Yori freely admitted that her childhood hadn't been normal and that her teenage years were probably far outside the realm that the vast majority of teens experienced, so she wasn't in a position to judge what was normal and what wasn't. However, Yamanouchi had trained her to fit in with several cultures, including American Culture. As such, she was able to say, with reasonable certainty, that Stoppable-san's parents were absent a great deal more often than was typical. In this case, she wasn't about to complain.
Instead of needing to sneak into his home while his parents were asleep, she was able to simply observe Kim Possible leave, then walk up to the Stoppables' back door and knock. Stoppable-san was happy to see her, although he seemed much jumpier than normal.
Of course, she had to admit that she didn't know what a normal level of nervousness was for the young man. She had only observed him during his week long visit to Yamanouchi, which had turned into an adventure that even a Yamanouchi student would consider stressful. She had observed him again during her mission with Junso. While he seemed much more calm during that time, she realized that she could have caught him in a relative stress-free...for him...time. The incident with Kim Possible and the moodulator had left him first very jumpy, then quite depressed.
That brought up another issue, one that she would have to face in due time.
"So, what brings you to Middleton?" He asked her, once he had offered her refreshment and a seat on the couch.
"Yamanouchi requires your assistance," she told him, wondering why he asked her what brought her to Middleton and not what brought her back.
"Oh?" He tilted his head, curious.
She told him about Master Sensei's abduction, leaving out that the old master had been drunk when it happened. Instead, she showed him the coarse fur that had been found in Master Sensei's quarters. Rufus' nose confirmed what the lab had determined.
"Monkey!"
Any further discussion was interrupted when a hazy shape appeared and began to come into focus above the dining room table. Rufus let out a shriek that was most impressive for his small size and plunged into Stoppable-san's pocket. For his part, the chosen one backed off, clearly nervous.
"The g-g-gravy ghost!" He stammered, his voice a clear octave higher than it usually was. "It followed me home!"
However, Yori had seen this before and knew what it was.
"Master Sensei is using his powers to contact you," she told him.
"Oh, right!" She didn't need training to detect the sarcasm in his voice. "Why call when you can terrify?"
"Stoppable-san," Master Sensei's faint, distorted voice sounded. Then, his image took on a look of fear before vanishing.
"Master Sensei must be in great danger," Yori concluded. "As Fiske has taken him, we need you, and your Mystical Monkey Power, to counter his."
"Okay, when do we leave?"
"Tomorrow," Yori told him, grateful that he was willing to assist. "Yamanouchi will send a request to your school, asking you to show me around your city in an effort to expose me to American Culture. Once clear of the school, with a proper cover story to eliminate any curiosity, we shall take flight to Fiske's last known location in the Amazon Rain ."
"Okay, I'll let Kim know," Stoppable-san answered.
"No," Yori insisted. "Yamanouchi's activities must remain secret. Our cover story is as much for Kim Possible as it is for your teachers and other friends."
"But, I'm used to having Wade's help when it comes to tracking down the bad guys," Stoppable-san protested.
"I am certain that Wade Load is most capable," Yori told him. "But Yamanouchi has been focused upon Fiske. Our own intelligence network is ready to assist us, as well as a strike team of operatives once we locate Master Sensei and see to his safety."
"Okay," Stoppable-san sighed. "I guess we better get some rest. Tomorrow's going to be a long day."
And now, Yori was nervous again. 'He thinks that we are lovers.' she reminded herself, wondering if he would expect that they would renew their intimacy. Instead, he showed her to the guest room and saw to her comfort. She chose to stay at the Stoppable House, hiding the fact that Yamanouchi had operatives in Middleton from him. She thought that he would join her in the guest room, but he merely wished her a restful night and went to his own room.
She spent some time before she fell asleep wondering if she was relieved or disappointed with this.
Ron had never appreciated how much preparation went into a mission. More to the point, he never realized how much preparation should go into a mission. Over the last several months, he had started to work out, which meant that the missions started going a lot better. Still, the idea remained the same; they would get their mission from Wade, he would tell them what was up and what they had to do. Then, they'd go to wherever he sent them and catch Drakken, or Dementor, or Fiske, or whomever by surprise. Sure, missions often wound up with them having to make up things on the fly, but that's the way they did things.
Now, he was forced to admit that it wasn't the best way.
