Yori knelt before her ancient master, her bowed head devoid of the fear and worry she felt in her heart. Sensei would know what the dream meant. She felt his gentle hand come to rest on the crown of her head, felt the dream race across her mindscape once more, felt the terror she knew emanated from the Lotus Blade, felt the shattering of hope she held for these last few years. His hand withdrew as if burned. She dared to look to his face, it was not how they did things in this place but much had changed since that smiling American graced their eternal school. Sensei took to consulting her far more often, his age beginning to slow him as he neared the end of his days. She saw a blackness wash over his eyes, a shudder ripple across his ancient form. For a moment she knew he waged a personal war with the darkness spreading across the world and in that moment he lost. Knowing that there was a power out there great enough to challenge and best Sensei terrified her but that fear paled in comparison to what her master was about to show her. She looked upon the once pristine blue blade, its surface no longer flawless. The last time it looked so polluted it was in the hands of Monkey Fist, but then it held an orange hue. Now it was covered in blackness, as if the shadow looming over the world spilled forth from it. “What does this mean Sensei?”
The ancient man gently set the blade in her trembling hands, he feared for her, the task he must assign would be the greatest any of her people had been given. “It means the guardian has fallen into shadow, Stoppable-san is no more.” The weapon in her quaking palms grew darker with each passing moment, it was just a tool but it was bound to the fate of those who wielded the power of the masters. Fist understood the mastery of his stolen powers but could not fully tap them, he sought to change the world into something it wasn’t. This new threat wanted to control the world yes, but not change it. It tapped the full power of the Monkey Masters and feared nothing. It was capable of doing what no other had achieved, it could conquer the world without the Lotus Blade or any weapon other than its own will and the Blade feared it. “You must flee this place Yori, take the Lotus Blade and hide. It is no longer safe here.” He would not wish the task on any soul but if he must assign it to someone it should be this person. She was the only one that darkness would never find, foul as it may be it refused to touch her. He could clearly see it had tried and when it did some small part kept it from seizing her spirit giving her the only advantage she would have, some part of Stoppable still cared very much for Yori and would not let the darkness that claimed him take her as well. “Go now, take what you must but do not waste a moment longer than you need.”
Yori felt the hot tears running down her face as she set the Lotus blade to the side and clutched the old man firmly in a last warm hug. “I will protect it with my very life Sensei.” Standing she bowed with greatest respect for her honourable elder then she gathered the case holding their sacred weapon and fled into the depths of the school. She did not need to look back to know Sensei had fallen, she would not dishonour his wish by wasting a second of time in her preparations. In her fastest pace she gathered her clothing and gear tucking away the essentials required to help her survive in the shadows. None of the remaining ninja witnessed her departure, which was as it should be. If none saw her leave then when the darkness came for them they could not betray her.
Bonnie couldn’t help but smile, Drakken had been bad his voice just not suited for singing and yet the crowd loved him giving him a standing ovation after each performance. Ron was a different story, after the third song, she knew there would be plenty of vegetables for their meals, for the next month. It was curious though, how did so many people sneak so many solid food items into a place where the most solid thing they served was jello-shots? She was just barely able to tune out Stoppables horrid vocalizations but she made sure Drakken knew if the drinks stopped coming she was going to rip Rons vocal chords out … through his navel. When Ron returned from the stage he motioned for her to take the mic, she declined citing not enough alcohol in the building to get her drunk enough to do that. Thirty minutes later she was signing her heart out to some song called ‘I love Rock & Roll’ by some freaky looking punk chick named Joan Jett. She didn’t care what the song was it just felt good to let loose and have fun, she hadn’t done anything like this since the last time she spent the night at Kims. Thankful that there was a video display reading off the words she went through the song a second time at the request of the crowd, it seemed her natural sense of timing and quick grasp of the beat worked well even when she was near falling down drunk.
