Warfare is the Way of deception. Thus although you are capable, display incapacity to them. When committed to employing your forces, feign inactivity. When your objective is nearby, make it appear as if distant; when far away, create the illusion of being nearby.

...generals have five dangerous character traits:

One committed to dying can be slain.

One committed to living can be captured.

One easily angered and hasty to act can be insulted.

One obsessed with being scrupulous and untainted can be shamed.

One who loves the people can be troubled.

-Sun Tzu, Initial Estimations and Nine Changes

Chapter 10

by WesUAH

Middleton

For the first time in his life, Will Du hoped that he'd been wrong. He hoped that Dr. Ann Possible would tell him, after several hours worth of analysis, that no, Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable's brain scans didn't show any sign of mind control, that he'd stupidly misinterpreted the evidence, and that his first instinct, that they'd simply gone over the deep end due to stress, had been correct. But she hadn't told him that.

Three times she hadn't told him that. Three times she'd insisted, always patiently, always professionally, always logically, that the brain scans did show signs of mind control, and not catastrophic psychological failure caused by amateurs getting in over their heads.

Which meant that he'd screwed up royally.

"You realize that I have no reason to trust you," he announced haughtily, his pride forcing him to practically grasp at straws. "I realize your professional qualifications, Dr. Possible. You are, indeed, the premier neurosurgeon in the United States, if not the world. But you are also Kim Possible's mother, a partisan of hers, if you will, and I could hardly blame for not wanting to believe ill of your daughter. So I must ask you again: professionally, objectively, as you absolutely positive in your diagnosis?"

He had to ask it again, just on the hope, on the off chance, that she would turn around and that she wasn't absolutely sure, that there was a chance that Possible and Stoppable had just gone psycho, and that it wasn't-

"One hundred percent," Mrs. Dr. Possible answered coolly, her patience with the young agent clearly wearing thin.

"And the third brain scan?" he asked quietly, with an oddly shamed look in his eyes.

"Similar to the others; as best I can tell, the only differences are ones of brain chemistry and the degree of control. It's a complete personality twist like with Kimberly and Ronald; it's much more subtle than that. Best guess, it was intended to make the subject act in way that the brainwasher wanted, without tipping anyone off that something was wrong. Who's brain was that, by the way?"

"Doctor Betty Director's."

"Oh."

"Yeah," Will answered, the shame in his eyes giving way to something much more fiery. "Oh. You know," he continued, "I'd actually thought that she'd come around to seeing things my way, that your daughter and Stoppable were just a couple of amateurs, two kids in way over their heads, and that that was why they'd gone crazy.

"But it wasn't that at all, was it? Bortel did something to Dr. Director to turn her against Team Possible, to back them into a wall right where Bortel wanted them, and my own arrogance-"

He felt just as surprised as she looked that he'd actually admitted that.

"-helped him do it. And that's what annoys me most of all."

She raised an eyebrow at him.

"In case you haven't noticed, Dr. Possible," he said with the first genuine smile she'd, maybe anyone, had even seen on him, "I am not a humble man. What Bortel's done wasn't just mind rape, it's slavery, as bad as anything in the Antebellum South, except this time the chains are around the mind, rather than iron shackles about the legs. It's ugly as sin, it's infuriating, but what really annoys me is that Bortel successfully played me to make it work."

For a moment Ann looked as if she wanted to say something, but then she just shook her head and smiled.

"So, what do we do now, Agent Du?"

He thought for a moment.

"I'm assuming you have a few Global Justice agents stationed around your house, for 'protection', right?"

"Right. Same with the Stoppables."

"Yeah, that's what I figured. Given that Dr. Director is compromised, we can safely assume that those agents do not have your best interests in mind. So we need to get the lot of you somewhere out of reach.

"In that case, what you're going to do is complete your rounds and go home like nothing happened, except you're going to take these scans and all other relevant data with you. When you get home, call the Stoppables. Invite them over to dinner for, say, seven P.M.

"Now, what I'm going to do is I'm going to sneak out of this hospital the same way I snuck into your car, and make a few arrangements. I've got a place where I can hide out until this evening, when I'll head back to your house. I'll call at eight P.M.; when the phone rings get up, open the back door, and let me in. From there..."

"Dash, it's Du."

"Du. Thought you'd gone rogue."

"Technically, I have. But, as always, I've got a perfectly good reason for it. Dr. Director is compromised."

"Du, if this some sort of joke-"

"Ann Possible confirmed it."

"-okay, that's not funny."

"I'm not kidding, Dash. Bortel's the real enemy in this; he's compromised Team Possible and Dr. Director, and as far as I know, you three are the only ones I can trust."

"Du, I don't- you did say Dr. Ann Possible, right?"

"Right."

"...Darn it. We know her; Burn does their taxes. What do you want us to do?"

"I know you know her, that's why I called you. Get your hands on a Charlie Two-Six, full tank, and meet me at..."

Dinner was a relatively pleasant affair. That wasn't too surprising, as the Possibles and Stoppables had long since discovered that they genuinely enjoyed each other's company. There had been a certain degree of chill come between them in the past few months, given how their children's relationship had slowly fallen apart (not to mention the whole turn to evil mess), but that didn't mean that the one would not accept a dinner invitation from the other.

Nor did they now. And dinner was actually enjoyed by all, even if a pair of conspicuously empty chairs - and how empty they truly were, even more so than the times when Kim and Ron would be off on a mission - lent a certain grave undertone to the occasion.

Yet still they talked, and ate, and laughed, and tried to ignore the armed guards sitting in a van across the street.

The phone rang right at eight P.M. Mrs. Dr. Possible exchanged a look with Mr. Dr. Possible (who had quickly discerned that something was up, yet had wisely refrained from asking her about it), got up, and opened the back door.

"The plane will be here shortly," Will whispered as he entered the Possible residence. "Is everyone here?"

"Yes, they're all in the dining room. Should we-"

She stopped talking when the sirens started. She ran from the kitchen into the dining room, just in time to see the flashing of lights of a Global Justice van... as it drove away.

"I may," Will said as he limped into the dining room, "have called in an anonymous tip placing myself and Team Possible at some local warehouse. Seemed the best way to distract them, for the time being."

Ann started laughing, while the rest just gaped at him.

"I'm sorry, where are my manners. My name is Will Du."

"Yes, Kimmie's said a lot about you," James said coldly.

"I'm not surprised," Will replied. "We never did get along. But for now, Dr. Possible, Mr. and Mrs. Stoppable, you're going to have to trust me."

James looked like was going to protest... until Ann laid a hand on his arm.

"I think we can, James," she said quietly. "At the very least, we have to. For Kimmie's sake."

He nodded.

"All right. Agent Du," James said, still coldly, "what do we do now?"

"Well, just as soon as-"

The sound of jet engines filled the air.

"Ride's here," he said instead, and led them outside. James looked up at the approaching aircraft, and his eyes widened in surprised. The incoming jet was all black, sleek in form and sharp of line, with a clear VTOL ability given by the turbofans in the wings.

As it was doing now, by touching down clear in the middle of the street.

"That's my prototype hypersonic airplane!"

"Not so much of a prototype anymore, Dr. Possible," Will said with a light smile. "We call them the C-26 'Argo', now that they've started production."

The Argo landed and lowered a boarding ramp. Burn stood in the bay, waving them on board.

"C'mon, we don't have a lot of time," Will said as he trotted off up the ramp and into the plane. The other's followed him, though James stopped at the top of the ramp and looked Burn over.

"I know you! You're the guy who does my taxes."

The beefy redhead just smiled gamefully and shoved James fully on board, and then he closed the ramp.

"Dash, we're on," he called up to the cockpit. "Get us airborne."

Three minutes later they were at eighty thousand feet and headed westward at around Mach 5, fast enough for the scramjets to kick in, and Will Du leaned against the bulkhead and finally started to relax even as his ribcage protested his recent actions most strongly. At that speed they were the fastest thing in the air; once they got going, only another hypersonic, scramjet-equipped aircraft would be able to catch them. Which probably wouldn't happen, since the Argo was stealthy as they came, and he'd already had Dash disable the plane's GJ transponder and schedule in a few random zig-zags, just to make sure they didn't run into any hypothetical GJ airspace cordons.

He turned his head a bit and saw that the Possibles and Stoppables were all staring at him, clearly wondering just what was going on.

"We're safe for now," he said in response to their unspoken question. "With any luck, no one will see us until we get to our destination."

"Agent Du," Ann said, "I don't want to sound ungrateful, but... where are we going?"

"Japan."

Bortel's Lair

The mark was faint.

Actually, it wasn't a permanent mark at all, but rather a red pressure line left by the passage of Ron's fingers down the back of Kim's water-soaked neck and shoulders. She shifted a bit under his touch, so that his massaging fingers worked their magic there, and here, and he smiled gently as she leaned into him just a little bit more, pressing her back against his chest.

They were standing in their full-sized, private shower, clad in nothing but their underwear. Not that a part of them didn't want to escape even that restraint, given the way they stretched and moved around certain areas, and given how her bra was just barely hanging on, with the straps well off her shoulders and dangling down gently around her elbows.

He slid his hands down to her shoulders and kneaded them gently as he planted feather-light kisses around the base of her neck. She moaned and coyly turned her head about, and he took the opportunity to plant a kiss on her cheek-

-then with his free hand he slapped her four times, across both cheeks-

-he nuzzled her, trying to drive the rogue memory from his mind. She turned her head just a little bit more, so that their lips brushed; he pulled back a bit, and kissed her cheek again, this one lingering just a bit longer, and then he moved his attention back to her neck, massaging her shoulders all the while, and she moaned again in response-

-she lay there, crying and whimpering in pain-

-tears began to flow from Kim's panicked face. All she could do was "Mmmfff" into the gag-

-and Ron shook his head like an aggrieved horse. He leaned his head back away from her, no longer kissing but looking at her wet body-

-the cold water enveloped her as she fought to stay afloat. The rope around her feet pulled her down-

-and then his breath caught as he saw the fleeting red pressure mark-

-he towered above her hunched form, and raised his weapon above his head. With a great cry he slammed it down upon her shoulders and neck, and drove her to the floor.

She lay there, unmoving and unconscious. The force of the blow was such that Ron's stick had broken in two-

-and with that every memory of the past few months, everything that they had talked about in the meadow, a whole world of hurt that not even Atlas could've held up, came crashing back down upon him.

