Disclaimer: I own nothing if you saw it on Kim Possible. The plot is mine though.

A/N: Hello everyone! Here is Chapter 3 for your reading pleasure! I planned for this chapter to be longer but since I want to take my sweet time with the next part I thought this would be a good place to stop and post. This chapter was really hard for me to write and I hope I kept everyone in character.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed! Seriously! You guys rock! I planned on responding to you all here but, Lo and Behold! I discovered the wonders of the reply button. So Ill only respond to the ones that don't have that wondrous thing.

So:

Moon: Dude, you've got to give me more than 2 phrases to work with here. I mean Which part did you hate? The fight scene? The dialogue?... Did you want me to get the red shirt?

studyofchaos: Thanks for the support!

Guest: Oh mysterious person, I thank you for the review and here ya go. A new chapter, nice and hot.

And so... on to our regularly scheduled programing. Oh and yes, after a furious battle I did get the last slice of Pizza! I might just write a oneshot about it.

Please read, review and, above all, enjoy!

Chapter 3: The Calm

-Load Residence: Wade's Basement Room-

Wade sat back in his chair after Ron hung up. Something in his voice seemed… off. It wasn't his depressed voice, he knew what that sounded like. This was different.

It sounded almost… resigned?

He had heard of the terms 'love-struck' and 'love-sick' before. Read a few books and articles on them. He'd always thought them to be inaccurate and exaggerated.

Now here he was, a witness to two prime examples of each. The onset of one causing the other. How can something so unquantifiable cause so many changes?

It was fascinating to see. But also hard to watch since he knew both of them and considered them his best friends. He wished there was something he could do to help him, but he had already all but told Kim he was hurting. I mean, I actually had to show her his breakdown. And it happened on live TV! She was probably the only person in Middleton who hadn't seen it.

"Might as well make a study of it." He said to himself. "My own puberty is right around the corner and I could use a map."

He filed that idea for later consideration as he spun his seat around to surveyed the damage done to his room/workshop/command-center.

It will take me months to get everything back to working conditions. Just as he finished that thought a piece of the holo-room projector fell from the ceiling in a shower of sparks and smoke.

With a sigh he got up and started organizing the wreck his room had become, separating things into three groups: scrap, salvage, and functional. As he went from one part of the room to another he spotted the Wade-bot 3.0 in the corner were its mod-n-deploy dock was.

He was proud of his latest design. Its was composed of various interchangeable parts: tracks, body, arms and head. He had made several versions of each part with specific functions. It even had a 'vehicle mode' for when rapid means of transport were required. The new Wade-bot 3.0 system was flexible. It was sleek. It was cool.

It lay in smoking pieces all over the corner along with the dock.

Wade let out a huge groan and moved to inspect it.

It wasn't good.

It had obviously been blasted a couple of times by the Diablo and then stomped on for good measure.

Looking at the individual pieces, he could barely keep the tears from flowing. From the looks of things there weren't enough parts left working to make a fully functional bot. He had had loads of fun making it and was planning on asking Ron to help him run some field tests during the summer. It would have been great.

Sniffing, he picked up a head that was fairly undamaged, rubbed affectionately and took it to the functional pile.

Walking back to the corner he moved one of the 'body' segments to its upright position. It was the 'cargo pod' part. He had made it to carry various pieces of gear out into the field or to store them. It was basically a reinforced box with rounded edges that reached his waist. It had two doors that bent outward twice to open. It had been severely damaged.

It had obviously taken a direct hit from a cannon. Its upper right side had a hole in it, the edges looked melted. The right door looked welded shut. Wade fiddled with the controls on top, trying to open the left door, but it was unresponsive.

Circuits must've been fried. He thought, moving to the left side. He popped the manual override, turned it 180⁰ counterclockwise and pushed it back in. The left door popped open. Gotta make that easier to turn.

He opened it and removed the only thing that was currently stored there. It was a foot wide four-and-a-half foot long case. He had a hard time getting it out since the right side door couldn't be opened. He let out another half groan half sob. The right side had been hit by the blast like he'd feared.

Inside were three pieces of tech he had only just cleared for field testing. The case's right side was gone, melted. He opened it to inspect the damage.

It wasn't as bad as he thought. Two of them, the one on the right and middle, looked unharmed and still snuggled in the foam that lined the case. The one on the left was destroyed though. He closed the case and moved towards the functional pile then thought better of it and walked to the large safe he kept next to his computer station.

