"Thanks for the flight, Captain McLeod," Kim said to the burly man who was piloting the hypersonic VTOL carrier jet that had picked them up from the streets of Go City a while ago.
"No problem, Kim. Especially after you saved me and my crew from that rogue self-aware drone," he said in a friendly manner.
"It was no big. Anyone could have figured out that the AI was just trying to play tag with all the other jets in the air," she said modestly.
He laughed and shook his head in reply. "Alright, Kim. We're about to reach your destination. Do you want us to land and drop you and your sidekick off?" he asked.
"Partner and boyfriend, not sidekick," she corrected. "No, it's fine. We'll just make a standard jump. It's no big," she said with a smile and went to the back of the plane, where Ron was adjusting his parachute.
"Ready, Ron?" she asked, picking up a parachute which she had checked before talking to McLeod.
"As I'll ever be," he said, slipping on the parachute and a helmet. Then once they were ready, the plane door opened and a voice said through the loud-speaker, "Okay, kids. This is where you jump off."
Quickly the two of them made a dash out the door and began free-falling through the air. Far down below them, they could see an island with a small plume of smoke drifting out of a mountain in the center: Udone-shima. Kim took a quick look at Ron, gesturing at him to open his parachute first. He did so without a hitch and once she was certain that he was fine, she deployed hers and aimed her descent for the beach.
Their landing went without a hitch and they quickly removed their helmets and parachutes before taking a quick breather. "Okay...that went perfectly fine," Kim said, glancing around at the island. As Wade had mentioned, the island was an uninhabited one, though there were a few extremely old and dilapidated buildings scattered about the beach. On this fine early morning, this place didn't look like a secret site for a science facility but a piece of the past captured like a photograph and the two of them were intruding on it.
"C'mon, Ron. We'd better make a..." her words stopped in her throat and she glanced around quickly as she felt a prickle run down her spine. Someone was watching them. Ron had gotten the same idea as well; his eyes darting around wildly.
Then, as they were looking around, a masked feminine figure stepped out of one of the buildings and bowed to them. "Stoppable-san, Possible-san. It is good to meet the two of you again," she said and pulled out her mask, causing the two of them to break out in a smile.
"Yori!" Ron gave her a friendly wave. "How's my favorite ninja doing?" he asked cheerfully.
"I am doing well, Stoppable-san," she gave him a bright smile before her face took on a serious look. "I come from Yamanouchi bearing a warning from Sensei. He had sensed that you were coming here and sent me here with this message: Beware of the army that seeks to devour you," she said, sounding a little frightened and worried.
"Somebody wants to eat Ron?" Kim asked, stepping in front of her boyfriend. "That is just sick and wrong on so many levels!"
"I do not know. Perhaps Sensei was only speaking metaphorically, that there is only something out that wishes grave harm upon Stoppable-san," Yori chewed her lower lip as she looked at the two.
"Well...no need to worry then. The Ron-man's mad monkey mojo will definitely help me against whatever army that's going to try and devour me," he said confidently and gave Yori a bright smile. "It's good to see you again, Yori but there's a saving the world business that me and Kim will have to attend and..."
"And I wish to accompany the two of you on it, at least while we are in Udone-shima," Yori said firmly.
"Oh..." he said helplessly and looked at Kim, who shrugged in return. Yori was a trained ninja and excellent in a fight. It didn't hurt if she wanted to help them.
"Alright, Yori. Welcome aboard," Kim said and extended her hand to the other girl, who simply bowed.
"Thank you for this honor and opportunity to hone my skills alongside Team Possible," she said.
"The honor is all ours," Kim bowed back to her. Still, the other girl's earlier words left a sense of foreboding in her heart. Was Ron really in danger?
PB
After giving Yori a quick briefing as to what their objective was here on Udone-shima and what led them to travel to Udone-shima in the first place, Kim and Ron followed her as she led them on the fastest route to the research facility.
"How did you know where it is?" Kim asked her curiously as they made their way there, giving her a questioning glance.
"I am ninja. It is my business to know where all the secret places of the world are located," Yori stopped to take a bow to Kim. Somehow, Kim got the sense that Yori was actually quite proud of this accomplishment, despite her otherwise humble tone might indicate.
"That's my Yori...er I mean...good work Yori. You do Sensei proud," Ron said quickly after a quick glare from Kim cut off his first sentence.
Yori smiled and blushed faintly from Ron's words. "Domo," she said quietly and continued to lead them towards the facility.
Within the hour, they were at an abandoned bunker, close to the foot of the volcano that dominated the island's heart. Yori gestured towards the bunker. "The entrance of the facility is located within this bunker," she announced.
"Thanks Yori. Couldn't have found it without you," Kim said graciously and stepped forward to the door, pushing it open. The door slid open effortlessly without a squeak; someone had been maintaining the hinges well. Light from the morning sun flooded in, revealing a steel trapdoor in the center of the bunker.
"Talk to me, Wade," Kim lifted her watch up to her lips.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Did you inform the researchers that we're coming?" she asked.
"Yup. Once you get down into the facility, there should be a welcoming party for you."
"Thanks, Wade. Hopefully this will go without a hitch," she said as the three of them knelt down to pull the trapdoor up. Instantly, as soon as the trapdoor was pulled up, an army of ants began crawling out from the hatch, causing Ron to shriek in fright.
