Even though Ron knew he was sitting cross-legged in hospital room, in the meditative state it felt like he was standing up and he could feel a breeze ruffle his hair. Opening his mental 'eyes' Ron found himself once again standing on a familiar mountain top, a short distance away the Mystical Monkey who preferred for Ron to simply call him M.M. was sitting patiently waiting.
Rushing over Ron quickly sat down in front of the ancient monkey. "I really need your help M.M.!"
Ron was stopped as the Mystical Monkey raised a hand forestalling him and with the other hand pulled out a teapot from behind him. Two cups suddenly appeared sitting on the grass between them and M.M. poured tea into the cups.
Ron looked around nervously. "I really don't have time for this M.M., I've got a big problem…."
"You need not fear. Krueger cannot enter here. We are quite safe."
"I knew I was right! Meditating is not like dreaming!" Ron shouted in triumph. "Wait! You know about Krueger?!" Ron looked at M.M. in shock.
The monkey calmly handed a teacup to Ron. "Of course, even though it appears we are on a mountain top it does not mean we have physically moved. This is all a part of your mind Ron, the mystic monkey power is a part of you, not separate and I am a part of the power, your guide. What you know, I know."
Ron scratched his head. "Why then do I not know what you know?"
The wise old monkey reached over and patted Ron's hand. "You will someday. When you are ready."
Ron in confusion sipped his tea. The fact the tea hitting his tongue wasn't really tea and it wasn't really hitting his tongue but he was just inside his own mind thinking he was having an impromptu tea party with a monkey that wasn't really there but merely a part of his own mind, while a scarred maniac who was in reality nothing more than a bad dream was waiting to kill him as soon as he went to sleep, well all of it was enough to give Ron a headache if he thought about it too much. Fortunately, Ron was adept at not thinking about anything too much. Glancing down at his lap he saw that Rufus had crossed over to the meditative world with him and was looking as confused as he felt.
"Um, do you think I could get a Naco with this tea?" Ron asked.
"Hmmm Nacos!" Rufus mirrored Ron
Seeing M.M.'s eyebrow twitch Ron decided he better get back to what he was there for. "Ah. What can you tell me about Krueger?"
The monkey sipped his own tea for a moment before answering. "When the world was new there were many beings and creatures you humans would call supernatural. Some were almost gods and some were more like demons. The ones that matter to us at this moment were the Dreaming Gods."
"You mean they slept all the time? Wouldn't that make them the Slacker Gods?" Ron asked.
"The gods themselves were not dreaming Ron. Their powers lie in the dream realm." M.M. raised a hand to forestall Ron's next question. "The dream realm is a very real dimension. Humans when they sleep have their minds cross over to this realm and experience it but only as an ephemeral memory…"
Ron raised his hand.
"Ephemeral means brief or fleeting and leaving no lasting impact." M.M. replied without waiting for Ron to ask his question.
Ron mumbled to himself. "If he knows what I know, why does he insist on using words I have no idea of their meanings?"
Rufus shrugged showing he didn't know either.
Ron blinked as a thought hit him. "Wait! You mean our minds actually cross over into another world when we dream?"
The monkey nodded its head. "Exactly but only as thoughts, so what a dreaming human experiences does not affect their sleeping bodies. The Dream Realm is a realm of thought and energy and human minds even sleeping can affect and control what happens there but only to a point. Now in the early ages of the Earth there came here six gods. Three were white guardians of dreams. They are the ones that nudge and help dreaming minds to have pleasant dreams."
"Why do I feel that the other three Dreaming Gods weren't that concerned with humans having pleasant sleeps?" Ron asked rhetorically.
The Mystical Monkey nodded his head again. "You are quite correct. The other three were known as the Nightmare Gods. They tormented sleeping humans with horrifying images and went out of their way to try and disrupt the healing sleep of humans."
"What has this to do with Krueger?" Ron asked with a sinking feeling he already knew.
"The gods were and are limited in what they can do. Three vs three, what the Nightmare Gods attempted to do were countered by the pleasant dream gods resulting in constant stalemates. So the gods decided on a rather risky scheme. They agreed among themselves they would pick champions to 'fight' the dream battles for the gods. The pleasant dreaming gods chose to spread their power out to many such champions. While this helped to insure the power was spread over a vast area to help as many dreamers as possible, it also thinned the power so the dreaming champions could only nudge or gently influence other dreamers to more pleasant dreams." Mystical Monkey frowned and Ron once again had a pretty good idea where this was going next.
"The Nightmare Gods decided to find one person to place all their evil disruptive powers into, thus making a Dream Master. One who could control and make nightmares more than just unpleasant dreams. One who with enough effort could actually make dreams destructive to the bodies of the dreamers as well as their minds but only for a few at a time."
"Freddy Krueger." Ron stated.
Mystical Monkey inclined his head in agreement.