It was where he kept the various prototypes he was working on, some gadgets he had finished but didn't want lying around and stuff he hadn't used but still held promise. It had taken some hits, but it was made to take all sorts of punishment so it was only singed and scratched. He put his palm on the scanner and opened it. Just as he put the case on one of the shelves his system rang. Incoming call.

Wade sighed. Kim still hadn't answered.

He sat back on his chair, typed a few commands and answered Ron.

-Possible Residence-

Halfway back to the house the rockets on Rons scooter fizzed out. He was forced to finish the trip at his scooters normal speed. Meaning very, very slowly.

He parked it in front of the garage and took a few steps from it. He stared at his beloved scooter for about thirty seconds.

I've been ruined forever. His eyes went to the rockets. Wonder if the twins will let me keep em. Images of him rocketing down the street on the way to school entered his mind. The image was made better when he saw a certain pretty boy choking on his dust.

He was brought out of his reverie by the sounds of rubble being moved around. He walked to the ruined entrance of the Possible home and entered.

"Everyone alright?" He called as he went in.

The family had already started cleaning up after the attack. James could be seen on the phone describing the damage that had been done, probably talking with some insurance people. Ann was busy picking up all the photographs that had lined the walls of the house. Even the ones that that were in other parts of the house had fallen, their frames breaking. Some were gone, blasted to ashes. But thankfully all of em had copies in an album somewhere, so copies would be made to replace those.

Still… It didn't feel good to see them scattered like that.

"Ronald!" James said, hanging up the phone hurriedly on a conversation that was going nowhere at the moment. "That's our line. Are you alright?"

Ann stopped looking for pictures the moment he heard Rons voice, she had been extremely worried for his surrogate son. Especially after she saw those robots take off after him.

James gushed over how brave Ron had been and asked what happened after he and the robots took off. Ann examined the boy closely looking for any wounds. As she examined every inch of him, the back of her mind noted how different Ron looked. Ron with a long sleeved mock turtleneck shirt under an oversized jersey was one thing, remove the jersey and you got another thing entirely.

Further thought into that was halted when her eyes got to his right arm in time to see a drop of blood fall off one of his fingers. The makeshift bandage had done as much as it was going to.

"Ron," She interrupted them using her doctors voice. "please go into the kitchen, take a seat and wait for me to get my first aid kit. I'm going to take a look at that arm." She walked off without waiting for a response.

Both James and Ron looked at his right forearm. The red jersey was soaked through, being such a light material it hadn't taken much. A few thin trails of the fluid could be seen crisscrossing his hand like the roots of a tree. Ending at a few fingertips where they accumulated into drops and fell to the floor.

Looking at his hand he suddenly remembered it. Ouch! Man that stings!

Over the years of helping Kim with her missions Ron Stoppable had developed the passive skill of compartmentalizing his physical pains. So long as it was minor, he wouldn't take notice of it till he found the bruise or cut.

"Oh," James said, noticing the wound as well. "Oh dear. Move along Ronald. Get that looked at." He ushered Ron down the hallway and into the kitchen where he was seated in the breakfast nook. James placed the phone back in its charger and walked off to pick up all the glass from the broken window.

Ron just sat there, knowing better than to argue. Moments later Ann walked in with her first aid kit. Which was really more of a suitcase filled with everything she needed to perform minor surgeries. She put it on the table, brought up a chair and got to work.

"Alright, let's take a look." Ann opened her suitcase and took out a pair of sharp looking scissors. As she started cutting the crusty jersey off the twins came barreling into the kitchen.

"Ron!" They said in unison.

"How fast did they go?" Jim asked.

"Was the thrust continuous?" Tim asked

"Did they interface with the engine alright?" Jim fired again.

"How about the brakes? We weren't sure those would work right with rockets." Tim confessed.

Ann smiled as she removed the crusty rag from his arm and inspected the cut with an experienced eye. It wasn't as bad as it looked. The cut wasn't deep but it was long and would definitely need stitches. She cut off that ruined section of the sleeve and started cleaning it, making sure there were no glass shards in it.

Ron followed the twin speak like a heated tennis match. Once they finished he thought for a moment, keeping his eyes on the twins and not on Mrs. Dr. P. as she worked. He winced a few times at her ministrations but he trusted her completely so he wasn't worried.

"Um… I don't know since the speedometer on my scooter broke. I don't know bout the thrust thing. Yes, the engine started great. And yeah, the brakes worked great." Ron frowned a bit at that last one. "You mean I might've had to crash the thing to stop it?" A little panic seeped out.

"No, we just weren't sure that's all." Tim reassured.

"Oh." Ron was suspicious but he remembered something. "Hey, the rockets fizzed out halfway back, think you could check em? I might need the ride in a few minutes."

