Barkin brought the Humvee to a screeching halt as Bonnie screeched even louder than the brakes - there, impossibly, blocking the street in front of them entirely, was an enormous black dragon, with its vast wings spread wide, it's eyes glowing with a fierce red light, and scorching flames billowing from its jaws.
"WENSLEYDALE CHEESE AND GLUTEN-FREE CRACKERS!" bellowed Barkin in shock, as the cigar fell from his lips. "What the shit is that?"
"DO SOMETHING, MR. B!" shrieked Bonnie as she suddenly jumped from her seat and threw her arms around him in terror. Barkin's airway was completely choked off and he began to gasp as Bonnie's (surprisingly) strong limbs began to crush him in a death grip.
"MAKE IT GO AWAY! MAKE ALL THIS WEIRD CRAP STOP! PLEASE MAKE IT STOP! PLEASE MAKE IT STOP! PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE MAKE IT STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP!"
"R-Rockwaller...g...get off...m-me!-" he stuttered as his vision began to get blurry from a lack of oxygen. Spots began to appear before his eyes as Bonnie's steely grip around his tree trunk of a neck only continued to grow tighter. The bones in his cervical vertebrae began to crackle.
And then Bonnie began to scream. And scream. And scream. AND scream.
Not even the heavy artillery that Barkin had used in the Marines was as loud as Rockwaller's vocal cords. She sounded like a banshee in a wind tunnel. An angry drunk banshee.
"WE'RE GONNA DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEE!" she caterwauled as the dragon looked ready to incinerate them, Humvee and all, in a blazing firestorm.
But then, as suddenly as flicking a light switch, the dragon vanished into thin air.
"...huh?" they said.
Barkin and Bonnie blinked, looked at each other and then gave out cries of disgust as both of them shoved each other away.
"Oh my god, it disappeared...it disappeared!" cried Bonnie gleefully. "We did it! WE DID IT!"
"No, YOU did it!" snarled Barkin. "Looks like that voice of yours scared it away!"
"Like, what's wrong with my voice, Mr. B?" snapped Bonnie with a snarky glance, while quickly losing her respect for Barkin all over again. "That was, like, totally uncalled-for!"
"Good lord, Rockwaller..." wheezed Barkin as he rubbed his neck and pointed at Bonnie's dainty, yet powerful arms. "With guns like those, you should try out for the wrestling team..."
"Uh, Mr. B., we don't HAVE a girl's wrestling team."
"Exactly."
There was a sudden tap on the passenger's side window.
With a shriek, Bonnie jumped back into Barkin's lap and latched onto him like a tick. She started to scream again until Barkin threatened to gag her with an oil-soaked rag.
"Um...excuse me?" came a muted voice from outside the window.
"Uh..y-yeah?" answered Bonnie fearfully, her face pale and her teeth chattering. "Wh-what do you want? Because if you try to hurt me, I'm going to have my bodyguard here put so MANY holes in you, that you'll look like a friggin-"
"I am NOT your damn bodyguard, Rockwaller!" roared Barkin. "And furthermore...GET THE HELL OFF OF ME!"
"It's alright!" continued the voice from outside. "That dragon was only a hologram from my computer! Sorry I did that, but I had to get your attention somehow. I've got an emergency on my hands, and I REALLY need a ride!"
"What?" exploded Bonnie, as she rolled down the window and prepared to give the stranger a piece of her mind, or rather, a heaping helping of it. Barkin noted with some amusement that Bonnie's face was now looking even scarier than the dragon's had been.
She stuck her head out the window into the cold misty air and went off into a wild tirade against the stranger.
"YOU IDIOT!" she roared. "You scared us half to death with that stupid fake dragon thingie just so that you could...oh. It's you..."
Bonnie's fiery eyes looked down at Kim's personal tech wizard Wade as if she were a queen dealing with some filthy peasant.
"Uh, yeah...h-hi" replied Wade in shock, feeling as though gale-force winds had just blown forth from Bonnie's mouth.
"Yeah, it's you...Waldo or whatever" Bonnie muttered. She rolled her eyes and sighed as she sized him up, which didn't take too long, given his less-than-generous height. Seriously, how old WAS this kid, anyway? Seemed a bit strange that someone of Kim's social standing was seemingly hanging out with toddlers.
"Actually, my name's Wade."
"Yeah, whatever" she snapped with another eyeroll. "So, what do you want? This had BETTER be good! My bodyguard and I are, like, SUPER busy with some-"
"Look, I don't have time to explain!" cried Wade angrily, cutting off Bonnie. "I need to get over to Kim's place right now! There's something VERY wrong going on tonight, and-"
There was a sudden, blinding flash of red light that shot into the sky several blocks away (right around Kim's house), followed by a blue flash, and then red again. The light show appeared to be picking up intensity, as well as noise, as now each flash was followed with a deep rumbling boom not unlike distant thunder.
"See what I mean?" yelled Wade as he pointed towards the blazing colors out in the mist. "We've got to get going NOW!"