Walking to the hovercar, if you could call what Drakken was currently doing ‘walking’ the trio enjoyed the moment of semi silence. Ron spent a few minutes digging corn from his ear and wondering how someone managed to sneak creamed corn into a bar to begin with. Bonnie found herself completely stone cold sober the minute she approached the flying vehicle, which confused her to no end. She spent the night enjoying herself and getting shitfaced, the number of jello-shots she drunk in the last hour should have her falling on her face, she was near that point not five minutes ago but the instant she thought to ask who was in good enough condition to drive the pleasant buzz evaporated. No hangover, no sickness just ‘poof’ instant sober. Ron tapped her on the shoulder and looked at her oddly, she wondered how much he had drunk to turn that shade of green but the moment she let the thought cross her mind she remembered, he only had the single shot he stole from her. “Puke on me Stoppable and you will never forget it. I’ll tack your tongue to that lamp post over there and drive off, with you in the back seat.” Drakken fell over laughing so Ron turned to him. “Well at least it wasn’t me.” Bonnie snorted as Ron made Drakken regret getting his attention.
Sitting behind the controls of the hovercar Bonnie wondered when she was going to come to her senses and realize the one critical fact neither Ron nor Drakken seemed to remember, she didn’t know the first thing about flying. “Hang on guys this will be … fun.” She couldn’t understand it but shortly after wondering how to operate the thing the information seemed to spring to mind, she knew every aspect of the machine she was now sitting in, yet she never got past the manual Drakken threw at her when she questioned his ‘precious flying car’ it had really pissed her off so she ignored him. Men tended to be pricks when someone insulted their transportation regardless of how stupid it might be. Feeling slightly vengeful for the earlier insult she spent most of the flight back to the lair gently tipping the hovercar from side to side in a gentle swaying motion that just mimicked the motion of a boat. It was fun to see how many tints of green Ron could go and Drakken was turning the most fabulous turquoise she had seen. ‘Note to self Drakken is ok to get drunk Ron, Ron is a pussy.’ She enjoyed laughing over the state of the men most of the trip back.
Anne ‘Nanna’ Possible couldn’t believe what she was hearing in the radio bands her ‘hearing aide’ was picking up, her granddaughter had been injured by rogue jade and no one was lifting a finger to hunt the green bitch down. It was bad enough to know that it was her work that lead to Kimmie being hurt but it was worse to know that her work on project ‘GO’ not only failed to protect Kim it wasn’t even showing any results to speak of. She fumed in silent rage as she let her eyes roam across the miserable hovel she had been shoved into after her forced retirement. The people were nice enough to be certain but she knew each one of them had been placed there to confine her. Her retirement from G.J. the direct result of the other bitch she blamed for the current situation, Betty Director. If she got the chance she swore she’d knock the womans remaining eye from her head.
It took her three years of painstaking work to determine what the affects of the comet shard were exactly and how to artificially induce its glow, the hard part turned out to be figuring out the minimal heat needed to trigger the radioactive particle migration. For the massive piece that struck the MacGonnac-Li family the heat was residual from entering the atmosphere. It was a pure first rate miracle the children survived, they never knew it themselves but the four boys and one girl suffered burns over ninety percent of their bodies, the girl recovered first and it was her power that helped Anne figure out how to get the smaller shard they recovered to do its trick. Something clearly had gone wrong, if Kimmie had acquired the power of project ‘Go’ Kim would have beaten down Shego and locked her away for good the first time the pair faced off. She wanted to examine the data, go over her notes, do a more comprehensive examination of Kim whatever it took to figure out what went wrong but she was stuck in the hell hole they called Florida.
She looked at the picture of her granddaughter closely, the young girl in the picture wore the choker with pride never knowing the treasure it contained. Of all the things Betty had done to ruin her work she at least never got the chance to take the choker from Kim, the girl in the picture wore it more than was determined to be sufficient yet nothing happened. It was only after Kims mother started nosing around that the plan fell apart but she didn’t blame the woman. She was doing what mothers did protect their children. She herself had taken some pretty drastic steps to protect her own sons and for that James had turned out to be loyal to a fault, Slim was a different matter entirely. A grim smile came to her face, she would just have to be patient, the holidays were upon them she would be seeing Kimmie soon enough and this time she would be able to run a few tests of her own.
