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Kim Possible
The Power of Trust
by Cyberwraith Nine
"I'm sorry," Ron said, speaking between his clenched fists, "Could we go back to the part where you and Yori are sisters?"
"Family?" Rufus squeaked. He looked at the two scowling ninjas, each with a face the color of pale sunlight. "Wha-huh?"
The warehouse had grown silent in the space of a heart's terrified, pounding beat. A circle of warriors swathed in black robes surrounded Team Possible. The circle stood only two feet tall, but the gleaming katana each of them clutched in hair paws precluded finding any humor in their diminutive stature. The Team itself stood divided. Ron and Rufus grouped themselves with Yori. The two teens, wrapped in skintight stealth suits, stood back-to-back with Kim, who wore her usual mission togs with her look of total confusion.
"Listen, Tsuruko," Kim began.
A shiruken sunk into the concrete at Kim's boots, quivering courtesy of the woman in question. As Simia drew back her hand, a look of utter contempt enhanced her scowl. "This does not concern you, American. Go back to chasing costumed clowns and purse snatchers."
Kim's lips drew tight. "Okay, number one? The rude is a no. And number two; give back the statue…s." A quick recount reminded Kim that there was a statue on either side of Simia, each held by one of her precious monkey ninjas. That meant there were twice as many one-of-a-kind statuettes in play, effectively doubling Kim's problems. "I don't know what your angle is, Tsuruko, but-"
Kim's head snapped to the side as she felt something slice into her cheek and whistle past her ear. She touched gingerly at her face, coming back with warm, sticky redness on the fingertips.
"Insolent child," spat the ninja, "You will call me Simia. Soon, you will call me Master." A third shiruken appeared with a flick of her wrists, cradled between two fingers. The pure hate in her face left no doubt in Kim's mind that she had run out of warning shots. "Now remain silent, or I will tear your throat out with my teeth."
As Ron trembled with newfound rage, Yori stepped forward. "Sister," she pleaded, "Why do you do this? You were the greatest of our numbers. Greater than Hirotaka. Greater than me. Greater even than Motoko!" The dangerous monkey mob was not enough to keep Yori from approaching Simia. "Tsuruko, please, give up this mad quest. Sensei said-"
Simia's hand found her katana in far less time than it takes to tell about it. Her movements were a blur. As Yori lifted her foot to take another step, a sword point rested against her throat, keeping her in place. "Sensei is a fool," Simia told her. "All my life, I trained harder, studied longer, than anyone else, all for him. All I ever wanted was to become what he would have respected. But he took all that away from me with a wave of his crystal ball. Well," she said, and Yori winced as the point dug deeper, "Now I shall take back those dreams of mine."
Yori drew up straight. Ice seeped into her features as she looked upon the strange creature she had mistaken for a dear memory. "Each of us has a purpose," she said. "We must face the challenges our own destiny provides."
"Each warrior forges her own destiny," challenged Simia. Her eyes flared with a wild passion. "I have found a new truth since leaving Yamanouchi, and will create whatever destiny I see fit." She waved a hand at Ron, who tried checking Kim's cut without her cooperation. "Would you really trust our fate in the hands of a gaijin?"
"Um, excuse me?" Ron abandoned Kim's cheek, which she wouldn't let him touch anyway, and raised a finger to get Simia's attention. "Hi. Gaijin here. I'm very confused, I'm kinda pissed off, and I really want an explanation."
Simia sneered. "You know nothing of the wonderment taking residence in your greasy body." Then her sneer became a smile, and her eyes flicked to his side. "But perhaps your whore has you too distracted. In which case, allow me."
Kim saw only a flash of silver before the back of a hand filled her vision. The tip of that third shiruken hung a hair's breadth from her wide eye, which caught sight of a red-orange fire burning in Ron's eyes. If she hadn't seen him do the same thing back in London, she might not believe it truly was Ron. His name escaped Kim's lips in a whisper as she gazed in astonishment and fear at someone she thought only a moment ago held no real mystery left for her to discover.
