All-Purpose Disclaimer

Kim Possible makes no guarantees that her latest undertaking, The Power of Trust, will shock and delight you. Material will be rehashed, lines will become tired and cliché, and as always, the guy will get the girl in the end.

Psyche! Nothing is what it seems, ninnies! Heroes become victims, victims become heroes, fact is fallacy, and love is shattered. Everything you believed in will be tested. Or not. It's up to you. Remember that truth requires consequences, but not all consequences yield truth.

Okay, so I don't really understand it either, but I've worked really hard on this one, so bear with me.


Kim Possible
The Power of Trust

by Cyberwraith9


Flickering torches stood at attention along the edge of the First Temple and cast their glow, doing their best to fight the oppressive and freezing pitch that held dominion over the entire cave. Their battle went poorly, and they would lose in the end, but Simia knew they would hold the black at bay long enough to suit her purposes. She felt neither the grasp nor the chill of that dread winter night. The excited shiver coursing through her body kept her warm, and set her face aglow with an inner radiance that put to shame the piteous torchlight.

High above, the rounded ceiling of Toshimiru's meditative chamber grinned with knobby stalactite teeth, the only evidence of the room's natural origins. Smooth lines composed the unusual walls and floor of the cave. Legend claimed that Toshimiru carved this room out of the peak with his enchanted katana in a single day before using it to build Yamanouchi. No one had ever been able to prove or disprove the tale, but anyone standing within the hallowed cavern could see that it was no ordinary pocket within the mountain. A feeling permeated the stale air within, a sense of life amidst the lifelessness that left one with a dark, quiet calm.

Less than half her monkeys remained, a mere five of her original dozen. The rest had died in the assault on Yamanouchi, or had been too grievously injured to continue on, and were left in the rotting corpse of that backward institution. Those strong enough to continue now swept the unnaturally smooth floor of the cave bare of nine centuries' worth of debris and cobwebs. They prepared a tight circle of fragrant red candles in the chamber's center, within which sat Simia's hard-won prizes.

The losses her forces had suffered should have saddened Simia, and she knew this, but she felt nothing at the thought of her disciples' tragic ends. Still worse was the destruction of her childhood school, the place of her birth, and the only home by her own hand. Yamanouchi held so many good memories for her, more than enough to outweigh the bad times. But its ashes brought no tears to her eyes. On the eve of her ascent, she knew only excitement, and needed no one, save for her one soldier standing attentively to one side of the sacramental circle.

"I felt remorse for what I had to do," she recalled aloud, "Before the attack." Simia formed her own circle, walking a slow, even pass around the insensate blond. "But seeing you in your full form, seeing all that power…How could I help but reach an epiphany?" Coming from behind, Simia draped herself over his compact, muscular shoulders and whispered in his ear. "They were nothing to you. Generations spent preparing for your arrival, and their collective might was but the scratch of a flea upon your nose."

Ron did not flinch as her breath ghosted across his cheek from rosy lips just a hair's breadth away from a kiss. His luminescent eyes cut a resolute swath of scarlet terror across the chamber that even the bravest of Simia's monkeys didn't dare meet. Every muscle in Ron's body remained tensed, rock-like, the sensation of which drove Simia to new levels of excitement. She could feel this intense cold heat burning into her through their thin garb, and pressed herself tighter to his back.

"The power," she breathed with drunken lust, "The immense potential. I spent a lifetime reading of it, a lifetime in preparation for it. Now I realize that no book can do it justice." Simia touched her hand to Ron's face, turning his head so that she could stare with adoration into that which her minions feared. "Nothing could prepare me for it. For you. And yet, in a few minutes, I will gladly accept this gift, this grave responsibility." A tiny smirk graced her delicate beauty. "Perhaps destiny works in more roundabout ways than we sometimes believe."

Ron remained still. He made no effort to resist Simia's arms as they slid around his neck. His Master slithered to his front, grinding her body against his. Their noses bumped at the proximity.

