Authors notes: I think my muse has ADD…

I also promised to try to answer some questions or concerns:

NMR68: Thanks for the glowing commendation, I hope you got my email and that it was at least somewhat helpful. And to everyone else; go read NMR68's story The Blade and The Bloom, you know you want to. Especially if you have a soft spot for RonGo fics.

Samurai Crunchbird: no can tell, sorry; Obsidian major plot device, so no spoilers. Glad you like the sparks of humour too, the mysterious power of Comic Relief is a fickle one indeed. And as for the KFC.. well I don't think I want to know what they use for hot sauce.

CajunBear73: Answers, in order:
-see above.
-Curious and impressed, yet understandably cautious.
-Part of her is afraid, part of her wants her old Ron back, and another part wants some 'alone time' with him in the back seat.
-He'll get there eventually, but he'll need a little help.
-So do I, it'll be fun to write that part.
- You're a newly super-powered genius, in a town that treats you like a useless fool; how long would you stick around for?

Also special thanks to: theotherdave, Drakonis Aurous, Isamuand goryujin for their kind reviews.

Broken Blade

Chapter 2: Questions

'How the HELL did you do that?'

'Uh… magic? You're the expert here, shouldn't you know?'

'NO! Yes! I don't know!' the monkey cried out, 'but what you just did was impossible You just can't do that sort of thing!'

'I don't even know what I did! Let alone how I did it or why I shouldn't have been able to…'

The monkey took a deep breath to calm itself, and then explained, slowly; 'you just focused your energy on an external object!! WITHOUT touching it!! You just CAN'T do that! If then energy had come from you and travelled to the annoying device and then crunched it, all well and good. But it didn't. It came from everywhere and eviscerated the damned thing.'

'I still don't understand…'

'Okay. Small, easy words for Ron; the only thing you can manipulate with the Power is yourself and your aura. In order to affect anything else you need physical contact, whether it be a flaming fist or a healing hand. That just the way the Power works.'

'Oh… I didn't do that. Did I?'

'NO! You didn't! And I don't know how you did it!'

'How can you not know? I thought you were the spirit of the Monkey Power?'

'I'mA spirit of the Monkey Power, not THE spirit. There are eight of us in total. Nine including the boss…'

'You have a boss?'

'Arrrg! I shouldn't have told you that, but yes; I have a boss. And no, I'm not telling you anymore.'

'Aww…' Ron thought for a moment, 'do you have a name? I mean, if there's more than one of you, you'd need names…'

The monkey sighed, 'yes, I have a name. But I have no intention of telling it to you yet.'

'Hmmm… I pick you for a Sam. Or maybe a James. Close?'

'No.'

'Steve? Peter? Jacob? Bubbles?'

'No, no, no and hell no.'

'Heh. I shall hug him and pet him, and name him George.'

'Now you're just insulting me.' He sighed again. 'You're going to keep at this until I give in, aren't you? Of course you are. Fine, my name is Saru, if you absolutely must know.'

'I must,' he stated nonchalantly.

'In any case I need to go and consult the others; maybe they'll know what the hell is going on.'

'Oh before you go, you mentioned "flaming fists", can I actually do that?'

'Yeah, it's not all that hard, once you know how to do it, but it is very impressive. And you save on matches. Now remember what I told you; meditation and practice. Don't go beyond what you know you can do, and call me if you need me. And get some sleep, you'll need it.'

With that Saru's presence vanished from Ron's mind. The Power failed almost instantly; his sphere of perception snapping back, almost painfully, to mere human levels. He could barely access his sixth sense, and the seventh was completely unaccounted for. He also felt ungainly and unbalanced; as though all grace had left him.

He attempted to summon up some of his Power, yet only a few sparks answered his beckons. 'Pity,' he thought, 'I really wanted to try out the fire thing.'

Suddenly Saru reappeared, just for a moment; 'Before you go setting any more fires; I suggest taking care of the ones you've already got.' Indicating the small blaze left by the 'spontaneous combustion' of the scanning device.

"GAH!!" Ron jumped back, as though seeing it for the first time, and fell off the bed.

The moon was high over the small, unnamed Mediterranean island as a silent shadow raced across the water to the hidden lair entrance. The uncharacteristically silent Dr Drakken sat in the passenger's seat of the small hovercraft whist Shego, the far better pilot, had the helm.

Shego looked sidelong at the bad doctor; he was just sitting there, staring out into space, his lips moving silently. She had seen him like this a few times before, generally when he was working a particularly difficult problem, or one of his better schemes or inventions; it was as though the rest of him shutdown and diverted power to his brain, which may have been the case. You never know with people like Drakken.

Shego didn't disturb him for three reasons; she too wanted to know what the hell had happened back at the Canadian lair. Two; whatever he came up with would probably be worth listening to and three; because she was enjoying the quiet; a rare commodity around the doctor.

She sighed as she touched down in the small hangar, all good things and all that.

"Come on Dr D, we're home…" she spoke as she made her way through her post-flight checks. He didn't respond. She turned to speak to him again, but he wasn't there.

She looked around and caught a glimpse of blue lab-coat as it hurried through the door that linked the hangar to the rest of the facility. He could be fast when he wanted to be.