His grip didn't waver as he glared balefully at Simia. "I don't like your attitude," he growled. The shiruken squealed in protest as his fingers flexed into a fist, flickering with that same fire from his eyes. Thin ribbons of blood dribbled down his opening hand, allowing a misshapen lump of metal to clatter to the floor.
The display only pleased Simia more. Her eyes could not tear away from Ron as she said to Yori, "He has begun already to tap into his power. I assume he has you to thank. You always were a marvelous student. IT is only natural that you should become a teacher of equal prowess."
"You speak as if you know me." The anger in Yori's tone could not disguise her grief.
Simia laughed. "Better than you know yourself. I offer you, and you alone, this one chance to join me. Fight by my side," she bid, "And you shall have anything your heart desires."
With growing resolve, the emotion drained from Yori's voice. "I want back the sister that left us for madness," she said.
Simia's countenance lost all amusement. "Fine," she spat, "Then you will die with the gaijin. A pity, really." Her voice grew sultry as she said with half-lidded, lustful eyes, "Are you still as flexible as you once were?"
That snapped Ron straight out of his fire-eyed trance. His head spun to the side. "Wait. What?"
"No matter." Simia stepped back, beckoning her statuette carriers to follow. The rest of the hairy ninjas closed ranks immediately. "Kill the girls, and that…thing," she added, waving at Rufus atop Ron's shoulders. "I want the boy alive. Barely will do just fine."
It was all the signal the eager monkeys needed to hear. An inhuman shriek rose in unison from their covered fangs. They leapt in pairs, swords flashing, beady eyes dark with bloodlust, as they descended upon the teenagers. Their tiny paws existed only to mete out terrible pain, a pleasure denied to them under the bumbling tutelage of Gregory Fiske. Now that he lay in a crumpled heap of his own failed designs, they intended to savor the fruits of their patience.
One bold monkey dove first in a clumsy roll, bringing a deathblow down on Kim Possible's ginger hair that the teen wasn't there to receive. She sidestepped and swung out, putting boot to monkey and sending the early bird back to consider his painful lesson. The next to attack her were more cautious, coming in a trio of blazing blades that drew upon all her skills to keep ahead of. "So," she grunted back at Ron, "You have magic powers."
Ron lost a wedge of his precious blond hair to a combination of a lucky shot and distracted blocking (the latter being his, and the former belonging to a monkey which promptly found his little nose broken). "Can we talk about this later?" he asked. He folded backwards to avoid another slash and came up with a vicious elbow into the monkey's waiting block.
"I want to talk about it now," Kim snapped. Her knee did likewise, into the stomach of a smelly little ninja that made the mistake of jumping right at her.
A twist of his wrist threw one of the monkeys high into the air. "Why do we always fight when we're traveling?" Ron groused.
Having repossessed a katana from a generous owner's broken paw, Yori cut a clean three-foot circle around her with precise strokes. "Do you always jabber so during a fight?" she asked.
"You stay out of this!" both teens snapped at her.
Ron continued, "You're still in the doghouse about that 'flexible' comment Monkey Chick made."
"My sex life prior to our relationship is none of your concern." Yori caught the monkey Ron had tossed and slammed it into the ground. The creature did not rise again, and Yori had already moved on to the next one.
"Sex life." Ron's fist sent a ninja spiraling away. Another landed on his back, trying to get a dagger to his throat, but Rufus was already on the job, pounding his balled-up claws into the foul creature's stomach. "That might have been a great topic to touch on before you asked me to marry you."
A corkscrew flip took Kim over a pair of the hairy beasts. She grabbed each by the head and knocked them together before touching back down. "Marriage?" she piped in.
"Not now!" Ron and Yori barked simultaneously.
"All I'm saying is that a little heads-up would have been nice." Four shiruken snapped through Ron's previous position. He snatched one up and sent it back, sinking it into the monkey who had let it fly. The ninja shrieked and fell, clutching his injury. Taking a quick breath, Ron pushed the sweaty hair out of his face and caught Yori's eye. "Y'know," he added, "Before the honeymoon."
