The chamber seemed dimmer than she recalled. As she crawled towards the dais, she noted that the council members were no longer there. She kept moving forward, though, hoping to find a clue to their whereabouts on the long platform. She had just stuck her head under one of the tables, when a voice startled her, causing her to hit her head on the underside of the table.
"Miss Possible. Can I help you?" it was the chairman of the council, looking as calm as ever, not seeming to realize the possibility that Kim's best friend may have just turned into the world's biggest night light.
"Uh...yeah!" she couldn't quite manage to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. "What happened to Ron?! You didn't say anything about him turning INTO the phoenix, or Shioa, or whatever you call that thing!! BRING HIM BACK!!!" Kim had launched herself at the small being, forgetting in her torment the small confines of the room. She hit her head, again, and fell inelegantly to the floor. She sat up slowly, gingerly rubbing her head and wincing.
"Right. Now that that's done, I believe we need to talk, you and I." The councilman held out his tiny paw, as if he could help her to her feet. She scoffed at it, but meekly followed him through a hidden door into a more private chamber. The chairman sat down behind a miniature desk, and indicated that Kim should sit as well. As none of the furniture in the room could possibly hold her, she found herself sitting cross-legged on the floor.
"Ok. Soooo?" She raised an eyebrow at the chairman, impatient for him to explain. He did not quite meet her eyes as he began to speak.
"First of all, I must apologize, Kim Possible, for not foreseeing this. I am the keeper of knowledge here in our society, and as such hold all the secrets of our past. Yet even with such knowledge I am not omnipotent. Our histories have many holes in them, missing pieces that have long been forgotten. The history of Shioa is, apparently, such a story. You humans have the story of the phoenix, which we have explained to you from our point of view. But what has apparently been lost to us is that Shioa needs a living host to take a corporeal form. As your friend activated the old energies of the Earth, we here were following ancient rituals, attempting to bring back Shioa to help fight this evil. Unbeknownst to us, our cries had been heard and Shioa had risen to the challenge...half a world away. When 19322 contacted us," it took Kim a second to realize he was talking about the Kirrnan Ron had named Blaze, "I knew that our histories had omitted something important. I immediately set to work digging through the old texts, with my apprentices, to try to discover what we were missing. In one of the texts, damaged by a long-ago fire, it spoke of how Shioa came to be. But the damage had, until today, prohibited us from knowing that the explosion caused by the entry of Shioa and the evil one into our universe did NOT, in fact, kill the scientist and priest. Instead their bodies had been taken as hosts for the two energy beings."
"But, does that mean..." he cut her off.
"When your friend gave himself to, or was taken by, Shioa, the missing parts of all our histories were restored. That is how I know now, what has happened. Shioa has always looked after us Kirrnans; though not truly a diety, he is the closest thing to a god our civilization has had in many millennia. But to answer your fears... I simply do not know. The record said that the two were taken as bodily hosts for the energy creatures, but how the author knew this, or whether they survived or not, that is not recorded. I am sorry." Kim hugged her knees to her chest, breathing heavily. Before she could organize her thoughts, the ground shook and rocks cascaded from the ceiling.
"You must go now, Kim Possible. There is no time for mourning now. Shioa is ready to fight, and so must you be. The green woman who followed you in, she is being held in a chamber...here." He pointed to a diagram on a screen that had just appeared on the wall. "We know she is your enemy, but today you must unite to save all our lives. There is no time for personal vendettas. This has been explained to her, and..."
"Yeah, well I'm not sure she'll cooperate."
"She will. She has already agreed. Even those we call evil usually have a touch of good in them," he chided gently, "and even if they don't, we can count on them to wish to save their own skins." Kim smiled ruefully, boy wasn't THAT the truth. "Her energy bolts can serve as your defense as you..."
"WAIT, Shego's going to be watching my back!? I don't think so!"
"Do not worry. She knows that if you are injured, or die, then all is lost. That is, perhaps why your friend had to be the one taken. Shioa not only uses its host to form a body, it feels the feelings, emotions, of the host as well. So, knowing how your friend cares for you, Shioa will not let anything happen to you. We have explained this to the young lady, that if you are injured or killed, Shioa will not be able to complete its mission, and she, and the world, will die."
"O-kay, I guess." Kim wasn't sure having Ron's mind in an immensely powerful energy being was the wisest idea, but it was too late to back out now.
"Good. Now, Shioa will be fighting the...other one, and Miss Shego will protect you, as well as attacking the beast, if the opportunity arises. Your job is to deliver the agent that will imprison the creature again. Once it is imprisoned, we will destroy it, as we should have done years ago. Take this talisman," he handed her a little stone monkey, which she pocketed, "when the creature is weak enough... you will know the time, for it will cease to have control of the elements and fall once more... you must attach this to it. It will be transformed back into the idol that Monkey Fist released it from, and we will take it from there. Any questions?" Kim shook her head, overwhelmed. This was it. The showdown was approaching. She made her way back out to the main chamber and gazed up at the Phoenix, still swooping joyfully around the room.
