Strange love

by PopWar

Femslash BonnieKim. All too quickly for her to endure, Bonnie's semicharmed life is crippled by bizzare nightmares. Nightmares that not only tell her of disasters yet to unfold, but nightmares that make her see her most hated rival in a new light.

2. Electric LadyLand

"Strange Love"

Chapter two

Kim knew better than to try and stick around when the early-release announcement hit the PA system. It wasn't difficult to guess that she wanted to head straight to the plant and help out there, but she was perfectly aware of her place in this matter.

Battling evil masterminds and deranged mutants, sure.

Pulling people out of a steadily exploding refinery…not so much.

This was better left in the hands of Tri-City's finest, and she knew that nobody could or would have the right to berate her for having such a mindset.

Besides, no use in worrying her parents if she could help it, right?

In any case, Kim didn't waste much time debating over whether or not to adhere to Barkin's order, and head straight home.

She had never been close to a plant explosion, but had a pretty vivid image of its long-term effects. Getting home conventionally, however, was a slightly more difficult process.

She had a license. She didn't have a car.

It was a dumb irony that wound up raping her alternatives in whether or not to walk home.

That wasn't to say that she completely minded, though. After all, Ron was in the same boat as she, which meant he'd accompany her. Being alone after a day like this was one thing. Being alone after a day like this with the 'Tweebs' was another.

But that wasn't likely to happen, and a mood wealthy of good feelings had rendered her careless of it, and much of everything else.

None of it really mattered, the long walk, the refinery explosion, the Tweebs. It was difficult to envelope concern into because she, after everything, was Kim Possible. She dodged volcanoes in South America, she bobsledded through subzero temperatures in the Antarctic, Heck, she repaired complex equipment in outer space with dwindling oxygen tanks, and damaged tethering lines. Much as she hated to brag, there wasn't much of anything she couldn't handle.

…Least, that was what she thought in the very brief, ignorant moment she had forgotten about Bonnie. Try as she might to blank everything about the brunette girl out, an oblivious Ron resurrected the entire subject as they drew in on her house.

"…So…" He began as the two sauntered into the Possible residence's driveway.

"That was really something else, what you did for Bonnie back there."

Kim slowed while arching an eyebrow at her friend's unresponsive back.

"You know I don't like to brag, but you and I have both done way bigger than that."

"Yeah." Ron nodded, "But neither of us have done it for Bonnie."

A thoughtful pause ensued at his own remark. "…Unless you count that one time with the Bebe Bots, but that was a total technicality."

Now Kim came to a dead halt, allowing emphasis on her face's change from inquisitive to appallingly shocked.

"She's still a human being, Ron! You're saying you wouldn't have done the same for her if her life was in jeopardy?"

Ron grinned. "Didn't see me jumping up and volunteering, did ya'? I won't do stuff like that if it put my life on the line at the same time. You realize that you totally played human shield for her, right?"

The first half of his statement prepared Kim to scold him, but the second half left her mouth agape.

"…I did?" A newly dumbfounded voice contrasted with how definite she had sounded just seconds before.

"Uh…yah. You mean to tell me you don't remember getting on top of her and blocking all of the glass that came out of the window?"

Now it was Ron's turn to sound incredulous, but Kim was pretty quickly achieving his surprise.

"…No." She said in full honesty. And even now as she looked back, she was drawing a blank, which scared her almost as much as it startled her.

Was her sense of duty really starting to make her do things unconsciously?

"…What'd Bonnie do?" Although still visibly taken back, Kim managed to query further to Ron, whom was now seizing the knob of her front door.

"Locked up for all I could tell."

"Locked up?"

"Yeah. Took her almost five minutes to snap back into reality, then she just got up and waltzed off. You should've seen Terra, she was a mess."

"I guess she should've been…" Kim remarked while holding two fingers together, "Her and Bonnie have been like this for as long as I can remember."

"Yeah, but it wasn't that…" Ron pulled a cliff-hanger, then slipped into the house.

"…huh?" was all Kim would react with before entering, herself.

The Possible residence was mostly quiet when the front door swung inward, which was rather surprising. Kim's little brothers had been left by themselves for at least a half hour, pending on how the middle school's transportation department handled abrupt situations like what had been presented today. Before Ron caught the better part of her attention, she had been half-expecting the house to be demolished. Or at the very least have some mess of hazardous mess of chemicals on the inside. But, as she stepped across the threshold, the most that greeted her was said placid silence.

Even more ironic (or terminally foreboding), the 'Tweebs' themselves were sitting directly in the center of the living room. Both boys had their backs turned to her, as if to conceal something, but common sense suggested that neither had really noticed her enter. The next handful of words that arose from Jim (or possibly Tim, Kim couldn't quite distinguish) affirmed a lot of things, but amongst them was a wholesome failure to gratify her and Ron's presence.

"…Is it working?"

"I don't know. How're we supposed to tell?"

"Maybe we can find a way to make it vibrate…"

Kim and Ron traded nervous glances. Both were bitterly jaded to the context of this particular conversation and now, Kim concluded while trying to get a closer look at what her brothers were fooling with, it was only a matter of time before her house caught the elbow of yet another experiment gone askew. Courtesy of the Tweebs.

"…But vibrations make noise too, don't they?"

"Uhm, guys?" Kim interjected in her brothers' ongoing conversation, causing both to rather disturbingly gaze over their shoulders at the same time.

"Oh, hey." Tim greeted loosely, and was followed up by Jim, "When'd you get in?"

"About a minute ago. Mind telling me what you're doing?"

"Conducting an experiment."

To this vague reply, the redhead inwardly sighed. No doubt, the Possible residence was in for a bad way.

"On what?"

"The microwave."

Her panic alarms nearly topped out, knowing good and well what kind of destruction could ensue from a subject like this. Expander rays, temperature manipulators, disputers…A simple kitchen appliance was laundry-list of doomsday devices in her little brothers' hands.

…So she found surprise for the umpteenth time of the day when Tim clarified, "Remember last Tuesday when dad was talking about the turntable getting chipped and making this noise that kind of sounded like a train de-railing whenever someone tried to use it?"

"…yeah."

"And everything would've been fine if he'd just replaced it, but it was supposedly comprised of the metal from the blade in the guillotine that cut off Louis the thirteenth's head…"

Kim braced her forehead with one hand in memory of the outlined fiasco last week.

"Yes." She replied bluntly, "and I still don't get why he'd actually insist on keeping that nasty thing if that story's even remotely true…"

Jim shrugged and picked up for his brother, "Beats me, but you know how stubborn Dad can be about those things. Anyway, the noise was 'really' getting annoying."

"Especially when it got so loud you couldn't even hear the hum."

"So we decided to install this device that can disrupt sound waves in a set field."

"It'll be the first silent microwave!"

Kim smiled. Even though they were disasters in every sense of the word, it was almost cute when her brothers did something like this. There was a bit of a flaw, though…

"Okay, but how are you supposed to tell when it's done if every sound the microwave produces is going to be disrupted?"

Both boys opened their mouths to answer, but stopped short and gazed at each other.

"…I asked you that same question before we started."

"No you didn't!"

"Did too!"

"Did not!"

With little more than a nod to Ron, Kim led of toward her room. For the time being, the Tweebs would be too preoccupied arguing to further this experiment, and possibly destroy the living room. (Although it was only a matter of time before they settled their differences and moved on to the next pinnacle of modern technology…The silent smoke alarm.)

Even if Ron's short-term, "trivial subject" memory had been reliable, he likely would've reacted the same when Kim abruptly prompted, "So, what were you talking about back there?"

Ron paused and arched an eyebrow. "Huh?"

"Terra"

"Oh." He stopped and tucked a hand underneath his chin. "Well…I caught up with her just before we were ready to leave and asked about Bonnie."

Kim stopped just short of opening her door and looked seriously at Ron.

"You were that interested in this?"

"Why wouldn't I be? You're not the only one that Bonnie's a total butt to."

The redhead raised her eyebrows thoughtfully, then pushed her door in.

"Point made."

"Well, anyway, she said that Bonnie'd been acting weird around everyone today."

Although she refrained from rolling her eyes, the 'obvious' in Kim's voice came out thick as she replied, "We didn't need anyone to second that."

"I know, but this sounded more like that 'completely disregarding' kind of weird. This morning they ran across each other in the halls, and Terra stopped to talk about a date she'd had last night, and Bonnie walked right past her. Didn't say a word."

"So?" Ron's audience didn't look amused. "She was probably just angry at Terra, you know how Bonnie is."

"Maybe, but think about it…" He prompted, then broke off to rest into a rolling office chair.

