off the drones hand that was gripping his other arm.

As soon as both arms were released, Ron dropped almost to his knees, pivoted around on the balls of his feet, and sliced the legs out from under the one that standing right behind him. All this only lasted about four seconds.

This in turn served as a distraction for the three drones that surrounded Killigan. He grabbed his putter, charged the club with its self-contained energy, and made short work of the three that were standing around him.

As the last one fell minus a head, Killigan stole a glance over towards Kim. He was able to shout out a warning to her as he saw Shego working her way around the back of the truck to try and take her by surprise.

"Behind you, Lass!"

Kim turned just in time to have Shego flip up on top of the truck with her and try a side-kick to her head. Kim dropped to one hand, and swung her legs around like a break dancer, and swept Shego's feet out from under her.

The green villainess landed hard, and rolled off the truck to land on her side on the hard cement floor. Kim then immediately dropped off the side of the truck and landed with her legs straddling Shego, who felt the ground shake slightly from Kim's landing.

Shego brought up a hand, and when she tried to power it up to blast Kimmie off of her, she suddenly found herself standing with her back to Kim, and her arm being pushed up behind her almost to the base of her neck. Her other arm was locked by Kim's other arm as it was snaked around her shoulder, and had her in a half-nelson.

"Good move Princess." Shego said, and stood there at an odd angle from the position that Kim held her in.

Kim brought Shego around to the other side of the truck just as Big Daddy was coming out of a side door that led into a small office.

"Your move, Brotherson." Kim said as she pushed Shego's hand up a little further, making her grunt from the unnatural stretching of the arm muscles.

"Hmmm…" He seemed to actually be in deep thought. He slowly pulled a cell phone out from his shirt pocket, and held it up for all to see. "What if I told you that a simple call from this phone would detonate a nuclear device that is more than 500 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb?"

Kim's jaw almost dropped to the floor.

"I can take him, Quinn." Ron said just off to her left. He didn't have the sword with him anymore, as it had turned back into energy and absorbed itself back into his body. Parts of drones lay around him as they slowly began to pull themselves back together.

"Hold off, Ron. Let's hear the rest of his plan. I know he has a reason."

"Oh you would like to hear that, wouldn't you? First, I have a few questions for you.

"Now I know Ron Stoppable here (Ron ginned inwardly that the man remembered his name), but what I want to know is why he's hanging around someone else who seems to know how to fight my drones. Just who are you?" Big Daddy's eyebrows narrowed as he regarded Quinn.

"I'm no one to be trifled with."

"Humph…" Big Daddy said as he slightly shrugged his shoulders. "I guess it really doesn't matter, as now you know too much about what I plan."

"Hey…" Ron said. "You're the one who told us."

"Ron…" Quinn started to say. "I think he's trying to play us here. It's almost as if he's… Trying to distract… US!"

Quinn had to release Shego and shove her in into Big Daddy as the extra drone that Rufus had found snuck up behind her and almost took her head off with an adjustable wrench bigger than her arm! When Shego crashed into Big Daddy, it was something he didn't expect and the phone flew out of his hand and skidded across the floor underneath a large rolling toolbox.

Brotherson then reached behind himself and pulled out a small gun-shaped object that looked kind of like the unit Wade had made for Kim to destroy the tower that controlled the Diablos. Remembering what Shego had told him about the suit that she was wearing, Big Daddy wanted to release the energy stored in the weapon at Quinn, sending a wave of EMD (Electro Magnetic Discharge) at her to disable the suit he thought she was wearing.

The only thing was, he couldn't aim it anywhere near the cell phone that had left his grasp earlier. It would render the phone inoperable. He had seen where it slid to, and at the moment Quinn was in as good a position as possible, and he aimed and squeezed the trigger.

What he didn't realize, or he had forgotten about him, Ron was off to his right with no one holding him in any way. Just as he squeezed the trigger, a hand came down on his hand that held the weapon, causing him to drop the ESD gun and sent it clattering across the floor in the opposite direction of his mobile phone. However, the gun released a wave of ESD towards Quinn, who couldn't get out of the way.

Almost immediately Kim felt… something. She had been hit with a large amount of power in waveform, and it made her human parts a little queasy. But that was it. The ESD protection held, and none of her Bionic systems were affected. Her eye powered off as it was supposed to, and it immediately came back on line about half a second later.

