What's the Hitch? – a Trinity Sitch Interlude
"Ronald, you are grounded."
Anne Possible said as she pulled the thermometer from Ron's mouth and checked it. The mercury was reading 101°, though anyone who had eyes could tell the poor boy was sick.
"Mrs. Dr. P…" kaff, kaff "…I don't get sick!"
"Of course you do. You just wait until everybody else has been sick around you and you choose from the very strongest of the germs to get sick on. Plus, I told you. Call me Mom or I'm going to bring the other kind of thermometer over next time."
"Yes, Mom." He sniffed, pulling the covers up over his reddened nose.
"Ron, don't be such a baby." Kim said from nearby, her arms crossed. With the exception of an occasional cough, she was already over her cold. She knew this was coming. Her mother was right, every time enough people around them got sick, it eventually worked its way to Ron, and, if any germ was strong enough to get through his rather good immune system, it was strong enough to wreak havoc on him.
"Well, Kimmie, would you like me to make up the bed in the spare room, or do you want to come home and sleep in your old room for a few nights?" her mother asked with a sly smile.
"I…er…uh."
"It's alright Kim. It's pretty obvious that 'your' room hasn't been used much recently, if at all. There's nothing to be ashamed of. Your are twenty-one after all."
"It's just, we, you know, uh."
"Uh huh." She nodded once more, the smile never wavering.
Kim and Ron had gotten their apartment at the start of their Senior year at Middleton University. They made a point with their parents that they were going to be roommates, at least until their wedding. They had even (finally) set a date: the 4th of July later that year, following graduation at the end of May.
Old habits died hard, so there had always been the pretense that Kim had her own room. Apparently she never heard when her father asked Ron "When are you going to make an honest woman out of my Kimmie-cub?" Then again, maybe she heard it, it just somehow didn't sink in.
Her father's and Ron's relationship had come a long way from the days he would threaten to send him into high orbit if he did anything to sully Kim's virtue.
Kim's bracelet started chirping insistently.
Beep-Beep-De-Beep!
"One of these days, we're going to have to get a new ring-tone." Ron said wearily.
"Ron!" she said to hush him as she touched the answer key on her latest Kimmunicator. "What's the sitch, wade?"
"How's the cold, Kim?" a holographic projection of Wade emitted by her bracelet asked?
"Much better, thank you!"
"Has it hit he-who-never-gets-sick yet?"
Ron chose that moment to start hacking. Anne made him sit up in the bed and started patting his back, making him drink a glass of water.
"I'll take that was a definite yes." Wade admitted. "You up to taking one on alone Kim?"
"What is it?"
"It's Shego. I intercepted a coded message that she's got something planned for you. Something about your worst nightmare."
Kim frowned. She hadn't seen Sherry in months and she had assumed they had buried the hatchet years ago. "Where is she?" she asked in a low voice.
"She's in the old Mt. Middleton lair. Satellite scans show a lot of recent activity there, plus I've got some pretty solid scans on her. Kim, that means she's powered up again."
"Okay, Wade, I'm on it. Warm up the cruiser for me."
"You got it." The hologram winked off as she went into a walk-in closet to change into her mission suit.
"Kim, you're not going alone." Her mother said from her seat on the bed.
"Mom, I'd think you would be the last person on Earth who would let Ron go on a mission in that condition."
"Of course not. I'm talking about me."
Kim stood in the door of the closet, he blouse half undone.
"Mom, do you have any idea how dangerous Shego can be?"
"I know exactly how much damage she has actually managed to do to you over the years. I also know you are not at one-hundred percent right now."
"I'm fine." She protested, stifling a sniff.
"I also think I'm one of the last people she would harm. I delivered her baby for goodness sake…Kim! No using the Puppy-Dog-Pout on me!"
Kim's lower lip slowly pulled back in. "Fine. Just put on one of my spare suits… please?"
"Of course, dear." She joined her in the closet, closing the door in order to spare Ron seeing his future mother-in-law change into one of the dark gray and blue super-suits.
The lair had not changed much in the intervening years, save the thick coating of dust everywhere. One thing about the grime, however, it clearly showed there had been recent activity here.
The last time Kim had been here, Drakken had stolen an advanced combat fighter, hoping he could unlock the secrets of its powerful weapons. Since that time the place had been sealed up by Global Justice. There should have been sensors implanted just in case anyone tried to use the abandoned base again, but a call to Assistant Director Bedarest revealed they hadn't been tripped. That meant the three life-signs Wade detected here had found some way to bypass them.
The two women tip-toed down the main corridor. The glass walls of the now-empty labs were gone, removed when all of Drakken's old equipment was removed. The place seemed empty as a tomb.
"Careful, Mom. This place is full of trap doo…" she was cut off as the floor gave way beneath them. In an instant she knew they had crossed the very same spot where she had been with Ron when they were trapped by Drakken back when they were trying to rescue her father from the place. They slid down the chute, landing relatively safely in the large chamber that once housed a giant tank with a mutant tentacle monster and one of the infamous killer death rays.
"I knew you would find me here, Princess!" a familiar feminine voice bellowed from above.
Shego stepped out onto a balcony, dressed in her familiar green and black body suit. A wicked smile crossed her otherwise stunning features as she surveyed the two women on the floor below.
"I've got a little surprise for you, Kimmie!" She pointed over their heads at a massive sphere in the center of the room. It looked like the larger third of DNAmy's Genetic Zipper. There was a loud clacking sound as the two halves started to split. "It's your WORST NIGHTMARE!" She cackled as the interior was unveiled.
Anne Possible gasped.
Kim Possible looked at the horror inside the sphere, put her hands to her face, and SCREAMED!
Next: The Nightmare REVEALED!