"Look officer...I'm telling you...I'm innocent. I've even got an alibi for it. Try asking Hank from the Late Nights bar. I was there with him until closing time at 3..." Kim heard someone say through her Kimmunicator outside the 48th precinct building. She and Yori had decided on a less obvious approach for handling Antropy's presence there: break in, extract Antropy out and 'interrogate' him before returning him back to his cell.
Normally Kim would be averse to such a method, but in this case, both she and Yori agreed that they had frustrations that needed venting. At the moment, Yori had already broken in and the two had synchronized their Kimmunicators so that Kim could listen to Yori was listening to.
"Kim," Wade's voice chimed in, cutting off the conversation she was listening to.
"What?" she asked, looking at her watch in annoyance.
"Are you sure you want to do this? I mean, just because he took Ron doesn't mean that you..."
"I'm sure and Yori's backing me up on this too. You just make sure that the security cameras doesn't capture us when we're making our move. The two of us will handle the rest."
"Fine," he said sourly and his image disappeared and Kim turned her attention back to the precinct building. An earlier study of the building's blueprints which Wade had uploaded to her earlier indicated that the prisoners' holding cells were in the basement and Yori volunteered to break in first to scope out the place. Better Yori than herself, Kim thought. That girl was insanely good at breaking and entering; probably because of the whole ninja thing.
Rufus climbed out of her pocket and let out a soft sigh, looking up at Kim with sad eyes. "Don't worry, little guy. We're going to have a few harsh words with Mr Antropy and we'll find out where his ants might have taken Ron okay?" she said with a reassuring smile.
Rufus chittered back, although it sounded to Kim like he was more worried about her than Ron before he crawled back into her pocket and curled himself into a ball, falling asleep. Must have been her imagination, she thought and turned her focus back to the 48th precinct.
Moments later, Yori's voice sounded from the Kimmunicator: "Posssible-san, I have located the target." A red beep appeared on Kim's watch, indicating where Yori had found Antropy. "How long before you will have gotten in position?"
"Two minutes. Wade, you heard that?" she asked and stealthily made her way to the ground, following the blue beep on her Kimmunicator that indicated herself to where the red beep was.
"Loud and clear, Kim. Everything will be cut once you're in position."
"Please and thank you," she said and continue to make her way to her position. She arrived there soon enough, a back alley that was secluded from public view and a level above where Antropy was being kept at. "Blue Fox is in position," she whispered.
"Red Ferret will strike now," Yori announced softly. Two seconds later, Kim could hear a loud voice say, "Hey, who are you and what are you doing here?" Checking her Kimmunicator, she could see that Yori was a few yards away from her. She took quick aim with her watch and fired a sonic pulse at the ground, blowing a hole in the wall.
"Blue Fox, we will need a bigger hole," Yori suddenly said; Kim could hear the exertion in her voice, she sounded like she was having some trouble getting Antropy to cooperate.
"Bigger hole? What do you mean?"
"You did not mention that the target is very thickset."
Kim's thoughts began to race. What was that suppose to mean? Antropy was an average sized man when she first met him. She pushed that thought out of her mind and fired another sonic pulse at the ground, widening the hole considerably.
"Domo." Kim could see someone quite large being pushed out of the hole. She grabbed a hole of the person and hauled him out, Yori following him a second later, alarms starting to sound as she climbed out.
Now that the person was out, Kim took a good look at him. She certainly didn't remember Antropy's girth being this...wide and so sloppy and yet there was something vaguely familiar about this middle-aged man in front of her but she can't place where she had seen him before. "Antropy?" she asked.
"Yes," he said and stood up, as tall as he was wide, that is to say he was on the short and chunky side. "Who are you suppose to be?"
"I'm Antropy that's who are I. Now I'll just thank you for trying to free me from my cell but I need to get back in there, otherwise the police will think that I have something to do with this," he said nervously. Yori sighed and looked at Kim, looking mildly annoyed.
"He is not the one we are seeking? Perhaps you fought an interloper?" she asked Kim.
