It was settled: Yori would be the one to go to the lab while Ron would go to the armory and Kim would search the kitchen. "Japanese researchers will not write their work in English," she reasoned. There was no fault with that logic, Kim had to admit; neither Ron nor herself could read an iota of Japanese.
"Okay, Team Possible...we've got a lot of ground to cover so let's make this quick and get as many survivors and the plans out of here safely. If we see giant bugs, we squash them hard, okay?" Kim said to the other two. They grinned and nodded back at her.
"Good luck and stay safe," she said, nodding at Yori before she leaned in and gave Ron a peck on his cheek. "That goes double for you, mister," she said sternly. Ron grinned and kissed her back. "Don't worry, KP. I've got the mad monkey powers, you've got the giant bug phobia. You stay safe yourself," he said to her.
"Ahem." The two of them looked at Yori, who was looking a bit embarrassed. "While the American style affection is very pleasant to observe, we do have a mission to carry out," she said politely.
"Sorry," Kim said apologetically. "Wait...Yori..." she reached into her backpack and pulled out a blue PDA. "The old Kimmunicator," she explained. "Otherwise we can't contact you."
"Domo, Possible-san. We will stay in touch." As soon as she had said that, Yori had already vanished into the shadows, causing Kim and Ron to blink rapidly in shock. "We have night vision goggles and that girl still managed to disappear," Kim spluttered in disbelief. "How come you didn't learn that trick in ninja school Ron?"
PB
Kim raced on through the darkness, leaping over fallen furniture and smashed rubble as she made her way to the kitchen. Every now and then, she would stop for a brief moment to listen and scan her surroundings for any signs of bugs but so far she was lucky; there were none around her, as far as she could tell.
She glanced down at her Kimmunicator. It had taken her five minutes to get this far. According to her estimates, she still needed another two more minutes to reach the kitchen. Hopefully Yori was right on this matter and that there is a sealed room inside there. She took a deep breath and resumed running again.
Less than two minutes later, she arrived at a dining area, with furniture arranged in perfect alignment to the walls and to each other, with bowls of food still on top of the tables. Breakfast had been served only a few hours ago, it seemed and they were already crawling with ants, causing made a face as she walked past the tables and chairs.
She could see the entrance to the kitchen thanks to her goggles, two doors with large circular glass built in them. She pushed the doors open and they swung without the slightest of noise. Inside was in fact, the kitchen as she had predicted but it was in a huge mess at the moment, pots, pans and shattered crockery lay on the otherwise spotless floor; she saw nothing else that would indicated a struggle took place here.
There was some light in here as well too and it came from sparks that erupted from a wrecked console on the wall next to a large steel door. Her heart started to beat rapidly; there it was, the facility's freezer. Maybe some of the researchers had managed to get there in time, she thought as she quickly went to the door and tried to open it. The handle was stuck in place, though after rattling it some more, she thought she heard some noise coming from inside the freezer.
"Hold on!" she shouted. "I'm here to help you!" Kim went over to the console and looked at it intently. Like all the other consoles she had come across so far these past few days, it was crawling with ants. Grimacing, she took out another capsule from her pouch and twisted it open before she poured its contents out on the console. It dripped out and landed on the ants before turning into smoke. As expected, the ants went insane and quickly disperse, though it still left her with a ruined console to deal with.
She started to fiddle about with the wires and the circuit boards, seeing what she can do in order to get it working and after a few false starts, the console flickered to life. "Yes!" she said and pressed a green button. There was a loud hiss, followed by a whoosh as she heard the door unlock itself and then there were screams of terror from within the freezer.
"Whoa!" she rushed to the door. Luckily there was light inside the freezer and she stepped in, allowing the ten people inside to get a good look at her. "It's okay...I'm one of the good guys," she said, pulling off the night vision goggles.
One of the people inside, a middle-aged man looked hard at her. "Kim Possible?" he asked finally.
"That's me. Who are you and what happened here?" she asked cautiously.
He took a deep breath to calm himself down and to stop his teeth and knees from shaking. "My name is Doctor Hasegawa, one of the researchers here. I cannot tell you what it is that I was working on but you know of its sister project, the Quantum Blockade Field Generator, yes?"
She nodded in reply. "And that there's a super-villain who's out there and trying to get his hands on both research it seems," she said grimly.
Hasegawa grimaced in response to her words. "Believe me, Ms Possible. My team and I have noticed. Although to be honest, we have not seen this super-villain yet. One minute, we were having our breakfast, the next we were suddenly attacked by all manner of ants, small and giant," he said.
She quirked an eyebrow. Antropy wasn't here again? She pushed that thought away and she looked at all of the people inside the freezer. "This are all the people here?" she asked.
"No. Many of us...did not make it..." he closed his eyes. "Their screams..."
Kim chewed on her lower lip. "I...I'm sorry...but we'll need to get out of here. The rest of my team should be on their way out already," she said and raised her Kimmunicator to her lips. "Yori? Ron? Do you read me? I found some survivors here in the kitchen. Did you guys have some good luck too?" she asked.
Yori's voice crackled first. "Yes, Possible-san. I have managed to retrieve some of the data."
"Some?"
"The computers were all destroyed but luckily, there are some hard-copies of the data, though much of the data is still lost."
Hasegawa spoke up, "Some of the data will still be useful. I can help you complete the rest of it."
"Good. Ron, how's things on your end?" she asked.
"Found some survivors but things are starting to look bad here," Kim could barely make out the sound of chitterings and a cold shiver ran down her spine.