"Bugs!" he shouted and was about to start panicking when Kim grabbed his hand. "Ron...focus here," she said softly to him. He took several deep breaths to try and calm down and soon he was breathing a little better. Yori was inspecting the darkness that the ants had emerged from with some distaste on her face.
"I do not like this. If this Antropy person controls ants like you mentioned, this is a bad omen," she said.
"Agreed. But we still have to go down there," Kim said firmly, taking a flare from her pouch and dropped it down the hatch. It fell for about ten seconds before they heard a loud clank and they could see ants scattering from the light that the flare was giving out before the light was extinguished by other ants that swarmed over the flare.
"Okay...that is so not a good sign at all," Ron complained as Kim and Yori began to climb down the hatch via the ladder that was attached to it. A second later, he too started climbing down the ladder, complaining under his breath.
Ants scurried away from Kim's feet when she reached the bottom of the floor, revealing the flare that she had dropped earlier. She picked it up and flicked any straggling ants from it as Yori climbed down after her, followed by Ron. "Are you okay, Ron?" she called out to him.
"No. I don't want to be here...but I don't have a choice do I? It's my honor to be here, isn't it?" he said, glancing at Yori, who did her best to hide a smile.
"Stoppable-san, your American style attempts at humor is quite welcome in this troubled place," she said demurely, allowing Ron to preen a little as the fear slowly left his face. Kim noticed this and glanced back at Yori, who simply smiled back at her. Japanese style encouragement, she thought to herself.
She was about to take a step forward when she caught sight of something glistening in the light of the flare. Curious, she shone the flare in the direction of the glisten. A pool of a slick crimson fluid greeted her as a smell of iron slowly wafted up to her nose. Shocked, she turned away from the pool, her face ashen.
"Kim, what's wrong?" Ron asked, noticing her distressed look. She simply shook her head and gave him a quick reassuring smile. Yori glanced in the direction that Kim had looked at earlier and cleared her throat softly.
"I would suggest haste in this matter. Perhaps we should press on ahead. One of us should go ahead to scout the facility," she said and bowed to Ron, who sighed.
"Yeah, I get the honor schtick right now. Rufus, stick to me buddy," he grumbled as he slipped on his night vision goggles and went ahead into the darkness.
Once he had gone a certain distance, Yori turned to Kim. "Possible-san, what did you see?" she asked softly. Wordlessly, Kim shone the flare at what she had seen earlier. Yori blanched slightly and looked Kim again. "In your opinion, is this Antropy capable of such an act?"
"He's planning to make a really big omelet, what's a few eggs to him?" Kim said grimly. "C'mon. We'd better hurry up. Maybe we can find some survivors and the plans for the anti-QBFG."
PB
Instead of waiting for Ron to return, the girls decide to look for him instead. Kim slipped on her night vision goggles and offered a spare to Yori, who declined. "The ancient art of ninjutsu has many ways to deal with darkness," she said, as she took a small bundle of leaves from a pouch and chewed it. Under the influence of the goggles, Kim could see Yori's eyes visibly dilate. The latter gave her a quick nod and the two of them went after Ron.
After five minutes of walking, they found him, kneeling in front of a torn off door and inspecting it. He noticed them and shook his head. "Nothing inside there except for totaled furniture," he said softly.
"Great...any idea where we're supposed to go to?" Kim asked.
"Well..." he pointed behind the two ladies. "There's a directory of this place, I think but I can't read Japanese. Yori...it would be your honor to translate it for it," he clasped his fist and bowed to her.
"Of course," she replied serenely and bowed to him in return before she took a look at the directory.
"Wait...can she see in the dark?" Ron asked Kim in confusion, as Yori read through the directory, her head slowly following the details on it. Kim gave him a quick nod. "Ninja vision trick," she said.
"Ah...right...how come they didn't teach me that when I was in Yamanouchi?" he asked.
"Because ingesting the wrong plants would have given you horrible cramps not dissimilar to the ones that Kim and I experience every month," Yori said sweetly, heading back to them. "The directory mentions a series of laboratories located one level below us," she continued, as Ron tried to understand what she said. "If there is a place in this forsaken facility where we might find what we are looking for, it would be there."
"And what about survivors?" Kim asked. "Did you find any place on the directory where they might possibly hide?" she asked. Yori turned back to look at the directory and pointed at two separate spots.
"The kitchen and the armory," she said firmly. "Two places in a facility like this that would have a sealed room behind a thick steel door."
"Hold up..." Ron held up his hand and looked at Kim. "We're not going to split up in here, Kim. That would be a terrible idea," he said.
"Horror movie bad idea number one?"
"Number two actually," he said with a sage nod.
"Well, we'll have to split up. One of us will go to one of those locations each and we'll meet back here in 15 minutes," Kim said, rolling her eyes.
Ron shook his head. "Just you watch KP...one of us isn't going to be leaving this place," he said, affecting a mock look of doom. "Just you watch...watch...watch..."
Kim smacked him on his head. "Enough echoing already," she snapped.
He shrugged. "Okay, point the way, Kim. We'll get this all done in ten," he grinned and winked at her.