Shego mule-kicked herself back up to a standing position, immediately charged her hands, and ran at Quinn. Ron quickly stepped between the two to protect Quinn, and in a defensive move that he didn't even need to think about, he brought both arms up in front of himself touching his forearms together, and both arms began to glow a light blue. Shego's blast hit him in the arms, and it bounced off!

The blast didn't stop there though. I continued on it's new trajectory, and blew up the tool box that Big Daddy's mobile phone was under! Both were incinerated!

Brotherson's eyes went wide and he literally screamed, "Nooooooo!"

Shego quickly ran over to Big Daddy, grabbed him by his shirt, and yanked hard. "Come on, Brotherson! You can dial the number from a different phone!" He stayed rooted in place.

"No!" Was his response. "You don't understand! The number had to be dialed from THAT SPECIFIC PHONE! Otherwise it won't work!"

"You mean… you…" Shego was flabbergasted. "Are you SURE you're not related to Drakken? WHY would you do that?"

"I… I wanted full control." Big Daddy said with a defeated look

"Well…" Shego said, "There's only one thing left to do." She whispered into Big Daddy's ear, and at first his eyes went wide. Then a sinister smile crossed his features. Shego turned towards Quinn, and fired her hands up again.

Big Daddy yelled, "Drones! Full Battle Mode! Attack!"

Shego launched herself at Quinn, who immediately went on the defensive blocking all sorts of hand strikes and kicks. The attack was so fast and furious, that it initially took Kim off guard. She backed up for a bit, knowing she was taking some damage to her arms from Shego's gloves and her plasma.

With a sudden flip and leap Quinn put some distance between her and the vicious attack. After she landed a few feet from Shego, Quinn had her head down a bit, looking at Shego through her black hair as some of it had fallen forward.

This was when Shego noticed the damage she had done to her arms, and was completely surprised that there wasn't any blood! Her mouth almost dropped to the floor when she saw Quinn's skin begin to close up, and heal itself!

"Oh yeah…" Quinn said. "Now you know it's not a super suit."

"That's enough." Kim said under her breath. "It's time to go on the offensive…"

…x x x x…

"What are we supposed to do?" Drakken yelled to no one as he was still tied to his chair.

"Just sit and watch the show, Cuz. Seriously." Eddy answered, and winced at a right uppercut that this Quinn had done to Shego, flipping her back about 6 feet! All the other villains just stayed tied up in their chairs, and watched the mayhem as it ensued around them.

…x x x x…

Ron and Duff were able to hook up with each other, and had started to fight off the drones, all the while trying to get them all together so that the explosives with the medicine/poison would do the most damage. All of them had pulled themselves back together, and were now advancing on two from three different directions.

"OK Killigan," Ron said, "Now what?"

"Ach! Do I have ta come up with all th' ideas?" He then grabbed Ron underneath the armpits, and activated the small thruster and wings that he had installed in his golf bag. It had just enough power to barely lift the two over the heads of the closest drones, and they landed against a wall.

"Next time, tell me when you're going to do that!" Ron yelled in Killigan's face. "I almost lost my lunch back there!"

"Ah, ya big Ninny… Ya still have those golf balls you grabbed from me earlier?"

"Yes…" Ron answered, still looking at the Scott. Killigan pointed behind Ron, who then turned around and saw all nine drones advancing on them once again!

"Fore!" Ron heard Killigan yell, and cringed at the loudness of the man's voice. Duff started to lob the special golf balls into the line of drones, which was now starting to curve around and encircle them!

…x x x x…

Shego landed on her feet a bit wobbly after the uppercut Kim had caught her with. She barely had her hands charged again when two size seven shoes impacted with her chest, sending her back another 5 feet!

Definitely NOT a super suit! Shego thought, and looked up to see… nothing! Kim wasn't there ready to knock her head clean off, as Shego thought she would.

…x x x x…

After Kim had landed her double kick to Shego's chest, she hand flipped herself over Shego's head, and up to a low-slung girder attached to the roof. Quickly looking around, she found what would work. There were two long pieces of unused steel supports left from when the place was built, about 5 ft long each. Picking them up, she held them together in a horizontal position away from her body, and dropped herself on top of Shego!

Kim's aim was perfect, and she landed so that Shego was standing inside her arms, between the bars and her body. She released one of the bars with her left hand, and held onto the other one. Before Shego could do anything else, the sound of wrenching metal assaulted her ears as Kim wrapped one of the bars around Shego's torso, pinning her arms to herself just above the elbow.