Both the twins frowned.

"That's odd." Jim said.

"They should've had enough fuel for two hours of uninterrupted thrust." Tim stated. Both of them walked away, talking about the various probable causes for the anomaly.

"What do you mean you'll need the ride Ron?" Ann asked as she removed a few shards she found and proceeded to disinfect it.

"Just the usual, Drakken has a plot set up so we're going to stop it." Ron said, keeping his eyes anywhere but on his arm. "His new lair is just a hundred miles west of here so the scooter would be fastest… if the rockets work."

"Hm." Ann said as she finished cleaning the cut. "Well all I need to do here is stitch this up and you'll be ready to go."

"Oh good cus… wait, what?" Ron turned to Ann and saw that yes, she had said stitch. She had already gotten the needle and thread. "Whoa there Mrs. Dr. P, I… uh… was thinking more of a nice and tight bandage?" He started scooting along the bench, away for the very pointy object.

"No. Stitching that up is the best way to go about it, now get back here and stay still." Ann had a hard time keeping her giggles down. Here was a boy who fought two giant killer robots without hesitation. But a little needle and he was suddenly running for the hills.

"Yeah…well…um…you know." He started desperately grasping at excuses, looking for one that would postpone the torture Ann had for him. "I…uh…need to get ready for the mission! Yeah, from the looks of it Drakken is ready to make his move. Stitches would take too long…so…could you just…um…tape it up nice and tight? Or something. Please?"

Ron looked imploringly at Mrs. Dr. P. unknowingly using his own version of the PDP. Whereas the Possible women looked like the cute puppy in a pet store that made you go 'aww', Ron looked more like the puppy in the cardboard box on the corner with an 'adopt me' sign. He just dipped his chin down and looked up with sad chocolate brown eyes that said 'save me'.

"Alright." She sighed. Both her daughter and her had discovered his ability years ago and kept the weapon a secret. Still… they had no response against it. It really didn't help that he perked up so fast, you'd think she'd just saved his life.

She put the needle away and took out some butterfly band aids, some gauzes and a roll of med tape. Ron scooted back to her and she got to work. While working she studied Ron again. He never noticed since he was focusing anywhere but on her as she worked.

She was surprised at what she saw. The turtleneck, unlike the jersey, hung from his slim frame just right. It hinted at what the jersey had hidden. He might have been slim, but no way could he be called slight. From what she could see his body was actually decently built. His muscles spoke of speed and endurance.

Really shouldn't be surprised. She thought as she taped his arm, careful to keep the gauzes between the cut and the tape. Helping Kim with her missions since the first one, muscles were an unavoidable side effect.

"As soon as the mission is over I want you back here so I can stitch that up properly." She told him after she was finished.

"Yes Mrs. Dr. P." Came the well used reply.

"That is only temporary." She gestured to the taped arm. "You have to be careful or you might reopen it."

"Thanks Mrs. Dr. P."

Ron got out of the breakfast nook and walked out of the kitchen grabbing the phone on the way. Ann stayed cleaning up. He dialed a number he has used more that night than ever before.

"Hello?"

"Yo, Wade."

"Hey Ron, everyone alright over there?"

"Yep. Everyone but the house though." Ron said, walking through the house and seeing the damage done to it for the first time. "It's gonna need more than a new paintjob." He paused and looked through the hole in the ceiling. He could see the clouds that were moving in, covering the stars and moon.

"Hey Wade." He said, looking around the empty room. "I think it's time you dust off that Wade-bot."

Wade knew exactly what that meant.

"Ron, I really think you should go get Kim. Drakken's plot this time seems different."

"No." He said simply. "Kim… has more than earned a night of just being normal. She has been looking forward to tonight for weeks. So you and I will handle Drakken."

"What about you?"

"Normal has never been my thing, has it. Plus my hangout has been taken over by an evil madman so I've got nothing better to do." Ron said.

"Um…"

"Dude cmon, we can handle it. And remember our talk about the whole cloaking thing. Remember how it doesn't really help me when you do that dude."

"Ron… My Wadebot 3.0 was destroyed by the Diablo…" Wade informed him. He hoped that would be enough to change his mind about not getting Kim.

"Oh…" He said, losing a bit of confidence. "Well… what about the 2.0?"

"I scrapped it for parts…"

"Oh…" Ron was about to relent, about to agree with Wade and go get tell Kim what had happened. But then he looked down.

Half buried under some rubble was a picture. He bent down and picked it up. It was an old one. Before the missions. Both Kim and he had the same stupidly happy expressions that only kids are really capable of.