"In the time that they've known each other and you've known them, have you ever seen them get into an argument?

Kim stopped short and opted both eyes to the upper left corner of her head.

"No. They haven't even come close, actually."

"Point two established?" Her confidant smirked, but received a prompt, crass reply of, "No."

After folding her arms, she emphasized, "Just because you nor me have ever seen it doesn't mean it hasn't or couldn't happen."

"No, but it kills a good chunk of the probability. Besides it's just like you said; you know Bonnie.

If she was angry, she'd let Terra know it, not turn on the silent-treatment."

Finally, Ron's point hit home, with a successful use of his cheerleading combatant's own words, no less. This of course announced itself when she murmured a bemused "hmmm…"

"So?" Ron's big-headed tendency was quick to crawl into his face with an already occupying look of anticipation till she sighed, "Check-mate."

"BOOH-YAH!"

Bolting from his space in the chair, Ron pulled an ungainly victory-jig, which was lamely complimented by Rufus crawling atop his shoulder and mirroring the poorly coordinated movement. Kim only smiled, as it was rare that her childhood friend could actually match wit with her. It wasn't cool to spoil his moment, but there was something that now nagged at her.

"…So…" The wondering took hold of her vocal cords as Ron began in on a series of something resembling air-humps (which translated to the perfect time to interrupt him anyway)

"I guess that means I wasn't so special in this case, huh?"

The pelvic thrusts desisted almost immediately. After redirecting his attention to Kim as if he had forgotten she was there, Ron lackadaisically replied, "Nah. In the long run, you're probably the only person she oggled today."

It was indeterminable as to whether or not the redness that flushed over Kim's face was embarrassment or anger, but regardless she promptly barked, "It was NOT oggling! Can you even listen to yourself? Are you aware of how much sense you're not making?"

Ron shrugged disarmingly, which clashed quite a bit with Kim's breaching the border of getting in his face.

"What would you call it?"

No quicker had a fiery resolve been crushed underfoot by a mere question.

Backing up, Kim sparred herself to reflect on the look Bonnie gave her, which was all too well remembered.

"Well…" She replied in a thoughtful voice, but trailed almost as quickly. It was more difficult to describe than she assumed. In fact, now that she looked back on it with such a piece of mind, there was that soft look in the teal of Bonnie's eyes…

And that quivering of her bottom lip; was it really out of fear? Or was it…

Kim's eyes snapped completely open, inviting her head to shake that thought out.

No, no, no, NO! Only a total dip-head like Ron would misinterpret it to be something like that!

"I saw fear." She retorted in an unnecessarily defensive tone. "Like she was afraid of something."

"Come ON." Ron rolled his eyes in…exasperation?

"The fear thing is a given, but you saw something else, just like me, I know you did."

He sounded too confident to be inaccurate, and Kim knew he wasn't, which all the more agitated her. But she was finding her ability to disagree more and more difficult to sustain.

Actually, now that Ron gave her the face-value of this whole circumstance, it was getting impossible.

"okay." She sighed in frailty. It was impossible, but forget it- -This was her best friend she was with, if she couldn't talk to him about it, who could she talk to?

"Let's say I did see something else."

"Something like oggling?"

Where Ron offered a goofy grin, Kim leered. "Something like affection. Why do you think she's doing it, Confucious?"

"Hey, that's a bit exaggerated." Ron countered sheepishly while raising his hands. "I didn't say I could read minds, I just know what I saw."

"But c'mon, this makes no sense at ALL!" The girl's indigence returned with such a vengeance that it ideally caused her to dismount from the bed and stalk around her room. Although she went nowhere in particular, it all did a pretty good job of graphically introducing how fed up she'd become with this conversation, and while bracing her head, she continued, "Why after all this time of loathing me would Bonnie start doing something like this?"

How this display finally got Ron to catch onto his friend's frustration when all the others didn't was anyone's guess, but he wasn't reluctant to stand and attempt consolation.

"Woah, K.P, simmer down." His hand came to rest on Kim's shoulder, and though the texture of his voice hadn't changed, it begun to play something of a more serious tune, "This isn't worth getting worked up over, you know that."

Although she loosened up to a slight degree, whatever irritated respite possessed Kim still had a small amount of fight in it.

"Who says I'm getting worked up?"

It was lame and unsupported almost the second it dropped from her mouth, and Ron's blank stare that came as a result did a fair job of affirming that.

With a resigned sigh and downcast eyes, she murmured, "You're right. I guess with all of the weird stuff that's been going on, I'm just a bit on edge."

Visibly drained, she plopped back down on the bed and pushed a few red tresses out of her face.

Ron followed suit, but didn't advance any of his own effort. No, nothing too warm and cozy, if both parties had said it once, they'd said it a thousand times, they were just friends.

"I guess I really wanted to believe that it was nothing, but you're right. I saw it, too."

Her gaze lifted to fix unto Ron, and unsure and apologetic as it may have been, she received little more than a warm smile. "It's cool." He replied . "I guess I'd be pretty irritable too, if I saved someone's life and couldn't even remember doing it. It did surprise me, though, the way you reacted." Kim's quickly resurrected guilt-stricken look influenced a hasty emphasis, "I mean, it's not like I really mind, or anything, it's just that you're probably the most levelheaded person I know. What could make you be so dead-set on arguing with what you saw?"

"I think that's the worst part." Kim exhaled sharply. "I have no idea."

It was nearly four hours before the situation in the Dairy Hills could be considered even vaguely under control, by which point the better part of the plant had been lost to the fire. It was a particularly difficult day for hospital workers, whom under the order of staff administration had to tend to the casualties of the TCFD at a campsite not far from the hazard zone.

Due to that, and a publicly dubbed 'outstanding performance' by all involved, no further deaths were suffered on what would come to be a long-remembered day. By seven, things had begun to look up, which was something of an antithesis for Bonnie Rockwaller. She knew that there was no prospect to come clean about what really caused her attitude today, but how could she possibly lie her way out after the scene she had made coming home? Moreover, she had asked herself several times that, after everything the day had presented, why it was such a die-hard necessity to go on hiding it? She didn't have an answer to either question, but something seemed absolutely dreadful about telling them the truth, even past how farfetched it was. Thus she did her very best to play it off without saying much of anything, even despite her own struggle to cope with the day's events.

Harold on his end had heard enough of the "it's just been a tough week" act within the first ten minutes. The problem, though, was that he was so lost in the entire ordeal that he wasn't even entirely sure of whether to be angry at his daughter for being so persistent on this excuse, or to direct the frustration at himself for letting the closed channels between the two of them prevail to this point. Really, she almost looked like she wanted to let it out, but couldn't. And why? Oh, he doubted it was the context of what bothered her. All his sense of the 'bad parent' insecurity told him that his child's problem was her confidant.

He fell silent, having gotten the same reply to his troubling for what must have been the eleventh time. He convinced himself that he wasn't out of the game yet, but now it was time for his wife to step up to the plate. Hell, she boasted more for personal time with the girl than he did.

"Bon-Bon, everybody's noticed how you've been acting lately, and we're all worried."

Bonnie had mostly kept her gaze fixed on the surface of the family's sparingly used dining table. In that downcast resolve, she only averted when her mother added, "Me, your father, your sisters…We all want to know what's going on." Bonnie's eyes shifted for a tenth of a second to the dining room's entrance, where her older sister Connie stood; Arms folded, attention placed elsewhere, annoyed expression on her face…Oh yeah, her concern was real genuine. But that wasn't important. It didn't even require common sense to know that neither of those stuck up twits would care.

"…And if it is something that happened this week, we want you to tell us." Bonnie's mother picked up, snapping her train of thought. In some way, it made her realize that this just wasn't working. She wasn't entirely sure how it helped her reach that conclusion, but this entire time she had been banking on the hope that her parents' emotional distance from her would cause them to eventually throw in the towel. Now it was becoming painfully evident that she had underestimated them. Where instinct told her to come up with a good lie, what little sense of honesty she still retained plead for some shred of truth to this hellish day. And before she knew it, a dysfunctional hybrid of the two emerged; "I think I'm pregnant." A thick silence ensued, over which Bonnie was met by shocked, glazed eyes.

What had she just said?

Slowly, she turned her head to see that even Connie's attention had been gained. All three of them were awestruck, and for the moment, Bonnie joined them in a bout of nothing, so heavy and so wide-eyed that it could have put Marty Feldman to shame. Till Harold broke his trance.

"You're WHAT?!?"

