Kim woke up with a start. Her night vision goggles was still functioning and she could see Yori sitting against the wall, sobbing quietly to herself while Rufus is petting her hand consolingly, despite crying himself. "Ron..." she called out softly. "Ron?"
Yori stopped and looked up at her, her eyes red from the crying and she shook her head.
"You..." Kim growled as the memory of what Yori did flooded her mind and she sprung off, grabbing the folds of Yori's ninja tunic and roughly pulled her up. "Why?"
"I...I saw that the ant would not let go of Stoppable-san...that if one side does not yield, he would have surely been doomed from our pulling..."
"And now he's with Antropy and his ants and that doesn't doom him?" Kim shouted angrily at her and she slammed her fist in the wall, leaving a small crater behind where she had punched the wall.
"You do not think that I know that?" Yori raised her voice, almost shouting back at Kim. "The decision to release Stoppable-san was a painful one and worse, I made Sensei's warning come true! By the choice that I have made, I have condemned Stoppable-san to the army that would devour him. But if I had to choose between certain death and the faintest of chance to save, I will jump into the hole this instant and retrieve him so that you may hold him once more in your arms again."
The two of them glared at each for a long moment before Kim' shoulders slumped and she let go of Yori's tunic. "You're...you're right Yori. I think I'd have done the same thing too if I were in your sitch." She took a deep breath. "Now...we just have to go and rescue him back from those ants," she said, wiping her face with her hand.
"We?" Yori asked, sounding a little confused. "You wish me to help you rescue Stoppable-san?"
"...yeah...yeah I want you to help me rescue my boyfriend. You're one of the best fighters that I know personally and you'll go the extra mile to get Ron back for two reasons," Kim forced a smile onto her lips, though there was not a single hint of mirth nor warmth in it. There was a lot of anger and hate in her; she wanted to beat Yori up into a bloody mess for giving up on saving Ron...
Finally after a moment, Yori nodded. "I am bound to you and Stoppable-san. Until I have atoned for my deed, my life is yours, to toss away into the winds if that is your desire," she said calmly.
Kim stared at her for another moment more before she stepped back and lifted her watch. "Wade, are you getting a signal from Ron's chip?" she asked.
The screen flickered to life. "Sorry, Kim. I'm not getting anything from the chip. Either the ants took him too far down or something is actively jamming the chip. I can't get a trace on him," he started.
"Not good enough, Wade," she snapped at him. "I need something more than that and you're going to give it to me now."
Wade stared at her for a good long while. "I'll disregard that as you being stressed over Ron being missing," he said a little icily, causing Kim to regret her words. "I've already got Darnia on helping locate Antropy's actual base of operations but it'll take a while. You and Yori should go and get some rest and food first. I've already arranged transport to bring the two of you to Go City since that's the most likely place for Antropy's lair to be located in."
"Thanks and..." the screen blinked out. "...sorry, Wade," she said softly. Then she knelt down. "C'mon Rufus. We'll find Ron before you know it," she said gently to him and he ran over into her hands where she placed him inside her pocket before she started to walk away.
She turned back to look at Yori when she noticed that she wasn't at her side and she saw Yori still looking down into the hole, a forlorn look of regret on her face and a single, final tear rolled down her face before she looked up at Kim, her face regaining the look of steely determination that she had earlier, as she started to walk after her.
PB
The flight back to the Go City was a relatively quiet one; neither Kim nor Yori would talk to each other during the entire trip as the memory of what had just happened what was still fresh in their minds. Rufus scurried between the two, consoling them and he received a smile and a pet from each girl.
During the trip back, Kim had decided to contact Ron's parents but she had decided not to tell them exactly what was actually happening; it hurt her too much to actually voice out what had happened and it felt like admitting defeat: that she had given up on Ron before attempting to rescue him. So she told them that he was in a deep cover mission and that they shouldn't contact him for a while.
They were concerned of course and immediately started asking her some very hard questions, almost as if they could tell she was lying. She just simply evaded answering them until they finally gave up and told her to wish him well. She let out a sigh of relief when the conversation was over: she hated all that lying but when all this is done, Ron will be back safe and sound. That was a promise that she intended to keep.
Eventually, the pilot of the helicopter they were flying on called out to them, "Okay, ladies...ETA is about two minutes. Any place that you want me to drop you off at?"
"Anywhere is fine," Kim responded. "Wait...the Go City Park," she said after a moment's thought. This caused Yori's head to perk up and she looked at Kim in a quizzical manner.
"Antropy had a lair there, or at least we found some of his ants working over there," she explained, walking over to the other girl. "Maybe we can find something there that might give us a clue as to where they took Ron."
