Disclaimer: I don't own Kim Possible

Bonnie's teeth bared themselves in an uncharacteristic snarl.

She hurled the magazine onto her bed. Her smirking visage stared up at her, mocking her.

It wasn't fair! Why did everything have to be so perfect for her, when it was Bonnie who tried so hard, Bonnie who had recreated herself to rise to the top of the food chain...

Yet it was Kim who was better, was always better. World-famous, admired by everyone...

Bonnie grabbed the magazine again, shoving the door of her closet open and shoving the magazine to the back... when a book cover caught her eye.

She picked it up. It pictured a female knight, armor aglint in the sun, sword in hand, ready to face anything...

It was a thin, 'intermediate reader' sort book, like the kind she'd used to devour when she was younger. She remembered when everything had changed, back when she had been eight...

---

She knew that her name, Bonnie, meant 'good', because she'd looked it up. But her mother sometimes called her Bonbon, but that was all right. Bonbons were a candy, and candy was good, too.

She was a shy girl, spending most of her time in her room, reading and rereading her favorite stories. They always had lots of adventure in them, dragons to slay, tyrants to conquer, bullies to overcome...

She dreamed of being like that someday, of being a hero. Of being strong, and powerful, and the kind of person people wrote about.

Sometimes she wrote stories, too, with herself as the hero. In the end, she always came out victorious, and even Connie and Lonnie had to admit that she had done well...

Connie and Lonnie, for whom nothing she could do was good enough, who called her a brat and a pest and a bother, who sometimes called her Bonbon like her mother did, except that they did it in a cruel, lilting tone which showed that they did it mockingly. "Poor little Bonbon. I got the looks, she got the brains, what did you get, hm?"

Sometimes, in the stories, it was them she had to defeat. They were wicked sorceresses, terrorizing the land, and only Bonnie could defeat them. They cackled wickedly as they threw magical fireballs and lightning bolts at her but she won in the end, and everyone cheered, and they crowned her queen...

But she never showed her stories to anyone. They were a secret world she formed, a fantasy she retreated to time and time again.

She didn't have a lot of friends. She spent a lot of time alone. But that was okay. She didn't need friends

Bonnie's great-aunt Bethany came to visit one day. After the mandatory greetings, Bonnie wandered back to her room. But a bit later, as she was heading back to the living room to ask when dinner would be, she heard her name mentioned. Instinctively, she flattened against the wall, listening hard.

"Such a withdrawn child," her great-aunt was saying. "Nothing like her sisters. A pity. I suppose she could be pretty enough though, if she tried..."

If she tried...

Bonnie had never really thought about it before, had always simply accepted her inferiority in matters of intelligence and beauty as a matter of course. But now...

It was unlikely that any dragons would come about that needed slaying, or that her sisters would attempt to take over the world anytime soon. But couldn't she defeat them in another way?

If she tried...

If she could become more beautiful, if she could become more popular... like them...

Then she would win, and she would be better than them, and they'd never, never call her a brat again.

So from then on, she watched her sisters carefully, trying to figure out how they did it. She tried out their makeup when they weren't looking.

Her mother had noticed her youngest daughter's rapid change in interests. She wasn't worried overmuch; didn't all younger siblings try to copy the elder. Still, something about Bonnie was troubling...

"Bonbon, sweetie..." she began one day.

"It's Bonnie," the girl replied, a strange, hard edge to her voice.

And it was true. Bonbon was gone forever.

Only Bonnie remained.

---

She'd thrown away all her stories written in youthful, clumsy hand. She'd given away all her old books, sneaking peeks at her sisters' fashion magazines until she finally grew old enough to earn enough money to buy her own.

She'd given up her childish dreams. She'd climbed the social ladder, stepping on anyone who got in her way.

She'd done everything right. Wasn't she popular? Wasn't she beautiful? Wasn't she as good as Connie and Lonnie?

And yet...

She came along. Kim Possible, the 'girl who can do anything'. She went on adventures, and was strong, and brave, and beautiful, and had plenty of friends, most notably that dork Ron Stoppable.

She was what Bonnie had dreamed of being. She was the hero who everybody loved, the one who got her face on magazine covers...

It wasn't fair! She had everything, and Bonnie... Bonnie still wasn't good enough, would never be good enough, would never be anything but the little sister of Connie and Lonnie.

Why? How could this happen, when Bonnie had done everything right?

"You lied to me, you all lied to me!" she said, speaking to all the heroes of her forgotten books, to all the hero-selves scribbled onto papers long since thrown away. "There are no heroes! They aren't real... but she had to break all the rules! Why?"

"And you," she said, now addressing the supermodels, the fashion experts, all of those who arbitrated what was 'in' and what was 'out, "You lied too! I did everything you said, and where am I now? I have no friends, only groupies who hang out with me because I'm percieved as 'popular'! But what does it matter when she does everything I once hoped for, that I gave up in the hopes that you'd help me!"

"Why was I never good enough?" she said, remembering every time her sisters had taunted her with her own inadequacy. "I did everything you did! I'm just as popular... why!?"

"It's not fair!"

She wanted to scream, scream until all the anger, all the pain, all the frustration flowed out of her. But she didn't.

Someone might hear. Bonnie had an image to hold up.

And she would... forever.

It was all she had left