I do NOT own Kim Possible
Names: Of course Warhok means Warhawk, while Warmonga means Warmonger. My names for the individual aliens will not be as inventive, or descriptive. I will be using Warchof as Warchief and Warfelken as Warfalcon. Falcon being a synonym for hawk.
Recorders mentioned by the aliens would be those Lowardians who were merged with humans.
Time: A week later.
One Weary Willow,... Monkey Fist,... Memory,... Technology,...
She drew line after line inside the small squares, all the while saying out loud what the symbol she was drawing meant. If the fate of the world hadn't depended on it she would have quit ages ago. As it was she'd been writing the symbols and saying their English translations for a week. She'd been told she was lucky Unlike the Lorwardian language, which seemed to have around forty thousand words, some human languages had several hundred thousand. Still it had taken her a hundred and twenty hours to finish writing all the words on the Kimmunicator she'd been given. She would draw the symbol while speaking and then hit a button labelled 'next' to move to the next empty square. She drew one last line, finished speaking, and dropped back in exhaustion.
"Finished." She heard a voice coming from the Kimmunicator.
Willow nodded. "That's the last of them. Talk about a weird language." She yawned. Four hours of sleep a night wasn't much.
"I agree." Wade said. "I might not have it memorized like you do, but from what I've seen so far it doesn't seem like a natural language like English or German. It's like it was purposely created, much like some of the computer languages I've used."
"It's a pretty weird language, all right." She said again, suppressing another yawn.
"Finished?" Ron asked, poking his head into her room.
She nodded again. "Sorry it took so long."
"Twenty hour days for a week. I don't think anyone can fault you on the time." The blonde grinned.
She tiredly smiled back. "Just hope it helps."
"It will." Ron said. "A Kimmunicator can now scan any place in the ship and return a translation instantly. We will no longer be poking around in the dark." He pulled out his own Kimmunicator and started going through the new symbols she'd added since he'd last looked.
"But they're only a week away." Willow said, shivering. The four hours she had had each night had been filled with nightmares. The Lorwardians always came and placed another banshee inside her, but this time there was no Snake to help her. She became a monster.
"Will take some juggling, but we got time now." Ron answered. "Somehow I doubt they make social calls so we can just talk to them from the ship. They won't know it's not Warmonga. We will have to start up their war machines again and let them destroy a few buildings but that's no big." He grinned. "Any city has dozens of buildings they want demolished. We will just let them destroy those. The aliens on the new ship will just see the machines doing what they're supposed to do, destroying stuff. A few fake media reports on the radio and television, just in case they're watching those." He shrugged. "We can go a year faking it."
"What if the new ship drops some war machines too?" She asked.
"They won't." He replied. "They take decades to demolish a civilization. More machines would mean less fun for them. They will land and hunt, but they won't want to hurry our destruction too much."
"What will you do about the ones that do land and hunt people?"
"Not sure." He admitted. "We don't want to kill them since that might make them see us as a threat. But just letting people die?" He sighed. "I'm glad it's Dr. Betty Director in charge of this and not me."
She sighed too. "I would probably just kill them and end up having their ship wipe us all out." She admitted, not envying the woman who would have to make the decisions.
"Once we've read some of the material on the captured ship we might know more." Ron mused. "Perhaps if we just hurt them enough to force them back to their own ship they will settle for watching the destruction from orbit." He shrugged again. "We just can't let them see us as too much of a threat."
"We're getting some translations from the ship." Wade interrupted. "Seems the new ship has been trying to contact Warmonga and Warhok for five days now. All the messages are requests for a status report."
"Is there a log of previous transmissions other than those from the new ship?" Ron asked.
"There is?" Wade answered. "We're scanning them now." He paused. "Looking back far enough we're seeing a similar request and what the ship sent in reply."
"How detailed a report was sent back?" Ron asked.
"Very basic." Wade answered. "It just says the war machines were dropped and everything is proceeding as expected."
Ron sighed. "Have Dr. Betty Director start up the war machines again and send back an exact copy of the transmission." He suggested. "Maybe add in a comment about an engine malfunction."
"Doing just that." Wade answered. "It should buy us time. I'll send you all the material we translate from the ship."