Kim laughed, an explosion of air that was unrelated to her foot sweeping a line of ninjas off of theirs. "Like you're one to talk about keeping secrets," she scoffed. "But then, maybe you're just reaping what you sew."
"Don't you dare talk to Ron-san like that," said Yori. Her tuck and roll beneath a katana swipe, carrying her over to the object of her scorn. She and Kim stood back-to-back once more, boxed in by their miniscule foes' lightning strikes. "A bitter, dry shrew like you-"
"Shrew?" If the deathblows weren't raining down on her, Kim would have turned around to plant her boot up Yori's taught keister. "Just because I'm not into gender-bending incest, you have the brass to call me a shrew?"
"No," Yori shot back, "More like a cold fish."
Deathblows or not, the idea became awfully tempting. "What, like I'm going to just strip down right now and prove you wrong? We could even get your sister in on it, make it a three-way. Bet you'd love that."
"Not even in your most twisted fantasies," Yori pledged.
It was becoming increasingly difficult for Ron to focus. His overactive imagination took in the girls' adversarial conversation and twisted it in a different light. "Could I just say something here?" he called out.
"No!" Yori and Kim shouted.
"That's probably how you hypnotized Ron," snarled Kim. "Must have given it to him three, maybe four times a day. After a summer like that, I can't blame him." She clapped her hands over a katana, catching the blade between her palms. With a sharp twist, the weapon wrenched free and flipped around. She caught the hilt and swung with precise strokes, shredding the robes of the monkey unlucky enough to lose his blade. "He's addicted," Kim added. "You know, like a drug."
Yori pulled her fist from a bloodied face and risked a disgusted look over her shoulder at the redhead. "How typical," she said. "Leave it to the American to be sexually repressed to the brink of neuroses and beyond. Is it because I revel in my womanhood while you wallow in yours, or because I openly desire in that you have forcibly denied yourself for fifteen years?"
"That," Kim said between kicks, "Is my best friend you're talking about."
"Do I get a say in this at all?" Ron caught a punch and crushed the monkey's paw with one hand. The monkey's shriek of pain cut off abruptly as Ron's foot finished the job with a snap kick to the jaw. "I am right here, y'know."
"Shut up, Ron," Kim grunted, "I'm defending you."
"Oh gee," he laughed, "Thanks. Don't let me get in the way."
"ENOUGH!" Simia's voice thundered. Those monkeys still conscious and mobile enough to fight pulled back and dragged their less fortunate cousins from the battlefield, leaving trails of red and abandoned weapons in their wake. Kim and Yori shucked their borrowed blades and squared off with Ron as Simia once again took center stage. Silent throughout the fight, her look of amusement had transformed into one of pure disgust at the pitiful display her seasoned warriors put forth in their inaugural fight. It was an embarrassment. "You dare oppose me? You are but insignificant stains upon my heel!"
Kim directed her groan inward. 'Holy Christ,' she thought, 'Why do they always want to talk?' Therapy had to be cheaper than supervillainy. But Simia's motives revealed themselves to Kim's trained eye; for every long-winded sentence she projected out into the echoing space, she and her idol carriers took a sly step closer. Kim considered calling her on it, but chose instead to remain silent. Better to wait, and see what the inexperienced villainess was cooking up. The only problem was, that meant protecting Mister Monkey Magic and his girlfriend, too.
"-and all shall kneel before the true Monkey Master," proclaimed Simia as Kim drifted back into the conversation. It was Simia who knelt, though, taking her idols back in hand. As she rose, the jade eggs clutched in the statues' paws came to life, shining with an emerald glow that cast Simia's face in ominous light. "Soon, Chosen One, your power and your destiny will be restored to their rightful owners."
Waves of danger pulsed through Ron's new sixth sense as she held the statues aloft. Every instinct he had told him to run, to scurry away and find the nearest tree to disappear up into. But he convinced himself that such a notion was the old, cowardly Ron talking. Well, Ron the Sidekick wouldn't be calling the shots anymore. "You, lady," he said in a cracking voice, "Are a few monkeys short of a barrel."
"Will you surrender willingly?"
"Bite me."
