KIM POSSIBLE: TSOD – THE SHADOW OF INFINITY, CHAPTER ELEVEN
Hana Stoppable flipped up and backwards, narrowly avoiding the giant tendril that had struck out against her. The tendril extended out past Hana, reaching full length underneath her petite form. Hana finished her backflip with both feet on the tendril. She then began to run at full tilt along the tendril, using it like a tightrope but moving as if on dry land, her books-on-a-belt weapon in one hand and her jump rope in the other. Following the tendril took Hana up to the base of the sentry tripod robot that she and her biological mother, Yori, was attacking. Hana smashed her book weapon into the bottom of the tripod core, creating a hole large enough for a human child. Counting her blessings that she was indeed an eight-year-old child, Hana used her jump rope as an anchor and swung herself inside.
Meanwhile, Yori was backflipping, dodging, sliding, and somersaulting about on the ground, keeping the machine distracted while her daughter did her work. No matter how viciously or how quickly the machine struck out with its tendrils, Yori seemed to be able to dodge them.
Suddenly, one tendril got lucky and wrapped itself around Yori's ankles. Yori suddenly found her face planted viciously into the ground before she was lifted unceremoniously into the air. Yori quickly drew both of her ninja-to swords. Before she could use them, however, two more tendrils shot out and latched onto Yori's wrists. The pain forced Yori to drop the swords. Finally, a fourth tendril latched onto Yori's free ankle and helped its counterparts to lift Yori, spread eagle, up into the air. To Yori's horror, a fifth tendril began to snake menacingly towards the ninja.
"Hana-chan," Yori breathed softly. "If ever there was a time for you to work your magic, my daughter, now would be such a time."
The tendril almost reached the crotch of Yori's white ninja nightsuit before suddenly stopping. With a curious look, Yori watched as the tendril shot up, paused, and then tapped Yori playfully on the nose.
"Hana-chan?" Yori asked curiously.
"Hey, Mom!" Hana's voice suddenly said over a speaker system from within the Lowardian tripod. "Wanna go on a joy ride?"
Yori chuckled and shook her head. "No, thank you, Hana-chan. Just release me. We should destroy this machine. No government, not even the American or Japanese governments, should be allowed access to technology such as this."
"Right," Hana agreed. She dropped out of the hole in the bottom of the core and dropped gracefully to the ground, her weapon in one hand and her jump rope in the other. As her feet touched the ground, the core exploded in a violent fury.
Yori felt the tendrils loosen as she fell towards the ground. Quickly extricating herself, she backflipped and landed in a cat's crouch next to Hana.
"I'm glad I got to the central controls when I did," Hana smiled, turning to her mother. "What those tendrils were going to do was going to be awk-weird."
Yori shrugged. "What they were about to do is perhaps a discussion for another day, perhaps ten years into the future."
"I dunno," Hana smirked. "I've seen it in a few cartoons."
Yori's eyes went wide upon hearing that. "Hana! I am less than pleased that you have even had access to that sort of entertainment! Where did you get such material, at any rate?"
Hana shrugged. "It's okay. Let's just say that Mom and Dad never found out that Ron's stash and call it good. Hey, look, there's another sentry!"
Hana took off in full sprint in the direction she had just pointed.
"I'm even less pleased yet that Ron-kun had such a collection," Yori breathed under her breath, dazed in her disbelief.
"Hey, ladies, care for some company, so that we can make the world implode with our overload of sexiness?"
Yori turned to see her friend and fellow Team Possible teammate, Monique Goldberg, leap over a nearby pile of rubble and run towards her. Monique was indeed quite attractive in her red and gold Valkyrie battlesuit... and almost as menacing with her longbow out and strung. The naked mole rat, Rufus, leapt over the rubble after Monique, darting towards the women even before Monique closed in on Yori.
"It would indeed be my honor to have your company, Monique-san," Yori said, bowing. "Are there others here?"
"The Weegs are conducting traffic throughout Middleton," Monique explained. "Felix and Zita are conducting a recon of the sentry units, seeing if they can find a weak spot..."
"The underbelly," Hana suddenly declared, running back towards Yori and Monique. "One smack of a ki-charged bundle of textbooks and BLAM!"
