AUTHOR'S NOTE – Thanks to all the people who read and reviewed Chapter Four! I'm glad to see you still enjoy my story! Thank you: screaming phoenix, CajunBear73, MrDrP, Kwebs & Michael Howard! I'll take a little piece of advice from MrDrP and try to cut back on the Author's Notes. Sorry, I know I babble too much! Well, I personally enjoy reading Author's Notes, getting some more insight into the author's ideas and such… But if you think they're distracting, I'd say it's quite easy to ignore them. Just read what's between the lines of X's and O's I always use, and they won't disturb you. ;) Well now, enjoy Chapter Five! ;)

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Chapter Five: What is Perfect, Anyways?

At an unknown place – so unknown and so well secured that not even Wade knew of its existence –, Dr. Drakken was sitting in his new secret lair at an enormous system full of buttons, levers and monitors. After having acquired Shego's abilities with the help of the ability transferator, for the first time in his life, he had a real plan – not counting the one with the cybertronic robots that failed, and of which he would never speak again… Suddenly, he was able to think a few more steps ahead than before. Before, he had only known that he had to have the ability transferator stolen for him. But what he could do next and what consequences his actions might have, had been unimaginable for him before the ability transference.

Suddenly, he had realised that the first step towards conquering the world was searching for a new secret lair that was not already known to anyone – especially not to Kim Possible or Global Justice. It also hit him that he had no idea about his henchmen's abilities – except for abilities like lolling around, eating or asking for their next salary increase or vacation. Never before had it occurred to him that they could prove to be quite useful – after all, he would have never even dreamed of asking Shego or his crew for advice on his evil schemes, either. As it turned out, his henchmen really were complete idiots and their abilities more than useless – but one of them was in contact with several computer and high tech experts online. That way, Drakken had been able to upgrade the old lair's security system and set up his new secret lair accordingly. Of course, he also could have sent for some of these super geeks to literally make use of their abilities… but it had been more important to go into hiding as soon as possible first. He would be able to get more abilities soon enough, and he already knew exactly where…

It was all so easy! And the best of it all: He would finally be able to get rid of Kim Possible once and for all! The flashing of a blue lamp starting off at that moment told Drakken about the success of his plan. "Ha! It's the signal!" Drakken rejoiced in a villainous manner. "The explosion occurred! Kim Possible and her buffoon took the bait!"

He rubbed his hands with an evil grin and continued in a lower voice, ranting more to himself: "No goodbyes to the teenage arch-foe, no escape – to heck with antiquated villain traditions! Just an explosive charge and a countdown, activated by motion detection inside the lab…"

While Drakken already enjoyed his triumph, Shego crouched at the opposite wall on the floor, her arms around her drawn up knees, rocking back and forth apathetically. Her scared look was fixed upon the ability transferator that was lying immediately next to Drakken. In a tremulous voice, she muttered to herself: "I want my abilities back! Gotta get to that somehow… But how?! If I just grab that thing… What if he'll notice? What am I gonna do?! It's driving me crazy!"

She could not think straight, could not concentrate. The certainty of having lost her abilities – to Drakken – and the incapability of being able to do something about it left her entirely helpless. She was never even able to suppress these feelings of helplessness! It was really bound to make her crazy in the long run! She was only able to watch as he made use of her abilities, her ideas, her planning ahead…

Now, Drakken operated several levers on his system, glanced at one of the monitors that was still turned off with an expectant look and continued to grin to himself: "Let's see if anything's still going on…"

-xXOXx-

Back at the place where Drakken's "secret" lair in the mountains used to be, smoke was still rising. If there was anything still left inside the lair, it was ablaze. Somewhere on a rock face, a good distance away from the explosion, a hidden camera was activated. It was as white as the snow surrounding it – perfectly covered. And as it had not even been activated until that moment, Wade had not been able to detect it before.

Kim was not aware of the camera, either. She was busy finding Ron. Apparently, he had not landed in the valley, like she had, and he had not reacted to her shouting. While aimlessly running around, searching for him, she started blaming herself. Why had she failed to make sure he could land safely first? Why had she just said "Ron, pull that red cord!" and then let go? What if the "air bag" installed in Ron's winter outfit had not opened in time? Gradually, she really started worrying about him…

Then, there was a beeping sound. Kim was startled shortly, but it was just her kimmunicator wristband. She connected, but was tongue-tied at first. So, Wade was the first to speak, visibly and audibly relieved: "Kim! Thank goodness, I almost thought you guys didn't make it…"

"Wade," Kim interrupted him. "I have to find Ron…" She could hardly keep her voice from trembling.