Simia's face split into a sinister grin. "I intend to do much worse to you." Her eyes rolled back into her sockets, and she began to sway. Strange words unlike any uttered in a thousand years bubbled from her lips. Unlike the lagging echoes of their previous shouting and sniping, her chanting assaulted them from all directions at once. Ron could feel it pouring into his mind like boiling oil, spreading agony across each synapse. Rufus shrieked and fell from his shoulder, but the mole rat's cries were well beyond what Ron could focus on. Pain had become the alpha and omega of her world. A cold fire of reds and golds leapt from his pores. His skin smoldered, and a howl unlike anything his throat had ever produced rattled the walls, but he did not burn.
Yori cried above Ron's screaming, "Tsuruko, stop! You will kill him!"
Simia only grinned harder and glared behind closed eyes. Her chanting grew louder, her statues brighter, and Ron's agony ballooned exponentially. Wisps of the cold flames flickered in her direction, drawn by the power of her idols. Her remaining ninjas blocked the two heroines from stopping her in time. Simia's rightful destiny would be hers at last.
Did her hand suddenly feel lighter?
The world awaiting her when she opened her eyes was a grim one indeed. Yori, that traitorous, backstabbing bitch, had a great big smile on her face as she cradled the Pretender. The throbbing reddish aura Simia had hoped to rip from his body had retreated back inside his worthless meat. And Kim Possible, the girl who could never pose any threat to her plans, held a red gun and wore a very self-satisfied look on her ugly cow face. Simia traced a black nylon line from the end of Possible's gun, along the floor and past her own feet, to the shattered remains of her right hand's idol surrounding an extended grapnel.
For a long moment, Simia could only stare at her shattered idol. Years of searching, planning, research, and toadying up to that disgusting fool Fiske all lay before her in a useless heap of crumbled, rotting stone and fractured jade. All of the benevolence and good will she dreamed of spreading as the new Chosen, gone, all because of a mistake of destiny and his whore. At first, she felt empty. Then, sad, not so much for herself, but for the world that might never know the gift of a proper Monkey Master. But the mourning process passed quickly, and her void filled with unbridled rage that found its target with equal haste.
One of her monkeys had quick enough reflexes to catch the intact idol as she flew forward. Form and finesse forgotten, her legs pumped her forward, launching her at the smug bitch. "I'll kill you! You miserable whore, I'll tear your heart out and-"
Simia was fast. She was on Kim before the teen had the chance to drop her grapnel gun and mount a defense. Yori, a warrior Simia knew to be the envy of lightning, could not stop Simia's hand from knifing at Possible's throat. So when her fingertips froze mere centimeters from Kim's neck, and her wrist creaked beneath a viselike grip, it took Simia a precious half-second to realize that Stoppable's hand held her at bay. He was off the floor, standing to the side of Simia's would-be fight, and staying Kim's execution with a crushing force that didn't seem taxing to him in the least.
"That," he growled in a tone that would chill a penguin, "Sucked." A twist of his shoulders tossed Simia away. She flew back fifteen paces and tumbled another ten, saved only by her training. She landed on all fours, poised, coiled to spring again. Ron didn't care. He strutted forward, keeping himself always between the girls and the psycho monkey lover that put the voodoo whammy on him a minute ago.
"You are more resilient than I gave you credit for," said Simia. She stood, hands still bared like claws. "I won't underestimate you again."
Ron shook his head. "Lady, I've known you for less than ten minutes, and I already can't stand you. There's not going to be an 'again'. There's going to be me, beating the piss out of you and your hairy little hired hands. You're going to jail, and I…" He groaned and rotated his neck, releasing a load of tension with a revolting series of pops. "I'm gonna get a full-body massage from the hottest girl I can find, just to start getting rid of the headache you've given me."
"And nacos!" Rufus added.
Ron pointed to his little buddy. "That's right."
Simia reassessed her opponent. Stoppable had great power, there was no denying that. But the interrupted ritual had worn him down a great deal. Add that to his overconfidence, and that he had no real understanding of his own power, and that gave Simia a fighting chance. Perhaps it was not perfect, but Plan B would have to do for the moment. "Do all Westerners talk this much," Simia taunted, "Or simply the cowards?"