"Well, they're invulnerable to conventional weaponry, including my arrows," Monique clarified. "So I'm hoping Zita can find some sort of weakness that the rest of us can use. Finally, you see Rufus and I here, trying to catch up to you ladies. Where are Kim and Shego? Or our new friends?"
"Oh, you mean Kim and Shego's daughter... and my daughter from the future?" Yori asked, smiling.
Monique glanced between Yori and Hana and smacked her lips. "Oh, I guess I was off. I had guessed that Oni was Hana."
"She is," both Yori and Hana replied in unison, causing the two of them to glance at each other and giggle.
Monique blinked. "Hana... is your daughter? When did we find out?"
Yori shrugged. "I've known it all of her life. I bore her, after all, so it was obvious for me. Donald-sama and Lonnie-sama also knew. Everyone else found out last night. The Possibles and the Stoppables are on speaking terms once more."
"Wow, and I wasn't there to work my magic," Monique sighed playfully. "You know, Yori, team diplomat is one of the roles I cling desperately to."
Yori smiled and shrugged again. "You have my apologies, Monique-san. I am, however, rather pleased that I was able to be a small part in such a reunion."
"No doubt," Monique agreed, looking around. "Still doesn't answer my original question, though. Where are...?"
"Uh-oh!" Rufus suddenly squeaked, surrounding the group in a bright blue bubble of force.
The ground around the women began to rumble violently. As far as earthquakes went, Monique would have guessed it to be at least a 5 or 6 on the Richter Scale. Small bits of rubble tumbles down and around the women for the briefest of moments.
Then, as suddenly as it had started, the rumbling stopped.
"What in the world was that?" Monique asked, wide-eyed.
"Weird!" Rufus declared, allowing his ki-shield to drop.
"Oh, my God, Mom!" Hana yelled, tugging on Yori's sleeve. "Look!"
Yori and Monique turned to look where Hana was pointing. What they saw blew their minds away.
An entire building, four stories tall, had risen up into the air and was floating over nearby buildings.
Hana let out a low whistle at the sight. "How is that even happening?"
"It must be Roz-chan," Yori said, referring to Roslyn Possible, Kim and Shego's daughter from the future. "She had telekinetic powers. But I cannot believe that even she is powerful enough to lift a building of that size."
Rufus thought for a moment, leapt up onto Yori's shoulders, and whispered something into her ear.
"That would indeed make sense, Rufus-kun," Yori agreed. "Mystical Monkey Powers would indeed be useful in boosting powers such as those that Roz-chan possesses. But you are here and, to the best of my knowledge, you did not come back from the future. If you are not there to provide the boost, then how...?"
"Me," Hana interrupted, a grim tone to her voice.
"What?" both Monique and Yori asked, looking at the young girl.
Hana turned to consider both women with a serious look. "When we learned that Yori was my mother, we also learned that Ron was my father, Monique. That means that not only am I the Han, I have the blood of the Prophesied Hero. If Rufus dies, guess who's next on the list to receive the MMP."
Rufus nodded knowingly.
Monique took a moment to consider the little rodent. Before Electronique had killed Ron, Monique had little involvement with Kim and Ron's missions, outside of designing their mission outfits. She knew Rufus as closely as she did Kim and Ron, but as a friend, not a teammate. When Monique found herself a founding member of Team Possible 2.0, she had to quickly to adopt to combat situations. After Rufus had been rescued from the Stoppable's basement, he had become instrumental in training Monique to be an effective member of the team.
Monique didn't want to think about what the world would be like if it lost Rufus.
"If Oni-chan possesses the Mystical Monkey Power and is with Roz-chan," Yori said, breaking Monique from her reverie, "then I can see this feat as being possible. But why would they...?"
Before Yori could finish speaking, the building suddenly dropped violently onto the ground. Even though the impact point was well over a mile away, Rufus still threw up a ki-shield to deflect the dust and minor debris that pushed past the group.
Both Monique and Yori watched in shock and astonishment as the building began to crumble down out of sight behind the buildings between it and the women.
"I hope the others are okay," Hana said, visibly shaken.
Rufus simply nodded. "Uh-huh! Me too!"
"Are you out of your mind, Roslyn Possible?" Hego yelled as he watched the untethered building begin to collapse in onto itself on the street in front of him. His beefy arms covered his face as thick smoke, dust, and debris raced past him. "Kimberly and Sheila were still there!"