"Okay." Ron replied. He yawned. He hadn't been getting much sleep himself. "Take care Wade." He turned off the Kimmunicator.
Willow did the same. "So." She said. "So long as we let the war machines run rampant they won't suspect anything?"
"That's what we're hoping." Ron answered, sitting down beside her. "So long as they think Warmonga and Warhok are still in control of the ship they won't suspect a thing. They will just proceed with their long term plans to wipe us out. And it will take a lot to make them suspicious." He grinned at her. "After all, we're using their own language from their own ship. Something they would never expect us to do."
She smiled back, blinking the sleep from her eyes. "Good. But what can you do about a starship?"
"Trust me." He said. "I'm good at breaking things. Just ask Shego." He recalled the dozens of lairs the former villain had had to flee from. "She will have a lot of stories to tell you." He added.
"Good." She said again and yawned.
When he looked she was asleep. He carefully lifted her from the chair she'd been in and placed her in her bed. She'd done her job and worked a miracle. Now, if only he'd been telling her the truth about being able to destroy a starship.
Warfelken watched the communications display, seething at the lack of response from Warmonga. Warchof, she knew, was becoming impatient too, and his wrath was not something she wanted to provoke. From the very minute they'd left hyperspace they had known something was wrong. There were no war machines bringing misery to the pests as protocol had dictated. Nor had there been any mention of destruction in the media broadcasts of the pests. Even the chaos their ships usually caused to the electronic systems of such low level creatures was missing.
Their requests for a status report had been ignored. That also was against protocol. She stared at the display as if she could force the machine to produce the desired message. It startled her when the display actually lit up with an incoming transmission. 'Engine malfunction. War machines deployed. Status okay.'
That, she hoped, would soothe Warchof. A few minutes later the computers reported messages of confusion among the pests' media reports. She smiled. There had been nothing to worry about. Still, it had been strange that Warmonga had refused to answer for five days. Maybe, Warfelken mused, she had decided to go hunting and had been gone for those five days. To leave a ship for so long was against protocol, but who could blame her. Several billion pests to play with. The thought was delicious.
The computers found video footage among the pests' transmissions showing the war machines destroying buildings. There were pests running in terror. She called Warchof and turned to watch. Within her there was sense of satisfaction as each building slowly crumbled. This would definitely appease Warchof. And when they retrieved the recorders that satisfaction would become ecstasy.
The Kimmunicator beeped and Ron answered it. Across from him Jenny stopped eating and looked up. He had been taking her out to lunch once again.
"What's up Wade?" He asked.
"The requests for a status report have stopped coming from the new vessel. It seems they've accepted the ruse." The genius responded. "However things are pretty chaotic. The interference from the ship isn't as bad as before but it's still bad."
"That we can handle." Ron said. "Have you found anything new from the translations?"
"We have. The ship we have is called a ..." He shrugged. "Big Boot." He continued.
Ron blinked. "Big Boot?"
"Yeah. You know, as in what you use to stamp pests with, like say a cockroach." He shrugged again. "Actually there isn't any direct translation for it in English, but that's what comes the closest."
"Any information on the incoming ship?"
"Yeah. Mixed news there." The genius said. "It doesn't carry war machines, it carries Lorwardians. Up to twenty of them. Two as crew and eighteen in suspended animation."
Ron sighed. "So we won't have more of those machines to worry about, but any hope we had of bruising them as they landed and sending them back to their ship is gone."
"And from what I can tell it would have worked." Wade answered. "They got a long list of protocols. The premature destruction of a world only comes into play if they find we're a threat and beating up a few Lorwardians wouldn't come under that. So long as they believed their ships were secure we could have tried fighting any that landed." He shrugged. "But twenty would just overwhelm us if we tried."
Ron nodded. "Even two at the same time would be too many."
"I can fight." Jenny said.
Ron looked up, surprised. He gave it some thought. He and Kim had been fighting villains at her age. But villains and Lorwardians were totally different. Lorwardians weren't villains, they were monsters. "I'll think about it." He said.
"Hrmph." The girl said. She'd learned how to read his expressions.
"Hold on a second?" The genius said.
