Okay, KP and related characters aren't mine. This scenario, Walter Baron, Rick Owens, Roy, Matthew, Shift, Derrick, Nathan Vellick, Karen Beckwit, Danielle Bridger, Onyx Bedra, the Darkut, and the Wilgut all beling to me.
CHAPTER 10: Fashionably Late
Roy shifted his weight again, trying to relieve the increasing sensation of numbness in his backside. He had always enjoyed the sense of freedom that came with joining Karen's dragon form in the sky, but this flight was one of the longest he had ever endured, and even with the leather pseudo-saddle that she wore, he was beginning to get uncomfortable, especially since the sun was so relentless; he was certain the sunscreen he had applied wasn't working.
"You alright?" Karen called. It was always a little weird to hear a human voice come from her dragon body.
"I'm okay!" Roy shouted at the back of her head. "I'll feel better once we land!"
"Well you're in luck!" Danielle's voice was clearly broadcasted from her helmet by a set of speakers just above where her ears would be. "We're here!"
Karen slowed to give Danni a bit of a lead, and circled overhead while the teen pinpointed the exact location of Drakken's lair. Matthew and Shift circled with her, keeping their silence.
As they made their watchful circles over the water, the Darkut studied Shift, who had adopted the form of Pegasus for the duration of their flight over the ocean. The half-dragon had thought the choice was rather odd, considering the fact that the five of them were about to engage in a battle with some of the most dangerous men (and woman, for Shego would be there, too) on the planet, but she refrained from speaking for several reasons. The first was that a shapeshifter might take on a seemingly harmless form, but the abilities of a form were not determined by its appearance; the girl had told Karen many times about brightly colored birds with poisoned stingers and rabbits with hidden quills. Shapeshifters were not to be trifled with. The second reason for Karen's silence was that Shift had recently finished a tier of training with the Greater Shapeshifters, the equivalent of their race's elders, and the trainers had shown her many new techniques regarding combat that had greatly increased her value as a member of the team. Lastly, there was the fact that Shift had something most other shapeshifters didn't, something that gave Karen, even in the guise of her dragon half, a reason to be wary.
Karen noticed that Danielle was drifting a bit farther to the West, so she adjusted the angle of her wings and allowed her circling pattern to carry her toward the teen. She had just resumed her previous flight pattern when Danni stopped circling and began to hover in place. "I found it!" She gave a whoop of excitement as Karen and the others slowly descended toward her so that the group hovered in a rough circle above the water.
"Good." Karen replied. "Is everyone ready?"
Shift neighed, while the others gave various cries of enthusiasm.
"Don't forget: once I've cast the spell, we won't need our wings any more. Just will yourself in the direction you wish to go, and the magic will take care of the rest."
Karen recalled the particular piece of magic she wanted, then gave a low growl that seemed to make the air tremble. All weight seemed to leave her body, and she folded her wings. She did not plummet into the waves. Danielle, Matthew, and Shift all followed suit, relinquishing the natural desire to flap their wings in exchange for the temporary reprieve the Darkut had given them. Roy drifted off of her back and moved forward to hover near her head.
And then, one by one, the five of them moved toward the surface of the water. Karen worried that her spell would not work as desired, but she had learned it from one of the water dragons, and she knew that it must. She abandoned her apprehension and slipped nose-first into the sea, releasing a sigh of relief when the water parted before her. As she sank into the ocean, she became aware of a large bubble of air surrounding her in every direction, as though a protective force field were keeping the icy waters at bay.
Which was exactly what was happening. The spell allowed its user to travel freely through any body of water, while simultaneously keeping him dry and renewing his oxygen supply by drawing it from the surrounding water.
Karen turned to see that the others were following. They would need to stay close so that Karen could cast the next spell when the group reached Drakken's lair.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x
Ron had begun moving toward Vellick the instant the Nano-scientist reached into the pocket of his lab coat. Rick took a step forward to stop the youth's advance, but hadn't gone more than single pace before Baron's arm blocked his path.
"Wait." The villain commanded.
Rick was certain that his employer meant to watch as Ron killed Doctor Vellick, but the blue-skinned youth only covered half of the distance between the plane and the scientist before he halted dead in his tracks. Rick watched as the expression on Ron's face changed from one of anger to one of confusion. He turned to look at Baron.
"What did you do to me?" A flicker of pain crossed the young man's face.
"I thought you didn't care." Baron taunted. "You said as much just a few moments ago."
Ron's expression intensified once more into rage, but before he could react to the man's words, he reeled back as though he had been struck in the face and lifted his hands to his head. A trickle of blood appeared beneath his left nostril and made its way to his lips. Rufus stood on his hind legs and pressed his forefeet into Ron's left land, concerned and curious. The naked mole rat attempted to reach into to Ron's mind and ask him what the matter was, but Ron's consciousness was blocked from him. He leaped from the Monkey Master's shoulder and skittered back to Kim.
Doctor Vellick and the others, meanwhile, watched Ron with keen interest.