"Looks like it..." Kim said angrily and walked up to this Antropy. "You want to go back to jail? Fine, but I want some questions answered first or I make you answer them," she hissed at him.
He gulped and took a step back, afraid to look at her. "Anything! Just don't hurt me!" he squealed. The alarm continued to wail in the background and they could hear footsteps racing towards them.
"Where's your ant controlling device?" she asked quickly.
"I don't know! It was stolen from me a few months ago!" he cried out. Kim glanced at Yori, who nodded back. At least some pieces of the puzzle was falling in place.
"Last question: Any idea who might have stolen it?" Kim asked, cracking her knuckles.
He shook his head. "I...I'm not sure. I left it in my locker at home and I've been checking it every month to make sure that it wasn't stolen until it was..." he said helplessly.
"Fine. Get back in your cell," Kim said and aimed upwards, firing her grappling hook into the roof above her. She grabbed Yori and pulled her close before activating the reel function of her Kimmunicator and the two of them shot into the air, fleeing the scene before the police arrived there.
PB
"Okay...unexpected twist, Wade," Kim said about thirty minutes later on top of a random building in downtown Go City. It was quiet all around, save for the distant sound of honking. She was sitting on the edge of the roof and Yori was sitting next to her, looking somewhat distressed herself. Rufus was out of her pocket, shaking his head at them as though as he was disappointed with what they did.
"Yes. We did not expect that there would be another Antropy running around committing these deeds," she said, shaking her head violently. "But it was just so perfectly timed that this Antropy was in jailed. Perhaps we were too hasty in our efforts to rescue Ron-san."
Kim stayed silent for a while before she turned on her Kimmunicator. "Wade, do you have something about Original Antropy for us?" she asked.
"No, but Darnia does," he said and the screen flickered, switching to Darnia's face back in her room. "Oh...oh wow...I'm talking to Kim on her Kimmunicator! This is so awesome!" she squealed in delight. Yori arched an eyebrow and looked at Kim, who gave her a sheepish smile.
"Talk to me, Darnia. Wade said you got some info on our man here," she said quickly.
"Oh right...yeah. Okay...I got into checking out who this guy is while Wade was running scans on the quartz gold sample that you forwarded to him virtually and got this lowdown. His real identity is Antiago Mahlman, went to North Go City High back in the 70's and used to be quite the ant nerd even back then. Won a few science fair prizes thanks to his research on ants and what they could do and all that other boring stuff. Why someone would be so into ants I can't really say..."
"Darnia, focus!"
"Oh right, sorry...er...where was I?"
"Darnia, did you find anything useful about Antropy?"
"Hmmm? Oh yeah...I found out where's he living, in case you know, you want to break in there again like how you did at the 48th precinct," she said lightly.
Kim looked at Yori. "Well...what do you think?" she asked.
The other girl closed her eyes and thought about it for a moment. "It would not hurt for us to at least pay this Antropy's house a visit," she said finally. "He said his device was stolen from his house? The thief may have left a clue behind as to his identity and this Antropy may not have found it."
"Alright...breaking and entering phase 2," Kim said with a sigh. "At least this time, we're breaking into a villain's house," she said, as if trying to console herself. Rufus shook his head before he hopped onto her lap and climbed into her pocket again.
"Cool. I'll send you the address right now. And Kim, good luck on finding your boyfriend. And...same to you, girl whose name was never mentioned to me but looks really cool in that ninja get up. Are you a real ninja by the by?" Darnia asked Yori.
PB
Another thirty minutes passed by as Yori and Kim quickly traveled to Mahlman's house. It was a quiet unassuming place in the middle of the Go City suburbs, surrounded by lots of trees and it even had a garden gnome in the middle of the lawn. It was hard to imagine this house as being the home of a villain.
"This is most unexpectedly pleasant, Possible-san," Yori whispered to Kim as they stayed hidden in one of the trees surrounding Mahlman's home.
"Yeah. Like the kind of place a person might want to have a family in," she agreed. She took a quick glance around and pointed at a round window near the roof. "That looks like it might be an attic window. Check that out first?" she said.