Shego's first reaction was to raise her hands and ignite them to try and release herself from the bar, but again Kim was too quick. The sound of bending metal screeched as Kim wrapped the other bar around Shego's upper arms and her body, pinning her hands just under the brunette's chin where she wouldn't dare ignite her hands as they were way too close to her face!

Kim non-chalantly walked around to the front of Shego, stood there with her arms crossed, and gave her a little wink. "Let's see you get out of that, Shego."

Shego just looked at her and growled. Suddenly explosions started to go off on the other side of the panel truck. Kim grabbed one of the bars and pulled her now defeated enemy around the front of the truck to see what Ron and Duff were doing. She rounded the front bumper just in time to see a line of drones exploding into pieces!

"Boo-Yah!" She heard Ron yell, and then she saw him and Duff Killigan standing back to back. Duff held a club in his hands as she pushed Shego ahead of her through the dissolving pieces of drone, and it looked like all of them were destroyed. There were a few pieces here and there that weren't dissolving, but she paid no attention to them.

"Where's Big Daddy and the other guy?" Kim asked Ron as she gave Shego another shove, making her stumble a bit.

"Ummm… I don't know." He said, looking around the area. "Weren't YOU supposed to keep an eye on him, Killigan?"

"Now don't you be tryin to lay the blame on me, Stoppable!" Duff said. "I was just as busy as you with those infernal drone things!"

Then they all heard a small voice call out. "Over here!" It was Rufus!

He was standing on the hood of the panel truck pointing into the cab. Inside the truck was Big Daddy and Phillipe, and Big Daddy was having trouble getting the keys in the ignition.

…x x x x…

Big Daddy finally got the keys in the ignition and twisted them, firing up the big block underneath the hood. After grinding the gears for a bit, he finally hit first gear, tromped on the accelerator, and immediately realized that even though the engine was revving up, the truck wasn't moving!

He looked through the windshield and saw a strange little pink animal standing on the hood waving a single claw at him, and shaking his head side to side. Big Daddy would have swore he heard the small animal say "Unh… unh!"

"Why aren't we moving?" Phillipe yelled at Big Daddy. Little did they know that Quinn had ran up to the rear of the truck, grabbed it by the rear bumper, and lifted the large vehicle just high enough so that the rear wheels were of the ground, spinning in the air!

This time, everyone in the building saw what Quinn had done, and each person individually knew immediately that this was a very special brunette with tremendous strength and power.

All of the villains, including Shego, were dumbfounded by this display of strength. Everyone was dead quiet, and one voice broke the silence.

"Righteous! Righteous! Give it up for the brunette babe with awesome strength! Seriously! Ahhhh!" If Motor Ed weren't still tied to a chair, he would be doing an air guitar solo.

The next person to speak was Drakken as he nodded his head in the direction just behind Quinn as she continued to hold the truck a few inches off the floor. "I never designed the drones to do that…"

Kim then noticed that Ron had pulled both Big Daddy and Phillipe out of the cab of the truck, and held on to them. She set down the truck and turned to look behind her to see what Drakken was talking about.

The pieces of drones that she had seen earlier that were blown free of the group of nine, were all moving towards each other and were fusing themselves together. Hands were crawling on their fingers, and pieces of leg were pulling themselves along by the feet and ankles. Apparently some of the parts were blown away from the initial explosion before any of the medicine/poisoned pieces of shrapnel had a chance to contact them and cause them to dissolve.

Now they were all fusing together and were forming a very large drone, one that was about 10 feet tall! The last hand crawled over to one of the feet of this uber-drone, and was immediately absorbed into the new… thing.

All the villains that were tied to chairs, Shego, Ron and Kim, all tilted their heads back to look up at this new drone. The eyes in the drone glowed a sinister red, and began to consider them all. It was definitely aware of its surroundings!

Everyone that was looking at the drone all said the exact same thing at the exact same time. "Oh Snap!" Only one small voice didn't say the G version of the actual word everyone really wanted to say.

"Rufus…" Ron said in an admonishing tone to his little buddy.

To be continued…

I proof-read this bleary eyed and tired. Hope I caught any mistakes. I apologize if I missed any…

Again, sorry for making y'all wait 2 weeks for this… (I'm sure everyone knows about that little thing called 'life' that can intrude every once in a while…)