Josh whistled as he walked down the street. It wasn't that he wasn't worried, or that he had anything in particular to whistle about, just the world was missing any kind of ambient sound, and he needed to remedy that for himself. He never stopped to wonder why it might be that he didn't hear the sounds of traffic or bird song, or anything else.
Running out of tune, the boy wondered what next to whistle — while most people who whistle do it on instinct, Josh considered what he was whistling about before he proceeded. It was while he was pondering this, that he began to hear more sounds. The distant pattering of hundreds of feet, and high pitched screeches that would have hurt his ears were they close enough. He squinted down the road ahead of him to see an slowly expanding black cloud low to the ground. Soon, it appeared more like rushing brown water. Then, individual figures became apparent, and the screeching was clearly audible. Josh's eyes widened, almost all rational thought disappearing, and he turned and ran, screaming. After a few seconds, the furry crowd gaining on him all the time, enough intelligence presented itself that he took out his cellphone….
"So, what did you want to talk about?" Kim asked, still not sitting down.
"That pretty much covered it, really…." Stupid was something that Shego was not. Kim was still uptight from dismissing Dr. Director so … violently, and the green girl could tell. She wasn't prepared to antagonise the redhead more, because while she was pretty sure she could take on Kim and not only survive but maybe come out on top under normal circumstances, she had fought her once today already while she was edgy, and now the girl was angry, too. Plus, she'd just seen confirmation that mentally, Kim wasn't the same 'innocent' teenager she'd taken the hair of to clone just the other day — she now seemed to possess an amount of Shego's own violence, and she knew not to mess with that.
"Yeah…. Right." Neither was Kim. "You decided to come over here, just to warn me that some guy wasn't exactly who I might have thought he was, not long after trying to kill me with some clones you had DNAmy knock up for you? Finding this just a little hard to believe…."
"Yeah, well… It's that, or you can go for something completely stupid, like I came to declare my undying love for you."
"You – I have to get this." The phone had started to ring again. "Possible Residence, Kim speaking." The bright tone – 'her telephone voice', Shego thought – was back.
The voice on the other end of the phone had let her say that much before screaming two syllables into the phone so loud that while Shego could hear them, the limits of the diaphragm that was turning the electrical signals into sound distorted them such that they were impossible to decipher.
"Come again? Quieter, this time?" Kim sighed patiently into the receiver, at the same time trying to stop the ringing in her ear with her other hand.
"Monkeys!" the voice on the other end of the line, Josh, yelled again, a little quieter.
Kim burst out laughing. "You've been spending too much time around Ron!" she exclaimed. "How many, and what's the sitch on them?"
"Way too many! They're chasing me down the street!"
"Can you see, is there one there that is larger than the others, is wearing a ninja outfit, has black hair, and looks almost human?" The redhead looked sidelong at the sword resting on the table.
"That would mean turning around to have a look – slowing down! I'm not that crazy!"
"It a fair bet he's in there, anyway. We have something here he wants."
"Oh, great! And to think, I was running back to your house!" The boy's word were riddled with sarcasm.
"You just get yourself back here," chuckled Kim, "we'll sort out the monkey problem." With that, she hung up; the last two words had been spoken to a closed line anyway.
"Well, I guess I better go inform the monkey master," she said to herself.
"Monkey master?!" laughed Shego. "What is that supposed to be? Your boyfriend's a monkey or something?"
Kim scowled. "Hey, I get enough of that from Ron," she started, before realising that Shego, now sniggering, was in fact referring to Ron. "I mean, just shut up, OK?" She turned to leave the room.
"Whatever you say, your highness," Shego scoffed. "So, what's with the sword?" Kim froze in her tracks.
"It's none of your business," she replied. 'It's hardly mine,' said her thoughts. The teenager turned back, and picked up the sword by the base of the hilt. Keeping it pointed down and across her body, she turned and walked to the base of the stairs. "Don't touch anything," she warned, before continuing up them.
