Thanks everyone for reviewing, sorry for the long wait, it's not too easy to find the time to write at the moment.

Disclaimer: Kim Possible and related are the property of Disney which, contrary to common belief, I do not own.

Special thanks goes to Slipgate for beta-reading.


Chapter 6: The temple of Anubis' doorstep

"I found the location of the temple of Anubis' doorstep," Wade said triumphantly, "We're in business now."

"That's great," Kim said with a relieved smile, "how soon until we can go there?"

"Right now if you want to." Wade already began typing away on his computer. "I can get transportation fixed in a few minutes."

"You rock Wade." Kim said gratefully. "I'll get Ron. I'd rather not waste any more time with this curse."

After saying goodbye to Monique and her parents, Kim quickly went over to Ron's house to pick her boyfriend up. About twenty minutes later they were in flight, on the way to Egypt.

Ron grinned. "You sure don't take this slowly."

"I want to get rid of this curse as soon as possible." Kim smirked, but there was a bitter undertone in her grin. "I haven't told you about last night's nightmare, right?"

"No," Ron said, "Was it bad, like the other ones? You could have come by if you wanted."

Kim sighed. "I know, but last night's dream made even that somewhat… problematic."


"Empress." the servant called out, then bowed as he entered the throne room. "A group of rebels broke into the palace."

"Excellent." the Supreme Empress – for about 500 years now – smiled, albeit a bit sadly. "I think it's best if you leave. Make sure none of the other servants or guards are nearby when the rebels break into the throne room. And have a clean-up and reconstruction crew ready; things may be a bit messy afterwards."

"Of course." the servant bowed again and quickly departed.

Kim nodded approvingly; this one seemed to understand loyalty at least. It was a nice change after a row of six who wanted to kill her, mainly by poisoning.

"They just don't give up," Kim muttered to herself; the palace poisonings weren't that much of a problem, in fact it had taken four months before she had even realized they were trying to poison her, and even that was because some spilled soup burned a hole through the marble floor.

The rebel attacks were more of an issue since they had already destroyed fourteen palaces over her reign as Empress. Finally, annoyed by the high death count of her personnel and the trouble of have to have a new palace built after each attack, Kim had worked out a special fortified palace with easy entrances leading directly to the throne room. This way the property damage was limited to only one room and the death toll was only as high as the amount of rebels not willing to give up.

"Maybe this is the one," Kim spoke to herself just before the first of the rebel soldiers stormed into the room. Of course this was just wishful thinking; she had even walked out of nuclear attacks unscathed.

"Greetings," she said with mock formality, "What can I do for you?"

"You can die!" the rebel leader shouted, aiming his gun at her. "We will not be subject to your wicked reign anymore."

Kim cocked her head. "Wicked reign? I don't think most of my subjects have any problem with my leadership… you are of course free to get a majority vote and force me out of office. I may be an empress but I will quit if enough people don't want me anymore."

"You hold them under a spell similar to your eternal youth," another rebel said, "we will end this once and for all."

Kim sighed. "I doubt it. Many have tried before. Don't waste a life you could spend productively otherwise."

Of course this didn't help. As Kim had feared, these were a group of less sophisticated rebels and they just opened fire with whatever weapons they had.

Kim patiently endured the barrage, hoping it wouldn't take too long as she did have other things to do. She felt her nanite powered liquid-metal dress fold out of phase. Kim didn't really understand how it worked, but she knew it allowed the dress to pass all the potential damage on to her, thus saving her some very embarrassing moments right after an attack.

The assault didn't take long and the weapons quickly ran out of energy. Kim still stood facing the rebels. "Are you done?"

Staring wide-eyed at the empress, the rebels needed a moment to wrap their minds around the fact that she had sustained no damage whatsoever.

"No way." the leader cried and stormed over to Kim, closely followed by his soldiers. "You will pay!"

The fight was short. Kim was still trying not to hurt them too much, but they just didn't want to give up. But when the leader shakily stood up from the third time he was kicked away, he felt he needed to change plans.

"Last resort," he growled and pressed something on his wrist while he stumbled towards Kim for the last time. His followers did the same.

"Oh no…" Kim had just time to think before the rebels simultaneously detonated the bombs that they had been carrying on them.

"Are you all right, Empress?" the servant asked after he came in about twenty minutes later.

"As always." Kim sighed, sitting in the middle of an utterly destroyed throne room. The walls had held up well as usual, but the furniture was obliterated. "It's just… I kinda get tired of this every time."