Mrs. Possible looked from her notebook as she felt her husband slip into the bed beside her, it had taken her years to get used to him just being there before she realized he was even in the room. She was trained to be observant at all times and yet he moved so quietly she had to wonder if he were cheating physics somehow, which was entirely possible considering the work he and some of his colleagues were involved in. Looking back to her work she asked “So how is she taking it?” as he began getting comfortable again, he said when he got up he was going after coffee but the cup never left the bedside table.
“Oh you know how our lil Kimmie-cub is hon, last time she repainted her room … three times … in two hours.” James chuckled as he rolled the pillow under his head, “She’s cutting up a stack of her old magazines and sorting the outfits according to season … I think … maybe colour eh but it’s better than the alternative.” He didn’t care for the world saving and the danger but the cheerleading and over active school life that was a true blessing in his opinion, it provided their little monster with a focus for her … Kimness.
“Don’t remind me I’m still trying to figure out what she did to that poor spray gun.” Mrs. Possible scowled at the reminder she was hoping to never think of again. She knew Kim didn’t mean anything by it but when she needed the thing she found that Kims overuse wore out a few important seals, she ended up blue for a week. “Well we survived her infancy and childhood we can survive a month of her as …” She looked at her husband who seemed to have gone a stark white, realization hit him as well it seemed. “A hyperteen … We need help.” James just nodded. “You call the Pentagon I’ll call the AMA.” Again he just nodded.
Tim stared in awe as Jim maneuvered the tiny camfly around Kims room, there was never a more impressive sight than the Kimminator on the warpath, whatever set her off this time seemed to have done so with a masters touch because the colour green was being brutalized before their remote robotic eyes. They kept to the top of her highest picture least they get caught up in the storm below, Kim was ripping apart every magazine she collected in the last year and anything green was then assigned a specific pile. Once she collected up enough of each to satisfy whatever was driving her she would arrange them on her finger board and hammer into a fine powder. Every time she would forget that she couldn’t use her right hand for this exercise she would yelp clutch her hand while mouthing off a silent litany of obscenities their translator couldn’t match pace with then return to abusing green. Tim was betting she ran out of green to beat on before the fingerboard broke, Jim chose the board breaking first based on the fact that every time she forgot about the injured hand she would take to hitting the board even harder. It was a truly frightening sight to behold.
Kim fumed as she placed the order for her new finger board, she swore she was going to get Shego to replace that after what the green eyed bitch said about her in her… Nope don’t even think about it, she would just leave the curtain closed from now on and only open it when she was bored and wanted to … this was getting complicated. She was furious with the villainess more for commenting that her panties looked … but she should be mad at the invasion of her privacy she was mad at the invasion of her privacy so if she kept the curtain closed all the time she would put and end to that, and the chance to speak with Shego. Shit, she would now need to add ‘new mouse’ to the list of things Shego would have to replace. She decided it would probably be best to shut down her computer before she needed to have anything else related to it replaced. Well she wasn’t bored anymore, she was frustrated and confused. She was also losing her mind, she decided as she opened the curtain and flashed her lipstick laser to the window. Shego was there, she was watching, ‘I’ve got a bill for you I expect cash on demand.’ She was right, Shego was there, watching, she also was ready to respond. ‘When you think you can collect Princess, come try.’
Mrs. Possible blinked as the red light flashed across the bed and danced across the room like a deranged red firefly. She reached over and turned off the small lamp she used to read by while her husband slept. With the light out she could see the beam much easier and was curious, the boys were asleep and they weren’t allowed to have lasers again for a month. Five steps later she lost track of the beam but there was something else to catch her eye now. Further up the hill in the old Peterson house she saw a small bright green light strobing from the window. It took her a few minutes to recognize the code but when it clicked she had to take a seat. She knew Shego was at the green end and Kim the red, she didn’t read what they were saying right off though, she was too busy trying to get her brain working again for that. She began to realize this wasn’t just a short shot at each other, they were carrying on a complex conversation, with blinking lights. Couldn’t they use a phone? Oh well, at least this might keep her from going nova on us, for now.