"Wait. Freddy was killed and only showed up in people's nightmares a short time ago; you said these gods have been basically playing games with dreaming minds since the earth was young. What happened to the previous Dream Masters?"
M.M. smiled at Ron pleased to see he was actively seeking a solution to the problem and wasn't just waiting for M.M. to hand it to him. "In some cases the pleasant dream champions joined forces to fight the Dream Master off. There were the rare cases where the evil Dream Masters allowed themselves to be pulled from the Dream Realm by their victims and once in the real world were easily destroyed. A few failed to slip out of their victims' minds before they were driven insane or died."
"Huh? You lost me." Ron stated.
M.M. sighed. "Look Ron you are aware that you can reach out in meditation and seek the Sensei's advice even though he is at Yamaguchi, correct?"
"Yeah." Ron answered but not too assuredly.
"Where does this meeting of the minds take place?" M.M. prompted.
"In meditations." Ron promptly answered.
"Yes, but in whose mind? Yours? Sensei's?"
Ron opened and shut his mouth a few times in confusion. "I never really thought about it before. Since I'm pretty sure I can't do the whole mystical mind journey thingy I would guess the Sensei's mind reaches into mine and pulls me into his mind to talk?"
The monkey frowned. "You never give yourself enough credit, but in this case you are not too far off. The Sensei is the one to initiate the contact and he does do it by, as you put it, reaching into your mind but from that part on you meet as equals in a meditative realm. Not too dissimilar from the dream world actually. The point I wish to make though is, what would happen if the Sensei was to pull you into his mind and something at that point happened to him, such as a sudden death?"
Ron wasn't really comfortable thinking about the Sensei dying. The old grandfatherly man was sprier than most people Ron knew but Ron was pretty sure the guy was older than anyone he had ever met before too. "I guess my mind would be spit out at the point of his death?"
The ancient monkey slowly shook his head. "No. You would be as dead as the Sensei."
"Well that is a real downer thought." Ron silently thought to himself. Ron tried to figure out why M.M. felt it necessary to tell him that and what it had to do with what they were talking about earlier. "Ohhh! I get it. You mean some of the previous dark Dream Masters allowed themselves to get too close to their victims so when they died instead of the victim being inside the Dream Master's mind, they had actually allowed themselves to cross over into their victim's mind so the victim's death killed them as well!" Ron looked triumphant for a moment but then confused. "Did that make any sense?"
The mystical monkey looked pleased. "Yes, you understand correctly, although it didn't always end in death. Sometimes the victim would be driven insane and the Dream Master would find himself locked inside the broken mind of his victim."
"But how would someone like a Dream Master be pulled into his victim's mind without realizing it? I mean the title Dream Master kind of implies that he knows the ropes pretty good. "
"The power of the pleasant dreaming gods, remember? Their power isn't violent or controlling as the Nightmare Gods. Their power works by gently nudging someone into more pleasant dreams. So the Dream Master would attack someone in the dream world and one of the guardians of pleasant dreams upon seeing the poor victim was going to die anyway, would nudge the Dream Master so slightly they didn't realize it until he was in the victim's mind."
Ron sat back and thought. While this did actually give them a fair strategy against Krueger it would mean someone would have to die or be driven insane to trap the monster.
"What if we just physically pull Krueger out of the dream world by holding on to him and waking ourselves up? Nancy says she managed to do it and you said a few of the old Dream Masters met their end that way."
M.M. shook his head sadly. "The Nightmare Gods are learning. They used to choose mild or weak willed people who thought of doing evil but never acted upon it to make into their Dream Masters. This Freddy Krueger is a different type."
"In what way?"
"Freddy Krueger is a vicious, efficient and complete total bastard." M.M. calmly stated. "In other words, even if you pull him from the dream world, you may have taken his dreaming powers away from him but you are still going to be facing a seasoned serial killer that has killed dozens and dozens of people."
"Yeah, that would be bad." Ron admitted. "Still I bet Krueger never met someone with plasma powers like Shego."
"Do you wish to risk losing your mates to test that theory?" M.M. asked.
Ron immediately shook his head no. "Not really, no." Ron studied the now empty tea cup in his hand as he tried to find a solution where no one else had to die or be driven insane. "Wait! What if a Dream Master was in someone's mind and that person suddenly stopped dreaming?"
The ancient mystical monkey reached up a hand and started stroking his long white beard. "You are thinking about the Hypnocil? If you could nudge Krueger into someone's mind while they were dreaming and injected them with the hypnocil?" The monkey thought for several long moments. "I…. Cannot answer that Ron, never before has man knew of a way to stop dreaming. A Dream Master uses his power to enter and control another's dreams. If the person just wakes up, they escape for a short time from the Dream Master until they sleep again but if they just stop dreaming while still asleep? I just do not know. I would imagine the Dream Master would find itself captive inside that person's mind, powerless."
