I do NOT own Kim Possible
More of Kim and Mark in this chapter. Along with Monique.
Ron and Shego, Learning to Cook Together
Ron watched the two, holding hands, walking, talking. I really should leave either five minutes earlier or five minutes later, he told himself. Kim looked up at Mark and flashed a brief, but blinding, smile at him. Why do I torture myself, Ron wondered.
On the bright side, he thought, I'm not worried about exams today. At Middleton High Barkin taught most of their classes. He had no compunction about scheduling four or five exams on the same day. For the first time in his life Ron Stoppable felt ready for those exams. He had spent the last week and a bit putting the technique Shego had taught him to good use. He had rewritten many of his notes. Time had not allowed him to rewrite them all. He figured he would get at least eighty-five on each exam. Seventy percent from the notes he had rewrote and at minimum he would get half of the remaining thirty percent right. That expectation of succeeding felt good, really good. He smiled to himself, content if not happy.
Kim, taking a brief look back saw that smile. It made her feel good. Her friend it seemed wasn't hurting as much today as he usually did. She wished he would walk together with them, but then again she understood why he didn't. She wondered how he would do on the exams. She had tried to get him to study with her but he had refused. She had even offered to study with him alone, leaving Mark to his own devices. Mark she knew would do fine on the exams. So would Ron, she thought, if he bothered to apply himself. Maybe he did. He's been studying more lately and over the last week he's been nonstop looking through his notes, rewriting them. She crossed the fingers of the hand Mark wasn't holding.
Ron sat in the cafeteria flicking the black bits, that actually glowed in the dark, off his pizza. Studying the pizza he decided it was now safe to eat. He dug in. Kim and Mark were sitting across from him. Kim he noted was looking at the plate before her with fear. A very unusual look for her. Mark on the other hand was being reasonable. He just pushed his plate across the table towards Ron. He had way too much common sense to eat the daily special.
"I wonder why they call it the daily special?" Ron wondered out loud. "They only serve one item a day."
"Marketing reasons?" Mark suggested.
Kim sighed, admitting defeat. She pushed her plate across the table towards Ron. Falling out of a plane with no parachute, no big, she thought. Eating that. No way!
Another plate was slid his way and Ron looked up to see who it was from. "Monique." He greeted.
"Hey Monique." Kim and Mark greeted her as well.
"BYASKOCTET", the cute girl answered, speaking to Ron. Then she added, "Boy you are some kind of crazy to eat that." She turned and greeted Kim and Mark. "Hiya all."
"It's safe." Ron replied. He was pretty sure it was.
"How you do on your exams this morning?" She asked. From Kim she already knew Kim and Mark felt they had done pretty good.
Ron shrugged. "Between eighty-five and ninety on both."
The eyes of both both girls widened. Finally Monique spoked, "GTAPGTYGH?" Everyone looked at her. "Guess that's a pretty good tutor you got, huh?" She explained.
"Tutor?" Kim asked. She looked at Ron. "Who?" She was curious. In all their years together she had never managed to get Ron to take his school work seriously.
It took Ron a second to figure out who Monique meant. He gulped. "Just someone who helped me study once." He explained.
Kim noticed his nervous expression. There's more to this than just a tutor, she thought. She looked at Monique.
"Ya high, green eyes, blonde hair. Called Amy." Monique explained to Kim, raising her hand to indicate height. "Not a student here." She added.
Kim looked back at Ron.
"Hey. It was just one study session, okay. No big deal." He tried to be casual and bit down on some pizza. The taste instantly told him it was from a piece that still had some black pieces. He screamed. "I ate the black pieces, I ate the black pieces, ..." In a panic he spat the piece out and grabbed some water.
"SYSTIS?" Monique asked. She was hiding a grin. "So you still think it's safe?" She explained.
Ron sat back and sighed. He studied Monique. He wish she hadn't mentioned that tutor. Still it was no big deal. It wasn't as if anyone would ever figure out it was Shego. Not in a million years.
Kim and Monique looked at him.
He shrugged."I'm going to find a place and take a break for the rest of lunch period." He said. "I'm not feeling too well." It was the truth. He knew the girls would think he was interested the tutor, and that he had zero chances. For some reason that bothered him. Kim was the one he loved. But from their reaction he knew they considered any sort of romantic relationship for him to be a laugh. A joke. It hurt.
"He never gets sick." Kim mentioned, staring at the pizza. She was worried. She wondered just what the black bits were and if she should follow him to make sure he was okay.
