KP One Oh One Chapter 42: Part XLII Lost, a kim possible fanfic

KP – One Oh One: Part XLII - Lost

Kim was sick at her heart as she fought with her parachute lines. When she got snagged in a tree back in November it had been almost funny. That time, at least, she saw Ron and Joss touch down safely. Then it had only been embarrassing.

This time it was far worse. When the chute caught, Ron was yanked out of her arms. Their altitude had been too low by the time they bailed out and she never was able to get a good grip on him. It was a wonder he hadn't been ripped from her arms when she first pulled the cord. The only thing that marked his passage was a gap in the limbs of the pine tree that held her fast.

She was tangled in the lines. When she snagged, she had been yanked back up into them, holding her arms fast. Struggling, she was able to get her left arm free, though the rest of her was caught in a tangle that would have made a rope artist proud. If this had been a planned jump there would have been a knife on her harness for just such an eventuality. As it was, she couldn't even get to her tool belt for the lock blade knife she kept in one of the smaller pockets.

Frustrated, she closed her eyes for a second and took stock of her sitch. She was an unknown distance above the ground in an unknown location. Judging the amount of time they had actually been in the air and the relative terrain, she figured she was still somewhere in the Rockies. Exactly where, she couldn't even begin to tell. Since they were in the passenger cabin and not the cockpit, she really didn't see which way they were going. This was so the last time she was ever going to get on a plane after being told she would be briefed on the ground.

Thoughts of the ground brought her most immediate concern back to her. "RON!" No answer. Three tree canopy was so dense she could not see the ground, only the black hole that had swallowed him up as their descent came to an abrupt halt. Tears started running down her cheeks as she renewed her struggle against the cords. He had surprised her the night before by taking her to a late dinner, then to Middleton Motor Lodge for the night. True, it wasn't as fancy or as expensive as what he had done for her on Valentine's day a year earlier, but it was fantastic none-the-less. That morning they had gotten up early and decided to take a shower together, something they did on rare occasions. The reason it was so rare became apparent as they had almost taken it a step further until both realized the Kimmunicator was ringing in the other room.

As she fought to free her other arm, Kim found herself wishing they had made love, especially if he was…

…no. She wouldn't think that way. Ron was obviously hurt and most likely unconscious and it was up to her to do something. That meant keeping her head in the game and not panicking. Besides some scratches and bruises she was relatively unhurt. Her leg should have been singed at the very least from a blast of flames that had caught her, but the material of her leggings proved tougher than she imagined.

In all the confusion she never really got a good idea what had happened. One moment she had been dozing on Ron's shoulder, the next the hoverjet was spinning out of control, burning from its tail section. It was all she could do to grab a parachute and get free of the burning wreckage. It came to her that she had not leapt through the hatch, but through a gaping hole in the fuselage, taking Ron with her.

Her free hand went once more to her tool belt. The one thing she was expecting to find was missing. It was supposed to clipped to her hip, opposite the large pouch that hung from her modified pistol belt. Then it came back to her. Ron had been using it to play some sort of game. Why he had borrowed hers and not simply used his, she didn't know. Certainly he hadn't started getting into his old bad habit of leaving it (and his cell phone) at home again.

That almost made her growl aloud. She didn't have her wrist mounted Kimmunicator either, since Wade was upgrading it to include more sensor gear, getting ever closer to completely replacing the handhelds once and for all. That certainly didn't do her any good at the moment. For all she know, the only way she could be tracked was the special chip embedded in her neck, and all that could do was relay her location and some very basic conditional telemetry.

Kim almost crossed her eyes when she realized what she did have with her. Since she wasn't wearing the wrist Kimmunicator, she put on her older mission watch. The beam in it was nowhere near as powerful as her laser lipstick or even one of her mother's laser scalpels, but it was more than enough to go through a nylon cord, considering it had burned through a steel chain once as she was being lowered into a pit of hungry alligators.

Needless to say, it made short work of the cords binding her. She had to be extremely careful, concentrating first on getting her other arm loose before trying to get out of her harness. It was indeed a long way down and she didn't want to make one cut and send herself crashing down on top of Ron.

Once she was a little more confident of her footing, she called out to him again. This time she was rewarded with a moan. It was a slight boost to know he was alive, but from the sound of things it also confirmed he was not in the best shape.