Kim had been alarmed to see this new change come over Ron, but she held her peace. She didn't know what was going to happen next, and she thought it better not to attract attention to herself, despite the insistent urge to rush to Ron's aid. Instead of attempting to help him, she inched her way to her right, away from Ron and the point in the room upon which all other eyes were focused; Kim realized that only this portion of the room was lit, and however large the rest of it was, it was shrouded in darkness. Rufus tapped her on the cheek.
She turned her head to look down at the pink rodent, and a voice which was not her own popped into her head. "There are no cameras in here. We may be able to sneak into another portion of the room and hide until the others leave to find us."
Somehow knowing that the voice belonged to Rufus, but startlingly unsurprised, she mentally replied, "How do we know they won't search this room until they find us? I know Baron. He's smarter than that."
"They may, but they also have no reason not to send the better part of their forces further into the base to cover more ground. We may be able to overpower those who are left behind."
"What's happening to Ron?"
"I will explain once we have removed ourselves from danger." Rufus pointed forward, directly toward the crowd of villains and henchmen. "I have the ability to make us invisible for a short time. I suggest we make the best of it. We should move that way. Go now, before our cloak deserts us."
Kim began to move in the indicated direction, no longer afraid that she would be seen. She circled around to the side of the group of henchmen, giving them a berth of no more than an arm's length as she made her way toward the rear of the assembly. She studied the collection of men before her and realized that not only were Drakken's henchmen present, but those of Professor Dementor and Gemini, as well as Baron's own distinctly uniformed mercenaries and Monkey Fist's simian ninjas. Kim also spotted uniforms of other colors, meaning new henchmen had also been hired. Kim caught sight of two middle-aged men in black suits who wore sunglasses even inside the darkened room. "Who are they?" She asked Rufus, showing him the men through her mind's eye.
"I don't know. I'm not close enough to pry into their thoughts."
The two men turned their heads in Kim's direction, and she was certain they'd seen her, but they made no indication of shouting an alarm or giving chase. Kim kept moving. Once she reached the rear of the group, she moved away from it and began to put distance between herself and her enemies; the light faded as she left the vicinity. She had taken perhaps a dozen paces when she heard Ron scream in agony. Shortly after the horrifying sound died, there was another cry, this one of dismay, which went up from Baron and his men.
"They know we have left." Rufus remarked, "And my cloak will not last much longer. We must hide near the entrance to this room before it gives out. You have perhaps a minute."
Kim quickened her pace, doing her best to remain silent. It helped that she was still wearing her mission clothes, since her shoes had been selected specifically for the purpose of stealth.
Kim felt Rufus tense on her shoulder and a second later, she was able to see a little better in the dark.
"Our cloak is gone," He said, "but you are shrouded in the shadows, so they cannot see you."
'Good.' Kim thought as she glided forward. She saw a shape in the darkness ahead and noticed that it was a stack of crates. Next to and above the crates was a red light: the door. Kim slipped into position next to crates, keeping the wooden boxes between herself and the door. Then a thought occurred to her. "What if they turn on the lights?"
"Keep moving away from the door. There should be a-"
Rufus was interrupted mid-sentence when the lights flickered to life anyway. In the dead silence of the room, Kim could hear the power buzzing through every single one of them. She wasn't concerned with what she was hearing, however; she was more alarmed by what she saw, for the henchmen and mercenaries had spread out and were searching the room.
Kim remained perfectly motionless. She hoped that if she didn't move, she wouldn't be spotted, and Rufus might be able to reactivate his cloak of invisibility. The naked mole rat had apparently heard her thoughts, for he said, "No. It's too soon."
x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x
Danielle led the group down, farther and farther from the surface until they were certain the water would overpower the spell and crush them all. The light from the sun faded away and the world began to grow dark, but before it was all reduced to blackness, Karen spotted a faint glow ahead of them, on the ocean floor. As they made their way closer, the glow split into several brighter points of illumination, and the Darkut realized she was staring at the bright lights of Drakken's facility.
Danielle curved toward the left, out of the first searchlight's line of illumination, and kept to the shadows as she made a beeline for what she had determined to be Drakken's aircraft hangar. A shadow passed over one of the search lights, and the teen turned her head to see a large fish floating near the giant lamp for its warmth. She released a sigh of relief. The entire trip through the water had left her worried that she would be attacked by sharks as though she were living some sort of thriller.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a low grinding noise emanating from behind her; she angled downward and dove deeper, simultaneously turning to acknowledge Karen's muffled roar. It seemed the Glider's paranoia had been somewhat justified, for an unusually large tiger shark had just charged through her previously occupied space. Danielle watched as Karen separated from the group and chased it down. Once the Darkut was close enough, she released a jet of ice from her maw and froze the water surrounding the aquatic predator.
Once more safe, Danielle resumed leading the team to Drakken's base. Without further incident, the five young heroes reached the outer wall of the compound. They huddled close together so that they were all contained within the same bubble of air. This time, Karen gave a loud hiss, activating the next spell. She willed herself even closer to the sub-oceanic building and phased through the wall.