"Not the pizza." Monique spoke. She wondered what she had said to have such an affect on him. To her Ron had appeared extremely sad. She had never seen a look quite like that on his face before.
Kim paused. "You think he's interested in her?" She asked.
"Maybe." Monique answered. "But I'm not sure." She added. "Doubtful." She concluded. She was puzzled.
Ron sat in his seat, still two exams to go. He sighed, wishing he could skip. Of course Kim would be mad at him if he skipped, exams or no exams. He recalled the time he had asked every girl in Middleton High out and had been turned down every time. That had ... hurt. He just wasn't sure why it was upsetting him now. He knew how to roll with the punches.
"You okay?" Mark asked him, studying him carefully.
Ron shrugged.
"You're not interested in that tutor? Are you?" Mark asked. He knew the answer. Ron had eyes only for Kim.
"Nay." Ron truthfully answered. He looked at Mark. He knew If Mark had asked any of those two hundred and fourteen girls out the answer each time would have been yes. He sighed.
Ron had just finished his last exam when the Kimmunicator beeped. He listened to Kim and Wade talk. It seemed Dementor was up to something again. Ten minutes later they were on a transport jet, courtesy of Global Justice. Ron pretended to sleep during the trip. He wasn't sure why he was feeling the way he was.
They landed with no problem and soon entered the lair. There were no traps, no obstacles at all. Not even a single henchman. It was as though they were being invited. Actually, that was the case.
"Kim Possible!" Dementor exclaimed as they entered the lair. "About time. I've been waiting."
"Whatever your plot is Dementor it's over now. Give up." Kim was ready to fight.
Dementor smiled. "Meet my new henchmen." He said and pointed to the corner. In it were what looked to be five synthodrones.
"What are you doing with synthodrones?" Kim asked. "That's Drakken's technology."
Ron frowned, looking at the synthodrones. Something was off. He just couldn't tell what it was.
Dementor grumbled. "That bumbling fool. Don't mistake my technology for his." Actually Dementor had, after Drakken had stole his technology a few times, decided to repay the favor. He had stolen five synthodrones.
"What's your plan this time?" Kim asked.
"Nothing big." Dementor admitted. "This is just a trap to get rid of you. Once you're out of the way there will be nothing to stop my world domination."
"Five synthodrones won't stop me." Kim declared. She had already analyzed the situation and was prepared to fight. Forty plus Shego might overwhelm her, five was hardly a workout.
Ron listened to the two speak as he studied the lair. In each corner he spotted a device that looked out of place. They just didn't fit in with the rest of the items in the lab, each which seemed to serve a purpose. That meant those devices served a purpose he didn't know about. He studied them. They looked like they might be transmitters. Radio transmitters, he wondered. He studied them some more. No, he concluded, not radio, the shape and size is wrong, microwaves. But the purpose...
The fight started. Kim launched herself at one of the synthodrones with a kick that would have disabled one of Drakken's. Not only did this one remain standing, it counter attacked with astounding speed. It's reflexes was three times as good as one of Drakken's. Kim barely made it out of the way. She launched herself up into the air and away from the one she had attacked. The five followed her.
Machines, Ron knew, is what synthodrones were. But machines had limits. In synthodrones there were three limits. The size of the power supply which determined the strength the synthodrone had. Then there was the power of the computer used to direct the machine. In a synthodrone that was artificial brains. It determined how fast a synthodrone could analyzes the situation and react to it. And then there was the material it's skin was made of. That affected how hard it was to damage one. The five fighting Kim had had all three of those drastically improved.
Kim launched another attack and was barely able to dodge out of the way as the machine responded. Her reflexes, superhuman as they were, was seriously being put to the test.
Ron sighed. In all the two hundred plus missions Kim had been on he was about to use something he had only used six times. The device he had made with the help of the Dr. Possibles. It had been designed with living opponents in mind, but machines weren't too much different. He pulled a small rod from his pocket. It worked with the same principle as throwing one's voice. That was where he got the idea from. He secretively pointed the rod at the machines and suddenly there was a slight change in their behavior. The machine emitted subsonic vibrations. In a human it would cause the sensation of being stared at, as though there was someone behind them. That distraction in a fight meant the person would try to divide their attention. In a well matched fight that was fatal. The machine would also cause slight confusion. It was simple. It was devastating. It was also designed to be undetectable. An opponent who knew about the machine would simply design a countermeasure. That was why Ron used it so sparingly, and why not even Kim or Wade knew it existed. A trump card, used as a last resort.
