Possible Princess
By DrummondType2
Note: This is set after So The Drama but before Season 4, and of course during the events of Mai-HiME.
Middleton:
Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable were both sitting on the sofa in the living room of the Possible household, Kim resting her head against Ron's chest, Ron putting his arm around Kim's shoulder. Being an official couple definitely had its advantages, Ron thought, a sentiment Kim shared as she listened to the steady rhythm of Ron's heartbeat through his chest.
"Huh, never saw that before," Ron said absently, nodding at Kim's ankle "You have a tattoo? Come to think of it, how did I not spot that before. I literally spent two days in your body, once?"
It was a red dot surrounded by an open ring with a tail at the top.
"It's not a tattoo," Kim said, "It's a birthmark. Vascular. It sort of fades or becomes more visible depending on things like temperature, activity, things like that. You're usually pretty chill, so it was probably faded when you were in my brain space. By the way, gotta say, I was impressed with you being a perfect gentleman when you had the chance to peek."
"Well, I admit to noticing some things when I had to use the loo, but I promise I didn't stare or gawk," Ron said, "Besides, you were in my body, too. I'm sure you saw all my business, back then."
Kim actually blushed slightly, and Ron grinned a bit, "KP? You didn't!"
"Well," Kim started sheepishly, "I couldn't help but notice, y'know?"
"Thoughts?" Ron asked, genuinely curious.
Kim buried her face in his chest to hide her embarrassment, "I think I'm a very lucky woman."
"Booyah."
"So," Kim changed the subject, "Summer break starts soon. Any plans?"
"Well, you know, just taking it easy for now. I mean, all the summer jobs got snatched up, I don't have any activities line up beyond helping out on any missions should they come up."
"Sounds like we'll have a lot of time to spare," Kim said, "We could spend it together. I could help you with some of your martial arts stuff, and we could get in some stuff like pool time and maybe a movie or two."
"Sounds like a pretty chill summer to me," Ron sighed contentedly.
"Oh, Ron, Kim, hello," Anne Possible was walking past, donning her lab coat, "Kim something came in the mail for you today. It's from overseas. Probably a thank you letter from one of the places you helped out."
"Thanks, Mom."
Kim took the proffered envelope from her mother and opened it. She read it, then reread it, frowning.
"That doesn't look like the reaction to a thank you letter," Ron observed nervously. He was well aware after twelve years of Kim's many moods, and this one was pensive.
"It's an invitation to attend classes at a place in Japan called Fuuka Academy."
"What's so odd about that?" Ron shrugged, "You're smart. Any school would want you."
"Yeah, but to be an exchange student you have to apply for it. I never did. Also, you have to demonstrate fluency in the language of your host nation," Kim sat up, pushing her hair behind her ear with one hand, "I don't speak any more Japanese than 'konichiwa' and 'sayonara'. This is weird."
"Well, when I got sent to Japan, it was part of an ancient prophecy," Ron said, "Maybe that's what's going on here."
Just then, Ron's phone rang, "Yeah, Mom, what's up? Huh? …MOM! You're reading my mail?! That…No, Mom, that's uncool!...An invite from Fuuka Academy?...Uh, yeah, that's…interesting…"
Ron looked at Kim, "I, uh, I got an invite from Fuuka Academy, too."
"Both of us? Sounding more and more like one of our enemies planning a trap," Kim mused. At that moment, the phone in the Possible household rang. Kim picked it up, "Possible residence. Oh, hi, Bonnie. You…I'm happy for you. No. No, really. Yeah, we'll talk to you later."
Kim hung up, "Definite conspiracy. Bonnie got an invite, too. She was calling to rub her good fortune in our face."
"Better talk to Wade about this place," Ron sighed, "Sounds like it could be trouble."
Japan Inland Sea, 24 hours later:
"So," Wade informed Kim and Ron over the Kimmunicator, "I looked into Fuuka Academy, and given that this looks like it might be a trap, I really dug extra deep on this one."
"Go ahead and dish, Wade," Kim said.
