"A spaceship? Wade, you've been drinking shlushies before bed again, haven't you?"
"No, really! You are standing in what appears to be some sort of engine for a rather small flying saucer!" Ron looked around, nodding his head.
"You know, KP, I TOLD you that website was telling the truth! See! Proof that we are not alone in the universe!" He waved his hand in front of him as if picturing the great expanse of space and all the possible civilizations. Kim rolled her eyes.
"Rii-iight. Wade, if we're in an engine, where are all the mechanical parts?"
"This isn't an engine like a car's, Kim. It seems to be highly sophisticated technology that is powered by solar energy and some kind of hydrolyzed plasma. If the ship were activated, the hole you're standing in would fill with super-heated energy that could drive the craft at nearly light-speed!"
"Ok, so let's make sure we DON'T activate the ship." She peered up at the opening to the world above. "Any ideas on how we're going to get out of here?"
"Well, you could use the compact I gave you, remember?" Wade looked at her, annoyed.
"Oh, right!" As she pulled it out and activated it, Rufus jumped down from Ron's shoulder and scurried over to the far end of the room. He sniffed the wall, then stood up and pushed on it. A tiny opening appeared next to him, and he ran through it.
"Rufus!" Ron hurried towards the little door, but, as quickly as it had appeared, it vanished. Kim pulled out the Kimmunicator again, the compact vehicle hovering above her head.
"Wade, Rufus just disappeared into the wall." Wade typed furiously, then an image of a spacecraft popped up on screen. The ship had five levels, with an obvious bridge, halls lined with what seemed to be living quarters, a mess hall, infirmary, engineering area, and the engine in the very center. Two blinking dots were shown in the engine, while a third moved quickly along a corridor.
"Ok, see, you two are in the engine, and Rufus is inside the ship itself. It looks like he's going towards the bridge!"
"Well, can you get us in there with him?"
"No can do, KP. The ship's corridors are much too small for a human. Rufus is the only one who can fit in them. Even Monkey Fist's monkeys would be too big." Ron and Kim looked over at Monkey Fist, who was leaning heavily against the wall, his face pale.
"Fine, we'll have to hope Rufus knows what he's doing. We have to get out of here and get the phoenix off of Monkey Fist." Kim leapt nimbly into the floating craft, Ron scrambled in, but Monkey Fist just struggled to lift his head.
"Um, Kim?"
"Yeah, Wade?"
"I think something Rufus did is about to activate the ship's engine... get OUT of there!!"
"Ron! Something's wrong with Monkey Fist! Get him in here!"
"Awwww, why does it always have to be me?" He leaned over and grabbed Monkey Fist by the ears. The walls began to glow an eerie red, and the two monkey ninjas scrambled up Monkey Fist's body, over Ron, and into the vehicle.
"Got him?" Kim asked. Ron grunted, and she took it as a yes. She pushed the disc's power up to full, and they shot out of the hole. As they landed about twenty feet away, the hole began to radiate heat and the red glow turned to a blinding yellow. As they watched, some sort of metal rose up, changing in shape and texture until it closed over the hole, leaving a glowing mound in the middle of the savanna. The ground began to rumble, then heave, as dirt and rocks cascaded from a rising heap. Ron looked at the pile fearfully, wondering what had become of Rufus.
"Wade, do we need to be farther back?" Kim asked nervously, backing away from the rumbling mound.
"I don't...I, uh...probab..." Kim grabbed Ron and Monkey Fist and pulled them along after her as the ground erupted in a spray of rocks and dirt. The pressure from the blast knocked all of them to the ground, covering them with debris. As the dust settled, Kim sat up, taking her arms down from protecting her head, and brushing herself off.
"Everyone ok?" She looked around. Monkey Fist sat up slowly and glowered at her, tiny pebbles sliding down his face from where they had come to rest in his matted hair. Ron was still lying on the ground where Kim had thrown him, covering his body with her own to protect him. Since she had taken the brunt of the blast, she didn't know how he had been hurt, and she leaned down to check for vital signs.
"Ron? RON?" She heaved a sigh of relief as he slowly moved into a sitting position, but he still didn't answer her. His face was turned down towards the ground, and his shoulders slumped dejectedly. When Kim tried to get him to look at her, he tore himself away and stumbled to his feet, swiping his eyes and looking out towards the horizon.
"Oh, Ron. I'm so sorry." Kim didn't know what to do. Rufus had been his pet, true, but also a brother, a son, a friend. Kim may have been Ron's best friend since preschool, but even she couldn't go everywhere and do everything with Ron; she had her own life. Rufus' life had been tied to Ron's in a way few people cold have understood. Kim put her arms around his shoulders, and this show of support crumbled Ron's few brave defenses. He threw his arms around her and cried openly.