Bonnie stretched side to side as she limbered up for a training session on the new endurance room, Drakken had it shipped in the day after she signed on but he hadn’t been able to get it full power but she was bored. They were both passed out in their command center sleeping off the alcohol. When she thought about that she got pissed, she wanted to be just as passed out but nope, denied! She was wide awake stone cold sober and ready to tear something up, problem was she had nothing to mangle. Walking around the new training facility she decided to see if she could find something to do when she came across the installation manual for the room. ‘Henchco’s Insta-gym and sauna: Caution requires certified technician to install for full warrantee, to have a technician respond contact us at this number’ … Great, no number. She looked at the page a bit closer and scratched her head for a moment before she realized the number would be on Drakkens cell, she was there when he called because she was the one demanding they get some real training gear if she was going to stand a chance. It only took her two minutes with the firehose to wake Drakken and get the phone.
The technician only took thirty minutes to tap into Drakkens power grid expand the room to fit the available space and adjust the solid plasma projectors, not that she understood what all that meant, the guy was cute though. Once he was done he trotted off like a startled deer leaving her to pout for a minute, then she remembered why she went through all of that. She wasn’t passed out drunk like she wanted to be. This pissed her off again and she turned the room on. Ten minutes later she was done with the instructional walk through and getting ready to vent some frustration. From the outside the room looked like a large wad of blue gum with a lego block for a door but inside it was a good sized stadium, not that it mattered, she found out during the walk through they had programmed this model with a Kimsim combat maquette. Apparently, someone thought it a good idea to prepare for the woman, she agreed of course which pissed her off even further. She didn’t mind giving Kim compliments but she hated to admit there was anything the woman deserved that she wasn’t equally deserving of. She proved she could keep up with Kim, not by choice, but she survived not only following along with her rival but actually fighting off a lunatic. Ok yeah the lunatic was one of those seven dwarves but still he was sick enough to find it amusing she was stuck to Kims ass by her own ass. At this point she was more than ready to see what this new toy could do. “Lets start with the basics.” She heard the computer chirp and Kim was there ready to fight. This might actually be fun, so long as the Kimsim could take a pounding she would consider covering the cost of the service call, maybe.
Rufus three thousand puffed up and strutted proudly across the platform that spanned the massive chamber of their newly leased Megalair. He had to credit Rufus Prime the little guy knew how to get things done and could find a place with some taste. Unlike the timeshare lair he himself picked out this new lair was a palatial manor. Of course it had to be to host the teeming horde of naked molerat covering the floor below. They were nearly ready, he figured he would only need a few thousand more, theyd be ready to move by the end of their deadline. Turning to the factory side of the platform he puffed even more fit to burst. The machinery was assembling the weapons they would need just to get close enough to take the pair down, but more importantly he finally got the automatic cookie maker he wanted and it was cranking out the first batch as he watched. Well everyone has to have a hobby, right?
Rufus Prime read the code he spotted hidden within the viral email he opened ‘accidentally’ on purpose. His systems A.V. kicked in shortly after the virus was launched and showed him the exact code involved as part of the alert which served his purposes well. He was back in contact with the people he could trust and in a manner that was untraceable unless you happened to be able to read this type of code. There were a total of maybe twelve that could and those twelve stuck together through it all, of the twelve only three had systems robust enough to fend off that virus. It was an extreme precaution by the times demanded it, G.J. was on to them already and he had personally fought off three fully engaged cyber-attacks by a group he suspected belonged to W.E.E. If their defenses were breached things would get ugly in a hurry, for a moment he almost considered that a good thing, he rejected it when he realized he would be taking a big gamble on people he didn’t know and jeopardizing the people he was trying to protect.
