The new Ron - Chapter 37

“Okay, kids! We're almost there!” Ann Possible, Kim's mother, called from the front seat of the family minivan.

“Thanks Mrs. Dr. P!”/”Thanks Mom!”/”Thank you, ma'am!”

The expressed gratitude came from myself, Kim, and Tara respectively.

“Okay, last minute review!” Kim stated, turning to look at myself and Tara. “Tara, this is your first villain...ish mission.”

“Ish. Very ish,” I nodded, Rufus concurring on my shoulder.

Tara giggled.

“Adrena Lynn isn't trying to take over the world or anything,” Kim clarified. “This is one of those 'personal vendetta' type sitches that we have to deal with from time to time. Like Ron's nemesis.”

“Outside of bragging rights, mystical monkey power isn't really worth the hassle,” I sighed.

Tara giggled again and both Possibles had visible trouble keeping a smile off their faces.

“Anyway!” Kim stated loudly, bringing the meeting back to order as she held up the Kimmunicator for us to view.

“-and if Kim Possible doesn't want me to get FREAKY with her BFF here-”

Lynn's camera operator pivoted to show a struggling Bonnie Rockwaller tied up and gagged in a roller coaster cab. “-she'll come to the Middleton Fairgrounds ASAP! Better hurry Kimmie!”

After that, Kim pulled the small screen away and hit mute as the message began to loop back to the beginning, thankfully. I say 'thankfully,' because the first five minutes of the message were a rant on how she'd been cheated out of her television spot, the producers hadn't let her do her own stunts even though she'd wanted to, and a bunch of other stuff.

“She's obviously fixated on me,” Kim stated, rolling her eyes. “So I'm going to give her what she wants and... I don't know if she's planning to fight me or do some kind of... stunt-off competition for the cameras.”

“Which means that we-” I gestured between Tara and myself. “-are on-task to secure the hostage and handle any minions or henchmen. That probably means you go for Bonnie and I run interference between you and anyone trying to stop you.”

Tara nodded energetically, then paused. “Uh... on the note of villain-ish, do you expect her to have anyone like that? I mean, where does a fired tv star get henchmen?”

“To be perfectly honest, we barely have any clue how most of our established villains get half the things they do,” Kim replied wearily, shaking her head. “Lynn will probably still have access to the people who helped her set up her stunts, though. Or may have personal funds to hire some local toughs who don't know what they're in for.”

“Playing devil's advocate, she may have lied to any network employees and conned them into helping her by saying this is all a media stunt to get better ratings,” I pointed out. “I'm sure some unethical broadcasters have done worse to get more people to tune in, so it's not out of the question.”

Kim sighed. “I hate how plausible that is.”

“But you'll be handling them, right?” My girlfriend asked. To her credit, there was only a small shred of anxiety visible on her face as she probed me for reassurance.

“I make a very capable rodeo clown, don't worry,” I grinned.

Kim snorted.

“Rodeo clown?” Ann asked from the front seat as she glanced at us in the rear-view mirror. “I've never heard you say anything like that, Ron.”

“It's not exact, but what they do for cowboys and what I do for Kim have a lot of overlap,” I explained. “I tend to run around and distract the henchmen while Kim confronts the Big Bad. It's basically like if a rodeo clown had to deal with... two to three dozen angry bulls that all came equipped with laser staves or stun batons.”

“Oh my! Well, that's quite impressive. Tara-dear, I do hope you're ready for some challenges going on these missions. I don't mean to discourage you, but I've seen news stories about Kimmie and Ronald's missions before, and they're no laughing matter.” Ann Possible warned.

I reached out and grasped Tara's hand as Kim responded to her mother. “We'll watch each other's backs, Mom. And it's not like we're throwing her into the deep end, either. If something does happen, she's free to take a break or back out, too.”

Tara took a deep breath and shook her head. “Thank you, Mrs. Possible, but I really want to do this. I've always thought that I could be doing more when I watched Kim and Ron run off to go save some village in Nepal or fight a villain in Omaha or something-”

I clicked my tongue as Kim shivered. Rufus, on the other hand, stilled and twitched at the name of the last location, an echo of mutually shared trauma.

Omaha.

“What's... with the looks?” Tara asked, obviously catching onto the sudden shift in the mood.

“We just... don't go to Omaha anymore. Not if we can help it,” Kim said, reaching up to massage the bridge of her nose.