Everyone started in surprise as the castle's King bolted from his space at the table and slammed his hands down. "You're pre…You're p…GAH!!" On the verge of ripping his hair out, Harold forfeit all attempts to form a coherent sentence for the exchange of whirling sharply around and stalking away to a window.

"…Bonnie?" Her mother's voice came across the table almost as unsteadily as her hand, just before coming to rest on Bonnie's shoulder. "Bon-Bon, tell me this isn't true…you haven't actually been…having…" Something seemed nearly humorous in that instant, and had she not been a participant in the entire mess, Bonnie later convinced herself that she could've laughed at it. But in the midst of everything, she was serious as a heart attack, and before she could have any chance to take a word of what she had said back, Harold reintroduced himself into the conversation. "WHO DID IT?" Bonnie shrunk back as her father's hands wrapped around her arms. "WHO'S THE FATH…Who's the f-f-F…WHO KNOCKED YOU UP?"

"…Brick?"

Oh God. Oh God, shut up, shut up, shut up! If Harold's concern so quickly morphing into this mutant blood-boiling rage wasn't enough evidence that her little façade was going too far, Brick's getting drug into it was. But it was too late. Looking as though he was ready to go on a homicidal rampage, Harold flung a finger out in the general direction of Bonnie's room and managed the order she had been waiting for, "Just…GET! Get to your room, and DON'T COME OUT!"

There was absolutely no reluctance. Bonnie scurried off as quickly as she could, and even after closing her door, she could hear him bellow, "SOMEONE GET ME A CIGGERATE!"

For a while, Bonnie sat on her bed, her knees pulled up to her chin, and both arms wrapped about her shins. She wasn't precisely sure whether to cry, or be relieved that she'd finally gotten some time to herself. Eventually, they would find out the truth, likely when poor Brick was confronted, and it would all come back around to her. But, at least she had bought some more time, if even just a day, it still seemed worth it. She was so, after all, caught up in the other things that had fallen upon her, and the disaster she had somehow predicted. Sleep was something of a labor that night, with the uneasy prospect of having another nightmare, but Bonnie's worries weren't met by much when she did, in fact, slip out of conscious. She could not gather to recall much when she woke, around six. Just when and how she fell out to begin with were faceless, which did not prove to be a measure of drowsiness, as she managed to emerge from a haphazardly constructed mound of pillows and bed sheets rather quickly. And although she was dressed within a matter of minutes, her priority wasn't getting to school. They didn't even unlock the doors till seven thirty. For the time being, all she wanted was escape. To get out of this house. Bonnie wasn't sure if her parents knew exactly who Brick was, or where he lived, but chances were they were more than capable of finding out quickly. In all fairness to them, they had likely figured everything, or at least a good chunk of it, out last night. So, rather than go through a confrontation in the dead of the morning, Bonnie decided to bail so damned early that nobody would even be awake to register her absence till several hours after the fact. Simple as that may have been, it worked well. Bonnie kicked her escape off with a slight crack of her door, creating less than an inch of space to peer into an empty corridor. Assuming this to be her green light, she vacated the room, and subsequently the house, with naught but a sigh of relief.

The fact that Middleton High was open the very day after the Dairy Hills explosion when no establishment in the surrounding area was resulted in some rather nasty criticism. But regardless of the large absenteeism count that day, poorly assembled scheduling, and the cafeteria's complete closure to what little of the student body showed up, school resumed. It was there, and there was even some room for relative normalcy.

Barkin was still an overbearing blowhard. The students, though likely talking about the explosion, still managed to fill the halls with a tangled mass of chatter, and someone somewhere within the building was undergoing a lovely dramatic episode. On this particular day, that person unsurprisingly happened to be Bonnie. One would think after everything that happened yesterday, the girl would put all concern for the welfare of her friendships on hold, and for the most part this was true, but she still held a special little place in her heart for the meek, stop-and-start, "only in it for the social conformity" relationship she had with Brick. And it was either that emotional attachment, or her knowledge of the scene that was to come that caused Bonnie's heart to skip a beat when she saw him ambling down the hall toward her. The look on his face, which was a combination of anger, inquiry, and genuine confusion, told her rather promptly that something happened last night. Something bad, and just imagining what it must have entailed provoked a stiff bite of her bottom lip. Brick's tone was almost as readable as his face when he addressed, "Bonnie?"

"…Yeah?" Her eyes dodged this way and that, and only intensified when the next words hit her ears, "What's going on?"

"What do you mean?"

Brick was either willing to play her evident "dumb" game, or he just didn't catch on. Without a note of frustration, he clarified, "I mean why did your dad show up on my doorstep at twelve in the morning yelling that he was going to 'castrate' me? …Whatever that means."

Bonnie's eyes clamped down. Undoubtedly, he had caught Hell; nothing short of the seventh circle. But how to answer…She could always say Dad was sucking down too much medication. Or maybe stress from his job was just making him do stupid things…

Quickly, she dismissed that thought, resolving not to lie anymore; be subtle, sure, but right now she was in an impossibly deep hole, and the first step to getting out of it was to stop digging.

"…Some really weird stuff happened with my parents last night…"

"I know." Brick grated, effectively cutting her off. "Your dad said I'd gotten you pregnant…once we calmed him down enough to make sense. Is that true?"

Even though she did everything she could to avoid eye-contact with him, Bonnie could feel Brick's gaze boring into her.

"Did you really tell them that?"

"Yes."

Despite his predicting such a reply, Brick was inexorably taken back by hearing it.

"But why?" His voice rose. "You know that isn't true! I mean, we haven't even had…"

"I KNOW we haven't, Brick. I lied, okay?"

Getting just as indignant, Bonnie interrupted with a sharp tone of her own. She knew that Brick was owed far more than just an explanation, but it was so very difficult to keep from being defensive in her present state. He, in his ignorance of nearly everything, did not care.

"I want to know why you'd say something like that! Are you really pregnant and you were just trying to pin it on me, or what? I want know what's going on!"

"I can't tell you why I said it, and even if I did, could you believe me?"

Brick paused thoughtfully. He certainly hadn't considered that. "No." His voice carried a strong finality. "I guess after hearing this, I couldn't. Goodbye, Bonnie."

He turned, but was not three steps away before Bonnie's voice tailed him, "Brick…" The most she got from him was a gaze over the shoulder to indicate that he was listening.

"I'm sorry…about all of this."

A vague sigh ensued. "Just stay away from me, okay?"
There was no opening for a reply. Brick made record time of leaving the scene in a calm, collected traipse. It was odd; her relationship with Brick was not near deep or even involved enough to merit any sort of drama. But something about having to watch him walk away like that left her so devastated. Perhaps the sting had nothing to do with his significance to her. Perhaps it hurt her so because she with her prolific chain of lies had forced him away. Yes, Bonnie concluded as a tear trailed down her cheek. That was a definite possibility.

"…So, what we have, here is an equal distribution of power amongst the states and the national government, which was established in the constitutional convention. Now, can anybody tell me what this division of power is…?"…Kim hoped that her history teacher wasn't really banking on an answer during the pause that followed his question. Oh, everyone knew it was called "Federalism". Heck, that stuff was elementary. But you couldn't provide a response if you weren't paying attention to the query, and it was cruel fate that good ole' Mr. Dunbar's "lecture voice" was identical to that of Ben Stein. Even Kim, for all of her academic excellence, could not help but zone out; this guy put Bob Ross to shame. And although she was far from alone, there was something out of the ordinary right in the desk directly neighboring her own. Someone whom by now would have long joined Kim and the other three quarters of the class in an episode of clinical brain-failure, was paying spades of attention to Mr. Dunbar. Or at least, that was the way it looked. Brick Flagg, whom had the bridge of his nose rested on cupped hands as to conceal his mouth, hadn't once averted his gaze from the front of the room. It wasn't common-place, but with most of the class caught in the activity (or rather, inactivity) of their own mind, he went un-noticed for sometime. It would just so have it that Kim, after having lost the umpteenth game of mental-image Solitaire, was the first to realize how different Brick seemed. By this point, she had grown somewhat used to outlandish looks, but she had quickly come to observe them with a consistent amount of interest.

Brick's little ice-breaking bearing held something of a stark clash with that of his girlfriend's. Where Bonnie's expression was loudly emotional, with the look in her eyes and the unsteady feature of her lips, he seemed to hold a more silently disturbed atmosphere that went far past the confines of his appearance.