They had already talked that over, had already forgiven each other for what they had done, but either because of the alcohol they'd imbibed, or because of the shear absurdity of having to find refuge in a villain's lair, or maybe the combination of both, that provided no bulwark against his own memories.

He had struck Kim Possible, with maliciousness and rage, and for that his conscience cut him to the quick. His hands fell away from her, and before she could turn to ask him what was going on, he buried his face in her hair and wept.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, and then wailed. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry..."

She'd fought villains and chased down criminals. She'd been turned mindlessly evil and then mindfully evil. She'd handed GJ its head, and had hers handed to her by the man she loved. Yet not a one of those was able to get her down, for she was Kim Possible, the Girl Who Can Do Anything.

But having her Ron cry into her hair and sound so completely broken was more than she could bear, and she felt her own tears start to flow as she turned around to face him. She wanted to tell him that it was all right, that it would all be okay, but somehow she couldn't find the words, and so she just draped her arms around him and pressed her forehead against his.

They stood there, and cried for each other and for what had been, and they lowered themselves down, until Ron sat on the floor with Kim curled up in his lap.

"I'm sorry, KP," he said a time later, when he'd finally mastered himself. "I'm sorry about everything..."

"Don't be," she whispered. "It wasn't you, Ron."

"I know, know, but that doesn't- I can still remember it, Kim. I hit you. I hurt you. I... I wanted to hurt you. Just like-"

He stopped himself and turned away from her, squeezing his eyes shut.

"Just like what, Ron?" she asked gently.

"Just like you'd hurt me," he whispered reluctantly, after a long silence. She closed her eyes, and he felt her body quiver with a restrained sob.

"Oh, man... KP, I'm sorry. I-"

"You shouldn't be," she said, leaning her head back against his chest. "I'm the one who should be sorry."

"KP, you weren't yourself-"

"And neither were you, Ron, and that's the problem. Bortel only came after us because he knew we'd be a threat. All of this, Ron, the mind control, the fights, the hurt... he did all of that to us because we're supposed to be the heroes. Because we're the one's who get in the way of people like him, and so we had to be turned into something else. He won't be the last to try something like this, to put us through something like this, not unless we just give up and quit.

"I'm not going to quit. Not now, and not ever. I won't, I can't, let them have even that much of a win."

"Of course you can't," Ron said with a grin. "You're Kim Possible: and she doesn't quit, after all, and that... that's one of the things I love about you." His voice grew quieter and gentler. "And if you won't quit, then I won't quit."

Kim, much to Ron's surprised, started to cry.

"Why, Ron?"

"Because I love you, and I- well, I want to marry you someday. I'm guessing that our college plans are pretty much shot, so who knows what the future is going to be like, but... there's nowhere else I'd want to go, than to be where you are."

She sat there for a moment, her heart doing somersaults at his words, but she couldn't look him in the eyes, couldn't just accept that. Because their plans for the future were shot, just because some whack villain wanted to use the two of them as tools.

"Why would you want to," she whispered bitterly, "given all the stuff I put you through?"

"KP..."

It wasn't suppose to have been this way. It was supposed to have been simple: college, marriage, a life spent fighting the good fight, but always with a sense of invulnerability, the knowledge that no villain would dare attack the two of them outside of The Mission. Now that invincibility was well and surely shattered, as the direct attack had worked in neutralizing them, and if Bortel had only moved faster...

Well, they had a chance now. But she could easily see another of the villains trying the same tactic in the future, and while she would willingly – if not gladly – face down and ruin them in the process, a part of her heart quailed at the prospect of dragging her Ron through something like this again. Their neatly planned future was shot to pieces, and the good fight was all that they would have, and as much as she wanted him (oh, how badly she wanted him!) to stay with her, she didn't know if she should – if she could – drag him through that fight any longer.

And the fact that he would come willingly only made it that much worse.

"If you stay with me, Ron, this is the life you'll have," she said, using the same tone that he'd used on her all those months ago during their talk at GCU. "This is your future: the running, the fighting, the fear, the hurt, the walls of a dungeon in some villains lair.

"You told me once," she quietly whispered, "that you just couldn't stand it if I got hurt. Didn't you ever think that worked both ways? That I couldn't stand it if you got hurt? Being with me will just put you in danger, Ron, and I-" - I'm lying, can't you tell I'm lying; I want you safe, but I want you more - "-I can't put you through that anymore..."

Ron was stunned speechless, and several seconds passed before he trusted himself enough to talk again. This was something he'd only rarely seen: a Kim Possible unsure if she could face what would come tomorrow. He'd never really liked seeing her in that state; the Kim Possible who would swing through the air on a grapple gun, green eyes blazing a path through the night, daring anyone to get in her way, was more his cup of tea. Fortunately, who she was never really depended on how she felt, and Ron knew that no matter how down she got, his dear paladin was always lurking inside, waiting for just a little bit of Ronshine to pull her back out.

And no matter how bleak and uncertain the future looked, that was something he could do.

"Well, you make a couple of good points there, Kimbo." He sounded almost too accepting of what she was saying, and Kim sniffled once and turned to eye him suspiciously. "On one hand," he said, pressing on and holding out his left hand, "I can pitch a hissy fit, run off and leave, and live a safe albeit boring and lonely life somewhere else... at least until somebody else takes over the world.

"Or," he said gently, raising up his right hand, "I can spend the rest of my life with you."

He started moving his hands up and down, like the trays upon a scale, until at last he brought them to rest with his left hand up near her shoulders, and his right hand level with her waist, clearly defining which was the weightier argument.

"No contest, KP," he said quietly but firmly as he wrapped his arms around her and held her close and tight. "Absolutely no contest whatsoever."

"Ron..."

"I had a pretty good taste of life without you," he continued before she could say anything else, "and much like the late and unlamented vegetarian naco, that's not something I want to taste ever, ever again."

She relaxed at last, melting into him, and she brought up her right hand and rested it atop his left; he reciprocated by leaning down and kissing her fingers.

"It won't be easy," she said after a moment. He didn't know if she was talking about the current sitch, or life in general. But that didn't matter.

"I know. But we... we'll be together, right?"

"Always," she said, as she gently pushed him down onto the floor.

"NACOS!"

"Nacos- Ron, what are you talking about?"

"If we can set up a buffet of nacos, then we-"

"Ron, we're not using nacos to distract Dr. Bortel."

"Aw man..."

Yamanouchi

It was daylight when the irregularly requisitioned Global Justice C-26 set down on a hidden landing pad, atop a mountain, in Japan. They'd busted past Mach 5 about halfway over the Rockies, and had continued to accelerate until somewhere just shy of the International Date Line, which meant that the trip was over much sooner than it would have been if they'd gone commercial, which also meant that the jet lag effect might wind up even more severe.

"Ladies and gentlemen, and kids," Will Du announced when as they touched down, "welcome to Yamanouchi, Japan."

"Didn't Ronald spend a week here?" Mr. Stoppable whispered to his wife.

"I think he did," she whispered back.

"He did indeed," Will Du interrupted, "and you're about to find out what he studied during that week."

"I thought it was cross-cultural relations."

"Something like that...," Du muttered as Burn lowered the boarding ramp.

The downwash from the VTOL turbofans caused the edges of her black combat gi, and stray bits of her hair, to swirl about Yori as the C-26 settled in for a landing. She regarded the hypersonic cargo plane, and its slowly lowering ramp, with an expression that betrayed little more than cautious welcome and a degree of curiosity.

The senior GJ agent – Will Du, that was his name – walked down the ramp first, followed by Team Impossible, and then by the Possibles and Stoppables.

"Konichiwa, Agent Du, Team Impossible," she said quietly, "and- I assume these are the families of Stoppable-san and Possible-san?"

"They are," Will answered, and the girl turned to face the somewhat confused Possibles and Stoppables.

"I am honored," she said gravely, bowing low. "Welcome to the Yamanouchi School. My name is Yori."

At a prompting from Will the rest of the party bowed in greeting. Yori grinned in welcoming amusement.

"We have been monitoring the situation ever since the events in England, so I know that the past few months have been hard on you," she began gently, "and that you have traveled far. The Yamanouchi School will consider it an honor to aid you in any way possible, and will have a place of rest available for you, but for now I must take you to Sensei. I believe that you and he have much to discuss."

She bowed once more, and then turned to lead them up the hill. They didn't notice the stand-down signal she gave to the other ninja who'd been hiding in the shadows; Dr. Director had sent out an alert as soon as Will Du went rogue, and Sensei was uncertain of who to trust once Dash contacted him to request sanctuary. Yet he'd agreed to allow their landing without contacting Dr. Director, explaining to Yori that he felt something was amiss, and that he wished to discover what was the truth.

In a show of trust in her, he'd decided to place the final decision in Yori's hands.

The other ninja had been brought along in case Dr. Director's warning proved well-founded, but now they would not be needed. It was the presence of the Stoppables and the Possibles that had sealed it, as she could not bring herself to believe that the people who sired and raised Stoppable-san and Possible-san would accompany the sort of madman that Betty Director's warning had made Agent Du out to be.

Which meant that she now had more questions than answers. But Yori was a very patient girl.

She was a ninja, after all.

The meeting with Sensei was initially tense. Recent events had rather thoroughly soured the Possibles and Stoppables both on Global Justice, the current actions of Will Du and Team Impossible notwithstanding, and the fact that Sensei and Yamanouchi were connected with Global Justice didn't do much to engender trust with the parents. Their suspicions were ameliorated somewhat when Sensei and Will both explained that the Yamanouchi school didn't really work for Global Justice, but that it was in everyone's best interest to maintain a healthy working relationship between the two organizations.

The Yamanouchi School found in GJ a world-spanning organization who shared the majority of their ideals and goals, and a worthy patron which would also help to protect their secret. In return, the ninjas acted as fieldwork and martial arts instructors for the agency, as well as taking on problems whose required solutions many agents and the general public would have found... unpalatable.

Normally even that reassurance, that GJ and Yamanouchi were only connected by mutual self-interest wouldn't have reassured the Possibles and Stoppables that this wasn't another trap. What did tip the scales, in the end, was the unbridled and unrestrained respect and admiration that Sensei and Yori both clearly had for their wayward children. Anyone who honored their kids that much couldn't be all bad, they figured, so they finally consented to follow Sensei into his quarters for a meal and council.