"Whatever," Shego said quietly before walking around to the other side of the island bench, locating the cups, and pouring herself the cup of coffee that Ron had never fetched her. She brought the cup to her lips, staring as far up the stairs as she could see. Despite herself, she was coming to realise that she quite liked Kim in a twisted 'I want to kill you' kind of way. The redhead was the only person she'd ever fought for more than a brief few seconds before beating. Even her brother Hego, with his super strength that could, if it had the chance to be applied, throw her half way across Go City, had been unable to prevent himself from being pinned down by her impossible speed and matching reflexes. Almost everyone else she'd fought before or since then had been a hilarious joke, until along came Kimmie, who nearly had her beat at her own game the first time they'd had a proper exchange. Shego had been out of practice with real fighters, but while every time she fought Kim she became faster and stronger, so did her fiery eyed opponent. That was another thing, the girl's eyes — a soul burned inside that reminded Shego of someone – but she couldn't for the life of her remember who. With Drakken dead now, of course, Kim Possible wasn't so much an obstacle to world domination as someone else she was running from — and yet here she was, at her enemy's home, trying against all reason to find some answers that she was sure the girl wouldn't have.
"Ugh! This is stewed!" the woman exclaimed. Sipping from the cup she held had been a mistake.
Upstairs, Kim rapped on the bathroom door. "Ron?" she asked it. There was no response. She tried again, this time using the end of the sword's hilt. Still, there was no response but the sound of running water. She tried to turn the handle, to no avail — Ron had conscientiously locked the door. Every barrier has its weakness though, and Kim knew this one like the back of her hand (so to speak — she'd never looked particularly hard for a weak spot on her hand). She lined up against the point just below the handle….
"GAH!" Ron hurriedly covered himself as the door flew in, barely holding its hinges, powered by the force of a teen heroine's foot. The same teenager who was then inside the room. "KP! What if I was– I am! Naked here! Hello!"
Kim raised an eyebrow. "Upon me barging into the room, you yell 'GAH!', and I start laughing?" she suggested, breaking into laughter as she said it.
Ron blinked. "That's not fair," he said, "I give you every inch of privacy you ask for, and–"
"And there's a pack of monkeys headed our way, that may or may not be being led by a neurotic freak of scientific mutilation," Kim interjected in acrid tone, placing her free hand on her hip. "You clearly weren't going to hear if I yelled at you through the door, so what did you expect me to do?"
"Well, that's just great!" exclaimed Ron, choosing to take the question as rhetorical. Forgetting his state of undress, he raised his arms in the air in a gesture of exasperation. "Monkeys!"
"Hrm." Kim pulled her lips into her left cheek and turned her head away; Ron's sudden movement had caused her to instinctively look where his hands had been. "Deal with it," she said flatly, tossing the Lotus Blade to him.
Ron caught the sword, and covered himself again with his free hand. "Can I get dressed first?" he asked nervously; He wasn't sure what KP would make of what he'd just done – even if it was an accident.
"Please do," replied the redhead before turning her back on him and walking away. A smile crossed her face as she did so, but she suppressed it. She collected a pair of fighting staffs from her room before going back downstairs. They were titanium steel poles with internal carbon threading, and they reacted in a way that Kim would be lying about if she said she didn't favour. Except for some friendly sparring with her Nana, she hadn't yet had a chance to play with them. This was just the excuse she was itching for.
"Sneak a good look?" asked Shego, sniggering.
Kim considered a snide reply. Deciding she wasn't really in the mood to try and best Shego in a sarcasm play-off, she settled for "What do you care?" and throwing a staff at the smart-Alec.
"Don't make me spill my coffee or anything," sneered Shego, catching the projectile. Despite her comment, the floor remained coffee free, and she downed the rest of the freshly made cup before plonking it on the table. Then she looked at the staff. "Nice toy," she said, "but what are you giving it to me for?"
Kim shrugged. "Maybe I just like you right now. I mean, seeing as you came to declare you love me and all…."
"Very funny," replied Shego dryly.
"OK, if you're going to stick around, it'd be nice if you helped out and whacked some simians or something," the teen explained. 'You might want to keep out of tail's reach of them."
"I don't need this!" laughed Shego. "Glowing hands, can throw burning plasma, all that cool stuff, remember?"
Instead of arguing verbally, Kim jumped the green lass with her staff. She swung and jabbed in Saxon style several times, making sure to keep the pace slow. Shego blocked every move, and then attempted an attack herself. Kim not only blocked it, but used the spring in her own staff with the force of Shego's swing to backflip a couple of feet away. She stayed the staff vertically next to herself. Shego stumbled, but caught herself.