"I am so sick of you," sighed Ron as Simia charged. Telltale silver flashed from her sleeves and into her hands, and then in his face. Left and right, up and down, Ron swung his head to avoid Simia's slashes. Golden hair trailed behind him as he flipped back in a handspring. The knife passed so close to his nose that he actually saw his wide eyes reflected in her blade. No human could move that fast, at least not without some kind of magic.
Simia flipped after him. Short blades snapped from the ends of her feet, tearing at his cloak as her legs swept around. When she came back up, her anger held a sheen of arrogance. "You have made extensive study of Tai Shing Pek Kwar, Pretender. But I have mastered it, as well as several other styles."
Knuckles glowing with red power struck a blow against Simia's vanity, as well as her cheek. She stumbled back and fell onto her butt, clutching her face in shock. Ron stood over her and flexed his luminous hands. "See the glowing? The glowing means you need to Shut. The. Hell. Up."
Kim watched the boy she grew up with draw back a radiant fist, preparing for a blow that would surely shatter Simia's skull. Everything was happening too fast. She looked over at Yori, hoping to find some help, or at least for some answers. The bloodlust waiting for her in Yori's face twisted Kim's stomach. But it was nothing compared with the hate in Ron's glare. "Ron," she screamed, "No!"
Her scream broke Ron's resolve. He glanced over at Kim and, for one instant, he saw what he had become through her eyes. A scarlet monster stared back at him with a horrified expression from mirrors of trembling green. Kim took a step forward, reaching out for him, and though the distance between was considerable, he still recoiled. "KP, no-AUGH!"
Ron fell to one knee and clutched his wounded arm. He watched Simia roll away, coming up with a glaring grin and a dripping blade. "Focus, Pretender," she chided him. "It can mean the difference between victory and defeat. Take now, for example."
Kim lowered her outstretched hand as Ron's brow furrowed again and swung back toward Simia. "Lucky shot," Ron grimaced.
A gesture brought to Simia the monkey with her idol. "Luckier than you know," Simia assured him. She brought the blade to the stone monkey's jade egg and ran the flat side along its gem. A thin rivulet of red loosened itself from Simia's dagger and trickled down the curve of the ancient totem. Simia leered at Ron, licking the rest of the blood from her dagger.
All the confidence in Yori's face drained away. "Ron-kun, you must destroy the idol! Destroy it now!" she cried in a panic.
"Yori, c'mon," Ron laughed, squinting at his life's blood running down the jade egg. "How much trouble is a thousand-year-old piece of butt ugly rock going to…"
Ron's words trailed off as the blood disappeared beneath the jade's surface, drawn within by some unseen compulsion. The impossibility of a gem the size of his fist exhibiting sponge-like qualities didn't even register with him. He became more focused on the mind-bending pain shattering every single cell in his body. Whatever Simia had tried before with both idols couldn't even compare with what he felt now. Worse than fire, worse than electrocution, worse than blades, or bullets, or broken bones, or flying headfirst through the windshield of the car he had run into a cement barrier at forty miles an hour (all of which were things he had experienced firsthand), this pain lasted an eternity between two ticks of a second hand.
Blinding red light exploded from Ron's skin. His howl rattled the entire building and shattered its windows. Woman and monkey alike were blown back as the magic within him filled the large space. Kim could not see or hear anything except Ron's anguish as she felt herself sail through the air on eddies of wind and wizardry. By the time she could think to retract her grapnel for another shot, her only immediate option of anchoring herself, the crimson light faded, and she met with unforgiving concrete.
She stood up, ignoring the protestant aching in her shoulder, and shook the ginger curtain out of her eyes and back over her ears. Yori was easy enough to spot across the warehouse. The ninja girl seemed to be in as good of shape as Kim felt. Even the monkeys and their master picked themselves off the floor. Only Ron, the center of the storm, remained where he was. He stood motionless, facing Simia as the new villainess stood and cradled her precious idol.