He settled them around a chabudai, with himself at the head, the Stoppables, Yori, Crash, and Burn to his right, the Possibles (the Doctors P. and tweebs all) and Dash to his left, with Will Du at the foot. As they waited for Nooni to bring in the food tray, Yori (who was much amused by the way that Jim and Tim were staring at her while trying to look like they weren't staring, though she kept her laughter well hidden) and Sensei explained to the Stoppables, and the Possibles, what Ron had really studied during his week in Japan.

They were still having a hard time believing it when Nooni brought in the food tray. It contained a simple rice dish, a selection of maki-zushi, and tea, in enough portions for everyone.

It took some subtle encouragement, as well as a demonstration on the proper use and function of chopsticks (i.e., not as components to an impromptu catapult), from Yori to get Jim and Tim to actually try the sushi. Despite their initial finickiness, they were relatively well behaved; Ann only had to tell them to settle down once. Indeed, it was uncertain as to whether or not it was their mothers admonition that kept them from using sushi as a projectile weapon, or if it was the fact of Yori's presence, their adolescent male brains having quickly defined the lovely ninja girl as the next best thing since a positronic data compiler. Whatever it was, the meal went very smoothly, punctuated here and there by pleasant, if relatively light, conversation. The weightier could wait until after the meal, for such had been Sensei's pre-food decree.

But even that meal, that short respite from the reality of the situation, had to come to an end.

"I am certain you have many more questions of me," Sensei began as Nooni cleared away the empty food trays. "I will make every effort to answer them, but now I must know what you have discovered about this strange change that has come over Stoppable-san and Possible-san."

They told him everything.

Bortel's Lair

They felt a lot better after the shower, even if it had run out of hot water a bit faster than they would have liked. Still, it wasn't too grudgingly that they clambered out of the shower, dried off, changed, and moved into the main room to eat and finish planning. They were somewhat nervous about doing so, given Bortel's security precautions, but Ron had 'convinced' Wade to shutdown the security recorders in their rooms, so they weren't too worried.

Just nervous. Not only about getting caught, but also about eating Shego food.

Much to Kim's consternation, it was actually edible. Better than anything she'd ever churned out, anyways. Still, she was hungry, and so Kim mulishly chowed down, while Ron fought very hard to keep his expression neutral.

In between bites they discussed what they knew about Bortel's operation... until Rufus suddenly popped up out from under Kim's discarded prison jumpsuit, with a very surprised, yet joyful, look on his little naked mole rat face.

"Rufus, what-"

"Ron," Kim exclaimed happily, "I think he's broken the mind control!"

"He's- that right, buddy?"

"Uh-huh!"

"Dude, badical! Welcome back, Rufus!"

Rufus started to skitter over towards them, while Kim and Ron scooted across the floor towards him... but then he stopped, whiskers quivering every so slightly, and just stared shakily at them.

Kim's hands were just a little bit closer to him than Ron's were, and it was quickly apparent that there had been some memory loss in the reversion to his old self... just as it was even more apparent that he hadn't forgotten the fight in that dark mine, when Kim Possible, his pet girl, had tried to crush him to death.

"Rufus..." Ron whispered. Kim hushed him and held out her right hand to Rufus, her face sad yet warm and welcoming.

"Oh, Rufus, I'm sorry," she said gently. "I wasn't myself, then, but I hurt our Ron and I hurt you, so that's something I can't just brush off. Still... I'm better now, Rufus. I'm me again, whatever that means, so... can you forgive me?"

He looked at her uncertainly... but only for a moment. Then he grinned big, scampered up her arm, and gave her a happy little mole rat hug. Her smile quivered, just a little bit, and then she turned her head slightly and planted a little kiss on top of his head.

Rufus promptly fell over and draped himself bonelessly across her shoulder, his expression one of faraway contentment.

"Oh, sure," Ron mock-groused. "At least we know where your priorities lie."

"Hnk, sorry..."

"Rufus just has good taste in women," Kim pronounced cheerfully. "Kind of like a certain guy I know."

"That guy about to help you save the world again?"

"There's no one I'd rather have with me," she said quietly, for a few long moments they just looked at each, lost in that comfortable silence.

Then Kim shook her head.

"Which means we need to stay in the game," she said resolutely. "So... you were saying, earlier?"

"Just that between you, me, and Shego, we shouldn't have too much of a probably dealing with Bortel and his mind-controlled minions."

"And Shego?"

"We have the chip on her, KP, meaning she'll do whatever we tell her to."

"News flash, Ron: didn't you tell Wade he was on the command loop?"

"I... lied?"

Kim snorted.

"He'll be real disappointed when he figures that one out, won't he?"

"In more ways than one," Ron muttered wryly. "Wade's kinda gone... yeah. But anyway, between the three of us, we can take 'em. And now with Rufus back-"

Ron pointed at the naked mole rat, who was still lying flat across Kim's shoulder.

"-we won't have any problems with locks."

"Assuming the little guy wakes up," Kim said, reaching up to scratch Rufus on the back. He promptly flipped himself over so she could scratch his belly instead, and Kim rolled her eyes while Ron chuckled.

"Sounds good. I just wish we knew more about Bortel's security arrangements. That portable mind-control ray he carries worries me, and who knows what else he has by way of surprises. Did you pick up on anything before I got here?"

"Well, that's the thing, KP," Ron said nervously, turning bright red. "Before you got here, I was busy, um, making out with Shego and plotting my revenge against you."

The last came in a jumbled, shamed heap. He was looking fairly miserable at that point, so Kim reached over and took his hand. He looked up at her, she gave his hand a squeeze... and nothing more had to be said.

Then Ron's eyes widened and he snapped his fingers.

"That's it!"

"What's it?"

"Shego! Given what Bortel told us about her escape attempt, she was probably paying a lot more attention to his security than I was."

"And we have her mind controlled-" Kim started, catching his train of thought.

"-so she'll tell us whatever we ask!" Ron finished, jumping to his feet. He crossed the room to the intercom, switched it on, and called for Shego to come down and join them. Shego's voice left both of them a bit disconcerted, but they shrugged that feeling off and waited for her to arrive.

"Here I am, Ron Stoppable!" Shego announced vapidly as they let her into the room. "What do you require?"

"You're familiar with Bortel's security arrangements, right?"

"Yes, Ron Stoppable! I made a complete study of them during my time here!"

"Why?"

"Because I was never under Bortel's control, and needed to secure a way out!"

Kim and Ron traded a look as they digested that particular morsel of information.

"Okay. Shego, I need you to do something for me, will you?"

"Of course, Ron Stoppable!"

"Tell me everything you know," he ordered dramatically.

"I was born on-"

"Wait, check that," he interrupted sheepishly. "I mean, tell me everything you know about Bortel, his plans, and the security systems in this base."

She told them everything. Neither hired thugs, nor mind controlled villains, nor anti-personnel systems, nor security fields, nor mean and nasty tricks, nor lofty and convoluted plans of conquest, were left out of her detailed summation. All of this she told them in that hollowly happy, overly enunciated voice, with that wide-eyed, blank stare, and that incessantly vapid grin.

And in that same hollowly happy, overly enunciated voice, with that same wide-eyed, blank stare, and with that same incessantly vapid grin, she told them of the girl she'd seen in Bortel's office.

All of a sudden, having Shego under the influence of a mind control chip wasn't so much fun anymore.

Ron got up, walked over to Shego, and popped the chip off of her head.

She knocked him across the room.

Kim was up on her feet then, moving between the dark's own valkyrie and her Ron. Not that it would have mattered, as Shego looked perfectly capable of tossing her aside like a rag doll, but Kim readied herself for a fight anyways. It would blow their cover, and their plans, all out of the water and gone, but that didn't really matter in the moment-

Then Ron pulled himself to his feet and laid a hand on Kim's shoulder.

"KP," he said gravely, in a tone of voice that she'd never heard before. "I've got it."

"Ron, I-"

He just squeezed her shoulder and looked at her. She nodded, sighed... and then stepped out of the way.

"Shego."

"Stoppable! I oughta-"

"Go ahead. Hit me again. Use your plasma if you want to. After what I did, putting that thing on you? I deserve it, Shego. I did it to save KP, and I'd do it again to save KP, but if you want to punish me for it, then go right ahead."

She actually fired up her plasma and snarled... but then the wild light faded from Shego's eyes, and she let the glow fade from her hands as she lowered them with a sigh.

"You're an idiot, Stoppable, you know that?" she growled. "Same with you, Possible."

"What are you talking about, Shego?" Kim snapped as she strode over to Ron's side.

"Let me guess: the two of you are planning some kind of an inside job to take down Bortel, one that probably involves me. Am I right?"

"Pretty much," Kim replied as she and Ron sat down on one of the beds.

"Big fight, right? The three of us, and the naked mole rat, versus everything and everybody that Bortel has on his side? A grand, glorious battle to end all battles. Ringing a bell?"

"Something like that..."

Shego closed her eyes, inhaled loudly, and performed the Migraine Salute.

"Oy... Possible, did the mind control damage your brain or something? 'Cause you couldn't have beaten me all those times if you were this stupid."

"Shego..." Ron said warningly, but Kim raised a hand to cut him off.

"What do you mean by that?" she asked, a heavy weight forming in her stomach as she felt she knew what Shego was going to say.

She guessed right.

"You figure that we can take on all of Bortel's crew. Well, you're probably right... if we can isolate and face them one or two at a time. But we won't get them one or two at a time... we'll get them all at once. And I figure you're smart enough to know just how badly a multi-axis threat like that would suck. And that doesn't even take into account the new 'additions' Bortel's made to the security system since he brought the Seniors on board."

"Aw, man," Ron groaned, "don't tell me-"

"That's right, cupcake," Shego said lightly. "Along with Monkey Fist, the ninja monkeys, Killigan, Dementor, Dementor's goons, Drakken, Rockwaller, Senior Senior Senior, and Senior Senior Junior, Bortel now also has spinning tops of doom. About all he doesn't have is us."

"But maybe we could still-" Kim began.

"Run the scenario through, Possible," Shego interrupted. "No end-state assumptions, just what you know of the enemy, yourself, his capabilities, and your own.

