I do not own any Disney characters named herein, and am only borrowing them to tell a nonprofit tale meant for entertainment purposes only.

Kim Possible: Impossible Journey

By LJ58

6

Kim finally reached the towering tree picked for their rendezvous without too much trouble, and gaped as she found Shego sitting near a fire, eating hungrily from some kind of bone covered with seared meat as the roughly dressed females around her tended her like a queen.

Around the clearing beneath the tree were at least a score of men in the same furs as the women. Only they were all unconscious, and some of them looked badly scorched. Shego sat eating with a typical expression of smug satisfaction on her visage as Kim approached her.

"I see you're still making friends," Kim remarked as the women tensed, and backed away from the stranger in the faded white bodysuit that had appeared out of the forest around them just then.

"Hey, it's a gift," Shego grinned up at her.

"I'll bet. You do know they aren't going to be happy when they wake up," she pointed out as she squatted near the fire, keeping an eye on the women that she guessed could likely be formidable themselves if they wanted to be. Or so Kim felt judging from their musculature.

"If they can't cooperate, I'll just bash them again until they get the message," Shego smirked. "Want some," she asked, gesturing at the meat on a woven matt near where she sat. "I don't know what it is, but it's not bad."

Kim eyed the meat, noted the thick bone in some of it, and shrugged.

"I am hungry. Running away from those creatures left me with little time to forage."

"Monsters," Shego frowned. "As in plural," she asked darkly.

"Yeah," Kim grimaced, and reached for a piece of seared flesh that was smaller than most as the primitive females eyed her warily. "I no more lost one, than another seemed to pop up to take its place. I think, and it's admittedly a theory, that they were fixating on my Kimmunicator beacon."

"Say what," Shego sputtered, eyeing her left wrist now.

"Don't worry. I shut it down. Since then, I haven't seen one of them, and hopefully that was it."

"Why would they even….?"

"Well, I think it was like a hypersonic whistle to them. A little like a dog whistle, or something. At least, that is my theory. I just know that when I shut the Kimmunicator down, it seems like I was able to lose them for good," Kim explained.

"Swell. So you have your very own monster whistle," Shego muttered sourly, and took another bite of the roasted meat.

Kim looked around, and eyed the offerings, and noted the women still weren't getting too close.

"So, they just gave you food?"

"Well, I kicked their friends' butts, and after a minute or two, one of them offered me a meal. I didn't decline," Shego nodded at her.

"Right. So, uh, see anything else on your way here? Anything….?"

"Helpful? Nope, not a thing. I was just hoping you didn't get yourself eaten when I ran into these guys. From the looks of it, they must use this tree like some kind of clubhouse. I didn't bother going inside, though. Too easy for someone to use it to ambush you."

"Now you're being paranoid," Kim muttered, and finally took a bite of the meat.

"What do you think," Shego asked as the redhead bit into the meat she had taken.

"Gamey. Not too tough. Almost like….bear."

"Bear," Shego echoed. "I may not know a lot of science, but I do know that this is no bear bone," Kim was told as Shego held up the long, thick bone obviously broken off from a longer limb.

"No. No, it's not. I just said like bear, though. Frankly, I can't imagine….."

"Kim?"

Kim rose slowly, still chewing as she walked toward that wide opening in the trunk of the tree, paying little attention to the females that gave way, but kept wary eyes on her.

"Shego," she said quietly. "I think I know what it might be. And I also don't think we're the first ones through here since Lidenbrock."

"What are you talking…?"

Shego rose, and walked into the mouth of the tree behind Kim as the muscular women just stood back, watching.

Just inside, on what amounted to a grizzly altar, were rows upon rows of skulls. Some near human. Some animal. Some very obviously modern humans.

"I did not need to see this," Shego said grimly as she eyed the skulls all set around the huge skull of an elephantine animal with a broken tusk.

Kim took another bite of the meat, and eyed the central skull.

"Mastodon," she finally nodded.

"What?"

"Verne's adventurers found mastodons herded by the giant primates. These people may hunt them, too. I sure don't see them hunting those reptiles," Kim pointed out.

"Well, how do we know they aren't cannibals," Shego complained. "I mean….those skulls didn't come from a hobby shop," she spat.

Kim eyed the strange, layered altar, and looked back to the females still standing back from them, and looked around the dimly lit interior of the huge tree. There seemed to thin branches like makeshift ladders that led up into the shadowy interior, but there was nothing before them but that huge altar with the many skulls. Some obviously very old. Some disturbingly new.

"Strange," Kim finally remarked.

"What," Shego asked, looking very disturbed by the bones.

"Well, if there are that many people getting lost down here, you would think we would have heard…."

"If they got lost, how would anyone know?"