"Alright, Fuuka Academy was founded several decades ago as a Catholic School in Japan on the island of Shikoku, adjacent to the Seto Inland Sea."
"Catholic school?" Ron looked uncertain, "I mean, I got nothing against Catholics, but if this is a religious school, then…"
"Relax, Ron," Wade said, "While it was originally founded as a Catholic school, and it does still have a chapel with religious staff, it's now more of a secular institution. They have an extensive campus that houses an elementary school, a middle school, and a high school. There's also a nearby university that's affiliated with them. The school's current headmistress is Mashiro Kazahana, eleven years old and wheelchair bound. She doesn't much interfere with the day to day operations of the school. In fact, self-governance by the student body is one of the highlights of the curriculum."
"Alright," Kim nodded, "Anything weird about Fuuka Academy?"
"Well, official channels all say no. However, in the last year, there have been an unusually high number of repairs necessitated to the school for various incidents. Police and the school's disciplinary committee haven't found a single suspect to trace back to the damage or the cause, as of yet. Other than that, there's some references to ancient legends that date back hundreds of years, but there aren't any english translation of those works, and most of them aren't even digitally scanned, so there's very little for my translation programs to work with. Speaking of the translation program, how are your pharyngeal transmitters and aural recievers?"
"You mean, do the mouth pieces and ear buds you gave us work?" Kim cocked an eyebrow at him quizzically.
"Yeah. Had a chance to put them to use?"
"They're working alright, except they don't seem to translate slang very well on either end," Kim gave a look at Ron that was half-amused, half-concern.
"The program is adaptive. It will learn as it goes and translate accordingly, looking for the nearest idiomatic approximation," Wade assured her, "So…do I want to ask what happened."
"Ron was given an extra security pat down after he made the mistake of flexing and telling Rufus 'Sun's out, guns out,'" Kim gave a sighing chuckle at the memory, "The translator was on, so a security guard overheard that in Japanese as a literal translation…"
"Yeah," Wade shook his head, "I can guess where it went from there. Any of your gear get grabbed in the security sweep?"
"No, all's well. I even have the experimental suit you made, just in case," Kim said, "Though I don't know if I'll need it. I mean, it's just high school in Japan. How crazy can it be?"
"Well, I already attended a school for ninjas here," Ron pointed out, "But that was up north from here. Doubt we'll see any of those guys. Still…there's no rule saying it was the only one."
"Fair point," Kim nodded.
"Anyway, I've gotta jet," Wade said, "Your Dad asked for my help with a gravimetric sensor. Apparently, they're picking up some sort of object in space just past the moon, approaching Earth at a steady pace. But it's not showing up on any sort of visual sweep of the area."
Kim looked up at the faint ghostly image of the moon in the sky above them, and blinked, "Just past the moon you said, Wade?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Because I can see a small red star just near the moon."
"Wow, KP, either you got really good eyes, or you're losing it," Ron said, looking up, "'Cause I don't see anything there."
"No, she's right," Bonnie Rockwaller joined them on deck, "There's a tiny red speck right by the moon. Kinda pretty, you ask me."
"It's very pretty," a slick, oily voice interrupted them, "But Ron here won't be able to see it, Kim-HiME, Bonnie-HiME."
They turned to see an young man in a white collared shirt and dark slacks, with silver-white hair and narrow pink eyes, a cocky smirk on his face. He was balancing on the railing of the ship, and had a book on his head. The special contacts Wade had given Kim and Ron translated the title as Battle Royale.
"Hime?" Bonnie blinked, then looked at him sourly, "That some sort of insult?"
"Ah, that's right, you're using Mr. Lode's tech to understand me. A pity that you don't readily speak the language. It might make things a bit more difficult. But Hime is the Japanese word for 'princess'. And I can say, Kim Possible, Bonnie Rockwaller, you are both legitimately princesses. And that's not hyperbole. But what it will mean for you in the end…well, that's all to be determined at a later date."
"Who are you?" Kim demanded. She hadn't taken up a combat stance yet. This young man didn't seem pleasant at all, but he wasn't actually threatening. Not yet. And Kim, being an outsider to the culture, couldn't appear as the aggressor should things go south. So she kept her pose and posture alert, but not aggressive.