Kim closed her eyes, drew her legs up into a lotus position, and began to run the scenario through. There was nothing mystical about what she did, as it was merely an extension of how she instinctively sized up her opponents before and during an actual fight. Except this time she had the full force of reason to go along with her fighter's instincts, and the advantage of plenty of time to consider every possible way that the fight could go.

And after discovering that five minutes worth of permutations each ended exactly as Shego had said they would, in situations where they were either overwhelmed by shear numbers and then re-brain-warped, or Bortel showed up and zapped either her or Ron with his portable Attitudinator ray, she came to the conclusion that time for consideration was not all that it was cracked up to be.

It rarely gave the answer one wanted to hear.

"You're right. Any move we make leads to Ron and I getting mind-warped again. So I get what you're saying, Shego," Kim replied uncomfortably. "I don't like it, but I understand it. But still," she continued in a far more troubled voice, "we're supposed to be heroes, we're not supposed to... I mean, I can't just sit around and do nothing!"

"And why not?" Shego exploded. "Eh? Why can't you just sit back and wait until your actions will actually mean something? Oh, that's right, you'd feel bad if you didn't. Can't lose the all-important moral superiority, can you, even if that means throwing away the world's only hope because you don't want to get your hands dirty! I didn't think you were that selfish, Possible.

"If you go off half-cocked, right here and now, all you'll do is maybe set him back a couple of weeks... and get yourself captured and turned back into another one of Bortel's drones in the process. And I do mean a drone this time, a nemo, a nameless, as I doubt he'll let you off with any sort of autonomy after this."

"What would you have us do?" Kim snapped again. "Just... cooperate? Go along with Bortel's plan, leave that girl in his clutches, just to save ourselves?"

"Heck no. That's what I'd do, Possible, and if you were going to do what I'd do then you'd probably have taken over the world by now. No, you're going to sit back and play the good little mind-controlled sheep... until you see an opening to smack him hard, hard enough to stop his plans dead and cold, not just delay him for a week or two.

"It's something that Hego never learned, pumpkin," Shego said, her voice oddly gentle. "That sometimes in fighting monsters, we have to follow them home, and look into the abyss where they live, and risk becoming the monster... or else the monster is never stopped. I'm not saying you'll like it; knowing you, you probably won't. But it's a choice between taking the risk of unleashing the monster inside of you... or loosing everything. Not just for you, but for everybody in the world."

She wanted to argue some more, to not give in to Shego's argument that easily... until Ron reached over and took her hand. She turned to face him, and the look in his eyes stilled her arguments. Not for the first time did she recognize that those chocolate eyes were the eyes of one who, albeit briefly, had trained in the ways of the ninja, in the ways of shadows, and that if they went along with Shego's suggestion, then they would be getting to know those shadows very well.

She looked into his eyes, and he looked into hers... and then she nodded, and he smiled at her, and at last she turned back to Shego.

"No matter what we do, there'll be consequences to this. Big ones."

"Oh you betcha, princess," Shego replied, her voice tinged with no small amount of dark amusement. "No more mind control. No more cop-outs. No 'the devil made me do it' kind of excuses. It's all you, now, and all you've got right now are two really sucky choices... and the fact that you're still in the hero business, and you have a world to save. Decision's yours."

Kim already knew what she had to do... she just didn't want to do it. Her initial plan had been a blitzkrieg, a hard and fast strike designed to incapacitate Bortel and get them into position to destroy 'the device'. But two of the devices had already been deployed onto their launch vehicles, out of touch until they reached orbit. And blowing up the base, with it full of by-then unconscious enemies who were just as much victims of Bortel as she and Ron were (though some weren't, as most of the thugs were in it just for the money and by choice), had its own set of problems.

For one thing, she wasn't entirely sure if Bortel had installed a self-destruct system.

But the real clincher, as Shego had pointed out, was that their plan had no tolerances for failure; for if they failed, then they, and the rest of world, would exist only as slaves to Bortel's whims. Which meant that they would need to build every possible advantage into that plan... and crafting those advantages would require information, and knowledge of the enemy from the point of view of a combatant, and at present they didn't have enough of either.

Not that is was a hopeless situation, mind; had it been a truly hopeless situation, with no time to plan and no chance of victory, then she and Ron would have simply charged Bortel's minions, seeking to do as much damage as possible even, especially, if they wouldn't survive the battle, and thus go out on their feet rather than on their knees

But they did have time, even if only the barest amount, and they did have a chance, even if it was a slim one. It just might be enough if they could keep up the ruse until they were ready.

Therein lay the rub. To keep up the ruse would mean that they would have to act as they did when under Bortel's influence, and Kim honestly didn't know if she could do that. Or, rather, she did believe that she could do that... and that scared her more than failure did.

Because if she could conjure up the hedonistic bitch at will, then what did that say about what lay within her own heart? Would it mean that Bortel hadn't had to dig very far to dreg up and twist the part of her that had hurt her Ron, the part of her that delighted in torturing Bonnie, the part of her that saw something and just took it?

Which was the mask covering the true skin beneath: the hero, or the bitch?

'But does that really matter?' she mused, her resolution growing all the while. 'Does any of it really matter... except for stopping Bortel? I don't know if Shego is right or wrong. But this way gives us a better chance of winning, and if that's the price I have to pay to win...'

Her mind went back to Shego's description of the girl in Bortel's office... and then it extrapolated from that what Bortel's world would look like, and that image forced her hand.

"I never wanted to have to make those kind of decisions," she said quietly.

Shego looked like she was about to light into the younger girl for whining and waffling, but Kim held steady, knowing that she hadn't been whining or waffling. She'd simply stated a fact, but in a way that proclaimed, in no uncertain terms, that she would make those choices. That she already had made that choice.

Then Shego's expression softened, and she nodded with something like respect.

"Dr. Bortel never asked us what we wanted," Shego said quietly. "Welcome to the big leagues, princess."

"Is that what happened to you, Shego?" Kim asked, honestly curious. "Entering the big leagues?"

"The abyss looked back at me, kiddo," Shego answered after a moment's consideration. "I'm not saying that's inevitable, and I'm not saying that you're immune to it... but if you don't take that risk, and you'll likely fail if you don't, then you won't do yourselves, me, her, or anyone else any good."

Kim nodded, her choice made, and she squeeze Ron's hand so hard she was afraid she'd break it. But he squeezed back just as hard, giving her the reassurance she wanted even as he sought it from her for himself in turn.

"Well, if we're going to play this game," Kim said in a light voice which fooled no one, "then we'd better play it the best we can. We're in, Shego. So how do we be bad guys?"

For a half a second something almost like triumph crossed Shego's face, but it left so fast that Kim wondered if she'd really seen it.

"Just keep on doing what you were doing, Possible," Shego advised with a light smile. "I doubt that beating up on Rockwaller and knocking over parties will be particularly easy for you, but at least the random groping," her smile turned strangely wistful, "though sickening, shouldn't be a problem. You'll have to play the part completely, though; Bortel's got some kind of call-and-response thing built into the mind control, and until we figure out the countersign, then you can't give him any hint that things are off. Clear?"

"Clear."

"Good. There's one other thing, though."

She pointed at the mind control chip Ron still had in his hand.

"You have to put that back on me."

"Shego, after what you just told us-"

"Call it your final test, princess," the older woman said, completely serious. "You think the stuff you're going to have to do in Bortel's service is bad? You've had one of those things on your head before, so you know that willingly putting one on somebody else is far, far worse than anything else he'd ask you to do. So if you can put that on me, then I know you can handle the rest."

Kim just stared. It should have been a simple thing, but she knew what wearing one of those chips was like, and the thought of putting one of those on another person, even on Shego, was-

Was just as anathema to her as anything else she going to have to do, if she were to survive and win.

"KP," Ron said after a moment's silence, "I'll do it. You just-"

"No, Ron," Kim said, her voice hardening. "Shego's right, and it has to be me. You've already done it, and said you'd do it again... I haven't."

"I-"

She reached up and caressed his face.

'Oh, my Ron,' she thought as she looked into his eyes, 'I'm sorry, but this is something you can't protect me from. I don't like it, but she's right, and that means I have to take this step, even if it's not something we thought heroes do. It's not right, none of this is right... but it's necessary. Maybe... maybe when this is over, you can help me forgive myself.'

She took the mind control chip from him, got to her feet, and crossed over to where Shego stood. For a moment they just looked at each other with expressions of featureless stone, and then Kim moved to place the chip on Shego's forehead.

"Possible."

"What?"

"When you put that on me, I want you to activate Override B-1."

"What'll that do?" Kim asked suspiciously.

"That's one the chips we stole from Dr. Bortel, way back when," Shego explained. "Drakken never removed the hard-coded operating software... including a set of instructions that automatically include Bortel in on the command loop. I told you what he's done with that girl, and with this chip on me he could-"

Her voice broke with what sounded like genuine fear.

"This... override will let you resist any orders that Bortel might give you?"

"No," Shego answered quietly, shaking her head. "The loyalty protocols are too well integrated into the control software for that. I couldn't even fight back, if he ordered me to... well. The override'll just give me enough autonomy to where I can... prevent myself from complying."

"Shego..."

"Don't be getting all emotional on me, princess," Shego growled. "Just 'cause there's something I can't face... now, see? You've got me emoting. Just do the job, and we'll both be alright."

Kim stared at her erstwhile arch foe for a long, inscrutable moment... and then before she could talk herself out of it, she reached up and slapped the mind control chip onto Shego's forehead.

"Shego?"

"Yes, Kim Possible!" Shego said, in that same hollowly happy, overly enunciated voice, with that same wide-eyed, blank stare, and with that same incessantly vapid grin.

"Override B-1."

"Yes, Kim Possible! Do you or Ron Stoppable require anything else?"

"No. That'll be all," she answered quietly. "You can go now."

Shego happily sauntered out the door as Kim walked back to Ron's waiting arms.

Yamanouchi

Will Du, his injuries mostly healed after the time of rest they'd had, was seated atop one of Yamanouchi's dormitories, looking at the stars, when he heard the footsteps behind him. They had come far closer than he would have liked, but he wasn't surprised. Little about the skill of the Yamanouchi ninja surprised him anymore; the skill this one ninja in particular less so than most.

"I often come up here myself, just before a mission," Yori said quietly as she sat down next to him.