Machines on the level of a synthodrone weren't too different from a person. It analyzed the opponent's move and responded accordingly. That response depended on the programming of the synthodrone and how fast their processor was. The machine Ron used didn't just emit any subsonic vibrations. Those vibrations were based on Kim's voice. To a synthrodrone's audio receptors it made it appear as if Kim Possible was all around it. This caused the machine confusion. It had to reprocess the visual data, it had to recheck the audio data. It would find itself doing this three or four times, causing the machine to slow down and even misaim its attacks and neglect to dodge when it should.
By Ron's estimate those machines would have cornered Kim in less than thirty seconds. As things stood now she had maybe five minutes. He studied the fight more, there was no way any technology could pack that sort of power into a synthodrone. The machines moved back and forth across the floor, Kim Possible launched attack after attack, making no progress. She still had to dodge out of the way as the machines counterattacked, sometimes even before she could finish her own attack. And the material the synthodrones were made of seemed especially tough. Her attacks had no affect. He could see the concentration on her face. She could read the fight as well as he could, probably a lot better. She was too focused to be worried. That was the Kim Possible he knew. Was probably one of the reasons he loved her.
He studied Mark. Mark he knew could handle a single synthodrone without too much effort. As a fighter he was outclassed only by Kim. He knew better than to challenge those machines head on. He was standing back, throwing stuff at them, trying to distract them. He's trying to play the distraction, Ron realized. That's good, it's giving me time to think.
He noticed one of the strange microwave transmitters in a corner move. He studied it. It moved again. As did one of the others. Suddenly it all made sense. He picked up a small book on a desk near him and tossed it at Mark. The boy whirled around, surprised at the attack that had come from behind him. Ron pointed at one of the transmitters, he mouthed the words 'destroy them.'
Mark whirled around at the attack, only to see Ron looking at him. The guy had him confused, he had been, during the whole fight doing nothing but standing there. He took notice of where Ron was pointing and from the expression knew Ron wanted them destroyed. The machines looked tough. It would take a lot to destroy them. He looked around and spotted a desk.
Ron watched as Mark lifted a desk, struggling to lift it. It was, he knew, something he could never have hoped to lift. Left to his own devices he would have had to find another way. It would have taken time that Kim might not have had. He sighed, appreciating that Mark was there.
The transmitter burst into flames as Mark, running at full speed, smashed the desk into it. The change in the synthodrones was moderate. They slowed a little. Mark lifted the desk again and charged another transmitter.
"No, no, no!" Dementor screamed. "He pointed at one of the synthodrones and then at Mark. "Stop him." He ordered.
Two of the transmitters were now destroyed and the synthodrones were moving slower. Still one would be more than enough to keep Mark from his goal. Ron moved into action. He kicked a chair, tripping the synthodrone. It flipped to its feet but Ron had already kicked another chair. It went down again. As it rose a third transmitter had been destroyed. The synthrodrones were now moving at a speed that was still faster than normal, but not the blinding speed they had once had.
Dementor was still shouting "No, no, no, ..."
Mark lifted the desk for a fourth time. Ron kept kicking chairs, tripping the synthodrone that was trying to target him. Soon the fourth transmitter was burning. The synthodrones were now moving a lot slower, less than half of what was normal for a synthodrone. Kim was still attacking them. She no long had to dodge out of the way with any speed. Rather she could launch two or even three attacks before she was forced to jump back. She could, Ron knew, keep this up for a long time.
Mark struggled to catch his breath. That desk had been heavy. Very heavy. He studied the situation. Even he now knew what had been going on. Somewhere there was a generator generating megawatts of powers. That had been where the synthodrones had been getting their power. Those devices had been beaming it to them via some method or other. And the same with the processors driving them. Somewhere there was a computer much more powerful than anything the synthodrones could carry inside of them. That computer had been using the transmitters to direct them.
He continued to study the synthodrones. Why were they so tough though, he wondered. He came to the same conclusion Ron had some time back. Power and speed had been sacrificed so they could carry extra armor. The transmitters had made up the difference plus a lot more. He studied the one that was still chasing after him and, imitating Ron, he kicked a chair at it. It went down. He glanced at Ron who was looking around the lab, obviously searching for something.