He smirked at the question, "Me? Just an interested third party, is all. Homura. Nagi Homura. And I haven't quite gotten things arranged for you two, yet, but you're going to see some real fireworks on the boat before the night is out."
Before Kim could ask him what he meant, a group of people passed between them, and when the crowd was gone, so too was Nagi.
"He legit vanished," Wade confirmed to Kim's unasked question, "I was monitoring. One moment, he's a solid blip on the Kimmunicator's sonar array, they next, he's empty space. He was real, and he just poofed away."
"Well, that's it for me, sports fans," Ron said, "That guy has bad guy written all over him. He's like Monkey Fist. Bad Road, KP. Very bad road."
"Don't worry, Ron," Kim said, "I believe you. Wade, I'm going to play with the filters on the Kimmunicator's camera. I want to see if I can send you a picture of the star I'm seeing, and…"
Suddenly there was a commotion on the other side of the deck, and Kim saw a teenage girl with short cut orange hair much like her own shade calling for help and pointing out on the water. Kim spotted it at that moment, a figure floating on the waves right under the bridge that spanned the Seto Inland Sea.
Kim tucked her Kimmunicator into a pocket on her cargo pants, and Ron shucked his shoes and set Rufus in one of them.
Without a word spoken between them, the two vaulted over the ship's railing, landing in the water. They began to swim out to the girl, whom they found was being carried to them by the current. Kim reached her first, and began to tread water as she held the girl's head above water. She was clinging to some sort of object, heavy, that was weighing her down. Ron reached them a moment later, and put his fingers to the girl's wrist.
"She's got a pulse, KP," he said.
"Yeah, but it's erratic," Kim noted, "She's taken in some of the water, I think. I'll keep her head up. See what it is that she's holding, because it's really weighing her down."
Ron took a breath and dove, then came back up, "Sword. Big sword. Almost as big as she is. I tried to pry it loose, but man, Kim, she's got a death grip on the thing."
Ron looked her up and down for signs of injury, and saw a tear in the right-hand sleeve of the school uniform she was wearing.
"KP, she was in a serious fight. And…Whoah! Kim…I think I found a clue."
He turned the girl's arm over so Kim could see through the tear in the fabric. There was a red mark on the girl's arm. Not a cut. A red dot with an open ring around it, capped by a sharp tail pointing upwards.
"The same mark?" Kim looked at Ron with concern, "But that's…not possible."
"Apparently, it is," Ron shivered.
They heard an approaching motor, and turned to see a small boat that had launched from the ferry approaching them.
"That was quick thinking, Miss," one of the crew said as Kim helped load the girl onto the boat, "We don't have room for the two of you to come aboard. Cling to the side and we'll get you to the ferry."
"Man, this thing is heavy. I can't get her to drop it," one of the other crewmembers said, as he tried to pry the sword from the girl's fingers.
"We'll worry about that in a second," the first one told him, "For now, let's get her to the ship."
"She's going to need medical attention," Kim said, gripping the small boat as they throttled up, "I don't know how long she's been adrift, but she's cold."
"Not to worry, Miss. We have a first rate infirmary on the ship. If she's alive when we get her there, we can keep her that way."
The ferry had been ordered to a full stop when the raft had launched, and was greatly slowed as they approached.
"We'll cling to the hull while you get her up," Kim said.
The raft was being hoisted aboard, with the crew, when there was a commotion and clatter from above. Ron, with a loud yelp, just barely dodged the large black sword as it plunged into the water below, and both Kim and Ron had to duck to avoid the raft and the crewmen as they both fell back into the sea, though the girl had been brought safely aboard.
The raft was, fortunately, intact, and one of the crew was still inside it. Kim went to check on him while Ron helped the other back to the boat. Thankfully, they'd been wearing life vests, so there was no need to worry about anyone drowning.
"You alright, sir?" Kim asked the man in the boat.
"Bit knocked around, but otherwise fine," he said, "Just some bruises."
"What happened?"
