Author's Note: So...It certainly has been quite a long time since I added more to this story. So, funny thing about that; This "Interlude" (as I'm choosing to call it) right here? It was not a recent idea. I had it in mind back when I wrote Chapter 3. Thing is...I hated the original version that I came up with, as it was basically just nothing more than a bunch of poor attempts at cryptic dialogue, and that's why I never posted it back then. But the passing of David Lynch inspired me to revisit the general idea, and I ended up scrapping basically everything and started from scratch, resulting in what I'm presenting you with now. So, while this is likely not how you were expecting to see this particular story of mine to continue, I hope you find it entertaining and worthwhile.
The Red Room, a region of the Black Lodge
When Ron opened his eyes, he found himself standing in a strange room where he had never been before. The floor was a chevron pattern that alternated between a pale off white color and a brown so dark it could be mistaken for black. The walls of the room weren't walls at all, but instead were curtains made of rich red velvet. All around the spacious room were round tables of varying sizes, each with multiple black chairs. Each chair had a dummy of a different person sitting in it and the tables also had various play foods resting on plates flanked by silverware and finely folded cloth napkins. Ron began to walk around the room, stiffly and without uttering a single word. Some of the dummies felt familiar to him, but he couldn't properly recognize who they were meant to be. The dummies didn't move, yet they all had some unexplained emanation that suggested they were, on at least some level, conscious. Ron eventually found one statue which he could identify.
"It's me." he whispered, his voice not sounding or feeling like his own.
The dummy was very much a perfect likeness of Ron, down to the most subtle of details. The moment the flesh and blood Ron touched his artificial counterpart, it faded out of existence. He then took its seat and looked at a dummy that was sitting across from his own. After having seen his own, he was suddenly able to recognize at least this one.
"Wally." he addressed it.
The dummy then began to shake and writhe in its seat before properly taking on the fully human appearance of Prince Wallace the Third of Rodigan, whom neither Ron nor Kim had seen in the years since they rescued him from a secret order of knights. He — assuming it even was a he — smiled serenely at Ron, picked up the fork in front of him, and used it to lift up some of the yarn on his plate that was meant to evoke spaghetti.
"yarN is for the hearty," the thing that looked like Prince Wally said. "buT not this yarn. thiS yarn alarms, but never battles."
Ron looked down at the plate in front of him. His meal was whole plastic fish, which was far more realistic looking than the play food on every other plate in the strange restaurant-like space. Ron's mouth fell open in an unnatural angle, and the barking of several sea lions emerged from his mouth instead of his voice. He got up from his seat with the fake fish in his hands.
"I did not know montpelieR was the capital of vermonT until two days from now." the Wally got up as well.
The two walked together to go somewhere, but they didn't move from the spots where they stood. Their own table and the ones with the other dummies all moved instead, as if being pushed and carried away by an unseeable stage crew. When the two stopped walking in place, a two seater unicycle faded into existence between them. Only then did Ron's mouth close, bringing an end to the sea lion barks.
"We nodded in agreement." Ron said to the Wally while not nodding his head at all.
"wE nodded in agreement." Wally's lookalike repeated, also not nodding despite what they'd both stated.
They got onto the two seater unicycle and rode it down a corridor that you, the reader, simply hadn't noticed until now. 彼らは、快適な黒いアームチェア、サイドテーブル、背の高い光るランプ、そして大理石の女性像が置かれたエリアを通り過ぎました。After the exact amount of time it takes to get a little clump lint out of your belly button but not quite all of it, the two came to a red curtain wall with a small, ovalar wooden mount attached to it. By what was unclear, as it didn't make the curtain sag at all. It had nothing on it but a blank bronze tag that read 'MOONTOMATO' in a cursive font, and the blank space above it was the perfect size for the plastic fish. Ron placed it on the mount and it locked onto it. Now that the fish was home, a new energy awoke within it and a musical tune began to emanate from its mouth as it moved its artificial fins and, after a few moments, a voice came out as well, singing the lyrics to a song that Ron was certain he'd never heard before.