Ron began to look excited and it was evident he was just moments away from a boo yah and high fiving his naked mole rat companion.
The Mystical Monkey raised a warning hand. "I do believe however, that if the person on Hypnocil were ever to miss taking a shot of that drug again, the Dream Master would then be freed from his imprisonment and be able to escape back into the general dream world as soon as the person starting dreaming once again."
"Okay. So the plan has a few holes and stuff that needs to be worked out but you have to admit it is better than someone dying or being driven insane. I've got to get back to the others to tell them what we've figured out! Thanks for the help M.M.!"
Ron stood up from his kneeling and began to fade almost at once. The Ancient Monkey started to open his mouth to say something but then just shrugged.
Shego and Kim leaned over Ron's sitting form staring intently at his face for any signs that he was dreaming or under attack by Krueger. "How do we know he really is meditating and not dreaming?" Shego asked for about the third time.
Ron's closed eyes fluttered once and then opened. "I must be dreaming because I'm looking at two angels." He muttered.
Shego smiled and then smirked. "That was cheesy but you are forgiven." She gave him a quick kiss on the lips and then moved to the side so Kim could get to him.
"Cheesy!" Rufus who was now out of his meditation squeaked.
"Ron do you know how worried we were about you?" Kim began but then giving in to her own desire she also kissed him.
Over at the bed Nancy allowed an eyebrow to rise.
Ron quickly got to his feet and returned to stand next to the bed so he could explain what he found out to not only Shego and Kim but Nancy as well.
"Well did you learn anything?" Shego prompted before Ron could speak.
"Yeah. A whole lot of things. Dreaming Gods, Nightmare Gods, Dream Masters…."
"Let me rephrase that. Learn anything useful? That we can use to destroy this Krueger person?"
"The Mystical Monkey power told me there is only a handful of ways to destroy a Dream Master and that is what Krueger is by the way. He can be pulled into the real world, the way Nancy did it but Mystical Monkey doesn't think that is a good idea. He can be tricked into entering the mind of someone who is dying or on the brink of insanity. In which case he would be killed or be trapped in the crazy person's mind."
"Not liking any of the options yet." Shego stated.
"Or a final way I came up with." Ron said. "But first I should tell you that Mystical Monkey isn't entirely sure it will work, we trick Freddy into someone's mind while they are dreaming and then inject them with the hypnocil."
Ron waited a moment for reactions but didn't get any. Kim pulled up the Kimmunicator. "Wade?"
The boy genius on the other end of the line pondered for a moment. "I get what Ron means. Krueger uses dreams as gateways to peoples' minds. If he was in someone's mind and the dreaming just suddenly stopped it would be like a jail cell door slamming shut behind him. He would be trapped. But if the person on Hypnocil ever missed getting a shot after that?"
"Um, yeah that was the part Mystical Monkey brought up too. As soon as the person starts dreaming again Krueger would be on the loose again." Ron admitted.
"So what you need is someone who is on a prescription for Hypnocil anyway. Who by doctor's orders has to take it anyway?" Nancy stated grimly.
"No. Not going to be you." Ron flatly said. "You've been through enough. We'll trick Krueger into entering my mind and then Kim or Shego can give me a shot of this hypo stuff and we'll lock him away in my mind." Ron gentled the grim look on his face. "Besides, I've got plenty of room in my mind to lock Krueger away. I've got vast areas I've never even used that we can use for a jail cell for him."
Nancy folded her arms across her chest and glared at Ron. "No. Freddy Krueger is my fight! He killed my friends. He killed my boyfriend and hunted me. He killed my mother and caused my father to lock me away in this asylum! If anyone is going to trap him so he can't harm anyone else it should be me!" To forestall Ron's argument that Nancy could see he was about to give she added. "And where are you going to get the Hypnocil to inject yourself with anyway? I'm the one the nurse will be giving it to."
Ron waved one hand casually. "So not the big. Shego can steal some from this place's pharmacy and inject me with it. Later we can get Wade to find a supplier of it so I can take regular injections to keep Krueger down."
Shego was staring at the carpet of the room and didn't answer him. It wasn't Ron's casual mention of her stealing, the thought of stealing didn't bother her even though she knew he wanted her to stop doing it, it was the fact that she wouldn't, couldn't do it to or for Ron. There was no way she was locking away a serial killer inside Ron's mind to maybe someday slaughter him in his sleep if he ever missed taking that medication. "I won't do it." She calmly said without looking at Ron.
"What?" Ron asked turning to look at her.
"I'm not going to help you lock away a rabid killer inside your own mind." Shego looked up and Ron could see she had tears in her eyes. "Don't ask me to Ron please."
Wade's voice called out from the Kimmunicator. "I have to agree with Shego. This isn't a good idea."
"Oh? And give me one good reason not." Ron angrily said.
