The Trinity Sitch - Book 4: Heart of the Fury
Chapter 8: Wild Child
Among his kind he had never been given a name. They had no purpose for it. He was simply the strongest, most cunning among them. He was also the most evil. The people who infested his world had been the ones who saw fit to give him a proper calling. They called his kind Malevolous, the demons of old. He was chief among them and he was given a special name.
Malendragma.
They were dark and twisted creatures, springing from the abyss at the dawn of time. Some of the stood like a man, some took on other shapes, seeming to be dark and terrible beasts or other creatures that otherwise only lived in the nightmares of men. Still others took on no true form at all, their evil unbound by any physical body.
The lord of the Malevolae did have a form and it was terrible to look upon. He had the body of a man, though he stood twice as tall as the largest man who ever lived. His skull, in fact the entirety of his head looked like it had been pulled from either end, with great horns springing from the sides, curling upwards. From his back sprang a long, segmented tail that ended in a cruel ball of spikes. Folded behind his arms were great wings, much the same as those on the bat-like vashas creature that lived on that world.
For uncounted eons the people of that world lived in fear of the demons. Many of his lesser brethren would appeal to him; let them hunt all of them down, freeing their domain of the infestation by those puny creatures.
Ah, he would say to them, how much more delicious is it to feast upon their fear and suffering. How much better is it to sup upon their souls, knowing the rest of them would cower before you, some even worshiping you, serving you lest the same fate befell them. Then the succulent taste of their forfeit soul when you still take it from them.
Delicious.
Yet, in the end, there were too few of them and they had become lazy, complacent as their thralls grew, matured, learned.
The human spirit will not stand for evil forever.
Among the people rose three champions. Their might combined, they threw down the demons, destroying their bodies, casting them once more into the abyss from which they sprang. The Demon Wars claimed many lives, but in the end it was Man who claimed the world for their own.
Yet they did not realize; the demons could not be wholly destroyed.
Arkon, the greatest among the Trinity who had defeated the Malevolae, knew this to be so and knew that one day the bans he placed on the abyss would weaken and break, unleashing their dark evil upon the world again.
So it finally came to pass. His form gone, destroyed in the distant past, Malendragma found his spirit once again adrift in the world of men. He sought refuge, finding it in the form of a newborn girl-child.
She grew into womanhood, never suspecting what she carried inside her. It wasn't until she was fully adult that he had the strength to influence her will. He took her from her home, deep into the world itself, his power growing within her until the day she met…him!
He had never seen power like this before. The man had an untapped potential that would have rivaled Arkon himself, yet he was only aware of the barest flicker of it! Seeing his chance, he started plotting, scheming how best to take advantage of his good fortune. His course was obvious. Make the woman seduce him and the power would be his.
That proved more difficult than he could have imagined. Besides the power within the man, there was an overriding goodness. Just like that thrice cursed mage, the man had a hero's heart. Not only that, but his soul had been tied to another's.
Wait! That was it! The other soul had once been a hero, but it had been corrupted by evil! Only the innate goodness of this man had been able to turn that soul back to the light, but it provided a doorway. Then one day, before his plan could unfold, the man disappeared.
He tried to make the woman leave, to pursue this new man but the man she lived with would have none of it. His will could now command hers, but her body was not powerful and he still did not have the strength to add his to hers. Yet where strength was lacking, guile could suffice. With a seemingly careless remark, evil men descended upon the home, hoping to steal treasures that were not really there. Dissatisfied, they killed the man who was there and burned the home.
It took some time, but the woman bearing his essence finally found the man. He had been forced to fight in a great battle and had somehow emerged victorious. Seizing the chance, he once again had her throw herself at him, and this time, weary from the battle yet full of his growing power, he agreed.
Malendragma fled the woman's body and soul. She would live out her days with her own will once more, though she would forever bear the mark of his presence. Now it would take all of his growing power to control this hero.
As would the seed the man had left her with.
Joss Possible pushed the Japanese woman back down to the floor of Cyrus Bartol's Arizona lab, her blue/green eyes full of fire and anger, bordering on rage. She was already upset when she reached the site, more so when she saw the woman she was looking for lying unconscious in the midst of the research facility. Then she had come to and said what was probably the very worst thing she could have to Kim Stoppable's younger cousin.