Ron frowned. "He hated it when Wade did that." It was usually bad news.
Wade appeared back on the screen around two minutes later. "Bad news. Monkey Fist just broke into a museum in Australia. He stole part of an idol. No one has ever figured out what it's for."
"Great." Ron muttered. "The world is about to come to an end and villains will probably start coming out of the woodwork." He sighed. "Any more info?" He asked.
"Just some legends that refer to it as part of the Time Monkey." Wade shrugged. "Whatever that is." He typed for a few seconds. "There are references to another place, a temple, that the legend says contains the body of a Time Monkey."
"Set up a ride." He looked at Jenny. "Sorry to cut lunch short."
"It's okay." She stood up and the two of them walked back to her room.
Shego and Kim joined him in a Global Justice jet and they took off. All three, being tired from the hectic schedule of the last week, napped during the trip. Landing they found themselves outside an ancient temple.
"What is it with Monkey Fist and old stuff?" Ron wondered.
"If you're tired of the old, lets try something new."
The voice came from behind them. They turned to see Monkey Fist there with Dementor and Killigan.
"Killigan. Handle them." Monkey Fist ordered.
"Aye. No need to get pushy sonny." The mad golfer dropped a ball and swung his club.
The ball flew towards them, growing larger as it did. As one they dropped and rolled out of the way. Standing they turned, trying to keep the cybertronic golf ball in view along with Killigan.
"Try destroying ma generator this time." The villain cried, swinging his golf club again.
"I would if I knew where it was." Ron said, rolling to one side. He looked and saw the first golf ball had grown to its full height of twenty feet. The lasers were still in the process of growing.
The mad golfer laughed. "Try looking up." He said. "Satellites. The wave of the future."
"Nice to see someone believes in the future." Ron yelled, dodging as the first golf ball finished growing lasers and started rolling towards him, firing. "My father still believes satellites are a passing fad." He added. Figures, he thought to himself, the one satellite the ship isn't interfering with is the one the villains are using. Communications around the world were being disrupted again.
Shego saw Ron was busy and the second ball looked like it was targeting Kim. Flaring plasma around her hands she lifted them and aimed for Killigan. To her dismay he swung a third time and the ball that flew through the air blocked her plasma. Being plasma resistant it was only scratched. Rolling close to her it started growing. Growling she ignored it and lifted her hands again. She threw more plasma at the villain but the ball rolled to block it.
"New programming lassie." Killigan called out. "They try to keep between me and any threats."
"Great." Shego muttered to herself. As the ball grew to its full size she started dodging. She tried to get around it, to get a shot at the villain, but the ball managed to match her moves. Somehow he'd increased the speed at which it could roll.
Ron watched as the three villains disappeared into the temple. The lasers aimed for him again and he dodged. "Okay." He called out. "Everyone run towards me." He kept dodging as they obeyed.
They met at a single point and the three cybertronic balls slammed into each other, forming a triangle. Beneath them there was a small space their lasers couldn't reach as they tried to push each other out of the way.
"Wonder how long before he fixes that problem." Ron mused. The balls didn't know enough to keep their distance from each other.
"What now?" Kim asked.
Ron pointed at the temple. "Just like you did before KP. We walk and they follow, getting in each other's way."
They walked and had almost reached the temple when Monkey Fist, along with Dementor and Killigan, came running out. Ron and Shego tried to fire plasma but the balls around them rotated, blocking the attack. It seemed protecting Killigan took priority in their programming.
"I'll be seeing ya later." Killigan called out. He pushed a button on his club and the three balls all shrank and, growing wings, flew into his golfing bag.
Ron and Shego started to use plasma again but the villains were already gone, having vanished into a cloaked aircraft.
Sighing Ron pulled out his Kimmunicator.
"Did you get him?" Wade asked.
"No. He's joined forces with Dementor and Killigan." Ron explained. "They're using a satellite to transmit a signal to the Diablos they're using. Can you try and locate it?"
Wade sighed. "I'll add it to my todo list." He said, wearily. "If that list was on paper I would be forced out of my room, it would take up so much space."
"Tell me about it." Ron said. "Anything else on the idol parts?"