"Oh… gosh… Hang on, just a second…" Wade was typing on his keyboard like crazy. Fortunately, Ron was still chipped… In no time, Wade had located him: "3 o'clock!"

Kim looked to her right and saw nothing at all first, except for white snow. Then, her gaze went up the hill, until she noticed a shadow. There he lay, on top of a snow-covered ledge!

"Ron!" Kim ran up the hill, as fast as she could. From down below in the valley, she would not have spotted Ron so soon, as the ledge almost covered him. The further up she ran, the clearer he came into her field of view. Ron was lying on his stomach, his face in the snow, his arms out-stretched. His winter clothes were in their normal conditions – all she could do was hope that they had only changed back after the impact, just like hers!

As soon as she had reached him, Kim let herself fall onto her knees in the snow beside Ron and turned him around on his back, placing his head on her lap. Holding him close with her one hand, she used the other hand to stroke his face. "Ron? Ron, do you hear me? Please, say something!"

At that moment, Rufus crawled out of Ron's pant pocket and uttered a few anguished sounds. "Rufus!" Kim exclaimed with relief. Not only because Rufus was okay. For that also meant that Ron's outfit had been padded at the impact!

Now, Ron also showed a sign of life. With a low groan, he slowly opened his eyes and spat out some snow: "Eww, those nacos are frozen…"

Kim sighed and smiled at that utterance. She was just relieved to see he was okay. After a few seconds, Ron was fully conscious again. "KP!" he shouted happily, sat up again with one jump and flung his arms around Kim's neck. Kim managed to keep her balance and returned the embrace. They stayed like that for a few more minutes, before getting up and setting out, arm in arm, for the hard way back to the car.

-xXOXx-

The descent through the mountains took pretty long and was very tough. Though they both were unhurt, Kim and Ron had to support each other virtually all the time. After all, the explosion and the impact did have an effect on them. When they were finally sitting in the car again, at least Kim seemed to feel better again immediately. She did not turn on the engine yet, but she contacted Wade through the built-in kimmunicator system again. He started by expressing his relief again: "I'm so glad you guys are okay!"

"Yeah, I guess the winter outfits saved our lives," Kim explained. "That was pretty farsighted of you, Wade."

"Well, I guess my sight didn't go far enough," Wade replied in an apologetic way. "If I had known Drakken set a trap for you, I never would've sent you there!"

"It's just so not like Drakken – at all…" Kim said thoughtfully.

"That's true!" Wade agreed. "Not only that he didn't keep with villain tradition by not sending a final message before the explosion. But also the way he upgraded his security system! I wouldn't have noticed the bomb until after the countdown started. Obviously, it had been activated by motion detection in Drakken's lab. When you were standing in the doorway, everything was still okay. But when Ron approached the bomb…"

"Aw, come on, now it was my fault, huh?" Ron interrupted indignantly.

"Ron, nobody said that…" Kim tried to soothe him. "If I had gone first, the countdown would have been activated, too. Right, Wade?"

"Exactly," he confirmed.

After a while, Kim pondered: "I'm sure Drakken thinks the explosion hit us. I'm really wondering what he's up to now…"

"About that…" Wade typed something on his keyboard. "I actually just got on Drakken's trail again!"

"Really? Spill it!"

"Tonight, there's gonna be a party for inventors at a five-star hotel in Vancouver, Canada. The whole thing is called 'innovation party'. And it's only for invited guests who also have a reservation for a room at the hotel that night. I managed to hack into the hotel's system to get a look at the guest list. And you won't believe who's on it… One Dr. Slipky and one Ms. Oghes – of course, anagrams for Lipsky…"

"…and Shego!" Kim finished for him.

"Drakken and Shego at a party for inventors?" Ron asked in a confused way. "What did they invent, I'm asking? All they do is steal other people's inventions…"

"I guess that's what they're gonna do at the party," Kim said dryly.

"Or steal abilities from the inventors present there," Wade suggested.

"Could be…" Kim replied. "But isn't it weird that they went to the trouble of getting on the guest list? I mean, they could just break in, like they always do…"

"Maybe they wanna infiltrate the party guests first, to see which abilities are most useful," Wade said.

Kim became more and more thoughtful: "I really don't like this. First, it was as if the earth had swallowed up Drakken, and now it's so easy to track him down again. Could that be another trap?"

"I think that's pretty improbable," Wade answered. "Like you said before, he surely thinks the explosion has served its purpose."