The beautiful teen from Montana had a peeve button, and Yori just jumped all over it!
When Jocelyn Renée Possible turned twelve, she knew exactly what she wanted to be and that was to be just like her big cousin Kim! She absolutely worshiped the ground the older girl walked on, copying everything about her from her catchphrases, her equipment, right down to her black crop-top mission shirt (much to the chagrin of her father, Slim Possible, who thought pre-teen ladies shouldn't go about in such revealing getups with her belly button peeking out! After all, this was Montana, not Las Vegas!)
When Drakken and Shego appeared at the Crooked D Ghost Town Theme Park with their "Silly Hats" scheme she got her chance. It turned out that just plain copying Kim wouldn't work, she would have to be her own person and do things her way to succeed. Be that as it may, she was hooked and hooked good on the life of an adventurer.
She was bright, intelligent, resourceful, but early on she had a tough go of it. For one, she wasn't a cheerleader. In fact, there were so few students in her class they didn't actually have a cheerleading squad, mostly because they didn't have enough students to field any kind of proper team. Mostly they just made the rounds of the middle-school rodeo circuit.
In the end, those were the skills she brought to the table as she started making a name for herself, helping people in need all over Montana at the tender age of fourteen.
Then two things that may or may not have been related happened to her. For one, she started growing up. She grew a few inches and started blossoming into a beauty of a young woman. Overnight she started receiving all kinds of attention, all of it from the boys. Slim had to cast many a narrow eyed glance at some of the younger hands on his ranch, his hand patting the control for 'Old Tornado' before they got the message. The boss' daughter may look like a hot little slice from Montana Café, but she was one hundred percent pure hands off.
Joss liked the attention and didn't care one bit for her father interfering with it. She was aware of all the attention she was getting and she liked it. I mean she 'liked it' liked it. Her father's protectiveness triggered something that had passed over both Slim and James, missing Kim and her little twin brothers. The Possible family finally had a rebel.
Slim caught her making out with an eighteen year old boy from school at fifteen, found her in a parked car with a college boy (whose hand was on the wrong side of her clothing at the time) at sixteen and at seventeen almost had her twenty year old boyfriend arrested. Frustrated, he enrolled her in a special training program with Global Justice, hoping the hero work would occupy her mind before he ended up becoming the first grandparent in his generation of Possibles.
Oh, that worked really well. She dated most of the "Top" agents, including a go with Wil Du that ended, shall we say, quite badly. She was soon suspended for fraternization, forcing Slim to pull the last card from his deck.
He sent her to live with his brother, James. He hoped that the double barreled blast of Kim's shining example and James' intense protectiveness would calm his little spitfire. What he didn't plan on was her older cousin moving in with Ron at about that time and James just about giving up any hope of controlling Jim and Tim.
Fortunately, a little of the right kind of freedom and a great helping of respect really helped her put her life into better perspective. That and the fact she now got to see her earliest crush on an almost daily basis.
It didn't matter that he was going to marry Kim the following summer!
Then the second thing started happening. She had stepped up to take Kim's place on many of Team Possible's missions and inevitably, considering she was the same height, weight and general build as Kim had been at that age (Kim had grown her heir much longer, otherwise she was still about the same!) somebody called her Kim.
The first time it happened she was thrilled. It was like she had arrived. She had finally achieved hero status. Then, at some point, after it started happening almost every time she arrived on the scene, she started getting sick of it. She started realizing she was just a bit player living in her cousin's shadow. It didn't matter that everything was being handled by her, backed up by Jim and Tim, she was just the B-team of Team Possible.
In a way she started resenting Kim Possible.
It wasn't her cousin as a person she resented, but the image that she was trying to live up to. She started making changes. Small ones at first, such as parting her hair in the middle again like she had as a child, then cutting it shoulder length. She even changed what had been the instantly recognizable Team Possible uniform. Gone was the black crop top for basic missions. Instead she took to wearing a military issue olive t-shirt and US Marines 'desert-digital' camouflage trousers instead of the cargo pants. She finished off her new image with old-style lace up combat boots.
Three out of four times she still got called Kim.
Yori's eyes fluttered open, coming to rest on Joss. "Kim Stoppable-san?" She asked, trying to get up.