"It is peaceful, isn't it," Will replied, equally quiet. "So you've heard?"

"Hai. Jim-san and Tim-san's tracking device has finally stopped moving. Kintaro-san confirmed that it was 'delivered' to Stoppable-san and Possible-san, so we can only assume that it has stopped because they have returned to Cyrus Bortel."

One of the first things that Sensei and Will had managed to pick out, once they both started analyzing the problem, was that there was a pattern, of sorts, to the raids that Dr. Bortel had sent Kim and Ron on. It wasn't a perfect pattern, as each step in the sequence had three or more possible values (and those each branched off into sequences of their own, which made the whole thing look like some kind of fractal sakura), but the pattern had been specific enough to where Sensei was able to detail some of his ninja at each of the projected targets.

"And now we know where he is," Will mused, and then he shook his head. "I still can't believe that those two managed to come up with a tracking device that could transmit all the way from a party in Stuttgart, and that was small enough to fit into a standard sized ring!"

"They are quite a... formidable pair."

"Not exactly the word I would have picked," Will snorted. "And Sensei's actually agreed to train them while they're here!"

"I... have often wondered, over the past few days, exactly what he was thinking when he agreed to that," Yori admitted.

Will just gaped at her, as that was the single most negative comment he'd heard her make about anyone. Even about him, and Lord knew he'd given her plenty of reason to smack him down hard.

"Let's just say that my respect for their parents has grown tremendously," Yori hastily amended. "They are quite the formidable pair themselves, as are the Stoppables, if less obviously so."

"They'd almost have to be, given their children... what?" Will growled when Yori started to giggle at him.

"You! When you compliment someone, your face screws up like you've just tasted a particularity foul cup of sake," she said, quickly suppressing another giggle. "It is nearly as amusing as Ron-san's old jokes. Still... why is it so hard for you, Du-san, to put faith in others?"

"It isn't," he said just a little bit too quickly. "It's merely that a large percentage of the world isn't quite up to my own, admittedly exacting, standards. Besides, the 'pompous jackass' bit does a pretty good job at making sure that I'm... underestimated by my targets."

"I know all about the facade, Du-san," Yori said dismissively. "I have worked with GJ agents before, and they have all found great advantage in being 'misunderestimated', as one of them put it.

"But I did not ask about your facade, I asked why you do not trust. Yourself and Possible-san are, were, on the same side, yet from your own admission you have never taken her seriously, until now. Why?"

He knew he didn't have to answer. He didn't want to answer, really, as he'd never felt the need to explain himself to someone before. But there'd been no tone of challenge in Yori's voice, only a polite but firm interest, and so, strangely, he decided to answer.

"How many 'special missions' have you been on, Yori?"

"Two," she answered quietly.

"Then you know," he stated. She nodded in reply, and he continued. "I've been on five such missions... though unlike with yours, they never started out as 'special', only turned that way when I ran out of options. Of course, I only used Yamanouchi's... services on the first of those missions, which was also my first ever mission as a GJ agent, coincidentally."

"What happened, Du-san?" Yori asked .

"What didn't happen should be your question," he sighed in answer. "Well, it wasn't as bad as all that... I mean, I've seen worse. For that one, the target just had the local judiciary bribed up and in her hip pocket. The worse ones are when you can't stop them because nobody cares.

"Her name was Aldona Anisimovna. Ex-KGB, former Stasi adviser, one of Andropov's little darlings. Turned out she had, with a decided lack of revolutionary fervor, managed to develop a bit of a fortune for herself during her KGB days, and come the fall of the Iron Curtain, she took that fortune and went underground. We tracked her down around 1998, living large in Odessa at the head of a slave smuggling ring.

"You wanted anybody, of any gender, of any race, of any age, for any purpose? Find 'Lady Ani'. She had her fingers in everything, from the post-Soviet slums of Russia to the deepest, darkest portions of the Congo. Nine times I had enough evidence on her to where I could convict, but again, she had the local judiciary in her hip pocket, either through money or providing a 'companion'.

"So I contacted Sensei, and we... dealt with the problem. Took care of her, a good sixty percent of her organization, and brow-beat the local judiciary to where they were far more afraid of us than they were beholden to her, and let them deal with the rest.

"And that's the story," he grunted, "of how William Du became a hard-boiled, pompous jackass of a cynic. Because at the end of the day most people in the world care more about money and pleasure than they do justice, and of those who don't, precious few actually care enough to act. Most will just cluck their tongues, and mutter under their breath about how sad it all is, and maybe even send a token dollar to some charity. And so they'll pat themselves on the back, congratulate themselves for their oh-so-progressive good intentions and civility, 'gee aren't we such nice people, with good clean hands, compared to those intemperate barbarians, the poor things'... and nothing changes."

He practically spat the last sentence.

"And when it came to Possible," he said, his face changing from flat-out disgust to something a bit more self-recriminating, "I thought I saw just another amateur out to save the world with platitudes and good intentions. I'd worked for years to make myself into the best around, to take up the slack, as it were, and here came this teenager, all high-up and mighty and idealistic, and I expected her, to say nothing of the sidekick, to waggle their fingers, say how much of a shame it all was... and then go home self-satisfied while leaving the Anisimovnas of the world to use the rest of humanity as their private little playground."

"I suppose that you were surprised by how she and Ron-san truly are."

"Surprised doesn't begin to describe it," he said wryly. "More accurately, it threw my brain for a loop. For years I'd worked under the impression that GJ was the only organization that actually cared enough to do something about all the injustices it saw. And then this, this civilian, this teenager, came along, and she seemed just as willing to act as I was. I could not believe it; how dare she try to be as good as me! I wouldn't believe it, and I spent that whole mission knowing – hoping – that she would mess up somehow and that my disdain and superiority would be confirmed.

"But she didn't, and I couldn't handle it... and now that, and my pride, have led us here," he said, gesturing at the starry sky and the sleeping grounds. "A fugitive from the law, from all I once held dear, and facing a madman who's planning Lord knows what... and all because I, in my pride, couldn't put faith in Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable, and believe that they could be right when I could be wrong."

He turned in surprise when she rested a hand on his shoulder.

"So what you are saying, Du-san," she said, "is that you find it hard to place faith in others because of the great faith you have in yourself."

"Actually, I'd say it's because I think I'm so much better than everyone else," he said with an actual grin, "but I'll take that description, Yori. It sounds better."

She gave him a laughing smile and nodded.

"So, Du-san, now that we have that settled... what do you mean to do about our other problem?"

"I'm not really sure," he admitted with a shrug. "I've got the... outline of a plan forming in my head, but I need more information than just the where. I need to know what Bortel is planning, and... and I need to figure out a way to deal with Possible and Stoppable without hurting them."

"You will find a way, Du-san," she said resolutely. "I have faith in you."

"Yori, I'm almost surprised to hear you say that."

"What do you mean?" she asked, her eyes twinkling mischievously. "Are you saying that I should not put faith in you, Du-san?"

"No, of course you should," he pronounced with a wave of his hand, as if the very notion was absurd. "Bortel may have suckered me once, but I'm not going to let him do it again. No, it's just...

"I've seen you out in the training field, Yori. You're one of the best hand-to-hand fighters I've ever met, certainly in the top ten if not the top five. And I saw your demonstration with the fans and all those bamboo poles. Give what you're capable of, I'm surprised you'd have to put faith in somebody else. Even if that person is me."

"Du-san, are you always this thick-headed?" she asked dryly. "Skill and capability, as I thought you had just figured out, do not mean that we need not put faith in others."

"But-"

"You spoke of my skill," she continued doggedly. "Where would that skill be, if not for the faith I put in Sensei and his teachings? You spoke of my war-fans. How could I wield them with confidence, if not for my faith in the metalsmith who forged them? Just because I have faith in myself, does not mean that I cannot put faith in others."

"Point taken," he conceded. "Still... what about Team Possible?"

"Out of what little we know of Bortel and his plans," she answered serenely, "their involvement worries me the least."

"Why?"

"Because I believe in them."

"Okay, here's the situation," Will said two days later. Himself, Team Impossible, the Possibles, the Stoppables, Yori, and Sensei, were once again gathered in Sensei's quarters. "Thanks to the actions of the Yamanouchi School, and some engineering work from Jim and Tim Possible, we've tracked the wayward Team Possible to a location in the Rocky Mountains. We believe that this is the location of Dr. Bortel's hideout."

He motioned to Jim, who was running the laptop attached to the projector that he had set up on Sensei's table. Jim switched the presentation over to the next slide (the first having been a basic title slide covered in GJ legalese; old habits die hard), which was a satellite photo of the mountain in question.

"Thanks to the hacking skills of, ah, Jim and Tim Possible," he winced even as he said it, "we've attained a full GJ satellite scan of the mountain in question, and we've confirmed that something anomalous is there.. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to get past Wade Load's firewalls to hack into Bortel's system. I aim to... correct that disparity in IT security once this situation is resolved, but that is beside the point.

"The fact of the matter is, we have only a 'where' and a 'who', when it comes to information, and half of the 'who', the involvement of Team Possible, is educated conjecture." - even if I believe it - "Meaning that we still need a 'what', a 'why', and, critically, a 'when'.

"To that extent," he announced gravely, "I aim to take the Charlie Two-Six and infiltrate the base."

"That is a... daring plan, Agent Du," Sensei said gravely. "How do you intend to get past Bortel's probable air defenses?"

"We'll be landing a half-klick away from the mountain," Will explained, "but even with our stealth systems that wouldn't help much if he sees us coming, right?"

"Right."

"Boys?" Will said, managing not to wince this time as he looked over at Jim and Tim.

"We were looking through the school's database," Tim explained sheepishly, "just to see if we could find anything interesting. What we found-"

"-were the plans for a full-fledged invisibility suit," Jim continued. "The theory was sound, but you couldn't get enough power to the reactive phototransducers to make it work long-term. But-"

"-we had a brainstorm. The C-26 may have a lot more surface area than a human, but it's power supply is exponentially greater than what you could fit even in Kim's supersuit. It took more transducers, but the C-26-"

"-has enough power to run them all, even at maximum speed."

"Boys," James Possible said slowly, "are you telling me that you can cloak an Argo?"

"Exactly!"

"You said, 'took'," Mrs. Stoppable interjected, sharing an amused look with Mr. Stoppable. "Did you already install the system?"