Carefully she picked her way downwards. Her progress was hampered by the fact most of the really good foothold/handholds had been snapped off or at least cracked by Ron's passage. She was not looking forward to what awaited her below. She had a good, stinging cut on her cheek from being tangled at the top. He had crashed through dozens of limbs on his way down. There was a tattered bit of gray hanging from one limb. Ripstop fabric had met it's match on a Rocky Mountain pine.

"KP?" He moaned from beneath her. Finally she could see him. He was indeed cut and bruised, but his own dumb luck had saved him from the worst of it. He rubbed his head where it had hit a branch or two on the way down, but he was conscious and surprisingly whole considering his ordeal.

The saving grave had been the pants themselves. If it weren't for their dire sitch Kim would have laughed out loud at him. As it was, she did manage a slight titter. Ron was hanging upside down. What made it the worst was that he was hanging by his pants, which had come completely free from his legs but still hung on since the blousing straps at his ankles were properly tied off.

"Saved by the pants." She said as she helped him get loose. Finally free to use her knife, she made short work of the blousing straps as she held him about the shoulders, gently letting him down the last few feet. He looked especially cute standing there in his boxer shorts and boots while she inspected his cargos.

"Here, Ronnie." She handed the mostly intact pair of trousers to him. "Let's save your flashing me for the hotel room."

"If there even is one nearby." He checked his pocket. Rufus was woozy, but otherwise uninjured, probably receiving his own bump on the noggin. Then he started checking around their landing zone. That's when Kim noticed his tool belt was missing. He craned his neck, trying to look up into the tree, discovering he wasn't as free of injury as he first thought.

"Ow. I think I twisted something."

"You're damned lucky you didn't break your neck." She stopped herself, looking at him standing there, trying to look for his belt without bending the aforementioned body part. The thought that he may have been lying dead on the forest floor came rushing back to her. In moments she had her arms wrapped around him, her head buried in his chest. There had been many times before when she thought she may have lost him and it affected her the same every time, even before they were lovers.

"Um, KP, not that I don't mind having the most badical body at Middleton College mashed up against me, but shouldn't we be dealing with the sitch?"

"Just a moment." She held onto him for about another minute. She finally let go, wiping a few tears from her cheeks. "Okay, I'm good. Let's find the rest of your stuff and do an equipment check."

They searched for a good ten minutes, including a trip back up into the canopy to check the remains of her chute, but being an emergency bailout type, there wasn't much that could be salvaged. What had become of Ron's equipment belt, they didn't have a clue. It could be caught in any one of the nearby trees, but since it was a muted tan color very close to olive green it remained invisible to them. The main thing both of them were searching for was his Kimmunicator, which had been clipped to it just like hers was supposed to be.

While she was at the top of the tree salvaging some of the cord to use as rope, she cast about, looking for some sign of the hoverjet. She hoped she could spot the pilot's chute snagged somewhere, but the terrain was too rugged, plus, at the speed their craft was traveling, it could be miles away from them by the time it finally went down. That it was down she had no doubt. It was breaking up in the air. She said a silent prayer for the pilot as she climbed back down.

"Any luck raising Wade?" She asked as her feet touched the forest floor once more.

"Um, no." Ron was rubbing the back of his neck, wishing he had a couple of the ibuprofens he kept on his belt.

Kim raised an eyebrow. "You're not forgetting about it again, are you?" Wade had a habit of hiding backups of his Kimmunicator technology in other parts of their gear. One such micro-mini device turned up in Ron's sports watch. How the young genius had gotten his hands on the time piece long enough to install it, neither of them had a clue. One time she even had a dream of having an audio only version built into her glove, but she knew better. The only electronics built into the ones she was currently wearing were the controls for the morphing capabilities of her newer, more advanced turtleneck. Of course, more than once Ron forgot he had the thing and it seemed to her that maybe he had forgotten again.

Ron sat down on the ground, grinning sheepishly. He pushed back the sleeve of his sweater and pulled the cuff of his glove away, revealing the plain gold dress watch he had worn to dinner the night before. "Sorry, KP, but if he's managed to build one into this, I haven't figured out how to work it. Looks like we're incommunicado until we find my equipment belt."