Aside from that quite literal "accident of society" that ultimately caused her to hook up with him for about a day and a half, Kim hadn't gotten much face-time with Brick. For the most part, this was because he never had much to say that was greatly worth listening to, lest the person on the other end of the conversation happened to have replaced the necessities of life, such as bathing and eating, with football. But past their differences, Kim still felt some tugging need to ask him what was on his mind. Despite his being with Bonnie, by the end of the day Brick was still an okay guy, and Kim found herself comfortable with that statement as her quiet gazing turned into a subtle gesture for the dark boy's attention. Brick didn't appear to notice Kim's finger tap the corner of his desk at first. Even though Mr. Dunbar had turned completely around to adorn the whiteboard with aimless notes that no one would copy, Brick still seemed to concentrate every little bit of his attention forward. After this tactic more than visibly failed, Kim changed to bluntly making contact with his shoulder; the look he held upon redirecting his eyes was a telling indication that her first attempt had, indeed, gone completely over his head.

Mostly, the awkward feeling she got from having to speak to him after such a long period of content silence kept Kim from expressing her concern as the words "are you okay?" fell from her mouth.

"I'm good." Was the most she got from him. Even though it was deadpan and hardly sounded open to continuation, Kim still murmured, "You don't look it." After sighing in resignation, he let a small, unsatisfying reply into earshot. "It's Bonnie."

That was a given.

Not such an enigma to assume that Brick's funk came as the result of the person that started the hellish little trend. Donning some of the now evident frustration on his face, he coined only a bit more before dismissing, "She just…" a pause, "We'll talk about it later, okay?"

Kim gaped blankly. It just wasn't like Brick to hold off conversation in the middle of a school renowned "Dunbar" lecture, let alone conversation that was so subject to gossip; gossip involving him. But Brick wasn't conceding on that at all; he was already focused back on Mr. Dunbar.

With the slightest bit of disappointment hanging in her head, Kim followed suit and prepared the clarity in her head for a challenge far more stimulating that trying to stay awake through the lecture; mental image tic-tac-toe. Although the next half hour of the Federalism ramblings were uneventful, they did manage to help Kim come to terms with how much she was involving herself in Bonnie and Brick's affairs. Only was that expectable when her new, strange relationship with the former was considered, but it didn't necessarily mean that participation in this mess was a 'good' thing. For the better chunk of that half hour, Kim turned and tossed that thought about, recognizing that getting to the bottom of whatever was wrong with her rival probably wasn't in her best interest. It gave her new justification to tell Brick to not bother filling her in at all, and she would have considered doing such if a relatively simple yet horrifying thought had not struck her just as the bell rang.

Even if she decided to leave this behind and attempt to file it off into the same mental drawer that was home to the ambiguous tendency of Ron's grappling hook to jerk his pants off, it was still 'there'. It was still there, and she didn't voluntarily enter it to begin with, Bonnie more or less drug her in. She didn't know why, but her presence was there no matter how much she chose to gratify it. Chances were likely that if she simply left the chips as they were, they would come back to bite her in the butt later. When those thoughts stacked up, they did more than make up her mind; one could in all fairness say that they made her seize Brick by the wrist and lead him off to a distant part of the school, where they would be out of earshot.

The recluse, as a keen mentality selected it, was just outside Barkin's office; whether he was present or not, no student was ever there by their option. Brick wasn't quite so reluctant to enlighten Kim as he had been in the class. After glancing uneasily at the two-person staff, who in light completely disregarded his existence, he began with a question of his own; "Have you noticed Bonnie acting kinda…weird lately?" Although his choice of words left much to be desired from a dramatic standpoint, Brick's tone was all-business, not only in his voice, but his eyes as well. Kim didn't need to reminisce before replying, "Yeah.", nodding to define her agreement. "She has"

"Yeah, well…" His eyes fell slightly. "I had to call it off with her."

Kim started as he ran a hand through his hair.

Just like that? They were through?

Quickly as she could, she dealt that vague surprise off and asked her only question, "Why?"

Brick was quiet.

"I thought you guys got along pretty good."

"We did, but…" It was easy to tell that Brick knew what to say, but he just couldn't get it off the runway. Struggling, he provided a bit less revealing detail, "She just told her parents something that she really shouldn't have said…"

The redhead arched an eyebrow and, against all pressures to do otherwise, she pressed on, "Like what?" After staring at her gravely, he spat it out. "She said I got her pregnant."

Silence.

It was never so welcome, yet so despised by both companies at the same time. But it hung there defiantly for a good long time. Then, with disbelief heavy in her voice, Kim stammered, "You, uh…y-you did?"

Brick's volume nearly doubled in on itself as he exclaimed, "NO, I didn't!" and once more, he ran a hand through his hair. This time, however, it was with far more of a quick, jerking motion that left several blonde locks sloppily draped over his brow. In a Norman Bates-ish way, it effectively displayed his fluster, and in an uneven pitch, he continued, "We've never even done it before, Kim! I'm not even sure we ever actually liked each other, it just felt like we should have. I don't know why she'd say something like this, I really don't!"

A secretary glanced curiously up from her paperwork at hearing Brick's alarming volume. Being the only participant of the conversation to realize how loud it had become, Kim placed a hand on the distraught quarterback's shoulder and pled for silence with a sharp "Shhhh!"

Silence fell anew, over which Brick breathed heavily.

Doing her best to keep everything sorted out, Kim asked in a cautious whisper, "Do you know if she's really…" Brick promptly shook his head. "She wouldn't tell me, but somehow…I can't believe she is." A new piece of the puzzle emerged with this doubt, killing what could have been a rational answer to Bonnie's attitude. In its own right, her getting infected with the worst STD of them all didn't just seem like the best way to explain things; it felt so much more like it was the only way. Granted, it didn't do much to explain her 'oggling' Kim, as Ron would've put it, but it touched base perfectly on the mood swings, the supposed alienation, the throwing up…

"Why do you think that?"

A vague shrug was Brick's most immediate reply.

"I dunno. Just kind of the way she acted. You know when you can't quite explain something, but you just…" He paused, as if to search for an appropriate word, only to end with "know it?"

Kim identified with him, and nodded. "Yeah."

"I just thought it'd be best if we kept away from each other. So, that's that."

"Do you think you'll ever get back with her?"

Brick didn't waste much time shaking his head. "No, probably not. But hey, thanks for wanting to talk about it." Turning to leave, he added over his shoulder, "I don't know why you wanted to do it, but it was nice to get that off my chest."

His consolation could have given pursuit, and even mused over it for a moment, but stopped on an afterthought. There wasn't much purpose in prolonging things, both of her goals had pretty much been accomplished. So, she stood and watched him meander away, much like Bonnie had two hours earlier, but in a totally separate atmosphere. Which was ironic.

Maniacal laugher; it was the epitome of a madman, the glue that held the model together. If the bad guy could crack out a convincing enough cackle, he could be seen as an obstacle even if he was completely harmless. So it was no surprise that the villainous laugh of one Dr. Drakken

wasn't really all that…villainous. In fact, it could be likened to the warding call of a brain-damaged emu with malformed lungs; more unintentionally comical than intimidating. This wasn't entirely surprising or out of place, as Dr. Drakken failed on nearly every conceivable level when it came to truly being 'evil', but for how embarrassing his laugh was, one would think that he wouldn't do it often. Alas, that wasn't the case. Not at anytime in the past, and certainly not now as the pseudo madman observed the ongoing Dairy Hills incident from a large monitor in the main chamber of his not-so secret lair.

"Can you believe it, Shego?" He asked his hired hand while keeping his eyes on the screen. "Can you believe this rare luck?"

On her end, Shego was reclined in an office chair, finding great preoccupation with a nail filer. But, with an eye roll, she absorbed most of the doctor's words and held enough capacity to lackadaisically reply, "Nope. But then again, I'm still having trouble believing Tyra Banks got her own talk show." Ignoring the conclusion of her response (if not the response altogether), Drakken went off on the monologue of his new plan, "Just think of the possibility this holds! The opportunity we have! That refinery was home to state of the art mass machinery!"

"Yeah." Shego's less than enthused voice trailed as her boss lapsed into another bout of laughter.

In a more audible, emphasized tone, she added, "That's why a quarter of it spontaneously combusted."

Drakken stopped laughing to glower at the cavalcade of sarcasm behind him.

"Must you dwell on the insignificant details? Can't you see that everything we need to start CHEMICAL WARFARE is ripe for the taking?!?" He turned to compliment the screen with his excited gaze once more. "It's all within our grasp! The fuels, the knowledge, the technology…"

Pause once more took hold at Shego's rational but less than lively interjection, "The hazardous chemicals that were released into the air…"

This time, however, Drakken strove to ignore it, instead opting to remind himself of why raiding a half-annihilated chemical plant was still a good idea.