It didn’t take him more than a minute to decipher the string once he figured out the encryption key, Wade was getting sneakier with every passing day which made the small naked creature quite happy. The harder Wade made it for him to get to the information the less likely their foes would be to survive trying to get. It didn’t hurt that he still had a hang up for puzzles, ever since the brain boost he received he needed a hobby. He still couldn’t let Wade in on exactly what was happening but he could send just enough of the encrypted data-file to keep the boy genius occupied trying to crack it. Once they reached zero hour he would dump the decryption agent onto the net for Wade to recover and pray the boy was as good as he thought he was.
Bonnie was moderately impressed with the Kimsim, the modeling was spot on perfect right down to the cute little mole Kim had on her neck, unfortunately that was where the similarities ended. Kimsim didn’t trade verbal shots along with the physical ones and it just immitated her style but it couldn’t match the creative combinations Kim liked to use. Merging sixteen styles of kung fu with cheer routines acrobatics and all the other athletic skills Kim amassed into a coherent combat system was just too much even for this simulator. This promptly returned her to ‘pissed off’ as it meant she figured the Kimsims attacks out within moments and had already broken a dozen without trying. She was almost to the point she would be happy to go a few rounds with Ron, this pissed her off even more. Finally she decided she would try out some of the other routines the room could run, sparring was only fun for so long when you were just beating a dummy. Scanning the list of exercises and scenarios she saw a few she thought might be fun and selected them for play. The room went absolutely black and when she was able to see things again she realized, the toys the badguys played with tended to be painful.
Ron smiled as his monitor showed Bonnie running for her life in the Insta-Gym. He was surprised when, after a trip to the porcelain throne, he discovered Drakken soaking wet and muttering about impatient daemons. Refusing to say another word the blue dork pointed to the display before him where BonBomb was ripping apart several thousand dollars worth of Kimsim. He watched for a few minutes and realized at this rate Bonnie would likely run through the rooms store of replicant materials, he was quite relieved when she got tired of thrashing the dummies and expected her to leave the thing. His relief lasted for a minute as he saw the list of items she had the system load and prepare to run, when it actually started and he could see the course she faced he winced. She would have more than a few bruises from the looks of things, watching to find out if he was right turned out to be a bad idea as the camera had to move really fast to keep up. He lunged for Drakkens waste basket which turned out to be a mistake as well, it was one of the wire mesh types and not well suited for holding his deposit. It was at this point he marked out yet another type of alcohol he couldn’t drink, ever.
Bonnie staggered as she managed her escape from the training room, when she could find some spray paint she was going to give the place a proper name, portable hell was appropriate than ‘insta-gym’ She was sore in places she forgot she had and places she never knew existed before. The first ten minutes were ok but everything that followed … she wasn’t scared of pissing herself anymore in a fight but she would remember to avoid drinking too much prior to a session in there. No way in hell would she forget that. While she made her way to the showers she went over the entire sequence and began to get really nervous. First she dodged the dogs then the crazy men in blue with the very painful stun guns then she dodged both at once, she was ok up to there but when they threw in the autofire tazer turrets she got a bit worried. She didn’t have long to bother with the worry part, not focusing ended up costing her the first impact. One tazer line hit her left tit, the other just the top right of her very full bladder. Once she managed to get away from the lines that were literally shocking the piss out of her she felt justified in destroying everything between her and the exit. She took her time and was very thorough in her devastation. Ok yeah I guess I will pay for the service calls, unless Drakken can make the repairs.
Rufus blinked loudly as he got an eyeful of the brunette sauntering out of the shower room. Apparently she was one of those humans who appreciated the joys of being naked, after spending a week with an army of testosterone enhanced thugs in training the site of a female of any species was a welcome treat. He wouldn’t dream of complaining anytime this one went around like that and she seemed to have noticed. He probably should have kept walking but tripping over ones own tongue takes a few minutes to recover from. ‘Like what you see naked boy?’ He nodded rapidly. ‘One word about this and you will wish you were struck blind before you saw me.’ Nodding was the best option he could think of, she had the ‘Shego stare’ working and it is not a good idea to piss off a naked woman who has that look in her eye already. When she left without inflicting the kind of pain he expected from her Rufus decided he might have another ally to turn to when things went south.