"Darn it." She muttered, once again looking up into the dense vegetation. She shivered slightly, rubbing her bruised arm. At least wherever they were there wasn't so much snow on the ground. Since the area was heavily forested, she knew they weren't too high up in the mountains. "Okay, equipment check."

She opened up her own pockets. One of the big drawbacks of the olive 'tights' she now wore was the lack of built in pocket space. What she had was either in her belt or in the small black pouch attached to her leg with fastex buckles.

"Well, I've got my grappler gun, plus plenty of charges. Laser lipstick. I didn't have time to grab my pack, so we don't have any energy bars left with us."

"I've got my Swiss army knife." Ron added helpfully. "Note to self, don't put off the wilderness survival training GJ offers any more."

"More like a note to both of us. Okay, first order of business, we need to see if we can find the pilot. Unfortunately, I couldn't tell where the plane went down. I think we need to get to higher elevation so we can get some idea of the lay of the land. Maybe, if we're lucky, we can spot some smoke or something."

Ron struggled getting up. If it wasn't so cold, Kim would have ordered him to strip just to find out how banged up he truly was. There wasn't any blood evident except for a matching cut on his cheek, but she was certain he was black and blue under his clothes. She put out hand to help him up. Well, there wasn't anything to be done about it at the moment, so she cast about, trying to decide which way to go from there.

"You know, I thought when you're out lost like this, you're supposed to stay put. Shouldn't they be sending somebody out to look for us?"

Kim tapped the back of her neck. "Wade should be able to track us, at least the moment he realizes something's wrong. Finding the pilot is more important right now. If he bailed out in time, he's probably caught in the trees just like I was. If he didn't…" she let that thought hang in the air. "Did you see anything yourself?"

"Nope, one moment I was playing bingo on your Kimmunicator, the next there was some kind of explosion. Next thing I knew I was hanging upside down in the tree." He pointed up once more.

Shrugging, Kim started up the slight slope they were on. "Okay, then nowhere to go but up. Maybe we can find a break in the trees. For all we know, we could be on the outskirts of Denver and just a couple miles from civilization." She didn't go any further. Knowing their luck they were hundreds of miles from anything. If they were that close to a major city, it seemed like they would hear something. Cars on the interstate, a factory, planes flying overhead. Instead it was dead silent save for an occasional bird. Most of the snow was caught in the upper canopy, but there was enough to dampen almost all sound.

The thought of the snow made her think of Ron's sitch. His commando sweater was intact, but that wasn't enough to keep him warm if the temperature decided to plunge. She was slightly better off with the advanced materials of her newer suit. Considering they were supposedly doing something that involved Dementor, they would have been better off detouring to her house first to put on their battle suits, but no amount of second guessing was going to remedy their predicament. They were lost in a totally unknown place in the middle of winter, in terrain that could take a decidedly bad turn if the weather didn't cooperate. The gray skies didn't bode well in that regard.

At least it was still morning. If they couldn't find anything by nightfall their priorities would shift to finding shelter. Their lack of food wasn't too dangerous at that point, but if they remained lost for more than a day, that could become a bigger problem. Still, that wouldn't matter if hypothermia set in. Her outfit may have borrowed some features from the battle suits, but it wasn't designed to do any more than keep her reasonably comfortable in more controlled conditions. It didn't have the capacity to keep her warm over an extended period.

Ron was in worse shape in that regard. He literally only had two layers on his upper body and past experience had taught her that he was a little more prone to catching a chill than she was, plus, his turtleneck was of the plain, off the rack variety. If it got any colder she would be forced to stop and build a fire, hoping she could start it with her laser, at least as long as the charge held out. That was one feature she had never really explored. It was tiny, meant for small bursts to cut through things. She didn't even know if it would spark a fire, considering it was fairly low yield.

Their going was significantly slower than she liked. For one thing, the undergrowth was extremely thick, making her wish they had something more than their tiny knives to hack their way through it. If she had been prepared for the terrain she would have had a machete handy. Oh well, if wishes were fishes.