Yori nodded at this and looked down at her feet again. Something inside Kim wanted to reach out to the other girl and tell her that everything will turn out to be alright and they will find Ron soon. She didn't and walked away instead. Later, she thought. After we find Ron and he's safe.
"Trouble with your partner over there, lil' lady?" the pilot asked when Kim had returned to the cockpit. He had already set the helicopter on a flight path towards the park.
"She's not my partner...but yeah, there's some trouble," Kim admitted.
"Best you'd clear it out before your next job. These things has a very nasty habit of festering and blowing up at the wrong time," he said. "Anyways, we're here," he said, landing the helicopter in a clearing. She nodded slowly and whistled to Rufus, who scrambled to know and climbed into her pocket, snuggling deep inside it.
The two girls got out of the helicopter with little fuss and they watched as it took off and flew off into the distance. It was evening now and there were a few twilight joggers staring at the helicopter as it left. Kim turned and started walking towards the hill where she and Ron had infiltrated two nights ago, Yori following her quietly.
The entrance was still where it was earlier, only this time there was a police line there with a lone policeman standing guard. Thinking quickly, Kim gestured at Yori to stay hidden before she walked up to him. If she played this right, they might get a bit more than they had hoped for. "Officer, do you know who I am?" she asked him.
"Er...yeah...you're Kim Possible. What are you doing here...and this is a restricted area. No one's allowed in here with authorization," he said quizzically.
"Just in the neighborhood. Thought I'd drop by and see what's going on," she said smoothly, gesturing at Yori to move in while the policeman was distracted.
"You heard what happened here? Man, it was insane...giant ants suddenly popped out of the ground and began swarming the whole park. Luckily we were prepared for a problem like this," he said, shaking his head in disbelief, not noticing that Yori had already slipped past him and was running down the passageway within the hill. "Then we found this hill, and there was...well, there was a lot of classified stuff inside there," he said surreptitiously.
"Really now?" Kim asked, pretending to be interested in his words. "Say...I've been doing some of my own digging and I saw that there was a Go City criminal called Antropy. I figured, a guy with ant in his name must have something to do with this sitch," she said.
"Antropy? I don't think so. He was a small-timer, figuratively and sort of literally in this case. He likes to steal small stuffs like diamonds and nanotechnology with his regular size ants. Usually it's Mego who has to handle him since those ants like to take their goods down the really small places where nobody can go."
"Really? Mego had an arch-nemesis?"
"Yeah, can you believe it? It's like the universe decided that there should be some sort of match between superheroes and super-villains so that there's always a balance," he laughed and shook his head. "So is there anything else that I can do for you?" he asked. "I mean I'm okay with answering questions since you're a world famous hero and all but I just can't let you in. Captain's orders."
"It's okay, officer. I wouldn't want you to get into trouble with your superiors," she said sweetly. "One last question before I leave: do you know this Antropy guy might be at right now?"
"Do I? We just arrested him a few hours ago. He's at the GCPD 48th precinct station right now."
PB
Ten minutes later, Kim was waiting at the clearing where they had landed in earlier when Yori walked out of the shadows and went up to Kim. "Possible-san," she said softly.
"Find anything?" she asked briskly, tilting her head to glance at her.
"Aside from the signs of your battle with the ants and the police's attempts to find out what's happening? Yes," she said and held up her hand, opening her fist to reveal a piece of broken quartz.
"What's so special about this?" Kim asked, taking it from Yori's hand and inspected it idly. Then she saw it: a yellow metal was laced into the quartz. She hadn't seen that before since the green tint of her night vision goggles had removed all notion of color when she used them earlier.
"This is gold quartz," Yori said informatively. "It is a very rare combination of the two materials and if I am not mistaken, most commonly mined in Australia."
"So...what's a piece of rock from Australia doing here in Go City?" Kim asked, staring hard at the stone in hand. Another piece of the puzzle but it didn't make a single lick of sense. She shook her head and aimed her Kimmunicator at the stone. "Wade, I'm going to need an analysis of this piece of quartz ASAP," she said.
"You'll get it within a few hours, Kim," Wade responded almost immediately before the screen flickered out again. Guess he's still mad at me, Kim thought and then looked at Yori. "Good job, Yori," she said, trying to give her a smile but it came out rather weakly. The other girl noticed it though and bowed to Kim.
"What about you Possible-san? Did you find out anything from the police officer whom you interrogated?" she asked Kim.
"Antropy's been arrested and we're going to pay him a visit right now,"
"Ah," Yori said softly and a thin smile broke on her face, causing a shiver to run down Kim's spine. Antropy was in for a rough night, to say the least.