He had a free class period in the morning and took advantage to slip to a nearby convenience store to grab a couple of snacks. This was no big deal; a lot of students took advantage of free time and the...convenience...of the convenience store to pick up some empty calories and caffeine. He was far from the first, and would be far from the last, to sneak some into the school. His mistake was reviewing his purchases with Rufus while passing by Kim's locker.
He should have known that Kim and Monique would be there, discussing yesterday's events with Wade. Unfortunately, Kim wasn't so fixated on Wade's refusal to disclose the composition of mystery meat gravy that she didn't hear him listing what he had bought. When she asked him if he was sneaking food into school, he thought that he was being clever by saying that he was just stocking up.
"Stocking up for what?" She asked.
"Stoppable!" The bellow from behind him was one that he would have never thought would be welcome but, in this case, it was.
"Yes, Mr. B?" He answered. It was hard to judge how loud he was speaking, his ears were still ringing.
"I have another assignment for you," the big man told him. "Your attendance in your afternoon classes is no longer required, nor will your presence be required, or tolerated, at school tomorrow. Instead, you are to accompany an exchange student while she indulges in American Culture."
"Oh...what?" Ron managed to ask, trying to keep up the illusion that this was a surprise.
"Let me introduce you to your duty for the next couple of days." Barkin looked stepped to one side. Again, Ron did his best to act surprised upon seeing...
"Yori!" He greeted her. "What brings you to Middleton?"
"Greetings, Stoppable-san," she bowed. "I am here to observe American culture, beyond educational institutions. I would be most grateful if you could show me the sights in the area."
"It would be my honor," he assured her, then noticed that both Monique and Kim were giving Yori...very odd...looks. "Oh," he said. "Yori, this is Kim and Monique."
"My honor to meet you both," Yori bowed to them. "I have heard much about Kim Possible."
"Really?" Even he could pick up on the sarcasm in Kim's tone. "I haven't."
"Oh, I met Yori when I visited Yamanouchi," Ron told her, which was both true and matched the cover story he and Yori had come up with last night. "She was nice enough to show me around there, so it's only right that I return the favor here."
"Okay, I'm in," Kim declared. "We'll show her all the things that we do for fun."
"Negative, Possible," Barkin interrupted her. "This mission only requires one student missing classes. Economy of force is a core principal of any military operation, and I intend to run this school with military efficiency. Yamanouchi requested Stoppable to be its student's guide, you can best support this operation by maintaining notes and assisting Stoppable in catching up with his course work when he completes his mission."
"But..." Kim tried to complain.
"But nothing, Possible," Barkin rumbled. "This is not a 'save the word' sort of situation, so the lenience the school has given to you does not apply. A capable leader must know when to be a delegate and support. This is one of those times."
Ron took this as a good time to catch Yori's arm and lead her away, as she was too polite to leave on her own while a discussion was taking place. On the other hand, Ron had learned the value of a good distraction. Now, he also understood the value of a good cover story. If they hadn't put together the cover story ahead of time, he would have been forced to try to ad-lib a lie to explain how he knew Yori, and he was sure he would have come up with a series of foolish, ridiculous lines.
He had already loaded his ready bag, slightly modified for a jungle environment into a nondescript car, driven by a nondescript man, earlier that morning. Three blocks from the school, he and Yori climbed into that same, nondescript car and the nondescript driver drove them to the airport. Yamanouchi wasn't an all-powerful organization; they didn't have aircraft on hand capable of handling intercontinental flight, but it wasn't long before the two teens were on the first leg of a trip to Brazil.
Being around Kim Possible was often interesting, but usually not as entertaining as today was turning out to be. Monique appreciated her friends; Kim was all down with the fashion and Ron was fun to argue with over the GWA. Hearing the two of them talk shop was a kick, mainly because some of the plans and gizmos their bad guys came up with were so bizarre. They lived very interesting lives and being close to them meant that she got the scoop well before anyone else and usually with a great deal more detail. There were also some personal entertainment that the two of them inadvertently provided.
Take today. Okay, it actually started before today. Monique hadn't known, back during the Middleton Days madness, that Kim had an emotion-controlling chip attached to her. When she suddenly started coming onto Ron, Monique just thought it was natural progression, friendship morphing into something else. Granted, it wasn't going to keep her from extracting maximum entertainment from it, but she thought it would be neat to see the two of them getting together. Then Kim said that she didn't feel anything for Ron.