"Well, there's only one way to be sure," Kim said. "We'll get to Canada as fast as possible! When does the party start?"

"10 p.m., local time."

"I think we can make it. If Drakken and Shego got on the guest list, I'm sure we will, too – right, Wade?"

"I'll see what I can do…"

"Please and thank you! Talk to you later!" Kim disconnected and started the engine.

Now, Ron began to speak again: "I still don't get how Drakken and Shego got on the guest list…"

"I don't know. Maybe they just got a room reservation at the hotel…"

Ron pulled a face: "Drakken and Shego…?! Wrongsick!"

Kim tried to ignore that comment. With a "Let's head for Canada!" she stepped on the gas.

-xXOXx-

As the sun was almost setting already when they got going, and the way to Vancouver was pretty far, Kim drove using rocket fuel at maximum speed, with her fullest concentration. She even let the car take off into the air a few times to make headway faster. Nevertheless, it took them a few hours to reach the Canadian border, and only then, Kim switched off the rocket propulsion again. Now, it would only take a little more than a half hour to reach Vancouver. After the tiring journey at break-neck speed, Kim had almost reached the threshold of unsuitability for driving, but she never even considered taking a break before they would arrive at their destination. However, there was something that drew her attention away from the road for fractions of a second. And when she risked a short glance to her right from the corners of her eyes after a while, she knew what it was.

It was Ron. Once again, he had spent the whole journey quietly sitting in the passenger's seat. Of course, he had not wanted to distract Kim while she was driving at rocket-like speed. But even now at normal speed, he did not dare speak to her. However, since they had passed the Canadian border, he had been fixing her with a thoughtful look continuously. Something was on his mind, and Kim was 99 percent sure that it had something to do with the subject she had meant to talk about with him in the early afternoon already. Nevertheless, she just looked to her side shortly first and asked carefully: "What's the matter, Ron?"

Without batting an eyelid, Ron answered her question with another question in a serious tone: "KP, how do you do that?"

"How do I do what?"

"Always being fully concentrated, no matter what. It's like you have some kind of a switch somewhere, and you just flip it when there's a sitch."

Kim hesitated shortly. "What can I say, Ron? When there's a sitch, I have to concentrate."

"Yeah, but…" He sighed. "We could've been toast today! I just don't get it how you can still totally keep your head in the game after something like that."

"Well, you know… 'I can do anything'."

At that, a few seconds of silence occurred again, during which Kim pondered if that had really been everything that was on his mind. Ron also pondered… tensing up in his seat unsurely, his gaze darting around. Finally, he continued: "And then there's something else, KP…"

"Yes?" She shortly glanced at him again, with an expectant look.

"It's about… last night…" he started hesitantly, "…when we …when we were alone …at my place …on the couch, I mean that …that was nice, wasn't it? And then …then Wade beeped, and you were like…"

Kim sighed and said: "Ron, I… I know what this is about. And I know it's troubling you. I really wanted to talk about this with you, when we have time, but…"

"When we have time!" Ron interrupted her in a worried voice. "Now, here's the problem! We never have time, because there could be a sitch anytime, and then we gotta get going right away, and you're switched to sitch right away, and I… well, I'm not." Somehow, he had the feeling he might have spluttered too much again and Kim might be annoyed.

"Ron, you're exaggerating again…" Kim said, quite calm actually. "I'm sure we can talk about it some time – maybe not right now. And we do have a lot of time…"

"But last night…" Ron interrupted again, this time in a very disappointed tone. "We were alone… It would've been just perfect…"

Kim gave him a short compassionate look, when she noticed how he hung his head, and said: "Oh, Ron… what is perfect, anyways?"

At that, Ron lifted his head again, looked straight at her and replied in a serious voice: "Well, you for instance, Kim. You're perfect."

This time, Kim could not help but look at him a little longer and smile: "Aw, that is so sweet of you!"

"KP, I really mean it!" Ron emphasized. "You're just perfect in every way and you really can do anything. And if I was only half as perfect as you are, I probably wouldn't be brooding so much over things and would know how to keep my head in the game, like you."