"The last time was over twenty years ago," the servant pointed out, "And the one before that nearly a hundred years ago."

Kim grimaced. "Live as long as me and that is not really a long time." She stood up and walked out of the throne room. "Send a cleaning and fixing crew in. I'll be in the basement lab."


"That wasn't too bad," Ron said, "I mean, yeah, you lived a long time and people tried to kill you, but you were good… right?"

"Yeah, pretty much." Kim nodded. "As good as an empress for five hundred years could be. I'm sure I had done my share of bad stuff."

"But this dream was a lot more detailed," Ron mentioned, "and what did you mean that even I couldn't help you after that dream?"

"It was an awful lot more detailed than earlier dreams," Kim said, "It might as well have happened for real; it took me ten minutes this morning to separate reality from dream. As for your part… the dream wasn't really finished."


In the lab, Kim wasted little time to get to her goal: a large machine that occasionally spouted a whiff of cold steam.

"Ready the cryotome for extraction," she told one of the persons working in the lab, "I need to see him."

The woman nodded. "Certainly, but you do realize that it will shave another week off his life?"

"I know." Kim sighed. "I really need him this time…" she then chuckled. " You'll just have to hurry up with the eternal youth serum."

"As always," the scientist said with a small smile before starting to work on the cryotome's computer. "Extraction started. He should be thawed in five minutes."

"Don't call it that," Kim reminded the woman in a slightly sulky tone, "I feel bad enough doing this to him already."

"All right…" the other woman said with a bemused grin. "He'll be awake in five minutes."

"Thank you." Kim smiled and turned to the cryotome's exit where her love would stumble out of any minute now.

"Wha-what happened?" a thirty year old version of Ron stammered, shivering in the overalls he wore despite the relatively high temperature in the room.

"Ron!" Kim cried happily before enveloping him in a hug. "You're back."

Ron had to think for a moment. "Back? I went to sleep and… you did it to me again." he pushed Kim back and looked at her. "You can't keep me like this forever."

"You don't get it," Kim said, soft sobs coming up, "You're the last thing I've got… and… and…"

Despite himself, Ron hugged Kim again. "I know KP, but you can't keep me frozen forever…"

"I don't," Kim interrupted, "…not all the time, this way you can be here fifty times longer, and I'm sure someday I can figure out…"

Ron put his finger on Kim's lips. "No, it is not possible, even for you. And besides, you said it yourself, it's a curse… do you really want to do that?"

Kim was now sobbing on Ron's shoulder; she knew how selfish she was for this, but she couldn't let go, she just couldn't.


"…And that's when I woke up," Kim finished, tears running down her cheeks. "I held you basically captive just because I couldn't let you go…"

"Shhh." Ron gently stopped Kim by putting his finger on her lips. "It's okay, it wasn't real, remember?"

"It could be real," Kim insisted.

"But it wasn't," Ron retorted, "and we're going to break the curse, you know we can."

"Yeah." Kim smiled weakly. "What would I do without you?"

"Live on," Ron suggested, only half jesting. "Promise me you will never do anything foolish if I'm gone."

"Ron." Kim glared at her boyfriend with a crushed look. "Don't say things like that."

Ron pulled Kim in a gentle hug. "I'm sorry. You're right, we shouldn't be thinking about that. We're together; let's enjoy that instead."

With a smile, Kim snuggled closer to Ron.


"We're above Egypt," the pilot announced after what seemed like only a short while. "Be ready to jump in ten minutes."

"Five hundred years in the future, and still no potion of eternal youth?" Ron grinned as he and Kim prepared their parachutes.

"Hey, it was my dream." Kim mock-pouted. "You can't expect me to invent such things overnight."

"Too bad though." Ron pondered for a moment. "You could have used your future dreams to make new inventions."

Kim chuckled. "Let's not go there, okay? Way too paradoxical to me."

A short while later, the teens jumped out of the plane that was flying over what appeared to be an empty spot of desert.

"Are you sure it's here Wade?" Kim asked during the descent.

"I'm more worried about transportation back," Ron muttered.

"Yes, and taken care of." Wade smirked. "I'll lead you to the entrance after you've landed."

"Okay, we're down," Kim said a short while later, "Now where is this temple?"

Wade asked her to point the Kimmunicator so that he could give them the best reference point and then told them to go north from their current position.


"Boy is it hot here," Ron complained after walking only a couple of minutes as Wade gave them directions.

"Uhuh…" Kim said absentmindedly while looking at the Kimmunicator screen, "…I see hills here everywhere Wade, which one is it?"