"…And if the machinery wasn't a perk, the lack of resistance is! Every authority has vacated!"

The screen switched from a two-hour old broadcast of the refinery to an overhead view of its present condition. Despite there being a great deal of accuracy to Drakken's observation, the absence of security seemed prefaced by the gnarled hunks of catwalk and a scattered assortment of blackened stumps that once lay the foundation of distillery towers. A quilt of nocturnal darkness had long since settled over the site which, when combined with its human emptiness, did indeed make it look like a favorable locale to loot. Shego, however, wasn't impressed.

"The fire department left because the first explosion released a corrosive agent into the air that was eating through the material of their oxygen tanks. You consider that an 'insignificant detail'?

"Hah!" Drakken's exaggerated laugh made his accomplice start slightly. "How quickly you forget that every piece of equipment I have is pioneer! Not some flimsy, low-grade piece of plastic that was paid for in tax dollars."

"…'Shlowmoe Ziegler's discount industrial bin' is state of the art?"

Sporting something of an insulted looked, Drakken raised a finger to his cohort and snapped, "I'll have you know that Ziegler spent five years in Vietnam working specifically with the Agent Orange. That's how he got that strange scar across his brow-line…"

"I heard he owed money to a guy named Vinnie and got hit in the face with a snow-shovel."

Drakken's expression went flat. "You're too receptive to gossip. BUT that is no matter. Soon, we shall reap the rewards of Tri-city's misfortune…"

Two days just wasn't enough time to get over everything. Even so, Bonnie was doing her best, striving to cope with everything ranging from the dream, to Brick's breaking up with her, and lastly her father's discovery that she was, in fact, not expecting a child. Bonnie thought it odd that he seemed even more livid at that moment than the night she produced that horrible lie.

Upon her exhausted confession to her parents, the universe seemed to collapse in upon itself.

And even now as the girl lay sprawled out across her bed, she wondered if it was really possible for a father to tell his daughter that he no longer cared about her, while simultaneously achieving a volume that rivaled that of the Tacoma Narrows disaster. Irony or not, Bonnie was positive that it wasn't genuine; simply a climatic effect of his frustration with her, but if it was one thing she could be sure was absolutely infallible, it was Harold's firm declaration that he was no longer going to involve himself in her little 'problem'.

Bonnie's mother, if anything, was the gentle abridgement of her father's input. With a softer voice and a lot less obscenities, she clarified that somewhere after learning everything, it settled on both Harold and her self that there was no getting to the reality of it all. Anybody willing to fake a pregnancy just to keep from revealing something clearly wasn't going to crack by any measures that the two of them could put forth. So her mother, though still stuck in that 'awkward silence' aftermath, seemed well enough, and Harold would probably need two weeks to a good decade, give or take. It was comforting to know that at some point, he could be faced once more, and on a similar note so incredibly odd to think that his resolve fell so conventionally thereafter. That, however, didn't dissolve every problem she was pitted against. Wearily, the girl massaged her the undersides of her eyes, and parted from the soft embrace of her mattress. If two days of relative peace and a completely uneventful Saturday couldn't put her troubled mind at ease, Bonnie begun to fear that nothing would. A glimpse at the clock revealed that it was only two; the middle of the day, and yet for some reason her eyes were so weary. So uncomfortable, and ambiguously fearful. She felt, at one instance, a burning need to get off the bed. Not merely a desire, but more so an absolute necessity to do something, anything. But this strange exhaustion, coupled with the absence of what to do, kept her figuratively shackled.

And the longer Bonnie remained on her ligature of pink bedspreads and gel pillows, the heavier her eyelids seemed to get.

And before she could stop herself, her shoulders eased back onto the comforter.

And reality seemed to melt away.

If the definition of 'loud' wasn't relative, its meaning would have been reformed several times over as Bonnie's earshot was assailed by an intense, piercing combination of sirens and industrial machinery. It achieved such a distracting volume that it almost made Bonnie neglect to realize that she couldn't really seeherself. In an attempt to confirm that thought, she waved a hand over her field of vision, only to be greeted by nothing. As such, there was nothing to deter her eyes from the scene that presently lay before her. For all she could figure in her frazzled state of mind, Bonnie was observing the black-and-white vision of a printing press, busily running off thousands of copies of the "Tri-City Bulletin". Only that title and a single word in the paper's heading could be distinguished amongst the press' rapid production rate. "FATAL", as the term inevitably turned out to be, ran across the girl's eyes again and again, till the scene abruptly shifted.

Change came so fast and so complete that Bonnie barely was able to register. Her gaze cast forth, and after a drawn out moment of adjustment, came to terms with what now came to stare back at her; the interior of a posh, almost Victorian, balcony. All forms of sound had dispersed, replaced only with a bleak, heavy silence. A pair of French lattice doors, intended to serve as a barrier to the outside world were left yawning open, and even though her sight was still devoid of color, Bonnie could recognize a heavy gray overcast dominating the horizon. And all at once, it happened. She was catapulted forward at such a speed that her exit from the building through its open balcony could only barely be realized. Along with color and sound, the laws of physics also seemed to be missing in that instant as Bonnie's fall paused momentarily; just long enough for her to take note of a good thirty foot drop to a cold slab of concrete below. Then she plummeted.

Even though every sense save for that of sight had alluded her, Bonnie somehow felt the momentum of her fall gaining every second she watched; till there was no distance left to be achieved. Her sight landed squarely on the pavement, but it didn't render darkness immediately upon contact. Instead, Bonnie was allowed to see a figure scribbled in chalk upon the surface of which she had just landed. It was so small and so fine that if viewed from any other distance, it would have been incomprehensible. Sharp angles and smooth curves joined to form the word "Geronimoe!"

Still far beyond shaken, Bonnie drew a blank of what it implied, and was not given another second to traverse. The sirens begun to bray anew, and once more, everything dissipated.

Kim's father 'hated' making over-generalizations. Anybody pulled of the streets could say that, but he prided himself on sticking to that conviction to the best of his capacity. No matter what one decided to base it upon, no matter what they used to justify it, the entire concept was just 'wrong'. How parochial and aimless would someone's mind have to be to really lump somebody into a category because of a certain physical or opinionative detail? He didn't have an answer, but that may have been due to the fact that the rocket scientist was currently surfeiting in his own raw self-disappointment. Because as sure as he hated stereotyping, he couldn't help but do it now, as he bemusedly watched the scene currently in his living room from the recluse of the dining area. Why was it that 'all' women, regardless of their character or physical display of testosterone seemed to be inevitably captivated by soap operas?

The question was so enigmatic that he himself couldn't think about it for too long without getting a 'serious' migraine. No matter how far down he dug, it always seemed that right when he found the answer, he just wound up staring at the original question again, which was frustrating since he used the scientific method and 'everything'. For all he observed, you could take the biggest, baddest ex-convict 'beast' this side of the Mason Dixon, set her down in front of the TV during a soap, and 'somehow' her interest would be gained.

Although that example didn't directly correlate to what he was currently observing, it still had its similarities. His daughter, the child of a rocket scientist and a brain surgeon, an honor roll student who saved the world from destruction on a near daily basis, was currently glued to the plasma screen that stood proudly across from the entrance to his home. Joining her was Ron, whom happened to be 'far' more of a social abnormality in this circumstance (though certainly not unbecoming of him, given his character). And playing across the otherwise empty atmosphere of the Possible residence was the opening theme to the popular soap, "Misery Street".

…or "Angst Avenue".

It was some perfervid cliché like that.

He honestly didn't pay close enough attention, for if he dared to stay in the same place while this show was on for more than six seconds, he would gain the urge to watch every Superbowl that has ever been televised while simultaneously tearing his car apart and putting it back together. Dr. Possible knew. He'd seen him do it.

And he had often wondered if this show was really a 'priority' to Kim. In a sense, the world may have been quite fortunate that…Dr. Drakken, was it? never seemed to attempt taking the world and/or Canada over at 3: 30 PM, otherwise it may have had to make due with someone else.

In due time, however, Kim's father would realize just 'how' wrong he was.

Kim and Ron sat on the same couch, maybe less than a foot apart from each other. Despite all of the time they spent together, it was still somewhat uncommon to be in such close proximity, but neither seemed to notice. As observed from a certain third party, a comet that was home to a highly advanced civilization of miniature Orlando Blooms could've crashed through the ceiling, and still only have a prayer of getting a reaction.

"Jeremy…I don't 'quite' know how to tell you this…" Both Kim and Ron leaned in almost unconsciously as another super-dramatic, yet terribly delivered, line came to pass, prefacing something 'big'.