Good times. He thought. Simpler…

The decision he had reached on the way back from Bueno Nacho cemented itself in him. He tucked the picture into his back pocket.

"Guess I'm going it solo…" He said.

"What!? Ron, no. There's no way you can handle this alone."

"Wont know till I try will I?" Ron said. "Besides, Rufus will be with me right buddy?"

Rufus squeaked a hard affirmative, there was no way his best friend was doing anything without him being there to help.

"Any thoughts on how I should go about stopping Drakken?" He asked the genius.

"Ron… please think about this…"

"I have Wade. So you can stop calling Kim"

There was something in Rons voice that stopped Wade from downright ranting about what a bad idea it was to go alone. Determination. It was a rare thing to hear from him. He had only heard it on the few occasions that Ron had gone on a solo mission. He knew there was no talking him out of it. He gave one last try anyway.

"Ron… There's no way I can talk you out of this?"

"About as much as talking Rufus out of eating cheesy nachos." He chuckled. "So, any thoughts?"

Wade thought for a minute, he looked around his room hoping an idea would pop into his mind like they often did. He thought about everything Dr. Possible had said about the cybertronic tech and about what he had learned from his own scans. His eyes came to rest on the safe and one item he kept there. An Electro-Magnetic Scrambler gun he'd made after Team Impossible took out his entire computer system.

It could work. He mused, he did a few mental calculations and smiled. It will definitely work. He picked it up and spotted some of the other stuff he kept there.

"Wade? Still there buddy?" Ron asked.

"Yeah, hold on a sec." He answered absently, looking at many of the items he kept in the safe. He's gonna need all the help I can give him. He concluded. But how do I get all this to him? He glanced around the room looking for something, anything, he could use. His search came to an end at the destroyed wadebot dock. An idea formed.

He ran to it and started wrenching bits of debris from it. Please be alright, please be alright... He chanted as he continued to dig through the wreck. Looking for that one particular part that could make or break his plan.

"You know this whole not seeing you while you do stuff thing is seriously starting to get to me." Ron complained. He had walked outside where he saw the twins sitting near his scooter with a laptop. It was connected to their rockets.

"Yes!" He heard Wade cry triumphantly.

"Aw man, you were doing it on purpose?" Ron asked, somewhat tweaked. "Not cool man."

"What?" Rons tone of voice brought him out of hid ecstatic trance. "No, I didn't mean it like that. I just found what I needed to send you some gear you will need since you're so set on doing the mission."

"Oh, cool man. I'll be here getting ready."

"Ron, are you sure about this?" Wade asked one last time.

"I'm sure Wade, besides someone has to make Drakken pay for ruining Bueno Nacho! I mean Naco Night? What was wrong with that! And then…"

"Ok," Wade cut him off before he got any momentum. "well I should have the gear over there in about ten to twenty minutes so… Wade out!"

"Uh, ok later then." Ron felt so unfulfilled for some reason.

He shook it off and hung up. He ran back into the house and the kitchen to return the phone to its proper place. Ann had just left to put away her first aid mega kit. Afterwards he walked to the hallway closet to get the mission clothes he kept there for just such occasions.

"Oh no." He said at the sight of it. The door had a huge hole in it and hanged at a crookedly. It had obviously been caught in the crossfire earlier.

He moved what was left of the door out of the way and checked the closet. Everything in it was shredded and burnt. His mission clothes lay among the towels and sheets in pieces. He kneeled down and picked up the remains of his shirt. Its loss hit him harder than it should.

Its just a shirt…right? He stood up and continued to stare at the shirt. Wondering why he was so choked up about its destruction.

"Ron. Are you ok?" Ann asked. She had just come out of the master bedroom to continue her search of pictures when she saw him. He was just standing there looking intently at a rag.

Ron was startled right out of his musings.

"Huh? What?" Ron said, looking around. "Oh… um… yeah. Its just… I'm gonna need to run home to get my mission threads. The ones I kept here are trashed." He showed her the remains of the shirt and gave her a sad smile. He walked down the hallway and into the kitchen. He balled the shirt up and moved to toss it in the trash bin. He paused for a moment as the emotions that hit him at the closet came back. He wondered what they were again but shook it off and threw the shirt in.

"Ron. Are you sure you're alright?" Ann was very concerned, this somber looking Ron was not one she liked seeing.

"Yeah Mrs. Dr. P., I'll be fine. Be back in a few minutes." He moved to the hallway when a thought hit him. "Oh, and Wade said he's sending me some things we'll need so there might be a deliveryman coming."