"I think I'm getting a heat stroke," Ron tried again, only to get handed Kim's water bottle.

"You can have it," Kim said, "I don't really need it."

"Thanks, but I didn't mean that," Ron muttered, but he accepted the bottle nonetheless. "I thought for a moment I saw a giant banana hiding behind that hill."

Kim stared at him for a moment, but then she shrugged. "Must have been a mirage."

"Okay, now you're directly above the temple," Wade said from the Kimmunicator screen. "It's covered in sand, but this is the best spot to go down."

Kim smirked. "Well, it seems we have a little digging to do."

"Aw man," Ron complained, but dutifully took the folding shovel from his backpack and began to help his girlfriend dig away the sand.

"How much deeper do we have to go?" Ron whined after a while. "We've been at this for hours in the burning sun."

"Ron, it's only been fifteen minutes," Kim pointed out. "And we're in the shadow of the hill… partly."

"Well, I just want to find that stupid…" A loud 'THUNK' sounded when Ron pushed his shovel back in the sand again. "And now I hit another rock."

Kim shovelled some more sand away. "No, you hit the roof of the temple."

"Oh… eh, guess we got lucky then." Ron chuckled sheepishly. "So, how high is this temple anyway?"

"According to the schematics, about sixty feet high," Kim said. "But according to Wade there is a roof door somewhere nearby," she quickly added after seeing Ron's shocked expression.

The teens dug a little more before they cleared enough of the roof for Wade to locate the roof door. After that, another half hour of shovelling was enough to find and clear the stone trapdoor.

"Okay, now what?" Ron asked, looking at the plate of stone that must have weighed over five hundred pounds and had no exterior grips.

"Wade?" Kim asked.

"Don't worry." the tech genius smiled smugly. "There is a system that can open the door for you… Walk over to the red tile about ten yards in front of the door and stamp on it three times, then march over to the door, it should start to open once you are halfway. Don't stop or it will fall closed again."

Ron frowned. "Some kind of ritual?"

"Kind of." Wade shrugged. "The high priests used to stamp on the tile with their staff and demand entrance to the temple."

Fortunately, the part in front of the door had already been cleaned. Kim and Ron walked over to the red tile that stood out from the rest of the mainly sand-colored tiles and Kim stamped on it three times. Then they walked back to the door in the marching pace that Wade had suggested.

"You have to get in immediately," Wade warned, "or the door might fall closed on your head."

Taking Wade's warning to heart, Kim and Ron continued to walk to the trapdoor as it slowly opened, its ancient mechanism apparently still in good working order. When they reached the door, the teens walked on and went down the stairs that led into the temple. Above them, they saw the door slowly close again.


Moments later, they stood at the bottom of the stairs, surrounded by pitch-black darkness that was only illuminated by the light from the Kimmunicator screen.

"We could use a light in here," Kim suggested.

"Sorry, the temple is buried too deep for the mirror system to work," Wade explained. "Besides, most of the mirrors that still remain in the temple will probably be way too dusty. You'll have to do with the Kimmunicator lights."

Not that the light of the little communication device was weak to begin with – Ron and Rufus even fooled a robot once that it was the light of an oncoming train – but it still only provided a small circle of light around Kim and Ron, leaving most of the temple in eerie, shadowy darkness.

"Creepy here," Ron commented, staring at the mean-looking statues and portraits on the walls. "Would it have killed them to make this a bit more inviting?"

"They were the priests of death," Kim said, "what did you expect?"

"Good point," Ron conceded, "but still, this place creeps me out. It's a good thing Rufus didn't come with."

Seeing as part of the mission was going to be in the burning Egypt sun, they had decided to leave Rufus home; he burned easily so most Mediterranean missions were a no-go for the mole rat unless he had loads and loads of sun block.


Finally, after walking through a maze of rooms and hallways, Kim and Ron arrived at the central room where a dozen large jackal statues stood watching them from the walls.

"I take back my earlier comment," Ron whimpered, "This is really creepy."

"They're just statues," Kim said as she walked to the middle of the room where a gold-plated altar stood. "So, what do we need to do now Wade?"

"You're the one who got instructions," Wade pointed out, "I don't have a clue of what do to from here."

"Okay…" Kim frowned in thought. "But from what I read in the scrolls Sensei showed me there should be a door leading the way between realms."

Ron looked around. "I don't see any door other than the one we used to get in through."

"That's not the one," Kim said, "It should be a portal placed before a black wall. Only if the portal is activated and the connection between this world and the realm of death is opened can one can pass through."