Simia rested her forehead on Ron's. "I used to hate you, Stoppable. But you are a victim of destiny's oversight, just as I am." The power she felt radiating from him made her chest swell into his with an impassioned gasp. "Such force," she whispered, lowering her lips onto his, parting her mouth in anticipation. "What does it taste like, I wonder?"

The world blazed with red hatred the instant Simia's lips touched his. She felt a wave of pure force slam into her chest and knock her to the floor. Simia lay on her back a moment and gulped in cold air. Wisps of scarlet energies dissipated around Ron's stoic outline as she sat back up and assaulted her slave with a glare.

"You reject me?" Her outburst straddled the division between anger and shock as it trundled from Simia's throat. She pinwheeled her legs beneath her and pushed off, spanning the distance between them as fast as it had been created. Ron bore the brunt of her impact with the solidarity of a stone pillar. Nary a muscle on his face twitched as she bounced off his chest and proceeded to yowl in his face. "I offer you one last comfort before oblivion reclaims you, and you spurn me?" Simia grasped the sides of his face and hissed. This time, their proximity burned with open, mutual hatred. "I command, you obey." Nose crushed nose as her voice bit into his placid scowl. "My word is your law." She mashed her lips against his with passionless hunger.

Power erupted from Ron's skin once more, hammering Simia more than double the distance it had the first time. Simia's monkeys shrieked with fright as she slid through their painstakingly constructed circle, toppling candles as she stuttered to a halt before her precious idol. Pins scattered beneath her skin, and the lingering voice of an ancient titan's wordless insults rang in her ears. It took a full minute for her to sit up and another after that for the tingle to vanish. The monkeys around her approached slowly, grasping at her arms to help her to her feet. She shook the aid off with a snarl and chased them back to repairing the circle with an upturned hand.

"Your mind is gone," yowled Simia as she barreled at him from the floor. "Your soul is enslaved. Your powers will be mine, and moments from inevitable death, you still resist me?" Silent footfalls drilled into her through a lifetime of training fled from the path of her pounding feet and the dust they kicked up. "I possess the physique of a goddess, the spirit of a warrior, a soul of unmatched passion, and you dare spurn me?" She reached Ron again, but this time, she would not touch him. Instead, her fingertip hovered in front of his face, driving home each point with a twitching jab. "All is lost to you, Stoppable. You have nothing left to fight for. Why do you resist me?"

It took clear effort for Ron to part his lips. The light in his eyes faltered a moment, leaving immaculate chestnut remorse where the power of the ancients had been. Broken breath whistled across his teeth as he gathered his response, crafting it with exacting precision. The end product sighed from his chest in little more than a whisper. A single word rattled from his chest, a name of unapproachable significance to Ron that explained everything. The forlorn sparkle in his eye flared sharply before Simia's cruel hold over him extinguished it in a blazing curtain of red.

Simia spat the name back in his face. "You are a sentimental fool," she told him. "Fine. If you will not let me taste the power, then I shall dine on its entirety, and to hell with you. Come!"

Unable to refuse the command, Ron followed her in silence into the reconstructed candle circle, where Simia's monkeys waited. They sat in a pentagonal array outside of the ring, eyes closed, hoods raised, hands joined in reverent silence as they waited for their Master's order. Each monkey regarded those artifacts that Simia took in hand with a wide berth. There existed a general consensus among her minions that the Idol and the Lotus Blade were not baubles to be trifled with. An ancient racial memory warned them of the dangers their Master sought to birth into their world. But as much as they feared the Blade and their stone cousin, they each feared Simia's wrath just a little more.

The simian circle began a rhythmic chant of grunts and yowls as the two humans stood facing one another within the ring's perimeter. Ron's features darkened a fraction as Simia took her Idol in one hand and wielded the Lotus Blade with the other. "For all the setbacks I have suffered," Simia called out, lowering the tip of the Blade to rest in front of Ron's stomach as her voice echoed back to them. "For all the indignities destiny has heaped upon me, I take my remittance."