At first she thought that it was just denial, like when Kim insisted that she wasn't jelling over the time Ron was spending with Felix. That incident had been fun all around; Kim's denial made for some good entertainment and in the end, the friendships all around came out of it stronger. Shortly after the whole issue with that chip, Monique was certain that at some point, Kim was going to finally admit that she was looking at Ron as something more than a friend. The two of them bumbling from pals to BF/GF promised fine drama and comedy. Then, Kim did the responsible thing and talked to Ron about it.
Admittedly, that did provide some drama. It was clear that Ron wasn't happy with the sitch, but he was doing his best to just deal. Kim complained that her typical Friday nights weren't as carefree and fun, and ended a lot earlier, than they used to. This was, of course, prime entertainment. It was so obvious that Kim was missing him and not realizing it that Monique started to question what would need to happen before she finally realized that she really, really wanted the boy's time. Today, the little spark needed to open her eyes seemed to have arrived.
First of all, Yori really had it going on. That school girl uniform that she was wearing really suited her. Monique hadn't missed that an awful lot of guys up and down the hall were eyeing her...some were trying to be discrete about it, but the foreign student was drawing every gaze. Then, it became obvious that Ron and Yori knew each other from before, and Ron hadn't shared this information with Kim. Monique swore that she could feel the heat radiating off of her redhead friend and could hear the sound of her jaw cracking under the strain.
Of course, Kim offered to accompany the two of them and Monique stifled her laughter when Barkin turned her down. This could be good, as in the best entertainment in years good and with any luck, and the end of it, Kim would realize that she really wanted Ron as more than a friend. Glancing over, she saw that Wade's image was still on the screen, clearly uneasy at having overheard this whole exchange.
"That's weird," Kim commented, once Barkin, Ron and Yori had all left.
"Secret girlfriend weird?" Monique prompted.
"No, he'd tell me," Kim protested. "I mean, why wouldn't he?"
"Because you'd go all jell," Monique informed her.
Monique didn't know if Kim honestly didn't know what she meant by the term "jell", if the redhead was just upset and therefore off her usual game, or she was being deliberately clueless. It didn't matter, explaining the term gave her the chance to drive home the face that Kim was, in fact jealous.
"It's just, my weirdar is going off," the redhead protested.
"Uh-huh," Monique couldn't keep the smile off her face. "And, you're jellin'".
"So not!" Kim snapped back. "Explain Ron bringing in the snacks."
"What?"
"Just before Barkin and this Yori girl showed up, Ron was going over a bunch of snacks he had bought." Kim pointed out.
"Since when is buying snacks weird for Ron?"
"Since he didn't eat them right away," Kim answered. "When Ron buys snacks, they're almost always down the hatch in a couple of minutes. He knew he was going somewhere today."
Monique was taken aback. It was a lot harder to poke fun of her friend when she had a good point.
"Wade," Kim now addressed the computer screen in her locker. "I want you to track down everything you can about this Yori, and keep an eye on where she and Ron go. Something's up and I want to know what it is."
"Aren't you going to follow them?" Monique asked her, as Wade nodded is agreement and started to work at his keyboard.
"You heard Barkin, this is Ron's class assignment," Kim answered. "I don't have a good enough reason to leave school...yet."
Monique knew what that meant, that she fully expected Wade to come up with a good reason for Kim to leave class and track down Ron.
The next class passed without incident or news which was a good thing; Kim was quietly fuming. As soon as the bell rang, her Kimmunicator chimed on. Monique managed to get close enough to hear Wade report that he couldn't find any records on Yori at any school in Japan, private or public. Kim narrowed her eyes, but didn't comment on the sitch. Instead, she asked Wade to keep digging.
Monique had to admit that she was feeling a little nervous about what was happening. Okay, Ron could handle himself and he knew this Yori, but it was clear to her that Kim was right; something didn't add up.
"Are you going to tell Mr. Barkin?" She asked her friend, while they headed separate directions for their next classes."
"Not yet," Kim told her. "Not until I have something to report to him."
This time, Monique was impressed and surprised by Kim's restraint.
The rest of the day went by in much the same manner; Kim was clearly restless and agitated, but was willing to let Wade try to find something before she took action. It wasn't until the last class of the day, Chemistry, when the Kimmunicator chimed again.
"I still haven't found anything on Yori," Wade admitted over the device. "And that bothers me. But I've discovered...something else."
"And that is?" Kim prompted, while pouring the contents from a test tube into a beaker.
"Well, we could be getting into a gray area here."