Despite the fact that the logical side of Joss' mind knew that this woman could kick her butt clear to Montana and then back again before she could say 'just doin' the Joss thing!" she snarled, pushing her back down to the cold stone floor.
"What have you done with my cousin's husband?" she growled, realizing her anger made her accent thicker, meaning she might be completely unintelligible to the older woman.
Pinned to the floor by the teen, Yori tried to answer. "I am trying to discover what has become of Stoppable-san myself."
Joss' lips curled into a snarling smile. "Nice try, Chica. There's blood on your hand and on one of your weapons and I've already had Wade run an analysis on it." Her voice dropped an octave, filled with menace. "I'll ask you again. What have you done to Ron and why is his blood on your knife?"
Yori looked at the stain on her hand. It had been transferred when she caught the fan spike the false-Ron had thrown back at her after pulling it from his leg. Her eyes snapped open as realization hit her. That had not been 'her' Stoppable-san, she was sure of it. She had seen the haunted, desperate look in his eyes, a look she could never imagine seeing on the man she knew. Yet a scan of the DNA said it was him indeed. There was only one explanation her mind could consider.
"Possible-san." She said, guessing the young woman was certainly related to Kim Stoppable, "That is the blood of one of the intruders I fought here, but I swear, it is not the blood of Stoppable-san!"
"DNA doesn't lie, Ninja-girl!" Joss shot back.
"If you don't believe me, have your friend, Load-san check it again. Tell him to look for…" She searched for the correct terms, "…phasic combination drift."
Joss didn't take her narrowed eyes off her as she reached into her cargo pocket and pulled out a handheld version of the Kimmunicator. She keyed the mike and repeated the request.
"Got that, Wade?"
"Yeah, but I don't know what…waitaminute! She's right! I never would have caught this with just a baseline comparison. There is at least two generations of phasic drift here, as well as some other insignificant mistakes in the sequencing."
Joss raised an eyebrow. "Okay, let's pretend I've got no idea what in tarnation that means." She said, her hand still firmly pinning Yori to the floor.
"It means somebody is trying to play us." The teenaged uber-genius replied. "Phasic combination drift is a series of predictable mis-alignments of the DNA coding that occur when it's artificially sequenced without the aid of advanced equipment like a genomic sequencer."
"Wade, so even girls from Montana can understand?" She quipped.
"Sorry. Long story short…it's like a stamp that says 'I am a clone!'"
Joss turned her glare back to Yori. "Just what in tarnation's goin' on here?" She took her hand of the other woman's shoulder, finally letting her up.
Yori made no attempt to do any more than rise, propping herself on one arm. "I have been tracking two, possibly three thieves who have been stealing a number of items that are somehow associated with Stoppable-san and his wife. They made an attempt to steal something from the Yamanuchi school and in their failure I managed to get on their trail.
"I followed them to Middleton, where I was attacked by this supposed third person. When I recovered I found that Stoppable-san was missing."
"An jes' how did ya figure that?" Joss still wasn't sure if she could trust the woman, though she was starting to realize everything she knew came from Kim's telling of their one meeting many years earlier and perhaps that was coloring her impression of her. Then there was that one detail of the whole "Gorilla Fist" escapade. Kim with Ron Joss could live with, after all, Ron was only a little girl's first crush. But any other woman with Ron, well, that was just cow-patties!
"Rufus-san told me." Yori said, as if that explained the whole thing.
Joss' eyes shot wide. "Rufus! You've seen Rufus! Where is he, we thought he was with Ron!"
Yori tentatively got to her feet. "Rufus-san is safe Whoever took Stoppable-san did something to him. He was unconscious when I found him but has shown no ill effects since he revived. I brought him with me to keep him safe in case the kidnappers were still around. When I tracked the two thieves to this place, I found a safe place to hide him and the treasure I brought from Yamanuchi. It was then I confronted and was bested by the false-Stoppables."
She led Joss back the way she had entered, to a small room on the edge of the complex filled with computer equipment. Sleeping on the leather wrapped grip of a Katana-like sword was the aforementioned naked mole rat.
"RUFUS!" Joss squealed, instantly waking him. Excited, he raced up to her shoulder, giving her cheek a big (as big as a creature his size is capable of) hug.
Joss' attitude to Yori softened considerably, but she still had questions.