"They pried the sword out of her hands, there was a red flash, and then pulley broke apart," the crewman shook his head, "It was the damnedest thing."
Ron looked at Kim, tapping a button on his shirt collar to turn off the translator that Wade had given them, "You getting a hinky feeling, too, KP?"
Kim nodded, "Let's hurry and get aboard."
~~*~~
Upon reaching the upper deck again, Kim and Ron were informed that a young woman had performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on the girl, and that she'd been subsequently taken to the infirmary. Kim took a moment to inspect the pulley.
"Ron…this didn't break. It's cut. Clean through. And this is heavy duty metal."
"Ugh," Ron sighed, "Wanna take the Vegas odds that was some sort of magic sword, Kim?"
"No. And we'll see if we can recover it later. Something like that won't have gone far, and I'm sure Wade pinged our location when it happened. For now, though, I'm more concerned about the girl. Good thing someone here knew the procedures."
Ron and Kim went to their cabin. On the budget they'd been given they could only afford one. Ron waited outside while Kim changed.
"Ladies first, KP," he'd insisted.
Kim gave him a smirk, "Ron, you've actually inhabited this body. It's nothing you haven't seen before. And we're dating, now."
"Nevertheless," Ron raised a finger as he waxed eloquent, "A lady is due her privacy in matters like this, and I can handle being damp a bit longer in order to preserve your modesty, Kim."
"Such a gentleman," Kim smiled fondly, kissing his cheek, "Be right out."
Kim had packed lightly, and so the only clothes she had to change into were the uniform for the school she and Ron would be attending. She changed quickly, then gave Ron access to the room to change as well.
While she was waiting in the corridor, a young woman emerged from an adjacent cabin wearing the same uniform. Slightly younger than Kim, and a bit shorter, but with flaming orange hair and lavender eyes. She looked at Kim and smiled.
"You must be the American who jumped in after the girl," she said to Kim, "I'm Mai Tokiha. I did the mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. They tell me she'll be okay. You're pretty brave, jumping in like that."
"It was no big deal," Kim said, smiling, "I just did what anyone would. Besides, you're the one who gave her medical attention. I know the techniques, but I couldn't do them in the water. So, you should get the credit for saving her."
"You're…attending Fuuka Academy?" Mai asked.
"Yeah. My friends and I, we all got an invite to come here. Full scholarship and everything."
"My brother and I got the same offer. Odd that we should all meet here like this," Mai shrugged, "Where's your other friends, anyway?"
"Well, Ron's changing," Kim nodded at the door, "And Bonnie…Bonnie is more acquaintance than friend, but she's probably around somewhere."
Ron emerged a moment later, "Gotta say, the color scheme on this just doesn't work for me."
He was wearing the orange-brown blazer and dark grey slacks of the Fuuka boy's uniform.
"At least you still have pockets for Rufus," Kim opined.
"Mmm hmmm," Rufus poked his head out of one of them, "Roomy."
"Come on," Mai said, "I'll introduce you to my brother, Takumi."
~~*~~
They found Takumi Tokiha in the company of a young man with messy orange hair and a younger girl with pink hair tied in four braids that Kim thought gave her the look of an octopus. Introductions were made all around, and Mai whispered to Kim about the boy who introduced himself as Yuuichi Tate.
"Be careful of this one," Mai said in a low voice, "He's a lecher. Couldn't resist the urge to ogle me after I got drenched doing mouth-to-mouth."
Kim noticed Mai's chest, and sighed. This girl was two years younger than her, and already this…blessed? She wondered if Ron would also notice, but he seemed more interested in chatting with the others. Ron was many things, some good, some less desirable, but at his core he was a social butterfly who delighted in talking to people, which Kim found to be one of his more endearing qualities. She rewarded his failure to be distracted by Mai's endowments by giving him a light kiss on the cheek.
"Ron and I are dating," Kim informed them, "We've been friends since kindergarten, so I guess that was only the natural progression."
"Oh, I so know what you're talking about," the octopus headed girl said, "I'm Shiho Munekata, and I'm hoping Brother will make the same leap with me."
"B-brother?" Ron and Kim shared an awkward glance.