"Very well, Possible-san," Yori replied and she silently dropped down, darting over to the other side like a shadow. Kim simply just pointed her Kimmunicator and launched her grappling hook at the window, swinging over to the other side, long before Yori arrived there.
"Perhaps I will have to petition Sensei to get me one of those," Yori mused aloud as she climbed up to Kim's side.
"Perk of being on Team Possible," Kim smiled, allowing herself a moment of levity before she opened the window so that the two of them could go in. As Kim had guessed, it was indeed the attic and a rather neatly arranged one at that too.
"Oh, look...a box labeled 'My gadgets for controlling ants'," Kim said, rolling her eyes in disgust. "And he wondered how his stuff was stolen."
Yori smiled a little. "More American style humor. Are all Americans like this?" she ask as she went to another part of the attic, searching through the boxes.
"Just the ones that you know," Kim said, opening the box. It was empty but then Antropy did say that his device for controlling ants was stolen so there's no surprise there.
They spent a few more minutes in the attic, searching for any thing that might even remotely help them in their search for Antropy but there was nothing up there besides boxes full of clothes and photographs of Mahlman when he was younger and with his family. Rufus had also joined in the search, going through the smaller nooks and cracks in search of anything that might be hidden in the places that they couldn't search.
Sighing in frustration, Kim set aside a family photograph that she was looking at earlier, one depicting Mahlman and his cousin Tony, according to the writing at the back oh the photo. "Anything?" she called out to Yori and Rufus.
"Nuh-uh," Rufus popped his head out of a box, covered in dust and grime as well as what looked to be glitter. Don't want to know what that is, Kim thought, eyeing Rufus cautiously as he shook himself clean.
"No, Possible-san," the other girl said and walked over to her. "Perhaps it is time for us to go downstairs?" she suggested.
"Yeah..." Kim said in agreement, looking around for an exit. She spotted a trapdoor and she lifted it up, releasing a thin layer of dust that made her cough for a brief moment. A ladder extended to the floor below and she climbed down it, Yori following behind her, while Rufus just hopped down the ladder step by step.
Downstairs, there was a very similar sense of organization to Mahlman's furniture as there was to the boxes up in the attic. All were meticulously arranged, evenly spaced and spotless, and the pictures hanging on the walls were just as organized too.
One particular picture caught Kim's eye, a recent one judging from the date printed on the edge of the picture. It was a family photograph, and besides Mahlman's face, there was another face that she recognized in the photo: Dean Mancuso.
"Cousin Tony," she said with a slight smirk. Ron's earlier suggestion came back to her mind. And the connection between the dean and Antropy was suddenly growing stronger.
"Is there something that you find amusing, Possible-san?" Yori asked, peering at the picture that Kim was looking at.
"Apparently the dean of GCU is related to Antropy. Did I tell you what he was trying to do to me when I arrived here a few day ago?" Kim asked the other girl, who shook her head in reply. "Well, he tried to get me to stop the hero business. Said it was for my own good and all that stuff."
"Perhaps he is the one who stole the device from his cousin and he is now battling us," Yori said, causing Kim to snigger.
"Yeah. That's what Ron said..." her voice trailed off for a second before she shook her head. "Come on, let's get back to searching this house."
"Hai."
"You take the first floor, I'll take the second, and Rufus, you check behind the furniture. Please, let there be something that we can use here," Kim said as the two of them started their search.
Another hour passed as the two of them searched through the house, knocking on walls and tapping on tables and drawers to see if there were any hidden compartments that they had missed out on. As Kim was searching a bedroom, Rufus ran up to her and jabbered at her, tugging at her pants.
"What's the matter?" she asked. He motioned at her to follow him and she did so, as he led her to another room which she hadn't search yet. He ran under a dresser and pushed something out: a thick leather bound book.
"Huh...now that's something interesting..." she said as she picked it up and opened it, scanning its yellowed pages briefly. Her eyes widened, at first in surprise and then, triumph as a fierce smile broke on her lips.
"Eureka."