She thrust the tip of the blade into Ron's stomach. The ancient metal, sharpened to the width of an anorexic hair, parted his abdominals as though they weren't there and delved straight into his core. Something deep within him began siphoning through the Lotus Blade, seeping out of his body and across the long, silvery shaft to the hilt, where Simia's hand lapped at the nebulous scarlet energies.

Ron's seconds stretched into eons. His eyes rolled back into his head. He dropped to his knees as his essence fled his body in lumps of magic in between the river of blood seeping out around the Blade. Beneath the layers of mystic control, stifled by Simia's stranglehold, a primal scream worked its way from his core. The cry never made it past his stony façade. Without a word, Ron Stoppable watched his life spill out over the floor as his destiny drained away, leaving behind a cold, numbing void.

Her heart beat faster and faster as Simia felt the incredible spirit enter into her. It filled every nook of her soul, electrifying every cell in her body. Senses beyond her mortal grasp suddenly awakened, filling her mind with new thoughts and feelings and wonderment at such a rate that it very nearly shattered her sanity. She gasped and clung to the blade, bidding more and more out of her slave to quench a thirst twenty years in the making. "Oh God," she sobbed joyously as her world spun. "The colors…"

A size seven boot snapped into Simia's jaw, forcing her to let go of the Lotus Blade as it sent her reeling back. Without the agony of the process to keep him aloft, Ron fell to his knees with only a grunt to signify the hideous sensation Simia's ritual forced upon him. Simia didn't concern herself with his pain, though, and instead focused on her own. How could she still feel anything like a mere kick? And for that matter, shouldn't Stoppable be dead yet? "No!" she roared, "It was almost mine!"

Finishing her swing from a taut grapnel line, Kim Possible landed on the smooth obsidian floor in a graceful plant that any gymnast would envy. "Hate to rain on your parade," she sneered, locking her glowering green eyes on Ron's would-be killer, "But you and I have some issues we haven't finished working out."

Simia's shock reworked itself into blinding rage as her otherworldly senses faded away. With the ritual interrupted, her powers were not absolute at the moment. She couldn't feel any of what she had before, only a sick emptiness where the power had been. "You," she uttered, balling her hands into shaking fists. Simia rose from the floor with slow, furious intent poisoning her former splendor. "You still live."

"What can I say?" Kim shrugged, settling into a basic fighting stance and waggling her fingers for Simia to try her luck. "I'm part cat, I guess."

The glare Kim dished out couldn't compare to the scathing look of hatred Simia beamed back. "You are a cockroach," spat Simia. But it did raise the question of how she actually had made it off that mountain pass alive. Simia had seen Stoppable crush her with a single blow before leaving him to have his way with… "Stoppable!" she barked, shooting her glare toward the still-bleeding Ron. "You dare taint my power by saving her miserable life?"

"Your power?" A light laugh rippled the taut abs exposed by Kim's midriff-revealing ninja uniform. Her face held none of the humor in her voice, which she mustered for no other reason than to spite Simia. It worked. "Last time I checked, he was the hero, and you were the zero." Again, her fingers gave Simia a 'come hither' gesture matched with a nigh-sinister smile. "So, are we going to fight, or are you going to come up with another monologue about speech and destiny? I don't really need the breather," she taunted, "But maybe you do. That big head must get heavy."

Simia stopped in mid-stride, trembling with a rage she could no longer contain. "Your arrogance has sealed your demise," she said with glacial fury. Her fingers snapped, summoning her monkey ninjas to readiness. A gesture held them at bay as she condemned Kim with a sickening smile. "You don't handle leeway well, Stoppable, so I'll make this perfectly clear. Kill Kimberly Possible."