Roz said nothing, focused as she was on depositing the building in such a way as to avoid damaging the real estate around them... any further than it already was or what the laws of physics would allow in the way of avoidance. Her glowing blue eyes, empowered by Oni's Mystical Monkey Power, stared intently on the developing carnage in front of her.
"Faith, Hego-san," replied the voice of Oni, who stood in a defensive crouch behind the large hero as the debris flew past him. "This is Kim Possible, after all. Anything is possible for a Possible. That includes my lover... and both of her mothers."
Hego grunted and dared to peek beyond his arms. Silently, he prayed the Lord, God Almighty, for deliverance of his sister and her wife from the fate that certainly befell them.
Kim sped down the hallway at nearly 260 kmh, listening to the deafening crackling and crumbling underneath her even as she was focusing on the rumbling of the walls around her. In her arms was her wife, Sheila Marie Possible, aka Shego. Shego huddled tightly into Kim's arms, trying to create as little aerodynamic drag as possible.
Kim sped around a corner and up some stairs, just as the floor from the level she had left caved in and rubble and debris erupted upwards. Kim spun around the winding expanse of the stairs and hit the next level, zipping along the hallway at top speed.
Kim wanted to say something positive and witty, if only to lift her own spirits if not those of her wife. Something like "Third Floor, Angel! Just one more floor to go and we're home free!" But Kim knew that she needed to focus completely on the trip. She was traveling faster than the normal human mind could register... traveling faster than her headlights, as the driving analogy might go. A normal human traveling her speed would be upon any change in the environment faster than his mind could register that the change had occurred.
Thankfully, she wasn't any normal human. She was Kim Possible. Although no superhero by any stretch of the imagination, Kim was no slouch in the "quick thinking" department. Her mind could keep up with the speed she was traveling... but only barely. So she needed to focus every ounce of her attention on what was in front of her. Else, she and Shego would...
Suddenly, the roof caved in front of Kim. Without a second thought, Kim whipped a 90 degree turn through the doorway next to her, speeding through an abandoned apartment, through and around the living room and kitchen into a bedroom, where a gaping hole in the wall led back out into the hallway on the other side of the cave-in. Kim whipped a final 90 degree turn back into the hallway and then up the stairs at the end of the hallway...
Just in time for the floor of that level to collapse to force of the erupting debris and rubble.
One more floor.
Kim spun out of the stairwell and into the final hallway. The walls around she and Shego were beginning to crumble rapidly, leaving little room for Kim to dart through. The ceiling was caving in at a frightening rate and Kim could feel the debris and rubble from down below beginning to erupt through the floor already.
Shego tightened her hug onto Kim and planted her lips firmly on the base of Kim's neck. It was what Shego whispered next that got the redhead.
"I trust you, Kimmie. I trust you with my life. Anything is possible for a Possible. Now get us out of here."
Kim narrowed her eyes and everything seemed to move in slow motion around her. She knew she hadn't entered into the speed zone, a danger she and Rufus had suffered when the two of them had worn the original experimental shoes nearly a decade ago in combat against the BeBe robots. Wade had made sure that when she installed the speed boots in Kim's Centurion Mark II battlesuit he had put a limiter on the boots' speed. Kim couldn't even move as fast as Mego's smallest form (which was an astonishing 860 kmh, the Tweebs had discovered soon after Mego had joined Team Possible), let alone fast enough to run across water or slip into the speed zone. The perceived slow motion around Kim was something else.
It was Kim's mind coming into complete focus—not only for her sake, but for the sake of the love of her life. The mother of her child.
Kim began to dart in and out and around falling debris, collapsing walls, and exploding piping. She ducked and weaved around flaying wires and splintering wood, darting into one room to avoid one pitfall and then back out and around an explosion of concrete and lumber to avoid another pitfall. Everything seemed to come into view with a clarity Kim had never felt before.
And then... daylight.
As the building that Roz had delivered onto the Lowardian warrior woman Warmonga finished the last of its death throes, collapsing completely and utterly onto itself, Kim Possible erupted from the cloud of debris and smoke. She hit the ground running, still holding Shego tight. Finally, she skidded to a halt in front of Hego and Oni, both of whom were cheering loudly at the women.
