Chapter 14: Revealed!
Wade was working furiously, trying to figure out why he couldn't connect to Kim's particular Kimmunicator. His attention was diverted when Ron's unit signaled him once more.
"Wade, all hell is breaking loose in here!" Neil shouted over the sound of alarm klaxons. "Is there any way you can get a fix on Ron?"
"Nada from here, Neil. All I can give you is a heads up that a GJ strike team is closing on your position right now. Also, satellite tracking is showing a transport plane that originated in Atlanta is almost over you. I'm crossing my fingers about what that may be…"
"Wade, something is going on!" Liz rose from here spot at the computer console. The main pilot's console of the Trinity had suddenly come to life.
"I'll get back to you, Neil. Wade out." He killed the connection and moved to the main pilot's position. The large main screen in the center of the console jumped suddenly from a status diagram of the ship to a course plot.
"Fasten your harness, Liz. I think this thing is about to take off!"
"How is that happening? I thought you were the only one able to activate it."
"There are supposed to be only three people on the whole planet who can launch this yacht. I'm one, like you said, the other is the guy who owns it who I was just talking to, the third being Doctor Possible, who you met."
Somewhere behind them the engines thrummed to life. There was a moment where their stomachs lurched ever so slightly as the gravitational generators activated and inverted their field, negating the pull of gravity as control jets lifted it into the air.
"I'm totally locked out. Something fed a priority program into the AI and I don't even know if Neil himself could override it. We're lifting off!
On the ground, Space Center personnel scrambled as the gray ship suddenly rose above the other rockets and space craft. James Possible was screaming into a special comm unit, but even that was locked out by the commands feeding from the powerful AI. He watched helplessly as the Trinity cleared the other ships and started drifting forward. The outer skin of the ship coalesced, the color changing surface readjusting to the unknown commands. This time it was not the green and tan the craft had borne when it was discovered or the iron gray it had adopted to hide among the space center vehicles. Now it was a combination of black, dark gray and blood red, with a narrow stripe of bright yellow running down its sides.
An FBI agent surveilling the space center dropped his binoculars as the yacht cleared the walls of the center, the engines flaring bright yellow, the ship streaking eastward faster than his eyes could follow. It wasn't even a dot in the distance moments after it left.
All he could do was report the ship was headed East!
Arcus Oray slipped into another of his transport discs, stepping aside through space and time, leaving the Trinity behind. The device he installed in the central computer core of the ship was a combination of modern technology and his more arcane abilities. Forty years of preparation, from building a history as a respected physician and researcher, this discovery and hiding of Argus' ship, all the lore he collected and studied to determine if indeed the young man was actually the cornerstone of the triad of heroes he hoped to guide in defeating the ancient scourge of his world, a menace that now threatened all of the known universe!
It was almost five hundred years too soon! What had happened to make the Arkonians more on Earth this soon? The runes and the lore had foretold the 'Wisdom of the Effurien' would rise in this era. All he had to do was point the man in the right direction, finally revealing the hidden ship that would take the man to the time and place where he would confront Podondrin, the Master of Arkonia, the dark lord, possessed by the Arch-Demon Malendragma! It was in that distant future that the full Trinity would arise!
The signs and portents had, for a brief moment a year earlier suggested that the full Trinity had already formed. Somehow his arcane senses told him that the Wisdom, the Hand and the Sword had come together already! For reasons he could not fathom he could indeed sense Argus himself, his powers fully formed and ready to fulfill his destiny to lead both this planet and his home to a golden age, free from the danger and oppression of the Dark Master. Then the true ageless ones would rise! Not those who had extended their lives by use of the old powers, but of true immortals who had the ability to guide the rest of humanity.
However, by the time he was able to attempt contacting Argus, the premature Trinity was gone! Still, he could sense the young man, but he had returned to what he was supposed to be. The powers were there, weak, just forming. That in itself was a surprise. The powers should not have awakened until he was given the ring. Then he would have been there to guide him, to teach him how to access them.