Ron's reacted in an instant. He reached up, tore the Lotus Blade from his stomach, and hurled it aside. The mystic weapon flew and sunk to the hilt into the stone wall, where it quivered to a rest. The blood pouring from his stomach sealed itself with a flash of scarlet while he pushed his feet back underneath him. No carefree smile, no 'Booyah,' offset the baleful glare on his face. Her attacker resembled him, but when Kim dove away from the soaring side kick meant to take her head from her shoulders, she knew it wasn't Ron attacking her. Not on the surface, anyway.

"Why not cut the strings on your puppet?" Kim back-flipped away from the spray of stone shards torn from the ground beneath Ron's luminous foot. "Take me on for real this time, Monkey Girl."

Simia's smile widened. She watched her slave pull his foot from the floor and rush after Kim. "Perhaps I will allow myself the pleasure of breaking your neck under my heel. But I think your beloved is better suited to soften you up," she mused aloud. Her monkeys hooted with each with each crushing blow Kim scrambled to avoid. Together, Master and disciples watched Kim Possible's bravado wane as her best friend chased her back down the even lines of the corridor leading back up to the snowy mountaintop. As they disappeared into the tunnel's gloom, Simia reclaimed her certainty that the irritating American would no longer cause her grief. "But more likely, Stoppable's zeal will deny me this trivial delight."

"I think you will be otherwise engaged, murderer." A second grapnel line swung from the ceiling, carrying a dark shape into Simia's ranks. The simian formation bowled in every direction as furious feet flurried at them, catching arms and chests and faces before they (the feet, not the forces) touched lightly down onto the hallowed ground. "You will have to be content with me instead," Yori informed her as she took her shape from the inky shadows. She took a stance similar to Kim's and scowled. A dark cloak muffled her rigid frame of tensed muscles ready for action.

The attack hardly broke Simia's confidence and left her smile intact. It took her monkeys a moment more to collect themselves again, and this time each of them stood prepared with a stunted katana in hand. A collective glimmer danced in their beady little eyes, a hunger for slaughter bred into their species.

Yori regarded the monkey mob with disdain. "Haven't we tried this already?"

Simia laughed. "Look around you, sister dear. We're in the very spot Toshimiru first set upon himself the task of carving my future. We stand upon the whittled efforts of the First. Where else on Earth but here might my power become absolute?" A flash of red entered and receded from Simia's eyes so quickly that Yori almost convinced herself that the anomaly had been a mere trick of the torches' efforts.

"The power is not yours, Simia." Yori thrust exaggerated emphasis into the name and laced it with verbal arsenic. This creature possessed of her sister's angelic countenance spurred within Yori a deep hatred unworthy of the meditative calm preached into her through Sensei's instructions. Yet she grasped the hatred, welcomed it, and plunged it deep into her core, where it fueled the embers within her to create an emboldening wildfire.

"Not yet," Simia countered. "But it matters little. Kill her," she bid her forces with a casual flip of her hand. "A pity, Yori," she lamented as her armed and adamant monkeys advanced on the lone ninja. "I had truly hoped your misguided intentions could be brought around to serve in the benevolent reign of The One."

The costly mistakes of their previous battles with this youthful woman of uncanny skill instilled caution into the masked brawler monkeys. They held their formation intact, resolved to drive Yori back against the wall of the First Temple and slice her to pieces. Yori kept her place as though she took no notice of their deadly approach. Instead, she raised a single hand, half-hidden in the long sleeves of her cloak. "You forget," she chided Simia venomously, "There is another."

A pink missile shrouded in scarlet light rocketed from the shadows of Yori's sleeve and struck the lead monkey in his hairy face. The blow snapped his head back even as the missile divested itself of its contours and puddle across his face. Beneath the shapeless cold flames of red, a set of beady eyes and buck teeth floated within the small pink pond, kept separate by a bewhiskered nose that twitched with amusement. "Bwa-ha-ha-murr!" the tiny face cackled devilishly as its vessel clawed at the blob's edges, unable to breathe. One of the besieged monkey's brethren raised a fist and struck at the assailing blob, only to cold-cock who he sought to save. As quickly as his fist struck into the soft pink and smashed his cousin's fist, the shapeless foe pooled onto his fingers and incited him to panic.

