"Who are you?" Fukushima asked, reflexively putting his body into a defensive stance.
"I'm Kim Possible." Kim replied, mildly surprised that there were still people that didn't know her by sight. After publicly saving the world against Diablo bots and the Lorwardian invasion, she hadn't met anyone that didn't already know her name. "I'm looking for Mr. Go."
"You're gonna have to get in line, kid." Indi said. He was probably in his forties, with sun tanned and rugged skin with dark, peppered hair beneath his brown fedora. Despite being surrounded by trained ninja, the weary sarcasm in his voice wasn't lost on Kim, though she couldn't quite get his meaning. Ninja tended to look hostile at the best of times, and Kim had once mistaken Yori as a threat too. His white buttoned shirt and tan slacks were worn from trudging through more than one environment it looked like, and a few days of stubble was on his face. He had the ideal look of a movie quality, rugged adventurer, though she was certainly expecting something much more boring from an archeologist.
"We found him first!" Fukushima wasn't in the mood for negotiations or small talk. He immediately swept at Kim's legs, spun, then came down with an axe kick. Though surprised, Kim was fast enough to leap over his sweep, then cross her forearms over her head to block his dropping heel. Without hesitating, she performed a sweep of her own at Fukushima's remaining balanced leg. To her surprise as well, the ninja managed to leap, using her crossed forearms as a brace, and performed a back flp out of harm's way. Fukushima extended an arm toward Kim, then made a fist. "Attack!"
"Well that answers two questions." Kim admitted, as the rest of the ninjas charged toward her. Namely, who Mr. Go was without assumption, and whether the ninja were hostile. In one movement, Kim placed her hands on the head of her first attacker, kicking the next two on either side. Using her momentum, she continued forward and his the mossy forest floor, bowling over two more before reaching the back of the group. She planted a solid kick into a surprised Fukushima's chest, and grabbed Indi's arm.
The ninja were quick to regain their bearings, but not before Kim quick-drew her grapple gun and fired the cable into the forest, lifting herself and Indi into the thick leaves of the jungle.
Fukushima's ninja's instantly brandished climbing claws on the palms of their hands, but he lifted his arms to stop them. "Hold. Mr. Go may cooperate more fully with our unexpected guest. They will lead us to the hammer." He said with a grin.
"Okay, so who were those guys?" Kim asked, landing with Indi on a high branch after several swings through the brush.
Indi pulled his hat off angrily, brushing away leaves, dirt, and grime with it before placing it back on his head and straightening it. "That hardly seems like any of your business! Who asked you to come in like Tarzan, swinging through the jungle like a monkey. It's ridiculous!"
Indi's tone immediately put Kim on the defensive. "I thought I was saving your life! Usually when I see some old guy surrounded by ninjas that attack me, I tend to assume he needs my help!" Kim replied, glaring up into Indi's face. Before he could reply, she continued. "Especially when I'm looking for him to save his kids!"
Indi closed his mouth as his words that were swirling in his head were suddenly lost. "What do you mean? My kids can save themselves."
Kim shook her head, her flared temper subsiding as Indi took a few steps away and sat down wearily. "Team Go is scattered. MeGo and Wego are being hunted, Shego has been gene-spliced with an evil billionaire's wife, and Hego... Hego was killed in a multidimensional fight club." She said, frowning. It really did sound as crazy as it was.
"What the hell are you kids up to nowadays?" Indi asked in disbelief. "Wait, did you say multidimensional fight club?"
"I did. And I heard you might be able to help them."
Indi looked up at her for a moment before creakily climbing back up to his feet. "Well I can't. I couldn't save their mother either. At least not yet." He added. "I haven't been able to find the Hammer yet. I know it's here, and I've found the clues, but your friends in the black pyjamas jumped me before I could find it."
"What did they want, anyway?" Kim asked.
"The same thing we do. His crazy master Monkey Fist is trapped in another dimension too, and he wants Phan Ku's Hammer to bring him back to our world."
"Monkey Fist?!" Kim nearly shouted in surprise.
Indi tipped his hat back for a moment to wipe the sweat from his brow again. "You know him?"
"Sure. He's my fiancé's arch foe!" Kim replied. "You better start at the top, Mr. Go. What exactly is Phan Ku's Hammer?"
"In some Chinese mythologies, Phan Ku was a giant, born of the same egg as Yin and Yang; the concepts of opposites or balance. He used his hammer and chisel to carve out mountains, rivers, and everything. He did this for nearly twenty thousand years until he died and the fleas of his hair became humanity."
"Ew!" Kim interrupted, making a face. "So what makes you think this hammer is real?"
"Every story has some truth. 'Effringerent fores caelum' or, 'Breaking down the doors of Heaven'. My research tells me this hammer could be some kind of archaic Large Hadron Collider, able to produce enough energy to see into, and maybe even open dimensional rifts." Indi explained.
"And you actually believe that?"
"I didn't believe in much of these hokey religions until a rainbow meteorite blew up my house, gave my children super powers, and took my wife away from me. Now, I'm about ready to believe anything if it means getting my family back together."
Kim nodded. "Well then, we'd better get moving. It doesn't sound like the sort of thing we want those ninja to get their hands on if they're going to bring Monkey Fist back."
Kim and Indi trudged along the jungle floor, cutting a path with their own machetes through the flora until an impressive Incan temple, covered in a tangle of vines and over growth loomed ahead. The structure was hidden by the jungle canopy from the air despite its size, and even the architecture would be easy to miss if one weren't specifically looking for something odd.