It had been a true shock that he had already claimed the ship. Oray had to seek it out in the future and bring it back himself. Whatever events he had originally foreseen that would bring it to this time on its own would not now happen. The timeline he had surveyed by stepping aside from time was in flux, the danger growing that he would have to act without such guidance. Yet when he sought the ship to send it to him, it was not hidden in the deep forests of the east, but among other crude ships of the time much farther west!
No matter. Now it was time to fully reveal himself. Of course, that meant returning to face Starler again. How had another Arkonian come to Earth? He would have known if he had come from his own time in the distant past. No, this was a contemporary! If he hadn't been such a fool! Responding to the greeting like a novice adept! Insanity!
He was confident that he could handle anything the man threw at him. Arkonia was still in the clutches of a dark age brought about by Podondrin. Besides the dark powers granted the Master by the corrupted Effurien and the even darker powers the demon gave him, the most they could threaten with would be hoards of sword and spear wielding fighters. They wouldn't last an hour against this world's armies!
Unless…
The Trinity he had detected! If he could sense them, so could Podondrin! Whoever it was who had stood upon the soil of this world had brought the enemy, centuries too early! The Dark Master did not have the power over time that Oray had, but he had a year to prepare. His very heart quaked with fear that even now the Master's Palace, an ancient and monstrous starship that had stood in the very center of Daganshire since before his people had populated it, may have shaken loose of the stones that had clad it's exterior for a thousand years. This world had nothing that could stand against that kind of power. Not even the fully constituted Trinity could do so. Their power was against Podondrin himself, not against a technological terror constructed in the distant past by the same race that ascended to become the Effurien!
Oray wove a spell. He had touched the soul of the Powerful Argus, and even though he was once again diminished, he could still 'see' it across the ether. A new transport disk would form there and he would confront the budding hero.
And tell him that the Sword has risen as well! He had no real explanation other than the Effurien was moving to counter the enemy of the worlds the best way it could, by choosing other champions.
Against all logic, Ronald Stoppable was the Sword of the Fury!
"I am not pleased. This news is very…disturbing." The voice on the other side of the spatial communication lens said.
"I have failed you, my Master. I was unprepared. I confronted him armed only with my Terran weapon. I did not consider he would have taken the precautions that he had."
"Where is he now?"
"I do not know. My men have reported seeing him step into his own transport lens. Perhaps he has returned to Arkonia."
"No. I would have been aware of his presence if he were this close to me. Did your underlings describe the lens he used?"
"They said it appeared to be a pool of liquid metal in the form of a floating disk."
"Then he is still close at hand. If he had fled across the void of space it would have taken him considerably more time using a simple transport lens. His presence means he has learned the identity of at least one member of the Trinity. That he has infiltrated your operation suggests that he may suspect the connection between the Antarians or you may have inadvertently been in contact with a Trinity avatar yourself."
"Master, I believe the wizard was as shocked that I was an Arkonian as he was to be discovered…"
"No! This is too great of a coincidence. Sent the Antar King to me and dispose of the rest. Prepare yourself. If one of your prisoners is indeed our enemy then you must destroy him."
"What or the Royal Four's relationship to the Trinity?"
"Do not concern yourself with that any longer. With the King in our hands, they will have no power. Kill the Avatar. Another will rise, but this will gain us the time we need to complete the task."
The milky haze of the lens suddenly turned darker until it was the same quicksilver surface Starler had stepped through when he arrived on Earth. It was not a way home, someone, some…thing was coming through.
It was in the shape of a man, though armored from head to toe in obsidian plate mail that hugged the contours of its body. It stood over seven feet tall, with a great, eyeless helm. The neck guards were formed to look like upswept wings and the right arm ended not in a hand but in a blade that looked as if a battle axe and a broadsword had produced a foul offspring from their unholy tryst.