Simia and Yori watched with respective expressions of disgust and triumph as Rufus made fools of the trained animal assassins. "You always did put too much faith in the spirits of old, Simia," Yori recalled. "This place is just a cave. Whatever power it holds comes from those within it. Don't expect any mercy from Toshimiru, or from me."

That superior smile on Simia's face descended into a fanged snarl as she donned her fists and leapt at Yori, who found herself hard-pressed to avoid the fervent blow. Yori bent backward and felt the velvet edges of Simia's roundhouse kick tickle her chin before she pushed off of the ground and hand-sprung away from the leg sweep that followed. "Mercy?" roared Simia. "I don't need mercy to defeat the likes of you. I am the superior fighter!"

Yori crouched at the end of her hand-spring and leapt forward, spearing Simia with her shoulder and driving the seasoned warrior to the ground. Her knee dove into Simia's stomach, driving out whatever snide boast the villainess would have delivered in a groaning rush. "Years ago, perhaps," said Yori with a smile. "But I have since become," and her smile grew as she ground her knee deeper, watching with guilty delight as Simia's face twisted with pain, "A bon-diggity fighter."


"You don't want to attack me, Ron," insisted Kim as she sidestepped a fist that crushed the corridor wall next to her ear. Strands of her ginger hair sunk into the stone with Ron's punch, then burned free as his burgundy radiance vaporized his hand free. "I'm not your enemy."

Kim cartwheeled just in time to keep away from his foot as it shattered more of the wall a few feet from his now liberated fist. She could see the end of the tunnel a dozen yards from their battle, caked with snow and howling with a wind that blew across the opening. Above the deafening resonance, Kim heard the frustrated snarl of her enthralled friend as he scattered the stone debris created by his own hand in a zigzagging bull rush. He threw a lightning roundhouse which she ducked, and caught a knee to the face that drove stars into her eyes. Kim did her best to roll with the blow, but her dizziness made it tough to keep one step ahead of him.

Her arms raised on instinct in a cross block that caught his steely foot. The quick reaction ensured that her innards remained intact as the kick threw her into the opposite wall. Stone crumbled beneath her back, and her head slammed against the cold surface. Warmth trickled down the nape of her neck as she fell onto her hands and knees, squeezing her eyes shut against the sharp throbbing in her skull. 'Concussion?' part of her mind wondered while another, more addled part responded, 'Thank you, no, I couldn't eat another bite.'

"Okay," she amended, "Maybe you do want to attack me." Kim's head lolled back as a pair of hands snagged her uniform front and hauled her into the air. "I'm starting to get that impression." Red eyes boiled in her face, bathing Kim's battered features in hellish radiance. "But I know you're in there somewhere, Ron. You don't want to hurt me."

With a simple pivot, Ron threw Kim off of his shoulder and across the hall, slamming her back into the first wall of the corridor. Kim went limp to minimize the injury, but it still hurt like hell when she struck the wall, and again when she fell to the ground in a heap. Now her own vision swam with crimson, blinking in and out as her consciousness teetered on the edge.

Kim moaned as those gruff hands lifted her again to view that grim, freckled visage. "Right then," Kim slurred. "You do want to hurt me. I guess you're madder than I-"

Another toss like the first bounced Kim down the hall. She felt several ribs give under the impact as she slid toward the entrance. Wisps of snowy wind penetrated the cave's mouth, helping jolt her back to wakefulness in time to feel the earth tremble at Ron's approach. 'This is it,' her jostled brain bemoaned through waves of pain, 'This is how it ends. What a stupid way to die.'