By now, they were only a few miles away from Vancouver. Except for them, there was no one on the street at that time. And if Kim had not been so touched by all the things Ron just said to her, and if she had not been driving her car for hours already, she certainly would have noticed the razor-sharp metal spikes that suddenly emerged from the asphalt a short distance away…

As soon as Kim turned her gaze back to the street, there was a bang, and the car started skidding. As if on reflex, Kim fully slammed on the brake, grabbed the steering wheel, trying to keep the car on the street. But she lost control over the vehicle and came off the road. Ron already screamed in panic and held his arms up in front of his face protectively. Kim pulled the emergency brake, gritted her teeth and closed her eyes tightly. In her thoughts, she already saw them crashing into a tree. But gradually, the car slowed down, stopped skidding, and finally they came to a stop – without crashing into anything. Ron stopped screaming, slowly taking his hands off his face, and Kim also opened her eyes again. She sighed with relief, when she noticed that the car had not fallen over, and everything seemed to be okay – except for the broken tires, of course.

However, Kim now glared at Ron and hissed: "Ron, the next time you wanna tell me I'm perfect and I can do anything – please, don't do it while I'm driving!"

Ron gulped.

-xXOXx-

After a few seconds – which seemed like half an eternity to Ron –, the first moment of shock had been over. Only now, Kim really got aware of what she had just said. Actually, she really was not mad at Ron, but more at herself. She should have paid attention to the road! She should not have let herself be distracted! And probably, it really would have been better, if she had at least taken one single short break. But – like on every mission – she had only thought of being there as soon as possible and had totally forgotten that her attention and powers of concentration were not unlimited after all. Ashamed, she turned her head to the other side and sighed: "Oh Ron, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to yell at you!"

Ron, who was still a little scared after Kim's angry outburst, cautiously leaned forward in his seat and said hesitantly: "That's okay, KP. I know, it was my fault. I shouldn't have distracted…"

"No," Kim interrupted and looked at him again, now with an expression full of remorse. "It was my fault. After all, I knew what was troubling you all the time, and I should've talked with you about it for a long time. And besides, I've been driving."

Ron wanted to add something to that, but at that moment, Kim placed her hand on his shoulder in a soothing way and emphasized once again: "So, it was not your fault."

That caused Ron to give her a subtle uncertain smile, which Kim returned. Then, she pulled back her hand and said: "I'm gonna check out the damage."

With that, she took off her seatbelt, opened the driver's door and got out. They had come to a stop in a meadow about half a mile away from the street, near a forest. It had gotten pretty dark already, but the lights of Vancouver were shining not too far away. Kim walked around the car to take a close look at the damage. Only the four tires had burst, but apart from that, everything seemed to be okay. However, she knew they did not have four spare tires with them. Kim got back into the driver's seat and contacted Wade through the kimmunicator system: "Wade, does the car have a self-repair function, by any chance?"

Wade gave her a short surprised look and answered: "Uh… no. At least none that I know of. I guess you'd have to ask your brothers about that, but I don't think so. Why?"

"It's… a funny story," Kim began hesitantly. "It looks like there really was a second trap set for us. And I raced straight into it. The tires are broken, all four of them."

"You've got to be kidding!" Wade gasped. "What happened?"

"I didn't pay attention to the road for one moment…" Kim told him truthfully. "And then, right before we reached Vancouver, I guess something was lying on the street, I ran over it, lost control of the car, next thing I know, we were in the ditch."

"Gosh… but you're okay?"

"I think so," Kim answered and looked over at Ron. "Are you, Ron?" Just now, she noticed she had not asked him that before.

Ron was caught off guard again: "Uh, what? Yeah, I'm okay."

"Good," Wade sighed with relief. "I'm gonna see to it that someone will fix your car. Can you go back to the place where you left the road? Then, I can take a look at that."

"Alright, Wade. Talk to you later." With that, she disconnected, then she and Ron got out of the car and were on their way back to the road.

End of Chapter Five

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AUTHOR'S NOTE – Hope you liked this chapter. It was one of the hardest to write, both in German and in English. Originally, when I first posted it in the German KP forum, it ended after the sentence "Ron gulped." And the following paragraph should've been the beginning of Chapter Six. But my readers didn't like Kim's angry outburst in the end, and eventually, I didn't like it any more myself. So, I added this one paragraph to Chapter Five, to make clear that Kim's first reaction just happened out of shock. No real cliffhanger here that way… ;)
By the way, this chapter's title, What is Perfect, Anyways?, was my second "working title" for this story, after The Ability Transferator. But I'm glad I found a better one.
Well, as you can see, the chapters really are getting longer now (even without taking the Author's Notes into account ;)). And Chapter Six will be even longer than this one! But I honestly don't know when I'll get to translate and upload it. As I said, the next few days and (maybe) weeks are gonna be pretty stressful for me… So, please be patient. Take care and see you around! :)