"Well, yeah-" Jim began.

"But we had help..." Tim continued.

"Only the best-"

"-ninja technicians-"

"-in the world!"

"Hickabickaboo?"

"Hoosha!"

"I see," Sensei remarked gravely, as he stifled a laugh. "So tell me, Tim-san, how did the two of you convince my ninja to modify your plane without my knowledge, and in such a short span of time?"

"We, um, kinda told them that we would convince Nooni to slip them some of the good sake if they did..." Tim answered sheepishly. Everyone around the table laughed, and even Will had to shake his head in resigned amusement.

"Being that as it may," he said, cutting into the laughter and trying to get the conversation back on track, "we can get into range of the base without being detected. Once there, I can sneak in through these air vents, which you can see on the IR-"

"What's with all this 'you' stuff, Du?" Dash asked, cutting him off. "Trying to hog the glory?"

"No glory to be had here, Dash," Will answered. "This is a simple information raid, in and out, minimal footprint, nothing more."

"Yeah, and England was just a run-of-the-mill bad guy apprehension," Dash replied dryly. "Sorry, Du, but we're coming with you. If this goes south, which it probably will, you'll need all the help you can get."

"Dash, I-"

"I shall go as well," Yori said, stepping forward from her place at the wall. "I wish to see this Bortel's work for myself, and should you run into Stoppable-san and Possible-san, then I would like to help rescue them, for a change."

James traded a look with his wife, and then with the Stoppables, and then he turned to Will Du with a faint, and still somewhat cold, smile.

"You'll need a pilot," the engineer said. "I designed that plane, and if my mother can fly it, then so can I."

"Dr. Possible, I-" he started..

He'd gone into the briefing intent on informing them that he would fly in alone, as he wasn't going to risk anyone else on such a mission. But he read in their eyes that none of them would take no for answer, that for whatever reason they were going on this mission... and to his surprise he read in his own heart that he didn't want them to take no for answer. That he wanted them to come with him, and that he could trust them to do their jobs well and completely.

Maybe that was what it meant to put his faith in someone else. If it was, then he decided that he rather liked it.

"Thank you," he said at last, and meant it.

Bortel's Lair

"-and that's today's target, my friends," Bortel said pleasantly. "Any questions?"

"Not really," Ron yawned, slipping his hand up the back of Kim's shirt. "'nother party, 'nother sack of loot, even if we are taking off at the crack of dawn. Want us to bring you anything?"

"Eh, no need," Bortel said after a moment. "It'll all be mine soon, anyway."

"Well, we'd better get to it," Kim said with a giggle. The giggle was due to what Ron's fingers were doing on her back. "See you later, Dr. Bortel."

"Have fun," Bortel said absently as he waved them out of his office. He had the sudden urge to call for Nicole and have a little fun himself, but before he could stand up from his desk the intercom lit with a message.

He sighed at the fun denied and pressed the answer button.

"Yes?"

"Doc, it's Wade," the young man said. "This isn't too much of a crisis, but Drakken's run into a snag with the controller for the satellites, and we'd like you to come down and take a look at it."

"Trouble with my code?"

"Yeah, it looks like it's getting the two aspects of the ray confused, but we're not really sure about that. Think you could come down and straighten it out?"

He sighed again and looked towards the inner door. She would be more fun, especially with the new trick she'd learned, that swirl thing... but it would have to wait.

He did have a world to conquer, after all.

"Of course," he said, rising from his desk. "I'll be right down."

The Rockies

"Now I wonder who that is," Will said from the co-pilot's seat. He pointed at the dark speck that had seemingly flown out of the mountain side.

"No idea," James replied. "Funny looking airplane, though. At least it's flying away from us. Mark the hangar on the navcomp?"

"Already done."

"Great," James said as he checked the radar. "Skies are clear, there don't seem to be any radar returns, and we're in range. Putting her down now."

Bortel's Lair

With Dr. Bortel thoroughly involved in debugging the code for the control system, his office was pretty quiet, save for the soft 'squeak-squeak' and 'clink-clank' of the screws for the ventilation grill as they unscrewed and fell to the floor. The last one came out, and a gloved hand attached to a black-clad arm lowered the grill down, then turned it sideways and pulled it back up the shaft.

One by one Dash, Crash, Burn, Will, and Yori, in that order, dropped out of the ventilation system and into the empty office. The four GJ agents wore powered infiltration suits, and carried stunners and a sidearm, while Yori wore her black combat gi and carried her war-fans. Each wore a small tactical mike/headphone combination in their right ear.

Will took a quick look around the room, and then gestured for Dash to search the desk and for Crash and Burn to watch the door. Then he and Yori checked the inner door for traps, unlocked it, and moved into what looked like a set of living quarters.

It was somewhat between spartan and tech-geek opulence, with only a bed, a single bookshelf, a wall-sized computer, and-

"Holy Mary Mother of God," he whispered. Yori muttered something Japanese and very, very profane.

"Delta, Whiskey," Will whispered into his com. "Hold the doors, we're going to be a minute."

"Roger, Whiskey," Dash responded. Will was glad that he didn't press as to why they'd be busy, as he had no idea how to explain what he saw laying there in the middle of Bortel's room.

It was a cage. A literal lock-and-bars-only cage, measuring eight feet by eight feet by eight feet, containing the barest possible facilities, a very thin covering over the metal floor, two food bowls, like those for a dog, and-

And one naked woman, lying on the floor with a strange, emptily pleasant expression on her face, chained to the bars.

Then Will recognized her, and in that instant of recognition he realized exactly what it was that he was seeing.

"Damn him," he spat. "Damn that man straight to hell."

"Who is she?" Yori asked.

"Her name is-" Will began, but then the girl woke up.

"You're not Dr. Bortel," she slurred in a sing-song voice. "He probably won't be happy that you're here..."

"Actually, Ms. Johnson," Will whispered, "he'd be very happy we're here; he told us to come here, you see."

"Oh, good!" she exclaimed, rising to her hands and knees and crawling around languidly. "Likes making Bortel happy; lives for making Bortel so very happy happy happy. Happy happy happy Bortel, loves it when I purrrr... happy happy happy Nicole, loving the chain and the collar..."

'Dr. Bortel,' Will thought to himself as he fruitlessly clenched his hands to keep them from shaking, 'I am going to kill you. I would say slowly and painfully, but you're not worth the time that'll take...'

He didn't stop shaking until Yori laid a hand on his shoulder.

"Who is she, Du-san?" the ninja girl asked again. The girl was carrying on with her perverse, sing-song litany, which had quickly moved into realms graphic.

"Her name was, is, Nicole Johnson," Will sighed. "She was, at one point, a research assistant to Dr. Bortel, before he... overstepped a few bounds. I came across her file when I was researching Possible's claims."

"Global Justice had a file on her?"

"She was developing a therapeutic nanite," Will explained. "A small, tiny machine designed, in this case, to operate on brain tissue. We... like to keep tabs on that kind of research."

"I believe I can understand why," Yori replied. "Such research could easily be perverted, even if she was just trying to save the world."

"Not just the world, Yori," Will said, kneeling down in front of the still-chanting Nicole. "Her sister was-"

"Sister?" Nicole said in a quavering voice, interrupting her litany of praise for Dr. Bortel's prowess. Will looked at her in surprise, as there was now something else in her eyes. Something raw, and hurt, and fearful, but struggling to fight towards the surface...

"Yes, your sister," he said again, acting on a hunch. "You've been fighting to save her for a long time, Nicole Johnson. Don't leave her now."

"Sister? I... I don't... Dr. Bortel wouldn't want me to..."

The something grew behind her eyes, like a waking and wounded animal.

"Remember her, Nicole. Remember your research. Remember her name."

"I-" Nicole began, grabbing at the sides of her head, her eyes wide and fearful... but no longer vacant. No longer lustful. No longer enslaved.

"JESSICA!" she cried, and then quickly backed away from Will, darting looks back and forth and whimpering like a cornered animal, clearly remembering everything that had gone before, the horror of it all filling her mind as she back against the far wall of bars and pressed herself against it, just trying to get away-

And then Yori was there, snaking an arm through the bars and wrapping it around her shoulders, and placing her other hand over Nicole's mouth.

"You do not need to fear me, Johnson-san," Yori said gently as the other girl tensed. "But you may scream now, if you wish."

She did. Yori hugged her all the tighter as Nicole screamed and screamed and screamed, the sound muffled by the ninja's hand. Will turned away and scanned the room again, trying to find – there, next to the bookshelf.

He walked over and picked up the bundle, a set of clothes and a lab coat that had been uncaringly tossed into the corner, and that clearly didn't fit Cyrus Bortel. Will carried the clothes over to the cage, opened the door, and brought them to Nicole. She flinched away from him as he approached, and he made it a point to look at Yori, and not at her. He set the clothes down next to her, and then he gently, and carefully, unlocked the chains that held her bound within the cage.

Then he turned and left the cage, and gave her privacy to change.

"Who are you people?" Nicole asked. She looked... not so much better as a bit more whole than what she had. Gone was the vacuity, the air of one cheerfully abused. But what had replaced it, the look of bone-deep rage, tinged by an irrational shame, was... well, it wasn't exactly chilling, as it didn't chill Will Du a bit, though he hoped that Bortel would be freaked.

As if he would let that bastard see it.

"My name is Will Du, Ms. Johnson," he announced. "And this is Yori. We work for Global Justice." That wasn't fully true, of course, but it would do as an explanation.

"You came to stop him," she said. It wasn't a question.

"In... a sense, Ms. Johnson," Will replied. "This was supposed to have been an information raid, so we could learn his plans and figure out how to stop him. I hate to ask this, but if you could help us-"

"Of course," Nicole interrupted quickly. "Believe me, if it'll stick a knife in Bortel," she made the name a curse as she spat it out, "then I'll be glad to help you. You say you need information?"

"That's right."

She gestured at the computer.

"Bortel often liked... attention when he used this," she said with a grimace. "What he didn't count on was that allowing me to learn his security codes, and-"

She touched a panel on the right of the computer; it opened up to show a stack of slimcased DVD-Rs.

"-I got to see where he keeps the hard backups. Plans, tech specs for the Attitudinator ray, detailed descriptions of its effects on the human brain. Everything is right there."