Kim gently set her wife down onto the ground on her feet before collapsing onto her knees. Kim's breath came in rasps and her heart felt like it was going to explode.
Oni grinned and elbowed Hego. "See? I told you, Hego-san."
"Good job, guys," Shego smiled, turning to look behind her. "If Warmonga survived that, I'll be amazed."
Don't congratulate just us, Momma, came the telepathic voice of Kim and Shego's daughter-from-the-future, Roz. Mom came up with the idea. We just made it happen.
Shego turned to kneel next to Kim, who was still trying to catch her breath. "Isn't that always the case?" Shego laughed, before hugging Kim tightly and giving her a huge kiss on the cheek.
Kim laughed hoarsely at that, smiling in spite of the fatigue and pain she was in.
Shego smiled softly at her wife. "I mean, I was about to bring the pain to that bitch and thoroughly enjoy doing it, but you guys did a bang-up job. You all did a good job, including you, Princess."
Shego then gently took Kim's chin with a finger and guided her face to look upon Shego's. Shego smiled at the tired smile on Kim's face. The message that passed between the two women was unmistakable to the two of them. They were both alive thanks to each other. And that was just one of the many reasons why they loved each other so deeply.
Shego leaned in to kiss Kim, a kiss that Kim accepted with uninhibited passion.
"You dropped a building on the Lowardian?"
Kim, Shego, Roz, Oni, and Hego all turned to look at the speaker. Will Du, leader of Global Justice, stood atop a nearby broken wall and gazed down unemotionally at the heroes. He was surrounded by several dozen Global Justice soldiers, all armed to the teeth.
"Yeah, we did," Shego growled, pulling Kim close to her by reflex. "Wanna say something about it?"
Will Du glanced around at the scene around him, sighed, then chuckled, before returning his gaze onto the heroes.
"Quite creative and inventive. And it appears to have gotten the job done. Good job, heroes."
Shego snorted her response as Kim buried her face in Shego's shoulder to hide her laughter.
Roz's eyes went wide and she slowly turned around towards the collapsed building. Oni, ever sensitive to her lover, did not miss the gesture and turned to follow Roz's gaze.
Um, guys, Roz's telepathic broke through the soft laughter that the rest of the group was sharing. The party isn't over yet.
Shego and Kim stood up and followed Roz's gaze just as Will Du and Hego turned to do the same.
As the heroes watched, some of the rubble of the building began to tremble and shake. Suddenly, Warmonga erupted from the rubble. Her body was severely beaten, bloody, and broken, almost unrecognizable its morbidness. But she was still quite alive... and growling angrily at the heroes.
"You. Have. Got. To. Be. Fucking. Kidding. Me," Shego drawled in exasperation, igniting green plasma flame around both of her fists.
Kim gently put a hand on Shego's chest and quickly calmed the green ex-villainess down.
"No, Angel," Kim whispered soothingly. "Please. Allow me."
With that, Kim turned and grinned at Warmonga. The twisted, broken green giantess began to stumble haphazardly towards Kim, like a caricature of a cinematic movie zombie. As Warmonga trudged towards the heroes, Kim tapped the toes of her boots and bolted forward.
To the shock of everyone watching, Kim punched Warmonga. The punch itself wasn't shocking. It was the fact that the punch was part of a move-by attack while Kim was moving at her full 260 kmh. That speed, coupled with her martial arts training and the anti-graviton generators in her gloves... Warmonga flipped up into the air after a very audible cracking sound ripped through the air like a thunderclap.
Kim skidded to a halt nearby, falling into a cat's crouch. As Kim's red hair settled down over her bowed face, Warmonga's body hit the ground behind her with a discernible thud.
Warmonga remained unmoving after that.
"Dear God," Hego breathed in disbelief.
"Move it people!" Will Du screamed at the soldiers surrounding the group. "She's not dead. She's only unconscious. Get some power-inhibiting shackles onto her and then get that fucking bitch out of my sight!"
As nearly two dozen Global Justice soldiers moved in on Warmonga, weapons fully primed, Kim stood up and turned to face the rest of the heroes. The way her red hair swayed with the motion, revealing her face like the opening of curtains at a theater, caught all of their attentions. Especially Shego's.
I love you, Mommy! Roz gushed, unable to contain herself anymore. It had been too many years since she'd seen her mother perform so top-of-her-form like she had just done.