Ron was looking for something sharp. Fists and feet obviously weren't going to hurt the synthodrones. He sighed. "See anything sharp?" He asked Mark as he studied the situation. Kim was still keeping four of the machines busy. Dementor had fallen into a rant about something. The fifth machine was still going after Mark but a series of chairs was keeping it occupied.
Mark looked around. This was a lair. There had to be something. There was nothing. He looked at the desk he had used earlier. Ramming them with that might do the trick but his strength had its limit. There was no way he could lift that again, let alone five more times.
"Kick the legs off the desk." Ron asked. He'd seen where Mark was looking.
Mark did so, using three karate kicks. Three he realized were all they needed. He took one, Ron took one, and Kim flipped in and grabbed one. They each charged a synthodrone. The spear Mark had ripped through his opponent just enough to cause green goo to suddenly pour out. It slowly sank to the floor. Kim's opponent went down faster, gushing a fountain of the green goo. Ron's opponent took only a scratch and kept on fighting, a trickle of green goo ran down it.
Ron sighed as Kim and Mark rushed to new opponents and took them out while he was left having to attack this one a second time. The second time did the trick and it sank to the ground a lot slower than any of the others had.
Ron, Mark noticed as they took the transport back home, was in a funk. He wondered if it was from whatever had affected him earlier that day or from the fact that Kim had at first mistaken Mark as the one who had found and handled the secret behind the synthodrone's unusual abilities. He had fixed her mistaken assumptions, pointing out that Ron had found the secret and that he had just taken orders.
Ron walked into his house an hour later. He was still in a funk. He checked in on Rufus. The rodent was playing Zombie Mayhem as if his life depended on it. Ron wondered if there were any groups offering counselling for addiction to the game. He wondered how they would react if a naked mole rat joined the group. He was sure Rufus would need one soon.
He walked back to the kitchen. On impulse he picked up the phone and called Monique.
"Hey Ron." Came the answer. Monique he knew had caller-id. Something his father thought was a passing fad.
"Hi Monique." He responded. Then he added, "Want to go out with me friday night?"
There was a long pause as he knew the girl was in shock. "Sorry Ron." She answered, still sounding shocked.
"Oh okay." He hung up.
A few seconds later the phone rang. He ignored it and left the house. If he were to cook super he needed supplies. Besides while he thought Monique was perhaps the most attractive girl in school he hadn't really expected her to say yes. He had, he now knew, just wanted to hear her rejection to analyze it. Other than the shock of the question there hadn't been the slightest hint in her tone that she would ever think to say yes. Not in a million years. Not in a billion. Not if he were the last guy on earth.
In the supermarket he started grabbing things. Turning a corner he ran into ... He gulped. Flee, his brain told him. There was Shego, dressed in ordinary clothes. Her hair was blonde again and there was no sign of the green tint to her skin. He ignored his brain. He walked past her, saying, "Hey Shego." As if it was an ordinary everyday meeting at the supermarket. He was soon five feet, then ten feet, then fifteen feet from her. He rounded a corner and sighing a breath of relief he took off for the checkout counter. Anything else he wanted could wait.
Shego saw the Buffoon and knew he would soon start screaming and give away her identity. She searched her mind frantically for a way to keep him quiet. Plasma she knew would do the trick, but that would defeat the whole purpose of keeping him quiet. Instead he just walked past her greeting her! Things started to seem surreal again. She sighed. She wondered why someone who could make food appear out of nowhere needed to go shopping at all. She shrugged, pushing the thought aside. As for herself, Dr. D. had remembered the coffee this time but had stocked the lair with just bread and peanut butter to eat. She had taken the risk of shopping for the simple reason she needed real food. She decided to hurry the process just incase the Buffoon decided to call Global Justice.
They both rushed down different aisles, turned a corner and saw the same checkout counter. They both rushed towards it. The result was entirely predictable. They collided with a crash that drew the attention of everyone around them for twenty feet. They both froze.
"Hey Shego." Ron calmly said. Inside he thought, please let my death be quick and painless.
Shego looked around. Everyone was staring at them. She stared at the food in her cart. She could make a run for it but what if something happened to the food. She ignored the Buffoon and calmly took a spot in the checkout line.
Ron stared in disbelief. She wasn't going to fry him. He wondered what to do. He shrugged and took the spot behind her.
Shego was intensely aware of the Buffoon behind her. Ron was intensely aware of the villainess in front of him.
Common sense wasn't Ron's forte. After a few minute he cleared his voice. "Hey, Shego."
