Rufus
Kim and Shego were a blur as they exchanged blows, the green glow of Shego's plasma blasts mixing with the swirl of Kim's long red hair to add a festive air.
"Did you reverse the polarity?" Ron asked.
The blue skinned villain checked the placement of the two glowing blue orbs in front of them. "I think I did. You grab the right one, I'll grab the left, but be sure we don't touch each other while holding them!"
"Fine, I'll be careful," Ron promised, so used to being berated in that exact tone of voice that he automatically helped Drakken.
The click as the two orbs settled into place was startlingly loud in the sudden silence as the world slowed to a crawl around the two.
"Whoa!" Ron said as he looked around and saw Kim frozen in midair as she dodged one of Shego's plasma blasts.
"Damn right whoa!" Drakken said proudly. "Huh, didn't expect it to affect you too, but the riddle to claim the orbs did say something about a pair."
"Claim the orbs?" Ron asked.
"We had to do the whole Indiana Jones experience to get them," Drakken said with a broad smile.
"Hidden temples and Nazi's?" Ron joked.
"Exactly!"
"Nazi's?" Ron asked in shock.
"The right orb had nearly a battalion of time frozen soldiers and a brain in a jar with an H on it as guards."
"You don't think…" Ron trailed off.
"I had Shego boil it with a plasma blast and that set off a self-destruct that took out the Nazi's," he admitted. "Could have been Himmler for all we know, but nothing good comes from a Nazi brain in a jar."
"I hear that," Ron agreed. "Now I feel bad for beating whatever scheme this was."
"You didn't stop it," Drakken said. "You helped me finish it. This scheme worked!"
"What?!"
"It's finished," Drakken assured him.
"I-I helped you take over the world?" Ron said paling.
Drakken waved it off. "No, this was a purely selfish scheme that cost ten times one of my normal schemes, but it worked!"
"What was this scheme?" Ron demanded, wondering what he'd done.
"How many times do you hit snooze in the morning?" Drakken asked out of left field.
"Nearly a dozen," Ron admitted. "But morning just comes so early!"
"What would you pay to actually get another hour to sleep every time you hit the snooze button without it making you late?"
"First born male child," Ron replied instantly.
"Well that's what this was about," Drakken assured him. "I glue one those orbs to the snooze on my alarm clock and set the snooze for six seconds and every time I hit the orb a field of nonlinear time compression turns that six seconds into a full hour of non-relative time where you are restricted to a six foot sphere and can't affect anything outside it."
"I am in complete awe of you right now," Ron admitted. "And my jealousy is off the charts!"
"We're both affected," Drakken said. "It's not safe to have the orbs near each other and only we can touch them now. Take the orb you already touched, just remember not to touch me when I hold my own orb." Drakken removed the tennis ball sized orb and put it in his pocket.
The other orb vanished into Ron's fanny pack so quickly you'd think he'd learned to stop time.
"The only downside is I spent so much I have to put off all my plots until after the summers over," Drakken admitted.
"Take a vacation," Ron suggested. "That volcanic island lair last month really rocked. Claim you're rebuilding that lair and let Shego and the Henches catch some sun while doing so."
"Plane tickets are expensive but I've got enough slush funds to cover it, however the money I have available is scheduled to rebuild this lair," Drakken said glumly. "I suppose I could use one to cover the other but it screws up my budget."
"You could just rewire the self-destruct to do superficial damage so we can all run screaming as normal but it's cheap to fix," Ron suggested.
"That's brilliant," Drakken said. "Help me get the panel off and we'll rewire it."
Five time compressed minutes later…
"Done," Drakken said. "Now we only have another fifty five minutes to wait."
"I suppose it's too much to hope you have a deck of cards on you?"
"As a matter of fact I do," Drakken replied. "I confiscated it off one of the henches on duty."
Fifty two time compressed minutes later…
"Got any twos?" Ron asked.
"Go fish," Drakken replied.
Shego and Kim stopped fighting and turned to find their partners playing cards.
"Uh, guys?" Kim called out.
"Are you two done already?" Ron asked reluctantly handing his cards back to Drakken.
"What do you mean done?" Shego growled out, her hands dripping green plasma.
"He means we known how much you enjoy a good fight and we were willing to wait until you felt you were done," Drakken said quickly, having a lot of experience in defusing Shego's temper.
"So you played cards?" Kim asked incredulously.
"Device backfired and we were stuck in compressed time," Ron explained. "It was either cards or take a nap."
"Oh," Kim said as an awkward silence descended on the room as everyone waited for something to happen.
"Anyone mind if I hit the self-destruct?" Ron asked.
"Please," everyone chorused.
Rufus leapt onto the button and everyone gave a relieved sigh as the countdown started and they were all back on familiar ground.
"Well that was surreal," Kim said once they were safely aboard a Global Justice aircraft.
"No, surreal is the conversation I had with Doc," Ron said. "Did you know that the reason he can't remember my name is because of a traumatic incident as a kid and that his shrink is the one who suggested he become a super villain?"
"No way!"
"Yes way," Wade chipped in over the Kimmunicator. "At least on the incident. A genetically engineered purple mascot and an exploding shake machine are why he is the way he is, it's also why McRibs are sold for exactly two weeks out of the year as a memorial slash tribute."
"That is surreal," Kim agreed.
"I can top it," Ron said.
"I'm not sure I want you to," Kim admitted.
"What's the average lifespan, IQ, and strength of a naked mole rat?" Ron asked.
"About a tenth of what Rufus has displayed," Wade admitted leaning forward eagerly. "You won't let me run a DNA scan or acquire some female mole rats so we can find out if he's a mutant or alien or what!"
Rufus climbed onto Ron's shoulder with a smirk on his face.
"Remember the device that increased IQ's but only worked on me?" Ron asked, waiting for them to nod. "How about a mood altering device that turned me into a genius world conqueror?"
"Yeah, but I'm not seeing a connection," Wade admitted.
"Neither am I," Kim added.
"Normal people have invisible friends," Ron said.
"Are you saying Rufus is an imaginary friend?" Kim demanded after she puzzled out what he was implying.
"A chunk of my psyche and I don't know how much psionic energy," Ron admitted.
"I always said you shared a brain with him, but I didn't know it was literal," Wade said.
Typing by: The Last Primarch!
AN: Tulpas!