"Oh, no," Yuuichi raised his hands, "We're not actual brother and sister. She just calls me that. It's…I guess there isn't a cultural equivalent in America? Like, here, you'd call someone you admired brother or sister if they were older than you. Although we also use 'sempai' as an honorific."
"Good to know," Kim sighed in relief, "Ron and I are still new to the culture. Sorry if we got the wrong idea."
Yuuichi shot a dark look at Shiho, "She makes that very easy."
"You're so mean, Brother."
They conversed a short while when a member of the crew approached them, "Excuse me, ladies, gentlemen, but the Captain would like to offer his thanks to the two Americans who jumped into the sea to save the girl, the young lady who provided emergency aid, and the young man who caught her when our pulley system…broke."
He directed them down a corridor, and Ron, Kim, Yuuichi, and Mai were heading for the bridge.
They were still chatting, with Mai making an offhand remark about overlooking Yuuichi's sexual harassment and Yuuichi protesting that she needed to drop it, when there was a blur of motion. A young woman in charcoal grey and red motorcycle leathers and a helmet swung in through an open window, striking Yuuichi from behind, rendering him unconscious. It was obviously a woman, because the physique, even in the leathers and jacket, was unmistakably female. She moved to grab Mai, when Kim responded, lashing out with a spin kick. The woman in the leathers caught sight of the impending blow, and raised her arm, blocking with her forearm. She lifted her free hand, and there was a crystalline tinkling noise, and a gun appeared out of thin air, spinning in front of the woman, until she seized it by the handle and pointed it at Kim.
"Back off," she said in a husky voice, muffled slightly by the helmet. Kim caught a flash of green eyes behind the visor of the helmet, and dark hair.
"Shego have a sister we don't know about?" Kim muttered to Ron, for indeed, this woman reminded her of Shego in many ways, but at the same time, it wasn't her usual foe, who was taller than Kim herself, while this woman was equal in height to her.
"Not that I know of," Ron said nervously.
Kim evaluated the situation. She had faced armed opponents before, but never one who had manifested a weapon out of thin air. That she was nimble and capable of dodging was evident in that she was still standing to talk about it. But this was point blank range, there was no time or room to dodge if the trigger was pulled.
Fortunately, not all of Kim's success in evading firearms came from merely dodging. With her attention focused on Kim, the woman didn't see a slender pink form slip out of the pocket of Ron's blazer, slide down his pants, and then climb up her own leg. Rufus could find no opening in the thick leather, until he went up under the jacket, came out the sleeve holding the gun, and slipped under the glove, where he found bare flesh. He bit down on the woman's left wrist. She let out a yelp of pain, flicking her wrist. The gun fell from her hand, but vanished before Ron could catch it. Rufus was flung by the force and ended up in Ron's hands. Kim moved to attack the girl, but found a gun materializing in her other hand. She pressed it to Kim's head.
"Neat trick. Don't try it again."
She shook her wrist until the pain subsided, then rematerialized the first gun.
"Speaking of neat tricks," Kim glared at her, "That's a spankin' one. How do you do that?"
"That's nothing that concerns you," the woman said, "Now, you picked up the girl from the water. Where is she?"
Kim, Mai, and Ron were marched at gunpoint to the infirmary.
"What are you going to do?" Mai demanded.
The woman didn't speak. She motioned to them to stand to one side of the door, and then she did a spin kick that took the door off of its hinges. Kim noted the technique. Her form and technique were different from Shego's. Clearly she had a different teacher. But Shego's style was more flashy, more showy, designed to impress and intimidate, and also to distract an opponent to focus away from the plasma she generated until it was too late. This girl's style was cleaner. More focused. Energy directed precisely where it needed to be. All business. Brutal. Kim was confident she could take her in a fight, but she was also sure it would be a protracted fight, and with this girl seemingly able to generate firearms from thin air, she could easily involve other people. Kim didn't dare make a move unless she was sure she could isolate the two of them and keep everyone else from being involved.