"Uh, guys?" Wade's voice went unnoticed by the two mourners, but Monkey Fist gave them a disgusted look and reached over to pick of the Kimmunicator.
"I'm afraid they're a little....busy at the moment." He smirked a little and aimed the video feed at Kim and Ron. Wade saw their distress and his eyes opened wide. He started typing furiously, reading printouts.
"I'm sorry, guys, but no time for that now! You've got bigger problems!"
In the vast darkness that was space, time seemed as frozen as ice covering a comet. The brilliancy of the stars seemed to dwindle and dim, until nothing was left but a tiny speck, glowing in the distance. Just as those who nearly experience death would tell of a tunnel and the bright light at the end, so, too, would the consciousness floating so listlessly describe grief. The light hurt. The darkness seemed so comforting, but no matter how hard he tried, the light kept following him. It pierced him like a knife, cutting deep at his soul. Then it called his name.
"Ron! Come on, snap out of it! We have to GO!!" Kim Possible shook her best friend, trying to reach him, but his eyes stared vacantly at nothing in particular. In the sky above them, dark clouds were gathering, lightning plunging to the earth in violent eruptions. Monkey Fist had collapsed shortly after talking to Wade on the Kimmunicator, and Kim knew she couldn't drag TWO limp bodies to the shelter of a nearby rock formation. Rain began to pour, all at once, as if someone had turned on a fire hose full blast. It was cold, wet, and, if she wasn't mistaken, mixed with tiny hailstones and sleet.
"I'm sorry, Ron, but it's for your own good." She murmured, hauling back her fist and slugging him in the stomach. His body bent, retching, at the sudden pain, but when he lifted his head, his eyes were no longer empty.
"Ow." He coughed, still doubled over. "What was that for?" Kim hugged him tightly, then pulled him to his feet.
"Run! Go take shelter!" she had to shout to be heard over the roar of the storm, and she pointed to the outcropping of boulders. Ron nodded, still dazed, and stumbled towards them. Kim turned and grabbed Monkey Fist's ankles, dragging him after Ron. Before she had made it five feet, though, she felt something tug at her burden. Turning around, she didn't see anything for him to have snagged on, or any animal poised to attack. Yet she couldn't get him to move another inch. Suddenly he was torn from her hands and went flying into the air, stopping about fifteen feet in the air, and hanging like a motionless puppet on a string. As the lightning flashed, Kim could swear she saw the outline of wings beating in time to the howling of the wind. As she braced herself to leap at Monkey Fist dual beams of light so intense it put sunlight to shame shot out of his eyes and caught her in the chest.
"KIM!!!" Ron had been cowering under the shelter of the rocks, but he lurched out into the storm as she flew backwards and landed, unmoving, on the ground, nearly twenty feet from where she had been standing. Before he had gone more than three steps, though, he felt something grab his pant leg. Because of the darkness, when he glanced down he couldn't see clearly. What he saw, though, made him forget his fear for a moment.
"Rufus?!" The tiny mole rat hauled on Ron's leg, pulling him back into the rock formation. As he collapsed onto his knees, he realized that the mole rat wasn't Rufus. Anguish almost overcame him again, but the mole rat took off running into the rain. As Ron watched him, he remembered Kim, and leapt to his feet. He peered into the rain, now seeing not only the small mole rat that had stopped him, but literally hundreds of mole rats converging on Kim's prone body. They all managed to get hold of her and pull her to the rocks, making it just in time. The phoenix, still in Monkey Fist's body, of course, erupted once more with beams of light, scorching the ground, breaking and burning the few nearby trees, and opening a chasm that raced towards the outcropping of stone. As the strange procession halted beneath the tallest boulder, one of the many nearly identical mole rats scurried over and pushed against a small protrusion of rock at the base. Two of the slabs supporting the formation ground together as they slid apart, revealing a small opening.
"What the...?" Ron wasn't able to finish his stunned question, for the group surged ahead, pulling Kim into the dark opening. The stones began to close again, and the same mole rat that had stopped Ron before, at least he THOUGHT it was the same one, chittered at him and tugged at his pants. Taking the hint he dove through the shrinking hole, the mole rat clinging to his leg. The hole was pitch black, and Ron felt himself tumbling over and over, down a steep incline, until he skidded to a stop against a hard wall.