Monique sneaked a quick peak at the screen, over Kim's shoulder and noted that the young super-genius was rubbing the back of his head in a surprisingly Ron-like gesture.
"I'm more about the results than the methods," Kim told him. "As long as nobody gets hurt."
"No damage to anyone," Wade assured her. "But, I've tracked Ron's movements. Once he left the school, he went straight to the airport."
"Not exactly a center of American teen life," Kim noted.
"I had to do some...intense...digging, but I found that Ron and Yori boarded a plane, using false identification. I dug deeper and found that they are booked on connecting flights to Manaus, Brazil."
"That's definitely not typical American teen life," Monique pointed out. "By the way Kim, you're spilling."
"So what are they doing in South America?" Kim asked, re-directing her test tube's flow to the proper container.
"I'm trying to determine that," Wade assured her. "In the meantime, I'm trying to determine who bought the tickets for them to get there. Whomever set up the trip is very good at covering their tracks, so it could take me some time to track it down."
"In the meantime, set me up with a ride," she instructed him. "I'm finding out what's going on."
"Already on it," Wade told her. "It'll take about half an hour for pickup."
"Send it to Ron's house," Kim told him. "There's something I need to check."
With that, she ignored the teacher's instructions to slowly introduce the one compound to the other and dumped the contents of her test tube into the beaker. Monique only had a moment to blurt out her friend's name before the volatile mixture did what the teacher had warned them about, exploding and spraying her with a thick, scarlet foam. Kim, who had avoided the mishap due to a quick sprint for the door, turned and made a weak excuse about red being a good color before rushing off.
Monique was left to fume at her situation. The goop she had just been hit with wasn't dangerous, thankfully, but it was hardly fashionable.
The potential amusement from this sitch suddenly didn't seem so great.
Kim wasn't happy.
Okay, she was fully tweaked.
Monique's teasing wasn't helping matters, but it was off the mark. Kim wasn't blind; she recognized that this Yori girl was pretty but that wasn't what was bothering her about the whole sitch. Since her earliest memories, she and Ron had told each other everything...EVERYTHING! She knew about his problems with cousin Shawn, about being relegated to the kids table during family events, about the horrid experience at Camp Wannaweep. He knew about her crush on Josh before she started dating the guy, her habit of dipping french fries in milkshakes...all of the embarrassing things. How could he not have told her about meeting someone, a new friend from Japan?
Not only that, Ron was naive. Bonnie had played him so easily back when he had all that money, so who knew what this Yori girl could get away with? Zita had been okay; a spunky, sassy girl who was up front and honest with him, so Kim hadn't gotten upset about him dating her. Before she could trust Yori with her best friend, she had to know a lot more about her and so far, things weren't looking good for the new girl. Ron had picked up some snacks before Barkin told him about his new assignment of accompanying this Yori. That might be coincidence. Then, Wade found out that Yori and Ron were flying to Brazil, while trying to hide their tracks. That wasn't coincidence. However, there was one more thing that Kim wanted to confirm before she really condemned Yori in her mind.
She had a key to the Stoppables' house, just like Ron had a key to hers. They occasionally had to grab things for each other and it was a sign of the trust that they not only had for each other, but the trust their families had for their children's friends. Only, Kim was beginning to think that Ron didn't trust her quite as much as she thought he did. Nobody was home, which was just as well. It took her only moments to get to his room and to his closet. What she saw, or didn't see, left her trembling with rage. She kept her temper under control and contacted Wade again.
"I just want to confirm," she addressed the young genius. "When Ron left the school, he went straight to the airport."
"Yes," Wade nodded, his expression troubled at her irritation. "Velocity tracking tells me that he walked about two blocks from the school, then caught a ride out there. I picked up a security camera at the airport that showed him and Yori together, so she must have been with him the whole time. What's up?"
"His ready bag is gone," Kim told her young friend. "This sudden trip was no surprise for him, so meeting Yori wasn't a surprise, either. He knew he was going to meet up with her today and he knew they were going to be going somewhere. That whole thing with Barkin was just smoke and mirrors to give him an excuse to leave."
"Well, we're going to have to play this by ear," Wade told her. "We don't know exactly where they're going, so I'm going to try to set up rides that will give you some flexibility once you get to the Manaus area. Your pick up will be in about ten minutes."
"You rock, Wade," she told him. "We'll get to the bottom of this."
