With my apologies for the delay, here is Chapter 4. Much as I'd like to blame FFnet for the entirety of this delay, they're only partly to blame this time.
Chapter 4 - Games Without Frontiers
"Ladies' room, Ron…"
Ron took the hint, he'd been distracted and missed the fact that he was about to go into the women's restroom, which would've been a great way to draw unwanted attention.
"Well, Rufus, let's get going, surely the men's room isn't far…"
Though Rufus voiced his agreement, reality did not seem to agree with Ron's assessment. Just as he was preparing to speak, the flashlight began to fail. A few rounds of percussive maintenance by Rufus did little to improve the situation, and they found themselves in the dark, with no sign of the vent they were looking for. That's when Ron came up with a cunning plan.
"Hold on," he said as he turned on the laser lipstick and immediately lost any bit of control over its cutting action that he might have had for the briefest of instants. Even Ron would have admitted to it being dumb luck rather than dumb skill, had he not been focused on not getting dismembered by Wade's gadget. After a short struggle, the conduit gave way under Ron's weight, its structural integrity compromised by the many haphazard, accidental cuts it suffered.
Ooooohhhh, that's going to hurt in the morning, he thought to himself after the fall. Thankfully, that seemed to be the extent of any injuries. Rufus' fall seemed to have been cushioned by him falling on top of Ron, so he was definitely going to be fine. Ron slowly got up and found himself in front of a double door that just begged to be investigated. He tried to open it, but found it to be locked – he then saw the schedule posted next to the door, the next event was a poker game in 30 minutes.
"Poker doesn't seem like Drakken's style, right, Rufus?"
"Nuh uh," the naked mole rat said in agreement.
"Well, I guess it's time for us to have a look around and see what we can find," Ron concluded.
Barely a few steps into his plan, it was interrupted by Kim's voice – although he did not have his own Kimmunicator (according to Wade, it was somehow "impractical"), Wade did set up Kim's device to operate with common short-range radios, allowing Ron to be patched into Wade's loop via the Kimmunicator.
"Ron, are you there?"
"Ugh, yeah, I'm okay, KP." True though this was, it still felt like a lie due to the pain Ron still felt from the fall. "Did you say you had Drakken in sight?"
"And Shego," Kim answered over the radio. "Everything okay on your end?"
"My butt had an unexpected run-in with the floor and my back was feeling left out and crashed the party. Remind me to write a complaint about the Smarty Mart-brand AA batteries I bought for my flashlight…"
"Head in the game, Ron. Drakken's going into Brotherson's room and Shego is outside, making a phone call."
"Ron," Wade said on the line, "there's a janitor's closet that connects to Brotherson's room, second door on your left, see if you can eavesdrop on the conversation from there."
Ron spotted the door Wade had mentioned and answered, "On it, the Ronman can do some snooping."
"Sneaky!" Rufus added excitedly.
"Shh, we have to keep it down, buddy…"
They made their way to the door Wade had pointed out. Ron opened it to find a broom closet, as expected. Across from him was another door. After checking that the door they had come in through would not lock behind them, he and Rufus looked around inside the closet, nothing seemed out of the ordinary, so Ron carefully opened the door to Brotherson's room just enough to peek through. His view was entirely obstructed by the back of a large aquarium, but he and Rufus could hear voices.
"Doctor Drakken… How nice to see you here."
"Ah ha! My reputation precedes me!"
"Indeed, few can boast of taking over a fast-food chain for their world domination scheme and then dropping the ball on the tax payments…"
If his voice was not unique and recognizable enough, Drakken's characteristic transcription-defying noises made it clear he was indeed the visitor.
Brotherson continued undeterred, "Tell me, is it true that you put your mother as the sole director of the holding company you set up?"
Drakken seemed offended at the suggestion that he had been reckless, "Do you have any idea how much a tax lawyer would have cost me?"
"Four to five-hundred US Dollars per hour, at the scale and complexity we're discussing. Call it an even one hundred thousand a month with expenses thrown in."
Ron and Rufus moved further into the room, hiding behind the aquarium. They could get a decent view of Drakken and Brotherson through a gap between an aquarium and the wall. Their targets sat at a low table, staring each other down.
"Gyah, enough chit chat, I'm not here to dwell on what has gone wrong, the basic plan was sound and I'll figure out an alternative way of making it work. Tell me what I need to know, and I'll give you the cash."
"No, we will do a simultaneous exchange."
"I don't have time for silly ga…mes…" A large bodyguard moved threateningly towards Drakken. "Uh, I mean, if you insist, I'd be happy to do it your way…"
They each put their end of the bargain on the table, hovering their hands over the table in a tense that was much sillier than it was tense. Finally, Drakken grabbed the piece of paper he must have come to retrieve and Brotherson took his money.
"Ah ha!" Drakken shouted, "Now, with this top-secret code… Milk…Bread… Eggs…? What kind of code is that?"
Rufus facepalmed and Ron whispered to him, "Did Drakken just scammed?"
"My grocery list," Brotherson answered. "You are quite poor at the trading game."
And most villain activities, I might add…
"Shego!" Drakken called out, but his sidekick did not show up.
Brotherson continued, apparently unbothered by Shego being summoned, "Very well, I've had my fun."
"Well, I'm glad you're wasting my time when the feds, Global Justice and the IRS are after me, now tell me where I can find the cybertronic technology I need."
"Ah, Cybertronics… Some of the most brilliant minds on the planet struggle with its challenges." Drakken gave Brotherson an incredulous look. "But you're in luck, because one genius has figured it out." Drakken moved closer. "Doctor James Timothy Possible."
"Ooh, irony," Drakken began, but he was interrupted by Ron screaming.