"Well, someone would have had to miss them," Kim frowned. "Surely someone would have said something….?"

"Not if they didn't know. How many people go missing all the time, and are never found, Kimberly," Shego called her without the usual nicknames. Which told Kim Shego was really nervous.

"Still, not all of them. Someone would have had to miss them. Someone would have surely left word behind before they…..came here."

"Maybe they did. Maybe someone shut them up," Shego asked.

"Why would anyone…."

"Look, Kim, I don't know. How this place works? Don't know. How anyone ever found it? Don't know. Don't care. All that matters is we find the way out. Because I am not ending up one of their damn wall ornaments," Shego spat, and flung her nearly empty bone aside as she turned, and stalked back outside.

The women made way for her as Shego stalked out, and Kim took a deep breath, and walked back out to join the woman.

"You said I deserved it."

"What?"

"When you pushed me in that pit," Kim told her as she sat beside Shego now, and looked at her rather than the fire which Shego was staring at just then. "You said I deserved it. Why would you say that?"

Shego glared at her, then returned her gaze back to the fire.

"I'd really like to know. Did I make you mad, or something."

"Or something," Shego muttered.

"Want to talk about it."

"No," Shego spat, but didn't look away from the fire.

"Shego, I was really surprised to see you back there with Drakken again. Him snapping, again, I could predict that one a mile off. Two miles. You going back to that insanity surprised me, though. Why don't you explain it for me?"

Shego just grunted.

"Please?"

Shego didn't make a sound now. She just stared at the fire.

"What else do we have to do just now," Kim asked suggestively.

"Oy," Shego groaned. "You just don't know when to quit, do you?"

Kim smiled at her.

"Why start now?"

"Oy," Shego groaned again.

"I really would like to know."

"When did you graduate, Doctor Possible," Shego demanded.

"I'm not really a doctor yet," Kim told her. "I only have my Master's so far, and…"

"When did you graduate," Shego echoed.

"Okay, a year ago," Kim replied.

"You didn't invite me. You invited the cyclops, and half the world, but not me," Shego huffed, sounding hurt.

"Shego…."

"I thought we were friends. You…. You didn't even ask."

"I did try to invite you. I even called Drew. He claimed he couldn't find you. Then, suddenly you're back with him, and…."

Kim shook her head, and eyed her again.

"I would have put an advert out if I had known it meant that much to you. Ask Ron if you don't believe me. I did try to find you. You're just….hard to find when you're not with Drew. Or Drakken. Or whoever he thinks he is these days."

Shego grumbled.

"Shego?"

"I said that blue freak claimed he hadn't heard from you since the U.N. thing," Shego muttered just a little louder. "Are you telling me all of this is….because of a misunderstanding?"

"You tell me," Kim sighed. "I really did think you would anchor yourself, and pull me out."

"Great," Shego huffed. "So we were both idiots."

Kim didn't reply to that one.

"So, what were you doing? Before you went back to Drakken?"

"Laying low. I was doing a lot of remuneration work for certain….parties. Then blue-boy called me up, claimed to have a real job, and offered me a half million for site security. I should have known better. Just because his stupid mutagen helped some agri-corps didn't mean he had gotten suddenly competent. Gah! I cannot believe I am right back in the middle of this mess because…."

She gave a wordless cry, and rose to her feet, glaring around her.

"If he were here right now, so help me, he'd be ash. No, he wouldn't even be ash. He'd be...gone," she thundered as plasma fluttered up and down her arms.

Kim noted the females around them had backed off again, and she got the feeling they had already seen Shego's temper at work. Considering not one of the males around them was even trying to stir just then, she could guess how that temper had been shown.

"So, we both messed up," Kim told her. "You might want to calm down now, though, so we don't lose our only potential help here."

Shego looked at the pale, uneasy females cringing from her, and sighed.

"Story of my life," she muttered. "I can't even vent without hurting someone. You ever try to have a temper when your own emotions can turn lose plasma that melts steel," she complained.

Kim didn't even try to answer.

"No," Shego retorted, and sat back down. "Of course you haven't. You can't begin to understand," she said, quenching her plasma with conscious effort.

"No. I don't. I have had to be careful when enforcing that no meant no to certain….admirers, though. Sometimes, it was very hard not to….break something."

Shego smirked now.

"I'll bet. So, you and Ronnie really broke up?"

"We were more brother and sister than not. Hard to find a spark when you feel like you're hugging a sibling," the redhead sighed, sitting beside her now, and glancing surreptitiously around to not the females were apparently relaxing, too.

"Yeah, that can be icky. So, no sparks? I always wondered about that one."

"Really?"