"It's my own fault," Kim said, as much an observation to Ron as to her own mind. A pair of feet treaded lightly next to her face before Ron's fingers dug into her uniform and hauled her off of the icy stone floor. She dangled from the stretchy material like a fish on a line, helpless against his mystic strength and too dizzy to even try. His fist, wrapped in her shirt, dug into the bottom of her chin, forcing her face upward. Kim had to look down her nose to see his resolved face set with murderous purpose on her battered body. "I'm sorry, Ron. I know you're mad." His fist pulled back, shimmering with mystic red-orange power Kim couldn't begin to understand. She saw Ron's fist twitch. Knowing full well that the blow would shatter her head, she squeezed her eyes shut and blurted out, "But I know you don't want to kill me!"

A bated breath hung in Kim's lungs as she hid behind the inside of her eyelids, twisting in Ron's grasp. The wintry breeze nipped at her exposed flesh, but Death's icy clutches never tore into her tenuous body to reap her soul. Morbid curiosity pried one of her eyelids open at length, where a frozen Ron awaited the shaken emerald orb. Only his cocked fist trembled as her other eye flew open to join the first in shocked staring. The hatred on his face remained, but seemed to be at war with another foe from somewhere within.

Kim knew she wasn't even close to out of danger yet, and so she held in her relieved sigh. "That's right," she assured him. "You've got the power. I know you could tear into me like a grande nacho platter, but you won't." Her toes still swung in empty air as he lowered his other fist. The hellish light surrounding him abated, but Kim knew it could return at any moment. Even if she could run, she wouldn't. Ron needed her. "I know you won't, because I believe in you, Ron."

The floor returned to her feet as Ron's arm lowered little by little. His expression did not soften, but his lips did split open, forming in silence the beginnings of two familiar letters that dazzled Kim's heart. "That's right," she encouraged him. "You've been saving me since the moment we met. You're a hero, Ron, born and bred. I should have known that when you brought Yori on board. I didn't trust her. I…didn't trust you." The admission weighed Kim's eyes downward with heavy shame. "If we had worked together, none of this would have happened. But I had to be in the know for everything, as usual. I…I couldn't handle being kept out of the loop."

"Kkkkuuhh…P…P…P'heee…" The sound gurgled from the back of Ron's throat as he stared at his downcast victim. The light in his eyes flickered.

Hearing the struggle within him, Kim looked back into his wavering gaze. "It's up to you, Ron." She reached up slowly, seeing him shy away from her touch. The demonic glow in his eyes returned, and she watched his gentle fingers ball back into fists, so she shot forward and grasped the sides of his face. Burning hands crushed into her arms, drawing a wince out of her bit lip as Ron lifted her into the air once more. "I believe in you. I trust you." The grip tightened, turning her affectionate tone into a guttural hiss. "Do the right thing, Ron."

An unholy howl barreled out of Ron's mouth as he spun Kim through the air and slammed her back into the wall. His teeth trembled near the delicate flesh beneath her cringing face, aching to tear her throat out in a primal return to his base nature. The tentative glow around his body became a full-fledged inferno of raw power, chasing away the deepest shadows in the mountain cave. The red energy pressed into Kim, smothering her and threatening to crush her body at Ron's slightest whim.

Kim's gaze never wavered. The panic welling up in her subsided at once, replaced by an inner peace that she felt certain only the dead knew of. She didn't even try to escape from his uncannily powerful grip, though with a little effort she might have wriggled free of the impending death that awaited her there. Win or lose, Kim wouldn't abandon Ron when he needed her the most. "I need you, Ron. We all do. Be the hero I know you are, Ron. Save us."

The war on Ron's face ended as she pursed her lips, waiting. A tempest of red magic burst forth, and a howl tore from his throat and into Kim as Ron yanked his fist back and ended it.


Yori clutched her dislocated shoulder and glared at her opponent. "Are you ready to—" She gasped sharply, then finished, "—give up yet?"