"So, what was the deal with leaving a scrap of yer getup at Kim's place?" She had been briefed by Wade as she returned from her 'mission' in Bermuda (which had actually been an official Team Possible mission, though she managed to sneak her boyfriend, a slightly older, red-haired boy from the Southeast named Matt, along for the ride) "Didn't seem very 'ninja' to leave something like that behind."
"Rufus was able to tell me one of the intruders looked like me. She left a scrap of her clothing, perhaps to implicate me. When I discovered this, I replaced the scrap with a real one in the hope it would draw Kim Stoppable-san to me before she could be attacked or taken. It was a long shot, I know, but it must be tried."
"Well, it worked better than you'd hoped. Kim's in Japan right now lookin for you."
Yori frowned, then nodded. "That is good. Sensei has a great many things he wishes to discuss with her. This is sooner than he expected, but under the circumstances, it may be for the best."
Joss simply nodded, not knowing where to begin when it came to eastern mysticism. Then something clicked in her head. "Wait a sec! You said they looked like Stoppables. Both of them? You mean the other one looked like Kim?"
It was Yori's turn to nod.
Joss pulled her Kimmunicator back out. "Wade, it looks like me may be dealing with more than just a clone of Ron. There's one of Kim and there might be one of Yori."
"Hmm. Yori I don't know about. I've been looking at the genome. Something looked familiar about it so I pulled up some old data. It looks like our Ron clone is a clone of a clone." Wade said over the older hand unit.
"Meaning?" Joss prompted.
"It looks like somebody got a hold of some of Drakken's old samples of Kim and Ron. That's why I don't know about a Yori clone. As far as I know, Drakken never even knew she existed."
"So what attacked me outside their home was not another clone?" Yori asked, leaning in to see the dark skinned teen she was speaking to.
"I really have no way of knowing with the evidence I've seen so far. What worried me is that somebody had gotten into some genetic material that was supposed to have been in the hands of Global Justice."
"Unless this is all Drakken and Shego after all." Joss supplied. No matter what her cousin said about her former enemies, she could only trust the duo as far as she could throw them.
"Not likely. I've been keeping pretty close tabs on the two of them. Drakken's spent the last couple years trying to translate some old book. If he's playing us, he's figured out some way to do it in plain sight."
"This doesn't make sense." Joss scowled at her Kimmunicator. "Send in clones of Ron and Kim, then maybe one of Yori here, haven them steal a bunch of random whosits, then kidnap Ron?"
"Perhaps this has more to do with Stoppable-san and his wife than the individual items these gatherers have taken."
"I tend to agree with Yori." Wade broke in. "The only thing that makes sense is if they were trying to gather some kind of mystical energy that had rubbed off on these things. So far, in all the simulations I've run, small groupings of these items could be dangerous, but taken as a whole? Nada!"
"Maybe it's an old-fashioned frame-up?" Joss figured.
"That is…possible, Possible-san, but, no disrespect intended, it is unlikely. The clones are going to great pains to escape detection and identification. The only thing I can guess is these is some less obvious significance to these items, perhaps for their mystical energies to be properly used, it must be the Stoppables who do the gathering, even if it is only their doppelgangers."
"Or it's just a back-up plan to throw a monkey-wrench into the works if they get caught." Joss added. "Then it's back to frame-up."
"That could be true. In fact it would be a less troubling matter that way." The older woman admitted.
Joss sized up the ninja once more. "Okay, Ninja, looks like you and me are going to be the ones who rope up these two. I need you to run 'em down, since you've been able to do it twice now. Just two things I need to get straight with you.
"First off, my name's Joss. You can call me Joss or you can call me Miss Possible or you can call me 'hey you' but don't EVER call me Kim again. Understood?"
"Perfectly."
"Second, if I find out you're shoveling a bunch a horse hockey there ain't a varmint in the world that's gonna help you. So, you ready ta hog-tie us some clones?"
"It would be my honor." She said with a slight bow.
Kim rested her head on the tatami mat, not quite able to fall asleep even though she promised Sensei she would do so. Much as she wanted to climb into the Blue Fox and fly home the old man convinced her to wait until the following morning to leave.
After telling her about his meeting with a woman she was convinced was the Blessed Mother of Arkonia, Sensei asked her to give a full account of her life, specifically beginning from the time when she first realized she loved Ron.