Starler's heart nearly stopped. This was one of his Maser's Omnitrons, soul-less automatons brought from the hidden depths of the palace. They were Podondrin's personal hunter/killers, deadly fighters feared even by the most skilled mortal fighters. Tales were told of how they would claim the very souls of warriors before marching off to battle. In his time spent on more technically sophisticated Earth, he had been able to guess their true nature. They were sophisticated battle suits, practically invulnerable to any attack. They did not claim the soul rather they claimed the entire wearer. Once sealed inside they would spend the rest of their life locked inside. That life would not be long as the suit drew its power from the body of the wearer.
More figures poured from the lens, men in rough hewn armor, clanking with long swords. Calloused hands grabbed him as the Omnitron split asunder. The battle suit hand not yet claimed a wearer! In one flickering moment he realized it would be him wearing it. He tried to struggle but the men held him fast, pushing him inexorably toward a suit of armor that now looked more like a hungry maw. They turned him and shoved him into it. The halves closed over his body, sealing him in forever. The helmet closed over his head, plunging him into utter darkness. He could feel needles and probes pierce his body on his arms, his legs, his neck, even his face. Something forced his darkened eyes open and there was fresh, sharp paint follower by a flicker of light. His vision was replaced with an image synthesized from the various sensors embedded in the armor. He could feel his own will slipping away, replaced by the orders his Master provided.
"Find King Xan and bring him to the lens." He said with the Omnitron's artificial voice. "Kill everyone else within these walls." The tall killing machine watched with subtle smugness as the Arkonian soldiers rushed to obey. More soldiers stepped out of the lens, this time bearing a new burden.
Jahan Starler was no more. His body still lived, sealed inside the mechanical tomb but his mind and soul were gone, claimed by the Master.
If he still lived, he would have shuddered at the sight of what the men carried.
"Fifteen minutes to target, ladies." The loadmaster of the cargo plane told Kim and Shego.
"I feel ridiculous." Shego pouted.
"Why?"
"Just look at me, Kimmie." She was dressed in a black shirt not too dissimilar to Kim's, though it didn't have her trademark bare midriff. It was also zipped up the front. She was also clad in rip-stop pants in desert camouflage.
"So, there's nothing wrong with what you've got on? What did you want, your old green and black catsuit?"
"It's not a catsuit, it's a jumpsuit. It's also my old Team Go uniform, thank you very much."
"Well, this is far more practical. For one thing, you now have pockets where you actually need them instead of way down on your leg like an ankle holster."
"How do you know that wasn't actually a holster?"
"What, you'd pull a gun? The woman who can shoot green lasers from her hands carry a backup piece? Perish the thought."
"Okay, yeah, you got me. That was pretty much my purse. So, Kim, how much do you remember of the beginning of, um, I think it would have been your Junior year in school?"
"Nothing in particular. Several days after it started we went on another mission. Why?"
"Okay, first day of school, you and Ron are walking out after cheer practice or class or something. He says something like 'first day of practice and he's in the zone' or something like that. Then the two of you just stop cold. Once you recover you say something about 'brain freeze.'"
"How on Earth did you know about that? GJ had you somewhere in Norway then but you didn't seem to be up to anything so they didn't bring us in."
"Well, I didn't really understand it at first, but Neil explained to me how all those other folks weren't from our world, they were from some kind of parallel universe thingy and that one of them was his counterpart."
"..and Dona was yours."
"Yeah, that's all kind of freaky. She had a really different name but she was somehow exactly the same person I am. Anyway, at the time we thought that ship was simply from the future, so while Drakken was running around ranting about how the main guns wouldn't work, I got bored and started reading some of the computer files. I tried looking myself up but all the references pointed back to you."
"Oh, I bet you were fit to be tied." Kim actually managed a smile.
"Thank you. Okay, so I get tired of everything I typed in coming back to your name, so I selected it. Instead of some boring historic footnote or something, I get this TV show."
"So, they are filming stuff about Ron and me right now."