"You're going to need help Ron. I'll..."
"...be helping the survivors you found out of here. And Yori will be coming to meet you with the data. Rufus will be guiding the survivors here over to you guys," Ron's voice was deadly serious and the shiver in Kim's body intensified.
"Ron, this is no time for you to be playing hero. You get back over here too!" she shouted at him.
"KP, relax. I've got the mad monkey mojo. I'll just play with them for a bit and the survivors I've found will have a good chance of making it out," he said calmly. "Don't worry. I'll come back for you. I promise."
"Well you better. I don't want any kind of suicidal heroes on my team," she tried to say as calmly as she can.
"Stoppable-san, I shall come over to you right now..." Yori started to say.
"No, Yori. It's your honor to get the data out in one piece otherwise we can't beat the villain," Ron said, cutting her off before she could say anything
"That's enough! Everyone, get back to the rendezvous point then!" Kim shouted in frustration before looking at the survivors in front of her. "That means you guys too! Go!" she started to race out of the kitchen with the survivors in tow.
PB
Getting to the rendezvous point was a lot harder than expected, especially with ten survivors in tow and a inexplicable paranoia of giant creatures suddenly appearing out of the dark. It ended up taking them eight minutes to return back, instead of the expected five and Kim's mind began to wander towards darker places, hoping that Ron was still alright.
Yori was already there, pacing around in worry. When she heard footsteps, she looked up to see who it was and Kim could see her face fall slightly. She knew the feeling as well, but she gave Yori a brave smile. "People, you know where the exit is!" she said loudly. "Professor Hasegawa, do you think you can make it there while we go back and get the rest of your people out?"
He looked at his people and then back at Kim. "Of course, Ms Possible. We can handle ourselves. You should go and help the other survivors," he said.
"Hasegawa hakasei," Yori called out as she stepped up to the researcher and then proceeded to say a few things to him in Japanese before she handed a rolled up blueprint to him. He nodded and bowed to her, taking the blueprint from her. She bowed back and walked over to Kim, her face grim with determination.
"Ikkuzo," she said and darted off into the darkness. Kim followed her, equally as determined. The two made like lightning, zipping through the darkness as they made their way for the armory for a short while until they heard the sounds of running footsteps. Through the green tint of her goggles, Kim could see a small group of people, each armed with pistols and flashlights, being led by Rufus who was racing ahead of them.
She pulled off the goggles and shouted, "Rufus!" The naked mole rat chittered and ran up to Kim, scurrying up her leg. "Help!" he squeaked, tugging on her cheek painfully.
"I know Rufus. I'm going to save Ron now," she said reassuringly. "Now, make sure you guide these folk back to the exit, okay? We'll be back with Ron later."
"Okay," Rufus said sadly and ran down to the ground while Yori spoke to the other survivors. Reluctantly it seemed, they agreed to continue following Rufus and the two girls watched them disappear into the darkness before Kim slipped the goggles back on and resumed speeding towards the armory with Yori.
Before long, they could hear the sounds of fighting and Ron's funny martial arts sound and Kim felt a great burden lifted from her shoulders. He was still fighting, he's okay! she thought. The same thought seemed to have crossed Yori's mind as well; the tension in her face and step eased significantly. They picked up their pace a little, just in case.
The sight that they were greeted with was a triumphant one: Ron was holding his own against a horde of giant ants, his entire body radiating a fierce light (which again didn't send Kim's goggles into overload. Was it the mystical nature of his powers? Kim wondered) and a large pile of ants lay at his feet. He was being forced back though but every step backwards was two ants downed by him.
Time to give him a hand, Kim smiled and aimed her Kimmunicator at the ants, unleashing a focused sonic pulse at them. The shock-wave tore a huge line through the ants and knocked most of them onto their feet, stunned by the force of the sonic pulse.
"Kim!" he shouted in relief, relaxing his guard for a short moment. "What took you so long?"
"Ron-san!" Yori called out in terror, her eyes darting to his feet. "Watch out!"
"Huh?" he said and stared at his feet, just as a giant ant erupted from the ground below and its mandibles clasped painfully on his legs. He howled in pain and punched the ant twice in its head buts its mandibles refused to relax their grip and it pulled him down into the hole.
"No!" Kim cried out in despair and was about to charge to his rescue when the other giant ants swarmed over Ron, pushing him down into the hole with the combined weight of their bodies. She cried out in frustration and activated the wide area hyper sonic emission. The ants began to thrash about in a frenzy and swarmed away from her boyfriend, who was barely holding on to the edge of the hole. Both Yori and Kim lunged forward as one and each grabbed one of his hand, trying to pull him out before the ants could pull him down. Everyone started to pulling as hard as they can, causing Ron to cry out in pain.
After a moment of pulling, Yori glanced down into the hole and gasped loudly, releasing her hold on Ron's hand and he began to fall further into the hole. "Yori!" Kim screamed at her. "What are you doing?"
"Possible-san...we have to let go..." Yori said, tears streaming down her face. "We are tearing Ron-san apart if we carry on like this..."
"No...we just need to pull harder. We'll make them give up and Ron will be with us again, safe and sound...and..."
"Forgive me," Yori whispered.
Kim felt a sharp blow on her head and her hand loosened, just enough for Ron's hand to slip away from hers and below she blacked out, she saw his hand vanish into the hole and heard Yori wept uncontrollably next to her.
"Ron..." Kim whispered before darkness overwhelmed her.