That request was, in fact, quite difficult for her. It seemed like, in hindsight, she had always loved him.
"Perhaps I should be more specific." He said, "Begin your tale with the time you first told him that you loved him."
That still proved to be very difficult. It was something so true, so basic, so fundamental that it seemed to have no beginning and no end. The sky was blue, water was wet and she loved Ron. She could even picture in her mind's eye the first time Ron said those words to her. The image was etched forever on her heart. He was wearing his father's baby blue tux. He needed a shave and they both could have used a bath. The were on a bluff overlooking Middleton, watching the sun rise the morning after their Junior Prom. They both knew they were in deep trouble for breaking curfew (which had been extended since the Diablo attack had happened at midnight) but they didn't care what their punishment would be. In one night they had saved the world together and come together.
Kim had never kissed anyone like that in her life. In retrospect, she had never really wanted to. Not Walter Nelson, not Josh Mankey, not even (grrrrrrrr, hissssss) Erik! Yet she had spent most of the night kissing Ron. It was so natural, so right. They had gotten back to the prom in time for one last slow dance, which they spent the greater part of kissing. They didn't separate until they were quite literally chased out. How they ended up on the bluff they couldn't later recall but as the sun fully rose, Ron leaned back, speaking for the first time since they started kissing.
"I love you, KP." He said breathlessly as a bronze Jaguar pulled up behind them.
Mercifully, their grounding was only for a week and a series of mopping up missions kept them together over that time anyway.
But…when had she first said it? Somehow she couldn't recall. It was something she said all the time, at every chance she got.
Despite her failure to recall the first, Sensei was pleased with the beginning of her tale. He let her continue from that point, sensing the Prom was at least the official beginning of their life together. He would stop her from time to time to expand on a point or two, especially when she reached the parts relating to their battle in the swamps of South Carolina.
Somehow, despite the extremely personal nature of what happened during their odyssey in space she found herself giving a very frank recount of what occurred between them, and not just about the arcane Soul Ceremony. It didn't occur to her until she was just settling down for sleep in the paper walled room that he didn't ask many questions about her real wedding just two months ago.
How very odd she would speak so freely with a man who was almost a stranger about the night she gave her virginity to Ron. (She never thought of it as "losing" it)
How very odd indeed she so easily agreed to a night of rest, not knowing where her husband was or what he was doing. Had Yori actually betrayed the school, taking him on some errand? Had she taken him against his will? Still, it was Sensei, with his calming words that convinced her to stay. "You have faith in him and faith that he is well. You would not still be here if that were not true. You are listening to your heart and if you believe that your souls are one, no physical distance, no matter how great, can truly keep you apart."
Resting on the mat, covered in a light blanket, the moon shining through the thin paper walls, she was once again starting to doubt. Outside, still sitting in the courtyard was her flyer. All it would take would be a short walk and she would be on her way home or on her way to find Ron.
For heaven's sake? Why hadn't she thought to call Wade on the Kimmunicator, just in case he had some new information. Had she gone so long without wearing it that she still forgot about it? For that matter, why had it not gone off in all this time? Considering the circumstances, she would have expected Wade to call in from time to time, just to say he was still working on the problem. Reflexively, her hand went to the call button.
It wasn't even on her arm.
She realized then she had gotten just a bit of sleep. Before laying down she had changed into a sleeping kimono they had loaned her so she would not have to sleep in the super suit (or in the buff for that matter – the suit had 'built in' underwear.) She would have taken it off to remove the power-glove. No big! It was just with her clothes.
Which were…where?
What was going on?
She was reaching for the shoji door when a small but steel-like hand clamped over her mouth, stifling a scream.
"Come with me if you want Ron-san to live!"
Outside two figures stood side-by-side, observing the small house Kim Stoppable had be given for the night.
"I fear we are taking a horrible chance, Nooni-chan."
"The risk must be taken if the blind woman's prophecy is to come to pass." She said, a touch of sadness in her voice as well. "Do you believe what she said is true?"
"In my heart, yes. In my mind, there are still many questions."
"Then let us hope the bond between Ron-chan and Kim-chan is good. If so, then they shall prevail."
"I hope it is so, Nooni-chan, I hope it is so."