When she followed she found him at a computer terminal; his fingers dancing as though possessed. She noted that he had accessed the central lair database that all the lairs were linked to and was pouring through the data and footage received from the now-defunct Canadian lair. He was muttering under his breath, but she managed to pick out a few words like 'Resonance' and 'phase harmonics' and a lot of other scientific jargon she didn't understand.

After about five minutes of this he sat back, "impossible."

"What?"

"Well Shego, remember how Monkey Fist keeps insisting that the buffoon is the real danger in Team Possible?"

"Yeah, the guy's insane, so what?"

Drakken pulled up camera footage from one of the hallways that surrounded the 'Spike room' in the old lair.

Shego watched, shocked, as the escaping Team Possible ran across one of the syntho-drone patrols. Ron didn't even break his stride as he caught an attack by the first drone, spun around and threw the thing at the wall hard enough to leave an impact crater and make the drone go splat. Ron completed the movement with a spinning back kick that relieved the second drone of it head.

Drakken turned towards Shego, "I think he may have been onto something…"

'Thirty four,' he thought to himself, 'chosen at random; young and old, strong and weak. Why? What happened? Why did the Lotus Blade flare like that? Why did it break?'

Sensei had no answers. That scared him; he always had some hint, some tiny clue to work from. But this time; nothing. No prophecies, no visions, no warnings. 'How could something this serious not have been foreseen?' again, he had no answer.

He looked upon his young charges, each resting on their own bed in the crowded infirmary. The youngest among them was a girl named Aiko, she was nearly ten. The oldest was Hayate at twenty-eight. He had opted to stay at the school as an instructor; to help train the younger students.

But it didn't matter who they were, they all succumbed, one after the other, to a deep sleep. Even Yori, the strongest of them and fallen to the darkness of the unnatural slumber.

It had been Hirotaka who had figured it out, and a way to help them.

"Their aura burns too bright," he had noted, "and their chi flows far too strong. They are not used to it; they cannot control it anymore, so it is consuming them."

"I agree, Hirotaka-san. We must find a way to stop it from killing them."

Half an hour later they had it; a mixture of acupuncture, pressure point manipulation and some old magics, while not intended to be put to this purpose, it worked to take the edge off the insane chi-flow.

A few hours, a lot of needles, and a few rituals later; the patients were all sleeping relatively peacefully.

"Sensei," it was Hirotaka again, "everyone seems to be sleeping gently and their power does not seem to be of any danger to them anymore."

"True, Hirotaka-san, but we know not what will happen once they awaken." Sensei sighed, "But that is not what you wished to know, you want to know what happened with the Blade to cause this."

"Hai, Sensei. But it is more than that," sensei's quirked eyebrow bade him continue, "last year when I went to Middleton on exchange I met Stoppable-sama, but only briefly, before he came here. What I was able to sense from him then, is also what I sense now. How can that be?"

"Your senses are commendable Hirotaka-san, and you are right. Though I do not know how, nor why, every one of these students have been granted a great gift; the Mystical Monkey Power."

7am... it seemed an evil, ungodly hour.

Thus is why Ron attempted to escape it by going back to sleep, but sleep would not come. After a few minutes he sighed in defeat; sleep wasn't going to happen any time soon.

Pushing aside the blankets he sat up into the lotus position and began to meditate. The motion seemed so natural; he didn't even have to think about doing it. A little creepy that.

A few moments of prodding around inside his head told him that Saru hadn't returned yet, but the few hours of sleep he managed to get had done him the world of good; the bump on his head was gone and he felt… stronger. There was no other word for it; he could feel more energy at his disposal than last night. Nothing compared to the 'event' in the spike room, but it was noticeable.

He also noticed that the power he did have was a disorganised mess; chaotic and unbalanced, earthing randomly throughout his psyche. That would not do, so he spent the next half an hour or so tying down the threads of Power, attaching them to each other and gathering the energy into a central reservoir. That way it would flow when he wanted it to, but it would stay dormant when he wanted it to.

'Who am I kidding? I haven't got a clue how this works! I'm just messing around to see what works…'

He sighed and began to gently extract himself from the deep meditation. The real world, which he hadn't even noticed earlier faded back into his perception.

He noticed that he was floating, so he lowered himself back onto the bed.

He noticed that he was glowing again, so he powered down, snuffing the glow.

He noticed that he wasn't alone.

His eyes snapped open and stared at a very shocked looking Mrs Dr Possible.

"uhh… hi?" this wasn't going to go well.

End chapter 2.

wow.. this one took a while. It was going to be longer, but I thought it made more sense to have the next part in its own chapter.

It might be a good idea to address some questions before they get asked.

- I cant remember who suggested using the name Saru for the mystical spirit guide monkey guy, but props to him/her.

- Sensei seems rather un-sensei-like at the moment, but he did just get the rug pulled out from under him and he's out of his head with worry. He should be back to his old cryptic self when he gets his bearings back. Though Hirotaka seems to be taking up the slack for now.

- Yori and the others show that sometimes power can be a bad thing.

- I dont know if Aiko and Hayate will be back; I just needed to personalise the 'empowered' a bit. But i may need some minor OCs later, so they are there, if I need them. And Hayate is a cool name.

and I cant think of anything else right now…

as always, reviews, comments and suggestions welcome.

-DarkSeraphic