"I'm with Munchkin here," Shego agreed, thumbing behind her at Roz. "That impressed even me. Not to mention that whole racing through a collapsing building thing. Even if the President wasn't give you a medal for all that, I'm going to give you something tonight."
"Dinner at Bueno Nacho's?" Kim asked, smiling sweetly as she stepped up to her wife and lover. "We haven't gone there in like forever."
"That... wasn't what I was referring to," Shego admitted, smirking sarcastically at Kim. "But, um, sure, Pumpkin. We can do that."
Kim then draped her arms around the slightly taller woman, grinning impishly up at her. "Then, after dinner, we can do what you want to do."
"If you don't fart me out of the room first, you refried bean eating freak," Shego growled playfully.
Kim laughed delightedly before kissing Shego passionately again.
"Du-san," Oni said, stepping forward. "If I may have a moment with the Warmonga's shackles before you take her away."
As Oni stepped towards the green giantess, one of the soldiers turned to face Oni.
"Ma'am," the soldier said sternly. "I'm afraid we can't let you..."
"Stand down, corporal," Will Du barked, stepping up next to Oni. "This is my stepdaughter. She is acting on my authority."
The soldier gulped and stepped aside. "Y-Yes sir," he stammered.
Oni glanced at Will Du, who nodded at Oni. Oni smiled inwardly and nodded back. She then approached the giantess.
As everyone looked on, Oni opened a panel on the large, electronic steel shackles that the soldiers had placed around Warmonga's hands, wrists, and forearms. They were the same type of shackles that Hego had worn to keep his super-strength in check, so all present knew that they would be effective in keeping Warmonga in line. Oni pulled out some tools from one of her belt pouches, tweaked some of the circuitry slightly, and then packed the tools back away. She shut the panel, stood up, and turned to the rest of the heroes.
"Now the shackles will dampen Warmonga's psychic ability to induce rage as well as her Lowardian super-strength," Oni declared.
Will Du nodded. "Thank you, Oni. Okay, men, get this trash out of here!"
With that, several men picked up Warmonga's unconscious body and carried it off. The rest of the two dozen men followed along, keeping their weapons trained on the Lowardian warrior woman.
Kim sighed. "Well, that's one of the Elite Guard down."
Four more to go, Roz stated, finishing her mother's thoughts.
"This isn't going to be fun," Shego admitted. "Even for me. And I'm usually up for a good scrap."
"But we will persevere and we will overcome," Hego added, flexing a fist in the air. "Justice will be served and the villainy of the Lowardian Imperial Elite Guard will find its final days brought upon it by the righteous wrath of Team Possible!"
Hego then blinked and glanced about, noticing that everyone present, including Will Du, had simply stopped to look at Hego.
"Am I wrong?" Hego asked, confused.
Shego covered her eyes with a palm and shook her head. "You're a fucking dork, Hank."
"One thing is true, though," Kim amended, turning to her wife. "We will stay strong and we will persevere. We have to, for the sake of mankind."
Shego nodded. "True 'nuff. Boy, this almost makes me miss the days when Drakken and I were all up in your ass making your life miserable."
Kim chuckled knowingly at that.
"Now for the next step to this disaster," Will Du muttered to no one in particular, though he spoke loudly enough for everyone close by to hear him.
The rest of the heroes followed Will Du's gaze across the city and the reality of the situation struck all of them. They had saved Middleton, but only barely. While Kim, Shego, Roz, Oni, and Hego had battled Warmonga, eighteen sentry drones had torn across the city. Other heroes, many of whom were simple policemen, firefighters, paramedics, and other emergency response personnel, had moved to neutralize those sentry drones. But the damage was already done.
Much of Middleton lay in devastated rubble.
"Dear Lord," Hego breathed.
"The Red Cross and FEMA have been mobilized," Will Du said. "The President is also in-flight. He's already prepared to declare Middleton a national disaster zone. We've lost many lives today. We won the day, heroes. But it was at a great cost."
There was a long, uncomfortable silence between the heroes as they all considered what had happened.
"Will-kun? Darling?"
The heroes all turned to the sound of the voice. They all smiled softly as Yori skipped down a nearby pile of rubble. Young eight-year-old Hana Stoppable followed close behind, as well as Monique and Rufus.