"Maybe this is the wrong room," Wade suggested. "This was supposed to be the central altar room, maybe the room you are looking for is even more hidden."

"That could be," Kim pondered. "But where should we look then?"

"I'll check the blueprints of the temple again," Wade promised. "Maybe I can see if there is some empty space anywhere."

"Or, you know, see if there is a hidden entrance somewhere in this room." Ron began to – cautiously – walk past each of the jackal statues and pressed on points he thought could be hidden panels or secret doors.

Kim shook her head. "Ron, I don't think Wade means actual blueprints like we have today, right Wade?"

"Pretty much," Wade admitted. "This is all based on some ancient drawings the Natural History museum has in its collection."

Ron was unfazed by the news. "Guess I have to find the hidden entrance on my own then."

"Nothing here." he finally said after passing each statue. But when he turned around, he heard the sound of cloth ripping. "Aw, man." One of the stone knives the statue held had caught on to his pants and ripped a fair part out of it.

Kim chuckled as Ron looked annoyed at his pants. "At least they didn't drop." Fortunately, only the part below his knee was ripped, so he was still presentable.

"Stupid statues," Ron muttered as he joined Kim and headed out of the room, where they waited for new data from Wade.


It didn't take Wade long to find several spots in the three-dimensional representation of the temple where there could be an extra room.

"Okay, there should be a hidden door or switch here somewhere," the tech genius told the teens after he led them to a different part of the temple. "Put the Kimmunicator against the wall so I can use ultrasound to determine if there is a hollow space behind it."

Kim did as asked and Wade confirmed that there was a room on the other side. But no matter how they searched, they couldn't find something that resembled a door or entrance.

"This is getting us nowhere." Ron sighed as he leaned against the opposing wall. "Can't we just break the wall open?"

"That could destroy whatever is inside," Kim pointed out, still moving her hands over the wall to find seams. "Could you help me look for seams in the wall?"

"Fine," Ron muttered and got up again, clinging on to a carved indentation in the wall he had been leaning against.

The indentation folded back and revealed several handles hidden behind it.

"Ancient control board?" Ron asked. "Coolio!"

He pulled several levers, causing several disturbing sounds deeper in the temple, before Kim could stop him. "You don't know what those do, for all we know one of them is an ancient self-destruct system."

"Won't that be a large red lever then?" Ron asked jokingly. "Besides, I did open this room."

"What?" Kim turned around, and noticed the entire wall had moved away. "I didn't even hear it move."

"Maybe the sounds in the rest of the temple drowned it out," Wade suggested. "This one seems to be working quite smoothly despite not being used for so long."

"Too bad it isn't the right room though," Kim said. She noticed that the now-open room showed scores of large vessels that used to contain oil or food. "Guess we hit a secret storage room."


Fortunately, Ron's lever switching had opened most of the secret rooms, so the teens didn't have much trouble looking at what was inside. However, the room they were looking for was not present.

"Wade, we checked all the possible rooms you mentioned," Kim said, "but we still didn't find the one we're looking for. Are you sure there is no other place left?"

Wade frowned in thought. "Not that I know of. There is only a tiny spot in the exact centre of the temple that is not accounted for, but it is way too small for the type of room you mentioned. And at that location there were no doors opening."

"We'll check it out anyway." Kim sighed; this was starting to get annoying.


"This is the room?" Ron asked after they had arrived at the spot Wade had indicated. It wasn't much to look at; it looked like the outside of a relatively small square room. Although the strange thing was that this was the only room the teens could walk around, as it did not connect to any of the other walls.

"Is it even a room?" Kim wondered; for all intents and purposes, it could also have been a large block of stone.

"I don't know," Wade admitted. "I can't scan inside the room, and the echo-taps didn't give me much either."

"There's got to be a way in." Ron began to move his hands over the smooth walls, hoping to find a seam. Kim helped and, remembering Ron's previous luck, also searched the opposing walls for secret controls.

"Hey, look at this." Ron looked where Kim was pointing at and saw some drawings of a sun and a moon on the wall opposite the secret room.

"What do you think it is?"

Kim frowned. "I don't know. I do know that the moon represents night, and death. Just as the sun stands for day and life."

"Okay, but does that help us in any way?" Ron took a closer look, trying to decipher the other hieroglyphs on the wall.

"Maybe Wade knows." Kim called Wade again and showed him the drawings. "Can you make something out of this?"