Everyone else followed, depositing themselves as quietly as they could on the floor within the hangar before banishing the spells that Karen had cast on them all.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x
Half a second after Rufus's response, someone to Kim's left shouted an alarm, and she bolted. But she didn't flee; there were too many men for that. Of course, there were also too many to take on by herself, but at this point, she didn't care. The only way out of this now, if one even existed, was to make one.
Kim charged at the nearest henchman, one of Dementor's, and leapt into the air. Several of Baron's men fired their ever-present tranquilizer weapons at her, but none of the darts met their mark. Each one of the projectiles erupted in little clouds of blue flame while they were yet an arm's length from her body.
"Be careful!" Rufus chided. "That is not an inexhaustible ability."
Kim grunted an acknowledgement as gravity carried her down onto the targeted henchman's shoulders. She twisted as she had in London and threw the man across the floor. Another opponent, one of Drakken's men, stabbed at Kim with his electric staff, but she ducked beneath the blow and sidled in close to him. The man was surprised by the move, and the half-second of confusion allowed Kim to throw a knee upward into his groin and wrest the staff from his hand. The cheerleader turned and blocked a blow from another staff, then shoved its holder backward and jabbed him in the knee before he could recover. The voltage from the staff enveloped his body and forced every muscle to seize. The man fell to the floor unmoving.
Kim turned to the next man in line, one of Baron's men who had chosen to advance with a nightstick rather than fire another dart, and was about to engage him when a loud, repeated clacking echoed throughout the room. Everyone froze and turned toward the source of the noise. A horse whinnied, and several men laughed. Kim caught a glimpse of sleek, muscled flanks and saw a flurry of feathers near the plane that had brought her here. Shortly after, she could hear Baron speaking.
"It's about time you showed up, shape-changer. I have a lovely surprise for you."
Kim darted forward and forced her way toward the front of the group, dodging several henchmen and mercenaries along the way before she finally emerged from the crush of men. She skidded to a halt and located Baron some distance to her right, turning to face her enemies as she locked eyes with the madman. Between the two them, somewhat closer to Kim than Baron, stood Shift, wearing the form of a snow-white Pegasus. Her broad-feathered wings were folded neatly to her sides as she pawed the floor in anger.
Baron chuckled. "It seems my caution was ill-directed. I would have thought that Kimberly's rescuers would be more formidable than this. Surely you don't think a Pegasus enough to defeat me and my men?"
Shift snorted and half-whinnied, a sound that, to Kim at least, resembled laughter.
Baron's brow furrowed. "You think it funny, do you, that I do not fear your form?"
Shift tossed her head up and down like a horse chomping at the bit: she was nodding! She repeated the horse laugh once more.
Baron signaled to two of his men standing nearby and gestured at the shapeshifter. The mercenaries advanced.
Shift let out a full-throated neigh this time, but the sound was choked off as her body went rigid. The men halted. At first, Kim thought that Baron's men had done something to her, but she soon realized what was really happening.
Shift's wings opened and extended upward, revealing their true size, and several men gasped at the enormity of the twenty-four-foot wingspan. They gasped again when all of the feathers began to fall to the floor, littering the surface with artificial snow and leaving behind a pair of bony, leathery bat wings. Shift's body relaxed somewhat and she extended her head forward, releasing another neigh, but this one was different from the first in that it sounded deeper, more menacing. The Pegasus's white hair darkened and turned black, and Shift lifted her forelegs off of the floor as the limbs transformed into what looked like talons; the bone and tendons popped as their structure was altered from that of a horse to that of an enormous bird. Her hind legs morphed from hooves to a pair of enormous panther-like paws. Another neigh; this one sounded like a whinny and a moan. Shift turned her head toward the crowd of men to her right and Kim saw the corners of the equine's mouth grow wider and split all the way up the jaw, stopping only when the creature could completely open the jaws of its horse skull in one of the most hideous grins Kim had ever seen. That was, until the incisors and molars typically found inside a horse's mouth grew into the dental apparatus normally used by dragons; the six-inch fangs that emerged from the upper jaw looked like slightly curved daggers. The snowy hair that had comprised Shift's mane fell to the floor with the feathers and a pair of straight, black twisted horns grew from the back of her new skull. Long, flexible black spines emerged from the creature's neck and formed a neat line down the center of its back, gradually decreasing in length until they disappeared just behind the shoulders. The tail, outside of becoming the color of ink, seemed to remain as it was. The final step of the transformation was the beast's eyes, which had turned a piercing green.
The transformation had taken all of approximately seven to eight seconds, but all the horror of the ordeal had made it seem that much longer. Shift raised her head, looked Baron square in the face, and unleashed another neigh, but it wasn't the sound it had been before. The result was like the cries of a dozen dying horses, but it came from something that was already dead, that stalked the throne room of Hades himself and was ridden into battle by the soldiers of Hell's army. Shift turned to the crowd of men to her right and paused, waiting for a reaction.