"You've gotta admit, they're pretty cool sticks," Kim said, half smiling.
"Very nice toys," admitted the other woman, grinning. "I gotta get me one of these!" She spun the staff a couple of times, and then attacked Kim, using the same style that the redhead had employed before.
The pace was a lot quicker than most people would be comfortable sparring with, but the other girl kept up. Shego stepped up the pace. Kim responded by cranking it up a little more. This process repeated a few times, and now they were fighting so fast and hard that most people fighting for their lives couldn't keep up. The two of them grinned at each other.
"Hey!"
Shego stopped and looked up at Ron. Kim took the opportunity to push Shego to the ground, but stopped there and looked up also. The boy was standing halfway up the stairs, glaring down at them, dressed in mission garb and sporting the Lotus Blade in an improvised cloth sheath that hung from his utility belt in place of the usual rope for the grappling hook. He also carried a staff, but it was made of the more traditional yew, and he handled it differently, as though it were a streamlined and extended truncheon.
"Are we going to fight them inside or something?" he asked. "'Cause let me tell you, that ain't a pretty scenario…."
Shego planted her foot in the middle of Kim's staff and pushed her away violently. The redhead received enough momentum from this movement that she could handspring off the rail on to the stairs behind Ron.
"Let's get out there," said Shego, standing up.
"Hey, my house," Kim complained. Shego cocked her head. "Well, let's go," sighed the cheerleader.
As they stepped outside, Josh and the monkeys crested the hill. The monkeys were hardly behind him now, and the poor boy was visibly panicking. Ron sniggered.
"What are you laughing at?" asked Kim.
"Silly thing. I'm thinking, Mankey monkey monkey monkey monkey…." This actually made Kim giggle, but Shego shook her head.
Kim was stilling giggling a little as Josh ran up the drive. He stopped and looked at her with his trademark expression of confusion, one eyebrow cocked and his eyes wide, before dashing through the door that Ron was holding open for him. Ron kicked it shut behind the other boy as the two girls stemmed the tide of simians. Then Ron, striding towards them, staff tucked into his arm, drew the Lotus Blade and glowered over the monkeys.
"Stop," he commanded. The monkeys did so — a couple of them went airbourne from the ends of both Shego's and Kim's staffs, they'd stopped so suddenly. Ron blinked at this — he hadn't expected it to be that easy. "Kneel?" he suggested. The simians complied. Ron grinned — a sinister idea was forming in his mind. "Now, follow closely," he said, "Stand up. Now," – he started singing – "Shake shake shake, shake shake shake, shake your bootae, shake your bootae! Have a little fun, do a little dance…"
Shego and Kim shared a Look. Where in the many hells did this boy get his ideas from?
Thus it was that Monkey Fist, arriving over the hill behind his minions, found them disco dancing. "Stoppable," he spat, as though it were the most vile and evil cussword. "Curse you." He narrowed his eyes and continued, on all fours as was his fashion, through the crowd of dancing monkeys.
Dancing Monkeys. Mmm-hmm, mmm, hmm. Am I not the most neurotic person you've ever read? OK, true, If I wasn't neurotic, I wouldn't be here. I think Ace is probably less sane, because I don't see Ron being stupid enough to stick his head in a toilet. Onwards.
I still haven't decided on Montgomery's fate, but anyone screaming at me "Don't kill him, don't kill him!" or "Kill! Kill! Kill!" will be prompty ignored. Deal with it.
I hope I managed to drag Kim a little back into character here. And push her a little further out. At the moment, Ron is not really in the focus, but before judging how far in or out of character he is, just remember that this is set after the whole of season 2. After he's drooled in Kim's mouth and everything (Or was it Kim who would have drooled in his mouth? I must see 'Rewriting History' again to determine…. Plot spoiler? I don't think so.)
And now for the part you've all been putting up for droning on about how either real-world biological constraints are not properly applied in the Kimmiverse or Ron's in a Whole Lot of Trouble when Kim works it out:
In the next chapter, Two special guest appearances! Lots of monkeys! Being hit with big sticks, don't the buggers deserve it? Face off between the mystical monkey power titans! One of our heroes is the recipient of some imprecise emergency surgery! Ron turns a funny shade of yellow! Shego admits her true feelings for Pandaroo! Stay tuned.