Wade suddenly wrinkled his nose and cast a cockeyed look at Bonnie.
"Wait...did you just call Mr. Steven Barkin your bodyguard?" he asked with a chuckle.
"She wishes" growled Barkin, as he frowned at Wade. "Get in here, Willy. You're in luck, since we're on our way over to Possible's place as it is."
"Yeah, uh, my name is actually Wade-"
"Get in the backseat, Rockwaller!" snarled Barkin, completely ignoring Wade as Bonnie glared at him in surprise. "You've just been demoted. Make some room for Willy."
"What?"
"MOVE IT!"
"Okay, okay!"
Wade just sighed as he opened the door, tucked his laptop under his arm and then crawled into the front passenger seat as Bonnie clambered into the back (he distinctly heard Bonnie mutter "asshole" under her breath, though Barkin clearly heard it too. Not that he cared. Better an asshole than a bodyguard.)
Barkin reached down to the floor to retrieve his smoldering cigar and then placed it back between his teeth. He grinned crazily at the prospect of another battle in the near future.
"I feel the need...for SPEED!" he roared as pressed the accelerator to the floor, both Wade and Bonnie being flung back into their seats as the humvee issued forth like a bat out of hell.
"This isn't Top Gun, you meathead!" thought Bonnie as she crossed her arms and slumped down into her seat with a scowl. "And you're sure as hell no Tom Cruise!"
This time, Ron really had gone too far.
His little 'vampire dentures' crack he had made towards Kali had finally pushed her rage over the edge, as her face contorted with a level of fury that made Kim shiver in terror.
"Oh no!" Ron teased with a sly grin, as he uncrossed his arms and took up an attack stance, sending pulsing blue waves of energy into the foggy night sky. "Did I touch a nerve, Kali? Wanna' talk about it? If you need some counseling, I'm willing to pay for the first session with the local shrink-"
Kali opened her jaws frighteningly wide and then roared like some beast from the pits of hell, as trickles of blood ran down from her burning eyes. Playtime was over and murder was imminent.
She had walked this earth for nearly four hundred years, and not once had she ever met an opponent who had displayed this much blatant disrespect...
...or power...
"RON, STOP!" cried Kim from Klaus's arms, as he giggled shrilly. "You might be powerful, but you're not invincible! Please stop pushing her buttons before-"
There was a deep rumbling boom like thunder underground as Kali's body suddenly erupted in flames, casting a throbbing blood red glow that could be seen for miles - the very same glow that Bonnie, Mr. Barkin and Wade were witnessing from just several blocks away. Her fangs and claws grew hideously long and sharp, and her muscle mass, already shapely and well-toned, suddenly bulked up to frightening proportions. But then, an enormous pair of pale blue leathery bat's wings sprouted from her shoulders, the wingspan nearly twenty feet across as she spread them to their maximum length, flapped them with hurricane-force winds as the flames ran down them and covered them in burning sheets, and then with a bestial roar, took to the air.
"Bravo, bravo Miss Kali!" cried Klaus exuberantly. "Always a treat seeing your true form come to the fore! I'd clap my hands if they weren't full!"
"Ron...Ron, what have you done?" whispered Kim in horror as she watched the furious vampire woman flapping her wings and hovering in the misty night sky above them, now a hellish red color from the flames her body was generating. Kali's dark beauty had completely melted away and had been replaced with a monstrous demonic visage, her face now more like that of a deformed rabid bat's than a gorgeous young woman's.
Kim slowly turned her head to face Klaus', and once again asked him, "Who...are...you...people?"
Klaus did not answer but continued to grin eerily.
Meanwhile, Tim and Jim, who had been watching the fight from the front window, were holding their smartphones up to the glass and recording every little thing that was taking place.
"This is...the coolest thing...that I have ever seen..." said Tim as his eyes glazed over with wonder.
"Even cooler than when that rocket we launched from the backyard broke off George Washington's nose on Mount Rushmore, and it took them a month to fix it?" asked Jim.
"Totally..."
"Uh...do you still wanna' take down the webcomic?" asked Jim as he continued to record. "Cause' if Kim finds out..."
"We'll do it later, dude..." answered Tim.
"Yeah, heh heh...later..." said Jim with a smile as they watched Kali turn the sky as bright as day with the sorcerous flames she had summoned up.
Enough is enough, though Kali, as she gazed down at Ron, who was making funny faces and sticking out his tongue at her. This little fool had insulted and degraded her for the final time - and now he would suffer dearly for it. She imagined that little Miss Possible would likely be an emotional crying mess after she had reduced Ron to bloody paste, but no matter. After all, they had been ordered to retrieve Kim Possible by any means necessary...
...and that was the key phrase...by any means necessary...