"Ron?" Kim's pain became secondary. She approached Ron from behind, repeating his name until she reached him. Her rough hand spun her around. "Ron, why can't you answer m-"
Ron's soft brown eyes were no more. Irises of pure red hate had replaced the windows to his laughter and gentility, and they now glared at Kim with no trace of recognition. Kim's hand dropped. She gasped and stepped away, afraid without knowing why. How could she fear the one person she trusted more than anyone else? Yet when he looked at her, all she wanted to do was run.
The Idol of Simor rested comfortably in Simia's grasp. Its jewel egg had changed its color, becoming that of the mystic ire in Ron's gaze. Simia laughed a bitter laugh at Kim's distress. "You see, Sister?" she asked Yori, "Even in defeat, I claim a victory. You have only succeeded in delaying the inevitable."
"What have you done to my Ron-kun?" Yori sobbed. She ran to him, ignoring Kim's venomous glare and grasped Ron's face, cradling it with a lover's tenderness.
"He is mine now." Her monkeys gathered around her, some limping, others laughing in long, hooting shrieks. "Come to me, Stoppable. Obey your Master."
Ron pushed Yori aside and began walking toward Simia and her soldiers. Rufus chattered in his ear, screeching and tugging at his face. Ron simply slapped the rodent aside and continued on. "Ron," Kim cried, lunging after him. She grasped him by the shoulder and pulled back. All her strength did little to dissuade him. She wrapped her arms around his chest and buried her face in his neck. "Ron, please stop."
When Ron stopped, Kim dared to hope that she was reaching him. Then the red glow returned, shoving her off of his powerful (and surprisingly broad) shoulders and twenty feet back onto her cargos. She skidded another fifteen feet and knocked into Yori's legs. The two girls fell into a tangle, scrabbling against one another to the tune of Simia's amusement.
Her laughter trailing off, Simia pulled Ron the rest of the way to her side. "I think I'll take my leave of you, ladies. You may call upon me once I become the Supreme One. I may have need of court jesters."
Simia threw a trio of pellets at their feet as Kim shoved Yori away. "Ron, come back! No!" Kim's strongest sprint took her to the edge of Simia's billowing smoke cloud. Wisps of charcoal smoke streamed through Kim's fingers, but she could not reach them in time. Her knees met with cracked concrete as she watched their silhouettes fade away. The last lingering sight Kim saw in the disappearing cloud was Ron's glowing red stare before it, too, vanished into the ether.
A pink blob on the floor pulled himself back into an oblong shape that scurried over to where his best friend had houdini'd his way from the warehouse. "Ron?" Rufus squeaked. The ground beneath him trembled as Kim's gloved fist slammed into the floor. Her anguished cry startled Rufus into the air and onto her shoulder. It wasn't Ron's shoulder, but under the circumstances, he had no room to complain. "Ho, where's Ron?"
Red hair masked Kim's face as she sobbed his name, pounding the concrete again. Even as Rufus nuzzled her cheek, she felt a part of her sinking into bleak despair. "Come back," she murmured.
"Ron-kun is gone," Yori said, approaching the wreck of a hero from behind. Her heart pounded in her throat, but the testy stream of chiding coming from her mouth never faltered. "No amount of bellyaching will bring him back. I will find him myself. You and Rufus-san should return to-"
Kim's size seven boot buried itself in Yori's stomach as the redhead horse-kicked her partner's partner as hard as she could. The blow lifted Yori from her feet and launched her back onto the floor, sprawled and dazed. She could offer no resistance as the treads of the very boot that had laid her out dug into her collarbone. The pressure against her delicate bone drew a wince out between her teeth. But she forgot all about that when the tip of a grapnel dug into her forehead. Her fearful eyes followed its silvery shaft back to a red gun grasped in Kim's whitened knuckles.
"I've been in the hero business for a long time, Yori," Kim said in a tone of pure ice. "There have been some close calls. At times, I've even been tempted. But I've never killed anyone. Ever." And at this, she leaned in, pressing her grapnel even harder, threatening to break Yori's skin. "But so help me, I will start right here, right now, with you, if you don't tell me exactly what I need to know to save Ron."
To Be Continued