"I'm glad you're guys are okay," Will Du said honestly, hugging first his wife then his stepdaughter.
"We cannot find any more sentry drones, Will-kun," Yori said.
"That's because..."
"...there aren't any more."
William and Edward Goldberg, the Wego twins, ran up to the group.
"All of the civilians have been directed to the emergency shelters," William reported. "Firefighters and EMTs are tending to the wounded as we speak. My copies are helping out as best we can on that front."
"Many of the families whose houses weren't destroyed, mostly in nearby suburbs, have volunteered to help with housing," Edward added. "Many of my copies are making the proper arrangements and making sure people in charge of coordinating this stuff are in the know."
Will Du nodded. "Good. Thank you both for all of your help."
Monique turned to Kim and Shego. "Are you guys okay?"
"As okay as we can be," Kim replied softly, "for people who just realized that their hometown was very nearly destroyed by alien invaders."
Monique nodded solemnly. "Yeah, I know that feeling."
Rufus whined his agreement.
"Well, for good news," came the voice of Felix Renton, Team Possible's resident engineer and pilot, from above the heroes, "Zita and I think we've found a weakness in the sentry drones."
"A ki-charged bundle of books to the underbelly?" Hana asked, causing Oni to vainly stifle her laughter.
The wheelchair-bound Felix smirked sardonically at Hana and shook his head.
"Close," replied Felix's wife, Zita, who was riding a standing platform attached to the back of Felix's wheelchair. "The underbelly is indeed the key. But conventional weaponry won't do it. Felix and I think we can work with Dr. Wade Load to develop a special sort of ammo that utilizes certain radioactive elements to get past the Lowardian alloy's toughness and pierce those damned things."
"See what you can do," Will Du agreed. "I'll put Dr. Load in touch with Global Justice's R&D team so that we can get that ammo into production the moment it's been perfected."
"Right," both Felix and Zita replied in unison.
Will Du took a deep breath and turned to the rest of the heroes. "As far as Team Possible is concerned, take the rest of the night off. Your work here is done for now. I'm going to make sure that relief efforts are running efficiently before I go home to my own family. We need to keep ourselves rested to handle the next few weeks. This is the toughest part of the battle. The aftermath."
"Right," Kim said sadly, looking around at the devastation one more time. "Hey! I've got an idea!"
Shego cocked a brow. "What's that, Pumpkin?"
Kim turned to look at the rest of her team. "What do you guys think of posing nude for a charity calendar so we can raise the money needed to rebuild Middleton?"
There was several moments of uncomfortable silence between the heroes before Shego finally slapped a hand over her eyes and shook her head.
"What?" Kim asked, trying to keep levity in the conversation. "Don't like the idea?"
"No, I don't," Shego laughed. "That body of yours is only for me to see and that's my final answer."
I've seen..., Roz began to state, raising her hand.
"You're our daughter!" both Kim and Shego snapped, looking at the eighteen-year-old.
Roz smacked her lips and stepped back carefully behind Oni, despite looking very pleased with herself.
"Speaking of children," Shego said, looking around. "I see everyone on Team Possible here. Who's with the kids?"
Monique smirked at Shego, folding her arms in front of her.
A cold dread fell on Shego like an icy shower. "No, you didn't."
"I most certainly did," Monique replied, showing no sign of fear or regret while facing Shego.
"Are you out of your fucking mind?" Shego asked hysterically.
"Omarion! Marquita! Where are you?"
He looked about the room, dreading the answer to his question even as he shouted it.
"Over here-here-here-here!" came the giggly response from several different directions at once.
"What?" Dr. Drakken yelped, spinning around in the training room that had somehow been programmed to emulate an elaborate theme park. The blinking lights, twisting and swooshing rides, and uproarious sounds threatened to overcome his senses.
Suddenly, two three-year-old children came laughing from two different directions and bowled the eccentric mad scientist over before running off in two different directions. As quickly as they had appeared, they disappeared into the maze of booths and amusement rides.
Drakken sat up in a daze. Cotton candy and ice cream covered his face in such a way as to make him look like a strange Christmas elf. He shook the mess off of his face before screaming hysterically into the artificial sky above him.
"SSSSSHHHHHEEEEEGGGGGOOOOO!"
[END CHAPTER ELEVEN]