"Ow." He couldn't see anything, didn't know where Kim was, and was pretty sure the world was coming to an end, since the phoenix had become active and was wreaking havoc. Yet for all the recent events, he didn't whimper or cower. He may have simply been to numb to feel fear, or perhaps he realized that for once in his life he was on his own, and the fate of the world may be in his hands. Not that his hands knew what to do with the fate of the world. Nor his mind either. Kim was the smart one. The brave one. She and Rufus. Ron swallowed the still lump in his throat, pushing all such thoughts away as he braced himself against the wall and sat up. The area he was in was small, too short for him to stand in, yet not too small for him to crawl comfortably. Well, as comfortably as can be when one is crawling on all fours in a pitch-black mysterious hole deep underground. He had moved forward only a few inches when his hand came down on something soft. Something soft, warm, and moving.
"Eee!" he jumped back, images of all sorts of horrors, from giant tarantulas to killer monkeys, flying though his head. He hit his head on the ceiling, and dropped back on all fours, only to feel the...whatever it was... climbing up his arm. He stiffened, scrunching his eyes closed, though why he thought it would do any good was a moot point. The thing grabbed hold of his ear and let loose with what sounded suspiciously like annoyed chittering... and the occasional actual word.
"Hey!" The way it spoke...it reminded Ron of Rufus, and he relaxed somewhat as he realized it was the same mole rat from before. Though he could never replace Rufus, the little fellow seemed friendly, and gave Ron a bit more confidence, even as his presence took away some of the loneliness eating away at him.
"Sorry." He sat back, letting the wild mole rat climb around his shoulders and slide down his other arm. Tiny whiskers brushed his hand, and he felt the sharp claws mole rats used for all their endless tunneling digging into his finger. The claws disappeared, followed by some skittering noises ahead of him in the tunnel. They suddenly reappeared, tugging at him again, as if the mole rat wanted him to follow. He complied, muttering to himself as he moved along the cold tunnel.
"Gee, you need a name. Can't keep thinking of you as 'that mole rat'. Besides, with all those other mole rats I saw on the surface, there wouldn't be any way to keep track of you." He slowly made his way after his new friend, pondering good names, and trying desperately not to think about the loss of his two best friends.
"Bob? Fred? No..." He broke off his little guide jumped onto his shoulder and placed his clawed hands over Ron's mouth. Ron blinked, then heard the sound that had caught the animal's attention. A short ways ahead there seemed to be some kind of underground spring or river, as the sound of trickling water reached his ears. The mole rat, "Bernard? No...", leapt down and pulled at Ron's hand from the left side. Ron realized he wanted him to turn, so he carefully maneuvered in the direction his guide was leading. Ron caught himself humming a song from "Road to El Dorado", which he had seen recently at Kim's house before everything had happened.
"Heh," he laughed lightly, "that song is SO perfect for this adventure. If only Kim were here to share it...hmm hmm hmm the traaial we blaaze" he warbled a bit off key. "Ooh! That's it!" He stopped in his tracks, causing the mole rat to run back and pull on his fingers again. "How about Blaze, buddy? You're blazing a trail for us, right?" The mole rat cocked his head to one side, though Ron couldn't see it, considering.
"Hmm-hmm, hmm-hmm. O-k!" the words were harder to understand than Rufus' had been, but still audible. Ron gave a sort of sad smile as Blaze turned and scurried on ahead of him again. He moved forward a few more feet when, suddenly, the ground seemed to give way beneath him, tumbling him down a short slope, and depositing him once again on the hard rock floor. But this time he wasn't in a little tunnel. He blinked his eyes, trying to adjust to the light, which, though dim, hurt his eyes after the pitch darkness of the burrow he had just come from. He rubbed his eyes, then stared up...and up...and up to the ceiling of an immense cavern.
It was lit with tiny fiber-optic type mechanisms covering the walls like a giant web. Little machines hummed in every nook and cranny, little mole rats, surprisingly NOT naked, but dressed in miniature clothes, such as jumpsuits and hard hats, scurried about, tinkering with various projects, and there, in the center of the room, was a large spaceship, about the size of the one they had been trapped in, floating serenely about three feet off the floor. The ship gleamed, and though Ron's heart leapt at the thought that perhaps it was the same ship and perhaps Rufus was all right after all, his hopes quickly faded as he realized that all the technology in the cave was in some way connected to the ship, and had been for quite some time. Blaze had disappeared, and Ron remained on the ground, his legs tucked up under his chin, his arms around them, feeling more lost than ever. He lay hid head down on his knees, squeezing his eyes shut and willing the pain to go away. He was just about to realize that perhaps it never would, when he felt a human hand on his shoulder.
"Ron?"
To be continued...