"It's the hardest thing for a parent to tell his child…" All went dead silent in the Possible residence. Neither viewer dared to make even the slightest movement.

"Your mother…she, she wasn't abducted by Pookians from Alpha Centauri like I've been telling you this entire time…"

Ron glanced at Kim. Kim briefly returned, with an apprehensive bite of her lower lip.

All was quiet.

"Your mother was…jailed with Red Skeleton for dodging taxes."

And like that, all dramatic overture was 'gone'. Still, this didn't stop the soap from pressing on with its uncompromising story line. Poor Jeremy had just enough time to holler "NOOOOO!" in an overblown volume right before the show's fifteen-minute quota hit its end, and cut to commercials.

Despite this spectacular failure, Kim and Ron sat in bleak silence for an entire infomercial.

Finally, the former managed to break the silence with an addled, "No…'way'."

Ron was quick to contribute; "Who's Red Skeleton?"

"I…don't know."

Their vocal awe could have drug on for the entire break had the Kimmunicator not chosen that time to go off. After shaking herself back into reality, Kim glanced down at the device, which was nestled comfortably in a cargo pocket.

"Weird. Wade doesn't usually call around this time…"

Whether the girl's bemused observation had any accuracy or not, Wade held the bearing of abnormality with a baffled expression as the Kimmunicator's screen flickered to life. His eyes were instantly fixed unto something far beyond the boundaries of Kim's view, and they only averted when she queried, "What's the sitch, Wade?"

"Actually…" The prodigious boy begun while tacking away at one of his many keyboards, "I'm still trying to digest it, myself. It's…pretty out there."

"I've been around the block in recently." Kim replied flatly, "What is it?"

"Well…The Dairy Hills Refinery…"

"…Yeah? What about it?"

Furrowing his brow, Wade typed away some more and reluctantly picked up, "I got a report about an hour ago that some sort of unauthorized hovercraft was skirting the area."

"Hovercraft…" Kim repeated, finding it to be the most distinct word. It narrowed the subject's identity down to a very small number.

"So…I sent a spycam out."

"And?"

There was a brief silence before the fairly boded response came; "Drakken"

Predated as her answer may have been, Kim could only stare in disbelief at its affirmation, which allowed Wade to continue, "The only reason I can think of that he'd even 'try' going there is to get his hands on whatever wasn't completely destroyed."

"But…" Kim eventually found her vocal cords, "But the explosions triggered a…"
"I know." Wade interjected.

"And the chemicals, they were…"

"I know."

"And the STATE GUARD even had to…"

"I know."

She sat still for a moment in the wake of her informant's last interjection, unsure of whether to feel flustered, hopelessly affined, or just confused. Somehow, the groan that expelled from her mouth was a product of all three as she stood and ran both hands through her red tresses.

"Drakken is the only person I know that would be crazy - -and stupid - -enough to raid a refinery that blew up a week ago!" She grated as her hand dragged over the curve of her nose.

"And in broad daylight too." Wade contributed, then looked towards another screen, "The authorities had to keep their clean-up operations under two-hour intervals just to avoid excessive exposure to the chemicals, so he was lucky enough to come by when no one was around. But still...I don't know why he'd be taking a risk like this just for some P-tech stuff."

"Your guess is as good as mine." Kim replied flatly. "But he has to be stopped."

On an afterthought, she cast a glance to the window behind her; particularly the heavy grey horizon beyond it. "He knows how to pick the perfect times, too."

Around the same time that Kim was making her way to the refinery, courtesy of SADI the intriguingly gestalt-like car, Bonnie was emerging from her dream. Though she did so in a less startling manner than the previous occasion, the chocolate-skinned girl's actions were still an effigy of emotional instability. Full grasp of reality crashed unto her in a fashion that contested the Hindenburg disaster for pure psychological chaos. She tore from the heavy comforter, garbed in an oversized Club Bannana T-shirt and little else, toppled into the broad edge of her dresser, and threw open the topmost drawer. Her thoughts set the structure for her klutzy movement, as they raced in and out of her head, coming then going as fast as they appeared, but still somehow marking an impression.

What to wear? What to wear? What'd it matter what she wore? She wasn't even entirely sure of where she was going. She did even know why had abruptly launched this mad little crusade upon her dresser; she only knew that she needed to have more clothes on than what she was currently boasting. Random articles of clothing became airborne as she ripped through multiple echelons of drawers, till she came to rest on something that her frazzled state of mind deemed satisfactory. Holding it by the sleeves in both hands, Bonnie spent all of five seconds studying the blue polo she had produced from the base of her lowest drawer. It had the honor of being worn maybe twice before being repudiated on the grounds of not fully displaying her vivacious curves (despite clinging to her waist worse than cellophane). Without a second thought, the girl yanked her night shirt over her head and replaced it with the polo. So, who cared if it was too loose? It was covering her boobs, wasn't it? She could walk outside without getting arrested, right? Seemingly, just as she entertained that query, a draft assailed Bonnie's bare thighs.

Maybe not. She wasn't going very far without pants. Jeans or shorts? It was raining, but that didn't seem to matter. A crumpled pair of hip-huggers somehow found their way onto her legs, but an afterthought struck her; underwear. She dismissed it promptly. Hell with underwear, what purpose did it honestly serve. Hopping on one foot, she donned a lone sock before landing in a pair of lavender slip-ons and crashing through her bedroom door. She returned only breifly to get her keys.

It was just so strange, this wily concept of time. It was 3: 45-ish when Kim managed to part from her dearly beloved Soap and head out for Dairy Hills. She was almost sure of it. So why, now just as her, Justine and Ron came rolling into proximity of the leveled refinery, was the clock reading 5: 00? It seriously couldn't have taken nearly an hour and a half to get there.

...Could it?

"SADI?" Kim prompted as the car steadily closed the gap on the plant. "Are you sure your clock's set right?"

A sigh seemed to permeate from the vehicle's dash as its console lit up in tandem with its words, "For the umpteemth time, yes! See, there are these little things called 'traffic laws' that you have to obey when driving on most freeways outside of Mississippi, and deviating from them results in these other little things called 'tickets'. I thought you'd have learned this stuff in driver's ed."

Kim pouted at the car's sarcastic response and settled back in her seat. "Knight rider wannabe."

"Oh, I will so turn myself around if I hear another crack like that!"

Wanting to avoid any further dispute (no matter how inconsequential it was) Kim turned her attention to Ron, whom was presently struggling to navigate a hose from his o2 tank around his waist, to the appropriate socket on a mask. "KP, this thing isn't working with me!" He balked in exasperation, "It keeps getting hung on my shoulder."

"That's because you have it on upside down, doofus." The redhead replied while appropriating the object. In a vaguely lower volume, she added, "Maybe we should've brought a crash-helmet for you, too."

"Hey, temper, Kim. That was harsh!" Before Kim could respond or even opt to sound apologetic, SADI quipped, "You know how antsy she gets when you drag her away from her Soaps, Ron."

"Sorry." Kim looked genuinely into Ron's eyes for just over a second before snapping her head around to the car's console and retorting, "And you stay outta this!"

All would've slipped into a much welcome, bicker-free tranquility, had Drakken not chose that moment to interject. Neither Kim nor Ron could rightly tell just where he and his hovercraft had come from, as the compact vessel seemed to move almost at FTL speeds. They heard their arch-enemy long before they saw him, with his trademark laugh introducing his presence. Kim's gaze swung from left to right, till she pinpointed the source, and shifted upwards. The vessel hovered no more than ten feet above Justine, maintaining a speed to keep it a small, confrontational distance ahead of her.

"So, I see Kim Possible and her 'Talking Super Car' have come to thwart my latest plan!"

"Drakken!" Kim snarled while gazing out the windshield.

"Yeah..." Ron said from the back seat, "But what's he saying?"

Shego, whom had been busied with controlling the hovercraft, looked toward her accomplice. "You realize the windows are up and they probably didn't hear a word you just said...right?" Even though he was tempted to growl in frustration, Drakken exchanged any emotion for a more 'direct' approach.
"Well then, we'll have to try a bit harder to make our presence well-known, won't we?" He grinned indicatively at Shego, only to get a flat "I'm not reading ya'."

"GAH!" The scientist palmed his forehead and snapped, "Just put the craft on auto-pilot and hit them with one of your glowy...green...things..."

"Energy blast?" Shego assisted while toggling the vessel's autopilot.

"I don't know what you call it, just DO IT!"

The hired hand rolled her eyes. "Whatever."