"Sick and wrong! We've got to warn KP!"
"Excuse me," Drakken responded, "this is a private meeting, and I'm doing a monologue! Hey, I know that voice…"
At that moment, Shego barged in. Brotherson's bodyguard moved to tackle her, but he was waved off.
"Doctor D., we've gotta move," she said, "I finally got our guy on the line, he says GJ are on their way and will be here in less than 30 minutes!" She looked around, and from her position next to the door she spotted Ron hiding behind an aquarium. "Stoppable is here! We've gotta get out, now, Doctor D.!"
"Coolio, Shego remembers my name," Ron told Rufus, who was getting a panicked look on his face and pointing at Shego. He quickly understood why when he saw Shego preparing to throw plasma in his direction. His panicked reaction knocked over the aquarium, distracting Shego just enough to throw off her aim. Ron stumbled onto his feet and ran as directly as he could towards the door Shego had entered from, both their entrances had left a mess in the room. He ran through the antechamber to Brotherson's room and out onto the casino floor and saw that Kim was off to his left, but did not see any meaningful cover.
Fortunately for him, Shego's pursuit was interrupted when she too spotted Kim.
"Tell me, princess – how the hell did you get here so quickly?"
"So not the drama, just another underwater infiltration," Kim answered.
Shego was obviously not in a talking mood, she fired her plasma at Kim, who backflipped to avoid it.
"Get a move on, Drakken," Shego shouted back into Brotherson's room, "we've got even less time than we thought!"
Shego only noticed at the last moment that Kim had taken the opportunity to close the distance and was now in striking range. She ducked to avoid Kim's strike, but could not move to return the favor before Kim positioned herself to avoid such a hit.
Ron spotted Drakken trying to sneak past the fight, he was looking at the skylight above the staircase and manipulating some sort of handheld device.
"Ready for this, Rufus?" Ron asked as he prepared to run towards Drakken. His goal was to take the device before Drakken could accomplish anything with it. Between the fight still raging between Kim and Shego, and his stares towards to skylight, Drakken was too distracted to notice that Ron was coming for him and his piece of equipment – at least until Ron snatched it out of his hand.
"Ah! My controller! You will pay for this, buffoon!"
"It's Stoppable! Ron Stoppable!"
"Yeah, whatever," Drakken said dismissively. "You're too late anyway!" As he finished his sentence, a platform came crashing through the skylight, which he rushed to. "Shego! Time to fly!" he said.
By this point, Kim had apparently gotten the upper hand in her fight with Shego. Still, Shego managed to escape Kim's clutches and joined Drakken on the platform. Ron briefly considered trying to hang on the platform as it rose off the floor, but gave up on that idea, having had a few such experiences in the past, and never with meaningful success. Kim, too, tried to catch up but did not attempt to jump to catch the platform.
"This is so annoying," she said.
"Kim Possible! You think you're all that, but you're not – ahhh!"
Kim and Ron's decision not to pursue was proven correct when the platform crashed back down after rising ten feet or so.
"Shego! What the hell happened?" Drakken shouted.
"You're asking me? You rigged this thing!" She answered with much irritation.
Drakken's question was quickly answered as a half-dozen armed figures rappelled down from the opening made by Drakken's contraption. As they got closer, Ron identified them as Global Justice agents.
Drakken and Shego tried to make a run for the elevators, but ran into another group of armed agents who had taken the elevator up to the top floor. Drakken and Shego surrendered in the face of overwhelming odds and were restrained.
Ron looked over to Kim. She seemed satisfied, but not ecstatic at the arrest of her archfoes. After a few seconds, Ron finally noticed that that her wig had fallen off during the fight with Shego. Can't say I'll miss that thing.
"Well, what have we here…"
The smug voice was unmistakable.
"Oh, great," Kim said, "now we get to put up with Mr. 'Top Agent' and his attitude."
Ron turned around and saw Will Du, self-described top agent of Global Justice, and an insufferable ass on a good day. "Oh, we'll definitely be having a little chat about this, Miss Possible – two kids sneaking into a gambling establishment to chase down wanted criminals? Of course the whole thing reeks of amateur hour… But first, I have two detainees to speak to…"
Kim growled, but calmed down when Ron put his hand on her shoulder. She took a deep breath and took a good look around.
"I guess we won, KP."
"Until they break out of prison again…"
"I'm not too worried. Sure, they ended up in some minimum-security prison after stealing from Dementor, and after the whole 'melting the largest building made of cheese' thing… And I'm probably missing something. But they're going down for tax fraud, that's a big boy crime!"
Kim gave him a skeptical look. "Not bigger than trying to take over Canada, not to mention the world…"
"Let me put it this way, Kim: We know GJ isn't competent enough to keep them in jail, but maybe the feds are."
"Any chance we can talk to these mythical feds? All I see is GJ running this operation, and I am so not in the mood to deal with Will Du."
"Let's just feel sorry for him having to grow up with a name like that."
"Because his parents had no sense of humor and set him up to be bullied throughout childhood?"
"Please, Kim, that sort of arrogance only comes from homeschooling."
"Bonnie would disagree with you, Ron…"
"Touché. Maybe we can put them both in a room and see what happens."
"With our luck, the 'Rockwaller-Du' family," Kim joked.
Both teens had a good laugh at the concept. "The horror!" Ron said with mock outrage.
Will Du was back to speak with Kim and Ron, and he asked, "What's so funny about this situation?"
Ron looked at Kim and struggled to contain his urge to laugh in Du's face, losing the fight completely once Kim gave in.
Today's reading recommendation is MrDrP's Kim Possible: December 31st, a classic "Kim messed up" story that's worth everyone's time.