"Give me a minute." After scanning the text, Wade began to furiously type away on his computer. A few moments later he looked back at the screen. "Okay, it seems that in the time between the sun and the moon, or day and night, the portal between life and death is open."

"So that would be twilight." Kim looked at the time. "When will that be today?"

"In about three hours," Wade said.

"Do you really think it will be that easy?" Kim asked. "We just have to wait until sunset and the portal will open?"

"I'll see if I can find some more on this," Wade promised before closing the connection.

Ron smirked. "Looks like we have some time to kill."

Kim, however, was in deep thought. "If I remember correctly, the priest of death could only walk through the gates of death when he carried the knife of the netherworld, but there was something that had to do with the last ray of sunlight hitting the blade before it could enter the darkness."

"But the blade is gone, right?" Ron looked confused at his girlfriend. "Or is it inside you?"

"Something like that." Kim wasn't sure herself. "Anyway, we probably need sunlight to get in here, or we will not be able to open the door to this room."

Ron thought for a moment. "Maybe we can get part of the mirror system working again. Wade mentioned something like that I think."

Kim shrugged. "I guess we can try that. We don't have much to do anyway for the next few hours. But we need to find a way to get the roof door open again or we'll never get sunlight into the temple."

"Leave that to me." Ron already ran off towards the panel with levers they had discovered earlier.

Kim called after him. "Ron! You can't expect those levers to open everything in…" The rumbling of the roof door opening interrupted her sentence. "…Never mind."


Kim was busy dusting off the umpteenth mirror when the Kimmunicator chimed. "What's up Wade?"

Wade looked quite frantic. "I just found out that the last light of the setting sun must hit the knife of the high priest before he can enter the sanctuary. And therefore we need the mirror system to be in working order."

Kim grinned as she held up the ancient mirror. "Already on it. And we figured that since the knife's powers have been bestowed onto me it will work when I receive the last ray of sunlight."

Wade deflated a bit. "You could have told me that sooner, you know. It's only half an hour before sunset."

"We're almost finished," Kim said, "besides, we could have waited until tomorrow, right?"

"I guess," Wade muttered.

All set." Ron stepped into the hallway. "We only need your mirror and we have sunlight all the way from outside to here."

Kim smiled and placed the cleaned mirror in its spot on the wall, she noticed with satisfaction that a small beam of sunlight was now shining on the wall of the secret room.

As time passed, the beam of sunlight became more and more red and, Kim suddenly noticed, larger.

"Hey Ron, look at this." Kim pointed at the beam of sunlight. "How can it get larger?"

"Uh… it doesn't." Ron looked confused at his girlfriend. "In fact, it even got a bit smaller now the sun is almost down completely."

Kim frowned and looked at the disk of red light again. "It's really bigger. Here, look."

As she touched the wall to show the outline of the circle, the light suddenly disappeared and was replaced by a black portal. It was so dark that it seemed to pull the light inside.

Just at that moment, Wade called back in. "Right now the sun has set over the temple area… whoa."

The dark portal was growing in size even more until it reached a diameter of about seven feet, covering the wall from top to bottom and touching both corners.

"Is this… the portal to death?" Ron shakily asked.

"No." Kim reached out and touched the blackness with her fingertips. "This leads to the room where the portal sits."

At her touch, the portal began to suck in more light until the teens were cast in complete darkness except for the Kimmunicator screen.

"I'm losing the connection," Wade said as static moved over the small screen. "I can't…. do…. –ver… -ist…"

The connection was gone before Kim could ask what Wade's last message was, and then the screen of the Kimmunicator went dark as well.


Sitting in complete darkness, the teens suddenly realised that they could see the portal… and the room beyond.

A dim light with no apparent source illuminated a room that was much larger than appeared from the outside and where a row of twelve jackal statues stood. They almost looked like an honour guard leading a path to what stood at the end of the room – a metal framework with a central circle that was surrounded by strange markings.

"Those again?" Kim snorted as she stepped through the portal. "Do they keep these statues everywhere?"

"K-KP…" Ron whispered in a frantic voice as he pointed a shivering finger at the second-closest statue.

Kim looked and gasped at what she saw – a ripped piece of clothing that clung to the statue's sword. She knew very well to whose pants it used to belong.

The teens didn't have much time to dwell on that, though, when a new voice spoke up. "You walked willingly into this room. Now it is time for me to take what is mine."

Kim and Ron spun around to face the person who had stepped through the portal as well. "Monkey Fist."


A/N: This is a bit of a cliffhanger, I know. I hope you enjoyed and I'll try to update soon.