She laughed slightly at that thought. If she had a danged fish she would probably be told she had to hand it in as she was voted out of the igloo. She'd have given anything to be in that nice fluffy parka she had worn when she got zapped into that heinous reality show. She would instantly take it off and force Ron to wear it. Sure, it wouldn't have fit him all that well, but it would be something. She even considered trading turtlenecks with him. Certainly the morphing fabric had enough capacity to cover him. He wasn't that much bigger than her.

Ron was having the worst time of it. Sure, he could be a whiner at times, but given their current predicament, he was being strangely silent. She knew he had to be hurting and his reticence was bothering her. It almost seemed unnatural for him not to complain about his discomfort.

They trudged uphill for the better part of an hour, though it didn't seem like they were actually getting anywhere. So far all they had managed to do was completely loose track of where they had come from. The only thing they had to go on was the slope. Fighting their way through the underbrush was tiring enough, but the steepness was getting worse as they went. Even her well-toned, muscular legs started complaining.

"You know, something just occurred to me." Ron said, the strain obvious in his voice. "If we'd stayed back where we were, Wade would have beeped in and we could have followed the sound to where my Kimmunicator was."

Kim stopped and frowned deeply. She hadn't even thought of that. "If it was even nearby. For all we know, you lost your belt somewhere up in the air. It might not have even been nearby."

"Yeah, but if we heard it, maybe he would remote access it somehow. Did those smaller units have the flight capabilities of the original?"

"Don't know. Water under the bridge, honey." She grimaced slightly, realizing she had called him by one of her pet names. They were supposed to be in mission mode, which meant she normally called him just Ron.

"Gotta rest for a bit." He said finally. At least he knew better than to try sitting down. He leaned against a tree trunk, trying to catch his breath. They were almost to the point where they were climbing hand over hand, though there never was a lack of handholds. Still, they didn't seem any nearer to any kind of precipice and the forest remained just as dark, meaning there were no clearings anywhere near.

Forgetting herself for a moment, she wrapped an arm around his waist and held him close, resting her head on his shoulder. Letting go of him, she checked her watch. It was just around noon. "Think of it this way, baby. There could be a Bueno Nacho at the top of the hill."

"Booyah." He said, a little weakly.

"They do have over thirty thousand locations."

"Thirty five." He corrected. "With a new one opening in Madison Wisconsin."

She couldn't help but laugh. "Once upon a time I would have wondered how you knew such things. Heck, right now, even I would like a Mucho Guaco Naco."

"And I would eat one of those wretched Mexi Mushroom Melts." He bent his neck around, trying to work some of the soreness out."

Rufus stuck his head out of his cargo pocket. He'd been huddled in there trying to keep warm. Kim considered scooping him up and putting him down inside her sweater. Normally she was a little put out when he wanted to snuggle against her meager cleavage, but it was more important he keep warm at the moment.

"Naco." He squeaked.

"Rufus, buddy, why don't you see if you can scurry up a tree and try to see something." Ron asked, pulling the little guy out of his pocket.

He saluted with a little paw and headed up the nearest large tree. Kim watched him go, planning to actually put him inside her top for the effort. He had to be extremely cold exposed like that. Still, Ron's idea was pretty good, as long as they were able to understand what he had to report once he got back down to them.

She licked her lips, realizing she was more than just hungry. They didn't have any water and at their current elevation they were probably a long way from any kind of stream. Maybe they could eat some snow, though she knew the human body tended to burn up too much energy melting it in relation to how much value it got out of the water. Despite the cold, she found herself craving a strawberry smoothie, or even one of those unidentified flavors of Slurpsters Ron favored.

Another issue involving liquids presented itself to her. The last time she had been in a bathroom was in the hotel that morning. While Ron waited for Rufus to come back down she moved away from him. She knew it was kind of silly to think of privacy given their situation, but that was just her way. It was one thing to take a shower with Ron, but quite another to drop trou for other reasons.

She was just about to take off her belt when she looked up and saw the barrel of the rifle. It was a military model, a version of the ubiquitous M4 the US army favored at the moment, a smaller version of the familiar M16.

It took her mind a second more to comprehend that there was a human being wielding the weapon, and that it was pointed directly at her head. She had not heard a thing, yet there was a man dressed in full camouflage, right down to face paint pointing the business end of an assault rifle at her.

"Don't move." He said in a soft, rough voice.