I'll be your mirror, reflect what you are
In case you don't know
I'll be the wind, the rain and the sunset
The light on your door to show that you're home
Ron fell to his knees and stared intensely at his own hands on the distinctive patterned floor. A few feet behind him, the thing that looked like Wally began to shake and contort its body.
When you think the night has seen your mind
That inside you're twisted and unkind
Let me stand to show that you are blind
Please put down your hands 'cause I see you
Visions began to flash in Ron's mind so that he couldn't see what was around him. They were so fast, yet the images were so searing and saturated that they burned into his memory. He saw the four members of the boy band the Oh Boyz suspended up by seemingly endless chains in an enormous, ominous dungeon. He saw a younger version of Señor Senior, Sr. who was dressed in Dr. Drakken's go-to outfit and screaming for help while being pulled towards a body of water by several pale yellow tentacles emerging from it. Ron saw a version of his and Kim's friend Monique who not only wore the purple and black costume of Team Go's Mego, but who also shared his purple tinted skin, hair and eyes.
I find it hard to believe you don't know
The beauty you are
But if you don't, let me be your eyes
A hand to your darkness so you won't be afraid
He then saw Kim's father, who was topless and riding on the back of a six legged pronghorn through a forest of pink and purple trees. He saw a plump little newborn whom he could somehow recognize as Wade sleeping in a crib at the center of a hexagonal room made of stone, surrounded by five people wearing deep forest green robes that hid their faces. He saw Kim's brothers Jim and Tim aboard an airship, with tears in their eyes as they stared down at the flaming ruins of Middleton.
When you think the night has seen your mind
That inside you're twisted and unkind
Let me stand to show that you are blind
Please put down your hands 'cause I see you
He then saw his school's old quarterback Brick Flagg in a Team Impossible uniform, cradling a white bearded Dash DaMont in his arms as he bled out. He saw a zombified version of Team Go's bird-themed foe Aviarus and a few other zombies messily feasting on the guts of a killed Shego. He saw an unknown man in a suit that looked unmistakably similar to Drakken's Diablo robots flying around in the night sky and evading laser fire from a Lorwardian spaceship.
I'll be your mirror (Reflect what you are)
He saw his former teacher Mr. Barkin, but as a battle-hardened fantasy warrior with a long beard and flowing hair, dressed in fur trimmed armored pieces and standing on a mountainous cliff overlooking a sinister looking castle. A hideously monstrous, lion-sized naked mole rat charged at the warrior Barkin and he slayed it with one powerful swing of a double-sided spear, its blood spraying.
I'll be your mirror (Reflect what you are)
Ron saw another version of himself, this one older, bald and wearing a polo shirt that identified him as the head counselor of Camp Wannaweep. He stood before the gloomy forest on the edge of camp and smiled knowingly as the skull of a huge stag poked out from the shadows.
I'll be your mirror (Reflect what you are)
Ron saw a version of his friend Felix Renton who wore camo military fatigues and had a large scar on the left of his face. He wheeled his wheelchair into a military tent where others were looking at a large map of North America that had multiple American states and portions of some Canadian marked as having been conquered.
I'll be your mirror (Reflect what you are)
Next, of all people, he saw Kim and Bonnie's former fellow cheerleader Tara in the living room of a suburban home, dressed in plaid footie pajamas. She was joyously eating a slice of pumpkin pie and watching a movie on her television, completely oblivious to the fact that a man wearing a white balaclava and holding a garden hoe was peering inside through a nearby window.
I'll be your mirror (Reflect what you are)
It was all too much for Ron to handle. He fell backward onto a suddenly appearing canopy bed and curled up on it. For the first time in all of this, Kim could be seen in the visions. But unlike the others, it was more like a rapidfire slideshow of headshots of different Kim Possibles.
He saw Kims with different hairstyles, like one with a mohawk and another with it still held up in twin tails. He saw Kims wearing wildly varying outfits, such as a . But it went so far beyond that, and pushed the boundaries of who he'd recognize as Kim Possible; There were Kims with different hair and eye colors such as jet black with icy blue and platinum blond with smoky brown. There were Kims of different ethnicities altogether, such as one who was Polynesian and another who was an at least partially indigenous Brazilian. The most shocking of all were Kims who weren't even human at all, including an anthropomorphic vixen who had blue fur and a human-like alien with orange skin and two long, fleshy appendages in place of her hair.