"As those current?" Will asked excitedly.

"As of this morning."

He grinned, something that he'd been doing a lot, despite the desperation of the times. Then he stopped grinning when the noise of a commotion came through the door, accompanied by-

"Is that music?" Nicole asked.

"Oh, for the love of- I thought I told them..." Will growled as he stomped over to the door and threw it open.

Dash and Burn were on the floor, holding down a helmetless Dementor. Crash was frantically digging through his pockets trying to find something, while Dementor was busy crying out "Alarm! Alarm!" All the while, the Team Impossible Theme Song played in the background.

Will growled something thankfully incomprehensible, strode over to the tangled mess, and silenced the dwarfish villain by kicking him in the head.

"Dash," Will growled when everything had settled down and everyone (sans Dementor) was on their feet again. "I said no more Theme Song! And what were you doing with him conscious and yelling?"

"Crash was trying to find the Stunner Spoon," Dash explained. "And the Theme Song gives us an edge against Dementor."

"I think I left the spoon back at Yamanouchi," Crash admitted.

Will shut his eyes and rubbed his temples, valiantly holding back what he really wanted to say.

Then the alarm went off.

Again grumbling some sort of invective, which sounded like it had something to with a motherless goat, Will quickly strode to the desk and grabbed a random sheet of paper off the top. Then he walked back over to the ventilation shaft, wadded the paper up into a ball, and tossed it up the ductwork.

It fell back down in charred pieces.

"McHenry Laser Grid Mark III," he muttered, and then turned back towards the door. "Nicole!" he called out. "You said you can work that computer, right?"

"Kind off..."

"Can you call up a schematic of the base?"

"Uh... sure."

"Good. Do it quickly. You three," he said, whirling back around to face Team Impossible. "If we run into anybody, you hit 'em. If you can't do that, you shoot 'em. The point is, take them out quickly. You got it?"

"Copy," a chagrined Dash said.

"Good. And turn off that Theme Song!"

He strode back into the main room.

"What do we have?"

"Calling up the schematic now, Du-san," Yori answered. "I assume we are cut off?"

"Yeah," Will replied as he looked at the map. "Ms. Johnson, we saw a hangar on the way in. Can you get this to show a rout from here to there?"

"I think..." she said uncertainly, her fingers flying over the keyboard. But she came through, and a red arrow snaked across the map, painting the way to the hangar.

"Mechanical doors, so we'll have to open them from the control room... Good job, Nicole," Will said at last, once he'd committed the sight to memory. "Now, I need you to get those DVDs and follow us, okay?"

"Okay."

He pulled out his sidearm and held it out to her.

"Can you use this?"

"No," she said, looking at it like it was some sort of bizarre slug.

"Right, of course not," he said tensely. "Yori, keep an eye on her."

"Of course."

"Papa, Whiskey," Will said into his com as they turned and ran towards the door. "Charlie Foxtrot. I say again, Charlie Foxtrot, over."

"Whiskey, Papa," James Possible called in reply. "10-4 the Charlie Foxtrot. Can you return to Lima Zulu?"

'He's enjoying the 'spy lingo' way too much,' Will thought at James' use of phonetic letters for 'LZ'.

"Negative, Papa. Route closed. Deploy to nav point Sierra Hotel, prepare for emergency extraction. Whiskey out."

"Roger, Whiskey. Anythings possible, for a Possible. Good luck."

"And the same," Will whispered as they ran back into the outer office. He look at Team Impossible and had a sudden, scary thought.

"Do you three know how to use these?" he said, pointing to his sidearm.

"I... never learned how," Burn admitted. "I'm just a CPA."

Will stared at him for a long moment, and then he confiscated Burn's sidearm.

"Gloves off people," Du announced as he shifted the stunner to his back and hefted the two pistols in his hands. "We've not time for dallying."

Then he kicked down the door and charged into the hall.

A trio of thugs, former henchmen of Dementor who had been summoned by their former boss's cry for help, awaited them.

Will shoulder-slammed one, pistol whipped the second, kicked aside the third... and then the hall was clear, and he motioned for the rest of the team to fall in behind him. They set off down the corridor then, Will at point, Team Impossible in the middle and echeloned back, and Yori at the six, with Nicole Johnson ensconced between them. The unconscious thugs they left behind.

"Young man," Bortel said patiently as he watched the security feeds, "please tell me how they got past your security system?"

"I have no idea," Wade said, chagrined. "I mean, it's just Will Du, for crying out loud, and Team Impossible isn't even worth mentioning! Sure there's some kind of ninja with them, but that shouldn't-"

"The air vents," Drakken interrupted quietly.

"The- oh, man," Wade said, smacking himself on the forehead. "I didn't put sensors in the air vents..."

"And why not?" Bortel asked.

"Probably for the same reason I stopped," Drakken answered for him. "The air flow would set off the sensors, and we'd have alarms and lasers going every which way... worked fine in the early fall, but the first time we needed central heating... yeesh."

"Very well," Bortel said. "I suppose, then, that the question is 'what do we do about it?'"

"I'm deploying a few security teams to meet them: two of Dementor's, the one with Bon-Bon and Junior, and Killigan's," Wade said, his fingers flying across the controls. "Also, I'm redirecting Shego, Monkey Fist, and the rest of the security forces to the hangar."

"The hangar?"

"Best bet as to where they're going, Doc," Wade said, pointing at one of the security readouts. "See? The McHenry Laser systems we did install in the vents have kicked in, so they can't get out that way. But if they can steal a plane..."

"Well done... you said you're sending Shego? How?"

"I... just gave her a direct order," Wade said, confused.

"Oh. I didn't know Kim and Ron had put you in the command loop."

"Looks like they did."

'Okay,' Will thought as he ran, 'we turn left here. That'll bring us up to a four-way, where we'll want to go straight, and then-'

"Back!" he screamed as he rounded the corner. He spun on his heels and pushed the rest of the group back around the bend as the twelve thugs he'd nearly run into sent laser shots after them.

The fire lulled down a bit, and Dash quickly darted around the corner and sent a few stunner blasts downrange. The return shots gouged smoking holes in the wall after him.

"No good, boss," he reported. "Looks like they've got the new suits."

One of the drawbacks to Global Justice's non-lethal arsenal (non-lethal because a live intelligence source is usually preferable to a dead one, all things considered) was that the beam sent out by the stunners acted a lot like standard electricity. Because of that, it hadn't taken long for Dementor and Jack Hench both to come up with a suit that would redirect the energy from the wearer to a capacitor stored on the back. It only took three shots before the capacitor filled up, closing the circuit and allowing the stunner to affect the wearer, but said armor had come as a nasty surprise to the first GJ team that had run across it.

So they'd bought up all of HenchCo's stock and adapted it for their own use. Not that it would help in this case, as the shots coming from Bortel's thugs were most assuredly not non-lethal, didn't act like electricity at all.

"Well," Will said, hefting his guns, "that's why they reissued us these."

Then with a roar he took off and charged down the hall.

The thugs were arranged in an inverted V, six to a side, strung out down past the four-way intersection and pointing down the hall. They opened fire just as soon as Will turned the corner, though the agent managed to weave and dodge around their shots.

He spun once, twisting away from two uncomfortably close shots, and as he came back around he extended his arms and shot down the first two thugs.

Two strides later he crossed his arms and shot down the next two.

Gone now was any lingering pain in his ribs or in his leg; gone too was any hint of restraint. Adrenaline filled him and shunted the pain away; endorphins coursed through him and freed his hands. Once more he felt the thrill of battle, and the satisfaction of justice brought and justice delivered lay upon him.

That he fought for his own survival, to him, mattered not.

Into the enemy he charged, twisting about and flailing his arms. Each twist of his body carried him away from a shot, and each flail of his arms brought his own guns to bear. Each roar of the gun felled a foe, until at last there were none.

Coldly he surveyed the carnage. He winced once, as a brief pain shot through his previously injured leg and ribs, but then he got it under control and called the all-clear.

Dash, Crash, Burn, and Nicole came around the corner and gaped at him. Yori just surveyed the damage and nodded.

"Right," Will said with a quick head shake, "let's mo-"

He was cut off by a laser shot, which came from the left hand branch of the intersection and grazed his left shoulder. He dropped that gun and fell to the ground, raising up his right hand and returning fire all the while. The gun locked open on an empty clip, so he dropped it and picked up the other one... and in that lull he heard the footsteps of another group coming from the right hand branch... and judging by Dash's reaction, there was yet a third group marching up the way they'd just came.

"Ach, hold yer fire," he heard from the left hall, "Bortel wants them alive!"

"Du, get moving," Dash said, as he positioned himself, Crash, and Burn to meet the threat. "Get the girl and that data out of here."

"Dash-"

"Move," the leader of Team Impossible continued. "We'll hold 'em here, buy you some time."

"I-" Will said, wanting to argue, but knowing as well as Dash did that they didn't have time. They had to move quickly if they were to escape the trap, and getting the data on Bortel's plans to Sensei and Ann Possible was worth any cost.

"We'll be back," he said at last.

"You'd better," Dash said lightly as he sent stunner fire down the hall where they'd heard Killigan. "I don't want to be a mind controlled drone any longer than I have to."

Will nodded once, and then he gathered up an understanding Yori and a slightly-protesting Nicole and pushed them down the open hall, the one free of any enemies.

The one that led towards the hangar.

The sounds of battle had faded away, and no further opposition met them between the intersection and the hangar. That fact disturbed Will and Yori both more than they cared to admit, yet they pressed on until they at last reached area marked "Hangar Bay". Two doors lay before them: one to the hangar itself, and one to the control room.

"Trap," Yori whispered.

"Yeah. But do we have a choice?"

"Not really," Yori said as she readied her war-fans.

"Exactly. Nicole," he said, turning to the somewhat shell-shocked scientist, "I need you to follow Yori into the hangar. Stick close to her and do exactly what she tells you, okay?"

"R...right."

"Good. I'll open the outside door," he said, walking up to the control room. "You two get into the hangar."

"Will do," Yori replied, her eyes twinkling. He turned and gave her a very old-fashioned look.

"You hung around with Stoppable a lot, didn't you?"

"Hai."

Will snorted once, then turned back and opened the control room door.

Yori opened the hangar door and led Nicole inside.