"Zorpox." Wade said.
Nancy had no idea who or what a Zorpox was but she could see the reactions the name had on the people in her room. Ron stiffened, Kim and Shego paled and the naked mole rat Rufus standing on her bed put his hands over his eyes.
"What is a Zorpox?" She finally asked.
" A while back on a mission Ron was exposed to a machine that brings out the evil in a person, enhances it and puts it back into them." Kim Possible replied staring off into space. "That evil named itself Zorpox."
"Zorpox is gone." Ron stated hollowly. "Kim and Drakken fixed the machine and took him out of me."
"No they didn't. They rebalanced your good side and suppressed Zorpox's evil but he's still inside you Ron and if you were to dump Krueger inside there too, chances are they would join forces and turn you back to evil. The risk is just too great to chance it." Wade said.
"So see?" Nancy stated. "I'm the perfect choice. I have to take the medication and I more than anyone else have a reason to see Krueger restrained if not destroyed."
Ron started shaking his head. "No, it's not right! Can you stand living knowing that some sicko is staring out of your eyes during the day, just waiting for some slipup in medication to free himself and start killing again?"
Nancy calmly stared back at him. "Could you? You were just proposing doing the same thing to yourself. If this is our best shot to stop Krueger we have to take it."
Ron looked helplessly at Shego and Kim.
"I can't do it or I would." Shego said. "I'm a bad girl…" Seeing Ron's frown she amended herself. "I used to be a bad girl. Krueger inside my mind would find it too easy to tempt me back into doing evil. You can't do it Ron for the same reason. You are a good guy but you too have tasted evil even if it was unintentional."
"I could do it." Kim stated.
Shego shook her head. "Nope. Not going to happen Princess. With all the sudden missions you go on? One time missing the shot just because you were dangling in mid air over an island about to drop in on Dementor or Drakken and Freddy would have a green light as soon as you fell asleep. No, I don't like this any more than Ronnie does but if anyone is going to try and trap Krueger in their mind, Nancy is the most logical choice."
"Thank you." Nancy said to Shego.
Shego looked at her as if she was crazy. "Don't thank me! Don't you get it? We're about to make you a jailer of a sick twisted perverted freak! He may not be able to torture you in dreams but we have no guarantee that Krueger won't be able to whisper to you in your mind. You may be trapped forever listening to him whisper sick things to you." Shego shook her head violently. "No. This is a bad idea. I say we sleep and when he attacks us in our dream we wake ourselves and pull him into this world and fight him!"
Nancy shook her head. "It won't work. All he needs to do is find one person asleep and he'll escape back into the dream world and take the sleeper with him. All we would do is just be responsible for someone else's death. Ron's plan is the best choice to stop him." Nancy glanced over to a clock on the wall. "The nurse will be back in a few moments to escort you guys out. An hour later they will come back in here to give me a shot of the hypnocil. They won't even bother to wake me if I'm asleep, they'll just inject me anyway so the best thing to do is find somewhere you three can sleep, find me in my dreams and help me hold Krueger inside my mind till they inject the drug and it takes effect."
Ron, Shego, Kim and even Rufus looked at each other and reluctantly nodded their heads at Nancy. Before any of them could say anything more, the door to the room slowly opened to reveal the nurse that had led them there earlier. "Sorry. Visiting hours are over with now. Maybe you could come back tomorrow?"
"See you soon Nancy." Kim told her.
The nurse holding the door open looked back at Nancy. "I'll be back in about an hour with your shot Nancy. Try not to fall asleep before then."
Nancy nodded although she had every intention of trying to go to sleep before then so she could be ready to trap Krueger before the drug entered her system and suppressed her ability to dream.
Ron, Shego and Kim found themselves once again outside the oppressive front doors of the mental institute.
"Should we attempt to find a hotel room or just find somewhere safe in the nearby woods to try and sleep?" Shego asked.
Kim with a thoughtful look on her face replied. "I think we better find some place close by. The rules of the dream world maybe different than reality but I would still feel better being close by."
Kim led Ron and Shego around the large complex to the back of it which was heavily wooded. Finding a large tree they all leaned back against it, Ron once again in the middle with his arms around both Kim and Shego.
Just as Ron was about to drift off he suddenly realized something. "Where's Rufus?"
Nancy lying in her bed was trying to relax so she could sleep but she had to admit to herself if to no one else that she was terrified about what she was about to attempt. Feeling movement on the edge of her bed she was almost ready to scream when she looked down and saw the naked mole rat Rufus looking at her in a surprisingly comforting way.
"Night night." The mole rat squeaked at her.
Nancy reached over and patted him on the head. "You going to stand guard to make sure I'm all right?" She asked.
Rufus nodded his head.
"Thank you." Nancy murmured as she closed her eyes and allowed herself to relax. A few moments later she was breathing deeply as she fell asleep.