I sighed and rubbed at my eyes. “There was this guy... ugh, the handle he used was... Captain Saicin.”

At the name, Rufus squeaked and burrowed into my pants pocket.

“Captain... Saicin?” Tara asked, sounding the word out awkwardly.

“It's a play on the word 'capsaicin,' which is the chemical that makes hot sauce 'hot,'” Kim explained.

Tara blinked, looking between us as the car rolled to a stop in the deserted parking lot outside the off-season fairgrounds. “Wait... I thought you both liked hot sauce? Ron certainly puts a lot of it on his Bueno Nacho orders.”

“Eating hot sauce is perfectly fine,” Kim stated with a groan.

I rolled back the minivan's door and stepped out. “Swimming in it is not. At all.”

“Swimming in-” Ann spoke up from the driver's seat. “Kim! Is that the reason why we had to replace the washing machine last year!? The repair man said it smelled like someone poured rocket fuel into the machine! We blamed your brothers!”

“Sorry Mom, gotta go save my classmate from a vengeful tv personality!” Kim called, all false cheer as she dove out of the car and grabbed my hand with her left and Tara's with her right.

“Kimberly Anne Possible! We'll talk about this when you get home, young lady!” Mrs. Dr. P called as the middle door of the car slid shut behind us.

“I told you we should have just burned those outfits,” I couldn't help but say.

“And I told you that my favorite top! I had to at least try to save it before trashing it!” Kim whined argued back. “And bras are expensive!”

Snorting, I looked to Tara as an aside. “This was before we standardized mission outfits.” I paused. “Actually, this was a big reason why we standardized mission outfits.”

Tara giggled. “Someday we're going to have to go to Omaha. I really want to hear the entire story!”

I barked a laugh at the same time as Kim.

“Not a chance.” / “No way!”

Grinning, Kim and I high-fived each other as Tara pouted. “Oh, come on! It sounds really interesting!”

I shook my head. “Look, T... part of the badness with the mission was that we weren't totally not to blame for the whole 'swimming in salsa' incident. It was one of our early 'Big Time' missions and things got... messy.”

“Messy enough to ruin the washing machine and blame Kim's brothers, apparently,” Tara snorted with a grin.

“In my defense, I had cheer camp the week after the mission and didn't even hear about it until after I came back. Then it didn't even occur to me that the salsa might have done it, 'cause it totally sounds like something the tweebs would do-” Kim ranted as we made our way towards the entryway of the fairgrounds.

“Fair,” Tara conceded after a moment's thought.

“-and until Ron brought it up that the salsa might smell like rocket fuel as a joke, I didn't think it was our fault!” Kim sighed, finally dropping our hands as we made it through the front gates. Off to the side was a discarded length of chain and a broken lock that made it clear the road had been paved for us to come in without any trouble. “By that point it was just too late to bring it up and, besides, I didn't know for sure it was our fault anyway.”

“Maybe we should-” I started.

“Well, well, well! If it isn't KIM POSSIBLE!” A blonde woman shouted from the top of a large funhouse building as the lights around us snapped on, bathing the entire park in bright light. “Let's GET FREAKY, Kimmie!”

“So Not, Ever!” Kim cried, taking up a fighting stance. “You've got me here, Adrenna Lynn! Now, let Bonnie go!”

“Sure, what do I care about your little bestie?” Lynn asked, her grin growing to the point where it was obviously unhinged. “Oh, wait! She's your friend! I guess that's reason enough! Hank, let her roll!”

My head jerked to the right, in the direction of the rollercoaster, my eyes locking onto the sole mechanical noise rising above otherwise silent mechanical amusements. “Tara, c'mon! Kim, you've got Lynn!”

My girlfriend fell into lockstep behind me as we raced towards the looping metal snake and it's single passenger. Thankfully, it wasn't too far from the entrance, though between us and it...

Two burly men wearing blue jean jumpsuits (I'd seen weirder) assumed crouched positions as if they were ready to wrestle in a sumo match. One of them locked eyes with me. “Can't let ya' go any further, boy.”

“Tara! Boosted flying forward somersault!” I called out, crouching ahead of her.

“R-right!” The blonde girl trailing me replied, instincts and training taking over as she she jumped up, landing her feet on my shoulders before I stood. Tara caught my momentum as I rose and added it into a second jump, sending her flying forwards and overhead, landing on the raised platform of the rollercoaster.

“Oh fer fuck's-” The other of the two men called out, his long black hair whipping around as his head spun to follow Tara through the air. “Johnny, you get-!”