Troublesome blood from a cut on her forehead wiped away at the back of Simia's fist, clearing her eyes. She managed a sneer at the younger ninja, which tore at her split lip and twisted her purpling face in pain. "To the likes of you? I'd sooner die." She spat at the notion, coming up with more blood than saliva. It hurt just to talk, but she bore the pain with loathing for this childhood memory gone awry.

In the background, Simia heard the last of her forces retreat with a shriek from the wily, twisted mole rat and his unstable shapeshifting attacks. The pathetic display brought a smile to Yori's swollen lips, even though it came from her blind side and she couldn't see it through the puffy black eye ballooning in her socket. "If that is your wish, I will gladly oblige you."

Simia shuffled forward with a swift snap kick that Yori sidestepped. She caught the kick on her shoulder and jumped in, tipping Simia onto her back. A sharp crack resonated throughout Toshimiru's bare meditation chambers from the back of Simia's skull as it met with the charcoal stone. She didn't get the chance to so much as yelp at the pain, for the edge of a foot pressed into her throat, cutting her curse short and stopping her breath.

Glaring down, Yori regarded the twisted wretch beneath her heel. "You see," demanded the broken beauty. "Do you see what your mad ambitions have wrought? You were the greatest of us, Tsuruko. The GREATEST!" The pressure on Simia's throat increased, threatening to snap her neck then and there. "I looked up to you, Tsuruko. How could you? Was it really worth it?"

Simia's moans trailed off, and her eyes trembled shut with one last, choking gasp. The rage in Yori's voice became melancholy as she leaned down, pressing harder onto her beloved friend's throat. She could make no mistake, even if it would break her heart. "Was it really worth it," she asked the still, breathless form again in a softer tone.

Her quiet sadness ended abruptly in an agonized sob as blazing fingers clamped down on her ankle and pressed. The delicate bones creaked under pressure, unable to pull away from the red iron grip. Simia's eyes opened, no longer dark and deep, but instead the color of luminescent blood. "Yes," she hissed, and threw Yori high into the air with just a twitch of her wrist.

Only Yori's martial prowess saved her from the crushing, twenty-foot fall, though it didn't stop her wrist from jamming back into her arm in the landing. She yelped at the impact, trying to pull herself back to her hands and knees.

Simia rose without standing, pulled to her feet by the mystical force encompassing her body like Dracula rising from the dead. The cuts and bruises all about her body began vanishing in wisps of red-orange fire, restoring her haughty smile to its former perfection. "Well," she said, standing over her fallen sister, "It would appear that something did occur during our little, abortive transfer." She chuckled as her foot lashed out, punting Yori across the expansive chamber with a burst of ancient energy. "How about that?"

Yori's answer came in the form of a sharp cry as she crushed into the high stone walls and slid down. Her uniform back shredded against broken rock, opening new cuts and scrapes in her bruised skin. The sound of a wet burlap sack striking cement accompanied her return to the floor, followed quickly by another anguished sob. "Tsuruko…" she said, gagging on her own bile. "Stop this…"

"It must have taken time to bond with my system," remarked Simia. She stared at her hands as her silent footfalls carried her below the path Yori's flight had taken. The heatless flames danced between her fingers and shimmered in her eyes. Every last part of her body felt fit to burst with energy. Every ache, every pain, every last little aspect of mortality that humans took for granted, vanished in the wake of this rosy light. She felt better, stronger, more…There wasn't anything she couldn't do. "Yori, this is amazing," she whispered as she came to stand over the wounded ninja. "I wish I could describe it to you, but…there aren't words. There aren't feelings. It just…is."

A tiny snarl heralded Rufus' attack. He streaked along the floor at impossible speed, like a pink rocket chased by a red contrail, and leapt into the air. His jaws opened wide, ready to sink into Simia's arm for daring to attack his friend. The courageous rescue ended with a careless backhand from Simia that ricocheted Rufus into the wall, where he puddled and oozed back down to the floor.