"Alright Ron." Ann let it drop. For the time being at least.

Ron walked out of the house but before he headed for his house next door he checked on the twins. Tim was still sitting next to the scooter with the laptop. Jim was coming out of the garage carrying a container that read 'J200'.

"Hey guys," He said, Rufus jumped out of his pocket and ran up the scooter to get a better view. "So, were you able to fix em?"

"There was nothing to fix." Tim answered.

"But, then why did they fizz out like that?" Ron asked, confused.

"You pressed the red buttons." Jim said, popping a lid on one of the rockets and pouring the contents of the container in.

"What? No I didn't… Rufus did." Ron pointed at the naked mole rat, which earned him some angry chattering and squeaks.

"It wasn't a bad thing." Tim reassured.

"It just triggers the afterburners, which guzzles up all the fuel in exchange for a temporary but powerful speed boost." Jim explained as he moved to refill the second rocket.

"So they're fine, I'm just downloading all the data they recorded so that we can improve our designs." Tim finished.

"Oh cool. I'm going home to change, think they'll be ready in ten…maybe fifteen minutes?"

"Sure." The said at the same time.

Ron nodded and made the short walk to his home next door. Rufus running along at his side.

-Load Residence: Wade's Basement Room-

Wade hung up fast before Ron could get into his rant. He could give Drakken a run for his ranting money if given the chance.

He looked at the part in his hands that made him so excited. It was one of the 'Vehicle mode' parts. It was designed for vertical takeoffs and landings, a VTOL. It looked a lot like a Buzz Lightyear jetpack. Probably because the design was inspired by it. Boosters at the base of the wings lifted it, and anything attached to it, up then the ones at the back fired propelling it through the air.

He took it to the functional pile where he had placed the head part earlier and set it down next to it. He grabbed the head. It had basic communications, scanning and HD recording capabilities. It would do.

He attached it to the top of the VTOL part and crewed it in. It made clanking sounds as he turned it. After one turn Wade pushed it in hard to finish the connection. Both parts lit up and powered up as they acknowledged each other. His computer station beeped as the bot connected.

Wade went to it and opened his Wadebot systems. He uploaded an operating system that would allow him to pilot it like a drone and ran diagnostics to make sure both parts were 100% operational. To his relief, they were.

He picked the drone and carried it to the 'cargo pod' he opened and emptied earlier. It definitely wasn't operational. But he didn't need it to be. He only needed it to carry the stuff. He placed the drone on top and pushed it down. It gave a loud metallic clank. His station beeped again.

A message popped up saying that the connection had failed. He told it to ignore the error but to maintain the attachment. It read 50% secure. It would do, he only needed it to hold from his house to the Possibles. And with that it was ready. All he needed to do was put the stuff into the pod, carry the whole thing outside then pilot it.

He ran to the safe and got the case he had gotten out of the pod earlier and the gun. He put the case back on the top shelf of the pod, it had the hole but the case fit so snuggly that there was no chance of it falling out. He put the EMS gun in the second shelf and walked back to the safe.

"Hnm… Yeah he will need this, definitely." He mumbled, picking up a small case. "And this could come in handy and so would this… Not the laser lipstick, he might cut off something important… like a leg." He took the things he had chosen and put them into the second and bottom shelves of the pod. He walked back to see if he missed something and saw that yes, he had.

He picked it up. Yep, he will seriously need this. He put it in the pod and tried to close the door. He had a hard time. After a minute of trying he gave it a hard frustrated kick. That did it. He stared at it for a bit then shrugged.

He picked the drone up and carried it up the stairs, through the house and out the front door.

Kim…Huff, huff. Was right… Huff, huff, grunt. Being in my room so much isn't healthy… He wanted to just let it drop once he was in the front yard but he didn't. He knew he had no time to fix it if something broke so he carefully put it down.

"Phew!" Wade wiped the sweat off his brow. "I gotta start working out." He resolved to ask Kim for help with that later.

Wade walked back down to his computer station and got everything started. Outside the Drones wings shot out, its vertical boosters ignited and it rose smoothly into the air. Once it was high enough its horizontal boosters fired and the drone flew off into the night with its cargo.

To Be Continued...

Well... Its official. Ron is going it alone but for his trusty buddy Rufus. Bet you never saw that coming did ya? You did? oh... Well did you guess that he wouldn't have a kimmunicator OR a wadebot with him?! No you didn't did you.

So... Can you see where I'm going with this?

Should I ask that nice girl next door out for a drink?

Find out next time! Nos vemos luego mis panas!