"My search did turn up something else." The genius answered. "They need to go to a temple in Africa to join the head and body of the idol."
"Download the coordinates." Ron requested as the three of them turned and headed back to the jet.
"Any suggestions on how to handle those golf balls?" Ron asked as they got close to their destination. He had searched his own mind for a solution and had come up empty.
"Drop Killigan before he can swing that club." Shego said.
"Okay. As soon as we see him we fire." Ron agreed with her. It was a lot simpler than the technical ideas he'd been playing around with.
"But I'll bet we will have to deal with synthobots then." Kim said, sighing. "And I'll bet he's fixed their sensors."
"Probably." Ron admitted. "Who's in favor of letting the villains take over the world and letting them deal with the Lorwardians?" He asked, raising his hand. There was a period of silence and he looked around to find the two of them staring at him. He sighed and lowered his hand. "Another great idea shot down." He muttered.
The jet landed and they got out.
"Wonder if they got here a head of us." Kim said, looking around.
"And lose out on the chance to see the pretender die?" Monkey Fist said, once more from behind them.
Ron and Shego whirled around, fists blazing with plasma, and aimed at Killigan before he could react. He had dropped a ball and was in the middle of swinging when he was himself dropped. They turned to aim at Dementor but their plasma struck a synthobot, doing no damage.
"Keep them busy." Monkey Fist ordered. He turned and ran for the temple.
Ron and Shego tried to throw plasma at him but there were three synthobots bearing down on them. They threw themselves out of the way and ran.
Three, Ron thought to himself, dodging. Either both Dementor and Killigan could only find three Diablos each, or the satellite can only transmit enough power for three of them. He pushed the thought to one side and dodged again. The synthobots were dangerous and a single misstep could spell misfortune. He put on a burst of speed and outran it. Ordinarily that would have been impossible, but he could slip between trees that the robotic creation had to smash through. So long as the trees remained close together he was faster.
When he heard it fall far enough behind he made a U-turn and headed back to Dementor. He burst out of the jungle and ran at the man with the sound of the synthobot far behind him. He saw no sign of Shego and Kim and assumed they too had used the trees to their advantage. He saw the man scientist fiddle with the remote control he had and heard the sounds of the synthobot that had been chasing him cease. So the satellite can only power three, he thought to himself as his suspicions were confirmed. He's going to activate another one.
He had planned to capture the man and order him to turn off the synthobots but he immediately dropped the idea. He lifted his hands and threw plasma. Dementor fell down beside Killigan. Racing up he grabbed the remote from the ground and studied it. There was a display on it showing a status report on three synthobots. He highlighted each one and pressed the cancel button. He hoped he had just turned the robotic creations off.
"So you've survived once again pretender."
He turned to see Monkey Fist halfway through some sort of portal.
"This." The monkey-like man said, holding up an idol. "Is the Time Monkey. With it I can travel through time. Soon Ron Stoppable will be no more. I will go back in time and wipe you from history." He let loose with a mad laugh and stepped through the portal. It began to close.
The synthobot chasing her had stopped so she had turned to race back to the temple. She figured the Buffoon would be there, having found some way to handle Dementor. She had just reached the edge of the jungle when she heard Monkey Fist talking about wiping Ron from history. The laugh sent shivers through her being and Shego raised her hands. The blast of plasma she sent through the closing portal wasn't the type she used against people. If rose from her feet and sped out along her hands, sent forth with all the fury she could summon.
The portal closed behind him and Monkey Fist looked down in surprise. Between his waist and chest there was nothing. Vaguely he recalled something smashing its way through the portal and hitting him. It can't end like this, he though as gravity took hold and he crashed to the ground dead, his body severed in two. The idol fell from his hands and smashed into dozens of pieces beside the first temple the insane villain had visited that day. The place where he had planned to set a trap to rid himself, once and for all, of the pretender. Instead it became the place of his own demise.
"I can fight." Jenny said.
Ron looked up, surprised. He gave it some thought. He and Kim had been fighting villains at her age. But villains and Lorwardians were totally different. Lorwardians weren't villains, they were monsters. "I'll think about it." He said. Somehow he was sure they'd already had this conversation. Deja-vu, he thought to himself, feeling weird.