"Stop this, Tsuruko," rumbled Yori, clutching at Simia's feet in a vain attempt at standing. She would have bit into her leg if she thought it would help. "You have to stop. That power isn't yours."

Simia shook her head, and loosed the clingy girl with a twitch of her leg. As Yori slammed back up against the wall, the villain continued, "Don't you see, Yo-chan? The power is split between two sources. It's torn…it needs to be made whole again, or it will tear both vessels apart."

Yori's breath came in ragged gasps, tearing at the air to try and regain her equilibrium. She watched Simia's glowing fist hover above her, ready to deliver a killing blow with supernatural ease. "You fool," Yori groaned, propping herself up on her one working arm. She would have liked to die on her feet, but there wasn't the time or the effort within her to make it happen. Instead, she would die a failure. "You've killed everyone with your selfishness."

"You won't be here to find out," Simia laughed. She pulled her fist back, smirking. "Goodbye, Yori."

Something slammed into the side of Simia's head with the force of a pile driver. The radiant ninja scudded across the First Temple and slammed into the far wall, vanishing in a cloud of black dust. There, in the chalky smog, Simia blinked back a wave of shock at the attack. She sat up and thrust her head out of the settling dust. "Who…?"

Simia's slave helped Yori to her feet with gentle hands, pointedly devoid of the paranormal light that should have haunted his eyes. A hated redhead stood by his side with arms folded defiantly across her chest. All three teens glared at Simia, as if daring her to come at them again. Stoppable gave her a most disobedient wave and a smile. "Hey there, boss. S'okay if I punch out early today?"

"You've escaped the thrall of the Idol." Simia's voice held none of her previous anger. The spell of the ancients flowing through her veins negated any need for such base emotions. Stoppable was no longer a threat, and would die as planned. And his redheaded whore? Oh, she simply begged for destruction most foul, and Simia would grant it while wearing a grin.

Kim smirked, unaware of the danger Simia had planned for her. "We had a Hallmark moment out in the hall."

"Mood music and everything," agreed Ron. "So, I think we need to have a talk. I've got the ball rolling. Care to add a rebuttal?"

The power surrounding Simia flared a moment, burning away the flotsam kicked loose by her landing. As she rose, a terrible laughter rang from the back of her throat, cutting through the unfounded confidence brought on by Ron's return. "You children," she chuckled. "You never cease to amaze me."

Ron pushed to the front of their trio, spreading his arms wide. Despite his bravado, a look of contempt pushed at his round, jovial features. "What," he challenged, "Just because you've got a little taste of the Ron Man, you think you're some Super Monkey now? As far as I'm concerned," he said with a scoff, "You're just a cheap copy. So bring it on, Xerox. You aren't the only one with powers here." The same cold fire lit on his fists as he slid his feet into a broad fighting stance, pivoting so that his profile settled in on Simia.

Simia's laughter continued as she raised her hand and grasped at the air. Far across the room, lodged in the wall, the Lotus Blade began to wriggle in its stony sheath. Clumps of rock sprayed everywhere as the wall suddenly spat the Blade up. It flew through the air and snapped obediently into her waiting grasp.

With an otherworldly pop, the Blade morphed into a katana gauntlet, a bladed glove of twisting metal that wrapped around her arm with a life of its own. Before the teens' shocked and disbelieving eyes, Simia called upon her new power, gathering it about her body. She broke free of gravity's shackles and kicked into the air, rising high above them. Her laughter morphed into a despicable cackle, taking amusement in their horror. She recalled her first encounter with Stoppable's power, and decided that he had put it best.

"Do you see the glowing, children?" she called down to them, drawing her gauntlet through the air. "The glowing means that you die."

To Be Continued

Big shout-out to Classic Cowboy for beta reading this one. He said the only part he didn't like was the cliffhanger. So far, that seems to be the consensus. :) Stay tuned, loyal readers.

Excelsior!