"What're they doing?" Kim asked no one in particular while toiling to see the activity above her. "SADI? Can you see what they're doing?"

Before the car could get a chance to express her indifference, the answer to Kim's query came flying down for them.

"WOAH!" SADI exclaimed while hitting the breaks. As her passengers lurched abruptly forward, an emerald explosion fleshed out inches from her hood.

Then, just as quickly as she stopped, the car kicked into high gear and accelerated past Drakken's hovercraft.

"That was what they were doing!" SADI bristled.

Taking an obvious delight in seeing Kim Possible flee (whether by her own will or not) Shego stood at the fore of the craft and flung a series of smaller bolts at the car, perforating the street below with potholes. As the ranged assault intensified, SADI begun careening from left to right, weaving in and out of the line of fire.

"Can't dodge 'em for much longer!"

"Go faster!" Kim demanded while watching the projectiles clip closer and closer.

"Are you crazy?!? We'll be hitting 100!"

"Yeah, because if a cop happens to see us, he'll arrest the people speeding instead of the whackjobs shooting at people, JUST DO IT!"

SADI's compliance came so quick and so complete that Kim couldn't prepare herself fast enough. The engine bellowed, and she was thrown back into her seat.

Gathering just enough of her bearings to move, she crept towards the top edge of her seat and peeked out the rear windshield. For whatever reason, Drakken and Shego weren't following suit, and fell behind expediently.

"We're just about there." SADI announced, audibly relieved. "I can see the fence."

Kim would've been mimicking her chariot's relief had she not decided to look behind them at the wrong time. Through whatever marvel of misfortune had been overshadowing her on this day, Shego appeared to have learned a new trick with her energy bolts.

On second thought, Kim mused while turning back to face the front, maybe it wasn't new at all. Maybe she had just never been in the right circumstance. Either way, yet another massive gout of energy was coming for Justine from the rear.

And unlike the others, it was traveling mere inches from the gravel.

"SADI?" Kim spoke sheepishly.

"yeah, Kimmie?" Came her blissfully unaware response.

"Dodge."

"Dodge? Which way?"

"ANWYAY!"

The red sports car pulled hard to the right, slinging its commuters into the passenger's side windows. The bolt screamed by with such velocity that its target was sent momentarily speeding on two wheels. Ascending from the ground, it smashed into the refinery's protective fencing and tore off into the sky. To this day, it may well still be flying somewhere over Lake Superior. Amidst the spectacle, SADI hit her breaks and squealed to a swerving stop directly before the fencing.

"Alright." She practically huffed, "Much as I like the ten mile hurdle, I think the winter weight's gone, and this place looks like as good as any to have a showdown."

"Yeah." Kim replied, still somewhat at a loss. After fumbling to connect a gas mask, she opened the passenger's side door, exited In a much more ungainly fashion, Ron nearly oozed out when Kim walked around and pulled open the rear door.

"UUUuuuhg" He groaned while emerging from the ground, "can you get car sickness? Or do you just have to be born with it?" His groggy condition died promptly when he saw his friend assuming a defensive stance. Then he looked toward the refinery to see roughly a dozen of Drakken's crimson-suited henchman emerging from beyond the fencing.

"He brought friends." The redhead remarked while stepping back. The covey of badguys wasted no time with formalities, nor did their opponent.

The foremost henchman, a tall, Brawny mass with something resembling a boa staff, advanced and lashed out, pulling two hard, arching sweeps at chest-level.

Predicting such a front, Kim ducked the first strike and flipped over the second, landing on the staff with cat-like agility. Rather than move forward, the girl jumped in reverse and landed on the weapon's nearest tip, creating a teeter-totter effect that sent its opposite end flying into the henchman's chin. Startled, he backpedaled in reverse, and right upon regaining his sense, was met with a particularly nasty blow to the skull. He flopped over like a sack of manure.

The other henchmen backed off as Kim donned the staff. But as almost custom, they begun to circumnavigate her and Ron. And two filed into the center in attempt to seize the red head. The syntry that approached from the rear was rewarded for his bravery with a donkey-buck to the mid-section, causing him to double over with a groan. The other, in the middle of a lunge, was caught by a hard sweep of the staff at his knees, and was sent toppling onto his back. Rather than let the figures stand as they were, Kim dropped the staff, rushed forward and performed a reverse somersault, bringing her booted feet to collide with another henchman's jaw, which set him careening into the ground.

Bleeding off some of her speed as she recovered, the girl backed off, as to dodge the straight punch of another badguy that had entered the altercation. Catching his arm almost too conventionally, she slung him over her shoulder and onto the ground. A sharp gasp that emerged as he met the concrete implied that he wouldn't be getting up for some time. Another slow-witted enemy that attempted to make a grapple at Kim's shoulders was greeted by a round-house kick to the brow line that clipped a good chunk of his face. Down he went.

By the time Drakken's craft came hovering lethargically into the scene, he was welcomed by the sight of his small attack force becoming fairly well-aquainted with the ground. Half expecting this, he provided overture to his entrance with another laugh to catch his foe's attention.

"So, I see we've brought the blonde buffoon as well." He sneered while fixing his gaze on Ron. "But I wonder, where is David Hasselhoff?"

"Okay, that sealed the deal. The joke is officially OLD, people!" SADI fired back while gunning her engine. Feeling no further fanfare nessecary, Draken flung a finger out for Kim and looked toward Shego. "Get her! Take her down!"

Grinning, Shego ignited her hands in a jade flame and murmured, "My pleasure." before leaping down from the craft. Kim backed off and let her come, gauging her body position in an attempt to predict what attack she'd initiate with. Then, just before connecting with the ground, Shego forced a lone foot outward, aimed directly for Kim's chest. Falling back, the redhead hit the ground and barrel-rolled out of the way, allowing her assailant to land without casualty. There was scarcely a five second pause, however, before Kim found herself having to raise both arms protectively over her face to block Shego's inbound punch. From there, the ex-superhero begun a series of exploratory jabs, hooks, and kicks, all of which Kim either deflected or side-stepped. She did not lay down plans to counter attack till she realized that she was being driven towards what little still stood of the refinery's fencing. Resolute, she caught Shego's next punch and drove a knee into her abdomen, then created distance between the two of them by stepping in reverse. Her winded nemesis recovered just in time to catch a swinging kick to the jaw that spun her nearly to the ground.

Landing on her hands and knees, Shego growled her frustrations out and climbed back to her feet...only to be clotheslined before she could gain any leverage. Drakken stepped back in alarm as Kim's onslaught laid upon his accomplice came to conclusion. Assuming the girl's next move, the villain turned on his heel to run, but promptly tripped over Ron's foot, landing in a heap on the road.

Kim approached and stood triumphantly over her toppled archrival only breifly before an arcane blast from behind her ripped out and clipped her arm. Crying out her surprise, the cheerleader whirled around and struck another defensive stance. Shego, slumped slightly forward, bared her teeth and prepared for another blast.

"No one..." She snarled while setting fire to her hands, " and I mean NO ONE knocks me down twice in a row!" She ended her declaration with a climatic holler, raised both hands over her head, and sent them smashing into the gravel. Then, dismissing the plan for another bolt, Shego gratified her ire with a more brute force approach by running directly for her opponent. She played no more games, instantly going for a set of swift hooks at the temple. Kim, no longer capable of blocking, was driven backwards once more, but unlike the previous occasion, every miss, every dodge, every strike that failed to connect now added gasoline to a fire that, as it already stood, sparked with little to no warning. Finally gathering just enough of herself to think strategically, Shego dropped into a crouch and caught Kim's ankles with a harsh legsweep, sending her colliding into the gravel.

"Kim!" Ron yelled while running towards her, dreading the worst. The worst, as he feared, was coming. Kim shook her head groggily and set her gaze upward. She was welcomed by Shego's malicious grin, and little else. "Say g'bye, Kimmie!"

Ron Stoppable was no central protagonist, and he came to terms with that pretty easily. But he was prepared to attempt a heroic gambit in that instant as he armed his grappling hook and placed aim on Shego's head.

PUH-CHINK

The stainless steel instrument discharged from its launcher and jettisoned on a kevlar tethering line into its target. It nailed Shego squarely on the forehead with a dull but audible THUD.

"OWWWW!" The villainess wailed while stumbling backwards.

So like that, Ron saved his best friend from a possibly lethal clobbering. But he almost immediately lamented his actions when Shego stopped gingerly rubbing the already bruising spot and readjusted her sights to him.