Then, because he was facing away from me, I landed on his back and knocked the air out of his lungs. “Oops! Sorry guys, but can't let you bother my girlfriend. You know the deal, right?”

Which, to be perfectly honest, I could have simply springboarded off this first guy and taken out the second without bantering, but...

 Well this was about as low-stakes as Tara would ever get for a debut mission against a 'villain.' While it probably didn't feel like it, with Bonnie in danger and everything, the reality was that everyone a villain kidnapped had friends and family. While I might be more than a bit cynical about The Great Game as far as heroes and villains in this world went, there was always the chance for actual, real life-threatening danger. Sure, most villains played with kid-gloves, like how anyone worth the title didn't use standard firearms in an effort to flex on the regular criminal populace, but even Drakken's stun-staves could be deadly in a freak accident.

I'd taken in the rollercoaster at a glance and, while it was the off-season and it probably hadn't undergone maintenance in a while, the track looked to be in good shape. Add onto that, Lynn probably hadn't had the time or expertise to sabotage the ride given how minimal the help she had was, the amount of time kidnapping Bonnie and transporting her would have taken, plus the required time to film her video and hack the broadcast. Plus any time to actually plan this whole thing and whatever needed to be spent on mistakes or hangups.

Eh, I'd put it at even-odds, at least.

Moreover, and most importantly, I was here to help her. For that matter, Kim was too. Lynn, as we'd told Tara, wasn't exactly a challenge for either Kim or myself, no matter what she thought.

So, as Tara ran up to the slowly moving line of roller coaster cars, I faced off against the still-standing henchman and the other who was beginning to try to throw me off.

“Look, kid. I don't care who you think you are, but you're getting in the way of us getting our dicks wet, so back the fuck off and take your little girlfriend out of here,” the one I'd heard called Johnny warned me, holding up his fists warningly.

My mouth worked up and down soundlessly for a moment.

In the distance I could hear Lynn begin to laugh like a hyena as something blew up. After the explosion cleared, though, Kim's voice yelled back with something angry and nasty.

Hank, the guy who was under my feet, cursed and tried to throw me off again.

Reflexively, I performed the 'monkey stomp' technique and buried the man's head into the ground to muffle his voice.

“Y-you're... doing this for... sex?” I asked, blinking at the other man.

In the distance, I heard Bonnie begin to yell. That was a good sign that Tara had managed to accomplish something. Even with the pair of them beginning to scream as the sound of the mechanical coaster began to build on itself.

“Why else would we do it?!” Johnny demanded in disbelief. “Dude! Do you know how much shit I've taken from that bitch the last six months!? I'll take any chance I have to, to take it out on her sweet ass!”

I inhaled deeply, then sighed. “I honestly can't decide whether that's the most reasonable or stupidest motivation for henching I've ever heard.”

Johnny rolled his eyes. “Yeah, so? What's that mean to me?”

“It means I'm out of witty banter,” I replied, then moved.

I kept low to the ground, throwing myself lengthwise, my closed fists hitting the dirt as I caught my weight on them and pulled my legs up close to my chest. Then, forward momentum achieved, I pulled my arms up from between my legs and shoved my feet together at the point of contact between myself and my enemy. Johnny took the balls of my feet straight to his solarplexius.

Then, I bounced off just as he began to puke his guts out.

And, to add insult to injury, landed in a handstand on the guy I'd downed before, knocking him back into the dirt from where he'd begun to rise to all fours.

Another flip brought me to the guardrails outside the rollercoaster, where I glimpsed the line of cars climbing up the long hill. It was only halfway up, so...

I spared a glance at Rufus, his head poking out of my pocket at the sudden acrobatics, then pointed at the controls. “How about you go gum up the works, Rufus? I'll get to the girls and make sure they're safe.”

Rufus, to his credit, didn't try to bargain this time. Instead, the naked mole rat squeaked and jumped out of his home away from home to run off to the console a few feet away.

Meanwhile, I looked up at the ascending cars with my girlfriend and her BFF and sighed. “I'll give her a black mark for training, but honestly I've done stupider crap.”

I sprung off the fence, grabbing onto the metal scaffolding holding up the tracks and swinging like a chimp to launch myself higher. Grabbing another, I focused on that inexplicable sense of 'Return to Monke' that dwelled within me to pick out branch-

No branches, that's too far. I'm not in a jungle buddy.