"No, not that. It was a cartoon. Something produced by what looks for all the world like their equivalent of the Mouse-Ears channel here. So, I sit there and watch a whole bunch of it, some of them over and over. It was scary the details they had of some of our battles and such."
"So, you're saying that I don't exist in that world?"
"Apparently not, sugar. Seems you're reduced to a children's show. I told Neil about it and he said it was likely that certain things would be different, but things that happen in one universe exists as echoes in others. That just might translate to imagination."
"So what does that have to be with the 'brain freeze' episode?"
"Well, among those cartoons there were two much longer chapters. One detailed this one big plot involving Drakken, Duff Killagin and Monkey Fist teaming up to capture an idol called the Tempus Simia."
"The Time Monkey?" Kim asked, a quizzical look on her face.
"Seems you did okay in Latin class." She said, smirking at why Ron wanted to take it. "We got it, then went back in time trying first to break your spirit. The boys changed themselves into toddlers and tried to scare you on your first day of Pre-K. All they did was bring you and Ron together."
"Wait a minute, are you saying those three bullies were…?"
"Yep. You and I were fighting at a strip mall across the street."
"What was I doing there?"
"You got a time travel thingy from Rufus 3000."
"Oy, brain pain."
Shego actually giggled. "Long story short, the boys just couldn't hack it, so I stole the Time Monkey and started messing with the time stream myself. See, this is the coolest part: I ended up taking over the world myself. Well, it was cool up to the point when Ron went all Monkey Ninja…"
"You know about the Monkey Power?"
"Not a whole lot. Didn't pay as much attention to the chapters I wasn't in. Well, he went and broke the idol, whipping the time stream back to normal so you're all the way back where you started, coming out of school, then getting your brain freeze. That was time resetting itself. You forgot most of what really happened, well, all of us did except when we see or hear something that reminds us of what happened. Then it's like major deja vu."
"Time travel is a cornucopia of disturbing concepts."
"Bingo!"
Shego let her chew on that a few moments, then something dawned on her.
"That show Ron watches!"
"What?"
"He watches this show on the Mouse-Ears channel. It's called the Freedom Leaders. There was something familiar about one of the characters. Now I know who it is!"
"Never heard of it. Then again, I'm more into Agony County."
"Remember the blonde guy from the other universe?"
"Pretty boy with the swords?"
"Yes. That's him! I'm sure of it! What you said about echoes! Stuff happening there is echoing here and they made a cartoon show about it! Wow, I just realized, your counterpart is in it too! The commander's lady friend! The commander is Neil's counterpart, therefore the girl with long black hair is, for all intents and purposes, you!"
Shego frowned, not liking herself made into a cartoon in her own world.
"You know, I wonder if my birth mother would have named me Dona." She said aloud, though not directly to Kim.
"Instead of Sherry?"
"WHAT! How did you find that out?" Her eyes shot wide.
"Wade stumbled onto it last year when we were trying to figure out who those folks were. Wait? You know you're adopted?"
"Well duh. Found that out I lost my parents. People told me that me and my brothers were all adopted, but I never found out if Sherry was my birth name. All that stuff is sealed, so I never found out."
"Shego, look at me again."
"What?"
"Open your eyes wider!"
Kim leaned close. "Are you still wearing that makeup?"
"No. I washed it off when we changed into this mission gear. We're not exactly going in incognito."
Kim pulled a compact out of her cargo pocket, holding the mirror open for the black haired woman to see. "What am I looking…" her mouth dropped open as she realized what had happened.
Her skin had turned back to normal! On its own!
They didn't have time to ponder the change, as a sudden flash of light in the cargo hold blinded them momentarily. The light resolved into a disk of light. "Oh crap! There is a Rufus 3000!"