"It is a mystery," Wade agreed. "In the meantime, I'm searching for more information about Yori, whomever purchased those tickets and why they're heading to Manaus. The answer's there somewhere, I just have to dig it up."
Boredom wasn't a good thing, especially when you were hiding secrets from your best friend. Incognito travel didn't mean that nobody noticed you, it often meant that nobody had any reason to notice you. Case in point, the series of flights that he and Yori took to get to Brazil: They weren't hidden in cargo holds or posing as flight crew; they were acting like a couple of traveling young adults. It wasn't that their fellow passengers didn't notice them, it was that their fellow passengers had no reason to pay any attention to them. In a way, they were even more invisible than if they were hidden somewhere on the aircraft. The problem was that he had plenty of time to think about what he was doing.
It's not that he was scared of Monkeyfist. Okay, he was scared of the man but he was scared of Shego, Drakken, Dementor, the henchmen...you name it. Instead, it was two other things that he was thinking about. The first was Kim. Kim was no idiot and was going to figure out that there was more going on than just him showing Yori around. Even if everything went according to plan he was going to be gone for two days; one to travel to Manaus then another to find Fiske and Sensei, call in the strike team, then travel back to Middleton. Kim was bound to wonder what was happening and he was going to have to come up with another story. The other was Yori.
Yori clearly believed in this "acting in character" thing. They were a young man and a young woman traveling together, they were clearly not related and there was no teacher with them, so it wasn't a school event. Yori had decided that they would best remain under notice by acting as a young couple and she was frighteningly good at playing her part. Her actions weren't blatant and beyond what was proper, which made them all the more convincing. Whenever they walked through an airport concourse, she held his arm and leaned against him. When they sat on an airliner or in an airport, she pulled his arm over her shoulders.
He was all about rescuing Sensei, but he was a healthy young man and having a pretty young woman putting on such a good act of enjoying being with him wasn't helping him keep his mind in the game. It also didn't help that he kept remembering that vivid dream from the night after the moodulator on Kim's neck burned out. His imagination must be pretty good, because Yori's form felt so familiar, even though they weren't doing the things that they did in his subconscious. Somehow, this was even more intimate; the hand-holding her resting her head on his shoulder felt wonderful in a way that his dreams couldn't match...yet he remembered that dream and he couldn't help but feel guilty for thinking about her like that.
It was with a certain amount of relief that they reached their goal for the day's travel; a hotel room in Manaus. Once inside, Yori was able to stop the act, even though Ron had to admit that he missed the attention. But, it was time to get nervous again; Yamanouchi mustn't have unlimited resources, so it had provided the fake couple with a single bed.
So far, Yori was enjoying this assignment. At first, she thought that it could be dishonorable to utilize Yamanouchi time for her own enjoyment but then she realized that the best way to give the illusion that she was having fun was to actually have fun. She enjoyed holding Stoppable's hand and she enjoyed draping his arm over her shoulders. At first, he seemed taken aback by her attention, which was amusing in its own right, but then he joined in the act; joking with her and playing the part of a happy boyfriend. The trip to their staging point in Brazil took many hours, but to her it only seemed like minutes. When they reached their hotel room, she had no intention of stopping her behavior now that they had privacy.
Then, when they entered the room, her companion's face went ashen.
She noted that there was a single bed, but did not see the significance. She was a child of Yamanouchi, as a junior student, she had been forced to share very tight quarters with other students, both boys and girls. It took her a moment to realize that he might not have the same level of nonchalance as she did when it came to sleeping arrangements.
"I...can just sleep on this chair," Ron told her, pointing to a piece of furniture that while perfectly fine for sitting upon, would prove to be very difficult to sleep on.
"I see no issue with sharing the bed," Yori told him, before realizing the obvious.
"He thinks we are lovers," she reminded herself. "He thinks that I left him asleep and that I have not addressed the fact." Yet, she really didn't know how to address it. For all that Yamanouchi's education was excellent, it fell short in some vital aspects.
"Surely you and Possible-San have shared sleeping arrangements more confined than this?" She told him. "I have no fear that you will seek to force your attentions onto me, do you suspect that I will attempt to force my attentions onto you?"
Stoppable yelped before first going pale, then blushing bright. After a moment, Yori recalled just how forward Leon had been with the young man.
"We are both fatigued after our long journey," she stated, hopefully diffusing the tension. "And tomorrow's demands will be greater. We should rest while we are able."