Loop, spring, jump, catch, climb-

One final vertical spin to catch as much momentum as I could before launching myself as high as I'd ever been under my own muscle power and landing in the final car of the train as we entered the final ascent.

“Ron!? Is that you?” Tara yelled back.

“On my way, Babe!” I replied.

“Stoppable?! Get me the hell off this thing! I hate coasters!” Bonnie added.

I rolled my eyes and began climbing over seat after seat towards the front row where Tara and Bonnie were sitting. “I'll take that under advisement!”

“Oh shit! R-Ron, sweetie? We've got a problem!” Tara yelled again.

“What's... oh. Well, fuck.” I shook my head as I got up to the front row and realized I'd made one great mistake in judging Adrena Lynn.

Villain-ish.

Which meant she didn't play by the rules like a proper villain would.

I clicked my tongue at the bomb vest wrapped around Bonnie with wires threaded through the safety harness she'd been strapped into, then glanced at how much further we had to go and pulled out a knife. “Tara, strap yourself in right now! That's an order!”

“Stoppable, what are you-!?” Bonnie cried directly in my ear as I reached down and began to cut. “Hey, watch it! That's not the wires!”

“No time,” I muttered, stepping over the divide between the car behind her and the one she was in to get a better angle. “Don't know the bomb, can't study it, that means one thing.”

“I liked that top! Perv!” Bonnie shouted.

“B, I love you but shut the fuck up!” Tara replied equally loudly. “It's the clothes or your life!”

I didn't glance at the track, but knew I was running out of time. Reaching down between Bonnie's legs, I sliced two more long cuts in her skirt before beginning to quickly – but carefully! - pull the fabric free... and take the explosives strapped to it with them. Then threading them through the harness and-

I felt the cars come to a sudden stop at the apex of the ride.

I looked between Tara, Bonnie, the bomb suit, and the long, long fall we were facing.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I jumped.

“Roooo~ooooon!” Tara cried, just as the coaster began to drop, drawing her scream out in twain with Bonnie's own.

One hand holding the bomb suit enmeshed with Bonnie's clothes, I tossed it up in the best arc I could figure on such short notice before catching myself on one of the same crossbars I'd used to catapult myself up the ride. Spinning myself on the horizontal bar, I lashed out with a monkey-kick and sent the explosive soaring over the park while I caught another piece of the structure to try to get myself down-

“BOOOOM!”

The deafening explosion created a sudden sun in the dark night sky above the fairgrounds, distracting me momentarily and making me miss my planned grab.

“Fuck-fuck-fuck-” I muttered, shifting my grab to one of the vertical poles instead. I would have preferred to go straight down, but I was getting too much momentum to do it safely at this point. Instead, I sung myself sideways and let myself fall on a curve, catching more bars in a panic as I went.

“Baddaybaddaybadday!” I cried, coming down too fast and-

I blinked, coming out of the networks of support beams and into open air. Well, that was it, I was completely and utterly fuc-

“Lamppost!” I shouted, grabbing for the steel rod like a life raft in a storm and spinning once, twice, three-

My sweat-slicked fingers lost their grip and I went flying, only to come down hard on something that cried out in pain.

I stilled for a long moment, just blinking up at the sky, absently noting the squeal of mechanical breaks in the direction of the coaster.

Then a red headed angel leaned over, blocking my view. “Ron? You okay?”

My jaw worked silently for a moment. “Monkey Kung-Fu is the fruit of a poisoned tree, Kim. Cursed fruit. Cursed fruit.”

“Yeah, you're okay,” Kim snorted, reaching down to pull me up. “And, hey, thanks for catching Lynn. She was pulling a runner after she lost the contest she dragged me into. What was that explosion, anyway?”

I looked down and saw the unconscious form of the former stunt-woman, then shook my head. “Oh, yeah. She strapped a bomb to Bonnie. That's why Tara couldn't get her out of the coaster before it started rolling out.”

Kim's jaw dropped. “She WHAT?!”

~~~

Here we go, this chapter mostly brings the adventure of Adrena Lynn to a close. Next chapter will feature some clean up regarding the fallout of what happens here.

This time around, Ron gets a big chance to be a badass while Kim confronts the villain. The day is saved, but Bonnie's dignity bore the brunt of the cost.

Also, Adrenna Lynn is a bit less stable than anyone remembers.

Otherwise, I hope everyone's having a good weekend and enjoying the leadup to Halloween!