"Well, there's no denying Stoppable has his own mojo, but he was more the goofy friend type even at his best. Or that was how I saw him. I can't really see him as genuine lover material."

Kim giggled.

"He tried. He really tried. Only his idea of romance….."

She paused and giggled again.

"Not quite out of the public school arena?"

"Not even out of the kiddie pool," Kim chuckled. "I once spent two hours watching him try to get me a stuffed bear out of a claw machine. He was determined to get it, too."

"Did he?"

"Not even close," she sighed.

"Wow. And I thought some of my dates were losers."

"Ron isn't…. Well, he's earnest," she sighed. "And he was always there. Someday, he'll probably make some girl feel very lucky. It just wasn't me," she admitted.

"A lot of people thought Drewbie and I were an item. Especially after that alien dealie," Shego grumbled. "What was worse, was blue-boy decided after hearing the rumors that there was something to them. You do not want to know his idea of romance."

"That bad?"

"Why do you think I took off at the start?"

"Ron used to take me to restaurants, and order from the kids' menus," Kim sighed.

"Drew had his mother propose for him," Shego grumbled.

Kim stared, jaw dropping in earnest, and slowly began to shake her head.

"I swear to God. I'm cleaning out my room in his lair after I decided I was just going to bail, and the next thing I know, his mother is coming over to propose in his name. Neither of them seemed to see the problem with it, either. If that isn't messed up…."

Kim tried to stifle a smirk now, but couldn't quite manage it. Then a giggle slipped out.

"I'm sorry. I am. It's just, having met his mother, and his cousin Ed, I have to say that whole family is full of nuts," Kim told her.

"No argument," Shego muttered.

"But still. Having his mother propose…?"

"Trust me, I still cringe every time I think about it."

"Yet you did still come back to him."

"In my defense, I was offered half a mill, and I did think it was genuine site security for some new breakthrough the moron might have accidentally managed."

"And when you figured it out?"

"You had already showed up, and cued up the same old dance before I could even think of explaining."

"Well, hell," Kim frowned.

"Oooooo, Kimmie almost cursed," Shego sniggered.

"I just mean, if I had known….none of this had to happen. We could have just walked away, after grabbing Drakken, and nothing else had to…."

"Hey, it's Drakken," Shego finally said after a long, stiff silence. "Things always happen around that moron. Bad things. I recall the time he put over half his Henches in the hospital when he tried to make his own health supplements, and forced the guys to take them."

"I'd ask if you were joking, but…."

"Yeah. That was the year I put no experimenting on the help in my contract. I had to really push that one, though. Doc tended to have a very convenient short-term memory."

"I don't doubt it."

"So, almost-doctor Possible. What now," Shego asked as they noted that most of the females were now going inside, and one was now banking the fire, carefully watching Shego. Another was taking that woven mat with the meat inside.

A few of the men were starting to wake, too, but the only one that was fully awake had only sit up to stare at them in confusion. Along with a very understandable degree of wariness.

"Looks like they're rolling up the welcome mat, and getting ready to retire. So, again, what now," Shego asked, keeping her own eyes on the men starting to come around.

"Well, we both need to rest, but I'm not sure about sleeping around these guys. I'm thinking what I really want to do, though, is get to the top of this tree. We should be able to really get the lay of the land, and figure out our next step from there."

"So, do we climb it out here, or try their….inside steps," Shego asked, noting a lot of the women were now disappearing up those ladder branches, and the men waking the others were also withdrawing without even bothering them after they reclaimed the few weapons she had not outright destroyed earlier.

"I'm going up on my grapple," she told her. "Like you said, it might be a little too easy to get ambushed, or something else in there. Still, the fact these guys are pulling back without hesitation suggests that staying out here on the ground might be a bad idea."

"More lizards," Shego grimaced.

"Or something," she said, and stood up.

She looked up, and then pointed.

"That branch looks high enough, and wide enough to be safe. We'll use that for tonight, but I want to go up as high as I can, and see what I can see since…. Well, it doesn't seem to get dark here."

Even as Shego rose, noting the fire was just about gone by then, she heard a near-distant roar from a familiar monster, and grimaced.

"Right. Let's get up there now, shall we," she asked uneasily.

"Hang on," Kim said, and pulled out her grapple from her belt before firing it.

An instant later, they were up on the wide, thick branch, but ironically hidden from the ground since it was so big. Shego pointedly stayed close to the center, and didn't bother looking down. "I'll grab some leaves, and stuff, and see about making a bed," she told Kim as Kim kept looking up, and began to carefully climb up the huge tree.

"Okay. Hopefully I'll see something to make tomorrow a little easier."

Shego paused to give the redhead an expressive look, but didn't say a word as the other woman vanished up into the thick boughs over her head.

To Be Continued….