Shego froze. The Buffoon was speaking to her. She looked at her cart, she couldn't afford to lose the food. Keeping calm she turned to see what he wanted.
"Was Drakken bluffing with that device of his last time? I mean, come on, what was he thinking?" Ron asked. Curiosity kills the cat, he knew.
Shego looked around. She wondered if it would be better to ignore the Buffoon or answer him. If she ignored him who knew what might happen. He might ask in a louder tone. This was a supermarket for goodness sake. People could overhear them. Finally she decided to answer. "It was for real. He sort of forgot he would get hit by the ray too. He's like that, if you haven't noticed." She kept her tone calm and low. She recalled that she did have the Buffoon to thank for not being Gaminated, as Drakken called it. Which brings to mind, she thought to herself, just why did that self-destruct button work. Since he'd asked a question she decided to ask hers.
"Oh." Ron replied. "Drakken rambled on and on so much I had plenty of time to fix it."
"Oh." Shego responded. "So you can't handle math but you can fix a dismantled self-destruct?"
Ron grinned. "Thanks to you Shego I think I aced my math test this morning. Or at least did pretty good. I rewrote my notes like you taught me. Stuff makes sense now and I got perfect recall for all of it." He beamed at her, forgetting for a second that she was a supervillainess.
"That's nice." She wondered why she, a villainess, had done a good deed. She looked at the food in his cart then at hers. Hers was all microwave food while his was the basics used to prepare home cooked meals with. She knew who would be eating better tonight. She sighed.
"Something wrong Shego?" Ron asked.
She wondered if he was genuinely concerned. Her brother, Hego, had been pretty good at pretending concern for her in public. She shrugged. "Nothing."
They spoke nothing else to each other and ten minutes later they were both on their separate ways.
Ron moved around the kitchen. His hands moved like lightning, chopping, stirring, ... He vaguely heard the phone ring but ignored it. An hour later he sat down to a meal, alone. He looked around the sterile kitchen. He had cleaned up the mess before sitting down to his meal. It was spotless. And empty. He shrugged and dug in.
After eating he took a thirty minute break and then performed his exercises. Rufus all the while was frantically playing Zombie Mayhem. He even ignored the cheese Ron offered him. Ron was worried and wondered how the little fellow would cope with a counseling group. He would have asked Kim about it but while the fence was mended he didn't want to bother her.
After his exercises he went out in the back yard. A practice dummy was there. Something Kim had given him over a year ago and he had ignored until Mark had come along. He took a kick at it and fell on his behind. He tried a punch but somehow the dummy flipped him. How it did that without even moving he had no clue. He stood up ready to try again.
Laughter distracted him. He turned to see Shego watching him, sitting in the door of her hovercraft. She was laughing so hard she fell out.
Just great, he thought, not really feeling like running.
Shego for her part had headed back to the lair and microwaved a half dozen microwave meals. She had ate them all. It filled her but ... She sighed. She took the six empty boxes and tossed them into the air one by one. She vaporized each one before they could hit the ground. She looked around. She was bored. Tonight was going to be dream number eight. She shuddered. The worst of them all. She looked at the microwave and wondered what the Buffoon was eating. From the stuff in his cart she knew it was better than what she'd just had.
She wandered into the main room of the lair and watched Dr. D. work. He was muttering happily. So long as he had some contraption to work on or some scheme to plot he was happy. She envied him that. She left without taunting him.
She hatched her own little plot. Just to pass the time, she told herself. Because I'm a villainess, she told herself. She took the hovercraft and headed for Ron Stoppable's house. If he was out she would break in and steal whatever was left of what he'd cooked. If he was in she would just take it anyway. She was after all a villainess. She knew the plot was pretty lame. Maybe Princess would show up and they could fight. That aspect of it appealed to her.
She hovered over his house, watching the fight with the dummy from the hovercraft door. Seeing the Buffoon get flipped by a dummy she broke down. It was hilarious.
"Hey Shego." He said as she stood up. "You here to kidnap me again?" He sounded tired.
Shego ignored his question. She stood up and brushed the dirt off. She pointed at the dummy and asked, "Just what was that?"
Ron shrugged. "Me making a fool of myself. Thing is there are times I'm okay in a fight, sort of, but other times it's like that. It comes and it goes." He shrugged again, clearly not happy.
"So sometimes you can throw a decent punch?" She asked.
Ron nodded.
Shego studied him. The Buffoon, she thought, was one pile of mysteries. One contradiction after another. "Try the punch again." She ordered.