Committed to her course of action, pulled sleepwear from her bag, went into the bathroom and prepared for bed. Emerging, she reminded herself that this was just another night, just another mission so she nodded to him as she passed by him and crawled into bed. He turned the lights off, then used the bathroom himself. She caught her breath when he emerged, then padded over to the bed.
"He thinks we are lovers," she reminded herself. "Does that mean that he expects that we will..."
She would not initiate such an act; she was still a Yamanouchi on a mission. However, if he were to attempt to initiate such an encounter? While she found what she had used Leon for to be horrid, she had to admit that what the shape-shifter and the chosen one had done had looked...most enjoyable.
"If he initiates an act, I will preserve Yamanouchi's secret," she decided.
How would it start? Would he kiss her, or perhaps touch her? Her breath caught when he slid between the covers and came to rest next to her. Would he pull her to him, or slide in close to her? Leon had initiated her encounter with him, so how would he be as the initiator?
Instead, he settled in, as far from her as the bed would allow. He made no move to contact her. She realized that he must believe that a mission was no time to indulge in certain activities. She settled in to sleep as best she could, pretending that she wasn't disappointed that he was being a gentleman.
"I've dug up something that may be interesting," Wade reported.
Kim looked around her hosts' house and made sure that the conversation wouldn't be overheard. "Go," she told him.
"First of all, I've been tracking whomever it was that purchased the tickets for Ron and Yori to get to Brazil. They've done a very good job covering their tracks, but it appears to be the Yamanouchi School."
"The school that Ron visited last year," Kim pointed out. "And where he claims that he met Yori.
"Well, I found out that the school is part of a highly secret organization," Wade told her. "It was founded by a warrior monk who carved it out of a mountain, using only a...a sword."
"Well, if you want to do things the hard way..." Kim noted.
"The sword is supposed to be imbued with Mystical Monkey Power," Wade added.
"Which Ron has," Kim's gaze became more piercing.
"Okay, here's the next bit," Wade continued. "It's kind of a lot of dots to connect, but here goes. Fiske vanished after Ron encountered him while trying to track down that overdue library book. A week after that, a supplier in Manaus made several deliveries to a remote site on the Amazon."
"What kind of deliveries?" Kim asked.
"Building supplies," Wade answered. "Like someone was building a structure. Backtracking records, it appears that Fiske's estate paid for the materials and the delivery."
"Any more dots that need to be connected?" She prompted him.
"Maybe," his image on the screen shrugged. "Ron and Yori appear to be booked as passengers on a riverboat that is going to pass close by the point where the building materials were dropped off."
"Where are they now?" She asked.
"I don't know?" Again, he shrugged. "I lost my telemetry on Ron in the city, but I should regain it when he leaves."
"How quickly can you get me there?" She demanded.
"It will be late afternoon, tomorrow, before I can get you there," he told her, with an apologetic tone. "I'm sorry, but Lima was the closest I could get you on short notice."
"I know," she sighed. "And you really rocked managing that. In the meantime, lets see if we can connect some of these dots. We start with last year, when the Yamanouchi School, which was founded by a warrior monk who used a sword with Mystical Monkey Power, initiated an exchange program with Middleton. They had Ron, who has Mystical Monkey Power, go there for a week. Now we have Yori, who comes from Yamanouchi, taking Ron to some isolated place in the rain forest and it just happens that Fiske, who also has Mystical Monkey Power and has tried to take Ron's, may have built some sort of a hidden lair."
"That pretty much sums it up," Wade admitted.
"So Yori's delivering Ron to Fiske," Kim stated.
"That's one way of interpreting the situation," Wade noted.
"Well, it's the one I'm going with," Kim grumbled. "Just get me there as quickly as you can."
"I'm setting up more rides as we speak," Wade told her. "I'll have an aircraft available in the area when you get there, so you'll be able to drop in anywhere within a couple of hundred miles of Manaus and before you ask, yes, the site the materials were dropped at falls within this radius."
"We'll have to do the best we can," Kim sighed. "I don't trust this Yori."
"I'll admit that it seems fishy to me," Wade agreed with her. "But lets try to keep an open mind."
Kim's expression didn't give him much hope of that.
When you were the sidekick to a world-renown heroine, travel was quick. When you were trying to stay under the radar, so to speak, it could be a lot longer. Take today's mission; getting to where they suspected Fiske was hiding out. If he was with Kim, they would have simply gotten on a local plane, who's pilot would have been only too happy to take a detour and let them jump out. They could have parachuted to a point reasonably close to the target and gone the rest of the way on foot. Everyone around would have known that the pilot had helped Kim Possible and everyone would have approved of it. In fact, it would have encouraged others to help her out with rides in the future. Ninja didn't work that way.