"Why would an ancient Chinese artifact be found in the Amazon?" Kim asked between breaths. It was hardly the first time she had to explore the thick jungles around the world; searching for Ron over Christmas was a memory she'd never let go of. But she had the impression that Indi Go had been doing this for a very long time.
"I gave up trying to track down the reasons how some things manage to find their way around the world. Thieves, conquerers, tectonic shifts. Who knows? I once tracked down an object called the Tempus Simia in Africa. That one I'll never figure out."
Kim thought for a moment, trying to recall her Junior year Latin class. "Time Monkey?"
Indi nodded. "Supposedly had the ability to warp the fabric of time. But when I found the temple, it was just a big clearing. Like it was there one moment, and in the next, gone. Like it hadn't even existed."
"Weird." Kim admitted, though she shuddered to think what someone like Monkey Fist or Drakken could do with time travel. "Let's hope this one doesn't disappear on us. How do we get in?" she asked, though mostly to herself, out of habit.
Indi turned to her with a lopsided grin. "What? You want everything just handed to you?" he asked, though Kim could tell he was at least half joking. "Typically, getting in the front door takes little more than a crowbar. It'll be getting to Phan Ku's Hammer and out again, all while dodging..."
"Dodging traps and being chased. Yeah, been there. It was ninjas then too." Kim finished for him, growing impatient. "I thought there was supposed to be sky lights in these things. Y'know, sacrifice in the light of a full moon type stuff."
Indi grunted and started wading through the underbrush toward the temple. "My climbing gear got lost back there..."
"You mean where I rescued you?"
Indi turned back for a moment with a sarcastic smirk, lifting a finger at her. "You didn't 'rescue' anyone. I could have had them get the Hammer for me. They're ninjas afterall. Now I've gotta do it myself."
"I can help, y'know. This isn't exactly my first tomb raid." Kim replied, following Indi toward the structure.
"What are you, 16?" He asked, continuing on his path. "You've got some cheerleader moves, I'll give you that, but places like this are filled with poison darts and punji sticks and crushing boulders. This ain't study hall, kid."
Kim growled in frustration. Her particularly extreme physical regimen of thrilling heroics, not to mention her mother's genetics certainly gave her a consistent youthful appearance; something that plagued many olympic gymnasts, and was becoming a growing pain in the neck as she became an adult. Though her small frame and near contortionist level flexibility had certainly saved her life on far more than one occasion. "I'm nearly twenty one, if you must know. And in case you forgot or maybe just couldn't see while we were flying through the jungle, I still have my climbing gear." She added, drawing and holding up her grapple gun.
The climb up the exterior was more difficult than Kim had expected, as the few wooden supports felt nearly as though they were petrified, and the rest of the building was covered, or made out of a variety of precious metals. Her grapple gun had little to drill into or magnetically fasten to. It was far from an impossible climb however, as vines were growing around the shell of the Incan Temple, and after having climbed up super villain towers and massive water falls, the temple was hardly what she would consider challenging.
Indi Go was moving considerably slower; climbing vines and carefully finding handholds to move up the stepped walls of the ancient temple. If Kim's own Nana hadn't surprised her a few years ago about her uncharacteristic spryness for a senior, Kim would have been in shock at someone old enough to be her own grandfather nearly keeping up with her.
"You okay?" she asked, partially out of authentic concern and partially out of impatience. She was eager to get Phan Ku's Hammer, get Hego back to the real world, and get back to Ron.
Indi, covered in sweat, looked up at Kim standing on the edge of the top stones of the temple with irritation. "I'm sorry." He grunted, pulling himself up onto the next tier. "Am I keeping you from the newest episode of Captain Constellation, or whatever you kids watch nowadays?"
"Actually, I've got a wedding to plan once your son is back, Mr. Go." she admitted, crouching down and offering a hand. "So yeah, I guess I am in a bit of a hurry." Still though, she couldn't fathom why he didn't seem as eager to rescue Hego.
Reluctantly, Indi took her arm and pulled himself up to the top of the temple. "Well, if we can get the Hammer and get out again quickly, we'll have you back home before breakfast. Assuming I don't slow you down too much."
"Is it women you don't like, or just anyone under the age of fifty?" Kim asked matter of factly. She didn't have time for High School level drama at the moment, and his attitude was getting under her skin.
"I have a problem with anyone that can't think before acting and prefer to fight before talking. You're just like my daughter."
Kim's eyes widened and her hands balled into fists. "I am NOTHING like Shego!"
"Uh huh." Indi grunted, taking a breath and walking over to a hole in the ceiling of the temple. "Well, it wasn't meant to be a sky light, but it'll do." Ignoring Kim's fuming expression, he pulled a large flashlight from his belt and lit it up, trying to peer into the dark structure. "How's your Quechua?" he asked, squinting against the sun at his back.
"Quechua? What happened to Latin?" Kim asked, the comparison to Shego still infesting her mind.
"This temple is Inca. The Incan Empire spoke Quechua."
"But the Incan Empire worshiped the sun. This temple doesn't look like it had a skylight as expected." she said, hunching down beside Indi.
Indi turned slowly toward her with that smug lopsided grin of his. "Nice catch. Maybe there's more to you than I thought." Indi pointed his flashlight toward the entrance to a number of tunnels, at least forty feet down into the structure. "I've seen a few Inca Temples in my time, and their architecture wasn't like this. This is different. It's almost..."
"Alien?" Kim asked, throwing the idea out there.
"No. That'd be ridiculous. At least in the way I think you mean. This thing was built by people, but I don't think they were from around here."
Kim blushed at the suggestion, feeling she had just filled the niche of dumb ideas normally held by Ron. Standing, she aimed down at the edge of the hole with her grapple gun, ready to descend into the building.