"Um, mister phoenix?" the bird ignored her. "Shioa?" How was she supposed to get this thing to go fight with her? She felt a tug on her pants, and bent down to pick up Blaze. Both of them turned their attention back to the bird. Somehow, though Kim knew it was a benevolent being, she couldn't help feeling bitter towards it for stealing her best friend. Ron had never known what hit...wait! She hesitated, heart thumping madly. "R- Ron?" she managed to squeak out. Immediately the phoenix stopped it's wild flight and came to rest on the ground next to her. It cocked its head, as if to say 'what are we waiting for?' Kim smiled up at it, or was it a he? He was about five feet taller than her, shining with an inner glow. His feathers seemed to be made of gold and jewels...they sparkled in the dim light with all the colors of the rainbow. He bent his head down, blinked at Blaze, and, as if some understanding had passed between them, Blaze saluted and slid down into a pocket in Kim's cargo pants. The phoenix looked at her again, then let out a trilling call, one that sounded more like music than actual birdsong. He took off again, this time towards the exit, and Kim ran after it, stopping briefly, only to pick up a sullen Shego. The small group emerged into the storm again, blinking against the fury of the wind.
"Here goes nothing."
The battle had started so well. Kim huddled beneath a fallen tree, nursing a sprained shoulder and multiple cuts and other minor injuries. Out on the savanna the battle raged on. Shego, surprisingly enough, was fighting to the best of her ability, using her lasers to inflict as much damage as possible, while the phoenix...the GOOD one...Shioa (she couldn't really bring herself to think of it as Ron, even if he was in it somewhere... Ron WASN'T a twenty-foot high glowing bird) ... wove in and out of the fray. It didn't seem that much progress had been made, and again, Kim wondered how everything had gone downhill so fast.
When Shego, Kim, and Shioa had left the shelter of the burrow, the other, evil, phoenix had still been suspended in midair, wreaking havoc. Although he was not visible, Kim now knew that Monkey Fist, like Ron, had to have been...absorbed in some way to give the being its corporeal form. The image that had grown from this creature, though, was a horrific, twisted type of winged creature...very similar to a monkey in appearance. As the chairman had explained, this was the image of their evil god, Hior. There were some differences in its appearance from that of a monkey; apart from the wings, its snout was longer, as were its canines, which caused an almost vampirish look. It also was tailess, and each limb had six digits instead of five.
The small band of warriors had coordinated their attack so as to confuse their foe. Kim had used some of Wade's gadgets to create a distraction as they emerged from their hiding place. Shego had tried blinding it with her lasers, but the being's own glow was so powerful that it was unimpressed. Shioa had then attacked; the two mystical, glowing, otherworldly beings latched on to one another in a struggle for dominance. This was the point at which Kim saw her opening and ran forward, hoping to attach the talisman and end the battle quickly. Unfortunately she had forgotten the chairman's council to wait until the evil phoenix lost its control over the elements and, as a result, ended up hiding under a tree desperately trying to mend her wounds enough that she could rejoin the struggle and overcome the creature. Blaze, being so small and close to the ground, had managed to avoid getting hit with flying debris when Kim had fallen. But he had since disappeared, and she feared that he may be gone for good.
"Aahhh! Look out!" Kim ducked as Shego flew over her head. At the last minute her hand lashed out, catching the flying villainess by the collar and pulling her to the relative safety of the fallen tree.
"So... how're we doing?" Kim ripped a strip off the hem of her shirt to use as a bandage.
"Let's just say kicking this guy's butt will be about a HUNDRED times more rewarding than all the time's I've kicked yours."
"As if!" Kim tied off her makeshift bandage and glared at Shego. Shego rolled her eyes, knowing that this short truce of theirs was going to drive her crazy, if it didn't kill her. Kim peeked over the log to see if she could spot an opening.
"Aren't you supposed to be out their trying to weaken that thing?" Kim shoved at Shego.
"Hey! I don't see YOU rushing to confront it!"
"YOU are the one with lasers!" Kim pushed her again, and Shego rolled out from under their shelter. She came up, lasers blasting, and charged the phoenix with reckless abandon. Kim sighed, then reached for the talisman... only to find an empty pocket! Frantic, now, she felt around in the dirt, desperately searching for the key to saving Earth. The winds were dying down; as she glanced up momentarily, she could see the two energy beings apparently locked together, almost melding into one, in their lethal battle. Shioa SEEMED to be gaining the upper ground, and Kim again dug around in the mud, trying to locate the talisman. A loud shriek caught her attention and she looked up again, only to see Shioa take a powerful blow to the head. The phoenix managed to shake itself and return to the fray, but she could tell it, too, was beginning to tire.
"A-ha!" Kim looked towards the sound. There was Blaze, alive, thank goodness, holding up the talisman triumphantly. He started running towards her and she went to meet him halfway. Before she could reach him, though, the ground in front of her exploded, knocking the artifact from the little Kirrnan's claws. Kim saw the talisman fly through the air as if in slow motion and dove to catch it. But a flash of light, and a clap of thunder, burst through the air around her. Once her vision cleared, she saw a smoking hole in the ground, not five feet away from her, and felt her heart stop. The talisman. From the angle of the lightning strike, she guessed that it would have been vaporized along with the first few inches of dirt. She glanced back at the battle as Blaze reached her and scrambled up her arm to her shoulder. The talisman... their only hope... was gone. There was nothing left to do. For the first time in her life, Kim Possible had encountered something she could NOT do. She buried her face in her hands and wept.
To be continued...