Ron did so. He got flipped by the dummy again.
Shego studied the way he moved. He had, she noted, filled out a lot lately. He had plenty of muscle. He also had good reflexes. She felt humiliation. This was the Buffoon who had forced her to use a hovercraft to hunt him down. Who had got in a decent strike on her. How could this person who couldn't land a punch on a dummy do that? She was puzzled. She sighed. "You can cook." She asked, finally, having given the situation a good ten minutes of thought.
Ron had stood there watching the villainess. He had wondered if he should make a break for it. Finally she spoke, asking that question. He simply nodded.
Shego ordered Ron into the house and then into the kitchen. She searched through the fridge and took out two dozen eggs. She put them on the countertop with a large bowl. "Break the eggs." She ordered.
Shego stepped back. The Buffoon whirled into action. She was stunned. His hands moved so fast she could barely follow them. It took by her count around eight seconds before all twenty-four eggs had been cracked. She looked into the bowl, there was no sign of eggshell. He had, she noted, speed and agility. A lot of it too. So why couldn't he land a punch?
Make an omelette she ordered. She watched closely. There was no wasted movement. He was quick, sure, and precise. Inhumanly so. Few people she knew could move like that.
She took the omelette when it was done and headed back to the dummy. The Buffoon followed her. She ate as she talked. "You know Buffoon. You got amazing reflexes. You got plenty of muscle. So landing a punch should be easy. Given it's a dummy you're trying to punch ... She shook her head in amazement."
"I'm just clumsy." He answered.
She felt he believed that. She held out the omelette. "This says otherwise." She countered.
"It's just an omelette. Anyone can make one."
"Not with the speed you did. Not with the skill." She countered again.
He shrugged. "So I got one decent skill."
Shego sighed. She took another bite of omelette. It was insanely delicious. Too delicious to have been made by the Buffoon. She was puzzled. She sat on the ground, eating, as she puzzled the situation over. I should be frying him, she thought to herself. Instead she just took another bite.
"Okay Buffoon, lets try to think this out. You got extreme agility when cooking, but no agility when fighting. So what's wrong with that picture?"
"He stared at her blankly."
She sighed. "Agility doesn't just appear and disappear. Either you're agile or not. You are."
Ron decided not to argue with the superpowered villainess sitting in his backyard, calmly eating omelette. This was he thought, surreal. Shego was thinking the same thing.
She thought of something. If he could learn by using the concept of recipes then ... It was so insane she thought it might work. "Think of fighting as cooking." She ordered.
"Huh?" He looked at her as if she had two heads.
She couldn't blame him for that. What she was thinking was insane. "You know how to move when cooking. So pretend you're cooking. See the fight as a process of cooking or something. Write down the instructions of how to throw a punch like you did with your homework. Then try to carry it out as if it was a recipe you were doing and not a fight."
Ron went into the house and came back out with a book labelled, 'How to Fight in Ten Days or Less,' and a pencil with a piece of paper. I should have taken the chance to run for it, he realized. He opened the book and started reading. Rereading the instructions several times he tried to write it down as a recipe. Finished he stood up. He reread the paper several times even though he knew it by art from the time he had written it. He studied it and imagined how he might make such a recipe. He dropped the paper to the ground beside the book and pencil.
Ron approached the dummy, his mind focused on what he was doing as recipe and not a fight. He landed a perfect punch. He tried it again, with the same result.
"Okay, Buffoon, this is just too weird. I'm off." She left for the hovercraft.
Ron spoke without thinking. "Why did you come here in the first place Shego."
She pointed to the empty plate on the ground. "Food." She left.
Ron was left speechless. Then he thought of something. She complimented me. Several times! He was stunned. For him compliments were few and far between.
End of Chapter.
Why the phone call to Monique? Ron is just wondering how others see him. From Monique's reaction/tone he knows somewhat of just what his position is with his female friends. It may also be a sign he's accepting he has no chance with Kim. If Monique doesn't even pause in her response, he knows his chances with Kim are zero.
We also see Ron now expects good grades. Once he has some practice with that recipe method who knows, he might give Justin a run for her money as top student.
And Shego teaching Ron to fight? Really. And in such a bizarre manner.
We see Shego is still easily bored. That along with food is why she sought out the Buffoon. We see one hint that Ron is lonely. He no longer has Kim to spent so much time with.
We also see for the first time the device that Ron made with the help of the Possibles. Rarely used, a trump card of last resorts.