Of course, there was always the unknown elements. Ron was brave, and had grappled with Drakken and Shego on numerous occasions. He recognized the danger of the woman's firearms, as well, and knew that Kim wasn't worried about herself, but about them. But when the woman went into the infirmary, she seemed to lose focus on them, and burst into the room like a pro, checking corners and sweeping the area with her guns, looking for a target. Except the room was seemingly empty.
Seemingly.
Two things happened at once. Ron jumped the young woman from behind, attempting to restrain her arms, and a figure wielding a sword dropped from the ceiling, bringing the blade down with killing force. The woman rolled backwards, flattening Ron, but then both of them fell as the deck collapsed under them where the sword had struck it. The girl with the sword fell in with them, and Mai and Kim were also caught in the collapse.
Kim and Mai rose to find Ron unconscious, and the girl with the sword fighting the woman with the guns. Rufus was gibbering over Ron and casting dirty looks at the two fighters.
"Oh, what hit me?" Ron sat up, only for Kim to push his head down and duck herself as a sword swished over the two of them.
"Hey, KP, is it my imagination, or did that sword fall into the sea?" Ron asked.
"Well, Murdery Motorbike Girl there can create guns from thin air. Maybe the other girl can do the same thing with swords," Kim offered.
"That would be so cool if the two of them weren't going to hurt us," Ron opined. He heard a crash of metal, and the girl in the riding leathers slid backwards past them, her helmet cloven from her face, and part of a tractor trailer falling off of the main truck, having been sliced clean through by the sword.
The woman stood up, and Kim and Ron saw for the first time that she would be more accurately called a girl. She was about their age, with delicate, soft features, long midnight blue hair, piercing emerald eyes, and a severe expression.
"I suppose talking is useless," the teen girl said, though Kim wondered when the two of them had said anything, "That's too bad. Because now I'm going to have to get serious!"
The girl began twirling her guns, then spun around as blue light surrounded her. She called out, "DURAN!"
There was an explosion of ice, and then a large mechanical wolf stood beside the teenaged woman, howling, red eyes glittering in the darkness. Kim couldn't help but notice the twin artillery cannons mounted on the wolf's flanks.
"Duran, load silver cartridge!"
"Kim!" Ron grabbed her by the hand, "Time to run!"
Kim decided she was in agreement, and she watched in horror as the wolf opened fire. There was an explosion…
~~*~~
"You alright, KP?" Ron asked as she opened her eyes.
"Yeah, just…ow…bruised a bit. What happened?"
"We were lucky. The explosion threw us against the inside hull. They seem to have moved the fight upstairs."
"Mai?"
"That Yuuichi guy pulled her up,"Ron pointed at an opening further away to the next deck, but inaccessible to them, as it was barred by fiery debris.
"That's good," Kim sighed, "I guess now the only thing to do is wait until the sprinklers put out the fire and then…"
There was a blinding flash of light, and the ferry was split in twain.
"Hmmm," Ron mused, "That's not good."
"You think?" Kim quirked an eyebrow. They watched as the opposite end of the ship began to drift away, "It's only a matter of time before the two sides begin to take on water and list, and then…"
At that moment, they felt the ship begin to tip.
"We need to find a way off the ship, KP," Ron said.
"I'm still wearing my jetpack," Kim said, "Come on."
Kim scooped up Ron and the two of them jumped out of the opening in the ship as Kim fired her jetpack. They flew into the night sky. They were then amazed to see a white light in the shape of a bird rising out of the water and speeding past them.
"OK, Kim," Ron sighed tiredly, "There's some seriously strange stuff going on at this school we're going to."
~~*~~
"We're very happy to receive you as a member of our staff, Miss Go," Mashiro Kazahana smiled at her latest hire, "Please, if you have any needs, feel free to inquire of my maid, Fumi. Fumi, you'll tend to her, won't you?"
"Of course, Mashiro-sama," Fumi bowed.
"Yes, I've been informed this is going to be a very exciting place to work," Shego grinned, looking at the white-haired young man with pink eyes standing behind her who had invited her to this place. He'd known about her birthmark, and he had informed her that if she would join them at the Academy, he would make it worth her while.