"I don't think this is a mole rat!" Kim shouted as a man stepped from the transport lens. He was tall, with dark features and black eyes. Something about him would not settle. In one moment he looked like a clean-cut man late in his middle ages wearing a tattered white lab coat, in the next he had long flowing hair almost as long as Shego's, clad in flowing robes that looked either new or ancient. They could not tell which.
"Who are you?" he asked the two women. "Where are Argus and Stoppable!"
"Neil and Ron?" Kim asked. "We're on our way to rescue them!"
"They are not here?" He asked, genuinely perplexed
"Doy. On our way to rescue! Not have rescued." Shego said, sneering.
The wizard, which is what the two assumed he was, opened his mouth in surprise, then covered it with his hand. "You are the Soulmates!"
"The soul-whats? You gotta be kidding me!" Shego almost shouted. "Just cause I had a tumble with the guy once when I was a teenager and once a couple months ago? Give me a break here!"
"Shego!" Kim growled. "Neil means one hell of a lot more to you than that."
"Yeah, well, how would this Twinkie know about it?"
"Because I followed his soul to you. I thought I was on my way directly to him, but I found the two of you instead. It was my mistake, seeing the two souls together. I naturally assumed the Wisdom and the Sword had found each other."
"Wait a minute. You're talking about both of us? Are you saying you followed Ron's soul to me?"
"Are you his lover?"
"Well, I wouldn't put it quite that way, but we are engaged."
The wizard blushed slightly. "I, uh, didn't mean it that way. I was speaking more the way one soul loves another. The two of you have been soul-merged. Now that I see you, your merge is much, much older than I would have suspected in one so young."
"Hold on there geezmeister. I can see those two love-birds being lifemates or whatever, but we're talking about my ex-boyfriend here! What we had was in the past, over, done, finito. I'm just rescuing him because he's still my friend."
"I see." He said, as if he wasn't going to argue the point. Instead he simply cast his eyes to Shego's abdomen. She caught the gaze and wrapped her arms.
The transport lens suddenly appeared again, though somehow this time it was different. Something was within it and the all the light in the cargo hold seemed drawn into it. A dark hand seemed to reach out toward the wizard. Anger flashed across his face and he held up his own hand. Instead of defending himself against the intruder he created his own lens and stepped away, leaving the two women alone to face the apparition. They wondered a moment why he had abandoned them, but the first disk simply faded away as he disappeared.
They were left alone in the hold, standing in shock at what they had just seen and heard.
"We're over the target now." The loadmaster said. He had been up in the cockpit during the whole exchange, never knowing there had been an arcane intrusion in Able Senior's super-sonic cargo carrier.
There was no time for the two women to discuss the events further. They checked their harnesses one more time before stepping out into the void.
Neil leap-frogged over two agents, slamming their heads together as he passed them. He landed on his feet cat-like, sprinting down the corridor like a track star. Reflexes took over as a pair of P90 rifles were leveled at him. He dropped to one hand, swinging his legs outward, knocking the weapons out of their holder's hands. He spun his legs around again, catching one of them by the chin, following his body down to the ground. The other one went down with a wicked roundhouse. He grabbed the rifles and ripped the strange plastic magazines off the top, throwing them down a handy drain. He was off down the hall before the first two could recover.
He rounded a corner and almost ran into another strike team member. He grabbed the man by the lapels and slammed him into the wall, following the move with an uppercut to his chin. Sensing others following he dropped to the ground, rolling sideways, bowling the next man over. He got his legs tangled up in the man but he brought his hand down in a karate chop, striking a nerve cluster that would put his opponent down for at least ten minutes.
The yelling and screaming was getting louder. Something was going on that had the FBI men almost in a panic. Most of the strike team members seemed to be former military, so it concerned him what could cause men like that to flee! Certainly it was something more than just Ron and this Max fellow he was supposed to be looking for!
He skidded to a halt. There in what looked like a half-stripped lab crouched two men, hiding from the panicking fighters.
"Ron!" he shouted as the stairway at the end of the corridor erupted in flames and flying debris.
Next: The Heart of Arkon!