"looK up, monkeY boY." a new, disembodied voice commanded.
Ron obeyed and uncurled himself so he could lay back on the mattress and see what was above of him. The roof of the canopy bed was a massive mirror and, in it, Ron saw his reflection. All this time he had felt like his regular, contemporary self, but the mirror showed him that he was currently a teenager again, this time with a crew cut shorter than any he'd ever had and in a football team jacket. This jacket wasn't the purple and cream jacket with red trim that he wore as the Mad Dogs runningback, but a red one with black and white trim and letters that spelled out 'TWIN PEAKS STEEPLEJACKS'.
"Mb wzw hslfow urmzoob gib zigrxslpv wrk." Ron levitated upward towards the mirror and, once he was close enough, closed and kissed his own reflection.
St. Seiya's Hospital, Upperton
Ron awoke in a cold sweat in a hospital bed and shook his head. He looked around the room and then down his own legs, where he saw Rufus sleeping on a blanket pulled over them.
"Son!" he heard a familiar voice across the room.
Ron's father, who had been sitting in a chair by the room's window, rushed over to his boy's side. He looked so relieved to see him awake. This awoke Rufus too, and the lively rodent beamed with joy to see that Ron was awake.
"…Dad?" Ron blinked a few times. "Where am I? What happened?"
"All I know is tha—"
Naked Mole Rap! Aw Yeah! Uh huh! It's the Naked Mole Rap!
Mr. Stoppable been cut off by his own son's wacky song, which he'd set up as a ringtone. Ron's cellphone was vibrating on a bedside table as his own singing voice came from it. Ron grabbed it and answered only because he was hoping it was Kim, even if the screen didn't display her contact photo.
"Stoppable!" Ned from Bueno Nacho sobbed so loud that you'd assume the phone was on Speaker mode. "They're trying to expand the 'Viva la England Too' menu and make it last for the rest of the year! They want the kids' meal to be a kedgeree stuffed tamale! They want there to be fish and fungi milkshakes with cilantro whipped cream! Do you not hear me?! Speak to me, Possible! They're going to destroy us all! They're pure evil! God has forsaken us!"
Ned then took a long, much needed yet still awkward pause.
"Oh, and uhh…" Ned spoke up again. "I also heard there's an evil version of your girlfriend running around trying to commit murder. So…I now realize this was a bad time to call. Umm…Toodles."
The call then ended on Ned's end. Ron, Mr. Stoppable, and Rufus all looked at each other blankly.
"So…That was…yeah…" Mr. Stoppable tugged at the collar of his shirt. "...Let me go get us some coffee. For a hospital cafeteria, this place has a damn fine cup of coffee."
In the hall outside, a dark haired, Latino hospital volunteer was carrying a pitcher of water and some clean towels couldn't help but overhear, and he smiled to himself. Even though they had yet to meet proper, he was glad to Ron had made it. Still, the conflict was far from over. With that in mind, he continued on his way to TJ Detweiler's room. There was still work to be done.
I debated whether or not to include my Notes breaking down things like references and the like, and I wasn't sure why I was until the thought occurred to me that explaining everything is exactly what Twin Peaks WOULDN'T do. I mean, yeah, I do have some actual intention behind (parts of) what I showed/had happen, but why not at least give you guys the chance to interpret it in your own way for now? Besides, I feel like those of you who are/were fans of Kim Possible and/or Twin Peaks probably don't need me to explain, say, how the blue fox Kim was a call back to the episode "Animal Attraction" or that the Steeplejacks were the Twin Peaks high school football team. But if you do have questions about what the heck you just read, odds are I'll probably spill the details anyway if you ask me in PMs either here or on the IC Discord.
(Oh, but because I don't want to take song lyrics without crediting the source, the song sung by the fish is "I'll Be Your Mirror" by The Velvet Underground.)
Thanks for reading!
Dedicated to the memory of David Lynch (194-2025)