Yamanouchi's preferred way of operation was that nobody would know that they even existed, much less been in the area. So, instead of getting on an airplane for a quick flight to the target area, he and Yori boarded a river ferry with dozens of other people. After two hours of upriver cruising, the boat pulled over to one bank and the two of them got on a dinghy that shuttled them to shore. The small boat returned to the larger one and it resumed its journey, the passengers and crew convinced they had just dropped off a couple of young, Eco-tourists.
Three hours of hard trekking saw the ground raise, becoming more forest and less swamp. Shortly after that, they spotted a tree carved to resemble a simian. Ron didn't understand that; why would Fiske want to announce his location after going to great lengths to establish a secret lair. Did he really think that anyone who had braved the jungle would be put off by a carving? He decided that it was just part of what made Fiske...Fiske...and by that, he meant sick and wrong. Less than ten minutes later, they spotted what appeared to be a comfortable hut; sixty feet up in a tree.
Of course...OF COURSE...she had to let him go first. What was it with him that when a pretty girl asked him to do something like that, he just couldn't say no? No matter, he was going to do it his way. It was time he got some use out of this change to his feet. He took off his boots and lashed them to his pack before climbing upwards. Once clear of the brush at ground level, he noticed that this tree and some surrounding trees sported carved, monkey faces. Of course, the monkey faces were open-mouthed, showing their teeth. He had to shake his head; he understood that Fiske liked monkeys, but did he have to be this over the top with them? Then, he heard the click.
His first thought was amazement; Monty had actually gotten smart and set some traps. His second thought was fear; Monty had actually gotten smart and set some traps! His third thought, upon seeing the teeth from the monkey carvings on other trees flying at him, was that simple darts or arrows would have been a lot more efficient. Of course, there was an advantage to these flying teeth, the sight was so terrifying that he couldn't help but scream. That was a hidden advantage; his shrieks of terror were sure to warn anyone in the hut above. There was no chance of catching Fiske by surprise now.
Maybe it was part of the change he was undergoing, or maybe it was his sidekick experience finally coming through for him; but he noticed that whenever he moved, monkey fangs were sent flying at his location. In each case, he was able to edge a little higher on the tree, so they stuck in the wood below him. Farther below him, Yori was swatting the projectiles aside. So far, so good but eventually, one of them was going to get hit. He spotted a low-hanging branch and acted.
He jumped off of the trunk he was climbing and caught the branch. Thankfully, no monkey teeth came flying his way once he was clear of the trunk and the branch provided enough spring for him to jump to one of the other trunks. He caught this tree in the middle of monkey carvings, smirking at being clever enough to avoid the traps. All he had to do was climb this tree, get above the hut then...
More clicks, and monkey teeth from other trees flying at his new location took the smirk from his face. Monty had anticipated that someone might do just what he had planned on doing! Traps covering other traps had to be a violation of the villains' code. He was going to have to check on that when he got back...if he got back. For a short time, he did what he had done before, climb a bit each time monkey teeth came his way, avoiding the ones flying at him but triggering additional ones. Then, he spotted the vine that he needed. Again, he took a chance.
For whatever reason, he had become better at jumping, climbing, swinging and other aerial acrobatics that Kim excelled at...but it didn't mean that he liked it. He screamed in fear and at his own idiocy when he jumped away from his somewhat safe perch and grabbed the vine. Mad luck saved him; the vine was strong enough to hold his weight and swing him past Yori, who he grabbed, then up to the elevated hut. Success.
Okay, his dismount might have left a little to be desired, but he, Yori and Rufus were now on the hut's porch, with no injuries. In fact there wasn't even any damage to his...
Snick!
A flicker of motion and a sudden, all-too familiar feeling of a cool breeze on his backside told him that while he hadn't lost his pants, they hadn't survived the ascent unscathed. Yori's snicker told him that she had noticed this, as well. Okay, they were still in Fiske's hideout, so at least tangling with a supervillain should prove an adequate distraction from the choice of boxers he had worn that day.
Within moments of breaking into the hut proper, it became obvious that neither Fiske nor Sensei were there. Disappointed, Yori called this information, the informed him that the Yamanouchi strike team would be present within a couple of minutes. For some reason, Ron felt drawn to a certain desk, and Rufus seemed interested in that particular piece of furniture, as well. He didn't know why, but he opened one of the drawers to find brochures on a series of zoos.