"Ron, be careful!" shouted Kim, as Klaus continued to laugh. "I think you just might have-"
"Ha! You kind of look like that Demona chick from Gargoyles!" laughed Ron, not worried or frightened in the slightest as he watched Kali's body burning as bright as the sun. "I mean, if Demona had been hit by a semi-truck, set on fire, and then pelted by chimpanzee dung at the zoo-"
Kali gave out an earsplitting roar of hate and launched herself at Ron with her full power. She flew down towards him with the force of a flaming comet, Kim actually feeling waves of heat emanating from Kali's body as the cold mist cleared, the temperature became sweltering, and the entire neighborhood became a bright red hellscape. Kali opened her mouth wide, revealing not just her fangs, but row after row of sharp teeth within her jaws like that of a great white shark, looking as though she wasn't simply going to kill Ron, but devour him entirely.
"Oh my God..." whispered Kim under her breath in horror, "she going to kill him...she's going to kill us all..."
"COOL!" cried Tim and Jim as they continued to capture the whole battle with their phones.
Kali swooped down and blazed a fiery path across the front lawns of their neighbors as she zeroed in on Ron like a missile locked on its target.
"FALL TO THE DEEPEST, BLACKEST PITS OF THE NINE HELLS!" she screamed, now in a voice deep and masculine, no longer resembling at all the pleasant, charming tone she had attempted to seduce him with.
"Moment of truth, little hero!" called Klaus mockingly (as Kim prepared to tear herself away from his grip and fight him off, even if she didn't have a ghost of a chance for victory.) "I am simply shivering with anticipation at the outcome of this little skirmish!"
Still smiling and not showing the slightest trace of fear - or even anger - Ron's blue aura became as blinding as Kali's as he readied himself for her raging onslaught.
In less than a second, Kali had crossed over the Possible's front lawn, shooting past Klaus and Kim like a burning meteorite as she finally went in for the kill...
...or so she thought...
Faster than lightning, Ron leapt into the air and performed the absolute mother of all roundhouse kicks, his foot connecting squarely with Kali's abdomen with a loud, sickening crack.
Kali's flames went out, the sky darkened once again, and the temperatures dropped back to icy.
Kim gasped in shock.
Tim and Jim said words that would have gotten them grounded until they were the legal majority.
"Hmmm..." said Klaus.
With an enraged shriek, Kali was knocked back towards the Possible home by the unearthly force of Ron's blow. Tim and Jim had just enough time get out of the way as Kali flew though the large front window, shattering the glass into a million splintered pieces as she sailed across the foyer and slammed into the stairway with a deafening crash.
Her gigantic wings retracted back into her body and the burning red glow in her eyes went out.
Kali, the great creature of the night who had lived for centuries by feasting on the blood of the living, had been defeated by a seventeen-year-old kid who had a phobia of lawn gnomes.
"...Imp-...impossible..." she croaked in a thin whisper, her face frozen in stunned amazement as Tim and Jim delicately tiptoed over to the woman, lying at the bottom of the stairs in a disorderly heap. "Defeated...by some mere, filthy mortal..."
"Uh, h-hi lady!" stammered Tim with a nervous grin, as he recorded her on his phone.
"Need an ice pack?" asked Jim.
"K.O.!" shouted Ron (who hadn't even broken a sweat) with a fierce fist pump. "The Ronster takes out the trash yet again!" he laughed.
"Dear me, this is a most unforeseen conclusion!" mused Klaus, not that Kim even heard him, as she was still far too dumbfounded by the earthshattering change that had come over Ron.
"He...he did it...he actually did it!" she whispered as her frightened face changed into a huge grin of victory. "He actually won against that monster Kali..."
"Yes, it would certainly appear that way!" chirped Klaus.
"YOU DID IT, RON!" she cried as her voice cracked with emotion. "WAY TO GO! NOW, LET'S-"
"Miss Possible, this has been a most amusing and delicious diversion, but I am afraid we must be on our way!" said Klaus cheerfully, as he suddenly - to Kim's utter surprise - gently put her down on her feet. For a moment, she was too stunned to even say a word, and it took several moments to find her voice again.
"Y-you're...you're letting me go? Seriously?" asked Kim in wonder, as she steeled herself for a fight. "Okay, Mr. Klaus...what are you up to?"
"Would you please excuse me for just a moment, my dear?" asked Klaus, "it seems that I am tasked with acting as a 'referee', as it were!" And then to Kim's surprise, Klaus teleported from standing in front of her to standing in front of Ron.
"Hello again, young man!" greeted Klaus with a small bow, moments after he re-materialized before Ron. "Congratulations on your victory against Miss Kali, master Stoppable! I would present you with a medal for valor if I could, but alas, I am running a bit light on awards and prizes!"
Ron's blue aura was stronger than ever, shooting a brilliant column of light into the sky as he cracked his knuckles and smirked down at Klaus, who was a full head shorter than him and Kim.
"Don't worry about it, my dude!" laughed Ron. "But it looks like the Ronster's chores aren't over just yet! I might have tossed out the trash, but I still have to take out the recyclables...and that, my little dude, would be YOU-"
But then, with speed even faster than Kali's, Klaus punched Ron in the stomach.