"Hrmph." The girl said. She'd learned how to read his expressions.
"They are still sort of programmed to fight." DNAmy said, sitting down beside the two.
"What do you mean?" Jenny asked.
"Did you ever wonder how an immature Lorwardian could know a language it had never heard before?" The mad geneticist asked, taking a bite of salad.
"I have." Ron said. "But given I have a program running in my head that contains information from a long dead race I figured the alien just had something similar that would teach it."
The woman chewed and swallowed. "I don't think that's the case." She answered.
"What is it then?" Jenny asked, gulping. She hoped the news wasn't bad.
"Don't worry." DNAmy consoled the girl. "There's nothing alien left in you." She smiled comfortingly.
Ron blinked at the sight of the mad scientist trying to reassure the girl. She really has changed, he thought.
"For once I was left with an intact body to study." The woman continued. "No missing heads like with the rest of them." She looked at Ron accusingly.
He shrugged. "When it comes to a Lorwardian it's best to make sure it's dead." He explained. "They're tough and can kill a normal person instantly."
"I know." DNAmy said. "Though it made studying them hard. But I've examined the brain of the one that was merged with Willow. Now that it's in its natural state there are a few things that stand out." She took another bite of salad.
"What is it?" Jenny asked, swallowing nervously.
DNAmy chewed the salad thoroughly, thinking for a bit, before she swallowed. "They have structures in their brain that seem related to memory, but not learned memory. It's something that's stored in their DNA and as they grow it develops into a structure that gives them full knowledge of their race's language." She explained.
"They're born knowing how to speak?" The girl asked.
DNAmy nodded. "The information is stored in their DNA and when they mature that DNA builds a structure in the brain containing the language." She explained again. "And perhaps more than just the language."
"What do you mean?" Jenny asked.
"Things like culture, for example." The mad geneticist explained. "From what I've been told the one that was in Sara went to an observatory at Upperton College to look for the ship that was captured. So it might even have knowledge of recent events encoded in its genes." She shrugged. "From what I can tell the Lorwardians are masters of genetic manipulation. The machine to merge and unmerge species depends on theories that go against conventional wisdom. I wouldn't be surprised if they, and now us, are the only species in the universe to have that knowledge."
Jenny blinked. "How does that affect me?" She asked, face pale.
"Just that the Lorwardian was probably also programmed with the knowledge of how to fight. It would have shared that knowledge with you to make you more efficient at fighting." DNAmy explained.
"Oh." The girl shuddered.
"Sort of like cybertronic technology." Wade's voice came from the Kimmunicator. He had been listening in on the conversation, fascinated.
"When he was working on a program around twenty years ago." Ron started to explain. "Mr. Possible ran a simulation. The results were not what he expected. Like with the mutator the science didn't match what was conventional knowledge. In fact it broke about every law of physics we know of. Normally a person would have just disregarded the findings and assumed the program running the simulation was faulty. When one adds two and two to get negative two, they automatically know its wrong. Instead he investigated it further. It resulted in cybertronic technology." He shrugged. "It's pretty safe to assume very few species develop it. That's the main reason Dr. Betty Director is so fanatical over finding every single Diablo. She doesn't want that technology to fall into Lorwardian hands."
He paused to take a deep breath and pushed his chair back, thinking. "I've talked with Sensei, the program running in my head." He explained. "He might not know much about science but he's pretty sure neither the AeAeOiOi nor the TiRGiTBiT had anything like the mutator or cybertronic technology."
End of Chapter.
Too bad Ron/Shego/Kim never figured out what the Time Monkey does. What a weapon that would be against the Lorwardians. The power to travel through time. If a fight went bad just go back and try it again. If they did something that caused the aliens to prematurely destroy the earth, just go back and not do it. Not that it went all that well for Monkey Fist. Anyway, just some filler to fill out the chapter. Giving them the power to manipulate time would be overkill. Wonder if Monkey Fist was revived when time reset itself.
The Lorwardian are born knowing their own culture and language.
We now know why Dr. Betty Director is so fanatical over the Diablos. It's not just what the villains can do with them. It's what the Lorwardian can do with that technology.