Perhaps the elder was correct," Yori suddenly said, from behind him. "While Fiske is clearly not here, they Mystical Monkey Power seems to have drawn both you and Rufus-San to a clue to his whereabouts. He must have found somewhere else to hide. Where better for a monkey man to hide, than among other monkeys?"
Ron didn't have an answer to that, so he stepped back while Yori started to go through the brochures. Moments later, the beating of helicopter blades swept above the hut, then several back-clad men rappelled into the hut. One of them pulled out a computer and reviewed the brochures with Yori.
"One such zoo is now closed," Yori reported. "A closed zoo would provide Fiske with everything that he needs; large, enclosed areas, infrastructure designed to restrain, and privacy. We shall start our search there. This zoo is in the U.S. State of Arizona, and transportation is ready to take us back to America at this time."
As he scrambled up a rope ladder to the helicopter, Ron could only seethe at how the Yamanouchi strike team managed to arrive on site conveniently after they had managed to bypass the traps.
"Okay, telemetry shows that Ron has just left the area," Wade reported. "I show a helicopter heading off, probably for Manaus. I've done some more digging and found a flight registered to take off there, refuel in Mexico, then in Phoenix before continuing on to Portland."
"Any chance of diverting me to Manaus?" Kim asked.
"No," Wade's tone did not allow any argument. "Ricardo's plane doesn't have the range. He has just enough fuel to drop you off over the target and get home. I'm setting up rides to get you back now. I've had some luck and you might be able to make up some time, but it's going to be an hour before pickup at your original target."
"So I might as well drop in and check it out," Kim suggested. "If there's signs of a struggle, I know that Ron's been abducted."
"Good thinking," Wade nodded. "I have the location that Ron was stationary at loaded into your parachute harness. Jump at the mark and it will take you right to where he was last."
Kim nodded, then thanked Ricardo for the ride and brushed off his thanks for saving his poultry ranch. Moment's later, she was in the air and under the canopy, letting the rush of air over her wash away her doubts and anxieties. She always preferred action to guesswork and although she knew that her friend wouldn't be waiting for her when she landed, she was honestly hoping that someone would be. She was in the mood to fight and force some answers out of someone. Unfortunately, that wasn't to be.
"I'm down," she reported to Wade. "And the place looks deserted. Not only that, it looks clean. There's no footprints...no dust for there to be footprints in. Nothing's broken, nothing looks out of place. To be honest, I wish my room was this tidy."
"But we know that Ron was there," Wade added. "Most likely with Yori and we know that a helicopter picked him up."
"So whomever took him is covering their tracks," Kim concluded. "Whatever they want him for, they want him someplace else. Keep tracking him, I want..." she was interrupted by beeping, originating from Wades end of the communication.
"I may have just caught a break," the youngster declared. "The flight that's going to be leaving Manaus will stop in Phoenix. Well, it turns out that Fiske's estate has started paying taxes on an abandoned zoo outside of Phoenix."
"A zoo would be perfect for whatever Fiske wants to do to him," Kim noted. "There's cages for holding strong creatures, so he could imprison Ron there easily."
"That's...one conclusion," Wade noted.
"Wade, back when that pendant merged with me, Monkeyfist said that extracting it was going to be very painful. We know that he wants Ron's Mystical Monkey Power and I'm guessing that getting it is going to be painful, at the very least. Now, we have Ron, leaving Monkeyfist's hideout, traveling to a place that Monkeyfist owns, that just happens to have facilities designed to hold strong, angry creatures. I'm also willing to bet that at least some of the enclosures were designed to keep noise from bothering the neighbors. If he's going to do something painful to Ron, this is going to be about the best place to do it."
"Then why take him all the way to South America first?" Wade asked. "It would have been a lot easier to just go to the zoo."
"Monkeyfist doesn't always act logically," Kim pointed out. "Or not logically from our point of view. Anyway, lets work under the assumption that Ron is being taken to that zoo."
"My thoughts exactly," Wade agreed. "I've managed to set up a fight with Global Justice. You'll have to jump in again, but you'll get there before Ron does."
"You rock, Wade," Kim's smile was savage. "I'm looking forward to getting the jump on whomever has him right now."
A/N: As always, thanks to Joe Stoppinghem for beta reading.