The control room only had one technician on duty, whom Will quickly knocked out and dumped onto the floor. He holstered his sidearm and looked around.

The room itself was almost featureless, save for the controls themselves and a bank of monitors, and the exposed girders and light that made up the ceiling. He studied the panel a bit, until he found the switch labeled "HGR DR OPN" which was, of course, at the far end of the panel. He walked over to it and switched on his communicator.

"Papa, Whiskey," he called out. "What's your position?"

"Whiskey, Papa. Hovering angels three-thousand, level with the opening. Just marinating and waiting to Papa Tango Hotel Oscar, over."

'Papa Tango Hotel Oscar?' Will thought. 'Marinating? Great, not only is he making up his own spy lingo, he's taking hints from Stoppable

"Just be ready, Papa. Opening shortly."

He reached for the switch... and looked up at the monitors. What he saw there froze his hand.

Then a strike came out of nowhere and slapped against the laser burn on his arm. He stumbled into the wall, and turned just in time to see Monkey Fist drop down from the ceiling.

"Johnson-san," Yori said as they faced a half-dozen thugs, "I suggest that you duck."

Nicole did so, though she didn't so much duck as she dived away behind a unoccupied hover car. Yori, wondering why the thugs hadn't fired yet, brandished her war-fans and assumed a defensive crouch. It would give her enough opening to dodge any of their attacks, and from there-

She figured out why they hadn't fired just in time to leap away from the green energy blasts. She came to her feet in a crouch, looking away from the thugs and towards one of the aircraft.

From the top of that aircraft flipped a blank-faced Shego, hands alight with green fire.

He parried one blow, then another, and then Will Du landed a hook across Monkey Fist's jaw. The one-time English lord and wannabe Monkey King stumbled backwards, seemingly dazed, and Will pressed the attack.

But it was a feint on Fist's part, and the monkey-man held himself up with his hands and broke Will's charge with a kick to the ribs. Will fell back and Fist struck again, leaping forward and once more punching Will's burnt shoulder. He continued to push the agent back, directing most of his blows towards Will's injured ribs and shoulder, hooting and hollering all the while.

Will tried to draw his sidearm, but Fist batted it away. He was able to parry many of the blows, and get in several good ones of his own, but Fist had no weak spots like his own injuries, so each of the blows that Fist landed did more damage than Will's did to Fist. He was taking a pummeling, and-

-and then Fist delivered a lucky kick to the weak spot on his leg, and Will fell to his knees.

"What did you think you could do, young Agent?" Fist hooted in triumph. "Hmmm? You wanted to escape? Bortel will reward me handsomely for stopping you, especially once his little concubine is returned. Maybe even grant me a session with her, yes?"

"You know," Will said quietly, "I'm starting to understand something."

"And that would be?"

Will leapt up and drove an uppercut into Fist's chin. He staggered back, truly stunned.

"I'm beginning to understand-" Will yelled as he nailed Fist with a right hook.

"-why Stoppable-"

He grabbed Fist by the ears and drove his monkey face into his right knee.

"-hates monkeys!" he finished as he grabbed Fist by the hair and bounced his forehead off of the control panel. He staggered past the fallen freak, deciding that he was hurt just a bit worse than he thought if he was actually agreeing with Ron Stoppable about something, and lurched slowly towards the far end of the control panel. He could hardly see it, given how spotty his vision was...

Just before he blacked out, Will managed to flip the switch labeled "HGR DR OPN".

Yori tossed away the ruined pieces of her war-fans. However well forged they were, Shego's glowing claws had carved right through them. What interested Yori, once she'd put some distance between them, was how Shego had doused the fire once she'd cloven the fans.

Yet she pushed that thought into the back of her mind when Shego leapt at her again. Yori turned aside, her hair rustling as Shego's fist flew past her head, and as she turned she snap-kicked Shego in the side, and followed that up with an elbow strike to her neck.

Shego fell to the ground, rolled once, and then leapt up and swept Yori's legs. The ninja rolled away and leapt to her own feet, fairly well impressed. Even with the mind control chip, Yori could tell that Shego was a skilled warrior, and well deserving of how Ron had discussed her many battles with Kim Possible.

But the mind control had certain weaknesses as well, and one of them seemed to be an inability to do anything but directly attack. She proved this kicking, with serious intent, at Yori's head.

Yori rolled under the kick and lightly struck at Shego's other leg, knocking her off balance. From that position she hopped up and spin-kicked Shego away, knocking the other woman into a pair of thugs. She charged the rest and quickly took down a third thug, and then a fourth... and then Shego tackled her from behind. Their fight lost all finesse then, as they wrestled on the floor and tried to clobber each other.

Shego tried to flip Yori off of her, but the ninja girl was able to twist just so and threw Shego off instead.

And in that moment, several things happened.

The hangar opened, allowing in the light of the risen sun.

The door to the rest of the base opened, allowing in a rather peeved looking Dr. Bortel. He spotted Nicole, his expression changing to something ugly and wrong, and started towards her, brandishing a strange sort of hand gun.

But then he staggered as a great wind filled the hangar. The remaining thugs fell away, and Yori and Shego themselves found it hard to retain their footing.

And then, like a flash of lighting, the Charlie Two-Six's cloak shut off and James Timothy Possible settled it to the floor of the hangar.

Yori watched Nicole get up and run for the plane... and she knocked Shego aside and charged towards the scientist when she also saw Bortel aim a strange kind of gun at her. She placed herself between Nicole and Bortel, drew something from her waistband, and let fly a small piece of shot at the mad scientist... just moments before he pulled the trigger.

For all its high-tech mystique, the ray emitted by Bortel's mind-control gun was, at its base, little more than a medium for energy transfer. Normally the majority of this energy would transfer into the target's psyche and rearrange it according to a pre-programed pattern. However, even with an optimal shot, there was a certain percentage of energy that was expended as waste heat.

In this case, however, all of the energy was expended as waste heat, for rather than discharge itself into a person, it discharged itself into the metal shot that Yori had lodged in the barrel.

And into the thermite charge contained therein.

Yori turned away from Bortel, who was staring dumbly at his melted weapon, and looked with satisfaction at Nicole as she, with DVDs still in hand, climbed into the C-26. She started for the plane herself, but then Shego was in front of her again.

This time a strike got through, and glowing claws scraped across Yori's chest.

She fell to the ground in pain, and Shego continued to attack, kicking her in the stomach and side. Yet a somewhat detached corner of Yori's mind thought the attack, indeed the whole battle, to be half-hearted, while the rest of her mind just concentrated on fighting a path to the plane...

Then Shego yanked her up and hurled her into a wall, cutting off any further speculation along that track. She struck it hard, bounced off, and landed roughly upon the floor, with an audible thud. She groaned weakly and looked up from that position, and saw Shego still between her and the C-26.

Yori looked up even further and caught James' eyes, as he sat waiting in the cockpit.

"Go," she whispered.

'Go.'

He nodded once, choppily and reluctantly, and set to work on the controls. At the same time Shego reached Yori, hauled her up, and slammed her into the wall. However, any further action on her part was cut short when the wind from the C-26's VTOL turbofans again filled the hangar.

The last thing that Yori saw, before she blacked out, was the look of satisfaction that quickly crossed Shego's face, as the C-26 pulled out from the hangar, executed a perfect Immelmann, and fled into the western sky with a noise like thunder.

Yori sat in the cell that she shared with Will Du, Dash, Crash, and Burn, and meditated. It just seemed the thing to do, as she contemplated their present situation as Bortel's prisoners. Which was certainly not as bad as it could have been, since Bortel hadn't turned them into mind-controlled drones.

Yet.

"Y'know," a familiar voice said, "I'm actually sorry we missed this party."

She opened her eyes and looked up as Ron Stoppable gaily sauntered up to the cell door.

"I mean," he said as he leaned against the bars, "KP and I would've really enjoyed getting in on this one. For a lot of reasons."

"Stoppable-san."

"Yori," he said, rattling the lock on the door. "Good lock, this. Rufus picked it out himself."

"Why are you here?"

"Bortel sent me," he said casually. "And just so you know, he's really, really tweaked at you for rescuing the girl. Be glad that his remaining ray doesn't work on an unconscious subject, given how he was talking about using you as a replacement."

"I see," Yori said evenly. "Then please, convey to your master that any such attempt would result in little more than the death of any henchman that he would send after me."

"Even me, Yori?" Ron asked quietly.

"Even you, Ron-san," she replied, equally quiet.

"Yeah, I figured as much," Ron said. "Kim and I managed to convince Bortel that it wasn't worth it, that all he had to do would be to keep you – all five of you – here in the cell until he finishes with his plan."

Ron gestured at the TV in the corner.

"Then he'll have all five you to do with as he pleases, without any risk," Ron said with a shrug. "After all, with you here... there's no one to stop him now."

Yori very nearly raised an eyebrow at that pronouncement, as Ron would have to have known what Nicole had taken from Bortel's office. Certainly Bortel would have ranted about it when he and Kim Possible had returned, and if he made the connection that the data was going to Sensei, and to Ann Possible, then-

Then several possibilities crossed her mind, and she stamped down quite firmly upon the urge to act surprised. Despite the American-style buffoonery, he was not that stupid, and neither was Kim. Which meant-

"Still, I gotta say," Ron said as he stepped away from the bars, "that was one badical raid you five pulled off. I'm serious, even if Team Impossible got their butts kicked by Bon-Bon and Duff Killigan; and by the way, Junior isn't even mad about his black eye, given how much more Bonnie's fussing over him now..."

Ron shook his head.

"Anyway... Good raid," he said, looking her dead in the eyes, "but you made one little mistake. You forgot Sensei's first teaching, Yori."

"To wait for the opportune moment?" she asked neutrally, her blank face conveying nothing about what she thought.

"Exactly."

Then he rapped once on the bars, nodded at Will Du, who's face was just as blank as Yori's, and at Team Impossible, who just looked confused, and left.

'To walk in the way of the ninja is to walk in shadows,' Yori thought, recalling Sensei's third teaching. 'And where there are shadows, there is always light. You are truly ninja now, Stoppable-san, you and Possible-san both. We will wait, for I-'

She looked back a Will Du, who gave her a very faint nod in return.

'No. We believe in you.'

END CHAPTER 10

(A/N: Next up, Zaratan. And with any luck, he won't take as unforgivably long a I did...)