"Why you little JERK!" She fumed while re-igniting her hands. However, she was not a step into her approach before a new intervention took way. In a bright red flash, SADI barreled onto the scene and, for lack of a better phrase, plowed into Shego from the side. The car screeched to a stop with its quarry caught beneath it. Slowly, the emerald fire that once consumed Shego's hands tapered away. With it, she offered a resigned groan of defeat.

Ron stood prone, somewhat awestruck at what he just saw. Kim, recovering shortly after the spectacle, expressed the thought weighing on her partner's mind,

"You know, SADI..." Her voice strained as she hefted herself up, "I appreciate the help, but are you sure that wasn't going a bit...overboard?"

"Are you kidding?" SADI replied lackadaisically, "What makes you think a lightweight sports car could do what a radio-active comet couldn't?"

As if to gratify, Shego's lone hand, the only part of her prevailing past the car's underside, flopped lifelessly over.

"...Ah, she looks fine to me."

Rolling her eyes, Kim turned to Ron and muttered, "I guess it's time to call the police."

When the Dairy Hills plant was secured, the clouds seemed to mirror the newly achieved peace with a slower, more lethargic roll over the horizon. The rain dampered to a light, eclectic downpour. One thing still provided counterpoint to that, though; Drakken's nasly voice as he snapped from the back of the armored squad car , "You think you're all that, Kim Possible! But you're n--YAHG!" The officers comendeering the vehicle didn't bother to let him finish, as one abruptly snapped the rear doors shut. As evidenced by the startled yelp, Drakken was caught off-guard. He would be driven off throwing a coniption about his potentially broken nose.

Shego, for her part, had to be taken from the scene in an armed EMS, when it was discovered that her ribs took a particularly nasty dispute with SADI's front bumper. Compound fractures aside, she was expected to be okay, which was relieving, and slightly disappointing at the same time.

Victorious once more, Kim and Ron returned to Justine for a placid, if not sopping wet, ride home.

Something was strange about the locale that Bonnie found herself in. She omitted that thought almost immediately since, on second examination, everything about her present circumstance was pretty damned well strange. The network of triple-level condominiums she found herself in was just a small facet of the many, many bizarre things that seemed to be piling down on her. But, finally having reclaimed some of her thought pattern from that oneiric horror she had emerged from roughly an hour and a half ago, Bonnie braced her forehead and came to rest on a nearby bench. She had recognized the importance of getting things figured out. The dream, her new, still borderline disgusting feelings for Kim, her family...She now knew that all of it seemed a lot less frightening when it was accompanied by true, rational thought. Logic, and stillbirth. What was that annoying thing they always referred to in Chemistry? The scientific method? Well, she was now going to attempt something like that.

And her first order of business was to figure out where she was, and why she was there.

Slowly, the brunette girl lifted her head. She knew she was in a condo complex. From the looks of it, she currently rested in a rectangular courtyard that lie between four of the resident buildings. It was a nice place, too. A small, centrally located fountain stretched a quartet of walkways out in a compass-like fashion. Columns of manicured shrubbery battled for attention with mildly grown Ash trees. Aside from benches, glass light fixtures that tipped cast-iron poles also dotted the walkways at more selective areas. They had already lapsed into operation, though some small amount of natural light was still being offered from the cloud-obscured sun. Bonnie guessed that, because of that, it must've been about six.

The complex itself was found somewhere on the outskirts of Tri-city's main commercial hub. A few blocks down from her was Middleton mall, and practically all around her was a veritable SlideShow of fast-food joints, department stores and of course, Starbucks. Her car was parked in the lot of some shopping square; she could only hope that she remembered to lock the doors, since the ride to this place was quickly becoming a memory. The only significant detail that seemed to remain was Bonnie's ambiguous method of driving, since it felt mor than once like everything she was doing, right down to a left hand turn and an acceleration from 50 to 55 MPH was being guided by something. An enigmatic tendency to go this direction, or pass that car felt like it was being motivated by something instinctual. It was a sensation so powerful that it felt as though it would be only appropriate to be dubbed an 'intervention'. But Bonnie knew with the clearest of her convictions that it wasn't.

So, there was now one order of business for her. Figure out why she had brought herself here, and that brought back the strange, indeterminate feeling she had about this place. It was right around that time that she heard them. Risen voices, they initially seemed, and the distance told that it was behind her. Turning her head, Bonnie gazed over her shoulder. Nothing. Everything looked serene, benign even. But they were there, and they were getting louder. Voices exchanged abruptly for shouting.

Bonnie rose to her feet. Something was wrong.

Feeling the altercation out, she ventured to the lower left corner of the yard, where more carefully adopted perception told her the voices were coming from.

It lead her to the other side of the building, where a column of balconies looked out onto a somewhat busy freeway. The only thing that separated the two was a small stretch of grass and a wide ditch.

Balconies.

Bonnie recognized them immediately, and now the shouting became coherent. A woman's voice, though in that instant it could've been easily mistaken for a forty year old convict, rung out in a raucous string of banter, "Blue eyes, Derek? How's that fucking happen when neither you nor me got 'em? How's the damn kid get blue eyes?" Then a male voice, in an equally loud albeit far less repugnant tone, countered, "I'm not debating this with you. Not again." A pause took hold, over which Bonnie discovered the exact condo. There, tucked in the balcony, was a little girl, probably no more four years. She looked fairly average, save for a pair of strikingly deep, near ultramarine irises. She saw Bonnie almost immediately, and watched her with reserved interest. Then the argument picked back up. "That smell." The man spoke. "You've been drinking again. Haven't you?"

"So what if I was, Der?!? Whaddya' gonna do? Yer not my daddy!"

"I sometimes wish I was." Came a swift response. "At least he knew how to keep your dead-beat ass in line."

"you WATCH IT." The woman's voice went shrill and broke into a scream, "I'll divorce you like it wasn't nuthin. I'll divorce you, and you won't even get to say goodbye to that little bitch."

And all at once, it hit Bonnie. Her nausia came anew, chortling at the base of her stomach, and, seconds afterward, blasting through her esophagus. Taken by such monumental surprise, she crumpled to the grass and let it spew out. While she did so, the argument above continued with the man returning calmly, "You do that, De. Because I'm telling you right now, there isn't a certified Judge in this state that'll award an alcoholic highschool drop-out custody of a three year old kid over a clean law-student." There was another pause as Bonnie finished with her grotesque repartee' and tipped her head upwards. The man had walked into view, though he didn't appear to notice Bonnie's hunched form on the yard below. Instead, he gently placed his hands under his daughters arms, and concluded his end of the domestic battle, "Until you figure out what you're going to do, I'll be downtown. And I'm taking Megan with me."

Despite her miserable condition, Bonnie watched bemusedly. And she watched a full, genuine, infallible surprise mark the man's face as he lunged forward. And she watched as his child was pushed out the balcony in the process, and began to plummet towards the walkway.

Kim had made particular note when Justine hit the Middelton shopping area. She did this partly on the basis that it was a landmark of being that much closer to home, but mostly she just wanted to see if anything interesting would be in the display cases at some of the department stores.

What Kim didn't expect to see was a true act of heroism from one of the most unheroic people she knew. SADI had only been going about 35 miles an hour when they came in view of the condominium network (Her reasoning, "I've been far past the legal speed limit for most of the day, lets see how going far under the speed limit works out"). And it wasn't long before she noticed that the balcony on a third-floor dwelling was left yawning open. That on its own was strange, since the weather was only getting worse as the day came to an end. But what was even more peculiar was the 20-something guy hanging out, bowed over the curved, protruding structure.

It lead her eyes downward, where she was witness to the horrific sight of a child, a small, small child about to meet her demise to an unforgiving concrete path.

And in nearly the instant that this event was on the verge of taking place, she saw Bonnie. Bonnie, the same stuck up, arrogant, anal-retentive twit that gave her such a hard time in school, running. Running, and intercepting the little girl's collision with the ground. Running and intercepting, and collapsing thereafter. And Kim could only hardly feel herself as she yelled for the car to stop.

She never bothered to describe herself that night. That strange euphoria that overtook her as she watched one of the most hostile people she knew rescue a life was never analyzed. Never put on a trey and slid under a microscope, never split open and examined. It just fell upon her, and Kim spent much of that night on the phone, calling. Calling everyone she knew, every number she had, even if they weren't there. Monique, one of the first people she attempted to get in touch with that didn't happen to be present, came home to an interesting message from her redheaded friend, "Monique! Are you there? Are you there? You wouldn't believe it, you just wouldn't! But, Bonnie...You know her, right? What am I talking about? Of course you do. But Monique, she saved someone's life today! Can you believe that? Bonnie saved someone's life..."

End Chapter 2